Scandinavian-Britain

THE EARLIEST RAIDS 71curious remains of early architecture are still to beseen (Scotland in Early Christian Times, i. p. 87).After that, for several years there is a cessation ofraids ; Godfred, king of Denmark, was employingallhands in war with the Slavs, with Frisia and withCharlemagne. But after his death we find that theVikings at once returned to Ireland. In 811-813they began a new phase of their operations, as thoughthe experience of the late war had taught them themost teachable of people how to do more than fallupon a defenceless island and fly with the plunder.They now landed and went up the country, in Ulster,in Connemara, and to the lakes of Killarney. Theywere not always successful, for both the Irish annals andEginhard tell us that they were beaten off with greatloss, more than once. These disasters appear to havedisheartened them; for seven years there are no moreinvasions.At last we have come to the period when webegin to hear of Norwegians in North British seas.That they had some knowledge of the route, andperhaps occasionally used it in fishing or tradingvoyages, is very likely indeed it would be inconceivablethat this piece of water between Shetland and;Norway was untraversed when the route to the Faeroesand Iceland was well known to the Irish. It seemsreasonable to suppose that the example of the Danishenterprises was talked about, and soon followed, bythe men of Hordaland the ; contagion of enterprise,so to speak, spread northward. But there was adifference from the beginning between the Danish