often plundered there, when the power of the land was out of their hands. Many names of places in the country are Norwegian; as Grimsby[1], Haukfliot, and many others.
Chapter IV.
Eric's death.
King Eric had many people about him, for he kept many Northmen who had come with him from the East; and also many of his friends had joined him from Norway. But as he had little land, he went on a cruise every summer, and plundered in Shetland, the Hebrides, Iceland, and Bretland, by which he gathered property. King Athelstan died on a sick bed, after a reign of fourteen years, eight weeks, and three days.[2] After him his brother Jatmund[3] was king of England, and he was no friend to the Northmen. King Eric, also, was in no great favour with him; and the word went about that King Edmund would set another chief over Northumberland. Now when King Eric heard this, he set off on a viking cruise to the westward; and from the Orkneys took with him the Earls Arnkel and Erlend, the sons of Earl TorfEinar. Then he sailed to the. Hebrides, where there were many vikings and troop-kings, who joined their men to his. With all this force he steered to Ireland first, where he took with him all the men he could, and then to Bretland, and plum dered; and sailed thereafter south to England[4], and marauded there as elsewhere. The people fled before him wherever he appeared. As King Eric was a bold warrior, and had a great force, he trusted so
- ↑ Grimsbæ is no doubt Grimsby. Haukfliot is not now the name of any place known generally.
- ↑ According to the Saxon Chronicle, Athelstan died in the year 941, after a reign of fourteen years and ten weeks. Florence of Whitehorn, who lived about the year 1110, places his death in 940, after a reign of sixteen years.
- ↑ Jatmund, Edmund, Eadmund, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,—a difference in pronunciation of the same name.
- ↑ England is applied to the parts occupied by the Anglo-Saxons, and Bretland to the parts occupied by the Welsh and ancient Britons.
