rased to the ground, make up the greater part of the history of
those evil days. At length the North ceased to send forth a
constant stream of fresh depredators; and from that time the
mutual aversion of the races began to subside. Intermarriage
became frequent. The Danes learned the religion of the Saxons;
and thus one cause of deadly animosity was removed. The Danish
and Saxon tongues, both dialects of one widespread language, were
blended together. But the distinction between the two nations was
by no means effaced, when an event took place which prostrated
both, in common slavery and degradation, at the feet of a third
people.

The Normans were then the foremost race of Christendom. Their
valour and ferocity had made them conspicuous among the rovers
whom Scandinavia had sent forth to ravage Western Europe. Their
sails were long the terror of both coasts of the Channel. Their
arms were repeatedly carried far into the heart of: the
Carlovingian empire, and were victorious under the walls of
Maestricht and Paris. At length one of the feeble heirs of
Charlemagne ceded to the strangers a fertile province, watered by
a noble river, and contiguous to the sea which was their
favourite element. In that province they founded a mighty state,
which gradually extended its influence over the neighbouring
principalities of Britanny and Maine. Without laying aside that
dauntless valour which had been the terror of every land from the
Elbe to the Pyrenees, the Normans rapidly acquired all, and more
than all, the knowledge and refinement which they found in the
country where they settled. Their courage secured their territory
against foreign invasion. They established internal order, such
as had long been unknown in the Frank empire. They embraced