THE POET AND THE SPAE-WIFE
AN ATTEMPT TO RECONSTRUCT
AL-GHAZAL'S EMBASSY
TO THE VIKINGS

BY

W. E. D. ALLEN

Made and Printed in Great Britain
by Titus Wilson and Son Ltd., Kendal© I960. W.E.D. Alien

EDITORS' PREFACE
The account of the visit of the Moorish ambassador,al-Ghazal, to the court of the Majus in the ninth century
has interested orientalists and Norse scholars for a longtime. It is, in the first place, a splendidly vivid story,
and it throws unexpected light on the manners and modeof life of the Majus described in it. It is now generally
agreed that these Majus were Scandinavian vikings, but,while some have believed that their court was in Denmark,others have held that it was in Ireland in the days of the
viking ruler Turges.
Mr. W. E. D. Alien, a member of the Society, alreadyknown as a student of the history and traditions of
the Near East, has now re-examined all the original
sources, Arabic, Irish and Norse, and in this thoroughand original work he offers his own conclusions. He hastaken full advantage of recent studies and interpreta­
tions of the Arabic texts, and it may be expected that
his work will provide the basis for any future study ofthis fascinating record. It is in the belief that members
will find it a stimulating contribution that we havedevoted the whole of the present part of the Saga-Book
to Mr. Alien's work.
Mr. Alien's monograph has also been published as aseparate book in a limited edition by Alien Figgis and
Co. Ltd. of Dublin, in association with the Viking Society
for Northern Research.
G.T.P.
P.G.F.

CONTENTSABBREVIATIONS

..

..

..

..

vii

I PROLOGUETHE VIKINGS IN SPAIN AND AQUITAINE,
843-6

..

..

..

..

..

I

II THE SOURCES
AL-GHAZAL'S EMBASSY TO THE VIKINGS ..

14

III TEXTIBN-DIHYA'S ACCOUNT OF THE EMBASSY ..

19

IV COMMENTARY. .

26

B THE KERRY COAST AND CLONMACNOISE

A THE JOURNEY OUT

. .

29

C IRELAND IN 845

. .

35

D "THE GREAT ISLAND IN THE OCEAN" ..

37

. .

. .

..

E THE RECEPTION OF AL-GHAZAL

. .

42

F QUEEN NUD

. .

46

. .

48

..

..

. .

G CONVERSATIONS WITH THE QUEENV EPILOGUETHE SACK OF PARIS AND THE END OF
TURGEISVI NOTES ..

. .

. .

. .

. .

. .

55

..

..

..

..

..

66

ABBREVIATIONSAU

Annals of Ulster (cf. note 72).

CDIL

Contributions to a Dictionary of the Irish
Language.

CMH

Cambridge Medieval History.

CogadhThe text of the War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill;see Todd, War.

El

Encyclopaedia of Islam.

FM

Four Masters: Annals of the Kingdom of Irelandby the Four Masters (cf. note 14).

IHS

Irish Historical Studies.

IQ

Islamic Quarterly.

JRAS

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society.

JRSAI

Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of
Ireland (see TKAS below).

PRIA

Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy.

SPAW

Sitzungsberichte d. K. Preussischen Akademie
d. Wissenschaften.

Todd, WarWar of the Gaedhil with the Gaill (Rolls Series;
1867).

TKAS

Transactions of the Kilkenny ArchaeologicalSociety, 1849-55; subsequently, to 1867, Journalof Kilkenny and South-east of Ireland Archaeological Society; subsequently, 1868-89, Journalof the (Royal) Historical and Archaeological
Association of Ireland; and from 1890 Journalof the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland(cf. JRSAI above).

VA

Viking Antiquities in Great Britain and Ireland,ed. H. Shetelig (Oslo 1940-54).

War of the Gaedhil See Todd, War.

Chapter One

PROLOGUE: THE VIKINGS IN AQUITAINEAND SPAIN, 843-6
TN a recent paper on 'The Muslim Discovery of Europe', 1Professor Bernard Lewis recalls that "The earliest reports
we have purporting to describe a Muslim diplomatic
mission to the north is the well-known and oft-cited storyof the embassy of al-Ghazal from Cordova to the land of
the Vikings in about 845. The late M. Levi-Provencal
cast doubt on the authenticity of this charming story,suggesting that it is a later fabrication based on
the authentic account of al-Ghazal's mission toConstantinople.'' 2
Contrary to the view of Levi-Provencal, Scandinavian
and English specialists of the Viking period are in generalagreement in accepting the validity of the report ofal-Ghazal's embassy to the north. They have received
support from the well-known Byzantinist, A. A. Vasiliev.
There are differences of opinion only in locating the sceneof the embassy. Some favour the court of the Danishking Horik in Zealand, while others have preferred theseat of the Norwegian conqueror of Ireland, Turgesius(Ir. Turgeis, probably O.N. E»orgestr, possibly Porgils(-gisl)). None have given more than passing attention to
the evidence. 3
The purpose of the present essay is to review theevidence for the authenticity of al-Ghazal's embassy to
the Vikings: to affirm that the first Viking attack on theemirate of Cordova in 844 was a Norwegian adventure
undertaken by way of the Biscay coast from original
bases in Ireland; and that al-Ghazal was sent by the amir
Abd-al-Rahman II to the Norwegians in Ireland where
he encountered Turgeis and his wife Ota.

2

The Poet and the Spae-wife

Further it is suggested that some details of al-Ghazal's
earlier embassy to Constantinople (840) preserved inLevi-Provenfal's anonymous manuscript from Fez, 4 may
relate to the embassy to the Vikings. The two accounts
cast a new light on some aspects of the social state of theVikings in Ireland and confirm Irish sources; and whileal-Ghazal's romantic and often salty anecdotes fit into thefree and easy atmosphere of a princely Viking camp, they
can scarcely be said to reflect the standards which ruled
the imperial court of Theophilus and Theodora. It is
possible indeed to accept the observation of LeviProvencal: "Sans doute, la demarche insolite de
1'Empereur de Byzance a Cordoue et la descente
audacieuse des Wikings sur le territoire espagnol, qui
comportaient 1'une et 1'autre certaines donnees romanesques, finirent-elles par s'amalgamer en Andalousie dansla croyance populaire et y favoriser la naissance d'une
legende commune, qui devait peu a peu deformer larealite historique." 6 But conclusions can be drawn
directly contrary to those of the distinguished historianof Muslim Spain.
A lack of precision among chroniclers contemporary
with the Viking wars has not helped modern historians
to distinguish between the national or regional elements
among the Vikings. For instance, so good a historian as
Vasiliev takes Kunik to task for describing 'the Normans'
who captured Seville in 844 as 'Swedish Russians'(schwedische Rodsen) when they were "Danes and to someextent Norwegians". 6 As a matter of fact there is noevidence that Danes took part in the expedition and in
this particular case the raiders are described in contempor­
ary sources as Westfaldingi (Norwegians from Vestfold,round the Oslo fjord). 7
The Muslims described 'heathens' as Majus. The
name Afo/Ms=Magians was originally used of the
Zoroastrians. It was then extended to other unbelievers,
together with the associations of the term— e.g. incest andPrologue: The Vikings in Spain3fire-worship. 8 Among the Muslims of the west the same
name was applied to the heathen Scandinavians who
were believed to be fire-worshippers. The great fire
festivals of northern Europe (which were not confined to
Scandinavia), or even the seasonal burning of the heather,
may have suggested this Magian connotation. 9 In later
Arab sources the name al-Ordomaniyun is used; it isborrowed from the Latin forms Normanni, Nordmanni,
Lordomanni, Lormanes, Leodomanni.10 The toponym
Murman which still survives for the extreme north­eastern peninsula of Scandinavia belongs to this group.
In Byzantine and Russian sources the names Ros, Rus'
were applied to Scandinavians, mostly of Swedish origin,
who had penetrated down the rivers of eastern Europe.
Some of the Muslim geographers realized that the Swedish
Rus' were kin to the Danes and Norwegians and al-Yakubi
writes of the attack on Seville in 844: "into this city brokein the Majus who are called Rus'."11
The name Viking itself is reviewed in detail by Kendrick
who prefers to define it as 'one who fares by sea'; it earlycame to have the pejorative sense of 'robber' or 'marauder'among the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians.12 Sometimes
the chronicles preserve specific regional names: as
Westfaldingi or the Anglo-Saxon Northmen 'of Herefta
lande' which is found in the Irish forms Hirotha andIrruaith.18 But in general the chronicles are seldom
specific and often inaccurate. In referring to the Viking
attacks, the Annals of Ulster call the invaders Genti('gentiles'); 'the Four Masters' who compiled the Annalsof the Kingdom of Ireland, use the term Gaill ('foreigners').
O'Donovan, the editor of the Four Masters, attributes
the raids round the south coast of Ireland from 807
onwards to the Danair (Danes).14 He cites theseventeenth-century English recension of the Annals ofClonmacnoise, but this work calls all Vikings in Ireland'Danes'. The great Irish scholar, Geoffrey Keating, also
writing in the seventeenth-century, states that "others

4

The Poet and the Spae-wife

say that it was when Airtre, son of Cathal, reigned in
Munster (792-802), the Lochlonnaigh (Lochlannaigh) began
to come to plunder Ireland. And in this they are right."
Although Lochlannaigh is generally taken to mean
Norwegians, Keating states that "it is not a specific namefor any particular tribe" but applies to "the inhabitantsof the countries of northern Europe". Keating adds:"True also is the statement of those who assert that the
Lochlonnaigh came to Ireland in the reign of Olchobhar
over Munster (d. 849), but the tribe who came hither thenwere the Dainfhir or Danes from Dania, that is Denmark,and it is these are called Duibhgheinnte ('black gentiles')or Dubhlochlonnaigh ('black foreigners') in the old booksof the seanchus, while the Norwegians are called
Finngheinnte ('white' or 'fair' foreigners) or Fionnlochlonnaigh ('white Lochlanns')."15
The name Lochlannaigh has been explained as 'men of
the lochs' with reference to the Norwegian fjords.16
The reason for the distinction between 'white' and 'black'foreigners is also obscure. The explanation that theDanes were darker than the Norwegians is not confirmedby anthropology; but a distinction in the colour of thearmour of the Vikings may be valid. Colour symbolism
in the middle ages had a significance which is not always
clear. There was Red, White and Black Russia; theGolden, Blue and Apricot Hordes among the Tartars;
and the Black and White Sheep Turkomans. There were'Blues' and 'Greens' in Byzantium; and 'Red' and White'in the Wars of the Roses. The differentiation by colours
may, indeed, have been casual and spontaneous, as in
the modern example of the Red, White and Green armies
during the Russian Civil War.17
Halphen, following Steenstrup, has recognised clearlyenough the distinctive characters of the Swedish,Norwegian and Danish contributions to the Scandinavian
epos.18 Again, Shetelig, in a brief and brilliant 'Summary
Analysis', has described the pattern.19 The Swedish

Prologue: The Vikings in Spain

5expansion round the coasts and up the rivers of the East
Baltic lands had begun in the seventh century; indeed, it
seems that the movement from southern Sweden was asequel to the earlier spread of the Goths towards theBlack Sea.20 Different in character, a westerly movement
across the open seas out of the Norwegian fjords began to
be marked in the last decade of the eighth century. 21
It took the form of a migration directed at first toward
the Scottish Isles and, through the first half of the ninth
century, into Ireland. The peculiar social structure andperennial tribal warfare in Celtic Ireland encouraged
Norse settlement in force. 22 During the ninth century,in the Orkneys and Hebrides, in Ireland and Man, wereformed the first Scandinavian communities overseas —half a century earlier than in Iceland and the English
Danelaw, more than a century before the duchy ofNormandy, and two centuries before the Norman kingdomof Sicily. The strategic position of Ireland in the northAtlantic favoured the sea-kings. Later generations were
to contend with Danes and Saxons for the mastery ofNorthumbria; but in the earlier decades the Norwegians
raided the Welsh coast and struck south along the westernseaboard of France — particularly up the great rivers,
Loire and Garonne. The first Norwegian raid on Aquitaine
from Ireland was recorded in 799. 23
The movement out of Denmark had, again, a different
character. In Shetelig's view, the Danish expeditions
during the years 834-7 were intimately connected withthe civil wars between the successors of Charlemagne. 24
Then the deterioration in conditions in the Prankish
empire after the battle of Fontenay in 841 tempted theDanes — and the Norwegians in the west along theAtlantic coast of France — to become armies ofprofessional condottieri. 25
The first Viking attack on Spain in 844 may be explained
as an accident of the civil wars in France. On the Loirein 843, a Prankish adventurer, Count Lambert, had

6

The Poet and the Spae-wifecombined with Duke Nominee of Brittany against the
representative of Charles the Bald, ruler of West Francia.
On 24th May the royalists were defeated at Messac.
Lambert entered Nantes but was expelled by the citizens
within two weeks. In the second week of June a Viking
fleet was observed off the mouth of the Loire. The
visitors established a base on the island of Hero
(Noirmoutier) which had been the seat of the Monasteryof St. Philibert — abandoned by the monks because ofrecurrent Viking raids during the past twenty years. 26
As a point of call for barks engaged in the Breton
salt trade, "Noirmoutier was doubtless well known to thenorthern adventurer merchants, and it was this place
which became the first goal of northern pirates in Atlantic
waters." 27 It was characteristic of the Vikings thattrading was combined with raiding and, according to theauthor of Les Miracles de St. Martin de Vertou, thecitizens of Nantes did not even shut their gates when sixtyseven Viking ships hove up the river. They supposedthat the Vikings had come to trade at the great annual
fair of St. John and allowed them to enter the city witharms concealed. A slaughter then took place in thestreets and in the cathedral where the frightened people
tried to defend themselves (24th June). After ravaging
the country to the south of the Loire, the Vikings
withdrew with their loot and captives to the island of
Noirmoutier. The crisis favoured Lambert who was now
admitted into the ruined city by the inhabitants. 28 The
historians of Charles the Bald, Lot and Halphen, haveexonerated Lambert from collusion with the Vikings on
the ground that the Chronique de Nantes records that thepirates dared not pursue fugitives who escaped from
Noirmoutier 'through fear of Lambert'. But this restraintof the Viking crews does not exclude the possibility of anunderstanding between Lambert and their leaders. 29
Indeed, the fact that in the following summer (844) the
Vikings sailed up the Garonne towards Toulouse, wherePrologue: The Vikings in Spain7

the political allies of Lambert — Pepin II, the Aquitainianpretender, and Count William of Septimania — werefighting Charles the Bald, suggests that a military
understanding existed between the Vikings and thePrankish rebels. This possibility is confirmed by aconcatenation of dates: Charles raised the siege of Toulouseat the end of July or the beginning of August; the Vikings
appeared on the north coast of Spain during the first halfof August. It is a reasonable assumption that they
withdrew from the Garonne under agreement with
Pepin II, and probably after receipt of a substantial
contribution. 30
It is a fortunate chance that the Annales angoumoisinespreserved the regional name of the Viking host which
captured Nantes. They were Westfaldingi = Norwegians
from Vestfold. 31 And they had come from 'the Britannic
Ocean' — the name then generally applied to the Irish
Sea. 32 The author of Les Miracles de St. Martin de
Vertou states that "Lambert had visited the Normans
and Danes and persuaded them to cross the Ocean andcome to Nantes." Lot and Halphen prefer to treat thisstory as "a legend deriving from the hatred of some
Nantais for Lambert." 33 At that time contact was
frequent and easy between the Viking posts on the
Atlantic coast of France and the recently occupied Viking
strongholds in Munster. No practical reason prevented
Count Lambert from maintaining fairly rapid communi­
cations with the Irish Vikings. 34
Whether or not Count Lambert summoned the Vikings
to attack Nantes, there is circumstantial evidence forbelieving that the Westfaldingi came from Ireland andthat they formed part of the large host which had for someyears been engaged in ravaging that country underTurgeis who was himself a Vestfold prince. 35 By 844,
Turgeis — with great strategic insight — had established
his main base on Loch Ri in the centre of Ireland. He
was already master of "Conn's Half" — the whole of

8

The Poet and the Spae-wife

Ireland north of the Shannon and of the two great centresof Irish culture at Armagh and Clonmacnois. From themouth of the Shannon, his fleets were active round thecoasts of Kerry and Cork. "There came great sea-castfloods of foreigners into Munster", writes the author of
The War of the Gaedhil with the Gail, "so that there was
not a point thereof without a fleet." The presence of afleet of threescore and five ships at Dublin is mentioned in
the same context and this number corresponds closelywith that of the fleet which sailed into the Loire in June
844. 37
When the Westfaldingi withdrew from the Garonne, it
seems that they returned to Noirmoutier and from there
set sail 'to their own country'. However, they were beset
by a violent north wind which carried them towards thecoast of Galicia. They made a landfall near Coruna anddisembarked — perhaps only with a view to replenishingsupplies. They were in the kingdom of Asturias andwere sharply attacked by the levies of King Ramiro I— themselves of mixed Celtic and Germano-Suabian
blood and well inured to war. The Vikings suffered a
bloody repulse, losing through enemy action or, partly
perhaps through continuing bad weather, seventy of theirships. Fifty-four warships survived, with an equal
number of attendant craft, carrying at most 3,000 fighting
men. 38
On 20th August this fleet lay in to Lisbon, They
were now comfortably in the Portugal Current and thefine dry weather of early autumn usual on this coast.
"One might have said they had filled the ocean with dark
red birds," wrote ibn-Idhari in an allusion to thecharacteristic colour of the warships of the Vestfoldkings. 39 At Lisbon the Muslims offered stout resistanceand after thirteen days the Westfaldingi sailed south.
While some of their crews raided and plundered Cadiz andMedina Sidonia, the bulk of the fleet (some eighty vessels
including auxiliary craft) moved up the Guadalquivir

Prologue: The Vikings in Spain

9(wadi-el-kebir). Marshy Captal, a few miles south-west of
Seville, offered the insular base which Vikings always
sought. The rich city amid its olive groves and gardens
lacked defensive walls; troops were few; and the governor
fled to Carmona. After some skirmishing, the Westfaldingientered Seville and sacked it with much slaughter. During
October they scattered in raiding parties over the country­
side. This normal tactic of the Vikings proved fatal in aland with a well-organised and active government used
to waging war. By November Abd al-Rahman II, hadgathered strong forces and, on the nth of the month,the Westfaldingi were badly beaten at Tablada — where
Seville aerodrome is now situated. Their leader and overa thousand men were killed and four hundred taken
prisoners. Thirty empty warships were abandoned to
the Muslims. 40
The survivors were in a desperate situation. But
they were mobile and they were able to trade theirnumerous captives against food and clothes. 41 They
withdrew down the Guadalquivir, but they still had spirit
to raid up the Tinto and the Guadiana and to make adescent on Arcila in Morocco.
These minor operations occupied the turn of the year
844-5. The Vikings were last seen by the Muslims off
Lisbon. 42 Modern historians have not traced in detailtheir subsequent movements. Indeed Lot and Halphen,
generally so accurate, fixed the dates of the visit to theGaronne basin and the raid on Andalucia too late. 43
Nothing is heard of the Vikings for some months until,in the course of the year 845, they regained the coast of
Aquitaine and landed between Bordeaux and Saintes.
The Chronique de Nantes expressly states that they had
come on a westerly wind from Galicia. 44 It would seem
clear then that they had wintered and spent the spring
refitting in one of the lonely rias of the Galician coast(which Elysee Reclus has aptly compared to theNorwegian fjords). 45 It was only in the early autumn ofio

The Poet and the Spae-wife

845 that they resumed offensive action — perhaps aftersome reinforcements had reached them.
Seguin, the Prankish duke of the Gascons, who was
holding lower Aquitaine for Charles the Bald, was defeated
and beheaded by the Westfaldingi. They then took andpillaged the towns of Saintes and Bordeaux. These events
took place in October/November 845 — exactly a year
after the expedition against Seville. According to theChronique de Nantes, the Westfaldingi, loaded withpillage, then returned to their own country — 'greatly
longed for' (valde desiderata™).* 1 But it is apparent fromthe Chronicon Aquitanicum that the Viking fleet — or agreat part of it — stayed on the Aquitainian coast until
the middle of 846. 48 In July 846 the Westfaldingi cameto Noirmoutier; and here they set fire to their base andtook to the sea. The fact that they destroyed a strong­hold where they had been masters for ten years implied,in the view of Lot and Halphen, that they had no hope of
return. 49 Lot and Halphen concluded that the Vikings"set sail for the Baltic and that a crisis in the Danish
state took them back to their own country". 50
In fact there is no evidence for a crisis in the Danish
state in the summer of 846. There was, however, aserious crisis in the affairs of the Norwegian Vikings in
Ireland. Turgeis had been killed, sometime in 845, or,
as I shall suggest later, in 846. Something comparable
to 'Sicilian Vespers' flared up against the Norwegianconquerors in Ireland, and in 846-847 they suffered aseries of defeats at the hands of the Irish. 52
These disasters were followed by a calculated offensiveof the Danes to displace the Norwegians from Ireland andand Aquitaine and to secure the hegemony of the coastround the western ocean. It would appear to have beena call for reinforcements by the hard-pressed Norwegiansin Ireland, which caused the Westfaldingi to evacuate
Noirmoutier in July 846, and that fear of their basefalling into the hands of Danish rivals may have prompted
them to destroy it. 53

Prologue: The Vikings in Spainn

It was against the background of the events of 845 and846 that the twenty-month odyssey of al-Ghazal to theVikings took place.
Neither the Westfaldingi nor the Muslims can havefound the campaign in Andalucia as strange as somehistorians have assumed. More than four decades had
passed since the Norwegians had first raided the coasts of
Aquitaine; Irish monks for two centuries had had someknowledge of the Spanish scene; and it is clear that theVikings had a general idea about the peninsula before they
descended on it. They found in Seville a population which
was still largely Gothic and Romano-Spanish. 54 The
Gothic elements were important in the Andalucianamirate. 55 The amir's household troops were composedof non-Arabic speaking 'mutes' — partly negroes andpartly 'Slavs'. 56 Again, there were in Spain thousandsof slaves imported from the eastern borders of the Prankish
empire, many of them taken in the Carolingian wars,
Saxons, Slavonic Wends, and, doubtless, Danes. Someof these men had become freemen and had risen to good
positions in service or in trade. The Westfaldingi seemto have had no difficulty in finding interpreters and in
making themselves understood. 57
These aspects are important in considering thebackground of the embassy which, according to Arabsources, was despatched by the Vikings to Abd alRahman II. The factor of bringing aid and comfort tosome of the bands scattered about the Algarve and theGaditarian hinterland may have entered in. 58 But it ishardly necessary to recall the strong trading interest of
the Vikings. In their case trade followed the sword; andto these keen and reckless venturers, who had alreadypillaged Seville, Andalucia was a marvel of attraction as
the richest and most famous part of Western Europe.
On the other hand, the Muslims were interested in the
products of northern Europe — all the way from theAtlantic to the Volga. Particularly attractive to them

12

The Poet and the Spae-wife

were rare furs and strong barbarian slaves. The blonde
women were favoured in Andalucian households and themen were sought after as mercenaries and labourers. The
Vikings were great fur trappers in the northern lands andseas and, like their remote descendants in England andAmerica, ruthless slave traders. 59 Relations with theVikings could offer to the Andalucian merchants theopportunity of penetrating the markets of northern
Europe round the oceanic flank of the Prankish empire.
For the Muslims, it is suggested that there was also a
political interest. Abd al-Rahman II was in a state of
war with Charles the Bald, himself so hardly harassed by
Scandinavian attacks. In the first decade of the ninth
century, the Franks had taken Barcelona from theMuslims, and intermittent campaigns for the control ofCatalonia had followed. 60 The weakness of the Prankish
monarchy after Fontenay (841) had offered the occasion
to the army of Abd al-Rahman to ravage Cerdagne andto raid as far as the outskirts of Narbonne in 843 — theyear before the Viking attack on Seville. 61 On the other
hand, the Christian subjects of the amirate of Cordova
were in a ferment; risings were frequent and significant —as in Merida (828-38) and Toledo (831). There weremany indications of a political and religious revival
among the peoples of the peninsula — still Christian or
only recently converted to Islam. 62 'The fire worshipping
Majus' — formidable enemies of the Christians and of the
Prankish monarchy — were clearly of interest to Abd alRahman and his advisers.
There were indeed valid circumstantial reasons for an
exchange of embassies between Cordova and the Vikings
and the choice of al-Ghazal as ambassador underlined theimportance which Abd al-Rahman attached to themission. A poet of quality, a man of fashion and acelebrated wit, Yahya bn-Hakam el Bekri al Djayani(=of Jaen) was known as al-Ghazal for his notable good
looks. In 840, he had been sent on a mission toPrologue: The Vikings in Spain

13

Byzantium to return an embassy which the Emperor
Theophilus had despatched to Cordova earlier in thesame year. He was in the confidence of Abd al-Rahman
and was clearly the leading diplomat of Cordova. In 845,
al-Ghazal had the experience of his fifty years; and he
was still ardent, quick-witted and adventurous: a perfectchoice for the perilous voyage to the Viking north. 63

Chapter Two
THE SOURCES
fPHE original source for the embassy of al-Ghazal to
the Vikings was Abu-1-Kattab-Umar-ibn-al-Hasan-ibnDihya, who was born in Valencia in Andalucia, about 1159,
and died, almost an octogenarian, in Cairo, in 1235. The
facts and anecdotes in the story were derived fromTammam-ibn-Alqama, vizier under three consecutive
amirs in Andalucia during the ninth century, who diedin 896. Tammam-ibn-Alqama had had the details directfrom al-Ghazal and his companions. The only manuscriptof ibn-Dihya's work was acquired by the British Museumin 1866: it is entitled Al-mutrib min ashar ahli'l Maghrib('An amusing book from poetical works of the Maghrib').
The Arab text of the story of the embassy with a few
omissions was first published by Reinhart Dozy, Recherches
3rd ed., II, appendix, Ixxxi-lxxxviii, then by A. Seippel,
Rerum normannicarum fontes arabici, Oslo, 1896, 13-20;
and in Norwegian by Birkeland. A French translation by
Dozy was reprinted by Fabricius in 1893 (see note 3).
There was also a German translation by Georg Jacob,
Arabische Berichte van Gesandten an Germanische
Fiirstenhofe aus d. 9 u. 10. Jahrhundert, Berlin/Leipzig,
1927, 37-42. Jon Stefansson published in English an
abbreviated version of Dozy's French translation in SagaBook, VI, 1908-9, 37ff. 64 Before Dozy's work, only
excerpts from ibn-Dihya in incomplete shape had been
known from the writings of the seventeenth-century
Maghribi man of letters, al-Maqqari, whose "immensecompilation of historical and literary information, poems,
letters and quotations very often taken from works now
lost has", in the words of Levi-Provengal, "an inestimablevalue" and is "in the first rank for our sources of Muslim

The Sources: Al-Ghazal's Embassy

15

Spain" (Encyclopedia of Islam, III 174). Al-Maqqari's
chief source for historical and literary anecodotes of theearlier period in Andalucia was ibn-al-Khatib Dhu-1Wizaratain (= 'holder of two vizierates'), 1313-74, thecelebrated encyclopaedist of Granada who has been
described as "the greatest and the'last important author,
poet and statesman of Granada, if not of the whole ofArab Spain" (C. F. Seybold, El, II 206).
The account of the embassy, therefore, rests on ibnDihya, writing nearly four centuries after the events
described and deriving his information, including themany circumstantial details, from the unidentified workof Tammam-ibn-Alqama, a contemporary of al-Ghazal.
His version is cited by two of the leading literary men of
the following centuries, who may be assumed therefore tohave credited it. Dozy did not doubt the authenticity ofthe story and later historians accepted his authority,
although there were different views as to whether theembassy had visited Ireland or Scandinavia.
In 1937, L6vi-Provengal published an article in
Byzantion, XII, in which he referred to the discovery of
new texts forming part of an anonymous Arab chronicle ina wing, long unexplored, of the library of the great
mosque of al-Karawiyin at Fez. This chronicle, the nameof the compiler of which Levi-Provengal was unable toidentify, relates to the Umaiyads of Spain in the ninth
century. The compilation is in the form of annals citedfrom older chroniclers, including Mufarriq and Isa bn
Ahmed ar-Razi, living at the end of the tenth century. 6 5
The information furnished by these chroniclers complete
and confirm each other. An important event describedin detail was the exchange of embassies between the
Byzantine emperor Theophilus and the amir Abd alRahman in the year 839-40. Yahya-bn-Hakam al-Ghazal
was named as head of the mission which was sent toConstantinople. The author of the anonymous chronicle
reproduces from the lost work of ar-Razi the full text of

i6

The Poet and the Spae-wife

the communication which al-Ghazal bore to the emperor
Theophilus. He also includes a number of anecdotes anda poem which resemble closely details of ibn-Dihya's
account of al-Ghazal's embassy to the Vikings.
The fact that the chroniclers cited by the anonymous
Fez manuscript refer to the Viking attack on Andalucia
but do not mention the subsequent exchange of embassies
with the Vikings leads Levi-Proven9al to the conclusionthat "le recit d'lbn Dihya . . . n'est qu'une contamination
posterieure du voyage officiel d'al-Ghazal a Constan­tinople." 66 Levi-Proven9al promised to publish later
the text of the anonymous chronicle in Documents inedits
d'histoire hispano-umaiyade but I have been unable toascertain whether this work has appeared since 1937.
In 1950, in his Histoire de I'Espagne musulmane, I 253-4,
he confirmed his earlier view: "il s'agit la d'une fable
inventee de toutes pieces". 67 The views of this dis­tinguished Arabist, weighed against those of specialists in
Viking history, merit respect, and I shall return to thedetail of his objections.
Scandinavian and Irish sources for the mid-ninth
century make no mention of an embassy from Cordova
to the Vikings. The earliest reference to the presence of
Spanish Moors in Ireland is to be found in the Three
Fragments of Dubhaltach Mac Firbisigh (Duald Mac
Firbis), the third of which relates to the Viking attack on
Andalucia in 959-60, and the subsequent bringing ofMoorish prisoners, known as 'blue men' to Ireland. 88
The Scandinavian sources are late and sparse for thisperiod. In the Heimskringla (Harolds saga hdrfagra,
ch. 33), Snorri refers to a E>orgisl, son of Harald Fairhair,
who ruled in Dublin, but there is no certainty that he is tobe equated with Turgeis. An identification of Turgeis
with Ragnar loSbrok, proposed by Halliday and discussed
by Todd, has not been accepted by later historians. 69
The Irish sources are important for the history of theNorwegian invasions of Ireland and, indeed, of the whole

The Sources: Al-Ghazal's Embassy

17of the Viking age. Shetelig conceded that "we areindebted to Irish writers for a considerable amount ofauthentic information concerning the history of the Viking
period ..." Again, "the Irish annals give us a glimpseof historical facts left in deep obscurity by Norwegiansources, viz. the relations between Norway and the Viking
kingdom about the middle of the ninth century . . . The
Irish annals also shed light on Viking history in Scotland,
and in the Hebrides and Man." 70
The principal source for the career of Turgeis and forthe solitary reference to his wife Ota is the work known as
Cogadh Gaedhel re Gallaibh ('The War of the Gaedhil(Goidil) with the Gaill ('foreigners')'). This has survived
in a fragment bound in the Book of Leinster — dated byTodd to about the middle of the twelfth century; in amanuscript found by Eugene O'Curry in 1840, originallyin the possession of Edward Llwyd, the celebrated
eighteenth-century Celtic scholar — believed by Todd tohave been copied in the fourteenth century; and inanother manuscript in the Burgundian Library, Brussels,transcribed from the lost Book of Cuchonnacht O'Daly —which Todd attributed to the first half of the twelfth
century. Internal evidence indicates that the original
was compiled by a contemporary of King Brian Borumha
at the beginning of the eleventh century, and the accuracyof the account of the battle of Clontarf in 1014 was
confirmed by a remarkable calculation checking thestate of the moon and the tides in Dublin Bay on 23rd
April 1014 (Todd, War, xxvi, xxvii). 71
The author of the War of the Gaedhil was writing justover a century and a half after the period of Turgeis: andhe was a near contemporary of Mufarriq and ar-Razi.
The brief reference to Turgeis and Ota in The Annals of
Ulster, The Annals of Clonmacnois, and The Four Masters
appears to have been based on the War of the Gaedhil;
indeed, as Todd observed, "the Four Masters haveoccasionally transferred its very words to their pages"(Todd, War, xix). 72

i8

The Poet and the Spae-wife

In 1185, Giraldus de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis), a
noble ecclesiastic of Norman-Welsh origin, visited Ireland
and, in his Topographia Hiberniae, left his curious descrip­tion of the career and death of Turgeis and his equallycurious discussion of Gurmundus, 'who came to Irelandfrom Africa'. The adventures of Turgeis were apparently
still 'common talk' in Ireland. Giraldus, again, implies
that he had some acquaintance with the Irish histories;
and his attribution of abandoned forts and earthworks toTurgeis is evidence that in the twelfth century the memoryof the Norwegian conqueror was as alive in Ireland as isthat of Cromwell now three hundred years after his
death. 73
The seventeenth-century historians, Duald Mac Firbis(1585-1670), in his Chronicon Scotorum, and Geoffrey
Keating (^1570-1644), in his History, used the War of theGaedhil for their references to Turgeis. Keating, in Todd'sview, embroidered Giraldus's account of the death ofTurgeis, and English historians, contemporary with
Keating, gave versions which have been treated as basedon Giraldus. But there is evidence to show that thehistorians of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries hadaccess to a common source, known to Giraldus in thetwelfth century, since they go into details which need notnecessarily be attributed to imaginative licence. Keating
certainly used material for the later history of 'the sons ofTurgesius* which is neither drawn from the annals nor
lifted from Giraldus and which must derive from a source
still available in his time — perhaps a lost section of thework surviving in the Three Fragments. 74

Chapter Three
THE TEXT
Note: I am indebted to Professor Bernard Lewis of the
University of London for his courtesy in placing at mydisposal his translation of the text of ibn-Dihya whichforms part of his forthcoming book, The Muslim
Discovery of Europe, to be published by Messrs. Alienand Unwin. It is reproduced by their kind permission.

Tl^HEN the envoys of the king of the Vikings came to
Sultan 'abd ar-Rahman to ask for peace, after they
had left Seville, had attacked its surroundings and hadthen been defeated there with the loss of the commander of
their fleet, 'abd ar-Rahman decided to reply accepting
this request. He commanded al-Ghazal to go on thismission with the envoys of their king, since al-Ghazal
possessed keenness of mind, quickness of wit, skill in
repartee, courage and perseverance, and knew his way inand out of every door.
He was accompanied by Yahya
b. Habib. He went to the city of Shilb (Silves), where afine, well-equipped ship was prepared for them. They
bore a reply to the message of the king of the Vikings anda gift in return for his gift. The envoy of the Viking kingembarked on the Viking vessel on which he had come, andsailed at the same time as the ship of al-Ghazal. Whenthey were opposite the great cape that juts out into thesea and is the westermost limit of Spain, that is, themountain known as Aluwiyah, the sea grew fearsome
against them, and a mighty storm blew upon them, andthey reached a point which al-Ghazal has described asfollows:—
Yahya said to me, as we passed between waves
like mountains
And the winds overbore us from West and North,20

The Poet and the Spae-wife

When the two sails were rent and the cable-loops
were cut
And the angel of death reached for us, without any
escape,And we saw death as the eye sees one state after
another—"The sailors have no capital in us, 0 my comrade!"
When al-Ghazal was saved from the terror and dangersof those seas, he arrived at the first of the lands of theVikings, at one of their islands, where they stayed several
days and repaired their ships and rested. The Viking
ship went on to their king and they informed him of thearrival of the envoys. At this he rejoiced, and sent forthem, and they went to his royal residence which was agreat island (or peninsula) in the Ocean, with flowing
streams and gardens. It was three days' sail, that is,three hundred miles, from the mainland. In it are Vikings,
too numerous to be counted, and around the island aremany other islands, large and small, all peopled by Vikings.
The adjoining mainland is also theirs for a distance ofmany days' journey. They were heathens, but they now
follow the Christian faith, and have given up fire-worshipand their previous religion, except for the people of a few
scattered islands of theirs in the sea, where they keep totheir old faith, with fire-worship, the marriage ofbrothers and sisters and various other kinds of abomina­tion. The others wage war against them and enslavethem.
The king ordered his people to prepare a fine dwelling
for them, and sent out a party to greet them. The
Vikings thronged to look at them, and they wonderedgreatly at their appearance and their garb. They werethen led to their lodgings in an honourable manner andspent a day there. After two days the king summoned
them to his presence, and al-Ghazal stipulated that hewould not be made to kneel to him and that he and his
companions would not be required to do anything contrary

The Text: Ibn-Dihya's Account21

to their customs. The king agreed to this. But when
they went to him, he sat before them in magnificent guise,and ordered an entrance, through which he must be
approached, to be made so low that one could only enterkneeling. When al-Ghazal came to this, he sat on the
ground, stretched forth his two legs, and dragged himself
through on his rear. And when he had passed throughthe doorway, he stood erect. The king had preparedhimself for him, with many arms and great pomp. But
al-Ghazal was not overawed by this, nor did it frighten
him. He stood erect before him, and said: "Peace bewith you, O king, and with those whom your assembly
hall contains, and respectful greetings to you! May you
not cease to enjoy power, long life, and the nobility whichleads you to the greatness of this world and the next,
which becomes enduring under the protection of theliving and Eternal One, other than whom all things perish,
to whom is the dominion and to whom we return" (Quran
28/88). The interpreter explained what he had said, andthe king admired his words, and said: "This is one of thewise and clever ones of his people." He wondered at
al-Ghazal's sitting on the ground and entering feet
foremost, and he said: "We sought to humiliate him, andhe greeted us with the soles of his shoes. Had he not been
an ambassador, we would have taken this amiss."
Then al-Ghazal gave him the letter of Sultan 'Abd arRahman. The letter was read to him, and interpreted.
He found it good, took it in his hand, lifted it and put it
in his bosom. Then he ordered the gifts to be brought
and had the coffers opened, and examined all the garments
and the vessels that they contained, and was delighted
with them. After this, he permitted them to withdraw
to their dwelling, and treated them generously.
Al-Ghazal had noteworthy sessions and famous
encounters with them, when he debated with their scholars
and silenced them and contended against their champions
and outmatched them.

22

The Poet and the Spae-wife

Now when the wife of the Viking king heard of alGhazal, she sent for him so that she might see him. Whenhe entered her presence, he greeted her, then he stared ather for a long time, gazing at her as one that is struck
with wonderment. She said to her interpreter; "Ask him
why he stares at me so. Is it because he finds me very
beautiful, or the opposite?" He answered: "It is indeed
because I did not imagine that there was so beautiful aspectacle in the world. I have seen in the palaces of ourking women chosen for him from among all the nations,but never have I seen among them beauty such as this."She said to her interpreter, "Ask him; is he serious, ordoes he jest?" And he answered: "Serious indeed."
And she said to him: "Are there then no beautiful womenin your country?" And al-Ghazal replied: "Show mesome of your women, so that I can compare them withours." So the queen sent for women famed for beauty,
and they came. Then he looked them up and down,
and he said: "They have beauty, but it is not like thebeauty of the queen, for her beauty and her qualities
cannot be appreciated by everyone and can only be
expressed by poets. If the queen wishes me to describe
her beauty, her quality and her wisdom in a poem which
will be declaimed in all our land, I shall do this." Thequeen was greatly pleased and elated with this, and ordered
him a gift. Al-Ghazal refused to accept it, saying "Iwill not." Then she said to the interpreter: "Ask him
why he does not accept my gift. Does he dislike mygift, or me?" He asked him — and Ghazal replied:"Indeed, her gift is magnificent, and to receive it fromher is a great honour, for she is a queen and the daughter ofa king. But it is gift enough for me to see her and to
be received by her. This is the only gift I want. I
desire only that she continues to receive me." And when
the interpreter explained his words to her, her joy andher admiration for him grew even greater, and she said:"Let his gift be carried to his dwelling; and whenever heThe Text: Ibn-Dihya's Account23

wishes to pay me a visit, let not the door be closed to him
for with me he is always assured of an honourable
welcome." Al-Ghazal thanked her, wished her well anddeparted.
Tammam ibn 'Alqama said: "I heard al-Ghazal tellthis story, and I asked him: 'And did she really approachthat degree of beauty which you ascribed to her?' And
he answered: 'By your father, she had some charm; but
by talking in this way I won her good graces and obtained
from her more than I desired'."Tammam ibn 'Alqama also said: "One of his compan­
ions said to me: 'The wife of the king of the Vikings was
infatuated with al-Ghazal and could not suffer a day topass without her sending for him and his staying with her
and telling her of the life of the Muslims, of their history,
their countries and the nations that adjoin them. Rarely
did he leave her without her sending after him a gift toexpress her good-will to him — garments or food or
perfume, till her dealings with him became notorious,and his companions disapproved of it. Al-Ghazal was
warned of this, and became more careful, and called onher only every other day. She asked him the reason for
this, and he told her of the warning he had received.
Then she laughed, and said to him: 'We do not have suchthings in our religion, nor do we have jealousy. Our
women are with our men only of their own choice. A
woman stays with her husband as long as it pleases her
to do so, and leaves him if it no longer pleases her.' It
was the custom of the Vikings before the religion of Romereached them that no woman refused any man, exceptthat if a noblewoman accepted a man of humble status,
she was blamed for this, and her family kept them apart.
When al-Ghazal heard her say this, he was reassured,and returned to his previous familiarity."
Tammam says: "Al-Ghazal was striking in middle age;he had been handsome in his youth, and was for thisreason nicknamed al-Ghazal (the Gazelle). When he

24

The Poet and the Spae-wifewent to the land of the Vikings, he was about fifty, andhis hair was turning grey. He was however in full vigour,straight of body and handsome of aspect. One day the
king's wife, whose name was Nud, asked him his age, andhe replied jestingly: 'Twenty'. And she said to theinterpreter: 'What youth of twenty has such grey hair?'And he replied to the interpreter: 'What is so unlikely
about that? Have you never seen a foal dropped that isgrey-haired at birth?' Nud laughed and was struck withwonder at his words. And on this occasion al-Ghazalextemporised:—'You are burdened, O my heart, with a wearying
passionWith which you struggle as if with a lion.
I am in love with a Viking woman
Who will not let the sun of beauty set,
Who lives at the limit of God's world, where he
Who goes towards her, finds no path.
O Nud, 0 young and fair one,From whose buttons a star rises,
O you, by my father, than whom I see
None sweeter or pleasanter to my heart,
If I should say one day that my eye has seen
Any one like you, I would surely be lying.
She said: "I see that your locks have turned white"
In jest, she caused me to jest also,
I answered: "By my father,
The foal is born grey like this."And she laughed and admired my words—Which I only spoke that she might admire.'
Had this poem been composed by 'Umar ibn abi
Rabi'a or Bashshar ibn Burd or 'Abbas ibn al Ahnaf or any
other of the (Eastern) classical poets who took this path,
it would have been highly esteemed. But the poem isforgotten, because the poet was an Andalucian. Other­wise it would not have been left in obscurity, for such aThe Text: Ibn-Dihya's Account25

poem does not deserve to be neglected. Have you seen
anything more beautiful than the line: 'Who will not let
the sun of beauty set', or as the first line of this piece,
or as the description of the exchange of jests? Are they
not strung pearls? And are we not wronged and treatedunjustly?
But let us return to the story of al-Ghazal. When he
had recited his poem to Nud, and the interpreter had
explained it, she laughed at it, and ordered him to use dye,
Al-Ghazal did so, and appeared before her next morningwith dyed hair. She praised his dye and said it became
him well, whereupon al-Ghazal recited the following
verses:'In the morning she complimented me on the black­ness of my dye,It was as though it had brought me back to my youth.
But I see grey hair and the dye upon it
As a sun that is swathed in mist.
It is hidden for a while, and then the wind uncovers it,
And the covering begins to fade away.
Do not despise the gleam of white hair;
It is the flower of understanding and intelligence,
I have that which you lust for in the youth
As well as elegance of manner, culture and breeding.'
Then al-Ghazal left them, and, accompanied by theenvoys, went to Shent Ya'qub (St. lago de Compostella)with a letter from the king of the Vikings to the ruler ofthat city. He stayed there, greatly honoured, for twomonths, until the end of their pilgrimage. Then hetravelled to Castile with those who were bound for there,
and thence to Toledo, eventually reaching the presence of
Sultan 'Abd ar-Rahman after an absence of twenty
months."Chapter FourCOMMENTARY
text of ibn-Dihya is a matter-of-fact, and in someparts, detailed story of a journey, interspersed withanecdotes, some original, others in traditional genre.
There is, indeed, little flavour of the 'marvels' usual in
travellers' records of the period.
The account of the itinerary and adventures of theambassador is straightforward and in keeping with thecharacter of ibn-Dihya's book which was in the class ofbelles lettres and intended to 'amuse' the reader, as thetitle indicates. In contrast to the embassy to Constantin­
ople described in the anonymous Fez manuscript, no
documents are cited illustrating the political objects andresults of the mission.
A The Journey Out
From the opening sentences of ibn-Dihya it is clear that'the ambassador of the king of the Vikings' arrived at
the headquarters of Abd ar-Rahman II after the defeat
at Tablada and the abandonment of Seville by the Vikings— that is during the last half of November. He came topropose not merely a cessation of hostilities but peace
between the two monarchs. Abd ar-Rahman decided to
accede to this request and he ordered al-Ghazal to return
as an ambassador with the envoy of 'the king of theVikings'. From this sequence of events, it is reasonable
to conclude that 'the ambassador' who attended on Abd
ar-Rahman was not a deputy of the invading force seeking
an armistice but a plenipotentiary from the ruler to whom
the invaders owed allegiance. Thus, it may be assumed
that after the capture of Seville in September, the leader

Commentary

27of the Vikings in Andalucia had sent back a ship to report,
either to Noirmoutier or, more probably, direct to Ireland.
This ship could have reached the south-west coast of
Ireland before the end of September 844. The envoy,
sent by the Viking king to the army in Spain, could haveleft Ireland in October and have arrived in time to witness
the disastrous events of early November. As I havesuggested earlier, the fact that Abd ar-Rahman sent
al-Ghazal, the former ambassador to the Byzantine
emperor, on the return embassy to Ireland indicates that,in spite of the aggression against Seville, the court of
Cordova attached great importance — political andcommercial — to the development of relations with theViking sea-king who was master of the north-western
approaches to France and Spain.
There was no delay in the despatch of the returnembassy. While sporadic fighting along the Sidonian
coast was still continuing between the Muslims and theVikings, al-Ghazal, accompanied by a certain Yahya-ibnHabib, repaired to Silves on the southern coast of Algarve(al-Gharb). Levi-Provengal identifies Yahya ibn-Habib as
the inventor of a sort of clock which had earned him thesurname of sahib al-munaikila. Yahya, then, may betaken to have been a specialist in mathematics andastronomy and, perhaps, in navigational theory, and it
is likely that he was attached to the mission for scientificobservation of conditions in the northern seas. 7 5
At Silves, 'a fine well-equipped ship' had been preparedto accommodate the two Yahyas. 76 'The ambassador of
the king of the Vikings' embarked in the ship in which hehad reached the Spanish coast, and the two vessels sailed
together. Al-Ghazal's poem on the storm which overtook
the voyagers soon after their departure from Silvescontains some interesting particulars of the conditions
under which he sailed. The reference in the last line —"The shipmen have no capital in us, my friend" — seems
to infer that the envoys were travelling as passengers of

28

The Poet and the Spae-wife

the Vikings. Again, the indication that the ship carried
two sails makes it clear that it was not one of the fast
longships of the Vikings, used for inshore and up-riverraids. These carried one square sail only — as shown on
the Bayeux tapestry of the Norman invasion of Englandtwo centuries later. They were mainly dependent on
oar-power. It would seem rather, from al-Ghazal's
reference to the two sails, that the mission had embarked
in two ships of the type known as knorr (or hafskip).
These ships, "used on the big viking expeditions overseas",
were different craft from the longships, "being shorter,
sturdier, and carrying a higher freeboard and having agreat beam and a wide bottom". Their crews reliedalmost entirely on sail, and oars were used only as
auxiliaries if the wind fell. The knorr was capable oftravelling about 75 miles a day. It has been calculated
that some of these ships had a displacement of fifty tons
or thereabouts. 77
The date of the departure of the embassy may be
calculated. Ibn-Dihya says that al-Ghazal arrived backin Cordova after an absence of twenty months. He hadreached Santiago de Compostella two months before theend of the pilgrimage which falls in the last week of July.
If a fortnight is computed for a journey by leisurely
stages from Compostella to Cordova, we can reckon that
al-Ghazal started his journey from Silves twenty months
before early August 846 — that is during the last half ofDecember 844; or perhaps the first half of January 845, if
allowance be made for delays between Cordova and Silves
and for embarkation at Silves.
"Opposite the great cape which juts out into the sea
and is the westermost limit of Spain, that is, the mountainknown as Aluwiyah," the ambassadors were overtaken bya tempest. Dozy identified this promontory, perhaps
rightly, as St. Vincent. 78 "Off this coast gales frombetween north-east and south-west are most dangerous, as
there is not a single harbour or refuge where a vessel,

Commentary

29

overtaken by them, can find refuge." The cape may,
however, have been Finisterre, which is actually the mostwesterly point of the Iberian peninsula. The flanks ofFinisterre are rugged and run steeply to the summit which
has several peaks. "Gales of force 7 or above may be
expected off this part of the coast on about 7 days a monthfrom December to March and gales of force 8 or more on
about 5 days a month." The most frequent gales arefrom south-west. 79
Alexander Bugge has suggested that al-Ghazal's ships
made for Noirmoutier after rounding the great Galician
headland. He was supported (tentatively) by Nansen. 80
Jacob does not attempt identification. I do not believethat the Vikings, with their experience of the more
formidable open sea passage between Norway and thenorth of Ireland would have flinched from making awinter course across the ocean from Cape Finisterre to
the south-west coast of Ireland. It is a mistake tobelieve that the old seafarers hugged the coasts; and theWestfaldingi had recent memories of the perils of an on­
shore gale along the mountainous coast of Galicia. The
distance from Finisterre to Noirmoutier across the Bay of
Biscay is more than 300 nautical miles and it is rather
more again from Noirmoutier to the south-west coast of
Ireland. The direct run from Cape Finisterre to the
Kerry coast is little more than 400 nautical miles — ashorter and less dangerous passage across the open seas.
It seems reasonable to propose, then, that the ships
bearing al-Ghazal and his escort set their course for thebays of the Kerry peninsula. The voyage can havetaken from five to ten days according to the weather. 81
B

The Kerry Coast and Clonmacnois"Al-Ghazal arrived at the first of the lands of the Vikings,
at one of their islands; where they stayed several days
and repaired their ships and rested. The Viking ship

30

The Poet and the Spae-wifewent on to their king and they informed him of the arrivalof the envoys." It is clear that landfall had been madeat an island in Viking occupation where there was asettlement, some amenities and some kind of repair yard.
To identify the island, it is necessary to examine theextent of the Viking establishment round the south-west
coast of Ireland which had been built up during thepreceding four decades.
The first reconnaissance raids had been made between
the years 807 and 812. Strategic points had been
selected with a sure experienced eye: Inis Labrainn, an
island at the mouth of the Cashen river, in north Kerry,to the south of the estuary of the Shannon; and Dair Inis,
Oak Island, now Valentia, a fine position commanding
the entrances to the great bays of the Kerry coast andshipping rounding the headlands. 82 An attempt topenetrate inland in force ended in disaster near Loch Lein(now the lake of Killarney) when the Vikings were
defeated by the powerful Eoganacht and left 416 dead tobe recorded by the annalist. 83
Attacks were renewed only in 822; their range extended
right along the south coast of Ireland and up the east
coast as far as Wexford (Viksfjordr — later to become aleading Viking settlement). Valentia was again raided
and along the Cork coast, Ros Mslain, Corcach (Cork)
and Cluain Uamha (Cloyne) were attacked. In 824, theremote hermitage in the isle of Sceleg Michil, six miles
south-east of Bray Head, Valentia, was raided, probably
by ships returning from these operations. 84 In the same
years, 822-24, took place the massive invasion of Ulaidh(Ulster), which had the aspect of a conquest intended tobe permanent. 85
There followed a decade of intensive attacks when theweight was directed against the north and east of Ireland.
But at the same time there was a s}7stematic occupationof the islands and penetration of the estuaries round thesouth-western and southern coasts. There were raids on

Commentary

31

Inis Eoghanain (now Inis-Shannon, up the Bandon river),on Dundermuighe (now Dunderrow near Kinsale), on
Disert Tipraite (perhaps Ardmore) and on Kilmolashand Lismore up the estuary of the Blackwater. 86 The
first reconnaissances up the main stream of the Shannon
were undertaken (Mungret and Kilpeacon). 87
Concentration on the Shannon continued. A base wasset at Inis Sibhtonn (=King's Island). Luimnech — thename for the great stretch of the river between the latercity of Limerick and the sea — was occupied along both
the Clare and Kerry shores where the Vikings met with
tough resistance and a defeat at the hands of the Ui
Chonaill Gabhra (834). 88"There came after that", wrote the author of the War of
the Gaedhil with the Gaill, "a great royal fleet into thenorth of Ireland", commanded by Turgeis "who assumed
the sovereignty of all the foreigners of Ireland" andoccupied the whole of Leth Chuinn — 'Conn's Half — thenorthern half of the country. 89 Keary has describedTurgeis as 'a man of genius'. 90 He certainly applied abrilliant amphibious strategy which derived from theintelligent use of his special instrument: the light-draught
longship which could penetrate the network of inland
waters and dominate the extensive lakes which gave accessto the inner provinces of the country. The Irish, divided
into small political units and involved in a protracted
internal struggle for supremacy between the kings of
Ulster and Munster and the spiritual centres of Armagh
and Cashel, could offer little effective resistance.
Turgeis pursued his conquests with the aid of three
fleets. One in Lough Neagh, dominated central Ulster
along the line of the river Bann and gave him control of
the great cult centre at Ard Macha (near the site ofArmagh). The second, based on Carlingford Lough,threatened the east coast. A third fleet rounded thenorth-west coast of Ireland and sailed up the Shannon into
Loch Ri (Ree). On Loch Ri, Turgeis established his

32

The Poet and the Spae-wife

operational headquarters — probably about the year
839. 91 The choice was genial. With his fleet on thisgreat stretch of inland water half-way up the courseof the Shannon, the conqueror could retain control
of Ulster and Connacht and strike east at Meath andLeinster or south and west at Munster. A few miles
to the south of Loch Ri, at Clonmacnois, the secondof the four great shrines of Ireland, his wife Ota, held
her court. "It was on the altar of the great church
she used to give her answers." 92
Meantime the northern third of Kerry, Ciarraighe
Luachra, from the strand of Tralee (Traigh Li) 93 to theestuary of the Shannon, was in the hands of the Vikings.
In the inland forests stretching back to the Killarneylakes and in the wild ranges along the Kerry Peninsulas
the Irish held their own. But the survival of Scandinav­
ian family names and place-names round the coast and in
the islands affirms continuing Norse settlements from thetime of Turgeis. Skellig is a name of Norse origin; so
is Heystone and Bolus Head and Smerwick. 94 Nearby
Smerwick are the clachan na Lochlannach — 'the stone
houses of the Norwegians'. 95 In Ventry survives thelegend of a great battle on the strand which seems torecall an occasion when the mountain Irish rallied torepulse a Viking landing. 96 The old name for Dingle was
Cuan damh dearg — Red Ox Haven — which may recall afavourite prow-head and ship-name of the Vikings. 97
South of Valentia, not far from Ballinskelligs Bay and
Bolus Head is a curious structure known as Staigue Fort.
It has been suggested that this name is a corruption of
the Old Norse stigr, stigr, meaning a 'path' or an 'ascending
path'. 98 A headland on Valentia itself, called on the
Ordnance Map, Beenakrykaka probably combines the Ir.
benn, with Scandinavian, kria, the tern, and reki, seawrack. 99 There are numerous stone fortifications on
Valentia which can be attributed to several periods.
One was still known in the nineteenth century as 'theCommentary

33

refuge of the Danes'.100 The island takes the name
Valentia from Irish Beat insi — 'the mouth of thesound.'101 Its older name, Dair Inis, 'Oak Island,'derived from the oak woods for which the island wasonce famous.102 A writer of the eighteenth century
records that "the harbour is justly esteemed the best inthese parts, and almost the only one, besides Dingle, of
tolerable safety, after a ship has passed the river ofKenmare."103
It is likely that here was the haven of al-Ghazal's
first stop. There are alternatives. Clear Island (Insula
Sancta Clare or Inis Damphly (= Daimhli) also has its
Doonagall — 'fort of the foreigners' — a south-east
anchorage, and a creek on the north-west side of theisland giving protection from the prevalent southerly
gales. 104 In Bantry Bay, Beare Island again has a'fort of the foreigners' and a haven with entrants fromwest and east of the bay — well protected from storms
from the seaward side. "Beare and its island are richer
in memories than in remains", and it has legends ofremote invasions. Dursey Island (Bea Insula) was too
exposed to attract preference in settlement.105
But at Valentia, the Vikings had everything: a sheltered
haven with alternative entrants according to the pre­vailing winds; a secure insular retreat with abundance of
cattle and other supplies, and timber for repairs. To thenorth-west they had a passage through the Blasket Sound— "easy to navigate in moderate weather". 106 Giving awide berth to the exposed Brandon Bay and the dangerous
Seven Hogs, the Vikings could make Fenit harbour on
the north side of Tralee Bay. Fenit lay within Ciarraighe
Luachra which they had already been occupying for someyears in 845. Or they could run straight for the estuaryof the Shannon, past Kerry Head and their first settlement
at the mouth of the Cashen river. The Shannon is tidal
as far as Limerick and the Arab travellers might well gain
the impression that they were cruising among islands
D34

The Poet and the Spae-wifeand peninsulas until they reached Inis Sibhtonn (King's
Island) — which the Vikings had held since 831 and which
was destined to become the site of the city of Limerick. 107
The fall of water in the Irish rivers was heavier in the
ninth century and al-Ghazal might even retain theimpression of cruising through an archipelago as the two
ships passed the wooded islands in the stream of the
Shannon, and entered the wide waters of Loch Derg.
Beyond, they would continue to row upstream on a riverwhich is still broad and spacious. A dozen miles below
the outflow of the Shannon from Loch Ri, on an open
slope above the river, lies Clonmacnois, with the ruins of
its churches, shrines and tall round tower. In the ninth
century there were the countless stone cells of the monks
and students and the wattle huts of the people. And
since Turgeis and his queen Ota were accustomed to passtime there, al-Ghazal would see some of the timber-built
longhouses of the Norse chieftains with their shingle roofs
and finely carved portals.
Clonmacnois (properly Cluain mhic Nois — 'the city ofthe son of Nos') was, after Armagh, the greatest of themonastic centres of Ireland; in some periods it surpassed
Armagh as a centre of learning and literature. "It was
not without deep and clear insight into Irish feelings andfacts that the astute Norseman, Turgeis, presided at
Armagh and set his wife over Clonmacnois; he had his
hand on the head and heart of the Irish church. One
must think of Clonmacnois as a complex 'city of God',
not as a cloister ... It was ... a primitive Oxford; acity, see and colleges. The city of Kieran was in a central
position, on the main waterway and safest road of theisland, and accessible by water from all the monasteries of
the Shannon and its tributaries."108
In the eleventh century, Clonmacnois was famous for
its gardens, approached by paved causeways. They still
existed at the beginning of the thirteenth century andbeyond them lay the spacious orchards of the bishop. 109

Commentary35

Al-Ghazal's memory of 'flowing streams and gardens' isreflected, indeed, in a couplet from an old Irish poem:"Clonmacnois is the city of Ciaran,
A place of bright dews and red roses."110
C Ireland in 845"The king ordered his people to prepare a fine dwelling
for them, and sent out a party to greet them. The
Vikings thronged to look at them, and they wonderedgreatly at their appearance and their garb. They werethen led to their lodgings in an honourable manner andspent a day there."
It may be supposed that the northern rig of the Vikings— close fitting trousers and jerkins over open shirts —was in marked contrast with the flowing robes of the Arab
envoys. Yet another Muslim writer, who records that"the inhabitants (of Ireland) have Norman (Majus)
habits and clothes", states that "they wear burnus, ofwhich the worth of a single one can be a hundred gold
pieces, and the nobles wear burnus set with pearls."111
Here, the comparison with the burnus recalls the ancient
Irish rather than Norse costume. This consisted of leineand brat. The Uine was "not unlike the galabeeah wornby the natives of modern Egypt".112 The brat was wornover the shoulders like a shawl. It could be pulled overthe head, as shown in a sketch of a 'wild' Irishman in amanuscript book of Lucas de Heere in the Library of
Ghent University, where the subject has a remarkable
resemblance to a poor bedu.113 This costume of leine andbrat was the dress of persons of quality shown on the
crosses of Clonmacnois and Monasterboice and "may betaken as the contemporary costume of the morearistocratic classes in everyday life in the tenth century
A.D."114 The author of Old Irish and Highland Dressfinds that "the brat and leine costume is not at all what
one would have expected to find in Northern Europe,

36

The Poet and the Spae-wife

being loose fitting and of Southern or Mediterranean type,in fact little different in its elements from the dress of theancient Greeks and Romans, the peplos and chiton of the
Greeks, and the sagum and tunica of the Romans. The
nearest people among whom analagous costumes survive
today are the Berbers and Arabs of North Africa, Syria
and Egypt."115 One may add, perhaps, the Ethiopians.
Another undertone of the life of Ireland which may
have attracted the notice of the Arab envoys were theovoid or circular stone-roofed buildings and the roundwattle huts of the people. In the seventeenth century,
O'Flaherty described the dachans of the Aran islands as"so ancient that nobody knows how long ago any of themwas made". 116 Estyn Evans observes that similar
structures "are found either in ruins or serving as
shelters ... in south France, especially in and around theCentral Plateau, in Spain, Portugal and Majorca, in theheel of Italy, in the western Balkans and in Crete where
the mountain dairies appear to be very similar to thestone booley huts and shielings of Ireland and theHebrides . . . Villages of houses with domed or conicalstone or mud-brick roofs are a feature of south-east Italy
and Syria, and of the dry belt stretching eastward to
India."117 In Gaul, the wattle form of circular house —from which the stone types derive — is recorded on a bus
relief in the Louvre, known as the Column of Antoninus.118
In north Africa, it was the characteristic dwelling of theBerbers in Roman and later times. There was a mobile
type of wicker-work hut which could be moved on awagon and which itself was a development of the nomad's
tent.119 The wattle or wicker-work tukul is still the usual
dwelling in the Ethiopian highlands. It is a commonplaceof ethnology that cultural phenomena sometimes survive
in unaltered forms on the peripheries of an area ofdispersion; and there is certainly a remarkable resem­
blance in detail between the Ethiopian tukul, the Berbermapalia, or attegia, the Gaulish huts shown on the Column

Commentary37

of Antoninus and the Irish teach filthe, the construction ofwhich is described in literary sources. 120 Discussing thestone forms of circular hut, Estyn Evans finds that"whether or not the origin of this style of building inwestern Europe should be placed, as I am inclined tobelieve, in the megalithic period, there can be no doubtthat it represents, in various parts of the MediterraneanAtlantic route, the survival of an ancient method ofbuilding."121
Eleven hundred years ago, the people of Ireland lay inpoint of time almost half way between the present
century and the fourth century B.C. when Pytheas wroteof lerne. 122 And it would seem that in the ninth century
A.D. elements and traditions in architecture and costume
were surviving which have since disappeared. The'Mediterranean' stratum in Ireland had already been
overlain by several Celtic migrations from central Europe;and when al-Ghazal was in the country the Scandinavian
intrusion from northern Europe had begun since half acentury. There were already varied ethnic types in
Ireland; and those which may be identified as Tberian'(shrine of St. Manchan and Book of Kells) and even as'East Mediterranean' (shrine of St. Moedoc) were more inevidence than they were on the monuments of a few
centuries later after the Anglo-Norman conquest. 123
D 'The Great Island in the Ocean'
Al-Ghazal's account of the country where he had arrived
is brief but replete with information. It was "a great
island (or peninsula) in the Ocean with flowing streams
and gardens. It was three days sail, that is, threehundred miles from the mainland. In it are Vikings too
numerous to be counted, and around the island are manyother islands, all peopled by Vikings. The adjoining
mainland is also theirs for a distance of many days'
journey." Jacob, who finds 'gaps' (Locken) in Dozy's

38

The Poet and the Spae-wife

translation, has: "Between it (the island) and the mainland
were three stretches of water (Wasserldufe) and theymeasure three hundred miles". Jacob adds that syntac­
tically the sentence can be construed as "it (the island)measures three hundred miles". 124
Observing that there is only one word in Arabic torender 'island' and 'peninsula', Jacob finds the island canbe either Sjselland (Zeeland) or Jutland; and Fabricius,followed by Stefansson, suggests that the seat of the kingis Lejre (Hleit5r) in Sjaelland.125 Kendrick, who findsthat the correspondence of the names of al-Ghazal's 'queen
Noud' with that of Turgeis's wife Ota is flimsy evidence
for the location of the embassy in Ireland writes that "itseems on the whole most likely, on the grounds of thegeographical description of the lands of the majus, with
their territory on the adjacent mainland (Scania) that
Ghazal was sent to the Danish Court." 126
Jacob's amendment of the text of ibn-Dihya would
make the situation of 'the great island in the ocean' morepuzzling and would not strengthen the view of Kendrickthat the 'mainland' or 'continent' can be Scania, since
early geographers, including the Arabs, regarded the
Scandinavian mainland as an 'island' or 'peninsula'(jezireh).
Both Ireland from Fair Head to Dursey Head and theextreme length of the Danish peninsula from the Skagerak
to the estuary of the Elbe can be said to measure roughly
three hundred miles. Again, three stretches of water
separate Jutland — but not Sjselland — from Scania.
If the thesis that al-Ghazal in fact encountered theViking king and queen somewhere on the Shannon beconsidered, it may be contended that a journey up river
is not indicated in the text. But the broad stream of the
Shannon together with the wide Loch Derg and theapproach past islands and peninsulas could well have given
the impression to a stranger that he was still travellingthrough an archipelago even as far upstream as Clonmac-

Commentary

39

nois — which lies a few miles below the entrance to anotherbroad stretch of water in Loch Ri. Clonmacnois has
been suggested as the place of meeting because Nud(= Ota) is known from Irish sources to have been in
residence there in 845. But if the meeting was in fact
lower down the Shannon on Inis Sibhtonn — where theVikings had already established a base which was tobecome in twenty years the city of Luimneach (Limerick),then indeed al-Ghazal would have had no experience of ariver voyage at all. Again, if we accept the calculationthat al-Ghazal can have reached the Viking court in early
spring, the impression of 'flowing streams and gardens'would relate to south-western Ireland rather than to
Denmark. In March the Irish coastlands are alreadyglowing with gorse; and in May the whole island is whitewith hawthorn blossom — the sacred bush of the ancient
Irish. These wild shrubs scattered over the landscapedisplay an unforgettable grace of colour. At Clonmacnois,
particularly, the monks had had their own well-cultivatedgardens before the Vikings came there.127
Dozy's interpretation of the text that the island was'three days journey from the continent' and that 'thecontinent also belongs to them' explains the relation ofViking Ireland to western France rather than of Sjaelland
to Scania. Moreover, Jacob's amendment — "Between
it (the island) and the continent there are three stretchesof water" — could describe very well St. George's Channel
between Wexford and St. David's Head in Wales, theouter waters of the Bristol Channel across from St. David's
Head to Land's End, and the approaches to the English
Channel between the Cornish and Breton peninsulas.
The following passage presents difficulties in the context
of both Danish and Irish conditions in the year 845:
They were heathens but they now follow the Christian faith,and have given up fire-worship and their previous religion,
except for the people of a few scattered islands of theirs in thesea, where they keep up their old faith, with fire-worship, the40

The Poet and the Spae-wife

marriage of brothers and sisters and various other kinds ofabomination. The others wage war against them and enslavethem.

If related to the Danes, this text might be read in termsof Tammam-ibn-Alqama's information towards the endof the ninth century. But even at that date the Danes
were still pagan. The only Danish prince who had
become a Christian before the middle of the ninth century
was the unpopular king Harald who had been expelledfrom his country and courted the favour of the emperor
Louis the Pious (826). The first Christian missions to
the Scandinavian courts were failures, and, in the wordsof Kendrick, "heathendom must have seemed establishedin unassailable strength when, at the end of twenty years
of Christian endeavour, a huge Danish fleet under Horiksiezed Hamburg (845) and drove Anskar, now an arch­bishop, from his archiepiscopal seat." The conversionof the Scandinavian peoples was late in the history ofEuropean Christendom and it was carried through only
by strong kings against the fierce opposition of powerfulelements. 128
Individual chieftains, early in the Scandinavian epoch,
were not above accepting conversion if they saw thatthey could procure political advantage or if they felt
themselves becoming isolated within a Christian society
which they had entered as conquerors; thus, King Haraldin Denmark, and some of the Scandinavian princes in
Dublin later in the ninth century. But there was back­sliding, as in the case of the aristocratic migrants from
Dublin to Iceland; equivocation as with Hakon the Goodof Norway; and even apostasy, as with Pepin II of
Aquitaine, a great-grandson of Charlemagne who had
made alliance with the Vikings.129 The position ofTurgeis, in this respect, remains obscure. He had begun
as the great scourge of the Irish church, but about 840 heassumed the abbacy of Armagh, with all its great prestige
as the patrimony of St. Patrick, and its ecclesiastical andCommentary

41

civil jurisdictions. It is not clear whether he practised —or caricatured the practice of — the Christian religion in
Armagh, while his wife chose to celebrate pagan rites in
Clonmacnois.130
In his introduction to the War of the Gaedhil with theGaill, xliii-ix, Todd discusses at length the political andreligious differences between the princes and prelates of
Ulster and Munster in the period when Turgeis wasinvading Ireland. In Cashel, Feidhlimidh (Felim), thepriest-king of Munster, was as great a scourge of thenorthern prelacy as Turgeis himself. In 826, and again
in 833, he had spoiled the termon lands of Clonmacnois,and he repeated this exploit in 846, following the death ofTurgeis. Todd, followed by Keary and Kendrick,believed that Turgeis intended "the establishment of thenational heathenism of his own country, in place of theChristianity which he found in Ireland."131 I suspectthat the Vikings, like the Mongols, had little interest inproselytising the conquered. Their own beliefs were
emotional, unintellectual, aristocratic and exclusive.
Superstitious like all seafarers, they were sustained, notby faith, but by their superb vitality; they believedin luck, comradeship, and were resigned always tofate.132
The motives of Turgeis were political; and he seems tohave been a greedy, calculating man with a cynicalsense of the possible. I prefer to follow Westropp inthinking that Turgeis — after assuming the abbacy ofArmagh and the pretensions of coarb, or successor, of
St. Patrick — may well have aimed at conciliating thenorth Irish clergy who had for some years been suffering
the assaults of king Feidhlimidh.133 The readiness ofTurgeis to negotiate with the Muslims, immediately after
his aggression against Seville is, again, a reflection of thesame practical and cynical mind: comparable, indeed, tothe mind of a Mongol conqueror coping with the religious
establishments of the old world.

42

The Poet and the Spae-wife

The impact of the Norse invasions had intensified asocial and religious crisis in Ireland which was tending
towards a dissolution of the old traditional society. 134
It created an impoverished and uprooted underworld whobegan to revert to paganism and who were ready to join
the pillaging bands of the invaders. These were theGaill-Gcedhil, 'the foreigner Irish'. The Three Fragments
describe them as a people who had renounced theirbaptism, and they were usually called Northmen (Normannaigh), for they had the customs of Northmen, and had
been fostered by them; and although the original North­men were bad to the churches, these were far worse, inwhatever part of Erinn they used to be.135
Thus, the reference to a chronic state of war and slaveraiding in al-Ghazal's 'island' can be related rather to
Irish than to Danish conditions in the year 845.
E The Reception of al-Ghazal
Two days after his arrival at the Viking court al-Ghazal
was received in audience by the king. In the Middle
Ages long delays were frequently imposed on ambassadorsand in this case the early audience indicates a sense of theurgency of al-Ghazal's mission.
Before the audience, al-Ghazal, with his earlier exper­
ience in Byzantium, was careful to make conditions withregard to his own protocol. The story of the entrance
being made low in order to compel the ambassador to
crouch on his knees as he made his entry is the second
point of correspondence in the details of the Byzantine
and Viking missions.136 It is possible that the story wasinvented by al-Ghazal or his entourage to emphasise thecare and ingenuity with which the precedence of the amir
Abd ar-Rahman had been guarded in a barbarous land.
The story seems scarcely in keeping with the fastuous
ceremony of the Byzantine court nor with the desire of
the Emperor Theophilus, evident in his correspondence,

Commentary

43

to conciliate the friendship and secure the alliance of theamir. Yet the story might express the mixture ofarrogance and almost boyish buffoonery which was thehumour of the Vikings. Another version of the story ofcompelling a crouching entrance was current in Spain
about the widow of king Roderic, the Gothic Queen Ailo,
who, when married to Abd al-Aziz ibn-Musa, made her­self unpopular by imposing this form of entrance on
persons seeking audience of her husband who was thenruling in Seville. 137 There is, again, the story of thepersistent contest for precedence between ^Ethelstan ofEngland and Harald Fairhair of Norway, which ended in
Harald imposing by trickery his bastard, Hakon, as afoster-son on the English king, whose inferior situation
was thereby implied.138 The Vikings were 'protocolconscious' and were not above sardonic tricks in theirdiplomatic relations. We may, therefore, relate thestory of the crouching entrance, if it had a basis in fact, tothe Viking or Visigothic rather than to the Byzantine
milieu.
The particulars given in ibn-Dihya's account reflect thedetail of princely Viking life as reflected in the sagas andconfirmed by archaeology. (The following brief descrip­tion is based on du Chaillu, see reference in note 140.)
Every prominent chieftain lived surrounded by his family,
followers and servants. The collection of buildings theyoccupied was called beer', they were of different styles andvaried in numbers according to the power, wealth andtaste of the owners. The buildings seem often to havebeen far apart from each other; every house was known
by a different name. They were built so as to form a large
quadrangle, the front facing an open space or grass plot
called ttin, the whole being surrounded by a fence called
gardr, through which entrance was by a gate, grind, orgateway, hlid.
The finest buildings were called holl (hall) and were
only built by kings or jarls. "It was customary to have

44

The Poet and the Spae-wifelarge halls at the beer, at which people sat before long fires
in the evening; tables were placed in front of the men,
who afterwards slept alongside the walls, away from thefires. During the daytime the women carded and spunwool in these halls."139 The halls were sometimes richly
ornamented with wood carvings of mythological andheroic themes. There were two doors; one for the men
and the other for the women. The walls were hung withtapestry, made by the wives and daughters of the family,
which might represent the deeds of their forefathers or of
their lord. Here also hung shields and stands of arms —making a brilliant background with their gold and silverand enamel inlays. It would seem that these stands ofarms particularly struck the eye of al-Ghazal (text, p. 21).
Stands of arms were not a decorative feature of theelegant palaces of the Byzantine emperors.
There was a special building, salr, which seems to havebeen of the same proportions as the holl, reserved forguests. There were separate buildings, skemma or
utiskemma, sometimes used as sleeping apartments, where
the women of the household dwelt or remained during
the daytime, with their maids or attendants, and occupied
themselves with all kinds of work.140 This arrangement
gave the women a good deal of privacy and freedom andwould clearly make easy the exchanges which ibn-Dihya
records between the queen and al-Ghazal.
The king awaited al-Ghazal 'in magnificent guise'.
There are many details in the sagas of the splendid
clothes and equipment of the Viking chieftains. During
the audience of al-Ghazal, the king would probably be
wearing the sice da (-ur) — "a trailing gown of costly stuff
embroidered with gold and ornamented with bands".
The international range of the Vikings is indicated bytheir affectation of baldakin, a stuff from Baghdad,silken caps, ornamented with lace from GarSariki (Russia),
doubtless originating from Byzantium, and valskikkja(French or Welsh, literally 'foreign', cloaks). Later,

Commentary

45

following the contacts between the Vikings and Andalucia,
Cordovan hose came into fashion. 141
Ibn Dihya's statement that al-Ghazal took part indebates and fencing matches with his hosts is again
characteristic of life among the Vikings. There was roughfare and hard drinking and, often, bloody quarrels at theViking feasts, but the chieftains were fond of discussion,
story-telling, recitations, riddles and puzzles. 142 It isclear from ibn Dihya's text that al-Ghazal spent muchtime in telling the queen about the Muslims, their history
and the countries which they inhabited. And it would
seem not unlikely that the intelligent Turgeis, with hisinterest in the ecclesiastical politics of Ireland, may havestimulated, for his own amusement and information,
debates between the distinguished Muslim savant andsome of the Irish poets and clerics.
The Vikings, themselves, were scarcely the uncultured
barbarians depicted in the contemporary Christianchronicles. Every young man with pretensions to rank
and respect in society was expected to aquire certain
intellectual and physical accomplishments known collect­ively as iprottir. The most important of these were: theskilful handling of all kinds of weapons, riding, swimming,
running on snow-shoes, rowing, wrestling, working inwood and metal, and the playing of the harp; to whichshould sometimes be added skill in training and managing
dogs, falcons and hawks. Necessary intellectual attain­
ments included knowledge of runes, laws, the art of poetry,so necessary for remembering the deeds of the heroes,
eloquence, skill in draughts or checkers, chess and the useof foreign tongues. 143 Weapon exercises, including
fencing and wrestling, were held in high esteem among
the Vikings, but in view of the age and distinction of alGhazal it would seem probable that the ambassador'smatches with their champions would have been limited
to archery contests. 144

46

The Poet and the Spae-wife

F Queen Nud
The name of the Viking queen, recorded by ibn-Dihya, isintroduced quite casually in the conversation of Tammam
ibn-Alqama: "One day, the king's wife, whose name was
Nud, asked him his age." It is repeated again in the poem
improvised by al-Ghazal to Nud — 'a Viking woman'.
Levi-Proven5al comments: "La souveraine s'y appelle
Nud: ne seraient-ce pas, avec la confusion graphiqueentre n et t si courante en arabe, les trois premieres lettres
de la transcription du nom de Theodora?" 145 In Toemed'al-Ghazal sur le prince Michel et I'imperatrice Theodora'cited by Levi-Provencal from the anonymous Fez
manuscript, the lady is described as 'fille des Cesars'.146
The name of the wife of Turgeis is only given once in
the Irish sources. The oldest reference is in the fragmentof the War of the Gaedhil contained in the remains of theBook of Leinster which date from the middle of the twelfth
century. Here it is stated that "after this Turgeis cameupon Loch Ri . . . Cluanmicnois was taken by his wife.
It was on the altar of the great church that she used togive her answers. Ottar was the name of the wife ofTurgeis." In the later recensions of the War of theGaedhil, the reference is: "the place where Ota, the wifeof Turgeis, used to give her audience was upon the altarof Cluain MicNois."147 In a footnote (xcix, 2), Todd, theeditor of the War of the Gaedhil, proposed that "theScandinavian name of this lady was probably Audr or
Auda. She is not mentioned, so far as the editor knows,
in any of the sagas." The correspondence Ota = AuSr
(or USr, Unnr,) = Nud was accepted by Steenstrup (1878),
Alexander Bugge (1910) and others,148 but not by
Marstrander and Shetelig. On philological grounds there
is in fact every reason to suppose that Ot(t)a represents a
O.N. personal name in Odd- (Oddkatla, usually written
Ott- in Icelandic sources, or even Odda). 149 It is also
noteworthy that the name AuSr was not common among
Scandinavian women, although compounds in AuS- areCommentary

47

common. 150 There was another Autir in the contempor­
ary Irish scene: AuSr DjupuSga or DjiipauSga, 'the deep
minded' or 'the deeply wealthy'. This AutSr was adaughter of Ketill Flatnef, jarl of the Sudreys, and awife to 6laf the White, Norse king of Dublin after 853.
Although the cognomens might make it tempting to
identify her with Ota, the wife of Turgeis, there arechronological as well as philological difficulties since,
according to the Laxdcela saga, Ketill Flatnef's daughter
settled in Iceland, still in full vigour, after Sgo.151
It is clear from the brief reference in the Irish sourcesthat Ota, at Clonmacnois, had certain sybilline functions.
Volur or spae-wives were common among the Scandinav­
ians at all social levels. Frequently they emerged from theaboriginal Finnic people, famous for magical practices
and 'second sight'. 152 But ladies of noble and princely
families in Scandinavia and among the Germans andCelts sometimes revealed prophetic gifts. C. F. Kearywas the first to perceive the significance of Ota's attributes
to which the Irish sources refer. He wrote:
The succession of these seeresses among the Teutons is in
apostolic succession, with no break, no essential change ofcharacter, only such change as time must bring, from the dayof the wife of Ariovistus, of Veleda or Aurinia, through thedays of a certain spaewife, Ota, whom we discern in the dim
light of the Viking period seated upon the high altar of an
Irish minster, and 'giving her answers' therefrom, or of thelast of the wise women among the old Germans, of whom we
discover some traces in a chronicler of the ninth century ....
Thiota by name. She was a contemporary of Ota. 158

Discussing the role of the seeress in the life of the
Teutonic peoples, Keary believed that "at stated times
such an one came among the people."
Taking her "high seat", she sat at festivals as Ota on the highaltar at Clonmacnois, and people came one by one before her toconsult the oracle. There is no talk of any special frenzy likethat of the Delphic priestess. But the seat of prophecy was aspecial one, capable apparently of imparting some virtue tothe Vala (= Volvo) .... Sometimes she went from place to

48

The Poet and the Spae-wifeplace in her car, and the days of her coming were days offestival; altogether the picture is not unlike the picture of
Nerthus drawn round on her triumphal course; the Vala may
be considered as the visible representative of the goddess, for
Nerthus herself, as we know, was always hidden from view.
There can be little doubt that Nerthus was a partner in the
mysteries, and like her human representative especially giftedin the magic arts .... It would, one can imagine, give no small
prestige to a king or leader could he secure one of theseprophetesses for a wife. 1 *4

The transformation of the early Teutonic (or perhaps
pre-Teutonic) goddess Nerthus into the later god Njorftr
presents difficulties. The identity has been favoured by
Keary, Chadwick and other writers. 155 NjoriSr was
worshipped as the god ruling the course of the winds andhad it in his power to still the sea and to control fire. It
was profitable to make vows to him for sea-faring andfishing. He came to be conceived as a god of wealth. 156
Again, the richly carved cart found in the Oseberg ship,as part of the funeral gear of a woman, believed to havebeen the Vestfold queen Asa, indicates the sacerdotal
functions of a princess who was a near contemporary ofTurgeis and Ota. It recalls sharply the ritual carts ofthe priestesses of Nerthus described by Tacitus andrecorded again in the Pdttr af Ogmundi dytt ok Gunnan
helming. 15 ''As a prophetess and priestess of Njoror, 'Queen Nud'may have been identified by al-Ghazal's interpreter with
the name of the god. In the same way, it has beensuggested that Turgeis, O.N. Thorgestr, was known to the
Irish in the form Thorgils, 'the servant of Thor'. 158

G Conversations with the Queen
Dozy expressed the opinion that ibn-Dihya's account of
the embassy of al-Ghazal contained little information on
the Norsemen — and that very vague.159 Neverthelessthe anecdotes about al-Ghazal's conversations with
Queen Nud contain some precious details of the psychology

Commentary49

and way of life of aristocratic Viking women — which areconfirmed from other sources.
The reference to the retention of the 'old faith', with
fire-worship and the marriage of brothers and sisters,recalls perhaps the Persian practises which the Arabs had
transferred to the Vikings together with the name Majus.
Again, it can reflect the perception of the incestuous or,perhaps, endogamous tradition of the northern pantheon
which derives from the older stratum of the Vanir. 160
NjorSr's children, the son Freyr and the daughter Freyja,
were the fruit of Njb'rSr's union with his sister, whosename is not mentioned.161 Freyr and Freyja, also, werelovers. The cults of these fertility gods expressed thesexual theme. In Uppsala, Freyr is depicted cum ingente
priapo and is called Fricco, 'lover', a name which appears
to derive from an IE root, prij, 'love', to which the names
Freyja, Frigg and Priapus are also related. 162 The hero
Hadingus is seduced by his foster-mother who reasons,"c'est avec moi que tu dois coucher, te marier, parcequeje t'ai donne le sein comme une mere." 163Georges Dumezil has observed: "C'est une vaste et
importante etude que de classer les themes ou intervient
1'inceste dans les anciennes litteratures de 1'Europe,
notamment chez les Celtes et chez les Germains."164
Among the Scandinavians and Celts of the Viking Age,
incest had long come to be regarded as a crime or a
tragic accident, although in the Irish tales, as in the sagas,
a famous king or hero is born sometimes from the forbidden
union.165
From the background of the fertility cults derived thefreedom which women enjoyed in the pagan societies ofnorthern and western Europe — a freedom which declinedwith the spread of the Christian discipline and the gradualevolution of a more settled, proprietorial and feudal wayof life. But already in the Viking Age relations between
the sexes were complex and the position of women was
not so ideal as du Chaillu has indicated in his two chapters

50

The Poet and the Spae-wifeon the subject.166 The independence and authority often
attained by women of the period had its economic
undertones since, during the seafaring absences ofhusbands, wives were frequently left in control of large
and isolated estates. Separations were long: divorce
could be easy on the initiative of a wife who had powerful
kin ready to see her make a better match. Among theprincely families marriages were often made and broken
for political reasons. 167
Queen Niid's remarks to al-Ghazal are in keeping withthe setting of her life: "We do not have such things in our
religion, nor do we have jealousy. Our women are with
our men only of their own choice. A woman stays withher husband as long as it pleases her to do so, and leaves
him if it no longer pleases her."
The words ring as if they were spoken today by somefree-loving 'modern' hoyden; indeed they express thesame spirit after the wearing away of a thousand years ofChristian disciplines. They carry the flavour of the oldpagan tales, recalling the genial thought of the god
NjorSr: "It is a little ill whether women take a husband
or a lover, one or the other."168 It is a view of life which
could hardly have been invented by al-Ghazal, comingfrom the closed harim-court of Cordova. Nor does it,with other anecdotes of the embassy, fit into the fastuous
environment of the Byzantine court.
We may accept the view of Levi-Provencal that there
possibly was, in later literary tradition, a certain
amalgamation of anecdotes deriving originally from one
or other of the two embassies. 169 How to combine ordifferentiate these incidents, and which incidents may weproperly assign to the embassy to the Vikings?
During the dinner with the emperor Theophilus, there
is al-Ghazal's successful manoeuvre to retain as 'asouvenir' the jewelled gold cup.170 As the ambassadorof a master with whom the emperor was seeking alliance,al-Ghazal could permit himself this insolence. At theCommentary

51

Viking court, however, he refuses the gift offered by
Queen Nud and asks instead the permission to visit her
at all hours. 171 It is again an insolent gesture but one
made to a barbarian queen on whom he realised that hehad made an emotional impression. For a bold and quick­witted man, each action could pass with the occasion.
Al-Ghazal is not the only retired diplomat who has
regaled his friends with stories of his successes withroyal ladies. Such stories are never easy to check. The
descriptions of the impression which he made on theempress Theodora172 and on queen Nud correspondrather closely. 173 The one clearly derives from the other.
al-Ghazal's technique is as old as human relations.
Astonished admiration can even be observed in thefisrt encounter of a stallion and a mare. But does
the nocturnal visit of the empress to al-Ghazal's
ambassadorial lodging correspond with what we know of
the character of Theodora? 174 The emperor Theophilus
was a rigid and even disagreeable husband. He had, on
one occasion, ordered to be confiscated and sold a cargo
which the empress had chartered from Beirut on her
private account. A fervent iconoclast, he interfered in
the intimate devotions of his wife and encouraged thepalace dwarf to spy on her icons. During her married
years, the empress displayed a mild and yielding
disposition: later, as regent, she was careful to conform to
the proprieties of her august situation.175
In this psychological and institutional setting, it would
have been odd for the empress to have brought her little
boy to pass the night drinking with the Muslimambassador. Even Levi-Provengal admits a difficulty
here since the boy, who was afterwards known as Michael
the Drunkard, can have been scarcely three years old at
the time of al-Ghazal's mission to Constantinople. Yet
the opening lines of the poem attributed to al-Ghazal on
this occasion would seem to describe a boy of eight or ten
years old. 176

52

The Poet and the Spae-wife

On the other hand, the custom of fosterage which
existed among the Vikings (and the Irish) could explain
well enough a visit of Queen Nud with her son to al-Ghazal.
"He who of his own free will set another's child on his
knee or on whose knee another child was set without
having previously obtained leave" became foster-father
to that child. "To bring up 'the knee-set child' was thebounden duty of him on whose knee it had been set ... A
foster-father was looked on as a rule as an inferior in rank
and position to him whose child was fostered."177The sole authority for the fact that Turgeis had sonsis a reference, seemingly erroneous, in the seventeenthcentury Irish historian, Geoffrey Keating; but there issome slight evidence that Turgeis did leave sons and it
seems reasonable to assume that Queen Nud was themother of some of them.178 To try to impose fosterageof one of her boys on al-Ghazal would have been a
diplomatic manoeuvre, and an appropriate and humorous
response to al-Ghazal's clever avoidance of going on his
knees at his reception by the Viking king.179 Again, theidea of sending one of her sons to be educated at the courtof Cordova, where there were many Gothic and northern
military men in service, may have been attractive toqueen Nud, both as a mother and as a politician.
Al-Ghazal knew how to meet the trick and composed avery charming poem as his answer.180
Then there is the salty discussion on circumcision
recorded in the Fez manuscript and, also, after
ibn-Haiyani in the Analects of al-Maqqari. 181 It seems
scarcely a subject on which the conventional empress
Theodora would touch in conversation with a Muslimambassador, nor is it likely that the practice would be
previously unknown to a lady born in the Levant. But
the theme of circumcision might well arouse the curiosityof a Viking queen who had perhaps become aware of thephenomenon for the first time.
We need not linger over the anecdotes about the age ofCommentary53

al-Ghazal and the dyeing of his hair. 182 This frank andrefreshing badinage, characteristic of lovers of different
ages, does not occur in the anecdotes related to theembassy to Byzantium. On the other hand, the storyof the pearl necklace, given by the empress as anendowment for al-Ghazal's daughters and said to havebeen 'the foundation of his great fortune' has nocounterpart in ibn-Dihya's story of the embassy to theVikings.183 Indeed, before leaving Cordova for thenorthern seas, al-Ghazal, always the solicitous parent, hadexacted from the amir Abd ar-Rahman pensions for thesesame daughters.184
Dozy complains that ibn-Dihya's story contains"absolutely nothing on the object of the embassy and on
the nature of the relations which were established between
the two princes."185 Al-Ghazal knew how to keep his
own counsel — as most diplomats do to this day. The
secrets of 'the ruling few' are not for the gossips; and men
prefer to forget the tensions which have become the dustof history and remember the amusing incidents which
can recover youthful and sophisticated ardours. And
al-Ghazal committed only the hint of an indiscretion.
Tammam ibn Alqama said "I heard al-Ghazal tell thisstory, and I asked him: 'And did she really approach that
degree of beauty which you ascribed to her?' and heanswered: 'By your father, she had some charm, but bytalking in this way I won her good graces and obtained
from her more than I desired'." 186
The answer is equivocal but in a man of al-Ghazal's
worldliness, these words might be taken to imply the
success of his mission rather than a nattering triumph witha barbarian princess. What did he obtain beyond what
he desired? The development of trade relations between
Cordova and the Irish Vikings — of which there is someevidence during the following decades? 187 A combination
against Charles the Bald — which can have taken theform of the formidable assaults on the Frankish realm

54

The Poet and the Spae-wife

during the years 845-846? 188 The destruction of thedangerous Turgeis — who met his death not longafterwards? The answer must remain an enigma in thepresent state of the evidence. Yet if the thesis be
acceptable that al-Ghazal's embassy to the Vikings was
set in Ireland between the first months of 845 andmidsummer 846, some indications may be adduced fromthe details to suggest a new interpretation of events inFrance and Ireland during a period which saw
catastrophic happenings in each of those countries.

Chapter Five

EPILOGUE, 845-846:
THE SACK OF PARIS AND THE END OF TURGEIS
THE end of the unusually hard winter of 844-845189
saw movement along the coast of the narrow seas all
the way from Britanny to Jutland. In March 845 a
Viking fleet of a hundred and twenty ships sailed up the
Seine and attacked and pillaged Paris. About the sametime another fleet, said to have numbered six hundred
ships, entered the Elbe and sacked Hamburg; but in aland battle these Danes were repulsed by the Saxon allies
of Louis the German, brother of Charles the Bald. It
has been assumed by most historians that the attacks on
the Seine and the Elbe were related operations directedby the Danish king Horik. But there are some obscurepassages in the narrative of events which can imply that
the Seine expedition was undertaken by independent
leaders and was neither controlled by King Horik nor in
keeping with his designs.190
At the beginning of March the Viking ships appearedat the mouth of the Seine and began to work up the river.
Lot and Halphen state that the fleet was formed of'pirates danois' who had arrived after devastating someislands — 'sans doute sur la cote de Zelande'.191 At thesame time, it is clear from the author of Les Miracles de
St. Riquier, that panic was caused at the monastery ofCentulum (St. Riquier) near Abbeville on the Somme by
the presence of the pirates in the Seine, and Lot andHalphen remark that neither Prudentius nor theTranslatio Sancti-Germani Parisiensis record any news of
the pirates along the coasts of the Channel before theirarrival in the Seine.192 It is probable that St. Riquierand Ponthieu were threatened on the return of the pirates

56

The Poet and the Spae-wifefrom their raid on Paris and not on their arrival in themouth of the Seine. 'The islands of the sea' which theyplundered may indeed have been the Channel islands
rather than the inshore islands of the Frisian coast which
they attacked and found strongly defended when they
were cruising along the coast towards Denmark after thesack of Paris.193 There is a case then for suggesting that
the Seine fleet had not arrived directly from Denmark,but was composed of elements already wintering on the
French coast and perhaps reinforced from the Viking
settlements in Ireland.
The name of the leader of the Vikings in the Seine has
been recorded in the Prankish chronicles as Raginerus,
Ragneri.194 He has been identified by modern historians
with the celebrated hero of the sagas, Ragnar loSbrok. 195
As had happened four years earlier, Rouen was taken
without a fight and put to the sack.196 The objective of
the invaders was Paris — not yet a capital but a city
already famous for its wealth and situation. The leisurely
and complex world of the Prankish court seems to havebeen surprised by an attack which was unexpected.
About the middle of March the young king Charles theBald proclaimed a hosting. Many rallied but lack offorage before the end of May delayed the concentrationfrom the provinces of the detachments of feudal cavalry —the best fighting element among the Franks. Charles
made his base at St. Denis, to the north of Paris and eastof the Seine. His advance guard at Bourgival feared to
face the enemy. On a8th March the Vikings landed fromtheir ships in the river and on the following day, Easter
Sunday, entered Paris and pillaged the city which was
already deserted by the terrified inhabitants. The Frencharmy at St. Denis refused to engage the enemy and on theadvice of his nobles Charles offered to buy the withdrawalof the Vikings. An epidemic had struck the invaders andthe Viking leaders were probably — as in the raids on
Nantes and Seville in 844 — embarrassed by dispersion

Epilogue: The End of Turgeis

57

and indiscipline. Ragnar came to interview the king at
St. Denis and against a payment of 7000 pounds in silver
took an oath not to penetrate further into the kingdom.
The Vikings returned to the coast towards the end of
April. Lot and Halphen believe that they encamped
along the lower course of the Seine, awaiting thecollection of the ransom money. The Translatioemphasises that their withdrawal was imposed by the
epidemic, an act of God, believed by modern commentators
to have been dysentery. Later, the greater part of theVikings took to their ships and cruised along the Frisiancoast to Denmark. In the view of Lot and Halphen, somedetachments remained round the mouth of the Seine onpillaging expeditions until the end of 845 or as late as
May846.197
The ships which reached Denmark had a bad reception
from King Horik. Lot and Halphen believe that theVikings who raided the Seine had acted without the
king's consent and he may have resented their failure to
rally to the invasion of the valley of the Elbe since theirreinforcement might have saved him from the repulse by
the Saxons.198 When Ragnar's fleet arrived, German
envoys were at Horik's court negotiating peace. The
Danish king was not impressed by Ragnar's exploits; and,indeed, in view of his own check on the Elbe, he may havebeen envious of the astounding success at Paris. Ragnar's
crews and prisoners had brought the epidemic with themand the king, from superstitious fear, sent to Louis theGerman the Christian prisoners and a part of the treasurestaken from the banks of the Seine. In the autumn of 845
Horik's envoys attended the Diet of Louis the German atPaderborn.199 Ragnar returned to the west where hedied a mysterious death soon afterwards. The protagonistof the famous capture of Paris — an event which had
resounded throughout the western world — disappears
from the historic scene in an atmosphere of doom andfatality. His end is interpreted by the monkish

58

The Poet and the Spae-wife

chroniclers as the vengeance of God and in the sagas as
the fate of a hero. 200
Ragnar LoSbrok remains one of the most enigmatic
figures of the early phase of Viking history. His fame,recorded in the sagas of several centuries later, depends
indeed on the reputation of his alleged sons who can be
identified as historical figures in the contemporary records
of England and France. Outside the saga literature andthe legendary material of Saxo Grammaticus, the nameof Ragnar is only attested in the Frankish chronicles for
his Paris campaign of 845. "The whole environment ofRagnar is obscure",201 not least the place and manner of
his death. According to the Annales Xanthes, he fell inFrance in 845.202 The story of his death in a snake-pit
in Northumbria as the prisoner of the Saxon king ^Elle is,in the view of Alan Orr Anderson, 'probably a literaryfable'.201 According to The Chronicle of King Eric,
Ragnar, "having conquered many countries was at length
killed in Ireland." 203 Halliday believed Ragnar to havebeen identical with Turgeis. The date of the disappearanceof the two Viking heroes from history certainly corresponds
closely enough — the end of 845 or the first part of 846. 204
Ragnar has been credited with a number of wives andfive sons who became famous in the sagas and in western
historical sources. The only reference to sons and adaughter of Turgeis is to be found in Keating.208 Thisis the story, perhaps derived from the source of which
the Three Fragments formed part, of the death of three'sons of Turgeis' (clann Tuirgeis) in a sea-fight off Dundalk.
But this event is dated to the middle of the tenthcentury. 206 One suspects here a second Turgeis withhis sons active on the Irish scene. He could have been
the son of Harald Fairhair, called ]>orgisl, who Snorri says
was living in Dublin. 207 On the other hand it is possiblethat 'Tomrar and Turges', referred to in the oldest
fragment of Cogadh preserved in the Book of Leinster,
were sons of the first Turgesius. 208 According to theEpilogue: The End of Turgeis

59

Annals of Ulster, in a victory gained over 'the foreigners'
at Sciath Nechtain (a site near Castle Dermot in County
Kildare), earl Tomrair, heir of the king of Lochlann(Tomrair erell tanise righ Laithlinne), fell with twelve
hundred of his men.209
Halliday proposed to explain the difference in namebetween Turgeis and Ragnar on the ground that Turgesius
was the Latin form of the Norwegian E>orgils, which heinaccurately renders 'the servant of Thor'; and Tomrair,
Tomar or Thormodr he interpreted as 'Thorsman' or one
devoted to Thor. "Such names might have been assumedby, or applied to Ragnar and his successors as worshippersof Thor ... in contradistinction to Christmen or followersof Christ." 210 This argument of Halliday might havesome validity if applied to the descendants of Turgeis, butthere is evidence that names derived from Thor were notcurrent among families who claimed descent from Ragnar;a single exception seems to have been J>orstein, son of
6laf the White and Aud the Deepminded. 211
On the strength of references to his royal fleet and to
his assumption of kingship in the northern parts of
Ireland, modern historians have identified Turgeis as aprince of the royal house of Vestfold. As for Ragnar,
we may perhaps accept the view of Hodgkin that "he owed
a part of his fame, both in his lifetime and later, to thefact that he had links with more than one of the
Scandinavian peoples; that while he came of a Danish
dynasty, he had been brought up in Norway; that he had
wives in many ports; and that his large family of sonsinherited or forged connections with most of the countriesof the north, from Ireland to the Baltic lands . . . The
most plausible conjecture connects him in some way with
Harold and Rorik, the fugitive Danish kings baptised by
Louis the Pious. It is possible that he was a bastard
brother of theirs, or a nephew." 212
The background proposed by Hodgkin could explain
the suspicion and reluctance with which Ragnar, the60

The Poet and the Spae-wife

victor of Paris, was received by King Horik of Denmark,the successful rival of Harold and Rorik. 213 The Norwegian
connection could also explain an alliance of Ragnar's
Seine host with Turgeis and the Norsemen in Ireland.
And perhaps the omen of this combination of leaders of
the Vikings in the west can have provoked, in the years
849-51, the determined onslaught of the Danes against the
Norwegians in Ireland. 214
Turgeis was trapped and subsequently drowned byMaelsechlainn of the Ui Neill, king of Meath. The
Annals of Ulster give the date under 844 = 845. Todd in
his edition of Cogadh followed this dating, although heobserved in reference to another context that "it is difficult
to give much weight to these chronological notes." 215
If the reading of events which I propose is valid, it
becomes necessary to advance the date given in the annalsof Ulster for the capture and death of Turgeis by one
year: 844 = 845 would then read 846. I am aware that
this involves other related events recorded in the Annals
for 844 = 845 and 845 = 846. But the sequence of
events during those years remains obscure in the admissionof the compilers of the contemporary records and modern
scholars have called for some revision of the chronology. 216
The death of Turgeis, like the death of Ragnar, became
the subject of legend. The twelfth-century version ofGiraldus Cambrensis is the earliest surviving. At the endof the sixteenth century both Edmund Campion and
Meredith Hanmer repeated the story of Giraldus
Cambrensis with embellishments, and in 1662 Lynch
devoted three bulky volumes to the refutation of all his
statements about Ireland. In the nineteenth century,
Hennessy, editor of the Annals of Ulster, believed "thesilly story to be without any foundation whatever". 217
But Keating's version differs from the Cambrensian
tradition in essential details and suggests access to a lost
source which may well have been the manuscript of which
the Three Fragments are the surviving parts. 218

Epilogue: The End of Turgeis

61

Todd summarized the account of Giraldus Cambrensis
as follows: "Turgesius being enamoured of the daughter ofking Maelsechlainn, it was arranged that she should
receive him at a banquet, in an island on Loch Uair (nowLoch Owel), where she appeared, surrounded by fifteen
beardless youths in female attire. They carried arms,
however, concealed under their garments, and when
Turgesius, who had also fifteen attendants, advanced toembrace them, they suddenly drew their daggers and slew
him with his followers." 219
The more detailed version of Keating represents
Turgesius as receiving Maelsechlainn's daughter and her
attendants in his castle — perhaps Rintown = Ir.
Rinndun on St. John's Point at the narrow neck of LochRi, facing across the waters of the lake Maelsechlainn's
lands in Westmeath. 220 Further, Keating makes it clearthat Turgeis was overpowered by the Irish youths dressed
as girls who also got possession of the piled arms of theother Vikings about to partake in the festivities in the
castle. Maelsechlainn then entered the castle with his
men and slaughtered "the chiefs and underlings ofTurgeis". The Viking leader himself was taken to the'duinlios' of Maelsechlainn, "where they kept him for atime in captivity". He was drowned only later after the
Lochlannaigh had suffered numerous defeats and had
been banished from Ireland, "except a small remnant ofthem who remained under the rule of the Gaels.""After they were banished, Maoilseachlainn drowned
Turgesius in Loch Ainninn (now Loch Ennill south eastof Loch Owel), and this deed led to the nobles of Irelandchoosing with one accord Maoilseachlainn as high kingof all Ireland, since the country had been freed by himfrom the slavery of the Lochlonnaigh." 221In the story of the end of Turgeis, there are elements
which hint at the pagan practices of the Vikings and recall
the ceremonies and excesses reflected in the cult ofNerthus/Freyr. Fifteen boys and fifteen girls took part62

The Poet and the Spae-wifein the ritual of the Volur. 222 The Irish youths dressed
as girls recall the Haddingjar who have been described as
those who wore the coiffure of women. 223 A lake is thefamiliar background of the Nerthic cult; and even thedrowning of Turgeis may have had a ritualistic conno­
tation. 224 While the story may have been embroideredwith these motives derived from dim memories of therites of Viking paganism, it is within the limits ofprobability that there is a historical basis for the picture ofTurgeis, surprised and captured by a band of Irish youths
during lakeside orgies connected with the cult of Freyr.
In his death-song Ragnar compared himself to an old
boar. 225 Well may Turgeis, whom Keating in his version
pictures so well as the ageing satyr, have mimed the god
Freyr with his porcine attributes, the progenitor of the
Yngling race, 226 who was depicted in Uppsala cum ingente
priapo, and whose worship was celebrated with orgies
and religious prostitution. 227 In this connection, we may
recall the story of the Norwegian Gunnar Helmingr who
gave himself out to be the god Freyr and drove about ina sacred wagon, dressed in the god's clothes andaccompanied by a beautiful girl. 228 In Uppsala, also,"they used to plunge a man living into the water and if
he disappeared they drew a favourable omen." 229 It
may have been that this practice suggested to thesardonic humour of Maelsechlainn the mode of making an
end of Turgeis. 230
Down to the end of the nineteenth century, festivities
connected with the taking of a bride were celebrated in
Sweden on the Eve of St. John (23rd June). They seemto have been a remote reflection of the midsummer cultof Freyr; the practise of ritual drowning was also connectedwith this day. It may be suggested, indeed, that theorgy which proved fatal to Turgeis took place on the
Eve of St. John. 231 Now the only date specificallyindicated for an event in the Irish annals for the years
845 — 846 was the attack by earl Onphile (? Halfdan) onEpilogue: The End of Turgeis

63

the Irish gathered for the great fair at Ros Creda (usually
Ros Cre, Roscrea in Co. Tipperary) on the feast of Pauland Peter (zgth June). This attack would seem to havebeen a direct reaction to the capture of Turgeis by the
Irish and intended as the beginning of an offensive
against Maelsechlainn and the kingdom of Meath. It
ended in the death of the earl and disaster for the
Norsemen. 232 This was the second setback suffered by
the Norsemen during the year, for earlier, and apparently
before the death of Turgeis, they had been beaten by
Aedh son of Niall, King of the Northern Ui Neill andardri of Ireland, at Magh Itha — a place situated in thepresent barony of Raphoe, Co. Donegal. An effective
Irish victory here could threaten the communications of
the Norsemen with the Islands and Norway. 233 I submitthat these events — the battle of Magh Itha, the captureof Turgeis by Maelsechlainn, and the fighting at Roscrea— fell in the year 846 and not in the year 845. For if thechronology of al-Ghazal's embassy to the Vikings in
Ireland is acceptable, it is apparent that al-Ghazal cannot
have left Ireland on his voyage to Compostella before theend of May 846. At that date Turgeis was still a king inauthority, since ibn-Dihya records that "al-Ghazal leftthem, and, accompanied by the envoys, went to Shent
Yakub (St. lago de Compostella) with a letter from theking of the Vikings to the ruler of that city." 234
Without needing to accept the identity of Turgeis andRagnar as proposed by Halliday, it is not unreasonable
to admit the possibility of an alliance between the Vikingsof Turgeis in Ireland and the fleet of Ragnar on the Seine
for an attack on Paris. The alliance could give point to
the implication of al-Ghazal that his embassy had been
more successful than he could have desired. It would also
explain his long sojourn at the court of Turgeis and Ota.
Again, his intimate daily attendance on the queen is themore easily understood if we accept the probability that
Turgeis himself could have been absent for some time on

64

The Poet and the Spae-wife

the Seine expedition. And if Turgeis' force had been
decimated by the epidemic which the Prankish sources
record, the fact must have become evident to the Irish
on his return to Ireland in the late summer or autumn of845. The weakness of the Norse king's situation could
have suggested to the Irish ardri the attack on his
communications in the north and to Maelsechlainn theprospect of a successful revolt against the Norse hegemony.
It is useful to examine the extent to which the sparse
entries in the Prankish sources can help to confirm thisreconstruction of events. In the month of May 846 —which I have proposed for the departure of al-Ghazal from
Ireland — the monks of St. Germain who had taken
refuge at Esmans, near Montereau, returned to theirabbey after an absence of a year and two months. Lot
and Halphen believed that this event could imply thewithdrawal of the last contingents of Vikings from themouth of the Seine. 235 And I suggest that thiswithdrawal can be correlated with the need for re­
inforcements in Ireland following the defeat of theVikings by the ardri Aedh at Magh Itha. During themonth of July 846, the Westfaldingi, who had attacked
Seville in the autumn of 844 and who had been operating
against Saintes and Bordeaux in October and November
845, came to Noirmoutier, set fire to their base and took
to the sea. 236 The arrival of these men as reinforcements
in Ireland could be related to a change of the militarysituation in favour of the Vikings during the year 847.
It was a bad year for the Irish. The south was ravaged.
Maelsechlainn was involved in an ugly servile war in
Meath. But during the winter 847-848, the Norsemenevidently were becoming exhausted. 237 Irish victories
followed during 848. Maelsechlainn triumphed at
Farrach in Co. Meath, and Olchobar, king of Munster,
won a victory at Sciath Nechtain (near Castle Dermot in
Co. Carlow) when Earl Tomrar 'tanist of the king of
Lochlann' was killed. 238 This last event was probably

Epilogue: The End of Turgeis

65

fatal to the Norse situation in Ireland. 239 Prudentius,
who laments the tributary situation of the Irish in 847,
records that in 848 "the (Irish) Scots attacked theNorthmen, and, winning victory, by aid of our Lord
Jesus Christ, cast them out of their territories. Hencethe king of Scots (Maelsechlainn) sent messengers with
gifts to Charles, for peace and friendship, requesting thatthe way of going to Rome might be granted to him." 240

NOTES
1 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, XX,
1957. 4H-I2.
2 ibid., citing E. Levi-Proven9al, 'Un echange d'ambassades
entre Cordoue et Byzance au ixe siecle', Byzantion, XII, 1937,
15-16 (= Islam d'Occident, Paris, 1948, 95-8). And see further
LeVi-Proven9al, Histoire de I'Espagne musulmane, Paris, 1950, I
253-4. In an earlier art. 'Majus', published in El III 101, L-P
accepted the authenticity of al-Ghazal's embassy to the Vikings.
3 In his magistral work, Normannerne (4 vols., 1876-82),
J. C. H. R. Steenstrup was the first to propose Ireland, ii, iii ff;
he was followed by Alexander Bugge, Norges Historic, Christiania,
1909-10, I 2, 80. Haakon Shetelig (Viking Antiquities in GreatBritain and Ireland, in 6 parts, Oslo, 1940-54), concluded that
"Ireland is the only country that agrees sufficiently well with thetale" (I 138, n. 4). Alien Mawer, The Vikings, Cambridge, 1913,
and Cambridge Medieval History, III 317, favoured Ireland, asalso G. Turville-Petre, The Heroic Age of Scandinavia, 1951, 69,
who suggested "the court of Turges at Armagh." A. Fabricius,
who published Reinhart Dozy's French translation of ibn-Dihya's
Arabic account of the embassy, Actes du 8e. Congres Internationale
des Orientalistes, tenu en 1889 a Stockholm et a Christiania, Leiden,
1893, 'L'ambassade d'al Ghazal aupres du roi des Normands',
II 121-31, decided that the king "must have been Horik of
Denmark", p. 128. He was followed by Jon Stefansson, 'The
Vikings in Spain from Arabic (Moorish) and Spanish Sources', in
Saga-Book of the Viking Club, VI, 1908-10, 33 ff. and by
Georg Jacob, Arabische Berichte, Berlin/Leipzig, 1927, 38, n. 5.
Shetelig recalls that Eyvind Kval^n tried to show that the country
visited was some part of Norway, Viken or perhaps Hordaland,
VA, I 138, n. 4. T. D. Kendrick, A History of the Vikings,
London, 1930, 202, regards the evidence for Ireland as 'flimsy'
and believes that "Ghazal was sent to the Danish Court".
Alexander Vasiliev, The Russian Attack on Constantinople in 860,
Cambridge, Mass, 1946, 44-45, did not consider Ireland andfavoured Jutland. Although he gives full and valuablebibliographical notes, the veteran Byzantinist omits reference to
LeVi-Proven9al's negative view in Byzantion, XII, 1937, 15-16,
cited above.
I. I. Y. Krachkovsky, Izbrannye Sochineniya, IV, 1957,
133-4, follows Fabricius and Jacob. He finds the views ofNotes67

LeVi-Proven9al "hypercritical". (For his observations on
al-Ghazal's poetical works and return through St. lago, see ibid.
II, 483-4). D. M. Dunlop, Islamic Quarterly IV, 1957, I and 2 >p. 14, thinks the evidence indecisive.
4 LeVi-Proven9al, Byzantion, XII, 1937, 4, 12-14.
5 L6vi-Proven9al, Histoire de I'Espagne Musulmane, I, 1950,
2546 Vasiliev, Russian Attack, 36; and citing E. Kunik, Die
Berufung der schwedischen Rodsen durch die Finnen und Slaven,
St. Petersburg, 1845, II 285-320.
7 Shetelig, VA, I 19, 57, in; and Kendrick, Vikings, 199, n. 2.
On p. 43 of his work, Vasiliev makes three slips in half a paragraph.
He writes that the Vikings "passed the straits of Gibraltar" before
attacking Cadiz, Medina Sidonia and Seville. Further that theyheld Seville only until the beginning of October, when in fact
they remained until the middle of November. Again, after theirdefeat, he states that they sailed north, although they remained
off the coast for some time and made several more raids (seepp. 8-9 above).
8 Communicated by Bernard Lewis: The word Majus, derived
like English Magus through Greek magos, from Old Persianmagush, is discussed in its various implications by V. P. Buchner
and E. LeVi-Provencal in El (III 97 ff.). Again, the Muslims of
the west described Spaniards who remained Christian as adjam,that is "Persians" — a term used in the east for non-Arab muslims,
usually of Persian origin; cf. L6vi-Proven9al, Histoire, I 77, 130.
8 cf. J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, ycA ed., London, 1913,
Part VII, (= Balder the Beautiful, I), 106 ff., particularly 171-2;
also George Henderson, Survivals in Belief among the Celts, Glasgow
1911, 208 ff.
10 Listed by Vasiliev, Russian Attack, 3. As Shetelig observes,
VA, I 16, the forms of "Norman" are of Norwegian origin.
"The classical example is to be found in Alfred's writings fromabout 880-890, when the Norwegian Ottar is his source on thismatter. Ottar speaks of the whole country, from Vestfold toFinnmark, as being 'NorSmanna land' or 'NorSweg'." It is ofinterest that while the Saxons were fighting the Danes, both
Alfred and ^Ethelstan had Norwegians in the royal circle (Shetelig,
ibid, 17, 19).
11 Vasiliev, Russian Attack, 3 and n. 5. The other name,
Varyag, Varang, applied to Scandinavians in the east need not be
discussed here.
12 Kendrick, Vikings, i ff. "To go i viking was their accustomed
expression for the favourite enterprise of plundering and trading

68

The Poet and the Spae-wife

across the waters". E. Bjorkman, in a paper on the names
Scaldingi and Wicing, Saga-Booh, VII/2, 139, suggests that Viking
may have been a word of Frisian origin (= O. F. Witsing, Wising}.
13 For Westfaldingi, see my note 31 below; for Here da land,
C. Plummer, Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, I, 1892, 54-55;
for Hirotha and Irruaith, Todd, War of the Gaedhil with theGaill, = Cogadh Gaedhil re Gattaibh, London, 1867, xxxiv, n. i;
also Bugge, On the Fomorians and the Norsemen, Christiania,
I9°5. J 5. n - i; R- Th. Christiansen, The Vikings and the Viking
Wars in Irish and Gaelic Tradition, Oslo, 1931, 68, 417 ff.
14 John O'Donovan (ed.), Annala Rioghachta Eireann: Annalsof the Kingdom of Ireland by the Four Masters, Irish text andEnglish translation, in six vols., 2nd ed., Dublin, 1856, I 432,
note y.
15 Geoffrey Keating, Foras Feasa ar Eirinn: The History of
Ireland, Irish text and English translation edited by Rev.
Patrick Dinneen, in four vols., London, 1901-13, III 154-7 (Vol. I
edited by David Comyn).
16 cf. Todd, War, xxx-xxxi and notes. Marstrander, Eriu,
V 250, suggested that the origin of the name was to befound in a rendering of Norse Rogaland, as / and r are often
interchanged. See discussion in Christiansen, Vikings, 416-7,
who finds that "the question of the origin of the name is unsettled".
It remains to observe that Duald Mac Firbis identified theLochlannaigh with the Fomorians (Fomhoraigh or fomhoir —"sea-demons, giants or pirates") of an earlier period of Irish
history. In the Three Fragments the same author refers to Danes
as Aunites (Aunites. i. Dainfir, 158). His editor, O'Donovan,
in a footnote (158, note n) suggests that "this name is, perhaps,a corruption of Afnitae or Hafnitae, from Hafnia (Hofn, thehaven) called afterwards Kaupmannahofn ('merchants' haven')
now Copenhagen." Again, the Scandinavian settlers in Ireland
were often known as Ostmen (i.e. 'East-men' or 'men from theeast'). The name Gaill (= nom. pi., Gall = nom. sg.) was given"to all strangers who spoke a foreign language and was therefore
at first confounded with Galli, or Gaul, the foreigners best known
to the aboriginal Irish" (Todd, War, xxix, n. 3). From thetwelfth century, the term Gaill was applied to the Anglo-Normans.
The Gaill-Gaedhil were the mixed Celto-Norse people of the
Orkneys and Galloway. Groups of apostate Irish who had
reverted to paganism and attached themselves to the Vikings
were also known as Gaill-Gaedhil ('foreign Goidels'). The wholecomplex of the nomenclature of the Scandinavian and Celtic
peoples in the ninth century illustrates the hazards of comparing

Notes69

tribal names for periods for which even less documentation exists.
17 Recently, George Vernadsky has suggested that the originof the terms 'Black Russia' and 'White Russia' may be due to theconquest of the basins of the upper Niemen and of the western
Dvina and upper Dnepr by Black and White Vikings. He
believes that the respective colours represented different
corporations or fraternities of Vikings: "the Blacks apparently
predominated among the Danes and the Whites among the
Norwegians. Both corporations might have existed among the
Swedes." cf. A History of Russia, III, (The Mongols and Russia),
Yale, 1953, 236-7, and The Origins of Russia, Oxford, 1959, 246-7.
"On the Oseberg textiles there is a representation of a warrior
with a white shield", Mongols and Russia, 237, citing Bjorn
Hougen, 'Oseberg-funnets billedvev', Viking IV, 1940, 104.
18 Louis Halphen, Les Barbares, 4th ed., 1940, 299 ff., withexcellent bibliographical notes. Steenstrup, Normannerne, I 49 ff.,
was the first to examine thoroughly the origin of the names
Norman and Dane. See also R. H. Hodgkin, History of theAnglo-Saxons, Oxford, II 473 ff., with useful map of the main
Viking routes; and F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, Oxford,
2nd ed., 1950, 237 ff.
19 A paper read at the Viking Congress at Lerwick, July 1950,
and published in a volume, Viking Congress, Edinburgh/London,
1954, I 3°-4 I; 'The Viking Movements: a Summary Analysis'.
For a useful periodization, see Kendrick, Vikings, 6-9.
20 cf. Shetelig, VA, I 10. Later research tends to push thedate for Swedish expansion east of the Baltic further back. See,for instance, Christopher Tolkien, 'The Battle of the Goths andHuns', Saga-Book, xiv/3, 1955-6, 141-63.
21 The first recorded landing of Scandinavians in England wasmade in the reign of King Beohrtric of Wessex (786-802) by
Norwegians from Hordaland ('NorSmanna of HereSalande')on the Dorset coast which some decades later became the hunting
ground of the Danes (Shetelig, VA, 13). It is probable that theseraiders, like those who explored the Welsh coast in 795, had comefrom the Irish Sea rather than through the straits of Dover.
22 For an appreciation of the original character and 'wonderfulrichness of colour' of Irish society in the ninth century, by a
non-Irish historian, see Axel Olrik, Viking Civilization, Englished., London, 1930, 107 ff. He believed that the Irish had agreat influence on Scandinavian decorative art and on thedevelopment of the saga form.
23 Shetelig, VA, I 13-14. The Vikings were following
traditional sea-routes which had long been open between Ireland

70

The Poet and the Spae-wi/e

and western France. The theme has been studied in detail by
H. Zimmer in Sitzungsberichte d. K. Preussischen Akademie d.
Wissenschaften, XIV, XX, XXI, LI, 1909, 1910: 'Uber direkte
Handelsverbindungen Westgalliens mit Irland im Altertum undFruhen Mittelalter'. Archibald Lewis, The Northern Seas,
Princeton, 1958, 62-76, has adduced evidence for Irish andSaxon attacks round the coasts of western Gaul and as far as
Spain as early as the fifth century A.D. Arne Kelvinger, Lespremises incursions des Vikings en Occident d'apres les sources
arabes, Uppsala, 1955, puts forward arguments, mostly based ona new interpretation of the chronology of Arabic manuscripts,
for an earlier dating (eighth century) of the first Viking incursions
into southern France and the Mediterranean.
24 Shetelig, VA, I 14; Viking Congress, 142: "The Danes invaded
Frisia as the allies of Lothar in his war against his father Louisthe Gentle (= 'the Pious'). After the war Lothar granted to theDanish King Harald the fief of Walcheren as a reward for his
inroads in Frisia against Louis the Gentle. Harald himself is
mentioned as one of the chieftains in Lothar's army in 842."
25 cf. Shetelig, Viking Congress, 140: "The large armies operatingfor. years on the Continent were certainly joined by adventurers
from all Scandinavian peoples, and others, Irishmen, Frisians,
and Slavs. When a renowned chieftain prepared an enterprize
on a grand scale, such as the invasion of England in 850 or
Hasting's raid on Morocco and Italy in 860, warriors and pirates
would gather from all parts."
2 6 For the incidents round Nantes, see Ferdinand Lot and LouisHalphen, Le Rlgne de Charles le Chauve, I 77 ff. (= Bibliothequede 1'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Historiques etPhilologiques, 1750 fasc.); for Messac, 77, for Lambert andcitizens of Nantes, 79 n. i. St. Philibert, the founder ofNoirmoutier in the seventh century, had Irish connections, see
Kenney, Sources for the Early History of Ireland, I 491. His
Life contains an incidental allusion to Irish commerce with the
Loire: "Not much later an Irish ship filled with various
merchandise came to shore, and supplied the brothers with anabundance of shoes and clothing." ibid. 495.
27 Kendrick, Vikings, 193 ff. The Vikings arrived on a west
wind. Lot/Halphen, 82 n. i, citing Chronique de Nantes, ed.
Herlet, 13. This would have been a favouring wind from thesouth coast of Ireland, cf. Bay of Biscay Pilot, 1956, 28. For
appreciation of topography of Noirmoutier, see A. R. Bridbury,
England and the Salt Trade in the later Middle Ages, Oxford, 1955,
56 ff.

Notes71

28 Lot and Halphen, 80 ff., 79 n. 3, for discussion of original
sources. See also Keary, Vikings in Western Christendom,
249 ff.; Kendrick, Vikings, 199 ff.
29 See Lot and Halphen for detailed discussion, 82 n. i. But
Kunik, Die Berufung, 2er Abteil., 292-3, cites Fragmenta
Historiae Armoricae, ed. Martene, for the information that disputes
over the rich spoils of Nantes had provoked disturbances among
the Vikings on Noirmoutier ('Unde inter eos magna seditionecommota'). It was the disturbances which enabled the captive
Nantais to escape.
30 Charles the Bald began the siege of Toulouse during thefirst fortnight of May 844 (Lot and Halphen, 99). On I4th June,
his reinforcements were broken by the Aquitainian rebels at
Angoumois (ibid. 113). About the same date, the royalists were
defeated by Count Lambert in the region of the lower Loire(ibid. 117). During the same weeks, the Breton duke, Nomenoe,
invaded Neustria, advancing to Le Mans on the Sarthe withscarcely any resistance from the royalists. He was suddenly
forced to retire by "a shameful irruption of the Normans" into
his own lands (ibid. 119 and n. i, citing Annales Bertiniani, 31).
In this case 'the Normans' were probably Danes from the
Seine.
31 Lot and Halphen, 81 (n. 3 to p. 79). "Les Annales
angoumousines, copi6es par le Chronicon Aquitanicon, leChronicon Engolismense, Ademar de Chabannes, nous apprenrient
que ces normands etaient des 'Westfaldingi'. II semble que ceterme doivent s'entendre des Norv6giens du sud." cf. Shetelig,
VA, I 16, n. 4, 57. (The Annales angoumousines were later lost.
Lot and Halphen, 187, n. i).
32 See Zimmer, SPAW, XIV, 1909, 393.
33 cf. Lot and Halphen, 82 n. i.
34 cf. my n. 23 above, and see further the Commentary,
Section A, above.
35 cf. Kendrick, Vikings, 115, 276 n. i. The archaeologicalevidence stresses the early and close connection of south-west
Norway with Ireland. "Of a great number of antiquities of theViking age found buried in Norwegian ground . . . the Celtic
personal ornaments form by far the largest group, containing
122 specimens found in no graves." Of these, a substantial
proportion belong to the first half of the ninth century andderive from Vestfold and the adjacent Vestland districts roundthe coast: Agder, Rogaland, Hordaland, Sogn, with some further
north in M0re and Trandelag. Jan Petersen, British Antiquitiesof the Viking Period found in Norway, VA, V, 7, 8, 10.

72

The Poet and the Spae-wife

36 Todd, Way, u, 15; and ibid. n. 2, where the editor
prefers the reading 'Munster' to 'Erinn'.
317 ibid. 13, para, xii of text, which follows immediately after
the statement, para, xi, that Ota, wife of Turgeis, used to giveher audiences upon the altar of Clonmacnois.
38 Lot and Halphen, 186, citing Chronique de Nantes, VII, ed.
R. Merlet, 20, et volentes inde (ab Herio insula) ad regionem suam
nagivare, ventus aquilo violentia usque ad Galliciam deduxit.
Along the mountainous coast of northern Spain, "squalls
which occur in summer may be of considerable violence,
especially near the coast where very hot and sultry weather
prevails; small sailing vessels . . . have been wrecked asa result of them, generally because in hazy weather the firstwarning signs of their approach are not apparent until the squall isimminent ... A fairly large proportion of the infrequent strong
winds which occur in summer are from about north." Bay of
Biscay Pilot, London, 1956, 30. All this helps to explain the poor
showing of the Westfaldingi in the fighting round Corufia; andthe high figure for ships lost. They can have left Noirmoutier
for the Irish coast with a large number of auxiliary boats loadedwith captives, stores and loot. They can have made the landfall
on the Galician coast very much the worse for wear and under
the necessity of refitting and foraging for supplies. The Chroniquede Nantes says that they lost all but thirty of their ships. Thisis an exaggeration or a miscalculation, since Arab sources confirm
that the Majus appeared off Lisbon with fifty-four fighting ships
and as many auxiliary vessels, LeVi-Provencal, Histoire, I 219.
Since the attack on Nantes the previous summer, their fighting
strength was reduced by thirteen ships. If the figure for loss ofseventy ships at Corufia is to be accepted, it would seem that theVikings had lost by storm, or abandoned to the Galicians, sixty
or more auxiliary vessels. These latter would probably be the
Breton-type luggers, commandeered or built with Breton hands
round Noirmoutier, low in the stern and liable to be pooped whenrunning before a gale — particularly if over-loaded with prisoners
and loot. (cf. T. C. Lethbridge, Boats and Boatmen, London,
1952, 58 ff.) If the Vikings had failed to replenish supplies andhad lost most of their spoils at Corufia, and if the north wind were
holding, it may have been desperation rather than planning which
imposed on them a continuation of the voyage south.
39 Stefansson's translation, Saga-Book, VI 35. For the redships of the Vestfold Kings, see Bragger and Shetelig, The Viking
Ships: Their Ancestry and Evolution, Oslo, 1953, 180, andShetelig's fine rendering of the verse from J>orbjorn Hornklofi's
Haraldskviedi:

Notes73

Methinks you know the King?
Dwells at "Kvinne"
Head of the Norsemen
Master of deep keels
Red prows
and scarlet shields
tarred oars
and spray-drenched boards.
Levi-Proven9al, Histoire, I 220, refers to 'les voiles brunes desfilibustiers'. For weather conditions, cf. West Coasts of Spain
and Portugal Pilot, 3rd ed. 1946, 7-8, 21-22.
40 The Muslim sources for the Viking attack on Andalucia in
844 were first translated and published by Reinhart Dozy,
Recherches sur I'Histoire et la Litterature de I'Espagne pendant leMoyen Age, 2 vols., Leiden. There were three editions, all now
rare. I have used the second (II 271-89). Dozy's researches
were the basis of the accounts of Steenstrup and later historians.
In 1908-9, an abbreviated but useful translation in English was
published by Jon Stefansson in Saga-Book, VI 31-46. LeviProvencal used newly recovered sources in his Histoire de
I'Espagne Musulmane, I 218-25. I have followed his dating andaccount of the military operations.
41 Stefansson, Saga-Book, VI 34, citing ibn al-Kutiya: "Whenthey arrived a mile (league) below Seville, (the) Majus shouted tothe people, 'Leave us in peace if you wish to buy prisoners of us'.
People then ceased to throw stones at them, and they allowed
everybody to ransom prisoners. A certain sum was paid for mostof them, but (the) Majus refused both gold and silver. They
took only clothes and food." cf. Dozy, Recherches, II 285.
42 Dozy, Recherches, II 277-8, and Stefansson, Saga-Book,
VI 37, citing Nowairi. cf. also Levi-Proven9al, Histoire, I 224.
43 Lot and Halphen, I 186-7. "A. la fin de 844 ou au debut de1'annee 845."l *ibid. 187 n. i, citing Chronique de Nantes, ed. Merlet, 20.
46 Elysee Reclus, Universal Geography, ed. Ravenstein, I 454.
4 6 This event is dated by a letter of Loup de Ferrieres toGanelon, archbishop of Sens, cited by Lot and Halphen, 187,
n. i and 2. The authors amend the Chronique de Nantes inplacing the capture of Bordeaux after the capture of Saintes.
47 Lot and Halphen, I 187 n. i, citing Chronique de Nantes,
ed. Merlet, 20, under year 845.
48 ibid. n. 5, citing Chronicon Aquitanicon, under year 846.
49 ibid. 187. After the Viking practice for standing camps, the74

The Poet and the Spae-wife

Noirmoutier base can have contained longhouses, hutments,
storesheds, repair yards and forges — all the plant potentially
useful to a rival fleet expected on the coast.
60 ibid.
51 Shetelig, VA, I 112 ff.; Kendrick, Vikings, 203 ff.
52 cf. Todd, War, Cogadh, paras, xxi, xxii.
53 See notes 237, 239 below.
64 cf. Le>i-Proven9al, L'Espagne Musulmane au Xe siecle, 36;
Histoire, I 78.
56 Levi-Proven9al, Histoire, III 184 ff. Musa al-Qasi, whotook a leading part in the defeat of the Vikings at Tablada,
belonged to a powerful muwalad family of Gothic descent.
56 ibid. Ill 73 ff. 'Slav' (= Sakaliba) became a name which
covered Germans and Franks as well as Wends.
67 See note 41 above; and for the multilingual character ofAndalucian culture, L6vi-Provencal, Histoire, III 182 ff.
58 Scattered bands of Vikings had been cut off in the districts
east and south-east of Seville. Eventually they capitulated andbecame Muslims. They took to dairy farming in the valley of
the Guadalquivir and for long continued to supply Seville andCordova with famous cheeses. Levi-Proven9al, Histoire, I 224.
It may be noted that in the fourteenth century the best rowers
in the Castilian fleet came from the marismas de Seville (seeF. E. Russell, The English Intervention in Spain and Portugal in
the time of Edward III and Richard II, Oxford, 1955, 232.).
59 LeVi-Provencal, Histoire, III 314 ff.; Cambridge Economic
History of Europe, Cambridge, 1952, 162, 271, 272. The vast
European slave trade was largely in the hands of Jews andSyrians. It even had its amenities. As in nineteenth-century
Turkey, promising slaves were carefully educated — in philology,
literature, calligraphy, astronomy and the exact sciences (Histoire,III 317). The Vikings traded their own slaves. "In Laxdcela
Saga we hear of Melkorka, an Irish princess, who was exposed forsale with eleven other women at a market in Norway. The
slave-dealer, a man known as Gilli (Ir. Giolla) 'the Russian' wasin all probability a Scandinavian merchant from Ireland who
had carried on trade with Russia." Sometimes the Norsemen,
after defeats, were themselves sold into slavery, like 'the slaves
ignorant of Gaelic' given as tribute to Irish kings. (See A. Walsh,
Scandinavian Relations with the Irish during the Viking Period,
Dublin, 1922, 32-3, 72-3). English slaves were sold into Ireland'by merchants and pirates' as late as the twelfth century. Afterthe Normans took Dublin, English bondsmen were manumitted
by decree of the Synod of Armagh with a view to conciliating

Notes75

Strongbow, Holinshed's Chronicles, (1808 ed.) VI, Ireland, 148.
60 Levi-Proven9al, Histoire, I 178 ff.
61 ibid. 212.
62 ibid. 222 ff. In 828, Louis the Pious had written to thepeople of Merida encouraging their revolt and promising armedaid (ibid. 227). Unrest among the Christians and Mozarabs of
Cordova came to a head in 850-1 (ibid. 232 ff.).
63 For the personality of al-Ghazal, see Levi-Proven9al,
Byzantion, XII loff.; Histoire, I 249 ff.; III 283, n. i, for his
introduction into Andalucia of a species of fig called donegal;
ibid. 443, for his objections to chess; ibid. 492 for his gift for satire.
64 I have summarised the bibliographical information on
ibn-Dihya from Vasiliev, First Russian Attack, 1946, 43 andn. 4-5; he gives more details but omits reference to LeviProven9al's contribution to the subject in Byzantion, XII, 1937.
Add also: H. Birkeland, Nordens Historie i Middelalderen etter
arabiske Kilder, in Skrifter utg. av det Norske Videnskaps Akademi
i Oslo, Hist.-fil. Kl. 1954, Nr. 2.
86 cf, Levi-Provencal, in Byzantion, XII 7, 10; also his short
notice of Isa-bn-Ahmed ar-Razi in El III.
66 Byzantion, XII 16.

67 Histoire, I 253-4.
68 The Three Fragments, copied from ancient sources by
Dubhaltach Mac Firbisigh (anglice, Duald Mac Firbis); andedited with a translation and notes from a manuscript preservedin the Burgundian Library at Brussels, by John O'Donovan,
Dublin, printed at the University Press, for the Irish
Archaeological and Celtic Society, 1860.
Duald Mac Firbis was the last of a long line of seanachies orhereditary historians of Connacht. During the ParliamentaryWars, he was reduced to great poverty and much of his work
took the form of translations of Irish manuscripts for Sir JamesWare, an early English patron of Irish letters. In 1670, at theage of 85, he was murdered by a drunken member of the Croftonfamily.
89 For discussion of the equation of Turgeis and Ragnar
loSbrok see pp. 58-60 above and note 204.
'"Shetelig, VA, 148, 55.
71 For detailed discussion of these manuscripts, see Todd, War,
introduction, i ff. For a modern view of Cogadh, often critical,
see A. J. Goedheer, Irish and Norse Traditions about the Battle of
Clontarf, Haarlem, 1938. The author believes that Cogadh
borrowed from the Annals of Ulster, but the latter only gives one
reference to Turgeis (s.a. 844) and none to his wife, Ota. The

76

The Poet and the Spae-wife

accounts of events in Ireland, following the capture of Turgeis,
show substantial difference of treatment in A U and Cogadh.
72 The Irish Annals. There is controversy among scholars as
to the composition and chronology of the several Irish 'annals'
and 'chronicles' which were kept in different monasteries. But
there seems to be a degree of common agreement that the various
bodies of annals stemmed from an original 'Ulster Chronicle'
which was compiled in east Ulster, probably in the monastery of
Bangor, c. 740 (cf. T. F. O'Rahilly, The Two Patricks, 1942, n;
Early Irish History and Mythology, 1946, ch. XIII —particularly
253 ff.; Rev. Dr. J. Ryan, in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, Oct. 1942,
247; Bieler, IHS, VI 24, 1949, 248). This 'Ulster Chronicle'
comprised 'world history' drawn from Greek and Latin sources andIrish records based on older materials. The Annals of Ulster(properly the A nnals of Senat Mic Maghnusa, an island on Lough
Erne) descend from the 'Ulster Chronicle' in a direct line; theedition translated and edited by Hennessy in the i84o's was takenfrom a late fifteenth-century transcript. The Annals of Inisfallen(on Lough L6in = Killarney), preserved in a manuscript of 1215,
derive from an intermediate exemplar of the'Ulster Chronicle'.
The Annals of Clonmacnois survive only in an English translationof the sixteenth century; they too derive from the same source as' Inisfallen'. The A nnals of the Kingdom of Ireland, usually known
from the number of the compilers as 'The Four Masters' wascompleted in the seventeenth century from the older existing
annals.
The nineteenth-century editors and translators of the several'annals' — O'Curry, O'Donovan, Todd, Hennessy and Whitley
Stokes — have come in for a fair share of criticism from theirsuccessors in the twentieth century (notably from the late
R. A. S. MacAlister). But these critics fail to agree among
themselves. For the complicated problems of the dating andchronology of the Irish annals, reference may be made to a numberof articles in recent years in £riu and Irish Historical Studies.
See particularly IHS, II 8, 1941, 355-75, the (late) Fr. Paul Walsh,'The Dating of the Irish Annals' — 'presented by the chronology
sub-committee of the Irish Committee of Historical Sciences andprepared for publication by the Rev. Professor O'Doherty'; also
IHS, VI 24, 1949, 247-260, Ludwig Bieler, 'Sidelights on the
Chronology of St. Patrick'. In the view of Fr. Walsh, for the
Annals of Ulster, one year should be added for the period 712-1012,
thus reading 713-1013. For the period 805-904 Hennessy's dates
in his edition of Chronicon Scotorum are correct.
For the methods used in compiling and dating the annals, seeNotes77

Fr. Paul Walsh, The Four Masters and Their Work, Dublin, 1944.
"In earlier parts of the Four Masters' Annals the margin of error
is as much as five years," p. 32.
73 For Giraldus, I use the handy Irish edition of John J. O'Meara,
The First Version of the Topography of Ireland by Giraldus
Cambrensis, Dundalk, 1951, 102 ff. Giraldus' attribution ofabandoned forts and earthworks to the Vikings was defended by
T. S. Westropp inJRSAI, XXXIV, 1904, 313-45.
74 The Irish text of Chronicon Scotorum from a manuscript in
the library of Trinity College, Dublin, was translated and edited
by W. M. Hennessy, Dublin, 1866.
The best edition of Foras Feasa ar Eirinn (The History of
Ireland) by Geoffrey Keating, was edited with Irish text andtranslation by David Comyn, (Vol. I) and Rev. Patrick Dineen,(Vols. II-IV) for the Irish Texts Society in 4 vols. (IV, VIII, IX,
XV of the series), London, 1901-14. Vol. IV contains an index(pp. 159-479) which is invaluable as a dictionary of Irish andanglicised name forms. The English commentators on Turgeis
were: (i) Edmund Campion (1540-81), who had access to
Irish manuscripts in the possession of his patron, the elder
Stanihurst. Campion's work was first edited by Richard
Stanihurst in Holinshed's Chronicles, 1587; then by Sir James Warein his History of Ireland, 1633. Duald Mac Firbis was Ware's
guide to Irish sources, (ii) Meredith Hanmer (1543-1604), aclergyman of disreputable character but scholarly attainments,
who lived the last thirteen years of his life in Ireland. His
Chronicle of Ireland, 'a work of merit and learning', was publishedby Sir James Ware in 1633.
7 5 For Yahya bn-Habib, Byzantion, XII 7; L6vi-Proven9al,
Histoire, I 252. For Viking navigation and knowledge ofastronomy, see Old-Lore Miscellany of Shetland, Caithness andSutherland, London, X 7, 1946, 293-320, Carl V. Solver,'LeiSarsteinn: The Compass of the Vikings'.
76 For an account of Shilb (Silves), in the twelfth century, see
Levi-Proven9al, La Pe'ninsule Ibe'rique au moyen-dge, Leiden,
1938, 129-32. "Silves est entouree d'un rampart solide et possedea ses abords des plantations et des vergers. L'eau potable est
fournie a ses habitants par sa riviere: celle-ci baigne Silves ducote meridionale. La mer se trouve a trois milles de Silves a
1'ouest. Elle possede un mouillage sur la riviere et un chantier deconstructions navales." According to West Coasts of Spain andPortugal Pilot, 3rd ed., London, 1946, 207-8: "The town of Silves,situated on Rio Silves, about seven miles from the entrance of
Rio Portimao, can be reached by vessels from 40 to 50 tons."

78

The Poet and the Spae-wife

The entrance to the river was well protected by a bar which underfavourable conditions "can be crossed at high water by vessels
drawing up to 14 feet." "Ships' boats should not attempt to crossthe bar without a pilot: even in fine weather, the breakers areheavy and dangerous." In the conditions of maritime warfare of
the ninth century, the site of Silves was well chosen.
77 In the description of the knorr, I have followed Kendrick,
Vikings, 76. See also E. Magnusson, 'Notes on Shipbuilding andNautical Terms in the North', Saga-Book, IV i, 1905, 182-237(for a description of the knorr, see p. 222); and G. J. Marcus, 'The
Navigation of the Norsemen', The Mariner's Mirror, 39/2, 1953,
112-31 where on p. 114 the author makes the point that thehafskip ('ocean-ship') of the Viking age was not much smaller, if
at all, than 'the two Barkes' with which John Davis, in 1585, went
in search of the North-West passage. For speeds and distances,
see ibid. 119 ff.: from Norway to Iceland, 7 days sailing; from
Iceland to Ireland, 5 days. I am also indebted to Mr. Michael
Mason for a valuable memo on Viking ships and seafaring.
From his reading of the text Professor Bernard Lewis has
informed me that he believes that al-Ghazal travelled in an
Arab ship, provided at Silves. He may be right. There isevidence that in the mid-ninth century the Andalucians alreadyhad experience of navigating in the Atlantic, cf. D. M. Dunlop,'The British Isles according to Mediaeval Arabic Authors', The
Islamic Quarterly, IV/i 2, 1957, I 5- I 8, 22-24, f°r the expeditionsof Khaskhash and the Lisbon 'Adventurers'. But nearcontemporary Muslim authors, al-Battani (c. 902) and al-Maredi(in Muruj adh-Dhab, 943) cited by Dunlop, pp. 16-19, imply that
the Arabs had usually little taste for the 'Encircling Ocean'. I feelthat the danger of separation at sea, which threatened sail down
to a much later period, and the fact that they were to voyage
across unknown waters, controlled by the Vikings, would have
inclined the Arab envoys to entrust themselves to their moreexperienced hosts.
78 Dozy-Fabricius, 122. cf. also Dunlop, loc. cit., 13 n. 4. The
reference to 'The great cape . . . the westernmost limit of Spain'
seems to rule out rather definitely L6vi-Proven9al's implicationthat al-Ghazal's poem referred to a storm which overtook him
during his voyage to Constantinople (Byzantion, XII 10).
A ship sailing from Silves towards the Straits of Gibraltar would
have run before the north-westerly gale described in the poem.
Again travellers would hardly have chosen to embark from Silves
for Constantinople but rather from a Murcian port, as indeed
al-Ghazal did on the occasion of his Byzantine embassy, cf.
Levi-Provencal, Byzantion, XII 10.

Notes

79

79 West Coasts of Spain and Portugal Pilot, 3rd ed., 1946, 204,
for St. Vincent; 86, 26, for Finisterre.
80 Bugge, Norges Historic, I 2, 80; Fridtjof Nansen, In Northern
Mists, London, 1911, II 202. Jacob, Arabische Berichte, does not
attempt to identify this island.
81 For the twelfth century, Giraldus Cambrensis mentions threedays as customary for the voyage to Spain from Ireland. Prince
John and his accompanying troops made the voyage from Milford
Haven to Waterford in less than twenty-four hours, "the wind
being at east and blowing a good gale", Holinshed's Chronicles,
1808 ed., VI, Ireland, 219.
Lethbridge recalls that in 1385, Portuguese ambassadors madethe run from Portugal to a Cornish port in four days, History ofTechnology, II 583.
82 Todd, War, xxxvi, n. 2; Cogadh (text), 5, 222.
83 ibid., and Keating, III 156. This was the first of several
defeats suffered by the Vikings when they left their ships along
the river banks and got themselves entangled in the thick woods
which covered much of the country in the ninth century. ("Thefirst name which was given to Ireland was Inis na bhfiodhb-hadh,that is to say 'Island of the woods' for the first comers found it
to be all one forest-wood", Keating, I 97). The annalists
complain of the advantage of the Vikings in arms and armour,but the lighter-armed Irish, knowing the woods, could prove amatch for the sea-farers from the waterways.
84 Todd, War, xxxviii; Cogadh, 7, 222.
86 ibid, xxxix; 7, 223.
^ibid. xl.
88 ibid, xli; 9, 224. For the identification of Inis Sibhtonn with
King's Island, see TKAS, 1899, 227.
89 Todd, War, xlii; 9, 224.
90 C. F. Keary, The Vikings in Western Christendom, A.D. 789
to A.D. 888, London, 1891, 174 ff. Keary gives a good runningaccount of the career of Turgeis. This book, published nearlyseventy years ago, still remains, in the opinion of T. C. Kendrick,"the one important English book concerned with the Vikings:
a fine work of real beauty and a masterpiece of expositional style."
91 Todd, War, xlii; 9, 224-5.
92 Thus the older recension of the manuscript of Cogadh,
see Todd, War, 226. The later recension has 'audience', ibid. 13.
93 Todd, War, li; 15, 227; and cf. Keating, Iv, 210. For
topography of Ciarraighe Luachra, and other parts of the Kerrycoast, the best source remains the series of papers by Thomas

80

The Poet and the Spae-wifeJohnson Westropp on 'Promontory Forts in Northern County
Kerry' mJRSAI XL, Dublin, 1911, 6 ff.
94 Miss Hickson, 'Names of Places and Surnames in Kerry',
JRSAI XXI, 1890-91, 685 ff.; ibid. XXII 389 ft. The names
Crookhaven (O. N. Krokr, "crook, hook, barb, trident"),
Dunmanus (= Dun Magnus) and Bere or Beare (cf. O. Frisian,barre, "clamour, shouting") may also be of Norse origin. The
last is, perhaps, a rationalisation of the name of the Irish goddess
Bea.
96 JRSAI XXI 690.
98 Westropp, 'Some Promontory Forts and similar structuresin the County Kerry', JRSAI XL, 1910, 274-6.
97 cf. Br0gger and Shetelig, Viking Ships, 219: "King Olaf
called his only great ship the Bison; on the prow it had agold-embellished ox-head and at the stern a tail. Both these,
together with the neck, were gilded over. In the ballad on King
Olaf his ship is called the Ox. Several ships have that name.
The last we know of is King Hakon Hakonsson's Ox, which was
not a great ship."In view of Worsaae's theory that King Olaf Tryggvason wasbaptised in Sceleg Michil, and not in the Scilly Isles, (see JRSAIXXI, 1890-91, 695, citing J. J. E. Worsaae, An Account of theDanes and Norwegians in England, Scotland and Ireland, London,
1852, 353) the connection of Dingle with the Red Ox isinteresting.
98 Miss Hickson 'Old Place Names and Surnames', JRSAIXXII, 1892, 396-7: "Staigue Fort stands on the level summit ofa hill between four and five hundred feet above the sea, open to
the sea on the south with a gradual descent to it." (The editorof O'Curry's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, I
ccc-cccvi, O'Sullivan believes the name to be comparatively
modern, and to have been introduced by Sir Valentine Browne's
colonists from Lancashire, where the form stee or steig, meaning"ladder" was current.)
99 JRSAI XXII, 1892, 396. "The point is a well known hauntof the Sterna arctica, a noisy restless bird."
100 Westropp, 'Notes on the Promontory Forts and Similar
Structures of County Kerry', JRSAI XLII, 1912, 298.
101 ibid. 291; and further for survey of monuments of Valentia.
See also M. J. Delap, 'Some Holy Wells in Valencia andPortmagee', Kerry Archaeological Journal, 1910-11, 406 ff.
102 JRSAI XL, 1910, 266. There were other "Oak Islands"— in Wexford Haven and at the mouth of the Blackwater, see
Keating, IV 247-8, under Dairinis.

Notes81

103 Charles Smith, The Ancient and Present State of the Countyof Kerry, Dublin, 1773, 357.
104 Charles Smith, The Ancient and Present State of the County
and City of Cork, 2 vols., Dublin, 1750, I 286 ft. (At pp. 278-80,
the author gives an interesting account of a raid on theneighbouring coastal harbour of Baltimore by two 'Algerinerovers' on the 2oth June, 1631. The pirates carried off intoslavery 100 English settlers. As late as the following March, thewhole coast was alerted and expecting a further attack 'from theTurks'.
105 por Beare and Dursey, see the fine papers by Thomas
Westropp in JRSAI, L, 1920, 140 ff., and LI, 1921, I ff.; also
Smith, Cork, I 291 ff.
106 Irish Coast Pilot, 1941, 216.
107 Rev. Timothy Lee, 'The Northmen of Limerick', JRSAI,1899, 377. Todd, War, 274, n. i: "The Four Masters (under
965, 969) call this place Inis Ubhdonn, whence some haveconjectured that its real name was given to it by the Scandinavian
settlers, and was Inis Odinn or Woden, corrupted by the Irish to
Inis Ubhdonn and Inis Sibhtonn."
108 T. J. Westropp, 'A Description of the ancient Buildings andCrosses at Clonmacnois, King's County'; JRSAI, XXXVII, 1907,
277ff.; also a summary in the form of a lecture, 329 ff. Westropp's
work still remains the best description of Clonmacnois. But cf. also
R. A. S. Macalister, The Memorial Slabs of Clonmacnois: with an
Appendix of the Materials for a History of the Monastery,
Dublin, 1909. For many bibliographical details and interesting
discussion of sources, James F. Kenney, The Sources for the
Early History of Ireland, I, Ecclesiastical (all published) 1929,
376 ff.
The monuments now standing date from the tenth century orlater, with the exception of the South Cross opposite Teampul
Hurpain which is attributed to the early ninth century and may
have been in its present position in the time of Turgeis. The
pedestal of the High Cross, too, shows two fine panels — theupper of three horsemen riding southward, the lower of two
charioteers driving northward. They hardly seem to relate to
the scenes from the Scriptures which decorate this cros na
screaptra and the carvings on the pedestal are more weather-wornand may be older than the monument which stands upon it.
(For a drawing by Westropp, see above, 294.) An immediate
predecessor of Forannan, Fland Roi, "who took the Abbacy byforce and who is not mentioned at mass", is stated to have "urged
on the dogs out of the chariot so that he was deposed from the

82

The Poet and the Spae-wife

coarbship of Patrick", see H. J. Lawlor and R. I. Best, 'The
Ancient List of the Coarbs of Patrick', in PRIA, XXXV, Sect.
C., No. 9, 1919, 324-5, 349. The only fortifications standing are
McCarthy's Tower, 'an unusually perfect example of the Irish
round tower', built in 1124, and the Norman castle (1212).
According to Cogadh, the fleet of Turgeis first appeared on
Loch Ri in 839, Todd, War, 9, cap. IX of Cogadh. AU and
Chron. Scotorum state that a host of foreigners (with Turgeis)burned Clonmacnois in 844-845. In the oldest (Book of Leinster)
fragment of Cogadh, this second operation of Turgeis on LochRi is described as follows, cap. XI under years 838-45: "After
this came Turgeis upon Loch RI and from thence were plundered
Meath and Connacht, and Cluainmicnois .... Cluanmicnois was
taken by his wife. It was on the altar of the great church that
she used to give her answers." The greater detail seems tojustify preference for the evidence of Cogadh. The fact that
Queen Ota apparently took Clonmacnois as a personal appendage
and set up residence there indicates that the city was plunderedrather than burnt. Timber houses in the Norwegian style would
have been constructed with little delay for Ota and her court.
109 Annals of Clonmacnois, under year 1026: also JRSAI,XXXVII, 1907, 300. The gardens were badly spoiled by thesoldiers of William Burke in 1212 — "Wast and voyde, like anempty chaos without any manner of thing but their empty andfoot-troden grounds", Ann. Clon. for 1212. In 1216, the Bishop
procured compensation from King John for the destruction of
his orchards during the building of the castle in 1212, JRSAI,XXXVII, 1907, 304.
110 Brash, The Ogam inscribed Monuments of the Gaedhil,
London, 1879, 324, citing an Old Irish poem from Bodleianmanuscript Rawlinson 406.
111 Kazvini, citing al-Udhri, printed by Jacob in Arabische
Berichte, 26. The rest of the section on Ireland is occupied withdetails of whale-hunting—a pointer to Arab interest in the fisheriesof the northern seas. For discussion of the lost work of al-Udhri,
see L6vi-Provencal, Peninsule Iberique, xxiv and n. 2. Also
Dunlop, Islamic Quarterly, IV, 1/2, 17-18. Al-Udhri flourished in
the first half of the eleventh century. Dunlop finds that "itcannot be shewn that he is dependent on the narrative of Yahya
al-Ghazal", but the statement that "the Norsemen have no capital(qa'idah) save this island in all the world" seems to reflect theconditions of the mid-ninth century rather than a later period.
Possibly al-Udhri drew on some lost record of the adventures of
Khashkhash, one of the commanders of the Muslim fleet which

Notes83

operated in the Atlantic against the Norse invaders of Spain in
859; he later made a remarkable raid into 'the Encircling Ocean'from which he returned with much booty, Dunlop, pp. 15 and 18.
112 H. F. McClintock, Old Irish and Highland Dress, Dundalk,
and ed., 1950, i.

113 ibid. Plate 21.

114 ibid. 3 For the varied colours and rich embroideries ofthese ancient Irish costumes, see further ibid. 13-18; and formany curious details and references see Eugene O'Curry, On the
Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, 3 vols., London/Dublin,
1873, I, W. K. Sullivan's introduction, xxxlvii ff., Ill 87-211,'On Dress and Ornaments'.
115 McClintock, 16.
116 Estyn Evans, Irish Folk Ways, London, 1957, IZ 5» citing
R. O'Flaherty, Westor H'lar Connaught, 1684, 68. On the other
hand, as recently as 1952, I recall questioning a girl about one
among a small group of clachans on the Dingle peninsula, andher replying, 'Oh, grandfather built that one'.
117 Estyn Evans, ibid. 115-16. The author adds: "The corbelledbuildings of Vaucluse, in the mountains behind Avignon, are bothround and rectangular, the latter bearing a striking resemblance
to Irish oratories of the type of Gallarus, Co. Kerry, which isbelieved to date from the sixth or seventh century."
118 O'Curry, Manners and Customs, I ccxvii ff., with two
drawings reproducing the huts.
119 Stephane Gsell, Histoire ancienne de I'Afrique du Nord,(8 vols., 1921-28), II, and ed., 1929, 217-34. The author discusses
the round and oblong varieties of the primitive mapalia, both inwattle and stone. He believes that the circular form withconical top originated in the Sudan, 2-22. For this hut, he finds
names in the classical authors 'which are not proper to Africa':
Greek, kalubai; Latin, tuguria; and "le mot tres rare attegiae,
dont Juvenal, xiv, 196, se sert a propos des Maures, est d'origine
inconnue", 220-1. In Irish, the word for 'house' is tech, teg; for'householder,' aithech tighe; for 'wicker-work house', teach jithe,Contributions to a Dictionary of the Irish Language, T — tnuthaigid,
arranged by David Greene and E. G. Quin, Dublin, 1943, cols.
95-96. See also O'Sullivan in O'Curry, I ccxcviii-ix (cf. note 114
above). The form recorded in Latin tuguria may be comparedwith Ethiopian tukul. The building of a wickerwork hut is
described Li the life of St. Colman, O'Curry, Manners and Customs,
III 31 ff. The wooden oratory of St. Molaise, erected by Gobban
Saer, was mobile and could be everted, ibid. 36. Gobban Saer, thelegendary first builder in Ireland, was son of Tuirbhi, "the84

The Poet and the Spae-wiferusty-faced, black, big fellow .... Though Tuirbhi in his land in
the south was strong, it is not known of what stock was his race.
Unless he was of the Mystical black race . . ." ibid. 41.
120 O'Curry, III 31 ff. For an Ethiopian tukul, see the finecoloured plate 26, in The Fountain of the Sun, by Douglas Busk,
London, 1957, and compare with Sullivan's drawings of the hutson the Antonine Column in O'Curry, I ccxcvii-ix.
121 Estyn Evans, Irish Folk Ways, 117.
122 pytheas, reference by (Pseudo-) Aristoteles, de Mundo, 3,cited by Richard Hennig, Terrae Incognitae; Altertum bisPtolemaus,
Leiden 1944, 2nd ed., 159.
123 McClintock, Plate 10 for shrine of St. Manchan; Plates 6
and 7 for 'Iberian' types from the Book of Kells; Plates 8 and 9 forthe shrine of St. Moedoc. Compare the Viking types andcostumes of the soldiers on the Cross of Muiredach, Monasterboice,
Plate i; and the north European physiognomies shown in the
manuscript of Giraldus Cambrensis, Plates u to 14, and in thelater drawings of Dvirer (Plate 17) and Lucas de Heere(frontispiece).
124 Jacob, Arabische Berichte, 38 and n. 2. Throughout thispaper I am following the new translation of ibn-Dihya, kindly
placed at my disposal by Professor Bernard Lewis. I cite theearlier translations of Dozy and Jacob in order to examine thearguments of those who have preferred to locate the embassy inDenmark rather than in Ireland.
125 Jacob, ibid. 38, n. i; Dozy/Fabricius, 130; Stefansson,
Saga-Book, VI 40.
126 Kendrick, Vikings, 202.
127 See note no above.
128 Kendrick, Vikings, 136, 137. "It was King Harald Gormson(d. 986) 'who made the Danes Christian', as he declares himself
on the Jellinge stone; it was King Olaf Tryggvason who in the fiveamazing years before the tenth century closed bullied his
Norwegian subjects into accepting the new faith . . . ; it was
King Olof Skotkonung (995-1022), who no less energetically,
though much less successfully, sought to convert the Swedes."For the survival of pagan practise in Connacht and some of the
Irish islands in the twelfth century, see Giraldus Cambrensis,
Topography of Ireland, (ed. O'Meara), 92 ff.; also n. 61.
129 Du Chaillu, The Viking Age, 1889, I 465, citing Landndma, v,
c. 15 (IslendingasogitrJ-, 1847, 321); ibid., 464-7, citing Fornmanna
Sogur, I, c. 22, 23. Leonce Auzias, L'Aquitaine carolingienne(778-987), Toulouse/Paris, 1937, 324 n. 56, citing Annales
Bertiniani, s.a. 864: "Pippinus, Pippini films, ex monacho laicuset
apostate factus, se Normannis conjungit et ritum eorum servat."

Notes85

130 cf. Todd, War, 224-5, citing manuscript (Book of Leinster,I2th c.): "Turges himself took the Abbacy of Armagh; andForannan, Abbot of Armagh, was driven away and went to
Munster . . . and Turges in Ardmacha, and the power of the northof Erinn was with him. It was then that the prophecy of Berchan,
the chief prophet was fulfilled . . .
"There shall be an abbot of them over this my church,
He shall not attend to matins,
Without Pater, without Credo,
Without Latin, and only (knowing)a foreign language."
The special status of the powerful abbesses of the shrine of St.
Brigit of Kildare may even suggest an Irish precedent for thesacerdotal function assumed by Ota at Clonmacnois, cf. Kenney,
Sources, I, 356-8.
131 Todd, War, xlviii; Keary, 179, follows Todd but (mistakenly)
implies co-operation between Turgeis and Feidhlimidh; Kendrick,
Vikings, 277.
132 Thus:"An age of axes, an age of swords:
Shields are cleft;
An age of winds, an age of wolves,
Ere the world winks
No man will spare
Another man."
Voluspd, cited by du Chaillu, I 41. Or for a brilliant expressionof nihilism, with a strangely modern ring, see Vdlsunga saga,ch. 32, cited by du Chaillu, I 438.
133 por citation of Westropp's view, see Commentary, p. 34
above and note 108.
134 The conflict between the ecclesiastical centres in Armagh
and Cashel has not, to my knowledge, been studied in relation to
the reformist movement of the Culdees (= Celi De, 'Companionsof God'), which spread in Ireland in the eighth century. It is
possible that iconoclastic themes, with puritanical and radical
undertones, were introduced by Armenian and Coptic priests
and masons as early as the sixth century. (For Culdees, see
Kenny, Sources, 468 ff). It is curious that Rathan, where
Mile Henry noted remarkable Armenian influences in thearchitecture, was the seat of the Culdee Ul Shuanaig. And there
was an Armenian bishop at Cill Achid, some twenty miles from
Rathan. (Fran9oise Henry, La Sculpture Irlandaise, Paris, 1933,
173, n. 2, and passim).
135 The Three Fragments, 139. The phenomenon continued

86

The Poet and the Spae-wifethroughout the period. In the Three Fragments, 237, for the year
909 there is the curious entry: "In this year there came a great
muster of the Brefnians (into Meath) to commit depredations ....
Then the King of Erin said, 'It is the end of the world that iscome', said he, 'when plebians like these dare to attack
noblemen . . . They had never before seen a muster of Attacotts,
and though they had no king at their head, they attacked the Kingof Erin with hardihood." Here, it is interesting to find theterm 'Attacott' — which some historians have discussed as atribal name, applied to 'Jacquots'. On 'Attecotti', see further
Eoin MacNeill, Phases of Irish History, Dublin, 1920, 144-9.
136 The first point of correspondence in the stories of the
Byzantine and Viking journeys is the storm at sea. See p. 19
and n. 78 above. For the protocol and incident, see L6viProven9al, Byzantion, XII u.
137 Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, 3rd ed. revised, London,
1943, 503, gives an indication that this practise was in the traditionof Visigothic royalty. The Lady Ailo (or Egilona, in Hitti)
ended by having such a low entrance built to her private chapel"that Abd al-Aziz himself had to bend on entering as if in an actof .worship". Rumours that he was a convert to Christianity
led to his murder in 716.
138 du Chaillu, II 466 ft., citing Oldfs saga Tryggvasonar(Fornmanna Sogur I, Kaupmannahofn 1825, 17): "KingjEthelstan had Hakon baptized and taught the true creed, good
habits and all kinds of courtesy. He loved him more thananyone else, kinsman or not." Hakon 'the Good', later became
King of Norway (c. 946-63).
139 du Chaillu, II 242, citing Grettis saga, ch. xv.
140 The above three paragraphs have been summarised fromdu Chaillu, II 241-73.
141 du Chaillu, II 293, 295, 299. See also Alexander Bugge,'Costumes, Jewels and Furniture in Viking Times', Saga-Book
VII/2, 1912, 141 ff. Bugge recalls that cordwain, or 'Spanish
leather', a speciality of the Andalucian Moors, derives its namefrom Cordova (the first literary reference dates from 1128 —Ordericus Vitalis, Hist. Eccles., II 453). Bugge, again, proposesthat the foreign saddles (a sadlaici allmarda), plundered by the
Irish when they took Limerick from the Norsemen in 968, were of
Spanish (Moorish) origin. Hessens Irisches Lexikon, fasc. i, 45,
renders allmarda as "transmarine, foreign, uncouth, savage".
Here, allmarda could be almost exactly rendered by the Frenchd'outremer.
142 For riddles and puzzles, see du Chaillu, II, 396, ff.

Notes87

143 Summarised from du Chaillu's two chapters on iprottir, II
369 ff. The harp is mentioned in Voluspd, which dates probably
from the tenth century (ibid. 395, and see also Saga-Book, VII/i,44). The hero Gunnar "played his harp with such skill that evenchampions were moved. He could also play with his toes andcharm snakes with its tones" (du Chaillu, II 395). On thefamiliarity of the Viking aristocracy with foreign languages, duChaillu, II 45, cites Volsunga saga, ch. 13. "He taught him
idrottir, chess and runes, and to speak many tongues, as then was
the custom with king's sons, and many other things." We learn
from Levi-Provenfal, Histoire, I 492, that al-Ghazal, rather
surprisingly, objected to chess. The game was unknown to theProphet who had given no indication as to whether it was
permissible to Muslims. During the first two centuries of Islam,there was much controversy on the subject of whether chesscame under the condemnation of maisir (lots) and ansab (images).
See H. J. R. Murray, A History of the Game of Chess, Oxford,
1913, 186 ff. Prof. Bernard Lewis has queried Murray's readingof ansab, images, as ashair, arrows.
Professor Turville-Petre has kindly written me that he does notthink that chess came to Scandinavia before the twelfth century.
He finds that "chess given as a translation of tafl by du Chaillu
is not exact. Tafl was a board game rather like fox-and-geese,cf. F. Lewis, Transactions of the Hon. Society of Cymmrodorion,
1941, 185 ff." In Acta Archaeologica, IV, K0benhavn, 1933,85-104, H. O'Neill Hencken discusses 'A Gaming Board of theViking Age', made of yew wood, found at Ballinderry, Co. Meath(in the territory of the southern Ui Neill) which he dates to thethird quarter of the tenth century, 93, and which he believes tohave been a product of Celto-Norse art, 96. This board wasmade for an early game on the principle of fox-and-geese, 104.
There are, however, in early Irish sources several references
to a board game which has been taken to be chess. In the Bookof the Dun Cow (Leabhar na h Uidre), of which 138 folios survive
in a manuscript of c. noo in the library of the Royal Irish
Academy, there is a reference to a silver chess-board with goldenchessmen and pawns (ferbolga) of plated wire of Creduma (copperor bronze), (cf. Eugene O'Curry, Manners and Customs, I,
ccci; II, 190; III, 165; see also for Leabhar na h Uidre, Lectureson the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History, Dublin,
1861, 21, 30, 182 ff. For other Irish literary references see
Murray, 746, n. 20.) The game played on a board is an integral
part of the ancient story of 'The Courtship of Etain', but thetwelfth-century copyist may have embellished the original into

88

The Poet and the Spae-wife

a game of chess. In Cormac's Glossary, dated to about the year
900, the definition of the game Fidchell (Fithchill) recalls chess.
Cormac: "feth-ciall, fdth-ciall, i.e. it requires sense (ciall) andfdth ("learning") in playing it ... in the first place, the fidchellis four-cornered, its squares are right-angled, and black and white
are on it, and, moreover, it is different people that in turn win
the game." (cf. Cormac's Glossary, translated and annotated by
the late John O'Donovan, edited with notes and indices byWhitley Stokes, Calcutta, 1868, 75). The editor proposes Ir.
Fidchell = Welsh gwyddbwyll, mentioned in Mabinogion. As
Murray, 746, and Hencken, 102, have observed there is nothing
to imply that there was any differentiation of piece other thanthat necessary to distinguish the one side from the other. Only
the Irish literary references indicate grades of pieces. The
fidchell board described by Cormac certainly differed from the
fox-and-geese board found at Ballinderry and illustrated byHencken. The earlier fidchell may have resembled draughts andhave been interpreted by later copyists as chess. But does
draughts require 'the sense and learning' stipulated by Cormac?
There seems to be a possibility that before the year goo chess had
reached Ireland from Gaul or Muslim Spain. Professor Myles
Dillon has also referred me to the important articles: Gerard
Murphy, 'The Puzzle of the Thirty Counters', Bealoideas XII,
1942, 1-28; and Eoin MacWhite, 'Early Irish Board Games',
Sigse: A Journal of Irish Studies V/i, 1945, 25-35.
144 As Jacob, Arabische Berichte, 39, suggests: "schoss er mit
ihren Helden um die Wette und stach sie ab." For an archerymatch, see du Chaillu, II 381-2; for sword exercises, ibid. 383-4.
146 Levi-Provenfal, Byzantion, XII 16. Dunlop, IQ, 1/2, 14,
proposes Thud, Theuda.
148 Byzantion, XII, 13.
147 Todd, War, 226, 13.
148 Steenstrup, Normannerne, II 113 and n. i; Bugge, Norges
Historie, II 81.
149 cf. C. J. S. Marstrander, Bidrag til del norske sprogs historie i
Irland, in Skrifter utg. av del Norske Videnshaps Selskap i Oslo,Hist.-fil. Kl. 1915, Nr. 5, 53, 153.

150 See the forms recorded by E. H. Lind, Norsk-islandska
dopnamn, Uppsala 1905-15.
161 R. L. Bremner, The Norsemen in Alban, Glasgow, 1923,
77 ff., citing Muriel Press, The Laxdale Saga, London, 1899. It
is at the same time curious that, in the disposal of her property,
Aud, in Iceland, states that: "I have given the man named Erp,
son of earl Meldun, his freedom, for far away was it from myNotes89

wish that so high-born a man should bear the name of thrall."
Bremner, 81 n. I, conjectures that "this earl Meldun was Maelduin,
son of Muirghes, 'royal heir apparent of Connacht', slain in battleby the troops of Thorgest in 840. (A U, 837; War of the Gaedhil,
xlix, 13). Erp must therefore have been about sixty years ofage." To have been the widow of Thorgest/Turgeis, and thehostess of al-Ghazal, this Aud the Deep-Minded could hardly
have been less than thirty in 845. In the decade 890-900, shewould have been between seventy-five and eighty-five. But forthe complicated problems involved in the identification andchronology of Ketill Flatnef, Aud the Deep-Minded and Olafthe White, see Alan Orr Anderson, Early Sources of Scottish
History, A.D. 500 to 1286, 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1922, index undernames.
162 du Chaillu, I 385 ff ; Keary, 54 ff.; McCulloch, The Celtic
and Scandinavian Religions, London, 1948, 128, 149, 151;
G. Turville-Petre, The Heroic Age of Scandinavia, London, 1951,
61 and 104 (for instances of temple-priestesses in Iceland).
168 Keary, 54-5, citing Caesar, De Bella Gallico, i, 50 (for the
women of Ariovistus: but here there seems to be no direct reference
to either of his two wives acting as seeresses, see ibid. 53); also
Dio Cassius, xxxviii, 48; Tacitus, Histories, iv, 61 (for Veleda);
Annales Fuldenses, s.a. 847, for Thiota. (Referring to the
Cossacks in the seventeenth century, Dr. Samuel Collins wrote:"These people are much devoted to witch-craft, and count it an
extraordinary piece of learning practiced by the chief Woman in
the Country." The Present State of Russia, London, 1671, 43).
154 Keary, Vikings, 55-7.
166 Keary, Vikings, 58; Chadwick, The Origin of the English
Nation, Cambridge, 1924 (reprint), 225 ff.; and cf. McCulloch,
113 ff.; Gudmund Schiitte, in 'The Cult of Nerthus', Saga-Book,
VII/i, 1913, 29 ff., finds that "Nerthus, main goddess of theAngles, is identified with Niaerth, or NjorSr, main god of someScandinavian tribes. The first name is the exact older linguisticalstage of the latter." Alexander Bugge, in 'Celtic Tribes inJutland,' Saga-Book, IX/2, 1914-18, 355 ff., believes that the
etymology of the name Nerthus cannot be explained from theGermanic languages. He connects it with O. Irish nert, O. Cymric,nerth, 'power', 'strength'.
More recently nert in its varying forms has been much discussed
by philologists, cf. A. W. Bailey 'Analecta Indoscythica, I',
JRAS, 1953, 3/4, 103 ff., on root nrta-. "Outside the
Indo-Iranian, the Greek avi'ip, Phrygian avap, Armenian, ayr,arn, Italic neriosus are well-known. The Celtic has retained oldgo

The Poet and the Spae-wifevalues in Gaulish nerto-, Nerto-maros, Irish nert, 'strength' and'military force', Welsh nerth, 'force, strength' and 'host'. In
early Welsh poetry ner 'lord', plur. nyr, neredd are frequent."
The corresponding Irish word ner probably meant 'man, warrior'originally; the usual meaning 'boar' is thought by Professor
Myles Dillon to be due to glossators. "The preceding evidence
makes certain that a verb vner-: anr existed in Indo-European ....
It became particularly the word to express the force of man."
In discussing the Narts, mythical giants and heroes of the
Caucasus, Bailey proposes to postulate "nrtfra-, with -0ra- tosuit the active meaning. The word may then be rendered by'actively exhibiting way-force' as a noun either of action or ofagent. This activity of nar- is that of vigorous or violent men(or gods conceived as men)", ibid. 114. See also H. Hartmann,
Das Passiv. Eine Studie zur Geistesgeschichte der Kelten, Italiker
und Arier, 1954, 60 and passim. In my own view, the concept of
Nerthus is pre-Germanic and derives from remote Celto-Cimmeriancontacts in the Ponto-Danubian area.
15 'For the aspects of Nerthus/Njor8r as a sea-deity, see
E. Magnusson, 'Notes on ship-building and nautical terms of oldin the North', Saga-Book, IV/i, 1903, 191 fl., 206 ff. As a god of
wealth cf. Turville-Petre, Heroic Age, 104.
157 See Osebergfundet, edited by A. W. Br0gger, Hj. Falk,
Haakon Schetelig, Bind III, Kristiania, 1920, plates iv-vi andfigs. 18-36 for details of carvings on wagon. (I am indebted toMrs. Shane Jameson of Tourin, Co. Waterford, for the loan of
the fine volumes of Osebergfundet). See also H. Shetelig, 'Queen
Asa's sculptors', Saga-Book, X/i, 1919-20, 13-56, citing, 51,
A. W. Br0gger who believed that the wagon, archaistic in styleand recalling earlier work of the seventh century, was "destined
exclusively for certain divine ceremonies." The pdttr is printed
in Fornmanna Sogur II, Kaupmannahofn 1826, 62 ff.;
Flateyjarbdk I, Christiania 1860, 332 ff.
158 Charles Halliday, The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin,
Dublin, 1862, 129 ff.; also Todd, War, Hi, Iv. The latter suggestion
is improbable on philological grounds.
159 Dozy, Hist. Lift., 3rd ed., II 278.
160 cf. E. Magnusson, in Saga-Book, IV/i, 1905, 191, 204, 206.
An early half-forgotten name of Freyja, daughter of NjorSr was
Vanadis, Gylfaginning, ch. 35 (Edda Snorra Sturlusonar, ed.
F. Jonsson, 1931, 38). For a possible connection of the Vanir
with the Veneti, see Magnusson, ibid. 206 ff.
lei YngHnga saga, ch. 4: "While NjorSr was with the Vanir,
he had had his sister to wife, for it was lawful there so to do, andtheir children were Frey and Freyja."Notes91

162 Proposed by Gudmund Schiitte, Our Forefathers, The
Gothonic Nations, Cambridge, 1929, I 224, citing Adam of Bremen,Iv, 26; cf. also the English words frigg, freck, frike, frisk; andpossibly prick (see New English Dictionary, VII 1345; V iya
and b).
163 Georges Dumezil, La Saga de Hadingus (Saxo-Grammaticus,
I, vi-viii): du Mythe au Roman, Bibl. de 1'Ecole des Hautes
Etudes: Sciences Religieuses, Ixvie vol., Paris, 1953, 66.
164 ibid. 57 n. 2.
165 ibid, for examples.
166 du Chaillu, The Viking Age, II, chapters i and 2. For a
more recent view see R. George Thomas, 'Some exceptional
women in the sagas', Saga-Book, XIII/5, 307 ff.
167 For political marriages during the Viking period in Ireland,see Eleanor Hull, 'The Gael and the Gall: Notes on the social
condition of Ireland during the Norse period, Saga-Book, V/2,
1908, 378 ff.
168 Dumezil, Hadingus, 56. Queen Nud's reply to al-Ghazal
recalls 'the very witty remark' recorded by Dio as having been
made to Julia Augusta by the wife of a Caledonian chieftain.
"When the empress was jesting with her, after the treaty, about
the free intercourse of her sex with men in Britain, she replied:'We fulfil the demands of nature in a much better way than do
you Roman women; for we consort openly with the best men,whereas you let yourselves be debauched in secret by the vilest.'
Such was the retort of the British woman." Dio's RomanHistory, Ixxvii, 16 (translation by Ernest Gary on the basis of theversion of H. B. Foster, in the Loeb Classical Library).
169 Levi-Proven9al, Byzantion, XII 16.
"°ibid. n.
171 Above, text, 22.
172 Levi-Provenjal, Byzantion, XII 12.
173 Above, text, 22 ff.
174 LeVi-Proven$al, Byzantion, XII 12-14, n. i, for translationof the text of the anecdote in the anonymous manuscript of Fez.
175 For the story of the cargo from Beirut, see N. Jorga,
Histoire de la vie Byzantine, 3 vols., Bucarest, 1934, II 83; for theincident of the dwarf, Campbell Bonner, 'A story of Iconoclastic
times', Byzantion, XXII, 1952, 237-241; for an appreciation of thecharacter of the empress Theodora as regent during the minorityof Michael III, A. A. Vasiliev, Byzance et les Arabes: tome I,
La Dynastie d'Amorium, Bruxelles, 1935, 191 ff.
l' 6 LeVi-Proven$al, Byzantion, XII 14 and n. i: 'II semble
impossible que Michel ait eu plus de quatre ans en 840."

92

The Poet and the Spae-wife

Vasiliev, La Dynastic d'Amorium, 191, allows Michael six years at
his accession in 842. I. I. Tolstoy, Vizantiiskiya Monety, St.
Petersburg, 1914, 1022, states that Michael was born in 839.
For the Arabic text of the poem see LeVi-Provencal, Byzantion,
XII 24; for French rendering, 13-14. The expression 'fille desCesars' in this poem may be compared with the compliment'queen and daughter of a King' in the conversation between
al-Ghazal and queen Nud. Both expressions owe something topoetic licence. The empress Theodora was not of imperial blood.
Nud may have been a daughter of one of the petty kings in
Norway.
177 EirikrMagnusson.HeiwsAn'wg/a, IV, Index, London, 1905,337.
178 Geoffrey Keating, History, III 222-31. 'The sons ofTurgesius', clann Tuirge'is, Sitric and his brothers Tor andMaghnus, were drowned in a sea-fight off Dundalk. There wasalso a daughter, named (Ir.) Bdibhionn, ibid., 222, 224. But thereference is probably erroneous since it is in the context of eventsof the mid-tenth century. See text, p. 58 and my notes 206,
208 below.
179 Above, text, 21.
180 cf. poem edited by Levi-Proven9al, Byzantion, XII 13-14.
181 ibid., 12, n. i.
182 Above, text, 23 ff.
183 Levi-Proven9al, Byzantion, XII 12, n. i.
184 Levi-Proven9al, Histoire, I 275.
185 Dozy, Hist. Lift., 3rd ed., II 278.
186 See above, text, 23. Jacob, Arabische Berichte, 40, renders
the last sentence: "Sie war schon in der Tat ganz nett (fihahalawe), aber ich erwarb durch solche Rede ihre Zuneigung underlangte von ihr mehr als ich wollte." Dozy/Fabricius, 125,
gives: "Elle n'6tait pas mal, mais k vrai dire, j'avais besoin d'elle
et en lui parlant de la maniere dont je le faisais, je gagnais ses
bonnes graces et j'obtenais encore plus que j'avais os6 esperer".
187 cf. A. Walsh, Scandinavian Relations with Ireland during
the Viking Period, 30-31.
188 As Kunik suspected, Berufung, 290, n. i.
189 hiems asperrima, according to Prudentius, at beginning of845, Annales Bertiniani, p. 32, cited by Lot and Halphen, 130, n. i.
190 For the Seine and Elbe operations in 845, see Steenstrup, I!53-6; Vogel, 104-5; Lot and Halphen, 130-41; Keary, 254-63;
Kendrick, 203-4; Shetelig, VA, I 112; Hodgkin, II 503.
191 Lot and Halphen, 132-3. Ann. Bertin., 32, s.a. 845, andAnn. Fuldenses, 35, s.a. 845, call the pirates Nordomanni,
Nordmanni.

Notes93

192 Lot and Halphen, 132, n. i, citing original sources.
193 ibid. 132 and n. 2, citing Translatio, chs. 2-4. "Illis autem e
finibus suis cum magna egressis superbia, coeperunt praedando
per diversas insulas discurrere maris quo usque fluvium Sequanae
ingrederentur." For the attack on the Frisian coast after theParis operation, see Lot and Halphen, 139.
194 Lot and Halphen, 132, n. I, citing Miracles de St. Riquier;
Vogel, 104, n. i, citing Chron. Fonian., s.a. 845, "Ragneri dux
Nortmannorum", and other sources.
195 por these historians see n. 190 above.
196 For the account of the Seine operation and the sack ofParis, I follow Lot and Halphen's text and notes. Keary's
description, factual and interpretative, remains the most readable.
197 The Frisian coast was a part of the dominion of the Emperor
Lothar, brother and often rival of the other Carling monarchs,
Charles the Bald and Louis the German. For dates of Viking
movement round the mouth of the Seine, see Lot and Halphen,138-9 and 139 n. i; also Vogel, 115.
198 Lot and Halphen, 140.
199 ibid; cf. also Vogel, 113-5.
200 Lot and Halphen, 140, n. i, indicated that they proposed to
discuss the death of Ragnar Lodbrok in the second part of Le
Rlgne de Charles le Chauve (1909). I cannot trace that this partever appeared; it is not included in the bibliography of Cambridge
Medieval History, III, Chap. 2, 1930, where reference is made only
to part I. cf. also Vogel, 115.
201 Alan Orr Anderson, I 293-301.
202 Anderson, I 294, n. 3, citing Man. Germaniae Hist., II 228;for other references to original sources, see Lot and Halphen,
140, n. i.
203 Charles Halliday, The Scandinavian Kingdom of Dublin,
Dublin, 1882, 29, n. 3, citing Langebek, Chron. Reg. Danorum,
I 156.
204 Ragnar Lodbrok and Turgeis. John O'Donovan, the editorof the Three Fragments (1860) first proposed that Ragnar Lodbrok
was "probably the Turgesius of Irish history", Three Fragments,
124, n. o. Todd, War, liii, n. 2, recalled that O'Donovan had"borrowed the opinion" from Charles Halliday, the noted
antiquary and historian of the Scandinavian kingdom of Dublin.
Todd discussed Halliday's "very acute and ingenious arguments"
at some length (Introduction to War, liii-lv and notes), without
coming to a positive conclusion. Steenstrup, Normannerne,
I 104-5, rejected Todd's exposition of Halliday's theory. It was
not until 1882 that Halliday's researches were edited after his

94

The Poet and the Spae-wife

death by John Erendergast. Halliday treated as legendary theaccounts of Ragnar's death in Northumbria — a view which the
Scots scholar Anderson seems to have reached without reference
to Halliday (Sources, I 308, n. L). Hodgkin, Anglo-Saxons, II,1935, 526-7, was inclined to credit the story of "the great
vengeance" by the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok on king Aelle ofNorthumbria; as also Alien Mawer, 'Ragnar Lothbrok and hissons', Saga-Book, VI/i, 1909, 88. In my own view, Halliday'sarguments against the death of Ragnar in England are valid(Halliday, 24-8). Again, the details of Ragnar's activities in
Ireland between the years 832-5 show some coincidence with thecareer of Turgeis. But according to Irish sources, Turgeis'
activity in Ireland over the period was continuous while, in the
Scandinavian sources, the interest of Ragnar in Ireland seems tohave been sporadic. (Halliday, 28-31, for detailed citation ofsources).
205 Keating (Dineen ed.), Ill 223-31.
206 To the time of Donnchadh son of Flann Sionna, ardri,919-44, (Todd, War, 5, 37, 246; also Fr. Paul Walsh, The Ua
Maelechlainn, Kings of Meath, Dublin, 1941, 2); of Ceallachan,king of Munster (Todd, War, 3); and of Cinn^ide son of Lorcan,
heir of Cashel, d. 949 (Todd, War, 45).
207 Haralds saga Hdrfagra, ch. 33, cited (as ch. 35) by Sir
Henry Howorth in 'Harald Fairhair and his ancestors',
Saga-Book, IX/i, 1920, 223, 243. cf. p. 16 above.
208 Todd, War, 231.
209 A U at 847 = 848; see also Four Masters at 846.
210 Halliday, 32. In his edition of the Four Masters (1867),
O'Donovan had already recalled that earl Tomhrair's ring waspreserved by the Danes (sic) at Dublin in the year 994, when it
was carried off by Maelsechlainn II, High King of Ireland, andhe expressed the view, perhaps also derived from Halliday, that"there are strong reasons for believing that he was the ancestorof the kings of Dublin" (Four Masters, I 475, n. (b)). The
descent of the Dublin kings presents many obscurities. Alexander
Bugge (Contributions to the History of the Norsemen in Ireland;
I The Royal Race of Dublin, Christiania, 1900, 13-14) suspectedthat there was "consanguinity between the Dublin and Vestfoldkings" but found it "impossible to decide" whether the Dublin
kings were also connected with Turgeis. Alien Mawer,
Saga-Book, VI/i, 1909, 80-82, believed Ivar the Boneless, who
was king in Dublin with his brother (?) Olaf intermittently
between 852 and 873, to have been identical with a son of Ragnar
Lothbrok. For exhaustive discussion of the relationship andNotes95

descendants of Olaf and Ivar, see Todd, War, Appendix D,'Genealogy of the Scandinavian Chieftains named as leaders of
the Invasions of Ireland', 263-302; also, for a more recent
approach, Anderson, Sources, I, parts IX-XIII, 276-391, andW. Hunter Marshall, The Sudreys in Early Viking Times, Glasgow,
1929, ch. 3, 'Olaf the White'.
211 For Thor names, see Miss Phillpotts in CMH, II 482-3; forputative descent of Olaf the White from Ragnar, see Anderson,
Sources, I 307, table showing descent of Olaf the White.
212 Hodgkin, Anglo-Saxons, II 504, 502.
213 In passing, it may be noted that king Horik had attacked
the dominions of Louis the German on the Elbe. He had noquarrel with Charles the Bald. On the other hand, Louis had
been the sometime patron of Harold and Rorik of Friesland who,
Hodgkin suggests, may have been closely connected with Ragnar
Lothbrok.
214 A U at 848 = 849, 849 = 850, 850 = 851; Cogadh at 851;
cf. also Kendrick, 276-9; Shetelig, VA, I 51-3.
216 Todd, War, Ixxiii, n. 5.
216 Under year 845, after the account of the battle of Roscrea,
the author of Cogadh continues: "Much evil and distress wasreceived from them and received by them all which is not written
here" (Todd, War, 227). A learned discussion on Irish chronology
is to be found in A U, IV, Introduction, i-clxxxii, by Rev.
B. MacCarthy, D.D. (1901). According to A. O. Anderson,
Sources, I, Ixvii, the position may be summarised as follows:"As a survival of their origin in annotated paschal calendars,
Irish annals indicated the years by data copied from a calendar;such as the number in the week of the ist of January (the ferial
number) and the age of the moon on that day (the epact); andsometimes the concurrents, and the Dionysian Golden Numbers . . .
But copyists often omitted these data, and indicated a new annal
solely by the abbreviation K or Kl, i.e. 'Kalends of January'.
Years entered in this way without events were in danger ofbeing omitted altogether by later copyists. When several years
in succession were entered without events, errors were sometimes
made in the number of K's transcribed. The result is that thesequence is an insufficient indication of the years intended . . .
Irish annals have hardly yet received the editing that they
deserve."
If the dating of the capture of Turgeis to 846 instead of 845 isvalid, it involves revision of the dating of the death of Feidhlimidh,King of Munster (ob. 846 = 847, A U}; also the election to theHigh Kingship of Maelsechlainn of Meath (A U, 846 = 847); and96

The Poet and the Spae-wifeof his death. But Anderson has already observed (Sources,
I 282, n. I) that: "Maelsechlainn died, according to AU, I, 372,
on Tuesday, 3oth November, 861 = 862, in the sixteenth yearof his reign: but 3oth November was Monday in 862, Tuesday in863. (This point was first noted by O'Donovan, Three Fragments,
151, n. b; cf. also Todd, War, Ixix, n. 4.) By his '6th year' the
Fragment means probably 852; but the year-section begins byan event placed by A U in 848 = 849." On this basis, the firstyear of Maelsechlainn as High King of Ireland would, according
to A U, fall in 848; according to the Three Fragments in 847. On
Anderson's revised reading of Maelsechlainn's regnal dates from
AU, I propose the following sequence of events: 846: Turgeis
taken prisoner by Maelsechlainn and afterwards drowned inLoch Ainninn (Keating, III 183; in Loch Owel, A U, Cogadh);"the year before the drowning of Niall Caille" (Cogadh, also A U),
847; "the second year before the death of Feidhlimidh" (Cogadh,also AU), when "Maelsechlainn begins to reign" (as High Kingof Ireland), (AU), 848. This last date, 848, corresponds withthat of the effective defeat of the Norwegians in Ireland and thedespatch of an embassy by Maelsechlainn to Charles the Bald(cf. Anderson, Sources, I 279, citing Prudentius of Troyes, Annales,s.a. 848). The accidental death of the Ulster prince, Niall Caille,
and the disappearance from the scene of the formidable
Feidhlimidh, king of Munster, doubtless eased the way ofMaelsechlainn of Meath to the High Kingship in 848.
On Feidhlimidh, Todd (War, xlvi, n. I) wrote: "The sacrilegious
life of this plundering bishop-king did not prevent his being
regarded as a saint after his death." He suggests that thelatter years of his life may have been spent in retirement andpenitence and that there must be some mistake in the dateassigned to his death in A U. (See also my note 239.)
217 For text of Giraldus Cambrensis, see O'Meara's ed., 1951,
104-5; f°r Campion, Holinshed's Chronicles, 1808 ed., VI 89;
for Hanmer, Ancient Irish Histories, II, Dublin, 1809, 169;cf. also Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, Kelly's ed., 3 vols, Dublin,
1848-52, III 297 fit.; Hennessy, AU I 350, n. 6.
218 Campion and Hanmer follow Cambrensis in giving "thewily question of the King of Meath", which Keating does notrepeat. Although Keating is familiar enough with the work of
Cambrensis and frequently quotes him, it is clear that his
account of Turgeis and Maelsechlainn is based on other materials.
Of the Three Fragments, Fragment I ends at the year 734 or 735;
Fragment II at the year 704; Fragment III begins at the year 851.
John O'Donovan, the editor, comments at 115, n. I: "This extract,Notes97

which is evidently the continuation of a long story, seems tohave been taken from some history of the Danish invasions, now
lost."
219 Todd, War, li, n. 6.
220 Rinntown = Rinndun, probably from Ir. rind dun = thedun or fort on the point, cape or promontory, see CDIL, "R",1944, c°ls- 7 x -4 under meanings (a) and (c); but possibly
righdun = royal fort.
The ruins of the Norman structure of Rinntown still stand inisolated magnificence on the western shore of Loch Rf. The
main wall, now reinforced by massive trunks of ivy, covers thenarrow neck of a peninsula jutting into the waters of the loch,
shallow enough along the shore. They enclose an area of several
acres covered with forest growth. The traces of a stone wharf
and slips for boats run down to the water.
The original dun of Rinntown was pre-Norman and probably
pre-Norse — dominating as it did the narrow neck of the loch,here about a mile across, and the passage to the upper Shannon.
There is a valuable discussion on Norman and pre-Norman
fortifications in Ireland by T. S. Westropp, 'On Irish Motes andearly Norman Castles', JRSAI XXXIV, 1904, 313-45 with refs.
to Turgeis, 330 and 334; also, criticising some of Westropp's views,
see G. H. Orpen, 'Motes and Norman Castles in Ireland', ibid.
XXXVII/2, 1907, 123-52. The anonymous author of a note on'Lough Ree and its Islands' believed that 'Randown or St.
John's Point' had been previously fortified when the Normans
first built there in 1227, ibid. 323-8.
In. JRSAI LXV/2, 177-90, Captain J. E. Fitzpatrick devotes a
special paper to 'Rintown Castle, Co. Roscommon: with acomparison of the systems of fortification used in Ireland in the
12th and I3th centuries' (with photographs). He believes thata rectangular area enclosed by earth ramparts, above the scarpof the main Norman fosse, represent an outer ward or bailey
which may be the remains of a fortification which existed long
before the castle was founded.
The toponym 'John's' or 'St. John's' is recorded four times in
the immediate neighbourhood. According to the author of'Lough Ree and its Islands', the story that seven kings named
John ruled at Rinntown is not traceable before 1838. The church
was supposed to have been founded by an Irish saint, John ofCarlan, of Teach Eoin in Hy Many, who appears in the calendars
on 17th August. The local 'pattern' was, however, held somedays later; a tradition told how John was angry with his servant
for his cruelty to a horse, and how the man was drowned when

98

The Poet and the Spae-wifecrossing the lake. (For the legends of drowning connected with
St. John, see my note 231 below). The author cites Archdall forthe statement that Rathdown (recte Randown) was a house of
Hospitallers in the reign of King John; and the Four Masters
record under 1372 that Shane More O'Dugan, a learned historianand ollamh of Hy Many, died at Randown among the monks of
St. John the Baptist. In O'Donovan's Tribes and Customs of
Hy Many, Dublin, 1843, 109, there is a reference to a chieftainof Hy Many buried in the Abbey of St. John the Baptist at
Randown in the year 1493.
221 Keating (Dineen ed.), Ill 183. For a modern view of theHigh Kingship of Ireland, see D. A. Binchy, 'The Fair of Tailtiu
and the Feast of Tara', £riu, XVIII, 1958, 118-38. The author
finds that "while the king of Tara, as the head of the far-flung
confederation of Ui N6ill dynasties was normally the mostpowerful monarch in Ireland, his 'sovereignty' over the otherprovincial kings is a fiction invented by the 'synthetic' historians. .. This 'sovereignty' had neither a legal nor a historical basis."
222 Du Chaillu, Viking Age, I 394, n. I. "In Orvar Odd we
see that the Volvas performed the foretelling ceremony withfifteen boys and fifteen girls. It seems that night was the chosen
time." Cambrensis, like Keating, has fifteen youths; Campionand Hanmer, who followed Cambrensis, sixteen — presumably aslip.
223 cf. G. Turville-Petre, 'Professor Georges Dumezil', SagaBook, XIV/i-2, 1953-5, I 34; an(i Dum6zil, Hadingus, 127 (seenote 163 above).
224 cf. Tacitus, Germania, 40.
226 "The pigs (Ragnar's sons) would grunt now if they knew
the hog's suffering", du Chaillu, II 453, from Ragnars saga
lodbrdkar; see also Alien Mawer, 'Ragnar Lothbrok and his sons',
Saga-Book, VI/i, 1909, 73, where 'pigs' is rendered 'griskins'from ON griss.
226 Keary, 47; cf. also Saxo Grammaticus (ed. A. Holder,1886), 263. In the cult of the mother goddess among the Baltic
Aestii, boars' masks were worn, see Tacitus, Germania, ch. 45.
227 Adam of Bremen, IV, 26; cf. also Saxo Grammaticus, 185.
228 Fraser, The Golden Bough, II (= The Magic Art, II), 144.
229 ibid. 364.
230 For Edmund Campion's characterization of Maelsechlainn,
see Holinshed's Chronicles, 1808 ed., VI, 89. But according to
Lynch, Cambrensis Eversus, Kelly's ed., 295, the ancient lawsprescribed "that all persons guilty of grievous crimes, andespecially tyrants, traitors and parricides, should be sewn up

Notes99

alive in a sack and thrown into a river." cf. also Joyce, Social
History, I 211.
In 851, Maelsechlainn, by another ruse, captured his vassal,
Cinaeth (Cinn&de) king of the Ciannachta who "was dragged out
and drowned in a dirty streamlet". Here, again, the charge against
the victim was sacrilege (Three Fragments, 118-9 and n. s). In
864, Conchobhar, son of Donnchad, 'half-king' of Meath, wasdrowned by Olaf, the Norse king of Dublin. The Celtic princes
generally disposed of their rivals by drowning, breaking theirbacks with rocks, starvation in prison, or blinding. While thebodies of enemies were decapitated after battle, there seems tohave been a superstition against formal shedding of blood ofsocial equals. Similar inhibitions existed among the Scyths andTurks — hence execution by the bowstring in the Ottoman empire
until comparatively recent times. Among the Celts, thesuperstition probably dates back to the remote period of their
origins in central Europe.
231 cf. Fraser, The Golden Bough, II (= The Magic Art, II),
65. 92; V (= Adonis, Attis, Osiris, I), 253; X (= Balder the
Beautiful, I), 160-1, 171-2, 181-2.
Writing of Midsummer Eve (23rd June) and Midsummer Day(24th June), Fraser, ibid. X 160, expressed the view that "a fainttinge of Christianity has been given to them by naming
Midsummer Day after St. John the Baptist, but we cannot doubtthat the celebration dates from a long time before the beginningof our era." In pagan times human sacrifice sometimes formed
part of the ritual of the day. "In this connection it is worth
while to note that in pagan Europe water as well as fire seems
to have claimed its human victim on Midsummer Day. Some
German rivers, such as the Saale and the Spree, are believed still
to require their victim on that day; hence people are careful
not to bathe at this perilous season . . . Many a fisherman of theElbe knows better than to launch his boat and trust himself tothe treacherous river on Midsummer Day. And Samland
fishermen will not go to sea at this season ... In the neighbourhoodof the Lake of Constance the Swabian peasants say that on
St. John's Day the Angel or St. John must have a swimmer or aclimber . . . According to others St. John will have three deadmen on his day ... In Cologne the saint is more exacting; on his
day he requires no less than fourteen men; seven of them must
be swimmers and seven climbers. Accordingly when we findthat in one of the districts where a belief of this sort prevails, it
used to be customary to throw a person into the water on
Midsummer Day, we can hardly help concluding that this was

ioo

The Poet and the Spae-wife

only a modification of an older custom of actually drowning ahuman being in the river at that time." (Fraser, ibid. XI(= Balder the Beautiful, II), 26-27.) Along the lower reaches of
the Blackwater river in Co. Waterford, a superstition still existsthat if one man is drowned, the river will take two more before
the end of the summer. Here, as in the case of the Saale(originally a Celtic name) the water remains the hungry god,
without St. John being introduced.
It is curious that legends of St. John are so closely associatedwith Turgeis' castle at Rinntown; even the story of St. John ofCarlan's drowned servant seems to reflect in a homely way the
tradition of drowning at the behest of St. John. (See my note
220 above.)
232 Todd, War, 227, Cogadh fragment from Book of Leinster,ch. xv: "The foreigners came to Roscrea in this year, on the
feast of Paul and Peter, and the fair had then begun, and they
were given battle, and the foreigners were defeated through thegrace of Paul and Peter, and immense numbers were slain;and Earl Onphile was struck with a stone there, so that he waskilled thereby. Some of the men of Mumhain (Munster) were
fasting to propitiate Paul and Peter the night before."
233 In A U the battle of Magh Itha is recorded before the captureof Turgeis by Maelsechlainn, s.a. 844 = 845. The fight at
Roscrea is not mentioned. Chronicon Scotorum, s.a. 845 has
the battle of Magh Itha and the capture and drowning of Turgeis.
The fight at Roscrea is not mentioned. Cogadh ignores Magh
Itha; in Cogadh events for the years immediately before andafter 845 are given in very confused sequence.
234 See above, text, p. 25. 'The ruler of that city' was Ramiro I(838-850). He had repulsed a Viking attack in August 844 (seemy text above, p. 8) and in 846 was in a state of irregular war
with Abd al-Rahman II (see Ramon Menendez Pidal, Historia
de Espana, VI, 1956, 62 and n. 70). Nevertheless, in theconditions of the time, a free passage through Asturian territory
for al-Ghazal and the Viking envoys was possible.
According to Folklore, LXVIII, Dec. 1957, 489-91, "the firstauthenticated pilgrimage to Compostella was in 849". But thecity was already the national sanctuary of the Asturians before
the death of Alfonso the Chaste in 838 (cf. Menendez Pidal, VI 56).
The feast of St. James, the culmination of the pilgrimage, fell
on 25th July. If my calculations are correct, al-Ghazal would
have returned to Cordova in August 846. Just after Christmasof the same year, an embassy from Abd al-Rahman II attended
the court of Charles the Bald at Rheims 'to seek peace and alliance'

Notes101(Lot and. Halphen, 170, citing Ann. Bertinicmi, 34, s.a. 847). In
the view of Lot and Halphen, this embassy was undertaken toclarify the situation on the Pyrenean border, but it is possiblethat the catastrophe of Turgeis in the summer of 846 and thechanged situation round the Atlantic coastlands, which relieved
the pressures on the Prankish kingdom, may have been factors
which moved Abd al-Rahman to seek a conciliation with Charles
the Bald.
236 Lot and Halphen, 139, n. i.
236 See above, p. 10 and note 49.
237 In chapters xvi, xvii and xviii of Cogadh, immediately
following the reference to the capture and subsequent drowningof Turgeis and the account of the battle of Roscrea, the author
lists in some detail the operations of Viking fleets in what seems
to have been a planned counter-offensive against the territoriesof the Northern and Southern Ui Neill and particularly against
Maelsechlainn's kingdom of Meath. The attacks on the eastern
districts of Ulster and along the Boyne may have been directedfrom the north, but it is probable that 'the great fleet' whichappeared to the south of Dublin and ravaged most of Leinster
was composed of the forces withdrawn from the Seine in thesummer of 846. The attack on the south coast, Cork andMunster, described last in Cogadh (ch. xix), can have coincidedwith the arrival of the Westfaldingi from the Loire.
Maelsechlainn must have been seriously shaken by the attacks
in Meath. He was defeated by one of his vassals, Tigernach of
Lagore (A U 845 = 846), and had to contend with a bagaud of thetributary tribes, Luighne and Gailenga, "sons of death who wereplundering the districts after the manner of the Gentiles".
However, he demolished their island stronghold on Loch Ramor(near Virginia, Co. Cavan) during 847 (A U 846 = 847). Towards
the end of 847 and into 848 the situation changed. The Vikings,
probably the Westfaldingi from the Loire who had attacked roundthe south coast, were defeated in several fights in SW Munster(Cogadh, ch. xviii) and Cearbhall, king of Ossory gained a victory
over the Viking Agonn (? Hakon), A U 846 = 847 (proposed 848),
who seems to have commanded the Norsemen of Dublin (FourMasters 845 = 848).
238 The winter of 847 = 848 was bitter in Ireland. "Greatsnow on the Kalends of February" (A U 847 bis = 848). These
conditions must have made more difficult the flow of reinforcement
to the Norsemen. AU lists the series of Irish victories: "battle(gained) by Maelsechnaill over Foreigners at Forach (now Farragh,
Co. Meath) wherein seven hundred were slain. A battle (gained)

102

The Poet and the Spae-wife

by Olchobar king of Munster, and by Lorcan son of Cellach, with
the Leinstermen, over the Foreigners, at Sciath Nechtain, in
which Tomrair erell, tanist of the king of Lochlann, and twelve
hundred along with him were slain. A victory by Tigernachover the Gentiles in Daire Disirt Dochonna (oakwood ofDochonna's desert, unidentified, but hardly 'Derry' as in
Shetelig, VA, I 52), in which twelve hundred were slain. (FourMasters s.a. 846, Chron. Scot. s.a. 848, give the loss of the Gentiles
at 'twelve score', which, in Todd's view, War, 355, n. 13, "seems
more reasonable".) A victory by the Eoghanacht Caisil overthe Gentiles at Dun Maeletuile ('probably near Cashel', A U, IV136), in which five hundred were slain."
239 The discomfiture of the Norsemen was complete when aDanish fleet of seven score ships (not 104 as in Shetelig, VA, I 52)"came to exercise power over the foreigners who were before
them, so that they disturbed all Ireland afterwards", A U, I 357.
The first intervention of the Danes was in 848 = 849, A U and
Four Masters in the Clarendon Codex version (see note "L" inO'Donovan's ed., I 477). Cogadh records only the further waveof Danes arriving in 851, adding that "it was in the reign ofFeidhlimidh, son of Crimhthann, that all these ravages wereperpetrated" (Todd, War, 21). (This reference seems to confirm
doubts as to the death of Feidhlimidh as early as 848, see lastparagraph of my note 215 above.)
The Danish intervention against the Norwegians in Irelandpreceded the first serious Danish attack on England in the winterof 850-851, cf. Hodgkin, Anglo-Saxons, II 497.
240 Anderson, Sources, I 279, citing Prudentius of Troyes,
Annales, in Man. German. Hist., Scriptores, 443, s.a. 848. cf.
also Kenny, Sources, I 554. There were numerous monkish
fugitives from the pillaged Irish monasteries in France during
the middle and latter part of the ninth century; it may be assumed
that these men helped to maintain contacts between Charles theBald and his bishops and Irish rulers like Maelsechlainn andFeidhlimidh. The celebrated Irish scholar, Sedulius Scottus or
Sedulius Scottigena arrived at Liege about 848 and "it has beensuggested that he was a member or companion of the embassy
which arrived on the Continent in 848 from Maelsechlainn. This,
however, is pure supposition. The mention of Ruadri, king ofWales 844-878, suggests that Sedulius may have spent some timein that country on his way to the Continent." Sedulius was theauthor of a poem which may have been written before he went
to the continent. It was entitled De strage Normannorum andcelebrated a victory over the Norsemen — "gained probably by
the Irish" (Kenny, ibid. 561).