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as Yric ; Eadred ravaged their country and burned
St. Wilfrith’s minster at Ripon, then marched away,
but his rearguard being cut up at Chesterford, he
returned, and was received as king, "Hyryc" being
expelled ; in 949 Anlaf Cwiran (Olaf Cuaran) came to
Northumberland ; in 952 Yric supplanted him as
king, and was expelled in 954.
Later authors do not improve matters by trying to
simplify the story, which ended with the death of
Eirík in an attempt to regain his throne, and the
appointment of Oswulf of Bamborough, a representative
of the old line of Bernician Angles, as jarl or
ealdorman of Northumbria. Olaf Cuaran went back
to Dublin, where, on his expulsion from York in 945,
he had seized the power after driving out Blákári.
It was perhaps before this that St. Cathroë (see his
life in The Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, ed. Skene,
p. 116) was escorted by King Domhnall of Cumbria
to Leeds, and thence went to York to visit the king,
whose name is given as Erichius, and his Irish wife, a
relative of the saint. As Eirík had no Irish wife, but
Olaf Cuaran and his predecessor Olaf were married
to Irish ladies, King Olaf and not Eirík is no doubt
intended. The story of Egil Skallagrímsson’s visit
to King Eirík Blódöx at York is not impossible,
though romantic in character, and though the poem
attributed to the skald on this occasion, Höfudlausn,
contains the end-rhymes which are thought
to mark verse of a later date. These incidents give
colour to the meagre records of the Viking court, at
which so many races and interests must have met.
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