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EARLY BRITAIN
SCANDINAVIAN
BRITAIN
BY
W. G. COLLINGWOOD, M.A., F.S.A.
PROFESSOR OF FINE ART, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, READING
EDITOR TO THE CUMBERLAND AND
WESTMORLAND ANTIQUARIAN AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
WITH CHAPTERS INTRODUCTORY TO THE
SUBJECT BY
THE LATE F. YORK POWELL, M.A.
SOMETIME REGIUS PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
WITH MAP
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, \V.C. ; 43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.G.
[BRIGHTON: 129, NORTH STREET
NEW YORK: E. S. GORHAM
1908
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE GENERAL
LITERATURE COMMITTEE
3 A
CONTENTS
CHAPTERS INTRODUCTORY BY THE LATE PRO-
FESSOR YORK POWELL-
PAGE
I. MATERIALS 7
II. MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES . .* 12
III. THE WICKING FLEETS .... 28
SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
I. THE EARLIEST RAIDS .... 43
II. THE DANELAW 82
1. THE AGE OF ALFRED .... 82
2. EAST ANGLIA IOI
3. THE FIVE BOROUGHS . . . . IO8
4. THE KINGDOM OF YORK . . . 119
5. SVEIN AND KNUT 144
6. THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW . 1 67
III. THE NORSE SETTLEMENTS . . . .182
1. WALES 183
2. CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE . . . IQI
3. CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND . 2O2
4. DUMFRIESSHIRE AND GALLOWAY . .221
5. MAN AND THE ISLES .... 226
6. THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY . . .244
INDEX 265
MAP OF SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN . To face Title
PREFATORY NOTE
IN the part of this work for which I am responsible, that is
to say from page 43 onward, kind assistance in proof-reading
has been given by the Rev. Edmund McClure, Secretary to
the S.P.C.K., and by Mr. Albany F. Major, Editor (o the
Viking Club. The chapters on Northumbria (pp. 119-181)
have been read by Mr. William Brown, F.S. A., and the chapter
on Orkney by Mr. Alfred W. Johnston, F.S. A. Scot., Editor
of Orkney and Shetland Old Lore.
W. G. C.
SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS
By the late Professor York Powell
I. MATERIALS
Libros ipsos relegi quorum quamvis verba non reciio sensus
tamen et res actas credo me integre retinere. JORD., De
Get., Pro!.
THE last great wave of Teutonic Migration (before
the discovery of America), is that by which great
parts of the British Islands and Gaul were conquered
and settled by new-comers from the Scandinavian
peninsulas. It is with the part of this movement which
concerns Britain, that this little book will briefly deal.
The results of this Migration are great enough to
justify our spending some little time and trouble upon
its history, for our population, our laws, and our
language still show clear proofs of its influence, and
among the several circumstances that have dis-
tinguished the history of our own country from that
of other parts of West Europe, the incoming of the
Northmen cannot be held the least.
8 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
It will be well before speaking of this movement,
its causes, progress, and effects, to give some account
of the chief sources upon which our knowledge of it
must be based. The sources are of twofold origin,
springing from books or from things. The latter com-
prise all the facts and ideas that can be drawn from
physical geography, from archaeologic discoveries,
and from numismatics. The former, our written
authorities, may be grouped under the heads of
British, Scandinavian , and Continental.
Under the first heading come the Old English
Chronicle by various anonymous authors, in its various
MSS., vernacular and Latin, ranging over nearly three
centuries, of the highest importance, as the work of
truthful contemporaries ; the different references by
Old English authors, from King Alfred to Bishop
Wulfstan, to historical events of their days, and
several poems. To these we must add several lives of
saints, in Latin or English, and that vast collection
of deeds and records that makes up our Old English
Diplomatarium, a mine of information on places and
persons during the ninth and tenth centuries.
Next come the careful and accurate Irish chronicles,
especially Tighernach's Annales, the compiled Annals
of Inisf alien > Chronicon Scotorum, and the compilation
known as the Annals of the Four Masters, which
gives us an orderly mass of facts not found elsewhere,
and are of main use in fixing the difficult chronology
of the periods they cover.
The list of British authorities is concluded by the
Welsh chronicles, especially the Brut y Tywysogion
MATERIALS 9
and Annales Cambria, and by stray facts and names
from other Welsh sources. To these must be added
the Latin Chronicle of Man.
First at the head of Scandinavian authorities stands
Are the historian, whose works the Book of the
Settlements in Iceland^ the Libellus Islandorum (a
sketch of early Icelandic history), and Book of the
Kings of Norway (which we have as edited by Snorre
Sturlason in the thirteenth century), with many
memoranda from other of his writings no longer
extant give the best and fullest information on the
condition of heathen Norway, and on the fortunes
and deeds of such of the emigrants therefrom, as
finally, after years of foray and conquest in the British
Islands, passed on to the new-found and uninhabited
shores of the Faroes, Iceland, and Greenland. The
history of King Half and some of the family Sagas of
Iceland, give what is probably independent informa-
tion. But on this side we should get an incomplete
notion of those wickings, or sea-rovers, whose exploits
helped to make our history, without the help of the
so-called Eddie poems, a series of epic and dramatic
lays, chiefly of the ninth and tenth centuries, many
of which were, we may confidently hold, composed
within the four seas, and no doubt reflect accurately
the spirit of the very men that first made and heard
them, the conquering Scandinavian settlers in Great
Britain or Gaul. Among these there are found in the
MS. that has luckily preserved much of them to us, a
poem or two, the earliest, that we may ascribe to the
1 See Origines Islandias, Vigfusson and Powell [1906].
10 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
generation before the exodus in old, sturdy, practical,
heathen Norway ; and also one or two, the latest,
that are Christian, and mirror for us the feelings
with which a Northern convert of the Celtic Church
regarded the common but absorbing problems of
life, and death, and the hereafter. A few poems
relating to actual historical events have also survived,
more or less completely embedded in the Lives of
kings or heroes, such as the Lay of the Darts, trans-
lated by our Gray ; the praise and the dirge of Eiric
Blood-axe, twice King of York ; and the Raven song
on Harold Fairhair.
These compositions are all in the old Northern
tongue, but in Adam of Bremen, and his like, there
are Latin accounts of Scandinavian affairs based on
vernacular and other sources ; and Saxo the Long,
the Danish monk, has in a remarkable work, which
for plan and treatment reminds one of our Geoffrey
of Monmouth, preserved many interesting facts and
traditions, often drawn from works and poems now
lost, but furnished to him in great part by Arnold
the poet, a travelled Icelander, his contemporary at
Waldemar's Court.
The chief Continental authorities are early Latin
chronicles by Saxons, and Franks, and Aquitanians, and
contemporary notices of the Spanish- Arabic historians.
Of the many scholars that in modern days have dealt
with the analysis and synthesis of these documents
reading, appreciating, and digesting them, and giving
their results to the public the most useful are the
Norwegian, Munch, whose keen geographic instinct
MATERIALS II
and vast industry served him well ; the Dane,
Steenstrup, whose scientific method and trained skill
and patience have helped him to unravel many an
enigma that puzzled his predecessors; Freeman, the
Englishman, who has taught a generation of his
countrymen the way to learn what may be learnt
from the past ; and the Icelander, Gudbrand Vigfusson,
who, possessing an unrivalled knowledge of Icelandic
MSS., and giving unflinching devotion to his work,
has been able in every branch of old Northern
learning, from chronology to metric, to do more to
advance our knowledge of this great Scandinavian
exodus than any man of his time.
Among other historical workers who have attacked
various sides of the subject, and who should justly
be referred to here, are Dr. Jessen, Dr. Storm, Mr.
[Sir H.] Howorth, the historian of the Mongols, and
J. R. Green, who gave the last few hours of his short life
to an eager and undaunted study of the subject which
he never lived to complete, but which remains as a
piece of suggestive, if necessarily imperfect work.
Such being the materials upon which this little
book is based, it remains to fix its scope and aims.
Beginning with a sketch of the conditions amid
which the migrations took place, and an endeavour
to grasp their character and origin, it will then
seek if possible to follow the several phases and
phenomena of the various migrations and settlements
that affected the British Islands, and finally try to
weigh the results and effects of those settlements.
12 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
II. MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES
Ex hac igitur Scandza insula quasi officina gentium aut certe
velut vagina nationum . . . quondam memorantur egressi.
JORDANIS, De Get., cap. 4.
EVER since we have any historic record of its
existence, we are told by successive historians and
poets how the Scandinavian peninsula sent forth
swarm after swarm of its pure-blooded, tall, fair-
haired, white-skinned children, southward over the
Baltic, to seek warmer and more fertile homes.
These migrations followed two main routes in early
times, the East way and the South way. Over the
East way went the Goths, by Wilna along the broad
river-plains to Uampa-stead (as they called Kiev),
around which Giberic and Ermanaric built up the
first great Teutonic Empire. On the South way,
by the peninsula we now call Denmark, and up the
rivers that run into the North Sea, there had probably
passed tribe after tribe in migrations of which we
have no written record. In the fifth century a new
route seems to have been struck, the West way, and
from the beech-clad islands and sandy links of the
Danish peninsula, and the broad flat pastures about
the river mouths between Elbe and Rhine, there
sailed westward many a ship-load of armed emigrants
from the great tribal leagues, Eotish, English, and
Saxon. For they had heard the news that there
MOTHER- LAND AND PEOPLES 13
were new homes to be won in the weakly defended
Roman diocese, and already bands of sea-rovers from
among them had harried the coasts on their own
account
What time the Orkneys reeked with Saxon dead
CLAUDIAN.
or fought over the land in the service of the hard-
pressed rulers of Britain. So all along the " Saxonic
shore," from the reedy broads south of the Wash to the
sandy dunes about the Humber mouth, and further
north up to the " Frisic Sea," the Firth of Forth, and
further west into the breaks of the Southdowns, up
the Belgic plain between the marshes and the wood,
into the fat meadow-lands of the Bajocasses and on
the warm Islands of the Channel Vectis and Caesarea
and the rest, they came and settled with their wives,
and children, and cattle, and set up new states and
flourished exceedingly.
For three centuries after this there seems to have
been no further emigration east, south, or west. All
we hear from Northern tradition has to do with the
struggles and feuds of Swedes, Goths, and Danes,
round and over the Scandian peninsula. The fifth
century is accounted for by the epic cycle of Ingiald,
whom Alcuinus spurns as a heathen hero, and of
Beowolf; the sixth is covered by the exploits of
Hrodwolf Grace and his kinsmen and champions ;
while the mighty deeds of Ingwar Widefathom remain
from the end of the seventh century, ending with the
never forgotten fight of Bravalla, won by Sigfred Ring
14 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
over Harold War-tooth, in the eighth century, a suc-
cession of efforts, in fact, on the part of vigorous
kings to raise an empire, such as Ermanaric had set
up and ruled over for so many glorious years. These
efforts to bring the three great peoples under one
head failed, but for three centuries they seemed to
have absorbed the energies of the Scandinavian
folk.
The end of the eighth century saw the renewal
of the migrations from the north. Eastward went
Ruric and Olga, to found the realm of Holm -garth
or Garth-ric, with Newgarth (the Russian Nov-gorod)
and Kiev for their capitals, pushing whence south-
ward they brought their ships up to besiege the walls
of Mickle-garth itself, that New Rome, which was the
richest, most populous, and mightiest city of the
whole world. But with their fortunes we have not to
do here. Southward^ the great confederacies, Frisian,
Saxon, and Frankish, were, though hard put to it no
doubt, yet strong enough to repulse any fresh settlers
from the North.
The West way was still open, and over it there
sailed fleet after fleet for 220 years. This western
movement is made up of two distinguishable streams
of migration ; one, mainly Danish, starting from the
Wick and from the Gothic coast, and Danish isles
and headlands, and creeping down the Frisian coast
to the Rhine delta ; then roving to the East English
land, or up the Thames mouth to the East Saxon or
Kentish shores, or passing on down Channel attacking
the fruitful and open country on either side, occupying
MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 15
the islands as depots and arsenals ; thence pushing
on to Ireland or rounding the Cornish peninsula, to
make the British Channel or the South Welsh havens ;
or weathering the rocky Breton headlands and trend-
ing southwards along the Frankish, Gascon, Spanish,
and Moorish shores.
The fleets that took this route were mainly Danes
and Gotas, and their leaders of Danish blood, and
they followed the path by which their predecessors,
the Saxons, Angles, and Eotes, had come three cen-
turies earlier, only going further because they did not
find such an easy prey.
The second stream of migration, that followed by
the Northmen^ was a new one. Its fountain head is
the deep firths of the west coast of Norway, whence
it crosses to the Isles of the Caledonians and Picts
(Shetland, Orkney, and Pentland coasts), whence it
turns south to Fife, and as far as the Northumbrian
and Lincoln lands j or curving round through the
Hebrides into the Sea of Man, touches that island
and all the fair coasts, Pictish, Irish, and British, that
lie about it ; thence south, lapping the west and south
of Ireland.
From the Northmen's settlements in our own islands
there later went forth on new ventures, to unpeopled
and dimly known lands, many venturous souls, over
the Haaf (the Atlantic) by way of the Sheep Islands
(Faroes) to Iceland, setting up prosperous colonies
where the feet of no man, save the Irish hermit, had
ever trod. Whence, again, bolder spirits still braved
the Arctic Sea, and established two settlements on the
J6 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
west coast of Greenland. The furthest bound of this
migration was reached when Icelanders and Green-
landers sailed down the polar current to Stoneland
and Wineland, along the desert, rockspread shores of
Labrador, to the fishing-grounds and forest-clad
havens of that vast estuary we call after St.
Lawrence.
To gather some explanation of the causes that
made possible such astonishing enterprise as this, we
must turn back to Norway. Aloof from the secular
struggles which created and welded the tribal con-
federacies of the Baltic shores, Danes, Swedes,
Wandals, Burgunds, Bards, and Goths, there were
growing up along the coast and in the upland dales
of the North way, in primitive isolated tribes,
Throwends, Reams, Aens, Neams, Haurds, Rugians,
Granes, Heins, Thules, and the like, each under their
own rulers, a hardy and vigorous race, woodmen,
shepherds, farmers, fishers, who had, by the end of
the eighth century, colonised the long and narrow
winding strip of soil between sea and glacier which
was called Haloga-land ; developed great and lucrative
fisheries, and the hunting of whales, seal, and walruses ;
opened out a fur trade with the Finns, and kept up
a half merchant, half piratical intercourse with the
Beormas of the White Sea round the cold North
Cape.
How admirable a training-ground nature had granted
these Northmen is clear when one looks at the map.
The west coast, that over against the British Islands
from Cape Start to the Naze, the Sailor's Naze,
MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 17
Lidhandesnes, is a succession of buttresses or limbs
of the central Doverfell backbone, stretching seawards
at right angles to it, and parted by sheer deep valleys
half filled with water running far up into the land ;
round these deep firths lie little scattered plots of
arable land, about the mouth of a stream or in a
combe of the hills ; above lie black woods, and on
the upper hill here and there pasture-slopes where
the cattle graze in the summer. Each of these firths
has a life of its own, its only outlet is the sea ; out-
side, clustered about the mouths of each firth and
its headlands, is a fringe of islands, large and small,
which farther north form a regular skerry or barrier-
reef such as our Hebrides, but here lie closer to land,
like Skye, and Mull, and Isla. In this part of Norway
there are three great inlets Sogn, belonging to the
Haurds; Hardanger, the HAURDS' Firth, with the
famous stations, Bergwin (Bergen), and Alrecstead
(Alrecsstad) on the coast ; and Staf anger, the Firth of
the RUGIANS, with Stafanger, Ogwaldsness, Out-stone
(Ut-stan) on its isles and coastlands, and the Goat's
Firth (Hafrs-Firth) just outside it.
The southern ness of Norway with its port, Qwin, and
the coast eastward halfway to the head of the Great
Wick, belongs to the Egda-folk, a division of the
Haurds. Next to them up to the top of the bay lies
Westmere, then the Land of the GRENS (which just
touches the Wick), and then Westfold, probably a
REAM settlement ; Sciringshall is its great port near
the great Most and above it lay the later Tunsberg.
Opposite Westfold comes Wingul-mark, with Sarpborg
B
1 8 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
for its chief place, and opposite the Egda-folk,
Ranrice j at the extremity of which, upon the Goth's
river, was an old border trysting-place of the Scandi-
navian kings. These are the lands that border the
Wick, east and west.
North of the Sogn firth come the Feles (Fialar) and
Firths, but past Cape Start, where the land turns and
runs north-east, we come to the northern land of the
REAMS, North and South Mere and Reamsdale, stretch-
ing up over two degrees of latitude. Through North
Mere pierces the great inland sea of the Throwends,
with its numerous creeks and headlands, such as
Agda-ness, Nith's oyce or Nidaros, Frosta the moot-
stead of the Throwends, each notable from some
event in Norwegian history. Down to this great
loch slope many deep and long dales, Orca-dale,
Gaula-dale, and others, from the upland hill-country
east and south.
North of Throwend-ham or Thrond-heim lies
Neam-dale with its coast station, Hrafnista, and, north
of that, Haloga-land's barren five degrees of latitude
stretch along by the sea, north-east, ending in West-
firth and the great islands that head the Skerry,
islands .only visited by Finnish fowlers, fishers or
huntsmen in those far-off days.
Such being the land, what manner of men dwelt
therein at the end of the eighth and the ninth century ?
All the evidence we have points one way, that along
the west coast there were growing up vigorous fishing
and coasting trades (those true nurseries for seamen
here as elsewhere, for example in Hellas and England).
MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 19
Our King Alfred's friend, Oht-here, a Haloga-lander, 1
tells of the fur-trade^ which depended mainly on the
yearly tribute from the Finns, each chief of that people
having to furnish 15 martin skins, i rein-deer pelt,
i bear-skin, i bear or otter-skin coat, 40 ambers of
feathers, 2 ship ropes of 60 ells (i of horse-whale skin,
i of seal-skin). He also spoke of the whale fishing,
especially the chase of the horse-whale or walrus.
He says that as many as sixty were killed by six men
in a day. 2 Their ivory and skins were chiefly
valuable. He notices the port of Sciringshall in the
Wick, which would have been the chief emporium for
Northern Danes and Goths, and of Heaths (the later
Heath-by), which was no doubt the main trade-
centre for Saxons, Danes, and Goths. He gives an
account of his own voyage to Beorma-land, an
expedition of fifteen days' sail, being three days to
the furthest whale-fisheries' station used, and three
more days thence to North Cape; four days thence
to where the land lay east, and again five days up
the White Sea, running south, where he reached
1 This Oht-here bears a name found chiefly in connexion with
the famous family from Haurda-land, the patriarch of which is
Haurda-Care. He is evidently one of the last settlers in
Haloga-land, for he dwells northernmost, as he told Alfred.
For an Oht-here, known as Oht-here the foolish, the curious
genealogical poem " Hyndla's Lay" was composed. The
family of Haurda-Care is later connected with the Orkneys,
wherein descendants, if anywhere, should exist.
2 I take it, the clause about the big whales is simply trans-
posed here. Oht-here is talking of walruses, but the scribe
has put into the middle of his talk another bit of information
about big whales. It may have been taken, we might guess,
from Alfred's rough notes in the Hand-book.
20 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the peopled and settled land of the Beormas or
Perms.
Oht-here makes it a month's sail, stopping every
night, from his home to Sciringshall, and six days thence
to Heath-by. His account of his own wealth is note-
worthy ; he had 600 rein-deer he had bred or caught,
" unbought," as he says, 6 stale or dec9y deer, 20 head
of neat and the same number of sheep and swine.
He has horses, too, which he uses for ploughing, a
rare thing in those days, but how many, he or King
yElfred forgets to tell us.
A border warfare, probably chiefly carried on by
the outlying Northern settlers, Neams, Throwends,
and Haloga-landers, against the Cwsens, a tribe of
Finnish affinities, is also spoken of by Oht-here.
He says the Cwaens used to bring their light boats
up on to the inland lakes of the Scandinavian
peninsula.
And voyages like Oht-here's were not singular cases.
The Story of Kings Heor and Half, found in Are's
Landnama-b6c as well as appended to the later HalPs-
Saga and Sturlunga-Saga, tells how a king of the
Rugians and Haurds went warring on the land of the
Beormas or Perms, and wedded the Beorm king's
daughter, Lufina. We also hear of a Tryst of
Kings, held apparently at regular intervals somewhere
in the south of the Scandinavian land, probably
by the Gota-river mouth, a very ancient meeting
place.
Such trading journeys and forays, identical in object
gain, like our adventures in the days of Elizabeth
MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 21
needed trained men, seamen, and fighters, and we
might even without express evidence be sure that
every small folk-king and nobleman kept up as
large and well-equipped a comitatus as he could
support.
The character of the people of the west coast of
Norway about the end of the eighth century is illustrated
in some measure by certain poems in the Eddie col-
lection, which we take to be of earlier date than the
rest, and which, unlike the rest, bear pretty plain
marks of Norwegian origin. From these it is
possible to get a picture of the population whence the
Wicking emigrant carne ; it is of a type which we pride
ourselves upon as essentially British a sturdy, thrifty,
hard-working, law-loving people, fond of good cheer
and strong drink, of shrewd, blunt speech, and a stub-
born reticence when speech would be useless or foolish ;
a people clean-living, faithful to friend and kinsman,
truthful, hospitable, liking to make a fair show, but
not vain or boastful ; a people with perhaps little
play of fancy or great range of thought, but cool-
thinking, resolute, determined, able to realise the
plainer facts of life clearly and even deeply. Of course
some of these characteristics are those common to
other nations in their rank of development, but taken
together they show a character such as no other race
of that day could probably claim, and enable us to
understand how that quiet storage of force had gone
on which, when released, was capable of such results,
as the succeeding three centuries witnessed with
amazement. The following proverbs in verse are
22 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
cited from such poems as the "Guest's Wisdom," 1
" Lodd-Fafne's, or Hoard-Fafne's, Lesson," 1 "The
Song of Saws," l and the " Old Wolsung Lay."
Anything will pass at home.
Anything is better than to be false.
He is no friend to another that will only say one
thing [that which is pleasing],
A fool when he comes among men,
It is best that he hold his peace.
No one can tell that he knows nothing,
Unless he speaks too much.
An unwelcome guest always misses the feast.
A man should be a friend to his friend,
And requite gift with gift.
He that woos will win.
Fire is best among the sons of men,
And the sight of the sun,
His health if a man may have it,
And live blameless :
A man is not altogether wretched though he be of ill
health ;
Some such be blessed with sons,
Some with kinsfolk, some with wealth,
Some with good deeds.
Man is man's delight.
Many a man is befooled by riches.
Middling wise should every man be,
Never overwise,
For a wise man's heart is seldom glad,
If he be all-wise.
No man but has his match.
No man is so good but there is a flaw in him,
Nor so ill that he is good for nothing.
A man should be a friend to his friend,
To himself and his friend ;
1 These three poems are found in the Eddie collection of
the Copenhagen MS. Codex Regius, all jumbled together,
with bits of other poems, under the title " Hava-mal, the
High One's Speech." See Corpus Poeticum Boreale [cited later
as C. P. B.], vol. i., pp. 1-23 and 459-463,
MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 23
But no man should be the friend
Of the friend of his foe.
Men should give back laughter for laughter,
And leasing for lies.
Bashful is the bare man.
Better quick than dead :
A live man may always get a cow ;
The halt may ride a horse, the handless drive a herd,
The deaf fight and do well :
Better be blind than burnt \i.e., dead and gone],
A corpse is good for naught.
Cattle die, kinsmen die,
One dies oneself;
I know one thing that never dies,
The renown of a dead man.
Folly he talks that is never silent.
Gift always looks for return.
Give and give-back make the longest friends.
No better baggage can a man bear on his way
Than a weight of wisdom.
One's own house is best though it be but a cottage,
A man is a man in his own house.
Only the mind knows what lies next the heart.
Open-handed bold-hearted men live best,
But the sluggard and the coward fear everything.
The coward thinks he shall live for ever
If he keep out of battle ;
But Old Age will give him no quarter
Though the spear may.
The herds know when they must go home
And get them out of the grass,
But the fool never knows
The measure of his maw.
To these morsels from "The Guest's Wisdom,"
"The Song of Saws," which especially inculcates
prudence, will give a supplementary course :
At eventide praise the day, a woman when she is burnt
[i.e., dead and gone],
A sword when it is proven, a maid when she is married,
Ice when it is crossed, ale when it is drunk.
24 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Let no man trust an early sown acre,
Nor too soon in his son.
Weather makes the acre and wit the son ;
Each of them is risky.
A creaking bow, a burning blaze,
A gaping wolf, a cawing crow,
A grunting sow, a rootless tree,
A waking wave, a boiling kettle,
A flying shaft, a falling billow,
Ice one night old, a coiled snake,
A bear's play, or a king's son.
A burnt house, a very fast horse,
For the horse is useless if one leg be broken
Be no man so trusting as to trust one of these. 1
. . . The tongue is the death of the head.
There is often a stout hand under a shabby coat.
The weather changes often in five days,
But more often in a month.
From " The Lesson of Lodd-Fafne," which is
didactic throughout, one may cite:
Never bandy words with fools.
Never laugh at a hoary counsellor.
Know this, if thou hast a friend in whom thou trustest
Go and see him often,
Because with brambles and with high grass is choked
The way that no man treadeth.
Be thou never the first
To break with thy friend.
Shoe-maker be thou not, nor shaft-maker,
Save for thyself only ;
If the shoe be ill-shapen, or the shaft crooked,
Thou gettest ill thanks.
1 Shakespeare knows by tradition a bit like this :
" He that trusts in the tameness of a wolf," &c.
King Lear. Act 3. Scene 8.
MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 25
There is much in Hesiod and Theognis and even
in Pindar and the Greek tragedians that runs parallel
to these saws.
The old Play of the Wohungs gives several maxims
of the like type :
Manifold are the woes of men.
No man knows where he may lodge at night ;
111 it is to outrun one's luck.
Not many a man is brave when he is old
If he were cowardly as a child.
The doomed man's death lies everywhere.
A good heart is better than a strong sword
When the wroth meet in fray,
For I have often seen a brave man
Win the day with a blunt blade.
The cheerful man fares better than the whiner
Whatever betide him.
All evils are meted out [by fate].
The home verdict is a parlous matter.
Wine is a great wit-stealer.
Most miserable is the man-sworn.
These examples of popular lore form no bad index
to the feelings and ideas of the men and women in
whose mouths they took shape and life. What has
been said and cited above may give some index also
to the material state of culture reached by those
west-coast folk. The finds in Scandinavia and Den-
mark show that as early as the third and fourth
centuries many of the Roman implements of metal
had reached the North, which had long been in
the possession of bronze weapons. .Iron weapons
and tools were known and used in the North as
freely almost as in Britain or Gaul, and in dress,
26 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
food, and handicraft the Scandinavian differed little
from his cousin the Englishman, who had preceded
him in his western exodus. Only in cultivation of
land, and possibly of cattle, was the Scandinavian
of the northern peninsula behind-hand. The English-
man had succeeded to the system of agriculture set
up by the Romans in Britain, whereas the -Scandi-
navian still possessed the more primitive cultivation
of the early Teutons, and dwelt in a land that was
still but half reclaimed from the forest. In art the
Scandinavian had already developed a peculiar type
of ornament, of which the bronze collections at
Copenhagen, Stockholm, and Christiania preserve
ample specimens, 1 a type which, while it runs parallel
to the Celtic metal work, has markworthy character-
istics of its own.
Though writing was not used for books or letters,
yet the art of writing was known, and weapons, grave-
stones, and ornaments have inscriptions on them.
The peculiar letters known as runes are of the older
general North and West Teutonic type, derived from
some classic alphabet (that of an Hellenic Black Sea
colony possibly, as Canon Taylor thinks ; the North
Etruscan alphabet, as Professor Bugge believes; or
as Dr. Wimmer with less probability affirms, from the
Latin alphabet).
The letters were arranged in an order, the reason
for which is as yet unknown, as follows :
1 The illustrated catalogues of these museums are cheap and
good, and will give the English student fair means of studying
the finds in Scandinavia in connexion with those of Britain.
MOTHER-LAND AND PEOPLES 27
F, U, Th, A, R, C, G, W,
H, N, I, J, E?, P, S, Z,
T, B, E, M, L, Ng, O, D.
The characters used for F, Th, A, R, T, H, B,
M, S, E might come from several of the classical
alphabets ; those for U, C, G, W, J, L, Ng, O, are
certainly Hellenic rather than Latin, corresponding
with the Greek O, r, X, Y, early I, A, IT (as in
Gothic), O. The character for D is DD placed back
to back, and other compounds were added later.
The names of these letters, as in our own children's
alphabets and other old alphabets, were taken from
some object with like initial. T was the god Tew,
N was nail, H hail, I ice, while (as in Irish) B was
birch, Th thorn (earlier perhaps, Thurse or giant), Y
yew.
The use of these runes in the North differed little
from that of the same alphabet in England during
the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. Bracteates
imitative of Roman or Greek medals or coins,
memorial stones, implements and ornaments would
be engraved or scratched with these letters. The
possession of the knowledge of writing had little
effect upon the people of either country till their
old alphabet was superseded by the general West-
European Roman alphabet, which, as we shall see,
came into the north with Christianity, and soon
proved in Iceland and Denmark, as it had in Ireland,
England, and Germany, a new factor in civilisation.
28 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
III. THE WICKING FLEETS
Thou Sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest
nations,
Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee
Indomitable, untamed as thee.
THE development of national life in Norway, con-
sequent on the increase of trade and population, by
the end of the eighth century is shown by the growth
of tribal leagues, and by the increased appreciation
of common laws and common peace over large areas
that rendered possible the career of the lawyer king,
Halfdan the Black, who succeeded in establishing a
kind of imperial sway over a broad territory, hitherto
parcelled out under small tribal kings. But for
our present purpose the points to dwell on are the
improvement of the ship and war organisation.
The earlier Swedish graven stones, anS earlier boat-
shaped, stone-marked graves, show that, as Tacitus
tells from the report of some Teuton traveller or
captive of his day, the Suiones [Swedes] had fleets of
boats, with prows at either end, but without sails
or regular row of oars. These were long canoes
probably shaped of wood and skin-covered wattle,
and moved by paddles. But the Ueneti of Brittany,
at least as early as 60 B.C., had already, helped no
doubt by seeing some foreign models (possibly
Carthaginian galleys), got to building vessels that
would stand the rough weather of the Atlantic, and
THE WICKING FLEETS 29
were principally moved by sails. Caesar describes
them as made wholly of timber and strongly built,
with iron bolts and iron cables, and leather sails.
He says they were more flat-bottomed than the
Roman ships for the convenience of the light draught
of water, that they had tall prows, and a quarter deck
consequently rather high. He describes them as good
sea boats, able to withstand even the shock of being
rammed, hard to grapple with or board, because of
the height of their fighting deck, but not so fast as
the Roman row-galley.
The Scandinavians worked out the problem of
building a boat, handy, fast, safe, and suited to their
own coasts and seas, in their own way, having seen
from the Roman galleys that, under Drusus and other
Roman commanders, operated in the North Seas in
the first century, possibilities of better craft than
those they had hitherto had. The sail-less, seam-
sewn, paddled canoe gives way to the ribbed and
keeled clinker-built boat with mast, yard, sail, side-
rudder and oars.
The Roman galley may be described as a long, low,
narrow hull, like that of a modern canal-barge, with
a pair of light, long boxes fitted to the uppermost
timbers on each side. In the hull were the stores
and ballast; in it was stepped a mast fitted with a
yard and square sail ; fore and aft were half decks,
joined by a narrow platform running between. The
rudder, a broad oar fixed to the starboard quarter,
was steered from the quarter-deck. In the side boxes
the oarsmen sat and pulled the long narrow-bladed
30 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
sweeps that were the chief motive power of the
galley, and could drive the bronze-beaked prow, that
was fixed to the curving end of the keel close to the
water, at a deadly rate into the enemy's quarter, or
through his extended oarage. From this model the
Scandinavian took the mast, sail, rudder, and possibly
oar, but he did not servilely copy the build, which
was unsuited to the Northern Sea, though admirably
adapted to the Mediterranean, where it had been
perfected by the Greeks.
The finds of the last fifty years enable us to see
for ourselves what manner of ships the Norwegian
sailors who were the first sailors to make long runs
out of sight of land, and to cross the North Sea and
Atlantic regularly year by year built and sailed.
From the Nydam boats of the latter part of the
third century, by which time the type was already
formed, to the Gokstad ship of the eighth century,
which represents it in its perfection, the chain of
evidence is complete for Sweden and Norway and
the Baltic coasts. We can see before us in these
craft, the very kind of ship such as the Byzantine
historians tell us threatened new Rome, the great
city, Mickle-garth, from the middle of the ninth to
the middle of the tenth centuries, built with planks
on a keel of a single tree sixty feet or more in length :
masted, ruddered, holding from twenty to forty men,
with weapons, water, and food. The Nordland boat
of the Norwegian fisherman to-day is almost identical
in all essentials to the wicking ship of a thousand
years ago.
THE WICKING FLEETS 31
The main peculiarities of the Norwegian wicldng
ship of the " iron age " may be summed up some-
what as follows, from the Gokstad ship, the latest and
most perfect. She was 67 feet long at keel, and 79^
feet from stem to stern \ of 1 7 feet beam, and about
4 feet depth amidships ; clinker-built of eight strakes
of solid oak planks fastened with tree-nails and iron
bolts, and caulked with cord of cow hair plaited ; her
planks are fastened to the ribs with bast ties, which
gives the frame-work great elasticity. She is un-
decked (possibly there were lockers fore and aft),
with movable bottom boards whereunder could be
stowed ballast, stores, weapons, sails, spare spars and
oars, and the like ; her mast was stepped in a huge
solid block, which is so cunningly supported that,
while the mast stands steady and firm, there is no
strain on the light elastic frame of the ship. Her
oars, sixteen a side, pass through rowlocks cut in the
main strake (the third) and neatly fitted with shutters
against bad weather; the oars are twenty feet long,
and beautifully shaped. Her rudder, stepped to the
starboard quarter, is a large short oar of cricket-bat
shape, fitted with a movable tiller, and fastened to the
ship by a curious but simple contrivance, giving the
blade play, and keeping it clear of the ship's side.
The mast, which is a 40- feet stick, has a heavy long
yard with square sail, the stays and rigging are of
bast, the mast and yard when shipped lay on two
crutches clear of the deck ; the awning was of tent-
like form, of white web with red stripes, fitted with
hemp cords by which it was seized 'to the ship's sides
32 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and to its x shaped supports, and the pole that
stretched between them parallel to the keel. Two
small boats, one masted, of similar type accompany
the Gokstad ship; they are of 22 J feet and 14 feet
keel respectively. A cauldron with chain for cooking,
an iron plate for carrying lamp or fire safely, cups,
buckets, a landing plank or bridge, bedstead, an iron
anchor, kettle, platters, and a draught l and morris
board with men were found aboard her.
This description will serve fairly for the Nydam
boats [two oak, one fir) of the third century, and the
Tune boat (oak) which is plainly of the fifth, save
that the Nydam boats are none of them masted, and
one of them, the fir one, was probably fitted with a
spur to one end of the keel. The biggest Nydam
boat was of 60 feet keel, 77 feet between stem and
stern, lof feet beam, and about 3^ feet depth; she
had a large piece of wickerwork for her bottom boards,
she had five strakes, and was clinker-built. 2
The Tune ship was of 45 1 feet keel, 14 \ feet beam,
and about 3 feet depth ; of six strakes, clinker-built of
oak, caulked with cow hair and pitch, masted, and side
ruddered.
All these boats, save the Gokstad ship, had the
1 The draught game was not our sixty-four square game, but
the older one, probably the same as that played to-day in many
parts of the East.
2 The Nydam boats found in a moss, once an arm of the sea,
were probably a votive offering (of the kind mentioned by
Ammianus, Tacitus, and Adam of Bremen) after a victory. The
coins of Macrinus, 217 A.D., give the highest upward date.
There were beautiful damascened iron swords and some arrow
shafts, rune-inscribed.
THE WICKING FLEETS 33
characteristic rowlocks of the Nordland boat, a crutch
of tough wood JL seized with bast to the upper strake,
with a loop of bast to prevent the oar-loom from
slipping in getting forward.
We have in these beautiful vessels, and in the less
well-preserved relics which have been discovered by
Thames, or Lea, or Seine, or by Southampton Water,
the clearest proofs of the skill, originality, and success
of the Scandinavian shipwright, whose observation
and patience had been able to produce a boat able to
row or sail, ride out a gale or make way in a calm,
which should have " give " enough in her hull to stand
a shock that would stave in and sink a stiff-built boat,
but be stanch enough to carry a heavy mast and sail
without strain ; which should be of such light draught
without being crank or unseaworthy, as to be able to
creep into any haven, but of burthen enough to
carry fifty men with stores and gear for a month or
more.
And this model, so carefully adapted to its -con-
ditions of use, held its own till the twelfth century
when the heavy, slow, carvel-built mediaeval cog took
its place as a vessel of burthen and war. The famous
Long Serpent of Anlaf Tryggwason, built in 996 by
his shipwright, Thorberg Shafting at Lathe-hammer,
with a 74 ell (148 feet) keel and 34 benches, was per-
haps the highest pitch of perfection to which any
vessel on these lines ever attained.
To handle such craft as the Gokstad boat so as to
get the most out of her and keep her out of danger
in a gale in the North Sea, or a squall off the
c
34 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
coast, 1 needed good sailors and trained men, who
could and would obey orders, and act together at a
moment's notice. The whale-fishery and the coasting
trade, and the buccaneering voyages to the North and
up the Baltic, had trained a school of such men.
In Half s-Saga we have read of his crew of " Champ-
ions, or merry men," a comitatus of picked men as
good at the helm or the oar as they were with axe or
sword : and there are to be gathered out of various
early sources some tradition of the Articles of War
and Ship's Regulations, so to speak, of these Northern
war vessels. 2
No man was taken except between the two ages ( 1 6
and 60), or in special cases between 18 and 50, or 20
and 60.
No man was admitted without a trial of his strength
and activity.
All taken in war was to be brought to the Pile or
Stake and there sold and divided according to rule,
and this war-booty (wal-rauf) was personal (not part
of the heritage that went to a man's kindred) and was
buried with him.
The crew ate and drank in messes, two or three
together, and the cook for the day was probably, as in
merchantmen, drawn by lot or on duty in turn.
1 Several times we hear of the Northmen suffering great loss
from heavy gales in spite of all their seamanship, e.g., on the
deadly English east coast in 794, on the south coast in 877, and
at the entry of the Mediterranean.
2 Compare the " Laws of the Feens," as quoted in O'Curry's
" Lectures," vol. ii., for the Irish counterpart to those old
Teutonic ' ' Wicking Laws. "
THE WICKING FLEETS 35
There must be no feud or old quarrel taken up
while on board or on service.
Women were not allowed on board ship or inside a
fort.
News was to be reported to the captain alone.
(See Origines Islandicce^ Book II, sec. 2.)
The famous crew of King Anlaf's Long Serpent (the
muster-roll of which reads like that of David's mighty
men) and the 45 ships' companies (last relics of the
buccaneer city of lorn) that followed Thor-cytel the
Tall to fight for or against /Ethelraed, or his rival Cnut,
and afterward formed the nucleus of that renowned
guard, the house carles of the English kings, the peers
of the Warangians themselves, these were but the
highest expression of a discipline, skill, and power,
that were present in more or less perfect form on
board every ship in the fleets that were the terror of
every European coast throughout the ninth century.
The fact is that ship life gave to every free North
man much of the training and skill that were in
England and France peculiar to the immediate follow
ing of the prince, his gesiths, antrustiones, so/ones, as
they are variously called in various Teutonic tribes.
Even the personal obligation of honour to the lord
that paid and fed him, so strongly felt by the comes,
was felt in some degree towards the captain of each
ship by the crew.
For warlike purposes, or external action of any
kind, the Scandinavian lands were organised like
other Teutonic lands, the country being divided into
districts, from each of which so many picked free
36 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
men, one from each household, were ready for the
levy ; the force thus raised was called in the North
here (host), and the district heradh (host-district).
Of course, in great emergencies for defensive pur-
poses, a full levy the whole male population between
sixteen and sixty, and all horses over two years old
might be called out, but such occasions were rare.
In general the ordinary levy sufficed for all offensive
or defensive purposes. The men composing it were
armed with sword and spear, and such as had metal
head-pieces or mail-coats wore them. The axe was
carried more for work than for war, the sword being
the chief weapon in close fight ; the bow is spoken of
in the poems, but more as a weapon of the enemy
than of the Northman. The spear-shaft was ash,
the sword iron or bronze, the shield wood or wicker
strengthened with metal and leather, the bow of yew
or elm. Stones were greatly used in warfare, and as
a boat's ballast was largely made up of stones, they
were to hand in such sea fights as Hafrsfirth,
c. 890.
Any one who knows one of our larger fishing
ports will have a better idea of the organisation,
composition, and character of a wicking fleet than
aught else could give him. The preparation of gear,
clothes, stores; the overhauling of the craft, hull,
sails, rigging ; the making up of the crews, the final
sailing with a fair breeze, the whole place emptied of
its young and middle-aged men for the two or three
months that the cruise lasts; the home-coming, the
rejoicing, the burst of trade, the influx of riches, won
THE WICKING FLEETS 37
from the sea, the steady flourishing of the whole
country-side as long as the cruises are gainful; the
building of new vessels, the eagerness of the young
for the life of adventure, unchecked by the terrible
disasters that ever and anon mar the good fortune
of the fleet, disasters that may sweep away nearly all
the men folk of the place and check its growth for a
dozen years, such phenomena are common to our
fishing life now-a-days, and to the old Northman's
buccaneering life so long ago. And when crossing
the North Sea one steams through the Grimsby or
Lowestoft fleet, hundreds of big boats out for the
herring, one can form even a visible image of what a
wicking fleet must have looked like as the ships in
great groups sped out with a fair north-easter, eager
for the work before them, or hurried homewards with
a sou'-wester behind them, deeply laden with English
and Irish gold and silver, and raiment and jewels, and
slaves and wine and weapons.
The "Helge Lays," best of all the Eddie poems,
express the spirit of the wicking.
Messengers thence the king sent
over land and sea to call out the levy :
Gold in good store
they ivere to promise the warriors and their sons. 1
"Do ye bid them get aboard forthwith,
and make ready to sail from Brandey \pr Sword Island]."
There the prince waited until thither there came
warriors by hundreds from Hedinsey.
1 Of course, when a chief or king held a levy for a wicking
cruise, not a war, men came or not as they chose, and the
prospect of booty and certainty of pay would be the chief
attraction.
38 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
And forthwith out from Stane'sness
the host stood to sea, fair and adorned with gold.
Then Helge asked Heor-laf
" Hast thou mustered the blameless host? "
And the one king said to the other
" Long were it to tell over out from Crane- Eyre
The tall-stemmed ships with their crews aboard,
that sailed out from larrow Sound
twelve hundred trusty men !
Yet at High-town there lie as many again,
the war-levy of a king. We must look for battle."
The men furled the bow-awnings
at the king's bidding, when the host awoke,
and men could see the brow of day,
and the warriors hoisted upon the yard
the striped canvas sail web,
and ran up to the mast head
the woven target of war in Warin's firth.
Then there came the oars' plash and the irons clash,
clattered shield on shield the wicking sound
With foaming wake under the crews there ran
the king's fleet far out from land.
It was to the ear when they came together,
Colga's sisters [the billows] and the long keels,
as if the surf were breaking against the rocks.
Helge bade them hoist the top-sails higher.
The seas held tryst upon the hulls,
as Eager's dreadful daughter [the ocean wave]
strove to whelm the bows of the helm-horses ;
but the heroes themselves Sigrun [the Walcyrie] from above
that battle-bold lady kept safe and their craft also.
It was wrested by main strength out of Ran's hands
the king's brine-beast off Cliff-holt,
so that at even in Unesvoe
the fair-found fleet was riding safely.
But the sons of Gran-mere from Swarin's howe
off Harm mustered their host.
Then made enquiry Godmund the god-born,
" Who is the prince that steers the ship
with a golden war-banner at his bows ?
No shield of peace methinks do I see in the van,
but war-targets in a row wrap the wickings about."
Helge Lay, i. 80-127.
THE WICKING FLEETS 39
And, again, another passage by the same poet
runs :
There are turning hither to our shore lithe keels,
ring-stags [ships] with long sail-yards,
many shields, shaven oars,
a noble sea-levy, merry warriors.
Fifteen companies are coming ashore,
but out in Sogn there lie seven thousand more.
There lie here in the dock off Cliff-holt
surf-deer [ships] swart-black and gold adorned.
There is by far the most of their host.
Helge Lay, i. 197-206.
The following piece of dialogue between the hero,
Helge, and the Walcyrie, Cara, is also characteristic :
CARA. Who are ye that let your ship ride off the shore ?
Where, warriors, is your home ?
What do ye wait for in Bear-bay ?
Whither are ye bound ?
HELGE. It is Hamal that lets his ship ride off the shore.
We have a home in Leesey.
We wait for a fair wind in Bear-bay.
Eastward are we bound.
CARA. When hast thou wakened War, O king,
and sated the birds of the sister of Battle?
Why is thy mail-coat flecked with blood ?
Why eat ye raw meat, helmed ?
HELGE. That was the last deed of the Wolfing's sons
west of the main, if it like thee to know,
when I slew Beorn in Woden's grove, 1
and fed the eagles' brood full with my spear-point.
Now I will tell thee, maiden, why our meat is raw ;
We get little roast steak at sea, maiden.
Helge> iii.
1 Brage's grove is exactly equivalent to Woden's sacred wood,
or Odinse island.
40 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Another piece of dialogue of the same type is
probably by the same poet :
NICKAR (Woden}. Who are they that are riding on Revil's
steeds [ships]
over the high billows, the sounding sea?
The sail -coursers are splashed with foam,
The wave-horses cannot stand against the wind.
REGIN. Here are we Sigfred and I on our sea-trees [ships]
We have a fair wind for ...
The steep billows are breaking high over our bows.
The surge-coursers are plunging. Who is it that
asketh ?
Western Wolsung Lay, 23-34.
In a later poem of the tenth century the wicking
leader speaks :
We were three brothers and sisters. We were deemed un-
yielding.
We went abroad ; we followed Sigfred.
We roved about, each steered his own ship.
We sought adventures till we came east hither.
We slew kings ... we divided their land.
Nobles came to our hands [did homage to us] it betokened
their fear.
We called from the wood [inlawed] him whom we wished to
justify.
We made him wealthy that had nought of his own.
Greenland Attila Lay, 354-6.
Of the details of wicking warfare it is also possible
to collect some information from our authorities.
The regular formation of troops in wedge or line
(acies or cuneus, as Tacitus gives it) was known.
The crew of a single ship seems to have been the
tactical unit; these were massed in battalions or
brigades under the banner of the earl or king to whom
the fleet belonged. The captain of each ship led his
THE WICKING FLEETS 4 1
own men, his second in command was the captain of
the forecastle, or stem-man, who was apparently en-
trusted with the night-watch when the ships were
lying off the shore. 1
Horses were used to ride on forays or to battle,
but all fighting was on foot ; the North and West
Teutons had not learnt the art of fighting on horse-
back, which their Eastern brethren, the Goths, were,
the first to practise. The quickness of their move-
ments, on board ship or on horseback, was one of
the causes that led to the marvellous successes of
the wickings even in lands like Gaul and Britain,
where there were good roads of Roman make.
By night the warriors went forth, studded with their mail-
coats,
their shields shone in the light of the waning moon.
They alit from their saddles at the Hall-gable.
WeylancTs Lay, 27-29.
There were three kinds of warlike operations ;
stratagems, such as night-attacks, ambushes, wood-
barricades, surprises, assaults with fire, such as had
always formed part of Teutonic warfare and feud :
battles, regular pitched fights, for which a place and
day were named and a fair trial of strength made ;
and sieges. These were conducted both by blockade
and assault, the Northmen and Danes having ample
1 See, for instance, C. P. B., i. 151, Flyting of Attila and
Rimegerd, n, 12, and 45, 46 :
RIMEGERD. The prince must trust thee well to let thee stand
at his ship's fair stem.
ATTILA. I must not go hence till the men waken,
but keep ward over the king.
4 2 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
skill (being expert carpenters and shipwrights) in
making palisades, shelter-works, wooden towers for
assailing tall walls, and the like, and good knowledge
in throwing up earthen lines and dykes, digging
trenches, and making portages to haul their ships over
difficult ground, in those cases where the use of fire, or
fair words, or a sudden and bold attack was impossible.
The numbers of the hosts varied greatly, but
reckoning the average crew as forty men and upwards,
we hear 'of fleets of hundreds of ships. These large
fleets were made up of lesser fleets, two or three
sailing together on some enterprise too weighty for
one sea-king's command to deal with. There were
seldom less than two leaders, each a king or king's
son, to a fleet, and usually two captains to each vessel,
one to each watch, no doubt. This had its use in
lessening the chance of a commander's death breaking
up the expedition, or leading to disaster in battle.
It may be noted that Earl is used for the first time,
it seems, as a technical term for a leader of less rank
than king, in these wicking voyages, and in the ninth
century. It is especially used by the North-men ; l
the Danes are led by sea-kings.
1 Cf. B.M. Anglo-Saxon Coin Catalogue, C. F. Keary, No.
1077, p. 230. Sitric Coins.
SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
I. THE EARLIEST RAIDS
"WHILST the pious King Bertric was reigning over
the western parts of the English, and the innocent
people, spread through their plains, were enjoying
themselves in tranquillity and yoking their oxen to
the plough, suddenly there arrived on the coast a
fleet of Danes, not large, but of three ships only : this
was their first arrival. When this became known, the
king's officer, who was already dwelling in the town of
Dorchester, leaped on his horse and rode with a few
men to the port, thinking that they were merchants
and not enemies. Giving his commands as one that
had authority, he ordered them to be sent to the
king's town ; but they slew him on the spot, and all
who were with him. The name of this officer was
Beaduheard. A.D. 787. And the number of years
was above 344 from the time when Hengist and
Horsa arrived in Britain."
Such was the tradition, a century and a half later,
of the beginning of Scandinavian Britain. ^Ethelwerd,
ealdorman and historian, who wrote the notice, had
access to special sources of information, such as the
royal family to which he belonged must have preserved ;
and his story tallies with the shorter entry of the
43
44 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Chronicle that " three ships of Northmen [MS. A, ' of
Danes '] came from Hserethaland ; and then the reeve
rode to the place, and would have driven them to the
king's town, because he knew not who they were and
there they slew him."
If there is any discrepancy between the two tales,
/Ethelwerd's has the advantage. For a century after
this date the word " Northmen " is not used of the
Vikings in the English chronicles. The entry is an
interpolation, about which it is hardly worth inquiring
too minutely. The date, usually given with definiteness
if not with accuracy in the Chronicle, is wanting ; we
are only told that it was in the reign of King Beorhtric.
The place is not named, whereas the annals are
otherwise careful to name the sites of battles, though
we cannot always identify them. The three ships are
suspiciously like the three keels of Hengist and Horsa,
to whom ^thelwerd actually refers ; he also giving
for date only the marriage of Beorhtric, in whose days
the event happened. There must have been some
song or story of a raid, which an editor of chronicles
has tried to turn into history. The word " H^erethaland "
does not appear in the Chron. MS. A, and is a later
insertion into an entry which itself is an interpolation.
Consequently, it is useless to build a theory of the
home of these first Vikings to hold, with Munch,
that they came from Hardeland in Jutland, or, with
others, that Hordaland, the country of the Hardanger
fjord in Norway, is meant.
This is not the only instance of doubtful or fallacious
statement in the history of the Vikings in Britain, as
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 45
we find it in old writings and in modern authors.
Any account of the period must be tentative and
provisional, depending on annals and sagas which
cannot be trusted implicitly, and on inferences which
a wider knowledge may upset. But there is one class
of misstatements which ought to be cleared away at
the beginning the wide-spread belief in the pre-
historic Viking. There is no reason to assert that
Scandinavian sea-robbers, as distinct from the Angles
and Saxons of the fifth and sixth centuries, appeared
on the coasts of Britain before the end of the eighth
century.
In a well-known book, justly popular on account of
its wealth of illustration, the late Paul du Chaillu used
the argument from this doubtful entry of " Northmen
from Haerethaland " to enforce his idea that the " so-
called Saxons," as he was careful to call them, were
precisely the same people as the Scandinavian Vikings,
whose sagas, he remarked, never called the English
" Saxons," as the Celtic nations did. He contended
that from Roman days to the twelfth century there was
a continuous stream of invasion setting in from the
Baltic shores to Britain ; littus Saxonicum was a
Viking settlement ; the English came from Engelholm
on the Cattegat, and from places named Engeln in
Sweden ; Tacitus mentioned the boats of the Suiones,
and surely their " mighty fleets " must have been
employed between the days of Agricola and those of
Charlemagne in more than local traffic; the whole
millennium was a Viking Age.
Burton also (Hist. Scotland, i. 302) wrote that
46 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
"droves of them (Scando-Gothic sea-rovers) came
over centuries before the Hengest and Horsa of the
stories, if they were not indeed the actual large- boned,
red-haired men whom Agricola described to his son-
in-law." He supported his theory with a reference to
Dr. Collingwood Bruce, the historian of the Roman
Wall, who, describing an altar found near Thirlwall
about 1757, said: "Hodgson (the historian of
Northumberland) remarks that Vithris was a name of
Odin, as we find in the Death-song of Lodbroc . .
If Veteres and the Scandinavian Odin are identical,
we are thus furnished with evidence of the early
settlement of the Teutonic tribes in England." But
this altar, and another he mentions from Condercum
(Ben well Hill, Northumberland.), compared with altars
now at Chesters on the Wall, and inscribed " Dibus
Veteribus," are more likely to have been dedicated
" To the Ancient Gods " than to the Vidhrir of the
Edda, many hundred years later. Huxley (in Laing's
Prehistoric Remains of Caithness] suggested that by
anthropological evidence, long before the well-known
Norse and Danish invasions, a stream of Scandinavians
had come into Scotland ; Professor Rolleston connected
the Round-headed men of the Bronze Age in York-
shire with Denmark, but this refers to the racial origin
of tribes three thousand years ago. Such facts do not
support speculation, misled by the hope of finding
grains of truth in Ossianic poetry, Arthurian legend
and late Scandinavian sagas, in all of which there is
the same tendency to antedate incidents and to lose
the perspective of history.
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 47
The Ossianic poems are full of references to
Lochlann and the Norse as the opponents of Fionn
mac Cumhall, whom Macpherson curiously called
" Fingal," which means " the Norseman," and ^as a
personal name was introduced and used by the
Vikings. Irish and Hebridean folklore relates that
before the Christian era the islands were ruled by sea-
kings called Fomorians (homfom/wr, agiant } a pirate)
and popularly identified with the Scandinavian pirates.
The confusion existed in old Irish historians ; Duald
Mac Firbis, writing in the seventeenth century and
following authors of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, in his tract on the Fomorians and the
Lochlannachs (edited by Prof. Alex. Bugge, Christiania,
1905) classed them together, though he knew that
" the Fomorians were the first who waged war against
the country " of Ireland. " The Wars of the Gaedhil
and the Gaill" tells an impossible tale of the
mythological King Nuada of the Silver Hand and
the Fomorians who came from Lochlann or Norway :
and when the Norse King Magnus Barefoot of the
eleventh century became an important figure in
Celtic folklore, as he was in the sixteenth century,
the story-tellers found no difficulty in pitting him
against Fionn mac Cumhall in a great battle fought
on the island of Arran. Giraldus Cambrensis
tells the tale of Gurmundus, who, though a
Norwegian, came from Africa in the sixth century to
Ireland, and then invading Britain, took Cirencester
from its Welsh king, and ruled the realm. Now late
chronicles, like the Book of Hyde and Gaimar, called
48 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Guthorm-^Ethelstan " Gurmund " ; he held Cirencester
in 879-880. Here again we have no trace of a pre-
historic Viking, but only of history distorted and
antedated. The grains of truth in all these Celtic
legends must be looked for in the real events of the
ninth to the twelfth centuries.
Not only in folklore, but in well-meant historical
study the same tendency is visible. In the Annals of
the Four Masters under A.D. 743 occurs this entry :
" Arasgach, abbot of Muicinsi Reguil, was drowned."
A similar entry appears in the Ulster Annals for 747 ;
meaning that the abbot of the " Hog-island of St.
Regulus" (Muckinish in Lough Derg) so met his
death. But according to John O'Donovan's note (ed.
1849) the former editor, Dr. O'Conor, had read for
"Regutl," "re gallaibh," the abbot of Muckinish
was drowned "by strangers," the Gaill or Vikings,
half a century before they were otherwise heard of.
Following this error, Moore in his history described
an attack on " Rechrain," meaning Lambey, and the
drowning of the abbot's pigs by the Danes. "Thus,"
says O'Donovan, "has Irish history been manufac-
tured."
Thus, too, English history. Gaimar, to whom we
are often indebted for a bright touch on our early
annals, places the story of Havelock the Dane in the
days of Constantine, successor to King Arthur. Now
Havelock is the Cumbrian legendary form of Olaf
Cuaran, the tenth century king of York and Dublin
(see pp. 138, 139), and though the story is woven
from early traditions, the setting is antedated. Many
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 49
of the incidents worked into the Arthurian cycle
may date from the times of /Elfred and Eadmund
Ironside, whose series of battles with Halfdan and
Kniit offers analogies to Arthur's fights with the
heathen. The Arthurian legend took form in the
Viking Age, and was put back into the "good old
times " according to the use and wont of story-
tellers, but contains some Scandinavian elements.
For instance, the horse of Sir Gawain, according to
Prof. Gollancz, has been evolved out of the boat of
Wade, the hero of the Volund myth ; Tristram and
Isolt (a Pictish and a Teutonic name) seems to be a
love-story from Strathclyde not earlier than the tenth
or the eleventh century. That there are quite ancient
Celtic myths in the Arthurian cycle is not disputed,
but much of the material, as in the Ossianic le-
gends, comes from that stirring and fruitful age of
storm and stress when the contact of many various
races and cultures, especially in the north of Britain,
produced a really romantic era.
Thus, again, has Scandinavian history been manu-
factured. The Ynglinga saga (chap, xlv.) tells how
Ivar Widefathom, who must have " flourished " in
the seventh century, subdued the fifth part of Eng-
land. For Ivar Widefathom read Ivar "the Bone-
less " of two hundred years later, and we come
nearer to historical truth, for "Northumbria is the
fifth part of England," as Egil's saga says ; and this
later Ivar, though himself not entirely free from legend-
ary attributions, seems to have been the leading spirit
of the conquest (p. 86). At the battle of Bravoll,
50 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
supposed to have been fought about 700 A.D., King
Harald Hilditonn is said (in Sogubrof) to have had
the help of Brat the Irishman and Orm the English.
There is no great absurdity in supposing that a stray
Westerner may have wandered into his service, but
when the Fornmanna-sogur tell us that he died at the
age of one hundred and eighty winters after owning a
kingdom in England, and this in the lifetime of Bede,
the mythical nature of the story is apparent. Sigurd
Hring, his kinsman and opponent at Bravoll, " be-
thought him of the kingdom which Harald had
owned in England, and, before him, Ivar Widefathom,
then ruled by Ingjald, brother of Petr, Saxon king,"
or rather (not to make the story more absurd than it
need be) the " West Saxon king," for the p, or Anglo-
Saxon w, has been misread. So Sigurd invaded
Northumbria, fought battles in which Ingjald and his
son Ubbi fell, won the realm and left it under a
tributary King Olaf, son of Kinrik, cousin of Ivar
Widefathom, who was ultimately driven out by Eava,
son of Ubbi (Eoppa). Munch (Norske Folks His-
toric^ I., i., p. 281) points out that there were real Saxon
kings to tally with the story ; Ingild, brother of Ini of
Wessex, died 718 : but the whole account seems to
be a garbled version of affairs in the middle of the
tenth century, when Eirik (sometimes called Hiring,
or Hring) and Olaf Cuaran were disputing the king-
dom of Northumbria.
Coming down to the threshold of history we have
the romantic figure of Ragnar Lodbrok, dragon-slayer,
and son-in-law of the great dragon-slayer Sigurd Faf-
THE -EARLIEST RAIDS 51
nisbani. He, it is said, to outdo Hengist and Horsa
and the Northmen from Hserethaland, set out to
conquer England with two ships. Captured by yElla
of Northumberland, he was thrown into the pit
of snakes. His sons, Ivar the Boneless and his
brethren, avenged him by the great invasion and
conquest ; but their saga embroiders the true story
with picturesque and mythical ornament. It tells how
Ivar the Crafty, hanging back from the first fruitless
attempt, bargained with ALlla. for as much land as
an ox-hide would cover, the old Hengist and Horsa
plot. Thus founding London (or York), he gained
./Ella's confidence, brought his brothers' army back,
and avenged his father with the torture of ./Ella and
St. E-admund. The episode is not made more historical
by placing the scene in Ireland, as Haliday (Scandi-
navian Dublin^ p. 28) tries to do. A historic Ragnar
was present at the siege of Paris in 845, and Ivar
with his brethren conquered East Anglia and North-
umbria ; but the legendary part of the saga is merely one
variant of the inevitable myth of explanation, invented
to show why the Vikings attacked Britain, other
variants being Roger of Wendover's tale of Berne
the huntsman and Lothbrok, and Gaimar's of Buern
Buzecarle.
It must be evident that such legends of prehistoric
Vikings Celtic, English and Scandinavian are the
natural growth of the story-telling genius at an age
when the great movement was past. After every war
we have a crop of novels about it. At the same
time, the fact of piracy was no invention of the
52 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Scandinavians. Thucydides has described exactly
the same circumstances in the ^Egean at the dawn of
Greek history. Carausius in the third century of our
era was a sea-rover. St. Patrick was carried from
Britain by pirates of the fourth century, and escaped
from Ireland to Gaul in a merchant-ship. The life of
St. Columba is full of sea-faring; the "Celtic horror
of the sea" did not exist in the fifth century, when
the monks travelled far in their skin-boats and sailors
from Gaul visited lona, when Ere stole the seals in
the monastery's preserves, and Joan mac Conal played
the pirate among the Hebrides, as Adamnan relates
(Life of Columba, i. 28, 41 ; ii. 41). These early
notices of piracy among Celts, with the fact that one
monastery fought another and that Irish kings at-
tacked churches and slew monks, regardless of re-
ligious awe, surely explain the massacre of Eigg
(A.D. 617), in which Prof. A. Bugge sees a proof of
Scandinavian presence at a very early date ( Vikingerne
i- P- I 37)- The two stories of this event one, that
the monks trespassed on the pastures of the queen of
the country and suffered in consequence; and the
other, that pirates of the sea came and slew them
are ingeniously reconciled by Skene (Celtic Scotland
ii. 153), but neither account requires the appearance
of Norse or Danish vikings. There was continual
sea-faring and piracy among the natives and more
immediate neighbours of our sea-coasts. St. Colum-
ban, in the sixth century, was sent in a merchant ship
from Nantes to Ireland, and Bishop Arculf in the
seventh century went from France to lona on board a
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 53
trading-ship. In 684 Ecgfrith of Northumbria sent
his army, under Berhtred, to Ireland, and ravaged
Magh-breg, and in 685 Adamnan sailed to England
to buy back the captives. In 728 the Four
Masters mention a " marine fleet " of Dalriada
which attacked Inisowen in Ulster. The English
and Irish were already showing the example of the
very deeds they lamented with such bitterness a
little later. Is it to be supposed that no word of
such events reached Scandinavia, when the chief
sea-traders of the age were the Frisians, near neigh-
bours of Denmark ? Why, one may ask, did not
the Viking raids begin sooner?
As a matter of fact, they did; but we have no
record stating that they reached Britain. About
515 King Chochilaicus, as Gregory of Tours calls
him, or Hugleik, led a fleet from the Baltic to the
mouth of the Meuse or the Rhine, and was overcome
and slain by Theodebert, son of the Frankish king
Theodoric. This is Beowulf s Hygelac, king of
Goths ; and the existence of Beowulf shows that
there was early connection, other than hostile, between
Scandinavia and England. But the invasion of
Hugleik, like the Anglo-Saxon settlement, was a part
of the great " folk- wandering " movement, not a
Viking raid of a few pirates adventuring for slaves and
gold. Professor Alexander Bugge, in his recent works
Vikingerne, i., 1904, and Vesterlandenes Inflydelse
paa Nordboernes i Vikingetiden, 1905, points out
that the period of Hugleik was full of such enter-
prises. Fifty years later (565) the Danes made a
54 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
similar expedition to the western seas from their
headquarters in Sjseland at Leira, where was the
royal hall, named, from the antlers of deer at its
gables, Heorot) or Hart. Here King Hrodgar (Roar),
son of Halfdan, and his nephew Hrolf Kraki, the
Skjoldungs, fought the Hadobards from the East
and drove them away; but in the end misfortune
came to the burg of the Skjoldungs, and Hrolf fell
with his men. Danes and Swedes in the folk-
wandering epoch were already conscious of some
collective nationality ; race-union was begun ; while
the inhabitants of Norway were scattered into separate
tribes and petty kingdoms until the beginning of
the true Viking age. The first steps to extension
of power westward must naturally have been taken
rom Denmark as a centre, the Swedes pushing east
to Russia. But Professor A. Bugge also thinks,
agreeing with H. Zimmer, that the Norse of Norway
had found their way across the sea to the Orkneys and
Shetland a hundred years before the Viking attacks are
recorded in England and Ireland. There seems to
be no reason to doubt that they did adventure on the
high seas somewhat sooner than the usually assigned
date; for Dicuil, writing about 825, describes islands
divided by narrow channels and swarming with sheep,
which seem to be the Faeroes (sheep-isles), as in-
habited a century before by Irish monks, but then
deserted on account of heathen pirates ; and, in fact,
the colony of Grim Kamban was made in 825. But
by then the Viking Age had begun ; and Prof. A.
Bugge would put their advent in Britain much earlier.
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 55
His views (Vikingerne, i. p. 134) may be summarised
thus :
Long before Ireland was attacked, viz. A.D. 700 or
earlier, men from south-western Norway Hordaland,
Ryfylke, Jaederen, and neighbouring settlements,
may have sailed over the North Sea and landed in
Orkney and Shetland. Several Shetland place-names
are formed in a way which had gone out of fashion
when Iceland was colonised, 'as Dr. Jakob Jakobsen
notes (in Aarbb'ger for nordisk Oldkyndighed, 1902).
Further, the Viking Age settlers had owned their land
so long that they could call it their odal or udal^ and
the tradition was that jarl Torf-Einar took the odal
lands away from the boendr, who got them back from
Sigurd Hlodver's son ; whereas in Iceland, colonised
late in the ninth century, no such word as odal is
used : the Icelanders who left their native country
under compulsion had their odals in Norway, not
in Iceland. With the Norse may have come Got-
landers ; stones inscribed with the earlier runes (of
the kind used before the Viking Age) and found in
Norway bear witness to a connexion with east Sweden
and Gotland, and in Gotland there is a series of
pillar-stones dating from 700 or earlier, with spirals
and other ornaments of a Celtic type, which suggests
intercourse between Celtic countries and the Baltic,
possibly by way of Orkney and Norway.
With regard to these three lines of argument it
might be answered that a connexion between Britain
and the Baltic in early ages need not be doubted, but
that it was more likely to have been by way of Frisia ;
56 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and that there has been a tendency to antedate the
development of Irish decorative art Prof. A. Bugge
elsewhere gives a seventh-century date to the Book of
Kells and consequently to antedate the monuments
supposed to have been influenced from Ireland. The
date of Torf-Einar's seizure of the odals cannot be
much before the end of the ninth century, which
would allow for two or three generations of settlers
in Orkney after the period at which Dicuil indicates
their arrival. And as Iceland was not colonised
until 874, the earlier years of the ninth century are
far enough back to explain archaic place-names in
Shetland. Beyond that epoch there seems no need
to go.
The true Viking Age began during the last years
of the eighth century; and it began with raids on
the coast nearest to Denmark. Lappenberg, in his
History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings
(Thorpe's tr., ii. p. 19), quotes an epistle of Bregowine
to Lullus (who died in 786) mentioning "frequent
attacks of wicked men on the provinces of the English
or on the regions of Gaul/' It is not clear that he
meant Scandinavian pirates, but we are coming very
near to the time and place where the earliest recorded
attacks did occur ; and when they once began they
came thick and fast. However untrustworthy any
given entry may be, Irish, English, and Frankish
annals unite in asserting that Viking raids, outside the
Baltic, began soon after this date, and continued from
that time forward. Within the Baltic the Scandi-
navian tribes had been preying upon each other for
THE EARLIEST RAIDS . 57
centuries: now at last they found new worlds to
conquer. It was not that they had never heard of
Gaul and Britain, but that they had not been induced
or emboldened to venture so far in small parties for
the sake of robbery under arms.
What, then, was the reason, or occasion, of this
sudden outburst ? Steenstrup thought that overpopu-
lation, through polygamy, had made emigration neces-
sary : but the earlier raids were not emigration ; and
K. Maurer argued that Harald Fairhair's attempts to
check emigration showed that Norway was not too
crowded. J. R. Green, in his Conquest of England,
suggested that as the unification of the small Scandi-
navian kingdoms had already begun, the more inde-
pendent spirits preferred adventure and exile to alien
rule ; adding that it is needless to look further for
a reason than the hope of plunder. But attempts at
unification had begun long before this period in Den-
mark and Sweden, and in Norway Harald Fairhair's
domination came after the Viking Age had already
set in. The hope of plunder was no doubt the motive,
but why should this date stand as the moment when
such hopes were formed ? Others have supposed that
heathendom was making reprisals for Charlemagne's
war on the Saxons ; but this idea involves a solidarity
among the Scandinavians, and a sentiment of religion,
wholly foreign to all we know of them. The Viking
raids may have been prompted partly by hate of the
Christian invader, but they were not analogous to
the Crusades; they simply meant that the people
of the Baltic awoke to the possibility of successful
58 . SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
plundering on French, British, and Irish coasts
places which, at an earlier date, they had not ventured
to assail.
The Saxon war, begun in 772 (Eginhard), brought
the people of Denmark directly into touch with
Western Europe. Sigfred, the Danish king, received
Widukind, the Saxon chief, when he sought refuge
from Charlemagne's armies. In 777 an embassy was
sent from Sigfred to Charlemagne, and though the
Danes took no general part in the struggle, in 803
Godfred, the successor of Sigfred, advanced with a
fleet to Sleswick to protect his land, and in 808, after
a raid across the Elbe, he built the first Danework
in the hope of making invasion impossible. This
earliest earthwork has been described by Mr. H.
A. Kjaer in The Saga-book of the Viking Club (iv.
pp. 313-325). The conduct of the war must have
opened the eyes of the Baltic folk to the opportunity
of plundering in regions which, up to that time, they
had regarded as beyond them in every sense. They
found that monasteries were wealthy and unprotected ;
gold and silver, rich clothes, wine and dainties, cattle
and captives to sell in the market, could be had for the
taking, in places which they had thought unassail-
able and impracticable. When once this new world
was opened up, as in later ages America was opened,
adventure was the obvious duty of every one who
wished to better himself. But as we now-a-days find
that a war teaches us geography, so it needed the
Saxon war to call attention to the wealth and weakness
of these western regions.
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 59
About this time the overking of Denmark ruled j
also Vestfold, the west coast of the Vik, now the
fjord of Christiania in Norway ; there was hardly any-
thing in the nature of a political distinction between
the people on the opposite coasts of the Skagerrack ;
the language was much the same, and the ethnological 1
differences noticed later as distinguishing Black-pirates,
or Danes, from White-pirates, or Norse, in Ireland \
cannot have been important in the case of sea-farers
united rather than divided by the narrow seas. The ;
mountains of Norway, cutting up the country into
deep valleys, were a more effectual bar to intercourse,
and the true Norse were those of the Bergen and
Trondhjem fjords and Gudbrandsdal. From the be-
ginning the English regarded the invaders as Danes ;
the word " Northmen " was the French name. To
the Franks all the invaders came from the North,
and the name did not mean people of Norway, which
indeed Prof. Noreen derives as Munch (Nor ske Folks
Historic^ I. i. 67) hinted not from "north," but from
nor, a sea-loch. The Northmen of Normandy were
mostly of Danish origin that is to say, from the
country later known as Denmark. Irish annals called
the invaders the Gaill (foreigners) or Gentiles, or
heathen, until 836, when the Four Masters chronicle
the arrival of sixty ships of Northmen, and, in 841,
three fleets Normannorum a Latin word in the
Gaelic text. In 846 the same annals mention Tomh-
rair erla tanaisi rlgh Lochlainne, jarl Th6rir, tan is t
(heir) of the King of Lochlann. Then, in 847, "a
fleet of seven score ships of the people of the king
60 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
of the foreigners came to contend with the foreigners
that were in Ireland before them;" and, in 850,
"the Dubhgoill arrived in Athcliath (Dublin) and
slaughtered the Finghoill." The Ulster Annals name
the Lochlanns in 839, and the Black and White
Gaill in 847. Now Duald Mac Firbis says, "The
writings of the Irish call a Lochlannaigh by the
name Goill : they also call some of them Dubh-
lochlannaigh, /. e. black Gentiles, which was applied to
the Danes of Dania, /. e. Denmark : Finn-Lochlannaigh,
i. e. fair Gentiles, /. e. the people of loruaighe, /. e. the
people of Norwegia:" and Keating explained Loch-
lonnaigh (sic) as " powerful on lakes or on the sea,"
from lonn, strong ; and gave the name to the Danes
(quoted in O'Donovan's Four Master s, p. 616). Still
the name of Lochlann seems to have been used as a
geographical expression ; but if it means " the country
of lochs," early Irish geography may have applied
it to Denmark, where the Limafjord and the Belts
are land-locked waters, as characteristic as the fjords
of Norway. If Duald Mac Firbis is right, the word
Dubhlochlannaigh shows that there was no distinction
at first in the minds of the Irish between Norway
and Denmark. Fuarlochlann, the cold Lochlann, is
used by him, perhaps for Norway. Prof. S. Bugge,
however, finds in the name Onphile jarla ( Wars of
the Gaedhil, 845 A.D.) "An Fila-jarl," earl of the
Fjala-folk (north of Sogne-fjord) in Norway ; which, if
established, is remarkable (see A. Bugge's Vester-
landenes Indfl., p. 108).
The name Viking (wicing) is used once in English
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 6 1
chronicles (A.-Sax. Chron. under 982). It is found in the
Epinal Glossary, and therefore was known long before
the Scandinavian invasions (W. H. Stevenson, Eng.
Hist. Rev. xix., p. 143). Dr. Lawrence has suggested
that it comes from the Anglo-Saxon wlgan, wfgian, to
fight, from which the usual substantive is wiggend or
ivigend, a warrior. Li*6vicingas occurs in " Widsith"
corresponding to the Icelandic Lf&ungar^ the men from
Lid in the Vik of Norway, though the reading of one
MS. in the chronicles (A.D. 885) of Lidwicingas for
Lidwiccas suggests that Bretons might be meant in
this case. English historians usually assume that
"Vikings" meant "men from the Vik" of Norway;
but the word does not seem to have been used in
this sense by saga-writers, who called the dwellers in
Vikin Vikverskar or Vikverjar, though in the mediaeval
Icelandic Bishops' sagas Sif&vikingr means a man from
Sii^avik, Vest/aiding a man from Vestfold, and so on.
The word vikingr means in the Sagas any pirate, of
whatever nationality. For instances, the rather early
Kormdks-saga, relating adventures of a party of
Icelanders and a German, calls them all " vikings,"
%x\&Landndmabdk gives the name to any Scandinavian
sea-rovers. Nor does it mean "haunting the creeks
of England, the lochs of Scotland and the loughs of
Ireland ; " for though it is true that there is no word
austr-viking (piracy in the east) parallel to vestr-viking
(piracy in the west), still EgiPs saga (chap. 36) tells
how "they went in viking on the eastern way," to
Russia. The word viking (feminine) means the
life of a pirate, a free-booting voyage; "to go in
62 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
viking" is a common phrase and one used before the
sagas were written down,, for a Swedish runic stone
records a man who "died on the west voyage in
viking." The use of the word viking relates to
occupation: the peaceful merchant, though he came
from the same home and sailed into the same
waters as the pirate, was not called a viking ; the
distinction comes out in the description of one who
was both by turns (Egil's saga, chap. 32) ; Bjorn was
a great traveller, var stundum i viking enn stundum i
kaupfeffium " he was sometimes in viking but some-
times on trading voyages." At first the name was
honourable : " Naddodd was a great viking," says
Landndma ; but gradually as things became more
settled it was possible for the pirate to be no hero ;
" Thorbjorn bitra was a viking and a rascal," says
Landndma (ii. 32) of one who disgraced his calling
by plundering the wrong people. In the saga of
Cormac the Skald the transition is apparent : the
ancestors of the family were vikings of the good old
sort in the ninth and early tenth centuries, but towards
the close of the tenth century, when certain travellers
on a trip from Trondhjem to Denmark were taken by
"vikings," the word means simply pirates of no
heroic sort. Raif&avikingr, a red pirate, is parallel to
rau^Sa-rdn, red robbery ; and when the literature of
the north began to be composed, and not only written
down, by churchmen, to whom the deeds of their
ancestors were as abhorrent as their heathenism,
viking came to mean any robber ; until at last, in the
story of David, the giant Goliath is called "this
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 63
cursed viking." But in the tenth century the common
noun had become already a proper name, as did
Dubhgall, Finngall, Lagman, Lochlann, and Sumar-
lidi ; there is a place in the south of Iceland called
Vikingslsekr, Viking's brook, named in Landndma
(v. 5, 6) in connexion with the settlement ; and later
the personal name of Viking is found on runic stones.
The inference is that the English word was adopted
quite early by the Scandinavians to denote the
honourable employment of the free buccaneer and
not as a geographical designation.
The employment was not without honour. To us,
looking back on the weary waste of life and the means
of life, estimating in imagination the wanton destruc-
tion of art and literature, the sufferings of innocent
people massacred or driven into slavery among heathens
and barbarians, or left to struggle and starve in the
ruins of their homes, it is easy to understand the bitter-
ness with which the Viking attacks were regarded, and
the despair of the litany : " A furore Normannorum,
libera nos, Domine." But it is easy also to forget that
the bitterness was felt because the Vikings were heathen
and barbarians, a despised race, regarded in the ninth
century as, in the twelfth century, Saracens abroad and
Jews at home were regarded. When in Christian Ire-
land monks fought with monks, and kings made war
on priests and women, it was the normal course of
nature j but that Gentiles should come in and poach
upon the preserves of royal sportsmen was the un-
bearable shame. In England for many a year stout
resistance was made ; the Vikings were often beaten,
64 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and sometimes treated with greater cruelty than they
intended to inflict. There is no trace, in the earlier
period, of needless cruelty on their part, except the
fact, which seems needless to us but was by no means
so in that age, of their making any such attacks at all.
It was only later, by contact with the South, that they
learnt to torture ; but we cannot say that they met
easy deaths when they were captured (see for example
page 68). 1 Nor was their life easy; hard fare, heavy
labour at the oar, exposure in open boats to all the
storms of the North, difficult navigation of unknown
seas, comfortless and homeless wanderings in hostile
lands, the fate of a galley-slave in everything but
freedom and the chances of glory and gold.
It was not a heroic life, as we count heroism to-day.
The thirst for gold, torn from fine reliquaries and
shrines and the jewelled covers of psalm-books, to be
hammered into arm-rings or hoarded in holes, seems
childish to a modern reader ; and the traffic in slaves,
which formed the largest and most lucrative part of
the Viking's booty, shocks our sentiments. But in
the ninth century the Viking could plead ample pre-
cedent j he was only doing what the most civilised
were doing ; his fault was that he did it rather more
skilfully. For indeed he was, in his time, the most
capable of mankind ; not fully matured, but not with-
out his own high civilisation, having more than the
rudiments of domestic comforts and graces, more than
1 Also see a paper by Mr. H. St. G. Gray, on " Danes'
Skins on Church Doors " ; Saga-book of the Viking Chib, V.
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 65
the elements of the finer arts and crafts, by which, if
by anything, a race is judged. He was law-abiding,
beyond most; intelligent and ready to learn, so that the
story of captive Greece capturing her conquerors was
often repeated, when the sea-rover settled in Ireland,
or England, or France. He was, in a word, the man
who deserved a hearing and who made himself heard.
And if he knew nothing as yet of the faith in which
Columba and Bede had so beautifully spent their
lives, he was, in higher moments, by no means a soul-
less savage. In one of the Edda songs, Hyndluljbd,
there is a verse which we may fancy was sung to him-
self by many a young adventurer, as the boat tossed in
the breakers in sight of white cliffs and the unknown
fate in store :
Victory He giveth, and wealth at His will ;
Wisdom and words they may win them who can :
As He gives the boat breeze so He gives the skald skill,
But to each giveth Odin the heart of a man.
Now it was some twenty years after the outbreak of
the Saxon war (p. 58) and seven years or more after the
attacks of " wicked men " on the Channel coasts, that
we have the first serious incident of the Viking Age,
the sack of Lindisfarne, in January, 793. It was
heralded by storms, lightnings and " fiery dragons in
the air " (/. e. aurora borealis). Symeon of Durham
pauses in his rapid History of the Kings to describe the
island with its curious sands and tides, and the noble
monastery once ruled by St. Cuthbert. and then paints
at length the landing of the Gentiles like wolves, slay-
ing flocks and herds, priests and Levites, monks arid
E
66 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
nuns : trampling the holy places, throwing down the
altars, pillaging the treasuries. "Some of the monks
they killed ; a large number they carried away captive ;
the greater part they thrust out stripped and insulted ;
a few were drowned." The witness of the chroniclers
is confirmed by a letter of Alcuin's of 794, showing that
the news reached the Continent and created no little
panic. But the extraordinary circumstance is that the
landing was made on the 8th of January. It is true
that the North Sea is sometimes sunny and calm in
the depth of winter, but this had been a particularly
stormy season. Later Vikings chose the summer for
their excursions, and sumarlidi, "summer-sailor," was
synonymous with " pirate." Cattle and sheep, in that
age, were slaughtered in autumn, and only a few stock
beasts kept to be fed on hay through the winter ; so
that the flocks and herds on Lindisfarne (jumenta^
oves et boves) could not have been more than sufficed for
the strandhogg, the slaughter by the shore, for the
feast which was the usual finish to a raid. The raiders
had not come for cattle, but for gold and slaves ; they
knew where to get what they wanted at a rich mona-
stery on an island to which help from the surrounding
country would be slow in coming ; and they knew
what to do with the slaves when they had captured
them. We are told that Scandinavia was over-popu-
lated, and even if that was not the case, it was hardly
necessary to import labour into Denmark, still less
into Norway ; a monk or a nun from England would
be little use on a fell-side farm in Hardanger or Sogn.
There must have been recognised markets in Flanders
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 67
and France for such commodities ; later on, captives
were sold in Ireland or carried east to Esthonia and
Russia. But in January 793 a cargo of English monks
could not have been taken so far with profit, and
there is no hint here or elsewhere that the Vikings
took prisoners with the definite intention of holding
them to ransom, except in a much later period when
all the circumstances had changed, as in the sack of
Canterbury, 1012. They carried off their captives to
sell in some distant port ; but where ?
Everything seems to indicate that this attack came
from the south. We have hints of previous plunder-
ing on French and English coasts, and Roger de
Hoveden, a north-country writer, says that before the
attack on Lindisfarne there had been attempts on
the Northumbrian coast. The earlier Scandinavian
boat, long and shallow and with great, top-heavy sail
was not built for crossing the North Sea in winter.
Alcuin indeed wrote, " Nothing like their mode of
navigation has ever been heard of before," and the
adventure was in any case a remarkable achievement.
Still the coast route must have been the one followed
on this occasion ; and the sudden, decisive attack
upon the weakest point, the rich, undefended island,
showed previous knowledge and a well-laid plan of
action. We cannot help feeling that the " wolves "
were led by a fox whose earth lay somewhere nearer
than Norway or even Denmark ; and that as Christian
nations had set the example of raiding, so now a
"Christian" employer showed the way and profited
by the work some one at least who lived in a country
68 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
nominally under the rule of the Christian emperor.
The first viking raids were not a war of heathenism in
revenge for the oppression of the Old Saxons ; they
were a new form of sport, at the back of which were
" business interests ; " and Danes, not Norse, were
concerned.
Next year ''the aforesaid Pagans" tried to repeat
their success. They returned and ravaged Ecgfrid's
port and the monastery at Done-mouth Jarrow,
where the little Don joins the Tyne. " But St.
Cuthbert did not let them depart unpunished.
Indeed their chief was slain by the English on the
spot with a cruel death, and after a short space of
time the violence of a tempest shook, ruined and
brake to pieces their ships ; and very many the sea
overwhelmed. Some were cast ashore, and soon
killed without pity. And this served them right for
doing grave harm to those who had never done them
harm" (Symeon).
Under 792 (correctly 794) the Ulster Annals note
with evident exaggeration, "all the coast of Britain
ravaged by the foreigners ; " and, two years later, " the
foreigners ravage Fortrenn (central Scotland) and
distress the Picts." This may mean that, in spite
of the reverse at Jarrow, the raids were pushed
farther north, up the east coast of Britain. It is not
proved that Vikings had reached the south-west of
Scotland in 796.
The year 795, in which the Vikings did not venture
back to the scene of the disaster of 794, was spent in
an attempt in another direction. A party sailed round
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 69
the south coast and made a descent on Glamorgan-
shire (Gwcniian Chronicle), where the peninsula of
Cower was often afterwards the scene of their land-
ings, and then sailed across St. George's Channel to
the Irish coast, which they followed until they came
to another island monastery, Lambey, then known as
Rechru (genitive Rechrainn, the name used by Moore
in the hog-drowning story quoted p. 48). Here they
"burnt, spoiled and impoverished the shrines" of the
abbey founded by St. Columba. Some identify this
place with Rachaire or Rathlin island, co. Antrim.
A letter of Alcuin, written in 797, speaks of the
ravages as continuing; and in 798 a second invasion
of the Irish Sea was made. Following, no doubt, the
same route, they again made for a rich island monas-
tery, the Celtic shrine of St. Dochonna on St. Patrick's
Island (Holm Peel), on the west coast of Man. Skye
is named as attacked about this time, but the small
Columban monastery in the south of that island is
hardly likely to have been attacked, either from the
north or the south, without any attempt being made
to gather in the riches of lona so near at hand and
so much more tempting. Skye and lona must have
suffered about the same time, namely in 802.
Meanwhile, in 799 and 800, France and Frisia had
occupied the attention of the pirates. If at first, as
we suspect, the Vikings had received help and en-
couragement from France or Frisia, it did not prevent
their turning to those districts in the years when they
left Ireland and England to lie fallow. The sequence
of their descents proves that all these attacks came
70 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
from the same quarter: 793, Lindisfarne ; 794,
Jarrow; 795, Rechru ; 796, East-coast of Scotland;
797, Alcuin's notice of continued ravages ; 798, Peel,
Isle of Man; 799, France; 800, Frisia; 802, lona.
These were no chance landfalls of semi-savage rovers,
but a definite scheme to exploit the most available
material. Where good resistance was offered, no
further attempts were made : after the disaster at
Jarrow there is no record of a descent on English
ground for nearly 40 years ; it was not worth while.
The finding of English coins of the early "eight-
twenties " in county Wicklow has been thought to
indicate that in those years Vikings from Ireland made
unrecorded raids on south-eastern England : but it is
possible that these English coins were brought to
Ireland by way of trade, for at the time there was no
Irish coinage, whereas trade always went on. And in
spite of Viking attacks life went on ; the burnt thatch
was renewed, the desecrated altar reconsecrated, and
in the case of so famous a centre as lona the offerings
of the faithful soon replaced the loss. How well this
was known to the managers of the Viking enterprise
we can see from the fact that in four years the abbey
was worth robbing again, and in '806 a second attack
was made. This time the monks tried to defend
their treasures, and sixty-eight were slain in the
fight.
Next year the pirates, doubtless the same party
and under the same auspices, sailed round the north
coast of Ireland into Donegal Bay, and plundered
Inishmurry, yet another rich island monastery, whose
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 71
curious remains of early architecture are still to be
seen (Scotland in Early Christian Times, i. p. 87).
After that, for several years there is a cessation of
raids ; Godfred, king of Denmark, was employing all
hands in war with the Slavs, with Frisia and with
Charlemagne. But after his death we find that the
Vikings at once returned to Ireland. In 811-813
they began a new phase of their operations, as though
the experience of the late war had taught them the
most teachable of people how to do more than fall
upon a defenceless island and fly with the plunder.
They now landed and went up the country, in Ulster,
in Connemara, and to the lakes of Killarney. They
were not always successful, for both the Irish annals and
Eginhard tell us that they were beaten off with great
loss, more than once. These disasters appear to have
disheartened them; for seven years there are no more
invasions.
At last we have come to the period when we
begin to hear of Norwegians in North British seas.
That they had some knowledge of the route, and
perhaps occasionally used it in fishing or trading
voyages, is very likely ; indeed it would be inconceiv-
able that this piece of water between Shetland and
Norway was untraversed when the route to the Faeroes
and Iceland was well known to the Irish. It seems
reasonable to suppose that the example of the Danish
enterprises was talked about, and soon followed, by
the men of Hordaland ; the contagion of enterprise,
so to speak, spread northward. But there was a
difference from the beginning between the Danish
72 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and the Norwegian incursions. The Danes came
chiefly for plunder, and returned to their own sunny
and fertile country to enjoy the fruits of their industry ;
while the Norse, living in a ruder climate, more
straitened for the means of life in their narrow fields
along the fjord-sides, and less spoiled by commerce
with the rich south, came to find new homes in
milder and more spacious regions. To them the
North of Britain, and still more the coasts of the Irish
Sea, were southern lands : they could never have
found in the bee-hive huts and rude oratories of the
Orkneys and the northern Hebrides that wealth of
plunder which attracted the first Vikings to Lindis-
farne and lona; but they found ready-made houses
and cultivated fields, or the space they needed for
expansion. Even the Faeroes were colonised by the
Norse fifty years before any settlement was effected
by the Danes in England ; and if the methods of the
two classes of Vikings were hardly distinguishable by
the natives who resented their presence, their aims
were not the same. It might be said, as a rough
summing-up of the earlier Viking period, that the
Danes showed the way westward to the Norse,
but the Norse set the example of conquest and
colonisation to the Danes. We shall see (p. 182
onward) that the most permanent foreign settlements
on British soil were chiefly Norse in origin and
character.
It was perhaps owing to the rivalry created by the
eajjier Norse invasions that the Danish attacks began
again in 820 or 822. They had the same object, gold
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 73
and slaves. From Edar, which they called
Howth, they carried off " a great prey of women,"
and in 823 plundered Inis-dowill (Inch, co. Wexford)
and Cork ; then, sailing along the coast, climbed
the almost inaccessible crags of Skellig Mhichel on
the Kerry coast (where wonderful structures of this
period still remain in the island cashel and beehive
cells), and kidnapped the hermit Eitgall, " et cito
mortuus est fame et siti," perhaps set ashore as
a useless captive, for on board the ships he need
not have starved to death. Next year the famous
monastery of Bangor (co. Down) was sacked ; " the
oratory was broken, and the relics of Comhgall were
shaken from the shrine, as Comhgall himself had
foretold."
A year later they made the third attack on lona,
where the monastery, which in SiS had been rebuilt
in stone on a new site, was once more plundered.
The occasion is marked by the death of Blathmac
mac Flainn, and by the account of it written by
Walafrid Strabo, abbot of Augiadives (Reichenau on
the Lake of Constance), who himself died only twenty-
one years afterwards. Blathmac seems to have expected
the chance of his death sooner or later at the hands
of Vikings ; though the rebuilding of the monastery
suggests that the Columban brotherhood thought the
storm was over, after five years had passed without
sign of piracy from the south, and obviously without
sign of Norse attacks from the north. When at last
the sails of the approaching fleet were seen from the
look-out on Dunii, the jewelled golden shrine that
74 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
held the sacred relics of Columba was hastily buried,
and most of the monks fled to hiding-places on the
moors of the island. Some few remained to resist,
and were slain. Blathmac stood to his post at the
altar, saying mass, until he was seized and required
to give up the treasure for the Vikings were well
aware of its existence; they had not come without
information. He on his part knew enough about
the strangers to reply in their language. This may
mean that he had studied Danish, or that a few
words of English sufficed; for no doubt Blathmac
spoke English as many an educated Irishman must
have spoken it, and as, vice versa, Englishmen like
Kings Oswiu and Aldfrith spoke Gaelic. He pro-
tested that he did not know where the treasure was
hidden, but added that, if he did, he would not tell ;
whereupon they cut him down, and he attained his
desire of martyrdom.
In the little building called St. Columba's tomb,
close to the west end of the cathedral of lona, there
are two stone cists, which Skene thought, on the
analogy of a similar oratory at Temple Molaga in
Ireland, must have been made to contain the most
valued of the relics. If so, that on the south must
have held the bones of St. Columba, and as Walafrid
especially mentions a miracle-working shrine of St.
Blathmac, the cist on the north side of the cell may
have been made as the coffin of the martyr.
With 825, the year of Grim Kamban in the Faeroes,
while Dicuil was finishing his book in France, began
the serious and strenuous attempt on the inland
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 75
shrines of Ireland. Downpatrick, Moville, Inisdowill,
and Lusk suffered first (825-826), and then we find
Vikings fighting the tribal chiefs up-country, sometimes
defeated with slaughter, and yet persistent, until, in
832, Armagh was thrice plundered in one month, with
many other churches, and the shrine of St. Adamnan
was carried off from Donaghmoyne (co. Monaghan).
Next year Niall, the new-made overking of Ireland,
beat the Vikings at Derry, but they sacked Clondalkin.
And all the while Irish kinglets and chiefs amused
themselves at the old royal sport of ravage and
massacre ; so that the assaults of the Gaill are mere
incidents, a small percentage in the catalogue of
troubles. Even church-burning and monk-slaying were
not unknown among the Irish ; in this very year (833)
the king of Cashel slaughtered the monks of Clon-
macnois and Durrow ; another chief had massacred
the clergy of Kildare in the year before. Ireland was
ripe for conquest, but since the beginning of their raids
the Vikings had sailed past the coasts of England, year
after year, and never made a landing serious enough
for the chronicles to record.
Now, emboldened by success and experience, they
extended the sphere of their adventures. The first
great expedition against Flanders was made in 834,
and then for three years they were plundering that coast
and the coast of France to the mouth of the Loire.
A few slight attacks were made upon England; a
descent on Sheppey and a landing at Charmouth in
Dorset, where they defeated the local forces, were
episodes in the plundering on the other side of the
76 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Channel, The case is different with the invasion of
Cornwall in 838.
Ecgberht had conquered the West Welsh in 823,
but they chafed under the yo.ke, Possibly by their
invitation, or possibly as the first instance of a policy
which was repeated a few years later in Brittany
and in Ireland, the Vikings joined them. A great
fleet came to Cornwall, and the army together with
the Cornishmen marched eastward against Wessex.
Ecgberht crossed the Tamar to meet them, and
on Hengestesdune (perhaps Hengston Down, between
Plymouth and Launceston) won a decisive victory.
The first plainly recorded name of a Viking chief is
that of Saxulf, who is noticed in the Irish Annals as
slain about 836. The next and greatest of this epoch
is Turgesius, or Turgeis, formerly identified with the
Thorgils, son of Harald Fairhair, mentioned by
Snorri Sturluson, in spite of the hopeless anachronism.
The name would stand for Thorgest, as Dr. Whitley
Stokes suggested ; and Snorri's tale is no doubt a
legend of his life, confused and misdated. The date
of his arrival and the place of his origin are uncertain,
but he seems to have been the first of the " foreigners "
in Ireland who showed an intention to conquer the
land and settle in it, perhaps somewhat earlier than
839, the date given for the advent of his " great royal
fleet " in the Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill. He
built a fort on Lough Ree, took Armagh, the chief
centre of religion in the north of Ireland, and, accord-
ing to the legend, made himself " abbot " of the
monastery ; at the same time placing in Clonmacnois,
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 77
the chief abbey of central Ireland, his wife Otta,
where she sat on the altar of the church and " gave
answers " in the character of a priestess or prophetess.
At last he was captured by King Maelseachlann, and
drowned in Lough Owel (co. Westmeath), in or about
843. A variant of the tale is given by Giraldus, and
may perhaps have been known to Snorri, to the effect
that he fell in love with a daughter of King Mael-
seachlann, and that she was sent to him with a com-
pany of fifteen young men dressed as girls, who stabbed
him and his chiefs to death.
Thorgest may have been a Norwegian, for we
get definite notice in the Irish Annals of the
difference between Norse and Danes at the period
of his arrival (see pp. 59, 60). But by the time of
Thorgest's death Limerick had been founded as a
Viking settlement, and Dublin (840) on a site cap-
tured in 836 ; while the colony in Wicklow (Wiking-
law) was established at least as early as 835. About this
time we have the first distinct notices of attempts to
occupy southern and central Scotland, the hold of the
Northmen on the Orkneys and Shetland being already
secured. When ^Ethelwulf, the son of Ecgberht, came
to the throne of Wessex, the aspect of affairs had
altered from occasional predatory raids to determined
invasion.
About 840 these new invasions began on the south
coast of England ; the first, repulsed from Southamp-
ton ; the next at Portland, in which the Danes beat the
Saxons by means of their trick of the feigned flight ;
the third, a successful raid upon Lindsey, East Anglia
78 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and Kent ; and the fourth, an attack on London and
Rochester, after which the Danes drew off to Cwenta-
wic (Staples), and soon after sacked Rouen and
Nantes, in 845 besieging Paris. They returned to the
attack on England at Charmouth (Dorset) where
./Ethelwulf himself, engaging the crews of thirty-five
Danish ships, was beaten. But the Danes then did
not follow up their success. At the mouth of the
Parret they were repulsed by the levies of Somerset
and Dorset, and again at " Wicganbeorh " in Dorset
in 851.
But by this time more serious efforts at conquest
were in preparation. In 850 a party landed on Thanet
(or on Sheppey) and wintered there, the first wintering
on English ground, and early next year a great fleet
of 350 ships sailed into the Thames; Canterbury and
London were sacked ; Beorhtwulf of Mercia was put
to flight and died, perhaps of his wounds. Mr. Keary
(The Vikings in Western Christendom , p. 273) thinks
that this fleet was commanded by Rorik, one of the
family then ruling in Denmark. Rorik, if he was the
leader, hoped to found a kingdom of his own as other
leaders had done in Ireland : but there was more
resistance to be met with in the Saxons than in the
Celts. King ^Ethelwulf ofWessex fought the invaders
at Ockley in Surrey, and defeated them with great loss,
while his son JEthelstan, king of Kent, put out to
sea the first indication of naval efforts on the part of
the Saxons and won a battle off Sandwich, taking
nine ships and putting the rest to flight.
For a time the Danes fell back on the easier con-
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 79
quest of France, or tried England, as it were, by the
back-door. They had formerly struck at Wessex
through Cornwall ; now they attempted the route
through North Wales, perhaps trying to get the Welsh
to co-operate as before. ^Ethelwulf gave his daughter
in marriage to Burhred, the new king of Mercia, and
joined him, at his request in 853, in an expedition
against the Welsh, whom he reduced to subjection.
That is to say, King Roderick ap Merfyn, between two
fires, must have promised to expel the Vikings ; and
we find in the Ulster Annals, in 855, "Horm, chief
of Black Gentiles, killed by Ruadhri mac Murminn,
king of Wales" the Orm who possibly gave their
name to the Ormes Heads at Llandudno. The ex-
tent to which Orm's incursion had succeeded may be
gathered from a Mercian charter of the same year,
which mentions the fact that pagans had reached the
district of the Wrekin (Birch, 487 ; Kemble, 277).
But while ^thelwulf was engaged in the west, the
persistent Danes entered Thanet, and fought a battle
with the men of Kent and Surrey, in which ealdorman
Ealhere of Kent, who had won the sea-fight alongside
of King ^Ethelstan at Sandwich, was slain. Two years
later, ^thelwulf was again absent, trusting that all
was quiet ; but the Danes promptly came to winter
in Sheppey.
He had gone on pilgrimage to Rome. On the way
back he stayed three months with Charles the Bald.
His first wife, the mother of Alfred, appears to have
died, and before leaving France he married Judith,
daughter of Charles, a child of twelve. It can only
80 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
have been a nominal marriage of policy, for as he had
given his daughter to the Mercian king in order to
strengthen Wessex on the north against the Vikings, so
now he made an alliance with the Franks to secure as
far as possible the co-operation of the great southern
power in the same cause. On his arrival home he
found his son ^Ethelbald in possession of the throne,
and thenceforward contented himself with the eastern
half of his old kingdom. During his lifetime we hear of
no more Viking attacks ; his policy was successful, not
only for himself, but for ^Ethelbald, who succeeded
him, and the peace lasted into the days of ^Ethelberht,
the brother who followed. So secure did the West-
Saxons feel, that when at last a body of Vikings, per-
haps under Volund who was adventuring at this time
in France, suddenly landed and made a dash upon
Winchester, the capital city of the realm, it was only
after the storm and sack of the town that the local
fyrd was got together. Then the Hampshire and
Berkshire men intercepted the raiders, and put them
to flight with great slaughter. But the tide was
beginning to turn.
In 865 " the heathen army sat down in Thanet, and
made peace with the men of Kent, and the men of
Kent promised them money for the peace ; and dur-
ing the peace and the promise of money, the army
stole away by night and ravaged all Kent to the east-
ward." This is a noteworthy entry, for it marks the
first payment of the Danegeld which afterwards be-
came such a burden to England ; and it is the first
example of the " Danish breach of faith " of which
THE EARLIEST RAIDS 8 1
so much is heard in later years the usual cry of
those who are worsted in a sharp bargain. We
have no account of the Danish side of the story;
but now the conquest of the Danelaw had begun in
earnest.
II. THE DANELAW
I. THE AGE OF ALFRED
THAT part of Britain which the Danes conquered
in the days of King Alfred was called in Anglo-Saxon
Dena/agu, the district in which the Danes' law pre-
vailed. The word lagu in the sense of " laws " comes
from the Scandinavian log, which in its secondary use
meant not only "laws," but the group of people who
were ruled by a given code. Gtdathings log, or Thr&nda
tog, came to be almost geographical expressions for
the country which owned the rulings of the Gulathing,
or the neighbourhood of Trondhjem. Hence the
form " Danelaw," used by recent historians as a
convenient rendering of Denalagu, is not mislead-
ing, beside being more readable than the hybrid
" Danelagh."
King Alfred's life covers the period of this con-
quest, the second half of the ninth century. After the
tentative attacks of the first sixteen years, came the
invasion of the Great Army, which created the Dane-
law, followed by the futile attempt of Hastein (Hasting)
to settle in Alfred's realm. By the year 900 the eth-
nological map of England had been drawn on lines
which last, with alterations in details only, to this day.
The story is one of stirring deeds on both sides.
82
THE AGE OF ALFRED 83
If we admire the heroic defence of the Saxon king, we
cannot forget that most of us who form the English
nation have in our veins more than a little of the
Viking blood. We owe our existence as much to one
side as to the other, and it is a false patriotism and a
mistaken view of history which asks us to give our
sympathies exclusively to either party in this struggle
of a thousand years ago. To tell the story fully in
the limits of this work is impossible ; we must, how-
ever, sketch the course of events in order to make the
results intelligible.
When /Ethelred, the fourth son of Ecgberht, suc-
ceeded to the throne, his accession was the signal for
the beginning of troubles to which all previous incur-
sions had been literally like ships that pass in the
night. In that year 866, says ^Ethelwerd, "the
fleets of the tyrant Hingwar arrived in England from
the north," de Danubio^ says Asser ; de Danubia,
Symeon copies him : from Denmark, of course
"and wintered among the East Angles; and having
established their arms there, they got them horses,
and made peace with all the inhabitants of their own
neighbourhood." In other words, they became a force
of wonderfully active and mobile mounted infantry,
like the hobelars of the thirteenth century or the
Boers of recent times ; and their new policy was to
conciliate the immediate neighbourhood in which they
settled, in order to form a base of operations. This
was a repetition of the policy already seen in Corn-
wall, Brittany and Wales ; and now it seems to have
been applied to East Anglia, where the natives still
84 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
forming a separate kingdom, but a dependency might
be stirred up to take part in attacks on the power which
had robbed them of the supremacy they boasted in the
days of Redwald. Their king, afterwards known as
St. Eadmund the Martyr, is not mentioned in these
transactions ; when his turn came he fought his fight
and suffered his fate with a courage no less than that
of the greatest hero of the Sagas. There was no lack
of courage in England, but there was one thing need-
ful the master-mind, which had not yet shown itself
here. We cannot but suspect, however, that on the
side of the Vikings there was one who, if we knew more
about him, would deserve mention with the Hannibals
and Napoleons of history.
When we consider the strategy of these invaders,
the great war-game which was going on ; how fleet
after fleet sought the weakest points ; how, on the
failure of frontal attack, new attacks were made in
flank ; how the diplomacy of alliance with discontented
dependencies was followed ; how the maxim of " divide
and conquer " was understood ; how the net was drawn
around England from point to point on either hand,
until the time came for the final effort that should
strangle the power of Wessex and make the British
Islands wholly Scandinavian : when we consider this,
it is impossible to escape the idea that some great
plan was in operation, some strong mind directing a
warfare which, however originated, had become no
casual scramble of independent adventurers, nor even
an organisation merely to exploit their sporting in-
stincts, but a resolute scheme of conquest played with
THE AGE OF ALFRED 85
the skill of a chess-player on the field of empire. It
was not for nothing that the Vikings on board their
ships played draught-games ; one finds their travelling
chessboards and tenoned pieces, showing how they
beguiled the time in rough weather with something
more intellectual than drinking and horseplay. The
same tendency marks their art and literature. Anglo-
Saxon poetry has imagination ; the verse of the
Northmen, in its intricate metres and rhymes, its
elaboration of synonyms and "kennings," has in
genuity to equal any art of the kind before or since.
Anglo-Saxon sculpture has grace and charm learnt
from abroad, but soon degenerating; while Scandi-
navian ornament develops from simple models into
labyrinths of intricacy compared with which even the
cobweb lace of Celtic design, being regular and needing
more patience than thought, is easy to follow. The
success of the Vikings was by no means a success of
rude and savage force ; it was a triumph of mental
power as well as of moral endurance and physical
bravery.
Their armour and weapons are noted in The Wars
of the Gaedhil and the Gaill as superior to those of
the Irish, who were no mean craftsmen. At the siege
of Paris they seem to have used machines and methods
of assault as good as those employed for several cen-
turies to follow ; and in the campaign of Ivar they
fortified themselves in earthworks not mere boundary
dykes like the Danework the use of which was
unusual in Scandinavia until the burg of the Jdmsvi-
kings gave an example of the skill they learnt in their
86 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
southern campaigns. The adoption of the mounted
infantry system, afterwards copied by the English, put
them at once into a position of great tactical advan-
tage ; just as their well-known but most difficult trick
of the feigned flight enabled them to break the line of
the bravest Saxon fyrd, fighting on the old hand-to-
hand principles. Odin, in far antiquity, as their
stories told, taught his children the " swine-fylking,"
the charge in wedge-formation, such as the High-
landers used at Prestonpans ; but who was the new
culture-hero who made use of many experiences
gathered from the South, and sent out the Vikings
of the ninth century to be the most efficient soldiery
of their age ? Who planned the great campaign by
which East Anglia, Deira and Mercia, were success-
ively annexed ? and why did he fail to annex the
kingdom of /Elfred ?
The genius of Viking conquest, according to Prof. A.
Bugge ( Vikingerne^ i. p. 139) was Thorgest, who fell in
Ireland in 843 after extending his empire over half the
country. But a greater man may be suspected in the
half-mythical Ivar "the Boneless," who in 857 to 862
had been fighting in Ireland, and now led the great
host through all its wonderful successes, only to dis-
appear from the scene at the moment before the tide
turned, and the good fortune of the Saxons prevailed.
It was he whom the Irish Annals called " chief king
of all Northmen in Britain and Ireland," and the
English chroniclers name with deepest hate, the
tribute of the conquered. In the Sagas he is the
wily one, " who had no bones in his body, but was
THE AGE OF /ELFRED 87
very wise ; " who succeeded in each enterprise by craft,
when the courage of his brothers had failed. Eldest
of the sons of Ragnar Lodbrok by the daughter of
Sigurd the dragon-slayer, he is the one constant
factor in the varying groups of conquerors, as given
by different sources. His brothers in Ragnar's Saga
are Sigurd Snake-eye, Hvitserk and Bjorn Ironside;
in the English chroniclers, Halfdan and Hubba (Ubbi\
though Symeon distinguishes the last as Dux Frisi-
orum ; in the Annals of Roskilde, Ubi, Bjorn and
Ulph ; and in the Irish Three Fragments, Olaf the
White and Oisla (Haisl). He appears 866-870 as
directing operations in England, Scotland and Ireland,
always with success ; and though the saga leaves him
childless, he must be the father of the great line of
Dublin kings, and the " Old Ivar of the Judgments "
who appears at the head of Hebridean clan-pedigrees.
The rapidity of the conquest, when Ivar took it in
hand, is remarkable. So far, the Vikings had made
no headway ; now, five years sufficed for the completed
and permanent subjugation of East Anglia, Deiral
and northern Mercia : and this was not because!
no resistance, or a poor resistance, was offered. It I
is true that Northumbria was disturbed by faction ; \
king Osberht had been dethroned by a usurper ^Ella, \
and this was Ivar's opportunity ; but, unlike the Irish, )
the Anglian factions sunk their differences and united
in fierce opposition to the common enemy. Mercia
was a strong power, and had support from Wessex,
but nothing stood against Ivar. Wessex was saved by
/Elfred, but only after Ivar was gone.
88 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
In the spring of 867 the Great Army rode across
the Humber, and on November i had taken York.
On March 21, 868, all Northumbria joined in an
attack on their position, and utterly failed. If it had
been Ivar's object to ravage, he would have overrun
Bernicia ; if he had wished to destroy, he would not
have left the great churches at York and Ripon
standing. Shrines were plundered, but the land was
left under a native king, one Ecgberht, who either as
a downright renegade or in the hope of restoring some
order from the wreck consented to hold it as the
Danes' tributary. Thus he founded a lasting dynasty.
Ivar's plan was to clear the board of Mercia, and
to put Wessex in check. He seized Nottingham :
Burhred slowly called out his forces, and called in
help from ^Ethelred and Alfred ; but the only result
was a treaty under which Ivar returned leisurely to
York, and fortified the city anew in the winter of
869, 870. Their almost Roman habit of entrenching
a position was a fresh feature in English warfare,
learnt perhaps from the Carlovingian empire, and
imitated by Alfred ; for, as Asser says, the old walls
of York were poor defences.
In 870 Ivar's army, avoiding central Mercia, and
so far respecting the treaty of Nottingham, inarched
through Lincolnshire to intrench itself at Thetford.
King Eadmund of East Anglia attacked it in vain, and
fell ; some accounts tell us that he was slain in
battle; the later legend of his martyrdom is well
known. But if the tale of cruelty is true, the only
explanation, at this period, would be that he was
THE AGE OF ALFRED 89
regarded by Ivar as a traitor to the charge which,
like Ecgberht in Northumbria, he may have under-
taken under the Danes. We have no mention of his
father, or pedigree connecting him with native kings.
But at least he fell in defence of his country and
faith, and earned the crown of martyrdom. His feast
day fixes the date as November 20, 870.
From that moment forth, Ivar too disappears from
England. He is usually represented as the chief
actor in the death of St. Eadmund, but in all subse-
quent operations he is not named. The Annals of
Ulster, which often antedate by a year, mention tinder
869 "The siege of Alclyde (Dumbarton) by the North-
men : Olaf and Ivar, two kings of the Northmen,
besieged that stronghold, and at the end of four months
they stormed and sacked it ; " and then, next year,
that Olaf (the White) and Ivar came again to Dublin
from Scotland "and a very great spoil of captives,
English, British and Pictish, was carried away to
Ireland;" and finally, under 872, "Ivar, King of
the Northmen of all Ireland and Britain, ended his
life." There can be no doubt that this Ivar is
the man who led the army in England : he would
not otherwise have been described as king of the
Northmen of all Ireland and Britain ; nor would he
have been able to carry to Dublin "a very great spoil
of English captives " as well as of British (or Strath-
clyde Welsh) who were taken at the sack of Dumbarton,
the chief stronghold of Strathclyde. It is curious to
find him acting with Olaf the White, a Norseman ;
but he had been with him before in 858 and 862, an4
90 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
then disappeared from Irish annals until now. Ivar
the Crafty probably made light of the differences
between Black and White Gaill, when the chance
offered for pushing his fortunes ; and now, seeing the
conquest of England going forward, and affairs of his
cause in the North hanging in the balance by the
long siege of the Strathclyde capital, hastened to lend
his aid, bringing his army and English spoil.
The siege over, and after the winter on the Clyde,
he sailed for Dublin, and died there in peace two years
later. One MS. of the Annals makes the startling
statement " he slept in Christ." Is it possible, one
is tempted to ask, that the clearest-headed and the
thoughtfullest of all the Viking leaders found, before
his death, something unperceived before in the religion
he had persecuted ? It is not so entirely inconceivable,
for in Dublin the old king must have seen much of
Queen Aud, the wife of Olaf the White ; she was then
a woman of early middle age, for she died in 900,
advanced in years ; and she was known as one of the
Christian settlers in Iceland, and as one of the most
forceful characters in Old Northern history. But we
must not build on a word which, after all, may be a
clerical error.
When Ivar left the army in England it had all
the old enterprise and fire ; the scheme of conquest
was pursued, but no further decisive and permanent
successes were gained. What was afterwards the
Danelaw was now occupied ; nothing more was added
n spite of the strenuous warfare of the next seven
years : the master-mind was gone.
THE AGE OF yELFRED 91
Halfdan, said to be Ivar's brother, after the winter
was out, prepared to finish the work by invading
Wessex. With him was King Bagsecg or Baegsceg,
Sigtrygg the Old and Sigtrygg the Young, Osbjorn,
Froena, and Harald, all named as jarls who fell in this
campaign. They set out about Christmas-tide, 870.
At this period the Chronicles begin the year with
Christmas, and the dates of their earlier movements
are precise enough to give the days on which the
actions were fought (see the Rev. C. Plummer's Life
and Times of Alfred the Greaf, p. 93). As they came
from Thetford after many months of land operations,
it is not likely that they took boats up the Thames :
probably they rode along the Icknield way, making
for Winchester. Near the Thames they must have
been aware of the Wessex army on the watch, for the
rapidity with which they were attacked shows that
they were not unexpected.
At Reading there was a royal vill and a little
monastery to plunder. There was also a fine site
for a fortress, in the tongue of land between Thames
and Kennet ; for at that time the land now covered
by the railway-stations was marsh, and the tip of
the tongue, now occupied by Huntley & Palmer's
biscuit factory, was close to navigable water from
which boats could go down the river and out to sea.
Asser has puzzled historians by saying that the town
was south of the Thames, but that the Danes made a
dyke between the two rivers to the right (south) of
the town (or vill). Now the Saxon monastery seems
to have been where St. Mary's stands, and no dyke
92 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
from Thames to Kennet could be south of the town,
unless the town were on the Forbury (perhaps Forn-
borg, "ancient fort"). The Danes' dyke is probably
the Vastern dyke of old maps, running round the
Abbey precincts and northward to the Vastern, which
may have been a vatz-tjbrn^ " water-tarn ") ; while the
Clappers (klappir, " stepping stones ") was the ford of
the Thames at Caversham Lock. It would be curious
if the short occupation fixed Norse names to this
Wessex site, but there was a Danish occupation of the
Thames Valley in the eleventh century also.
From December 28, 870, the Danes made
Reading their headquarters for about twelve months.
On Dec. 31, the Berkshire men cut up a party of
foragers at Englefield ; on Jan. 4, 871, ^Ethelred
and Alfred attacked the camp and fought a battle
probably on the spot where the Reading market-place
now stands but were driven off with loss ; on Jan.
8, they intercepted a strong force of Danes out for
reconnaissance along the Ridgeway, and won the
victory of Ashdown. At Basing, Jan. 22, the
Vikings beat them, and again on March 22, at
Meretune (site disputed). ^Ethelred was perhaps
wounded in this battle; he died April 24, leaving
the kingdom to his young brother Alfred.
Halfdan, however, contented himself with foraging,
while he waited for reinforcements. He fought many
minor battles; ^Ethelwerd the chronicler reckons
three fights during the summer of 871, in which
eleven more jarls of the Danes were slain ; Asser
counts eight battles in the whole campaign, with the
THE AGE OF ALFRED 93
loss of one king and nine jarls. But at last Halfdan
abandoned the struggle, and retired to London. As
the Vikings in 879 had a camp at Fulham, perhaps
the earthworks which enclose the Bishop's palace and
the mound within the ramparts (described by Mr. G.
M. Atkinson in a paper read to the Viking Club,
1907) may have been Halfdan's camp. Alfred kept
his men in the field, but Burhred paid an enormous
Danegeld and induced the Vikings to spare London.
They marched to Torksey on the Trent, and then
wintered at Repton. Burhred left his kingdom in
despair, and died at Rome. In his place the Danes
set up Ceolwulf, an Englishman, another instance of
their not unenlightened policy. One would expect
that there were many adventurers who would have
been pleased to sit on the throne of Mercia, but in
that case an army of occupation would have been
needed, and the forces at Halfdan's disposal would
have been weakened. As it was, the Danes had
now to occupy East Anglia and Deira with numbers
diminished by a long and unsuccessful campaign.
Early in 875 the army divided. One part under
Halfdan took up winter quarters on the Tyne, and
raided the shrines of Bernicia, marched through
Cumberland, and attacked the Picts (of Galloway) ;
under that date the Ulster Annals also mention " a
great slaughter of Picts by Dubhgalls." It is assumed
by J. R. Green (Conquest of England, p. 107) that
Halfdan went further north, to attack King Constantine,
who, according to a chronology which is hardly
tenable (see pp. 225, 248), is represented as fighting
94 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Thorstein, son of Olaf the White, and Jarl Sigurd of
Orkney ; but the former kingdom of Northumberland
had included Galloway, and it is likely that Halfdan's
object was to extend his power to the ancient borders
of his realm. Next year he "dealt out the lands
of Northumbria, and they thenceforth continued
ploughing and tilling them."
The other part of the great army under Guthorm,
Asketil and Hamund, went in 875 to winter at Cam-
bridge. So far, they might be supposed to have
burnt their ships, for all three campaigns had been
on land, but their ships were soon called into action.
^Elfred in person fought a naval battle off the south
coast, and won it; but in 876 Guthorm sailed round
to Poole -harbour to join the army of Ubbi from
Wales. Asser tells how he seized " the castellum,"
ancient square earthworks, " called Wareham, where
there is a convent of nuns, between the two rivers
. Frome and Trent." ^Elfred bought peace, and the
Danes swore on the Holy Ring that they would
depart; but early in 877 they sallied out by night
and rode to Exeter. Alfred could only blockade
them, and set his ships to watch the mouth of the
Exe. An interpolator of Asser (c. 50 ; ed. Stevenson,
p. 39) says that he had ships built in all parts of his
kingdom, and placed " pirates " on board to fight the
Danes : but the phrase is so vague and rhetorical that
we must not assume that these man-of-war's men
were Norse, brought in to fight their rivals.
The Danish fleet of 120 sail coming from Wareham
to force the blockade was wrecked off Swanage, and
THE AGE OF ALFRED 95
the Saxons massacred the survivors. Offers of peace
were renewed, and the army withdrew to Gloucester,
and then to Chippenham, where they spent the early
months of 878. The inhabitants of the district who
could do so fled into Wales, and the west country was
entirely in the hands of the Vikings.
This is the time when Alfred is said to have burnt
the cakes. As a matter of fact he was reduced to
taking refuge among the fens of Athelney ; not that
he was wholly inactive, but he had with him only
his personal retinue and the Somerset fyrd under
ealdorman ^Ethelnoth. It is extraordinary to us
to think of the other shires of Wessex sitting at
home and taking no steps for the rescue of those
whom we should now consider their fellow-country-
men; but there was no united "England "in those
days,- when each district had until recently been
independent, and still retained its local jealousies.
It is the great praise of ^Elfred that he overcame this
feeling among the various groups of the people he
ruled, and created the possibility of efficient fighting
power in a country which, for all its civilisation and
Christianity, was behind the pagans in political and
military organisation.
At the junction of the Tone and the Parret the
triple-ramparted mound called Borough Mump may
be the fort in Athelney built by King Alfred; the
Arx Cynuit, held by the men of Devon against Ubbi
and the Danes is a site about which there has been
much dispute. Here a signal victory was won over
the Vikings, and their Raven standard was captured.
96 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
In May 878 Alfred sent word to the men of Somerset,
Wilts, and Hampshire, met them on the east of
Selwood forest, and, after a day's march, fell suddenly
on the Vikings at Ethandune. 1 His victory ended
the campaign ; Guthorm was baptised, taking the
name of ^Ethelstan, and removed the army to East
Anglia, 879.
In 884 a Danish host, which had left Fulham in
879 for the Continent, returned, and besieged Roches-
ter, but were driven off. There seems to have been
help given them by the Danes in East Anglia, and
after some sea-fighting a treaty was made, commonly
but inaccurately cited as the Frith of Wedmore, fixing
the boundary. It was to run up the Thames and the
sea to a point near Hertford, thence to Bedford, and
up the Ouse to Watling Street, near Stony Stratford.
This gave London to Wessex, perhaps as a compen-
sation for the breach of the previous treaty.
JElfred had learnt in his struggle with Guthorm
the impossibility of meeting sudden invasion with
slowly gathered and temporary local levies, and he
arranged for relays of militia, "so that one-half was
constantly at home, and the other in the field, beside
those whose duty it was to defend the burgs." He
had observed the mobility of the Danes, and we find
1 The circumstances of this campaign and the identification
of the sites present questions which cannot be dealt with here.
Valuable contributions to the subject are given in Mr. W. H.
Stevenson's notes to Asser's Life of ALlfred, pp. 262-278 :
another line is taken by the Rev. C. W. Whistler in the Saga-book
of the Viking Chtd, ii., pp. 153-197, and the controversy is
hardly at an end as yet.
THE AGE OF ALFRED 97
him putting his men on horseback; he began to fortify
and garrison important points, and he continued im-
proving his fleet. Consequently, when Hastein came,
circumstances were far less favourable to his enterprise
than they would have been twenty years earlier ; and
not even his army of veterans, highly organised, well
equipped, and thoroughly trained as they were, could
succeed where Halfdan and Guthorm had failed. He
was a daring adventurer; his exploits in Spain and
the Mediterranean read like a romance (see C. F.
Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom^ pp. 320-
326), and in France he had been the terror of the
Loire for twenty years. Of late he had moved to
Flanders, with his head-quarters at Louvain. He
came to England, not with the great designs of Ivar,
but rather through necessity; being beaten with a
signal defeat on the Dyle (Sept. i, 891), and starved
out by the famine of 892, he was forced to seek a new
home.
In the autumn of 892 a fleet of 250 ships came over
from Boulogne to the Roman Portus Lemanis and up
the river Limen (then in existence) to Appledore, in
Kent. There the Vikings found a fort in process of
building, which they seized and completed. Soon
afterwards Hastein himself with 80 ships entered the
Thames, and fortified a position at Milton, near
Sittingbourne. Alfred tried to forestall interfer-
ence by exacting pledges which proved in vain
that East Anglia and Northumbria would not help
the invaders. He negotiated with Hastein, who
allowed his sons to be baptised, but refused or was
G
98 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
unable to leave the country. Early in April the
Danes at Appledore tried to reach their friends in
East Anglia by a route west of the Weald, but the
Saxons continuing to regard them as enemies, pur-
sued and drove them to take refuge in the island of
Thorney, near West Drayton. Guthorm sent a fleet
to attack Exeter ; and, from some port in Lancashire
or Cumberland held by the Northumbrian Danes,
another fleet came to the North Devon coast. Both
invasions were repulsed, and the Danes in Thorney
succeeded in joining their friends in East Anglia,
whither Hastein followed them. He built the burg at
Benfleet, called by ^Ethelwerd Danasuda (Dana-su^,
the " Danes' clinch " : su> being the clinched outer
boarding of a house or planking of a ship). When
this was stormed in his absence, he built a new burg
at Shoebury, and then marched up the Thames and
across country, in the hope of finding in Wales the
home denied in England. At Buttingdune (Butting-
ton, near Welshpool ; see a paper by Mr. C. W.
Dymond, Powysland Club, 1900) he was besieged and
defeated. The survivors rode back to Essex, but
before long their pressing needs drove them west
again. This time they were chased into the old
Roman walls of Chester, and, after a winter of starva-
tion, were hunted out of North Wales, and returned
through Northumbria to Mersea Island, in Essex.
But Mersea Island was insufficient to find food for
their numbers, and food was their chief necessity. In
the spring of 895 they sailed round the coast, and
towed their ships up the river Lea, to a place twenty
THE AGE OF ALFRED 99
miles above London, where they made another burg,
which has been identified with the earthworks of
Walbury Camp, near Little Hallingbury. In the
summer the Londoners tried to take the fort, but
were put to flight. During harvest King Alfred,
being encamped near London to protect the harvesters,
and one day riding up the river, noticed a place where
the stream might be obstructed by building fortresses
on either bank, and perhaps by stretching a chain or
boom across the stream. He succeeded in " bottling "
the ships, but the Danes rode off, once more across
country. Their rapid rides are not surprising, for
they commandeered the horses which were every-
where to be found (as in Iceland now-a-days, the
usual means of transport), and rode them until they
dropped. Reaching Quatford, below Bridgnorth,
on the Severn, they built a fort of which the
mound remains and wintered. But Wales would not
receive them, and in the summer of 896 their host
dispersed, some finding a refuge in Northumbria,
others in East Anglia, and the greater part returning
to France under Hastein, who soon afterwards settled
on the land of Chartres, and became a great lord in
the Frankish king's service.
So ended the great invasion. The Northumbrians
and East Anglians still sent out war-vessels to the
south coast, light " esks " of thirty or forty oars : in
Icelandic the word askar is sometimes used in this
sense, giving askmenn, the ascmanni of Adam of
Bremen and cescmen of the Anglo-Saxons, signifying
"pirates." King Alfred designed larger ships to
IOO SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
cope with these, but without much success. A small
engagement was won ; a fleet of twenty esks perished
on the south coast, and the attacks were aban-
doned. The century closed with the great king's
death, at peace with his former enemies.
And yet they were not all enemies who came to
England from the Northlands. We must not forget
" Ohthere, the old sea-captain, who dwelt in Halgo-
land," Ottar of the fjords north of Trondhjem, the
farmer and explorer, forerunner of Nansen as others of
his countrymen were of Nelson. Nor, again, must we
forget the voyage of Wulfstan (Ulfstein) to the eastern
shores of the Baltic, showing that even in this turbu-
lent age peaceable travel and traffic were not only
possible, but the normal condition of things. We
read of battle and murder in the chronicles, as we
read in newspapers of salient events abroad, mostly
tragic ; but underlying all the tumult, land was tilled,
trade was pushed, and human life was lived in that
age as in our own.
Before Alfred's death there were three distinct
states founded by the Danes, together forming
the Danelaw. It will make the story simpler if,
instead of carrying on the chronology of the whole
simultaneously, we take each in turn, beginning with
the district which was absorbed soonest into the
kingdom of Alfred's family.
EAST ANGLIA IOI
2. EAST ANGLIA.
The realm of Guthorm-yEthelstan included at first
not only Norfolk and Suffolk, with Essex, which had
recently been ruled by Kent as part of the eastern
kingdom of the Saxons, but also the present counties
of Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, Buckingham,
Hertford, and Middlesex. In 880 his army settled
in the country conquered ten years earlier, and divided
the lands. Their occupation of the western part of
this large region did not last long, and the traces they
left upon it, in place-names, racial character and
customs are slight. In fact, they never settled it, in
the sense of forming new estates to which the owners
gave their names and national characteristics. They
merely took possession, and that for a short tenure
only. About 885, as already told, the boundary was
refixed, and the whole of Middlesex and Buckingham-
shire, with half Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, were
transferred to King yElfred.
Guthorm-^thelstan died in 890 or 891, and was
succeeded by King J6rik (Eohric ; that is to say, not
Eirik t but a name formed like J6stein). In 905 the
peace of England was troubled by a cousin of King
Eadward named ^Ethelwald, who had put in a claim
to the throne, and now sought the help of the East
Anglian Danes. They invaded Mercia, and Eadward
made a counter raid into Cambridgeshire. The Danes
returned, and caught the Kentish division of his army
in their dilatory retreat. In the battle which followed
r02 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the Danes held the field, but lost their king J6rik,
^thelwald the pretender, and "Ysopa"and Asketil
the "holds"; holdr being a word which usually meant
an owner of odal land, ancestral possessions, though in
this case none of their holdings can have dated further
back than twenty-five years. No doubt it means here
a large landowner ; the scale of precedence in Scandi-
navian society about this time was King, Jarl, Hersir
(chief of a clan), Hold, Bondi (yeoman), Leysingi
(freedman), Thrgell (slave). As there was na clan-
system among the immigrant Danes, who were adven-
turers under a leader, not tribes under a patriarch, the
Hold in the East Anglian kingdom must have been
next in rank to the Jarl.
Following this outburst, in 906 King Eadward made
a treaty with the new king of East Anglia, Guthorm IT.,
a son or nephew of Guthorm-y3Ethelstan. J6rik, con-
trary to the terms of Wedmore, had been a pagan at
least ^thelwerd the chronicler tells us he " descended
to Orcus," which implies as much, and the new treaty
provided that the Danes should abjure heathenism
and respect church-sanctuary. Something in the
nature of international law was agreed upon ; offences
were to be atoned by the English wile or the Danish
lah-slit (lag-sl?8) according as they were committed
by one or the other nationality ; which indicates an
intention on both sides to prevent border-raiding from
becoming a casus belli. In spite of this adoption of
Christianity the bishopric of Elmham remained for
some time in abeyance; but a little light is thrown
on the conversion of the East Anglian Danes by the
EAST ANGLIA 103
dedication of an early church at Norwich to St.
Vedast, the Flemish saint whose name was probably
introduced by Grimbald and his followers in King
/Elfred's later years. There was also a church of
St. Vedast in London, near St. Paul's, and another
at Tathwell, in Lincolnshire, near Louth, which shows
the range of the Flemish missionaries' enterprise. On
the site of St. Vedast's at Norwich has been found
an interesting monument the shaft of a grave-cross
carved with dragons in the style of Scandinavian art,
and dated by Bishop Browne about 920. At Whis-
sonsett (see an article by W. G. Colling wood, in Trans.
Norfolk Archaol. Sec., XV.), and at Cringleford, in
Norfolk, are remains of other grave-crosses of a
somewhat later type, showing influence from Mercia.
Trouble arose between Wessex and Northumbria,
and East Anglia was drawn into it. In 913 King
Eadward built a fort at Hertford on the north of the
Lea. During May and June he marched upon Maldon
in Essex, and built a burg at Witham ; "a good part
of the people, who were before under the dominion of
the Danish men, submitted to him." The natives of
Essex had not been exterminated ; they were still
Saxon, and easily became incorporated into the great
Saxon kingdom ; but now for the first time we find
Scandinavians accepting though for a time only the
rule of the king of Wessex. Jarl' Thorketil and his
holds, "and almost all the chief men who owed obedi-
ence to Bedford, and also many of those who owed
obedience to Northampton," sought him to be their
lord. This was followed by the taking of Bedford
104 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and the fortification of Maldon in 917; after which,
Thorketil and his men, troublesome subjects, were en-
couraged to emigrate, and went to France. Guthorm's
kingdom was being carved away from him.
Shortly, however, there was a general rising of the
East Anglian Danes. From Huntingdon they marched
to Tempsford not on the Thames, though the name
preserves the saga-form of Temps as the name of the
stream here crossed by a ford. At the junction of
the Ivel and the Ouse they built a fort, similar
perhaps to one described by Mr. A. R. Goddard (Saga-
book of the Viking Club, iii. pp. 326-336). From this
we gather that it was not unlike the entrenched camp
containing a mound such as we have seen at Reading
and Fulham, but more elaborate in its docks for boats
like the naust, which can be seen at saga-sites in Ice-
land (see Saga-steads of Iceland^ by Collingwood and
Stefansson). The only doubt in the identification is
the elaborate nature of the fortress for a temporary
purpose j but the Vikings were certainly skilful in
military engineering, and probably requisitioned the
labour from the surrounding farms and villages. Cross-
ing the water they marched upon Bedford, but were
met and overthrown by the townsfolk. It must be
remembered that townsfolk in those days were not
shopkeepers, but men on garrison-duty (see Maitland's
Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 189). In recent years,
skeletons, lying east and west, with swords and spear-
heads of the period, have been turned up in Russell
Park, which must have been the battlefield. Then
they attacked " Winganmere," from which they were
EAST ANGLIA 105
repulsed. In the summer the whole army of Eadward
took the fort at Tempsford, slaying King Guthorm IT.,
"Toglea,"and"Mannan" Toli and Mani(Steenstrup,
Norm. III., 51); and that autumn Colchester was
besieged and stormed, with a general massacre of the
inhabitants. In despair the last remnant of the Danish
army, with the help of adventuring Vikings from
abroad, beset Maldon, but were beaten off, and the
conquest of East Anglia was achieved. King Eadward,
having received the submission of jarl Thorfrith at
Towcester, refortified Colchester, and the people of
the whole kingdom once ruled by Guthorm-^Ethelstan
passed under the rule of Wessex.
For a while the government of the country was
kept in the king's hands. King ^Ethelstan before
his death (940) created out of East Anglia the first of
the great ealdordoms, appointing to it /Ethelstan
of Devonshire, afterwards known as the "half-king."
He retired into a monastery in 956, and his province
was at first divided among his four sons ; later, we
find ^Ethelwold ruling East Anglia, succeeded, in 96 2,
by his brother ^Ethelwine ; in whose later years he
survived until 992 an acting governor was needed.
The man was found in Ulfketil, 1 evidently a Dane
by birth but English in his sympathies (see pp. 152,
In the ealdordom of East Anglia, Essex was not
included. This county, with perhaps Middlesex,
1 Ulfketil's name seems to be preserved in Ilketshall (llketelshala
in Domesday}, etc., near the "moated minster" not far from
Bungay. Note by the Rev. E. McClure.
IO6 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Bucks., and Oxford, was assigned to ./Elfgar, appointed
later than ^Ethelstan the half-king. His son-in-law
Brihtnoth succeeded him, and fell at Maldon in 991 ;
followed by Leofsige, who was banished 1002. And
so the Danish kingdom gradually became a part of
England"; leaving, however, many traces of its former
independence.
One of the Suffolk hundreds took its name from
the howe at which the Danish Thing was held,
Thingoe or Tinghowe (Round's Feudal England,
p. 98, quoting Gage's Suffolk, p. xii.). Abbot Samp-
son's survey (about 1185) gi yes tne names of the
twelve " leets " into which this hundred was divided,
strictly according to the duodecimal system of the
Scandinavians. Mr. Round compares the word
" leet," of which he gives examples from Domesday,
with the Danish Icegd, or division of the county for
military conscription, and we may add the nearer
form of the Icelandic leffi, meaning at first a small
local assembly, though ultimately the word was used
for the third and last annual meeting of the Icelandic
commonwealth. Near Buckingham is Tingewick, and
in the south of Bedfordshire is Tingrith (Tingrye in
1250). But East Anglia is not divided into trithings
and wapentakes, as were parts which the Danes not
only ruled but settled : even Northamptonshire was not
assessed at Domesday by carucates but by hides, like
Wessex ; only the hides, Mr. Round finds, were taken
in groups of fours, just as the Mercian shilling con-
tained four pence ; while Cambridgeshire is assessed
for the most part in terms of five hides, on the non-
Danish system.
EAST ANGLIA 1 07
At the same time there are plentiful traces of
Danish occupation, even in Cambridgeshire. The
parish names of Toftes and Quoy (Coeia in Domesday
= Kvi, = quey or quoy in Orkney and Shetland, a
fold, used in Kvia and Kvfabekkr in Iceland) ; Burwell
Nest or Ness, a point of land reaching out into the
fens ; Denney, here perhaps representing Dana-ey^ the
Danes' island in the fens ; Duxford or Dokesworth,
from Toki, a Dane ; " Daneland towards Holgate
weye," mentioned temp. Edward III. as in Hasling-
field ; the Danes' Bottom compare the common
use of botn in Iceland, in Cumberland and in
Cleveland for the head of a valley (as opposed to its
ordinary English use for the basin of a valley), these
names are given by Mr. Hailstone in a paper read to
the Viking Club (Saga-book, iv., pp. 108-126). He
mentions also that certain lands are noted in Domes-
day as paying two ores as toll, showing that the
Scandinavian money-system still obtained there ; that
the priest Herolf, a Scandinavian name, was appointed
by /Ethel stan head of the monastic house at Biggin
Abbey ; that under Eadward the Confessor one
" Turcus " (Thorgest ?) held land in Reach and Burwell
under Ramsey Abbey ; and that in Ditton Camoys,
Westley and Sixmile Bottom a six-hide reckoning
prevailed. Later, though these Scandinavian owners
may have come in with Kniit, we find mentioned in
Domesday Anschetil, Thurstan, Tochi, Torchil and
Turkell ; in the Inquisitio Eliensis Grim, Omund,
Osketil, Oslac and Simund ; and in Feet of Fines ', Aki,
as holding lands in the county of Cambridge.
The Danes of East Anglia, however, seem to have
108 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
congregated into the towns, in Colchester, Bedford,
Huntingdon and Cambridge ; and though the ten
wards of Cambridge did not correspond with the
Scandinavian reckoning by six and twelve, the fact
that each of the wards was under a ' ' lawman " points
to a prevalence of Danish tradition in the eleventh
century. The great colony of " byes " clusters round
Yarmouth, though there are two Wilbys, Colby and
Risby inland, and Kirby in Essex. . Thwaite, near
Bungay, is a Scandinavian name of Norse type ; and
place-names ending in -hoe, -well, -wall (-vellir) and
-stead may be Danish. The word "staithe," common
along the east coast, represents the Icelandic sto*& in
the sense of "harbour": and "carr," representing
Icel. kjarr, is used for land once covered with copse.
On the coast the names in -wich, -haven, and -ness or
Naze have a Northern origin : but though these traces
of Danish occupation can be found, especially on the
seaboard of the districts, they are by no means so
noticeable as in the rest of the Danelaw, where
Viking occupation was of longer endurance.
3. THE FIVE BOROUGHS :
Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, Stamford and Lincoln.
When Halfdan's vikings, in 877, overran Mercia
for the third time they left the south-western half of
it to Ceolwulf, who had been tributary king of the
whole since 874. Alfred gained this territory in 885
THE FIVE BOROUGHS IOQ
or 886, and set over it his son-in-law ^Ethelred, who
held it until 912; after which his widow yEthelflsed,
the Lady of the Mercians, ruled it. At her death, in
919, King Eadward took the province into his own
hands.
The north-eastern part of Mercia was divided in
877 among such of Halfdan's veterans as had not
received land in Northumbria the year before. This
district, though at first under Halfdan's influence, was
not previously, and later on ceased to be, a part of
the Northumbrian realm. After the treaty between
Alfred and Guthorm-/Ethelstan, its southernmost part
was north of Stony Stratford, where the East Anglian
and Saxon boundaries met on Watling Street. In its
widest extent it must have included the present coun-
ties of Nottingham, Leicester, Derby, Rutland and
Lincoln, with the greater part of Northamptonshire
and parts of Stafford and Cheshire.
But as Mr. Round has shown, not even all this
district was in the full sense settled by the Danes
(Feudal England^ p. 69). Their land-measurement,
by carucates, applies in Domesday to Nottingham,
Leicester, Derby, Rutland and Lincoln, but not to
the rest of the territory : there is even a difference
between Leicestershire and the more thoroughly
Danish districts, for its lands are not reckoned in
hundreds of twelve carucates, although Leicester itself
was a thoroughly Danish town. On the other hand,
part of Warwickshire had some Danish colonies, such
as Rugby, which is south-west of Watling Street. In a
word, the Danes did not care to spread themselves
110 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
too loosely over a hostile country : they grouped
themselves round the great strongholds which formed
the bases of their organisation.
These great strongholds were the Five Burgs or
Boroughs : Lincoln, once a Roman colony at the
junction of the Fosse Way with Ermine Street ; Stam-
^ ford, where Ermine Street crossed the Welland ; Lei-
cester, where the Fosse Way crossed the Soar ; Derby,
where Ryknield Street crossed the Derwent ; and
Nottingham, where another old route going north and
south crossed the Trent. Of these, Derby was practi-
cally a Danish creation ; as Northweorthig, it had been
only a small Anglian village ; now it grew to import-
ance as Deoraby. Lindsey and Leicester had been
bishops' sees ; that of Leicester was removed to Dor-
chester, and that of Lindsey disappeared for over
eighty years.
Each of the five boroughs seems to have been
S under a jarl of its own, with its own military organisa-
tion. Internal affairs, in the case of Stamford and
Lincoln, were managed by twelve "lawmen," and
probably the same arrangement was followed in the
other towns. When Chester grew to some importance
through trade with Ireland, it also had its " lawmen,"
and the Lagmen of the Islands are mentioned in the
tenth century as leaders of invasion in Ireland ; the
chief justice of Orkney was called " lagman." The
.title seems to have meant much the same as the
" Law-speaker " of the Icelandic Althing, that is to
say, chief of a court, who knew the law and stated it ;
the existence of twelve such men seem to imply twelve
THE FIVE BOROUGHS III
wards in each town of which the lagraen were the
presidents.
Another characteristic of the Danish districts is the
use of the "long hundred," 120 for 100. The houses
in the town and the acres in the county of Lincoln
are so reckoned in Domesday ', and the survival of this
notation to modern times is seen even in Whitaker's
Almanac, which tells us that in the timber trade 120
deals =100, and that on the East coast fish are still
counted by the long hundred (in this case =132).
" Six score to the hundred " is still familiar to Lake
District gardeners and wood-mongers. Twelve caru-
cates made a territorial hundred, and twelve marks a
monetary hundred, in the Danish part of England,
just as the word kundrc?& in old Icelandic always
meant 120 ; for example, when the saga says that the
bodyguard of King Olaf numbered a "hundred" men.
sixty hiiskarls and sixty " guests."
In Leicestershire, which was less completely Danish
than Lincolnshire, the land was not reckoned in
hundreds of twelve carucates, though it was a
carucated district : the hide of Leicestershire was a
sum of eighteen carucates (Round, Feudal England,
p. 82), This is borne out by the ancient place-names
as seen in the Leicestershire Survey (1124-1129), in
which the proportion of obviously Scandinavian origin
is not very great; out of 174 entries there are 38
" byes," and a few such as Thormodeston, Thurket-
leston, Grimeston, Ravenston and Normanton,
betraying the name of a Danish settler, with Tunga
and Houwes, making a little more than a quarter
112 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
of the whole. In Lincolnshire, on the other hand,
though " even in this country, taken as a whole,
it would be difficult to say whether the names of
Norse or English origin predominate," yet "let the
eye run over a map from Theddlethorpe, on the
coast, through Withern, Ruckland, Scamblesby, Thim-
bleby, Coningsby, Revesby, Firsby, to Skegness, and
it will be found that names, other than Danish, in
this large area may be almost counted on the fingers "
(Lincolnshire and the Danes, by the Rev. G. S.
Streatfeild, pp. 10, 16). Mr. Streatfeild notes that
the map shows three main streams of Danish im-
migration ; one from Burton Stather up the valley of
the Trent and towards Lincoln and Caistor ; another
from Grimsby and a third from Skegness spreading
inland, but leaving some spaces between these groups
to the old Anglian inhabitants, and generally avoiding
the Fen district, though there was a colony between
Boston and the coast, and west of the fens South
Kesteven is filled with " byes " suburban to Stamford.
" Nowhere near Boston is there a by or a thorpe
(unless we except Fenthorpe). If we may venture
upon an inference from this peculiarity, it is that the
Northmen who settled at Brothertoft, Pinchbeck,
Wigtoft (Wiketoft, once on the coast), and other parts
of the fen, did so at a later period." The settlement
at first was not a clearance of the English : in many
cases it was merely a change of owners ; but gradually
the Danes increased in numbers, either from the
natural growth of population, or from additional im-
migrations, or both, and new land was taken up.
THE FIVE BOROUGHS 1 13
Hence we find, around such pre- Viking names as
Alford, Horncastle, Partney, Tetford, Belchford and
Donington in the south wolds, and Frodingham, Bottes-
ford, Caistor, Glanford Brigg, Binbrook and Ludford
in the north, groups of Danish place-names, chiefly
" byes," showing that individuals took up land on the
wolds, till then uncultivated. "Thorpes," indicating
villages as opposed to "byes" or isolated farm-
steads, and either Scandinavian or Anglian in origin
are found more plentifully on the lower and richer
pastures, where the earlier settlers had their estates
which were worked by the natives. Though the
Danes certainly owned thralls, it is not a little
remarkable that in later years the proportion of free-
men to slaves was much greater in the Danelaw than
in the rest of England, and greatest of all in the most
Danish districts and in the manors of Danish origin.
Professor Maitland (Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 22)
noted that at the time of Domesday the number
of servi was at its maximum in Cornwall and
Gloucestershire, very low in Norfolk, Suffolk, Derby,
Leicester, Middlesex and Sussex, but nil in Yorkshire
and Lincolnshire. The number of sokemen (or
comparatively free men, owing certain dues to the
Hundred courts or to a lord, but otherwise masters
of their own land, somewhat like the customary
tenants of Cumberland) was greater in Norfolk and
Suffolk than in Essex, while in Lincolnshire they
formed nearly half the rural population. In William
the Conqueror's time there were in Lincolnshire
11,503 sokemen, 7,723 villans, and 4,024 bordars ; in
H
114 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Yorkshire only 447 sokemen against 5,079 villans and
1,819 bordars, but this was after the ravaging of
Yorkshire when the free population either perished or
was brought into an inferior position, while Lincoln-
shire escaped with less damage, and showed the old
state of society as in King Eadward's days. At
Domesday time there were few sokemen left in
Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Herts, and Bucks.,
but they were thick in Leicestershire, Notts, and
Northamptonshire. K. Rhamm, quoted by Prof.
Vinogradoff (Eng. Hist. Rev., xxi., p. 357), seems
in a recent work to regard sokemen as a Danish
alternative for villans, and developed out of leysings
or freedmen. As they existed also in Kent, they
must not be supposed a specially Scandinavian
institution, but they were more plentiful, not only in
Danish as compared with English districts, but in
Danish as compared with English manors. In
Lincolnshire, counting the sokemen, villans and
bordars of the Survey, it is found that in the manors
with distinctively English names the sokemen
numbered two-fifths of the population, while in
manors with names suggesting Danish origin they
formed three-fifths (Boyle, Hull Literary Club, 1895).
We may perhaps say that in the Danelaw they
represent the original freeholders of the settlement,
who even as odal proprietors owed at least obedience
to the local Thing, from which the transition to their
place in Anglo-Saxon England was easy. It was in
the districts not forcibly conquered by King Eadward
the Elder that the free settlers remained and flourished,
THE FIVE BOROUGHS 11$
and their tendency, whether from racial instinct or
from the influence of Christianity newly adopted, was
toward personal liberty, the independence of peasant
proprietors and of travelling traders.
Of trade with Scandinavia in this earlier part of the
tenth century we can only infer from the sagas that it
was possible. In Egil's saga we find Th6r61f Kveld-
illfsson (d. about 877) sending a ship from Norway
with dried fish, tallow, hides and furs to England,
where " they found a good market, loaded the ship
with wheat, honey, wine and cloth, and sailed back in
the autumn to Hordaland." But the trade of Bjorn
the Chapman, Harald Fairhair's son, from Tunsberg
in South Norway to Denmark and Germany, did not
seem to reach England directly ; few English coins of
the earlier part of the tenth century have been found
in Norway and Sweden, fewer still in Denmark.
Commerce from the Danelaw at this time must have
begun with Flanders and Frisia, and gradually ex-
tended its range. Torksey seems to have taken the
lead as a mercantile centre ; Nottingham followed,
and in less than a century had a merchant-gild.
The increasing wealth and comfort of life, as well as
the adoption of Christianity, is shown by the monu-
ments. In Lincolnshire, at Crowle, Bassingham and
Edenham, there are fragments of stone carving which
may be assigned to the tenth century ; in Northamp-
tonshire, at Hears Ashby ; in Staffordshire at Checkley,
Leek (the cross-bearer), Alstonefield (the warrior
shaft), and Rolleston ; in Derbyshire, at Norbury and
Hope, and at St. Alkmund's, Derby, where the dragon-
Il6 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
design is as Scandinavian as that of St. Vedast's at
Norwich. These examples, to which more might be
added, shows how the settlers began to assimilate
themselves to the culture they found in England :
and as art goes hand-in-hand with manufacture and
trade, we may assume that the life of the settlers was
not all fighting and farming, when they came through
the initial period of trouble which we have now to
review.
Chester, though the ruins of the Roman station had
been seized and held by Hastein, was a place of no
importance at the beginning of the tenth century. The
Irish trade had not arisen ; White and Black Gaill
were still disputing Dublin, and the Danes of Mercia
did not see, as ealdorman yEthelred did, the value of
the position. In 907 or 908 he repaired the fortifica-
tions and created the town, perhaps at that time
introducing the priory of St. Werburgh, a Mercian
dedication. This was the first step toward the great
work he undertook of strengthening English Mercia
Against further encroachment, and of capturing the
land of the Five Boroughs.
The forward policy of Mercia developed into war.
There was fighting on both sides of Watling Street.
The Saxons raided over the border for five weeks;
the Danes fought them at Tettenhall near Wolver-
hampton, and were beaten. Eadward went south to
fit out a fleet against the east coast, and the Danes
raided the Severn Valley, returning by way of Quatford
near Bridgnorth, where Hastein's men had wintered,
and at Wednesfield another great victory was won by
THE FIVE BOROUGHS I I 7
the Saxons ; in which two kings, two jarls and other
leading men were slain. When ealdorman ^thelred
died, his widow ^Ethelflaed, the Lady of the Mercians,
continued his policy of building forts to protect English \
5 Mercia, and the war against East Anglia naturally ]
:drew the Five Boroughs more and more into conflict \
with the growing Anglo-Saxon power.
On St. John the Baptist's day of 918 (Florence of
Worcester), the Northampton and Leicester Danes
attacked the fort at Towcester, and, failing to storm
it, raided Buckinghamshire. But when Colchester
was taken and the kingdom of East Anglia came
to an end, the resistance of the Five Boroughs
weakened. Early in 919 Leicester made voluntary
submission to the Lady of the Mercians, and even
York offered adherence to her. In April King Eadward
marched to Stamford, built a fort on the south bank
of the Welland, and received the submission of the
neighbourhood. Thence he went to Nottingham,
which had been captured by his troops ; he repaired
the fortifications "and stationed both English and
Danes therein."
This is the beginning of a new policy. The king ot
Wessex became actual and personal lord of a mixed
population of Angles and Danes. It was no longer a
question of mutual slaughter, but of a modus vivendi ;
the Danes were already there, and after thirty years'
possession they had taken root in the soil. But as
the earlier part of this war had been a war of extermi-
nation, driving the Danes from the southern counties,
the change in attitude is noteworthy. The southern
Il8 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
counties were Saxon, and must be cleared of the
intruders ; in these Anglian districts all were aliens to
Wessex, and there was no question of driving out the
Danes if they would live peaceably and own Ead ward's
rule.
He was now master of four out of the Five
Boroughs. His sister, the Lady of the Mercians, was
dead, and he took her province into his own hands,
carrying out her work. In 920 he built a fort at
"Manchester in Northumbria," and in 921 another
at Bakewell in Derbyshire, where (as the Winchester
Chronicle asserts) he received the adhesion of all
the rulers of the north, except those of the Orkneys
and Hebrides. It is not stated that they appeared
before him in person and gave their kingdoms into his
hands; "they chose him for father and for lord."
It was before the days of feudalism, though this was
twisted by mediaeval lawyers into the performance of
feudal homage with all it involved. The northern
states saw that he was the dominant power, gradually
advancing toward them, and they hastened to forestall
. his attack and to court his assistance. With Ragnvald
of York and "all those who dwelt in Northumbria,
as well English as Danes and Northmen and others,"
the jarl of Lincoln must have come in or sent his
envoys, if he had not done so earlier. There is no
word of fighting in Lincolnshire, but the independence
of the Five Boroughs was now,a thing of the past.
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 1 19
4. THE KINGDOM OF YORK.
Ivar and Halfdan captured York on November i,
867, and next year set out for further conquests in the
south, leaving the kingdom of Northumbria that is
to say Deira, or the part of Northumbria south of Tyne
under an Englishman, Ecgberht. The Libelhts de
Rebus SaxonidS) an early authority, gives him a reign
of five years, succeeded by Richsi for two years,
and names Ecgberht as king for two years more.
Symeon of Durham makes Ricsig king in 877
(Letter on the Archbishops of York) ; Mr. J. R. Green
identifies him with Bagsecg; others regard him as
a native tributary king of Bernicia. It was not
until 875 that Halfdan returned from the campaign
against yElfred, and next year dealt out the lands of
Northumbria to his followers.
The southern limit of Northumbria was much the
same as that of modern Yorkshire and Lancashire ;
we have seen that it included Manchester. The
northern limit was still the Tyne, beyond which,
though Halfdan penetrated in 876, he did not person-
ally rule, for the government was left in the hands of
Ecgberht, probably the Englishman who had ruled
Northumbria as tributary king, and now founded the
long line of ealdormen or high-reeves of Bernicia with
head-quarters at Bamborough. The Danes did not
settle in Bernicia ; even in county Durham their place-
names are comparatively rare, although this is no
absolute test of their presence or absence. Where
120 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the land was already filled with population, and not so
completely ravaged as to need fresh colonisation, the
new owners simply carried on the " going concern "
under the old name : in many parts, however, we find
groups of Scandinavian place-names so close and thick
that we must assume either depopulation by war or
the nearly complete absence of previous population.
There is no reason to suppose that the earlier Vikings
depopulated the country they ravaged ; they came for
spoil, and the slaughter was an incident. Canon
Atkinson has shown, by his analysis of the area in
Cleveland under cultivation at Domesday time, that
very little of the countryside in that district was other
than forest or moor even at the end of the eleventh
century, and that most of the villages then existing
had Scandinavian names. His conclusion is that
Cleveland was a wilderness, first penetrated (since
prehistoric and Roman days) by the Danes and
Norse, except for a few clearings such as Crathorne,
Stokesley, Stainton and Easington, besides the old
monastery at Whitby.
This conclusion receives curious support from an
analysis of the sculptured stones now to be seen at
old churchyard sites in Cleveland. It is only at
Yarm, Crathorne, Stainton, Easington, and Whitby
that we find monuments of the pre-Viking age, and
these are products of the latest Anglian period ; at
Osmotherley, Ingleby Arncliffe, Welbury, Kirkleving-
ton, Thornaby, Ormesby, Skelton, Great Ayton,
Kirkdale and Kirkby-in-Cleveland are tombstones of
the tenth and eleventh centuries. It is obvious that
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 121
the Angles were only beginning to penetrate Cleveland
when the Vikings invaded and carried on the work
of land-settlement much further. Subsequently, we
shall see (p. 178) further extension was made by Norse
from the west coast, as place-names show; but the
place-names alone are far from trustworthy as in-
dications of settlement. An analysis of the monu-
ments shows that in many cases pre- Viking art-work
exists at places with Scandinavian names (e.g. Kirkby
Moorside, Kirkby Misperton, Kirkdale), while in other
cases only Viking Age crosses are found at places
with names presumably Anglian (e.g. Ellerburn,
Levisham, Sinnington, Nunnington). The inference
is that, in the east of Yorkshire especially, some
Anglian sites were depopulated and refounded with
Danish names, while others had no importance in
Anglian times, but soon became flourishing sites under
the Danes. In the west of Yorkshire the great dales
were already tenanted by the Angles, but the moors
between them, and the sites high up the valleys, were
not sites of churches until the Danish period (see
further in " Anglian and Anglo-Danish Sculpture in
the North Riding," by W. G. Colling wood, Yorks.
Arch. Journ., 1907).
Yorkshire at Domesday was carucated, and divided
into Ridings (trithings) and Wapentakes. Thingwall
near Whitby (Canon Atkinson, site lost), Thinghow, near
Guisborough (now lost), and Thinghou, now Finney
Hill, near Northallerton (Mr. William Brown, F.S.A.),
Tingley near Wakefield, Thingwall near Liverpool,
Thingwall in Wirral, may have been Thingsteads. It
122 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
has been suggested by the Rev. E. Maule Cole that
Wetwang in the East Riding was once a "place of
summons " for some crime committed there, preserving
the Icelandic word vatt-vangr. Sites named " Lund "
possibly indicate sacred groves : there are such in
Holderness, near Beverley, near Selby, in Amounder-
ness, in Furness, between Dent and Sedbergh, and
near Appleby in Westmorland : here, perhaps, early
settlers, like Th6rir at Lund in Iceland, " worshipped
the grove" (Landndma, iii. 17). But the names
in -ergh and -ark, by writers of the past generation
supposed to mean horgr, "a shrine," are simply dairy-
farms erg, i.e. setr, as Orkn. Saga explains, and as
Dr. Colley March has shown conclusively.
North Lancashire was part of Craven, and carucated.
South Lancashire in Domesday had six hundreds, and
both carucates and hides are mentioned. Professor
Maitland thought (Domesday Book and Beyond, p. 470)
that the hides were recent. But Lancashire in Half-
dan's day was merely an unimportant part of Deira ;
its broad mosslands were not taken up until the
coming of the Norse in 900 (p. 191). Cumberland and
Westmorland also were little colonised by the Danes ;
a few relics show immigration at this early age by the
Stainmoor route, but the Danes at first do not seem
to have ventured to settle far from their town centres,
and the wilder scenery and rougher Celtic population
of the west had no attractions for them. Symeon of
Durham (sub anno 1092) notes that the city of Carlisle
had remained uninhabited for 200 years after its
destruction by the Danes, until William Rufus re-
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 123
founded it. Halfdan's colony was mainly confined to
Yorkshire.
One interesting episode of the period tends to con-
firm this conclusion. On Halfdan's raid into Bernicia
(875) Eardwulf, abbot of Lindisfarne, fled before the
storm, carrying with him the relics of St. Cuthbert,
and wandered from refuge to refuge for nine years ;
so Symeon says, though probably the period was much
shorter. His journeyings throw some light on the
state of the country at the time, and they can be
partly traced from the traditions given by Symeon and
Reginald of Durham, and from early dedications of
churches near which there is some presumption that
the relics rested in their wandering. The guide of
the party was abbot Eadred " Lulisc," of Caer-Luel or
Carlisle, whose monastery must have been destroyed
about the same time. The earlier part of the
route has been traced by Monsignor Eyre, and the
later by the late Rev. T. Lees, from ancient dedica-
tions to St. Cuthbert, which, taken for what they are
worth, suggest that the fugitives went at first inland to
Elsdon, then by the Reed and Tyne to Hayclon
Bridge and up the South Tyne Valley, south by the
Maiden Way, and so through the fells, by Lorton and
Embleton, to the Cumberland coast. At Derwent
Mouth (Workington) they determined to embark for
Ireland, but were driven back by a storm and thrown
upon the coast of Galloway, where they found a refuge
at Whithorn, which (see further on p. 225) may have
already been occupied by the Viking colony of Gallgael.
In this storm the MS. Gospels of bishop Eadfrith
124 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
(now in the British Museum) was washed overboard,
but recovered. At Whithorn the bishop heard news
of Halfdan's death, and turned homewards by way of
Kirkcudbright. Now the fact that the relics of St.
Cuthbert found refuge in Cumberland and Galloway
shows that the Danish invasion from which they were
saved took very little hold of these parts. The Vikings
of the Irish Sea were already, if not Christianised, at
least under the influence of Christians, and not hostile
to the fugitive monks, while the natives welcomed
them.
The date and circumstances of Halfdan's death are
not easily set down. The Libellus above quoted does
not place him on the list of Northumbrian kings. The
Annals of Ulster mention under 876, recte 877,
" Alband," king of the Dubhgaill, killed in a battle on
Strangford Lough with the Finngaill. The tenth-
century History of St. Cuthbert, which calls htm and
his brother Scaldingi, Skjoldungs, says that in the end
he became mad and unpopular with his army, which
expelled him ; Symeon of Durham adds that he fled
with three ships from the Tyne, and shortly perished.
These authors then tell the curious story of the
election of Guthred, his successor. Eadred, abbot of
Carlisle, who was with St. Cuthbert's relics at Craik
in central Yorkshire on the way home, dreamt that
St. Cuthbert told him to go to the Danish army on
the Tyne, and to ransom from slavery a boy named
Guthred, son of Hardecnut (John of Wallingford says
that "the sons of Hardecnut had sold him into
slavery "), and present him to the army as their king.
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 125
He was also to ask the army to give him the land
between Tyne and Wear, as a gift to St. Cuthbert and
a sanctuary for criminals. Confident in his mission,
he carried out its directions, found the boy, ransomed
him, gained the army's consent and the gift of the
land, and proclaimed Guthred king at " Oswigedune."
Eardwulf then brought to the same place the relics
of St. Cuthbert, on which every one swore good faith
and "lived happily ever after." The relics remained
until 999 at Chester-le-Street, and there Eardwulf re-
established the bishopric.
The date of Guthred's election is given by Symeon
as 883, but if he reigned (as the Libellus says) for
fourteen years, it must have occurred a little earlier ;
in fact in 880, not long after the death of Halfdan, if
he were the king slain at Strangford Lough. Though
there is so much legend attached to Guthred's name,
his subsequent history shows that he was a peaceful
and Christian king, curiously illustrating the rapidity
with which Viking colonists, if not treated as enemies,
became "acclimatised." Until nearly the end of his
reign he never came into collision with Wessex : he
swore peace with /Elfred at the coming of Hastein ;
and ^Kthelnoth, ealdorman of Somerset, is said by
y^Ethelwerd to have made York the base of his opera-
tions against Hastein. This new attitude of the
Danish colony is shown by the statement that Sige-
ferth (Sigfrith jarl from Dublin ?) landed twice, and
ravaged the Northumbrian coast, after the taking of
Benfleet during Hastein's invasion : Vikings turned
bourgeois were fair game.
126 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Guthred's kingdom was indeed to some extent
Christian. The bishopric of Lindisfarne, threatneed
at first, was even brought nearer to the Danish colony
by the transference of the see to Chester-le-Street : the
archbishopric of York survived the upheaval, and
Wulfhere, its archbishop, died, in 892, having escaped
the invasion in his retreat at Addingham in Wharfedale
(Symeon). Guthred, dying on St. Bartholomew's day,
Aug. 24, 894, was buried in the high church at York.
During four years there was, ^Ethelwerd notes,
great discord, "because of the foul bands of Danes
who still remained throughout Northumberland " :
meaning that there was an unsettled state of affairs.
The bishopric at Chester-le-Street continued, Eardwulf
being succeeded, in 899 or 900, by Cutheard ; but it
was not until 900 or 901 that ^Ethelbald was conse-
crated archbishop of York. In 901 ^Ethelwald the
pretender, who was killed (p. 101) together with
King J6rik of East Anglia, went to Northumbria to
seek help which should put him on the throne of
Wessex. He was elected king of York, and so
Northumbria received another Christian ruler, one
of the West Saxon royal family, though hostile to the
reigning king of Wessex. At his death, in 905, the
Northumbrians made peace with King Eadward : and
we have no further notices of their choice of a ruler
until 911, when we find Ecwils (or Eowils, J6gisl?)
and Halfdan as joint kings, or kings of a divided
realm. Florence of Worcester, after naming them,
injudiciously interpolates "brothers of king Hinguar " :
but as Halfdan the brother of Ivar had been fighting
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 127
at the head of the army which came to England in
866 and had disappeared since 876, this must have
been a second king Halfdan.
These kings were drawn into the war between
Eadward and East Anglia ; they invaded Mercia, and
fell at Wednesfield near Wolverhampton with the jarls
Ottar and Scrufa (Skriif-harr, "curly haired"?), the
holds Othulf, Benesing, Thurferth, Guthferth and
Agmund, Osferth the "collector" (or the Little; Steen-
strup, Norm. III., 35), Anlaf the Black and Guthferth.
In 919 York submitted to the Lady of the Mercians,
and for the moment it seemed that the independence
of the Danish kingdom was at an end. But in May
she died, and soon afterwards " Inguald " (according
to Symeon) took York, meaning Ragnvald, Reignold,
Ronald, Ranald, Reginald according to the various
adaptations of his name one of the most romantic
figures of Viking story. Ragnvald mac Bicloch of the
family of Ivar had ravaged Dunblane in 912, slain
Bard Ottarsson off the Isle of Man in 914, and in 915
joined the Vikings at Waterford with his brother or
cousin Sigtrygg Gale O'lvar, who became king of
Dublin in 916. Then joining jarl Ottar, who had
been concerned in the unfortunate attack on South
Wales and Herefordshire in 915, and had been nearly
starved to death on Flatholme or Steepholme in the
Bristol Channel, Ragnvald set out for adventure in
North Britain. He probably landed in Cumberland,
crossed country by the Roman Wall, and fought the
battle of which we have soon to hear. In 919
Ragnvald became king of York, the first of the series
128 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
of Irish Viking rulers who were not finally expelled
until 954.
Bernicia, equivalent to the modern county of North-
umberland with the Lothians, a purely English territory
from the Tyne to the Forth, was then under the rule
of Ealdred and his brother Uhtred, sons of Eadulf,
lord of Bamborough and ealdorman of Bernicia, King
Alfred's friend, who died in 912. He was the son of
Ecgberht, who had been the tributary king of North-
umbria under Halfdan, and in 875 had apparently
been deputed to govern the northern part of the realm
in which Halfdan's Danes never settled. The brothers
Ealdred and Uhtred, Eadulf's sons, kept up their
friendly relations with Eadward of Wessex, and appear
among those who chose him for father and lord in 921,
though in this sudden invasion of the Irish vikings the
friendship of Wessex was of no avail.
There are two curious stories given side by side in
the tenth-century History of St. Cuthbert, which, taken
together with the Ulster Annals and the Pictish
Chronicle, throw some little light on the times. The
first story is that Elfred, son of Birihtulfing (of the
family of Brihtwulf), fleeing from pirates, came over the
western hills (i.e. from Cumberland, now being settled
by the Norse) and bishop Cutheard gave him certain
vills, which can be recognised as the eastern part of
county Durham. At last Ragnvald came to the land of
Aldred Eadulf s son, who got help from Constantine of
Scotland, and fought Ragnvald at Corbridge, but was
defeated. Elfred was slain, but Aldred and his brother
Uhtred escaped. The other story is that Edred, son
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 1 29
of Rixinc (Richsi-ing, descendant of Richsi or Ricsig),
rode west over the hills (to Cumberland), and there
killed the prince Eardulf and carried off his wife. He
took sanctuary with Cutheard, who gave him the eastern
part of county Durham, bounded by Deor street (the
Roman road), and also the land of Gainford-on-Tees,
which he held three years, until Ragnvald slew him
at the battle of Corbridge, and gave the land to Esbrid,
son of Edred, and his brother Eltan the jarl, for their
services in the battle. In these stories we have hints
of affairs and persons in Cumberland, not without
value considering the darkness of the period; and
we are assured of the persistence of St. Cuthbert's
patrimony in county Durham as a sanctuary, in spite
of all the attacks of the Vikings. This is enforced by
the legend of Olaf Ball (ballr, the stubborn) to whom
Ragnvald had given the land from Castle Eden to the
Wear, a pagan who refused rent and service to St.
Cuthbert. Coming in one day to the church at
Chester-le-Street, he shouted to bishop Cutheard and
his congregation, " What can your dead man, Cuth-
bert, do to me ? What is the use of threatening me
with his anger? I swear, by my strong gods Thor
and Othan, that I will be the enemy of you all from
this time forth." And when he tried to leave the
church he could not lift his foot over the threshold,
but fell down dead, "and St. Cuthbert, as was just, got
his lands."
Now the Ulster Annals, under 918, describe a
battle in which King Ragnvald with Gotfrith O'lvaf
and the jarls Ottar and " Gragabai " met the men of
130 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Alban and the northern Saxons, and fought a battle
in which the Scots were victorious at first but were
routed by Ragrivald's ambush ; the same tactics he
had used just before to decide a battle in Ireland.
The Pictish Chronicle tells that Constantine in his
eighteenth year (918) fought Ragnvald at Tinemore
(Tynemoor, near Corbridge) and the Scots were
victorious. The fact remains that next year Ragnvald
took York.
Ragnvald OTvar, king of White and Black Gaill
of his own Norse and the Danes of Northumbria
died in 921 (Annals of Ulster). If 921 is the year
of the submission of the North at Bakewell, the
chronological difficulty about Ragnvald's part in it
vanishes. In the same year Guthfrith O'lvar took
Dublin, driving out Sigtrygg Gale OTvar, who
thereupon took Ragnvald's place at York. In 925
he went to Tamworth on a visit, was baptised, and
married yEthelstan's sister.
^Ethelstan was now pushing his influence still
farther north than his father Eadward had reached.
In 926 he met Constantine, king of Scots, Owain, king
of Cumbria (the land from Derwentwater to Dumbar-
ton) and Ealdred of Bamborough at Dacor, probably
Dacre in Cumberland on the borders of territory in
the Strathclyde and Scottish power. It may be that
a young son of the Scottish king was baptised on the
occasion ; the tie of " compaternity " with ^Ethelstan
was worth obtaining. It may also be that the north-
ern kings promised to renounce if not " idol-
atry " their alliance with heathens. Constantine's
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 131
kingdom was a small one, the eastern part of Scot- /
land from the Forth to the Moray Firth, and he '
was hard pressed on all sides by the Vikings of
Orkney, the Hebrides, Galloway, and Northumbria.
It was an error on the part of thirteenth-century
lawyers to construe this into feudal homage ; and the
Saxon chroniclers no doubt overstated the significance
of the meeting. But it showed that yEthelstan was
soon to be master of England, though the Cumbrian and
Scottish kings could not keep their pledges of alliance.
Sigtrygg O'lvar, " king of Black and White Gaill,"
died in 927 (Ulster Annals rectified). By a former
wife he left sons, Guthfrith, Harald and Olaf Cuaran ;
"Sithfrey and Oisley " (Sigfrith and Haisl) are also
mentioned as Sigtrygg's sons, killed at Brunanburh.
Guthfrith, trying to succeed his father at York, was
expelled by ^Ethelstan, and took refuge with the
Scots ; so did Olaf, who became son-in-law to King
Constantine. The countenance given to the Viking
chiefs was regarded by ^Ethelstan as a casus belli. In
934 he led his army into Strathclyde, put to flight
Owain of Cumbria and marched through Con-
stantine's country to " Wertermor and Dunfoeder "
(identified by Skene with Kirriemuir and Dunnotar,
near Stonehaven), while his fleet ravaged the coast as
far as the Norse settlement of Caithness.
Brunanburh (937) was the "return match." Such
an invasion called for revenge, and Constantine
organised revenge on a grand scale. Three chief
powers joined their arms the Scots, the Cumbrians,
and the Vikings of the West. The Orkney and
132 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Northumberland states do not appear to have shared
in the confederacy, though ^thelstan, ten years
before, had expelled Ealdred from Bamborough, but
apparently reinstated him. The expedition, if this
battle were fought on the north-east coast of England,
would have passed the Orkneys, and met with either
help or hindrance; and the land forces of Scots and
Cumbrians for they surely would not embark and
disembark when the roads which /Ethelred had used
would serve them as well must have marched south,
'either by the east coast or. the west: if the former,
they would have met with resistance or adherence in
Bernicia and at York, but of all this we hear nothing.
If, however, they came by Cumbria and along the
Maiden Way, they could penetrate far south without
touching the more populous and settled districts
under English rule. The fleet, numbering 615 ships,
an enormous number to pilot on a long voyage, came
from the Hebrides, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford,
that is to say from all the Viking ports in the west.
This we gather from the Annals of Clonmacnois, which
mention Geleachan, king of the Islands (Sudreyjar) ;
Moylemurry, son of Cossewarra (or Cossa-uara), named
as a chief at Waterford in 916; Arick mac Brith, /. e,
Harek Bard's son, connected 'with Limerick by his
brother Colla, lord of that town in 924, and with
Irish royalties by another brother who married the
daughter of Domhnall, son of King Aedh Finnliath.
The object of this expedition was to strike at ^Ethelstan
s he had struck at Scotland. The natural meeting-
point of all these various confederates was somewhere
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 133
about the Mersey or the Dee. It is true that Florence
of Worcester names the Hurnber as the estuary
entered by the fleet, but it is hardly conceivable that
615 ships should have been taken all round by
Pentland Firth or Land's End when any of the
estuaries on the west coast would serve as a port,
and a landing in any one of them would further the
objects of the expedition better than the desolation of
the Danelaw. After Vinheidi (perhaps Brunanburh, as
described in Egil's Saga), one Alfgeir rode in flight
night and day to " Jarlsnes," the Earl's Ness, mentioned
also in Orkncyinga Saga (chap. 72) as in Bretland
(Wales), for which Mr. A. G. Moffat suggests a site
near Swansea. This, so far as it has any weight, adds
to the probability of the western site for Brunanburh.
The various names of the battle-fields are :
Brunandune (/Ethelwerd) ; Brunanburh (Chronicle) ;
Wendune or Weondune quod alio nomine at Brunnan-
were (-were) vel Brunnanbyrig appellatur (Symeon) ;
Bruneford, or Brunefeld (William of Malmesbury) ;
JE>runengafeId\n the British Museum facsimile Charter;
Brumanburgh (R. de Hoveden) ; Brunanburgh ap-
proached from the Humber (Florence of Worcester) ;
Bruneswerce (Gaimar) ; Brunford in Northumbria
(pseudo-Ingulf) ; the plains of Othlyn (Ann. Clon-
macnois); Brune (Ann. Camb.); Dunbrunde perhaps
means this site (Pictish Chronicle) ; and Vinketf&i vr
Vinuskbga is the name in Egil's Saga of the battle
which corresponds in Icelandic tradition to Brunanburh
in the English story. Egil's Saga also describes the
battlefield as a heath between a river and a wood,
134 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
with a borg to the north and one on the south of the
plain ; a description which, if any confidence could be
placed in it, would help in the identification. Leland
located the scene at Brunedown, between Colyton and
Axminster, Devon; and the Rev. C. W. Whistler
(Saga-book of the Viking Club, iii., p. 324) relates the
tradition of St. Catherine's chapel on Milton Hill,
Dorset, where, before the battle, ^Ethelstan is said to
have had his vision of victory. Old historians placed
the site at Brumby, near Doncaster : Skene found it
at Aldborough, the Roman Isurium, in Yorkshire,
equating Othlyn' with Getling. The Rev. Alfred
Hunt (British Association, 1904) contends for Burn-
ham in North Lincolnshire ; Sir J. Ramsay (Founda-
tions of England, p. 285) for Bourne (Brunne) in the
south of Lincolnshire. Bromborough on the Mersey,
opposite Liverpool, has been suggested by Dr. A. C.
Gibson; but the ancient name (Mr. W. F. Irvine, Trans.
Hist. Soc. Lane, and Chesh., 1893) was Brun-brae. Dr.
T. Hodgkin (Hist. Eng., 1906) favours Burnswark.
Bromfield, Cumberland, which in the twelfth century
was Brunefeld, thus, as Rev. E. McClure points out,
preserving the name given by W. of Malmesbury, and
also the Bruningafeld of the almost contemporary
Charter, offers a possible site : but until the matter is
settled by archaeological discovery we can but leave it,
with Freeman, Stubbs and Green, unsolved.
As to the persons engaged, the Annals of Clon-
macnois have much to say. The leader of the Irish
vikings was certainly Olaf Guthfrithsson, at that time
king of Dublin, "the Red Olaf, king of Scots," of
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 135
Egil's Saga, for Ireland was still the home of the
Scots. Olaf Cuaran Sigtryggsson is not mentioned
under that name, though " Awley Fivit" (Fivil? = Fifl
= the Fool), numbered among the slain, may possibly
stand for Olaf Cuaran, the prototype of Hamlet, and
son of Sigtrygg Gale (the Crazy). It is noteworthy
that one of the six Christian landndmsmenn of Iceland
was " Ketil the Fool," so called, the Saga of Olaf
Tryggvason says, " because he was a good Christian " ;
and the "folly" or "lunacy" of Sigtrygg and Olaf,
who were sane enough to win kingdoms, may have
been merely the heathen way of stating their conver-
sion. Another leader was Ivar, " the King of Den-
mark's own son," perhaps the same with Ivar, "tanist
of the Gaill," heir to the kingdom of Dublin, killed in
950. The son of Constantine, we learn, was named
Ceallach. In a word, all the Vikings of Ireland and
the Hebrides, together with the kingdoms of Scots
and Cumbrians, attacked yfithelstan and were repulsed.
It was not, however, a racial victory of Saxons or
English over Scandinavians and Celts ; the assistance
of Viking mercenaries is hinted in Egil's Saga and cor-
roborated by the story of Olaf Cuaran's adventure as
a spy, told by William of Malmesbury, in which one
of ^Ethelstan's staff recognised in the strange minstrel
his former captain, but did not betray him. The
Danelaw, too, was on ^Ethelstan's side; there is at
least no indication that Northumbria and the Five
Boroughs revolted before Brunanburh, or were punished
afterwards ; and until his death there was peace
throughout the north.
136 SCANPINAVIAN BRITAIN
Not only peace, but, according to William of Malmes-
bury, friendly relations with Scandinavia : " Harald,
king of Norway, sent him a ship with a golden beak
and a purple sail, furnished within with a compacted
fence of gilded shields. The names of the persons
sent with it were Helgrim and Offrid ; who, being
received with princely magnificence in the city of
York, were amply compensated by rich presents for
the labour of their journey." The story of Harald's
trick, by which his youngest son Hakon was forced
upon a King y^thelstan as foster-child, is referred by
some to Guthorm-^Ethelstan, who died 890 or 891,
"or to his son and successor, who may have borne
the same double name " (Green, Conquest of England ,
p. 126), and died 918. Hakon, ^Ethelstan's foster-
son, came to the throne in Norway in 934, " and in
those days was Hakon fifteen winters old " (Heims-
kringla, Hdkonarsaga^ i.). He was born, therefore,
after the death of Guthorm II., and he lived until
960-961. On the accession of ^Ethelstan of England
Hakon must have been five or six, according to
Snorri's dating ; so that the chronological difficulty
is less than that which attends the invention of the
name of ^Ethelstan for Guthorm II. of East Anglia.
On the accession of Eadmund (940) Northumbria
revolted, and invited Olaf of Ireland to be king. At
this time Olaf Guthfrith's son, king of Dublin, seems
to have left his realm to his brother Blakari, and
answered the call to York. Under him the Danes
tried to regain Danish Mercia ; Tamworth was stormed,
but King Eadmund besieged Olaf and Wulfstan,
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 137
archbishop of York, in Leicester, until they escaped
by night from the town ; or, according to Symeon, he
intercepted them on their way to Leicester. It is
rather curious to note the attitudes of the two arch-
bishops who arranged the peace which followed.
Wulfstan, an Englishman, was the right-hand man of
Olaf the pagan; Odo (Oddi), a Dane by extraction
and archbishop of Canterbury, represented the Saxons.
The fusion of races had already begun, but the old
local independence survived. By the terms of the
treaty Olaf was baptised, and Ragnvald Guthfrith's
son, at a later date in the same year, was brought by
Wulfstan to Eadmund for baptism.
Olafs baptism did not prevent him from playing
the Viking; he raided the church of St. Balther at
Tyningham in Bernicia, and there met his death (941),
while his men ravaged and massacred at Lindisfarne.
But he was immediately succeeded by Olaf Cuaran
(Olaf with the Brogues), the son of Sigtrygg O'lvar,
formerly of York and Dublin. He shared Northum-
berland with Ragnvald, who had lately been baptised,
the son of Guthfrith, and brother of the late King
Olaf. The invasion of Bernicia seems to have meant
the expulsion of the native High-reeve, or ealdorman,
Ealdred Eadulf s son, or his brother Uhtred, who had
kept up the tradition of friendship with the kings of
Wessex. It is possible that Ragnvald held this part
of Northumbria. Eadmund naturally feared the re-
construction of a great Viking power in the north,
which would give him all the work of his father and
brother to do over again ; in 944 or 945 he invaded
138 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
York, and expelled Olaf Cuaran and Ragnvald, follow-
ing this action by a raid into Cumbria. There can
be little doubt that his object was to break the power
of the growing settlement of Vikings, of which we
have seen traces in the story from the History of St.
Cuthbert) relating to events of thirty years earlier.
The story of the English chroniclers is that he fought
and ousted Domhnall, son of Owain, king of Cumber-
land and Strathclyde, and granted the country to
Malcolm, king of Scots, on condition of his alliance.
In other words, he gave back to Scotland a territory
which he had conquered from Scotland, but did not
choose to hold as part of England ; for Cumbria was
in no sense English, being inhabited by Welsh and
Vikings under the tanist of the Scottish crown. To
maintain any kind of English government in Cumber-
land and Westmorland would have been difficult and
useless, but to keep down the Viking power in that
region was important for the peace of England.
Olaf Cuaran's restless personality and romantic
(career made him the hero of legends now world-
famous. Historically, so far as his biography can be
summed up from Irish and English annals, he was
born about 920, and after childhood at Dublin spent
his boyhood at York, and early youth at the court of
Constantine. In 937 he seems to have fought, but
not fallen, at Brunanburh ; in 941 he became king of
York. Expelled in 944 or 945, he went back to
Ireland, and drove out his cousin Blakari, who had
been reigning in Dublin, but does not appear to have
held the kingdom long during this first tenure. In
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 139
946 we find him plundering Gill Cuilinn, and next year
attacking Dublin, where in 948 Guthfrith Sigtryggson
was reigning, that is to say, Olaf Cuaran's brother.
In 949 Olaf returned to York, where he reigned until
952. Next year he was plundering near Donard, in
co. Wicklow, and sacking Inisdowill. In 956 Olaf
Guthfrithsson the younger, lord of the Gaill at Dublin,
won a great battle over the Irish ; perhaps this was a
nephew of Olaf Cuaran acting as his general. In 961
Olaf, King of Dublin (Cuaran?) was attacked by
Sigtrygg Cam, a Viking from overseas, and being
wounded in the thigh with an arrow, escaped with
loss. In 964 Olaf (Cuaran) Sigtryggsson was defeated
in Kilkenny, but in 970 he plundered Kells, and in
977 slew the two heirs (tanists) of Ireland, Muirchear-
tach and Conghalach. The great battle of Tara, 979,
in which King Maelseachlann defeated him and
killed his son Ragnvald, broke his power; next year
he retired to lona, where he died in 981. By his
second wife, Gormflaith, he had a son, Sigtrygg Silki-
skeggi (Silk-beard), who became king of Dublin ;
other sons were Gluniarainn (Jarn-kne') and Harald.
Duald mac Firbis says that in his time, the seventeenth
century, most of the Dublin merchants traced their
pedigree to Olaf Cuaran. His name, Amhlaeibh in
Irish, became Abloic in Welsh (the language of
Strathclyde), whence the legends of Havelock Cuhe-
ran the Dane, and according to Professor I. Gollancz
(Hamlet in Iceland, Introduction), the traditions about
him and his family became the groundwork of the
tale of Hamlet, prince of Denmark,
140 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
When Eadred came to the English throne in 946
archbishop Wulfstan and two Northumbrian jarls,
" Imorcer and Andcoll," joined in his election ; but it
does not seem to have satisfied the Northumbrian
people, for a year or two later he marched to Tad-
denesscylfe (Tanshelf, Pontefract ?), where Wulfstan
and the Northumbrian Witan swore fidelity to him.
In the same year, however, they elected one Eirik as
king. The identity of this Eirik, and the sequence
of events, cannot be easily discussed in a paragraph ;
but elsewhere (Saga-book of the Viking Club, ii., pp.
3*3-327, and Trans. Cumb. and West. Antiq. Soc., N.S.,
ii., pp. 231-241) reasons are given for accepting the
account of Snorri Sturluson and the Norse historians,
who make him the famous Eirik B16dox, son of
Harald Fairhair of Norway, as against that of Adam
of Bremen, who makes this king of Northumbria to
be Hiring, son of Harald Blatonn, king of Denmark.
Mr. J. R. Green (Conquest of England^ pp. 262 seq.,
289 seq.) tried to combine both stories, making
Harald Blatonn attempt to place his son on the
throne of York in 947, (though there is no sign that
his fleet, even if it was off Normandy in 945, ever
touched English shores,) and finding a place for
Eirik B16dox, son of Harald Fairhair, in the years
after Brunanburh (though there is no mention of
any such king in Northumbria at that time in any
British chronicle). The events as given in the Eng-
lish annals are : 947, the Northumbrians belied the
oath which they had just sworn to King Eadred, im-
plying that they set up the king mentioned in 948
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 14!
as Yric ; Eadred ravaged their country and burned
St. Wilfrith's minster at Ripon, then marched away,
but his rearguard being cut up at Chesterford, he
returned, and was received as king, "Hyryc" being
expelled ; in 949 Anlaf Cwiran (Olaf Cuaran) came to
Northumberland; in 952 Yric supplanted him as
king, and was expelled in 954.
Later authors do not improve matters by trying to
simplify the story, which ended with the death of
Eirik in an attempt to regain his throne, and the
appointment of Oswulf of Bamborough, a representa-
tive of the old line of Bernician Angles, as jarl or
ealdorman of Northumbria. Olaf Cuaran went back
to Dublin, where, on his expulsion from York in 945,
he had seized the power after driving out Blakari.
It was perhaps before this that St. Cathroe (see his
life in The Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, ed. Skene,
p. 1 1 6) was escorted by King Domhnall of Cumbria
to Leeds, and thence went to York to visit the king,
whose name is given as Erichius, and his Irish wife, a
relative of the saint. As Eirik had no Irish wife, but
Olaf Cuaran and his predecessor Olaf were married
to Irish ladies, King Olaf and not Eirik is no doubt
intended. The story of Egil Skallagrimsson's visit
to King Eirik Blodox at York is not impossible,
though romantic in character, and though the poem
attributed to the skald on this occasion, Hofud-
lausn^ contains the end-rhymes which are thought
to mark verse of a later date. These incidents give
colour to the meagre records of the Viking court, at
which so many races and interests must have met.
142 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
In the grave-monuments showing wheel-crosses and
other motives derived from Irish and Scottish art,
and in the curious carved bone from York, figured
in The Reliquary for Oct. 1904, we see evidence
of the connexion between Northumbria and the
Celtic lands ; the Reycross at Stainmoor, as far as its
original form can be determined from its damaged
remains and from seventeenth-century descriptions,
must have been of the type in vogue about the middle
of the tenth century, and may be conjectured though
'such conjectures are not legitimate archaeology to be
a memorial of the great battle of Stainmoor (954 ?),
which ended the life of Ein'k B16dox and the in-
dependence of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria.
A finer and more authentic memorial is the " Eiriks-
mal;"see Corpus Poeticum Boreale (i., p. 260) and
the paraphrase in Dasent's Burnt Njdl (ii., p. 384)
which describes Odin awaking in Valholl, and bidding
his heroes make" ready to welcome Ein'k and the five
kings who fell with him.
The spirit of local independence was not dead,
for on the accession of the boy-king Eadwig, in
957, Mercia and Northumbria revolted, and invited
his brother Eadgar, a still younger boy, but one
with more tact and spirit, to be their king. The
revolution was effected without war. For two
years Eadgar was independent ruler of Danish Eng-
land, while Bernicia still remained Anglian under
Oswulf. Under Eadgar's rule influences from the
south of England doubtless improved the growing
civilisation and prosperity of Yorkshire. No great
THE KINGDOM OF YORK 143
abbeys were yet founded in the north ; but the work
of rebuilding churches, which had begun in the
southern part of the Danelaw, must have made pro-
gress. It was not until 970 that Ely was restored as
a monastery. The Danes were at first destroyers,
though Wilfrith's Ripon survived their attacks until
Eadred destroyed it ; they were no architects or
masons, and their earlier monuments in imitation of
the beautiful Anglian crosses were mere slabs picked
from the surface of rocky land and chipped over with
a pattern ; their churches were thatched or tiled
fabrics of wood or wattle-and-daub, such as the hog-
back tombs represent. But after the middle of the
century their monuments seem to have become more
skilfully quarried and carved, though still with the
Anglo-Danish style of ornament, unlike the art of
southern England at the time ; and it is possible that
some of the "Saxon" churches of the north were
restored, and others built, under the influence of the
revival of arts in the reign of Eadgar.
When he succeeded his brother on the throne of all
England (959) the Danelaw, in a sense, gave a king
to the Saxons, and with him Anglo-Danes won places
in church and state. We have seen that Odo could
rise to an archbishopric ; now his nephew Oswald
became bishop of Worcester, and, after Oskytel
(Asketil), archbishop of York. Thord Gunnarsson,
who led the English expedition into Cumbrian and
Viking Westmorland in 966, and was afterwards jarl
of Deira, was already, in 961, "prsepositus domus" of
the king ; and many Scandinavian names appear in
144 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the lists of witnesses to royal charters. Eadgar's laws
left the Northumbrian Danes in possession of their
old rights and usages, and his policy encouraged
intercourse with foreigners ; so much mdeed that
both the old poem quoted in the Chronicle and the
account of his reign by William of Malmesbury make
against him the charge, so often repeated in English
history, that " outlandish men he hither enticed,
and harmful people allured to this land." It was
said that when Eadred held his court at Abingdon
the Northumbrian visitors became so drunk by
nightfall that they had to retire ; and that, under
Eadgar, the Saxons "though they were free from
such propensities before that time " learned drunken-
ness from the Danes. On the other hand, John
of Wallingford's story of the reason why the Danes
were hated is not without significance : " they were
wont, after the fashion of their country, to comb
their hair every day, to bathe every Saturday "
Laugardag, " bath-day," " to change their garments
often, and set off their persons by many such frivolous
devices. In this manner they laid siege to the virtue
of the women." Freeman always represents the
Northumbrian Danes as barbarians, but it does not
appear that the charge is justified.
5. SVEIN AND
The story of Scandinavian England in the eleventh
century divides itself naturally into two parts the
invasion of Svein and Knut \ and the fruitless attempt
SVEIN AND KNtJT 145
of Harald Hardradi, followed by the tragic last scene
in which William the Norman put an end to the power
of the old Viking colony.
Southern England had been free from war and
piracy for eighty years. yEthelred the " Ill-advised "
had recently been crowned, a boy of ten or eleven ;
Dunstan had retired from the government, but the
old times of viking raids appeared to be past, and the
horizon was as unclouded as ever it is on the day
before a storm. In 980 a small party of Danes
attacked Southampton, and then Thanet; Cheshire
also was raided. In 981 the same Danes ravaged
Devon and Cornwall. In 982 they harried Portland.
The leader in these new attacks must have been
Svein Tjiiguskeggi ("with the forked beard"), son of
Harald Blatonn, king of Denmark. He had been
forcibly baptised when Otto the Great invaded
Denmark, but in earlier years made no pretence of
Christianity nor of filial devotion, and went viking
with his friend Palnat6ki (of Wales, and later of
Jomsborg) until the death of Harald in 986.
In 985 the Mercian ealdorman ^Elfric, being
banished, fled to Denmark. To Normandy English
refugees had already betaken themselves, and in 991
Duke Richard I. and ^Ethelred made a treaty by
which they agreed not to harbour fugitives across
the Channel ; but this proved of no more effect than
to show that the respective governments had some
idea of common action in the matter of outlaws
turned vikings. That an English nobleman should
take refuge in Denmark shows new relations between
K
146 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
England and the Scandinavian lands, soon to be
brought into closer connexion.
Another country came into view, so to speak, from
the shores of southern England when vikings from
Norway began to be recognised among the invaders.
On the west coast the Norse were well known ; Alfred
had written of his visitors from Halogaland and the
Baltic ; traders from the fjords had taken cargoes to
English ports, and among the hosts of earlier years
many a Norseman had been numbered. But so far
no distinctly Norwegian army had attacked southern
England. In 991 Jostein (Justin) and Guthmund
plundered Ipswich ; they are called Danes, and Justin
is a Danish form of the name ; but a J6stein was
maternal uncle of King Olaf Tryggvason, who joined
this party, and Guthmund is called Justin's brother.
At Maldon they overthrew the Essex levies under
Brihtnoth, in a battle made famous by the ballad
which tells how the bridge was defended by three
champions, one of whom from his name Maccus
seems to have been of Viking origin himself. One
result of this battle was the first payment of
that enormous Danegeld which soon became the
chief feature of these new invasions. On this
occasion archbishop Sigeric, ealdorman ^Ethelwerd
the chronicler, and /Klfric of Hampshire were the
negotiators on the English side ; they have borne the
blame of initiating the weak and disastrous course of
money-payments which tempted Viking attacks. But
it was no new thing. From 865 onwards such black-
mail was levied. Freeman notes a bequest to Hyde
SVEIN AND KNtiT 147
of money " to keep hunger, and heathen men if need
be, from the Abbey." Meredith of Wales (989) paid
a penny a head for his subjects to ransom them from
the Black Army. The new Danegeld was the old
payment on a larger scale and in a more business-like
style. The sums exacted were increased to an extent
which seems almost fabulous, considering the rateable
value of land, and they could only have been raised
by recourse to the treasures of monasteries, churches
and the wealthy, in days when hoards of gold and
silver made up into valuable shrines, book-covers,
furniture and personal ornaments were the chief and
most available form of riches. The work of the
Saxon gold- and silver-smiths, to judge from its
remains, was highly artistic and intrinsically valuable.
It must have been weighed out by the pound,
perhaps melted down or broken up, for the Vikings ;
for all the hoards of English coins found in Scandi-
navia, with all that may be imagined as lost and still
to seek, or spent and again circulated, would be
only as a drop in the bucket to the sums they are
said to have received. After ; 10,000 in 991,
;i6,ooo was paid in 994, ^24,000 in 1002, ^30,000
in 1007, and in 1009 East Kent paid ^"3,000. In
1014 the sum of ^"21,000 was paid; in 1018 Knilt,
when newly crowned, took ^72,000, beside ^n,ooo
paid by the Londoners alone. In 1040 Hordakniit
took 2 1, 099, beside ^11,048 paid for thirty-two
ships. With a Dane upon the throne the Danegeld
seems to have become an occasional war-tax, but it
was levied more than once by the Confessor, who is
148 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
said to have abolished it about 1051, but William the
Conqueror levied a similar tax when he was crowned,
and another in the following year, and again another
in 1083-1084. Prof. Maitland (Domesday Book and
Beyond^ p. 6) calls the sums exacted under ^Ethelred
and Kniit "appalling." At two shillings the hide,
which was worth about a pound, England in the
middle of the twelfth century could pay only ^5198 ;
so that ,30,000 would be half the total value of the
kingdom, unless it was richer in the tenth than in
the twelfth century, or unless recourse could be had
to the hoarded wealth of many ancestral treasuries.
It must be remembered, however, that some of the
Viking hosts remained for a considerable time in the
country ; buccaneers are often open-handed, and much
of their prize-money must have gone back to the
people of the towns where they took up their
quarters.
After the battle of Maldon, Olaf Tryggvason him-
self joined his kinsmen, and the host was enlisted by
the Saxon Witan to remain and defend Wessex from
the Danes. A further sum of ^22,000 is said to have
been paid as a retaining fee, beside salaries while
they were on active service : but at the same time
they were allowed in certain cases to wage war or
make raids on other parts of the island, and any
province making a separate treaty with them was to
be outlawed. So next year we find a great fleet in
the English service on the Thames, commanded by
Thord of York, /Elfric, formerly a refugee in Denmark,
and two bishops. It is not surprising that ^Elfric first
SVEIN AND KNUT 149
warned and then joined the Danes, and that their
attack though fruitless was not wholly disastrous to
them. We hear no more of this ^Elfric, whose ship
was captured ; and we hear no more of jarl Thord of
York, whose place was shortly afterwards filled by
Waltheof I. as ruler of Bernicia, and by ^Elfhelm in
Deira.
In 993 the coast from Bamborough to Lindsey was
ravaged : the " English " leaders, two of whom bore
Danish names, deserted their levies, and the Vikings
had a free course. Next year Olaf Tryggvason,
no longer the mercenary of Wessex, joined forces
with Svein, king of Denmark, to conquer England.
On September 8, 994, they attacked London, but
were repulsed ; they ravaged the shores of the
Thames, and Canterbury was saved only by the pay-
ment of 90 pounds of silver and 400 ounces of gold.
Then they plundered Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Hamp-
shire, and were bought off at Southampton by a pay-
ment of ;i 6,000 levied on all England, and a regular
stipend to be paid by Wessex alone. After the con-
clusion of the treaty Olaf Tryggvason was brought by
bishop ^Elfheah and our chronicler v^Ethelwerd to
Andover, where he was confirmed in the presence of
King ^Ethelred. According to his saga he had been
baptised by a hermit on the " Syllingar," perhaps the
Scilly Islands, or possibly (as a famous abbot and
a great cloister are mentioned) one of the island
monasteries of Ireland; the geography of the sagas,
when it relates to Britain, is often defective, while the
incidents may contain a true tradition. At Andover,
150 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
as the Chronicle records to his honour, " he made a
covenant with King ^Ethelred, even as he also fulfilled,
that he never again would come as an enemy to the
English nation."
Svein went to the Isle of Man, but the bulk of the
army, who had remained at Southampton and were
supposed to be in the English service, ravaged Corn-
wall and Devon, burnt Tavistock Abbey, and then
harried Dorset and the Isle of Wight. Next year
they sailed up the Medway, besieged Rochester and
plundered in Kent. In this they were probably within
the meaning of the act, as they understood it : the
west, and Kent, were not the country they had under-
taken to guard ; and it is to be borne in mind that
we have the story from one side only. There was
evasion of payment on several occasions in the account
of Saxon dealings with the Vikings; and the local
jealousies of England suggest that one district was
sometimes not entirely displeased to see another
victimised.
It has been suggested (Sir J. Ramsay, Foundations
of England, p. 340) that the Scandinavian settlements
in the Lake district date from this time : Thietmar of
Merseburg speaks of territory assigned to invading
bands for permanent occupation, and Jostein and
Guthmund henceforward disappear from history "as
if they had found comfortable quarters somewhere."
But the Lake district was not in ^Ethelred's realm ;
the quarters assigned seem to have been in and
near Southampton. ^Ethelred ravaged Cumberland
a few years later, as he would hardly have done if
SVEIN AND KNUT 151
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 Jostein 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 OlaPs uncle
Jostein, according to the saga, accompanied him home
and stood by him to the end.
In the year 1000 the troublesome host sailed to
Normandy. ^Ethelred 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. ^Kthelred
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 trust-
worthiness 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
152 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the act of negotiation, committed a murder for which
he was outlawed. Then it was resolved to meet plot
with plot, and kill off all the Danes in England, or at
least all those of Pallig's command. The massacre of
St. Brice's day (November 12, 1002) has been reduced
to its lowest terms by Freeman, but that it struck the
English themselves with horror and shame is evident.
Henry of Huntingdon records that in his boyhood,
eighty years later, the event was still remembered in
common talk. At Oxford the sanctuary of the church
was as little respected by the English as ever it had
been by the Vikings : St. Frideswide's was burnt with
all the Danes who had taken refuge in it. It was the
common reproach that the Vikings spared neither age
nor sex : but now the English beheaded Gunnhild, a
royal princess, a Christian, and a hostage, after both
her husband, jarl Pallig, and her son had been killed
before her eyes. If the circumstances of this, which
all England might have regarded as a natural and
laudable act of vengeance, -have been exaggerated,
what are we to think of the chroniclers' stories of
Viking crime but that they must be taken with great
abatement ?
The massacre was " not only a crime but a blunder,"
as Freeman remarks, and it brought a speedy revenge.
Next year Svein, now king of Denmark and Norway,
invaded and took Exeter, Wilton, and Old Sarum ;
in 1004 he sacked Norwich, and overcame the East
Anglian fyrd under Ulfketil, the old ealdorman's right-
hand man, the Ulfkell Snillingr of the sagas, a true
English patriot though his name betrays a Viking
SVEIN AND KNUT 153
origin. In 1005 a famine sent the Danes away, only
to return in 1006 when they ravaged Kent and Sussex,
wintered in the Isle of Wight, and next year marched
to Reading and Marlborough; but on payment of
^"36,000 they desisted from further attacks for the
time. In 1008 a great fleet was got together by the
English, but Wulfnoth of Sussex, being impeached
before the king, turned viking, and defied the whole
power of the country.
Two fleets arrived at Sandwich in 1009, one
under Hemming and Eylaf and the other under
Thorkel the Tall, son of Strut- Harald, jarl of Sjseland,
and brother of Hemming. Taking a ransom of
^3,000 for Canterbury, they plundered the south
coast, and wintered in their burg at Greenwich. Next
year they made four raids into the interior, in the first
of which Ulfketil offered an unsuccessful resistance
at Ringmere (near Thetford ?) : but as the year pro-
ceeded the defence became weaker, until at last the
Witan negotiated for peace at the price of ^48,000.
The payment was delayed : meantime Canterbury
was attacked it is evident that Canterbury was not
in the area affected by the negotiations and the
whole population was held to ransom. It was not
until the Easter of next year that the first debt was
paid, and the payment celebrated at a feast in which
the Viking soldiers Thorkel himself, it is said, being
absent drank themselves drunk on wine, and dragged
archbishop ^Ifheah to their " husting " clamouring
for the ransom of Canterbury. On his refusal they
pelted him with bones from their feast, and one of them
154 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
named Thrym (" stupid "), who had been lately con-
firmed by ^Elfheah himself, put him out of his misery
with the stroke of an axe. Thorkel did what he could
to make amends for the "regrettable incident," in
which the Danes too completely justified the charges
laid against them. He gave up the body of the arch-
bishop for honourable burial, and shortly took service
under the English king, whom he supported with
fidelity until the flight to Normandy, which put an
end to ^Ethelred's actual reign.
During 1013 King Svein arrived once more with a
great fleet. With him, or about this time, arrived
Olaf Haraldsson, afterwards king and saint, but
certainly during all this period engaged in viking
exploits. Some years later, when Olaf was king of
Norway, the skald Ottar the Black made a love-song
to the queen, for which he was condemned to
death ; he won his life by composing a poem on the
king's deeds in England, mentioning especially the
breaking of London Bridge, the battle of Ringmere,
and the capture of Canterbury. According to Snorri
Sturluson he fought for the English against the
Danes, but the circumstances are not easy to make
out.
Uhtred, the Anglo-Danish governor of Northumbria,
set the example of adherence to Svein, and all the
north of England followed. Marching through Mer,cia,
the Danes met no resistance until they were repulsed
from London by the townsfolk under Thorkel, but
even London opened its gates to them when the
Witan had met in the west, and by its submission
SVEIN AND KNfrr 155
Svein had become de facto king of England. Thorkel's
fleet of Danish mercenaries was the only refuge for
^Ethelred, who followed his queen and family to
Normandy in January 1014. On February 3 King
Svein died.
Knut, son of Svein, succeeded him in the kingdom
of England, not without severe opposition on the part
of the English, which forced him at first to take ship
for Denmark. Finding Harald, his brother, already
on the Danish throne, he returned in 1015 to England
to recover his father's realm. Olaf Haraldsson for
some little time remained in England ; whatever
side he may have taken previously, it was he who
brought back ^Ethelred from Normandy on the death
of Svein. But ^thelred was already dying. His son,
Eadmund Ironside, estranged from him, and finding
assistance from none but his brother-in-law, Uhtred of
Northumbria, kept up some show of resistance until
Kmit marched to York and Uhtred gave up the con-
test. On April 23, 1016, yEthelred died, and all
England, except London, adhered to the Dane. Kmit
brought his fleet to Greenwich, and besieged Eadmund
in the city, cutting a canal through the marshes of
Southwark in order to tow his ships above London
Bridge, and then making a dyke round the north side
of the walls to complete the blockade. Eadmund
escaped, and gathered troops in the west, fought a
notable series of battles at Penselwood, Sherstone,
London, and Brentwood, driving the Danes down to the
coast of Kent, and defeating them in a battle at Otford.
They withdrew into Sheppey and thence into Essex,
156 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
where Eadmund met them once more at Assandun,
and lost the last decisive action. The site of Assandan
is usually placed at Ashingdon, because Canewdon
quasi Canute-don is near it; but the names in
Domesday are Ascenduna, which does not tally with
Assandun, and Carendun. Ashdon, near Saffron
Walden, has been suggested, but the circumstances
of the battle appear to fit Sandon, near Danbury,
" the Danes' burg," on the road between Maldon and
Chelmsford, along which Kntit's men were probably
returning from their raid into "Mercia," which may
mean Mersea in Essex.
After this great overthrow it was useless for Eadmund
Ironside to resist. Knut proposed a meeting at
" Olanege," near " Deorhyrst," on the Severn, where
the two kings " became fellows and pledge-brothers."
They agreed to divide England, Eadmund taking
Wessex and paying a Danegeld. But on November
30, 1016, he died murdered, his partisans held, at
the instigation of Kmit and the Vikings at last ruled
the country they had sought for two centuries to
conquer.
In the " Lithsmen's Song," made by the men of the
host, Skjoldunga saga says, though the saga of St.
Olaf attributes it to the king and saint himself, we
have a curious and valuable echo of the time. We
see how the Vikings looked upon their adventure ; we
get the touch of nature which brings the " fury of the
Northman " before us in a new light, and reveals no
hero, no demon, but just the Tommy Atkins of a
barrack-room ballad, with his two themes of song
SVEIN AND KNUT 157
the glory of the service and the girl he left behind
him. For the text, see Corpus Poeticum Boreale^ ii.,
pp. 106-108; but the bald abstract there given hardly
renders the spirit of the original :
Marching up the country, on ! before they know
Deeds are doing, shields are shining, roofs are lying low ;
Up, heart ! wave and waft the weapon of Odin's Maid,
And the English throng will hurry along in flight before the
blade.
There's many a man in the realm where we were bred and
born
Has donned his easy old coat and flytes his fellow this very
morn ;
While here's a lad in a shirt of steel the smith with his hammer
has sewed
Goes singing abroad to feed the crows their fill of English
blood.
There's one in the glad of the gloaming what cares he forth
to roam ?
He's shy to redden the scathe of shields he kisses a girl at
home ;
He'll carry no shield to England for glory and gold this year,
But bides with Steinvor, North of Stad. in Norway with my
dear.
'Thought me, when I spied them, Thorkel's folk were fain
The song of the sword they never shirk to tread the battle-
plain ;
And awhile aga at Ringmere Heath we pushed into the fray,
We stood the storm of iron, with our host in war-array.
So the song goes on, with reminiscences of Ulfketil,
who gave them a good fight, but " changed his mind "
and fled; of Kniit, the trusty leader, sharing the
soldiers' danger
Knut gave the word, he bade us make a stand ;
He held a shield among us when we fought by London
strand ;
the battle at the dyke, the scene of the ships passing
158 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the canal, and the assaults on the city walls. Then it
reverts to the girl at home poor thing! mated to
the laggard and pining away like the leaves of the
linden in autumn; and concludes
Day by day the buckler was reddened with reeking gore,
When we were out on the foray with our champion in the
war :
But now that the war is over and the last hard fight is won.
Merry we sit as the days go by in fair London-town.
So also the treachery and cruelty laid to Kntit's
charge, especially in his earlier years, disappear almost
to vanishing point on examination. Nor, on the other
hand, was he a great beneficent power, always listen-
ing to the merry song of monks and rebuking his
courtiers for their flattery. He was very shrewd ; all the
chess-playing cleverness of the Viking intellect was
shown in his strategy and administration. It mattered
not whether his chessmen were Danish or English
"Northman" of the Hwiccas, even jarl Eirik, jar!
Hakon Eiriksson and Thorkel were sacrificed, Eadulf
Cudel the Angle and Godwine the Saxon were ad-
vanced, when the game required. Not to press a
powerful family to revolt, he would favour one member
of it when he had removed another : in 1020 ^Ethel-
werd the ealdorman was banished, and his brother-in-
law ^Ethelnoth was promoted to the archbishopric.
For the sake of policy Kmit in his youth appears to
have married ^Elfgifu of Northampton, daughter of
^Elfhelm, ealdorman of Deira ; but in 1017 he married
Emma of Normandy, ^Ethelred's widow. In matters
of religion he showed himself almost ostentatiously
SVEIN AND KNtJT 159
zealous; especially honouring St. Cuthbert, St. Ead-
mund, the martyr of the early Vikings, St. ^Elfheah,
the victim of his own comrades; and in 1026 going
on pilgrimage to Rome, not without an eye to diplo-
matic business, for the journey enabled him to attend
the coronation of the Emperor Conrad, with whom he
arranged flic marriage of his daughter Gunnhild to
the heir of Germany ; and he was able also to get
various concessions from the pope and the king of
Burgundy, advantageous to English and Danes on
pilgrimage or on business abroad. As a legislator and
military organiser he found the happy mean between
Danish and English interests. He did not rule in any
altruistic spirit, for he exacted enormous sums of
money from the conquered nation ; nor did he throw
himself on the country which he adopted as his own
without the new safeguard of an efficient standing
army ; but he gave justice, peace and well-being -such
as England had not known for a generation.
Kniit's Laws, which Freeman thought to date from
the end of his reign (after 1028), because they mention
Peter's Pence and Kniit's title of King of Norway,
begin with admonitions to religious duty to fear God,
hold one Christian belief, and love King Kmlt with
true faith ; to keep the feasts of Eadward, king and
martyr, and of Dunstan the bishop; to observe
Sunday ; to forsake idols and the worship of sun and
moon, fire and water, wells, stones and trees. The
second part, dealing with secular matters, re-enacts
with some additions the laws of former kings of
England : Eadgar's recognition of the local rights of
l6o SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the Danelaw, Mercia and Wessex was repeated. The
general lines of government and society already laid
down are followed without much change, though there
is a tendency to closer organisation not a new thing,
but leading in the direction of feudalism. It used to
be thought, for example, that private jurisdiction came
in with Kniit, but Professor Maitland {Domesday Book
and Beyond, p. 282) has shown that express grants of
sac and soc were known in the tenth century. Under
Kniit, however, the mutual responsibility on which
order and justice were based seems to have become
rather more territorial than merely personal ; every
freeman over twelve years of age was to be enrolled in
a Hundred and Tithing. 1 The hundred court had
to see justice done, failing which the king's justice
could be appealed to; he alone could decide cases
involving outlawry, and had the dues in certain causes,
such as highway robbery (whence "the king's high-
way"), and other breaches of the peace not covered
by the popular courts. In the county court the bishop
and the ealdorman still presided, no distinction being
made between the administration of ecclesiastical and
that of secular law. Nor was any distinction made to
1 Bishop Stubbs (Const. Hist., i. p. 94) says that in the so-
called Laws of Edward the Confessor, a twelfth-century compila-
tion based on the Laws of Kniit, men were bound to associate
in groups of ten, called frithborh in the south, but tenmannetale
in the north ; adding that tenmentale in Richmondshire was,
temp. Henry II., an extent of fourteen carucates, paying 4$. >jd.
annual tax. Maitland (Domesday Book, p. 387) remarks that
the unit of land in Sweden is the mantal. We may add that
manntal in the old Icelandic law means a "muster, census,"
which may explain tenmantal= frithborh, temp. Knut.
SVEIN AND KNUT l6l
give Kniit's victorious army a preference over the con-
quered country; they had not even "sporting rights, "
in spite of a severe hunting-code which is attributed
in error to this period ; every man could hunt on his
own ground, except where the king had made a royal
forest. The slave-trade was forbidden, and if the
punishment of adulteresses by the loss of nose and
ears seems severe, on the other hand Kniit did not
claim the right of selling the hand of a woman in
marriage, as was the custom later, and it was provided
that no wife should be held an accomplice of her
husband in a case of theft unless the goods were
found in her store-room, locked cupboard, or private
bag. It is not wonderful if, as Freeman says, " after
Knut's power was once fully established, we hear no
complaint against his government from any trustworthy
English source."
Kniit's standing army was an improvement upon
the tentative measures in that direction framed by
yElfred, and a great advance upon the merely mer-
cenary troops of aliens from time to time engaged by
^Ethelred and his predecessors. It was a develop-
ment of the Vikings' permanent crews of enlisted
men, picked and trained and paid for their work.
They were known as the king's huskarls^ a word
which, like Northman, Lochlann, Sumarlidi, Viking,
etc., became a personal name. The nucleus of this
force was formed in 1018 by the crews of forty ships,
but it is not easy to reckon the number of men to
which these crews would amount. Kniit's marine
army was reckoned by " rowlocks"; the pay was
L
1 62 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
eight marks Anglo-Saxon ( = ^4) " set aelcere hame-
lan," a word which has puzzled English historians, but
represents the Icelandic hamla^ the oar-loop which holds
the oar to the thole (Jidr) in the Viking ship. In
Norway, a levy was counted, not by men, but by homlur,
and the number of men was of course greater, for there
must have been relays of rowers on a long voyage, or
at least a considerable percentage of substitutes. In
fact the reckoning represented the size of the vessel,
its tonnage, so to say : and as Florence of Worcester
mentions a ship given by Godwine to Hordaknut with
80 rowers, the ships of Thorkel and Kniit may have
been much larger than the Gokstad boat of the quite
early Viking time. This would raise the number of
Knut's hir& to over 3000 " rowlocks."
From a Danish code of the twelfth century, as well as
from such descriptions as that of the Jomsviking settle-
ment, we gather that these professional soldiers had
a stringent set of customs of their own. The relations
of lord and man were strictly defined ; the dealings of
members of the crew with one another, and their
detachment from the world of civilians, were set forth.
That sucn laws, which in the VF&rlags-rett (code of
penalties) are ascribed somewhat doubtfully to this
King Kniit, did actually hold good in his days appears
to be proved from the story which tells how he once,
in a fit of anger, killed one of his men, and condemned
himself in the huskarls' court to pay the accustomed
penalty nine times over. That such a standing force
should not be popular, and that there were tales of
their arrogance and oppression, is natural ; but when
SVEIN AND Offrr 163
Kniit sent away the greater part of his army, and
retained only these hiiskarls, the Witan promised that
they should " have firm peace " ; that any Englishman
who killed one of them should be punished, and if he
was not found his Hundred or township should pay
the blood-money.
Kni.it died Nov. 12, 1035, master, as his father
was, but far more effectively master of England,
Denmark and Norway. He cannot have intended
to form a permanent empire ; in those days per-
sonal allegiance of the local rulers was everything;
imperial organisation was hardly within practical
politics. Bernicia, much diminished by the loss of
the Lothians, was still in the hands of the old
Anglian family which had survived all the Viking
invasions, and was now represented by Ealdred,
Uhtred's son, and at his death by his brother Eadwulf.
Deira was ruled in 1033 by Siward the Stout (Sigurd
Digri) an Anglo-Dane who had married ./Ethelflsed,
daughter of jarl Ealdred. Mercia was still under
Leofric, and Wessex under Godwine ; Hereford and
Eastern Mercia were under Ranig and Thurig or
Thorir. The kingdom of England had been promised
by Knitt to Emma's son Hordakmit, but he was now
ruling Denmark ; Svein, the eldest son of Kniit's
first marriage, was in Norway; and his brother
Harald Harefoot, being on the spot, and half a
Northumbrian, was elected by the vote of the
Northumbrians and Londoners (or the standing
army in London, the Itftsmenn, not necessarily the
"nautic multitude" as Freeman took it). Godwine
164 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and Wessex stood for Hordaknut, and it was not
until the attempt of the setheling Alfred and the
atrocity which put an end to it an atrocity, the
chroniclers say, worse than any charged to the Vikings
that Harald was accepted as king over all England.
In this respect the story of Eadgar was repeated ; the
Danish north again gave a king to the south.
Harald Harefoot spent his time Sundays included
in hunting: he reduced the huskarl army, picked
no quarrels, and the land had rest, but for a little
border fighting, until he died in 1040. Hordaknut,
Emma's son and king of Denmark was then elected,
King Stork after King Log. He began by disinter-
ring the body of his brother Harald and throwing it
into the town ditch ; the Londoners rescued the body
and buried it in St. Clement Danes, then a suburban
church, built, as its name implies, for the Scandinavian
population. That there were Danes buried within the
city also is shown by the monument now in the Guild-
hall Museum and found in St. Paul's churchyard, a
sculptured stone of the eleventh century, not without
some traces of Irish influence in its style, with runes
" [To the memory of some man unknown] his wife let
this stone be raised ; also Tuki." The subject of the
panel is the well-known emblem of the Hart and
Hound, symbolising, it is thought, the Christian in
persecution ; a strange epitaph, one would think, for
one of the "proud invaders," and yet very frequently
used. It is perhaps possible that the ancient emblem
of the Danish capital at Leira, the hart, lingered in
tradition, and fixed this particular form as a popular
SVEIN AND KNT 165
one in monumental masonry : it is possible also that
epitaphs then expressed in pictorial form and not
until rather later in the set phrase of eulogy seen on
Manx and Scandinavian stones were as little related
to biographical fact as those of any country churchyard.
And yet the sentiment conveyed by the Viking Age
tombstones, like that of the Christian Skaldic songs, is
strikingly akin to the piety of all ages. The struggle
with the Serpent, hardly vanquished; the Cross
triumphant over powers of sin and death ; symbols
of resignation and resurrection, on these mainly
the design depends in all its various forms ; rarely
showing something that may be intended for a portrait
effigy, still less commonly anything like the heraldic
ostentation of a later age or the hint of a warrior's
fame. It is interesting to infer the character of the
people who put up these monuments the more tender
and sincere side of the deep Scandinavian nature.
The great preponderance of Scandinavian blood in
the north of England is shown by the list of
"festermen," or those who gave pledges (borJi) for
Archbishop ./Rlfric at his election to the see of York
in 1023. The list is contemporary, written on the fly-
leaf of a tenth-century MS. Gospels in the library of
York Minster. It has been published by Prof.
G. Stephens, and more recently with analysis of
the names by Dr. J6n Stefansson (Saga-book of the
Viking Club) 1906), who remarks that the place-names
seem to be from South Yorkshire, and that many of the
personal names are more Norse than Danish. The
termination -ketil, used in the earlier part of the
1 66 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
eleventh century by Norwegians and Icelanders, had
been shortened by that time to -kil or -kel in Danish
and Swedish, and the full form is found here in
Alfcetel, Arcetel, Ascetel, Audcetel, Cetel, Grimcetel,
Roscetel, Ulfcetel, Thorcetel. Judged by their occur-
rence elsewhere some of the names represent Nor-
wegians rather than Danes : Asbeorn, Beorn, Barad,
Blih (Bligr), Colbrand, Berhdor (Bergthor), Halwaerd
(Hallvard), Raganald, Tholf (Th6r61f) ; others are
rather Danish than Norse : Fardain (equivalent to
Farman, " trader"), Folcer, Merlesuuan, Siuerd, Snel ;
while the rest of those which are not Anglo-Saxon
may be either Danish or Norse : Ailaf, Ana, Arner
(Arnthor), Asmund, Forna, Gamal, Grim, Gunner,
Hawer (Havard), Justan, Lefer (Leifr), Osulf, Ulf,
Ulfer, Thor (Th6rir). Many more Old Norse names
are given in the Durham Liber Vita, the earliest part
of which is of the tenth century. Dr. Stefansson
thinks that the Norse element here represented had
been long in Yorkshire, and not recently come in with
jarl Eirik Hakonarson. In that case, however, one
would expect their language and names to have been
assimilated to the general use in Northumbria at the
time, and not to show dialectic differences lately
evolved in the homes they had left many generations
earlier. Travel and trade must have already brought
Norwegians into England, but we must be careful not
to over-estimate the Norse in Yorkshire at this date,
remembering that forty years later Norwegians were
received as enemies but Danes as friends.
Hordakniit was as unfavourable an example of a
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW 167
Viking ruler as his father had been the reverse.
Soured by ill-health and the spoilt child of an ambitious
and often disappointed mother, king of Denmark in
his " teens " and king of England also at twenty or
twenty-one, he spent his short reign in exactions,
quarrels and violent revenges, and died suddenly, as
every schoolboy reads, after drinking at a wedding-feast
in Lambeth, 1042. His half-brother Eadward the
Confessor reigned in his stead.
6. THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW.
Eadward's reign was disturbed throughout by a
struggle between the Anglo-Scandinavians and the
Franco-Scandinavians. The king, half Norman by
birth and wholly Norman by training, failed only by
want of energy to make England as Norman as
himself. On the other side were not merely the
Danish and Norse populations of the Danelaw, but
the family of God wine, by Kniit's favour ruler of
Southern England and the husband of the Danish
lady Gyda, sister to jarl Ulf. Ulf had married Kniit's
sister 'Astrid ; their son Svein, nephew by marriage to
Godwine, was heir to the throne of Svein Forkbeard.
It was only by the promise of succession at Eadward's
death that he was induced to forego his claim upon
England and content himself with the endeavour to
win Denmark, an endeavour in which he succeeded.
His brother Bjorn became earl of Wessex ; Godwine's
1 68 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
half Danish daughter became queen of England;
and these examples are only typical of the divided
interests of a realm consisting of half-a-dozen different
territories having no common traditions, and inhabited
by groups of peoples varying in origin, many of them
new-comers, and all of them more concerned with
petty aspirations and animosities than with patriotic
ideals. We do them wrong if we blame their
blindness. "England," in the sense we attach to
the word, as the expression of a national unit, did
not exist.
For example, there was nothing to prevent an
" Englishman," now that the trade was learnt, from
turning Viking himself, and playing the pirate on his
native shores. Osgod Clapa, king's " minister," being
exiled, in 1049 returned with a fleet, part of which
attacked Walton-on-the-Naze. Svein, the eldest son
of God wine, at the same time kidnapped and
murdered his cousin Bjorn of Wessex. Harold, the
hero of the English, when his family was " under a
cloud," took refuge in Dublin, and in 1052 came back
to ravage Devon, and then, joining his father Godwine,
who had brought a fleet from Flanders, attacked Kent
until the king yielded and reinstated them. ^Elfgar
Leofric's son, Harold's rival, imitated him twice over
(1055 and 1058), regaining his earldom with the help
first of Irish Danes, and finally with a great fleet of
Norse from the Isles. But the most characteristic
and unscrupulous of these English Vikings was
Tosti, son of Godwine, whose fatal adventure shook
not only the Danelaw but the whole fabric of Anglo-
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW 169
Saxon England to its downfall. A few words will be
enough to fix the sequence of events.
Si ward the Stout of Northumbria died in 1055 ;
Henry of Huntingdon tells how he would not die
"the death of a sick cow," but bade his folk bring
helmet and sword and battle-axe, "and when armed
according to his desire he gave up the ghost." His
earldom did not descend to his son Waltheof, nor to
Eadulfs son Oswulf, but to King Eadward's and
Queen Eadgyth's favourite Tosti. But Tosti left his
earldom to the care of an underling, and amused
himself at court. When he did interfere with Northum-
brian affairs it was for mischief. Gamel Ormsson
and Ulf Dolfinsson were murdered at his house at
York ; Gospatric was murdered at the Queen's Court
at least folk called it murder, and laid it to Tosti.
The Northumbrians rose against him ; on October 3,
1065, three of their chief men attacked his house at
York, and slaughtered his hiiskarls. The names of
these Yorkshiremen are not without significance :
Gamelbearn, a Norseman, Dunstan son of y^Ethelnoth,
an Englishman, and Glonieorn (Glunier in Yorks.
Domesd^} son of Heardulf, connected with the royal
Danish family of Dublin, for the Gaelic Gluniarainn,
translating the Norse Jarn-kne, was famous among
the O'lvar; one of the name was half-king in 851,
another was father of Ottar jarl, the comrade of
Ragnvald who became king of York, and a third
was son of Olaf Cuaran. With these leaders the
people of Northumbria deposed Tosti and invited
M6rkari, son of /Elfgar, to be their earl. He led
1 70 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
them south ; at Northampton they were joined by
Eadwine, son of ^Ifgar and earl of north-west Mercia,
and they plundered the country, carrying away
captives, until they reached Oxford. In spite of
Harold's mediation and King Eadward's support,
Tosti was forced to leave the country (November i,
On January 5, 1066, Eadward the Confessor died,
and next day Harold was crowned king. He was
acknowledged by the Northumbrians only after
his personal appearance among them and on the
appeal of bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, Eadwine and
Morkari remaining in their earldoms. Tosti mean-
while was planning armed re-entry. In May he came
from Normandy (so Freeman, Norman Conquest, iii.,
pp. 720-725) to plunder the Isle of Wight, the south
coast and Lindsey. Driven away from the Danelaw
by Eadwine and M6rkari, he took refuge with King
Malcolm in Scotland. Then he applied to Svein of
Denmark for help to invade England ; Svein, his
cousin, could do no more than offer him an earldom
in Denmark. He went to the Vik, where, according
to the saga, he found Harald Hardradi, and though
the Norwegians are said to have feared the English
hiiskarls, Tosti persuaded the king of Norway to
join him in attempting the conquest of England.
The haste with which the Norwegian fleet was fitted
out suggests that the preparations made by William
of Normandy were no secret; it was a race for the
English crown. Half the fighting force of Norway
was called together ; and the fleet, Heimskringla says,
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW 171
numbered about two hundred war ships beside
transports and boats. Harald Hardradi came as if
certain of conquest, bringing his queen, his daughters,
and his son Olaf, beside his treasure, including a mass
of gold which twelve strong youths could hardly carry.
But one thing he forgot to bring with him the in-
vitation which had assured to others of his race a
welcome from their kindred in England.
In the Orkneys he found this welcome from his
island subjects, with whom he left his queen and
daughters, while he took south among his host the
two young jarls Paul and Erlend. On the Tyne
Tosti met him with a contingent raised in Flanders
and in Scotland; the king of Man also sent help,
with others of the Viking states in Ireland and the
Isles. The great fleet ravaged Cleveland, destroyed
Scarborough, harried Holderness, and sailed up the
Humber and the Ouse to Riccall, where the ships
were left under Olaf, the king's son, Paul and Erlend,
and the bishop of Orkney (probably Th6r61f, a Nor-
wegian ; Orkney not being at that time under the see
of York). Their advance had been rapid, but by this
time Eadwine and M6rkari had called out the fyrd,
and were marching out of York. The armies met at
Fulford, Wednesday, September 20, and the English
were routed with great slaughter. On the Sunday,
York surrendered, promising to receive Harald
Hardradi as king, and he on his side is said to have
given hostages equal in number to those he received.
York was not sacked, and the army passed by it
to Stamford Bridge, where hostages for the rest of
172 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Northumbria were to be brought, and perhaps (as
Freeman suggests) a royal manor afforded the chance
of provisions. Next morning, Monday, September 25,
Harold Godwine's son arrived in York with his
dreaded hiiskarls, rode through the city to Stamford
Bridge, and found the Norse army wholly unprepared.
Part of it was on the nearer side of the river, and
was driven across the stream, while one Northman
held the bridge until he was pierced from beneath
through the chinks of the gangway. Harald Hardradi
ran out at the alarm, singing
Forth we go in battle array,
Armourless under the blue blade ;
Helmets shine, but I wear not mine,
For all our gear in the ships we've laid.
The battle was a surprise, but the Northmen kept up
the fight throughout the day, not without hope of
victory, as Thjodulf Arnorsson's verses, extemporised
in the thick of the battle and still preserved, make
evident. When Harald Hardradi fell, the skald,
standing near him, swore in verse to fight on for the
sake of the gallant lads who were left ; but when all
was over, and the English hiiskarls were masters of
the field, his lament was not without a touch of
bitterness :
Our folk have paid a fearsome price, so trapped and ta'en they
be ;
'Twas ill the rede when Harald bade his hosting sail the sea ;
There's ne'er a man among us but is like to rue the day,
For the good king is gone from us, the king 's passed away.
"The same day and the same hour when King
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW 173
Harald fell, his daughter Mary died " in the Orkneys :
"it is said they had but one life," adds the saga.
Two miles from Riccall, where the ships and all
their gear were laid, a curious relic exists, which must
surely in some way be a monument of the battle. On
the ancient door of the church at Stillingfleet are
figures wrought in iron after the fashion of early Norse
work ; interlaced plaits in thick wire, dragons, and a
swastika of .barbed spear-points (a design to be seen
also at Versaas in Vestrgfttland) with two quaint men
and a dragon-headed Viking boat with its rudder
shipped, but mastless and oarless, and its forepart
broken away. It almost seems intended as a symbol
of the wreck of this enterprise, the last great adventure
of the Vikings in England.
Compared with Harald Hardradi's invasion the
landing of troops from Denmark two years later was
of little importance, except as part of a disastrous
movement, the history of which must be sketched
because it leads to the ravaging of Northumbria and
the ultimate rearrangement of population in the north
of England. In 1068, William had not as yet con-
quered more than the south, though in so doing he
destroyed the centralising machinery which was the
only connexion between the Scandinavian north and
the old realm of Alfred's family. He had appointed
Gospatric as earl of Bernicia, and Merlesvein as sheriff
of Yorkshire, but even this concession to local feeling
and even the fact that Normans had once been
Northmen, which has sometimes been erroneously
imagined to have had weight with both parties could
174 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
not conciliate Northumbria. In spite of the Norse
element which Dr. J6n Stefansson's analysis of the
"Festermen" (p. 165) appears to suggest, the people
of Yorkshire and surrounding districts (Cumberland
must be left out of England until after the reign of
William I.) were pro-Danish and not pro-Norse, as the
battle of Fulford proved. Gospatric, Merlesvein, and
Archill (Arnkill) the chief landholder hold, as he
would have been called a century earlier invited
King Svein of Denmark to intervene. Whether they
intended Eadgar ^Etheling to be placed on the throne,
or whether they would have preferred direct relations
with Denmark, is doubtful.
At first, the movement seemed to die away with the
submission of Eadwine, M6rkari, Archill, and the
bishop of Durham, and the flight of Eadgar ^Etheling,
Gospatric and Merlesvein to Scotland. York and
Lincoln received William and gave hostages, among
whom was perhaps Thurgod, known later as bishop
of St. Andrews and biographer of St. Margaret of
Scotland, who escaped from Lincoln Castle, and took
ship at Grimsby, to the surprise of certain ambassadors
from William to King Olaf when they chanced to find
him on board (see the story in Symeon's Hist. Regum,
s.a. 1074). Meanwhile the sons of King Harold of
England, who had taken refuge at Dublin, returned
with a fleet to attack Bristol and the southwest, as
they did again next year, to little purpose. But in
1069, after a fresh rising against the Normans in
Durham and York, King Svein at last despatched his
promised contingent. The fleet under his brother
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW 175
Asbjorn, once an earl in England, attacked Kent and
East Anglia without success; it was not until they
entered the Humber that they met with a welcome.
They were joined by the people, and by Waltheof, son
of the famous Siward and now earl of Northampton.
At York the native townsfolk received them gladly,
and the two Norman castles, together with a great
part of the city, were destroyed after severe fighting.
But when this was done, the English dispersed and
the Danes went back to their ships. There seems to
have been no attempt to establish the independence
of Northumbria ; one is led to suppose that jealousies
left them without a leader or a programme. The one
man who had a programme was William. He
advanced slowly northward ; wasted Staffordshire,
part of the old Danelaw ; attacked the Danes in
Lindsey, forcing them into Holderness ; marched by
Pontefract to York, and then effected the great de-
vastation of the north. William next devastated the
county of Durham, the sacred land of St. Cuthbert,
which even the Vikings in their fiercest days had
spared. Then marching against Chester he ravaged
Cheshire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire.
In the winter he bribed Asbjorn and his Danes to
leave, partly by allowing them to plunder Lindsey
as they pleased. Ten years later the terrible reprisals
of bishop Odo for the murder of bishop Walcher in
Durham added to the desolation ; though, after such
a tale, one may ask what more could be added?
And when in Domesday we still find Scandinavian
names among the landholders, and later we still find
176 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Scandinavian characteristics in the north of England,
we cannot but inquire Is not the account of the
destruction of life overdrawn ? or, if not, whence did
the fresh population come? In 1378, for example,
nearly forty of the surnames on the roll of freemen of
York may be derived (according to Dr. J6n Stefans-
son in the article quoted above) from Norse nick-
names. At this present time the dialect, folklore
and physical characteristics of Yorkshire and Lincoln-
shire are strongly Scandinavian, almost, if not quite,
as much so as those of Cumberland, in which no
soldier of William the Conqueror ever set foot.
The depopulation was possibly as severe as Free-
man makes it, following Symeon of Durham, who had
full local knowledge, but perhaps a tradition of ani-
mosity which has somewhat exaggerated the area of
devastation. Large tracts were entirely ravaged ;
other parts escaped. The mere fact that people
could sell themselves as slaves is enough to show that
there^were buyers, kind ladies like Geatflaed, who
took the homeless flock of Gospatric, Danish and
English, under her care, and set them free when
the storm was past. Many, of course, were not so
fortunate ; but many must have found a refuge in
Westmorland and North Lancashire among a kindred
and still independent population; others certainly
fled north into Scotland.
In a paper for the Yorkshire Archaeological Society
(K A. J., vol. xix., 1906) on the ethnology of West
Yorkshire, by Dr. Beddoe and Mr. J. H. Rowe, the
strong Scandinavian character of the people of south-
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW 177
eastern Scotland is attributed to immigration (or
rather the captivity of great numbers see Symeon,
Hist. Regum, s.a. 1070) from the East and North
Ridings in the eleventh century. The " wastes " men-
tioned in Domesday, when plotted on the map, show
that the area of devastation extended from Armley to
Gargrave and from Holmnrth to Adel, including all
Upper Airedale and Upper Calderdale ; Upper Tees-
dale and the districts of Northallerton and Driffield
also suffered. But there were areas of safety around
Conisborough, Elmsall, Sherburn, Beverley and Bedale.
These areas of devastation are not due only to William
the Conqueror; mischief was also caused by the
ravages of Malcolm Canmore ; but Dr. Beddoe infers
from the map that William moved at first north and
north-east, destroying the eastern parts of the West
and North Ridings, and nearly all the East Riding
except Beverley. Then crossing the Tees, and finding
the natives prepared for his attack, he moved south
and south-west, crossing the Upper Aire, and so into
Amounderness. Malcolm following him crossed
Stainmoor, ravaged Teesdale, Cleveland and South
Durham ; and Odo subsequently ravaged Durham, as
we have noticed. But there was evidently a dis-
crimination in William's ravaging, whether he had a
reason for sparing certain places, like Beverley, or
whether he merely swept the country in his line of
march, without " going into the corners." Of about two
hundred or more landowners in the West Riding men-
tioned in Domesday, most of them with Scandinavian
names, about a quarter survived the devastation;
M
178 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
most of the greater landholders outlasted the calami-
ties of nearly twenty years, perhaps taking refuge in
Scotland and returning to make their peace. The
common people, though agriculture was destroyed,
still were not entirely without resources ; there must
have been sheep, bees, hens, fish, swine and wood
left means of life not then taxable, and therefore
not mentioned in Domesday. At the same time, the
distress and depopulation, however we minimise it,
was terrible and widespread.
Whence, then, was Yorkshire re- peopled ? To a
great extent it must have 'been by immigration from
Cumbria and Westmorland. All over the west of
Yorkshire are place-names containing " thwaite," and
in situations suggesting more recent settlement than
surrounding hamlets or villages ; these seem to repre-
sent the additional land taken up by the new-comers,
who betray their presence by these " thwaites " and
other Norse "test-words," among which may be
reckoned ergh and airy, -bergh (common in Westmor-
land, but only occasional in Yorkshire), and possibly
force and gill. The close resemblance of Cleveland
characteristics, as described by Canon Atkinson in his
Forty Years in a Moorland Parish, to those of the
Lake District suggests a common origin, reaching back
rather to the eleventh and the twelfth centuries than
to the days of Halfdan. The East Riding (as Bever-
ley was a sanctuary) perhaps retained much of its
population though the farms were destroyed ; but the
coast, and especially Holderness, had only too frequent
experiences of the kind, and with Lindsey must have
suffered enormously.
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW 179
Some suggestion of new Norse settlements in Lin-
colnshire has been already made (p. 112). Still we find
eastern Yorkshire and Lincolnshire to be, 800 years
later, as they were 300 years earlier, Scandinavian
districts. Lancashire, in which the dialect is more
akin to that of the Midlands, filled up from the
south, except Lonsdale, which is closely related to
Westmorland.
Thus the population of Yorkshire, and by its
analogy we may conclude the same of the whole
Danelaw, underwent great changes during the twelfth
century ; and the preponderance of Scandinavian
blood was further reduced by immigration as the
various industries sprang up and invited skilled
workmen from distant parts. Not only the Normans
but Flemings in the twelfth century, and Germans in
the fourteenth, came into the country : the mines at
Alston were worked about 1350 by a party from
Cologne under Tillmann, and the great German
colony under Hechstetter in the time of Elizabeth
made a notable addition to the Lake District popula-
tion. Even in the fourteenth century, as can be
seen from the poll-tax returns of Yorkshire, names
suggest immigration from various parts of England,
from Scotland and Ireland and from France. Conse-
quently the ethnology of Northumbria is no easy
problem to unravel, and anything like pure Scandi-
navian descent is not to be expected. Dr. Beddoe
and Mr. Rowe (see the paper above quoted) took
measurements in 1902 of twenty men of pure local
descent in Oakworth and Haworth, finding types of
very different origin in this closely associated group
l8o SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
of samples : two were of the Bronze Age type, six
Anglian, two of von Holder's Sarmatic, two Scandi-
navian, probably of Norse origin, and one perhaps
Danish. Of these thirteen less than half could be
distinctly traced to Viking immigration, and this in
a district where the survival of the race must have
been most marked. And yet, in the more remote dales,
where the mixture of blood caused by the influence
of manufacturing centres is smallest, one cannot but
be struck with the general resemblance of the people
to Danes and Norse. In Cumberland, among the
" old stocks " on fell farms, one meets with men less
frequently with women whose faces and figures take
one suddenly back to the fell farms of Iceland ; there
is no doubt that the same mixture of Celtic and Norse
blood, and similar occupations and habits of life have
preserved the likeness.
During the twelfth century Scandinavian names of
landowners and others were still common throughout
the old Danelaw, though it became fashionable to give
Norman names to great folk's children, and during
the next century the old Norse names were only kept
up by the lower classes. But even in 1285 and
following years we find, as deerstealers in Inglewood,
the great royal forest of Cumberland (see Mr. F. H.
M. Parker's article in Trans. Cumb. and West. Antiq.
Soc., N.S., vii.), Stephen son of Gamel, Henry son of
Hamund) William Turpyn (Thorfmnsson), Richard
Siward (the name of Suart is still common) and Hugh
Gowk (gaukr, a cuckoo, A.-S.geac shows that "gowk "
is from the Norse; see Bjorkman, Scandinavian Loan-
THE DOWNFALL OF THE DANELAW l8l
words in Middle English ; " Borrowdale gowks " is an
old jest, and see p. 253 for the name of one of the rune-
carvers in the Orkney Maeshowe). These Norse names
were then going out of fashion. A Cumberland deed
of 1397 (Mr. W. N. Thompson, Trans. Cumb. and
West. Ant. Soc., N.S., vi.) mentions Richard
Thomson, son of Thomas Johanson, showing the true
patronymic as still used in Iceland : of which the
feminine occurs in Elena Robyndoghter, Magota
Jakdoghter, Matilda and Anabilla Daudoghters who,
with Magota Daudwyfe and Johannes Daudson (David-
son), occur in Yorkshire poll-tax returns. Many more
examples might be given from Yorkshire and Cumber-
land. It has been thought that the termination -son
is a mark of Scandinavian origin : and, without
pressing this too far, it may be said that such surnames
are more common in the old Danelaw than elsewhere.
Many, however, of the derivations attempted for
surnames in popular works are too fanciful to stand.
Fawcett, for example, is a place-name, not from
Forseti the god in the Edda ; Huggin can hardly
represent Odin's raven Hugin, nor Frear the god
Freyr, as gravely stated in a work by a well-known
author of the past generation. Such wild conjectures
have too often brought the study of Norse origins
into contempt ; and yet we owe much to the earlier
students of the subject, from de Quincey downward,
for venturing into the tangled region, and perhaps we
have not even yet escaped all the illusions of the
forest of error.
III. THE NORSE SETTLEMENTS
So far, we have considered only the Scandinavian
immigration from the east settlers, chiefly Danish,
who colonised the shores of the North Sea and pene-
trated Britain halfway across, or in one part more and
in another less than halfway. We have now to deal
with the counter current of invasion from the west
of settlers, chiefly Norse, who made homes on the
coasts of the Irish Sea. In Northumbria they met
the streams from the east, interpenetrated the Danish
settlements, and, though late in the history of Scandi-
navian colonisation, made their way, as we have just
seen, across Yorkshire. In Scotland they formed the
bulk of Scandinavian element in the population. But
all the shores of the Irish Sea, and its continuations
north and south, were visited by them and retain traces
of their presence. The difficulty in treating the subject
as matter of history is great, for there are no sufficiently
full and consecutive annals of these regions which lie
between England and Ireland ; we get little more
than occasional hints, and the evidences of place-
names and archaeology; but still it is possible to
sketch the general course and extent of the movement.
The Viking kingdoms in Ireland cannot be rightly
included in a review of Scandinavian Britain, and this
omission narrows the range of a subject, already too
182
WALES 183
extensive, and complicated into (i) the settlements
in Wales, (2) those in Lancashire and Cheshire,
(3) Cumberland and Westmorland, (4) Dumfriesshire
and Galloway, (5) Man and the Isles, and (6) the
Earldom of Orkney, including the neighbouring main-
land and the Shetland Isles. It is not our object to
write the histories of these six or more provinces or
kingdoms, but without some brief reference to the
sequence of events it would be hardly possible to
explain the circumstances of the settlements.
i. WALES.
At the beginning of the Viking Age, Cornwall was
"West Wales," and we have s^en how Danes from
Ireland tried to get a footing among the natives, but
were overthrown at the battle of Hengston Down.
From the many occasions on which Vikings attacked
Cornwall, Devon, and the neighbouring shires, it could
be inferred that they left signs of settlement, and it is
no surprise to find a church dedicated to St. Olaf in
Exeter, and another, St. Olave's, at Poughill in Corn-
wall. But among the many grave-crosses there are
few which can be said with certainty to be of Scandi-
navian workmanship. In Mr. A. G. Langdon's volume
on Old Cornish Crosses, Cardynham No. 3, with its
chain-ring pattern, seems to be a tenth-century monu-
ment of the Norse type found in Northumbria, and
the Lanivet hogback with the bears presents some
resemblances to the bear-hogbacks of Danish type in
184 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Yorkshire. It is curious to find these evidences of
settlement so far inland, with a noteworthy absence of
similar monuments at churchyards near the coast.
On the coast there are a few names distinctively
Scandinavian; the river Helford (HellufjorSr?) is the
most conspicuous, and it is here that Charles Kingsley
in Hereward places his eleventh-century Norse kinglet
Alef.
In Devonshire place-names in -beer {Domesday
-bera) do not represent the Scandinavian beer which
becomes by, but the Anglo-Saxon bearo, " grove "
(Rev. E. McClure, Dawn of Day, March 1908).
Scandinavian traces exist in folklore and ethnology.
The tall fair Devonshire man is supposed to represent
a Norse ancestry, and in Cornwall " a red-haired
Dane " is still a term of reproach ; but no recorded
colony of importance was formed in West Wales.
Some Vikings who settled there emigrated after a time.
The Macgillimores of Waterford, though adopting an
Irish name, are said to have come from Devonshire
with others of their kindred ; and at least they claimed
English rights at law.
Out to sea the Scandinavian name of Lund-ey, and
as we enter the Bristol Channel Flat-holme and
Steepholme, recall the fact that war ships and trading
ships of the Northmen found their way to the Severn,
and remind us of Bristol's ancient commerce with
the Ostmen of Ireland. But as soon as we come
to Wales proper we can distinguish many Norse
names on the map. Two groups, one centring in the
peninsula of Gower and the other in Pembrokeshire,
WALES 185
show more than passing visits of the Northmen to the
country they knew as Bretland, the land of the Britons.
From the Welsh annals and various sources we can
gather the frequency of their incursions, and perhaps
deduce the nature of their settlements.
Their first appearance in Glamorgan, 795, does not
seem to have been followed by any attack until about
838, the time of Hengston Down; and then again
there was peace until 860, when they entered Gower
and were again repulsed. Then Ubbi spent some
time in Pembroke before meeting his fate at the Arx
Cynuit (878). About this time, as Asser the Welsh-
man tells us, King Hemeid of Demetia (S.W. Wales)
"often plundered the monastery and parish of St.
Degui" (St. Davids); we may infer that Welsh
kings, like Irish kings, attacked churchmen. North-
men may have been already settled in that district,
but in this case they are not named as the plunderers.
The next attack was the disastrous raid of Ottar
and Hroald (915), in which St. Davids again suffered,
as well as the diocese of Llandaff and both shores
of the Bristol Channel. Then in 955 we find
a king Siferth among the Welsh princes attesting a
charter of King Eadred, and in 962 " King Sigferth
killed himself, and his body lies at Wimborne."
Florence of Worcester is no doubt wrong in resusci-
tating him to row Eadgar on the Dee in 973, but he is
an historical king, with a Scandinavian name, Sigfrith,
and the fact points to a substantial Viking colony
somewhere in Wales.
By this time we have saga-notices of the fact, which,
1 86 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
though mixed with legendary matter, may have some
weight. EgiPs Saga in describing the battle of Vinheidi
(see p. 133) says that two brothers, Hring and Adils,
ruled in Bretland as tributaries of ^Ethelstan, and on
the coming of Olaf of Dublin joined him against the
English (937). We cannot identify these with any
known persons in British annals, but the settlements
in Wales must have originated by their time. In what
part of Wales is another question ; we have still to
notice the progress of Viking affairs in Anglesey and
the north. Again we have the story of Palnat6ki,
who some time after the middle of the tenth century
went viking from Denmark to Bretland, and there
found an old jarl, Stefnir, ruling a district with the
help of his foster son, Bjorn the British. Palnat6ki
married Olof, the jarl's daughter, and then associated
himself with Svein, son of Harald Blatonn, afterwards
conqueror of England, who seems to have spent part
of his youth in Wales. Mr. A. G. Moffat (in the
Saga-book of the Viking Club, iii., p. 163 seq.) attempts
to localise the story in Pembroke and Cardigan.
The Scandinavian place-names in the neighbour-
hood of Gower, though not so thick on the map as
those of Pembroke, show a marked contrast to the
Welsh names farther inland, and can hardly be traced
to the Norman conquest ; e.g. Swansea, spelt in 1188
" Sweynsei " ; Worm's Head, the promontory of the
peninsula (cf. Orm'shead) ; Esperlone or Esperlond,
" the aspen grove " ; Burry Holme ; and further east
along the coast the Nash (nes .?), Barry (Barr-ey ?).
To these may be added some names in which the
WALES 187
Scandinavian element is doubtful or less obvious. The
Llanrhidian stone appears to be a kind of hogback
and therefore Norse, as the hogbacks are not Celtic.
From 966 for some twenty-five years it seems that the
Vikings had a troublous time in Glamorganshire, and
though they were invited into the country again in
1031 and 1043 to aid in the internecine quarrels of
the Welsh, they established no state important enough
to figure in history. But of their settlement there can
be little doubt.
Farther west the Viking colony seems present at
Caldy, Ramsey, Swanslake, Barnlake (lcekr?\ Gate-
holm, Milford (fjord), Lindsway (vdgr\ Hosguard,
Fishguard, Dale, Stack, Solva, Goodwic, Barry,
etc. Here again, however, there is little in the way
of archaeological evidence except the Runes on the
Carew Cross (Pembroke Dock) to favour the idea of a
cultured and Christianised settlement. If the story
of Palnat6ki and Svein be localised in Pembroke, we
understand the reason ; for these were of the type of
Vikings who stuck to the old habits. From Caradoc
of Llancarvan we gather that there was no quiet time
in Pembroke. In 981 Godfrid son of Harald(p. 228)
spoiled St. Davids ; in 987 the Danes destroyed
St. Davids and other churches, and forced prince
Meredith to pay the tribute of the Black Army
(Dubhgaill) ; in 989 they ravaged St. Davids, Car-
digan and Kidwely, and were bought off; in 995
they not only plundered St. Davids but killed and
the Welsh said ate the bishop. About 1000-1015
jarl Einar went on frequent voyages to Bretland
1 88 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
from the Orkneys ; and, after the battle of Clontarf,
Flosi the Icelander (Njdls saga, clvi., seq.) took refuge
in Wales, where he was followed by Kari Solmun-
darson, who twenty years earlier had played the
viking in these parts, and now sought vengeance on
Flosi for the burning of Njal. In some town not
named Kol Thorsteinsson, one of the men who had
murdered Njal in Iceland, was making a home for
himself, marketing and courting a lady, with the
intent to marry her and settle down. Kari came into
the town and caught him in the act of counting out
his money, and struck off his head " and the head
counted ' ten ' as it flew from his body." Whether
this incident so vividly told happened in Conway or
Chester, Milford or Swansea, we cannot guess, but
we can see that the Northmen were at home in Wales,
in spite of their turbulent dealings with neighbours
not far away ; and whatever legend may be involved,
the story adds to the evidence of a definite
settlement.
That the Vikings in Ireland were in constant
communication with the coast of Wales is abundantly
proved. In 1041 King Gruffydd was captured by
Norse from Dublin (Caradoc), and Guttorm with King
Murchadh ravaged Wales; but in 1049 the same
Irish-Norse or their near kindred joined Gruffydd in an
attack on the Severn (Florence). After this the Vikings
seem to have been used as convenient tools for any
discontented party English ealdormen in exile, or
Welsh princes in defeat but their existence in Wales
remained a settled fact. And yet the colony in
WALES 189
Pembroke was never, like the Cumbrian colony,
extended far inland. Its operations appear to cover
the country surrounding the great fjord which give
a haven to Viking ships. Many of the place-
names which have tempted etymologists to doubtful
conclusions must have resulted from the English
settlement under the Norman rule. The Northmen
seem to have occupied only the central and southern
part of the country, and to have used the place as a
factory or emporium a stronghold for piracy and a
centre of slave traffic where the worse traditions of
the Viking Age survived ; not making it, as in other
parts of Britain, an area of peaceful colonisation and
steady domestic progress.
Much the same story must be told of North Wales.
We have noticed the invasion of Orm in 855, and the
history of the coast from Anglesey to Chester is one
tale of repeated attacks rather than permanent
settlement. In 873, according to Caradoc of
Llancarvan, Danes landed in Anglesey, and were
driven off in two battles by Roderic; in 878
Roderic's death was revenged by the battle of
Cymrhyd, near Conway. Then followed more Danish
attacks on the north Welsh coast, until, in 900, Igmund
or Ingimund from Dublin with his Norse landed at
Holyhead and fought their way to Chester, after which
they found homes in Wirral. Then, in 909, the Danes
from Dublin, who had driven out these Norse, followed
them, and besieged Chester, lately fortified by the Eng-
lish. About 920, as Caradoc and William of Malmes-
bury say, Leofred from Dublin joined Gruffydd ap
I QO SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Madoc to attack Chester again (if this is not the same
story twice told).
In 961 the sons of Olaf Cuaran of Dublin (or Olaf's
son and the Lagmen of the Islands) are said to have
landed in Anglesey and burnt Holyhead. In 966
another attack is recorded, and in 969 Mactus (Mag-
nus) Haraldsson, of the Isle of Man, entered Anglesey
and spoiled Penmon, but was driven out in 970. In
979 a Welsh faction hired Danes under Godfrid,son of
Harald, king of Man, to invade Anglesey, and in 986
Godfrid came again, took Llywarch ap Owain prisoner
with 2,000 men, and put Meredith ap Owain to flight.
In 991 the Danes once more overran the island. In
993 Svein Forkbeard landed in North Wales from the
Isle of Man. Then we come, as before, to the period
when race counted for little, and the Vikings were
used as tools of faction. Conan, son of lago ap
Idwal, in 1041 taking refuge in Ireland and marrying
the daughter of the king of Dublin, returned to North
Wales and captured prince Gruffydd. In 1056
Roderic, son of Harald, " king of Denmark," came to
Wales, joined Gruffydd and invaded England ; in 1073
Gruffydd, son of Conan, got help in Ireland from the
king of Ulster and "Ranallt "and other kings to
invade Anglesey, as he did again in 1079. At last
came Magnus of Norway in 1096 and noo, to whom
Anglesey was the southernmost goal in his career of
belated and fruitless viking. (See Caradoc, 961-1 100.)
The story of these repeated incursions leads one to
expect some permanent colonisation in North Wales.
The Viking character is expressed, in spite of the
CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE 19 1
natural animosity which is shown, in Gruffydd's con-
firmation of lands to bishop Herwald of Llandaff
(1032-1061), when he promises to defend the Church
against the " barbaros Anglos," and the Irish of the
west, "semper fugaces," the Danes of the sea and the
inhabitants of the Orkneys, "semper versis dorsis
in fugam et firmato fcedere ad libitum suum pacifi-
catos " (Clark's Cartce et Munimenta^ iii., 30, quoted
by Mr. A. G. Moffat).
Scandinavian relics in North Wales are few. Of
place-names beside Anglesey and Orm's Head, there
are Priestholme (Puffin Island), the Stacks (Holy-
head), the Skerries (N.W. of Anglesey), Bardsea,
perhaps the island home of a Viking named Bard, and
the Point of Air (eyrr) at the mouth of the Dee. But
such a name as Wig, between Bangor and Aber, may
be from the Welsh gwig, "nemus," not from wtc t nor
from vik, and it must be owned that most derivations
of North Welsh names from the Norse are not very
satisfactory. In Penmon Priory is said to be a cross of
Swedish type ; and the Maen-y-chwynfan in Flintshire
has a strong likeness to tenth-century crosses in Cum-
berland, and must be a relic of Christianised Viking
settlement. But here we are on the border of a
country where such settlement has left more plentiful
traces than in North Wales.
2. CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE.
In the year 900 ^Ethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians,
granted to Ingimund expelled from Dublin certain
IQ2 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
wasted lands near Chester, where Hastein had been
ravaging (Caradoc and Three Fragments], This dates
the Norse settlement near the mouth of the Dee, both
on the Flintshire side and in Wirral, the peninsula
between the Dee and the Mersey. The colony has a
peculiar interest from the fact that its Thingwall (in
Domesday Tingvelle, Thingvellir), is preserved to us,
at least in name. The so-called Thor's Stone near
Thurstaston (Domesday Turstanetone, Th6rsteins tiln),
a terraced rock-mound with a flat summit, looks like a
Thingmount, but there is no reason to believe that it
is other than a rather curious natural development of
the local red sandstone. On the other hand, there
are several monuments which must be referred to
this tenth-century Norse colony. The hogback in
the museum at West Kirby, though it cannot have
come from Ireland as tradition says, is like the work
of Vikings of that century who did come from Ireland
to Cumbria. A wheel-head grave-slab in the same
museum, and the similar stone at Hifbre Island, look
like early works of the period. At Neston are frag-
ments of cross-shafts of the Anglo-Norse type, and
the Bromborough cross appears to be, like similar
monuments in the Grosvenor Museum and in St.
John's Church, Chester, of late tenth-century date.
Many of the place-names of Wirral are Norse in
form. This would naturally be the case where waste
lands were taken by new settlers ; though as estates
were held under Mercia, and not as a free and inde-
pendent colony, it is hardly surprising to find that the
Danish system of land-assessment was not used here
CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE 1 93
at the period of Domesday. Beside the names already
mentioned we may note Raby, Irby, Pensby, Helsby
Frankby, and Whitby ; Greasby is Gravesberia in
Domesday , but Signeby is named there ; Noctorum
in Domesday Chenoterie, but in the thirteenth century
Knocttyrum, perhaps from the Celtic cnoc, " hill," or
from Hnotar-holm, nut-field, as -holm often becomes
-um in terminations ; Tranmere, Tranmull, crane's
ness ; Hoylake (lakr) ; Meols (melar) ; Landican, in
Domesday Landechene, possibly Lann-Aedhagain, the
chapel of Athacan, a Gaelic name used by the writers
of Norse runes in the Isle of Man. A similar Celtic
importation may be Poole (Domesday, Pol), for the
Irish Norse must have brought Celtic words to Wirral,
as they did to Cumberland (see Saga-book of Viking
Club, ii., pp. 141-147).
But the chief interest of the names in Wirral is the
evidence they give of the system of Norse settlement
on uninhabited country, precisely the same as in
Iceland. We can see that each head of a household
received a slice of land with a frontage to the fjord of
Mersey or of Dee in which the most southern creek
is Shotwick, Domesday Sotowiche (Stf&rvik?). The
estate reached inland up to the less cultivable high
ground. In each landtake the bbndi fixed his home-
stead, neither on the exposed hilltop nor on the
marshy flat. He made his bar, a group of buildings,
in the tun, or homefield, which he manured and
mowed for hay, and surrounded with a garth. Thurst-
aston, Thorstein's tun, must have been a Norse
farm, though Bebbington was a surviving name from
N
194 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the Anglian Bebbingas who may have held it before
Hastein's time. A place called Brimstage, anciently
Brunstath (but not a " staithe ") or Brynston, shows
that stcf&r and tun were convertible terms, "Well-
stead," or "Well-ton." Storeton may be Stor-tiin,
" big field," or the first element may be from stor&,
"coppice," as in Storth, Storthes and Storrs in the
Lake District. Oxton lying on the saddle of a long
ridge (pk\ must be Oks-ttin, " the farm on the yoke,"
grammatically named. As time went on, secondary
settlements must have been formed, as we saw in
Lincolnshire. The younger sons of a bbndi, or his
freedmen, would receive bits of less valuable ground
inland. A name like Irby, though in Yorkshire per-
haps derived from a settler Ivar, might be Ira-beer, the
farm of the Irishmen, perhaps dependents of the owner
of Thorstein's tun, above which it lies. Raby (similar
names occur in Cumberland, Isle of Man, Lancashire
and Denmark,) means a farm on the boundary of, or
wedged in between, two greater estates.
Around these farmsteads were the acres where they
sowed "big and barr," and the pastures recognised by
-well and -wall, as Crabwall, Krapp-vollr, "narrow
field"; Thingwall, as already noted, Thing-vellir,
" parliament fields." Each estate had its woods, such
as Birket (birk-with\ for fuel, and the termination
-grave may mean charcoal-pits or turbaries for peat (cf.
Kolgrafafjord, Iceland, as well as A.-S. grdf, "grove ").
A field that slopes from a hill to a swamp is called in
Iceland thveit / the word " thwaite " in the Lake District
denotes more than a mere clearing or cut-off place, and
CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE IQ5
usually is associated with ancient sloping pasture-land.
In Wallasey there are fields called thwaites, testifying to
the Norse origin of the agricultural system at the time
when these names were given. The hblmr, kjarr
(carr) and myrr served, before the days of drained
land, as they do in Iceland now, for pasturing larger
cattle; lambs and calves were herded on the higher
ground. The name Calday (Domesday Calders) near
Thurstaston, perhaps meant "calf-dales," as Calgarth
at Windermere was anciently Calv-garth, and Calder
in Caithness was Kalfadalsa. Sheep were sent up the
moor by the Rake (from reka, to drive), and we find
the name at Eastham, as well as in Scotland and
north England. In summer the cattle were pastured
on the moor, and the dairymaids had their sseters or
shielings, which when the land became more cut up
into smaller holdings became independent farms;
hence the names containing satter and seat in the
Lake District, sometimes dropping the last consonant
and producing Seathwaite, Seascale. In Wirral, Sea-
combe appears to represent the hvammr or " combe
of the seat," or saeter. Other words to express the
same practice are of the type of Summerhill and Sella-
field, found in the north of England, and also the
borrowed Gaelic airidh or ergh t found in the Orkneys
and Hebrides, as well as throughout Northumbria and
Galloway in various forms. Here in Wirral we find it
as Arrow, parallel with the same name at Coniston, and
perhaps giving us the sater of the Gallgael Norseman
who had his bar at Thurstaston.
In the middle of the peninsula where the moorland
196 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
pastures of the first settlers met, is Thingwall ; and near
it is Landican, which, if we are right in explaining the
name as the chapel of an Irish saint or priest, stands
in relation to the Thingstead as the central church in
the Isle of Man does to the Tynwald. And further,
we see that Ingimund's Norse were already Christian-
ised in Dublin and brought their religion with them ;
or, if they were not all as yet Christians, we may be sure
that the Lady of the Mercians insisted that settlers
under her rule should be baptised, though she did
not make them take an English priest. But just up
the hillside, above the muddy dell in which the
chapel stood, is Prenton (in Domesday, Prestune), the
priest's farm. As in Iceland, the priest farmed his
own glebe. Later, when a new church was built,
perhaps (from its monuments) a generation or two
after the first settlement, the farm attached to it was
known as West Kirk-by. The churches at Neston
and Bromborough, as the crosses suggest, are of the
end of the tenth century, or early in the eleventh.
Overchurch, of course, was pre-Viking, and no doubt
destroyed by Hastein, or even earlier.
In Wirral we seem to have the first of those agricul-
tural settlements which characterise the Norse of the
west coast, as distinguished from the predatory and
trading centres of the Vikings in Wales, and the con-
quered lands of the great Danish invasion in the east
of England. To their presence in Cheshire must
have been due the rise of the town refounded by
ealdorman ^Ethelred, for its wealth in the eleventh
century was won by trade with Dublin (see Mr.
CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE 197
Round's Feudal England, p. 465), and the Scandi-
navian character of Chester is shown by the fact that
it was ruled by "lawmen," as were the Five Boroughs.
A second Norse colony, of which we have no his-
torical record, must have existed north of the Mersey.
Thingwall, east of Liverpool, would be a convenient
centre for a number of places with names such as Roby,
(West) Derby, Kirkby, Crosby, Formby, Kirkdale,
Toxteth (Stockestede in Domesday] and Croxteth (not
staithes, being inland), Childwall (Cildeuuelle, Keldu-
vellir), Diglake, Harbreck, Ravensmeols, Ormskirk,
Altcar (Acrer), Carrside, Cunscough (Skogr), Skelmers-
dale (Schelmeresdele, Skdlmyrrsdalr). Of forty-five
place-names in West Derby Hundred mentioned in
Domesday, five are Anglo-Saxon and ten are Scandi-
navian ; the rest might be interpreted in either dialect.
In the remainder of South Lancashire all the names in
Domesday are Anglo-Saxon, but there are only twelve
altogether, for the land was partly waste at the time
and partly free from assessment. Hence, when we
look at the map, we can recognise a great number of
Norse names which do not appear in Domesday : some,
no doubt, were later settlements and owe their Scandi-
navian form to the persistence of the dialect, but
many must be original. Of the persons named in the
survey, three of the landowners in West Derby have
Scandinavian names ; three more are probably Scandi-
navian, whilst seven are Anglo-Saxon. In Warrington
six " drengs " have Norman names, and one Scandi-
navian ; but the word "dreng" itself is Scandinavian,
and the tenure indicates the survival of old relations
198 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
other than those of Saxon England. South Lanca-
shire formed a part of Cheshire after the break-up of
the Danish kingdom of York; in 1002 the will of
Wulfric Spot, founder of the abbey of Burton-upon-
Trent, mentions his great possessions in Wirral and
the land between Mersey and Kibble; so that the
bosndr here held by Mercian rules, although, as
noticed on p. 122, it is possible that the hides and
hundreds of this district really replaced a previous
system of division analogous to that of the Danelaw.
The Winwick crosshead is remarkable evidence of
imported Celtic art of the late tenth century, probably
indicating the presence of a sculptor from the Hebrides,
if not a family of Hebridean origin. As the chroniclers
tell us that in 980 Northern or Hebridean pirates
invaded Cheshire, it is possible that this gives the
occasion for the introduction of the person who
carved this work ; but by the analogy of Viking
settlements elsewhere it is evident that there was
continual movement. It was part of every young
man's education, so to speak, to travel either as a
pirate or a merchant, or both ; and intercourse with
distant Scandinavian lands was the normal order of
life. The Barton fragment seems to be a tenth
century work with Viking ring-plaits ; and these
monuments of South Lancashire and West Cheshire
contrast strongly with the group of Mercian round-
shafted crosses in the east of Cheshire, and no less
strongly with the Northumbrian pre- Viking crosses of
Bolton, Whalley and in North Lancashire. The
distribution of monuments adds to the force of the
CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE 199
remark that many Norse-sounding place-names of
East Lancashire may have been given to places
settled at a much later date than the colonies of
Wirral and the Liverpool district.
In Amounderness, the Agemundrenesse of Domes-
day^ the land between Kibble and Morecambe Bay,
we find a third Scandinavian colony, which has
given the name to the district Ogmundar-nes. It is
unlikely that Ogmund was the Ingimund of 900, for
this territory was hardly within the gift of ^Ethelflaed
of Mercia. The fact that at Heysham on Morecambe
Bay there is a " bear hogback " of the Yorkshire type
does not prove, as might seem at first sight, that the
colony came from Danish Yorkshire by way of
Craven ; for this hogback must be of the very end of
the tenth century, and if the gift of the district by
^Ethelstan to St. Peter at York in 930 be genuine,
the name must have been already in use. Indeed,
when we remember that the rest of the seaboard of
Lancashire was colonised early in that century, it is
difficult to believe that this one part remained
unoccupied. Here, again, Domesday gives us some
data. Of fifty-eight place-names only twenty appear
to be distinctly Anglo-Saxon or otherwise earlier than
the Viking invasion ; eight are distinctly Scandinavian,
including two in -argli, meaning a Norse saeter ; and
the rest are possibly Scandinavian, though they might
be interpreted as Anglian. In the neighbouring
district of Lonsdale about twelve Domesday place-
names seem to be Anglo-Saxon, eight Scandinavian
and twenty-eight doubtful In Furness and South
200 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Cumberland twenty-eight names are given, of which
half-a-dozen are Anglo-Saxon, three or four distinctly
Norse or Danish, and the rest indeterminate. But of
the landowners in North Lancashire mentioned in
Domesday ', all have Scandinavian names except two
which are Celtic ; probably their families were of
Irish-Viking or Gallgael origin.
The monuments tell the same tale. There are at
Lancaster and round about many fine Anglian sculptures,
showing refinement and wealth in the eighth and ninth
centuries ; but with these are as many of the Viking
Age, proving that the tenth century new-comers were
Christian, or soon became so, and carved tombstones
in a style which indicates their own native taste
influenced by their association with Ireland. The
area of these remains reaches from Melling up the
Lune Valley to Heysham on the coast, but does not
so far as our knowledge goes at present extend to the
southern parts of Amounderness, where it is to be
supposed there was less wealth and culture. It is
chiefly at the seaports and centres of travel, on the
great highways of commerce, that such works of art
are found. The Melling stone is interesting as bear-
ing the same pattern with similar monuments in Norse
parts of Cumbria and Scotland, though not Celtic like
the Winwick cross. The cross at Halton, further
down the Lune, has panels representing the story of
Sigurd the V6lsung, a work of the eleventh century.
The Lancaster Hart and Hound cross is a remarkable
example of Norse art with Celtic influences ; but the
most noteworthy of the series is the " hogback " at
CHESHIRE AND LANCASHIRE 2OI
Heysham, upon which figures are sculptured which seem
to represent a kind of illustration of the " Voluspa,"
that poem of the Edda which the editors of the Corpus
Poeticum Boreale date about A.D. 1000 or a little
earlier the heathen forecast of the Day of Doom
which the Christian world expected in that year.
The artist of this work, if he can be called an artist,
must have come from Yorkshire, but the poem no
doubt came from the Hebrides ; and the later years
of the tenth century fit the time when such work
could be imagined and executed. So we get a hint
of the life and belief on the shores of Morecambe
Bay when the colony was already well established,
rich enough to afford such monuments, Christianised
enough to recognise their meaning, and yet clinging
to the old associations and in touch by traffic and
peaceful intercourse with heathen kindred over-seas.
One more monument of the North Lancashire
group must be noticed as showing how long this
Norse colony lasted, using its old language and, in
spite of the Norman Conquest and all that the organis-
ation of the twelfth century meant, clinging to its
individuality. At Pennington in Furness is a Norman
tympanum of a church built about the middle of the
twelfth century, carved by " Hubert the mason " but
built under the patronage of Gamel de Pennington,
a descendant of the old Viking landholders of the
place. The inscription is in Scandinavian runes,
and the language is a clipped Norse, not yet passed
into English : " (Ga)mial seti thesa kirk ; Hubert
masun van . . ." So we have documents in stone,
202 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
in the absence of written records, giving the area and
duration of these three Norse colonies between
Cambria and Cumbria.
3. CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND.
It is hardly possible to draw any boundary line
between the Viking areas round Morecambe Bay and
those of Cumbria. In ancient times the sands joined
opposite coasts of these great bays and estuaries;
where the ordinary map, coloured blue to high-water
mark, suggests deep sea : the mountains were the real
"scientific frontier," and thus it happened that the
south of the Lake District was naturally associated
with Lancaster and dissociated from Cumberland in a
manner which seems strange to one who knows
England only from the map. But the mountain
country seems to have been gradually filled up with
Norse farming-settlements, and though perhaps the
earliest Viking immigrants of Cumbria clustered to-
gether on the west coast, forming a group like those
of Wirral, South Lancashire and Amounderness, and
possibly also Furness, yet it cannot have been long
before all the available lands were occupied. How
completely this was the case is seen in the place-
names. There are certain survivals of the Anglian
settlement which followed the Roman roads, coming
north and west from Manchester and Leeds to
Lancaster, and thence up the Lune and Kent and
across the sands to Furness ; also coming over Stain-
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 203
moor and down the Eden to Carlisle, thence round
the coast to Ellenborough and Ravenglass ; and
thirdly, by way of the Roman Wall to Bewcastle and
Irthington. But these Anglian sites are all in the
lowlands ; in the mountain country the ancient names
are Norse, overlying a few Celtic survivals.
It does not follow that these names of Norse form
date from the beginning of the settlement in every
case. Some of them are certainly of the twelfth
century. Allonby, Aglionby, Gamblesby, Glassonby,
Upperby, and still more obviously Isaacby and
Parsonby show that the termination -by was applied
at a comparatively late date, simply because it was
the local word. Allerby is named from Aylward in
the eleventh century ; Gilsland from Gilles son of
Bueth ; Sunnygill, written Sunnivegile about 1239,
may be referred to a Sunnif whose son Robert is
mentioned about 1175. Waberthwaite, Langwathby
(twelfth century Langwaldeofby), and Thursby may
be named from Wy berth, Waltheof and Thore (Th6rir),
father of the " Thorfynn mac Thore," to whom
Gospatric's charter gave lands acquired by Th6rir in the
days of jarl Sigurd (earl Siward), who died 1055. This
deed (printed Scot. Hist. Rev., i.) shows us also that by
then the place-names were Norse : Alnerdall, the dale
of the Ellen or Alne with a Norse genitive in -er ; bek
Troyte (" Troutbeck," now the Wisa) and Caldebek
show long-established Norse topography, though in
the midst of " lands that were Welsh " on eallun \>am
landann \eo weoron CoWibres" Cymric, Cumbrian,
in which the very villages granted to Thorfinn were
204 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
"Cardeu and Combedeyfoch " (Cumdivock). The
use of the word " beck " for a stream in Scandinavian
districts and in combination with words of distinctly
Scandinavian origin is itself a proof of early settle-
ment, before the age of the colonisation of Iceland,
where the word is not unknown (as Kviabekkr in
Landndma] but is usually replaced by Lcekr. In
Icelandic poetry the word bekkr was preserved, as
many archaic words survive in verse ; showing that it
was not merely the Danish " test-word " which it has
been supposed to be : and this suggests that the
language of those who gave Cumbrian as well as
Northumbrian place-names must be earlier than
tenth-century Icelandic : a fact which has been already
(p. 56) noted of Shetland.
The monuments also favour this view of an early
settlement. In Cumberland there are many pre-
Norman grave-stones which belong to the series of
Anglian works carved throughout Northumbria, to
which Cumberland belonged under the great kings of
the seventh and eighth centuries. Of these the cross-
heads at Carlisle can be traced to a school of art
centering in Northallerton ; obviously this style came
in along the Roman road over Stainmoor : and all
along that road as far as the coast near the great
ancient ports of Ellenborough, Workington and
Ravenglass these Anglian monuments can be seen.
But these are quite as obviously imitated in a series
of crosses which glide into works with distinctly
Norse motives and occasional Irish characteristics, in
the boss-and-spine cross -heads with scroll-work be-
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 2O$
coming worm-twist, and animal forms becoming Scan-
dinavian dragons, and bearing the swastika and other
symbols not used by the Anglians. This series is
followed, late in the tenth century, by another of more
advanced skill in carving, such as we have seen must
have been developed in Northumbria under Mercian
influence after the fall of the independent Viking
monarchy the round-shafted crosses of Northampton-
shire and Cheshire, imitated in Yorkshire and then
travelling north by the same great route to Penrith
and Gosforth, and turning into distinctly Norse forms
with illustrations from the Edda poems, such as we
have noticed (p. 201) on the Heysham "hogback."
This continuous development from the models
found at Carlisle is not likely to have been the work
of Halfdan's Danes, who in 875 came there only to
plunder and destroy. Their successors, however, who
shared in the distribution of lands and settled in the
Anglicised parts of Cumberland may have become
converted under Guthred and so led to imitate the
monuments of the burnt priory, and no doubt the
natives, who would be employed as carvers, knew
them well. But as we go west from Carlisle we find
more and more Scandinavian and Irish elements in
the art of the period, so that a somewhat sharp dis-
tinction can be drawn between the 'Anglo-Danish
stones of the Yorkshire type and those of West Cum-
berland ; and we are led to conclude that the bulk of
the Cumbrian Vikings were of a different race from
the Danes of Northumbria, akin rather to the Norse
of Man, Galloway, Ireland and the Hebrides. And
206 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
the monuments suggest these Norse were already a
strong colony in the earlier part of the tenth century.
Of pre-Christian relics of the Vikings in these parts
a few examples remain. The Ormside cup, now in
the York Museum, seems to be a Viking's loot, carried
over Stainmoor from some church in Yorkshire to the
spot in the Eden Valley where the early invader made
his home at Ormside (Orms-setr\ perhaps keeping
his very name. In the churchyard has been found a
grave-hoard of weapons, evidently an early interment
of the days when half-converted heathen were buried
with the grave-goods of the pagan rite, as at Birka, near
Stockholm, tenth-century Christians were interred
with their personal belongings. Earlier still is the
"find" at the tumulus of Hesket-in-the-Forest, near
Carlisle, where a sword, bent and broken, as in
heathen burials, was found with various weapons and
the spur and snaffle of the warrior's horse. Other
Viking swords have been found at Workington and
Witherslack, the former likewise bent up and broken
in its sheath. But down the Eden from Ormside,
at Kirkoswald, a trefoil fibula (British Museum), bear-
ing ornament resembling that of a bead of Danish
make in the Copenhagen Museum, was found along
with coins dating 769-854, or twenty years before
Halfdan attacked Carlisle. This seems to mean that
Danish Vikings were in the Eden Valley before the
date at which chroniclers record their presence. As
examples of metal-work coming into Cumbria from
the opposite direction, brought in by Norse from the
west, may be mentioned the Brayton fibula, perhaps
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 207
Irish-Viking in origin, the Orton Scar penannular
fibula, now possessed by the Society of Antiquaries;
the two great " thistle " fibulae from the neighbour-
hood of Penrith, now in the British Museum, and a
third, of great size but without the thistle ornament,
found near Kirkby Lonsdale and owned by the
Bishop of Barrow. All these seem to be relics of
the Norse occupation of the tenth century, to which
date they may be referred.
We have noticed the conquest of Strathclyde by
Olaf the White and Ivar " the Boneless " in 870, and
seen that in 875-880 the bearers of St. Cuthbert's
relics could travel in Cumberland and Galloway with-
out hindrance, though driven from Northumberland
by heathen Danes. By that time, however, Norse
from Ireland must have already begun to settle in
Galloway, and possibly in Cumberland, though per-
haps in small numbers, and already under the in-
fluence of Irish Christianity. It was about or soon
after the close of the pilgrimage of Eardwulf and
Eadred Lulisc that, according to the sagas, Harald
Fairhair invaded the Hebrides and Man. "He came
first by Shetland, and slew there all the Vikings who
fled not from under him. Thence sailed Harald the
king south to the Orkneys and cleared them all of
Vikings. After that he went throughout the Hebrides
and harried there; he slew there many Vikings who
ruled over hosts erewhile. He fought many battles
and always won them. Then he harried in Scotland
and fought battles there. But when he came west to
Man, there they had already heard what harrying he
208 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
had done, and all folk fled into Scotland and the
island was left unpeopled : all goods that might be
were shifted and flitted away. So when Harald's men
landed there they took no booty." (Hetmskringla,
Harald Fairhair^ xxii.) Now after Halfdan's in-
vasion Cumberland ceased to be Northumbrian.
Early in the tenth century we find it, under native
Welsh kings, as part of Strathclyde, a kingdom
closely connected with Scotland and ultimately, if not
at first, held by the tanist to the Scottish crown. On
this occasion the fugitives from Man could not have
fled in the direction from which their enemy was
coming, and the conclusion is that they emigrated
in mass to the fjords of Solway and Duddon,
and to the hills visible to them from their home in
Man.
The notice in the chronicles that Hastein, after
leaving Chester (895), ravaged the North Welsh, or
North British, applies to what we still call North
Wales. There was no need for him to go to Cumbria,
in his starving condition, to find food^ and the
suggestion that his Danes colonised Cumbria at that
time need not be considered. But less than twenty
years later, if there is any truth in the stories told
by the Historia de S. Cuthberto (see p. 128), Vikings
were pressing the Angles of Cumberland, and making
them take refuge eastward, over the fells. In 918 Ottar
and Ragnvald marched through to Corbridge ; indeed,
Ragnvald was known as " Dux Galwalensium," though
this was hardly a territorial title ; he was not the jarl of
Galloway, but the leader of the Gallgael. In 924, not
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 209
only the Danes of Northumbria, but the Northmen (of
this coast) submitted to Eadward, and in 926 the
kings of Scotland and Strathclyde met ^Ethelstan at
Dacre, which must have been the Cumberland Dacre,
outside Northumbria, but not far within the boundary
of the Cumbrian kingdom. It is usual in historical
maps to draw a hard and fast line along the Derwent
as the southern limit of this mysterious realm, assuming
that the later bishopric represented the old kingdom ;
but the whole of the mountainous Lake District must
have been at this period practically a wilderness. A
line of road went through it from Penrith by way of
Keswick, near which St. Herbert had his hermitage
in the wilds ; but the old Roman route through
Ambleside and Hardknott shows no traces of Anglian
habitation, and the central moors of Westmorland
(Westmoringaland, compare Vestrmaeri in Norway,
" land of folk of the western meer," or boundary, not
of western " meres," nor the Guasmoric of Nennius,
42, nor the realm of Geoffrey's Marius) must have been
equally uncivilised until the overflow of Norse settle-
ment filled them with population. The interests of
the Strathclyde king were in the north ; his capital
was on the Clyde, and Cumberland, though still
Cymric, was a no-man's-land.
Through this region, again, Owain of Strathclyde
and Constantine's army must have marched to
Brunanburh, possibly joined by the Vikings settled
here ; for while there were no reprisals made upon
the. Danelaw for participation in that attack, in 945
king Eadmund " ravaged all Cumberland and granted
o
210 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
it to Malcolm, king of the Scots, on condition that he
should be his fellow-worker, as well by sea as by land."
This can only mean that Domhnall, son of Owain,
king of Strathclyde, was permitting the Vikings who
were settled there more freedom than the old agree-
ments allowed, and that Eadmund wished, in modern
language, to preserve the integrity of a buffer State,
through which the enemies of southern England were
continually travelling between York and Ireland. An
example of this occurs at the time of the battle of
Stainmoor (954 ?), when Eirik, late of York, but since
then in the Hebrides and at Waterford, returned to
recover his Northumbrian kingdom. Magnus Olafsson
(Maccus films Onlafi) had probably been dispossessed
of Man and the Islands. (Professor A. Bugge remarks,
in Caithreim Ceallachain Caisil^ p. 148, that Eirik is
called "king of the Hebrides," as confederate of
Sigtrygg of Dublin, about the year 953.) Magnus was,
perhaps, warned by Oswulf of Bamborough, and
invited to join in the attack on Eirik and the five
kings from Orkney and Ireland; this may be the
meaning of the <c treachery" of Oswulf (Roger of
Wendover, A.D. 950). But we see Cumberland and
Westmorland now in the hands of conflicting parties
of Vikings, and can understand why in 966 Thord
Gunnarsson, the Danish " minister " of the Saxon king,
was deputed to lead a punitive expedition into
Westmorland, and why, in 1000, king ^Ethelred
himself attempted once more the reduction of
Cumberland.
In spite of these ravagings of Cumberland and
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 211
Westmorland, and the fact that armies from time
to time marched through the country, there is
singularly little to show in the way of fortifications
which can be attributed to the period. The Norse
settlers did not come as conquerors, entrenching
themselves against the natives, but as immigrants
seeking a livelihood. The negative evidence from
the absence of forts is supported by positive evidence
of place-names and dialect survivals. There are a few
places in which the already existing fortress is noticed
in the name, as the Borrowdales in Cumberland and
Westmorland (Borcheredale, in mediaeval spelling,
i.e. Borgar-dalr), the Broughtons (that in Furness
apparently the Borch of Domesday], Brough-under-
Stainmoor (twelfth century Burc) and Burgh-by-Sands,
and there is one place near Windermere called Orrest
(Orrosta\ i.e. the battle. But the Norse place-names
relate almost entirely to farming life or the natural
features of the country, except where they preserve a
settler's name. Of this latter class are Osmotherley
(Asmundar-lja) ; Arnside (Arna-ssetr) ; Ambleside
(Hamel-side or Amel-sate in the thirteenth century) ;
Arkleby (Arnkell's bcier) ; Bardsey (Berretseige, Domss-
day ; Barrod'segg, edge); Burneside (Bronolves-befd
or -helvd; Brynjolfs "claim"? or "share"?); Crosby
Ravens worth (Raven's-waite or thwaite, twelfth cen-
tury) ; Eaglesfield (Eglesfield in Distributio Cutnb.,
Egil's) ; Fins-thwaite ; Godderthwaite (Godrod's) ;
Gunnerkeld (Gunnar's) ; Hawkshead (Hawkenside,
Haukensehead, Hakon's sastr or " claim ") ; Hornsby
in Cumwhitton (Ormes-by in 1230); Kirkby Stephen
212 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
and Kirkby Thore (Th6rir) ; Langley (Langlif s-ergh) ;
Lazenby (farm of the leysingi or freedman) ; Mansergh
(the slave's shieling); Melkinthorpe and Melmerby
(from the Irish Maelchon and Maelmor) ; Ninesergh
(Ninian's, in the estates of the ancestors of Gospatric f.
Orme) ; Oddendale (Audun's, not Odin's) ; Ormside
(Orm's sseter); Ousby (about 1240 Ulvesby, Ulf s) ;
Ravenstonedale (the dale of Hrafn's titn) ; Ramsey (as
in Wales and the Isle of Man, etc., Hrafn's island) ;
Ren wick (about 1177 written Ravenswic) ; Rusland (in
the thirteenth century Rolesland, Hr61f s) ; Sizergh
(anciently Sigarith-erge) ; Soulby (perhaps Solva-baer) ;
Stephney and Stavenerge (West Cumberland, Stephen's
or Stefnir's; perhaps not Palnatdki's father-in-law,
p. 1 86, and yet Cumbria too was Bretland) ; Swinside
(near Flimby, Suanesete, temp. Henry II., the saeter
of Svein) ; Thirlmere (perhaps Thorolfs) ; Thurston-
water, i.e. Coniston Lake (Turstini-watra in the
twelfth century, and douotless the property of a
Thorstein at some earlier date) ; Thorpinsty, Cartmel
and Torpenhow, Cumb. (Thorfinn's tetgr and haugr) ;
Uckmanby, perhaps from Ogmund); Ullswater
(Ulf s) ; Ulverston (Domesday ', Ulvrestune, and not
Ulfs, but Ulfar's); Windermere (Hodgson Hinde's
guess that this was Symeon's Wonwaldremere, A.D.
791, is quite unsupported; twelfth century Wynander-
mare, the lake of Wynand, perhaps Ve-anund). All
these places seem to give the names of settlers, among
which one or two might be claimed as rather Danish
than Norse ; but, on the other hand, the Irish names
imply immigration from the west, or, at least, connexion
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 213
with the Gallgael, while the bulk are such as might
be found in Iceland.
In a book which has been used somewhat incau-
tiously by historians (The Northmen in Cumberland
and Westmorland, 1856), the late Robert Ferguson
derived many Cumbrian place-names from names and
nicknames taken at random from all sources : e.g.
Butterlip-howe, at Grasmere, he made the howe of
Buthar Lipr, Buthar the handyman ; whereas " butter,"
which elsewhere in England means a bittern (butter-
bump), seems to be often used in Cumbria for "a
road," Irish bothar, a loanword brought in by the
Gallgael, and perhaps this odd name merely means
the hill where there was a gate or a rise on the ancient
track which passes the place.
Every Guide to the Lakes gives as "Norse test-
names " beck and bowse, fell and force, guard and gill
(the form "ghyll" is a modern monstrosity), hause
and holm (though " holm " is not confined to Norse
names), lathe and lund, ness, raise (a cairn) and rake,
scale and scree, tarn and thwaite. A few notable
places are : Arklid (hillside of the ergh or shieling) ;
Armathwaite (Ennitethait, about 1230, the hermit's
field); Askham (twelfth century Askhome, i.e. Ash-
holm) ; Axle (like 6x1, in Iceland, the shoulder) ;
Barrow (the island of Barrow-in-Furness, Barray in
sixteenth century, Barr-ey, where barley grew) ; Big-
lands and Biggar (Biggarth, where": " bigg " grew);
Blakeholme (bleikr, pale yellow); Blawith (bld-vftr,
like Blask6gr, in Iceland, black-wood); Blowick on
Ullswater (bld-vik} ; Brathay (brei^-d, broad river) ;
214 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Brisco (Byrcscaye, birk-skbgr] ; Butterilket, in Eskdale
(Brotherulkil, twelfth century, perhaps brautar-hblls-
kelda> the spring at the hill on the Roman road ; or
-olkelda, the "ale-spring," bubbling well); Catchede-
cam is a corruption of the dialectic " cat-stee-camb,"
the ridge of the cat's path, from stigi, like Stye-head ;
Claif (kleif); Cleator (Cletergh, the shieling near
rocks); Corby (Chorkeby in 1120, from korki^ Gaelic
for oats, a word used in the Edda] ; Dillicar (dilkar^
small sheep-folds) ; Feet for a low-lying meadow, the
Icelandic^/, is common; Gascow (thirteenth century,
Garthscoh, garfts-skogr) ; Gatescarth (geits-skarft] ;
Grain, a tributary brook, is used like grein in Iceland :
Greta (grjbtd^ stony-river) ; Grisedale (gris-dalr, where
swine were fed) ; Hammer often represents the Ice-
landic hamarr, a rock ; Haverthwaite, Haverbreck
(Jiafra-brekka, goats'-bank, it is doubtful if hafrar
was used for "oats" at the period of settlement);
Hellbeck and Hellgill (lieUa^ slate, or helUr, cave) ;
Ireby and Ireleth (the Irishmen's farm and hillside) ;
Kellet (Keldelith, fourteenth century, hillside of the
spring) ; Keswick, near Cardew, is in the Holme
Cultram Register Keldesik, the water-course (A.-S.
sic, Icelandic sik) of the well, which may explain
the name of the town on Derwentwater, though in
1292 it is written Keswyk, and may refer to the inlet
of the lake on which it stands. Near it, however, is
Lyzzick, the hlffi-sik, which seems analogous. This
name, like others, may have been brought from the
east of England by Danish settlers after the period of
the first immigration. The old inhabited site which
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 215
Keswick superseded was Crosthwaite. Leath Ward is
the district on the HIPS or slope of the hills of Eden-
side ; so Lyth, in the Gilpin Valley, and Liddale, in
1292, was spelt Lythdale. Musgrave probably means
the moss where peat was dug ; Natland, Nateby and
Naddale refer to naut^ " neat," cattle ; Orgrave (Oure-
graue in Domesday) is a place where iron-ore was
dug at early times; perhaps pre-Norse, but possibly
aur-grof. Raisbeck and Raisthwaite may be so
called from the cairns (hreysar) near them, like Dun-
mail Raise. Rossett and Rosthwaite may refer, like
Rusland, to the name of Hrolf, or to hross, a horse,'
like Hrossaholt in Iceland. Sawrey and Sowerby are
"sour" lands, from saurr. Scafell is the mountain
of precipices with chasms in them, perhaps Skora-fell ;
Scarthgap is the pass through a notch (skarft) in the
hills. Southerfell is the Icelandic Satf&afell> like
Fairfield (Farfjall\ the hill where sheep pasture ;
Sunbrick (Swenebrec in the fourteenth century) is
svina-brekka^ the bank where swine feed. Swarthmoor
(svartr) and Sweden (svffitnri) How are places where
the copse or heather was burnt. Thrimby, in Domes-
day, is Tiernebi, tjarnabair, the farm of the tarns ? ;
Tilberthwaite, in the twelfth century, Tildesburgthwait,
the field of the tent-shaped hill (tjaldberg) ; and Torver,
the ergh on the peat moss. Ulpha and Ullscarth
recall the fact that wolves roamed the hills ; Warcop
and Warwick, War thole (fib II, a hill) and Wart on are
named from their beacons (varSa). Watendlath
was Wattendland, temp. Richard I. Whale is perhaps
simply hvdll, the hill, used as a place-name in Iceland.
2l6 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Wythop was formerly Withorppe and Wyth-thorp,
the village in the wood ; Harbyrn, the high borran,
and Wythburn, the wide borran, or pile of stones, a
word borrowed by the Vikings from Ireland and
frequently used in the Lake District for natural rocky
places and for ancient ruins, like Borrans Ring, the
remains of the Roman camp at Ambleside. Wyth-
burn, however, appears in a sixteenth century will as
Wythbotten, and this word botn t usually Englished
"bottom," is often found in Cumbria and Yorkshire
for the head not basin of a valley, as in Iceland.
In the northern fringe of the Lake District there
are also many names with Blen, Caer, Pen, etc., which
show Cymric survivals, proving that the Welsh of
Cumberland, as well as the Angles already settled
there, lived side by side .with the Norse immigrants.
All the Norse place-names indicate the domestic life
of a race occupied in farming : there is nothing heroic
about them in the way of sites consecrated to the
memory of battles though battles were fought, or of
heathen rites though heathen gods were still remem-
bered, if not worshipped. One place in Westmorland,
Hoff Lunn (lundr) may signify such practices, but it
is the exception. The supposed references to Thor,
Odin, and Baldr as gods commemorated in place-
names are illusory ; and yet the Gosforth Cross shows
that about the year 1000 these myths were current,
side by side, with Christianity. The survivals of Norse
in the dialect point the same way. To berry (berja,
thresh) ; the boose (bass, cow-shed) ; the brandrith
(brandreffi, tripod for baking) \ elding (as in Icelandic,
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 2 17
fuel) ; the festingpenny (festa, to stipulate, compare
" festermen ") given to a servant on hiring ; gait (galti,
a pig) ; garn (garn, yarn) ; gowpen (gaupn, the two
hands-full) ; hagworm (hoggormr t viper) ; handsel (Jiand-
sol y bargain) ; keslop, rennet from a calf (kcesir^ rennet,
hlaup, curd) ; laik, to play (leika) ; lathe, a barn
(hlcfSa) ley, a scythe (le) ; leister, a salmon-spear
(Ijbstr) } look, to weed (lok, weeds) \ meer, a boundary
(mceri) ; rake and outrake, path up which sheep are
driven (reka, to drive) ; reckling, the weakest of the
litter (reklingr, an outcast) ; rean or raine, the un-
ploughed strips between the riggs in the ancient system
of cultivation (rein) ; rise, brushwood (hris) ; sieves,
rushes from which rush-lights were made (sef); sime,
straw-rope (sima, rope) ; sile, a sieve for milk (silt)
skemmel, a bench (skemtlt) ; skill, to shell peas
(skilja) ) skut, the hind-end board of a cart (skutr^ the
stern) ; stang, the cart-shaft (stotig) ; stee, a ladder
(stigi) ', stower, a stake (staurr) twinter and trinter,
sheep of two and three winters old (tvcevetr and
\revetr) ; quey, a young cow (kvigd) ; these are a
few of the distinctive dialect words, not all confined
to Cumberland, but all apparently surviving from the
Norse farmers (taken from the glossary compiled by
the Rev. T. Ellwood, English Dialect Society, 1895).
Dr. Prevost, in his Cumberland Glossary, enumerates
over a hundred different words "applied to beating
and striking " ; but these are chiefly common English
and some are modern slang. The old dialect words
from the Norse, as Mr. Ellwood points out, are
chiefly and almostly entirely such as were used in
2l8 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
domestic life and in farming. Two ancient Norse
customs are preserved in the word " arvals," the food
of a funeral feast, and " dordum " expressing the uproar
of the door-doom (dura-dbmr) or court of law held at
the door of the offender's house ; for a description of
which, in curious circumstances, see Eyrbyggja Saga
(chap. 55).
There is no central place named Thingwall in
Cumberland, as there is inWirral, in Lancashire, and
in Dumfriesshire (Tinwald). Thiefstead, near Shap,
in Westmorland, was formerly Thengheved, and may be
the site of a Thingstead. On the Roman road through
the heart of the Lake District, at a point where cross-
ways are thought to have run north and south, is
the curious terraced mound of Fell Foot, in Little
Langdale, resembling the Tynwald Hill in the Isle of
Man and the similar Thingmote formerly existing in
Dublin. The custom of holding an assembly at a hill
was perhaps copied by the Vikings from Ireland : see
Prof. A. Bugge's Caithrcim Cealla chain Caisil, p. 123,
where an instance is given of the Irish practice.
There are, however, no towns in this area, like the
Five Boroughs Carlisle being ruinous from Halfdan
to William Rufus in which we might have found
traces of Scandinavian life, and documentary evidence
fails us, except in the Gospatric charter, for Domesday
Book touches only the southern border of the district.
Roger of Wendover's mention of a king Jukil or
Inkilof Westmorland (9 74) is in too corrupt a passage
to trust ; or a Norse king Jokull or perhaps Ingjalld
might be imagined, for the .identification of this king
CUMBERLAND AND WESTMORLAND 2 19
(whom Symeon calls Nichil) with Idwal of Wales is
not convincing, and the fact that eight years previously
Westmorland was harried by Thord of York suggests
that the Viking colony had been growing too important.
The tradition of a king at the port of Ravenglass,
Aveling perhaps a corruption of Abloic, the Welsh
equivalent of Olaf (whence Haveloc) is too shadowy
to build upon. We can only say that the monu-
ments and place-names of Cumberland point to
an early and powerful colony of Norse in touch with
Ireland and the Isles, and that towards the end of the
tenth century, as the Gosforth and other crosses show,
no other part of the Viking world could surpass this
district in literary and artistic culture. Situated on
the shore of the Irish Sea, which was a Viking lake,
and on the main road from the English east to the
Celtic west, the neighbourhood of Gosforth was
indeed geographically the focus of all the influences
which fostered the birth of the Edda poems. Wherever
they were composed, it was here that they were illus-
trated almost at the moment of their production. In
the Isle of Man within view of the West Cumberland
shore we find also Edda subjects in sculpture, but of
somewhat later date and in less fulness. Heysham,
Halton, and Penrith show some examples of the same
art, but the centre of this Edda-illustrating region and
the richest in remains is Gosforth with its crosses and
hogbacks, and the contemporary relics at the neigh-
bouring sites of Waberthwaite, Muncaster, Beckermet
Haile, St. Bees, Workington, Brigham, Great Clifton,
Bridekirk, Dearham, Gilcrux, Isel, Cross-Canonby,
220 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Aspatria, Plumbland, and Bromfield. (See Early
Sculptured Crosses of the Diocese of Carlisle^ by
Calverley and Collingwood.)
It was amongst the Norse settlers of the tenth and
eleventh centuries in northern England that, accord-
ing to Prof. Sophus Bugge, the " HelgakvrSa " was
composed. The group of poems resembling this,
"the finest heroic poems in the whole range of
Northern Song," are attributed by Vigfiisson and
York Powell (Corpus Poet. Bor., Introd.) to some
nameless but inspired singer on some shore of the
Irish Sea or in the Hebrides. It was certainly in
the land of the Cumbri, whether north or south of
Solway, that a literary movement almost as important
as that which created the Edda took place ; the
creation of not only the folk-tales of Havelock and
Horn, but also of those Arthurian tales which contain
so many motives of the Viking Age, and confuse the
ancient Celtic mythology with waifs and strays from
ninth and tenth century history and from the folklore
of the Norse, placing Arthur's court at "merry
Carlisle," then the ruined city of the Romans and
Angles, the adventures of Merlin in the Wood of
Caledon after the famous battle of Arthuret in Cum-
berland, Gawain at Tarn Wadling in Inglewood, Blaise
in Northumberland, Lancelot at Bamborough, and
Urien of Reged in the region of the Roman Wall.
All this seems to be a secondary result of the impulse
to thought and action given by this great but forgotten
settlement of the Norse in Cumberland and the
districts round about it.
DUMFRIESSHIRE AND GALLOWAY 221
4. DUMFRIESSHIRE AND GALLOWAY.
A sister colony can be traced on the north shore of
the Solway, occupying the district between the Esk
and the Dee, with centre at Tinwald (Thingvellir)
near Dumfries, but extending into Kirkcudbrightshire
on the one hand, into Peeblesshire on the other, and
reaching inland as far as the main watershed between
east and west ; Liddesdale, Liddel's-dale, was the
Hlift-dalr of the settlers, but the outlying parts of this
area no doubt owe their names in -beck, -gill, -rig, -fell,
-by and -thwaite to secondary settlement later than
the tenth century. It has been thought that the
original colony was planted in 876 by Halfdan, which
is possible ; but as the whole was afterwards within
the kingdom of the Strathclyde Cymru, and open to
the same influences as Cumberland, no sharp dis-
tinction can be drawn between the two districts; Danish
origins must have been overlaid by subsequent Norse
immigration. We find Cumberland names repeated
in Brydekirk, Lowther-hill and -ton, Newbigging,
Croglin, Dalton, Rockcliffe, Eskdale, Eaglesfield,
Whinfell, Aiket, Canonbie, etc. ; and similar forms in
'CrifTell, Arkland (compare Arklid), Kelton, Stanhope,
Rutnwell (Rau>-vellir), Lockerbie, Smallholm (smalt,
small cattle, sheep and goats, compare Smallthwaite),
Tundergarth, Middlebie, Middleton, Burnswark
(borrans-virki, from the Gaelic loan-word boireand],
Closeburn (Kil-Osbjorn\ Langholm, Broomholm, etc.
222 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Gaelic and Welsh names, not infrequent in Cumber-
land, are more frequent north of Solway, and show
that the settlement did not drive out the earlier
population : there is no area so exclusively Scandi-
navian as to suggest that a clearance was made by
forcible invasion ; but the Norse names are, as usual,
thicker on the coast, and fade away thence inland.
The name of the Solway itself can hardly be from
that of the Selgovae who inhabited Galloway in
Roman times ; the termination is surely the Norse
vdgr, a creek, and the characteristic of this estuary is
its tidal bore ; whence one is tempted to connect it
with soil, "swill," and solmr, "the swell of the sea."
The stone carvings of Dumfriesshire, so far as they
can be judged from Mr. Romilly Allen's great volume
on the Early Christian Monuments of Scotland,
seem to be wholly of pre-Viking period. There are
splendid works of the Anglian church at Ruth well,
Hoddam, Thornhill, Closeburn and elsewhere. The
absence of relics of the Viking Age may perhaps be
explained by their presence in the neighbourhood
of Whithorn. We find, for example, an interesting
series at Whithorn itself showing an evident transition
from Anglian work to debased floral scrolls, hammer-
head crosses, broken ring-plaits and ruder cutting,
characteristic of the Viking period in Cumberland
and Yorkshire. At Aspatria in Cumberland is a curious
incised slab with the Norse Swastika ; this is paralleled
by a slab from Craignarget on Luce Bay, and the
hammerhead slab with rude crucifix and barbarous
scroll-work from Kirkcolmon Loch Ryan resembles the
DUMFRIESSHIRE AND GALLOWAY 223
Addingham (Cumberland) cross and others, made for
Viking patrons in imitation of earlier models. Now,
as lona was the burial-place of Hebridean chieftains,
so Whithorn must have been the mausoleum of the
notables of this coast; and perhaps all who could
afford a monument, buried their dead at the famous
sanctuary of St. Ninian. This may explain the absence
of distinctively Viking-age work in Dumfriesshire,
though in Kirkcudbright there are many stones of
the tenth century which may have been carved for
the settlers without introducing any very characteristic
Viking ornament.
In Wigtownshire itself was another Norse colony,
no doubt connected with that in Dumfriesshire, and
yet divided by the hilly district west of the Dee,
in which there is a smaller proportion of Norse place-
names except on the coast-line. Here again Cumbrian
names are reduplicated, as Wigtown, Sorbie (Sowerby),
Broughton, Carleton, Glasserton, Ramsey, Tongue,
Gretna ; while Physgill (Fishcegil, fiski-gil\ Eggerness
(ness of the Solway tidal-bore) and Fleet (Fljbf) are
of similar form. In Njal's saga Beruvik, somewhere
near Whithorn, is named ; it has been found at
Burrow Head or Yarrock Bay, but there is also a
Berwick near Kirkcudbright. The farmers' loan-word
erg/i is found again in another Arkland, and is common
as -aroch) while the Gaelic form appears in Airyland.
The origin of the settlement in Galloway, con-
nected as it must be with the Gallgael (Galweithia
being the Latin from Galwyddel the Cymric equiva-
lent of the Gaelic Gallgaidhel) is perhaps earlier,
224 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
though not much earlier, than that of the Cumberland
colony. The Gallgael are first found in 854 or 855
in co. Tyrone, and next year as settled in northern
Ireland (Leathchuinn). The Four Masters mention
Gofraith mac Feargus as invited by Kenneth mac
Alpin to strengthen Dalriada (south-west Scotland)
in 835, and he died as king of Insigall (the Hebrides)
in 852, the year in which Olaf the White came to
Ireland. The name of Gofraith suggests that he was
himself an early example of the mixed race, and by
835 the Norse were certainly attacking the Islands,
while in 839 the Ulster Annals and the Chronicle of
Huntingdon record invasion of Pictish territory. Then
we find Olaf the White fighting Caittil Finn, or Ketil
Flatnef, with his Gallgael in Munster, 857, and subse-
quently in alliance with him, having married Ketil's
daughter Aud, after already marrying the daughter of
Kenneth. It may have been a case of polygamy,
to which ninth-century Vikings were accustomed ;
but from what we know of Aud this is doubtful.
Now Heimskringla represents Ketil as Harald Fair-
hair's viceroy; Laxdcela makes him his enemy.
Possibly Ketil at first left Norway to escape Harald,
and later was used as a stick to beat Olaf the White :
failing which, at a subsequent date, Harald Fairhair
came in person. In any case Ketil and his party
were by no means subdued, and though the Irish
annals represent the Gallgael as renegades worse than
heathen, Aud, Helgi Magri and other connexions of
Ketil appear as Christians, or semi-Christianised. It
is of Helgi, the Christian son-in-law of Ketil, that it is .;
DUMFRIESSHIRE AND GALLOWAY 225
said he worshipped Thor when he was at sea, or in
danger, though praying to Christ when on shore.
From Ireland the Gallgael seem to have migrated
about 860-870 to the islands and coasts of south-
west Scotland, during the time when Olaf the White
was extending his power in that direction. He
wasted Pictland (Galloway ?) in 866, and took Alclyde
(Dumbarton) the capital of the Cymric realm in 870.
In 875 Oistin, his son, is said to have been treacher-
ously slain by the people of Alban ; and the identifica-
tion of this Oistin (Eystein) with Thorstein the Red,
another son of Olaf, whose conquests in northern
Scotland must have been of a later date, has led to
much confusion in the history of the period. In 877
a body of Danes, driven from Ireland by the Norse,
crossed Scotland to Fife and fought Constantine at
Dollar ; but no settlement is recorded as made.
Meanwhile in 875 Halfdan had invaded Galloway,
and the coast probably was open to other parties of
Vikings. That the Northmen in these parts were not
hostile to English Christians, is shown by the sojourn
of St. Cuthbert's relics at Whithorn about this time.
But that they soon became populous in the islands as
far south as Man is shown by Harald's invasion,
which cannot be later than about 880, and if it had
occurred earlier it would have left some traces in the
story of Eardwulfs pilgrimage. He and his com-
panions, it will be remembered, are said to have left
Whithorn on hearing of Halfdan's death, slowly
returning along the coast. They could not have
been in Galloway in such a time of tumult and
226 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
distress. The first definite settlement of Galloway,
therefore, may be put at this date, simultaneously with
that^of Cumberland and Dumfriesshire. Thencefor-
ward Galloway is to the Island kingdom as Caithness
is to the Orkney earldom, a mainland colony of allies
rather than dependents; and its subsequent history
is bound up with that of Majn and the Isles.
5. MAN AND THE ISLES.
We have seen that about 880 Man was already a
Scandinavian colony. In the year 900 Vikings from
Ireland, under the OTvars, ruling in Dublin and
Limerick, invaded Scotland and killed King Domhnall
at Dunottar ; and three years later Ivar O'lvar plun-
dered Dunkeld, but was slain in Stratherne. This
seems to suggest the extension of Irish Viking enter-
prise, after the invasion of Harald Fairhair, into and
beyond the districts he had depopulated. In 914 Bard
Ottarson, whose son Colla was lord of Limerick in 924,
was killed in a sea fight off the Isle of Man by Ragnvald,
afterwards king of York. At Brunanburh Bard's son
Harek was present, and Geleachan (one of the Irish
names in giolla, adopted by the Gallgael), king of
the Islands, was killed. In 940 the Insigall were
plundered by King Muirceartach mac Neill, who
himself had been taken prisoner by the Vikings three
years earlier, but ransomed. In the middle of the
century Morann, son of Connra the "fleet-king of
Lewis," son of the king of Norway (or the Norse), is
named in connexion with Limerick (Prof, A Bugge,
MAN AND THE ISLES 227
^ i. $ p. 178) together with Aedh, son of Echu,
another Hebridean king, and Eirik, king of the
Islands, whom Prof. Bugge identifies with Eirik
Blodox, lately expelled from York and shortly to be
killed at Stainmoor ; which fixes the date at about
953' We seem to see the Islands under Gallgael
rulers, some of whom ha.d relations with Limerick ; but
no settled dynasty was in occupation.
To this period may perhaps be assigned the story
told in Landndma and the older version of Droplaug-
arsona saga, of a jarl Asbjorn Skerjablesi (Skerry-
blaze) "who ruled in the Hebrides after Tryggvi (a
form of Sigtrygg) and before Guthorm." He was
attacked by the vikings H61mfast Vethorm's son and
his kinsman Grim, descended from Ketil Raum (of
Romsdal), who slew him and carried his wife and
daughter into captivity. If the dating of the story
may be attempted, the event must have happened
about 940, though the absence of detail makes it
impossible to guess whereabouts was the jarldom of
these three rulers.
In 961 the fleet of Olaf Cuaran's son and the Lag-
menn of the Islands (Isle of Man ?) plundered Cork
and carried their prey to Britain and to Mon-Conain
(Anglesey) ; and these Lagmenn reappear with Magnus
(Maccus), son of Harald, in 974, as [attacking the
south of Ireland. The English chronicles relate
that Magnus Haraldsson was one of the kings who
yielded submission to Eadgar, and he was probably
son of Harald Sigtryggsson O'lvar, lord of Limerick,
who was killed in Connaught in 940; suggesting a
225 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
continued connexion of the Isle of Man with Limerick.
The name Magnus originates in Charlemagne ; we
find also a Carlus, son of Olaf the White, killed in
battle 867, and his sword was one of the treasures of
Dublin carried off by King Maelseachlann in 995 :
a Carlus mac Con was slain by Northmen in 960 ; his
name curiously recalls the mysterious Karl Hundason
of the next century, certainly not intended (as Skene
thought) for a term of reproach (see Rhys' Celtic
Britain, p. 267). A Magnus Bjarnarson of Limerick
died in 968, and the name must have come into use
in hero-worship of the great enemy of the Vikings.
With Magnus Haraldsson we find the first fairly
ascertained dynasty of Man and the Isles : he died
about 977, and was succeeded by his brother Godred
(Godfrid), who fought a battle in Man (987) with Danes
from Dublin, who had been plundering in Dalriada,
and at Christmas had slain the abbot of lona and
fifteen of his monks. This is about the time, though
the circumstances are not those, of the story told in
Njal's saga of Kari Solmundarson and Njal's sons
Grim and Helgi, who landed in Man and forced
Godred to pay the tribute claimed by the king of
Norway. At a later date they attacked him again,
and slew Dungall his son, and then betook them to
Colonsay, where they stayed with jarl Gilli, who ac-
companied them to Orkney and married a daughter
of jarl Sigurd. Godred's kingdom evidently did not
extend over the whole of the Islands; he died in
989, succeeded by his sons Ragnvald and Kenneth,
and his grandson Svein (Suibhne), son of Kenneth.
MAN AND THE ISLES 22Q
About this time Olaf Tryggvason before his conver-
sion buccaneered on the coasts of Wales, Man and the
Hebrides : and Svein, afterwards king of Denmark
and England, also attacked the island from his head-
quarters in Wales.
At the battle of Clontarf (1014), beside the men of
Orkney and Caithness are mentioned, in The Wars of
the Gaedhil and the Gaill, the hosts of Man, Skye,
Lewis, Kintyre, Argyll, "Cillemuine" (St. Davids)
and the people dwelling in the British land of " Corn-
bliteoc" or "Cor na liagog," which Skene thought
might mean Galloway : can " Cornbliteoc " be a
mistranscription of some such word as " Combraeog " ?
After this battle, which broke up the Norse power of
Orkney, jarl Gilli who did not go to Clontarf con-
tinued to rule Colonsay and the surrounding islands,
but the Scottish chief Finlaec held Moray and Ross
independently of either Scotland or Orkney, and
perhaps annexed the northern Hebrides. Argyll, the
Dalir of the Norse, was held by a jarl Melkolf
(Malcolm), who also held Galloway, for we find
Kiiri Solmundarson staying with him, apparently at
Whithorn, soon after the battle. Man continued
under the same family ; Svein (Suibhne), the last king
of the old Gallgael line, died in 1034, after which
Thorfinn, the great jarl of Orkney, extended his
dominion over all Scotland except Strathclyde, Fife
and Lothian, often making Galloway his head-quarters.
His dominion over the Isles probably meant little
more than that he took tribute and was recognised
as over-lord. In 1031 King Kmit received the
230 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
submission of Malcolm of Scotland, together with two
kings, named Maelbaethe and Jehmarc, in whom
Skene (Celtic Scotland, i., p. 397) saw Macbeth, son of
Finlaec, independent ruler of Moray, and Imergi the
king of Argyll or Dalir, whose great-great-grandson
was Sumarlidi (d. 1166). We have therefore reason
to think that the kingdom of Man and the Isles did
not then include the northern Hebrides ; the central
part of the group, at least, must have been under the
Gallgael (not purely Celtic) rulers of Argyll.
The surnames and place-names of Man have been
studied by Mr. A. W. Moore, and the early monu^
ments by Mr. P. M. C. Kermode, in books which
illustrate the Scandinavian settlement, its great im-
portance and its limits, with a copiousness which
makes it needless to give any detail in a general sketch
of a wide subject such as this is. Prof. Alex. Bugge
has also written an interesting chapter, chiefly on the
Scandinavian crosses, in his Vikingerne. There are
some peculiarities in the place-names, noted by Mr.
Moore, which distinguish Man from Cumberland :
-by is common, and he rightly adds that it is both
Danish and Norwegian; thoppe is found once, toft
twice ; thwaite, beck, with, tarn and force are absent,
but hqugh, dale, fell, garth and gill are frequent ; and
he concludes that the settlers in Man were less Danish
than those of East Anglia and Eastern Ireland, and
more so than those of Cumbria and the Hebrides.
This was no doubt the case ; but the reasons for the
absence of some " test-words " may be simply the
absence of need for them. Gaelic names of streams
MAN AND THE ISLES 231
and waterfalls being ready made, beck and force were
not needed ; lakes being unknown, there are no tarns ;
villages unfamiliar, as in Cumbria, thorpe was little
used ; the thivaite in its proper sense being infrequent,
and vt%r, the timber-wood, devastated, leaving only
skogar of copse, these words were not applied, though
existent in the language of the settlers. For the
rest there are many similarities between Manx nomen-
clature and Cumbrian : compare Peel with Peel
Castle in Furness, etc., Surby with Sowerby, Kirby
with Kirkby, Scarsdale with Scarthgap, Cammall with
Camfell; and Fleswick, Colby, Ramsey, Raby, Sulby
(Soulby), Kneebe (Knipe), Kirkbride, etc., are identical.
Several Manx words are seen in the names both
of Man and Cumbria : korki (oats), cnoc (knock,
knoll), parak (parrock, "park," also transplanted to
Iceland), dob (dub, pool), spooyt (waterfall, as in Gill
Spout), bayr (Gaelic bothar, Cumbrian "butter" and
"bare"), glas (stream, as in Ravenglass), borrane
(Gaelic boireand, Cumbrian " borran, burn ") these
are loan-words which suggest the borrowing of language
from Man by the settlers in Cumbria as well as by
those on the north of Solway ; and the language was
the mixed speech of the Gallgael.
Turning to the monuments we have resemblances
even more striking. We have seen that in Cumbria
and in its neighbourhood there is a series of crosses
dating from the end of the tenth to some time in the
eleventh century, with carvings illustrating the Edda.
At Halton we have Sigurd the Volsung ; and the same
subject is found at Andreas, Jurby and Malew in Man.
232 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
At Heysham we have the gods at Ragnarok ; Mr.
Kermode finds at Andreas Odin fighting the Fenris-
wolf. At Gosforth we have Heimdal with his horn,
repeated at Jurby. Even if all the identifications of
Prof. A. Bugge and Mr. Kermode are not accepted,
there are still enough to show that Edda subjects were
illustrated in both districts on crosses put up as monu-
ments of Christian burial. Of Runic inscriptions
there is a wealth in these Manx stones, and from the
language and lettering it is concluded that the in-
scribed crosses date from 1040 onwards; and further,
that there was some relation to East Gothia (Sweden)
and Jsederen (Norway) in the carvers of these runes.
One stone (Michael, No. 104) is thought by Prof.
Sophus Bugge to be Swedish in character, though on
the whole the language is Norse, and of the eleventh
and twelfth centuries. But while the inscribed stones,
which are not paralleled by Cumbrian crosses, are com-
paratively late, there are also some uninscribed which
may be of the tenth century. One of these is the
cross which bears the figure of a bishop, and is
connected by Mr. Kermode with bishop Roolwer
(Hrolfr), mentioned in 1060 ; across which, however,
has a close resemblance to Cumbrian stones showing
the debased spiral forms imitated from Anglian floral
scrolls, though at the same time it shows Celtic
motives absent in Cumbria, with no special Scandi-
navian character. Its Madonna can be matched by
Yorkshire stones earlier than the eleventh century.
The conclusion seems to be that perhaps a hundred
years earlier than Roolwer there was a Christian
MAN AND THE ISLES 233
church on the island under Godred or his predeces-
sor Magnus as indeed is not impossible : for a realm
in touch with England on the one hand, and Ireland
on the other, inhabited by a settled population as
Man then was, must have assimilated itself to its sur-
roundings. The modern name of the bishopric still
recalls the old kingdom which was coextensive with it,
Sodoriensis et Mannice, of the Sudreyjar (South-isles,
Hebrides) and Man; abbreviated into "Sodor. and
Man." It need hardly be said that such a form as
" Sodor" or " the Sodors " is a barbarism when used
for Sudreyjar.
Thorium, the great jarl of Orkney, whose power and
presence in Galloway overshadowed Manx independ-
ence, died in 1064, about which time we find Godred
Sigtryggsson on the throne. He sent aid to the Norse
invasion of England in 1066, and some of the few
who escaped from Stamford Bridge took refuge with
him. Among these was Godred Crovan, son of
Harold the Black of Islay (as Munch showed, not
" of Iceland "), who eventually wrested Man from
Fingall, Godred Sigtryggsson's heir, about 1075. ^ e
set over the northern islands his son Lagman, who
succeeded him on the Manx throne as a monarch of
an independent power. To reassert the ancient rights
of Norway over the Islands, Magnus Barefoot invaded
at the end of the eleventh century, and placed Ingi-
mund over the northern Hebrides, and Ottar over Man.
Both fell in revolts, and Magnus Barefoot invaded
again, leaving the islands desolated, though not without
some attempt to restore the prosperity of the Manx.
234 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Then followed a period of anarchy until 1113, when
Olaf Bitling, son of Godred Crovan, was elected king
of Man. His youth had been spent at the court of
Henry I. of England; he married the daughter of
Fergus, lord of Galloway, a granddaughter of Henry I.,
and reigned in peace for forty years, strengthening his
kingdom by alliances. His daughter married Sumar-
lidi (Somerled), the Gallgael lord of Dalir (Argyll),
ancestor of the Macdonalds of the Isles, and partisan
of the romantic adventurer Malcolm mac Eth, who
had been a monk of Furness Abbey under the name
of Wymund (Vemund) and threw Scotland into con-
fusion by his claims and attempts. After Olaf Bitling's
death his son and successor, Godred, came into col-
lision with Sumarlidi, and by the naval battle of 1156
was forced to surrender part of his kingdom of the
Isles. Two years later Sumarlidi invaded Man ;
Godred fled to Norway, but returned after a six years'
absence to hold his throne until 1187, when he was
succeeded by his son Ragnvald.
The division of the Isles left Man in possession of
the northern Hebrides, whereas those from Ardna-
murchan Point southward remained in the hands of
the Argyll family, first under Dubhgall and then under
Ragnvald, Sumarlidi's sons. Consequently in 1187,
King Ragnvald of Man held Man and the northern
isles, while King Ragnvald of Argyll held the central
part of the whole group. Galloway in 1160 ceased to
be independent ; Malcolm of Scotland reduced it to
the condition of a province, as he also reduced Moray,
where he expelled the Viking or Gallgael inhabitants
MAN AND THE ISLES 235
and replaced them by " his own people." This ex-
tension of the Scottish power at the expense of the
Norse went on during the reigns of William the Lion
(1166-1214) an d Alexander II. (1214-1249), who
crushed repeated revolts in Galloway, Moray and Ross,
and added all the mainland, including Caithness, to
the Scottish kingdom. The last act of Alexander II.
was an unsuccessful attempt to add the Hebrides to
his power.
Ragnvald of Man reigned for thirty-eight years. One
of the incidents of his troubled reign was an attack on
the island by King John of England (1210), invadinga
country until then no part of the English realm, but
politically under Norway. On Ragnvald's deposition
by his brother Olaf the Black, Hakon Hakonarson,
king of Norway, tried to reassert his power over the
Hebrides, which had ceased to pay the accustomed
tribute ; but the expedition he sent under Hakon
Ospak was defeated by Olaf the Black, who remained
in Man until 1237, with Godred Don, his nephew, as
viceroy over the northern Isles ; the central Hebrides
being still under the family of Sumarlidi, whose great-
grandson John, lord of the Isles, was in possession at
the time when Olaf the Black's sons, Harald and
Ragnvald (Ronald), having died, there was a failure in
the direct descent of the Manx crown (1249), which
gave Alexander II. his opportunity to annex the
Islands an opportunity which failed on this occasion,
but recurred before long to his successor.
Alexander II. had tried at first to win the Hebrides
by negotiations with Hakon of Norway, on the ground
236 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
that the Islands had been wrested from the Scottish
kingdom by Magnus Barefoot, but the Norwegian
crown maintained a claim which had held good for
some four centuries. At last, however, it was not so
much a question of ancient rights as of practical politics.
The kingdom of Scotland, once a small realm on the
east coast (p. 131), had grown into a great power,
which could hardly tolerate upon its border an alien
state, turbulent and dangerous in the semi-independ-
ence of petty rulers. Consequently Alexander III ,
on coming of age (1262), prepared to carry out his
father's policy of annexing the Islands. Hakon of
Norway next year bought a great fleet to resist the
threatened encroachment. He was joined by Magnus,
king of Man, the last son of Olaf the Black, and
Dugall, lord of the Isles. After their triumphant
progress to the Clyde, Alexander was ready to make
terms, claiming only Arran, Bute and the Cumbraes.
A storm wrecked the Norse fleet, and an accidental
encounter brought on the battle of Largs. Both sides
claimed the victory, but the effect of the battle was to
send Hakon north to Orkney, where he died soon
afterwards, and Magnus of Man did homage to the
Scottish Crown. In 1266 a treaty between Norway
and Scotland ceded Man and the Hebrides to Alex-
ander ; the ecclesiastical rights of the archbishop of
Trondhjem being retained. King Eirik of Norway
married the Princess Margaret of Scotland, and it was
only by the death of their daughter Margaret in
Orkney (1290) that the last link was broken.
But still the Islands kept many of their Norse
MAN AND THE ISLES 237
characteristics. We have seen that they were the
home of the Gallgael, never purely Scandinavian.
From the first some of the Norse who settled there
took Gaelic surnames, adopted Celtic Christianity,
imitated Irish poetry and art, intermarried with natives.
The name a person bore was no complete test of his
race, and the ultimate prevalence of Gaelic as the
spoken language, brought about by the political union
with Scotland, has little relation to the ethnography
of the Hebrides and Highlands. Prof. A. Bugge has
discussed (in his notes to Duald MacFirbis on the
Fomorians and the Norsemen) the pedigree of the
Macleods, of which a variant is given in Skene's Celtic
Scotland ; and supposes that the two divisions of
the clan, Siol Tarquil and Siol Tormodj or family
of Thorkell and Thormod two chieftains of Skye
about 1230 were descended from Lj6t (Leod) of
the twelfth century, mentioned in Orkney inga-saga,
although the usual tradition deduces them from Ljot,
son of Olaf the Black (died 1237). In any case the
pedigree comes from the Norse. The macLeans and
the Morrisons, hereditary sheriffs of Lewis, deduce
from Gillemuire, whose Gaelic name disguises the
fact that he was son of Helga the Fair, daughter of
Harald, son of " Old Ivar, king of Lochlann." The
macCorquhadales of Argyll derive from Thorketill.
The macDonalds of the Isles are from Sumarlidi and
his Norse wife ; Clan Alastair is from the same source.
The Nicolsons of Skye come from Olaf, son of
"Turcinn" of Dublin. The names of macDougal
: (Dubhgall, " Dane "), Lament (Lagman), macLachlan
SCANDINAVIAN BRltAIN
(Lochlan), show their Scandinavian origin. MacAskill
(Asketil), Maclver, MacRimmon (Hromund), Mac
Aulay of Lewis (from Olaf the MacAulays of Argyll
are from Amalgaidh), Clan Ranald (Ragnvald) are
all Scandinavian in name, though from the beginning,
no doubt, not of unmixed Scandinavian blood. The
clans of the mainland, by their pedigrees, are of
Celtic origin.
In Gaelic, most of the shipping terms are Norse,
according to Dr. Macbain; and most of the place-
names of the coast are obviously Scandinavian, though
often Gaelicised and not easy to recognise on a
modern map. In a paper read to the Viking Club
(Saga-book, ii., pp. 50 seq.) t Miss A. Goodrich Freer
gives a list of Gaelic words of non-Celtic origin, as
collected by the late Father Allan Macdonald in the
Outer Hebrides, from which the following are ex-
amples with the Icelandic equivalents : aoinidh
(enni), brow of hill; cr6 (kr6), pen-fold ; cuisle (kvisl),
branch of stream faothail (vadill in Shetland, vaft),
ford ; haf (haf), ocean ; hawn (hafn), haven ; luithean
(Ij6ri), louvre, smoke- vent ; mealbhach (mel-bakki),
links ; mol (mol), gravel ; nabuidh (na~-bui), neighbour ;
6b (h6p), tidal bay ; oda (oddi), tongue of land ; rustal
(ristill), plough ; saoithean (seiftr, with diminutive),
saithe ; sckireag (skari with diminutive), young gull ;
sgeir (sker), skerry ; sparran (sperra), rafter ; trosg
(thorsk), cod. In Outer Hebridean place-names
very many terminations are Norse, more or less
corrupted : -val (fell), -breck, -berg, -haug, for a
hill ; -ay, for island ; -lam, -um (holmr), for an islet ;
MAN AND THE iSLtiS 239
-Ortj. -ford, -art (fjord) ; -vag, -way, -vik, for bay; -ey
(etiS), for isthmus ; -geo (gja"), for a cleft ; -oss (6ss),
for a river's mouth ; -brok (borg), for a fort ; -vallar,
-wall (vellir), field ; -bost (bustaSr), -bol, -poql^ (b61),
-stul (perhaps st611 } a seat), -ary (ergh, as used
also in Cumberland, Lancashire and Yorkshire, a
dairy-farm), for various kinds of farmsteads ; -vat
(vatn), for lake ; -a, -ai (a), for a river ; strom (straumr),
for a sea-current ; -skeir (sker), reef of rocks ; -nish,
-ness and -mul (mtili), for a point of land j -gil, becom-
ing in Uist -gir, for a dell. Adjectives used in place-
names are breidha and smuk (smuga is in Icelandic a
narrow hole, in Cumberland "smoot"is the sheep's
door in a fence-wall), for broad and narrow ; ha and
lai (har and lagr), for high and low. Names of animals
in compounds are gaas (gas), so (sau^r, sheep), lam,
calv, arne (6'rn, eagle), hest and ros. Sigurd, Bjorn,
Grim and Eirik appear in the names of places in
these outer islands.
In a paper for the Viking Club by Mr. R. L.
Bremner (Saga-book, iii., p. 373) many details of
Norse place-names in the Southern Hebrides and
Argyll are given, with the help of Professor Mackinnon.
" In the Lewis it has been calculated the place-names
are about four Norse to one Gaelic ; in Skye as three
to two ; in Barvas (N.W, of Lewis) as twenty-seven to
one ; in Uig as thirty-five to four. In Islay there is
one Norse to two Gaelic, in Kintyre one to four ; in
Arran and the Isle of Man one to eight. Jura has a
very few." Professor Mackinnon derives Jura from
Dyr-ey, " deer island," and dyr reappears in Ben
240 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Diurinis (dyranes) on Loch Etive, Duirinish in Skye,
and Durness in Sutherland. Lussa (Laxa), Asdale (ask-
dalr), Sannaig (Sandvik), Bladda, like Pladda on the
Clyde and Fladda near Mull (Flatey), are other names
originally Norse in Jura. In Islay Loch Gruinart is
the " green fjord " ; compare Snizort in Skye, Enard,
Knoydart, Moydart; in Melfort and Broadford a
fuller form is preserved, still more in Seaforth. The
word biistcfor (homestead) which in the outer isles
becomes -host or -bust, is shortened in Islay into -bus,
as Cragabus, Kinnabus, Lyrabus, Coulabus; or from
the form bblstd&r is Nereabols (in 1588 written Nerra-
bollsadh), Robolls and Grobolls. Trudernish, like
Trotternish in Skye, and Trodday may be from tr'cfo
(gen. trc?&ar\ a pasture or cattle-pen, the -nish for nes,
having its sibilant softened after the "slender" vowel
according to Gaelic usage. In Mull, Ar-os means
" river's mouth " ; Glenforsay and Assapol have Norse
elements.
In Argyll, among the islands are Canna (possibly
the canons' isle, as this was Church property see an
article by W. G. Collingwood in the Antiqutiry,
1906), Gometra, Ulva, Staffa (from the basalt pillars),
Oronsay (not St. Oran's, but Orfiris-ey, the " island at
ebb-tide"), Gigha (in Hakon's saga Gud-ey), Shuna,
Eriska (Eric's), Kerrera (Kjarbarey), Lunga, Torsay
and Scarba. Ashore are Knapdale, Ormsary, Skip-
ness (in 1262 Schyph-inche, but .not an island). In
Kintyre are Sunadale, Torrisdale, Saddell, Rhonadale,
Ifferdale, Ugadale most from personal names ; Lussa
(Laxa), Smerby, Askomill, Stafnish, Sanda, etc.
MAN AND THE ISLES 24!
In Bute, the oldest form of Rothesay is Rother-
say, perhaps Hrothgar's ey or a. Ascog is like
Ayscough, in Lancashire, the ash-wood ask-skbgr.
Arran has a few Norse names ; Brodick (anciently
Brathwik, broad-bay), Goat-fell, Scordale, Glaister
(-stadr), Ormidale, Glen Sherraig (in 1590 Sherwik).
And in the Clyde, Kumreyjar (Cumbraes) was the
Norse name for the isles of the Cumbri or Strathclyde
Welsh.
One of the most interesting names is Pabay,
variously spelt, for there are many examples in the
Hebrides as well as in the Orkneys and Shetland.
We know from the Saga form, Papey, that it means
the island of the priests, Papar ; and we know from
Dicuil that the Irish hermits were driven from their
"deserts" by the Norse early in the ninth century,
also from La/idndma that the same thing happened
later in Iceland. The Rev. E. McClure (Saga-book of
the Viking Club, i., p. 269) has suggested that the
word, like Kirkja, was learnt by the early Vikings
from the Goths of the Roman Empire, Christianised
from Greek influences, whence also the German
pfaffe. There is no doubt that the externals, and
some of the teaching, of Christianity were known to
the pagan Scandinavians long before they became
converts ; the earliest descriptions of their temples in
Iceland tell us that the apse was a feature of the
building, and much of their mythology was a distorted
glimpse of Christian beliefs. The name must have
been given to these islands of the Papar at the time
when the priests were first driven away, not in
9
242 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
subsequent generations when the Irish or English
word for "priest" was learnt.
When they became Christianised they set up grave-
monuments here or elsewhere. At Kilbar in Barra
is a cross with Scandinavian runes ; another from St.
Mannock's in Bute has, in runes, "Krus thine (let?)
Guthle(if)," raised to the memory of one unknown.
But as Galloway settlers were perhaps taken to Whit-
horn for burial, so the chiefs of the Isles were buried
at lona. Most of the monuments preserved there are
either much earlier or much later than the period
when distinctively Scandinavian ornament was given
to these carvings, but there is one stone (figured by
W. G. Collingwood in the Saga-book of the Viking
Club, iii., p. 305) formerly in the chapel of St. Oran
but now kept in the Cathedral, which is different
from all the rest. On one side it bears the usual
Scandinavian dragon with irregular interlacing; on
the other a ship with its crew and a smith with his
hammer, anvil and pincers. The resemblance of this
to Manx crosses suggests that it may have been the
tombstone of a king of Man.
Minor antiquities of the Viking Age are not in-
frequent in the Hebrides and neighbouring parts of
Scotland. The Hunterston brooch found near Largs
with runic inscriptions perhaps of the tenth century,
and other penannular brooches, are described in Dr.
Anderson's Scotland in Early Christian Times (ii. i).
Pairs of "tortoise" brooches have been found in
I slay and Tiree, and examples in Barra and Sanday ;
weapons in interments at Islay, Mull, Barra, Sanday
MAN AND THE ISLES 243
and St. Kilda. A howe known as the Carnan-a-
Bhairraich, in Oronsay, was explored in 1891, and
found to contain brooches, beads, a ring, a knife and
a net-sinker, beside boat-rivets ; it seems as though the
"man from Barra" was buried in his boat with his
wife possibly a case of "suttee," which was not
unknown. At Kiloran Bay in Colonsay, Mr. MacNeill,
in 1882, found a ship-burial with sword, axe, shield-
boss, cauldron, etc., and a pair of scales and stycas of
the archbishop of York, 831-854; also a horse's
skeleton of which the hind leg had been cut before
interment (Saga-book of Viking Club, v., p. 172).
It was not more than a generation later that Orlyg,
who had been brought up in the Hebrides by bishop
Patrick, set forth to Iceland "with wood for building
a church, and a plenarium and an iron bell, a golden
penny and consecrated earth to be put under the
corner pillars. The bishop told him to land where
two mountains rose out of the sea, . . . and there
build a church and consecrate it to St. Columba "
(Landndma, i. 12). From this it is evident that even
in the ninth century the Vikings in the Hebrides
were already beginning to be Christianised, though
imperfectly : for at Esjuberg, in Iceland, Orlyg and
his family, when the church was built, seem to have
worshipped, not Christ, but Columba.
244 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
6. THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY.
That the earliest Norse settlers in Orkney and
Shetland found Irish priests in the islands, is known
from the names of Papa Stour, Papa Little and Papa
in Scalloway, Papal in Unst and Yell, and Papil in
Burra (Shetland), also Papa in Westray and Stronsay,
Paplay in South Ronaldsay and in Holm, and Papdale
near Kirkwall (Orkney). It has been remarked (p. 241)
that the word Papar for "priests" must have been
brought by the Norse ; it shows that, contrary to
Dasent's opinion, the Shetlands were not uninhabited,
and that the heathen invaders recognised the priests
from the first. The persistence of the names Rinansey
(St. Ninian's Isle), Enhallow (Holy Isle), and Damsey
(St. Adamnan's Isle) in Orkney, and St. Ninian's Isle in
Shetland, together with the preservation of chapels of
early Celtic type, suggests that the priests were not
exterminated, in spite of a local tradition in Unst
(quoted by the Rev. A Sandison, Saga-book of the
Viking Club, i. 244) that the Picts fought until only
a priest and his son were left, and they perished
refusing to tell the secret of the heather-ale, as in the
Highland story picturesquely retold by Niel Munro
in The Lost Pibroch. Early dedications to Ninian,
Columba, Brigit and Triduana may have survived the
invasion ; and it is possible that some of the sculptured
stones with ogams may be pre-Norse. On the other
hand, in the ogams of the Bressay stone (Shetland)
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 245
some scholars read the name Naddodd, which is
Norse ; the ornament, with ring-plaits and a peculiar
form of interrupted double-strand interlacing, cannot
be earlier than the tenth century ; and the " son of the
Druid " named on it, if that is a true reading, has a
parallel at Rushen, Isle of Man, as the priest, horse-
men and beasts reappear at Maughold (No. 67,
Kermode's Manx Crosses). Again, the head between
monsters on the Papil stone (Shetland) is seen also
at Braddan (No. 69, Manx Crosses). The twelfth-
century Maeshowe runes and " Thurbiarn " runes at
Cunningsburgh have points of resemblance to Manx
runes. There is an evident link between Man and
the northern islands which is not without importance
in dating the Orkney and Shetland Christian
monuments.
There is also a link with the Pictish kingdom in the
symbol on the carved bone from the Broch of Burrian
(Orkney), found with an ogam-inscribed cross-shaft.
The fact of finding these relics in a broch of pre-Norse
days is not conclusive as to their date, for the Norse
sometimes occupied brochs ; that of Mousa was in-
habited by a runaway couple from Norway about the
year 900, and in 1155 Erlend and Maddadh's widow
held it against her son, jarl Harald of Orkney. But
it shows that in Christianising the northern isles other
influences were at work than those of the Columban
Hebrides, as one might conclude from the protracted
occupation of a great part of north-eastern Scotland
by the Norse. We find a few relics of their presence
in the hogbacks at Inchcolm (Fife) and Brechin, and
246 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
less certainly in the ship in the Factor's Cave at
Wemyss (see Mr. J. Patrick's article in The Reliquary,
Jan. 1906), and in monuments commonly called
Danish, such as "Sueno's Pillar," at Forres. In this
.Mr. Romilly Allen found an arrangement of knots
characteristically Scandinavian, as at Aspatria (Cum-
berland), Braddan (I. o. M.) and Clonmacnois ; other-
wise this elaborate shaft is unlike Norse, but like
Pictish work ; it is one of those monuments in which
two influences meet, and it may help towards the true
dating of the mysterious Pictish style if this stone
proves to be of the Viking Age. At Forres we are on
the border of country long held by the Norse ; Burg-
head was a Viking stronghold, and there we find a
" hart and hound " stone in their style (No. 7, in Mr.
Romilly Allen's Early Christian Monuments of Scot-
land ; No. TI also might be Viking work). Going
north we reach the Scandinavian relics of Caithness ;
the rune-inscribed " Ingulf" cross at Thurso is
comparatively late.
Leaving out, therefore, o.;am stones without orna-
ment and difficult to date, we have a series of
Orkney and Shetland monuments, some bearing
ogams, which fall into line with Manx and Scottish
work of the late tenth to the twelfth centuries.
The conclusion seems to be that the age of
sculpture in Orkney and Shetland was rather after
than before the year 1000; that most of the relics
are those of re-introduced Christianity. It may be
that the faith lingered, but it was not dominant
before Olaf Tryggvason forcibly converted jarl Sigurd
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 247
(p. 250) or about 1000. Not until half a century later
was there a bishop, Henry (see Orkney and Shet-
land Old Lore, Jan. 1907, Diploinatarium, p. i),
appointed by the see of York, followed by Thorolf,
appointed 1056 by the archbishop of Bremen.
Christ's Kirk, in Birsay, the first church known to
have been built by the Norse, dates from a little
after 1050, though Dietrichson and Meyer (Monu-
menta Orcadica, Christiania, 1906) think that there
may have been a somewhat earlier St. Olaf s church
in Kirkwall, and three tiny Norse chapels on Sanday
dating from the heathen time, but later than the
Pictish period because they are built with mortar.
St. Magnus' church at Egilsey, dated by Dr. Anderson
about 1000, is thought by Dietrichson and Meyer to
be not earlier than 1135, though an earlier church
existed on the spot.
The same authors find remains to illustrate every
period of Orkney history. At Toftsness on Sanday,
the nearest point to Norway, seems to have been the
first Norse settlement, a populous place on the site of
a previous Celtic village, and defended by a stone
rampart resembling pre-historic fortifications in
Norway. This is still called Coligarth, in 1693
written Cuningsgar, and obviously meaning "the
king's garth." At Tranaby are interments of the
heathen age known as "the Bloody Tuacks," and
Ivar's Knowe on Sanday may be the grave of Ivar,
son of jarl Ragnvald of Mceri, killed in the expe-
dition which brought the islands under the power
of Harald Fairhair. As weregild for his son, Harald
248 SCANDINAVIAN BtUTAlN
gave Orkney to Ragnvald, who made over the jarldom
to his brother Sigurd. He joined Thorstein the Red
in the conquest of all northern Scotland, and died
after his fight with Maelbrigd of the Tusk. The
identification of Thorstein with the Oistin of Irish
annals has led to the placing of these events fifteen
or twenty years too early; if we date the death of
Sigurd 872 (as usually fixed) we are forced to allow
the next important jarl, Torf-Einar, a reign of sixty
years, and to place the invasion of Harald Fairhair
just before, rather than just after, the visit of bishop
Eardwulf to Whithorn, which seems improbable : we
also get too little time for the development of Olaf
the White's kingdom, and the conquests of Thorstein
the Red. But if we understand " Oistin" as Eystein,
(see p. 225), and place the invasion of Harald
about 880, and the death of Sigurd about 888, the
chronology of the whole period becomes possible.
Dr. J. Anderson identified "Cyder Hall" on the
Oykel with the Siwardhoch of 1224, and the Ekkjal
of the Saga as the scene of Jarl Sigurd's death and
burial.
Einar, son of jarl Ragnvald, may have come to the
Orkneys about 890, and he died 936. He is said to
have taught the Orkneymen the use of peat as fuel,
whence his name Torf-Einar ; there are traditions that
the islands were covered with coppice before the
coming of the Norse, and, as in Iceland, the earlier
generations were doubtless improvident in their use of
wood. But the knowledge of peat seems to have
been derived from Ireland rather than from Norway.
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 249
Einar's name is also connected with an important
social revolution. He revenged his father by slaying
Harald Fairhair's son, Halfdan Halegg; Uietrichson
thinks that the scene of the revenge was at Tresness
on Sanday, where a cairn may be Halfdan's grave.
The " blood-eagle " by which he was executed was
rather a form of ignominious sacrifice to Odin than
an ingenious variety of torture j and it called for
vengeance on Harald's part. He fined the Orkneys
sixty marks of gold, which Einar paid on condition that
the landowners gave up their odal rights to him.
Of his three sons, Arnkel and Erlend fell with Eirik
Bloodaxe at Stainmoor (954 ?), and the survivor,
Thorfinn Hausakljuf (Skull- cleaver), by his marriage
with Grelaug, daughter of Dungal, Donnchadh or
Duncan of Djincans-bae, added Caithness to Orkney.
He was buried at Haugseid (Hoxa, South Ronaldsay),
and Dietrichson, quoting a tradition given by Low in
1 7 74, thinks that his grave may be seen in a mound
formed out of the ruins of a broch.
About this time, if there is any germ of truth in
a legend to be found in the later and partly fictitious
Fljbtsdcela-saga^ Shetland was ruled by a jarl named
Bjorgiilf, connected by marriage with Denmark ; but
this statement is not confirmed.
Eirik Bloodaxe left an evil legacy to the islands in his
daughter Ragnhild, who married and murdered three
of Thorfinn's sons one after another. At Howardsty
(Havardsteigr), near the famous stones of Stennis, the
largest of a group of Norse barrows was found to con-
tain an urn with ashes, conjectured to be the remains
250 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
of Havard, the second -of the brothers. The last,
Hlodver, married Edna (Eithne), daughter of King
Cearbhall of Ireland, and their son was Jarl Sigurd,
who, in order to gain the help of the Orkneymen
against the Scots of the mainland, restored the odal
rights which Torf-Einar had taken from them. The
restoration was probably incomplete ; we find later a
further restitution, and at this time perhaps the rights
were given only to each owner personally, and for his
lifetime. But Sigurd was successful in his conquests
on the mainland. He married the daughter of King
Malcolm of Scotland, and fell at the battle of Clon-
tarf in 1014. In this battle he fought on the side of
the heathen against the Christians, though, according
to a saga-story, King Olaf Tryggvason in 997 had
visited Orkney, and forcibly converted the jarl and
his men. But about this time Christianity, though
not unknown earlier, and not fully adopted until later,
was becoming recognised among the Northmen of all
countries.
Sigurd's son Thorfinn, succeeding at the age of
five to Caithness, ultimately made himself master of
Orkney and Shetland, as well as of all the Norse
colonies in Scotland, including Galloway. His brother
Brusi, with whom he had divided Orkney at the
command of King Olaf the Saint, died in 1031,
leaving a son Ragnvald. Surviving the battle of
Stiklestad, where he had fought by the side of Olaf,
and campaigns in Russia, where he followed Harald
Hardradi, Ragnvald returned to Orkney with a com-
mission from King Magnus Olafsson to hold two-thirds
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 251
of the jarldom. For eight years there was peace
between the two jarls ; after the sea-fight off Rauda-
bjorg (1045) Ragnvald fled to Norway, and returning
burnt Thorfmn's house at Orphir. Ragnvald himself
lived at Kirkwall (Kirkju-vagr), where he perhaps
founded the town which, Dietrichson remarks, is laid
out on the plan of old Norse towns. At Birsay Thor-
nnn's wooden hall was no doubt on the site of the
later stone structure, which again was replaced by
Robert Stuart's palace, built in the sixteenth century.
Thorfinn's escape from the burning hall at Orphir,
with his wife Ingibjorg in his arms, and his voyage to
Caithness, is one of the most picturesque episodes of
the Orkney inga-saga, full as it is of picturesque detail.
After the death of Ragnvald he was recognised by
Harald Hardradi ; made a pilgrimage to Rome,
founded the bishopric of Orkney, and died in 1064.
His sons Paul and Erlend accompanied Harald
Hardradi on the invasion which ended at Stamford
Bridge. In their time, according to Dietrichson, St.
Peter's at Birsay and a church at Deerness, now
destroyed, were built in stone, imitating the plan and
detail of old Norse wooden churches. Hakon, the
son of Paul, induced King Magnus Barefoot to invade
Orkney for the furtherance of his personal interests ;
but Magnus deposed Paul and Erlend, who shortly
died in Norway, and he placed his own son Sigurd
over Orkney (1098). When Sigurd became king of
Norway (1103), Hakon and his cousin Magnus
Erlendsson held the jarldom jointly. Dissension
broke out : they met for battle at Thingwold in
252 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Kendall, the Thingstead of the islands, but were
parted ; they met again at Egilsey, where Dietrich son
thinks an old Celtic church was the one mentioned
in the saga, and Magnus was put to death (Easter,
April 1 6, 1115). Hakon in penitence made pilgrim-
age to Rome and Palestine, and returning ruled in
peace. Magnus became regarded as a martyr and a
saint.
The two sons of Hakon reigned after his death
(1122 or 1123) Harald "the smooth-spoken," and
Paul "the silent." Harald lived at Orfjara (Orphir),
where still can be seen the ruins of the round church,
built, like others of the twelfth century, in imitation of
the church of the Holy Sepulchre. It may have been
erected by his"; father after returning from Jerusalem,
1118, but Orphir is not mentioned as Hakon's resi-
dence, though it was the home of his sons, and the
first mention of the church is in 1136, in connexion
with the hall The foundations of this hall, "the
Earl's Bu at Orphir," have been discovered recently,
and described by Mr. A. W. Johnston (Proc. S. A.
Scot., xxxvii., and Saga-book of the Viking Club). Jarl
Harald is said to have been killed by a poisoned
shirt intended for his brother, and then Paul reigned
until Kali Kolsson, who took the name of Ragnvald,
the nephew of St. Magnus, came from Norway and
seized half the Orkneys. Paul was captured by Svein
Asleifarson, a Viking chief who lived in a castle (now
destroyed) on Damsey ; Swendro chapel at Westness
is supposed to commemorate the capture ; and Paul
was done to death in Athol, the ruler of which,
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 253
Maddadh, had married his sister. Harald, the son
of Maddadh, became jarl of Orkney, sharing the power
with Ragnvald.
In the winter of 1152-53 Ragnvald and a party of
Norse under Erling Skakki came to the Orkney main-
land on their way to the East. Some of these cru-
saders broke open the Maeshowe, as one of the runic
inscriptions declares (see Dietrichson' and Meyer's
Monumenta Orcadica, pp. 30 and 110-115). Most of
these scribbles merely give the name of the visitor ;
some add that of his lady-love ; a few have special
interest. Nos. 19 and 20 tell us what the vikings
thought of this prehistoric chambered mound :
"This mound was raised before Lodbrok's his sons,
they were clever ; there were scarcely any other such
men as they were. The Jorsalfarers (crusaders) broke
open the Orkahaug (i.e. Maeshowe, which appears to
be a later name). ... It was long ago that much
treasure was hidden here. . . . Happy is he who can
find the great treasure." Nos. 16 and 18 are written
in "twig-runes" which have been explained by Magnus
Olsen as forming a verse :
These runes the man wrote
Who is most rune-skilled west over sea,
With that axe which Gauk owned,
Trandil's son from the south country.
No. 22 in similar cryptic runes gives the name of the
carver as Tryg (Trandil's son).
While jarl Ragnvald was on his journey to Jeru-
salem a new claimant appeared in Erlend, son of
Harald of the poisoned shirt. He carried off
254 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Margaret, widow of Maddadh and Harald's mother, to
the broch of Mousa, and not only defended it against
the young jarl, but, with the support of King Eystein
of Norway and ' Svein Asleifarson the viking, made
good his claim to the greater part of Orkney and
Caithness. When Ragnvald returned there were
three jarls, who met in battle at Knarrarstad (Knar-
stoun) in 1 156: Erlend, however, did not long survive,
and Ragnvald fell at Kalfadal (Calder, in Caithness)
shortly afterwards. His father Kol and he had founded
(about 1137) and partly built the cathedral of St.
Magnus at Kirkwall, completing the choir, according
to -Dietrichson and Meyer, before 1153. To provide
money for the building Ragnvald restored full odal
rights to the Orkneymen, and as jarl Sigurd had
already made a similar restitution, it is thought that on
the first occasion the rights were restored only for the
owner's lifetime, while Ragnvald granted them in
perpetuity. By his "pilgrimage" and church-build-
ing this poet-jarl, no saintly person, died in odour of
sanctity, and was canonised in 1192.
At his death, about 1158, the Cistercian abbey on
Eyin helga (Enhallow) may have been already founded,
and during this period Kolbein Hruga built his small
stone keep on the island of Weir, where "Cobbie
Row," according to tradition, used until modern
times to haunt the ruins. His son was Bjarni, bishop
of Orkney 1188-1223, wno continued the building of
the cathedral, and according to Dr. J6n Stefansson
(Orkney and Shetland Old Lore, April 1907) wrote the
Jarla-sogur, which we know as Orkneyinga-saga.
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 255
Jarl Harald Maddadh's son, having got rid of rivals,
spent the rest of his long reign in making enemies.
By his second marriage with Gormflaith, daughter of
Malcolm MacEth (the adventurer Ve'mund, once a
monk of Furness), he became enemy of King William
the Lion, and lost a great part of Caithness ; by his
partisanship in Norse affairs he became enemy of
King Sverrir and lost Shetland ; and by the outrage
upon bishop John, who was blinded at Scarabolstad
(Scrabster in Caithness), he made the Church his
enemy. He died in 1206, aged 73. Shetland re-
mained the immediate property of the Norse crown
until it was granted to St. Clair in 1379. The outrage
upon one bishop led to the extortions and the murder
of the next, bishop Adam ; and jarl Harald's surviv-
ing son, John, was killed in 1231, ending the Norse
line which had ruled Orkney for 350 years.
In 1232 king Alexander II. of Scotland granted
Northern Caithness to Magnus, son of Gilbride, earl
of Angus, and perhaps of a daughter of Harald, son of
Maddadh. The king of Norway granted Magnus the
jarldom of Orkney also ; and thus a portion of the
old realm was placed under a ruler of Norse name
and probably Norse descent, but governing the two
parts of his country under two different kingdoms.
His grandson Magnus accompanied King Hakon
Hakonarson to the battle of Largs in 1263. John,
the grandson of this Magnus, was one of those who
signed the petition that the son of Edward I. should
marry Margaret the Maid of Norway, who died (1290)
on her way to England, at Margaret's Hope
256 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
John's son Magnus ended the Angus line, though it
is possible that his sister had married Malise, the
earl of Stratherne, who founded the next dynasty.
The Stratherne family was followed by the St. Clairs
(1379-1469), of whom William, the last who ruled
Orkney under the Norse crown, was invested by King
Erik the Pomeranian, in 1434.
On the marriage between James III. of Scotland
and Margaret of Denmark, her father, Christian I. of
Denmark and Norway, undertook to give a dowry of
60,000 Rhine florins, 10,000 of which were to be paid
in cash, and Orkney was pledged for the remainder.
Only 2,000 florins, however, were paid, and King
Christian made up the balance by pledging Shetland.
Thus the old possessions of Norway came to the
crown of Scotland, but only, in the first instance, as a
pledge to be redeemed ; and it is a question which
has been much discussed whether the mortgage was
foreclosed, and, if so, when ? Mr. Gilbert Goudie, in
his Antiquities of Shetland, states the case at some
length ; we can give but the barest outline of his
argument
The continuator of Boece (Ferrerius, Paris, 1574)
says that the right of redemption was renounced on
the birth of a grandson (James IV.) to the Danish
king, and subsequent Scottish historians repeat the
story. Torfaeus, however (book iii., chapter on the
subject), and other Danish historians state that re-
peated efforts were made to regain the islands by
offering payments of the sum due, and that a series of
embassies (1549-1660) were sent to Scotland with
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 257
that object. Though the Register of the Privy Council
of Scotland does not record, for instance, an embassy
for this purpose in 1585, the Calendar of English State
Papers and various Scottish memoirs refer to it. In
1 589 Jarnes VI. married the princess Anne of Den-
mark, and the matter was deferred during the minority
of Christian IV. When he came of age James pre-
vailed on him to allow it to stand over during their
reigns. In 1640 payment was again tendered, but the
troubles of the time hindered settlement. In 1660
Charles II. was approached, but managed to evade a
settlement, and at the treaty of Breda (1667) the
question was still left open. In the middle of the
eighteenth century Frederick V. once more demanded
the restitution of the islands, but in vain. Mr. Goudie,
writing before the foundation of the modern Nor-
wegian kingdom, thought that Denmark rather than
Norway would have the right still to redeem, because
when the two countries were disjoined in 1814 Den-
mark retained all the islands of the North Sea, which
would include the reversion of Orkney and Shetland.
The question as it now stands is purely academical,
but it was not so in the first centuries after the im-
pignoration. The people of Orkney and Shetland
were still Norse, and looked to Norway as their mother-
country. In Mr. Goudie's words : " They continued
to advocate causes, not to the courts of law in Scot-
land, but to the courts with which they were more
familiar in Norway ; and the native system of law and
justice, of tidal succession and udal tenure in land,
survived in some measure, though determined efforts
R
258 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
were made at repression for at least a couple of
hundred years later." In Orkney and Shetland Old
Lore, for October 1907, is printed a series of docu-
ments, conveyances, agreements, charters, etc., ranging
from 1422 to 1575, many of them in Norse, and all
showing the close connexion of the islanders with
Norway. For example, in 1538 the Norse king at
Bergen confirms a doom of the Shetland Lawting, and
describes the trial in which Gervald Williamsson won
his heritage from Magnus Olsson as according to
Gulathing's law. Many of the deeds relate to settle-
ments between islanders and their relatives living in
Norway. The law-terms are chiefly Norse, as :
" athmen " = effimenn (oathmen), "arvis skopft" =
arfskipti (division of inheritance), " oumbotht " =
umbo^ (commission), "schonit" = sjaimd (seventh
day after the death, when the division of goods was
made), " mensvering " = meinsvari (perjury, whence
" manswearing "), " samengna man " = sameignar
uicf&r (joint possessor), " granttis with hand and
handband " = handaband (joining hands), " ofhintit "
from afhenda (to hand over), " teind penny and
ferde penny " = tiundargjof ok fjdr^nngsgjof (for
in Norse law one could dispose of only one-tenth
of one's patrimony and one-fourth of personally
acquired goods without the consent of one's heirs).
Ecclesiastically also the islands remained Norse ;
in 1491 king John of Denmark and Norway granted,
in one of these documents, to Sir David Sinclair
the rents and rights of the Crown over the servants
of the Church in Orkney. The people's names
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 259
were Norse with few exceptions ; the parishioners
of Cunningsburgh in 1576 were named Olaw (4),
Magnus (7), Ereik, Swaine, Symone (Saemund),
Brownie (Brunn), with Nichole, Erasmus and John,
more recent names than the heathen age but still
Norse, and the Celtic Hector ; all their holdings were,
as they still remain, named in Norse. Indeed it is
hardly profitable to attempt here any survey of Orkney
and Shetland place-names ; they are, of course, so
completely Scandinavian as to need a special volume
for their elucidation (see Dr. Jakob Jakobsen, Dialed
and Place-names of Shetland, 1897; and Shetlandsoernes
Stednavne, 1901).
George Buchanan in 1582 said that the Shetland
measures, numbers and weights were "Germanic" or
"almost old Gothic." Brand in 1701 remarked that
Shetlanders spoke Norse, though Dutch was understood
owing to the trade with Holland. In 1 7 1 1 Sir Robert
Sibbald called their language " Norn " (Norrcena), and
so late as 1770 the Rev. George Low collected the
remains of the language as then remembered on Foula,
the westernmost of the Shetlands. The ballad of
"Hildina" (trans. W. G. Collingwood, Ork. and S/iet.
Old Lore, Ap. 1908) has been edited in a masterly
treatise, Hildinakocedetjyj^idi. Marius Haegstad (1900),
in which the difficulties of a text dictated to one who
was entirely ignorant of the language have been cleared
up, and the " Norn " is shown to be fairly pure Norse,
with a very slight sprinkling of Danish, Faeroese, Fri-
sian and English words. It may be remarked that
initial H is sometimes dropped or added ; consonants
260 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
are occasionally lost ; phonetic changes like those
in Icelandic and Faeroese are dn for rn, dl and
dn for //and nn ("kidn" for kinn, cheek; "godle"
for gull, gold ; " ednin " for drnin, the eagle) ; but
the language differs from the Hebridean, not only
in the absence of Gaelic, but also in the use of
Scandinavian words other than those found in the
Western Islands, as "gronge" (grunningr) and not
"torsk" for a cod. Low collected also the well-
known Shetland rhyme, which Haegstad reads
Myrk in e liora, Luce ( = ljoss) in e liunga,
Timin e guestin e geungna.
When it's mirk in the chimney it's light on the ling,
It's the time for the guest to be journeying.
He gave also the Foula " Paternoster," which may
be compared with the old Orkney form given by
Wallace (English loan-words italicised) :
Shetland Orkney
Fy vor o er i chimeri, Fa vor I ir i chimeri,
Halaght vara nam dit, Helleufr] ir i nam thite,
La konungdum din cumma, Gilla ( Gud lat) cosdum
(? congdum) thite cumma,
La vill din vera guerde Veya thine mota varg gort
i vrildin sen ( som) da er o yurn sinna gort
i chimeri (= Himmerike), i chimeri,
Gav vus dagh u dagloght brau, Ga vus da on da dalight
brow vora,
Forgive sindor wara sin vi Fit-give vus sinna vora sin vee
forgiva gem ao sinda gainst Jirgive sindara mutha vus,
wus,
Lia wus eke o vera tempa, Lyv vus ye i tumtation,
but delivra wus fro adlu idlu, min delivra yus fro olt ilt,
For doi ir konungdum,
\\puri, \\glori, Amen. Amen.
More than a hundred years later than Low's time
THE EARLDOM OP ORKNEY 261
considerable relics of Norse language and folklore
have been recognised in the islands. 1 One curious
survival is the sea-language (noticed by the late
Karl Blind, in Saga-book of the Viking Club, i., p. 163)
by which, for example, at sea a church is called a
" bell-house," the sea is named as " holy toyt," and
a cat is spoken of as " footie," " snistal," or "vanega;"
Perhaps we need not accept Dr. Blind's suggestion
that the last word means Vanadis and relates to
Freyja \ nor is it quite certain that the rhyme he
collected " Nine days he hang fra de riitless tree,"
etc. is a survival, through nearly 1000 years, of the
famous lines of Hdvamdl about Odin's self-sacrifice.
But of all Britain, Orkney and Shetland are the
most completely Scandinavian parts, and the story of
the suppression of Norse life under Scottish rule is
still remembered as an ancient grievance : " The sub-
version of the native laws, the imposition of the
feudal system upon the odalism of the north, the
appropriation of the greater part of the land by ad-
venturers from Scotland in short, the ruin of the
native race " (Gilbert Goudie, Antiquities of Shetland,
p. 214). The old system in Shetland was that of
government under Fouds, Lawrightmen and Ransel-
men. The Great Fond (Fogeti) was the chief civil
official, appointed by the Crown, with a Lawman elected
by the Thing at Tingwali as legal adviser and judge
of assize. Parish Fouds were appointed by the
1 See Dr. Jakob Jakobseu's elaborate dictionary of the
Norse language of Shetland (Copenhagen, V. Prior; part I.,
1908).
262 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
Great Foud, to receive rents and duties in butter, oil
and wadmell, and to hold Shuynd Courts for the
division of estates among heirs of the deceased (see
the word sjaund, p. 258). They were assisted by
Councillors (Raadmen), but all householders were
required to attend the Thing. Lawrightmen (Logretta-
menn) were chosen by the Vardthing, and charged
with the custody and application of the standards
of weight and measure (cuttell, bismar and can) by
which dues were paid, and with the general interests
of the parish, especially at the Lawthing, when the
Lawrightman was the assessor of the Foud, acting
in the interests of the people. The conversion of
payments from kind to coin did away with his duties.
" Skathald " Mr. Goudie considers as common
pasture-land for which skat was paid ; Mr. A. W.
Johnston says that it formerly meant the township,
including hagi or pasture. Ranselmen (from ransel, to
search a house for stolen goods, apparently equivalent
to the Icelandic rannsaka, whence our " ransack ")
were appointed to inquire into cases of theft, scandal,
dispute, misbehaviour, absence from church, trespass,
dilapidation, vagrancy, witchcraft and contravention
of laws about sheep and sheep-dogs. They came to
be practically analogous to the old parish constable,
and appointments were made down to 1836, and in
Fair Isle even so late as 1869.
A few survivals of old Norse life may be noticed.
The horizontal waterrmll was not a turbine, but an
ordinary wheel, placed with axis vertical, and driven by
a jet running through a trough and acting on one side
THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY 263
of the wheel only : the upper millstone revolved on
the spindle of the waterwheel. Some terms relating
to its structure are Norse; the sile (sigle), or iron
crossbar of the axle which turned the wheel ; the
griitte (grotte), or nave of the lower millstone, through
which the spindle passed ; and the ludr, or loft of the
little house in which the mill worked; (for a full
description see Mr. Goudie, op. tit., pp. 246-281).
Mills of this kind were used in Sweden and Nor-
way (but not found in Denmark), the Fceroes, Orkney
and Shetland, Caithness and Sutherland, the Hebrides,
the Isle of Man, and in parts of Ireland, where they
were called " Danish mills." They are known in
other parts of the world, but their frequency in these
Norse countries suggests a common origin dating
from the Viking Age. The kollie (kola, in Scottish
"crusie"), an oil lamp with a double shell; the
bismar (bismari\ a steelyard weighing machine ; the
tuskar (torfskeri\ a peat spade, all keep their old
names ; but the old customs survived in the short
scythe with its long handle, the one-stilted wooden
plough, and the rivling, or shoes of raw hide formerly
common to all northern lands.
A not uninteresting sidelight is thrown upon the
relations of Northumbria after the Conquest with
Scandinavian Caithness and Galloway in the story
of King William the Wanderer. It is told in Norman
French of the twelfth century by two different poets,
one of whom seems to have been Chrestien de Troyes
(printed by Francisque Michel in Chroniques Anglo-
NormandS) 1840, and Englished by W. G. Collingwood,
264 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAIN
1904). It relates the adventures of an imaginary king
of England whose wife was carried off by Vikings to
a Scottish seaport, his children to the Norse colony
of Caithness, where they were fostered by kindly fur-
traders, and he himself, after long wanderings, is brought
to the service of a merchant in Galinde (Galuide) or
Gavaide (Galvaide), that is to say, Galloway. The
story, like others of the period, is of British origin,
and can have been composed only in Cumbria or
Northumbria towards the end of the eleventh century,
and among people who, though they had a horror of
the piracy of an age by then passing away, were in
close connexion with Norse trading colonies in
Scotland. The great jarl is sketched with admiration,
perhaps from the famous Thorfinn ; the kind Caithness
traders are drawn to the life, not without hints of their
homeliness as compared with the refinement of the
South, and the benevolent and wealthy shipowner of
Galloway is the true ancestor of the merchant princes
who have made British commerce and philanthropy
famous. The unconscious testimony of this con-
temporary picture of manners and men tells us, like
the monuments, a tale untold by the curt annals of
bloodshed 'and rapine, now no longer to be regarded
as the whole history of Scandinavian Britain.
INDEX
ADAM, bp. of Orkney, 255
Aedh, son of Echu, 227
./Elfheah, Elphege, St., 149, 153, 154,
159
^Elfhelm of Deira, 149, 158
^Elfred setheling, 164
King, 19, 79, 82, 88, 92-101, 108,
125
^Elfric the " Traitor," 145-149
of Hampshire, 146
/Ella of Northumbria, 51, 87
j'Ethelbald, k. of Wessex, 80
yEthelberht, k. of VVessex, 80
/Ethelflsed of Mercia, 117, 118, 191
TEthelnoth of Somerset, 125
./Ethelred, the " Unready," 145, 149-151,
J 54) JSS; 2I
, k. of Wessex, 83, 88, 92
of Mercia, 109, 116, 117, 196
./Ethelstan, see Guthorm
King, 105, 130-136, 199, 209
, k. of Kent, 78
the half-king, 105, 106
/Ethelwald the pretender, 101, 102,
126
./Ethelwerd the chronicler, 43, 146, 149
yJCthelwine of East Anglia, 105
/Eihelwold of East Anglia, 105
/Ethelwulf, k. of Wessex, 77-79
Agmuncl hold, 127
Alclyde, 89 ; and see Dumbarton
Alexander II., 235, 255
III. ,236
Amounderness, 177, 199, 200
Anclcoll jarl, 140
Andoyer, 149
An Fila-jarl, 60
Anglesey, Vikings in, 189-191, 227
Anlaf the Black, 127
Appledore, 97, 98
Archeology of Vikings in Cumbd., 206,
207 ; Hebrides, 242, 243 ; Orkney,
245-252 ; Shetland, 262, 263 ; York-
shire, 173 ; and Sire. Sculptured stones
Archill, Arnkell, 174
Argyll, Vikings in, 229, 230, 234, 238
Armagh, 75, 76
Arnkel and Eilend, 249
Arthurian legends, 49, 220
Art of Norse, 55 ; and see Archaeology
Arx Cynuit, 95
AsbjOrn jarl, 175
Skerjablesi, 227
Ashdown, battle, 92
Asketil, 94, 102
, Oskytel, abp., 143
Askmenn, 90
Assandun, battle, 156
Athelney, 95
And, Queen, 90, 224
Aveling, King, 219
Awley Fivit, 135
B^ER, 193 ; and see -beer and -by
Bagsecg, Ba'gsceg, 91, 119
Bakewell, Commendation, 118, 130
Ijamborough, 119, 149
Bangor, co. Down, 73
Bard Ottarsson. 127, 226
Basing, battle, 02
Bathday, Saturday, 144
Beck, in place-names, 203, 204, 231
Bedford, 103, 108
-beer, place-names in, 184
Benesing hold, 127
Benfleet, 98
Beorhtwulf of Mercia, 78
Beowulf, 13, 53
Berne the huntsman, 51
Bernicia, Vikings in, 93, 119, 128, 137,
163
Beverley, 177, 178
Bjarni, bp. , 254
Bjorgulf, jarl, 249
Bjorn Ironside, 87
the British, 186
Ulfsson, 167, 168
Black and White Gaill, 59, 60, 77, 90,
265
266
INDEX
Blakari of Dublin, 136, 138, 141
Blathmac's martyrdom, 73, 74
Blood-eagle, 249
Bondi, 102
Borough Mump, 95
Borran, burn, in place-names, 216, 221,
231
Botn, English and Norse use, 107, 216
Brat the Irishman, 50
Bravalla, Bravoll, battle, 13, 49, 50
Brentwood, battle, 155
Bretland, 185-187
Brice, St., massacre, 151, 152
Brihtnoth of Essex, 106, 146
Brunanburh, battle, 131-135
Brusi of Orkney, 250
Buern Buzecarle, 51
Burghead, 246
Burhred of Mercia, 79, 88, 93
Buttington, 98
-by, place-names in, 108, in, 113, 193 ;
and see Place-names
CAITHNESS, Norse in, 131, 235, 250, 255,
264
Caittil Finn, 224
Cambridge, 94, 108
Cambridgeshire names, 107
Canterbury, 78, 149, 153, 154
Carlisle, 122, 123
Carlus mac Con, 228
Carlus of Dublin, 228
Carucated districts, 106-109, 121, 122,
Cathroe, St., 141
Ceolwulf of Mercia, 93, 108
Character of Vikings, 21-25, 64, 65, 80,
81, 144, 158, 165, 191, 264
Charlemagne, 57, 58, 71
Charles the Bald, 79
Charmouth, 75, 78
Cheshire, Vikings in, 98, 145, 189, 192-
196, 198
Chester, 98, 116, 175, 189, 192, 197
Chester-le-Street, 125-129
Chippenham, 95
Chochilaicus, 53
Christianisation of Vikings, 103, 125-130,
J 35, 145. 149) *&5> !96, 201, 223-225,
232, 233, 241-246, 250
Clan-names, 237, 238
Clappers, 92
Cleveland, 120, 121, 171
Clondalkin, 75
Clonmacnois, 75, 76
Clontarf, battle, 229, 250
Cobbie Row, 254
Colchester, 105, 108, 117
Colla of Limerick, 132, 226
Columba, St., 52, 69, 74, 243, 244
Columban, St., 52
Commendation of Scotland, etc., 118,
130, 209
Conan, son of lago, 190
Constantine I., 93, 225
II., of Scots, 128-135
Corbridge, battle, 128-130
Cork, 73, 227
Cornbliteoc, Cor-na-liagog, 229
Cornwall, Vikings in, 76, 145, 150, 183,
184
Crosses ; see Sculptured stones
Culture of early Scandinavians, 25-27,
64, 65
Cumberland, Vikings in, 93, 122, 127-
130, 137, 138, 150, 176, 202-220
Cuthbert, St., 68, 123-125, 129, 159, 175,
207
Cutheard, bp., 126-129
Cwentawic, 78
Cymrhyd, 189
DACRE CONFERENCE, '130, 209
Dalir, Argyll, 229, 230, 234
Danasuda, 98
Danegeld, 80, 93, 146-148, 153, 156
Danelaw, meaning, 82
Danework, 58, 85
Davids, St., 185, 187, 229
Deira, Vikings in, 86, 87, 93, 119-143
Derby, no, 115
Derry, 75
Devon, Vikings in, 76, 94, 98, 145, 152,
1 68, 184
Dialect of Cumberland, 216-218 ; Orkney
and Shetland, 258-261 ; and see Gaelic
loan-words, Place-names
Discipline of Northmen's crews, 34, 35,
162
Domhnall of Strathclyde and Cumbd.,
138, 210
Domhnall of Scotland, 226
Donaghmoyne, 75
Donemouth, Jarrow, 68
Dorset, Vikings in, 75, 78, 94
Downpatrick 75
Drengs, 197
Dubhgall, Dugall, 63, 237
, Sumarlidi's son, 234
Dubhgaill, Black Gaill, 60, 93, 124, 187
Dubhlochlannaigh, 60
Dublin, 77, 135-139, 168, 188-190, 196,
218
Dugall, lord of Isles, 236
Dumbarton, 89, 225
INDEX
2 6 7
Dumfriesshire, Vikings in, 221-223
Dunbrunde, 133
Dunfoeder, Dunnotar, 131, 226
Dungal, Duncan of Caithness, 249
Dungall, Gbdred's son, 228
Dunstan, St., 145, 159
Duodecimal notation, 107, in
Durham, 174, 175
Durrow, 75
EADGAR JETHELING, 174
- , King, 142-144
Eadmund Ironside, 155, 156
- , King, 136, 137, 209
- , St., 84, 88, 89, 159
Eadred, King, 140, 141
- - Lulisc, 123, 124, 207
Eadulf Cudel,_i58
- of Bernicia, 128
Eadward the Confessor. 167-170
- the Elder, 101-105, 116-118, 126
Eadwig, King, 142, 144
Eadwine of Mercia, 170, 171, 174
Ealdred and Eadwulf, Uhtred's sons, 163
- of Bernicia, 128, 130, 137
Ealhere, ealdorman, 79
Kardwulf, bp., 123, 125, 126, 207
Earls, 42
East Anglia, Vikings in, 77, 83, 88, 93,
96-108, 152
Ecgberht of Wessex, 76
-- of Northumbria, 88, 119, 128
Ecgfrid's port, 68
Edar, Howth, 73
Edda, 19, 22-25, 37~4> 65, 201, 219, 231,
261
Edna, Cearbhall's daughter, 250
Egil Skallagrimsson, 141
Eigg, massacre, 52
Einar jarl, 187, 248, 249 ; and see Torf-
Einar
Eirik Blodox, 50, 140-142, 210, 227, 249
- - jarl, 158
Eiriksmal, 142
Eitgall the Hermit, 73
Emma, Queen, 158, 163
Engleneldj battle, 92
Eohric, King, 101
Eowils, Ecwils, King, 126
Erg, ark, arrow, for saner, 122, 178, 195,
199, 212, 213, 221, 223, 239
Erlend Haraldsson, 245, 253, 254
Esks, askar, 99
Elssex, Vikings in, 98, 101, 103, 146, 149,
155, 156
Etaples, 78
Ethandune, battle, 96
Exeter, 94, 98, 152, 183
FJEKOKS, 54, 72
Farming of Norse settlers, 193-196, 211,
216
Fergus of Galloway, 234
Festermen of abp. yElfric, 165, 166, 174
Fibula;, 206, 207, 242
Fingaill, Finghoill, 60, 124
Fingal, Finngall, 47, 63, 233
Finlaec of Moray, 229
Finn-lochlannaigh, 60
Five Boroughs, 108-118
Flosi the Icelander, 188
Folklore of Cumberland, 220 ; Orkney,
261
Fomorians, 47
For bury, 92
Fortifications of Anglo-Saxons, 97, 116-
118 ; of Vikings, 42, 85, 88, 91, 93, 94,
97. I0 4. 211, 2 47
Fortrenn, 68
Fouds of Shetland, 261
Foula ballad, 259
Frasna, 91
Fuarlochlann, 60
Fulford, battle, 171
Fulham camp, 93, 96
GAEI.IC loan-words, 133, 178, 193, 195,
221, 226, 231
words from Norse, 238, 239
Gaill, use of term, 59, 60
Gallgael, 123, 200, 208,^23-231, 234, 237
Galloway, Vikings in, 93, 123, 207, 221-
226, 229, 235, 250, 264
Gamelbearn, 169
Gamel Ormsson, 169
Geleachan, King, 132, 226
Germans in North England, 46, 179
Gilli jarl, 228, 229
Glamorgan, Vikings in, 69, 185-187
Glonieorn Glunier, 169
Gloucester, 95
Gluniarainn, 139, 169
Godfred, king of Denmark, 58, 71
or Godred Haraldsson of Man, 187,
190, 228, 233
Godred Crovan, 233, 234
Don, 235
Olafsson of Man, 234
Sigtryggsson of Man, 233
Godv\ine, 158, 162, 163, 167, 168
Gofraith mac Feargus, 224
268
Gormflaith, Queen, 139
Vdmund's daughter, 255
Gosforth, Cumbd., 219
Gospatric, 169
of Bernicia, 173, 174; his charter,
203
Gotfrith, Guthfraith O'lvar, 129, 130
Gower, 69, 184-187
Gragabai (Krakabein), 129
Greenwich, 153, 155
Grelatig, Duncan's daughter, 249
Grim Kamban, 54, 74
Grimsby, 112, 174
Gruffydd ap Madoc, 189
, King, 188
Gunnhild, Knut's daughter, 159
wife of Pallig, 151, 152
Gurmundus, 47, 48
Guthferth, 127
hold, 127
Guthfrith Sigtryggsson, 131, 139
Guthorm-^thelstan, 48, 94-96, 101, 136
Guthorm II., 102, 105, 136
Guthorm, jarl .of Hebrides, 227
Guthred of York, 124-126
Gyda, wife of Godwine, 167
H/ERETHALAND, 44
Hakon, ^Ethelstan's foster-son, 136
Einksson jarl, 158
Hakonarson, King, 235, 236, 255
Ospak, 235
Paulsson, 251, 252
Halfdan, 87, 91-94, 119, 124, 205, 206,
225
Halegg, 249
II., 126, 127
Hamla and Har, 162
Hamlet, 139
Hamund, 94
Harald Blatonn, 140, 145
Fairhair, 136, 140, 207, 224, 247-
249
Hardradi, 170-173, 250, 251
Harefoot, 163, 164
Hilditonn, war-tooth, 14, 50
jarl, 91
Maddadh's son, 245, 2^3-255
the Smooth-spoken, 252
Sigtryggsson, 131, 227
, son of Olaf Cuaran, 139
Sveinsson, k. of Denmark, 155
Hardecnut and Guthred, 124
Harek Bard's son, 132, 226
Harold, king of England, 168, 170, 171
Hart, Heorot (hall at Leira) 54, 164
Hastein, Hasting, 82, 97-99, 125, 192,
208
Havamul, 22-24
Havardsteigr, 249
Havelock, 48, 139, 219, 220
Heather-ale, 244
Hebrides, Insigall, Sudreyjar, 72, 132,
226-230, 233-243
Helford, 184
Helgakvida, 37-39, 220
Helgri Magri, 224
Hemeid, King, 185
Hemming and Eylaf, 153
Hengestesdune, battle, 76, 185
Henry, bp., 247
Heradh, 36
Hersir, 102
Hertford, 103
Hidated districts, 106, 122, 198
Hildina ballad, 259
Hingwar, 83 ; and see Ivar
Hiring, Hring, 140
Hlodver jarl, 250
Hogbacks, 183, 187, 192, 199-201, 245
Holderness, 171, 175
Hold, 102, 174
Hdlmfast and Grim, 227
Hordakniit, 147, 162-167
Horm, Orm, 79
Howth, 73
Hring and Adils, 186
Hrdald, 185
Hrodwolf Grace, Hrolf Kraki, 13, 54
Hubba, 87 ; and see Ubbi
Hugleik, 53
Hundred courts, 160
Huntingdon, 104, 108
Huskarls, in, 161-163, 169, 170, 172
Hvitserk, 87
Hygelac, 53
Hyndluljod, 19, 65
IMERGI of Argyll, 230
I morcer j arl , 1 40
Impignoration of Orkney and Shetland,
2 56, 257
Ingimund, Igmund, 189, 191
of the Hebrides, 233
Ingjald, 13, 50
Ingle wood deerstealers, 180
Ingwar Widefathom, 13 ; and sec Ivar
Inisdowill, 73, 75, 139
Inishmurry, 70
Insigall, see Hebrides
lona, 69-74, 139, 223, 228, 242
lorvaighe, Norway, 60
INDEX
269
Ireland, Vikings in, 48, 59, 60, 69-77,
90, 130-139, 224-228
Isles, see Hebrides
Ivar O'lvar, 226
the Boneless, 49, 51, 86-90, 119
tanist of Dublin, 135
Widefathom, 49, 50 ; and see
Ingwar
Ivar's Knowe, 247
JARL, Earl, 42, 102
Jarlsnes, 133
Jarnkn6, 139, 169
Jarrovv. 63
Jehmarc, 230
John, bp., 255
Jorik, King, 101-103
Jorsajfarers at Maeshowe, 253
Jostein and Guthmund, 146, 150, 151
Jukil, Inchil, King, 218
KALI (Ragnvald) Kolsson, 252
Kari Solmundarson, 188, 228, 229
Karl Hundason, 228
Kells, 139
Kenneth mac Alpin, 224
Kent, Vikings in, 78-80, 96-98, 149, 150,
153- JSS, 168, 175
Ketil Flatr.ef, 224
Ketil the Fool, 135
Kniit, King, 147, 155-163, 229
Kolbein Hruga, 254
Kol Thorsteinsson, 188
LAG MAN (personal name), 63, 233, 237
Lagmenn, Lawmen, no, 190, 197, 227
Lagslig, lah-slit, 102
Lake district, Vikings in, 150, 202-220
Lambey, 48, 69
Lancashire, Vikings in, 122, 179, 197-201
Landican, 193, 196
Largs, battle, 236, 255
Lawmen of Danish towns, 108, no
Lawrightmen of Shetland, 262
Laws of Kniit, 159-161
Law terms of Orkney and Shetland, 258
Leet, 106
Leicester, 109, no, 117, 137
Leicestershire place-names, in
Leira, 54
Leofric of Mercia, 163
Leofred of Dublin, 189
Leofsige of Essex, 106, 151
Leysingi, 102, 114
Limerick, 77, 132, 226, 227
Lincoln, no, in, 118, 174
Lincolnshire place-names, 112, 113
Lindisfarne, 65-67, 137
Lindsey, 77, no, 149, 175
Lithsmen of London, 163 ; their song,
156-158
Llanrhidian stone. 187
Llywarch and Meredith ap Owain, 190
Lochlannaigh, 47, 60, 77
Lochlann (country), 59, 60 ; (personal
name), 63, 238
London, 78, 149, 154, 155, 158, 163, 164
Long hundred, 111
Lough Owel, 77
Lough Ree, 76
Lund, 122, 216
Lusk, 75
MACCUS of Maldon, 146
]\!;itlbaethe, 230
Maelbrigd of the Tusk, 248
Maelseachlann, 77
Maeshowe, 253
Magnus Barefoot, 47, 233, 236, 251
Bjarnarson, 228
Gilbride's son, 255
Maccus Olafsson, 210
Mactus Haraldsson of Man, 190,
227, 228, 233
St., 251, 252 ; cathedral, 254
son of Olaf the Black, 236
the name, 228
Malcolm Canmore, 170, 177, 229
, k. of Scots, 138, 210, 250
mac Eth, 234, 255
Maldon, 103-105, 146
Manchester, 118
Man, Isle of, 69, 150, 190, 207, 208, 226-
236, 242, 245
Mannanjarl, 105
Manntal, 160
Margaret of Norway, 236, 255
Marlborough, 153
Melkplf, Malcolm of Argyll, 229
Mercia, Vikings in, 78, 79, 88, 93. IOT,
108-118, 127, 136, 154
Meredith, Prince, 147, 187
Meretune, battle, 92
Merlesvein, 173, 174
Mersea Island, 98, 156
Mills of Shetland, etc., 263
Milton, 97
Morann of Lewis, 226
Moray, Vikings expelled, 234
Morkari of Northumbria, 169-171, 174
Mousa, broch, 245, 254
75
270
INDEX
Moylemurry, 132
Muirceartach mac Neill, 226
NAVIES of the Northmen, 28-33
Navy of the Anglo-Saxons, 78, 94, 99, 148
Niall, king of Ireland, 75
Njal's sons, 228
Norn, Norraena, 259
Norse, the earliest invasions, 54-56, 59,
71, 72, 146; settlements, 166, 174, 178,
182
Northampton, 103
Northman (personal name), 158
Northmen, use of the term, 44, 59
Northumbria, Vikings in, 67, 87, 88, 93-
99, 119-143, 171-175 ; devastation of,
175-178
Norway, derivation of, 59 ; ethnology
of, 1 6-2 1
Norwich, 103, 152
Nottingham, 88, 109, no, 115, 117
OCKLEY, battle, 78
Odnl, udal, 55, 114, 249, 250, 254
Odo, Oddi, abp., 137, 143
Ogam inscriptions, 244, 245
Ohthere, Ottar of Halogaland, 19, 100
Oisla, 87
Oisley, 131
Oistin, son of Olaf the White, 225. 248
Olaf Ball, 129
Billing, 234
Cuaran, 48, 50, 131, 135-141, 190,
227
Guthferthsson the Red, 134, 136,
137 u
the younger, 139
, St., 154, 155, 250; dedications to,
183, 247
the BI
90, 94, 224, 225,
5Iack, 235
the White, 87,
248
Tryggvason, 146, 148-151, 229, 246,
250
Olanege island, 156
Old Sarum, 152
Onphile jarla, 60
Orkney, 19, 54-56, 77, no, 132, 171,
.. 173, 228, 244-264 _
Orlyg and bp. Patrick, 243
Ormes Heads, 79
Orm the English, 50
Orphir, 252
Osbjorn, 91
Osferth the collector, 127
Ossian and Viking legends, 47
Oswigedune, 125
Oswulf of Bamborough, 141, 142, 210
Otford, battle, 155
Othlyn, 133
Othulf hold, 127
Ottar jarl, 127, 185, 208
jarl of Northumbria, 127
of Man, 233
the Black, 154
Otta, wife of Turgesius, 77
Owain of Cumbria, 130, 131, 209
Oxford, 152, 170
PALLIG jarl, 151, 152
Palnatoki, 145, 186, 187
Papar, priests, 241, 244
Paris, siege, 51, 78, 85
Paternoster of Orkney and Shetland, 260
Patronymics of Yorkshire and Cuinbcl.,
181
Paul and Erlend, 171, 251
the Silent, 252
Peat as fuel, 248
Peel, Isle of Man, 69
Pembroke, Vikings in, 184-189
Penmon, 190, 191
Penselwood, battle, 155
Picts of Galloway, 93
Pilgrimage of St. Cuthbert's relics, 123-
125, 207, 225
Piracy among Celts, 52
Place-names of Cornwall and Devon,
184 ; Cumberland and Westmorland,
203, 204, 211-216; Dumfriesshire, 221,
222 ; East Anglia, 105-108 ; Galloway,
223 ; Hebrides, 238-241 ; Ireland, 73 ;
Lancashire, 197, 199 ; Leicestershire,
in ; Lines., 112, 113 ; Man, 230, 231 ;
Orkney and Shetland, 55, 56, 244, 247 ;
Reading, 92; Wales, 79, 186, 187,
191 ; Wirral, 192-196 ; Yorks., 120-122
Portland, 77, 145
QUATFORD, 99, 116
Quoy, 107
RACHAIKE, Rathlin, 69
Ragnar Lodbrok, 50, 51, 87, 253
Ragnhild Eirik's daughter, 249
Ragnvald Brusason, 250, 251
Godred's son of Man, 234, 235
Guthfrithsson, 137
king of York, nS, 127-130, 208,
226
, St. (Kali Kolsson), 252-254
, son of Olaf Cuaran, 139
Sumarlidi's son, 234
INDEX
271
Ranig of Hereford, 163
Kanselmen of Shetland, 262
Raudabjorg, battle, 251
Ravaging of the North, 175, 181
Raven standard, 96
Reading, 91, 92, 153
Rechru, 48, 69
Repton, 93
Reycross, 142
Riccall, 171, 173
Richsi, Ricsig, 119, 129
Ringmere, battle, 153, 154
Rochester, 78, 96, 150
Roderick ap Merfyn, 79, 189
Roderic, son of Harald, 190
Roolwer, Hrolfr, bp., 232
Rorik, 78
Routes of early migration, 12-15
Rugby, 109
Runes, 26, 27, 55, 187, 201, 242, 245, 253
ST. CLAIR, earls of Orkney, 256
Sandwich, 78, 153
Saxon shore, 13, 45
Saxon war, 57, 58
Saxulf, 76
Scaklingi, 124
Scotland, Vikings in, 68-70, 73, 77, 89,
207, 225, 236, 245, 246 ; and sec Argyll,
Caithness, Dumfriesshire, Galloway,
Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland, Strath-
clyde
Scrufajarl, 127
Sculptured stones of Cornwall, 183 ;
Cumberland, 204, 205, 219, 222, 223;
Dumfriesshire, 222, 223 ; East Anglia,
103 ; Hebrides, 242 ; Gotland, 55 ;
Lancashire, 198-202 ; London, 164 ;
Man, 231, 232; Mercia, 115; Orkney
and Shetland, 244-246 ; Scotland, 246 ;
Wales, 187, 191 ; Wirral, 192, 196 ;
Yorkshire, 120, 122, 142, 143
Sea-faring in the pre-Viking age, 52 ; of
the Scandinavians, 28-42, 67
Sea-kings, 42, 47
Sea- language, 261
Setr, saeter, in place-names, 195, 199,
211, 212
Sheppey, 75, 78, 79, 155
Sherstone, battle, 155
Shetland, 54-56, 77. 244-24.6, 249, 250,
255-263
Ships of the Scandinavians, 28-33, 99
Shocbury, 98
Sigeferth, Sigfrith, 125, 131
Sigeric, abp., 146
Sigferth, Siferth of Wales, 185
Sigfred, king of Denmark, 58
Ring, 13 ; and see Sigurd Hring
Sigtrygg Cam, 139
Gale, 127, 130, 131, 135
Silkiskeggi, 139
the old, and Sigtrygg the young, 91
Sigurd Hlodversson, 55, 228, 246, 250
Hring, 50
Magnusson, 251
(Siward), earl of Deira, 163, 169
Snake-eye, 87
I. of Orkney, 94, 248
the VolsimjL 50, 300, 231
Skathald, 262 ^--'
Skellig Mhichel, 73
Skjoldungs, 54, 124
Skye, 69, 237, 239, 240
Slave-trade, 64, 66, 67, 73
Sodor. and Man, 233
Sokemen, 113, 114
Somerset, Vikings in, 78, 95, 96
Sources of Viking Age history, S-n
Southampton, 77, 145, 150
Star, in place-names, 194
Stainmoor, battle, 142, 249
Staithe, in place-names, 108, 194, 197
Stamford, no, 117
- Bridge, 171, 172, 233
Stefnirjarl, 186
Stillingfleet church-door, 173
Strand hogg, 66
Strangford Lough, battle, 124
Strathclyde, 89, 90, 208, 209
Stratherne earls of Orkney, 256
Stidreyjar, sec Hebrides
Sueno's pillar, 246
Sumarlidi (personal name), 63, 66
Somerled, 234, 235
Svein Asleifarson, 252, 254
Forkbeard, 145, 149-155, 186, 190,
229
, God wine's son, 168
, Kmit's son, 163
Suibhne, of Man, 228, 229
Ulfsson, k. of Denmark, 167, 170
J 74
Sverrir, King, 255
Swine-fylking, 86
Syllingar islands, 149
TADDENESSCYLFE, 140
Tarn worth, 130, 136
Tara, battle, 139
Tempsford, 104, 105
Tenmantale, 160
Tettenhall, battle, 116
Thetford, 88
272
INDEX
Thingsteads, sites of, 106, 121, 192, 196,
218, 221, 252, 261
Thjodulf Arnorsson, 172
Tliord Gunnarsson, 143, 148, 149, 210
Thorfinn Hausakljiif, 249
- jarl of Orkney, 229, 233, 250, 251,
264 _
Thorfrith jarl, 105
Thorgest, Turgesius, 76, 86
Thorgils, son of Harald Fairhair, 76
Thorir, tanist of Lochlann, 59
Thorkel the Tall, 153-155, 157, 158
Thorketil jarl, 103, 104
Thorney island, 98
Thorolf, bp., 171, 247
Thorstein the Red, 94, 225, 248
Thracll, 102, 113
Three keels of Hengist, 43, 44, 51
Thurferth hold, 127
Thurgod, bp., 174
Thurig of East Mercia, 163
Thurstaston, 192-195
Thwaite, in place-names, 108, 178, 194,
i95, 23. 2 .3i
Toglea, Toll, 105
Tomhrair erla, 59
Torf-Einar, 55, 56, 248-250
Torksey, 93, 115
Tosti Godwinsson, 168-171
Trade in the Viking Age, 16-19, 100, 115
Trithings, 106, 121
Tryggviof the Hebrides, 227
Tryg Trandilsson, 253
Tuki, 164
Tun, in place-names, 193, 194
Turgesius, 76, 77
Tympanum at Pennington, 201
Tynemoor, battle, 130
UBBI, 94-96, 185 ; and see Hubba
Udal ; see Odal
Uhtred Eadulfsson, 128, 137
- of Northumbria, 154, 155
Ulf Dolfinsson, 169
Ulfketil,' Ulfkell Snillingr, 105, 152, 153,
WF.TTVANGR, 122
Vastern dyke, 92
Vedast, St., 103
Vemund, Wymund of Furness, 234, 235
Vigrlags-rett, 162 _
Vik, place-names in, 191, 193
Viken, the Vik, 18
Viking, use of the word, 61-63
Vinheifti, battle, 133, 186
Vithrir and Di Veteres, 46
Volund, 80
WALBURY camp, 99
Wales, Vikings in, 69, 79, 98, 99, 127,
147, 184-191, 229
Waltheof I. of Bernicia, 149
Waltheof, Siward's son, 169, 175
Wapentakes, 106, 121
War-customs of the Northmen, 34-42,
83-86, 99, 130
Warehatn, 94
Waterford, 132
Watling Street, 96, 109
Wedmore, Frith of, 96, 102
Wednesfield, battle, n6, 127
Wendune, battle, 133
Wertermor (Kirriemuir ?), 131
Wessex, Vikings in, 75-80, 91-99, 145,
149
Westmorland, Vikings in, 122, 202-220
West Wales, 76, 183
White and Black Gaill ; see Black
Whithorn, 123, 124, 222, 223, 225, 229
Wicganbeorh, 78
Wicklow, 70, 77, 139
Wigtownshire ; see Galloway
William the Conqueror, 148, 170, 173-175
the Lion, 235, 255
Wilton, 152
Winchester, 80
Winganmere, 104
Wirral, Vikings in, 189, 192-196
Witham, 103
Wulfnoth turns Viking, 153
Wulfric Spot, 198
Wulfstan, abp. , 136, 137, 140
the voyager, 100
YORK, 88, 117, 119, 125-127, 136-139,
141, 171, 174, 176
Yorkshire, depopulation and repopula-
tion, 175-181 ; monuments and place-
names, 120-122, 173 ; personal names,
165, 166, 169, 174, 181
Ysopa, 102
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