Viking defeats at The Battles of Tara and Clontarf

MarchDub

I thought it would be interesting to look at the significance of Tara in older Irish history. A mention was made on another thread about the Battle of Tara – fought in 980 - in which the Vikings suffered a great defeat and were hindered from progressing further into the interior of Ireland. The Annals of Ulster reported the battle in this way:

U980.1
The battle of Temair [Tara] was won by Mael Sechnaill son of Domnall against the foreigners of Áth Cliath and the Isles, and very great slaughter was inflicted on the foreigners therein, and foreign power ejected from Ireland as a result. There fell therein Ragnall son of Amlaíb, the son of the king of the foreigners, and Conamal, son of a tributary king of the foreigners, and many others.

It was a very significant battle – and was overshadowed in historiography by The Battle of Clontarf in 1014 in which the Vikings attempted to make a last attempt at domination. But Tara was where their power was initially curtailed and it could be said that they never recovered from the defeat. Donncha O Corrain – Professor of History at UCC - described the Battle of Tara in Ireland Before the Normans as ‘the beginning of the end for Dublin’s Viking Kings” and the end of their hopes for a wider political role within Ireland.

I think a discussion of the Battle of Tara, Battle of Clontarf and also the wider significance of Tara in the pre-twelfth century Anglo-Norman invasion would be worth pursuing.

riffmongous

There's not much on Tara in my copy of Battlefields of Britain and Ireland, but it does give the name of the leader of the vikings forces, Olaf Cuaran Sigtryggsson, who has a surprisingly large wikipedia article to his credit. The book also mentions a battle that happened between Tara and Clontarf called Glen Mama near Saggart.

Another interesting thing it says is that between 917 and 1014 the Dublin Vikings fought 25 battles and only won 10 which would perhaps suggest that they were not as all powerful as it might seem.

CDfm

Interesting MD.

Your account mentions the Isles and how I learned about the vikings was as a type of marauding bands of pirates from Norway. It seems that they were closer to home in the Isle of Man and the Scottish Isles and had proper territorial bases.

The Gaels had controlled the Isles had they not. Take Colmchille settling on Iona. So has Gaelic seapower waned ?

The Vikings were strong in Waterford and Wexford too.

jonniebgood1

MarchDub wrote: »

I thought it would be interesting to look at the significance of Tara in older Irish history. A mention was made on another thread about the Battle of Tara – fought in 980 - in which the Vikings suffered a great defeat and were hindered from progressing further into the interior of Ireland.

............

I think a discussion of the Battle of Tara, Battle of Clontarf and also the wider significance of Tara in the pre-twelfth century Anglo-Norman invasion would be worth pursuing.

This is an area I would like to find out more about. I think to understand the significance we need to understand the situation before the battle, i.e. background information.
Most of the country was still under native control. The Vikings though would seem to have successfully made bases in the larger settlements. I am assuming this from the following map showing 950AD:
www.irelandstory.com
So the Vikings wanted to move west from Dublin for more control of territory. I have some questions that may or may not be easy to answer? Did the various viking settlements have links with one another? Did they have any alliances with other families? And on a broader basis what was the pattern in other nations where the vikings had established settlements- did they gain control eventually?

CDfm

Were our vikings autonomous from Norway. Didn't you have Norwegian unification around this time.

Wasn't there a Clan Ivar /Ui Imair that were Norse Royalty and were big fish in the Viking world ?

The normans were norsemen too.

So kinship the eventual norman invasion may not have been too surprising.

Take the Kingdom of the Isles



And Viking British Activity

fontanalis

CDfm wrote: »

Were our vikings autonomous from Norway. Didn't you have Norwegian unification around this time.

Wasn't there a Clan Ivar /Ui Imair that were Norse Royalty and were big fish in the Viking world ?

The normans were norsemen too.

So kinship the eventual norman invasion may not have been too surprising.

Take the Kingdom of the Isles



And Viking British Activity

Was it not the Danes who ended up settling in Dublin (I think the Normans were mainly Danes aswell)? I think some Irish people at the time differentiated the different groups as black or white vikings, the colours referring to either the sials or shields.
Also weren't the vikings a very fractured group, for example didn't some vikings side with Brian Boru?

jonniebgood1

I think the vikings in Dublin were from Denmark. According to the "A popular history of Ireland vol. 1" by Thomas D'arcy Magee:

In the year 979, the Danes of Dublin and the Isles marched in unusual strength into Meath, under the command of Rannall, son of Olaf the Crooked, and Connail, the Orator of Ath-Cliath

The names are spelt different than in MD's OP but they were Danish according to this.

fontanalis

The site below has a bit more info, apparently they left their mice in Dublin aswell!
http://www.buildinghistory.org/distantpast/vikings.shtml

riffmongous

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

So the Vikings wanted to move west from Dublin for more control of territory. I have some questions that may or may not be easy to answer? Did the various viking settlements have links with one another? Did they have any alliances with other families? And on a broader basis what was the pattern in other nations where the vikings had established settlements- did they gain control eventually?

Well as far as I know the Viking set up in Ireland was different to other countries mainly because the fractured nature of native Irish political life made them hard to subdue, instead of being overlords the Norse generally got caught up in the various feuds between the Irish kingdoms as allies. And as we know from Clontarf different viking factions ( I think the vikings were organised along family lines) sometimes ended up opposing each other as part of these alliances. Limerick and Dublin vikings also fought against each other directly with Irish allies from 924-937.

Instead of trying to control territory the vikings generally used the rivers where they were based to move inland each year to campaign inland, mostly for plunder and slaves, I've seen it mentioned before that viking dublin was notorious for its slave trade.

Here's a link to the history of the kingdom of Ossory (my local kingdom) that gives you an interesting look at what Irish military and political life was like around that time, even for a relatively minor kingdom like Ossory, which was essentially a buffer kingdom, but it lets you see just how many alliances there was, often changing every few years.
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ossory.htm

CDfm

fontanalis wrote: »

Also weren't the vikings a very fractured group, for example didn't some vikings side with Brian Boru?

Were they a fractured group or was kinship important to them ??

Didn't the Waterford & Wexford vikings have family links with the Dublin ones and while they may not have been unified were there unified clans ?

Were they generic or were there different Dane and Norse groups. Like some with allegence to the King of Denmark as overlord and others the the King of Norway ?

MarchDub

fontanalis wrote: »

Was it not the Danes who ended up settling in Dublin (I think the Normans were mainly Danes aswell)? I think some Irish people at the time differentiated the different groups as black or white vikings, the colours referring to either the sials or shields.
Also weren't the vikings a very fractured group, for example didn't some vikings side with Brian Boru?

Yes, the Irish Annals record a clear distinction in describing the Vikings as the Fionn Gall [white foreigners] from Norway and the Dubh Gall [dark foreigners] who arrived later from Denmark. It's not clear why they were called these names and may have had something to with their difference in dress or as you say their ship sails.

The first recorded raids off the Irish coast were in 795 - and within about 20 years they had managed to develop a pattern of attacks around the whole of the Irish coast. The wealthy monasteries were their main targets because that it where the economic life of Ireland was then. The monasteries were the centre of Irish social and economic activity so that was the reason for plundering them.

In the Atlas of Irish History Sean Duffy describes the time :

In these first four decades of the campaign the Vikings rarely penetrated further than 20 miles inland and were still merely sea-borne raiders based elsewhere. Periodically they plundered Irish churches, not simply because Christian targets made suitable pagan prey, but because the monasteries were important focal points of economic activity, storehouses of movable goods which were inhabited by potential captives.

The big business of the Vikings was their slave trade so carrying off people for slavery was one of the activities involved in their plundering.

jonniebgood1

MarchDub wrote: »

The big business of the Vikings was their slave trade so carrying off people for slavery was one of the activities involved in their plundering.

Is it known if they took slaves back to Denmark or used them in their settlements?

MarchDub

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Is it known if they took slaves back to Denmark or used them in their settlements?

They did both - and traded in exporting slaves also. Research on the Viking slave trade has mostly come from the extant writings of the period - and more recently from DNA research. They were slave traders so their slaves went just about everywhere in the known world - including some slaves being sent as 'exports' to the Byzantine Empire.

When the Vikings established settlements they would set up slave trading posts, which they did in Ireland also. So they would use slaves as a captured servant class and also sell them as valuable goods.

Slavery was common throughout Europe at the time and was not invented by the Vikings by any means - but they perfected the trade - had excellent ships for transportation purposes - and became rich on it.

Tabnabs

Just a note regarding the Irish Annals, they record their version of history. This does not always match up with contemporary accounts such as the Icelandic Landnámabók and a number of sagas including Eyrbyggja saga. To get a sense of how fractious and political viking age Scandinavians were I would highly recommend the Sagas including Njalls Saga. Blood, death, feuding and high jinx from 1000 years ago

eg. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaf_the_White

fontanalis

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Is it known if they took slaves back to Denmark or used them in their settlements?

Recent DNA research suggests a lot of Irish women ended up in Iceland.

MarchDub

Just to add a background note to the Ireland of that time and some context.


The country was divided socially into tuata or family groups each with its own local king or chieftain. The Gaelic language was spoken by all and Brehon law was the indigenous law system. Tara, in pagan times an important sacred area, had become the centre of the kingship – the king of Tara declared himself to be the High-King of Ireland - but it was by no means the same position as a feudal lordship.

The Christian monasteries had grown to become essentially large towns – or centres of commerce and wealth because they had integrated into Irish society so well and vise versa. They were quite secular – well, certainly by the standards of later monasteries in the post twelfth century they were. The monks did not live by any particular monastic ‘rule’. For the most part they were family owned – and the Abbots typically married and passed the monastery on to one of their sons. Armagh was owned by the powerful Ui Neills – which is one of the reasons it became the centre of Irish Christianity.

The Irish monasteries also became centres of European learning – and were able to retain a purer Latin for future generations.

Donnchadh O Corrain says of the scholarship that developed in Irish monastic life.

Irish Christians knew that only Latin gave them access to God’s own words. But Ireland was outside the Roman-language area, the first non-Roman country to accept Christianity in the West. So the Irish had to learn Latin as a foreign language. In the beginning they learned it properly from the best European grammarians and the best books. And when those books didn’t suit them, they wrote even better ones. By the sixth century the [Latin] language was already corrupted elsewhere in Europe. People who thought they were speaking Latin in France and Spain didn’t realise they were actually speaking early French and early Spanish. But in Ireland the [Latin] language remained pure because it was for the educated elite alone, uncorrupted by colloquial use.

slowburner

Please forgive me for being parochial with this minor quibble - but this map shows no viking settlements in Wicklow or Arklow.

MarchDub

slowburner wrote: »

Please forgive me for being parochial with this minor quibble - but this map shows no viking settlements in Wicklow or Arklow.

Slowburner, do you have anything for a source on that?

I checked two maps that I have in books - one in Sean Duffy's Atlas of Irish History and the other in Historical Atlas of the Vikings and both concur with the above map in that Wicklow and the Arklow area are marked as 'Viking activity' but not as a 'settlement' region. Do you have any further information?

slowburner

MD, I am not stating that there were major settlements in these two towns, just remarking that they weren't noted on the map at all. The names of the two towns are well known to descend from the Vikings.
There are still some prevalent names in Arklow which are directly from Scandinavia - Gammel, for example.
On a side note, I am exploring some old mining activity in this area - some of these workings were referred to in 18th/19th C literature as "Danes' works".


http://www.ncte.ie/viking/vikarch.htm

The evidence from the burials ties in well with documentary evidence. Larne, Co. Antrim, was called Ulfreksfjord by the Vikings and there was a settlement there. The longphort at Strangford Lough was probably near the grave site at Ballyholme, Co. Down. The burial at Eyrephort, Co. Galway is close to a fine natural harbour which may have been the site of a Viking longphort perhaps established to coincide with the attacks on Connemara and South Mayo in 812 and 813. In the middle years of the ninth century it would appear that there was a chain of defended sites along the east coast of Ireland with small scale colonising on the west and south coasts. These longphort settlements did not endure. Cork was destroyed in 848, the bases in Antrim and Down were destroyed in 866, Dublin was abandoned in 902 and the last mention of Annagassan is in 927.
Second Period of Settlements:
The second and more intensive period of settlement was characterised by the establishment of a series of towns. Waterford (914), Cork (c.915), Dublin (917), Wexford (c.921) and Limerick (922). Each town had a Scandinavian controlled hinterland which varied in size according to the political power of the town. Dublin's hinterland was the most extensive, called the Dyflinarskiri. It included modern County Dublin and parts of Wicklow as far as Arklow. Many placenames are Scandinavian in origin - Skerries, Lambay, Howth, Dalkey, Wicklow and Arklow are all coastal and Leixlip (the salmon leap) marks the western boundary of Dyflinarskiri. Large monasteries such as Swords, Tallaght and Finglas continued to flourish in this area. The material culture of this phase shows that the Vikings were becoming assimilated. Politically the people of Dublin maintained their independence and close contacts with Scandinavia.

And another quite interesting piece here
http://www.wicklowpeople.ie/lifestyle/arklow-castle-traced-back-to-strongbow-2897013.html

jonniebgood1

'The story of Ireland' by Emily Lawless
suggests a big difference between how the Viking invaders assimilated into England and Ireland respectively. That in England they were accepted and managed to become a part of the natives whereas in Ireland they were rejected.

In Ireland the Danes, as they are popularly called, were always strangers, heathen tyrants, hated and despised oppressors, who retorted this scorn and hatred in the fullest possible measure upon their antagonists. From the moment of their appearance down to the last we hear of them--as long, in fact, as the Danes of the seaport towns retained any traces of their northern origin--so long they continued to be the deadly foes of the rest of the island pg49

This is an old book but it does seem to have insight into the era and I found that interesting. This was the era of viking invasions and they were more often quite successful. Was this when Brian Boroimhe(Boru) came to the fore???

MarchDub

slowburner wrote: »

MD, I am not stating that there were major settlements in these two towns, just remarking that they weren't noted on the map at all.

I didn't post the map so I don't now where it came from but if you look at the thin circular line denoting 'maximum area of influence by Dublin Vikings' it does include Wicklow and Arklow. Did you see that on the map?

I have found another map where Arklow is marked on there as a 'Viking camp' but not a settlement the way Dublin and other regions are. I think it's maybe just a matter of degree of Viking presence - and not an indication of total absence.

jonniebgood1

The map seems to be consistent with what is being said.

slowburner wrote: »

I am not stating that there were major settlements in these two towns, just remarking that they weren't noted on the map at all. The names of the two towns are well known to descend from the Vikings.

So the map only shows 'major settlements' as 'viking territory'.

MarchDub

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

'The story of Ireland' by Emily Lawless
suggests a big difference between how the Viking invaders assimilated into England and Ireland respectively. That in England they were accepted and managed to become a part of the natives whereas in Ireland they were rejected.

This is an old book but it does seem to have insight into the era and I found that interesting. This was the era of viking invasions and they were more often quite successful. Was this when Brian Boroimhe(Boru) came to the fore???

Brian Boru was born around 941 - and died in Battle at Clontarf in 1014. His father was the King of Thormond in modern day Clare. The family home was in Kincora - near the modern town of Killaloe. At an early age Brian was involved in battles with the Vikings in Limerick and gained a reputation for valour. At age 21 he is described as leading a campaign against the Limerick Vikings. He would go on to greater things.

The Vikings did manage to make a greater hold on England but Patrick Wallace, Director of the National Museum of Ireland- one of Ireland's best experts on the Vikings - explains in his writings that this had a lot to do with Irish kingship ability to put up a resistance - but he says social assimilation did take place because:

One of the things that the Vikings lacked in Ireland was women. And women are a fairly vital ingredient if you want to stay in business for another generation. So they married Irish women right from the start. Some Norse women came over the Scotland and Norway but it was never enough.

So from an early time many Vikings assimilated into Irish families. Which in time led to some alliances between Viking and Irish in battles.

CDfm

Here are some I found and Arklow is definately there











Here is the site

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~irlkik/ihm/ire900.htm

MarchDub

The Vikings in Ireland had some internal issues amongst themselves. The Irish Annals record some confusion from 849 when the King of Lochlann [where Lochlann is actually located is disputed, it is either Norway or a Norse settlement in Scotland] sent a fleet of 140 ships to enforce his authority over the Viking - Norse- areas in Ireland.

Then into the mix in 851 the Danes arrived to attack the Norse longphorts in the settlement in Dublin. Then the Norse brought in reinforcements of 160 ships to counter-attack the Danes. There is a reference in the Irish annals to 'white foreigners do battle with dark foreigners' as the Danes seized Ath Cliath.

Must have been a sight to behold!

fontanalis

MarchDub wrote: »

The Vikings in Ireland had some internal issues amongst themselves. The Irish Annals record some confusion from 849 when the King of Lochlann [where Lochlann is actually located is disputed, it is either Norway or a Norse settlement in Scotland] sent a fleet of 140 ships to enforce his authority over the Viking - Norse- areas in Ireland.

Then into the mix in 851 the Danes arrived to attack the Norse longphorts in the settlement in Dublin. Then the Norse brought in reinforcements of 160 ships to counter-attack the Danes. There is a reference in the Irish annals to 'white foreigners do battle with dark foreigners' as the Danes seized Ath Cliath.

Must have been a sight to behold!

Indeed!
Off topic but wasn't there talk of a film about Brian Boru a while back.

MarchDub

fontanalis wrote: »

Indeed!
Off topic but wasn't there talk of a film about Brian Boru a while back.

Yes, I do remember hearing about it being discussed a couple of years back - but nothing since. Maybe someone knows?

CDfm

Boru's Battle Cry

961 AD 7.00 pm Brian & the lads hit Limerick on the bus from Nenagh

One of the things that the Vikings lacked in Ireland was women.

At age 21 he is described as leading a campaign against the Limerick Vikings

961 AD 10.30 PM Nancy Blakes

Brian " The Vikings are after our women "

dubhthach

MarchDub wrote: »

The Battle of Clontarf in 1014 in which the Vikings attempted to make a last attempt at domination.

Well yeah if you believe the Dál gCais authored "Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib" -- a masterpiece of political propaganda. In reality the battle was more about the kingdoms of Leinster and Dublin throwing off the overlordship of Brian. Máel Mórda (King of Leinster) been the uncle of Sigtrygg Silkbeard (king of Dublin) -- Sigtyrgg mother Gormflaith of course is one of most interesting characters in Irish history.

First she was married to Amlaíb Cuarán (Óláfr Kváran) whom she bore Sigtrygg (Sitric) by. After his death in 981 she married Máel Sechnaill (the victor at Tara -- who was Amlaíb stepson by previous marriage)

She subsquently married Brian Boru and bore his son Donnchad, of course Brian ended up divorcing him and if you believe some of stories it was a bitter Gormflaith who prompted her brother and son to provoke a conflict with Brian. Which is really a Leinster revolt as oppose to a "Viking war"

Sigtrygg by the way was married to Brian's daughter.

By this stage the Vikings in Ireland were heavily Gaelicised and heavily invovled in Irish political scene.

I tend to like this map for period. quite clear:

MarchDub

dubhthach wrote: »

Well yeah if you believe the Dál gCais authored "Cogad Gáedel re Gallaib" -- a masterpiece of political propaganda. In reality the battle was more about the kingdoms of Leinster and Dublin throwing off the overlordship of Brian. Máel Mórda (King of Leinster) been the uncle of Sigtrygg Silkbeard (king of Dublin) -- Sigtyrgg mother Gormflaith of course is one of most interesting characters in Irish history.

First she was married to Amlaíb Cuarán (Óláfr Kváran) whom she bore Sigtrygg (Sitric) by. After his death in 981 she married Máel Sechnaill (the victor at Tara -- who was Amlaíb stepson by previous marriage)

She subsquently married Brian Boru and bore his son Donnchad, of course Brian ended up divorcing him and if you believe some of stories it was a bitter Gormflaith who prompted her brother and son to provoke a conflict with Brian. Which is really a Leinster revolt as oppose to a "Viking war"

Sigtrygg by the way was married to Brian's daughter.

By this stage the Vikings in Ireland were heavily Gaelicised and heavily invovled in Irish political scene.

Yes, I have no problem at all with what you say - Clontarf was not of course a clear cut Viking vs the Irish issue at all. I think that has been accepted for quite some time. Leinster had become a part of the Viking economy and was quite leery of Brian's domination. Like I said in another post the intermarriage of the Vikings into Irish society had set up Irish/Viking alliances and economic interests, trading also played a part. Then there was the myth that it was a religious conflict -

As O Corrain says:

There is an old view of Clontarf that was a conflict between Irish Christianity and Scandinavian paganism. This just doesn't hold up because the Viking people who ruled Dublin were Christian. Olaf, the Father of Sitric Silkenbeard, actually died in religious retirement in Iona. Sitric Silkenbeard himself was a great patron of the church in Dublin.

But O Corrain also points out that it did break the Viking power on the Irish Sea. But Brian's death was not good either - he had built up a strong High-Kingship with no obvious successor, like the primogenator style succession that the rest of Europe had. So Ireland suffered years of conflict over the high-kingship.

And Gormflaith was quite the woman. I was actually trying to find something on Gormflaith on the web. I have book references to her but a link to something would be good - save me from typing out .

dubhthach

Well I think the whole "religous" angle to it is if anything a product of the 19th century. When you think about Romantic nationalism probably saw parallels between the Noble "Christian" Irish throwing off the foreign "pagan" yoke

Of course the reality is completely different.

MarchDub

Here is what Margaret Anne Cusack has to say in her History of Ireland about Brian Boru's wife Gormflaith. It's somewhat embellished but it gives a good sense of her character.

It will be remembered that Brian had married the Lady Gormflaith. Her brother, Maelmordha, was King of Leinster, and he had obtained his throne through the assistance of the Danes. Brian was Gormflaith's third husband. In the words of the Annals, she had made three leaps—"jumps which a woman should never jump"—a hint that her matrimonial arrangements had not the sanction of canon law. She was remarkable for her beauty, but her temper was proud and vindictive. This was probably the reason why she was repudiated both by Malachy and Brian.

There can be no doubt that she and her brother, Maelmordha, were the remote causes of the famous battle of Clontarf. The story is told thus: Maelmordha came to Brian with an offering of three large pine-trees to make masts for shipping. These were probably a tribute which he was bound to pay to his liege lord. The trees had been cut in the great forest of Leinster, called Fidh-Gaibhli.

Some other tribes were bringing their tree-tributes at the same time; and as they all journeyed over the mountains together, there was a dispute for precedency. Maelmordha decided the question by assisting to carry the tree of the Ui-Faelain. He had on a tunic of silk which Brian had given him, with a border of gold round it and silver buttons. One of the buttons came off as he lifted the tree. On his arrival at Kincora, he asked his sister, Gormflaith, to replace it for him; but she at once flung the garment into the fire, and then bitterly reproached her brother with having accepted this token of vassalage. The Sagas say she was "grim" against Brian, which was undoubtedly true.

This excited Maelmordha's temper. An opportunity soon offered for a quarrel. Brian's eldest son, Murrough, was playing a game of chess with his cousin, Conoing; Maelmordha was looking on, and suggested a move by which Murrough lost the game. The young prince exclaimed: "That was like the advice you gave the Danes, which lost them Glen-Mama." "I will give them advice now, and they shall not be defeated," replied the other. "Then you had better remind them to prepare a yew-tree for your reception," answered Murrough.

Early the next morning Maelmordha left the place, "without permission and without taking leave." Brian sent a messenger after him to pacify him, but the angry chief, for all reply, " broke all the bones in his head." He now proceeded to organize a revolt against Brian, and succeeded. Several of the Irish princes flocked to his standard. An encounter took place in Meath, where they slew Malachy's grandson, Domhnall, who should have been heir if the usual rule of succession had been observed. Malachy marched to the rescue, and defeated the assailants with great slaughter, A.D. 1013. Fierce reprisals now took place on each side. Sanctuary was disregarded, and Malachy called on Brian to assist him. Brian at once complied.

After successfully ravaging Ossory he marched to Dublin, where he was joined by Murrough, who had devastated Wicklow, burning, destroying, and carrying off captives, until he reached Cill Maighnenn (Kilmainham). They now blockaded Dublin, where they remained from St. Ciaran's in harvest (Sept. 9th) until Christmas Day. Brian was then obliged to raise the siege and return home for want of provisions.

The storm was now gathering in earnest, and the most active preparations were made on both sides for a mighty and decisive conflict.

CDfm

Do we know much about the Norman and Viking links

The Scales name is Viking in origin and arrived in England via two routes: the expulsion of the Irish Vikings leading to their migration to north-west England and the Norman conquest. The Italian Della Scala name has the same Scandinavian roots and arrived in Italy via the Nordic Lombards. The name arrived among the English nobility with Hardwin de Scalers, supporter of William the Conqueror. His descendants split into two branches, one headed by each of his sons, which are referred to as the Reed and Shelford branches. The primary line of the Reed branch in Hertfordshire terminated with the death of Anne de Scalers in 1493. The primary line of the Shelford branch, seated at Caxton in Cambridgeshire, terminated with the death of Lucy de Scalers in 1256. Lucy de Scalers married into the de Freville family and her primary line held Caxton Manor until the time of William de Freville in 1424. A secondary line married into the Marmion family in 1291 and acquired Tamworth Castle for the de Frevilles. This line ended in 1418 with the death of the last Baldwin de Freville.

http://www.allertonoak.com/genealogy/index.html

dubhthach

CDfm wrote: »

Do we know much about the Norman and Viking links

Well the "House of Normandy" (Norman Dynasty) is of course supposedly Norse in origin. They received Normandy from Charles III -- The first Duke been Rollo (Robert I) -- part of him bargin was he would become christian, marry the illegimate daughter of Charles and accept him as his feudal lord. Before that Rollo had besieged Paris.

the English name "Normans" comes from the French words Normans / Normanz, plural of Normant, that is itself borrowed from Old Low Franconian Nortmann "Northman" or directly from Old Norse Norðmaðr, Latinized in Nortmannus (recorded in Medieval Latin, 9th century) to mean "Norseman" or "Viking".

It wouldn't surprise me if most 'Normans' were the people who were there long before Rollo came along, given that the 'Northmen' quickly adapted french (Norman-French) they obviously assimilated quickly just as what happened with Vikings in Ireland and the Cambro-Normans later.

CDfm

I think the IT staff writers have been dipping into H & H for ideas again.

The Irish Times - Saturday, October 15, 2011What have the Vikings ever done for us?

Destruction reconstruction: Viking enthusiasts re-enact the burning of a longboat. Photographs: Danny Lawson/PA and NRA/Studio Lab


As A History of Ireland in 100 Objects enters a new era, FINTAN O'TOOLE explains how Norse raiding, trading and settlement affected Ireland from the ninth century
COMPLAINING ABOUT THE bad weather is a favourite Irish pastime. But in the early ninth century, an Irish monk wrote a short poem giving thanks for a stormy night. It reads, in Proinsias Mac Cana’s translation, “Bitter is the wind tonight, / It tosses the sea’s white tresses; / I do not fear the fierce warriors of Norway, / Who only travel the quiet seas.” Cold gales were a lot more fun than Vikings. Or, to look at it from the other side, a Norse saga describes the pattern of life of one Svein Asleifarson, a Viking settler on the Orkney Islands: “In the spring, he had more than enough to occupy him, with a great deal of seed to sow . . . Then when the job was done, he would go off plundering in the Hebrides and in Ireland on what he called his ‘spring trip’, then back home just after midsummer where he stayed till . . . the grain was safely in. After that, he would go off raiding again, and never come back till the first month of winter was ended. This he used to call his autumn trip.” One man’s terror was another’s trip.
The explosion of raiders, traders and colonists out of Scandinavia in the eighth and ninth centuries is one of the most extraordinary phenomena in European history. Its influence stretched, at one point or another, to North America and Greenland, south as far as north Africa, Byzantium and Baghdad and as far east as Russia, whose very name derives from the local name for the Swedish traders and colonists, the Rús.
In this, the Russians are not alone. In the forms we now use, the names Ireland, Munster, Leinster and Ulster are of Scandinavian origin. It is arguable that the Vikings transformed Ireland more radically than any other set of invaders. They brought, among other things, cities, money and serious military technology. They posed a profound challenge to Irish society, which had to change profoundly in response.
Why did the Scandinavians suddenly become such aggressive expansionists? Until relatively recently, the favoured explanation was overpopulation and consequent pressure on resources in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. In fact, there’s no evidence that Scandinavia was especially heavily populated in this period: the large-scale clearance of forests to create more arable land in Denmark (an obvious mark of the need for more resources) doesn’t get under way until the 11th century.
The explanation is probably simpler: there was an awful lot of money to be made and the Scandinavians had developed both the technologies and the forms of social organisation to exploit these opportunities. Trade with the thriving Islamic world could bring in enormous wealth: well over 200,000 silver Arabic coins have been recovered from Viking sites. The monasteries of the western isles and then the church and secular centres of the Frankish empire offered equally rich pickings. Fertile lands abroad could be seized by minor nobles, bumping up their status at home.
The Scandinavians were prepared to be flexible, functioning equally well as merchants, colonists, farmers, pirates and raiders. They had both the technological and organisational means to project themselves into distant societies. The longship was a new invention, developed only in the eighth century. It is not accidental that the Vikings began to expand aggressively thereafter: they did it because, now, they could. The longship was one of the great design classics, as flexible as its owners in two distinct ways. The ships had enough give not to be torn apart by strong waves and were able to traverse both the high seas and inland river systems. (It was through the great rivers of Poland and Russia that the Swedes gained access to the Black Sea, Byzantium and the Arab world.) Their weapons, especially the iron swords they adapted from the Franks, were fearsome.
On their own, these technologies would have had limited impact. The Vikings needed systems for passing on information about geography and sources of wealth. They needed the capacity to band together in flexible, often temporary alliances. They needed a culture that balanced a strong individual or family ethic with cults of loyalty, heroism and unity. One Frankish source refers to Viking companies overwintering on the River Seine as sodalities, or brotherhoods. Somehow, the Vikings were able to combine an adventurous, even reckless, spirit with a capacity for co-operation.
THE LATER ROLE of the Scandinavian incomers as traders, craftspeople and city-founders is rightly emphasised in current discussion, but it does not diminish the shock and violence of their initial appearance. Raiding and attacks on monasteries were by no means unfamiliar in indigenous Irish culture, and Irish raiders had terrorised Romano-British communities in the fifth and sixth centuries. But the Danes and Norwegians who descended on Ireland were both rapacious and cruelly destructive. Even sites of little economic value, such as those on the stark Skellig islands, off the Kerry coast, were ravaged. Murder, rape, enslavement and the destruction of saintly relics and holy sites were obviously deeply traumatic.
The first intimations of the coming storm may have spread through contact between monasteries. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the great monastery at Lindisfarne, on the Northumbrian coast, was attacked in 793, when “the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church . . . with plunder and slaughter”. The Vikings make their appearance in Irish history in 794, when “pagans” are recorded as raiding “all the islands of Britain” (probably meaning those off western Scotland and northern Ireland), including “Rechru”, which is probably Rathlin Island. Four years later, coastal raids by Danes and Norwegians had developed into incursions on to the mainland. In 802 and 806, the paramount monastery of the Irish Christian world, on the island of Iona, off the west coast of Scotland, was attacked. The second raid was so devastating that the monks abandoned Iona and relocated the monastery to Kells, in Co Meath.
By 807, Vikings were even turning up on the west coast, burning Inishmurray, off Sligo, and Roscam, in Galway Bay. By 821, they are recorded as capturing slaves: a large party of Irish women were kidnapped from Howth. And by 840, it could be said that nowhere in Ireland was entirely safe from Viking raids. In 837, two fleets, each of 60 longships, sailed up the rivers Boyne and Liffey, harrying the rich valleys of Cos Meath and Kildare. In 839, raiders sailed up the Lee into Co Cork and also established a base on Lough Neagh.
These incursions were not unopposed, and they were not always successful. One Viking party was routed in Kerry in 812, and in the same year a victory by the Irish over “the Northmen” was considered significant enough to be recorded at the court of Charlemagne, the Frankish emperor. The first named Viking in Ireland, Saxolb, described as “leader of the foreigners”, was killed in battle.
This initial period of hit-and-run raids lasted until roughly 830. It was followed by an ebb and flow of Scandinavian colonisation, in which the Norsemen enjoyed periods of secure control over territory followed by periods of struggle with Irish powers and with other Vikings. Roughly, Viking settlement falls into two phases: the first between the 830s and the 870s, and the second from about 914 to the 940s.
IRELAND WAS ILL-PREPARED for this onslaught. Irish culture in the eighth century was supremely self-confident. It had its own style of Christianity, its own sophisticated legal system, distinctive and highly accomplished art, and a vernacular literature. Its agricultural economy and multitude of petty kingdoms did generate tribal and dynastic conflicts, but they were limited in scale. Indeed, one of the reasons Irish art is so spectacularly opulent in the eighth century is that this was a culture that could afford to put spare resources of wealth and craft into objects of beauty and devotional power rather than military technology and warriors.
The sudden eruption of an aggressive, pagan and initially destructive presence posed a real threat to this self-contained culture. It had to adapt or die. And there was a great deal to adapt to. Military technology had to be upgraded, most obviously by acquiring Viking weaponry. Kings had to develop at least a hard core of semiprofessional warriors. But the Vikings also changed the map of Ireland in ways that had long-term consequences for the natives.
The change can be symbolised by the shift in the centre of gravity from Tara to Dublin. The old Ireland looked, geographically as well as psychologically, inwards. It was the Vikings who developed not just towns but coastal towns: Dublin, Wexford, Cork, Limerick and Waterford. Not all of the Viking towns thrived: large settlements at Linn Duachaill, near Annagassan, in Co Louth, and Woodstown, just west of Waterford, both discovered only recently, lasted for relatively short periods.
There is a paradox here: the Scandinavians were no more an urban people than the Irish. Their own towns arose, in this same period of expansion, as merchant colonies. The founding of Ireland’s coastal cities was, moreover, as much a testament to Viking failures as to their successes. In Iceland, the Faroes and the Scottish islands, the Danish invaders simply occupied land. In northern England, they founded no cities, though they did occupy the old Roman town of York. What made them such prodigious founders of coastal towns in Ireland was the simple fact that they were unable to carve out large swathes of rural territory. They needed their fortified strongholds with quick access to the sea.
Yet, particularly as Irish power began to recover from the initial shock, native kings saw the value of this new way of life. They intermarried with the strangers and sucked them into their own quarrels and alliances. But they also tried increasingly to control and exploit the towns they had created. The Vikings brought with them a more developed commercial culture than Ireland had known: among the words that entered Irish from Old Norse is margad, market. And they gave the country one of the things it came to love more than all else: money.
An exhibition, Raiders, Traders and Innovators – The Vikings and County Louth opens next Friday at the County Museum, Dundalk, Co Louth. A Viking conference will be held at the Town Hall Theatre, Dundalk, on October 22nd and 23rd. dundalkmuseum.ie
A history of Ireland in 100 objects Oseberg ship, circa 815
Very few objects ever did so much to change the course of Irish history as the fearsome and beautiful Viking longship. In the eighth century, Danish and Norwegian shipbuilders developed existing techniques to create a vessel that could both traverse the high seas and navigate the great rivers of Europe. The longship was the spacecraft of its day, propelling adventurers across vast and hitherto unimaginable distances. In one raid in 858, a group sailed from Scandinavia to the coast of Spain, into the Mediterranean, on to Italy, up the River Rhône, raiding all the way, and then back home.
The Vikings didn’t invent the techniques that made possible these light, fast ships, but they did perfect them. The method involved splitting oak trunks with axes, chisels and wedges into long, thin and remarkably flexible planks. These were fixed with iron nails to a single sturdy keel and then to each other, with one plank overlapping the next to create the distinctive “clinker” effect. The low, sleek shape made the ships highly manoeuvrable when steered with a single rudder on the right-hand side of the prow. (This is why the right-hand side of a ship is still known as the starboard – ie steer-board – side.) The ship’s shallow draught meant that it could be rowed far upriver into the heart of the European continent – or, in the case of Ireland, of the island.
Built around 815, in the period when the Viking raids on Ireland began, the Oseberg ship is more than 22m long and 5m wide. Unlike earlier vessels, which had rowlocks on the gunwale, it has 15 pairs of oar ports placed low down so that the oars could strike the water at an efficient angle. Either rowed or sailed (the sail would have covered 90 sq m), it could reach a speed of 10 knots. It is preserved because it was eventually used for the burial of a very high-status woman. The prow and the stern, which rise in beautiful curves 5m above the waterline, have carvings of intertwined beasts, whose quality suggest this may have been a royal vessel. The image on the prow is not the dragon so beloved by film-makers, but a serpent, whose tail is represented by the stern.
It is unlikely that the ships that first raided Irish coasts were anything like as fine as the Oseberg vessel, which in any case would not have been rugged enough for the high seas. But the broad design would have been the same – the one that took Scandinavian raiders and traders as far west as North America and as far east as Kiev.
Yet, even with these masterpieces of functional beauty at their command, the Vikings still had to face into the unknown. Even 600 years after the Oseberg ship was built, an Icelandic navigational manual gives directions to Greenland: “Turn left at the middle of Norway, keep so far north of Shetland that you can only see it if the visibility is very good, and far enough south of the Faroes that the sea appears halfway up the mountain slopes.”
These voyages demanded not just great ships but intrepid sailors.

jonniebgood1

CDfm wrote: »

FINTAN O'TOOLE explains how Norse raiding, trading and settlement affected Ireland from the ninth century

Uh oh- how will he make this controversial

CDfm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Uh oh- how will he make this controversial

I think we should get Nhead or Bannaisidhe to mark him.Though if I was marking him i would say plagarism.

pedroeibar1

wrote:

The method involved splitting oak trunks with axes, chisels and wedges into long, thin and remarkably flexible planks. .............

The split-oak method is still used for rustic fencing – this method does not break/cut the grain (whereas sawing would). By maintaining its structural integrity the plank is less susceptible to rot and remains 'springy'.

wrote:

The low, sleek shape made the ships highly manoeuvrable when steered with a single rudder on the right-hand side of the prow.

Nonsense. For starters, the prow is the front and a steering-oar always was placed near the stern (sterrinboard quarter). A rudder is hung on the stern and was not used by the Vikings. Longships were manoeuverable because their shallow draft allowed them to cross sandbars easily and enter rivers. Their underwater profile probably would have made them more 'skittish' than manoeuverable under sail.

wrote:

;............ the Oseberg ship is more than 22m long and 5m wide. Unlike earlier vessels, which had rowlocks on the gunwale, it has 15 pairs of oar ports placed low down so that the oars could strike the water at an efficient angle. Either rowed or sailed (the sail would have covered 90 sq m), it could reach a speed of 10 knots.

I doubt this claimed speed was regularly achieved. Longships were displacement craft and maximum hull speed is determined by the waterline length, in this case about 60 feet, so the theoretical max is probably 8 knots and the usual speed nearer to 5 knots due to the weight of stores, men, etc.. Dead downwind, with a following sea, speeds of more than 8 knots might have been achieved, but they would be the exception rather than the rule and certainly would have been a thing to brag about back home, if they reached there at that speed!
While there is an advantage with oar ports, the big disadvantage is that when open (or even closed) they let water in when the ship heels over. (That's reason why, a thousand years later, several ships in the Battle of Trafalgar could not use their lowerdeck guns.)

P.

slowburner

Well picked up P. Never noticed that - the rudder on the 'prow'.
Maybe F.O'T's educated guess was that's how the Vikings retreated


weren't the Vikings supposed to have taken various fungi before going into battle?
http://vimeo.com/9511699

pedroeibar1

slowburner wrote: »

weren't the Vikings supposed to have taken various fungi before going into battle?
http://vimeo.com/9511699

Psilocybins – Hallucinogenic at least, deadly at worst. Our own druids were no strangers either. Reminds me of when I once met a neighbour on my way home with my collection of chanterelles, girolles and trompettes , ‘Jayzuz Pedro, don’t ate dem, you’ll wake up dead in the morning.’
Rs
P.
PS Yer man in the above clip is more like a Frank?

Dionysus

From this morning's Irish Times: Battle of Clontarf (II)

'THE BATTLE of Clontarf in 1014 was fought nowhere near the seafront of Dublin Bay as we know it. Over the past 1,000 years, the topography of the bay has changed, not least the formation of Bull Island as a result of the construction of the Bull Wall in 1825.'


So, anybody know the site of the Battle of Clontarf? Is it marked anywhere?

slowburner

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Psilocybins – Hallucinogenic at least, deadly at worst. Our own druids were no strangers either. Reminds me of when I once met a neighbour on my way home with my collection of chanterelles, girolles and trompettes , ‘Jayzuz Pedro, don’t ate dem, you’ll wake up dead in the morning.’
Rs
P.
PS Yer man in the above clip is more like a Frank?

Frank? You could be right, definitely not Norman

Tabnabs

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Nonsense. For starters, the prow is the front and a steering-oar always was placed near the stern (sterrinboard quarter). A rudder is hung on the stern and was not used by the Vikings. Longships were manoeuverable because their shallow draft allowed them to cross sandbars easily and enter rivers. Their underwater profile probably would have made them more 'skittish' than manoeuverable under sail.

Unfortunately a couple of points I'd have to disagree with. A rudder does not necessarily have to be located on the centre-line of a boat although for thermodynamics it is the optimum location. The ON term for their rudder was stýri borð meaning either the board that was used to steer or the side of the ship from which it was steered. But the design of the "rudder" was such that it really had little capacity as a steering oar and so would instead fall into the sole category of rudder

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I doubt this claimed speed was regularly achieved. Longships were displacement craft and maximum hull speed is determined by the waterline length, in this case about 60 feet, so the theoretical max is probably 8 knots and the usual speed nearer to 5 knots due to the weight of stores, men, etc.. Dead downwind, with a following sea, speeds of more than 8 knots might have been achieved, but they would be the exception rather than the rule and certainly would have been a thing to brag about back home, if they reached there at that speed!

The theoretical max speed of any boat is only applicable when the hull is immersed in water. Once the hull begins to plane, then higher speeds may be achieved. This has recently been proved by the Danish replica ship The Sea Stallion from Glendalough on her voyage to Ireland and back "with 65 crew showed an average cruising speed of 5.5 nautical knots and a top speed of 15-20 nautical knots." source

slowburner

Dionysus wrote: »

From this morning's Irish Times: Battle of Clontarf (II)

'THE BATTLE of Clontarf in 1014 was fought nowhere near the seafront of Dublin Bay as we know it. Over the past 1,000 years, the topography of the bay has changed, not least the formation of Bull Island as a result of the construction of the Bull Wall in 1825.'


So, anybody know the site of the Battle of Clontarf? Is it marked anywhere?

If you know Clontarf, this might help.
http://www.jstor.org/pss/25506769

pedroeibar1

Tabnabs wrote: »

Unfortunately a couple of points I'd have to disagree with. A rudder does not necessarily have to be located on the centre-line of a boat although for thermodynamics it is the optimum location. The ON term for their rudder was stýri borð meaning either the board that was used to steer or the side of the ship from which it was steered. But the design of the "rudder" was such that it really had little capacity as a steering oar and so would instead fall into the sole category of rudder

No problems with any disagreement, but you do not convince me on all points.
Firstly, it is not thermodynamics, it is hydrodynamics. Secondly, ‘Steering oars remained the only means of directing the course of a ship up to about the beginning of the 13th century A.D. when they were gradually replaced by the vertical rudder hinged to the after end of the sternpost .’ (Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, page 832).
Some of the document seals of the Hanseatic League ports from the mid-13th c. show stern rudders, the earliest known examples. Any board/oar over the quarter of a vessel is just that, not a rudder. The main reason the rudder took so long in arrival is that carvel construction (butt-ending the planks) did not arrive in Northern Europe until about that date. Clinker-built hulls, like the longship, had a swept stern which precluded a rudder.

Tabnabs wrote: »

The theoretical max speed of any boat is only applicable when the hull is immersed in water. Once the hull begins to plane, then higher speeds may be achieved. This has recently been proved by the Danish replica ship The Sea Stallion from Glendalough on her voyage to Ireland and back "with 65 crew showed an average cruising speed of 5.5 nautical knots and a top speed of 15-20 nautical knots." source

I thought that was implied in my post – any displacement craft would have to plane, although I believe that ‘surfing’ would be a more appropriate term. According to wave line theory, the theoretic max hull speed for a displacement craft of this size is about 0.8 x the square root of the waterline length. Planing would be an unusual event and depend on several exceptional factors arising at once. Getting the hull up on a plane would be influenced by wavelength (measured from peak of crest to base of trough), the frequency and consistency of those waves and sufficient wind at the correct time to start the ‘surge’ and then maintain it. I did say the usual speed nearer to 5 knots (ok, the Sea Stallion averaged 5.5, so I was out by 10%).

I also said greater speeds 'would be the exception rather than the rule, and certainly would have been a thing to brag about back home.' Rightfully, too, as it would have been an exhilarating ride. I don't know enough about Sea Stallion's passage to know how often they reached that speed.

Rs
P.

Tabnabs

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

No problems with any disagreement, but you do not convince me on all points.
Firstly, it is not thermodynamics, it is hydrodynamics. Secondly, ‘Steering oars remained the only means of directing the course of a ship up to about the beginning of the 13th century A.D. when they were gradually replaced by the vertical rudder hinged to the after end of the sternpost .’ (Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea, page 832).

Who am I to argue with Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

Clinker-built hulls, like the longship, had a swept stern which precluded a rudder.

A side note, but only until they saw the centre hung rudder, from then on the design was adapted to allow better hydrodynamics

pedroeibar1 wrote: »

I thought that was implied in my post – any displacement craft would have to plane, although I believe that ‘surfing’ would be a more appropriate term. According to wave line theory, the theoretic max hull speed for a displacement craft of this size is about 0.8 x the square root of the waterline length. Planing would be an unusual event and depend on several exceptional factors arising at once. Getting the hull up on a plane would be influenced by wavelength (measured from peak of crest to base of trough), the frequency and consistency of those waves and sufficient wind at the correct time to start the ‘surge’ and then maintain it. I did say the usual speed nearer to 5 knots (ok, the Sea Stallion averaged 5.5, so I was out by 10%).

Can you explain why you have used the S/L ratio of 0.8 in the formula? I have only seen variations around the 1.34 figure used before.

As to how frequently double digit speeds could be achieved, only when sailing before the wind.With a square rig the viking ship will only point 60 degrees either side of the wind and with a low freeboard would have to reduce sail in order to avoid healing over and taking water aboard. But a combination of the relatively flat hull shape brought so far back and the theory that air trapped in the planking under the waterline would reduce the hull resistance, may mean the design would plane relatively easily.

(Surfing I think is an incorrect description as this implies that the wave height is exerting pressure on the hull to increase velocity, when it is in fact the propulsion of the boat, in this case the wind, that is increasing velocity)

So averages may be misleading as the windward performance is currently so poor due mainly to rig design (especially in the absence of evidence of the beiti-áss (cruising pole), a spar used to hold one corner of the sail further forward, allowing the ship to sail closer to the wind). But the hull itself may be well able to achieve much greater average speeds.

pedroeibar1

I’m sorta reluctant to drag this out as it is going far off the OP –Mods (any) feel free to move this elsewhere if required.

Tabnabs wrote: »

Can you explain why you have used the S/L ratio of 0.8 in the formula? I have only seen variations around the 1.34 figure used before. Can you explain why you have used the S/L ratio of 0.8 in the formula? I have only seen variations around the 1.34 figure used before.

The conventional multiplier figure for a ‘normal’ vessel is 0.8, the theoretical maximum is 1.4. A monohull racing yacht would be about 1.2. However, the speed = Z x Sq.root LWL (length water line) is a rule of thumb and is not very accurate as it is heavily influenced by hull dynamics, about which the Vikings knew nothing (what they did know very well was the art, craft & tradition of boatbuilding). The ratio changes because the speed of a vessel passing through the water creates and influences a wave pattern, with a bow-wave building up in front, another being dragged at the stern, and, depending on waterline length, a variety of wave crests in between caused by water friction on the skin of the boat. Go fast enough to create a big bow wave and effectively the boat is almost trying to climb a hill, which explains why the stern squats down. Get the boat up onto a plane, the hull leaves the water and those dynamics are changed.

Tabnabs wrote: »

As to how frequently double digit speeds could be achieved, ............. a combination of the relatively flat hull shape brought so far back and the theory that air trapped in the planking under the waterline would reduce the hull resistance, may mean the design would plane relatively easily.

(Surfing I think is an incorrect description as this implies that the wave height is exerting pressure on the hull to increase velocity, when it is in fact the propulsion of the boat, in this case the wind, that is increasing velocity)

So averages may be misleading as the windward performance is currently so poor due mainly to rig design (especially in the absence of evidence of the beiti-áss (cruising pole), a spar used to hold one corner of the sail further forward, allowing the ship to sail closer to the wind). But the hull itself may be well able to achieve much greater average speeds.

I'll stick with surfing; at planing speed the boat would be travelling much closer to the apparent wind speed and considerably more than 20 knots and a very flat sea would be required to get a longship on a true plane.

beiti-áss (cruising pole) - cannot see how an effective aerofoil shape could be made on a squaresaile withthis device. It might make more sense to bring the yard forward and make it a lateen rig?

As for air bubbles minimizing friction, I don’t know, but I have my doubts. I never have sailed a longship, so can only apply experience acquired from dinghies and keelboats of all sizes, but if you have a longship lying about I would be delighted to have a go! (I’ll bring the mushrooms; if I can't find some, Slowburner might oblige.)
Rs
P.

Tabnabs

I sailed aboard Saga Siglar when she was in Dublin in 1988, but also sailed in company with Sea Stallion when she departed Dublin recently on a brisk Sunday morning and she accelerated very nicely and left all the yachts trailing in her wake. I think that SLR of 0.8 is a little on the low side and while it doesn't come up to the theoretical maximum of 1.34, (which gives a speed of around 12 knots for 80' LWL) in a decent wind I've seen these boats move along at a very good pace.

But I think you'll need to do your maths again because

maximum hull speed is determined by the waterline length, in this case about 60 feet, so the theoretical max is probably 8 knots

does not compute with .8 or 1.34

pedroeibar1

Tabnabs wrote: »

But I think you'll need to do your maths again because
maximum hull speed is determined by the waterline length, in this case about 60 feet, so the theoretical max is probably 8 knots
does not compute with .8 or 1.34

I remember seeing the Saga back then. I probably have a photo somewhere....
The Oseberg boat is 21m overall, which is about 60 feet waterline, the figure I quoted/used above
Sq root of 60 = 7.745 x 0.8 = 6.2 knots or increase the factor to 1.0 and you have 8 near as dammit.:P Some Norwegian university probably has tank tests that could /would answer all......
So, with an average speed of 5.5 knots, (the Sea Stallion voyage) in ideal conditions it would take a minimum of three days non-stop hard going for Viking raiders to get from the Hebrides (Barra) to Dublin. Double that to be more realistic. With a southwesterly wind dominant in summertime, two thirds of the voyage would have Scotland as a lee shore – not a very enjoyable prospect. Wait for the autumn and easterlies, try to escape equinoctial gales and they would have a lee shore along Ireland. Not much of a choice, and a big fella with a sword waiting for you on arrival. :eek:
Before Viking bases were established here they probably had a season. Do we know?
Rs
P.

slowburner

They definitely had a raiding season. I was reading about it just yesterday but can't find the reference for the life of me.
There is a well known verse by a monk, I think, celebrating the coming of dark and stormy nights because he knows they will be free from Viking raids. Someone here's bound to know it

slowburner

This is the well known verse referred to above but there is another more detailed reference to the seasonality of Viking raids. From memory, it conveys a sense of how the raids were almost an annual sport and how cheesed off the Vikings were in the close season. Perhaps that is the time they resorted to various concoctions.

The wind is fierce tonight
It tosses the sea's white hair
So I fear no wild Vikings
Sailing the quiet main

.