is described as very large, with numerous towns and a king in each. There is much honey, and no stint of fish, whilst the nobles drink mare's milk and the poor mead. The dead are burnt after days or months of wassail.[1] The relatives preserve the bodies during this period by "bringing the cold upon them," or by the use of ice.[2]
Alfred is also said to have sent Sighelm, apparently a layman of distinction, to the tombs of SS. Thomas and Bartholemew in India. He had, according to the Saxon Chronicle, made a vow to this effect,[3] probably when England was in possession of the Danes. Sighelm, with Athelstan, carried royal gifts to Rome, and then must have taken ship for Egypt. After that they would follow the eastern trade route through the Red Sea. No details of the voyage survive, except that the ambassadors returned safely, bringing rich presents of gems and spices to Alfred. Evidence of increasing navigation is afforded by Alfred's laws, of which the thirtieth lays down certain regulations for passengers arriving in England.
Throughout the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries the Norsemen and the Danes, a terrible race of freebooters, were arriving and settling on our coasts. The boldest and most successful of navigators, for whom the sea had no terrors, it is to them perhaps that the England of to-day most owes its love of the sea. As they successively occupied the Orkneys, the Hebrides, the Isle of Man, and the fairest spots on the coasts of England and Ireland, and became dwellers in Britain, their feats concern us. They were of two races, dark and light; the first, the Danes proper; the second, the Norsemen or Norwegians. They fared over-sea from the iron-bound and barren coasts of Norway, or from the flat sandy plains of Denmark, guided by the stars, as the compass was then unknown; and when near, but out of sight of land, loosed birds to know in which direction to steer.[4]
- ↑ It is known that the ancient Prussians burnt their dead. Bosworth, p. 23, note 32. This truth shows that Wulfstan was not romancing.
- ↑ Wulfstan is called an Englishman in Hakluyt, but this appears to be only an assertion.
- ↑ Sax. Chron., A.D. 883. Cunningham, W., in 'Growth of English Industry,' i. 81, gives Sigeburt, Bishop of Sherbourne, for Sighelm. The credibility of the voyage has been questioned, but unjustly it would seem. It is not mentioned in Asser. A close intercourse with Rome was kept up in Alfred's days; travellers, of course, going overland. Æthelhelm was sent 887, Beocca 888; vide Saxon Chronicle. The Northmen at an early date had a trade route to the East, as a great number of Arabian coins have been dug up in Sweden. Cunningham, 84.
- ↑ Forster, 'Voyages and Discoveries in the North,' considers that the Norsemen discovered the art of sailing near the wind (pp. 77, 78).
