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310 were now in union with the Saxons and made a raid on Western Frisia, but were soon driven back by the Franks. From this time until the first landing of Vikings near Dorchester (c. 787), the earliest attacks on the coast of France against which Charles the Great made defence in 800, and the first encounter between the Danes and Franks on the borders of Southern Denmark in 808, we know almost nothing of the history of Scandinavia, at least in so far as we look for information in the annals or histories of the time.

The story of these two hundred years has to some extent been pieced together from scraps of historical, philological and archaeological evidence. Professor Zimmer shewed that it was possible, that the attacks of unknown pirates on the island of Eigg in the Hebrides and on Tory Island off Donegal, described in certain Irish annals of the seventh century, were really the work of early Viking invaders, and that the witness of Irish legends and sagas tends to prove that already by the end of the seventh century Irish missionaries were settled in the Shetlands and Faroes, where they soon came into contact with the Northmen. Evidence for the advance from the other side, of the Northmen towards the West and South, has been found by Dr Jakobsen in his work on the place-names of the Shetlands. He has shewn that many of these names must be due to Norse settlements from a period long before the recognised Viking movements of the ninth century. Archaeological evidence can also be adduced in support of this belief in early intercourse between Scandinavia and the islands of the West. Sculptured stones found in the island of Gothland shew already by 700 clear evidence of Celtic art influence. Indeed archaeologists are now agreed that in the eighth century and even earlier there were trade connexions between Scandinavia and the West. Long before English or Irish, Franks or Frisians, knew the Northmen as Viking raiders, they had been familiar with them in peaceful mercantile intercourse, and it is probable that in the eighth century were a good number of Scandinavian merchants settled in Western Europe. Their influence on the trade of the West was only exceeded by that of the Frisians, who were the chief trading and naval power of the seventh and eighth centuries, and it is most probable that it was the crushing of Frisian power by Charles Martel in 734 and their final subjection by Charles the Great towards the close of the eighth century which helped to prepare the way for the great Viking advance.

About the year 800 the relations between the North and West Germanic peoples underwent a great change both in character and extent. We find the coasts of England, Ireland, Frisia and France attacked by Viking raiders, while on the southern borders of Denmark there was constant friction between the kings of that country and the forces of the Empire. The question has often been asked: What were the causes of this sudden outburst of hostile activity on the part of the Northmen? Monkish chroniclers said they were sent by God in punishment for the