CHAP. IV. MARITIME EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORTHMEN DURING THE PAGAN TIMES. SECTION I. IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND IRELAND. EARLY EXPEDITIONS OF THE NORTHMEN TO THE COASTS OF THE ROMAN PROVINCES.—CAUSES WHICH LED TO THEM.—POVERTY OF THE SOIL, FAMINE, COURAGE.—DOMESTIC PIRACY.—TRIBES OF PIRATES.—INVASION OF ENGLAND BY THE SAXONS AND DANES.—AUTHORITY OF SAXO GRAMMATICUS.—DEPREDATIONS IN ENGLAND PRIOR TO THE REIGN OF ATHELSTANE.—VICTORY OF THAT MONARCH.—RAVAGES OF THE NORTHMEN IN FRANCE.—HASTINGS.—ROLLO THE GREATEST OF THE SCANDINAVIAN PIRATES.—HIS CONQUEST OF NORMANDY, OF WHICH HE WAS THE FIRST DUKE.—THE NORTHMEN IN IRELAND.—EARLY COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE IRISH AND THE NORTH OF EUROPE.—FIRST RAVAGES OF THE NORTHMEN.—THEIR ALARMING PROGRESS IN THAT ISLAND.—VICTORY OBTAINED OVER THEM BY KING BRIAN.—THEIR SUBSEQUENT DEPREDATIONS AND DECLINE. THAT the expeditions of the Northmen were not confined to the shores of the Baltic, long before the period which is usually assigned to them, is evident from the whole course of the later Roman history. During the domination of the empire in Gaul and Britain, the local governors, whatever their zeal, were unable to prevent the depredations which the maritime inhabitants of Friesland and Jutland made on the more southern coasts. The Saxons and Franks were among the earliest pirates of the north. In the third century we find them on the coast of Gaul; in the fourth and fifth, they were no less troublesome on that of Britain. Even from the time of Cæsar, the tribes on the maritime coast, from the mouths of the Rhine to the Baltic Sea, were beginning to learn the piratical life. Their position was highly favourable to such pursuits. Located in the vicinity of rivers, friths, and bays, where the soil is unproductive, their wants must have led them to regions where Nature was more lavish of her gifts. This was more especially the case of the people on the sandy shores of Friesland and the Baltic; and, in those regions, they become pirates, just as the Arabs become robbers,—from necessity. But other causes were also at work, and probably at a period still earlier. Amidst the endless migrations of the barbarous tribes who occupied central and northern Europe, the impulse must have been extended to more distant shores. When, for instance, Asiatic Scythia sent forth her swarms to conquer and to colonise, the original inhabitants either bent their necks to the new yoke, or escaped from it by retiring farther to the west. Those of Scandinavia were compelled to look for settlements in the south; and this object could only be obtained by means of ships. There is reason to believe that these emigrations, or maritime expeditions, came to our own islands before the birth of Christ; this, indeed, is expressly affirmed by Bede, who mentions the first arrival of the Picts in these islands. They came, he