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Danelaw often served as a mere stepping-stone
between Norway and its offshoot in the northern
seas. Of the names of the original settlers of
Iceland which are recorded in the Landnama, its
Domesday book, more than a half are those of
men who had found an earlier settlement in the
British Isles. 1

At the moment we have reached, however, even
Ælfred's eye could hardly have discerned the weak-
ness of the Danelaw. It was with little of a con-
queror's exultation that the young king turned from
his victories in the west. He looked on the peace
he had won as a mere break in the struggle, and as
a break that might at any moment come suddenly
to an end. Even in the years of tranquillity which
followed it there never was an hour when he felt
safe against an inroad of the Danes over Watling
Street, or a landing of pirates in the Severn. Oh,
what a happy man was he!" he cries once, that
man that had a naked sword hanging over his head
from a single thread -- so as to me it always did!" 2
And yet peace was absolutely needful for the work
that lay before him. If the deliverance of Wessex
had shown the exhaustion of the Danes, Wessex
itself was as utterly spent by fifty years of contin-
uous effort, and above all by the last five years of

Ælfred's
work of
restoration.

____________________
1 Dasent, translation of Njal's Saga, Introd. p. xii. The most trust-
worthy accounts, such as that of the Landnamabok, of the first
settlements in Iceland show how mixed the population of the
British Islands then was. Besides the overwhelming numbers of
the Northmen, there are found men and women of Danish, Swed-
ish, and Flemish descent who joined in the emigration from Brit-
ain to Iceland. -- (A. S. G.)
2 Ælfred's Boethius, in Sharon Turner's Hist. Anglo-Sax. ii. 45.

-125-

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Publication Information: Book Title: The Conquest of England. Contributors: John Richard Green - author, Alice Stopford Green - author. Publisher: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1884. Page Number: 125.
    
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