The historical evidence is amply borne out by the existence of such old Norse loan-words in Irish as mangaire (O.N. mangari, a ‘trader’), marg (O.N. mörk, a ‘mark’), margadh, (O.N. markathr, a ‘market’), and penning (O.N. penningr, a ‘penny’), and also by certain archæological discoveries. In Scandinavia coins of King Sithric Silken-Beard have been found,[145] while four sets of bronze scales and some weights richly decorated in enamel and gold have been dug up in Ireland (Bangor, Co. Down).[146] To the same period (early ninth century) also belong the scales and weights which were discovered in the great hoard at Islandbridge, near Kilmainham in 1866.[147] With such strong evidence of the influence exerted by the Vikings on the expansion of Irish trade it is not surprising to find that even as late as the seventeenth century the greater part of the merchants of Dublin traced their descent to Olaf Cuaran and the Dublin Norsemen.[148]
FOOTNOTES
[122] See the map of the Irish Trade Routes in Mrs. J. R. Green’s The Old Irish World.
[123] “Epscop fina” in the sea-laws, i.e., “a vessel for measuring wine used by the merchants of the Norsemen and the Franks.” See Sanas Cormaic (Cormac’s Glossary) compiled c. A.D. 900. (Anecdota from Irish Manuscripts IV., ed. Kuno Meyer.)
[124] Cf. O’Curry: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, II., p. 125. For a transcript of the poem see A. Bugge: Vesterlandenes Indflydelse paa Nordboernes i Vikingetiden, p. 183.
[125] Cf. Laxdaela Saga, ch. 21.
[126] According to an ancient poem on the great fair of Carman (Co. Kildare) foreign merchants visited this fair and sold there “articles of gold and silver, ornaments and beautiful clothes.” For other references see Joyce: A Social History of Ancient Ireland, Vol. II., pp. 429-431; O’Curry: Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, III., p. 531.
[127] War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 115.
[128] Saga Óláfs Tryggvasonar (Heimskringla), ch. 51.
[129] Gunnlaugs Saga Ormstungu, ch. 8.