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and that there has been a tendency to antedate the
development of Irish decorative art–Prof. A. Bugge
elsewhere gives a seventh-century date to the Book of
Kells–and consequently to antedate the monuments
supposed to have been influenced from Ireland. The
date of Torf-Einar’s seizure of the odals cannot be
much before the end of the ninth century, which
would allow for two or three generations of settlers
in Orkney after the period at which Dicuil indicates
their arrival. And as Iceland was not colonised
until 874, the earlier years of the ninth century are
far enough back to explain archaic place-names in
Shetland. Beyond that epoch there seems no need
to go.
The true Viking Age began during the last years
of the eighth century; and it began with raids on
the coast nearest to Denmark. Lappenberg, in his
History of England under the Anglo-Saxon Kings
(Thorpe’s tr., ii. p. 19), quotes an epistle of Bregowine
to Lullus (who died in 786) mentioning "frequent
attacks of wicked men on the provinces of the English
or on the regions of Gaul." It is not clear that he
meant Scandinavian pirates, but we are coming very
near to the time and place where the earliest recorded
attacks did occur; and when they once began they
came thick and fast. However untrustworthy any
given entry may be, Irish, English, and Frankish
annals unite in asserting that Viking raids, outside the
Baltic, began soon after this date, and continued from
that time forward. Within the Baltic the Scandinavian
tribes had been preying upon each other for
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