The winter wore and the summer came: and Eadward still ruled the land in peace. But about hay-harvest there were rumours, at which Swein nodded to his wife as one who says “You see I was right.” And when haytime was well passed, came people from over the fell bidding him to a meeting at Ulfar’s Lund.

Now this Ulfar, of whom we spoke before, had land on the brink of the fells where they met the low country, about an hour’s journey to the southward of Greenodd. He was an old man, and he had been a chieftain formerly, and was a man of worth even now, and a stickler for old times and the old laws.

Near his “town” (as we still call hereabouts any cluster of dwellings though it be nothing like a city) and between it and the waterside, there was a broad mound, not so high, but standing by itself: from which could be seen a great ring of country all around: across the firth, Cark and Cartmel way, and all the Sandgate, that is the road across the sands of Leven, and whosoever was coming and going, for good or ill: and down the coast to Conishead, that was the king’s seat, where the York kings had their folk to take tax of the iron-workers and mines: and then again westward to Pennington, where the Pennings lived.

They were an ancient family of English kin long ago settled there, and busied chiefly in getting red iron ore out of the iron pits on their land, and smelting it and forging it. They were great smiths, and used charcoal in their furnaces or bloomeries as we call these old works. The charcoal was got from the woods that in old times covered all the country: but by now these Pennings and their people had cleared a deal of ground: there was the Swartmoor between their town and the old road, called so, no doubt, from the cutting and coaling that had gone to clear it. And so much iron they smelted and forged into weapons and tools, pots and pans, and iron-ware of all sorts, that they were glad to sell it to the merchants who came in ships up the firth. When Ulfar came, at first they were angry, and fought with him: but when they found that for all their smith’s cunning they could never give him the smith’s stroke, as the saying is, they came round to the mind of king Donal’s counsellors that Ketel told of. They made peace with Ulfar, and found that he was an honest man and abiding by his word. When he offered to take their ironmongery and sell it for them, better than the cowpers who had come before, they were glad of it, and did all the brisker business in his company: and in the end they settled down into good neighbours and friends.

When the Northmen came into Hougun, that is the country we call Furness, beside the Pennings they found a few English and some Welsh here and there. There were Welsh in the low land over against Walney, and Rhos they called the meadow-land thereabouts. There were already villages between that and Dalton and up to Broughton on the Duddon, and churches there, and priests, no doubt; but such as heard little of any English bishops, or what we should call government whether of church or state. Across at Cartmel the land and all the Welsh that were on it had long ago been given to York Minster; but Furness was a bit of that broad debatable ground over which the tide of invasion flowed from age to age and ebbed back again, just like the sea upon Morecambe shores. As time went on, here a piece of sand was fully reclaimed, and there a piece of land was swallowed up by the tide. So that it is hopeless now to seek the true boundaries either of the people or of the place so many years ago: we can only pick out here and there an English or a Welsh name among the Norse.

But when the Northmen came they took the snuggest places for shelter and for safety, as we said, from the great fleets of Harald and Alfred. They always wanted a good landing spot for their flat-bottomed boats, so that when summer came, between sheep-shearing and corn harvest, they might make use of their spare time by pushing out to sea and doing a little quiet trade, or may be at times you might call it “raid,” up and down the coasts of the Irish Sea. And so they went on farming and seafaring, turn about, and picked up a better living the harder they worked at both.

Beside Ulfar there settled others of the Northmen along the coast. There would have been Raven at the south point of Foreness, from whom we call Rampside and Ramsey. Beyond Barr-ey, that is Barley island there is Orm’s Gill, and round about it the villages into which his folk spread; Hawcott, the high cottage; Sowerby, the muddy farm; Sandscale, the shed by the sand; and so forth. Then up the Duddonfirth there is Roanhead, that is to say the headland with the grove of trees, at one end of the Roman road that goes by Dalton and Lindal to Conishead and Bardsea, which again is, in the language of the Northmen, as recorded in king William’s Domesday-book, Barehead’s-edge, and doubtless a place of ancient inhabitation. Then, up the Duddon again, there is Dunnerholm—the wild ducks’ islet, a fine spot for a stronghold; and opposite to it Mealholm, Sandy isle, where in after times Millom castle was built. A little higher is Arnold’s-by and Wolveswater, or Ulfa, as they called the river Duddon, and round about them many a Norse thwaite.

After a while, from these first settlements on the coast, land was taken up inbank by the families and followers of the first viking settlers. Around Ulfar’s town there were Rolf’s seat, and Asmund’s lea, and Hauk’s vale, and Máni’s riggs. In the lower land across the Swarthmoor there is one Saxon spot, namely: Eadgar’s lyth, and outlying farms with Norse names such as Bolton, Stainton, Scales and Bousfield. Urswick, maybe means nothing but “stone walls” and Glassertun the beck town below; and on the coast hard by is Aldingham and its Motehill where some Saxon thane had dwelt in bygone times. Some say the Northmen afterwards used it for their Althing, and so gave it the name it keeps, though of this there is no other record than the ancient name Aldhingham, and the burial place of some Thing-priest of theirs hard by, at the Godi’s barrow.

Now you must have patience for a while to hear a word about these Motehills, and Things, and what was meant by a Godi.

Of all the Northmen in Furness our tale tells that Ulfar was the chief, both because he was a man of repute to begin with, and an early comer, and because he had got wealth from his trading and shipping iron to all parts. Being as we said a stickler for the old laws, Ulfar made a sacrificing place on that mound near his town among the trees that grew upon it. He set up an altar to worship Thor in that grove, and called it his Lund. To the feasts of the Lund he bade his neighbours; and they were glad to come, not only for the worship, and to be on good terms with the gods, but because there was a chance of meeting one another, and talking over their affairs. So many came and so long they stayed, as folk who had a good way to travel and were loth to return in a hurry, that around about the Lund they built booths to lodge in, and set up tents. Some brought wares to sell, and others started games and wrestling-matches: so that it was quite like a fair, at the great feasts after Yule and after sheep-shearing, and after corn-harvest, the seasons that stand for Ulverston fair to this day.

When anyone had a quarrel with his neighbour and there had been manslaughter or other misdoing, since there was no king to do justice they brought the case to Ulfar at one of these feasts, and he judged it according to the use and wont of the Northmen; so that Ulfar was called their Godi, or chief and priest. Over in Dunnerdale, folk would meet in the same manner at Folksfield which is named like the Folksdale by the Tynwald in Man; and in Kentdale Sigurd had his holy place at Sigurd’s Hörgr, the spot we now call Sizergh: and in every dale there was some meeting place of which we have for the most part either the name or the spot to point to.

After a while, the people from these little meeting-places or Things, as they called them, found reason why they must come together into greater meetings, or Althings. And they held the Althing first in one place and then in another: and last of all, if our guess tell truth, after the ravaging of Cumberland by King Ethelred when the men of the Morecambe coast were cut off from their kindred in the north, they shifted their meeting place southward, and used the Saxon Motehill for the Althing of Hougun, being fashioned to hand, and plain round about, and thereto the midmost spot for the Thingmen to come at within the borders of the king of England, in the country between the Cumberland fells and the Ribble, namely the district which was then known as Amounderness. But this is out of our tale.

Well, as summer was drawing on, Swein was bidden to a Lund feast: and took boat and landed at the Hummerside and went up to the Lund. There men were all talking of the new king, and what should be done about him. For Eadward was now dead and Athelstan his son reigned in his stead; a stirring man, and not one to let the fire smoulder under his feet. The news was that Sigtrygg of York—Sihtric he is called by the English—had marched out as soon as the old king was gone: but Athelstan was before-hand, and met him at Tamworth in the March, and there they made peace, and Athelstan gave Sigtrygg his sister Eathgita to wife, and confirmed him in his kingdom.

“And Ragnwald the viking, what of him?” asked Swein.

Nobody knew: some said he was gone to France, some said he was killed: anyway he was out of the road by this time, and Sigtrygg was now head king over all the Danelaw. These great kings being at peace there was no longer any chance of a rising: not that it mattered much to the Northmen hereabouts: but they were all good fighting men as well as good farmers and merchants. A summer without war was a season lost, to their way of thinking. So they went home again grumbling; and the next winter nothing happened, but that at Greenodd, Thorstein grew too big for his cradle, and began to walk and talk.