The onset was not long delayed.  The Vikings under Sigurd and Brodar fought as only Vikings could fight.  Like all battles of that period it resolved itself chiefly into a succession of single combats, which raged all over the field, extending, it is said, for over two miles along the strand.  The Danish women, and the men left to guard the town, crowded the roofs, remaining all day to watch the fight.  Sigurd of Orkney was killed in single combat by Thorlogh, the son of Morrogh, and grandson of Brian; Armud and several of the other Vikings fell by the hand of Morrogh, but in the end the father and son were both slain, although the latter survived long enough to witness the triumph of his own side.

Late in the afternoon the Northmen broke and fled; some to their ships, some into the town, some into the open country beyond.  Amongst the latter Brodar, the Viking, made for the great woods, and in so doing passed close to where the tent of the king had been fixed.  The attendants left to guard Brian had by this time one by one slipped away to join the fight, and the old man was almost alone, and kneeling, it is said, at the moment on a rug in the front of his tent.  The sun was low, but the slanting beams fell upon his bent head and long white beard.  One of Brodar’s followers perceived him and pointed him out to his leader, saying that it was the king.  “King, that is no king, that is a monk, a shaveling!” retorted the Viking.  “It is not, it is Brian himself,” was the answer.

Then Brodar caught his axe and rushed upon Brian.  Taken unawares the king nevertheless rallied his strength which in his day had been greater than that of any man of his time, and still only half risen from his knees he smote the Viking a blow across the legs with his sword.  The other thereupon lifted his battle-axe, and smote the king upon his head, cleaving it down to the chin, then fled to the woods, but was caught the next day and hacked into pieces by some of the infuriated Irish.

So fell Brian in the very moment of victory, and when the combined league of all his foes had fallen before him.  When the news reached Armagh, the bishop and his clergy came south as far as Swords, in Meath, where they met the corpse of the king and carried it back to Armagh, where he was buried, say the annalists, “in a new tomb” with much weeping and lamentation.

[Illustration:  CORMAC’S CHAPEL AND ROUND TOWER, ROCK OF CASHEL.]

IX.

FROM BRIAN TO STRONGBOW.

Whatever lamentations were uttered on this occasion were certainly not uncalled for, for a greater disaster has rarely befallen any country or people.  Were proof wanted—­which it hardly is—­of that notorious ill-luck which has dogged the history of Ireland from the very beginning, it would be difficult to find a better one than the result of this same famous battle of Clontarf.  Here was a really great