CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN ( 3 )

THE ISLE OF MAN

David M. Wilson

I

n the early tenth century the name of the Island is inscribed in Old Norse (maun) on a
cross at Kirk Michael; but written sources for the history of the Viking Age in the Isle
of Man are mostly brief, tenuous, sometimes corrupt and difficult to use. English,
Welsh, Irish and Scandinavian sources mention the Island, but no coherent story can be
built up from them. Only snippets of history survive, such as the record of Edgar, King
of England, being rowed in 974 on the Dee by eight sub-kings, including, ‘Maccus
[Magnús], king of many islands’. Magnús is assumed to have been king of Man (the
‘many islands’ referring to Man and the southern Hebrides). But there is no other record
of him, although the suggestion that he was paying homage to an English king is highly
relevant to the turbulent politics of the Irish Sea at this period.
The most important evidence for this period is provided by archaeology – par-
ticularly fortifications, graves, stone sculpture (with its associated epigraphy) and
hoards. The Scandinavians appeared in the Irish Sea towards the end of the eighth
century, and it is inconceivable that the raiders would have overlooked Man on their way
from Norway. Of this, however, there is no evidence, and it is doubtful whether there
was sufficient wealth to interest them on Man; but (initially at least) slaves could have
been taken and ships provisioned. Further, it is possible that, after the establishment of
the first Norse bases in Ireland in the mid-ninth century, Man became a place of interest
for the Irish Vikings.
This earliest evidence for a Viking presence (and presumably settlement) in the Island
is provided by twenty-four pagan, or semi-pagan, Norse burial sites, which start to
appear at the beginning of the last quarter of the ninth century. All are inhumation
burials, either in mounds or flat burials, sometimes in pre-existing Christian cemeteries.
Two burials may be alluded to: a male grave from Balladoole and a female grave from
Peel. At Balladoole an oak boat ( 11 m in length) set within a stone mound overlay a
number of cist burials from a pre-existing Christian cemetery (Figure 27. 3. 1 ). The
burial was of a male, but remains of an associated female skeleton may merely represent
the disturbed remains of an earlier burial, although conceivably it was a double burial
(in another grave on Man, at Ballateare, a sacrificed woman possibly provides a
significant parallel). The grave goods are either of Irish-Sea type (shield-mounts, a ring-
headed pin and bridle-mounts), of Carolingian or Anglo-Saxon origin (stirrups and