There were continually fleets of Danish ships coming to England; and the son of Edgar, whose name was Ethelred, was a helpless, cowardly sort of man, so slow and tardy, that his people called him Ethelred the Unready.  Instead of fitting out ships to fight against the Danes, he took the money the ships ought to have cost to pay them to go away without plundering; and as to those who had come into the country without his leave, he called them his guard, took them into his pay, and let them live in the houses of the English, where they were very rude, and gave themselves great airs, making the English feed them on all their best meat, and bread, and beer, and always call them Lord Danes.  He made friends himself with the Northmen, or Normans, who had settled in France, and married Emma, the daughter of their duke; but none of his plans prospered:  things grew worse and worse, and his mind and his people’s grew so bitter against the Danes, that at last it was agreed that all over the South of England every Englishman should rise up in one night and murder the Dane who lodged in his house.

Among those Danes who were thus wickedly killed was the sister of the King of Denmark.  Of course he was furious when he heard of it, and came over to England determined to punish the cruel, treacherous king and people, and take the whole island for his own.  He did punish the people, killing, burning, and plundering wherever he went; but he could never get the king into his hands, for Ethelred went off in the height of the danger to Normandy, where he had before sent his wife Emma, and her children, leaving his eldest son( child of his first wife), Edmund Ironside, to fight for the kingdom as best he might.

The King of Denmark died in the midst of his English war; but his son Cnut went on with the conquest he had begun, and before long Ethelred, the Unready died, and Edmund Ironside was murdered, and Cnut became King of England, as well as of Denmark.  He became a Christian, and married Emma, Ethelred’s widow, though she was much older than himself.  He had been a hard and cruel man, but he now laid aside his evil ways, and became a noble and wise and just king, a lover of churches and good men; and the English seem to have been as well off under him as if he had been one of their own kings.  There is no king of whom more pleasant stories are told.  One is of his wanting to go to church at Ely Abbey one cold Candlemas Day.  Ely was on a hill in the middle of a great marsh.  The marsh was frozen over; not strong enough to bear, and they all stood looking at it.  Then out stepped a stout countryman, who was so fat, that his nickname was The Pudding.  “Are you all afraid?” he said.  “I will go over at once before the king.”  “Will you,” said the king, “then I will come after you, for whatever bears you will bear me.”  Cnut was a little, slight man, and he got easily over, and Pudding got a piece of land for his reward.