permanent quarters on the Rhine, the Scheldt, the Somme, the Seine, the Loire and the Garonne, prominent among their leaders being one Berno, or Björn Jarnsíða (Ironside), another son of Ragnarr Loðbrók. A curious light is thrown on the effect of these raids upon the peasantry by an incident in 859, when we hear of a rising of the populace between the Seine and the Loire in the hope of expelling the Danes. The annals are not quite clear as to whether it was the Frankish nobles or the Danes who crushed the rising, but the outbreak indicates dissatisfaction with the half-hearted defence of the country by the nobility.
In the years 859-862 a second great expedition to Spain and the Mediterranean took place. Sailing from the Seine under the leadership of Björn Jarnsíða and Hasting (O.N. Hásteinn), they made an unsuccessful attack on Galicia and sailed round the coast through the straits of Gibraltar. They attacked Nekur on the coast of Morocco. There was fierce fighting with the Moors but in the end the Vikings were victorious, and many of the "Blue-men," as they called the Moors, were ultimately carried off prisoners to Ireland, where we hear of their fate in the Fragments of Irish Annals. Returning to Spain they landed at Murcia and proceeded thence to the Balearic Islands. Ravaging these they made their way north to the French border, landed in Roussillon, and advanced inland as far as Arles-sur-Tech. Taking to their ships, they sailed north along the coast to the mouth of the Rhone and spent the winter on the Island of Camargue in the Rhone delta. Plundering the old Roman cities of Provence, they went up the Rhone as far as Valence. In the spring they sailed to Italy, where they captured several towns including Pisa and Luna, at the mouth of the Magra, south of the bay of Spezia. The conquest of Luna was famed both in Norman and Scandinavian tradition. It is represented as the crowning feat of the sons of Ragnarr Loðbrók, who captured it under the delusion that they had reached Rome itself. From Luna they sailed back through the straits of Gibraltar and finally returned to Brittany in the spring of 862. The Vikings had now all but encircled Europe with their raids, for it was in the year 865 that the Swedish Rós (Russians) laid siege to Constantinople.
In France itself the tide began to turn by the end of 865. In November of that year the Vikings finally abandoned Aquitaine, and in the next year the Seine was for a time left free. The tide had now set towards England, and at the same time the Franks commenced fortifying their towns against Viking attack, a policy which was pursued a little later by Edward the Elder in England. For our knowledge of this period we have to rely almost entirely upon the chronicles of various monastic writers compiling their records in isolation from one another, so that it is almost impossible to trace any definite or general design in Viking attacks. The leaders change continually and almost the only constant figure is that Roric, brother of Harold, who was settled in
