Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/77

Rh and Iceland and the Baltic shores they came, and, emerging from a background of wild legend and grim saga, we recognise their kinship with the Angles and Saxons. Call them Vikings or Northmen, Norsemen or Danes, they have practically the same manners and customs, the same language and social order, the same gods, the same Walhalla and Hel, as those tribes which had peopled the island some three hundred years before them. Perhaps their strenuous struggle for bare existence and the uncompromising climate of their northern homes made them appear even more fierce, more sturdy, and more relentless than their predecessors in the land. Through the long dim ages of a thousand years we see again the famous black raven ensigns flying from their long narrow galleys, their weather-beaten faces of stern determination as they catch sight of the shores of England; again we hear snatches of their native sagas and their shouts of victory as they return successful from their wild plunder parties, leaving devastated lands and blackened ruins behind them.

"Let all folk do general penance," cried the distracted priests, "for three days on bread and water; let every man come barefoot to church