Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

Principality of the IJles. 235
dreadful effe6\s of his barbarous power, and there-
fore courted his friendihip with a multitude of pre-
sents. He obhged the Scots of Galloway to fur-
nilli him with timber, at their own cxpence, for
the ufe of his bulwarks. He lent his llioes to
Murcard^ King of Ireland, and commanded him
in the moll peremptory manner, under the pain of
his difpleafure, to carry them on his fhoulders, iii
the prefence of his ambafladors, on the anniverfary
of Chrift's nativity. The Iriih nobility received
this infolent melTage with becoming fentim.ents of
difdain and indignation : but Murcard was too
wife to provoke the refentment of a conqueror
whofe power was equal to his pride, and told his
friends that he would eat the fhoes of the Norwe-
gian monarch, rather than fee any one province in
Ireland deflroyed. Accordingly he paid homage
in the difhonourable way prefer! bed by the haughty
Magnus, entertained his ambalTadors with a royal
magnificence, and difmilFed them with the higheft
exprefjlons of refped for their mafter.
It does not appear from any authentic record,
that Magnus came near the Eaftern coaft of Britain
in either of its divifions. His troops could not
therefore have been of great ufe to Donald Bane^
had any one of his nephews difputed the crov/n of
Scotland with him : and indeed it appears to me
more probable that Donald, upon the demife of his
brother, poflefTed himfelf of the throne by virtue
of the old Taniflry right, or that, according to
fome Englifh hiftorians, he was eleded king,
than that he owed his crown to the aid of a foreign
ally.
Donald's