Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Scandinavian Britain - III. The Norse Settlements - 1. Wales
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from the Orkneys; and, after the battle of Clontarf,
Flosi the Icelander (Njáls saga, clvi., seq.) took refuge
in Wales, where he was followed by Kári Sölmundarson,
who twenty years earlier had played the
viking in these parts, and now sought vengeance on
Flosi for the burning of Njál. In some town not
named Kol Thorsteinsson, one of the men who had
murdered Njál in Iceland, was making a home for
himself, marketing and courting a lady, with the
intent to marry her and settle down. Kári came into
the town and caught him in the act of counting out
his money, and struck off his head–"and the head
counted ’ten’ as it flew from his body." Whether
this incident so vividly told happened in Conway or
Chester, Milford or Swansea, we cannot guess, but
we can see that the Northmen were at home in Wales,
in spite of their turbulent dealings with neighbours
not far away; and whatever legend may be involved,
the story adds to the evidence of a definite
settlement.
That the Vikings in Ireland were in constant
communication with the coast of Wales is abundantly
proved. In 1041 King Gruffydd was captured by
Norse from Dublin (Caradoc), and Guttorm with King
Murchadh ravaged Wales; but in 1049 the same
Irish-Norse or their near kindred joined Gruffydd in an
attack on the Severn (Florence). After this the Vikings
seem to have been used as convenient tools for any
discontented party–English ealdormen in exile, or
Welsh princes in defeat–but their existence in Wales
remained a settled fact. And yet the colony in
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