Sweyn Forkbeard

“ In due course the boy arrives in 1139, and the tutor selected for him is, of all others, Frakark's grandson, Thorbiorn Klerk, who had married Sweyn Asleifarson's sister, Ingirid, and who was "one of the boldest of men, and the most unfair, overbearing man in most [pg 64] things,"17 differing indeed but little in character from Sweyn himself "who was a wise man and foresighted about many things; and an unfair overbearing man and reckless towards others," while they were both said to be men "of power and weight," and at this time they were fast friends. ”

“ Sweyn, the eldest [82] , had the dark hues of his mother the Dane: a wild and mournful majesty sat upon features aquiline and regular, but wasted by grief or passion; raven locks, glossy even in neglect, fell half over eyes hollow in their sockets, but bright, though with troubled fire. Over his shoulder he bore his mighty axe. His form, spare, but of immense power, was sheathed in mail, and he leant on his great pointed Danish shield. At his feet sate his young son Haco, a boy with a countenance preternaturally thoughtful for his years, which were yet those of childhood. ”

“ Githa his wife, the Dane, a woman with a haughty but noble spirit, imperfect education, and some of the wild and lawless blood derived from her race of heathen sea-kings, was more fitted to stir their ambition and inflame their fancies, than curb their tempers and mould their hearts.
We have seen the career of Sweyn; but Sweyn was an angel of light compared to his brother Tostig. He who can be penitent has ever something lofty in his original nature; but Tostig was remorseless as the tiger, as treacherous and as fierce. ”

“ Her marriage with Æthelred was certainly not a happy one, and the king is said to have been unfaithful to her. She bore him two sons, Eadward, called the Confessor, and Ælfred [q. v.] When Sweyn conquered England in 1013 she took refuge with her brother, Duke Richard the Good. She was attended in her flight by Ælfsige, abbot of Peterborough, and appears to have left her sons in England, and to have been joined by them in Normandy (A.-S. Chron. sub an. 1013) . After the death of Sweyn she probably returned to England with her husband, who died 23 April 1016. ”

“ He rose to his knees, lifting the body. Christian had fallen face forward in the snow, with his arms flung up and wide, and so had the frost made him rigid: strange, ghastly, unyielding to Sweyn's lifting, so that he laid him down again and crouched above, with his arms fast round him, and a low heart-wrung groan.
When at last he found force to raise his brother's body and gather it in his arms, tight clasped to his breast, he tried to face the Thing that lay beyond. The
Sweyn's Finding
sight set his limbs in a palsy with horror and dread. ”

“ Then the Earl said, "Well, then, slay them to-morrow, but bind them fast to-night".
"So, I ween, it must be," says Sweyn; "but never yet have I met brisker men than these, and I call it the greatest manscathe to take their lives."
"They have slain two of our briskest men," said the Earl, "and for that they shall be slain."
"Because they were brisker men themselves," says Sweyn; "but still in this it must be done as thou wiliest."
So they were bound and fettered.
After that the Earl fell asleep; but when all men slept, Grim spoke to Helgi, and said, "Away would I get if I could". ”

“ He loved as only a twin can love—proud of all that Sweyn did, content with all that Sweyn was; humbly content also that his own great love should not be so exceedingly returned, since he knew himself to be so far less love-worthy.
Christian dared not, in the midst of women and children, launch the horror that he knew into words. He waited to consult his brother; but Sweyn did not, or would not, notice the signal he made, and kept his face always turned towards White Fell. Christian drew away from the hearth, unable to remain passive with that dread upon him. ”

“ Defeated in battle, the unhappy father fled for his life, and fled in vain, for he was either murdered or died of his wounds.
Sweyn then became king, restored idolatry, and gratified to the full the fell instincts of his savage followers. His great object was now not merely to plunder, but to conquer England, and all his campaigns were so directed as to reduce province after province. Sussex and Kent were now wholly powerless; East Anglia was little better; Wessex trembled, for every inlet was a path for the robbers, and the turn of Mercia drew near. ”

“ White Fell held on without slack. She, it was evident, with confidence in her speed proving matchless, as resolute to outrun her pursuer as he to endure till midnight and fulfil his purpose. And Christian held on, still self–assured. He could not fail; he would not fail. To avenge Rol and Trella was motive enough for him to do what man could do; but for Sweyn more. She had kissed Sweyn, but he should not die too: with Sweyn to save he could not fail. ”

“ Those only, who from its being the land of their birth, felt that they must always have a stake in the country, could possibly have mustered the resolution to remain in it. The vengeance of Sweyn being unsatisfied, he returned in the year 1006, when he carried fire and sword into every part, and it has been said with much felicity of expression, that amidst so much sacking the inhabitants had scarcely a bed to lie down upon. ”

“ It was on one of his expeditions against Dublin that Sweyn met his fate. This was when he was an old man. Not long before, Earl Harald, who had been feasting with him after his return from the “Broad-cloth Cruise,” on the English mead and the wine captured from the vessels, said to him: “I wish now,246 Sweyn, that you would leave off your marauding expeditions. Your plundering has been successful a long while, but it might take a turn the other way; and it is good to drive home with a whole wain. Men who live by unfair means often perish by them in the end.” ”

“ Hakon, from boyhood, went with Sweyn on all his spring and autumn "vikings" or piratical cruises, undertaken every year to the Hebrides, Man, and Ireland, in one of which Sweyn took two English ships near Dublin, and returned to Orkney laden with broadcloth, wine, and English mead.3 Sweyn's life is thus described in c. 114 of the Orkneyinga Saga. "He sat through the winter at home in Gairsay, and there he kept always about him eighty men at his beck. ”

“ Sweyn, the matchless among men, acknowledged in this fair White Fell a spirit high and bold as his own, and a frame so firm and capable that only bulk was lacking for equal strength. Yet the white skin was moulded most smoothly, without such muscular swelling as made his might evident. Such love as his frank self-love could concede was called forth by an ardent admiration for this supreme stranger. More admiration than love was in his passion, and therefore he was free from a lover's hesitancy and delicate reserve and doubts. ”

“ Some intended to build boats on the banks of the Rhine and sail down on that river, others intended to journey further and to descend by the Elbe. I know not which course Sweyn may adopt. The country between this and the Rhine swarms with Danes. I do not suppose that Sweyn will join any other party. Having Freda with him, he will prefer keeping apart; but in any case it would not be safe for you to journey with your band, who would assuredly become embroiled with the first party of Danes they met; and even if they be as brave as yourself they would be defeated by such superior numbers. ”

“ Even when steel, instead of gold, was to be the tribute, a cowardly and treacherous commander, Alfric of Mercia, was intrusted with the defence of England. In the following years, every province was desolated. In 994, Sweyn himself appeared in the Thames with a formidable fleet. He had an ally, Olaf, the son of Trygve, who, since infancy, had never been in Norway, and whose piratical exploits had been celebrated from 118Russia to Ireland. [108] His attack on London was repelled; but Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire suffered dreadfully from his depredations, and those of his ally. ”

“ God rules over my life. Never will I flee; for he is no king who shuns his foes because of fear."
The whole hostile fleet now rowed forward from behind the island, and it seemed as if the sea was covered with ships as far as the eye could reach. King Sweyn, with his sixty galleys, became first visible.
"What chieftain is that right opposite to us?" asked King Olaf.
"That is King Sweyn with the Danish army," answered one of his men.
"I have no fear of them," said the king. "Never yet have Danes beaten Norsemen, and they will not beat us to-day. ”

“ They asked of Sigvaldi what tidings he had to tell them. He declared he could tell them tidings of Sweyn, the Danish king, which it were right Olaf Tryggvason should know—he was setting a snare for him if he were not on his guard. Then Thorkell and his men let their ship float, and waited for the King.
Then saw King Sweyn four ships of great size sailing, and one by far the largest, and on it a dragon's head conspicuous, all of gold. And they all at once said: 'A wondrous big ship and a beautiful one is the Long Snake. ”

“ Far more formidable was an attempt made, in 1069, to disturb the new order of things in England. Sweyn, King of Denmark, conceiving himself to have inherited some right to the crown, and being encouraged by the Dano-Saxon party in England, as well, apparently, as by the sons of Harold, who had again sought refuge in Ireland, equipped a great fleet of two hundred and forty ships, [10] and put it under the command of his brother Osbern and his sons Harold and Canute. ”

“ His death, however, was unexpected, and the gifts Cnut afterwards made to the monastery of Bury seem to show that he shared the general belief that it was due to the vengeance of St. Eadmund. Sweyn died on the road from Gainsborough to Bury on 3 Feb. 1014. His son Harold succeeded him in Denmark, and the Danish fleet chose Cnut to be king of England. The ‘witan,’ however, sent after Æthelred, and declared every Danish king an outlaw. Æthelred returned to England during Lent. ”

“ The eyes, now weak with debauch, had glowed with the maniacal fury of the berserkir in the battlefield. Was this the glory of manhood? Nay, rather of wolves and bears.
Then he looked up at Sweyn, the murderer of his father, and marvelled that his hand was yet so steady--his head so clear. This apostate parricide! never would he live to kiss the hand of such a man; better die at once, while yet pure from innocent blood. This his Christianity had taught him.
"Minstrel," cried the fierce king, "sing us some stirring song of the days of old ”

“ When the ceremony of investiture took place, Einar Thambarskelver cried out to the king: "Too great earl, foster-son; too great earl!" to which the king replied angrily: "You do not credit me with any judgment or knowledge of men. I do not know what you mean by regarding some earls as too great, and some as nothing at all." [237]
Sweyn was scarcely out of Magnus' sight, before he made haste to justify Einar's apprehension. Having regained his father's fiefs and the power which they gave him, he called the Danish chieftains together at the thing in Viborg, and was proclaimed King of Denmark. ”

“ Said King Sweyn: 'Now here will be sailing Long Snake; and take we heed that we be not too late in meeting them.'
Then answered Earl Eric: 'That will not be Long Snake; few of their big ships have passed as yet; there are many more to come.'
And it was even as the Earl said.
Now sailed a ship with striped sails, a long-ship built for speed, and much larger than the others that had gone by. And when King Sweyn saw that this ship had no figure-head on her, then stood he up and said, laughing the while: 'Olaf Tryggvason is afraid now; he dares not to sail with his dragon's head ”

“ Sweyn, the Dane, is now King of England. There seems no resource but submission. We are told Edric Streorn is in high favour in the Pagan court; and still is ealdorman of Mercia. Alas! what a Christmas!
Candlemas, 1014.--
God has at length bared His arm: Sweyn is no more. The blasphemer and parricide is gone to his dread account. On the eve of the festival he filled up the measure of his damnation by daring to exact an enormous tribute from the town where rests the uncorrupt body of the precious martyr St. Edmund, which even the pagan Danes had hitherto feared to do. ”

“ In 1013, however, Sweyn returned, and proceeded to conquer the whole of England. He began from the north-east, and soon the Danish settlements had submitted to him, and their example was followed by all the English to the north of Watling Street. Mercia was forced to yield after it had been cruelly ravaged, and then the Danish warrior took Oxford and Winchester, the chief towns of the old kingdom of Wessex. Leaving his son Canute with the fleet, he on a sudden laid siege to London, where Ethelred was shut up. ”

“ However, they believe that she will grow tired out at last when she finds that there is no hope whatever of a rescue. The ships are being built for a long sea voyage, for Sweyn is going to lead them to join the Viking Hasting in the Mediterranean, and has promised his men the plunder of countries ten times richer than France or England. With so long an expedition in view, they may well think that the Lady Freda's resolution will soon give way, and that she may come to see that the position of the wife of a bold viking is a thousand times preferable to that of a captive. ”