Vikings on the Isle of Man: An Introduction

Tucked into the north of the Irish Sea, the Isle of Man was originally settled by hunter gatherers in the Mesolithic age. At about the same time as the raising of Stonehenge, megolithic monuments appeared on Man. Later, the island would be invaded by Celts, first from the British mainland, and then, later still, from Ireland. These Celtic influences would persist through the Norse invasion that began with raids in the early 9th century and continued with settlements around 850 CE.

Ellan Vannin (the Manx placename) had many features that would be attractive to the Norse: sheltered natural harbors, long sandy beaches, rich agricultural resources (Cubbon, p. 13), as well as an ideal location between Ireland and Britain and the Norse settlements in Dyflin (Dublin) and Jorvik (York). The Vikings in Ireland were primarily from Norway, the Vikings in Northumbria hailed from Denmark (or the lands modernly referred to as such).

In the time when my persona would have walked on Manx soil (the early 10th century), Man was under the rule of the Norse kings of Dublin. It seems reasonable to think that the material culture of the Vikings on the Isle would have been influenced by a mix of Norse and Danish cultures, due to the island's location between Dublin and York, as well as that of the local Celtic inhabitants, which is demonstrated by the many Celtic names found on runestones on the island (Jesch, p. 72) as well as the farmstead at Braaid, where longhouses share the site with an iron-age Celtic roundhouse (Manx National Trust).

One example of a Norse motif that is found both on Man and at other Viking sites is "Gaut's ring-chain", a motif from the Borre style and so called for the man who carved the Manx crosses on which it appears, Gaut Björnsson. The ring-chain motif was also used on artifacts found throughout Scandinavian Britain (Kershaw, p. 26-27), in Ireland and Norway, and as far away as Poland (Ward).

As I get deeper into researching Viking settlement and culture on the Isle of Man, I plan to compare motifs and artifacts found in Manx/Norse context to similar archaeological finds throughout the Norse sphere of influence.

From Sagabook Volume XVIII, p. 3

Sources:

Cubbon, Marshall: The Archaeology of the Vikings in the Isle of Man. The Viking Age in the Isle of Man. Ed: Christine Fell, Peter Foote, James Graham-Campbell, Robert Thomson. Viking Society for Northern Research, 1983.  (Available online)

Kershaw, Jane F.: Viking Identities: Scandinavian Jewellery in England. Oxford University Press, 2013.

Jesch, Judith: Women in the Viking Age. The Boydell Press, 1991.

Manx National Trust: The Braaid: A Unique Manx Farmstead. Viking Heritage Magazine, 3/2000.

Sagabook: Volume XVIII. Viking Society for Northern Research, 1970-73. (Available online).

Ward, Christie L.: Woodworking in the Viking Age. Web resource: http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/wood.shtml

Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Isle_of_Man
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_York
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_art#Borre_Style