72 Norzvay and the Norivegians 



of independence. Thus, when England was for the first 

 time brought into close relations with the sister island, 

 and Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke, went over to aid 

 Dermot M'Murrough, King of Leinster, in winning back 

 his kingdom, we find the chroniclers describing this 

 Irish monarch as King of Leinster and the ' Danes.' 

 ' Danes ' is certainly not the right word to use here ; it 

 should be Norsemen. But the English had got in the 

 way of calling all Scandinavians Danes. It is interest- 

 ing to think that this Irish pale, which was the first foot- 

 hold of the English in the sister island, was the territory, 

 not so much of the native Celts as of the Northmen. 



In earlier days, again, when Dublin and other of the 

 Norse kingdoms in Ireland were in their most flourish- 

 ing condition, they sent out bodies of invaders to the 

 north-western parts of England, who possessed them- 

 selves of a considerable portion of what was then called 

 the Strathclyde — all the region between the Clyde and 

 the Dee. In "VYestmoreland, Cumberland, the north of 

 Lancashire and the West Eiding of Yorkshire, we find 

 the largest traces of these Norse invaders, who came from 

 Ireland. On the other side, in Northumberland and 

 Durham, still more in the North and East Eidings of 

 Yorkshire, and in Lincolnshire, the chief settlers were 

 Danes, who had established a Danish kingdom in these 

 parts, and had, in fact, turned the north of England 

 into a Danish country, while another Danish kingdom, 

 as we know, had by the treaties between Alfred the Great 

 and Guthrum the Dane, been established in the eastern 

 counties and the eastern midlands. 



Scotland and Ireland, then, with a little strip off the 

 north-west of England, we note as the chief spheres of 



