Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI THE VIKINGS IN THE ORKNEYS, SCOTLAND, 'THE WESTERN ISLANDS AND MAN When the Vikings sailed to England and Ireland in the late 8th and early 9th centuries their most natural path was by the Orkneys and Shetlands and round the Western Islands of Scotland. We have seen how early they formed settlements in the Shetlands, and they soon reached the Orkneys and the Hebrides. From the Orkneys they crossed to the mainland, to Sutherland and Caithness--the very names bear witness to Scandinavian occupation-- while Galloway (Le. the land of the Gaill-Gaedhil, v. supra, p. 56) was settled from the Isle of Man. Already in the 9th century the Norse element in the Hebrides was so strong that the Irish called the islands Innsi-Gall (i.e. the islands of the foreigners), and their inhabitants were known as Gaill-Gaedhil. The Norsemen called the islands Sv$r-eyjar (i.e. Southern Islands) in contrast to the Orkneys and Shetlands, which were known as Nor&reyjar, and the name survives in the composite bishopric of 'Sodor' and Man, which once formed part of the archdiocese of Trondhjem in Norway. The Isle of Man was plundered almost as early as any of the islands of the West (v. supra, p. 12), and it was probably from Man that the Norse settlements in Cumberland and Westmorland were established. Olaf the White and fvarr made more than one expedition from Ireland to the lowlands of Scotland, and the former was married to AuSr the daughter of Ketill Flatnose who had made himself the greatest chieftain in the Western Islands. After the battle of Hafrsfjord, when Harold Fairhair had finally crushed his rivals in Norway itself, so powerful were the Norse settlements in the West that he felt his position would be insecure until he had received their...
