Scandinavian-Britain

THE AGE OF ALFRED 85the skill of a chess-player on the field of empire. Itwas not for nothing that the Vikings on board theirships played draught-games one finds their;travellingchessboards and tenoned pieces, showing how theybeguiled the time in rough weather with somethingmore intellectual than drinking and horseplay. Thesame tendency marks their art and literature. Anglo-Saxon poetry has imagination the verse of the;Northmen, in its intricate metres and rhymes, itselaboration of synonyms and "kennings," has ingenuity to equal any art of the kind beforeor since.Anglo-Saxon sculpture has grace and charm learntfrom abroad, but soon degenerating; while Scandinavianornament develops from simple models intolabyrinths of intricacy compared with which even thecobweb lace of Celtic design, being regular and needingmore patience than thought, is easy to follow. Thesuccess of the Vikings was by no means a success ofrude and savage force ; it was a triumph of mentalpower as well as of moral endurance and physicalbravery.Their armour and weapons are noted in The Warsof the Gaedhil and the Gaill as superior to those ofthe Irish, who were no mean craftsmen. At the siegeof Paris they seem to have used machines and methodsof assault as good asthose employed for several centuriesto follow ;and in the campaign of Ivar theyfortified themselves in earthworks not mere boundarydykes like the Danework the use of which wasunusual in Scandinavia until the burg of the Jdmsvikingsgave an example of theskill theylearnt in their