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SCANDINAVIAN ANTIQUITIES OF DUBLIN. 95
the Irish clergy, who dissented from the doctrines or BOOK IT.
practices of the Church of Home in the celebration
of Easter, the form of tonsure, the consecration of
bishops, &c., they must have been well acquainted
with the state of the country.
C|IAP - 1L
If, however, we cannot estimate the importance Constant
of Aulaf's colony from English chronicles, we have iSubiinfo'
abundant evidence respecting it in Icelandic Sagas Literature,
and Irish annals, nor can the importance of Dublin
be more strongly marked than by this, and it is
worthy of observation, that although Dublin is
frequently named, and in almost all the Sagas, yet
throughout this entire range of Icelandic literature
and history, with one or two exceptions, Limerick
is the only city in the British Isles that is named as
one with which the Northmen had intercourse or
connexion. We find that between Dublin and
Norway the intercourse was frequent
and varied.
In 872 the Ostmen of Dublin fought for Norwegian Ostmen of
liberty at the fatal battle of Hafursfiord, where the battle of
TIT u T i- -1 11 it Hafurefionl,
Irish allies, or " Westmen, distinguished by their A.D. 8:2.
"
white shields," 1
were probably led by Eyvind Aust- Led perhaps
man, 2 son-in-law of Cearbhall, King of Ossory,
or b
Cearbhall himself, as after their defeat Cearbhall
was met in the Hebrides, and accompanied to Ireland
by Onund, surnamed "Trefotr," from his wooden
substitute for the foot or leg he had lost in the
engagement. 3
i Heimsk., vol. i., p. 95. The *
Landnamab., p. 374.
Valscra, or people of Valland, also Grotte's Saga, cap. i. ; Landnamed
the Galli-Bretons, or West namab., Part II., chap, xxxii., p.
W.lch, inhabiting Bretagne, Corn- 168. "Trefotr," wooden foot,
wales (Cornwall). This is not a singular instance of