HKB
merry voices were heard, where only the year before there sounded "the wailing tones of sad lament," for a mighty mind was now engrossed with the welfare of the people.
About this time, a large fleet of Danes, under the command of the famous sea-king Hastings, arrived in the Thames, and, crossing the country, sought the alliance of Godrun, who with his soldiers was following the peaceful occupations of husbandry, and the more useful arts of civilized life, when their Northern brethren landed. Hastings, finding that he could not win Godrun from his allegiance to Alfred, after wintering at Fulham, crossed over into Flanders, where he remained for some time at Ghent. Meantime, Alfred continued to increase his navy, to build ships of a larger size, and of such forms as were better adapted to ride out the storm, and to grapple with the enemy on their own element. The Saxon and Danish ships were constantly coming in contact on the ocean, and now victory generally declared itself in favour of the former. In 884, another Danish fleet invaded England and besieged Rochester, but the citizens valiantly defended the place until Alfred with his army arrived to relieve them. No sooner did the Saxon king appear, than the Danes abandoned their fortress, leaving behind the horses and captives they had brought over from France; and, hurrying off with their ships, they again set sail for the coast of Gaul. No sooner were they driven out of England, than Alfred had to hasten into East Anglia, where a strong force of Northmen had arrived, and who seemed determined to force the followers of Godrun into rebellion. Many of the Danish settlers preferred their old piratical habits to the more peaceful mode of life which Alfred had compelled them to adopt, and readily took down the battle-axe from the smoke-discoloured beam where it had so peacefully rested,[6] and withdrew the club, bristling with iron spikes, the star of the morning, from its hiding-place, to join the new comers. The first Danish ships the Saxons attacked, they either captured or sunk, and the Northmen are said to have fought so fiercely, that every soul on board perished. Another fleet arrived, and gained some slight advantage over the Saxons; but in the end Alfred conquered, and compelled the Danes who occupied East Anglia again to settle down to their peaceful occupations.
The most celebrated sea-king that tried his strength with Alfred, was Hastings, or Haestan--who again made his appearance--for the weight of his arm had hitherto fallen upon France and Flanders, and the opposite coast. For years this famous Vikinger had lived upon the ocean; the poets of the period extol him as a monarch whose territories were unbounded, whose kingdom no eye could ever take in at a glance; for his home was upon the sea, his throne where the tempest rose, and his sceptre swayed over realms into which the shark, the sea-horse, the monsters of the deep, and the birds of the ocean dare only venture. He called his ships together by the sound of an ivory horn, which was ever suspended around his neck, and the shrill tones of which might be heard for miles inland, and over the sea--the Saxons called it the Danish thunder. Whenever that blast broke out, the herdsman hurried his cattle into the darkest recesses of the forest--the thane barricaded the doors of his habitation, and the earl drew up his drawbridge, looked up his armour and his attendants, and never ventured to parley with either the sea-king or his followers, unless the deep moat was between them. For a quarter of a century had he harassed the neighbouring nations, living upon the plunder he obtained, until, weary of leading such an unsettled life, he resolved to become a king either over the Danes or the Saxons, and, now that Godrun was dead, he doubted not but that, if he could conquer Alfred, his own countrymen would gladly accept him for their monarch.