337 
ordinary. It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose 
that the Danes or Norsemen came to Ireland only to plunder 
and commit murder. The fact that the Norsemen in Ireland 
had their principal settlements in towns, as in Dublin, Limerick, 
Waterford, and Cork, is sufficient to shew that they must 
have carried on trade and commerce. The Icelandic sagas 
contain frequent accounts of men going, with their vessels, 
for trade to Dublin ; and one saga adds, ‘‘as many now” (in 
the tenth century) ‘‘do.” The Irish annals give some infor- 
mation relating to the Danish or Norse merchants in Dub- 
lin, where some families, supposed to be descendants of the 
old Norse merchants, still exist, and where a part of the town, 
called Oxmantown, or originally Ostmantown (in old docu- 
ments, Villa Ostmannorum), to this day records the influence 
which they once possessed. The Norsemen were called by the 
Irish ‘*‘ Ostmen,” and the Norsemen in return gave to the 
Irish the name of ‘* Westmen.” Some islands to the south of 
Iceland retain the name ‘* Westmannaeyar,” originally given 
because some Irish slaves, nearly a thousand years ago, were 
killed there. 
It is often, though incorrectly, asserted, that ‘* the Danes” 
were so completely defeated at the battle of Clontarf, that 
they never ventured to Ireland after that defeat. It is true 
that after that engagement the Danes, or rather Northmen, 
came less frequently to the shores of Ireland; but the reason 
was, not so much that they had been defeated at the battle of 
Clontarf, as that they became Christians, and their predatory 
excursions to the country became, on that account, less fre- 
quent. The battle was fought in the year 1014; at that time the 
Anglo-Danish king, Canute, succeeded his father, and com- 
pletely introduced Christianity into Denmark. Norway also 
was Christianized about the same time. And it was the natural 
effect of Christianity to put an end to all single expeditions 
of vikings. In the year 1038, twenty-four years after the 
battle at Clontarf, the Ostmen appointed a bishop, Dona- 
