The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century

THE VIKINGS IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND IN THE NINTH CENTURY - DONNCHADH Ó CORRÁIN 1998 ABSTRACT: This study attempts to provide a new framework for ninth-century Irish and Scottish history. Viking Scotland, known as Lothlend, Laithlinn, Lochlainn and comprising the Northern and Western Isles and parts of the mainland, especia lly Caithness, Sutherland and Inverness, was settled by Norwegian Vikings in the early ninth century. By the mid-century it was ruled by an effective royal dyna sty that was not connected to Norwegian Vestfold. In the second half of the cent ury it made Dublin its headquarters, engaged in warfare with Irish kings, contro lled most Viking activity in Ireland, and imposed its overlordship and its tribu te on Pictland and Strathclyde. When expelled from Dublin in 902 it returned to Scotland and from there it conquered York and re-founded the kingdom of Dublin i n 917. KEYWORDS: Vikings, Vikings wars, Vestfold dynasty, Lothlend, Laithlind, Laithlin n, Lochlainn, Scotland, Pictland, Strathclyde, Dublin, York, Cath Maige Tuired, Cath Ruis na Ríg for Bóinn, Irish annals, Scottish Chronicle, battle of Clontarf, Ímar , Amlaíb, Magnus Barelegs. Donnchadh Ó Corráin, Department of History, University College, Cork [email protected] Chronicon 2 (1998) 3: 1-45 ISSN 1393-5259 1. In this lecture,1 I propose to reconsider the Viking attack on Scotland and I reland and I argue that the most plausible and economical interpretation of the historical record is as follows. A substantial part of Scotlandthe Northern and W estern Isles and large areas of the coastal mainland from Caithness and Sutherla nd to Argylewas conquered by the Vikings2 in the first quarter of the ninth centu ry and a Viking kingdom was set up there earlier than the middle of the century. The occupation of this part of Scotland corresponds chronologically to what I c all the prelude to the Viking wars in Ireland (from c.795 to c.825). This involv ed raids on Ireland directly from south-western Norway and, very likely, some fr om settlements in Scotland in the later part of that period. The main thrust of the ninth-century Viking attack on Ireland (c.825 to c.850) was mounted from Sco tland, Laithlinn was the name of Viking Scotland, and the dynasty that imposed i tself on Dublin, and that later dominated York and threatened to dominate Englan d, originated in Viking Scotland. This, it itself, is not a novel idea. It has b een suggested in a somewhat vague way, amongst others, by R. H. M. Dolley, but h e was thinking mainly of the tenth century.3 Professor Peter Sawyer largely conc urs and he has explicitly rejected the notion (put forward, for example, by N. K . Chadwick) that the ninth-century attack on Ireland was planned and implemented from south- western Norway by the king of Lochlainn.4 Professor A. A. M. Duncan pushes the Scottish argument much further and surmises that the Olaf who came t o Dublin in 853 was `the son of Hebridean chief', but he cites no evidence.5 Tha t evidence is complex and will bear re-examination. 2. The first thing that must be done is to detach the Viking dynasty of Scotland and Ireland from Norway itself. Historians, for over a century and a halfperhaps longerhave been keen to attach the Viking kings whose names are mentioned in the ninth-century Irish annals to the genealogy of the kings of Vestfold in Norway. The Vestfold genealogies that historians in the past have compiled are based on the Ynglingasaga, but they tend to flesh them out by adding materials from Íslend ingabók, Landnámabók and Heimskringla, Old-Norse historical and literary works of the twelfth century and later. Effectively, since the days of Todd,6 the hypothesis had been advanced that Amlaíb, called Amlaíb Conung, from Old Norse konungr `king' i n F,7 is identical with Óláfr in hvíti of Íslendingabók and Óláfr Guðrøðarson of Ynglingasaga. view is expressed eloquently (and with complicated genealogical tables) by Profe ssor A. P. Smyth and he cites Landnámabók as the source that gives the fullest accou nt of him.8 I quote Smyth's translation of Landnámabók: Óláfr inn hvíti harried in the Western Seas and he won Dublin in Ireland and the distr ict of Dublin, and there he established himself as king. He married Auðr inn djúpauðga , the daughter of Ketill flatnefr. Their son was called Þhosteinn rauðr. Óláfr fell in b attle in Ireland, but Auðr and Þorsteinn went to the Hebrides. Þorsteinn became a warr ior-king. He entered into an alliance with jarl Sigurðr inn ríki [of Orkney] the son of Eysteinn glumra. They won Caithness and Sutherland, Ross and Moray, and more than half of Scotland. Þorsteinn became king over that region, but the Scots soon slew him and he fell there in battle.9 This narrative may appear legendaryeven fantastic10but if Óláfr's descent is historica l the Dublin dynasty was directly descended from the Norwegian Vestfold kings, a nd the direct connection with Norwegian royalty is genuine. However, as Smyth an d others admit, there are formidable chronological problems about this. Nonethel ess, he affirms that `there can be no doubt that the so-called Óláfr inn hvíti of Icel andic sources was the same king as Amlaíbh, the ninth-century ruler of Dublin' (10 4). 3. Jón Steffensen examined these genealogies in careful detail and he concluded th at they are a chronological morass. Nonetheless, he still triedin vain, I thinkto save them for history.11 The link between the Old-Norse genealogies and the Iris h annals is provided by an annal in Fragmentary Irish Annals, but it is not reli able. This sole connection, the genealogy found in F §401Iomhar mc. Gothfraidh mc. Ragnaill mc. Gothfraidh Conung mc Gofraidhhas no independent value: it is merely another variant of the Icelandic material, and this is not the only fragment of its kind in F. It is likely that the father of Amlaíb (Óláfr) and Ímar (Ívarr) is Gothfrai dh (Guðrøðr) and that he is a historical person and dynastic ancestor (see table 1), b ut his genealogical ascent is a construct without historical value. 4. In the matter of possible dynastic connections between the dynasty of Dublin and Norwegian dynasties important historiographical progress was made in the ear ly nineties, and this provides a new critical context for the analysis of the pr oblem. Dr Claus Krag has shown that the Ynglingatal (once believed to have been composed a little before AD 900, and thus early and intrinsically valuable) is n ot much older or more authoritative than Ynglingasaga, that it reflects concepts current in the twelfth century, that the genealogies are qualitative rather tha n chronological, and that they come in 14-generation sequences like the Anglo-Sa xon ones (both based formally on the structure of Matthew's genealogy of Christ) . In his view, these are `products of the imagination, the extant texts are remn ants of the historical literature of the 12th and 13th centuries, concerning wha t were held to be the ancestors of what was then the Norwegian royal house the i dea that the Norwegian kings descend from Harald hárfagri and the monarchy was hel d to the property of his dynasty, is no more than a construction the conclusion is that the Yngling tradition is entirely a part of the historicising method, pa rtly cast in artistic form, which Icelandic learned men developed'.12 Peter Sawy er has argued convincingly that Ynglingasaga is fiction, not history, but a fict ion whose learned creators drew on what they knew (or thought they knew) of Scan dinavian history in the tenth and eleventh centuries.13 Kings who may originally have ruled Norwegian Oppland are transformed into kings of Vestfold and dubious king-lists are turned into genealogies. We find the historian Ari Þorgilsson doin g just this in early twelfth century: he derives his own descent from a variant of this very genealogy.14 So much for the Dublin dynasty's genealogical backgrou nd in Vestfold. 5. What of contemporary Norway? Knut Helle (who accepts most of Krag's views) po ints out that the sources for early Norwegian kingship are limited and, while th e saga genealogies may reflect the ambitions of the great when the sagas were be ing written in the twelfth century and later, they can tell us little or nothing of the Viking Age. Effective Norwegian royal power emerged in the eleventh cent ury. In the early Viking Age there were no kings of Norway.15 The kings and sons of kings mentioned in the Irish annals cannot, therefore, be linked to any Norw egian dynasty. 6. The early raids on Ireland seem to have been aristocratic free enterprise, an d named leaders appear in the Irish annalsSaxolb (So[hook]xulfr) in 837, Turges (Þu rgestr, not Þorgisl or ÞorgeRR) in 845, Agonn (Hákon) in 847.16 Only towards the middl e of the ninth century was there any attempt by any Viking kings to coordinate a ttacks and settlement in Ireland, and these kings appear to belong in the Viking settlements in Scotland. 7. Three important annalistic entries record the activity of Viking royals in Ir eland in 848, 849 and 853. All three have connections with a kingdom called Loth lend, Laithlind, Laithlinn, later Lochlainn. The first occurs in the Annals of U lster: U 848.5. Bellum re nOlcobur, ri Muman, & re Lorggan m. Cellaig co Laighniu for g ennti ecc Sciaith Nechtain in quo ceciderunt Tomrair erell, tanise righ Laithlin ne, & da cet dec imbi `A battle was won by Ólchobar king of Munster and Lorcán m.

Load more