[40] Innes App., No. 3.
[41] This expression, the “laws of Aodh,” may have found its way into the chronicle without the transcriber being aware of its meaning. In the Irish annals the lex Patricii or lex Columbæ alludes to the right of visitation and other dues belonging to the representatives or Cowarbs of those saints; and the confirmation of the “lex Aodh Fin” by the Gael may mean the recognition of the claims of his descendants, the MacAlpin family, to Can and Cuairt over the provinces of the Picts. Royal law was identical with royal supremacy.
[42] Their first arrival, or rather permanent settlement, is placed by the An. Ult. in 839. The district of Fingall may derive its name from Fine gall, “the stranger clans,” as well as from Fin-gall, “the white strangers.”
[43] The Fingall are sometimes supposed to have been Norwegians and the Dugall Danes, a fanciful distinction apparently, as Thorstein Olaveson was king of the Dugall (An. Ult. 874), and his father Olave was undoubtedly a Norwegian. The Hy Ivar, chiefs of the Dugall, were undoubtedly a Danish race, for the Northmen who slew Elli at York in 867 were Dugall, and known as Scaldings or Skioldungr of the royal race of Denmark. An. Ult. 866. Twysden, p. 70.
[44] A. F. M., 847, 849, 850, 851. Olave “took hostages from every clan, and tribute from the Gael.”
[45] Innes App., No. 3. An. Ult. 865, 869, 870, 872. Sim. Dun. de Gestis, 866. Ware. Antiq. Hib., c. 24. Ivar was unquestionably the Inguar of early English history, and perhaps Olave was the Ubba; for in the Langfedgatel quoted by Lappenberg (Eng. under Ang. Sax., vol. i., p. 114, n. 4), Olave is substituted for Uffo, evidently the same name as Ubba. The Chron. 3 ascribes the death of Olave to Constantine, whilst the Landnamaboc says he was killed in Ireland.
[46] An. Ult. 856. Laxdæla Saga and Landnamaboc in Col. de Reb. Alb., p. 65 to 69. The Gallgael must be distinguished from their rivals the Oirir-Gael, or Gael of the coasts (i.e., of Argyle). Mr. Skene (Highlanders, pt. 2, c. 2) considers them to have been identical, on the strength of a passage which, I think, scarcely bears him out. When the fleet of Turlough O’Connor ravaged Tir Conal and Inch Eogan in 1154 (A. F. M.), the clan Eogan sent to hire “Longus Gallgaidhel, Arann, Cinntire, Manann et Cantair Alban” ships of the Gallgael, Arran, Kintyre, Man, and “the coasts of Alban,” i.e. Oirir-Gael. Gallgael must here mean the Islesmen. The Orkneyinga Saga (Antiq. Celt.-Scan., p. 180) calls the Caithness men Gaddgedlar or Gallgael; in short, it was the name of the two races when blended, and in later days there was a continual struggle for superiority between the Oirir-Gael and the Gallgael—represented by the families of Somarled and of the later kings of Man,—in which the former were ultimately successful, uniting at length under one head the dominion of Argyle and the Isles. There is a slight discrepancy in the accounts of Ketil contained in the Sagas. He was leader of the Gallgael when Harfager was an infant, and appears to have succeeded Godfrey MacFergus, whose name betokens a mixed descent, and who died in 853 (A. F. M., 851). The Gallgael possessed the islands before the time of Harfager.
[47] Ekkialsbakka, according to Mr. Skene “the Mounth;” according to Johnstone, the Ochil Hills, appears to be rightly translated by Mr. Laing (Heimskringla, vol. 1., p. 291); “the banks of the Ekkial, or Oikell, a river which still marks the limits of Sutherland, the ancient Sudrland of the Orkney Jarls.
[48] Antiq. Celt.-Scand. (Landnamaboc), p. 20, 21.
[49] Chron. Sax. 875. Halfdan was a brother of Ivar. According to Sim. Dun. Hist. Dun., l. 2, c. 13, he was driven from Northumbria very soon after he settled there, and perished miserably, slain by “his own people.” He was probably the Albdan Toshach of the Dugall, who was killed in battle by the Fingall in 877 at Loch Cuan, or Strangford Lough. An. Ult. 876.