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30 THE VIKING PERIOD
overseas commerce. 1
Previous to this foreign merchants’
who visited Ireland used to exchange their goods for home
produce at the numerous oenachs or fairs held at certain
intervals all over the country. These oenachs continued
to be celebrated during the Viking period, but it was in the
seaport towns, Dublin, limerick, Cork, Wexford, and
Waterford, that the most important trade was centred.
Dublin, owing to its splendid position, half way between
the Continent and the Scandinavian settlements in Scotland
and Iceland, and within easy distance of England, became
one of the wealthiest towns in the West. One Irish chronicler
gives a glowing account of the treasures carried off from there
by the Irish after the battle of Gleann Mama (A.D. 1000) :
"
In that one place were found the greatest quantities
of gold, silver, bronze, and precious stones :
carbuncle-gems,
.buffalo horns, and beautiful goblets . . . much also of various
vestures of all colours were found there likewise." 8
Dublin is frequently mentioned in the sagas and seems
to have been very well known to Icelandic dealers. In Olat
Tryggvason’s Saga (Heimskringla) we read that during the
reign of Olaf Cuaran a merchant called Th6rir Klakka, who
had been on many a Viking expedition, went on a trading
voyage to Dublin,
"
as was usual in those days."
4
When
Olaf’s son, Sihtric Silken Beard, was King of Dublin (c. 994)
the Icelandic poet Gunnlaug Ormstungu sailed from England
to Ireland with merchants who were bound for Dublin.*
1
Cf. Laxdaela Saga, ch 21.
2
According to an ancient poem on the great fair of Carman (Co.
Kildare) foreign merchants visited this? fair and sold there
"
articles
of gold and silver, ornaments and beautiful clothes." For other
references see Joyce : A Social History of Ancient Ireland, .Vol.
II., pp. 429-431 ; O’Curry : Manners and Customs of the Ancient
Irish, III., p. 531.
3
War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 115.
4
Saga 6ldfs Tryggvasonar (Heimskringla), ch. 51.
8
Gunnlaugs Saga Ormstungu, ch. 8.
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