“The Galls then ordered a king on every territory, a chief on every chieftaincy, an abbot in every church, a bailiff in every town, a soldier in every house, so that not one of the men of Erinn had power over anything of his own from even the hen’s clutch to the hundred milch cows. And they dared not show their kindness nor generosity to father, mother, bishop, ollave, spiritual director, those in sickness nor disease, nor to the infant one night old. If there was but one cow in the possession of any one of the men of Erinn, her broth should be given to the soldier the night that no milk could be procured from her. And an image of gold, or silver, of Fionndruine (a carved ornament of white metal) for the king’s rent every year, and the person who would not be able to pay that should go himself into bondage, or have his nose cut off.” As the Irish chronicles give in this manner embellished and exaggerated pictures of the victories and power of the Norwegians in Ireland, so also they frequently depict the defeats of the “Danes” in colours that are too vivid. The ancient chronicle before mentioned concerning “The Wars of the Irish and the Northmen” states, for instance, that some time before the battle of Clontarf a desperate conflict took place at Glennmama, in the neighbourhood of Dublin, between the Irish king, Brian Boroimha, and the Danes in Dublin; with which latter were united the inhabitants of Leinster, who had shortly before entered “the Danish precinct of Dublin.” King Brian was victorious in the battle; “_and then there was not a threshing-spot from Howth to Brandon in Kerry without an enslaved Dane threshing on it, nor a quern without a Danish woman grinding on it_.”