The turning point for Norse rule in the British Isles came in 1014 at the Battle of Clontarf in which Brian Boru, King of Munster and High King of Ireland, defeated the Vikings whose influence in Ireland diminished thereafter. Norse continued to be spoken in Dublin until the coming of the Anglo Normans in 1170.
In Scotland, Haakon's defeat at the Battle of Largs in 1263 led to the ceding of the Hebrides to the Scottish crown and in 1468-9 Orkney and Shetland were pledged (pawned) in lieu of a dowry of 58,000 florins of the Rhine on the marriage of Danish Princess Margaret to James III, King of Scots.
By that time Scots influence was already growing in Orkney and Shetland but much that was Norse was to remain. The Udal system of law is still extant, the local style of boat is characteristically Norwegian in design and even many of the local ferries are based on Norwegian rather than Scottish concepts.
The old Norn language succumbed first in the Hebrides (where Gaelic regained ascendancy), then Caithness and it finally died out in Orkney and Shetland by the end of the 17th Century. Yet, even in this modern time, the Scots dialects of Orkney and Shetland contain hundreds of Norse words in daily usage and thousands of place names in the northern and western Highlands and Islands speak to us quite clearly in good strong Norse. |