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

242 Hifiory of the Norwegian
fcarce any reipite from their incurfions : this cir-
cumftance muft have greatly fvvelled the idea of
their numbers in the minds of thofe who were fo
cruelly harafled by them ; and as they made a
conqueft of fome countries, the writers in the in-
tereft of the old natives, to fave their credit in
fome meafure, would perhaps have afcribed thofe
conquefts to tlie numbers of the enemy, rather
than to their fuperior bravery.
To leave this digrefnon, for the hiftory of the
dynafty of Man. Olave, King of the iflcs, after
a long and peaceable reign, was treacheroufly flain
by his ov/n nephews : he wasfucceeded by his fon,
Godred^ wl.om he had by the daughter o^ Fergus,
Earl of Galloway, the mod powerful fubjedl in
Scotland at that time.
GO D RED had failed to Norway before his
father's death, and did homage to King Hinge. In
his abfence the three fons of his uncle Harold
feized on his dominions, and divided them among
themfelves. But the ufurping aflallins foon met
with the fate their crimes defer ved. Godred re-
turning from Norway, afTerted his title to the
kingdom of Man, caufed one of the fons of Ha-
rold to be executed, and agreeably to the inhu-
man cuftom of thofe barbarous times, put out
the eyes of the other two *.
Soon after Go<^r^^ had recovered the inheri-
tance of his anceflors, the Eallerlings of Dublin
invited him over into Ireland, and made him their
King. Elated beyond meafure by this great ac-
ceflion of power, he began to rule tyrannically in
his own dominions, and regardlefs of juftice and
Chron Man ad ann. 1143.
the