The Saxons were no seamen, and apparently but poor soldiers. When King Alfred built a navy of ships, which are stated to have been superior in every way to those of the Frisians, Scandinavians, and Danes, and by means of which he succeeded in securing more than one victory, he could not provide them with seamen. The Saxons were no good, and he had to hire Frisian pirates to man them. The Saxons fought well at Hastings, but, though there was a strong infusion of the Danish element by this time, they lost the battle through lack of discipline and military experience. It is difficult, therefore, to recognize in these Saxons the progenitors of men like Lieutenant Holbrook, who navigated his submarine through and under rows and rows of deadly mines, knowing that the least touch would bring annihilation, or of Private Pym of the Berkshires, who, _alone_ and "on his own", rushed into a house held by a detachment of German soldiers and succeeded in killing the whole of them but three, who "made their escape". No. For the ancestors of the British seamen and sailors of Elizabethan and modern times I think we should rather look to the Danes, who, it must be remembered, between 870 and the Norman Conquest, were not only continually invading England, but established themselves in a great part of it, especially in the east and north, and to those of the Conqueror's followers who traced their descent directly from the Northmen or Vikings. It is their spirit which has brought us victory both by land and by sea, but more especially by sea, and not the spirit of Alfred's Saxon subjects, who had to pay others to fight for them. Again, take such pre-eminent commanders as Drake and Nelson. Is not the former name one which takes us directly back to the "Draakers", the "Dragon-ships" of the Vikings, and has not Nelson a distinctly Danish sound about it? The ships of King Alfred "were full-nigh twice as long as the others; some had sixty oars, and some had more; they were both swifter and steadier, and also higher, than the others. They were shapen neither like the Frisian nor the Danish; but so it seemed to him that they would be most efficient." FOOTNOTE: [3] I am indebted to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould for the following very interesting note, which indicates that there was some affinity between the ancient Grecian and the Viking ideas with regard to figure-heads: "The Greeks never allowed an image of an entering ship to arrive un-removed, and then it was conveyed to the shore to salute the Goddess of the port. The altar 'to the Unknown God' St. Paul saw _was actually to any unknown Deity of an approaching vessel_." CHAPTER III Fighting-ships of the Middle Ages