Iona, from its exposed situation, suffered more than any other place. In 802 the Norsemen landed and burned a great part of the establishment. In 806 they returned with a larger force, and seemed determined to destroy it completely. Everything on which they could lay their hands was seized; sixty-eight of the inmates were killed, and the rest, hastily embarking in their coracles, and bringing with them whatever valuables they could collect, escaped to Ireland, made their way to the monastery of the same order at Kells, and there built a church and erected 'as it were a new Iona.'
As the years went by they arrived in greater numbers. They even ventured inland, and met the native Irish in pitched battles. But till stheir tactics were the same. Churches and monasteries were the prey for which they sought, until in the end there was not a religious establishment of importance in Ireland which had not suffered more or less at their hands.
It is not an unnatural mistake that many historians, both ancient and modern, have made in supposing that these expeditions of the Danes had a religious character, and that their deliberate aim was to destroy the Christian faith, and set up in its stead the worship of the Scandinavian deities. Among the stories about Turgesius is one, that at Armagh and Clonmacnois he actually used the Christian churches for the celebration of heathen rites, and that in the latter place his wife officiated as priestess. That such ideas should have been entertained at the time and have passed at once into history is not a subject of wonder; and yet any one who considers the question will see that this view of the case is most improbable, particularly when another and much simpler explanation is forth-
