and wherever they committed their ravages and devastation they left sanguinary traces of their formidable swords.
The peculiar life of the Viking, in accordance with which single warriors (Vikings) undertook each on his own account continual expeditions to foreign countries, appears to have had its home chiefly in Norway and in Sweden; a fact which may be readily accounted for, since the mountainous and woody character of these countries, which are but little calculated for agriculture, compelled the inhabitants of them to seek for subsistence in lands better provided than their own. On the other hand in a country so flat, and in some parts, so fertile as Denmark, where agriculture had early taken root, a considerable number of its inhabitants were probably engaged in the cultivation of the fields; from which circumstance we may the more easily explain the fact, which is related of the Danes, that in general they did not so often undertake these predatory expeditions singly, as in larger bodies, which were commanded by kings or chiefs of royal descent. Numbers of Danish warriors, who yielded neither in bravery nor cruelty to the other Northmen, made extensive conquests among other nations, towards the conclusion of the eighth and during the whole of the ninth century; when all the small Danish kingdoms were united under one ruler, Gorm the ancient. From this period these expeditions ceased for a time, while Christianity diffused itself by degrees over the country, but the ancient rude warrior spirit, and the lust of conquest which inspired the nation, were not subdued without considerable resistance. The first Christian king, Harald Blaatand, (about 990,) was slain in a tumult of the heathens, and his son Svend Tveskiäg, who destroyed the churches, and slew or drove out the Christians, again undertook expeditions to England, which he at length conquered, after having, according to the pagan custom, fearfully wasted it by fire and sword. His successor Knut the Great it was who first established Christianity, and with it more gentle manners in Denmark. To so warlike a people as the heathen-
