The Irish Race in the Past and the Present

by Augustus J. Thébaud

But if the two chieftains have contended from morning till night with equal valor and success, then, filled with admiration for each other, they become friends, unite their forces, and, falling on the first spot where they can land, they pillage, slay, outrage women, and give full sway to their unbridled passions. The more ferocious they are the braver they esteem themselves. It is a positive fact, as we may gather from all their poems and songs, that the Scandinavians alone, probably, of all pagan nations, have had no measure of bravery and military glory beyond the infliction of the most exquisite torture and the most horrible of deaths.

Plunder, which was apparently the motive power of all their expeditions, was to them less attractive than blood; blood, therefore, is the chief burden of their poetry, if poetry it can be called. It would seem as though they were destined by Nature to shed human blood in torrents—the noblest occupation, according to their ideas, in which a brave man could be engaged.

The figures of their rude literature consist for the most part of monstrous warriors and gods, each possessed of many arms to kill a greater number of enemies, or of giant stature to overcome all obstacles, or of enchanted swords which shore steel as easily as linen, and clave the body of an adversary as it would the air.

Then, heated with blood, the Northman is also influenced with lust, for he worships Frigga as well as Odin. But this is not the place to give even an idea of manners too revolting to be presented to the imagination of the reader.

Cantu's Universal History will furnish all the authorities from which the details we have given and many others of the same kind are derived.

We do not propose describing here the horrors of the devastations committed by the Anglo-Saxons and Danes in England, by the Normans in France, Spain, and Italy. All these nations, even the first, were Scandinavians, and naturally fall under our review. The story is already known to those who are acquainted with the history of mediaeval Europe. The only thing which we do not wish to omit is the invariable system of warfare adopted by this people when acting on a large scale.

Arrived on the coast they had determined to ravage, they soon found that in stormy weather they were in a more dangerous position than at sea. Hence they looked for a deep bay, or, better still, the mouth of a large river, and once on its placid bosom they felt themselves masters of the whole country. The terror of the people, the lack of organization for defence, so characteristic of Celtic or purely Germano-Franco society, the savage bravery and reckless impetuosity of the invaders themselves, increased their rashness, and urged them to enter fearlessly into the very heart of a country which lay prostrate with fear before them. All the cities on the river-banks were plundered as they passed, people of whatever age, sex, or condition, were murdered; the churches especially were despoiled of their riches, and the numerous and wealthy monasteries then existing were given to the flames, after the monks and all the inmates even to the schoolchildren, had been promiscuously slaughtered, if they had not escaped by flight.

But, although all were slaughtered promiscuously, a special ferocity was always displayed by the barbarous conqueror toward the unarmed and defenceless ministers of religion. They took a particular delight in their case in adding insult to cruelty; and not without reason did the Church at that time consider as martyrs the priests and monks who were slain by the pagan Scandinavians. Their sanguinary and hideous idolatry showed its hatred of truth and holiness in always manifesting a peculiar atrocity when coming in contact with the Church of Christ and her ministers. And, our chief object in speaking of the stand made by the Irish against the pagan Danes is, to show how the clan-system became in truth the avenger of God's altars and the preserver of the sacred edifices and numerous temples with which, as we have seen, the Island of Saints was so profusely studded, from total annihilation.

Knowing that, when their march of destruction had taken them a great distance from the mouth of the river, the inhabitants might rise in sheer despair and cut them off on their return, the Scandinavian pirates, to guard against such a contingency, looked for some island or projecting rock, difficult of access, which they fortified, and, placing there the plunder which loaded their boats, they left a portion of their forces to guard it, while the remainder continued their route of depredation. In Ireland they found spots admirably adapted for their purpose in the numerous loughs into which many of the rivers run.

This was their invariable system of warfare in the rivers of England; in Germany along system Rhine; along the Seine, the Loire, and the Garonne, in France, as well as on the Tagus and Guadalquivir in Spain, where two at least of their large expeditions penetrated. This continued for several centuries, until at last they thought of occupying the country which they had devastated and depopulated, and they began to form permanent settlements in England, Flanders, France, and even Sicily and Naples.