Note (return) — Chapter XI

Worshipping, as the Vikings did, amongst others, the "fair white god Baldr of golden beauty," and accounting as base-born "hellskins" those of darker hue, it seems strange that they should so soon have taken to themselves Celtic wives. But we have seen that they came by sea and that no Norse women were allowed in Viking ships,4 and thus it was Celtic mothers alone that perpetuated the race. They also taught the children the Gaelic tongue, and, on the mainland in all Sutherland and Caithness save the north-eastern portions of the latter, Gaelic soon became again the only spoken language.