But Wittekind came not. He had taken refuge at the court of
Siegfried, the pagan king of the Danes, where he waited an opportunity
to strike a new blow for liberty.
Not content with their pledges and promises, the conqueror sought to win
over his new subjects by converting them to Christianity in the
wholesale way in which this work was then usually performed. The Saxons
were baptized in large numbers, the proselyting method pursued being, as
we are told, that all prisoners of war _must_ be baptized, while of the
others all who were reasonable _would_ be baptized, and the inveterately
unreasonable might be _bribed_ to be baptized. Doubtless, as a historian
remarks, the Saxons found baptism a cool, cleanly, and agreeable
ceremony, while their immersion in the water had little effect in
washing out their old ideas and washing in new ones.
The exigencies of war in his vast empire now called Charlemagne to
Spain, where the Arabs had become troublesome and needed chastisement.
Not far had he marched away when Wittekind was again in Saxony, passing
from tribe to tribe through the forests of the land, and with fiery
eloquence calling upon his countrymen to rise against the invaders and
regain the freedom of which they had been deprived.
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