88 Mr. DowNES on the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland. 



given in the notes to the Death-Song of Lodbroc, already mentioned, from 

 vedr, " tempestas" andjiordr, " sinus ;" instead of vedr, fadr, or " father," has 

 been suggested, meaning Odin ; and the reading Vatsjiord, equivalent to 

 Vatnsfj6r'(,r — the name of tvpo localities in Iceland — is given in the Antiquitates 

 Celto- Scandicce : of this reading Waterford is an exact translation; hov?ever, 

 it would appear that Johnstone's derivation is to be preferred. A townland, de- 

 signated BaUyvedra alias Weatherstown, exists in the neighbourhood of Wa- 

 terford ; but it seems not unlikely that it owes its name to the family of Madray, 

 long settled in that part of the country. However this be, there is, perhaps, no 

 district in Ireland more essentially Danish than the vicinity of Waterford. Hence 

 it is the opinion of a high authority, that even the Irish name of that city, Port- 

 largy, is derivable from the name of some northern warrior, perhaps the Larac, 

 mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters at the year 951, as having wasted 

 Tigh Moling, on the Barrow, now St. MuUin's. There appears, however, to 

 be a connexion between the name of the adjacent locality Portlaw, derived from 

 laim, "hand," and Portlargy, derived from laipje, "thigh," to the shape of 

 which member of the body the harbour is supposed to bear some resemblance. 



Kunnjdttaborg, though laid down as an extensive district, would, from its 

 termination, seem rather to have been a town, or castle. The nuptials of Brian 

 Boru with Gormllath, whose Norse name is Kormlod, are recorded to have 

 been solemnized at Kunnjattaborg ; but in the Niala — a Saga of great authority, 

 called after the distinguished Nlal, by whom, about the year 1000, a kind of 

 law-school was established in Iceland — the name is given asKantaraborg, which, 

 as Brian was king of Munster, Schonlng identifies with Carbury, in the county 

 of Cork. The Danish writer, however, infers from the context, that, notwith- 

 standing its final syllable, the word is rather applicable to a tract of country; and 

 this tract he, rightly and much to his credit, finds in Kiennachtabregh, or Bregia, 

 in the county of Meath, which was within the range of Brian's conquests. In 

 Johnstone's Antiquitates Celto- Scandicce the reading Kunnaktirborg is given, 

 and rendered ^'urbi Connacice." It seems strange that this reading Is not no- 

 ticed by the Danish writer : it must, however, be remembered, that both the 

 text and version, in the work wherein it occurs, should be always consulted with 

 suspicion. I say this by no means in disparagement of an industrious pioneer, 

 who published sixty years ago, when the Arna-Magnaean Commission had but 



