of his father fell to the share of his uncles Sitric and Godfrey. (_An. Ult._ 942. _An. F. M._ 940.) After the death of Godfrey Mac Fergus in 853, who figures in the genealogy of Somarled, lord of the _Oirir-Gael_, and must have been (from his name) of Scottish descent by the father’s side, the Isles next appear under the rule of Caittil or Ketil, a Norwegian, but as his sons settled in Iceland after the expedition of Harfager (Landnamabok), he could not have transmitted his power to his descendants; and the Sagas say that the Isles then fell into the hands of Scottish and Irish Vikings. If one of these Vikings, a Scottish lord of the Gall-Gael or Oirir-Gael, had married Ivar’s daughter, the description in the Egill’s Saga would exactly apply to himself, his wife, and his sons, and it would be only necessary to suppose that the writer of the Saga, aware of Olave’s descent from a Scottish Viking and a grand-daughter of Ragnar Lodbroc, made him by mistake the _son_ instead of the _grandson_ of the Scot. This supposition would equally account for the connection of the Hy Ivar with the Isles, and the ignorance of the Irish annalists respecting their father’s name. [65] _An. Ult._ 913–917. In 888 the Irish annalists record that Sitric, the _son_ of Ivar, killed, or was killed by, his brother. In 919 the same authorities mention that Sitric, the _grandson_ of Ivar, slew Nial, King of Ireland, in battle. Some of the Anglo-Norman chroniclers, and one late MS. of the Saxon Chronicle, evidently confounding these events, make the younger Sitric the murderer of his brother Nial. [66] _Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun._, l. 2, c. 16. _Hist. St. Cuth._, pp. 73, 74. _Innes_, Ap. 3. _An. Ult._ 917. The engagement is called by Simeon the battle of Corbridge-on-Tyne, and in Chron. 3 the battle of Tynemore, evidently Tyne Moor. [67] _An. Ult._ 920. [68] _An. Ult._ 926. _Chron. Sax._ 925, 926. According to the Irish annalists, Sitric died _immaturâ aetate_, and consequently his son Olave must have been too young to offer any opposition to Athelstan. The MS. _C. T._, B. iv., which alludes to Sitric and Godfrey, is, like the Ulster annals, a year behind the true date at this period. As Godfrey was present at a battle in Ireland, fought on 28th December 926, and left Dublin in the following year, upon hearing of the death of his brother, returning thither after an absence of six months, the transactions to which Malmesbury and the Chronicle allude must have taken place during this interval.