Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 1.djvu/59

Rh had established their Gothic sovereignties in these fair provinces of the former western empire. But the Danes, who were also a great confederacy,—the several Scandinavian nations of the Danes, the Swedes, and the Norwegians, being all comprehended under that name,—continued to seek plunder and glory on the waters long after they had founded a multitude of kingdoms on shore. These, however, were not kingdoms carved, like the possessions of the Franks and Saxons, out of the rich and cultivated Roman territory, but were all confined to the bleak and barbarous coasts of the Baltic and the neighbouring seas, where the Romans had never been. Down to the close of the eighth century, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were each parcelled out into numerous independent principalities, the chiefs of all of which were at the same time also either sea-kings themselves, or more usually were the fathers or elder brothers of the bold piratical captains, who rejoiced in that designation; the custom being for the younger sons of the royal house to be sent to seek their fortune on the ocean, while the eldest was kept at home to inherit his ancestral throne. But the class of sae konungen, or sea-kings, otherwise called vikingr, which is supposed to mean kings of the bays, where they had their head stations, was very numerous, and comprehended many individuals who were not of royal extraction. Piracy was the common resource of the younger sons of all the best families among these Scandinavian nations; and the sea was regarded as a field whereon a bold adventurer might rear for himself a fabric both of wealth and dominion almost as stable as could be founded on the land. In the course of the ninth century in all the three countries central sovereignties had arisen, and absorbed or reduced to dependence the rest of the chieftainships; but this change did not for some time affect the free movements of the vikingr. They continued as heretofore to maintain their independence on their own element. The new state of things in the north only had the effect of giving a new direction to their enterprises. Formerly the natural prey of the sea-kings of the Baltic had been VOL. I.