Scandinavian-Britain

THE EARLIEST RAIDS 69the south coast and made a descent on Glamorganshire(Gwcniian Chronicle), where the peninsula ofCower was often afterwards the scene of their landings,and then sailed across St. George's Channel tothe Irish coast, which they followed until they cameto another island monastery, Lambey, then known asRechru (genitive Rechrainn, the name used by Moorein the hog-drowning story quoted p. 48). Here they"burnt, spoiled and impoverished the shrines" of theabbey founded by St. Columba. Some identify thisplace with Rachaire or Rathlin island, co. Antrim.A letter of Alcuin, written in 797, speaks of theravages as continuing; and in 798 a second invasionof the Irish Sea was made. Following, no doubt, thesame route, they again made for a rich island monastery,the Celtic shrine of St. Dochonna on St. Patrick'sIsland (Holm Peel), on the west coast of Man. Skyeis named as attacked about this time, but the smallColumban monastery in the south of that island ishardly likely to have been attacked, either from thenorth or the south, without any attempt being madeto gather in the riches of lona so near at hand andso much more tempting. Skye and lona must havesuffered about the same time, namely in 802.Meanwhile, in799 and 800, France and Frisia hadoccupied the attention of the pirates. If at first, asand en-we suspect, the Vikings had received helpcouragement from France or Frisia, it did not preventtheir turning to those districts in the years when theyleft Ireland and England to lie fallow. The sequenceof their descents proves that all these attacks came