Anglo-Saxon kingdoms called Mercia, the inhabitants of the country not
being able to oppose any effectual obstacle to their marauding march.
Finally, a great Anglo-Saxon force was organized and brought out to
meet them. The battle was fought in a forest of oaks, and the Danes
were defeated. The victory, however, afforded the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
only a temporary relief. New hordes were continually arriving and
landing, growing more and more bold if they met with success, and but
little daunted or discouraged by temporary failures.

The most formidable of all these expeditions was one organized and
commanded by the sons and relatives of Ragnar, whom, it will be
recollected, the Saxons had cruelly killed by poisonous serpents in
a dungeon or den. The relatives of the unhappy chieftain thus
barbarously executed were animated in their enterprise by the double
stimulus of love of plunder and a ferocious thirst for revenge. A
considerable time was spent in collecting a large fleet, and in
combining, for this purpose, as many chieftains as could be induced to
share in the enterprise. The story of their fellow-countryman expiring
under the stings of adders and scorpions, while his tormentors were
exulting around him over the cruel agonies which their ingenuity
had devised, aroused them to a phrensy of hatred and revenge. They
proceeded, however, very deliberately in their plans. They did nothing
hastily. They allowed ample time for the assembling and organizing
of the confederation. When all was ready, they found that there were
eight kings and twenty earls in the alliance, generally the relatives
and comrades of Ragnar. The two most prominent of these commanders
were Guthrum and Hubba. Hubba was one of Ragnar's sons. At length,
toward the close of the summer, the formidable expedition set sail.
They approached the English coast, and landed without meeting with any
resistance. The Saxons seemed appalled and paralyzed at the greatness