Harald Harfagre (Harald Fine Hair) and Ingimund

A significant movement as far as the North West of England was concerned was the great migration of people out of Norway. The start of this exodus was believed to be 890 A.D. when Norway - previously a collection of little mini-kingdoms, became united under one king after a battle known as the Battle of Hafrsfjord or Havsfjord in the south west of Norway. (If you look on a map of Norway it is near Stavanger).

The new Norwegian warrior-king was Harald Harfagre (Norwegian meaning "fine-hair" or "beautiful-hair") so named because he was supposed to have had the most beautiful head of fair hair anyone had seen!  Despite this he was quite ruthless and many of the people in the western fjords and north of Norway chose to leave Norway and the large fjords such as the Sognefjord, Hardanger and Trondheim fjords. One of the chiefs who left one of these areas was a certain Ingimund: we'll be hearing more about him later.

These Norwegian Vikings, who we call Norsemen, and their families poured out of Norway heading to the Northern and western isles of Scotland and the Faroe Islands: many then headed further west, onto Iceland, Greenland and some even made it further and discovered America - four centuries before Christopher Columbus.  Many though headed downwards towards the Irish Sea, some settling in the Isle of Man and others settled in very large numbers in Dublin, Ireland which became a Viking controlled area.

However, in the year 902 A.D. the Irish drove them out.  Ancient Irish and Welsh chronicles tell of how the Norsemen left Ireland under their leader Ingimund, travelling straight across the Irish Sea (much the same route as the current Dublin-Holyhead ferry) and landed in Anglesey. This was only a short respite as they were then driven from there too by the king of the Welsh. The weary refugees then made a representation to the queen of the English, Queen Aethelflead, daughter of Alfred the Great, and the Chronicles tell of how they were granted land to settle in Wirral so long as they stayed there and kept away from Chester.

So in the year 902 AD Wirral became awash with Norse refugees, a movement which the historians called a mass migration. The Irish Chronicle reports the expelled masses of Norsemen only going to Wirral, although place-name evidence tells us they subsequently settled in other areas along the north west coast of England, particularly the Lake District.

Having established a safe "Norseland" they were joined by more and more of their countrymen, coming from the Isle of Man, western Scottish Isles and even direct from their motherland Norway: Norsemen who chose to live as freemen in Ingimund's land rather than under the oppressive rule of the tough man Harfagre.

This movement may have continued until well into the next century and we will see later what the consequence of this was for Wirral and its surrounding hinterland.

 

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