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High-kings, Vikings and other kings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 July 2017

Donnchadh Ó Corráin
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Extract

The thesis defended in this contribution to Viking studies in the British Isles is simple and straightforward. It is argued that the Viking warrior Ragnarr Loðbrók was an historical personage. Tradition associates him with the area about the Kattegat and in particular with south Norway and Zealand where Ragnarr and his sons were the leaders of a large force of vikings. These were sea-kings rather than rulers of territories. Ragnarr flourished in the first half of the ninth century and died some time after 851. Amongst his many sons, three were famous: Ívarr inn beinlausi, Hálfdan and Ubbe. Ragnarr was the leader (or one of the leaders) of the Danish attack on the Irish Vikings, probably Norwegians, in 851 and his son Ívarr established himself as king of Dublin which he ruled jointly from 853 with one Óláfr, identical with the Vestfold king, Óláfr Geirstaðaálfr, who after years of campaigning in Ireland with Ívarr returned to Norway in or about 871.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 83 , March 1979 , pp. 283 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1979

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References

* Scandinavian kings in the British Isles. By Alfred P. Smyth. Pp xii, 307. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1978. £10. (Oxford Historical Monographs).

1 Smyth, A. P., Scandinavian York and Dublin i (Dublin, 1975), p. 20 Google Scholar. The thesis of the present work is taken as proven in this book (pp 9-26).

2 Weibull, Lauritz, Nordisk Historia. Forskningar och undersökningar (Stockholm, 1948)Google Scholar which contains reprints of Weibull's major works published in 1911 and 1913; see further Medieval Scandinavia v (1972), pp 96-138.

3 Christensen, Aksel E., Vikingetidens Danmark (Copenhagen, 1969, reprinted 1977)Google Scholar; cf. Aksel E. Christensen and others (ed.), Danmarks historie i (Copenhagen, 1977) which deals largely with the critical evaluation of sources.

4 Foote, P. G., ‘ Sagnaskemtan: Reykjahólar 1119 ’ in Saga-Book of the Viking Society xiv (1953-7), p. 226 Google Scholar.

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8 See, for example, Ériu xxv (1974), pp 6-69; N. Munster Antiq. Jn. xvii (1975 [1978]). pp 21-30; Ceallaigh, Séamus Ó, Gleanings from Ulster history (Cork, 1951), pp 73–87 Google Scholar; Hogan, Edmund, Cath Ruis na Rig for Bóinn (Dublin, 1892)Google Scholar; Rudolph Thurneysen, Die irische Helden—und Königsage (Halle a. S., 1921), pp 363-76; Hogan, Edmund, Móirthimchell Éireann uile (Dublin, 1901)Google Scholar.

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11 AA. SS. Boll. Mart., ii, 575 § 154.

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According to another ‘annal’ in the same collection, the utterly mythical Frothi hiri faemildae slew a dragon in north Jutland and conquered six of these countries and many others besides.

16 Bk Lein., v, 1322; Cogad, p. 18 § 20.

17 FA, p. 94 § 235.

18 A. P. Smyth, ‘ The Black Foreigners of York and the White Foreigners of Dublin’ in Saga-Book of the Viking Society xix (1972–6), pp 101-17.

19 Lappenberg, , Annales Ryenses, p. 397 § 74.Google Scholar

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21 Historisk Tidsskrift. 2nd ser., ii (1880), pp 306-11; for cogent criticism of Storm's hypothesis, see Peter Hunter, Blair. ‘ Olaf the White and the Three Fragments of Irish annals ’ in Viking: Tidsskrift for nϕrron arkeolgi iii (1939), pp 1–35 Google Scholar.

22 Binchy, D. A., ‘ The fair of Tailtiu and the feast of Tara ’ in Ériu xviii (1958), pp 113-38Google Scholar; ‘ The passing of the old order ’ in Brian Ó Cuív (ed.). Proceedings of the International Congress of Celtic Studies (Dublin, 1962), pp 1l9-32; Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingship (Oxford, 1970), pp 31-38

23 I propose to argue elsewhere that the term develops a quite different and specific meaning in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

24 All the annalistic entries except for a single one in A.U. are interpolations ; for the rest, the details derive from Cogad, Giraldus Cambrensis, Topographia Hiberniae (see James Stewart, ‘ The death of Turgesius ’ in Saga-Book of the Viking Society xviii (1970-71), pp 47-58) and Jocelin's Vita Patricii. The only reference to Turgesius in the genealogies (Bk Lec., 63 Vb 19 = B.B., 96b33) is an interpolation as may be shown by comparison with the earlier text in TCD H.2.7., 42a35 and derives directly from Cogad. For the rest, the story of Turges amongst the modern historians is a historiographical paradigm of accretion, speculation and confusion. Each historian has added his own ingredient to the stew and so has Dr. Smyth. His suggestion that Turges may have been responsible for the capture of Máel Brigte, king of Conaillne, in 831 has no basis.

25 That is to say that the Vikings arrived in Ireland ca 780 and immediately began a thorough and continuous ransacking of the country, a novel opinion to say the least of it; and since the same chronology and the same opinion in regard to Viking plundering is repeated later (p. 140), we must either regard such expressions as hyperbole (which has no place in a serious historical study) or consider them to reflect Dr Smyth's genuine but mistaken beliefs about such matters.

26 Smyth, A. P., ‘ The earliest Irish annals: their first contemporary entries and the earliest centres of recording ’ in R.I.A. Proc. lxxii C (1972), pp 23–30 Google Scholar.

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28 Binchy, ‘ Fair of Tailtiu ’, pp 119-20.

29 Bk Lec., 223 Rd 48 = B.B., 195 c 22; Paul Walsh, ‘ Meath in the Book of Rights ’ in Féil-sgríbhinn Eoin Mhic Néill, pp 518-21.

30 F. J. Byrne, ‘ Historical note on Cnogba (Knowth) ’ in R.I.A. Proc. lxvi C (1968), pp 383-400 (with genealogical tables); Irish kings and highkings (London 1973), pp 87-9, 263-5.

31 The verse occurs in the lower margin in the main hand in H. I. 8; it is absent in Rawl. B 489.

32 Edited from RIA Stowe C iii 3.

33 The Academy, no. 909 (5 Oct. 1889), p. 224.

34 Byrne, Kings, p. 263.

35 One notes that while material is drawn from all four sources only two are referred to in the relevant footnote (p. 131, n. 16).

36 Byrne, F. J., ‘ The Ireland of St Columba ’ in Historical Studies v (1965) pp 42-3Google Scholar ; Kings, pp 127, 223, 263.

37 Binchy, ‘ The passing of the old order’, pp 119-32; cf. Celtic and Anglo-Saxon kingship, pp 43-4.

38 I.H.S., xiii (1963), p. 269.

39 Stenton, Frank, Anglo-Saxon England (2nd ed., Oxford, 1947), 247-8Google Scholar.

40 Stenton, op. cit., p. 244.

41 Whitelock, Dorothy, English Historical Documents, c. 500-1042 (London, 1955), p. 111.Google Scholar

42 Stenton, op. cit., p. 244.

43 Stevenson, W. H. (ed.), Asset's Life of Alfred (reprinted with an introduction by D. Whitelock, Oxford, 1959), pp 262-5Google Scholar.

44 Bugge, Alexander, On the Fomorians and the Norsemen (Christiania, (1905), p. 5.Google Scholar

45 Kendrick, T. D., A history of the Vikings (London, 1930), p. 233 Google Scholar.

46 Stenton, op. cit., p. 246.

47 Bk Lein.3 v 1324.

48 John [Eoin] Mac Neill, ‘ Poems by Flann Mainistrech on the dynasties of Ailech, Mide and Brega ’ in Archiv. Hib. ii (1913) p. 48; the caithréim of Áed Finnlaith (Bk Lec., 59 Ra 25 = B.B. 78a41) has no reference to Alpdu.

49 Mac Neill, op. cit., pp 77-8.

50 Bk Lein., v 1324; Cogad, p . 26 § 15.

51 Marstrander, Bidrag, pp 74, 109.

52 R. W. McTurk, ‘ Ragnarr Loðbrók in the Irish annals? ’ p. 120 (where he points out that Æthelweard has been mistranslated by his editor).

53 I.H.S. xiii (1963), pp 269; Smyth, A. P., Scandinavian York and Dublin i (Dublin, 1975), pp 15–30.Google Scholar

54 McTurk, loc. cit., pp 118-20. It is to be noted that McTurk, after a much more extensive and detailed consideration of the data than mine, equally concludes that the identifications are uncertain.