common enemy to ward off, and some
common leader to look up to in the conduct of their defence.[3]

[Footnote 3: Genealogy of the English kings from Ecgberht to
Eadgar:--

ECGBERHT
802-839
|
AETHELWULF
839-858
|
-----------------------------------------
| | | |
AETHELBALD AETHELBERHT AETHELRED AELFRED
858-860 860-866 866-871 871-901
|
-------------------------------------------
| |
Eadward AEthelflaed = AEthelred
899-925 (the _Lady of the
| Mercians_)
--------------------------
| | |
AETHELSTAN EADMUND EADRED
925-940 940-946 946-955
|
------------
| |
EADWIG EADGAR
955-959 959-975]

[Illustration: Remains of a Viking ship, from a cairn at Gokstad. (Now
in the University at Christiania.)]

2. =The Coming of the Northmen.=--The common enemy came from the
north. At the end of the eighth century the inhabitants of Norway and
Denmark resembled the Angles and Saxons three or four centuries
before. They swarmed over the sea as pirates to plunder wherever they
could find stored-up wealth along the coasts of Western Europe. The
Northmen were heathen still and their religion was the old religion of
force. They loved battle even more than they loved plunder. They held
that the warrior who was slain in fight was received by the god Odin
in Valhalla, where immortal heroes spent their days in cutting one
another to pieces, and were healed of their wounds in the evening that
they might join in the nightly feast, and be able to fight again on
the morrow. He that died in bed was condemned to a chilly and dreary
existence in the abode of the goddess Hela, whose name is the Norse
equivalent of Hell.

[Illustration: Gold ring of AEthelwulf.]

3. =The English Coast Plundered.=--Since Englishmen had settled in
England they had lost the art of seamanship. The Northmen therefore
were often able to plunder and sa