Such were the stormy sea-kings, whose ships were now darkening the ocean, who were soon to become sharers of the island which their adventurous brethren had wrested from the Britons, and who were destined to enrich the plains of England with each other's blood. The grim gods of the ancient Cymry seemed to require some savage sacrifice before they departed for ever from the wave-washed island on which their altars had for centuries blazed. Through a land whose skies were reddened by the fires of the destroyer, and whose fields were heavy and wet with the blood of the slain, are we now about to journey; and after toiling through two weary centuries of slaughter, we shall but sit down upon the shore, to be startled again by the sound of the Norman trumpets. A king lives and dies, a battle is won and lost; and he who next succeeds to the throne, or wins the victory, sweeps over the dead who have passed away, as the autumn-blast whirls the withered leaves before it, until the very storm itself dies out, and others awaken from the caverned sleep in which they have grown strong enough to contend with the green array of a new summer. Briton, Saxon, Dane, and Norman, are like the four seasons which make up the long year of our history. CHAPTER XIX. FIRST SETTLEMENT OF THE DANES IN NORTHUMBRIA. "On Norway's coast the widowed dame May wash the rock with tears, May long look o'er the shipless seas Before her mate appears; May sit and weep, and hope in vain,-- Her lord lies in the clay, And never more will he again Ride o'er the salt sea-spray." THE OLD BALLAD OF "HARDYKNUTE."