Everything about Amla B Conung totally explained
Amlaíb Conung (died 870s) was a
Norse or
Norse-Gael leader in
Ireland and
Scotland in the years after 850. Together with his brothers
Ímar and
Auisle 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.
Background
The
Annals of Ulster report the arrival of Amlaíb in Ireland in 853: The Fragmentary Annals expand on this:
Lochlann, originally Laithlinn or Lothlend, the land where Amlaíb's father Gofraid, or Guðrøðr, was a king is often identified with
Norway, but it isn't universally accepted that it had such a meaning in early times. 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. Whatever the original sense, by the twelfth century, when
Magnus Barefoot undertook his expedition to the West, it had come to mean Norway.
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. In 857 Amlaíb and Ímar "inflicted a rout on
Caitill the Fair and his Norse-Irish in the lands of Munster." Although there's 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're the same person.
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 Auisle "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. 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 Auisle's army, then in eastern Scotland. A family dispute resulted in Auisle'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.
In 870, Amlaíb returned to Scotland with Ímar and laid siege to
Dumbarton Rock, chief fortress of the Britons of
Strathclyde. They captured it after a siege of four months, returning to Dublin in 871 with 200 ships and they "brought with them in captivity a great prey of Angles, Britons and Picts. A siege of this duration was exceptional, and the captives may have included the king of Alt Clut,
Artgal, who according to the Annals of Ulster the next year was "slain by the counsel of
Causantín mac Cináeda", or Constantine I, probably meaning that Constantine refused to pay ransom for the captured king of Strathclyde. These informative entries in the Annals of Ulster help to understand the short reference in the Chronicle of the Kings of Scotland, version A, which says that Amlaíb returned "at the head of 100 [ships?], [andwas] killed by Constantine". According to the Annals of Ulster it was Artgal who was killed by Constantine."
In the Fragmentary Annals of Ireland, it's said that Amlaíb returned to Lochlann to aid his father in a war in 871. With this, he disappears from the Irish annals.
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 don't appear in Irish sources.
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. An alternative suggestion is that the Cináed in question is Cináed mac Ailpín (known in English as
Kenneth MacAlpin, which would have made Amlaíb a brother-in-law of his killer Constantine I, a son of Kenneth.
A number of sons of Amlaíb are known. Of these, Carlus was killed at the battle of Cell ua nDaigri in 868, fighting alongside Flann mac Conaing, brother and successor of Cináed, who is suggested to have been Amlaíb's father-in-law. Therefore it's likely that Carlus was fighting alongside his maternal relatives. Oistin was killed in 875 "by Halfdan, by stratagem."
Further Information
Get more info on 'Amla B Conung'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://amla__b_conung.totallyexplained.com">Amlaíb Conung Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
