Then
St. Peter (for the beggar was no other than he) passes his hands over
Barth, and gives him good luck, and sets a book upon his shoulders;
and he saw far and wide over many lands, and over all Ireland, and he
was baptized, and became a holy hermit and a bishop in Ireland. Such
is the Norse story of Barth, to whom the first Cathedral in Dornoch
was said to have been dedicated. It is far more prettily told in the
Saga.
But St. Barr of Dornoch, in all probability, belongs to the sixth
century,[34] not to the tenth, and was a Pict or Irishman, not a
Norseman. He was never Bishop of Caithness, so far as records tell.
His Fair, like those of other Pictish Saints elsewhere in Cat, is
still celebrated, and is held at Dornoch.
The battle of Clontarf, fought on Good Friday, the 23rd of April 1014,
outside Dublin, between the young heathen king of Dublin, Sigtrigg
Silkbeard, and the aged Christian king, Brian Borumha, was,
notwithstanding Norse representations to the contrary, a decisive
victory for the Irish over the Norse, and for Christianity against
Odinism. Sigurd, Jarl of Orkney, though nominally a Christian, fought
on the heathen side, and fell bearing his Raven banner, and the old
king, Brian, was killed in the hour of his people's victory.
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