Part 29

Many accounts testify that the Norwegians in Ireland, at least in the cities, and especially Dublin, were powerful enough to maintain their language, and the rest of their Scandinavian characteristics, in spite of the Irish. The Icelandic bards, Thorgils Orraskjald and Gunnlaug Ormstunga, are expressly stated to have visited the court of the Norwegian kings in Dublin in the tenth and eleventh centuries, where they diverted the Scandinavian warriors with their national songs. Ancient Irish manuscripts contain proofs not only of the peculiar language, but also of the peculiar writing, of the Norwegians, or runes, which in Irish were called “Ogham na Loochlannach” or “Gallogham” (the Northmen’s, or strangers’, Ogham). Ogham was the name of a mode of writing then used by the Irish. There are also some traces of characteristic Scandinavian institutions among the Norwegians and Danes in Ireland. In an Irish poem of the early middle ages, about the Norwegian chief “Magnus the Great,” the Norwegians are called “the people with the twelve counsellors.” This leads us to think that the Norwegians, like the Danes in England, must have employed in their judicial proceedings a sort of jury, consisting of twelve men of repute, an institution so foreign and striking to the Irish, that they were led to characterize the Norwegians by it. It is at least quite certain that the Norwegians in Ireland, as the Irish chronicles admit, kept themselves entirely separate from the Irish with regard to their ecclesiastical institutions, and that they likewise had their own assize place in Dublin, which bore the Scandinavian name _Thing_. A document of the year 1258 conveys a gift of some ground in the suburbs of Dublin, in “Thengmotha” (from “mote,” a meeting), which the Irish publisher of it (the Rev. R. Butler) correctly explains by “the place of legal assembly in the Danish times of Dublin.” The _Thing_ place, which seems to have been not far from the present site of Dublin Castle, where the Norwegians had erected a strong fortress, gave to the surrounding parish of St. Andrew the surname of “de Thengmote.”

One of the chief causes that the Norwegians in the Irish cities maintained uninterruptedly their Scandinavian characteristics, and consequently their independent power likewise, was that they not only lived in the midst of the Irish, but that, as Giraldus Cambrensis expressly intimates, they erected in every city a town of their own, surrounded with deep ditches and strong walls, which secured them against the attacks of the natives. They built a rather extensive town for themselves on the river Liffey, near the old city of Dublin, which was strongly fortified with ditches and walls, and which, after the Norwegians and Danes (or Ostmen) settled there, obtained the name of Ostmantown (in Latin, “vicus,” or “villa Ostmannorum”), _i. e._ the Eastmen’s town. Even the Irish chronicles, which attest that, as early as the beginning of the tenth century, the Norwegians in Dublin had well intrenched themselves with walls and ramparts, also state that in the art of fortifying towns they were far superior to the Irish. Ostmantown continued through the whole of the middle ages to form an entirely separate part of Dublin, and the gates of the strong fortifications with which it was surrounded were carefully closed every evening. The walls were at length razed, and Ostmantown, or, as it was now corruptly pronounced, “Oxmantown” (whence an Irish peer has obtained in modern times the title of Lord Oxmantown), was completely incorporated with Dublin. But to the present day the name of Oxmantown remains an incontrovertible monument of an independent Norwegian town formerly existing within the greatest and most considerable city of Ireland.

SECTION IV.

Norwegian Names of Places, near Dublin.—Norwegian Burial—Places.—Norwegian Weapons and Ornaments.

The few Scandinavian names of places in Ireland are, with the exception of the previously-mentioned provinces, confined to the coasts, and there particularly to the names of islands and fiords. On the west coast there are only two rather doubtful ones; namely, Enniskerry, an island (the first part of which is the Irish _Inis_, an island, whilst the latter part seems to include the Scandinavian name “_Sker_,” or _Skjær_, a reef); and the harbour, Smerwick. Several places on rivers are still called _Laxweir_, as for example on the Shannon near Limerick and Killaloe, where salmon are caught in a net stretched across the river. The word “Lax” (salmon) is unknown in the Irish language, but appears, as we have seen, in several Scandinavian names of places in Scotland. On the south coast, besides Waterford, we can mention at most only the Isle of Dursey (Þorsey?) with the small adjoining island of Calf. The greatest number of Scandinavian names appears on the east coast. In some names of places situated on the finest fiords we may trace the Scandinavian ending “fjörðr;” as, for instance, to the south of Dublin in Wexford (in Irish, Loch Garman), and to the north of Dublin, in Strangford and Carlingford (in Irish, Cuan Cairlinne). But in general, all the names of places of Scandinavian origin, or with Scandinavian terminations, are collected round Dublin as the central point.

At the southern entrance of the bay of Dublin is the Island of “Dalkey” (in Irish, “Delg Inis”), and at the northern entrance the high and rounded cape Howth (in Irish, “Ceann Fuaid,” or “Beann Edair”), which in ancient letters is also called Hofda, Houete, and Houeth. This is clearly the Scandinavian “höfud,” or “Hoved” (head), a name particularly suited to the place. In the immediate neighbourhood is also the old Danish town Baldoyle, and the district of Finngall, colonized by the Norwegians. Directly north of Howth rises “Ireland’s-eye” (in Irish, “Inis Eirinn” and “Inis Meic Ness-áin”); and still farther to the north the islands of “Lambay” (in Irish, “Rachrainn”) and “Skerries,” or the Skjære (reefs). Close to the west side of Dublin is the little town of Leixlip, where there is a famed salmon-leap in the river Liffey. In old Latin epistles the name of Laxleip is translated by “saltus salmonis,” which is plainly neither more nor less than the old Norsk “lax-hlaup” (_Dan._, Laxlöb; _Eng._, salmon-leap): which name reminds us again of the salmon fishery, so highly cherished by the ancient Norwegians. It is doubtful whether the county of Wicklow, which adjoins that of Dublin, derived its name from the Norwegians; though it is not improbable that it did, as in Irish it is called Inbhear Dea, but in old documents Wykynglo, Wygyngelo, and Wykinlo, which remind us of the Scandinavian Vig (Eng., _bay_) or Viking.

At all events the decidedly Scandinavian names of places around Dublin sufficiently indicate the predominance of the ancient Norwegians and Danes in that city. Discoveries made by excavations in and around Dublin have also, in recent times, very remarkably contributed towards placing this matter in a still clearer light.

In constructing a railway close by Kilmainham, now the most western part of Dublin, the workmen some years ago laid bare a number of ancient tombs. In these lay whole rows of skeletons, each in its own grave, and by the side of them many kinds of iron weapons and ornaments. Fortunately several of the specimens thus discovered were preserved, principally for the museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin; by which means Irish archæologists had an opportunity of convincing themselves that these antiquities must be a good deal older than the English conquest of Ireland; yet that they are by no means of the kind usually found in Ireland, and belonging to the period of the Irish iron age. It is thus placed beyond all doubt, that they are not Irish remains, but derived from the Norwegians and Danes at that time settled in Ireland. The few illustrations here annexed will present to every Scandinavian archæologist mere well-known objects, corresponding so exactly with the antiquities of the iron age preserved in our Scandinavian museums, that we might even believe them to have been made by the same hands.

The swords (Figs. 1-3), which very much resemble the Scandinavian swords found in England (described at p. 45,) are from twenty-four to thirty-two inches long. Some have two edges, others only one. The pommel and guard of the hilt are in several of them ornamented with very neatly inlaid pieces of gold, silver, and other metals. On one of them some engraved Latin letters have been found, which may also be seen on a sword of the iron age in the Museum at Copenhagen. Even the old Irish chronicles relate that the Norwegians placed inscriptions on their swords. Thus an ancient Irish poem says: “Hither was brought, in the sword sheath of Lochlan’s king, the Ogham across the sea. It was his own hand that cut it.” It is most probable that by the Ogham writing is here meant “the Norwegian’s Ogham,” or runes, with which, as our Sagas state, the old Northmen’s swords were frequently ornamented.

Several genuine Irish iron swords of that ancient period have been discovered in Ireland at various times, both in the river Shannon and in old Irish castle-yards, or on the sites of castles. They are much smaller than the Norwegian swords, and in general want both the guard and the large pommel at the end of the hilt, as the annexed figure of those most frequently found shows. On the whole the Irish iron swords are of an older and more imperfect kind, and very strikingly resemble the bronze sword used in Ireland in the age of bronze. On placing the short and ill-formed Irish sword by the side of the much larger, better, and handsomer Norwegian one, we may almost say that we obtain, as it were, a living image of the degenerate and miserably-equipped Irish people in comparison with the strong and well-armed Norwegians.

The Norwegian warriors who found their last resting-place at Kilmainham, were evidently buried with all their arms, from the renowned “Danish battle-axe” (Fig. 4), and the lance (Figs. 5, 6)—which must have been deposited with the entire shaft, since the ferrule (Fig. 7) has been found—down to the shield. But as the last was mostly of wood, nothing more remains of the whole shield than the large iron boss (Figs. 8, 9), which was placed in the middle, and which served to protect the hand which bore the shield.

Among all the things discovered at Kilmainham, scarcely any more decidedly indicate their Norwegian, or Scandinavian, origin, than the bowl-formed brooches (Figs. 10, 11), already mentioned when speaking of the coasts of Scotland, and which are not found in any other part of Ireland. There are also some very peculiar small bone buttons (Fig. 12), having a small hole in the flat side, penetrating the button for some way without entirely piercing through it. Buttons of this form have not been before found in Ireland, though they are very well known in the Scandinavian North. They are discovered in Sweden and Norway, in graves of the period of the iron age, or times of the Vikings. It is highly probable that in those times they served as men, or counters in some game, as they are generally found, especially in Norway, collected together in great numbers, and in conjunction with dice. To judge from the holes in the bottom, they have certainly been used in a sort of game of draughts; for, till late in the middle ages, nay, almost down to our own times, the Icelanders were accustomed to furnish their boards with small pivots, on which they placed the men, that they might not by any accidental shaking of the table be mixed with one another, and the whole game thus suddenly disturbed. The Irish also seem to have had a somewhat similar mode of proceeding at that time, as among a great number of things undoubtedly Irish, discovered at Dunshauglin, there was found a bone button or knob, certainly a draughtsman, which, instead of a hole, is furnished with a metal point at the bottom, by which it was evidently intended to be fixed in the board. But for the Scandinavian Vikings, who were so much at sea, and who, it seems, liked to while away the time by playing draughts, such a precaution was doubly necessary, as the rolling of the vessel would otherwise have thrown the draughtsmen together every moment. It is remarkable that at Kilmainham, as well as in Scandinavia itself, the draughtsmen are found deposited in the graves, by the side of the arms and ornaments of the warriors. This affords an instructive proof that the old Northmen must have been very fond of gaming; and consequently that the picture drawn by Tacitus of the passion of the ancient Germans for play, which at times even led them to gamble away their personal freedom, might apply to their neighbours, the Scandinavians.

We can scarcely err in referring the antiquities found at Kilmainham to the ninth, or at latest to the tenth century. The mode of burial is heathenish rather than Christian; and, as is known, the Norwegians settled in Ireland were converted to Christianity in the tenth century at latest, and probably still earlier. It is not at all probable that the graves are to be attributed to an isolated band of heathen Vikings, who came over at a later period, and who, after a battle, buried their dead on the field. The great number of graves, and the careful manner in which each is said to have been set or enclosed with stones, rather show that they were made in all tranquillity by the Norwegians and Danes, who at that time dwelt in Dublin, or its immediate neighbourhood, and who probably had a common burial ground there. Scandinavians appear also to have been buried in an adjoining churchyard, which at that time belonged to a convent dedicated to St. Magnen, but which afterwards became the burial-place for a hospital of the knights of the order of St. John, founded at Kilmainham. It has at length become one of the largest churchyards in Dublin. In corroboration of the conjecture that Scandinavians were buried in it, it may be mentioned that a tall upright stone with carved spiral ornaments stands there—a sort of monumental, or bauta-stone, under which, several years ago, various coins were discovered, minted by Norwegian kings in Ireland; and near them a handsome two-edged iron sword, with a guard and a longish flat pommel. Some have, indeed, thought that this sword must have belonged to Murrough, a son of Brian Boru, or to Murrough’s son Turlough, as both these warriors, having fallen in the battle of Clontarf, are said to have been buried in this churchyard. This, however, is only a vague conjecture; whilst it is quite certain that the above-mentioned sword agrees most accurately in form with the many swords of the Vikings’ times found in the North. There is, therefore, reason to suppose, that the sword was formerly deposited there with the body of a Norwegian warrior; and this supposition is strengthened by the discovery of the Norwegian-Irish coins.

Other old Norwegian, or Scandinavian burial-places, have been discovered in the Phœnix Park, near Dublin, where a pair of bowl-formed brooches were found near a skeleton. In making, a few years ago, some excavations in Dublin itself, in “College Green,” which formerly lay outside the city, the workmen met with several iron swords, axes, lances, arrows, and shields, of the well-known Scandinavian forms. It is probable that this also was a burial-place similar to that at Kilmainham. With the exception of the burial-place on the coast of Lough Larne, the ancient Ulfreksfjord, no other decidedly Norwegian graves are hitherto known to have been discovered in Ireland.

Just as the proportionally numerous Norwegian graves near Dublin prove that a considerable number of Norwegians must have been settled there, so also do the peculiar form and workmanship of the antiquities that have been discovered in them afford a fresh evidence of the superior civilization which the Norwegians in and near Dublin must, for a good while at least, have possessed in comparison with the Irish. The antiquities hitherto spoken of only prove, indeed, that the Norwegians and other Northmen were superior to the Irish with regard to arms and martial prowess. But there are other Norwegian antiquities, originating in Ireland, and found both in and out of that country, which also prove that the Danes and Norwegians formerly settled there contributed, like their kinsmen in England, by peaceful pursuits, to influence very considerably the progress of civilization in Ireland.

SECTION V.

Ancient Irish Christianity and Civilization.—Trade.—No Irish, but Norwegian Coins.—Sigtryg Silkeskjæg.—Norwegian Coiners.

Centuries before the introduction of Christianity into the Scandinavian North (in the tenth and eleventh centuries)—nay, centuries before the actual commencement of the Viking expeditions—the Irish people had been Christianized. At a very early period numbers of churches and convents were erected in Ireland, which was also celebrated for its many holy men. It was a common saying that the Irish soil was so holy that neither vipers, nor any other poisonous reptiles, could exist upon it. Numerous priests set out from Ireland as missionaries to the islands lying to the west of Scotland; nay, they even went as far as the Faroe Islands and Iceland, long before those islands had been colonized. Thus, when the Northmen first discovered Iceland (about the year 860), they found no population there; but on “Papey,” in “Papyli,” and several places in the east and south of the country, they found traces of “Papar,” or Christian priests, who had left behind them croziers, bells, and Irish books; whence they perceived that these priests were “Westmen,” or Irishmen; for just as the Irish called the Scandinavians “Ostmen,” because their home lay to the east of Ireland, so also did the Scandinavians call the Irish “Westmen.” The most southern group of islands near Iceland is called to the present day “Vestmannaeyjar” (the Westman Isles), because, at the time of their colonization, a number of Irish serfs, or Westmen, were put to death there for deceiving their masters.

Not even the Norwegian expeditions into Ireland, and the destruction of churches and convents by which they were accompanied, were able to annihilate the influence of the Irish clergy on the diffusion of Christianity in the north-western part of Europe. Not only were the Norwegians and Danes settled in Ireland and the rest of the Western Isles soon converted from heathenism by Irish monks and priests, but Christianity was communicated through these converts to many of their Scandinavian countrymen, who visited Ireland partly as Vikings and partly as merchants. Thus the Norwegian king Olaf Tryggvesön was baptized by an abbot on the Sylling Isles near Ireland, or, as other Sagas state, “to the west over in Ireland;” whence we may probably conclude that the Sylling Isles are not, as was before supposed, the Scilly Isles near England, but the Skellig Isles on the south-west coast of Ireland, on one of which there was at that time a celebrated abbey. At all events, it is certain that Olaf Tryggvesön, during his long abode with his brother-in-law, King Olaf Kvaran, in Dublin, must, by his constant intercourse with the Irish Christians, have been strengthened in his determination to christianize Norway. Another proof of the influence of Christianity in Ireland on the North is, that an Irish princess, Sunneva, was at a later period worshipped as a saint in Norway. Her body is alleged to have been deposited in a large and handsome shrine over the high altar in Christ Church, in Bergen, and on the 8th of July the Norwegians celebrated an annual mass in her honour. Even in Iceland there is a fiord, or firth, on the north-west coast, called “Patreksfjorðr,” after St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

As we have before stated, the commencements of a national Irish literature were also developed among the clergy at a very early period; which, together with the numerous ecclesiastical buildings in Ireland, prove that the Irish clergy of those times must have attained no mean degree of civilization, and that with regard to education they must, in certain respects, have been a great deal in advance of the heathen Scandinavians. But not to speak of the Icelandic literature—which developed itself in the remotest North immediately after the heathen times, and contemporaneously with the Norwegian dominion in Ireland, and which both in form and substance was undoubtedly far superior to the Irish—there is reason enough to doubt whether the Irish people of that time, although christianized, were really more educated or more advanced in true civilization than the certainly too much decried heathen Norwegians and their Scandinavian kinsmen. It is true, indeed, that the Norwegian Vikings made their way with fire and sword, that they destroyed a number of churches and convents in Ireland, and that in this manner they often occasioned the most violent intestine commotions, which for a time, at least, could not but tend to hinder the progressive development of Christian civilization. But the Irish chronicles themselves teach us that the Christian Irish acted precisely in the same manner at the same period. In their mutual contentions they often burnt ecclesiastical buildings, plundered the shrines of saints, and maltreated the clergy, besides, as is well known, constantly perpetrating amongst themselves the most horrible butchery. Lastly, in Ireland, as in England, we must certainly distinguish between the Vikings, who came to the country for the sake of war and plunder, and the colonists, whose aim it was to obtain a new home in Ireland. The latter brought with them not only great skill in the forging and management of arms, as well as in building and navigating ships for expeditions, both of war and trade, but likewise had their own runic writing; and by the readiness with which they imbibed the newer Christian civilization, soon acquired the ascendancy in the most important Irish cities, so as to become perceptibly enough, not only the equals, but the superiors of the Irish.

What particularly warrants us in doubting the alleged early and extensive civilization of the Irish, is the very striking circumstance that, previously to the arrival of the Norwegians, they do not appear to have carried on any very great trade, or on the whole to have had any very extensive intercourse with the rest of Europe. This appears particularly from the fact that the Irish at that time (about the year 800) had not yet minted any coins of their own; although their Celtic neighbours in Britain and Gaul had for centuries—that is, from about the birth of Christ—minted a great number, mostly in imitation of Greek and Roman coins. And though the Romans, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons, after their conquests of France and England, had made very considerable coinages in those countries, we do not even find in Ireland any trace of the coins of these neighbouring people being brought over the sea in any considerable quantity before the period mentioned. Yet in other countries, where the minting of coins also came late into use—as, for instance, in the Scandinavian North—so great a quantity of older foreign coins, together with all sorts of foreign valuables, is continually dug up as to show that even at a very early period active connections of trade must have existed between the Northmen and more southern nations. Neither Phenician nor Celtic coins are known to have been found in Ireland, and discoveries even of Roman and the more ancient Anglo-Saxon coins are very rare.