Vikings are certainly seen as raiders in the earliest written mentions of their activities in Scotland. However, there was limited plunder to be had from Scotland - the St. Ninian’s Isle treasure buried c.AD 800 - some 28 silver objects buried beneath the floor of a chapel may or may not have been hidden from Viking raiders or the threat of Viking raids, but the quality of the silver itself is poor.
Notice from the written record it is the important monastery at Iona, which is targeted; the small eremitic monasteries of the islands can hardly have offered rich pickings. Svein Asleifarson’s view of raiding as expounded in the Orkneyinga Saga written in the late 12th / early 13th century and looking back to an heroic period, may be doubted. This is doing what the Sagas do best - telling a good story; we do not have to accept it as historical fact.
We have already spoken of a different model - the seizure of power by Viking leaders in Scotland - as apparently evidenced by the archaeological finds and place-name at the Brough of Birsay and Cunningsburh respectively. The Sagas suggest that as King Harold Finehair extended his power from the Oslo fiord into southern Norway in the later 9th century, so powerful individuals were displaced who opposed him from Scotland and this provoked him into retaliation. On his return journey he granted the Northern Isles to Rognvald, Earl of More near Trondheim (Thrandheim) The Irish Annals have a garbled account of the takeover of the Northern Isles rather earlier about 866 by a leader called Ragnald and his three sons. We may doubt the Saga account. From what we know of Harold’s struggles in southern Norway he is unlikely to have had the time to mount an expedition to Scotland. Rather the Saga reflects the position in the 13th century, when Norway was anxious to assert its rights over the earldom of Orkney.
Nevertheless tradition and a careful interpretation of the written record does suggest that the earldom began in the second half of the ninth century and if so this was a replacement of Pictish power by Scandinavian.
Further south tradition, references in the Annals and in the Sagas suggest that Ketil had established similar power in the Hebrides about the same time, leading, according to the Irish sources a force called by them the Gall-Gaedhil ( Gaelic foreigners) - perhaps warriors from Norway and the Western Isles of mixed ancestry. Does archaeology reveal them in the rich warrior graves of Oronsay and Colonsay? The northern part of the islands had been under the Pictish kings and the southern part and Argyll under Dalriada. If control did pass into the hands of Scandinavian leaders like Ketil then this further weakened the Pictish kings. The Dalriadan and Pictish kings were traditional enemies. Did Viking activities in the islands reinforce the policy of Dalriadan kings to expand eastwards into southern Pictland away from the islands? And were they assisted in this either indirectly or perhaps, by agreement, by Irish Norse leaders attacking southern Pictland. We have hints of this for example in 839 and after 841 the annals seem to be agreed that Kenneth MacAlpin, king of the Scots/Dalriadans extended his rule over parts of southern Pictland dying about 857 at Forteviot, (if the Chronicle of Melrose is to be believed) a Pictish royal centre near Perth.
Irish Norse leaders continued their attacks on Pictland and in 870/871 Dumbarton Rock, major stronghold of the kings of Strathclyde was taken, as the Vikings opened up the route between the Clyde and Forth to enable communications between Dublin and York to be established.
This so weakened Strathclyde that in the long term it came under the domination of the Dalriadan, Scottish kings - so is it too much to claim that indirectly Viking activity created the kingdom of Scotland?
In south-west Scotland, in Dumfrieshire and Galloway, an area traditionally fought over by the kings of Strathclyde and the English kings of Northumbria, place-names suggest Scandinavian influence if not settlement , the latter perhaps may be evidenced by the Irish -Norse elements in the place-names a product perhaps of the expulsion of Norse warriors from Ireland after 902. Influence of Scandinavian culture and art styles spilling over from Cumbria in the later 10th century is perhaps suggested by the hog-back tombs of the mid - late 10th century particularly the collection of five stones from Govan, south of the Clyde. The sea seems to be influential in their distribution. Were these discrete groups of Scandinavians settling? Of interest also is the site at Whithorn, Galloway, an ecclesiastical centre from the 5th century. The site lies some three miles from the natural harbour at the Isle of Whithorn. From the mid ninth century Peter Hill has shown ribbon development along a track at the site, with buildings yielding antler combs, ring pins and Northumbrian coins. Scandinavian influence can be seen and it grows stronger after c. AD 1000. Hill believes it was operating as an Hiberno-Norse trading post and the square houses with rounded corners and central hearths are reminiscent of the buildings of Dublin and Waterford. Steatite pottery, Scandinavian whetstones, and lead weights support the commercial interpretation plus the working of leather, antler and metal on site.
In the same period the earl of Orkney Sigurd, began to extend Norse control over Caithness and Sutherland and Ketil’s grandson, Thorstein the Red seems to have penetrated up the Great Glen, perhaps in conjunction with Sigurd, in effect splitting off the southern from the northern Picts. There is a pattern of settlement and specialised activity on the Caithness coast, sites revealed largely by erosion, the pattern being cemeteries or settlement above sandy bays - Reay (5 burials) Huna (boat burial) Robertshaven (walls, fish bones and shells) and at Freswick Links, evidence of both Pictish and late Norse occupation. No Viking Age features have been found as yet, though Viking material is known from the broch site. Plough marks show that Picts practised arable farming on the site and later fish processing took place with cod and ling being dried and/or smoked in very large numbers.
This was not necessarily a military takeover - Dungadr of Duncansby a Pictish lord on the Pentland Firth seems to have maintained his position. There are also hints of independent Viking lordships in Moray, since in the later 10th century the earls of Orkney were engaged against these leaders, one of whom is described as the earl of Moray, in alliance with the kings of Scotland.
Barbara Crawford’s work (Crawford, B.E. 1995 Earl and Mormaer: Norse-Pictish Relationships in Northern Scotland) on the Scandinavian place-names of Ross has led her to suggest that existing estates were taken into Scandinavian ownership, a similar conclusion reached by Michael Bangor-Jones for south-east Sutherland, around the Dornoch Firth further north. Crawford, however, shows that away from the coastal estates, the element dalr, (valley) penetrates along the river valleys leading into the Moray Firth and she cites documentary evidence that this was a shipbuilding area from the 13th century, timber being floated down the rivers into the firths. Since the earls of Orkney are clearly portrayed operating sizeable fleets, was it in part the search for and need to control resources such as timber, unavailable in either Orkney or Shetland, which drove this expansion?
Earl Sigurd the Stout, c 985 - 1014 appears to have extended his control over the western Isles, the Isle of Man and into Moray as well as having perhaps designs on part of Ireland. In this period the earldom was perhaps a major maritime power. The peak of their power was reached under Thorfinn the Mighty, c.1040 - c.1064, a European figure, who visited Norway on three occasions and had an audience with the Pope in Rome. The Saga says that on his return “he devoted all his time to the government of his people and country and to the making of new laws”. He established a bishopric at his seat at Birsay. He appears to have controlled the western and northern Isles as well as Man probably and much of the northern mainland. The Sagas even claim that he raided England, somewhere south of Man in 1042. With Thorfinn’s death however, we move from the Viking Age strictly into what is known as the late Norse period, when the earldom lost control of Man, the Western Isles and the mainland. The Northern Isles remained under Norwegian control until 1468/9 with a version of old Norse, Norn, spoken until the 18th century.
Questions for you to think about
- In which ways might the foundation of the earldom of Orkney have helped Viking newcomers to Scotland?
- Why were the Norse earls keen to control Easter Ross and Sutherland?
- How do we know about Viking settlement in Caithness and how biased is the evidence?
- Why was Earl Thorfinn known as ‘the Mighty’?
Quiz
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