Quotes About Danes

King Alfred's dream was turning into reality. I am old enough to remember a time when the Danes ruled almost all of what is now England. They captured Northumbria, took East Anglia, and occupied all of Mercia. Guthrum the Dane had then invaded Wessex, driving Alfred and a handful of men into the marshes of Sumorsæte, but Alfred had won the unlikely victory at Ethandun, and ever since the Saxons had inexorably worked their way northwards.

understand, and then, of course, the Danes had come, and they tore the churches apart to steal the silver from the altars. I remember Ragnar laughing one day. "It is so kind of the Christians! They put their wealth

There, ahead of me, was the enemy. I love the Danes. There are no better men to fight with, drink with, laugh with or live with. Yet that day, as on so many others of my life, they were the enemy and they waited for me in a gigantic shield wall arrayed across the down. There were thousands of Danes, Spear-Danes and Sword-Danes, Danes who had come to make this land theirs, and we had come to keep it ours.

to." "And only have one wife?" "Only one wife. They're strict about that." He thought about it. "I still think I should do it," he said, "because Eadred's god does have power. Look at that dead man! It's a miracle that he hasn't rotted away!" The Danes were fascinated by Eadred's relics. Most did not understand why a group of monks would carry a corpse

You'd do better to repair the fort walls,' I said. 'You think the Danes will come again, lord?' he asked nervously. 'The Danes always come again.

They were Danes, which meant they were planning mischief.

The barbarian invasion put an end, for six centuries, to the civilization of western Europe. It lingered in Ireland until the Danes destroyed it in the ninth century;

All of the Nordic countries have high levels of trust, but the Danes are the most trusting people on the planet. In a 2011 survey by the OECD, 88.3 percent of Danes expressed a high level of trust in others, more than any other nationality (the next places on the list were filled by Norway, Finland, and Sweden, respectively, and the United States was way down in twenty-first place out of thirty countries surveyed).

Proper, deep, enduring joy usually requires a remarkable facility for denial, something which the Danes have in spades.

The Danes are so full of joie de vivre that they practically sweat it. In a corner of Europe where the inhabitants have the most blunted concept of pleasure (in Norway, three people and a bottle of beer is a party; in Sweden, the national sport is suicide), the Danes' relaxed attitude to life is not so much refreshing as astonishing.

85 percent of the 30,000 Anglo-Saxon words died out under the influence of the Danes and Normans. That means that only about 4,500 Old English words survived—about 1 percent of the total number of words in the Oxford English Dictionary. And yet those surviving words are among the most fundamental words in English: man, wife, child, brother, sister, live, fight, love, drink, sleep, eat, house, and so on.

What the Danes left in Ireland were hens and weasels. And when the cock crows in the morning, the country people will always say 'It is for Denmark they are crowing. Crowing they are to be back in Denmark.'

It is true that some liberals and humanists, along with the laid-back Danes, deny the existence of evil. This is largely because they regard the word 'evil' as a device for demonising those who are really nothing more than socially unfortunate.

Danes are blunt and direct and trusting and secure

The Danes, I've noticed, love an emoticon, especially to dilute the impact after saying something that could be construed as confrontational, critical or rude.

At a time when most countries are reneging on their environmental promises, Danes are setting themselves tougher and tougher targets, and they're on course to meet them.

These Danes have always been a very froward people. Do you know, Jack, what they did at Clonmacnois? They burnt it, the thieves, and their queen sat on the high altar mother-naked, uttering oracles in a heathen frenzy. Ota was the strumpet's name. It is all of a piece: look at Hamlet's mother. I only wonder her behaviour caused any comment.

Alfred had returned with one purpose – to confront and destroy the Danes who were occupying his kingdom

No songs, no scops, no searing meat, no blazing fire. And Grendel, incomplete, raided relentlessly. Dude, this was what they call a blood feud, a war 150 that tore a hole through the hearts of the Danes. Grendel was broken, and would not brook peace, desist in dealing deaths, or die himself. He had no use for stealth—he came near-nightly, and never negotiated. The old counselors knew better than to expect a settlement in silver from him.

For twelve snow-seasons, Grendel reigned over evening...Grendel, incomplete, raided relentlessly. Dude, this was what they call a blood feud, a war that tore a hole through the hearts of the Danes. Grendel was broken, and would not brook peace, desist in dealing deaths, or die himself..So it went for years... While in the dark his people shuddered, salt-scourged by weeping, by nights spent waking instead of sleeping.

Parochialism remains the Danes' defining characteristic, but their radically recalibrated sense of identity and national pride has created a curious duality best described as a kind of "humble pride," though many often mistake it for smugness.