Scandinavian Relations with Ireland During the Viking PeriodWalsh, A.
History
Scandinavian Relations with Ireland During the Viking Period
Walsh, A.
Ireland -- History -- To 1603; Northmen; Scandinavia -- History
In the transition from heathenism to Christianity opposing beliefs were
sometimes held at the same time; the Viking continued to have recourse
to Thor even after he had been baptized. Helgi the Lean, son of Eyvindr
the Easterner, and Rafarta, daughter of King Cearbhall of Ossory, “was
very mixed in his faith; he believed in Christ, but he invoked Thor for
seafaring and brave deeds. When he came in sight of Iceland he asked
Thor where he should settle down;” and when he had built his house,
“he made a large fire near every lake and river, thus sanctifying all
the land between… Helgi believed in Christ, and therefore named his
house after Him.”[189] We also read that “Örlygr the Old and his family
trusted in Columba,”[190] but whether they abandoned all other belief
in the Christian faith and fell into Paganism is not quite clear.
Again, in the account of the naval battle between Danes and Norsemen in
Carlingford Lough (A.D. 852) the annalist describes how “Lord Horm,”
leader of the Danish forces, advised his men to “pray fervently” to
St. Patrick, “the archbishop and head of the saints of Erin,” whose
churches and monasteries the Norsemen had plundered and burned. So
the Danes put themselves under the protection of the saint: “Let our
protector,” they cried, “be the holy Patrick and the God who is lord
over him also, and let our spoils and our wealth be given to his
church.” After the battle ambassadors from the _árd-rí_ found the Danes
seated round a great fire, cooking their food in cauldrons--which were
supported on the dead bodies of the Norsemen, while near by was “a
trench full of gold and silver to give to Patrick; for the Danes,” adds
the chronicler, “were a people with a kind of piety; they could for a
while refrain from meat and from women.”[191]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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