Editing Amlaíb Cuarán (section)

==Cuarán==
Amlaíb's byname, ''cuarán'', is usually translated as "sandal" or "shoe". It derives from the Old Irish word ''cúar'' meaning bent or crooked. It is first applied to him in the report of the battle of Slane in 947<!--where Amlaíb and [[Congalach Cnogba]] were defeated by [[Ruaidrí ua Canannáin]]--> in the ''Annals of Ulster''. The usual translation may be misleading. The epithet probably refers to a distinctive style of footwear. [[Benjamin Hudson]] points to the description of a ''cuarán'' in a twelfth-century satire, where it is made of leather folded seven times and has a pointed toe. In ''Aislinge Meic Con Glinne'' and ''Scél Baili Binnbérlaig'', the ''cuarán'' is waterproof. In the first story Mac Con Glinne cleans his by dipping them in his bath; in the second, a ''cuarán'' serves as a vessel to drink from. That the ''cuarán'' was a piece of footwear specific to Dublin is suggested by statements in other stories that have cobblers in the town owing a ''cuarán'' in taxes.<ref>Hudson, ''Viking Pirates'', pp. 36&ndash;37.</ref><!--Expand this into something on Viking Dublin and note the curious as the name is, it is retrospective. Downham's inauguration comment. -->