Mid-Argyll Theme
- 17
Scandinavian Raiders and
Settlers
In the last years of the eighth century, a new
political and military force appeared in Scotland,
sudden and unexpected. In 794 the annals record
'the devastation of all the islands of Britain by
the heathens' - the Vikings, raiders from
Norway.
Dál Riata was one of the most vulnerable
areas, with its islands and its indented coastline,
since these new warriors made their attack in ships
faster and stronger than anything the Scots were
used to. Dál Riata's principal monastery,
Iona, was
plundered in 795. Seven years later we read 'Iona
was burned by the heathens.' More attacks occurred
in 806 when 'the community of Iona to the number of
68 was slain by the heathens.' In 825 Viking
raiders came to Iona again, killing the abbot
Blathmac and the rest of the monks in their quest
for treasure.
Notice that these Norwegians are called
'heathens' in these annal entries. They came from a
part of Europe which had not yet been brought
within the fold of Christianity. It may be that
they targeted churches and monasteries, but we
shouldn't assume that this was because of their
'heathen' outlook. They were looking for treasure,
and churches had precious shrines, book covers,
reliquaries and croziers, which were always useful
as sources of gold and silver ornament.
No doubt there were also plenty of raids on
secular settlements, but attacks on churches are
recorded in more detail. Perhaps this is simply
because the records were written by clergy and
monks, and they lived in the churches which were
under attack.
It is possible that before these raids began
Norwegians had occasionally come here as traders.
But at the end of the eighth century, whatever had
gone before, they were raiders and little else.
They may have built some early settlements -
perhaps in Orkney or Shetland - but these were
little more than bases from which Vikings could
conduct their piratical raids more efficiently,
swiftly descending on coastal settlements in
Britain and shipping off their booty.
Some parts of Scotland appear to have been
completely overwhelmed by Vikings. Orkney, for
example, rapidly became a Norse-speaking realm -
and remained so until the early modern period.
There it seems that none of the old Pictish
place-names have survived. Does that mean that the
Pictish inhabitants were slain in the Viking
onslaught, or at least put to flight? Or does it
simply mean that the occupation was so thorough,
and the connection with Norway so close, that the
Pictish language simply died out, and all Pictish
place-names with it?
In the Western Isles of Scotland, the Norse
occupation was also extremely thorough. Following
the initial raids, considerable settlement took
place, and the native Celtic language was to a
great extent displaced. We find some islands where
most of the village place-names are in Norse, but a
few Gaelic names survive in the moorland areas. Is
this because the Norse seized the good farmland and
the coastal fishing areas, while the Gaels were
marginalised?
In some places it may be that Gaelic was
completely displaced by the Norse influx, only to
reappear later. As Scandinavians married into local
Gaelic-speaking families, as they took land of
their own and settled in it, and as they formed
alliances with Scottish and Irish rulers, raiding
gave way to a more complex social engagement, and
the Scandinavians became Gaelicised. They also
began to lose their 'heathen' epithet, as they
adopted Christian ways. Nevertheless, the area
continued to be known, given the Norse ancestry of
its rulers, as Innse Gall, 'the Islands of
the Foreigners'.
How did these changes impact on Kilmartin and
the surrounding area? It must be said that these
invasions and settlements are features primarily of
island life. The raiders came by sea, they ruled by
sea, and their power-base for a long time depended
on their naval prowess and sea-trade. So while the
sons of the Norsemen eventually built up a kingdom
in the west of Scotland, its centre of gravity was
in the islands. Remarkably there are hardly any
Norse place-names in mid-Argyll, though the islands
offshore abound in them - particularly nearby
Islay.
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Similarly, though many Viking burials
are found on the islands off the Argyll
shore, only one has been found on the
Argyll mainland. The usual indicators of
Norse settlement are missing around
Kilmartin. For some reason Argyll - the
'coastland of the Gaels' - remained
Gaelic.
No doubt, given the proximity of their
powerful Norse neighbours offshore, and
the Lordship of the Isles which descended
from them, Argyll folk were part of that
polity. But apart from a few words
borrowed from Norse into Gaelic (many of
them to do with boats and fishing), little
trace has been left here of Norse
culture.
Why Norsemen left so much evidence on
the islands and comparatively little on
the Argyll mainland is not yet understood.
Could it be that they could control the
sea-ways, but the vestiges of Dál
Riata continued to hold sway in the
mountains and glens of Argyll and never
permitted stable Norse settlements on
their own coast - though they could hardly
prevent it on the islands? We cannot be
sure, and it remains one of the riddles
about the Kilmartin glen.
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The map shows widespread
island distribution of bólstadr
place-names (= 'farm') and supposedly
'pagan' Viking burials, but none in the
region around Dunadd.
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Key
References
- Crawford (1987)
- Crawford (ed.) (2002)
- Etchingham (1996)
Check out the following
sections of this website for related
information.
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