174 THE Scoto-NorsE PERIOD IN DUMFRIESSHIRE. 
upon the throne of a principality which was subsequently to 
develop into the great Russian empire. Rurik the Norseman 
laid the foundations of the Russian rule, and his descendants 
occupied the throne of Russia until the close of the 16th century. 
Another group made their way along the Mediterranean, actually 
reaching Constantinople itself, and soon the Eastern capital was 
face to face with the alternative of a sack or the payment of an 
enormous indemnity. The association of the Norsemen with the 
Byzantine capital was to be long continued in the famous 
Verangian Guard. Returning from the East and glancing at 
Normandy you find there a settlement of the Northmen, subse- 
quently to be disguised under the name of Normans. That was 
to be a fateful settlement for England and for Europe. From it 
was soon to spring the Norman conquest. The colonisation of 
Iceland was achieved, and there is a growing tendency to accept 
the theory of the discovery of America—Vinland—as historic. 
East and West in turn they spread. Turning now more especially 
to Scotland, we find the Norsemen in the Viking age stepping 
across, first to the Orkneys, then to the mainland in Caithness, 
where there were Norwegian jarls or earls for fully four centuries, 
and then passing westward they established an over-lordship of 
the Western Isles. | Ere long they passed southwards to Dublin, 
and in course of time founded Norse kingdoms on the coast of 
Ireland. Crossing to the Isle of Man, they quickly set up a 
kingdom there, and to-day you have the laws of that island once 
promulgated from the Tynwald Hill, which, of course, is simply a 
relic from the days when the Norsemen were in occupation. 
It is the same name to be found in Dingwall and Tinwald, in 
Dumfriesshire. From the Isle of Man successive expeditions of 
Norsemen made their way to the south, ravaging the coasts. The 
common conception of these Norsemen is that they were pirates 
and freebooters. Doubtless there were aspects of their expedi- 
tions which justified the description. | They themselves looked 
upon the viking’s occupation as the only occupation worthy of a 
nobleman and gentleman. They called themselves sea kings. 
Later ages have chosen to stigmatise them as pirates. They 
themselves in the time-honoured way held they were conveying 
the blessings of a higher civilisation to less progressive races. 
The Norsemen, having sown their corn in Norway like quiet, 
respectable citizens, set out on excursions to Scotland. While 
