292 Norway and the Norwegians 



a large Norse population, but they were now subjects 

 of the kings of Scotland as much as the men of Nortli- 

 umbria were the subjects of the English king. The 

 Norsemen in Ireland, too, who had once put themselves 

 at the head of a federation of Scandinavians in the 

 western parts of Great Britain, who sent out rulers to 

 govern Man and the western islands of Scotland, these 

 Irish Norsemen (Ostmen, as they were called) had 

 likewise become, since the days of Strongbow, the 

 subjects of the English king. 



But there still remained Man and the western islands 

 of Scotland ; these were independent of the Scottish 

 king ; they were still essentially Norse colonies. We 

 saw how Magnus Barefoot had spent his energies in 

 trying to revive the Norse power in Scotland ; he lost 

 his life in trying to do the same in Ireland. The 

 names of one or two of the rulers of these Scottish 

 islands and of Man who lived subsequent to Magnus' 

 time have been preserved for us ; one of these is the 

 well-known Sumerled or Sumerleda, from whom so 

 many of the heads of clans in the west of Scotland 

 claim descent, the family of Argyll among the number. 

 The western Scottish islands were now divided into 

 two groups, the dividing point being the most western 

 point of the Scottish mainland, the point of Ardna- 

 murchan. The expression Sudreyar, which had once 

 been the designation of the whole of the western islands 

 of Scotland, the Hebrides, imr excellence, was now 

 applied only to the islands south of the Hebrides. 

 These sudreyar (in the latter sense) probably formed 

 with Man a single kingdom or earldom. This latter 

 kingdom it is which corresponds to the diocese of the 



