CHAPTER IV.
THE INFLUX OF THE DANES: FACTS SHOWING CONCLUSIVELY
THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE BRITON OF TO-DAY.
AND now, having led the eager student up to the year 827 A.D., let us take him forward from the foundation of the English monarchy to the days of William the Conqueror, 1066.
Egbert, one of the kings of Wessex, reigned practically over Roman Britain when the country was invaded by the Northmen (Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes), who treated the Anglo-Saxon as the Anglo-Saxon had formerly treated the poor Briton.
These Northmen were rather coarse people, and even put the Anglo-Saxons to the blush sometimes. They exercised vigorously, and thus their appetites were sharp enough to cut a hair. They at first came in the capacity of pirates,—sliding stealthily into isolated coast settlements on Saturday evening and eating up the Sunday victuals, capturing the girls of the Bible-class and sailing away. But later they came as conquerors, and boarded with the peasantry permanently.
