By Gaddgethlar the Norsemen understood “the place… where Scotland and England meet” (cf. Orkneyinga Saga, ch. 28). It is also interesting to note that in Norse sources the inhabitants of Galloway are called Vikinga-Skotar, a direct translation of Gaill-Gaedhil.
O’Flaherty (Ogygia, p. 360) thought that the Gaill-Gaedhil mentioned in the Annals of the mid-ninth century came to Ireland from Scotland, but the ancient Three Fragments of Annals, which contain the fullest accounts of the Gaill-Gaedhil (pp. 138-141) speak of them as Scuit (i.e., an Irish form of the Latin Scoti, a word which is always used with reference to the Irish before the tenth century). Moreover, the impression received from reading the Fragments of Annals is that the Annalist had in his mind the Norse-Gaelic population of Ireland, not of Scotland.
[49] Ann. Cambriae, A.D. 902; (Steenstrup: Normannerne, III., pp. 37-41).
[50] Three Fragments of Annals, p. 230 ff.
[51] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 845, 852; Annals of Ulster, A.D. 846. Three Fragments of Annals, A.D. 862.
[52] Annals of the Four Masters, A.D. 848.
[53] The plundering of these burial-mounds—“a thing that had never been done before”—made a deep impression on the Irish Annalists; it was thought that the Vikings discovered the existence of the treasure by magic, “through paganism and idol worship” (War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 115). The same source (p. 25) records the plundering of Kerry by Baraid (O.N. Barthr) and Olaf the White’s son “who left not a cave there underground that they did not explore.”
Several references to this practice of the Vikings occur also in Icelandic literature. It is interesting to compare the Irish accounts with the following passage from Landnámabók (I., ch. 5): “Leifr (one of the earliest settlers in Iceland) went on a Viking raid to the West. He plundered Ireland and found there a large underground house (Icel. jarth-hus). It was dark within until he made his way to a place where he saw a light shining from a sword which a man held in his hand. Leifr slew the man and took the sword and much treasure besides.”
[54] Three Fragments of Annals, p. 135.
[55] Ib., p. 137.