c of Irish life; airs and words, wedded closely together,
travelling down from mouth to mouth for countless generations. Every
little valley and district may be said to have had its own traditional
melodies, and the tunes with which Moore sixty years ago was delighting
critical audiences had been floating unheeded and disregarded about the
country for centuries.

The last ten years of the eighth century were very bad ones for Ireland.
Then for the first time the black Viking ships were to be seen sweeping
shore-wards over the low grey waves of the Irish Channel, laden with
Picts, Danes, and Norsemen, "people," says an old historian, "from their
very cradles dissentious, Land Leapers, merciless, soure, and hardie."
They descended upon Ireland like locusts, and where-ever they came ruin,
misery, and disaster followed.

[Illustration: KILBANNON TOWER. _(From a drawing by George. Petrie,
LL.D.)_]

Their first descent appears to have been upon an island, probably that
of Lambay, near the mouth of what is now Dublin harbour. Returning a few
years later, sixty of their ships, according to the Irish annalists,
entered the Boyne, and sixty more the Liffy. These last were under the
command of a leader who figures in the annals as Turgesius, whose
identity has never been made very clear, but who appears to be the same
person known to Norwegian historians as Thorkels or Thorgist.

Whatever his name he was undoubtedly a bad scourge to Ireland. Landing
in Ulster, he burned the cathedral of Armagh, drove out St. Patrick's
successors, slaughtered the monks, took possession of the whole east
coast, and marching into the centre of the island, established himself
in a strong position near Athlone.

Beyond all other Land Leapers, this Thorgist, or Turgesius, seems to
have hated the churches. Not content with burning them, and killing all
priests and monks he could find, his wife, we are told, took possession
of the High Altar at Clonmacnois, and used it as a throne from which to
give audience, or to utter prophecies and incantations. He also exacted
a tribute of "nose money," which if not paid entailed the forfeit of the
feature it was called after. At last three or four of the tribes united
by despair rose against him, and he was seized and slain; an event about
which several versions are given, but the most authentic seems to be
that he was taken by stratagem and drowned in Lough Owel, near
Mullingar, in or about the year 845.

He