. 510 
It is unnecessary to go more minutely into the history of the battle ; 
and I shall therefore conclude by noticing briefly the opinion expressed by 
Dr. Dasent,* that at Clontarf, in Brian’s battle, ‘‘ the old faith and new 
faith met in the lists, face to face, for their last struggle.” Sitric and his 
mother, Gormlaith, did not scruple to call to their aid the Viking Brodir, 
the apostate Christian deacon, -the heathen sorcerer. _ Sigurd, Karl of 
Orkney, caused to be borne ‘‘in front of his battle array his famous raven 
banner, wrought by his mother with mighty spells, which was to bring 
victory to the host before whom it fluttered, but death to the man by 
whose hands it was borne.” 
Brodir had predicted that, if the battle was fought on Good Friday, 
Brian would be victorious; but that he would be victorious at the expense 
of his life. Ona day so sacred in the Christian calendar, all that the 
demon gods of Paganism could do was to revenge Brian’s victory with his 
blood; and Brodir was himself the instrument of this vengeance. It is evi- 
dent, therefore, that the fight, as described in the Saga, was regarded as a 
conflict between the expiring spells of Paganism and the higher power 
of the purer faith. ‘‘The struggle of the two faiths,” as Dr. Dasent well 
remarks, ‘‘is carried on throughout the day, until at last the champions 
of neither creed can claim a complete victory’’—the spells and sooth- 
sayings of the old faith, now brought into immediate conflict with a new 
and better creed, ‘‘ were powerless to win the day, and could only avail 
to make the battle drawn.” 
And we find the same thing intimated, not obscurely, in the Irish 
version of the story. Among Brian’s champions, according to the nar- 
rative given in the ‘‘ Wars of the Gael and Gaill,” the ancient belief in 
the Irish fairy mythology still lingered in the minds of some, the sin- 
cerity of whose Christianity cannot be doubted. Dunlaing O’ Hartigan, 
and Morrogh, Brian’s son, are both represented as retaining some lin- 
gering faith in the supernatural power and existence of the Heathen 
deities. Dunlaing states that he had received from those Pagan Deities 
offers of ‘life without death, without cold, without thirst, without hun- 
ger, without decay,” if he would abandon Brian’s cause ; whilst, on the 
other hand, he was assured by them that certain death would be his fate 
that day, as well as the fate of Morrogh, if he entered the battle. But, ne- 
vertheless, he!preferred that fate to all the Pagan promises of joy and hap- 
piness,—including, strange to say, ‘‘ delight beyond any delight of the 
delights of the earth, until the judgment, and heaven after the judgment,”’ 
because he had pledged his word to Brian’s cause, and was resolved 
never to abandon that cause, even with the certainty of immediate death. 
Morrogh replies—“‘ Often was I, too, offered in hills and in fairy man- 
sions this world and these gifts: but I never abandoned, for one night, 
my country nor my inheritance for them.” 
So true it is that this battle was regarded by both sides as a conflict 
in which the expiring spells of Paganism were engaged in their last 
* “Story of Burnt Njal,” vol.i., p. clxxxix. sq. 
+ ‘“* Wars of Gaedhil and Gaill,” pp. 171, 173. 
