Increase of the northern marauders.
Language of the Northmen still spoken by mariners in the North.
The piratical expeditions of the Northmen were
more easily suppressed in France than in England,
where, among the numerous islands contiguous to
her coasts, their vessels could take refuge. Thus
Wales suffered severely from their marauding attacks;
the island of Anglesey was more than once
pillaged by them; while, in Ireland, they long
held the ports of Dublin, Waterford, Limerick, and
Cork. A Danish king resided in Dublin and in
Waterford; and the invaders preserved their warlike
spirit and predatory habits long after the remaining
portions of the kingdom had acquired peaceful habits.[1]
The Scandinavian language survived the independence
of the Northern pirates; and, centuries after
these had ceased to dominate the seas, a Norse
dialect was still spoken. Even to this day remnants
of this original language remain in the Orkneys and
Shetland Islands, and is often used among the seafaring
population, especially for the ordinary nautical
expressions employed on board of their ships.
Accession of Alfred the Great, A.D. 871: When Alfred ascended the throne, he found England overrun by the Danes, so that for a short time he was obliged to dissemble and to conceal himself, with the few faithful subjects who had not deserted him. In his retreat, however, he was the better able to arrange future plans, as he at once perceived that without an effective maritime force his island must be ever at the mercy of every piratical
- ↑ Macpherson, in his "Annals of Commerce," vol. i. p. 254, says that "the Norwegians and Danes, under the names of Ostmen (i.e. eastern men), Gauls, Gentiles, Pagans, &c., were the chief, or rather the only commercial, people in Ireland, and continued for several centuries to carry on trade with the mother countries, and other places on the west coast of Europe, from their Irish settlements."
