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- VIII. Literary Influence. The Sagas of Iceland and Ireland
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72 THE VIKING PERIOD
families in the country. We may mention especially Authr,
widow of Olaf the White, king of Dublin, with her brothers
Ketill the Foolish, Bjorn, Helgi Bj61a and all their families
and dependants ;* also Helgi the Lean who had been
brought up partly in the Hebrides, partly in Ireland,
Jorundr the Christian and Orlygr the Old. 2
Not a few of
these were partly of Irish stock such as Helgi the I/ean,
Askell Hnokkan and his brother Vilbaldr who were descen-
dants of Cearbhall, king of Ossory (d. 877).
3
Sometimes we
hear of settlers who were of pure Gaelic blood, like Kalman
(Ir. Colman) from the Hebrides,
*
and Erpr, son of a Scottish
earl Maelduin,
5
and Myrgjol (Ir. Muirgheal), daughter of
Gliomall, an Irish king.
8
It has been urged
7
that the persons mentioned in the
Landndmabdk as coming from Ireland and Scotland form a
very small percentage of the whole number of settlers.
But we have to remember that by no means all the colonists
are mentioned in the records and genealogies. There can be
no doubt that a number of slaves and freedmen accompanied
the more important settlers to Iceland, and of these probably
the great majority were of Celtic blood. Their numbers, too,
were being continually reinforced during the tenth century.
It is difficult, however, to estimate how many they were,
because in the case of thralls Icelandic names were not
infrequently substituted for Irish ones. Thus, of the Irish
thralls whom Hjorleifr brought to Iceland only one,
Dufthakr, had a Gaelic name.
1 Cf. Landndmabdk, II., ch. 16, etc.
*Landndmab6k, V., ch. 15.
*Ib., IV., ch. ii.
4
Ib., II., ch. i.
8
Ib., II., ch. 16.
/&., II., ch. 16.
7 Finnur Jonsson, op. cit., II., pp. 187-188 (n) ; W. A. Craigie :
Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie, Band I., p. 441.
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