180 Tue Scoto-NorsE PERIOD IN DUMFRIESSHIRE. 
national identity. | But Bannockburn only paved the way for the 
close union of the two races that fought against each other. It 
has been said that the misfortune of Ireland is that she never had 
a Bannockburn—that if she had, the union with England would 
have become real. Thus, broadly speaking, we may say that 
Bannockburn simply made easy and practicable the complete 
fusion of the two races in the coming centuries. With the victory 
of Largs, the Norwegian dominion was over, and accordingly that 
race was no longer to be a factor or force in the development 
of this country. Largs actually achieved what is claimed for 
Bannockburn—it preserved the national identity from an outside 
people. Whether that was a gain or a loss I will leave to you to 
_determine. At any rate, it is certain that at that particular period 
we did not love England, and that a union with Norway would 
have been in no way unacceptable to a great part of Scotland. 
Even after the defeat of Largs, it seemed for a moment as if there 
was still to be a fusion of the races. The daughter of the Scottish 
King had married the King of Norway. The Scottish King died 
without issue. His granddaughter, the Maid of Norway, was the 
next claimant to the throne. Ambassadors were sent from Scot- 
land for her. Michael Scott, the wizard, was among them, but 
hardly he, with his weird insight into coming events, could have 
foreseen that the death of that little girl was to have such disas- 
trous consequences. On the death of the Maid of Norway, Scot- 
land was at once seen by Edward of England to afford an opening 
for diplomacy, and, through the rival claims for the Scottish 
throne, Scotland was launched upon the tempestuous sea of the 
War of Independence. Now, we have in the development of his- 
tory along these lines indications of the contact of Scotland with 
Norway. It, of course, has been usual to think of it as well- 
defined in the north—in the Orkneys, which are practically still 
Norse, and in Caithness, where the very names of the boys and 
girls—Sigismund, Lorna—in use to this day, reveal the Norse 
derivation. But, further south, we find distinct evidences. At 
Inchcolm you have the graves of the vanquished Norsemen ; and, 
incidentally, it is curious to note as _an illustration of the myriad- 
minded outlook of Shakespeare that in “ Macbeth ’’ he refers to 
the indemnity paid by the Norsemen for the privilege of being 
allowed to bury their dead on St Colm’s Inch. The memorial 
stones are still to be found there. I have also tried to establish 
