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that we should have in our hands, after so many centuries 
had elapsed, the swords by which a foreign people once ruled 
over Ireland, perhaps the very weapons by which Norsemen 
had shed Irish blood. 
§ 4. Early Civilization and Literature of the Northmen 
and Irish. 
It has often been said, and it is very well known, that 
the predatory attacks of the Danes or Norsemen on the Eng- 
lish, Scotch, and Irish coasts, were attended with much blood- 
shed. There is scarcely a monument in the country which 
has not been attributed, by some at least, to the Danes; and 
Mr. Worsaae stated that he was well aware tbat in Ireland there 
still remains a traditional recollection of the plunderings of 
the Northmen ; nor would he deny, what both the Irish an- 
nals and the Icelandic sagas often asserted, that the Northmen 
in their plunderings treated the Irish very ill, taking them pri- 
soners, and carrying away both males and females from the 
country to be sold elsewhere as slaves. To illustrate these ad- 
ventures he would endeavour to give, from memory, a story 
preserved in one of the Icelandic sagas. There was an Ice- 
lander of the name of Héskuld, who, at a fair in Halland (nowa 
part of Sweden), bought Melkorka, the daughter of an Irish 
king, Myrkjartan, who had been made a prisoner in one of the 
Norse expeditions to Ireland. He took her to Iceland, where a 
son, Olaf, was the issue of their union. The Irish mother taught 
her son to speak Irish, and when he was grown up he fitted 
out a vessel, which was well manned, to go upon an expe- 
dition. The vessel was wrecked upon the coast of Ireland, 
and the crew were attacked and killed by the natives; but 
when Olaf spoke to them in their own language they spared 
his life; and, upon his telling them that his mother was the 
daughter of King Myrkjartan, they brought him to the king, 
who received him with the greatest kindness as his daughter’s 
son. The king kept him at his court for some time, and when 
Olaf left, he gave him a new vessel, Afterwards, when Olaf 
