262 



reigned a long time in Dublin. ("Thorgilso et Frothoni dedit 

 Haraldus rex naves bellicas, quibus occidenlem versus ad pirati- 

 cam vecti, Scotise,* Bretlandiae et Hiberniae littora populati sunt. 

 Dublinium suae ditionis hi primi fecere Nortraannorum. Mixto 

 potioni veneno sublatum e vivis tradunt Frothonem, Dublini autem 

 longo tempore regnabat Thorgilsus, sed Hibernorum dolo circumven- 

 tus ibi tandem cecidit.")-f" In 905 the Annals of the Four Masters 

 state the prodigy of two suns as seen in one day, which is met in the 

 Saxon Chronicle,:|: at the year 906. In 913, the Danes devastated 

 Cork and Aghaboe,§ and, according to Caradoc Lhancarvan laid 

 waste the Isle of Anglesey, while the Ulster Annals speak of a naval 

 tengagement between two rival fleets of that nation, off the Isle of 

 Man. The notice of Olave's predatory invasion of Ireland and 

 storming of DuhYm, stated in the Antiquitates Celt. Scand.,11 seems 

 also to bear upon this period. 



In 917 the Danes despoiled the abbey of Trevet, (county 

 Meath.)** In 918 they plundered Kells and laid the church 

 "basiliam" level with the ground. -f-f- In 919 one of tiheir leaders 

 plundered Armagh, "pepercit tamen ecclesiis, colideis et infir- 

 ~rais."U Armagh suffered the same fate in 931 and 943. In 921, a 

 Danish fleet plundered Clonmacnois and the islands of Lough Ree, 



• The extract is but a translation, apd no reliance can be placed upon it, as applying 

 the name of" Scotia" to Scotland at this period : that name, it will be found, was not given to 

 North Britain until the 1 1th ■century. 



t Ant. Celt. Scand. p. 13. J Cited O'Conor, Eer. Hib. Script, vol. 3. p. 417. 



% Trias Thaum. p. 633. 



II " Oleifus Albus in occidente piraticam exercuit, ac Dubliniam in Hibernia et Dublinis. 

 Icidum expugnavit, ubi et rex factus est. « • • • • Oleifus in Hibernia in proelio ceci- 

 dit."— p. 19. 



*» Archdall's Mon. Hib, tf Trias Thaum. p. 508. 



XX Trias Thaum. p. 296. 



