erit the throne or the paternal inheritance.
It was discreditable then, as it is now in Europe, for any branches
of families of the higher class to engage in any pursuit of honorable
industry. They could plunder and kill without dishonor, but they could
not toil. To rob and murder was glory; to do good or to be useful in
any way was disgrace.

These younger sons went to sea at a very early age too. They were
sent often at twelve, that they might become early habituated to the
exposures and dangers of their dreadful combats, and of the wintery
storms, and inured to the athletic exertions which the sea rigorously
exacts of all who venture within her dominion. When they returned
they were received with consideration and honor, or with neglect and
disgrace, according as they were more or less laden with booty and
spoil. In the summer months the land kings themselves would organize
and equip naval armaments for similar expeditions. They would cruise
along the coasts of the sea, to land where they found an unguarded
point, and sack a town or burn a castle, seize treasures, capture men
and make them slaves, kidnap women, and sometimes destroy helpless
children with their spears in a manner too barbarous and horrid to be
described. On returning to their homes, they would perhaps find their
own castles burned and their own dwellings roofless, from the visit of
some similar horde.

Thus the seas of western Europe were covered in those days, as they
are now, with fleets of shipping; though, instead of being engaged as
now, in the quiet and peaceful pursuits of commerce, freighted with
merchandise, manned with harmless seamen, and welcome wherever they
come, they were then loaded only with ammunition and arms, and crowded
with fierce and reckless robbers, the objects of universal detestation
and terror.

One of the first of these sea kings who acquired sufficient individual
distinction to be personally remembered in history has given a sort of
immortality, by his exploits, to the very rude name of Ragnar Lodbrog,
and his character was as rude as his name.

[Illustration: THE SEA KINGS]

Ragnar's father was a prince of Norway. He married, however, a Danish
princess, and thus Ragnar acquired a sort of hereditary right to
a Danish kingdom--the territory including various islands and
promontories at the entrance of the Baltic Sea. There was, however, a
competitor for this power, named Harald. The Franks made common cause
with Ha