Danes and Norse juen compared 73 



Xorse influence (as opposed to Danish) in Christian 

 Europe. As settlers of a more or less permanent kind, 

 we see the Norsemen in the Shetlands, the Orkneys, 

 the Hebrides, in Caithness, in Man, in the north-west 

 of England, in several places round the Irish coast, 

 especially Dublin. 



There was a certain difference between the char- 

 acters of the Norsemen and the Danes, who came as con- 

 querors to our islands ; consequently the influence of 

 the two nationalities upon the people with whom they 

 came in contact took different forms. 



The Vikings of Norse blood were, so far as appears, 

 of rather a different calibre from the Danish Vikings of 

 the Continent and of the later invasions of England. 

 While these last were filled with political ambitions, 

 were colonisers and conquerors, tho&e were imbued with 

 commercial notions and were conquerors and traders. 

 How significant in this light is the discovery of a Vik- 

 ing interment, which was made two or three years ago 

 in the Hebrides ! The man had been boat-buried after 

 the heathen rites — though there were likewise some 

 traces of Christian symbolism, crosses and so forth, 

 on the tomb — and he liad been a warrior who had 

 doubtless died in his harness, which, with his sword, 

 spear, and battle-axe, were placed by his side. His horse 

 had been buried with him, and one of the big bones of 

 the horse had been nearly cut in two by a sword or axe 

 — no doubt in the hero's last battle. But along; with all 

 this war-gear, there was found buried with the Vikino- 

 leader a pair of scales — curious type of the double 

 nature of his life as a soldier and a tradesman ! It was, 

 as we have said above, the Norse Kings of Dublin who. 



