But when, many days afterwards, they sought among the embers, they found Skarphedinn’s body upright against the gable-wall, but his legs burned off him at the knees. He had driven his axe into the gable-wall so fast that they had much ado to get it out. Nial and Bergthora lay beneath the hide dead, but unburned by the fire, and a great heap of ashes above them; also of the boy only one finger had been consumed. This is the Story of the Burning, and of the death of Nial. [Illustration: BRITISH ISLES in the time of the Northmen.] THE DANISH KINGDOM OF ENGLAND (1013–1042) _We continue, in the following chapters, to use the Sagas of the Norse Kings as supplementary to the accounts in the English Chronicles. That they are not always accurately informed in regard to the actual course of events in England is not surprising when we consider that reports were not regularly transmitted by authorized means, as in our own days, but were carried from country to country by chance travellers or poets who recorded only what they had themselves seen or heard. Yet to ignore the Norse accounts is to limit ourselves to one side of the picture only, and only to half understand the causes and motives of what was going on in Britain. Detached from their Danish history, Sweyn and Canute were mere foreign adventurers whose power in England lacks explanation._ _From the social side, the brilliant and spirited accounts in the Sagas of the Kings of Norway are absolutely invaluable; and even as regards actual occurrences we are inclined to rely upon them to a greater extent than Freeman allowed himself to do. They bear the impress of truth._ Chapter XXII The Reign of Sweyn Forkbeard Denmark became consolidated into a kingdom at a slightly earlier period than Norway, and there was constant strife between the two young nations. The first king of all Denmark was named Gorm the Old (b. 830), but it is rather with the reigns of his grandson, Sweyn Forkbeard, and his great grandson, Canute the Great, that we have to do, for it was in their time that England was conquered by Denmark, and became for the space of twenty-nine years, from Sweyn to Hardacanute (1013–1042), a portion of the Danish dominions. This is an important incident in the history of both countries, and we must now see what the sagas have to tell us about these events. During the reign of Hakon the Good and the early years of Olaf Trygveson in Norway, the King of Denmark was Harald Blue-tooth, son of Gorm the Old, who reigned from 935 to 985, during the reigns of Athelstan the Great and Edmund in England, and of the weak and insignificant kings, Edwy, Edgar, and Ethelred the Unready, who succeeded them.