DURING the five years of rivalry between Olaf and Sweyn (995–1000), England had enjoyed comparative peace. Incursions, indeed, began again in 997; but these were clearly of the earlier type, not invasions like the movements led by Olaf and Sweyn. Who the leaders were at this time we do not know; but the Northern kings were in those years giving and taking in marriage and busily plotting each other’s destruction, so we conclude that the undertakings continued to be of the private sort, led, perhaps, by Norse chiefs who had found life in Norway uncongenial after King Olaf had begun to persecute the heathen worshippers.

The English had now come to realise the importance of the upper Irish Sea as a rendezvous for all forms of piratical bands; and the need of aggressive warfare at this point was clearly seen. Accordingly, in the year 1000, Ethelred collected a fleet and an army and harried the Norse settlements in Cumberland and on the Isle of Man. The time was opportune for a movement of this sort, as no reinforcements from the North could be expected that year. The expedition, however, accomplished nothing of importance; for the fleet that Ethelred had hoped to intercept did not return to the western waters but sailed to Normandy. Ethelred was angry with Duke Richard of Normandy for sheltering his enemies, and proceeded to attack his duchy with his usual ill success.

Nevertheless, the hostilities terminated favourably for Ethelred, as the Norman duke offered his beaten enemy not only peace, but alliance. Recent events in the North may have caused Richard to reflect. The diplomacy of Sweyn, culminating in the partition of Norway, had made Denmark a state of great importance. Sweyn’s designs on England were probably suspected; at any rate, Normandy for the moment seemed willing to support England. In early spring, 1002, the bond was further strengthened by a marriage between Ethelred and Duke Richard’s sister Emma, who later married her husband’s enemy, the Danish Canute. That same year England was once more rid of the enemy through the payment of Danegeld.

The prospects for continued peace in England were probably better in 1002 than in any other year since the accession of Ethelred. But toward the end of the year, all that gold and diplomacy had built up was ruined by a royal order, the stupidity of which was equalled only by its criminality. On Saint Brice’s Day (November 13), the English rose, not to battle but to murder. It had been planned on that date to rid the country of all its Danish inhabitants. How extensive the territory was that was thus stained with blood, we are not informed; but such an order could not have been carried out in the Danelaw. In justification of his act, Ethelred pleaded that he had heard of a Danish conspiracy, directed not only against his own life, but against the lives of the English nobility as well.

It is likely that, when England bought peace earlier in the year, a number of the vikings remained in the land, intending, perhaps, to settle permanently; such arrangements were by no means unusual. The massacre of Saint Brice’s may, therefore, have had for its object the extermination of the raiders that came in Iool . But these were not the only ones slain: among the victims were Gunhild, King Sweyn’s sister, and her husband, the ealdorman Pallig. It is probable that Pallig, though a Saxon official, was a Dane living among the Danes in some Scandinavian settlement in South-western England. We are told that Ethelred had treated him well, had given him lands and honours; but he did not remain faithful to his lord; only the year before, when the vikings were in Devon, he joined them with a number of ships. Pallig no doubt deserved the punishment of a traitor, but it would have been politic in his case to show mercy. If he was, as has been conjectured from the form of his name, connected with the family of Palna Told, the famous Danish archer and legendary organiser of the Jomburg fraternity, he was bound to Sweyn by double ties, for Palna Told was Sweyn’s reputed foster-father. (The story of Palna Toki is told in various sagas, particularly Jomsvikingasaga. Of his exploits in archery Saxo has an account in his tenth book. Having once boasted that no apple was too small for his arrow to find, he was surprised by an order from the King that he should shoot an arrow from his son’s head. The archer was reluctant to display his skill in this fashion, but the shot was successful. It is also told that Palna Toki had provided himself with additional arrows which he had intended for the King in case the first had stricken the child. Saxo wrote a century before the time of the supposed Tell episode)

Sweyn Forkbeard at once prepared to take revenge for the death of his kinsfolk. The next year (1003), his sails were seen from the cliffs of the Channel shore. But before proceeding to the attack, he seems to have visited his Norman friend, Duke Richard the Good. For some reason, displeasure, perhaps, at the shedding of noble Scandinavian blood on Saint Brice’s Day, the duke was ready to repudiate his alliance with his English brother-in-law. The two worthies reached the agreement that Normandy should be an open market for English plunder and a refuge for the sick and wounded in the Danish host. Evidently Sweyn was planning an extended campaign.

Having thus secured himself against attacks from the rear, Sweyn proceeded to Exeter, which was delivered into his hands by its faithless Norman commander Hugo. In the surrender of Exeter, we should probably see the first fruit of the new Danish-Norman understanding. From this city the Danes carried destruction into the southern shires. The following year (1004), East Anglia was made to suffer. Ulfketel, the earl of the region, was not prepared to fight and made peace with Sweyn; but the Danes did not long observe the truce. After they had treacherously attacked Thetford, the earl gathered his forces and tried to intercept Sweyn’s marauding bands on their way back to the ships; but though the East Anglians fought furiously, the Danes escaped. The opposition that Sweyn met in the half-Danish East Anglia seems to have checked his operations. The next year he left the land.

The forces of evil seemed finally to have spent their strength, for the years 1007 and 1008 were on the whole comparatively peaceful. Those same years show considerable energy on the part of the English: in the Pentecostal season, May, 1oo8, the King met his “wise men” at Eanham, and a long legislative enactment saw the light. It was hoped that by extensive and thorough-going reforms the national vigour might be restored. Among other things provisions were made for an extensive naval establishment, based on a contribution that grew into the ship money of later fame. A large number of ships were actually assembled; but the treacherous spirit and the jealous conduct of some of the English nobles soon ruined the efficiency of the fleet; the new navy went to pieces at a moment when its service was most sorely needed. For in that year, 1009, a most formidable enemy appeared in the Channel: the vikings of Jom had left their stronghold on the Oder and were soon to re-establish themselves on the Thames.

For about two decades Sigvaldi ruled at Jomburg; but after the battle of Swald he disappears from the sagas: all that we learn is that he was slain on some expedition to England. Perhaps he was one of the victims of Saint Brice’s (1002); or he may have perished in one of the later raids. His death must, however, be dated earlier than 1009; for in that year his brother Thurkil came to England, we are told, to take revenge for a slain brother.

Thurkil’s fleet appeared at Sandwich in July. Associated with the tall Dane was a short, thick-set Norwegian, Olaf the Stout, a young viking of royal blood who later won renown as the missionary King of Norway and fell in war against Canute the Great. In August came a second fleet, under the leadership of Eglaf and Heming, Thurkil’s brother. The fleets joined at Thanet; this time nearly all the southern counties had to suffer. The host wintered on the lower Thames and during the winter months plundered the valley up as far as Oxford. Ethelred tried to cut off its retreat but failed.

During the Lenten weeks the vikings refitted their ships, and on April 9, 1010, they set sail for East Anglia. Ulfketel was still in control of that region and had made preparations to meet the invader. On May 5, the Danes met the native levies at Ringmere in the southern part of Norfolk. The fight was sharp, with final victory for the sea-kings. The English sources attribute the outcome to the treasonable behaviour of Thurkil Mareshead, who was evidently a Dane in Ulfketel’s service. The Norse scalds ascribe the result to the valour of Olaf the Stout, who here won the “sword-moot” for the seventh time.

During the remaining months of the year and all through the following summer, the vikings rode almost unresisted through...