Mr. DowNEs on the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland. 87 



Meath, and the Orkneyan earl Einar, in this firth, which Schoning locates in 

 the north of Ireland. However, as the eastern coast, in the neighbourhood of 

 Dundalk, was equally the resort of the Scandinavian rovers, the matter has been 

 compromised on the Map, where Lough Foyle figures as Ulfreksfjbr^r, and Car- 

 lingford Bay as tJIfkelsfjor^r, with a note of interrogation added to each word, 

 though Lough Foyle appears to have the stronger claim, the name Carlingford 

 being itself evidently Norse. 



Were the name alone of this firth taken into consideration, its locality might 

 be reasonably sought in England. Ulfkell, surnamed Smiling, or Excellent, 

 was a son-in-law of Ethelred IL, from whom a great part, if not the whole, of East 

 Anglia was named Ulfkell Snilling's Land. The estuary called the Wash, or 

 Boston Deep, is adjacent to this territory ; but the countries of the belligerents, 

 Ireland and Orkney, render it unlikely that their place of encounter would be 

 there. However, as Ulfkell appears to have at one period exercised a kind of 

 vice-regal authority over the north of England, the firth in question may be one 

 of those on its north-western shore. The Danish writer finds a similarity be- 

 tween the name Ulfkel and the Irish O' Kelly, in which Kelly is the Norse 

 Kjallak : however, O' Kelly does not occur in Ireland as a topographical name 

 so early as the time of Ethelred II. The name Ulfkel is of rare occurrence : 

 one Thollak Ulfgelson, or Thorlak Ulfgestson, is, however, mentioned in Inge 

 Bardson's Saga. The other reading, UlfreksQor^r, seems to point to that branch 

 of Morecambe Bay, in Lancashire, which runs up to Ulverstone. 



The principal towns specified on the Map are Dyflin, Hlimrek, and Ve'Sra- 

 fjiir^r. Dyflin is a slightly modified adaptation of Ouib-linn, the Irish name of 

 Dublin. The opinion that the metropolis of Ireland was founded by the Danes 

 can be easily confuted from its want of an original Norse name, and more satisfacto- 

 rily from the consideration that it was a bishop's see before the arrival of the North- 

 men, and contained within its precincts a round tower, and a place of worship 

 sacred to St. Michan (which is still perpetuated in the church of that name), as 

 mentioned in the Calendar of Aengus, which dates so early as the eighth cen- 

 tury. Hlimrek, in like manner, appears to be an adaptation of Luimneac, the 

 Irish name of Limerick, for which various derivations have been proposed, 

 and which was certainly an ancient appellation of the Lower Shannon. VeSra- 

 Qor^r, on the contrary, or Waterford, is pure Norse ; and its etymology is 



