Amlaíb Conung

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Amlaíb Conung (died 870s) (Old Norse: Óláfr) was a Norse or Norse-Gael leader in Ireland and Scotland in the years after 850. Together with his brothers Ímar and Óisle he appears frequently in the Irish annals.

Amlaíb has often been seen as the same person as Olaf the White of the Landnámabók and other Icelandic sagas. The Irish annals, and the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, are much older than these, and in some respects are source materials for the Icelanders. These say little about Amlaíb's kin, and what they do say contradicts the Icelandic accounts.

Contents

[edit] Background

The Annals of Ulster report the arrival of Amlaíb in Ireland in 853:

Amlaíb, son of the king of Lochlann [Laithlinde], came to Ireland, and the foreigners of Ireland submitted to him, and he took tribute from the Irish.[1]

The Fragmentary Annals expand on this:

Also in this year, i.e. the sixth year of the reign of Máel Sechlainn [that is Máel Sechnaill mac Maíl Ruanaid], Amlaíb Conung, son of the king of Lochlann, came to Ireland, and he brought with him a proclamation of many tributes and taxes from his father, and he departed suddenly. Then his younger brother Ímar came after him to levy the same tribute.[2]

Lochlann, originally Laithlinn or Lothlend, the land where Amlaíb's father Gofraid, or Guðrøðr, was a king is often identified with Norway, but it is not universally accepted that it had such a meaning in early times.[3] Several historians have proposed instead that in early times, and certainly as late as the battle of Clontarf in 1014, Laithlinn refers to the Norse and Norse-Gael lands in the Hebrides the Isle of Man, the Northern Isles and parts of mainland Scotland.[4] By the twelfth century, when Magnus Barefoot undertook his expedition to the West, it had come to mean Norway.[5]

[edit] Chronology

Amlaíb returned to Ireland by 856 when he and Ímar are presumed to have aided Máel Sechnaill. "Great warfare between the heathens and Mael Sechnaill, supported by Norse-Irish" is reported by the Annals of Ulster.[6] In 857 Amlaíb and Ímar "inflicted a rout on Caitill the Fair and his Norse-Irish in the lands of Munster.[7]" Although there is no certain evidence to suggest that this Caitill is the same person as the Ketil Flatnose of later sagas, it has been suggested that they are the same person.[8]

By 859 Amlaíb and Ímar were aiding Cerball mac Dúnlainge, King of Osraige, against Máel Sechnaill, plundering in Meath. They may also have joined with Áed Finnliath, who succeeded Máel Sechnaill as High King of Ireland, in raiding Meath again in 862, by which time Amlaíb was married to a daughter of Áed. In 864, Conchobar mac Donnchado, the King of Mide, was put to death by drowning on Amlaíb's orders.

Amlaíb and his brother Óisle "went with the foreigners of Ireland and Scotland to Fortriu, plundered the entire Pictish country and took away hostages from them" in either 864 or 866. The Chronicle of the Kings of Alba appears to say that they overwintered in Scotland.[9] Áed Finnliath, at about this time, was engaged in destroying Viking "longphorts", or encampments, along the north coasts of Ireland, a campaign that may have been made easier by the absence of Amlaíb and Óisle's army, then in eastern Scotland. A family dispute resulted in Óisle's death in 867, apparently killed by Amlaíb, and this may have encouraged Cennétig mac Gaíthéne, king of the Loígis of modern County Laois, to destroy a longphort at Clondalkin that year, and then to raid Dublin itself.[10]

Dumbarton Rock, Alt Cluath, captured by Amlaíb and Ímar after a four-month siege in 870.
Enlarge
Dumbarton Rock, Alt Cluath, captured by Amlaíb and Ímar after a four-month siege in 870.

In 870, Amlaíb returned to Scotland with Ímar and a force of 200 ships laid siege to Dumbarton Rock, chief fortress of the Britons of Strathclyde. They captured it after a seige of four months, returning to Dublin in 871 and "brought with them in captivity a great prey of Angles, Britons and Picts.[11] A siege of this duration was exceptional, and the captives may have included the king of Alt Clut, Artgal, who was "slain by the counsel of Causantín mac Cináeda.[12]"

In the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, it is said that Amlaíb returned to Lochlann to aid his father in a war in 871.[13] With this, he disappears from the Irish annals. The Chroniclesof the Kings of Alba probably records his death at the hands of his former ally and subject Causantín mac Cináeda, king of the Picts, in about 874.[14]

[edit] Marriages and children

Olaf the White was said to have been married to Aud the Deep-Minded, daughter of Ketil Flatnose, a son, Thorstein the Red, being born of the marriage. Thorstein and Aud do not appear in Irish sources.[15]

Amlaíb Conung is said in the Fragmentary Annals to have been a son-in-law of Áed Finnliath mac Néill. Elsewhere the Fragmentary Annals, when reporting the death of Óisle, refer to "the daughter of Cináed" as Amlaíb's wife. It is suggested that the reference to Áed is mistaken, and that Amlaíb's wife was a daughter of Cináed mac Conaing, who had been drowned by Máel Sechnaill in 851.[16]

A number of sons of Amlaíb are known. Of these, Carlus was killed at the battle of Cell ua nDaigri in 868, fighting alongside his mother's brother Flann mac Conaing.[17] Oistin was killed in 875 "by Halfdan, by stratagem.[18]"

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Annals of Ulster, s.a. 853.
  2. ^ Fragmentary Annals, § 239; Anderson, ESSH, pp. 281–284. Ó Corráin, p. 7, dates this to 852–853.
  3. ^ Ó Corráin, pp. 9 ff.
  4. ^ Ó Corráin, pp. 14–21; Cambridge History of Scandinavia, p. 204.
  5. ^ Ó Corráin, pp. 22–24.
  6. ^ Annals of Ulster, s.a. 856; Ó Corráin, p. 29.
  7. ^ Annals of Ulster, s.a. 857.
  8. ^ Anderson, ESSH, p. 286, note 1; Crawford, p. 47.
  9. ^ Anderson, ESSH, pp. 292, 296–297 & 353–353.
  10. ^ Ó Corráin, pp. 32–33.
  11. ^ Anderson, ESSH, pp. 301–303.
  12. ^ Anderson, ESSH, p. 304.
  13. ^ Anderson, ESSH, pp. 303–304.
  14. ^ Anderson, ESSH, pp. 352–353; Ó Corráin, pp. 34–35.
  15. ^ For a statement of the evidence, accepting that Olaf and Amlaíb are one and the same, see Crawford, pp. 57–58 & 192.
  16. ^ Anderson, ESSH, pp. 305–312.
  17. ^ Recorded in the Annals of the Four Masters, 866.9.
  18. ^ Anderson, ESSH, p. 350–352; Halfdan was killed in 877, probably by Oistin's foster-father Barid.

[edit] References

  • Anderson, Alan Orr, Early Sources of Scottish History A.D 500–1286, volume 1. Reprinted with corrections. Paul Watkins, Stamford, 1990. ISBN 1-871615-03-8
  • Byrne, Francis J., Irish Kings and High-Kings. B.T. Batsford, London, 1973. ISBN 0-7134-5882-8
  • Crawford, Barbara, Scandinavian Scotland. Leicester University Press, Leicester, 1987. ISBN 0-7185-1282-0
  • Helle, Knut (ed.), The Cambridge History of Scandinavia. Volume 1: Prehistory to 1520. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. ISBN 0-521-47299-7
  • Ó Corrain, Donnchad, "The Vikings in Scotland and Ireland in the Ninth Century", Peritia, vol 12, pp296–339. (etext (pdf)

[edit] External links

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