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MINING IN THE

CHAP. X.

Normen, rather than have their dominions laidwaste by the extension of their rapine. Thus,as early as the year 845, a fleet of Danes orNorwegians sailed up the Seine to Paris , whenCharles the Bold was induced to pay them four-teen thousand marcs of gold; which, says Vol-taire in his General History of Europe, only em-boldened them the more. In England, duringthe reign of Ethelred , a bribe of ten thousandpounds was paid to the Danes to induce themto desist from an invasion and to depart thekingdom; and a few years later that king paidto Sweyn and Olave, who had established them-selves at Southampton, sixteen thousand poundson condition of their leaving the kingdom.About ten years afterwards the same princepurchased another temporary peace at the ex-pense of thirty thousand pounds, and at the endof the next four years renewed the vain attemptby a tribute of forty-eight thousand pounds.This last payment was followed twelve yearslater by a transfer of the crown of England toCanute the Dane.

Another mode by which these sea kings, asthey are called by their own countrymen, ob-tained the precious metals, or at least gold, isdescribed by Adam of Bremen , who about theyear 1080 wrote his work “ De Situ Dance, etReliquarum septentrionalium Regionum.” Thatauthor, without taking any notice of Copenhagen ,