Mr. Down Es on the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland. 89 



lately begun their severe labour of deciphering and collating the Icelandic ma- 

 nuscripts. Kantaraborgar is also given by Johnstone, and rendered similarly 

 " urbem Connacice" 



Iniskillen is laid down, and described by the Danish writer, after the Royal 

 Mirror, as a small island in Logherne, called in some manuscripts Misdredan — 

 an ocular misconception of Inisdredan — in which a certain holy man, named 

 Diermicius, possessed a church. The variations of orthography in the name con- 

 cluded to be Iniskillen, as given in the Antiquitates Celto- Scandicce, are so ex- 

 traordinary as to render identification almost hopeless. Among the readings is 

 Inhiskladran, perhaps Inkclothran in Lough Ree — cited as Inis-Cloghran by 

 the Danish writer — where an abbot, named Dermit, resided. The site of the 

 island may have been assigned to a wrong lake, or to the right one with some 

 distortion of the name : Ree is convertible into Erne by a much less violent 

 alteration than the name of the island has itself undergone. 



Tara \^Teamuir'\ and Glendaloch are likewise laid down after the Royal 

 Mirror, in their Norse form, as Themar and Glendelaga, but the latter place 

 is in the Essay located in Ulster. 



There remains but one more Norse locality on the earlier Map, namely, 

 Smjorvik, now Smerwick, on the coast of Kerry. The name is to all appearance 

 Norse, but respecting its origin the Danish writer offers no opinion. The ter- 

 mination wick or ivich (the Norse vik), so frequent in these countries, both in 

 Scandinavian and Saxon localities, whether maritime or inland, is supposed to 

 derive its applicability to either a bay or town, from the idea o{ protection im- 

 plied in both. Although, as I shall hereafter show, there is room for doubting 

 that the first syllable was originally Smjor, there are plausible grounds for this 

 supposition. The word smjor, "butter," was in the North a frequent and some- 

 times absurd element both in local and personal names, as in those of Butter- 

 waterheath in Iceland, Bjarn Caskbutter, Einar Butterback, Archbishop John 

 Butterbelt, and Thorolf, who earned a nickname for life, by asserting that but- 

 ter dripped from every blade of grass in Iceland. But the name Smerwick may 

 have originated in a more important circumstance. That the Northmen carried 

 on some kind of traffic with the south-west of Ireland would appear even from 

 the surname of Hlymreksfari, or " Limerick trader," which was given to one 

 Hrafn, who is supposed to have fought under the banner of Sigurd, earl of Orkney, 

 VOL. XIX. m 



