Ireland under the Tudors. Bagwell Richard

was by no means on a par with her beauty and talents, since she had been married successively to Olaf Cuaran and to Malachi II., and had been repudiated by both. ‘She was,’ says the Saga, ‘the fairest of all women, and best gifted in everything that was not in her power, but it was the talk of men that she did all things ill over which she had any power.’ Brian afterwards married a daughter of the King of Connaught, and when she died, Gormflaith may have sought to be reinstated. At all events she was at Kincora when her brother arrived, bringing with him the tribute of Leinster. Her taunts, and a quarrel which he had with Murrough, Brian’s eldest son, provoked Maelmordha to leave Kincora in anger, and to raise the standard of revolt. ‘Gormflaith,’ says the Saga, ‘was so grim against King Brian after their parting, that she would gladly have him dead, and egged on her son Sitric very much to kill him.’ Sitric readily agreed to Maelmordha’s proposal, and so did the northern Hy Neill, who had never been really conquered, and who at once invaded Meath. After a gallant struggle against Leinster and Ulster, Malachi was overpowered, and called upon Brian for help. The King of Ireland, to whom the men of Connaught remained faithful, accordingly ravaged the country between his own district and Dublin, but was obliged to retire from before its walls for want of provisions.20

      Alliance of Sitric and Gormflaith against Brian.

      Sitric and Gormflaith made use of the breathing space allowed them to organise a powerful confederacy against Brian. Sitric himself went to Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, who, after many refusals, at last agreed to join, on condition of receiving the Crown of Ireland and Gormflaith’s land. ‘All his men,’ says the Saga, ‘besought Earl Sigurd not to go into the war, but it was all to no good.’ Gormflaith was well pleased at the prospect before her, and advised large preparations for the inevitable struggle.

      Sitric’s allies. Sigurd. Brodir.

Sigurd was nominally a Christian, but he reposed his chief trust in the raven banner which his mother had woven with mighty spells; and many Scandinavian warriors were still fanatically attached to Thor and Woden. The Vikings, Ospak and Brodir, were lying off Man, and to them Sitric next addressed himself in person. The Norsemen do not seem to have insisted on youth in their wives, for Brodir was induced to join by the same promises which had been made to Sigurd, and Gormflaith’s first husband had been dead thirty-three years. ‘Brodir,’ says the Icelandic account, ‘had been a Christian man and a mass deacon, but he had thrown off his faith and become God’s dastard, and now worshipped heathen fiends, and was of all men most skilled in sorcery. He had the coat of mail on which no steel would bite. He was both tall and strong, and had such long locks that he tucked them under his belt. His hair was black.’21

      Conflict between Christianity and Paganism.

Ospak, who had leanings towards Christianity, refused to attack Brian; indeed, he went over to him, and, according to Norse accounts, was baptized. An immense force was, however, gradually collected, and Scandinavian contingents are mentioned from Northumbria, under two Earls, from Norway, from Orkney and Shetland, Skye and Lewis, from Cantire, Argyle, and Galloway. Welshmen from Pembrokeshire and Cornwall, Frenchmen, that is in all probability French Normans, under Karl and Ebric, and some Flemings under a knight are also spoken of. Romans even are mentioned, but this may be mere magniloquence. To oppose this motley host Brian had the men of Munster, Meath, and South-eastern Connaught, and the Danes of Limerick and probably of Waterford. He may have had the numerical superiority, for Sigurd told his mother, the wise woman, that he expected to be outnumbered seven to one. The eve of the battle of Clontarf was signalised, according to the annalists, by various supernatural occurrences. A messenger from St. Senanus appeared to the king, and prophesied his death as the penalty due for violating the sanctuary on Scattery Island thirty-seven years before. The interests and prejudices of monastic chroniclers may account for this story, but it is not so easy to explain the firm belief in pagan deities, in fairies, in demons, and in satyrs shown by two independent historians. It is evident that the oracles of heathenism were not supposed to have been dumb more than 500 years after the death of Patrick, and 400 after that of Columba. Nor was there any lack of marvels on the Danish side. Brodir, who had already been plagued by showers of boiling blood, by supernatural noises, by deaths among his men, and by ravens with beaks and claws of iron, ‘tried by sorcery how the fight would go. And the answer ran, that if the fight were on Good Friday, King Brian would fall but win the day; but if they fought before, they would all fall that were against him.’22

      Battle of Clontarf, 1014.

The battle was fought upon the fateful Friday, and Brian refused to take part in it because the day was holy. He remained in the rear protected by a ring of soldiers with their shields locked together. It was observed that the successive bearers of the raven banner all fell, and Hrafn the red, who was called by Sigurd to the dangerous duty, refused, saying, ‘Bear thine own devil thyself.’ ‘’Tis fittest that the beggar should bear the bag,’ answered the Earl, and put the banner under his cloak. Sigurd fell, and Sitric had to retire before Ospak. Hrafn the red flew to a river into which the devils wished to drag him, but a spoken spell dispersed them. ‘Thy dog,’ he cried, ‘Apostle Peter, hath run twice to Rome, and he would run the third time if thou gavest him leave.’ Of Thorstein we are told that he interrupted his flight to tie his shoe. Kerthialfad, Brian’s foster son, asked him why he lingered at such a critical moment, and the Northman returned an answer worthy of Sparta’s best days—‘Because I can’t get home to-night, since I am at home out in Iceland.’23

      Death of Brian.

      In the moment of victory Brian was left behind, and Brodir, who had lingered for a time in a thicket, broke through the line of shields and hewed off the king’s head. The Viking was taken and disembowelled alive, according to the Norse account, but the Irish writers say that he fell by Brian’s hands. Sigurd being already dead, Gormflaith lost all chance of a royal husband, and it is only further recorded of her that she died sixteen years later. Many other chiefs fell, including Maelmordha, and Murrough, Brian’s favourite son, and the fight was followed, as it had been heralded, by many signs and wonders both in the Celtic and in the Scandinavian world.

      The Danes were not expelled.

      The popular delusion that the battle of Clontarf caused the expulsion of the Danes from Ireland must be pretty well dissipated by this time. Sitric remained with reserves within the fortress, and thus saved his kingdom; nor do the annalists cease to make frequent mention of the foreigners. But the defeat was great, and may have had considerable influence in deciding those who were already hovering between Woden and Jesus. Fourteen years after Clontarf we find Sitric going to Rome, and his son Olaf was killed in England when attempting the same pilgrimage. These facts lend some countenance to the legend that Sitric founded Christ Church in 1038; for the Roman court well knew how to impress the rude northern warriors, and to profit in various ways by their simple faith. We are told that Flosi the Icelander went to Rome to cleanse himself from the stain of blood-guiltiness, ‘where,’ says the Njal-Saga, ‘he gat so great honour that he took absolution from the Pope himself, and for that he gave a great sum of money.’

      But they soon accepted Christianity.

      Without actually amalgamating, the Danes seem to have drawn gradually closer to the native Irish. A royal heir of Ulster received the name of Ragnal less than half a century after Clontarf, and in 1121 a bishop seems to have been temporarily appointed at Dublin by the joint election of Irish and Danes. But quarrels were frequent even after the Danes had become fully Christianised; and when the men of Munster invaded Fingal in 1133, they burned the church of Lusk when it was full of people and treasures. Nor did fresh invasions quite cease, for Magnus, King of Norway, made two expeditions to Ireland, in the latter of which, in 1103, he lost his life. The separate history of the Irish Ostmen was drawing to a close, even at the date of the Anglo-Norman invasion; but they have left indelible traces upon the map of Ireland and on the traditional lore of her people.

      The Danes were traders.