52-53). Some
part of this, however, must be abated, because the chronicler is
exalting the terror-striking enemy that he may still further
exalt his own people, the Dal Cais, who did so much under Brian
Boroimhe to check the inroads of the Northmen. When a book does
(5) appear, which has been announced these ten years past, we
shall have more material for the reconstruction of the life of
those times than is now anywhere accessible. Viking earldoms
also were the Orkneys, Faroes, and Shetlands. So late as 1171,
in the reign of Henry II., the year after Beckett's murder, Earl
Sweyn Asleifsson of Orkney, who had long been the terror of the
western seas, "fared a sea-roving" and scoured the western coast
of England, Man, and the east of Ireland, but was killed in an
attack on his kinsmen of Dublin. He had used to go upon a
regular plan that may be taken as typical of the homely manner of
most of his like in their cruising: "Sweyn had in the spring hard
work, and made them lay down very much seed, and looked much
after it himself.
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