In the footsteps of Ivarr the Boneless
Dumbarton, Dublin and death: AD 870-873
In AD 870, Ivarr's brothers sued for peace in England. Ivarr went to
Scotland and waged war.
The siege of Dunbarton Rock
In this venture, he was joined by Olaf the White, his co-ruler in
Dublin. This was not the first time that Olaf had been in Scotland. He
had brought a raiding army to plunder it in 866.
Olaf was married to Aud 'The Deep-minded', whose family controlled the Hebrides, and it seems likely that many Hebridean Vikings joined his army. For three years, they wreaked havoc, plundering and extorting money from both Picts and Britons. In 869, these victims of Norse rapacity must have breathed a sigh of relief when Olaf returned to Dublin to curb Irish attacks there. However, he returned to Scotland the following year.
It was a two-pronged attack, Olaf sailing up the Firth of Clyde with a large fleet and Ivarr heading north-west from York. They met at Dumbarton Rock – Dun Breatann, 'fortress of the Britons', also called Alcluith, 'the Clyde rock' – the ancient capital of Strathclyde, which covered most of present-day south-west Scotland. The stronghold had, over the years, successfully resisted the attacks of Picts, Scots, and Angles. However, according to the Annals of Ulster, Ivarr and Olaf 'besieged, razed and pillaged' it.
Booty and slaves
The garrison held out for four months but was compelled to surrender
when the well on the rock dried up – 'miraculously', according to
one ancient record, or by the Norsemen 'wonderfully' drawing off the water,
according to another. The citadel was destroyed. The invaders remained
in Strathclyde for the winter, then sailed back to Dublin. It took a fleet
of some 200 ships to carry off the booty and slaves (bound for sale in
North Africa and the Middle East).
Artgal, the king of Strathclyde, was taken prisoner and transported to Dublin. Ransom demands were sent to his son Rhun, who was married to the sister of Constantine, ruler of the neighbouring (and much larger) kingdom of Alba. Rhun was very ambitious and turned to his father-in-law. Constantine sent diplomats with gifts to Dublin, requesting that Artgal be killed. Ivarr agreed to his request, the unfortunate prisoner was executed and Rhun became king. However, the capture of Dumbarton marked the downfall of the British dynasty in Strathclyde and its gradual absorption into the evolving Scottish kingdom.
Ivarr's death
In 871, Ivarr arrived back in Dublin, where he remained as 'king of
the Northmen of all Ireland and Britain' until his death in 873. Perhaps
unusually, he died peacefully – laden with riches, seemingly invincible
in battle and resolutely pagan. Winston Churchill says of Ivarr's end:
'Thus it may be that he had the best of both worlds.'
According to legend, Ivarr's body was brought back to England at his own request, and buried on the coast as a talisman to prevent further conquest of his kingdoms by foreigners. It served its purpose well until William the Conqueror supposedly had the body dug up and destroyed, making any examination of his remains impossible.
However, Professor Martin Biddle of Oxford University and his wife Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle believe that the skeleton of a nine-foot man discovered during excavations at Repton in Derbyshire is, in fact, that of Ivarr the Boneless. They have made a compelling case for this identification, which contradicts the theory that Ivarr suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta. But there are many who disagree with the Biddles' identification.
What happened next
Olaf the White left for Norway and his inheritance after the successful
capture of Dumbarton Rock. Ivarr's successor as ruler of Dublin was his
brother Halfdan, who then returned to England. There he achieved great
military success, seizing the kingdom of Mercia in 874. Wide-scale Viking
domination and settlement was now inevitable in the eastern Midlands and
in the north. By 876, the Danes were actively sharing out land in Northumbria.
This included all of present-day Yorkshire and Lancashire.
Who replaced Halfdan in Dublin is unknown, but he was not very successful. Dissent between different Viking clans gave the Irish their chance to regain Dublin in 902.
Ivarr lives?
But maybe Ivarr didn't actually die in 873, but met his end five years
later. The 14th-century chronicler of the Book of Hyde says that
Ivarr – whom he calls 'Hingwar' – drowned at Hungerford ('Hingwar's
Ford') in Berkshire when he was on his way to meet the Saxons in battle
at Ethandun, said to be nearby Eddington (although the site of the battle
is almost certainly Edington in Wiltshire). This was the last decisive
victory for the Saxons, when Alfred the Great drove the Danes out of southern
England for ever.
What you can see now
Dumbarton Rock
On the A82, about 12 miles north-west of Glasgow. Grid reference:
NS 3975.
South of the centre of the town of Dumbarton rises the 240-foot (73-metre), twin-peaked volcanic plug of Dumbarton Rock, bounded by the rivers Clyde and Leven. The Britons had a fortress here before the Romans left Britain, and it was still home to a military base as recently as World War II: a continuity of use lasting over 1,500 years.
The earliest reference is to St Patrick who wrote in AD 450 to complain to the king of Strathclyde about a raid by his followers on some of the Irish saint's converts. But the volcanic rock would have been a natural defensive location even before then. In those days, in addition to a defensive position, there would be settlements sheltering on the rock and below.
By 870, when Ivarr and Olaf began their siege, Dumbarton Rock was home to a tightly packed British settlement that served as both a fortress and the capital of Strathclyde. Buildings would have occupied every even vaguely flat space on the rock. However, over the years, all this was swept away by a succession of rulers, intent on building for their own needs and to reflect their own ambition. Today, the oldest part of the existing castle, the Portcullis Arch, dates from only the 14th century.
An excavation in 1975 discovered a vitrified rampart that may date from the Viking siege. In the debris were also found a sword pommel of a type similar to that used in western Ireland during that period and fragments of a glass bangle set in a lead matrix, similar to a type used by the Vikings.
Repton, South Derbyshire
8 miles south-west of Derby on the B5008 after the A50 junction.
Grid reference: SK3026.
Repton has an Anglo-Saxon cemetery containing a number of high-status burials, probably including members of the royal family and court of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia, of which Repton was the capital. The town also has Viking burials associated with its occupation by the Danish 'Great Army' in AD 873-4. Professor Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle excavated these burials.
St Wystan's church contains a unique Saxon crypt, one of the most important surviving pieces of Saxon architecture in England. Dating from about AD 750, it was the burial place of Mercian kings. It contains the tombs of Ethelbald (died 757), Wiglaf (died 840) and his grandson St Wystan who was brutally murdered. The crypt once belonged to a monastery, founded in about AD 653, which was sacked by the Danes. It lay in ruins for 200 years and was never rebuilt, but the crypt survived and the church was built over it.
Gokstad Viking Ship
Viking Ship Museum (Vikingskipsmuseet)
Huk Aveny 35
Bygdøy
Oslo
Norway
Tel: +47 22 43 83 79
E-mail: vikingskipshuset@iakn.uio.no
This was discovered in Norway in 1880, buried in a huge mound
of blue clay south-west of Oslo. The man who had been interred in
the ship about 1,000 years before is likely to have been Olaf the
White, Viking king and co-ruler of Dublin with Ivarr the Boneless.
Examination of the skeleton seems to confirm descriptions from written
sources of the time, of a huge man – about six foot four inches
tall, a monster for those times – who was hobbled with pain
from arthritic joints. A replica of the ship sailed across the Atlantic
in 1893.
Find out more
Undiscovered Scotland: Dumbarton Castle
www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/dumbarton/
dumbartoncastle/
Interesting article on the lengthy history of the castle. Photographs
of the present-day buildings.
Heath Wood, Ingleby, Derbyshire: Excavations, July 2000, Interim Report
www.york.ac.uk/depts/arch/staff/sites/ingleby/
Report of excavations at Ingleby, which is near Repton, which have
revealed the only known Viking cremation cemetery in Britain.
Vikings and the Danelaw, edited by James Graham-Campbell, Richard
Hall, Judith Jesch and David Parsons (Oxbow Books, 2001) £40
This is an extremely useful book, a comprehensive review of current scholarship
on the Viking settlement areas of England. Among the many articles contained
in it is Martin Biddle and Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle's 'Repton and
the "Great Heathen Army" 873-4', which describes the results of their
excavations at Repton some years ago. A good deal of it examines the mass
burial that the Biddles see as essentially that of the Viking war-dead
of 873-4.
