problem. There is at present perhaps a danger of exaggerating this element, the existence of which was long overlooked. Similarly, affinities have been traced between Scandinavian and Gaelic popular tales and folk-lore, but this evidence is of doubtful value to the student of history. As was to be expected, the chief traces of Viking influence on the mainland are to be found in the modern counties of Sutherland (the district south of the Orkneys was so called by the Norsemen), Caithness, Ross and Cromarty, which were for a long time under the authority of the Orkney earls, and in Galloway, which was naturally exposed to attacks from the powerful Norse settlements in Man. The name of this district (perhaps derived from Gall-Gaedhil) possibly bears witness, as we have seen, to the mixed race resulting from their presence, and the evidence of place-names confirms it. In the history of Scotland, as a whole, it is to be remembered that it was the weakening of Pictish power under Norse attack which paved the way for the unification of the land under the rule of Kenneth Mac Alpin.
The Isle of Man bears many and deep marks of its Norse occupation. Here as in the Hebrides the occupation was long and continuous. Attacked by Vikings from the early years of the ninth century, it came first under the rule of the kingdom of Dublin and then of the earls of Orkney. The successors of Godred Crovan, who conquered the island in 1079, took the title of king and were kings both of Man and the Isles (i.e. the Hebrides). The chief witnesses to Norse rule are the Manx legal system and the sculptured stones scattered about the island. The highest executive and legislative authority in the island (after the Governor) is still the Tynwald Court, whose name goes back to the Old Norse þingvöllr (the open plain where the popular assembly met), and the House of Keys, which is the oldest division of the court, consisted originally of 24 members (a duodecimal notation which constantly recurs in Scandinavian law and polity) chosen by co-option and for life, the office being generally, as a matter of fact, hereditary. These men who have the "keys of the law" in their bosom resemble closely the Lawmen, of whom mention has already been made. All laws to be valid must still be announced from the Tynwald Hill, which corresponds to the lögberg or law-hill in the Icelandic allthing. When the assembly is held the coroner "fences the court" against all disturbance or disorder, just as in the old Norwegian Gula-thing we hear of vé-bönd or sanctuary-ropes drawn around the assembly. Of the sculptured stones we have already spoken more than once: suffice it to say here that in addition to runic inscriptions they often give us pictorial representations of the great scenes in myth and legend, such as the fight of Odin with Fenrir's Wolf and the slaying of the serpent Fafnir by Sigurðr. In many ways Man is the district of the British Isles in which we can get closest to the life of the old Viking days.
Cumberland and Westmorland stand somewhat apart from the rest of England in the matter of Viking influence, for they were fairly certainly
