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BOOK ii.
wands of
Iceland.
100 THE SCANDINAVIANS, AND
taught the crew to allay thirst after the manner of
^e irjgh^ by the use of meal and butter kneaded
into a substance termed " Mynnthak ;" !
yet
the life
they had saved they did not preserve, for not long
after their arrival in Iceland they slew their captor,
and flying
to neighbouring islands, yet called West-
men's, or Irishmen's, islands, were pursued and slain
, T ir>9
by Ingoll.
The Landnamabok, which minutely describes the
colonization of Iceland,
states that when the Nor-
wegians took possession of the country Alfred the
Great reigned in England, and " Kiarval was King
at Dublin." 3
Through the disguise of Icelandic
orthography there is no difficulty in discovering that
Descendants of this King Kiarval was Cearbhall, King of Ossory,
K*? Dublin, who governed Dublin from the death of Ivar in 872
hnd?
m
until his own death, and the restoration of a Scandi-
navian dynasty in 885. His children had inter-
married with the Scandinavians ;
and the voyage of
Lief having attracted the attention of the Ostmen of
Dublin and their Irish friends, the family of Cear-
bhall furnished many emigrants to the new settle-
ment.
Of these, Sncebiorn, who inhabited Vatnsfiord, 4
1 Landnamab., p.
15: from the
Irish kijn, meal. [" Dufthaksker
nomen est loco ubi ille mortem
appetiit : plures per saxa precipites
se dederunt, quae ab iis nomen
trahebant,
insulae autem ab illo
tempore Westmanna-eyar appellantur,
quia ibi occisi Westmanni
erant," &c.]
1 Ibid., p, 17. " Vestmanneyar,"
the island where the " Vestmenn "
were slain by Ingolf .
Ibid., p.
3. It also names
the other sovereigns of Europe,
and by including Kiarval of
Dublin among them, marks the
importance of that kingdom. The
Landnamabok was begun by Ari
Froda about the year 1075, and
may be termed the Doomsday Book
of Iceland. Ann. Clonmac., A.D.
929, calls him Cerval.
<
Ibid., 1
p. 59.