Murtough of the Leather Cloaks
Ireland as well as Norway and the Orkneys had her saga-tales of the
events of the viking period. About the middle of the tenth century
two princes, one in the north of Ireland and one in the south, are
noted for their wars against the Norse. Both had strange and romantic
careers, and of both we have full details told by their own poets
or chroniclers. These two contemporary princes were Murtough of the
Leather Cloaks, in Ulster, and Callaghan of Cashel, in Munster. The
career of the former concerns us most.
Murtough was a prince of the O’Neills, and he ruled his clans from an
immense fortress called Aileach, in North Londonderry, whose walls,
with secret passages in their thicknesses, remain to the present day
to testify to the massive strength of the old fortifications. He was
son of a brave king of Ireland, Niall Glundubh or “Black-knee,” who had
fallen in fight with the Danes of Dublin after a short but vigorous
reign, spent in warring against his country’s foes. Murtough had been
brought up in the tradition of resistance to the common enemy, and
well did he answer to the call of duty. No doubt he was determined to
avenge his father’s fall. Again and again he gathered together the
clans over whom he ruled and endeavoured to push back the invader. His
career is a brilliant succession of victories. We first hear of him in
full chase of Godfrey and the Dublin Danes during one of their raids
on Armagh. Murtough stole up behind, coming on their track at fall of
night, and only a few of the enemy escaped in the glimmering twilight,
because they could not be seen by the Irish. Four years afterwards he
dealt them another severe blow on Carlingford Lough, in the middle of
winter, which seems to have been Murtough’s favourite time for warfare,
and here eight hundred were killed, and the remainder besieged for a
week, so that they had to send to Dublin for assistance. King Godfrey
came to their aid, and raised the siege; but these defeats seem to have
discouraged the foreigners, for soon after this Godfrey left Dublin
to claim the throne of Northumbria, left vacant by the retirement of
Sitric Gale, and Murtough took advantage of his absence to make a
descent on Dublin with Donagh, the King of Ireland, raiding south to
Kildare.
[Illustration: _Murtough on his Journey with the King of Munster in
Fetters_]
A misfortune overtook Murtough soon after his return home. The Northern
foreigners laid siege to his fortress, and succeeded in taking him
prisoner, and carrying him off to their ships. The prince was ransomed
by his people, and took his revenge by penetrating with his fleet to
the Hebrides, and carrying off much booty from their Norse inhabitants.
This successful foreign expedition so much increased his fame that
we find him soon afterwards making a warlike circuit of the entire
country, and taking hostages of all the provincial kings of Ireland. It
was this circuit through Ireland that gained him his title of “Murtough
of the Leather Cloaks,” from the warm cloaks of rough hide or leather
which he and his attendants wore to protect them from the cold. The
famous journey was performed in the depth of the winter of 942, after
his return from “Insi-Gall,” or the Isles of the Foreigners, as the
Hebrides were frequently called. He summoned all the clans over whom he
ruled, and chose out of them a bodyguard of a thousand picked men, with
whom he proceeded eastward into Antrim, then south to Dublin, thence
into Leinster and Munster, and homeward through Connaught to Ulster
again. Leinster and Munster threatened to oppose him, but the sight of
his thousand chosen warriors seems to have deterred them. Murtough took
with him his clan bard, who has written in verse which still exists an
account of their journey. Their leather cloaks they used for wraps by
day and for tents by night. Snow often lay deep on the ground on which
they had to sleep, but they would “dance to music on the plain, keeping
time to the heavy shaking of their cloaks.” Murtough returned home with
an imposing array of princes as his hostages, for none dare refuse
to acknowledge his supremacy. Sitric, a Danish lord of Dublin, was
delivered to him by the Northmen; a prince of Leinster followed, and
a young son of Tadhg of the Towers, King of Connaught, who alone went
unfettered, while all the others were in chains. But his most audacious
stroke was the demand that Callaghan, King of Cashel, in Munster,
should be delivered to him fettered. Such an unheard-of demand was not
easily acquiesced in; but Murtough would accept no other hostage, and
at length, apparently at the King’s own request, he was delivered into
the hands of the proud prince of the North. This fettering of a King
of Munster caused a sensation at the time and was the burthen of many
poems.
After his triumphal entry into his palace with his princely hostages,
rejoicings and feastings went on for the space of five months,
the hostages taking part in all the festivities and being royally
entertained. The Queen herself waited on them and saw to all their
wants. Before their arrival messengers had been sent forward to tell
the Queen to send out her maidens to cut fresh rushes for the floor
and to bring in kine and oxen for the feast. The Queen on her own
behalf, to show her joy, supplied them all with food, and her banquets
“banished the hungry look from the army.”
When the season of rejoicing was past Murtough led the captive princes
out of his castle, and lest he should seem to be assuming glory and
rights not properly his own, he sent them under escort to the High-King
of Ireland, begging him, in courtly language, to receive them in
token of his submission and respect. His message runs thus: “Receive,
O Donagh, these noble princes, for there is none in Erin so greatly
exalted as thyself.”
But Donagh, King of Ireland, would not accept so great a token of
submission at Murtough’s hands. He replied: “Now thou art a greater
prince than I, O King! Thy hand it was that took these princes captive;
in all Ireland is there none thine equal.” So the captives were sent
back, and apparently set free, with the blessing of the King of Ireland.
Only one year afterwards, in 943, Murtough again met the angry Northmen
at the ford of Ardee, on the River Boyne, and fell by the sword of
Blacaire, son of Godfrey, lord of the Foreigners. There is something
romantic and unusual in every act of this Northern prince of the
O’Neills, and we feel inclined to echo the despairing words of the old
chronicler who records his death: “Since Murtough does not live the
country of the Gael is for ever oppressed.”
It would seem to have been a daughter of this brave Murtough whose
story we find in the Icelandic Laxdæla Saga, and who in these troublous
times was carried away by the Norse out of her own country and sold as
a slave in Northern Europe, eventually being purchased by an Icelander
and carried away to Iceland. Her story is so interesting in itself and
throws so much light on the conditions of the time that we will now
tell it at length. If it was really Murtough of the Leather Cloaks
who was father to this poor enslaved princess, torn from her home in
Ireland and carried far overseas, never to return, we cease to wonder
at the persistent hatred with which Murtough pursued the foes at whose
hand he had received so great injuries as the death of his father and
the loss of his daughter. In this case he was the grandfather of the
famous Icelandic chief, Olaf Pa, or Olaf the Peacock.