Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time

-Jarls Harald and

to the point whence we digressed, namely the year 1123, when Jarl Ha

en a widow, her husband Liot Nidingr or the Dastard being dead; and Frakark and her sister Helga, Jarl Hakon's mistress, "had a great share in ruling the land"; while Audhild, daughter of Thorleif, Frakark's sister, also lived with Frakark,2 and was the mistress at this time of one of the strangest characters in the Saga, Sigurd Slembi-diakn, or the Sham-deacon. Hakon's son Paul being, as appears certain, by a different mother not of the Moddan line, Fr

they lived at Borrobol, the "Castle Farm";6 and there "there were brought up by Frakark Margret, Earl Hakon's daughter, and Helga, Moddan's daughter," and also Eric Stagbrellir, Frakark's grandnephew, and son of her niece Audhild by Eric Streita, a Norseman, as well as Olvir Rosta and Thorbiorn Klerk, both Frakark's grandsons, all of whom come prominently into our

know the royal origin and descent

d, and Earl Ottir in Thurso: he was a man of birth and rank." These children of Moddan were probably of royal lineage or kinship, as Moddan, who had been created Earl of Caithness by King Duncan I, was that king's sister's son, and was probably, as we have seen, their ancestor or

ing to his friends. He was not fond of war, and sate much in quiet." We may be sure that he was little, if ever, in Sutherland, the country of his enemy Frakark. His rule was, however, destined to be disturbed, on the one hand by the Moddan family's plots, and, on the other hand, by a Norse competit

acquired considerable estates there, begins what is practically a new Saga, which may be styled "The Story of Ragnvald, and of Sweyn" the great Viking. Of thes

told that Kali was "the most hopeful man" or man of promise, "of middle stature, fine of limb, with light brown hair"; how he "had many friends, and was a more proper man both in body and mind than mo

atic reply that he would be well received by the king, if others did not spoil his welcome. Then Kali returns to Bergen in 1116, about the time of Jarl Magnus' murder by his cousin Jarl Hakon, and after a friendship and a feud with Jon Peterson, which is amicably settled by the marriage of Jon with Kali's sister Ingirid, and of which the

and offer them Paul's half share if they will help Ragnvald to secure his half. Frakark, having previously arranged that her niece Margret, the daughter of Earl Hakon and Helga, should marry Earl

ff Tankerness in Deer Sound in Orkney, and immediately afterwards seized Jarl Ragnvald's fleet in Yell So

her, Valthiof, Sweyn's elder brother, was drowned in the roost of the West-firth, while rowing south to Jarl Paul's Yule Feast. Sweyn Asleifarson, as he was ever afterwards called, then went to Paul's Hall at Orphir to complain of Olvir Rosta. The news of his brother's death, which arrived during the feast,

it to Margret at Athole, and his dramatic kidnapping of Jarl Paul while hunting otters near Westness13 in the Isle of Rousay, in Orkney, and of the jarl's deportation by Sweyn first to Dufeyra and thence via Ekkjals-bakki14 to Athole to his sister Margret, who receives him with the utmost show of cordiality, and finally of Paul's abdication in favour of Margret's second son, Harold Maddadson, then a boy o

nd Ragnvald to the "good men" or lendirmen of Orkney, who express themselves satisfied, and Ragnvald buil

Maddadson, who had already been created sole Earl of Caithness, shall have Paul Thorfinnson's half of the Orkney jarldom, an arrangement which Ragnvald accepts, and which is ratified by the people of Orkney and of Caithness. In due course the boy arrives in 1139, and the tutor selected for him is, of all others, Frakark's grandson, Thorbiorn Klerk, who had married Sweyn Asleifarson's

Burning, one of the most purely Su

Thence he fared the upper way over fells and woods, above all places where men dwelt, and came out in Strath Helmsdale near the middle of Sutherland. But Olvir and his men had scouts out everywhere where they thought that strife was to be looked for from the Orkneys; but in this way they did not look for warriors. So they were not ware of the host, before Sweyn and his men had come to the slope at the back of Frakark's homestead. There came against them Olvir the Unruly with sixty men; then they fell to battle at once, and there was a short struggle. Olvir and his men gave way towards the homest

of avenging his father's burning and death by a like burning and slaying of the household of his father's murderers. But his

or another set of raids on Wales, the coasts of the Bristol Channel and the Scilly Isles. His murder of Sweyn Breast-rope was committed just after an adjournment of the feast at Orphir for Nones i

hem, and thus is expected to land on the coast. But after a purposely devious course, which has puzzled inquirers into the lo

sted in the burning of Thorbiorn's relative, Frakok, or Frakark, in Kildonan. Jarl Ragnvald with difficulty reconciles Thorbiorn and Sweyn, and they start

but escapes by swimming in his armour under the cliffs and landing in Caithness, whence he passed southwards through Su

e was then called by the Norse, probably in the Emperor's service as one of the Varangian Guard; and ships are built for a voyage to the East. But both he and Harold are wrecked in "The Help"

refuses to marry Queen Ermengarde. Afterwards he rounds Galicia, where Eindridi's treachery robs them of spoil in taking Godfrey's castle, beats through Niorfa Sound (the Straits of Gibraltar); is deserted by Eindridi, sails along Sarkland (Barbary), captures the Saracen ship Dromund, and burns her, sells the prisoners in Barbary, but releases their prince, coasts along Crete, lands

at Thurso, and made him swear allegiance to himself, letting him go on his paying three marks of gold as his ransom. Then Maddad, his father, Earl of Athole, died; and the widowed Margret, Harold's mother, came north to

arldom of Caithness jointly with Harold Maddadson, who objected to give him half the Orkney jarldom unless King Eystein confirmed the grant. Erlend then went to Norway to get it confirmed. Meantime Swe

ise which proved correct in spite of the midwinter storm then prevailing. Harold's expedition, however, failed, and he went back to Caithness to raise a force to kill a man called Erlend the Young who had seized his mother Margret and taken her by force to Shetland, where he fortified Mousa Broch31 and held her prisoner there. After a siege, Harold, who had followed them, at last allowed their marriage, Erlend the Young becoming his ally, and going that summer w

d and Sweyn were in Shetland, he sought them out but missed them, and a

ich he gave his only daughter and child Ingirid or Ingigerd, to Eric Stagbrellir," who, as we have seen, as Audhild's son, had been brought up in Kildonan. "News came to him at o

25th of September 1154, and about 1156 joined forces and went to Orkney against Sweyn and Erlend, who pretended they were sailing for the Hebrides, but put their ships about at Store34 Point in Assynt, and after all but seizing Jarl Ragnvald at Orphir in Orkney, captured his ships, though he and Harold escaped, each in a small boat, across the Pentland Firth to Caithness.35 Returning thence, in Sweyn's absence for the night they attacked Erlend, who had dis

Sweyn was, and that he was backed by the Scottish king, immediately sent for him in order to reconcile him to Harold. But Harold, soon afterwards, robbed Sweyn's house in Gairsay; and Sweyn, in his turn, attacked the house where Harold was, and nearly succeeded

lerk and Eric Stagbrellir went on a viking cruise to the Hebrides, and, aft

in Caithness, who had fled to the west and was caught in Murkfjord (possibly Loch Glend

hundred men, twenty of them mounted, they spent the night at a place where there was what the Celts call an "erg" (airigh) but the Norse call "setr," the modern sheiling. Next day, as they rode up along Calfdale, Ragnvald was in advance of the party, and, at a homestead called Force,41 Halvard hailed him loudly by name. Thorbiorn was inside the house, and burst out through an old doorway, and dealt Ragnvald a great wound, and the jarl fell, his foot sticking in his stirrup, when Stephen, an accomplice, gave him a spear thrust; whereupon Thorbiorn, after dealing him another wound, and receiving a spe

was very much beloved there in the Isles, and far and

r feats of strength, and a good skald" or poet. In 1192 he was canonised as St. Ragnvald43 with, it is said, full Papal sanction.

ons, Harald Ungi or Harald the Young, Magnus nick-named Mangi, and Ragnvald, and three daughters, Ingibiorg, Elin44 and Ragnhild, all of whom, so far as the Saga relates, died childless save Ragnhild, whose son by her second husband Gunni, was S

k and Latheron and Strathnavern and probably also in Sutherland, lands on which few Norse place-names are found, and which came to Eric through Audhild his mother on the deaths of Earls Ottar and Erlend Haraldson without issue. These lands would of right descend to Eric's eldest son, Harald Ungi, and on his death without issue, to his brothers if alive, and, failing them, to his sisters and their he