The peat-fire flame : folk-tales and traditions of the Highlands & Islands

EXACTLY
CHAPTER XX
NORSE AND VIKING FOLK-TALES
when the rieving Northmen and Vikings
began their inroads upon Scotland and her islands is
a little uncertain; but for centuries these fair, fearless
fellows, with the sea ever restless in their blood, dominated
great stretches of our country until 1263, the year in which
the Battle of Largs decided the fate of King Haco and his
fleet.
The influence of this foreign domination upon the
sociology and ethnology of Scotland cannot be exaggerated.
And, whereas the ancient Gaelic language remained the
tongue of the people, the persistence with which the Norse
iuA^aders rivetted their language upon the Western Highlands
and Hebrides, as also upon the Northern Isles, so far
as place-names are concerned, is remarkable.
The legendry and folk-lore that have come down to us
from the time of this occupation have a ciuality of their own,
though several of the folk-tales still current show both
influences—Celtic with Norse modifications, or Norse with
Celtic modifications.
Certain traditions concerning these fearless and
imaginative invaders are widespread as, for instance, the
belief that hundreds of years ago most of the Long Island
(the Outer Hebrides) was an impenetrable forest, which the
Northmen fired in order to monopolise the timber trade.
And, again, it is held that, with a view to reducing the
likelihood of their being set upon unawares by the natives
lying in ambush, the Northmen of Viking and post-Viking
times burned the woods in the hope of their being able to
observe any enemy advancing in the distance, and to sally
forth to encounter them in the open.
In any case, we are aware that the expeditions in the time
of Magnus Bareleg, toward the close of the eleventh
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