though the craft were gathered together, yet in the end, as the
Chronicle plaintively puts it, "neither ship fyrd nor land fyrd wrought
anything save toil for the folk, and the emboldening of their foes."

[1] See Mr. York-Powell's "Scandinavian Britain."

So, year after year, the endless invasion dragged on its course, and
everywhere each shire of Wessex fought for itself against such enemies
as happened to attack it. At last, in the year 1002, Æthelred once more
bought off the fleet, this time with 24,000 pounds; and some of the
Danes obtained leave to settle down in Wessex. But on St. Brice's day,
the king treacherously gave orders that all Danes in the immediate
English territory should be massacred. The West Saxons rose on the
appointed night, and slew every one of them, including Gunhild, the
sister of King Swegen, and a Christian convert. It was a foolhardy
attempt. Swegen fell at once upon Wessex, and marched up and down the
whole country, for two years. He burnt Wilton and Sarum, and then sailed
round to Norwich, where Ulfkytel, of East Anglia, gave him "the hardest
hand-play" that he had ever known in England. A year of famine
intervened; but in 1006 Swegen returned again, harrying and burning
Sandwich. All autumn the West Saxon fyrd waited for the enemy, but in
the end "it came to naught more than it had oft erst done." The host
took up quarters in Wight, marched across Hants and Berks to Reading,
and burned Wallingford. Thence they returned with their booty to the
fleet, by the very walls of the royal city. "There might the Winchester
folk behold an insolent host and fearless wend past their gate to sea."
The king himself had fled into Shropshire. The tone of utter despair
with which the Chronicle narrates all these events is the best measure
of the national degradation. "There was so muckle awe of the host," says
the annalist, "that no man could think how man could drive them from