Note 72 — CHAPTER THE THIRD. CONSTANTINE THE SECOND—A. D. 900-943.

At this time there were two prominent characters amongst the descendants of Ivar of the name of Anlaf or Olave, who have frequently been confounded. Olave, the son of Sitric, known in the Sagas under the name of Olave the Red—the an t sainnr of the A. F. M. 978—sometimes as Olave Cuaran (for his son Sitric, who fought at Clontarf is called Olave Quaran’s son in the Niala Saga, Antiq. Celt.-Scand., p. 108), became the head of his family upon the death of his uncle Godfrey, and to him the Sagas invariably attribute the supreme rule over the Norsemen at Brunanburgh and elsewhere. Upon the death of Athelstan, the whole of England north of Watling Street was ceded to “Olave of Ireland,” and for four years Olave Sitricson retained his hold upon the conquered districts, until the successes of Edmund drove him across the channel to Ireland. He frequently appears in English history subsequently as the opponent of Eric of the Bloody Axe and the Anglo-Saxon monarchs; but his name does not occur in the Irish annals before he was driven from Northumbria in 944; and about eight years later, relinquishing all hopes of obtaining his father’s English kingdom, he established himself permanently in Dublin, ruling the Irish Norsemen for nearly thirty years, and bequeathing his dominion to his descendants. Olave, the son of Godfrey, succeeded his father in Dublin in 934, crossed the sea in the autumn of 937, and joining in the battle of Brunanburgh, reappeared in Ireland in the following year. He again appeared in England when Olave of Ireland was chosen by the Northumbrian Danes for their king, and shared the supremacy with his kinsman until his death at Tyningham in 941. Guthferd or Godfrey, the son of Hardacanute, a personage whose existence is somewhat doubtful, but who is supposed to have succeeded Halfdan, is often confounded with either Godfrey mac Ivar or Godfrey hy Ivar. The Irish annals, sagas, and Simeon, are my authorities for this sketch.