's system, was in time
to be a blessing to the kingdoms of the north. But to the freeman it was
a curse. He fought against it as long as he could; worsted over and over
again, he renewed the struggle, and at last, when the isolated efforts,
which were the key-stone of his edifice of liberty, were fruitless, he
sullenly withdrew from the field, and left the land of his fathers,
where, as he thought, no free-born man could now care to live. Now it is
that we hear of him in Iceland, where Ingolf was the first settler in
the year 874, and was soon followed by many of his countrymen. Now, too,
we hear of him in all lands. Now France--now Italy--now Spain, feel
the fury of his wrath, and the weight of his arm. After a time, but not
until nearly a century has passed, he spreads his wings for a wider
flight, and takes service under the great emperor at Byzantium, or
Micklegarth--the great city, the town of towns--and fights his foes from
whatever quarter they come. The Moslem in Sicily and Asia, the
Bulgarians and Slavonians on the shores of the Black Sea and in Greece,
well know the temper of the Northern steel, which has forced many of
their chosen champions to bite the dust. Wherever he goes the Northman
leaves his mark, and to this day the lion at the entrance to the arsenal
at Venice is scored with runes which tell of his triumph.

But of all countries, what were called the Western Lands were his
favourite haunt. England, where the Saxons were losing their old dash
and daring, and settling down into a sluggish sensual race; Ireland, the
flower of Celtic lands, in which a system of great age and undoubted
civilization was then fast falling to pieces, afforded a tempting
battlefield in the everlasting feuds between chief and chief; Scotland,
where the power of the Picts was waning, while that of the Scots had not
taken firm hold on the country, and most of all the islands in the
Scottish Main, Orkney, Shetland, and the outlying Faroe Isles;--all
these were his chosen abode. In those islands he took deep root,
established himself on the old system, shaved in the quarrels of the
chiefs and princes of the Mainland, now helped Pict and now Scot, roved
the seas and made all ships prizes, and kept alive his old grudge
against Harold Fairhair and the new system by a long series of piratical
incursions on the Norway coast. So worrying did these Viking cruises at
last become, that Harold, who meantime had steadily pursued his policy