Note 503 — Chapter VII · THE KINGDOM OF ALBAN.

This was Anlaf Cuaran, son of Sitriuc and son-in-law of Constantin. Mr. Robertson, in a note to his Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. i. p. 56, remarks on this account of Olaf’s descent, ‘that the name of the father of Sitric and his brothers is never mentioned by the Irish annalists, who invariably call them Hy Ivar, or grandsons of Ivar;’ and adds, ‘If one of these Vikings, a Scottish lord of the Gall-Gaidhel or Oirir Gaidhel, had married Ivar’s daughter, the description in the Egills Saga would exactly apply to himself, his wife, and his sons, and it would be only necessary to suppose that the writer of the saga, aware of Olave’s descent from a Scottish Viking, and a granddaughter of Ragnar Lodbroc, made him by mistake the son instead of the grandson of the Scot.’ The Tract on the Wars of the Gaidhil with the Gaill calls Sitriuc, however, Mac Imair, or son of Ivar, but there is no improbability in supposing one of the Gall Gaidhel to have married a daughter of Inguar or Imhair, and his sons to have been adopted and naturalised as Danish vikings. Anlaf being called by Florence of Worcester lord of many islands rather favours the supposition.