333 



that we should have in our hands, after so many centuries 

 had elapsed, the swords by which a foreign people once ruled 

 over Ireland, perhaps the very weapons by which Norsemen 

 had shed Irish blood. 



§ 4. Early Civilization and Literature of the Northmen 

 and Irish. 



It has often been said, and it is very well known, that 

 the predatory attacks of the Danes or Norsemen on the Eng- 

 lish, Scotch, and Irish coasts, were attended with much blood- 

 shed. There is scarcely a monument in the country which 

 has not been attributed, by some at least, to the Danes ; and 

 Mr. Worsaae stated that he was well aware that in Ireland there 

 still remains a traditional recollection of the plunderings of 

 the Northmen ; nor would he deny, what both the Irish an- 

 nals and the Icelandic sagas often asserted, that the Northmen 

 in their plunderings treated the Irish very ill, taking them pri- 

 soners, and carrying away both males and females from the 

 country to be sold elsewhere as slaves. To illustrate these ad- 

 ventures he would endeavour to give, from memory, a story 

 preserved in one of the Icelandic sagas. There was an Ice- 

 lander of the name of Hoskuld, who, at a fair in Halland (now a 

 part of Sweden), bought Melkorka, the daughter of an Irish 

 king, Myrkjartan, who had been made a prisoner in one of the 

 Norse expeditions to Ireland. He took her to Iceland, where a 

 son, Olaf, was the issue of their union. The Irish mother taught 

 her son to speak Irish, and when he was grown up he fitted 

 out a vessel, which was well manned, to go upon an expe- 

 dition. The vessel was wrecked upon the coast of Ireland, 

 and the crew were attacked and killed by the natives ; but 

 when Olaf spoke to them in their own language they spared 

 his life; and, upon his telling them that his mother was the 

 daughter of King Myrkjartan, they brought him to the king, 

 who received him with the greatest kindness as his daughter's 

 son. The king kept him at his court for some time, and when 

 Olaf left, he gave him a new vessel. Afterwards, when Olaf 



