This exploit, of course, gave Ragnar Lodbrog’s barbarous name a very wide celebrity.  It tended, too, greatly to increase and establish his power.  He afterward made similar incursions into Spain, and finally grew bold enough to brave the Anglo-Saxons themselves on the green island of Britain, as the Anglo-Saxons had themselves braved the aboriginal inhabitants two or three centuries before.  But Ragnar seems to have found the Anglo-Saxon swords and spears which he advanced to encounter on landing in England much more formidable than those which were raised against him on the southern side of the Channel.  He was destroyed in the contest.  The circumstances were as follows: 

In making his preparations for a descent upon the English coast, he prepared for a very determined contest, knowing well the character of the foes with whom he would have now to deal.  He built two enormous ships, much larger than those of the ordinary size, and armed and equipped them in the most perfect manner.  He filled them with selected men, and sailing down along the coast of Scotland, he watched for a place and an opportunity to land.  Winds and storms are almost always raging among the dark and gloomy mountains and islands of Scotland.  Ragnar’s ships were caught on one of these gales and driven on shore.  The ships were lost, but the men escaped to the land.  Ragnar, nothing daunted, organized and marshaled them as an army, and marched into the interior to attack any force which might appear against them.  His course led him to Northumbria, the most northerly Saxon kingdom.  Here he soon encountered a very large and superior force, under the command of Ella, the king; but, with the reckless desperation which so strongly marked his character, he advanced to attack them.  Three times, it is said, he pierced the enemy’s lines, cutting his way entirely through them with his little column.  He was, however, at length overpowered.  His men were cut to pieces, and he was himself taken prisoner.  We regret to have to add that our cruel ancestors put their captive to death in a very barbarous manner.  They filled a den with poisonous snakes, and then drove the wretched Ragnar into it.  The horrid reptiles killed him with their stings.  It was Ella, the king of Northumbria, who ordered and directed this punishment.

The expedition of Ragnar thus ended without leading to any permanent results in Anglo-Saxon history.  It is, however, memorable as the first of a series of invasions from the Danes—­or Northmen, as they are sometimes called, since they came from all the coasts of the Baltic and German Seas—­which, in the end, gave the Anglo-Saxons infinite trouble.  At one time, in fact, the conquests of the Danes threatened to root out and destroy the Anglo-Saxon power from the island altogether.  They would probably have actually effected this, had the nation not been saved by the prudence, the courage, the sagacity, and the consummate skill of the subject of this history, as will fully appear to the reader in the course of future chapters.