The Poet and the Spae-Wife: An Attempt to Reconstruct Al-Ghazal’s Embassy to the Vikings

Courtesy of Medievalists.net:

"The  purpose  of  the  present  essay  is  to  review  the
evidence  for  the  authenticity  of  al-Ghazal's  embassy  to
the  Vikings:  to  affirm  that the  first  Viking  attack  on  the
emirate  of  Cordova  in  844  was  a  Norwegian  adventure
undertaken  by  way  of  the  Biscay  coast  from  original
bases in  Ireland; and that al-Ghazal was sent by the amir
Abd-al-Rahman  II  to  the  Norwegians  in  Ireland  where
he  encountered Turgeis  and his  wife  Ota."

Note that many myths and stereotypes about the Vikings have been dispelled thanks to the less biased accounts written about them by Arab chroniclers. The complete PDF of this 1960 essay by W.E.D. Allen may be found at Saga-Book.