< Page:Royalnavyhistory01clow.djvu
This page has been validated.
( 55 )

CHAPTER III.

VOYAGES AND DISCOVERIES TO 1066.

H. W. Wilson.

Pre-Roman voyages of the Britons—Early ships—Agricola's voyages—Intercourse with Ireland—With the continent—The Saxons—Irish voyages—Evidence—Cormac MacArt—Niall—Irish ships—Two kinds of voyages—The mythical—The religious—To the Orkneys—To Iceland—Irish discovery of America—Evidence of Sagas—Ireland the Great—Story of Bjorn Asbrandsson—Testimony of Edisius—Were the Mexicans Irish?—Offa and his ships—Athelstan—The Vikings—Othere—Wulfstan voyages to the Baltic—The Norsemen on the British coast—The Orkneymen—Their manner of fighting—Ravages of the Norsemen—The Manxmen.

THE history of British voyages and discoveries must of necessity begin with Cæsar. The stories of Brutus' or Brute's sailing to Albion in the days of Æneas, with the attendant fables, may be dismissed as the figment of some ingenious monk's brain. They appear to have had little basis in legend and none in history. The visit of Pytheas of Marseilles to the British Isles in the fourth century B.C., and the casual mention of the Phœnician tin trade with the Cassiterides—which may or may not be some part of England—are the only references to our history in these dark ages. The indirect evidence of British seafaring in these times is, however, considerable. A cork plug, discovered in a canoe of very early date disinterred from the silt at Glasgow,[1] points to intercourse with Spain; Italian earthenware has been discovered in Lanarkshire; the red amber, so largely found in early barrows, indicates a trade with the Baltic countries;[2] whilst torques of gold and strings of bright-coloured glass beads, which cannot have been made in the island, are equally good evidence of commerce with the Phœnicians and the land of the south.[3] Strabo alludes to the fact that the Romans imposed customs duties upon the British imports from Celtica, which consisted of ivory, bracelets, amber, and glass.[4]

It is not quite certain that the Britons of this date voyaged

  1. ↑ Elton, 'Origins of Eng. Hist.,' 2nd ed. 231; Burton, 'Hist. Scotland,' i. 51.
  2. ↑ Ib., 63.
  3. ↑ Ib., 111.
  4. ↑ iv. 4, circ. 180 A.D.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.