THE CHRISTIAN IRISH AND THE PAGAN DANES.
For several centuries the Irish continued in the happy state
described in the last chapter. While the whole European
Continent was convulsed by the irruptions of the Germanic tribes,
and of the Huns, more savage still, the island was at peace,
opened her schools to the youth of all countries--to Anglo-
Saxons chiefly--and spread her name abroad as the happy and holy
isle, the dwelling of the saints, the land of prodigies, the
most blessed spot on the earth. No invading host troubled her;
the various Teutonic nations knew less of the sea than the Celts
themselves, and no vessel neared the Irish coast save the
peaceful curraghs which carried her monks and missionaries
abroad, or her own sons in quest of food and adventure.
Providence would seem to have imposed upon the nation the lofty
mission of healing the wounds of other nations as they lay
helpless in the throes of death, of keeping the doctrines of the
Gospel alive in Europe, after those terrible invasions, and of
leading into the fold of Christ many a shepherdless flock. The
peaceful messengers who went forth from Ireland became as
celebrated as her home schools and monasteries; and well had it
been for the Irish could such a national life as this have
continued.
But God, who wished to prepare them for still greater things in
future ages, who proves by suffering all whom he wishes to use
as his best instruments, allowed the fury of the storm to burst
suddenly upon them. It was but the beginning of their woes, the
first step in that long road to Calvary, where they were to be
crucified with him, to be crucified wellnigh to the death before
their final and almost miraculous resurrection. The Danes were
to be the first torturers of that happy and holy people; the
hardy rovers of the northern seas were coming to inaugurate a
long era of woe.
The Scandinavian irruption which desolated Europe just as she
was beginning to recover from the effects of the first great
Germanic wave, may be said to have lasted from the eighth to the
twelfth century. Down from the North Sea came the shock; Ireland
was consequently one of the first to feel it, and we shall see
how she alone withstood and finally overcame it.
The better to understand the fierceness of the attack, let us
first consider its origin:
The Baltic Sea and the various gulfs connected with it penetrate
deeply the northern portion of the Continent of Europe. Its
indentations form two peninsulas: a large one, known under the
name of Norway and Sweden, and a lesser one on the southwest,
now called Denmark. The first was known to the Romans as Scania;
the second was called by them the Cimbric Chersonesus. From
Scania is derived the name Scandinavians, afterward given to the
inhabitants of the whole country. Besides these two peninsulas,
there are several islands scattered through the surrounding sea.
The frozen and barren land which this people inhabited obliged
them from time immemorial to depend on the ocean for their
sustenance: first, by fishing; later on, by piracy. They soon
became expert navigators, though their ships were merely small
boats made of a few pieces of timber joined together, and
covered with the hide of the walrus and the seal.
It seems, from the Irish annals, that they belonged to two
distinct races of men: the Norwegians, fair-haired and of large
stature; the Danes dark, and of smaller size. Hence the Irish
distinguished the first, whom they called Finn Galls, from the
second, whom they named Dubh Galls. By no other European nation
was this distinction drawn, the Irish being more exact in
observing their foes.
It is the general opinion of modern writers that they belonged
to the Teutonic family. The Goths, a Teutonic tribe, dwelt for a
long period on the larger peninsula. But whether the Goths were
of the same race as the Norwegians or Danes is a question.
Certain it is that the various German nations which first
overwhelmed the Roman Empire bore many characteristics different
from those of the Danes and Norwegians, though the language of
all indicated, to a certain extent, a common origin.
The Swedes, the inhabitants of the eastern coast of Scania, do
not appear to have taken an important part in the Scandinavian
invasions; nor, indeed, have they ever been so fond of maritime
enterprises as the two other nations. Moreover, they were at
that time in bloody conflict with the Goths, and too busy at
home to think of foreign conquest.
For a long time the Scandinavian pirates seem to have confined
themselves to scouring their own seas, and plundering the coasts
as far as the gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. At length,
emboldened by success, they ventured out into the ocean,
attacked the nations of Western and Southern Europe, and in the
west colonized the frozen shores of the Shetland and Faroe
Islands, and soon after Iceland and Greenland.
For several centuries the harbors of Denmark and Norway became
the storehouses of all the riches of Europe, and a large trade
was carried on between those northern peninsulas and the various
islands of the Northern and Arctic Seas, even with the coast of
America, of which Greenland seems to form a part.
Those stern and mountainous countries and the restless ocean
which divides them were for the Scandinavian pirates what the
Mediterranean and the coasts of Spain and Africa had long before
been for the Phoenicians and Carthaginians. These peoples were
clearly destined to introduce among modern nations the spirit of
commerce and enterprise.
But here it is well to consider their religious and social state
from which nations chiefly derive their noble or ignoble
qualities. We shall find both made up of the rankest idolatry,
of cruel manners and revolting customs.
Their system of worship, with its creed and rites, is much more
precise in character and better known to us than that of the
Celts. If we open the books which were written in Europe at the
time of the irruption of these Northmen, and the poems of those
savage tribes preserved to our own days, and comprised under the
name of Edda, besides the numerous sagas, or songs and ballads,
which we still possess, we find mention of three superior gods
and a number of inferior deities, which gave a peculiar
character to this Northern worship.
They were Thor, the god of the elements, of thunder chiefly;
Wodan or Odin, the god of war; and Frigga, the goddess of lust;
the long list of others it is unnecessary to give. Their
religion, therefore, consisted mainly: 1. In battling with the
elements, particularly on the sea, under the protection of Thor;
2. In slaying their enemies, or being themselves slain, as Odin
willed --the giving or receiving death being apparently the
great object of existence; 3. In abandoning themselves at the
time of victory to all the propensities of corrupt nature, which
they took to be the express will of Frigga manifested in their
unbridled passions.
Such was Scandinavian mythology in its reality.
Modern investigators, principally in Germany and France, find in
the Edda a complete system of cosmogony and of a religion almost
inspired, so beautiful do they make it. At least they have made
it appear as profound a philosophy as that of old Hindostan and
far-off Thibet. By grouping around those three great divinities,
which are supposed to be emblematical of the superior natural
forces, their numerous progeny, that of Odin especially,
together with an incredible number of malicious giants and good-
natured _ases_--a kind of fairy--any skilful theorist, gifted
with the requisite imagination, may extract from the whole an almost
perfect system of cosmogony and ethics. Then the disgusting legends
of the Edda and the sagas are straightway transformed into
interesting myths, offsprings of poetry and imagination, and
conveying to the mind a philosophy only less than sublime, derived,
as they say, from the religion of Zoroaster.
It is, as we said, in Germany and France chiefly that these
discoveries have been made. The English, a more sober people,
although of Scandinavian blood, do not set so high a value on
what is, in the literal sense, so low.
Pity that such pleasing speculations should be mere theoretical
bubbles, unable to retain their lightness and their vivid colors
in the rude atmosphere of the arctic regions, bursting at the
first breath of the north wind! How could sensible men, under
such a complicated system of religion and physics, account for
the uncouth pirates of the Baltic?
As useless is it to say that they brought it from the place of
their origin--Persia, as these theorists affirm. To a man
uninfluenced by a preconceived or pet system, it is evident at
first sight that no mythology of the East or of the South has
ever given rise to that of Scandinavia. There is not the
slightest resemblance between it and any other. It must have
originated with the Scandinavians themselves; and their long
_religious_ tales were only the bloody dreams of their fancy, when,
during their dreary winter evenings, they had nothing to do but
relate to each other what came uppermost in their gross minds.
Saxo Grammaticus, certainly a competent authority, and Snorry
Sturleson, the first to translate the Edda into Latin, who is
still considered one of the greatest antiquarians of the nation
--both of whom lived in the times we speak of, when this
religious system still flourished or was fresh in the minds of
all-- solved the question ages ago, and demonstrated beforehand
the falsehood of those future theories by stating with old-time
simplicity that the abominable stories of the Edda and the sagas
were founded on real facts in the previous history of those
nations, and were consequently never intended by the writers as
imaginative myths, representing, under a figurative and repulsive
exterior, some semblance of a spiritual and refined doctrine.
We must look to our own more enlightened times to find ingenious
interpreters of rude old songs first flung to the breeze nine
hundred years ago in the polar seas, and bellowed forth in
boisterous and drunken chorus during the ninth and tenth
centuries by ferocious, but to modern eyes romantic, pirates
reeking with the gore of their enemies.
Because it has pleased some modern pantheist to concoct systems
of religion in his cabinet, does it become at once clear that
the mythic explanation of those songs is the only one to be
admitted, and that the odious facts which those legends express
ought to be discarded altogether? At least we hope that, when
philosophers come to be the real rulers of the world, they will
not give to their subtle and abstract ideas of religion the same
pleasant turn and the same concrete expression in every-day life
that the worshippers of Odin, Thor, and Frigga, found it
agreeable to give when they were masters of the continent and
rulers of the seas.
No! The only true meaning of this Northern worship is conveyed
in the simple words of Adam of Bremen, when relating what still
existed in his own time. (_Descript. insularum Aquil._, lib. iv.)
He describes the solemn sacrifices of Upsala in Sweden thus:
"This is their sacrifice; of each and all animals they offer
nine heads of the male gender, by whose blood it is their custom
to appease the gods. The dead bodies of the victims are
suspended in a grove which surrounds the temple. The place is in
their eyes invested with such a sacred character that the trees
are believed to be divine on account of the blood and gore with
which they are besmeared. With the animals, dogs, horses, etc.,
they suspend likewise men; and a Christian of that country told
me that he had himself seen them with his own eyes mixed up
together in the grove. But the senseless rites which accompany
the sacrifice and the sprinkling of blood are so many, and of so
gross and immoral nature, that it is better not to speak of them."
We have here the naked truth, and no meaning whatever could be
attached to such ceremonies other than that of the rankest
idolatry. To complete the picture, it is proper to state that
Thor, Odin, and Frigga, were frightful idols, as represented in
the Upsala temple, and the small statues carried by the
Scandinavian sailors on their expeditions and set in the place
of honor on board their ships, were but diminutive copies of the
hideous originals. It is known, moreover, that Odin had existed
as a leader of some of their migrations, so that their idolatry
resolved itself into hero-worship.
Having spoken of their gods, we have only a word to add on their
belief in a future state, for every one is acquainted with their
brutal and shocking Walhalla. Yet, such as it was, admittance to
its halls could only be aspired to by the warriors and heroes,
the great among them; the common herd was not deemed worthy of
immortality. Thus aristocratic pride showed itself at the very
bottom of their religion.
Of their social state, their government, we know little. They
lived under a kind of rude monarchy, subject often to election,
when they chose the most savage and the bravest for their ruler.
But blood-relationship had little or nothing to do with their
system, so different from that of the Celts. The sons of a
chieftain could never form a sept, but at his death the eldest
replaced him; the younger brothers, deprived of their titles and
goods, were forced to separate and acquire a title to rank and
honor by piracy; and that right of primogeniture, which was the
primary cause of their sea invasions, stamped the feudal system
with one of its chief characteristics, a system which probably
originated with them. Some, however, entertain a contrary
opinion, and suppose that at the death of the father his
children shared his inheritance equally.
Of their moral habits we may best judge by their religion. All
we know of their history seems to prove that with them might was
right, and outlawry the only penalty of their laws.
A man guilty of murder was compelled to quit the country, unless
his superior daring and the number of his friends and followers
enabled him, by more atrocious and wholesale murders, still to
become a great chieftain and even aspire to supreme power.
Iceland was colonized by outlaws from Norway; and the frequent
changes of dynasty in pagan times prove that among them, as
among barbarous tribes generally, brute force was the chief
source of law and authority.
That outlawry was not esteemed a stain on the character is
sufficiently demonstrated by the fact that the mere accident of
birth made outlaws of all the children of chieftains with the
exception of the eldest born; the necessity for the younger sons
abandoning their home and native country, and roaming the ocean
in search of plunder, being exactly equivalent, according to
their opinion and customs, to criminal outlawry of whatever
character. This, at least, many authors assert without
hesitation.
Their domestic habits were fit consequences of such a state of
society. There could exist no real tie of kindred, no filial or
brotherly affection among men living under such a social system.
The gratification of brutal passions and the most utter
selfishness constituted the rule for all; and even the fear of
an inexorable judge after death could not restrain them during
life, as might have been the case among other pagan nations,
since the hope of reaching their Walhalla depended for its
fulfilment on murder or suicide.
With their system of warfare we are better acquainted than with
any thing else belonging to them, as the main burden of their
songs was the recital of their barbarous expeditions. It is,
indeed, difficult for a modern reader to wade through the whole
of their Edda poems, or even their long sagas, so full is their
literature of unimaginable cruelties. Yet a general view of it
is necessary in order to understand the horror spread throughout
Europe by their inhuman warfare.
As soon as the warm breeze of an early spring thaws the ice on
his rivers and lakes, the Scandinavian Viking unfurls his sail,
fills his rude boat with provisions, and trusts himself to the
mercy of the waves. Should he be alone, and not powerful enough
to have a fleet at his command, he looks out for a single boat
of his own nation--there being no other in those seas. Urged by
a mutual impulse, the two crews attack each other at sight; the
sea reddens with blood; the savage bravery is equal on both
sides; accident alone can decide the contest. One of the crews
conquers by the death of all its opponents; the plunder is
transferred to the victorious boat; the cup of strong drink
passes round, and victory is crowned by drunkenness.
But if the two chieftains have contended from morning till night
with equal valor and success, then, filled with admiration for
each other, they become friends, unite their forces, and,
falling on the first spot where they can land, they pillage,
slay, outrage women, and give full sway to their unbridled
passions. The more ferocious they are the braver they esteem
themselves. It is a positive fact, as we may gather from all
their poems and songs, that the Scandinavians alone, probably,
of all pagan nations, have had no measure of bravery and
military glory beyond the infliction of the most exquisite
torture and the most horrible of deaths.
Plunder, which was apparently the motive power of all their
expeditions, was to them less attractive than blood; blood,
therefore, is the chief burden of their poetry, if poetry it can
be called. It would seem as though they were destined by Nature
to shed human blood in torrents--the noblest occupation,
according to their ideas, in which a brave man could be engaged.
The figures of their rude literature consist for the most part
of monstrous warriors and gods, each possessed of many arms to
kill a greater number of enemies, or of giant stature to
overcome all obstacles, or of enchanted swords which shore steel
as easily as linen, and clave the body of an adversary as it
would the air.
Then, heated with blood, the Northman is also influenced with
lust, for he worships Frigga as well as Odin. But this is not
the place to give even an idea of manners too revolting to be
presented to the imagination of the reader.
Cantu's Universal History will furnish all the authorities from
which the details we have given and many others of the same kind
are derived.
We do not propose describing here the horrors of the
devastations committed by the Anglo-Saxons and Danes in England,
by the Normans in France, Spain, and Italy. All these nations,
even the first, were Scandinavians, and naturally fall under our
review. The story is already known to those who are acquainted
with the history of mediaeval Europe. The only thing which we do
not wish to omit is the invariable system of warfare adopted by
this people when acting on a large scale.
Arrived on the coast they had determined to ravage, they soon
found that in stormy weather they were in a more dangerous
position than at sea. Hence they looked for a deep bay, or,
better still, the mouth of a large river, and once on its placid
bosom they felt themselves masters of the whole country. The
terror of the people, the lack of organization for defence, so
characteristic of Celtic or purely Germano-Franco society, the
savage bravery and reckless impetuosity of the invaders
themselves, increased their rashness, and urged them to enter
fearlessly into the very heart of a country which lay prostrate
with fear before them. All the cities on the river-banks were
plundered as they passed, people of whatever age, sex, or
condition, were murdered; the churches especially were despoiled
of their riches, and the numerous and wealthy monasteries then
existing were given to the flames, after the monks and all the
inmates even to the schoolchildren, had been promiscuously
slaughtered, if they had not escaped by flight.
But, although all were slaughtered promiscuously, a special
ferocity was always displayed by the barbarous conqueror toward
the unarmed and defenceless ministers of religion. They took a
particular delight in their case in adding insult to cruelty;
and not without reason did the Church at that time consider as
martyrs the priests and monks who were slain by the pagan
Scandinavians. Their sanguinary and hideous idolatry showed its
hatred of truth and holiness in always manifesting a peculiar
atrocity when coming in contact with the Church of Christ and
her ministers. And, our chief object in speaking of the stand
made by the Irish against the pagan Danes is, to show how the
clan-system became in truth the avenger of God's altars and the
preserver of the sacred edifices and numerous temples with which,
as we have seen, the Island of Saints was so profusely studded,
from total annihilation.
Knowing that, when their march of destruction had taken them a
great distance from the mouth of the river, the inhabitants
might rise in sheer despair and cut them off on their return,
the Scandinavian pirates, to guard against such a contingency,
looked for some island or projecting rock, difficult of access,
which they fortified, and, placing there the plunder which
loaded their boats, they left a portion of their forces to guard
it, while the remainder continued their route of depredation. In
Ireland they found spots admirably adapted for their purpose in
the numerous loughs into which many of the rivers run.
This was their invariable system of warfare in the rivers of
England; in Germany along system Rhine; along the Seine, the
Loire, and the Garonne, in France, as well as on the Tagus and
Guadalquivir in Spain, where two at least of their large
expeditions penetrated. This continued for several centuries,
until at last they thought of occupying the country which they
had devastated and depopulated, and they began to form permanent
settlements in England, Flanders, France, and even Sicily and
Naples.
When that time had arrived, they showed that, hidden under their
ferocious exterior, lay a deep and systematic mind, capable of
great thoughts and profound designs. Already in their own rude
country they had organized commerce on an extensive scale, and
their harbors teemed with richly-laden ships, coming from far
distances or preparing to start on long voyages. They had become
a great colonizing race, and, after establishing their sway in
the Hebrides, the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, and
Greenland, they made England their own, first by the Jute and
Anglo-Saxon tribes, then by the arms of Denmark, which was at
that time so powerful that England actually became a colony of
Copenhagen; and finally they thought of extending their
conquests farther south to the Mediterranean Sea, where their
ships rode at anchor in the harbors of fair Sicily.
We know, from many chronicles written at the time, with what
care they surveyed all the countries they occupied, confiscating
the land after having destroyed or reduced its inhabitants to
slavery; dividing it among themselves and establishing their
barbarous laws and feudal customs wherever they went. Dudo of St.
Quentin, among other writers, describes at length in his rude
poem the army of surveyors intrusted by Rollo, the first Duke of
Normandy, with the care of drawing up a map of their conquests
in France, for the purpose of dividing the whole among his rough
followers and vassals.
Of this spirit of organization we intend to speak in the next
chapter, when we come to consider the Anglo-Norman invasion of
Ireland; but we are not to conclude that the Northmen became
straightway civilized, and that the spirit of refinement at once
shed its mild manners and gentle habits over their newly-
constructed towns and castles. For a long time they remained as
barbarous as ever, with only a system more perfect and a method
more scientific--if we may apply such expressions to the case--
in their plunderings and murderous expeditions.
Of Hastings, their last pagan sea-kong, Dudo, the great admirer
of Northmen and the sycophant of the first Norman dukes in
France, has left the following terrible character, on reading
which in full we scarcely know whether the poem was written in
reproach or praise. We translate from the Latin
According to Dudo, he was--
"A wretch accursed and fierce of heart,
Unmatched in dark iniquities;
A scowling pest of deadly hate,
He throve on savage cruelties.
Blood-thirsty, stained with every crime,
An artful, cunning, deadly foe,
Lawless, vaunting, rash, inconstant,
True well-spring of unending woe!"
Hastings never yielded to the new religion, which he always
hated and persecuted. But, even after their conversion to
Christianity, his countrymen for a long time retained their
inborn love of bloodshed and tyranny; they were in this respect,
as in many others, the very reverse of the Irish.
Of Rollo, the first Christian Duke of Normandy, Adhemar, a
contemporary writer, says:
"On becoming Christian, he caused many captives to be beheaded
in his presence, in honor of the gods whom he had worshipped.
And he also distributed a vast amount of money to the Christian
churches in honor of the true God in whose name he had received
baptism;" which would seem to imply that this transaction
occurred on the very day of his baptism.
We may now compare the success which attended the arms of these
terrible invaders throughout the rest of Europe with their
complete failure in Ireland. It will be seen that the deep
attachment of the Irish Celts for their religion, its altars,
shrines, and monuments, was the real cause of their final
victory. We shall behold a truly Christian people battling
against paganism in its most revolting and audacious form.
But, first, how stood the case in England?
"It is not a little extraordinary," says a sagacious writer in
the _Dublin Review_ (vol. xxxii., p. 203), "that the three
successive conquests of England by the Anglo-Saxons, Danes, and
Normans, were in fact conquests made by the same people, and, in
the last two instances, over those who were not only descended
from the same stock, but who had immigrated from the very same
localities. The Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, were for the most
part Danes or of Danish origin. Their invasion of England
commenced by plunder and ended by conquest. These were
overthrown by the Danes and Norwegians in precisely the same
manner.
"In the year 875, Roll or Rollo, having been expelled from
Norway by Harold Harfager, adopted the profession of a sea-kong,
and in the short space of sixteen years became Duke of Normandy
and son-in-law of the French king, after having previously
repudiated his wife. The sixth duke in succession from Rollo was
William, illegitimate son of Robert le Diable and Herleva, a
concubine. By the battle of Hastings, which William gained in
1066, over King Harold, who was slain in it, the former became
sovereign of England, and instead of the appellation of 'the
Bastard,' by which he had been hitherto known, he now obtained
the surname of 'the Conqueror.'
"Thus both the Saxon and Danish invaders were subdued by their
Norman brethren."
All the Scandinavian invasions of England were, therefore,
successful, each in turn giving way before a new one; and it is
not a little remarkable that the very year in which Brian Boru
dealt a death-blow to the Danes at Clontarf witnessed the
complete subjection of England by Canute.
The success of the Northmen in France is still more worthy of
attention. Their invasions began soon after the death of
Charlemagne. It is said that, before his demise, hearing of the
appearance of one of their fleets not far from the mouth of the
Rhine, he shed tears, and foretold the innumerable evils it
portended. He saw, no doubt, that the long and oft-repeated
efforts of his life to subdue and convert the northern Saxons
would fail to obtain for his successors the peace he had hoped
to win by his sword, and, knowing from the Saxons themselves the
relentless ferocity, audacity, and frightful cruelty, inoculated
in their Scandinavian blood, he could not but expect for his
empire the fierce attacks which were preparing in the arctic
seas. All his life had he been a conqueror, and under his sway
the Franks, whom he had ever led to victory, acquired a name
through Europe for military glory which, he dreaded, would no
longer remain untarnished. His forebodings, however, could not
be shared by any of those who surrounded him in his old age; his
eagle eye alone discerned the coming misfortunes.
Seven times had the great emperor subdued the Saxons. He had
crushed them effectually, since he could not otherwise prevent
them from disturbing his empire. The Franks, who formed his army,
were therefore the real conquerors of Western Europe. Starting
from the banks of the Rhine, they subjugated the north as far as
the Baltic Sea; they conquered Italy as far south as Beneventum,
by their victories over the Lombards; by the subjugation of
Aquitaine, they took possession of the whole of France; the only
check they had ever received was in the valley of Roncevaux,
whence a part of one of their armies was compelled to retreat,
without, however, losing Catalonia, which they had won.
Nevertheless, we see them a few years after powerless and
stricken with terror at the very name of the Northmen, as soon
as Hastings and Rollo appeared. Those sea-rovers established
themselves straightway in the very centre of the Frankish
dominion; for it was at the mouth of the Rhine, in the island of
Walcheren, that they formed their first camp. From Walcheren
they swept both banks of the Rhine, and, after enriching
themselves with the spoils of monasteries, cathedrals, and
palaces, they thought of other countries. Then began the long
series of spoliations which desolated the whole of France along
the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne.
Opposition they scarcely encountered. Paris alone, of all the
great cities of France, sustained a long siege, and finally
bought them off by tribute. The military power of the nation was
annihilated all at once, and of all French history this period
is undoubtedly the most humiliating to a native of the soil.
And now let us see how the Irish met the same piratical
invasions.
We are already acquainted with the chief defect of their
political system, namely, its want of centralization. The Ard-
Righ was in fact but a nominal ruler, except in the small
province which acknowledged his chieftainship only. Throughout
the rest of Ireland the provincial kings were independent save
in name. Not only were they often reluctant to obey the Ard-Righ,
but they were not seldom at open war with him. Nor are we to
suppose that, at least in the case of a serious attack from
without, their patriotism overcame their private differences,
and made them combine together to show a common front against a
common foe. In a patriarchal state of government there is
scarcely any other form of patriotism than that of the
particular sept to which each individual belongs. All the ideas,
customs, prejudices, are opposed to united action.
Yet an invasion so formidable as that of the Scandinavian tribes
showed itself everywhere to be, would have required all the
energies and resources of the whole country united under one
powerful chief, particularly when it did not consist of one
single fearful irruption.
During two centuries large fleets of dingy, hide-bound barks
discharge on the shores of Erin their successive cargoes of
human fiends, bent on rapine and carnage, and altogether proof
against fear of even the most horrible death, since such death
was to them the entry to the eternal realms of their Walhalla.
But, at the period of which we speak, the terrible evil of a
want of centralization was greatly aggravated by a change
occurring in the line which held the supreme power in the island.
The vigorous rule of a long succession of princes belonging to
the northern Hy-Niall line gave way to the ascendency of the
southern branch of this great family; and the much more limited
patrimony and alliances of this new quasi-dynasty rendered its
personal power very inferior to that of the northern branch, and
consequently lessened the influence possessed by the ruling
family in past times. In Ireland the connections, more or less
numerous, by blood relationship with the great families, always
exercised a powerful influence over the body of the nation in
rendering it docile and amenable to the will of the Ard-Righ.
Mullingar, in West Meath, was the abode of the southern Hy-
Nialls, and Malachy of the Shannon, the first Ard-Righ of this
line, succeeded King Niall of Callan in 843. The Danes were
already in the country and had committed depredations. Their
first descent is mentioned by the Four Masters as taking place
at Rathlin on the coast of Antrim in the year 790.
But the country was soon aroused; and religious feelings, always
uppermost in the Irish heart, supplied the deficiencies of the
constitution of the state and the particularly unfavorable
circumstances of the period. The Danes, as usual, first attacked
the monasteries and churches, and this alone was enough to
kindle in the breasts of the people the spirit of resistance and
retaliation. Iona was laid waste in 797, and again in 801 and
805. "To save from the rapacity of the Danes," says Montalembert
in his Monks of the West, "a treasure which no pious liberality
could replace, the body of S. Columba was carried to Ireland.
And it is the unvarying tradition of Irish annals, that it was
deposited finally at Down, in an episcopal monastery, not far
from the eastern shore of the island, between the great
monastery of Bangor in the North, and Dublin the future capital
of Ireland, in the South."
Ireland was first assailed by the Danes on the north immediately
after they had gained possession of the Hebrides; but the coasts
of Germany, Belgium, and France had witnessed their attacks long
before. Religion was the first to suffer; and as the Island of
Saints was at the time of their descent covered with churches
and monasteries, the Scandinavian barbarians found in these a
rich harvest which induced them to return again and again. The
first expedition consisted of only a few boats and a small body
of men. Nevertheless, as their irruptions were unexpected, and
the people were unprepared for resistance, many holy edifices
suffered from these attacks, and a great number of priests and
monks were murdered.
We read that Armagh with its cathedral and monasteries was
plundered four times in one month, and in Bangor nine hundred
monks were slaughtered in a single day. The majority of the
inmates of those houses fled with their books and the relics of
their saints at the approach of the invaders, but, returning to
their desecrated homes after the departure of the pirates, gave
cause for those successive plunderings.
But the Irish did not always fly in dismay, as was the case in
England and France. A force was generally mustered in the
neighborhood to meet and repel the attack, and in numerous
instances the marauders were driven back with slaughter to their
ships.
For the clans rallied to the defence of the Church. Though the
chieftains and their clansmen might seem to have failed fully to
imbibe the spirit of religion, though in their insane feuds they
often turned a deaf ear to the remonstrances and reproaches of
the bishops and monks, nevertheless Christianity reigned supreme
in their inmost hearts. And when they beheld pagans landed on
their shores, to insult their faith and destroy the monuments of
their religion, to shed the blood of holy men, of consecrated
virgins, and of innocent children, they turned that bravery
which they had so often used against themselves and for the
satisfaction of worthless contentions into a new and a more
fitting channel--the defence of their altars and the punishment
of sacrilegious outrage.
The clan system was the very best adapted for this kind of
warfare, so long as no large fleets came, and the pirates were
too few in number and too sagacious in mind to think of
venturing far inland. When but a small number of boats arrived,
the invaders found in the neighborhood a clan ready to receive
them. The clansmen speedily assembled, and, falling on the
plundering crews, showed them how different were the free men of
a Celtic coast, who were inspired by a genuine love for their
faith, from the degenerate sons of the Gallo-Romans.
So the annals of the country tell us that the "foreigners" were
destroyed in 812 by the men of Umhall in Mayo; by Corrach, lord
of Killarney, in the same year; by the men of Ulidia and by
Carbry with the men of Hy-Kinsella in 827; by the clansmen of Hy-
Figeinte, near Limerick, in 834, and many more.
But the hydra had a thousand heads, and new expeditions were
continually arriving. In the words of Mr. Worsaae, a Danish
writer of this century:
"From time immemorial Ireland was celebrated in the Scandinavian
north, for its charming situation, its mild climate, and its
fertility and beauty. The Kongspell--mirror of Kings--which was
compiled in Norway about the year 1200, says that Ireland is
almost the best of the lands we are acquainted with although no
vines grow there. The Scandinavian Vikings and emigrants, who
often contented themselves with such poor countries as Greenland
and the islands in the north Atlantic, must, therefore, have
especially turned their attention to the 'Emerald Isle,'
particularly as it bordered closely upon their colonies in
England and Scotland. But to make conquests in Ireland, and to
acquire by the sword alone permanent settlements there, was no
easy task.... When we consider that neither the Romans nor the
Anglo-Saxons ever obtained a footing in that country, although
they had conquered England, the adjacent isle, and when we
further reflect upon the immense power exerted by the English in
later times in order to subdue the Celtic population of the
island, we cannot help being surprised at the very considerable
Scandinavian settlements which, as early as the ninth century,
were formed in that country."
These are the words of a Dane. We shall see what the "very
considerable Scandinavian settlements" amounted to; the
quotation is worthy of note, as presenting in a few words the
motives of those who at any time invaded Ireland, and the
stubborn resistance which they met.
The Irish were not dismayed by the constant arrivals of those
northern hordes. They met them one after another without
considering their complexity and connection. They only saw a
troop of fierce barbarians landed on their shores, chiefly
intent upon plundering and burning the churches and holy houses
which they had erected; they saw their island, hitherto
protected by the ocean from foreign attack, and resting in the
enjoyment of a constant round of Christian festivals and joyful
feasts, now desecrated by the presence and the fury of ferocious
pagans; they armed for the defence of all that is dear to man;
and though, perhaps, at first beaten and driven back, they
mustered in force at a distance to fall on the victors with a
swoop of noble birds who fly to the defence of their young.
This kind of contest continued for two hundred years, with the
exception of the periods of larger invasions, when a single clan
no longer sufficed to avenge the cause of God and humanity, and
the Ard-Righ was compelled to throw himself on the scene at the
head of the whole collective force of the nation in order to
oppose the vast fleets and large armies of the Danes.
The country suffered undoubtedly; the cattle were slain; the
fields devastated; the churches and houses burned; the poets
silenced or woke their song only to notes of woe; the harpers
taught the national instrument the music of sadness; the
numerous schools were scattered, though never destroyed; as
centuries later, under the Saxon, the people took their books or
writing materials to their miserable cottages or hid them in the
mountain fastnesses, and thus, for the first time in their
history, the hedge school succeeded those of the large
monasteries. So the nation continued to live on, the energetic
fire which burned in the hearts of the people could not be
quenched. They rose and rose again, and often took a noble
revenge, never disheartened by the most utter disaster.
On three different occasions this bloody strife assumed a yet
more serious and dangerous aspect. It was not a few boats only
which came to the shores of the devoted island; but the main
power of Scandinavia seemed to combine in order to crush all
opposition at a single blow.
When the knowledge of the richness, fertility, and beauty of the
island had fully spread throughout Denmark and Norway, a large
fleet gathered in the harbors of the Baltic and put to sea. The
famous Turgesius or Turgeis--Thorgyl in the Norse--was the
leader. The Edda and Sagas of Norway and Denmark have been
examined with a view to elucidate this passage in Irish history,
but thus far fruitlessly. It is known, however, that many Sagas
have been lost which might have contained an account of it. The
Irish annals are too unanimous on the subject to leave any
possibility of doubt with regard to it; and, whatever may be the
opinion of learned men on the early events in the history of
Erin, the story of the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries rests
entirely on historical ground, as surely as if the facts had
happened a few hundred years ago.
Turgesius landed with his fleet on the northeast coast of the
island, and straightway the scattered bands of Scandinavians
already in the country acknowledged his leadership and flocked
to his standard. McGeoghegan says that "he assumed in his own
hands the sovereignty of all the foreigners that were then in
Ireland."
From the north he marched southward; and, passing Armagh on his
route, attacked and took it, and plundered its shrines,
monasteries, and schools. There were then within its walls seven
thousand students, according to an ancient roll which Keating
says has been discovered at Oxford. These were slaughtered or
dispersed, and the same fate attended the nine hundred monks
residing in its monasteries.
Foraanan, the primate, fled; and the pagan sea-kong, entering
the cathedral, seated himself on the primatial throne, and had
himself proclaimed archbishop.--(O'Curry.) He had shortly before
devastated Clonmacnoise and made his wife supreme head of that
great ecclesiastical centre, celebrated for its many convents of
holy women. The tendency to add insult to outrage, when the
object of the outrage is the religion of Christ, is old in the
blood of the northern barbarians; and Turgesius was merely
setting the example, in his own rude and honest fashion, to the
more polished but no less ridiculous assumption of
ecclesiastical authority, which was to be witnessed in England,
on the part of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth.
The power of the invader was so superior to whatever forces the
neighboring Irish clans could muster, that no opposition was
even attempted at first by the indignant witnesses of those
sacrileges. It is even said that at the very time when the
Northmen were pillaging and burning in the northeast of the
island, the men of Munster were similarly employed in Bregia;
and Conor, the reigning monarch of Ireland, instead of defending
the invaded territories, was himself hard at work plundering
Leinster to the banks of the river Liffey--(Haverty.) But,
doubtless, none of those deluded Irish princes had yet heard of
the pagan devastations and insults to their religion, and thus
it was easy for the great sea-kong to strengthen and extend his
power. For the attainment of his object he employed two powerful
agents which would have effectually crushed Ireland forever, if
the springs of vitality in the nation had not been more than
usually expansive and strong.
The political ability of the Danes began to show itself in
Ireland, as it did about the same period (830) in England, and
later on in France. Turgesius saw that, in order to subdue the
nation, it was necessary to establish military stations in the
interior and fortify cities on the coast, where he could receive
reinforcements from Scandinavia. These plans he was prompt to
put into practice.
His military stations would have been too easily destroyed by
the bravery of the Irish, strengthened by the elasticity of
their clan-system, if they were, planted on land. He, therefore,
set them in the interior lakes which are so numerous in the
island, where his navy could repel all the attacks of the
natives, unused as they were to naval conflicts. He stationed a
part of his fleet on Lough Lee in the upper Shannon, another in
Lough Neagh, south of Antrim, a third in Lough Lughmagh or
Dundalk bay. These various military positions were strongholds
which secured the supremacy of the Scandinavians in the north of
the island for a long time. In the south, Turgesius relied on
the various cities which his troops were successively to build
or enlarge, namely, Dublin, Limerick, Galway, Cork, Waterford,
and Wexford. This first Scandinavian ruler could begin that
policy only by establishing his countrymen in Dublin, which they
seized in 836.
Up to that time the Irish had scarcely any city worthy of the
name. A patriarchal people, they followed the mode of life of
the old Eastern patriarchs, who abhorred dwelling in large towns.
Until the invasion of the Danes, the island was covered with
farm-houses placed at some distance from each other. Here and
there large _duns_ or _raths_, as they were called, formed the
dwellings of their chieftains, and became places of refuge for
the clansmen in time of danger. Churches and monasteries arose
in great numbers from the time of St. Patrick, which were first
built in the woods, but soon grew into centres of population,
corresponding in many respects to the idea of towns as generally
understood.
The Northmen brought with them into Ireland the ideas of cities,
commerce, and municipal life, hitherto unknown. The introduction
of these supposed a total change necessary in the customs of the
natives, and stringent regulations to which the people could not
but be radically opposed. And strange was their manner of
introduction by these northern hordes. Keating tells us how
Turgesius understood them. They were far worse than the
imaginary laws of the Athenians as recorded in the "Birds" of
Aristophanes. No more stringent rules could be devised, whether
for municipal, rural, or social regulations; and, as the
Northmen are known to have been of a systematic mind, no
stronger proof of this fact could be given.
Keating deplores in the following terms the fierce tyranny of
the Danish sea-kong:
"The result of the heavy oppression of this thraldom of the
Gaels under the foreigner was, that great weariness thereof came
upon the men of Ireland, and the few of the clergy that survived
had fled for safety to the forests and wildernesses, where they
lived in misery, but passed their time piously and devoutly, and
now the same clergy prayed fervently to God to deliver them from
that tyranny of Turgesius, and, moreover, they fasted against
that tyrant, and they commanded every layman among the faithful,
that still remained obedient to their voice, to fast against him
likewise. And God then heard their supplications in as far as
the delivering of Turgesius into the hands of the Gaels."
Thus in the ninth century the subsequent events of the sixteenth
and seventeenth were foreshadowed. The judicious editor of
Keating, however, justly remarks, that this description, taken
mainly from Cambrensis, is not supported in its entirety by the
contemporaneous annals of the island; that the power of the
Danes never was as universal and oppressive as is here supposed;
and that though each of the facts mentioned may have actually
taken place in some part of the country, at some period of the
Danish invasion, yet the whole, as representing the actual state
of the entire island at the time, is exaggerated and of too
sweeping a nature.
It is clear, nevertheless, that the domination of the Northmen
could not have been completely established in Ireland, together
with their notions of superiority of race, trade on a large
scale, and a consequent agglomeration of men in large cities,
without the total destruction of the existing social state of
the Irish, and consequently something of the frightful tyranny
just described.
But the people were too brave, too buoyant, and too ardent in
their nature, to bear so readily a yoke so heavy. They were too
much attached to their religion, not to sacrifice their lives,
if necessary, in order to put an end to the sacrilegious
usurpations of a pagan king, profaning, by his audacious
assumptions, the noblest, highest, purest, and most sacred
dignities of holy Church. A man, stained with the blood of so
many prelates and priests, seated on the primatial throne of the
country in sheer derision of their most profound feelings; his
pagan wife ruling over the city which the virgins of Bridget,
the spouses of Christ, had honored and sanctified so long; their
religion insulted by those who tried to destroy it--how could
such a state of things be endured by the whole race, not yet
reduced to the condition to which so many centuries of
oppression subsequently brought it down!
Hence Keating could write directly after the passage just quoted:
"When the nobles of Ireland saw that Turgesius had brought
confusion upon their country, and that he was assuming supreme
authority over themselves, and reducing them to thraldom and
vassalage, they became inspired with a fortitude of mind, and a
loftiness of spirit, and a hardihood and firmness of purpose,
that urged them to work in right earnest, and to toil zealously
in battle against him and his murdering hordes."
And hereupon the faithful historian gives a long list of
engagements in which the Irish were successful, ending with the
victory of Malachi at Glas Linni, where we know from the Four
Masters that Turgesius himself was taken prisoner and afterward
drowned in Lough Uair or Owell in West Meath, by order of the
Irish king.
This prince, then monarch of the whole island, atoned for the
apathy and the want of patriotism of his predecessors, Conor and
the Nialls. He was in truth a saviour of his country, and the
death of the oppressor was the signal for a general onslaught
upon the "foreigners" in every part of the island.
"The people rose simultaneously, and either massacred them in
their towns, or defeated them in the fields, so that, with the
exception of a few strongholds, like Dublin, the whole of
Ireland was free from the Northmen. Wherever they could escape,
they took refuge in their ships, but only to return in more
numerous swarms than before." - (M. Haverty.)
It is evident that their deep sense of religion was the chief
source of the energy which the Irish then displayed. They had
not yet been driven into a fierce resistance by being forcibly
deprived of their lands; although the Danes, when they carried
their vexatious tyranny into all the details of private life -
not allowing lords and ladies of the Irish race to wear rich
dresses and appear in a manner befitting their rank - when they
went so far as to refuse a bowl of milk to an infant, that a
rude soldier might quench his thirst with it - could have
scarcely permitted the apparently conquered people to enjoy all
the advantages accruing to the owner from the possession of land.
Yet in none of the chronicles of the time which we have seen is
any mention made of open confiscation, and of the survey and
division of the territory among the greedy followers of the sea-
kong. We do not yet witness what happened shortly after in
Normandy under Rollo, and what was to happen four hundred years
later in Ireland. The Scandinavians had not yet attained that
degree of civilization which makes men attach a paramount
importance to the possession of a fixed part of any territory,
and call in surveys, title-deeds, charters, and all the written
documents necessitated by a captious and over-scrupulous
legislation. The Irish, consequently, did not perceive that
their broad acres were passing into the control of a foreign
race, and were being taken piecemeal from them, thus bringing
them gradually down to the condition of mere serfs and
dependants.
What they did see, beyond the possibility of mistake or
deception, was their religion outraged, their spiritual rulers,
not merely no longer at liberty to practise the duties of their
sacred ministry, but hunted down and slaughtered or driven to
the mountains and the woods. They saw that pagans were actually
ruling their holy isle, and changing a paradise of sanctity into
a pandemonium of brutal passion, presided over by a
superstitious and cruel idolatry. For surely, although the Irish
chronicles fail to speak of it, the minstrels and historians
being too full of their own misery to think of looking at the
pagan rites of their enemies - those enemies worshipped Thor and
Odin and Frigga, and as surely did they detest the Church which
they were on a fair way to destroy utterly. This it was which
gave the Irish the courage of despair. For this cause chiefly
did the whole island fly to arms, fall on their foes and bring
down on their heads a fearful retribution. This it was,
doubtless, which breathed into the new monarch the energy which
he displayed on the field of Glas Linni; and when he ordered the
barbarian, now a prisoner in his hands, to be drowned, it was
principally as a sign that he detested in him the blasphemer and
the persecutor of God's church.
Thus did the first national misfortunes of this Celtic people
become the means of enkindling in their hearts a greater love
for their religion, and a greater zeal for its preservation in
their midst.
Ireland was again free; and, although we have no details
concerning the short period of prosperity which followed the
overthrow of the tyranny we have touched upon, we have small
doubt that the first object of the care of those who, under God,
had worked their own deliverance, was to repair the ruins of the
desecrated sanctuaries and restore to religion the honor of
which it had been stripped.
The Danes themselves came to see that they had acted rashly in
striving to deprive the Irish of a religion which was so dear to
their hearts; they resolved on a change of policy, as they were
still bent on taking possession of the island, which Mr. Worsaae
has told us they considered the best country in existence.
They resolved, therefore, to act with more prudence, and to make
use of trade and the material blessings which it confers, in
order to entice the Irish to their destruction, by allowing the
Northmen to carry on business transactions with them and so
gradually to dwell among them again. Father Keating tells the
story in his quaint and graphic style:
"The plan adopted by them on this occasion was to equip three
captains, sprung from the noblest blood of Norway, and to send
them with a fleet to Ireland, for the object of obtaining some
station for purpose of trade. And with them they accordingly
embarked many tempting wares, and many valuable jewels -- with
the design of presenting them to the men of Ireland, in the hope
of thus securing their friendship; for they believed that they
might thus succeed in surreptitiously fixing a grasp upon the
Irish soil, and might be enabled to oppress the Irish people
again . . . . The three captains, therefore, coming from the
ports of Norway, landed in Ireland with their followers, as if
for the purpose of demanding peace, and under the pretext of
establishing a trade; and there, with the consent of the Irish,
who were given to peace, they took possession of some sea-board
places, and built three cities thereon, to wit: Waterford,
Dublin, and Limerick."
We see, then, the Scandinavians abandoning their first project
of conquering the North to fall on the South and confining
themselves to a small number of fortified sea-ports.
The first result of this policy was a firmer hold than ever on
Dublin, once already occupied by them in 836. "Amlaf, or Olaf,
or Olaus, came from Norway to Ireland in 851, so that all the
foreign tribes in the island submitted to him, and they
extracted rent from the Gaels." - (Four Masters.)
From that time to the twelfth century Dublin became the chief
stronghold of the Scandinavians, and no fewer than thirty-five
Ostmen, or Danish kings, governed it. They made it an important
emporium, and such it continued even after the Scandinavian
invasion had ceased. McFirbis says that in his time - 1650 -
most of the merchants of Dublin were the descendants of the
Norwegian Irish king, Olaf Kwaran; and, to give a stronger
impulse to commerce, they were the first to coin money in the
country.
The new Scandinavian policy carried out by Amlaf, who tried to
establish in Dublin the seat of a kingdom which was to extend
over the whole island, resulted therefore only in the
establishment of five or six petty principalities, wherein the
Northmen, for some time masters, were gradually reduced to a
secondary position, and finally confined themselves to the
operations of commerce.
Since the attempt of Turgesius to subvert the religion of the
country, they never showed the slightest inclination to repeat
it; hence they were left in quiet possession of the places which
they occupied on the sea-board, and gradually came to embrace
Christianity themselves.
Little is known of the circumstances which attended this change
of religion on their part; and it is certain that it did not
take place till late in the tenth century. Some pretend that
Christianity was brought to them from their own country, where
it had already been planted by several missionaries and bishops.
But it is known that St. Ancharius, the first apostle of Denmark,
could not establish himself permanently in that country, and
had to direct a few missionaries from Hamburgh, where he fixed
his see. It is known, moreover, that Denmark was only truly
converted by Canute in the eleventh century, after his conquest
of England. As to Norway, the first attempt at its conversion by
King Haquin, who had become a Christian at the court of
Athelstan in England, was a failure; and although his successor,
Harold, appeared to succeed better for a time, paganism was
again reestablished, and flourished as late as 995. It was, in
fact, Olaf the Holy who, coming from England, in 1017, with the
priests Sigefried, Budolf, and Bernard, succeeded in introducing
Christianity permanently into Norway, and he made more use of
the sword than of the word in his mission.
With regard to the conversion of the Danes in Ireland, it seems
that, after all, it was the ever-present spectacle of the
workings of Christianity among the Irish which gradually opened
their eyes and ears. They came to love the country and the
people when they knew them thoroughly; they respected them for
their bravery, which they had proved a thousand times; they felt
attracted toward them on account of their geniality of
temperament and their warm social feelings; even their defects
of character and their impulsive nature were pleasing to them.
They soon sought their company and relationship; they began to
intermarry with them; and from this there was but a step to
embracing their religion.
The Danes of Waterford, Cork, and Limerick were, however, the
last to abandon paganism, and they seem not to have done so
until after Clontarf.
It is very remarkable that, during all those conflicts of the
Irish with the Danes, when the Northmen strewed the island with
dead and ruins; when they seemed to be planting their domination
in the Orkneys, the Hebrides, and even the Isle of Man, on a
firm footing; when the seas around England and Ireland swarmed
with pirates, and new expeditions started almost every spring
from the numerous harbors of the Baltic--the Irish colony of Dal
Riada in Scotland, which was literally surrounded by the
invaders, succeeded in wresting North Britain from the Picts,
drove them into the Lowlands, and so completely rooted them out,
that history never more speaks of them, so that to this day the
historical problem stands unsolved-- What became of the Picts?--
various as are the explanations given of their disappearance.
And, what is more remarkable still, is, that the Dal Riada
colony received constant help from their brothers in Erin, and
the first of the dynasty of Scottish kings, in the person of
Kenneth McAlpine, was actually set on the throne of Scotland by
the arms of the Irish warriors, who, not satisfied apparently
with their constant conflicts with the Danes on their own soil,
passed over the Eastern Sea to the neighboring coast of Great
Britain.
During the last forty years of the tenth century the Danes lived
in Ireland as though they belonged to the soil. If they waged
war against some provincial king, they became the allies of
others. When clan fought clan, Danes were often found on both
sides, or if on one only, they soon joined the other. They had
been brought to embrace the manners of the natives, and to adopt
many of their customs and habits. Yet there always remained a
lurking distrust, more or less marked, between the two races;
and it was clear that Ireland could never be said to have
escaped the danger of subjugation until the Scandinavian element
should be rendered powerless.
This antipathy on both sides existed very early even in Church
affairs, the Christian natives being looked upon with a jealous
eye by the Christian Danes; so that, toward the middle of the
tenth century, the Danes of Dublin having succeeded in obtaining
a bishop of their own nation, they sent him to England to be
consecrated by Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and for a
long time the see of Dublin was placed under the jurisdiction of
Lanfranc's successors.
This grew into a serious difficulty for Ireland, as the capital
of Leinster began to be looked upon as depending, at least
spiritually, on England; and later on, at the time of the
invasion under Strongbow, the establishment of the English Pale
was considerably facilitated by such an arrangement, to which
Rome had consented only for the spiritual advantage of her
Scandinavian children in Ireland.
And the Irish were right in distrusting every thing foreign on
the soil, for, even after becoming Christians, the Danes could
not resist the temptation of making a last effort for the
subjugation of the country.
Hence arose their last general effort, which resulted in their
final overthrow at Clontarf. It does not enter into our purpose
to give the story of that great event, known in all its details
to the student of Irish history. It is not for us to trace the
various steps by which Brian Boru mounted to supreme power, and
superseded Malachi, to relate the many partial victories he had
already gained over the Northmen, nor to allude to his splendid
administration of the government, and the happiness of the Irish
under his sway.
But it is our duty to point out the persevering attempts of the
Scandinavian race, not only to keep its footing on Irish soil,
but to try anew to conquer what it had so often failed to
conquer. For, in describing their preparations for this last
attempt on a great scale, we but add another proof of that Irish
steadfastness which we have already had so many occasions to
admire.
In the chronicle of Adhemar, quoted by Lanigan from Labbe (Nova
Bibl., MSS., Tom. 2, p.177), it is said that "the Northmen came
at that time to Ireland, with an immense fleet, conveying even
their wives and children, with a view of extirpating the Irish
and occupying in their stead that very wealthy country in which
there were twelve cities, with extensive bishopries and a king."
Labbe thinks the Chronicle was written before the year 1031, so
that in his opinion the writer was a contemporary of the facts
he relates.
The Irish Annals state, on their side, that "the foreigners were
gathered from all the west of Europe, envoys having been
despatched into Norway, the Orkneys, the Baltic islands, so that
a great number of Vikings came from all parts of Scandinavia,
with their families, for the purpose of a permanent settlement."
Similar efforts were made about the same time by the Danes for
the lasting conquest of England, which succeeded, Sweyn having
been proclaimed king in 1013, and Canute the Great becoming its
undisputed ruler in 1017.
It is well known how the attempt failed in Erin, an army of
twenty-one thousand freebooters being completely defeated near
Dublin by Brian and his sons.
From that time the existence of the Scandinavian race on the
Irish soil was a precarious one; they were merely permitted to
occupy the sea-ports for the purpose of trade, and soon Irish
chieftains replaced their kings in Dublin, Limerick, Waterford,
and Cork.
The reader may be curious to learn, in conclusion, what signs
the Danes left of their long sojourn on the island. If we listen
to mere popular rumor, the country is still full of the ruins of
buildings occupied by them. The common people, in pointing out
to strangers the remains of edifices, fortifications, raths,
duns, even round-towers and churches, either more ancient or
more recent than the period of the Norse invasion, ascribe them
to the Danes. It is clear that two hundred years of devastations,
burnings, and horrors, have left a deep impression on the mind
of the Irish; and, as they cannot suppose that such powerful
enemies could have remained so long in their midst without
leaving wonderful traces of their passage, they often attribute
to them the construction of the very edifices which they
destroyed. The general accuracy of their traditions seems here
at fault. For there is no nation on earth so exact as the Irish
in keeping the true remembrance of facts of their past history.
Not long ago all Irish peasants were perfectly acquainted with
the whole history of their neighborhood; they could tell what
clans had succeeded each other, the exact spots where such a
party had been overthrown and such another victorious; every
village had its sure traditions printed on the minds of its
inhabitants, and, by consulting the annals of the nation, the
coincidence was often remarkable. How is it, therefore, that
they were so universally at fault with respect to the Danes?
A partial explanation has been given which is in itself a proof
of the tenacity of Irish memory. It is known that the Tuatha de
Danaan were not only skilful in medicine, in the working of
metals and in magic, but many buildings are generally attributed
to them by the best antiquarians; among others, the great mound
of New Grange, on the banks of the Boyne, which is still in
perfect preservation, although opened and pillaged by the Danes--
a work reminding the beholder of some Egyptian monument. The
coincidence of the name of the Tuatha de Danaan with that of the
Danes may have induced many of the illiterate Irish to adopt the
universal error into which they fell long ago, of attributing
most of the ancient monuments of their country to the Danes.
The fact is, that the ruins of a few unimportant castles and
churches are all the landmarks that remain of the Danish
domination in Ireland; and even these must have been the product
of the latter part of it.
But a more curious proof of the extirpation of every thing
Danish in the island is afforded by Mr. Worsaae, whose object in
writing his account of the Danes and Norwegians in England,
Scotland, and Ireland, was to glorify his own country, Denmark.
He made a special study of the names of places and things, which
can be traced to the Scandinavians respectively in the three
great divisions of the British Isles; and certainly the language
of a conquering people always shows itself in many words of the
conquered country, where the subjugation has been of sufficient
duration.
In England, chiefly in the northern half of the kingdom, a very
great number of Danish names appear and are still preserved in
the geography of the country. In Mr. Worsaae's book there is a
tabular view of 1,373 Danish and Norwegian names of places in
England, and also a list of 100 Danish words, selected from the
vulgar tongue, still in use among the people who dwell north of
Watling Street.
In Scotland, likewise--in the Highlands and even in the Lowlands-
-a considerable number of names, or at least of terminations,
are still to be met in the geography of the country.
Three or four names of places around Dublin, and the
terminations of the names of the cities of Waterford, Wexford,
Longford, and a few others, are all that Mr. Worsaae could find
in Ireland. So that the language of the Irish, not to speak of
their government and laws, remained proof against the long and
persevering efforts made by a great and warlike Northern race to
invade the country, and substitute its social life for that of
the natives.
As a whole, the Scandinavian irruptions were a complete failure.
They did not succeed in impressing their own nationality or
individuality on any thing in the island, as they did in England,
Holland, and the north of France. The few drops of blood which
they left in the country have been long ago absorbed in the
healthful current of the pure Celtic stream; even the language
of the people was not affected by them.
As for the social character of the nation, it was not touched by
this fearful aggression. The customs of Scandinavia with respect
to government, society, domestic affairs, could not influence
the Irish; they refused to admit the systematic thraldom which
the sternness of the Northmen would engraft upon their character,
and preserved their free manners in spite of all adverse
attempts. In this country, Turgesius, Amlaf, Sitrick, and their
compeers, failed as signally as other Scandinavian chieftains
succeeded in Britain and Normandy.
The municipal system, which has won so much praise, was
scornfully abandoned by the Irish to the Danes of the sea port
towns, and they continued the agricultural life adapted to their
tastes. Towns and cities were not built in the interior till
much later by the English.
The clan territories continued to be governed as before. The
"Book of Rights" extended its enactments even to the Danish Pale;
and the Danes tried to convert it to their own advantage by
introducing into it false chapters. How the poem of the Gaels of
Ath Cliath first found a place in the "Book of Rights" is still
unknown to the best Irish antiquarians. John O'Donovan concludes
from a verse in it that it was composed in the tenth century,
after the conversion of the Danes of Dublin to Christianity. It
proves certainly that the Scandinavians in Ireland, like the
English of the Pale later on, had become attached to Erin and
Erin's customs--had, in fact, become. Irishmen, to all intents
and purposes. Not succeeding in making Northmen of the Irish,
they succumbed to the gentle influence of Irish manners and
religion.
As for the commercial spirit, the Irish could not be caught by
it, even when confronted by the spectacle of the wealth it
conferred on the "foreigners." It is stated openly in the annals
of the race that their greatest kings, both Malachi and Brian
Boru, did not utterly expel the Danes from the country, in order
that they might profit by the Scandinavian traders, and receive
through them the wines, silks, and other commodities, which the
latter imported from the continent of Europe.
The same is true of the sea-faring life. The Irish could never
be induced to adopt it as a profession, whatever may have been
their fondness for short voyages in their curraghs.
The only baneful effects which the Norse invasion exercised on
the Irish were: 1. The interruption of studies on the large,
even universal, scale on which, they had previously been
conducted; 2. The breaking up of the former constitution of the
monarchy, by compelling the several clans which were attacked by
the "foreigners" to act independently of the Ard-Righ, so that
from that time irresponsible power was divided among a much
greater number of chieftains.
But these unfortunate effects of the Norse irruptions affected
in no wise the Irish character, language, or institutions, which,
in fact, finally triumphed over the character, language, and
institutions of the pirates established among them for upward of
two centuries.