Chapter 4
Britain Conquered Again
The conversion of Britain was followed by a Wave of
Danes, accompanied by their sisters or Sagas, and led
by such memorable warriors as Harold Falsetooth and
Magnus the Great, who, landing correctly in Thanet,
overran the country from right to left, with fire. After
this the Danes invented a law called the Danelaw, which
easily proved that since there was nobody else left alive
there, all the right-hand part of England belonged to
them. The Danish Conquest was, however, undoubtedly
a Good Thing, because although it made the Danes
top nation for a time it was the cause of Alfred the Cake
(and in any case they were beaten utterly in the end by
Nelson).
By this time the Saxons had all become very old like
the Britons before them and were called ealdormen;
when they had been defeated in a battle by the Danes
they used to sing little songs to themselves such as the
memorable fragment discovered in the Bodleian Library
at Oxford:
Old-Saxon Fragment
Syng a song of Saxons
In the Wapentake of Rye
Four and twenty eaoldormen
Too eaold to die ...
The Danes, on the other hand, wrote a very defiant kind of
Epic poetry, e.g.:
Beoleopard
OR
The Witan's Whail
When Cnut Cyng the Witan wold enfeoff
Of infangthief and outfangthief
Wonderlich were they enwraged
And wordwar waged
Sware Cnut great scot and lot
Swinge wold ich this illbegoten lot.
Wroth was Cnut and wrothword spake.
Well wold he win at wopantake.
Fain would he brake frith and cracke heads
And than they shold worshippe his redes.
Swinged Cnut Cyng with swung sword
Howled Witane helle but hearkened his word
Murie sang Cnut Cyng
Outfangthief is Damgudthyng.
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