sins of the age; Norman tradition as preserved by Dudo and William of Jumièges attributed the raids to the necessity for expansion consequent on over-population. Polygamy had led to a rapid increase of population, and many of the youth of the country were driven forth to gain fresh lands for themselves elsewhere. Polygamy does not necessarily lead to over-population, but polygamy among the ruling classes, as it prevailed in the North, means a large number of younger sons for whom provision must be made, and it is quite possible that stress of circumstance caused many such to visit foreign lands on Viking raids. Of the political condition of the Scandinavian countries we know very little at this time. We hear however in Denmark in the early years of the ninth century of long disputes as to the succession, and it is probable that difficulties of this kind may have prompted many to go on foreign expeditions. In Norway we know that the growth of the power of Harold Fairhair in the middle portion of the ninth century led to the adoption of a Viking life by many of the more independent spirits, and it is quite possible that earlier efforts towards consolidation among the petty Norwegian kings may have produced similar effects. Social and political conditions may thus have worked together, preparing the ground for Scandinavian activity in the ninth century, and it was perhaps, as suggested above, the destruction of Frisian power which removed the last check on the energy of the populous nations of the North.
The first definite record of Viking invasion is probably that found in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (s. a. 787), which tells of the coming of Danish ships to England in the days of Beorhtric, King of Wessex. They landed in the neighbourhood of Dorchester and slew the king's reeve. Certain versions of the Chronicle call them ships of the Northmen and tell us that they came from "Herethaland." There can be little doubt that this is the West Norwegian district of Hörthaland, and that "Northmen" here, as elsewhere in the Chronicle, means Norwegians[1]. The term "Danish" is probably generic for Scandinavian, the chronicler using the name of the nationality best known to him. In June 793 the church at Lindisfarne was destroyed, and a year later the monastery of St Paul at Jarrow. In 795 Vikings landed in Skye and visited Lambay Island off Dublin, and in 798 the Isle of Man. These invaders were certainly Norse, for the Irish annalists mention expressly the first arrival of the Danes in Ireland in 849, and draw a rigid distinction between the Norwegian or "white" foreigners and the Danish or "black" ones.
England was not troubled again by Viking raiders until 835, but the attacks on Ireland continued almost without cessation. Iona was
- ↑ Attempts have been made to identify Herethaland with the district, of Hardesyssel in Jutland and to prove that these Northmen were Danes, but the weight of evidence seems to the present writer to be all in favour of the identification with Hörthaland. The name Hiruath commonly given to Norway by Gaelic writers is another version of the same name.
