258 



Kinetty abbey, (in the King's County.) In 841 they burned Clonfert 

 and Seirkeran abbeys.* In 843 they took the fortress of Dunamase 

 by storm, ("expugnatione Dunmasgii municipii,) and put many of its 

 garrison to the sword, -f In 844 they sacked Castledermot4 and in 

 845 Clonmacnois, Clonfert, Lorhan, and Tirdaglass,§ were subjected 

 to a similar visitation. 



In the latter year, according to the Danish historians, Grammati- 

 cus, Pontanus, and Meursius, the celebrated Regner Lodbrog, before 

 alluded to, deserted by his usual good fortune, was taken prisoner 

 among the Irish, and cruelly put to death. || It was on this occasion 

 he is supposed to have composed the beautiful funeral song preserved 

 by Olaus Wormius in his work, "De Literature Runic^."** Certainly 

 it was about this period that a better fortune seemed for a short in- 

 terval to open on the country. In 848 the Danes in every quarter 

 sustained signal defeats, which the Annals of the Four Masters, of 

 Tigernach and Inisfallen, concur in recording. And to the same year, 

 most probably, the death of Turgesius should be referred. -f-f Cam- 

 brensis givesj:|: a romantic narrative of a stratagem by which this 

 event was accomplished, and the curious reader will find in Warner's 

 Albion's England, (b. 5. c. 25,) a very old and quaint poem on this 

 supposed catastrophe. The death of the Dane is, however, in the 

 simplicity of the Irish annals, stated to have been the result of his 

 discomfiture in battle, when the victor condemned him to be thrown 

 into a lake near the present town of Mullingar. 



♦ Acta Sanctorum, p. 473, and Trias Thaum. p. 634. f Trias Thaum. p. 629. 



X Archdall's Mon. Hib. § Ware's Ant. Hib. 



II See Univers. Hist. Mod. vol. 11. p. 686. 

 ** It is more attainable to ordinary readers in Blair's Dissertation on Ossian, 

 tt Lanigan's Eccl. Hist vol. 3. p. 279. }♦ Cambr. Top. Hib. Dist. 3. c. 40. 



