bore King Brian and the respect they
cherished for his wise laws. Well, Mailmora, the king of Leinster, had
quarrelled with him, and joined forces with the Danish leaders against
him. Broder and Amlaff, two Vikings from the Isle of Man, brought with
them a 'fleet of two thousand Denmarkians and a thousand men covered
with mail from head to foot,' to meet the Irish, who always fought in
tunics. Joyce says that Broder wore a coat of mail that no steel would
bite, that he was both tall and strong, and that his black locks were
so long that he tucked them under his belt,--there's a portrait for your
gallery, Penelope. Brian's army was encamped on the Green of Aha-Clee,
which is now Phoenix Park, and when he set fire to the Danish districts,
the fierce Norsemen within the city could see a blazing, smoking pathway
that reached from Dublin to Howth. The quarrel must have been all the
more virulent in that Mailmora was Brian's brother-in-law, and Brian's
daughter was the wife of Sitric of the Silken Beard, Danish king of
Dublin."

"I refuse to remember their relationships or alliances," said Francesca.
"They were always intermarrying with their foes in order to gain
strength, but it generally seems to have made things worse rather
than better; still I don't mind hearing what became of Brian after his
victory; let us quite finish with him before the eggs come up. I suppose
it will be eggs?"

"Broder the Viking rushed upon him in his tent where he was praying,
cleft his head from his body, and he is buried in Armagh Cathedral,"
said Salemina, closing the book. "Penelope, do ring again for breakfast,
and just to keep us from realising our hunger read 'Remember the Glories
of Brian the Brave.'"

We had brought letters of introduction to a dean, a bishop, and a Rt.
Hon. Lord Justice, so there were a few delightful invitations when the
morning post came up; not so many as there might have been, perhaps,
had not the Irish capital been in a state of complete dementia over the
presence of the greatest Queen in the world. [*] Privately, I think that
those nations in the habit of having kings and queens at all should have
four, like those in a pack of cards; then they could manage to give all
their colonies and dependencies a frequent sight of royalty, and prevent
much excitement and heart-burning.

* Penelope's experiences in Scotland, given in a former
volume, ended, the meticulous proof-reader will remember,
with