In 872, Arthgal ap Dynfwal was killed at the instigation of
the king of the Scots [42]
The Norse took York in 876. They had sacked Carlisle in 875,
but Bailey feels it was a short lived affair and that it was around a quarter century
before they began to settle in Cumberland and Westmorland [43]. Bailey also notes a flight of English nobles
to the east from Cumberland, fleeing from ?Norse "pirates". Bailey
sketches the different routes of the Norse settlers - those who had spent time
among the Gaels in Ireland and Man, those Danes who had come up the Eden Valley
from Yorkshire and some who had come directly from Norway. There is some
evidence that Westmorland had a Norse lord by 974.
Fellows-Jensen notes that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says
that the Danes anchored in the Tyne raided agaisnt the Picts and against the
Strathclyde Britons. She suggests they must have come across Cumberland and
Dumfriesshire, but says there is no historical evidence of them settling at
that time [44]. She also says, looking at
the modern county of Cumbria that Scandinavian place-names are particularly
dense in the valleys of the Kent and Eden and along the coastal plain.
The Norse were expelled from Dublin by the Irish in 902 [45] . They were led by Ragnall
and for the next twelve years campaigned over Northumbria, Strathclyde and
Scotland [45] At some point they began to
settle on the west coast of Britain. The Welsh annals note Norsemen arriving in
Anglesey, being driven out by the Welsh then settling around Chester. At this
period we have two brief notes of Englishmen fleeing from pirates from the west
coast over to the eastern part of Northumbria. These pirates were
Norsemen who had been Gaelicised while in Ireland, or had Gaels with them, as
shown in place and personal names from that period. Whithorn was abandoned as
an episcopal see between 894 and 910 according to Woolf [8], possibly related to this
influx of Norse-Gaels. Woolf wonders whether the Isle of Man acted as a centre
for the Norse-Irish settlement and activity on the coasts of Lancashire,
Cumberland, Dumfries and Galloway. He also notes that prior to this, Man had
been British and possibly at that time ruled from Gwynedd.
Woolf says that the previously Northumbrian land west of the
Pennines was in the hands of the Norse from the early 914. Ragnall, the Norse
ruler, conquered the eastern part of Northumbria and York. In 920 a treaty was
signed between Edward, King of England, Ragnall, the Norse ruler of
Northumbria, the King of the Scots and the King of the Strathclyde Welsh.
By 927, however, the English had reconquered Northumbria and
they met at Eamont Bridge (the boundary between Cumberland and Westmorland and
known as Pund Eamont - the river name is English but the "Pund" seems
to be the Cumbric pont "bridge".
Here were Hywel king of the Welsh, Owain
king of the Cumbrians as well as Constanin, king of the Scots. Another report says that Owain was from Gwent,
but Owain ap Dynfwal was king of the Cumbrians between in the 930s Woolf says it is possible that Owain of Gwent
and Owain of the Cumbrians were both present and later scribes thought it was a
duplication and erased one [8].
Higham suggests that the Britons of Strathclyde (or Cumbria)
turned from a position of war with the Norse, to one of alliance. Athelstan campaigned against the Scots in 934
and in 937 there was the famous battle of Brunanburh with the Norse, Britons
and Scots on one side and the Northumbrian English on the other [45] . The English were
victorious. The English campaigns against Cumbria in 945 and then again in 1000, arose, argues Higham and others,
because of the policy of the Cumbrians to ally themselves with the Norse. By the time the Normans take Carlisle in 1092,
there is no Norse kingdom or power and there is no real trace of one in the
10th Century. However, Scandinavian place-names outnumber all others in
Westmorland and most of Cumberland and are plentiful in eastern Dumfriesshire.
The nomenclature of the Lake District is overwhelmingly Norse, though there are
traces of British names and Cumbric terms such as mell (Welsh moel), latter (Welsh llethr), pen (Welsh pen)
being taken into the Scandinavianised English dialect. This settlement seems to have happened over a period of 100 to 120 years only.
Higham argues that the dates of the primary settlements of the Norse are
between 900-950 [45]
It has been argued that Eamont Bridge for the meeting place
of the kings in 927 was chosen because it was the southern
boundary of the Cumbrian kings. In local folklore, the of the meeting was at Dacre Castle (apparently there is a room still haunted by the kings there). Dacre
had been a Northumbrian monastery (though its name is Brittonic). Dacre is
around five miles west of Eamont Bridge.
The Norse colonisation of Cumbria south of the Solway seems to have
been intense, in view of the place name evidence it left, but brief - from
around 902 to 945 [46].
