Scandinavian-Britain

1 86 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAINthough mixed with legendary matter, may have someweight. EgiPs Saga in describing the battle of Vinheidi(see p. 133) says that two brothers, Hring and Adils,ruled in Bretland as tributaries of ^Ethelstan, and onthe coming of Olaf of Dublin joined him againsttheEnglish (937). We cannot identify these with anyknown persons in British annals, but the settlementsin Wales must have originated by their time. In whatpart of Wales is another question ;we have still tonotice the progress of Viking affairs in Anglesey andthe north. Again we have the story of Palnat6ki,who some time after the middle of the tenth centurywent viking from Denmark to Bretland, and therefound an old jarl, Stefnir, ruling a district with thehelp of his foster son, Bjorn the British. Palnat6kimarried Olof, the jarl's daughter, and then associatedhimself with Svein, son of Harald Blatonn, afterwardsconqueror of England, who seems to have spent partof his youth in Wales. Mr. A. G. Moffat (in theSaga-book of the Viking Club, iii., p. 163 seq.) attemptsto localise the story in Pembroke and Cardigan.The Scandinavian place-names in the neighbourhoodof Gower, though not so thick on the map asthose of Pembroke, show a marked contrast to theWelsh names farther inland, and can hardly be tracedto the Norman conquest ; e.g. Swansea, spelt in 1188" "Sweynsei Worm's; Head, the promontory of thepeninsula (cf. Orm'shead) ; Esperlone or Esperlond," the aspen grove " ; Burry Holme ;and further eastalong the coast the Nash (nes .?), Barry (Barr-ey ?).To these may be added some names in which the