What the original of the Danes was, they themselves are in a great measure at a loss to know. That Danus the giant, son of Humblus, is long since hissed out of the school of antiquity, along with Goropius's derivation from a Hen. Andreas Velleius, a Dane and a learned man, fetches it from the Dahi a people of Scythia, and Marc, which does not signify bounds, but a country. Our countryman Ethelwerd was of opinion that the name came from the city Donia. For my part, I always thought that they were the posterity of the Danciones, placed by Ptolemy in Scandia (who by the change of a letter, are in some copies called Dauciones) and that from thence they flocked into Cimbrica Chersonesus, which the Angles had left: until the learned and most judicious antiquary Jonas Jacobus Venusinus, made a very curious discovery of some plain relics of the Danish name in the Sinus Codanus, and Codanonia, which Pomponius Mela mentions in those parts. These names the northern people pronounced grossly Cdan and Cdanonum, but Mela to reduce them to the genius of the Latin, made them Codanus and Codanonia; as after-ages mollified Gdanum into Dansk, Clodovaeus into Lodouic, Knutus into Canute. No mention is made of them before the time of Justinian Emperor, about the year of our Lord 570. For about that time, they had made inroads into France; and the Latin-writers of the history of England call them Wiccingi, from their trade of piracies, wiccinga (as we are assured by Aelfric) signifying in Saxon a pirate. They likewise term them Pagani (the pagans) because at that time they were not converted to the Christian religion. But the English themselves in their own language call them Deniscan, and very commonly heathen men. Give me leave to set down here what Dudo of St. Quintin, an author of considerable antiquity, has said concerning these Danes; as I had it out of the library of that indefatigable antiquary John Stowe, a Londoner, to which I had always free access. The Danes, like bees of a hive, for confusion, and after a barbarous manner with their swords drawn, swarmed out of Scanza (i.e. Scandia) after that their lecherous heat had improved them to such an infinite number. For when they were grown up, their way was to quarrel with their fathers or grandfathers, and sometimes amongst themselves, about estates; the land they then had not being large enough for them. Upon which, according to an ancient custom, a number of their young men were mustered up by lot, and driven into foreign parts, to cut out their fortunes with the sword. When they were ready to be dispatched away, their custom was to sacrifice to Thor, the God whom they anciently worshiped; not with sheep, or oxen, but the blood of men. This they looked upon as the most precious of all sacrifices: and after the priest had determined by lot who should die, they were barbarously knocked on the head with yokes of oxen, and killed at one stroke. Each of them who were to die by lot, having their brains dashed out at a single blow, were afterwards stretched upon the ground, and search was made for the fibre on the left side, that is, the vein of the heart. Of this they used to take the blood, and throw it upon the heads of such as were designed for the march: and imagining that this had won the favour of the gods, they immediately set to sea, and fell to their oars. There was another way the Danes had of appealing their gods, or rather of running into most detestable superstition; which Ditmarus, a bishop, and an author of somewhat greater antiquity than Dudo, thus describes. But because I have heard strange things of the ancient sacrifices of the Normans and Danes, I would not willingly pass them over. There is a place in those parts, the capital city of that kingdom called Lederun, in the province of Selon. There they meet once every nine years, in January, a little after our twelfth Day, and offer to their gods 99 men, and as many horses; with dogs and cocks for hawks; being fully persuaded (as I observed before) that these things were most acceptable to them.

            about the time of King Egbert, in the 800 year of Christ, they first disturbed our coasts; afterwards making havoc of everything, and plundering over all England, they destroyed cities, burnt churches, wasted the lands, and with a most barbarous cruelty drove all before them; ransacking and over-turning everything. They murdered the kings of the Mercians and East Angles, and then took possession of their kingdoms, with a great part of that of Northumberland. To put a stop to these outrages, a heavy tax was imposed upon the miserable inhabitants, called danegeld; The nature whereof this passage taken out of our old laws does fully discover. The pirates gave first occasion to the paying danegeld. For they made such havoc of this nation, that they seemed to aim at nothing but its utter ruin. And to suppress their insolence, it was enacted, that danegeld should yearly be paid (which was twelve pence for every hide of land in the whole nation) to maintain so many forces as might withstand the incursions of the pirates. All churches were exempt from this danegeld; nor did any land in the immediate possession of the church, contribute anything; because they put more confidence in the prayers of the church, than the defence of arms.

            but when they came to dispute the cause with Alfred, King of the West Saxons, he, what by retreats, and what by attacks, did not only by force of arms drive them out of his own territories, but likewise slew the deputy-governor of the Mercians, and in a manner cleared all Mercia of them. And his son, Edward the Elder, prosecuting his father's conquests, recovered the country of the East Angles from the Danes; as Athelstan his spurious son, to crown their victories, (after a great slaughter of them,) subdued the kingdom of Northumberland, and by his vigorous pursuit put the Danes into such a fright, that part of them quitted the kingdom, and the rest surrenddered themselves. By the courage of those princes was England delivered out of that gulf of miseries, and had a respite of 50 years from that bloody war. But after Ethelred, a man of a cowardly spirit, came to the crown, the Danes raising fresh hopes out of his dullness, renewed the war, and made havoc of the nation, till the English were forced to purchase a peace with annual contributions. And so insolently did they behave themselves, that the English formed a plot, and in one night slew all the Danes through the whole nation, to a man: imagining that so much blood would quench the flaming fury of that people; and yet as it happened, it did but add more fuel to it. For Sweyn, King of the Danes, incensed by that general massacre, invaded England with a powerful army, and pushed forwards by an enraged spirit, put Ethelred to flight, conquered the whole nation, and left it to his son Canute. He, after a long war with Ethelred, who was then returned, and his son Edmond, surnamed Ironside, but without any decisive battle, was succeeded by his two sons, Harald his spurious one, and Canute the Bold. After the death of these, the Danish yoke was shaken off, and the government returned to the English. For Edward (whose sanctity gained him the name of Confessor, the son of Ethelred by a second wife,) recovered the regal dignity. England now began to revive; but presently (as the poet says)

mores rebus cessere secundis.
the loads of fortune sunk them into vice.

            the clergy were idle, drowsy, and ignorant; the laity gave themselves over to luxury, and a loose way of living; all discipline was laid aside; the state, like a distempered body, was consumed with all sorts of vice: but pride, that forerunner of destruction, had of all others, made the greatest progress. And as Gervasius Dorobernensis observes of those times, they ran so headlong upon wickedness, that 'twas looked upon as a crime, to be ignorant of crimes. All these things plainly tended to ruin. The English at that time (says William of Malmesbury) used clothes that did not reach beyond the middle of the knee; their heads were shorn, their beards shaven, only the upper lip was always let grow to its full length. Their arms were even loaded with golden bracelets; and their skin all set with painted marks. The clergy were content with a superficial sort of learning, and had much ado to hammer out the words of the sacraments.

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