Before we start this episode, I'd like to just give a quick shout out to my friend Noah from the History of Vikings podcast, who has just released his first book.

A study guide to the Poetic Edda. If you're interested in Norse mythology, you can find the link below.

I highly recommend you go and check it out.

In the year 881, a large force of Irishmen marched north from the Kingdom of Mead in the Midlands

to ravage the lands of the northern Uy Anil.

The leader of the force was a distant kinsman of that illustrious family, hailing from a cadet

branch known as the southern Uyenneal that had held sway in Meade for centuries, waging occasional

wars against their northern brethren for control of the various underkings and chieftains that

bordered their lands.

He also just happened to be the latest High King of Ireland,

a symbolic position of power which had rotated between kings of the southern and northern Uy Anil for generations.

His name was Flan Sinner.

And not only did he have his own household warriors and countrymen with him during that campaign, but he also travelled with a secret weapon,

an all too familiar sight upon the Emerald Isle of late.

When Flancinna marched north that year,

he went with hardened mercenaries,

some hailing from distant lands beyond the sea.

Others born and raised in Ireland.

He went with Vikings.

Despite how shocking this alliance with the hated invaders might seem at first glance,

it was actually a fairly common occurrence for the day.

Unlike the later poetic accounts which made the Gales and the Scandinavians,

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