Dyflinarskiri 1

Dyflinarskiri
by Gavin Weare
19 October 2001

"So what do the local hubristics call this place?" FN1

"The Town of the Ford of the Hurdles."

"That's a bit of a mouthful. Is it not written 'Be not as the man of empty worth; he spends his words like his water'?"

"It is so written. But is it not also written 'Yea, you shall not stand silent while the unjust speak; no, you shall loose the wrath of your speech like the storm on the sea in winter'?"

'True. Still -- not much of a name for a longphort."

"Well, they call that part back there the 'black pool.'"

" 'Black Pool.' I like it."

"I don't know. Isn't it more of a greenish-brown color?"

Authr had tremendous powers of concentration, as fanatics often do. But she still found it hard to fathom exactly what was supposed to be going on in the story that the Yrlander was telling her.

"So then Aéd Dub mac Suibni had died the three-fold death of wounding, drowning, and burning. But there was still the hatred between the Dál nAraidi and the Uí Néill. So now Congal Cloén had fled -- this was after the battle at Dún Ceithirnn that I was telling you about, but before the great plague of children. Now in his time Congal was king of Tara and I shall tell you how that came about..."

"Blathmacc!"

"Yes?"

"What is the point of this, exactly?"

"You asked me if Maél Sechlainn was powerful among the kings of Yrland.

" And this ...Aud ... what did she have to do with it again?"

"Aéd is a man's name."

"Oh -- but he was one of Maél's people? The Vinéill?"

"No indeed, Aéd Mac Suibni was a man of the Cruithni. There is an Aéd mac Néill of the Uí Néill. But that is the northern Uí Néill, and so far is he from being one of the people of Maél Sechlainn mac Maél Runaid, that..."

"Hang on. The *northern* Uí Néill?"

Authr quite admired her husband's uncomplicated Submissiveness, but it stemmed from an awkward directness of thought.

"So if this Maél is the most powerful king of the Vinéill, and the Vinéill are the most powerful people of Yrland, then we should attack him."

"No, that is precisely why we should not attack him."

"But God will be with us."

"As always, Thórgestr. But the Prophet tells us that the vices of the unbeliever shall be his undoing. Maél is notorious for his treachery. He likes to drown his enemies in lakes. And he has many enemies, especially the Vinéill of the north up in Uladztír whom he does not rule."

"So?"

"So we should leave Maél to his enemies and join our forces with those of our brothers who came here before us. As the unbeliever shall fail in his division, so shall we be victorious in our common Submission to God."

Thórgestr and his ships sailed south and up the Liffey, anchoring at the confluence of that river with the Poddle. They were greeted warmly by their co-religionists, who had established a settlement a little upstream four years earlier. Thórgestr's new longphort dwarfed the old, and he naturally and smoothly assumed the leadership of the Outsiders of Dyflin. The next three years saw highly successful raiding and ravaging in Leinster. This reached its culmination in the triumph of the Dyflinar army over an Irish alliance at Sciath Nechtain. Thórgestr died having personally killed the enemy leader, Ólchobur mac Cinaéda, king of Munster and (crucially for later Submissive perception of this event) abbot of Emly. The legend of Thórgestr's heroic death in the service of Submission was to inspire growing numbers of Outsider Norse to join the fight for the faith in Ireland and to underpin Dyflin's status as the center to which the other Norse settlements in Ireland looked.

Meanwhile, pretty much everyone was to forget all about Authr, aside from some hysterical slanders in Irish chronicles. FN2

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