Scandinavian-Britain

THE KINGDOM OF YORK 131kingdom was a small one, the eastern part of Scot- /land from the Forth to the Moray Firth, and he 'was hard pressed on all sides by the Vikings ofOrkney, the Hebrides, Galloway, and Northumbria.It was an error on the part of thirteenth-centurylawyers to construe this into feudal homage and the;Saxon chroniclers no doubt overstated the significanceof the meeting. But it showed that yEthelstan wassoon to be master of England, though the Cumbrian andScottish kings could not keep their pledges of alliance.Sigtrygg O'lvar," king of Black and White Gaill,"died in 927 (Ulster Annals rectified). By a formerwife he left sons, Guthfrith, Harald and Olaf Cuaran ;"Sithfrey and Oisley " (Sigfrith and Haisl) are alsomentioned as Sigtrygg's sons, killed at Brunanburh.Guthfrith, trying to succeed his father at York, wasexpelled by ^Ethelstan, and took refuge with theScots ;so did Olaf, who became son-in-law to KingConstantine. The countenance given to the Vikingchiefs was regarded by ^Ethelstan as a casus belli. In934 he led his army into Strathclyde, put to flightOwain of Cumbria and marched through Constantine'scountry to " Wertermor and Dunfoeder "(identified by Skene with Kirriemuir and Dunnotar,near Stonehaven), while his fleet ravaged the coast asfar as the Norse settlement of Caithness.Brunanburh (937) was the "return match." Suchan invasion called for revenge, and Constantineorganised revenge on a grand scale. Three chiefpowers joined their arms the Scots, the Cumbrians,and the Vikings of the West. The Orkney and