BRITAIN CONQUERED AGAIN
The conversion of Britain was followed by a Wave of Danes, accompanied by their sisters or _Sagas_, and led by such memorable warriors as Harold Falsetooth and Magnus the Great, who, landing correctly in Thanet, overran the country from right to left, with fire.[3] After this the Danes invented a law called the Danelaw, which easily proved that since there was nobody else left alive there, all the right-hand part of England belonged to them. The Danish Conquest was, however, undoubtedly a _Good Thing_, because although it made the Danes top nation for a time it was the cause of Alfred the Cake (and in any case they were beaten utterly _in the end_ by Nelson).
By this time the Saxons had all become very old like the Britons before them and were called _ealdormen_; when they had been defeated in a battle by the Danes they used to sing little songs to themselves such as the memorable fragment discovered in the Bodleian Library at Oxford:
OLD-SAXON FRAGMENT
Syng a song of Saxons In the Wapentake of Rye Four and twenty eaoldormen Two eaold to die....
_Anon._
The Danes, on the other hand, wrote a very defiant kind of Epic poetry, e.g.:
BEOLEOPARD
. .
OR
THE WITAN’S WHAIL
. .
Whan Cnut Cyng the Witan wold enfeoff Of infanthief and outfangthief Wonderlich were they enwraged And wordwar waged Sware Cnut great scot and lot Swingë wold ich this illbegotten lot.
Wroth was Cnut and wrothword spake. Well wold he win at wopantake. Fain wold he brakë frith and crackë heads And than they shold worshippe his redes.
Swingéd Cnut Cyng with swung sword Howléd Witanë hellë but hearkened his word Murië sang Cnut Cyng Outfangthief is Damgudthyng.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] And, according to certain obstinate historians, the Sword.