The Humber and York were for the north of England much what the Thames and London were for the south. It is not therefore surprising that York came to possess within its walls the largest and most splendid cathedral in England, which still towers aloft, a proud and awe-inspiring monument of the power and religious enthusiasm of the middle ages; nor that the history of York comprises, so to speak, the whole of that of Northumberland. The soil of south England received the dust of the Christian Danish kings, and of Canute the Great, the hero of Christendom. But the north of England held the bones of many a mighty Danish chieftain, who had never renounced his belief in the ancient gods; and, in the neighbourhood of York, one of the most renowned of heathen heroes, King Regner Lodbrog, met his death. The names of Regner and his sons were reverenced and feared in England from their earlier Viking expeditions. When about to invade England, he suffered shipwreck, and together with only a few of his men saved himself on the coast of Northumberland. The Saxon king, Ella, advanced against him from York; a battle ensued, and, after the bravest resistance, Regner was overcome and made a prisoner. With true northern pride he would not make himself known to Ella, who caused him to be thrown into a pen filled with snakes; and it was not till the dying Regner had sung his swan’s-song, “Grynte vilde Grisene, kjendte de Galtens Skjebne” (How the young pigs would grunt if they knew the old boar’s fate), that Ella too late observed to his terror that he had exposed himself to the fearful vengeance of the king’s sons; who, guided by the shrewd Ivar Beenlöse, had long been silently preparing for the conquest of Ella’s kingdom. Ella was vanquished and made prisoner; and, according to the Norwegian legend, Regner’s sons, to avenge their father’s miserable death, caused a blood-eagle to be carved on Ella’s back. The place of Ella’s death is said by some to have been near the town of “Ellescroft,” or Ella’s Grave. The English accounts make Regner’s sons, Ingvar and Ubbe, revenge their father’s death in the year 870, by murdering in a most horrible manner King Edmund (who was afterwards canonized) at the castle of Æglesdon, in East Anglia. They shot at him as at a mark, then cut off his head, and lastly laid the body among thorns, in the same forest where their father had been put to death.