Scandinavian-Britain

76 SCANDINAVIAN BRITAINChannel, The case is different with the invasion ofCornwall in 838.Ecgberht had conquered the West Welsh in 823,but they chafed under the yo.ke, Possibly by theirinvitation, or possibly as the first instance of a policywhich was repeated a few years later in Brittanyand in Ireland, the Vikings joined them. A greatfleet came to Cornwall, and the army together withthe Cornishmen marched eastward against Wessex.Ecgberht crossed the Tamar to meet them, andon Hengestesdune (perhaps Hengston Down, betweenPlymouth and Launceston) won a decisive victory.chief isThe first plainly recorded name of a Vikingthat of Saxulf, who is noticed in the Irish Annals asslain about 836. The next and greatest of this epochis Turgesius, or Turgeis, formerly identified with theThorgils, son of Harald Fairhair, mentioned bySnorri Sturluson, in spite of the hopeless anachronism.The name would stand for Thorgest, as Dr. WhitleyStokes suggested ;and Snorri's tale is no doubt alegend of his life, confused and misdated. The dateof his arrival and the place of his origin are uncertain,but he seems to have been the first of the " foreigners "in Ireland who showed an intention to conquer theland and settle in it, perhaps somewhat earlier than839, the date given for the advent of his " great royalfleet " in the Wars of the Gaedhil with the Gaill. Hebuilt a fort on Lough Ree, took Armagh, the chiefcentre of religion in the north of Ireland, and, accordingto the legend, made himself " abbot " of themonastery at the same time;placing in Clonmacnois,