chief strength of the Norwegians lay precisely in those towns which have since continued to be the greatest and most important in Ireland. The Norwegian dominion in Ireland had quite a peculiar character, having been divided into several small and scattered kingdoms, each comprised in a town, or even only part of a town, with at most an inconsiderable adjacent tract of land. That such kingdoms should subsist for several centuries, and even long after the Danish dominion had ceased in England, is certainly one of the most remarkable, and, with regard to the civilization of the Northmen, most pregnant facts in the history of the Scandinavian emigrants.

SECTION III.

Norwegian Kings.—Limerick.—Cork.-Waterford.-Reginald's Tower, -Dublin.-Thengmotha.-Oxmantown.

According to trustworthy historical evidence, the Norwegians and the Danes, or the Ost-men, as they were called in Ireland (from having come originally from the east), principally fixed their abodes in Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick, where, as early as the ninth century, they had founded peculiar Scandinavian kingdoms. They were also settled in considerable numbers in Wexford, Cork, and several Irish cities, so that they had possessed themselves, by degrees, of the best-situated places in the east, south, and west of Ireland, both for navigation and for intercourse with the rich countries of the interior.

The central point, however, of the real Norwegian power was the present capital, Dublin. This considerable city, which is said to contain at present more than three hundred thousand inhabitants, lies on both sides of the river Liffey, near the spot where it discharges itself into the Irish Channel. It is surrounded by a charming and fertile country. Anciently, however, and especially before the

arrival of the Norwegians in Ireland, it seems to have been comparatively insignificant, both as regards extent and population. Yet even at that time it was, probably by means of its fortunate situation, and its connections with the neighbouring countries, the most important place in Ireland, which, at that early period, did not possess any very large towns. But as Dublin and its vicinity was at all events one of the most attractive points on the east coast of Ireland, some of the first Scandinavian kingdoms were founded there. About the middle of the ninth century a celebrated Norwegian Viking, Olaf the White, is said to have taken Dublin, and made himself king of the city and district. After the death of Olaf in a battle, two sons of King Harald Haarfager (Fair-hair), of Norway, arrived there, namely, Thorgils, called by the Irish Turges, and Frode; who, by means of the sword, likewise won for themselves thrones in Dublin. Subsequently to them, again, as the Irish chronicles relate, there landed three brothers, Olaf, Sigtryg, and Ivar, who became kings in Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick. From that time Norwegian kings reigned in those places, with but few interruptions, for full three centuries.

There would certainly be some cause to doubt of so extensive a Norwegian dominion in a country so remote as Ireland, as well as of the actual existence of so striking a number of Scandinavian, and especially Norwegian, kings of cities, if the names of a great number of them were not preserved; and that, too, not so much in the chronicles of the Norwegians themselves, as in those of the conquered Irish, who had no reason to exaggerate in this respect. Several of the Norwegian kings mentioned in the Irish chronicles are, besides, mentioned in contemporary Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian records; whence it becomes doubly probable that the remainder of the Norwegian kings mentioned by the Irish actually reigned in the places indicated.

As the Irish chronicles thus not only give the most

detailed accounts respecting the Norwegian kings in Ireland, but also the least partial ones in favour of the Norwegians, I have annexed a list of kings compiled by an Irish author from Irish records. We may see from this, although it is scarcely complete, that the Scandinavian names of the kings (such as Olaf, Ivar, Eistein, Sigtryg, Godfred or Gudröd (?), Ragnvald, Torfin, Ottar, Broder, Eskil, Rörik, Harald, and Magnus) appear in general clear and distinct through the somewhat altered Irish forms, whilst a few names, such as Gluniarand (which in Irish signifies Iron-Knee), Eachmargach, Maelnambo, and Gilalve, seem to be mere Irish translations, or at all events purely Irish transformations, of Scandinavian forms.

NORWEGIAN, OR SCANDINAVIAN, KINGS IN IRELAND.
(From Lindsay, "The Coinage of Ireland," Cork, 1839.)
A.-Kings of Dublin.

More detailed accounts are wanting relative to the kings of Limerick and Waterford during the eleventh and twelfth centuries; though it is certain enough that they continued to reign there just as long as in Dublin, Nor can we at present discover many apparent or recognisable traces of the dominion of the Ostmen and their kings in the two places just mentioned. Still Waterford appears to have derived its present name from the Norwegians. The Irish called the town " "Port Lairge;" to which name, however, modern Irish scholars would ascribe a "Danish" origin, as it is supposed to be derived from a Danish chief called Lairge, mentioned in the Irish annals in the year 951. The Norwegians, on the other hand called it " Veðrafjörðr," the resemblance of which to Waterford is not to be mistaken. Near the coast of this 'fiord," which may have given name to the town, is still to be seen a monument, very rare in Ireland, of the ancient Norwegians' art of fortification, namely, a round tower, said to have been erected in the year 1003 by the reigning Norwegian king in Waterford, Regnald, or Reginald (Ragnvald), and which to the present day is commonly called "Reginald's Tower."

This tower, which in Irish was also called "Dundory," or the king's fortress, was afterwards used both as a fortress and a mint. After the English conquest of Waterford, Earl Strongbow used it in the year 1171 as a secure dwelling-place; and, among other prisoners, for a long time kept Reginald, the last king of the "Danes" in Waterford, imprisoned in it. The tower afterwards underwent several changes, till, in the year 1819, it (or at least the exterior) was restored to its original form, just as the following delineation of it (after Petrie) shows.

With regard to Dublin, however, the case is quite different. The series of kings there from the year 853 until about 1200, and consequently for almost three centuries and a half, is pretty complete. It was a natural consequence of the considerable power and influence possessed by the kings of Dublin, that their names were often men