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 to eke out and add variety to their dietary,—suddenly their quiet is broken by strangers landing on the coast. Those unwelcome visitors were Norsemen, who made piratical expeditions to almost all parts of European waters. The poverty of their country induced those sea rovers, or Vikings, to adopt this course; and also their religion inspired them with a love for daring enterprise, since it taught them that warriors fallen in battle were admitted into all the joys of Valhalla. The Picts soon discovered that the strangers who had landed on their shores were bent on plunder, with perhaps an eye to settlement and the acquisition of territory.

Now, those first visitors would doubtless leave after a short sojourn, carrying off such booty as they could obtain, and this would at once suggest to the Pictish mind the necessity for some means of defence; and with the instinct of self-preservation and the love of home, they would at once take steps to fortify themselves against the