name of Vikings,
across the North Sea to the opposite coasts of Shetland, Orkney and
Cat, where they found oxen and sheep to slaughter on the nesses or
headlands, and stores of grain, and some silver and even gold in the
shrines and on the persons of those whom they attacked, and in
still later days they sought new lands over the sea and permanent
settlements, where they would have no scat to pay to any overlord or
feudal superior.

When the Vikings landed, superior discipline, instilled into them by
their training on board ship, superior arms, the long two-handed sword
and the spear and battle-axe and their deadly bows and arrows, and
superior defensive armour, the long shield, the helmet and chain-mail,
would make them more than a match for their adversaries.[12] Above
all, the greater ferocity of these Northmen, ruthlessly directed to
its object by brains of the highest order, would render the Pictish
farmer, who had wife and children, and home and cattle and crops to
save, an easy prey to the Viking warrior bands, and the security of
his broch would of itself tend to a passive and inactive, rather than
an offensive, and therefore successful defence.

After long continued raids, the Vikings no doubt saw that much of the
land along the shore was fair and fertile compared with their own, and
finally they came not merely to plunder and depart, but to settle and
stay. When they did so, they came in large numbers and with organised
forces[13] and carefully prepared plans of campaign, and with great
reserves of weapons on board their ships; and having the ocean as
their highway, they could select their points of attack. They then, as
we know from the localities which bear their place-names, cleared out
the Pict from most of his brochs and from the best land in Cat, shown
on the map by dark green colour, that is, from all cultivated land
below the 500 feet level save the upper parts of the valleys; or they
slew or enslaved the Pict who remained. Lastly, on settling, they
would seize his women-kind and wed them; for the women of their own
race were not allowed on Viking ships, and were probably less amenable
and less charming to boot. But the Pictish women thus seized had their
revenge. The darker race prevailed, and, the supply of fathers of
pure Norse blood being renewed only at intervals, the children of
such unions soon came to be mainly of Celtic strain, and their mothers
doubtless taught them to speak the Gaelic, wh