Scandinavian-Britain

THE EARLIEST RAIDS 63cursed viking." But in the tenth centurynoun had become already a proper name, as didthe commonDubhgall, Finngall, Lagman, Lochlann, and Sumarlidi;there is a place in the south of Iceland calledVikingslsekr, Viking's brook, named in Landndma(v. 5, 6) in connexion with the settlement and later;the personal name of Viking is found on runic stones.The inference is that the English word was adoptedquite early by the Scandinavians to denote thehonourable employment of the free buccaneer andnot as a geographical designation.The employment was not without honour. To us,looking back on the weary waste of life and the meansof life, estimating in imagination the wanton destructionof art and literature, the sufferings of innocentpeople massacred or driven into slavery among heathensand barbarians, or left to struggle and starve in theruins of their homes, it is easy to understand the bitternesswith which the Viking attacks were regarded, andthe despair of the litany:"A furore Normannorum,libera nos, Domine." But it iseasy also to forget thatthe bitterness was felt because the Vikings were heathenand barbarians, a despised race, regarded in the ninthcentury as, in the twelfth century, Saracens abroad andJews at home were regarded. When in Christian Irelandmonks fought with monks, and kings made waron priests and women, it was the normal course ofnature jbut that Gentiles should come in and poachupon the preserves of royal sportsmen was the unbearableshame. In England for many a year stoutresistance was made ;the Vikings were often beaten,