fat as thou
art, it will not break under the weight of a small thin man like me."

So the churl went forward, and Canute the Great followed him, and after
the king came the courtiers, one by one, with spaces between; and they
all got safely over the frozen mere, with no mishaps other than a few
slips and falls on the smooth ice; and Canute, as he had proposed, kept
the festival of the Purification with the monks of Ely.

As a reward to the fat churl Brithmar for his service, he was made a
freeman and his little property was also made free. "And so," the
chronicle concludes, "Brithmar's posterity continued in our days to be
freemen and to enjoy their possessions as free by virtue of the grant
made by the king to their forefather."

There is another and more famous story told of King Canute, one showing
that his great Danish majesty had an abundant share of sound sense. Often
as this story has been told it will bear retelling. The incident occurred
after his pilgrimage to Rome in the year 1030; made, it is said, to
obtain pardon for the crimes and bloodshed which paved his way to the
English throne.

After his return and when his power was at its height, the courtiers
wearied him by their fulsome flatteries. Disgusted with their extravagant
adulations he determined to teach them a lesson. They had spoken of him
as a ruler before whom all the powers of nature must bend in obedience,
and one day he caused his golden throne to be set on the verge of the
sea-shore sands as the tide was rolling in with its resistless might.
Seating himself on the throne, with his jewelled crown on his head, he
thus addressed the ocean:

"O thou Ocean! Know that the land on which I sit is mine and that thou
art a part of my dominion; therefore rise not, but obey my commands, and
do not presume to wet the edge of my royal robe."

He sat as if awaiting the sea to obey his commands, while the courtiers
stood by in stupefaction. Onward rolled the advancing breakers, each
moment coming nearer to his feet, until the spray flew into his face, and
finally the waters bathed his knees and wet the skirts of his robe. Then,
rising and turning to the dismayed flatterers, he sternly said:

"Confess now how vain and frivolous is the might of an earthly king
compared with that Great Power who rules the elements and says unto the
ocean, 'Thus far shalt thou go and no farther!'"

The monks who tell this story, conclude it by saying that Canute
thereupon