ys
raging among the dark and gloomy mountains and islands of Scotland.
Ragnar's ships were caught on one of these gales and driven on shore.
The ships were lost, but the men escaped to the land. Ragnar, nothing
daunted, organized and marshaled them as an army, and marched into
the interior to attack any force which might appear against them. His
course led him to Northumbria, the most northerly Saxon kingdom. Here
he soon encountered a very large and superior force, under the command
of Ella, the king; but, with the reckless desperation which so
strongly marked his character, he advanced to attack them. Three
times, it is said, he pierced the enemy's lines, cutting his way
entirely through them with his little column. He was, however, at
length overpowered. His men were cut to pieces, and he was himself
taken prisoner. We regret to have to add that our cruel ancestors put
their captive to death in a very barbarous manner. They filled a den
with poisonous snakes, and then drove the wretched Ragnar into it. The
horrid reptiles killed him with their stings. It was Ella, the king of
Northumbria, who ordered and directed this punishment.

The expedition of Ragnar thus ended without leading to any permanent
results in Anglo-Saxon history. It is, however, memorable as the first
of a series of invasions from the Danes--or Northmen, as they are
sometimes called, since they came from all the coasts of the Baltic
and German Seas--which, in the end, gave the Anglo-Saxons infinite
trouble. At one time, in fact, the conquests of the Danes threatened
to root out and destroy the Anglo-Saxon power from the island
altogether. They would probably have actually effected this, had the
nation not been saved by the prudence, the courage, the sagacity, and
the consummate skill of the subject of this history, as will fully
appear to the reader in the course of future chapters.

Ragnar was not the only one of these Northmen who made attempts to
land in England and to plunder the Anglo-Saxons, even in his own day.
Although there were no very regular historical records kept in those
early times, still a great number of legends, and ballads, and ancient
chronicles have come down to us, narrating the various transactions
which occurred, and it appears by these that the sea kings generally
were beginning, at this time, to harass the English coasts, as well as
all the other shores to which they could gain access. Some of these
invasions would seem t