12 Faraday, IrisJi Influejicc on Icelandic Literature. 



can gather from historical sources. Personal names should 

 be to some extent a criterion of the intermixture of races, 

 as local names are of their geographical distribution. In- 

 vestigation on this point seems to show a very considerable 

 Scandinavian element among the Irish of the East and 

 South, for centuries after the raids had ceased ; but an 

 insignificant and rapidly vanishing Gaelic element in 

 Iceland. 



Of the 85 possibly Irish^ names which occur in Norse 

 sources, not much more than a third were ever actually 

 used on Icelandic soil ; only eight'- were ever borne by 

 native Icelanders ; and only three obtained any hold, or 

 lasted for more than a generation or two. Of these, two, 

 Njall and Kormakr, must have been heard at an earlier 

 time than the others, possibly from Irish monks on the 

 continent, and not in the west ; since both are found in 

 Norway in Harald Harfagr's time: i.e.^ Njall,'* the brother 

 of Eyvind Skaldaspillir, and son of Finn Skjalg, and 

 Kormakr,"* the grandfather of Kormak the skald. His 

 parentage is not given, but he is described in the Saga 

 as "vi'kverskr at) aett, ri'kr ok kynstorr" (a Vi'k man by 

 descent, powerful, and of a great family). 



The possibly Norse names in the Irish annals are 

 about equal in number. Dr. Whitley Stokes gave an 

 incomplete list in Bezzenberger's Beitrage XVIII., 12 1-3. 

 The following names which he omits ma}' be noted 

 (I include foreign names which came through the 

 Norse) : 



^ See Mr. Craigie's list in Zeitschrift fiir Keltische PItilologie, I. jip. 

 444-450. 



2 These are Z^w/z/a// (Ldn. 2. 17), KaSall (\An. 2. 18, Njala, 148). 

 Kiallakr i^Aw. 2. II, 19). Kjarlan (Ldn., Laxdxla), A'^;/a// (Sturlunga, 

 vii. 26), Kormakr, Kylan (Ldn. 2. l), Njall. 



' For)iinantta Scigur, I. 2. 



■• Konnaks Saga, i. 



