Scandinavian-Britain

158 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAINthe canal, and the assaults on the city walls. Then itreverts to the girl at home poor thing! mated tothe laggard and pining away like the leaves of thelinden in autumn; and concludesDay by day the buckler was reddened with reeking gore,When we were out on the foray with our champion in thewar :But now that the war is over and the last hard fight is won.Merry we sit as the days go by in fair London-town.So also the treachery and cruelty laid to Kntit'scharge, especially in his earlier years, disappear almostto vanishing point on examination. Nor, on the otherhand, was he a great beneficent power, always listeningto the merry song of monks and rebuking hiscourtiers for their flattery. He was very shrewd ; all thechess-playing cleverness of the Viking intellect wasshown in his strategy and administration. It matterednot whether his chessmen were Danish or English"Northman" of the Hwiccas, even jarl Eirik, jar!Hakon Eiriksson and Thorkel were sacrificed, EadulfCudel the Angle and Godwine the Saxon were advanced,when the game required. Not to press apowerful family to revolt, he would favour one memberof it when he had removed another : in 1020 ^Ethelwerdthe ealdorman was banished, and his brother-inlaw^Ethelnoth was promoted to the archbishopric.For the sake of policy Kmit in his youth appears tohave married ^Elfgifu of Northampton, daughter of^Elfhelm, ealdorman of Deira ;but in 1017 he marriedEmma of Normandy, ^Ethelred's widow. In mattersof religion he showed himself almost ostentatiously