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settlers in his pay and on lands granted by him had
occupied it. The wild dales would not have afforded
comfortable quarters to men who had come for plunder,
and no place-names record Jóstein and Guthmund, as
might be expected, if two chiefs so noted had settled
there ; a "Godmond Hall" near Kendal is of much
later origin. We shall see reasons for dating the
Cumbrian settlement much earlier, and Olaf’s uncle
Jóstein, according to the saga, accompanied him home
and stood by him to the end.
In the year 1000 the troublesome host sailed to
Normandy. Æthelred took advantage of their absence
for his expedition to Cumberland, where already there
must have been a colony which threatened the peace
of the north. Some Vikings, however, were still in
the English service, chief of whom was Pallig, the
husband of King Svein’s sister Gunnhild. Æthelred
appears to have entertained some idea of forming a
permanent army, more efficient than the temporary
levies ; but the error lay in over-estimating the trustworthiness
of mercenaries who were tempted by
opportunities for plunder in the wealthy, easy-going
districts around them, and, as the sequel shows, were
treated with a want of confidence ending in the
atrocious massacre of St. Brice. Pallig’s men were
ill kept in hand ; there was plundering and fighting ;
the Saxons believed that they intended to kill the
king and the Witan and to seize the kingdom. The
Witan met and commissioned Leofsige, ealdorman of
Essex, to treat with the turbulent strangers. They
asked a subsidy of £24,000 ; but Leofsige himself, in
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