Meeting Between Olaf (Tryggvi’s Son) and the Earl
187. Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, sailed west to the Orkneys, as has been mentioned before. But as the Pentland Firth was not to be passed at the time, he moored his ships in Asmundarvag (Osmondwall) opposite Rögnvaldsey. Earl Sigurd, Hlödver’s son, was there before him with three ships, for he was going on a war expedition. When King Olaf became aware that the Earl was there, he called him into his presence. But when the Earl came to the King’s ship, the King spoke as follows:—
“You know, Earl Sigurd, that Harald Harfagri came here to the west with an army when he had obtained possession of all Norway. King Harald conquered the Orkneys and Hjaltland, and many other lands here in the west. The King gave the Islands to Rögnvald the Powerful as a compensation for his son, but Rögnvald gave them to his brother Sigurd, and he became the Earl of King Harald. King Harald went a second time against Earl Einar with a large army; but well-disposed men mediated between them, and they agreed to the following terms:—The King claimed all the Orkneys and Hjaltland as his own; and the result of their negotiations was that the Earl paid the King sixty marks of gold for the murder of his son, Halfdan Hálegg, and Earl Einar then held the lands from King Harald. Shortly afterwards, King Eirík, Harald’s son, came from Norway. Then also the Earls, the sons of Torfeinar, were his vassals. This appears from the fact that they gave him many men for his war expeditions. When King Eirík came to the Islands a second time, he took away with him the two Earls, Arnkell and Erlend, and appointed their brother Thorfinn to rule over the land. They were both killed in England with King Eirík. Then the sons of Eirík came from England and ruled over the Islands, and when they departed they appointed Arnfinn, their brother-in-law, ruler of the Islands. Havard first succeeded his brother (Arnfinn), then Liót, and lastly your father, Hlödver. Now you, Sigurd, are Earl over these lands which I claim as my possessions, with all other lands possessed by Harald Harfagri and his kinsmen, and descending from them to me by inheritance from generation to generation. You know that most of the sons of Eirík and Gunnhild have now been killed. And although their sister Ragnhild is still alive, it seems to me that she has been guilty of such wickedness in the Orkneys that she ought not to have dignity or power anywhere; indeed, my view is that she has completely forfeited both property and life if it be true that she has done all the shameful deeds that are reported of her, and generally believed. Now, since it has so happened, Earl Sigurd, that you have come into my power, you have to choose between two very unequal alternatives. One is, that you embrace the true faith, become my man, and be baptized with all your subjects. In that case you may have certain hope of honour from me. You shall hold in full liberty as my subject, and with the dignity of an Earl, all the dominions which you have had before. And besides, you will gain what is much more important—namely, to reign in eternal joy in the kingdom of Heaven with the Almighty God. Of this you may be sure if you keep his commandments. The other alternative is a very hard one, and quite unlike the former—viz. that you shall be slain on the spot, and after your death I will send fire and sword throughout the Orkneys, burning homesteads and men, unless this people is willing to accept immunity by believing in the true God. And if you and your subjects choose the latter alternative, you and they, who put your trust in idols, shall speedily die, and shall thereafter be tormented in hell-fire, with wicked devils, without end.”
When Earl Sigurd had listened to King Olaf’s long and eloquent harangue, he hardened his mind against him, and said: “I will tell you, King Olaf, that I have absolutely resolved that I will not, and I dare not, renounce the faith which my kinsmen and forefathers had before me, because I do not know better counsels than they, and I do not know that the faith which you preach is better than that which we have had and have held all our lives.”
When the King saw that the Earl persisted obstinately in his error, he caught hold of his young son, who was with him, and who had been brought up in the Islands. The King carried this son of the Earl to the forepart of the ship. There he drew his sword, and made ready to hew the boy down, saying at the same time: “Now I will show you, Earl Sigurd, that I shall spare no man who will not serve Almighty God, or listen to my preaching of the blessed message. Therefore I shall kill your son before your eyes this instant, with the sword now in my hand, unless you and your men will serve my God. For I shall not leave these Islands until I have completely fulfilled his blessed commission, and you have been baptized along with this son of yours whom I now hold.”
And because the Earl was situated as he was, he chose the better alternative of doing as the King desired, and so he embraced the true faith. Then the Earl was baptized, and so were all the people of the Orkneys. Then Earl Sigurd became the Earl of King Olaf according to this world’s dignity, and held from him lands and dominions, and gave him as a hostage his son who has already been mentioned. His name was Hvelp or Hundi (whelp or hound). King Olaf had him baptized by the name of Hlödver, and took him with him to Norway. Earl Sigurd confirmed all their agreement with oaths. After this King Olaf sailed from the Orkneys, leaving priests to instruct the people in the holy faith. King Olaf and Earl Sigurd parted friends. Hlödver lived but a short time, and after his death Earl Sigurd paid no homage to King Olaf. Then he married the daughter of Melkolf, the King of Scots, and their son was Thorfinn.
Footnotes
1. Writing of the barrows and cairns of Orkney, Captain Thomas states that at least 2000 might still be numbered. We have no estimate of the number in Shetland, but there also they are very numerous. Not less remarkable is the number of the early “dwellings of strength,” of which Mousa is the type—huge edifices, constructed with amazing labour and wonderful skill. (See under Maeshow and Mousa.)
2. The Frisic Sea is supposed to mean the Firth of Forth.
3. The “Historia Britonum” of Nennius (whoever he may have been) is believed, on what seems reliable evidence, to have been written about A.D. 858. (See the Irish Nennius, Irish Archæological Society, p. 18.)
4. Ireland was then called Scotia.
5. St. Ninian was commemorated at Dunrossness in Shetland (Sibbald’s Description, 1711, p. 15); at Stove in South Ronaldsay, Orkney (Peterkin’s Rentals, No. III.); at the north head of the bay of Wick in Caithness; and at Navidale in Sutherland. St. Columba’s three chapels in South Ronaldsay were at Grymness, Hopay, and Loch of Burwick (Peterkin’s Rentals, No. III. p. 86). There were also dedications to St. Columba in the islands of Sanday and Hoy in Orkney, at Olrig and Dirlet in Caithness, on Island Comb, at Tongue, and at Kilcalmkill in Sutherlandshire (Bishop Forbes’s Calendar of Scottish Saints). St. Triduana, whose name has been corrupted into St. Tredwell and St. Trudlin (the Tröllhæna of the Saga), had dedications in Papa Westray in Orkney (Martin’s and Brand’s Descriptions), and at Kintradwell in Sutherlandshire. It seems also, from the narrative of Bishop John’s mutilation in the Saga, that there was a dedication to her near Thurso. St. Brigid had chapels in Stronsay and Papa Stronsay in Orkney. But it is impossible to tell how many of these early religious sites had similar dedications, as scarcely a tithe of those that are known have preserved their names. Brand and Sibbald both mention the fact that in their time there were still recognisable the sites of 24 chapels in the island of Unst, 21 in the island of Yell, 10 or 11 in the island of Fetlar: 55 religious foundations in the three most northerly islands of the Shetland group. The Christian period of the Norse occupation is marked by dedications showing the influence of the Crusades or of the national religious feeling. The dedications to the Holy Cross, St. Mary, St. Peter, St. Lawrence, St. Olaf, and St. Magnus, are probably all of this period.
6. Unfortunately, the readings of these inscriptions which have been attempted are far from satisfactory. The Shetland and Orkney specimens are in different styles of the Ogham writing, and the whole subject of the reading and interpretation of the inscriptions in this character is beset with difficulties of no ordinary kind. One rendering of the Bressay inscription makes it “the cross of Natdod’s daughter here,” and on the other edge of the stone, “Benres of the sons of the Druids here;” while the language is supposed to be a mixture of Celtic and Icelandic. (Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. i. p. 30.)
7. Sculptured Stones of Scotland (Spalding Club), by John Stuart, LL.D., passim.
8. Sir James Simpson’s reading of the inscription, given in the Sculptured Stones of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 71.
9. In Orkney we have the islands of Papa Westray and Papa Stronsay (the Papey meiri and Papey minni, or greater and lesser Papa of the Saga), Paplay in South Ronaldsay, Paplay in the parish of Holm, and Papdale, near Kirkwall, in the Mainland. In Shetland we have the isles of Papa—Papa Stour (Papey stora) and Papa Little (Papey litla), and Papill in the islands of Unst and Yell. Papa Stronsay, Papa Westray, and Paplay, in the Mainland of Orkney, are mentioned in the Saga. Papa Stour occurs in a deed of A.D. 1229 (Diplom. Norveg. i. 89), Papill in Unst in a deed of A.D. 1360 (Ibid. iii. 310), and a “Sigurdr of Pappley” is mentioned in the agreement between Bishop William of Orkney and Hakon Jonson, May 25, 1369 (Ibid. i. 404).
10. There is a cairn in Sanday called Ivar’s Knowe, which may be his burial mound.
11. Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, Flateyjarbók, chap. 180, in the Appendix; and Ynglinga Saga, Heimskringla, chap. 22. Earl Sigurd’s grave-mound, on the estuary of the Oykel (Ekkialsbakki), was known in the 12th century as Siwardhoch, or Sigurd’s How, and is still identifiable in the modern Cyderhall. (See the note on Ekkialsbakki, p. 107 of the Saga.)
12. Landnamabók, chap. ii.
13. Laxdæla Saga, chap. iv.
14. Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, Flateyjarbók, chap. 180, in Appendix.
15. This was done by hewing the ribs from the backbone, and tearing out the heart and lungs.
16. Bœndr, the odal landholders. (See note on this word, chap. i. of the Saga.)
17. Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, Flateyjarbók, chap. 183, in Appendix.
18. Finnleik has been conjectured to be Finlay, the father of Macbeth.
19. Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, Flateyjarbók, chap. 184, in Appendix.
20. Ibid. chap. 185.
21. This is probably the Celtic name Maelbrigd. Though it is suggestive of Macbeth, the date is too early for Macbeth MacFinlay.
22. The locality of Skida Myre has been identified by Munch with the Loch of Scister, in the parish of Canisbay. It seems rather to be indicated by the modern Skitten, as the name formerly applied to the great tract of moorland in the north-west corner of the parish of Wick, now generally known as the Moss of Kilmster.
23. Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, Flateyjarbók, chap. 186, in Appendix.
24. “He kept Caithness by main force from the Scots.” (See Appendix, p. 209.)
25. Njal Saga, chap. lxxxvii.
26. Njal Saga, loc. cit. This Hundi should be the father of the Kali Hundason of the subsequent narrative.
27. Njal Saga, chap. clvi.
28. War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 191.
29. Hrafn the Red, whose denunciation of the raven-banner as the earl’s devil may not altogether be accounted for by the fervour of his Christianity, was chased into the river, where he was in danger of being drowned by the rising tide. In this emergency he made a vow as follows:—“Thy dog, Apostle Peter, hath run twice to Rome, and he would run the third time if thou gavest him leave.” The Irish Chronicle states that the full tide in Dublin Bay on the day of the battle coincided with sunrise, and that the returning tide in the evening aided in the destruction of the defeated foreigners. The date assigned by the Chronicle for the battle is Good Friday, 23d April 1014. It has been found by astronomical calculation that the full tide that morning did coincide with sunrise—a remarkable attestation of the authenticity of the narrative.
30. See the account of him in the Saga, chap. v. and note.
31. Rattar Brough, a little to the east of Dunnet Head, seems to be the modern form of Rauda Biorg.
32. See the Saga account, chap. xxiii. and note. The dates do not bear out the statement that Thorfinn was Earl for seventy years.
33. Fordun, v. 24.
34. Saga Magnus Berfoetts, Heimskringla, chap. xxv.
35. Chron. Manniæ, Munch’s edition, p. 59.
36. See the account of his death in the Saga, chap. xxxix. His feast days were 16th April and 13th December, the former commemorating his death, and the latter the removal of his relics from Birsay by Bishop William. (Den Norske Kirkes Historie af R. Keyser: Christiania, 1856, p. 162.)
37. The Earls of Athole seem at this time to have occupied the rath or fortress at Logierait. It is mentioned in one of the Scone charters as the capital of the earldom in the 12th century. (Lib. Eccles. de Scon, p. 35.)
38. This was the occasion in which he and his men spent the Yule-feast day in the Orkahaug, which seems to be Maeshow. See the Saga, chap. xci.
39. See the notice from the Saga of Egill Skalagrimson, in the chapter on Mousa.
40. Some years after his death Earl Rögnvald was canonised, but his name is not commemorated in any of the dedications now remaining in the Islands.
41. Munch, Chron. Manniæ, p. 84.
42. Fordun’s Annals, xvi.
43. From this time till 1379 Shetland passed into the immediate possession of the crown of Norway. So we find in 1312-1319, that King Hakon Magnusson grants to the Mary-Kirk in Oslo (Christiania), for the completion of the fabric of the kirk, “all our incomes of Hjaltland and the Faroes, so that those who have charge of the kirk’s building and fabric every year shall render account thereof to our heirs, and when the fabric is altogether completed, then shall the foresaid revenues of Hjaltland and the Faroes revert to the crown.” (Nicolaysen, Norske Fornlevninger, p. 426.)
44. Chronica Rogeri de Hoveden (Rolls Ed.), iv. pp, 10, 12.
45. In the Chronicle of Melrose, under the date 1175, it is stated that “Laurentius, Abbot in Orkney, was made Abbot of Melrose.” But as his death is recorded in the year 1178, the priest here mentioned by Hoveden must have been a different person, though of the same name. At the same time, as this passage shows that Earl Harald had a hird-priest named Laurentius, it is not improbable that the so-called Orkney abbot, who was made abbot of Melrose, may also have been Harald’s family or court priest. Being himself the son of a Scottish earl, and allied by marriage first with the family of the Earl of Fife, and subsequently with the MacHeths, and having, moreover, such close relations with the abbey of Scone, it is not unlikely that he may have had Scottish priests about his family in preference to those of Norwegian extraction.
46. So says the Saga. Fordun says that the use of his tongue and of one eye was in some measure left him. The letter of Pope Innocent, addressed to the Bishop of Orkney, prescribing the penance to be performed by the man who mutilated the bishop, only mentions the cutting out of the tongue. It is as follows:—
“We have learnt by your letters that Lomberd, a layman, the bearer of these presents, accompanied his earl on an expedition into Caithness; that there the Earl’s army stormed a castle, killed almost all who were in it, and took prisoner the Bishop of Caithness; and that this Lomberd, as he says, was compelled by some of the earl’s soldiery to cut out the bishop’s tongue. Now because the sin is great and grievous, in absolving him, according to the form of the church, we have prescribed this penance for satisfaction of his offence, and to the terror of others:—That he shall hasten home, and bare-footed, and naked, except breeches, and a short woollen vest without sleeves, having his tongue tied by a string, and drawn out so as to project beyond his lips, and the ends of the string bound round his neck, with rods in his hand, in sight of all men, walk for fifteen days successively through his own native district, the district of the mutilated bishop, and the neighbouring country; he shall go to the door of the church without entering, and there, prostrate on the earth, undergo discipline with the rods he is to carry; he is thus to spend each day in silence and fasting until evening, when he shall support nature with bread and water only; after these fifteen days are passed he shall prepare within a month to set out for Jerusalem, and there labour in the service of the Cross for three years; he shall never more bear arms against Christians; for two years he shall fast every Friday on bread and water, unless by the indulgence of some discreet bishop, or on account of bodily infirmity, this abstinence be mitigated. Do you then receive him returning in this manner, and see that he observe the penance enjoined him.” (Epist. Innoc. III. Lib. iii. No. 77; Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. 3.)
47. Chron. de Mailros, p. 114; see also p. lxxxi. infra.
48. Magnus, son of the Earl of Angus, appears among those present at the perambulation of the boundaries of the lands of the Abbey of Aberbrothock on 16th January 1222 (Regist. Vet. de Aberbrothock, p. 163); but he seems to have been Earl of Angus as well as of Caithness at the date after mentioned. A charter of King Alexander II. to the chapel of St. Nicholas at Spey, dated 2d October 1232, is witnessed by M. Earl of Angus and Kataness (Regist. Moraviense, p. 123).
49. The title prefixed to the translation of this document by Dean Gule, made for William Sinclair of Roslin, in 1554, calls it:—“A Diploma or Deduction concerning the Genealogies of the ancient Earls of Orkney, drawn up from the most authentic records, by Thomas, Bishop of Orkney, with the assistance of his clergy and others, in consequence of an order from King Eirik of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, to investigate the rights of William Sinclair to the earldom.” But in the document itself King Eirik is spoken of as “our former lord of illustrious memory,” and the date is evidently erroneous. It is probably to be assigned to about 1443. It was first printed by Wallace in 1699, and subsequently by Jonæus in the appendix to the Orkneyinga Saga in 1780; by Barry in his History of the Orkneys in 1805; in the Bannatyne Miscellany, 1848; and by Munch in his Symbolæ, Christiania, 1850.
50. Among the documents found in the King’s Treasury at Edinburgh in 1282, were the letters addressed by the King of Norway (presumably Hakon) to the inhabitants of Caithness. The inhabitants of Caithness seem to have been also obliged by the Scottish King to give hostages for their fealty to him. In the accounts of Laurence Grant, Sheriff of Inverness, for the year 1263, there is a charge of £15:6:3 for the expenses of twenty-one hostages from Caithness, at the rate of one denarius (penny) for each per day for twenty-five weeks, “and then they were set at liberty.” (Compota Camerarium Scotiæ, i. p. 31.)
51. Acta Parl. Scot., vol. i. p. 82.
52. Iceland Annals, sub anno.
53. The Scala Cronica says off the coast of Buchan. “One Master Weland, a clerke of Scotlande, sent yn to Norway for Margaret, dyed with her by tempeste on the se cumming oute of Norway to Scotland yn costes of Boghan.” (Scala Cronica, Mait. Club, pp. 110, 282.) Wyntoun says she was “put to dede by martyry,” and assigns as the reason that the Norwegians would not have one who was of another nation and a female to be heir to the throne of Norway, though their laws allowed it. He had probably heard the story of the “false Margaret.” (See p. lii.)
54. In the Wardrobe Rolls of King Edward I. (1290) the following payments occur:—“Sept. 1.—To Lord Eli de Hamville going by the king’s orders with the Lord Bishop of Durham towards Scotland to meet the messengers of the King of Norway and the princess, and was to return with the news to the king. To John Tyndale, the messenger from the Bishop of St. Andrews, who brought letters from his master to the king concerning the rumours of the arrival of the Princess of Scotland in Orkney—by gift of the king, xxsh. To William Playfair, messenger of the Earl of Orkney, who brought letters to our Lord the King, on the part of Lord John Comyn, concerning the reported arrival of the Scottish Princess in Orkney—by gift of the king, xiiish. 4d.” There is also a detailed account of the expenses of two messengers who left Newcastle on the 15th September, were at Haberdene on the 23d, at the Meikle Ferry in Sutherland on the 30th, where they met the messengers from Scotland, then proceeded by Helmsdale and Spittal to Wick, which they reached on the 4th October. They left Wick on the 6th October, and arrived at Norham on the 21st November. On the 13th May of the following year (1291) Earl John of Orkney had a safe conduct to come to King Edward till the 24th June, when the earl would doubtless communicate to the king all that he knew of the princess’s death.
55. This letter was dated 1st February 1320, and the substance of it is given by Suhm, vol. xii. p. 29. It does not seem to be known from the original document however, but from a later “paraphrase,” as Munch calls it, preserved in the Royal Library at Stockholm. (Det Norske Folks Historie, vol. iv. part 2, p. 348.)
56. Under the date 1293 the following entry occurs in the Chronicle of Lanercost:—“Dominica etiam post festum Sancti Martini (Nov. 15) desponsata est filia Roberti de Carrick regi Norwagiae Magno.” (Chron. de Lanercost, p. 155.) Magnus is plainly a mistake for Eirik, the son of Magnus, who reigned from 1280 to 1299.
57. Rymer’s Fœdera, Syllabus I. p. 114.
58. Det Norske Folks Historie, vol. iv. part 2, p. 202.
59. Munch, Det Norske Folks Historie, vol. iv. part 2, pp. 195, 344.
60. Haflidi Steinson died nearly nineteen years after this as priest of Breidabolstad in Iceland. The Iceland Annals, recording his death in 1319, recount the story as if this were the real Margaret (whose death they record in 1290), and add that “to this Haflidi himself bore witness when he heard that this same Margaret had been burnt at Nordness.” (See Wyntoun’s Statement, p. 1, note 1.)
61. On the 2d April 1320 Bishop Audfinn writes to the Archbishop that on the 1st February he had issued a prohibition against the bad custom of making pilgrimages to Nordness, and offering invocations to the woman who had been burnt many years ago for giving herself out as King Eirik’s daughter. He also complains to the archbishop that opposition had been offered to the reading out of the prohibition in the Church of the Apostles of Bergen. (Munch, Det Norske Folks Historie, iv. part 2, p. 348.)
62. This noble document was signed by eight earls and thirty-one barons of Scotland, at the abbey of Aberbrothock on the 6th April 1320. After asserting the legitimate claims of King Robert the Bruce, and narrating his struggles in the cause of Scottish independence, it goes on to say that “If he were to desist from what he has begun, wishing to subject us or our kingdom to the King of England or the English, we would immediately endeavour to expel him as our enemy, and the subverter of his own rights and ours, and make another king who should be able to defend us. For so long as a hundred remain alive, we never will in any degree be subject to the dominion of the English. Since not for glory, riches, nor honour, we fight, but for liberty alone, which no good man loses but with his life.” The duplicate, preserved in the General Register House, is printed in facsimile in the National Manuscripts of Scotland, published under the superintendence of the Lord Clerk Register.
63. The lands are those of Stufum, Kuikobba, Klaet, Thordar, Borgh, Leika, Lidh, Haughs-æth and Petland-Sker. (Diplom. Norvegicum, ii. 146.)
64. Munch, in his Genealogical Table of the Earls of Orkney, makes Katharina to be the daughter of Earl John (following Douglas’ Peerage of Scotland), and Magnus to be a son of Malcolm of Caithness, whom he conjectures to have been a son of the first Magnus. But in a note on this subject in the second series of his History, he acknowledges the mistake, referring to this document in proof of Magnus’ descent from Earl John. (Det Norske Folks Historie, Anden Afdeling, vol. i. p. 317.)
65. An entry in the Chamberlain Rolls for that year mentions the dues of the fourth part of Caithness, which the Earl of Stratherne had. (Comp. Camer. Scot. i. p. 235.)
66. This document is not now to be found, but Mr. Cosmo Innes says (Lib. Insule Missarum, p. xliii) that he made a note of its purport as given above in the Dunrobin charter-room. Sir Robert Gordon, in his Genealogy of the Earls of Sutherland (p. 49), gives the purport of the document in precisely similar terms, but says that it is dated 28th May 1344. Sir James Balfour, in his Catalogue of the Scottish Nobility, also gives 1344. The confirmation of this contract by David II. is recorded as a “confirmation of a contract of marriage betwixt Malisius, Earl of Stratherne, Caithness, and Orkney, and William, Earl of Ross.” (Robertson’s Index of Missing Charters, p. 51.)
67. There is also on record a confirmation by Robert I. of a charter of the lands of Kingkell, Brechin, to Maria (Marjorie?) de Stratherne, spouse of Malise of Stratherne. (Robertson’s Index, p. 19.)
68. Chronicle of the Earls of Ross, Mis. Scot., vol. iv. p. 128.
69. There is an entry in the Chamberlain Rolls, in 1340, in regard to a payment by Johannes More, “pro terris de Beridale in Cattania, de quibus dicit se hereditarium infeodari per comitem de Strathern et per Regem confirmari.” (Comp. Camerar. Scot. i. p. 265.)
70. Sir James Balfour (Catalogue of the Scottish Nobility) says:—“This Earl Malisius was forfaulted by King David II. for alienating the earldom of Stratherne to the Earl of Warrenne, an Englishman, the king’s enemy, and all his possessions annexed to the crown.” Sir Robert Gordon says that the charter by King David granting the earldom of Stratherne to Maurice Moray is dated the last day of October 1345.
71. A dispensation granted by Pope Benedict XII. in July 1339 for the marriage of Maurice de Moravia with Johanna, widow of John, Earl of Athole, styles her Countess of Stratherne. (Theiner’s Monumenta, p. 275.) Maurice fell at the battle of Durham in 1346. Johanna, Countess of Stratherne, in her widowhood executed a charter in favour of Robert of Erskine and his wife, Christian of Keith, her cousin, which is confirmed by Robert, Steward of Scotland and Earl of Stratherne in 1361. (Chartulary of Cambuskenneth, Grampian Club, p. 255.)
72. Third Report of Com. on Hist. MSS. p. 416.
73. Rymer’s Fœdera, Syllabus i. p. 272.
74. Robertson’s Index of Charters, pp. 18, 34.
75. Hist. Doc. Scot. i. p. 394.
76. Balnagown Charters, Orig. Paroch. ii. 487.
77. Robert Stewart, Seneschal of Scotland and Earl of Stratherne, certifies that, in his court held at Crieff, 8th May 1358, he had seen read and confirmed the charters granted to the abbot and convent of Inchaffray of the annual of 42 marcs of the thanage of Dunyne, given by the former earls of good memory—Malise the first and Malise the second, his predecessors. (Liber Insula Missarum, p. 55.) Et nihil hic de terris quondam Malesii infra comitatu Cathanie quia comes de Ross se intromittit de eisdem. (Conqu. Camerar. Scot., an. 1357, i. p. 320.) That the second Malise of Robert Stewart’s deed is the last Malise who was Earl of Stratherne seems to be shown by another deed of Robert Stewart, dated in 1361, in which, as Seneschal of Scotland and Earl of Stratherne, he grants to James Douglas the lands of Kellor in Stratherne, “which the late Malise gave.” In the confirmation of this grant by Eufamia, Countess of Moray and Stratherne, he is styled “the late Malise of good memory.” (Regist. Honoris de Morton, ii. pp. 60, 86.)
78. See p. lvi.
79. Called in the Diploma “Here Ginsill de Swethrik,” for “Erengisle de Suecia.” He was lawman of Tisherad in Sweden in 1337.
80. In the Diploma he is called “quodam Gothredo, nomine Gothormo le Spere”—Gothredo being a misreading for Gothricio, “a native of Gothland.” (Munch, Symbolæ, p. 55.)
81. Munch, Norske Folks Historie, 2d series, i. p. 595.
82. In 1360 he grants certain lands to the monastery of Calmar for the souls of his deceased wives, Meretta and Annot or Agneta, the latter being probably Malise’s daughter, as the name is not a common one in Sweden.
83. He styles himself “Comes Orchadensis” in a deed of 4th March 1388. (Diplom. Norvegicum, v. 246.)
84. Diplom. Norvegicum, ii. 337-339.
85. See the document dated at Cullen, 4th August 1321, quoted on p. lv, supra.
86. In a deed executed at Kirkwall, 20th January 1364, by which Bernard de Rowle resigns to Hugh de Ross (brother of William, Earl of Ross) the whole lands of Fouleroule in Aberdeenshire, the witnesses are John de Gamery and Symon de Othyrles, canons of Caithness; Euphemia de Stratherne, one of the heirs of the late Malise, Earl of Caithness; Thomas de St. Clair, “ballivus regis Norvagie;” and Alexander St. Clair. (Regist. Aberdonense, i. 106.)
87. Sir James Balfour calls her Lucia. She is also called Lucia by William Drummond, author of the “Genealogie of the House of Drummond, 1681,” but in neither case is any documentary authority cited. Camden says the eldest daughter.
88. Barbour’s Bruce (Spald. Club), p. 482.
89. Munch’s Norske Folks Historie, 2d series, vol. ii. p. 96. See also the deed of investiture, which is printed at length in the Diplomatarium Norvegicum, vol. ii. pp. 353-358.
90. Balfour, Oppressions of Orkney (Maitland Club), p. xxvi. Such was not the opinion of Father Hay, the panegyrist of the St. Clairs of Roslyn. He says that “Henry, prince of Orknay, was more honoured than any of his ancestres, for he had power to cause stamp coine within his dominions, to make laws, to remitt crimes;—he had his sword of honour carried before him wheresoever he went; he had a crowne in his armes, bore a crowne on his head when he constituted laws; and, in a word, was subject to none, save only he held his lands of the King of Danemark, Sweden, and Noraway, and entred with them, to whom also it did belong to crowne any of those three kings, so that in all those parts he was esteemed a second person to the king.” (Genealogie of the St. Clairs, p. 17.) Father Hay’s romances receive no countenance whatever from the deed of investiture.
91. About £333 sterling.
92. Father Hay states (Genealogie of the St. Clairs, p. 17) that Henry St. Clair “married Elisabeth Sparres, daughter of Malesius Sparres, Prince of Orkney, Earl of Caithness and Stratherne, through which marriage he became Prince of Orkney.” But Malise Sperra never had any connection with the earldoms of Caithness or Stratherne. In another place, p. 33, he says that Sir William Sinclair (who fell fighting with the Saracens in Spain in 1330) “was married to Elizabeth Sparre, daughter to the Earle of Orkney, and so by her became the first Earl of Orkney of the Saintclairs. His name was Julius Sparre. He is also reputed Earl of Stratherne and Caithness.” But this is manifestly a tissue of impossibilities. He seems to have copied the last statement from the Drummond MS. (1681), where the additional statement is made that Elizabeth’s mother was Lucia, daughter of the Earl of Ross. (Genealogie of the House of Drummond: Edinburgh, 1831, p. 237.) Both writers seem to have confounded Malise, Earl of Stratherne, with his daughter’s son, Malise Sperra.
93. Iceland Annals, sub anno. Munch, Det Norske Folks Historie, 2d series, vol. ii. p. 106.
94. He seems to have held lands in Banffshire. In the Chamberlain Rolls, 1438, there is an entry of a receipt of £9 from James M’fersane for the land formerly belonging to Malis Speir, knight in the Sheriffdom of Banff, remaining in the king’s hands. (Diplom. Norvegicum, i. 366.)
95. The Iceland Annals, under the date 1389, have the following entry:—“Malise Sperra slain in Hjaltland, with seven others, by the Earl of Orkney. He had previously been taken captive by him. From that conflict there escaped a man-servant who with six men in a six-oared boat got away safely to Norway.”
96. Diplom. Norvegicum, ii. 401. Regist. Mag. Sigill. 196.
97. This deed is said by Robert Riddell to be in the Perth Charter-chest. A copy of it is in one of his MS. note-books in the Advocates’ Library. See also Robertson’s Index of Charters, p. 128. The “double” of this deed is said by William Drummond (1681) to have been given to him by a friend, and the substance of it is given by him as follows:—“Sir John Drummond and his lady Elisabeth Sinclair oblige themselves to a noble and potent Lord, Henry, Earle of Orkney, Lord Roslin, their father, that they nor their aires shall never claime any interest or right of propertie to any lands or possessions belonging to the said earle or his aires lying within the kingdome of Norroway, so long as he or any air-male of his shall be on lyfe to inherit the same; bot if it happen (which God forbid) the said earle to die without any air-male to succeed to him, then it shall be lawful for them to claim such a portion of the aforesaid lands as is known by the Norwegian laws to appertain to a sister of the family. Sealled at Rosline 13th May 1396.” (Genealogie of the House of Drummond, p. 91.)
98. Henry himself had married a daughter of Malise. See p. lxiii.
99. Father Hay says that he escaped through the instrumentality of one John Robinsone, indweller at Pentland, one of his tenants, who went to the place where his master was confined and played the fool so cunningly that he was allowed access to the prison, and so found means to convey the earl out in disguise. (Genealogie of the St. Clairs, p. 81.)
100. Balfour’s Annals, i. 148.
101. Diplom. Norvegicum, ii. 482.
102. Fordun, Scotichron. xv. chap. 32.
103. Douglas’ Peerage. The Diploma says nothing of his wife, but he is said to have married Egidia Douglas, daughter of Lord William Douglas, and Egidia, daughter of Robert II. (Extracta ex Cronicis Scocie, p. 200.)
104. Diplom. Norvegicum, ii. 489. This document is endorsed—“Biscop Thomes breff af Orknoy, at han skal halde Orknoy til myn herres konnungens hand, oc hans effterkommende, oc lade him with Noren lagh.”
105. Diplom. Norvegicum, ii. 498. This document is endorsed—“Item biscop Thomes aff Orknoy bref um Kirkwaw slot i Orknoy, oc um landet oc greveschapet ther samestads.”
106. This document is printed at length in Torfæus, pp. 179-182; in Balfour’s Oppressions of Orkney (Maitland Club), pp. 105-110; and also in the Norse language of the time in the Diplomatarium Norvegicum, ii. 514.
107. Torfæus, Hist. Orc. 182. The document of which Torfæus here gives a copy, however, is that of the 31st year of the reign of King Eirik (1420), previously noticed, and refers not to the bishop’s second appointment but to his first.
108. Torfæus, p. 183.
109. Balfour’s Annals, i. 155.
110. Diplom. Norveg. vii. 430.
111. He had received a grant of the earldom of Caithness from King James II. 28th August 1455, as formerly mentioned, p. lxi.
112. Diplom. Norvegicum, v. 599.
113. Ibid. v. 605.
114. These islands had been ceded by Norway to Scotland in 1266 on condition of an annual payment of 100 marks, which at this time had fallen into arrear for 26 years.
115. His words imply that it was by request of the Orkneymen themselves that Adalbert sent them preachers “extremi venerant Islani, Gronlani, et Orchadum legati petentes ut prædicatores illuc dirigeret, quod et fecit.”
116. Keyser, Den Norske Kirkes Historie, i. 158; Torfæus, i. 160; Munch, Det Norske Folks Historie, ii. p. 216; Grub’s Eccles. Hist. i. 252.
117. Twysden, Decem Scriptores, pp. 1709-13.
118. Printed in the Notes and Illustrations to the Scala Cronica (Maitland Club), p. 234.
119. Monasticon Anglicanum, vi. p. 1186.
120. Flor. Wig. Chron. Monum. Hist. Britann. p. 644.
121. The name Christ’s Church, says Munch, was only given to a cathedral church.
122. Sir Henry Dryden’s Notices of Ancient Churches in Orkney, in the Orcadian, 1867.
123. Munch’s Catalogue of the Bishops of Orkney, Bannatyne Miscellany, iii. 181.
124. See the Saga, p. 126.
125. Fornmanna Sögur, vol. vi.
126. Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. p. 2.
127. See p. lxxx.
128. Hakonar Saga hins gamla, Flateyjarbók, iii. 52.
129. Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. p. 13.
130. Ibid. i. 32.
131. Keyser, Den Norske Kirkes Historie, ii. 210. Torfæus Hist. Orc., p. 172.
132. Diplom. Norvegicum. The Chron. de Lanercost, under the date 1275, incidentally notices a Bishop of Orkney, named William, who related many wonderful things of the islands under Norwegian rule, and specially of Iceland. Munch supposes him to have been one of the titular bishops consecrated at York, and suggests that he may have been the author of the curious fragment of a Chronicon Norvegiæ preserved in the Panmure transcript, along with the transcript of the Diploma of the succession of the Earls of Orkney, printed at Christiania, 1850. (Munch, Symbolæ, pp. 2, 18; Det Norske Folks Historie, iv. part 1, p. 678; Chron. de Lanercost, p. 97.)
133. Keyser, Den Norske Kirkes Historie, ii. 216.
134. Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. p. 134.
135. Ibid. p. 134.
136. Printed from the Panmure transcript in the Miscellany of the Spalding Club, vol. v. p. 257.
137. Theiner, Vetera Monumenta, p. 376.
138. Among the persons mentioned in this record are Sir Richard of Rollisey (Rousay), Sir Christen of Sanday, John of Orkney, Sigurd of Pappley, John of Dunray (Downreay in Caithness). The title “sir” is equivalent to our “reverend.” (Diplom. Norvegicum, i. 308.)
139. See p. lxix. Both these documents are printed at length in the second volume of the Diplomatarium Norvegicum, and are exceedingly curious specimens of the language of the time.
140. Diplom. Norveg. v. 605.
141. There was a monastery at Dornoch before the death of Earl Rögnvald in 1158. King David of Scotland addressed a missive to Rögnvald, Earl of Orkney, and to the Earl of Caithness (Harald Maddadson), and to all good men in Caithness and Orkney, requesting them to protect the monks living at Durnach in Caithness, their servants and their effects, and to see that they sustained no loss or injury. (Regist. de Dunfermelyn, p. 14.)
142. Regist. de Dunfermelyn, p. 14.
143. Ibid. p. 74.
144. Diplom. Norveg. vii. p. 2.
145. The Book of Deer (Spald. Club), p. 95.
146. Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. p. 2.
147. See p. xliii, and also the account of these transactions in the Saga, chap. cxv.
148. Printed in Theiner’s Vetera Monumenta, p. 21.
149. Chron. de Mailros, pp. 139, 150.
150. Printed in the Miscellany of the Bannatyne Club, vol. iii.
151. The bones of St. Fergus, the patron saint of Caithness, were deposited in the abbey of Scone. Harald Maddadson, Earl of Orkney and Caithness, granted a mark of silver yearly to the canons of Scone for the souls of himself and wife, and the souls of his predecessors. The grant is witnessed by his son “Turphin.” The Abbot of Scone obtained a royal precept from King Alexander II. addressed to the sheriffs and bailies of Moray and Caithness, for the protection of the ship of the convent when on its voyages within their jurisdiction. The Abbey of Scone was proprietor of the church of Kildonan, which, with its chapels and lands, was confirmed to the canons of Scone by Pope Honorius III. in 1226. (Liber Ecclesie de Scon, pp. 37, 45, and 67.)
152. Sir Robert Gordon mentions a tradition that he was the builder of the noble castle of Kildrummy, in Mar.
153. Theiner, Vet. Mon. Hib. et Scot. p. 89.
154. Ibid. p. 104.
155. There was collected in the year 1274—From Olric (Olrig), 2 marcs; Dinnosc (Dunnet), 32s. 4d.; Cranesby (Canisbay), 40s.; Ascend (Skinnet), 5s. 4d.; Haukyrc (Halkirk), 14s. 2d.; Turishau (Thurso), 26s. 7d.; the chapel of Haludal (Halladale), 9s. 4d.; Lagheryn (Latheron), 27s. 10d.; Durness, 14s. 8d. There was collected in the year 1275—Laterne (Latheron), 32s.; Cananby, 32s.; Thorsau, 2 marcs; the chapel of Helwedale (Halladale), 9s. 4d.; Ra (Reay), 9s. 4d.; Haukyrc (Halkirk), 13s. 9d.; Olric (Olrig), 2 marcs; the church of Scynand (Skinnet), 18s. 8d.; the church of Dunost (Dunnet), 2 marcs; Keldoninave (Kildonan), 2 marcs. The personal contributions include one from Magister H. de Notingham—doubtless the Notingham near Forse which still bears the name unchanged. (Theiner, Vet. Monum. pp. 112, 115.)
156. Theiner, Vet. Monum. p. 124.
157. Henry of Nothingham was a canon of Caithness in 1272. (Lib. Eccles. de Scon, p. 85.)
158. Rotuli Scotiæ, vol. i. p. 6.
159. Ibid. vol. i. p. 7.
160. Theiner, Vet. Monum, p. 161.
161. Ibid.
162. Ibid. p. 163.
163. Ibid.
164. Comp. Camerar. Scot. i. 25-26.
165. See a paper by Joseph Robertson, Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot. vol. ii. p. 31, note.
166. Theiner, Vet. Monum., p. 276.
167. Ibid.
168. Ibid. p. 277.
169. Origines Parochiales, ii. 485.
170. Regist. Morav. p. 368.
171. There is a writ of Pope Innocent VI., dated in May 1360, preferring Thomas to be bishop of the “Ecclesia Cathayensis,” and ordering him to repair to his diocese on being consecrated by the Bishop of Preneste. It appears from subsequent documents, however, that he was obstructed and interfered with by the bishops of Limerick, Ardfert, and Clonmacnoise, who laid many charges of criminal and illegal proceedings against him, asserting that the “Ecclesia Cathayensis” was a parochial and not a cathedral church, and the Pope appointed George, Archbishop of Cashel, to report on the matter. Owing to the death of the archbishop the report was not made, and the remit was renewed by the successor of Pope Innocent VI. to the Bishop of Lismore. It is not clear whether this was a preferment to the see of Caithness following on the death of Thomas de Fingask, or a series of mistakes. See Theiner’s Vetera Monumenta, pp. 316, 318, 324.
172. Theiner, Vetera Monumenta, p. 333.
173. Diplom. Norvegicum, vii. p. 309.
174. Regist. Morav. p. 200.
175. Regist. Episc. Brechinensis, p. 39.
176. For the details of the structure by Sir H. Dryden, see the Transactions of the Architectural Institute of Scotland, 1869-73. See also Billings’ Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities, 1848; and Worsaae’s Danes and Northmen, 1852.
177. Sir Henry Dryden recognises the following styles in the building:—1st style, 1137 to 1160; 2d style, 1160 to 1200; 3d style, 1200 to 1250; 4th style, 1250 to 1350; 5th style, 1450 to 1500. (Guide to St. Magnus’ Cathedral by Sir H. Dryden, Daventry, 1871.)
178. Magnus Helga Saga (edidit Jonæus: Hafniæ, 1780), pp. 536, 538.
179. The present church of St. Olaf’s, which is not older than the 16th century, and is said by Wallace to have been built by Bishop Reid, in all probability stands on the site of the older one. The veneration of St. Olaf extended both to Scotland and England. There was a church dedicated to him at Cruden, and among the articles enumerated in an inventory of the treasury of the cathedral of Aberdeen in 1518, there is “a small image of St. Olaf of silver decorated with precious stones.”—(Regist. Episc. Aberdonense, ii. p. 172.)
180. Neale, in his Ecclesiological Notes (p. 116), states that Earl Rögnvald’s remains were first interred in the church of Burwick, South Ronaldsay, but gives no authority for the statement. The Saga, on the other hand, states expressly that his remains were taken to Kirkwall, and interred in the cathedral. It is not likely that the founder of the cathedral would have been interred anywhere else.
181. See p. liii, antea.
182. In the engraving given of this church by Hibbert, the church and tower are both represented as covered by a stone roof, that of the tower being a conical cap resembling the usual termination of the Irish Round Towers.
183. In Jo. Ben’s description of the islands (1529) it is said that the church of Egilsey was dedicated to St. Magnus. But as he adds that St. Magnus was born in Egilsey, and brought up there from his infancy, and that he gave a piece of ground to his nurse, on which she made an underground house with all its furniture of stone, it is plain that he is merely repeating the absurd traditions of the time.
184. There were three towered churches in Shetland (see p. ci.)
185. “Its style of architecture,” says Sir Henry Dryden, “discarding certain indications of an earlier date, prevents our assigning to it a date later than the beginning of the 12th century. When we contrast it with the Kirkwall Cathedral begun in 1137, we are forced to give an earlier date than that to Egilsey, and this opinion is corroborated by the churches at Orphir and Brough of Birsay.”—(Ruined Churches in Orkney and Shetland, in the Orcadian of 1867.)
186. Those in Britain are Cambridge, consecrated in 1101; Northampton, about 1115; Maplestead, 1118; the Temple Church, London, 1185; the small Norman church in Ludlow Castle, and the Earls’ Church at Orphir in Orkney—the only example in Scotland. “The round churches at Cambridge, Northampton, and London,” says Ferguson, “were certainly sepulchral, or erected in imitation of the church at Jerusalem” (History of Architecture, ii. p. 60). Wilson, on the other hand, supposes that the early dry-built beehive houses of the Western Islands may have served as a model for some of the earliest Christian oratories, of which that at Orphir, he remarks, is an interesting example (Prehistoric Annals, ii. p. 369). But there is no analogy whatever between the architectural features of Orphir and those of the beehive houses, nor has it any resemblance to the earlier oratories and chapels of the Western Isles.
187. Pope’s Translation of Torfæus (Wick, 1866), p. 108.
188. Sir H. Dryden says this mode of putting on the arch was probably resorted to in order to give a support to the centre on which the arch was built. This seems highly probable, and in some cases it would seem as if the original supports still remain in the shape of two long thin slabs resting on the imposts on either side and meeting in the centre of the arch. See the engraving of the doorway in St. Mary’s Church, Kilbar, Barra, in Mr. Muir’s Characteristics of Old Church Architecture, p. 230.
189. Caithness and Part of Orkney, an Ecclesiological Sketch, by T. S. Muir, p. 25.
190. From an expression of Jo. Ben’s it would seem to have been dedicated to St. Peter:—“Weir, insula est parva, Petro Apostolo dicata.”
191. This church, which was called St. Peter’s in 1726, is called St. Mary’s by Mr. Muir.
192. Sir Henry Dryden remarks that the same mode of making doorways is to be seen in the chapels at Lybster in Caithness, at Weir, at Linton in Shapinsay, Uyea in Shetland, and in some of the early oratories in Ireland, and suggests the question—Were there doors in these churches, and if so, where were they placed and how were they hung? “It is known,” he adds, “that in many cottages in old time the door was an animal’s hide hung across the opening, and probably this may have been the case in these unrebated church entrances.” The custom of closing the entrances to the places of worship by a skin or heavy curtain survives in the East to the present day. The “veil of the Temple,” covering the entrance to the Holy of Holies, is a familiar illustration of this ancient custom among the Jews.
193. The minister of Birsay in 1627 says:—“There is likewise ane litill holm within the sea callit the Brughe of Birsay, quhilk is thocht be the elder sort to have belongit to the reid friaris, for there is the foundation of ane kirk and kirkyard there as yet to be seen.”—Peterkin’s Rentals, No. III., p. 98.
194. Low’s Tour through Orkney and Zetland, MS. in the possession of David Laing, Esq.
195. See the article on “The Twin-towered Churches of Denmark,” by J. Kornerup, in the Aarboger for Nordisk Oldkindighed for 1869, p. 13.
196. Detailed accounts of the excavation, with translations and facsimiles of the inscriptions of Maeshow, have been given in a privately-printed work by Mr. Farrer, and in a work published by the late Mr. John Mitchell. An account of the structure of Maeshow, with notices of the inscriptions, is given by Dr. John Stuart, secretary to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in their Proceedings, vol. v. p. 247. A notice, with readings of the inscriptions, by Dr. Charlton, is given in Archæologia Æliana, vol. vi. p. 127 (1865). See also the splendid work on The Runic Monuments of Scandinavia and England, by Professor George Stephens, Copenhagen, 1866-68.
197. Hogboy is the Norse word Haug-bui, the tenant of the haug, how, or tomb—a hoy-laid dead man, or the goblin that guards the treasures buried in the how. (Ordbog det Norske Gamle Sprog, sub voce.)
198. The leading specific feature of the Orkney group of chambered cairns is the formation of small cells or loculi off the principal chamber. The Caithness group is distinguished by the tricameration of the chamber, and the Clava group by having a circular or oval chamber undivided and unfurnished with loculi.
199. See Chap. xci.
200. The first par of the word seems analogous to the last part of our own Carling-wark, indicating astonishment at the amount of labour required for the rearing of such a structure.
201. In his recent work on Rude Stone Monuments of all Countries (London: John Murray, 1872), Mr. Ferguson suggests that Maeshow may have been erected for Earl Havard, who fell at Stennis about A.D. 970. But apart from its Celtic structural character, if it had been Earl Havard’s tomb his countrymen could scarcely have so completely forgotten the fact in the short space of 200 years.
202. The most detailed account of these is to be found in an elaborate paper on the Celtic Antiquities of Orkney, by Captain F. W. L. Thomas, R.N., in the Archæologia, vol. xxxiv.
203. Flateyjarbók (Christiania, 1860-68), vol. i. p. 225. See the translation in the Appendix, p. 208.
204. The following enumeration of the known sites of the “Pictish Towers,” Borgs, or Brochs, will give some idea of their number and distribution. In Shetland there are, in the island of Unst, 7; in Whalsay, 3; in Yell, 9; in Fetlar, 4; in Mainland and its outlying islets, 51; in Foula, 1—total, 75. In Orkney, in the island of North Ronaldsay, 2; in Papa Westray, 2; in Westray, 5; in Sanday, 9; in Eday, 1; in Stronsay, 3; in Shapinsay, 1; in Gairsay, 1; in Rousay, 3; in Mainland, 35; in South Ronaldsay, 4; in Hoy, 1; in Hunday, 1; in Burray, 2—total, 70. In Caithness, 79. In Sutherland, 60. In Lewis and Harris, 38. In Skye, 30. (For detailed descriptions of Mousa, and many others of these Towers, and lists of their sites, so far as known, see the Archæologia Scotica, “Transactions of the Scottish Society of Antiquaries,” vol. v.)
205. Detailed accounts of these are printed in the Proceedings and Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
206. No instance of a flint arrow-point, a flint celt, a polished stone axe, or perforated stone hammer, has yet been found in a Broch or “Pictish Tower.”
207. As the people of the islands did universally to a comparatively recent period, and as in some of the islands they do to this day.
208. See the Saga, p. 161.
209. Scat still remains the Orkney grievance. “Scalds” were got rid of in the 17th century, having been then solemnly abolished by the kirk-session of Kirkwall, on pain of 40s. penalty and four hours in the cuckstool, as slanderers and persons offensive to their neighbours.
210. Fasti Eccles. Scot. v. p. 441. This statement must be taken cum grano salis. There can be no doubt, however, that the old language was in use in Shetland at that date. The latest known document in the Norse language, written in Shetland, is dated 1586, and among those mentioned in it is “Mons Norsko minister i Jella”—Magnus Norsk, minister in Yell. (Mem. de Soc. Antiq. du Nord, 1850-60, p. 96.)
211. See Lyngbye’s Faeroiske Qvæder, with Muller’s Introduction: Randers, 1822. The old man, William Henry, of Guttorm, in Foula, from whom Low took down the Shetland ballad, spoke to him of “three kinds of poetry used in Norn and recited or sung by the old men—viz., the Ballad, the Vysie or Vyse, now commonly sung to dancers, and the simple song. By the account he gave of the matter, the first seems to have been valued chiefly for its subject, and was commonly repeated in winter by the fireside; the second seems to have been used in public gatherings, now only sung to the dance; and the third at both.” (Low’s MS.)
212. In the Stockholm edition of Snorro’s Edda, it was Hilda, by her enchantments, who raised the slain, as fast as they fell, to renew the combat, and the episode of Ivar Liomi and the Christian additions do not occur. Allusions to Hogni’s daughter Hilda occur in the stanzas of Eyvind Skaldaspiller (Saga of Harald Harfagri, chap. 13), and in those of Einar Skalaglum (Harald Grafeld’s Saga, chap. 6, and Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, chap. 18).
213. For descriptions and readings of these see Munch’s Chronicon Manniæ, Christiania, 1860; Cumming’s Runic and other Monumental Remains in the Isle of Man, London, 1857; and Worsaae’s Danes and Northmen, London, 1852.
214. It is no less singular to find a Rune-inscribed stone so far up the valley of the Spey as Knockando in Morayshire. See Sculpt. Stones of Scotland, i. p. 61.
215. This fragment, which is now in the museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, is figured and described by Professor George Stephens of Copenhagen, in the “Illustreret Tidende” for 20th July 1873, and will be included in the third volume of his great work on the Runic monuments of Scandinavia and England, now preparing for the press.
216. See the note at p. 107 of the Saga.
217. “Description by Ahmed Ibn Fozlan (an eye-witness) of the ceremonies attending the incremation of the dead body of a Norse chief, written in the early part of the 10th century. Translated from Holmboe’s Danish version of the Arabic original, with notes on the origin of cremation and its continuance, by Joseph Anderson, Keeper of the Museum.” Printed in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ix.
218. A large number of these stone kettles, made of steatite, and furnished with iron “bows,” exactly like those of our modern cast-iron pots, are preserved in the Christiania Museum, filled, as they were found, with the burned bones of the former owners. Sometimes the sword of the owner is found twisted and broken, and laid on the top of the bones.
219. There are upwards of 400 of these brooches in the museum at Stockholm, nearly half as many in Christiania, and a large number in Copenhagen.
220. The other one is in the museum at Copenhagen, and is figured in Worsaae’s Danes and Northmen, p. 255.
221. Mem. de la Soc. Antiq. du Nord, 1840-44, p. 79.
222. For full details of this remarkable group of interments, see Wilson’s Prehistoric Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 303, and Journal of the British Archæological Association, vol. ii. p. 329.
223. The events narrated in this chapter are told with greater fulness of detail in the extracts from the Flateyjarbók given in the Appendix.
224. Vikinga-boeli, a vik-ing station, or haunt of the sea-rovers, who harried the coasts wherever they could find plunder. From vik, a bay or creek, are formed the nouns viking, denoting the species of plundering, and vikingr, denoting a person engaged in it.
225. Moeri, a province of Norway, lying southwards of Drontheim (Saga of Harald Harfagri, chap. x). The word signifies a plain bordering on the sea.
226. “He was called Torf-Einar because he cut peat for fuel.” (See Appendix).
227. A son of Harald Harfagri.
228. Rinansey, North Ronaldsay. Munch suggests that the form Ronansey implies its derivation from St. Ronan or Ninian, and that the name is therefore older than the Norse colonisation. St. Ninian is often called St. Ringan, and Ringansey seems quite a probable derivation of Rinansey.
229. This is represented in the Saga of King Harald as a fine exacted by Harald for the death of his son, and paid by the Earl for the bœndr or freeholders who surrendered their odal lands to him in consideration of being freed from this payment (see Appendix).
230. A poem by Thorbiörn Hornklofe, quoted in the Saga of Harald Harfagri.
231. Son and successor of Harald Harfagri.
232. They fell in battle in England, with King Eric Bloodyaxe, and “five kings,” as told in the Saga of Hakon the Good. The place where this battle was fought has not been satisfactorily identified.
233. Dungad, called also Dungal, was a native chieftain, Maormor, or “Jarl,” in the north-east corner of Caithness, who seems to have considered the policy of conciliation preferable to that of resistance, judging from the intimate relations he formed with the foreigners, marrying the daughter of one, and giving his daughter in marriage to another, of the chiefs of the invaders. His bœ or hamlet of residence became on this account so well known to the Norsemen, that they named the district of Dungalsbae (now Duncansbay) by it, and spoke of the headland (now Duncansbay Head) on which it was situated, as Dungalsness, or Duncan’s cape. The supposed remains of his castle were seen by Pennant in 1796, and are described by him as the ruins of a circular building, in all probability one of the “burghs” or circular towers so common in the north of Scotland, which seem to have been the defensive habitations of the native Celtic or Pictish population of the period between the 6th and 9th or 10th centuries. It is now a green mound. From the Session Records of the parish it appears that the district retained its ancient name of “Dungasby” down to the beginning of the last century, when it first appears as Duncansbay, and to this day it is called “Dungsby” by the older inhabitants. The name of the adjacent district of Canisbay, now applied to the whole parish, is similarly derived from Conan’s bæ. It appears between 1223 and 1245 as Canenesbi (Sutherland Charters), and in Blaeu’s Atlas, the MS. maps of which were drawn (circa 1620), by Mr. Timothy Pont, the minister of the adjacent parish of Dunnet, it is marked Conansbay. These two, Duncan and Conan, are the only native chieftains of Caithness at the time of the Norse invasion whose names have come down to us, probably because they were the only ones who held friendly relations with the invaders.
234. In the Saga of Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, it is said that Earl Sigurd lay at Asmundarvag, now Osmundwall, in the south end of the island of Hoy. There is a place called Roray on the west side of the island, which might be the ancient Rörvag.
235. Munch (Chronicon Manniæ, p. 46) alludes to the mistake so common among the historians of Scotland to confound the two Malcolms, and to make one of them, as if one Malcolm only (Malcolm II.) reigned from 1004 to 1034. Though this theory has been ingeniously supported from a Norse point of view, it is at variance with the concurrent testimony of the early Scottish Chronicles. The Saga is the only authority for this marriage; but admitting its testimony on this point to be unassailable scarcely necessitates the repudiation of the authority of the Scottish Chronicles on the question of the succession. (Compare Skene’s Highlanders, chap. 5; Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 447; and Fordun (Skene’s edition), text and notes.)
236. Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, fell at the battle of Svöldr, A.D. 1000.
237. The battle of Clontarf, A.D. 1014 (see the Introduction). The Iceland Annals say that he held the earldom for sixty-two years, so that he must have become Earl in A.D. 952; but Munch makes his true period to be 980-1014.
238. The word Bóndi (pl. Bœndr), literally “a resident” or “dweller,” has no English equivalent, although the form remains in the words “husband” and “husbandman,” (hus-bondi, house-dweller or house-master). The Bœndr were freeholders by odal tenure, proprietors of the lands which they had inherited by succession from the original “land-takers.” “In the primitive form of Scandinavian society,” says Balfour, in his Odal Rights and Feudal Wrongs, “land was the only wealth, its ownership the sole foundation of power, privilege, or dignity. As no man could win or hold possession without the strong arm to defend it, every landowner was a warrior, every warrior a husbandman. King Sigurd Syr tended his own hay harvest, and Sweyn of Gairsay and Thorkel Fóstri swept the coasts of Britain or Ireland while the crops which they and their rovers had sown grew ready for their reaping.” The use of the ancient term survived in Orkney till 1529, as we learn from the description by Jo. Ben, that in the parish of Rendale the people saluted each other with “Goand da boundæ” (i.e. godan dag bondi!) instead of the “Guid day, gudeman,” of the Scottish vernacular. Among the documents found in the king’s treasury at Edinburgh in 1282, was one entitled “A quit-claiming of the lands of the bondi of Caithness for the slaughter of the Bishop,”—viz. Bishop Adam, who was burned at Halkirk in 1222 by the “bondi,” exasperated by his exactions. Although the word is Icelandic, it has been retained in the translation as a convenient term to designate the class, in preference to such periphrastic renderings as “farmer-lairds,” “peasant proprietors,” or “peasant nobles,” as are usually employed.
239. Hrossey (Horse Isle) was the name given by the Norsemen to the mainland of the Orkney group. The Sandvik here mentioned as the residence of Amundi and Thorkel can only be the Sandvik (now Sandwick) on Deerness. When Thorfinn drew his vessels in under Deerness before he was attacked by Kali Hundason (chap. v.), he sent to Thorkel asking him to collect men and come to his assistance. Thorkel’s residence could not therefore have been far from Deerness, although the mention of Laufandaness is somewhat suggestive of Lopness in Sanday.
240. The Things were local or general assemblies for determining by public agreement the course that should be pursued with reference to matters affecting the common weal or the public peace. All odal-born freemen (not under outlawry) had an equal voice, and king, earl, or common bondi, met on the thingstead on equal terms, as thingmen.
241. Ulfreksfiord seems to have been the Norse name of Lough Larne, which in a document of the reign of the Irish King John (A.D. 1210) is styled Wulvricheford (Worsaae’s Danes and Northmen, p. 311). It is suggestive of the identification of this Lough as the scene of Earl Einar’s defeat, that Norse burials have been discovered at Larne. One of these is described in the Crania Britannica, pl. 56. The form of the iron sword found buried with the skeleton, having a short guard and triangular pommel, establishes its Norwegian character.
242. Konufögr is plainly the Norse form of the Irish Conchobhar. Several Irish kings of this name are mentioned in the Annals.
243. Eyvind Urarhorn was a Lenderman (or Baron) of King Olaf Haraldson. He had gone to Ireland to King Conchobhar previous to Einar’s expedition, and had assisted the Irish against the Orkneymen. The Saga of Olaf Haraldson says that Earl Einar was much displeased with the Northmen who had been in the battle on the side of the Irish king, and seized this opportunity of wreaking his vengeance on Eyvind, their leader.
244. Asmundarvag, now Osmundwall, in the south end of the island of Hoy. The termination vágr usually becomes wall, as Kirkiuvagr, which in the modern form is Kirkwall.
245. Olaf Haraldson, surnamed “the Holy,” and afterwards known as St. Olaf, who became king in the year 1015.
246. Now Sandwick, in Deerness.
247. In the Saga of Harald Harfagri it is stated (chap. vi.) that “King Harald made this law over all the lands he conquered, that all the odal possessions should be his, and that the Bœndr, both great and small, should pay him land-dues for their possessions.” Thus he put an end to odal right, in its pure and simple form at least, wherever he extended his authority; and the Bœndr, thus taxed and deprived of their odal rights, complained, with justice, that they were changed from a class of proprietary nobles into a class of tributary tenantry. Having assumed the ownership of the earldom of Orkney as his own by conquest, his heirs became the odal-born lords of Orkney, while the Earls were theoretically the liegemen of the Kings of Norway, though having also an odal right to the earldom which the royal prerogative could not set aside.
248. If like meets like, or if you be met in the same spirit as you come.
249. The word is hirdman. The hirdmen were the King’s body-guard.
250. The manbote (or fine for manslaughter) for every Norwegian Lenderman or Baron was fixed at 6 marks of silver, by the Older Gula-thing.
251. Malcolm II., King of Scotland.
252. The identity of Karl or Kali Hundason is one of the historical puzzles which exercise the ingenuity of modern historians. Supposing the Saga name of this individual to be a Norse corruption of the name of a Scottish king, it resembles none more nearly than that of Culen Induffson, the Culen Mac Induff of the Chronica Pictorum. But if Kali Hundason be intended for Culen Induffson, the dates do not agree by more than sixty years. On the other hand, supposing the events here narrated to be of the period assigned to them by the Saga, Kali Hundason ought to be Duncan, son of Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, who was the grandson and successor of King Malcolm Mac Kenneth. But Fordun states that Duncan’s succession was a peaceful one. It is not to be overlooked, however, that Earl Thorfinn was also a grandson of Malcolm Mac Kenneth; and if we could account for the discrepancy as to the name given by the Saga, the war between the two grandsons of the deceased monarch might readily be accounted for. For full details of the speculations regarding the identity of Kali Hundason, see Skene’s Highlanders of Scotland, chap. v.; the Irish version of “Nennius” (Irish Archæological Society), Appendix, p. 78; Robertson’s Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 477; and Munch’s Norske Folks Historie, vol. i. pt. 2, p. 854.
253. The words “at Beruvik” in Jonæus’s edition are not in the Flateyjarbók. Two places of this name are mentioned in the Saga. One of these is plainly Berwick-on-Tweed (chap. xcii.) The locality of the other (which must be the “Beruvik” of this passage) is fixed by the statement in chap. xciv., where it is said that Earl Rögnvald was then in Sutherland celebrating the marriage of his daughter with Eirik Slagbrellir; and when word was brought to him that Harald had come to Thurso, he rode with a number of his followers “from Beruvik to Thurso.” It has been conjectured that the place here indicated was Caistal a Bharruick, an old square tower situated on an eminence near Kirkiboll, on the east side of the shore of the Kyle of Tongue (Orig. Parochiales, vol. ii. p. 717). Judging from the context, however, it seems more likely that it may have been the vik or inlet at the mouth of the water of Berriedale (Berudal), on the southern border of Caithness, where there are also the ruins of an old square tower—the Castle of Berriedale. This agrees with the statement that King Kali, sailing northward from Beruvik, saw the sails of Thorfinn’s ships going towards Deerness, as he sailed into the mouth of the Firth from the east. Had Kali come from the Kyle of Tongue, he would have sailed east, and Thorfinn would have seen and intercepted him from Duncansbay.
254. Now Sandwick, in Deerness, Orkney.
255. Broad Firth—the Moray Firth.
256. Torfness, the scene of the final conflict between Earl Thorfinn and Kali Hundason, is here described as on the south side of Bæfiord, and by Arnor, the Earls’ skald, as south of Ekkial, the river Oikel, which gave its name to Ekkiálsbakká, or the district along the banks of the Oikel and its estuary—the Kyle of Sutherland—which formed the march between the territory of the Norse earls and Scotland. Torfness may thus be conjectured to be Tarbatness, although we have nothing to fix the locality more definitely. Bæfiord, in this case, would be the wider portion of the Dornoch Firth. Munch suggests that the seemingly French name of Beaufort Castle may be a corruption of Bæfiord (which in that case would be the Beauly Frith); but in all probability the name Beaufort is what it seems to be, and much more modern.
257. In which King Olaf Haraldson (the Holy) was killed, A.D. 1030.
258. The Kjölen mountains, part of the range separating Norway from Sweden.
259. Hólmgard, now Novgorod, formerly Cholmogori, in Russia, which the Northmen called Gardariki.
260. The town of Ladoga, which Rurik, the first King of Russia, made his capital in the 9th century. It is now a mere hamlet.
261. Alfifa, queen of Canute the Great.
262. Ingigerd, daughter of King Olaf of Sweden, was married to King Jarizleif. She stipulated that Rögnvald should accompany her to Russia, and he received the town and earldom of Ladoga (Aldeigiuborg).
263. Nídarós, now the town of Drontheim, so called from its being situated at the mouth of the river Nid.
264. King Olaf adjudged Earl Einar’s third of the islands to be forfeited for the slaying of Eyvind Urarhorn. (See chap. v.)
265. Skotlandsfiord, Scotland’s Firth, was the name given to the channel between the Hebrides and the mainland of Scotland. (See chap. xxx.)
266. Vatnsfiord, probably Loch Vattin, an arm of the sea branching off Loch Bracadale, in Skye.
267. Gaddgedlar.—This passage has given rise to a variety of conjectures. None of the explanations which have yet been offered are free from difficulties. Munch (Chronicon Manniæ, p. 46) says that, considering the situation of Caithness, and how well the author of the saga must have known it, it becomes evident that between “Caithness” and “at the place” an and must have been dropped by the subsequent writer, who, living about A.D. 1380, and in Iceland (this part of the saga existing only in the Codex Flateyensis), might easily have dropped an ok (or the abbreviation thereof), not conscious of the great blunder he committed. He further adds that Gaddgedlar is evidently the Norse corruption of “Galwydia,” Galloway. This explanation is open to the objections that, besides the improbability of Thorfinn having dwelt for the most part in Caithness and in Galloway, the latter place does not fit the description that there Scotland and England meet. The word eingland, signifying meadow, or strath land, may possibly have been used as a general term for “The Dales of Caithness,” if it may not be supposed to be a mis-transcription of the word eignarland, meaning Thorfinn’s own territory. Gaddgedlar might be the Norse pronunciation of the native word Gall-gael, applied to the mixed population of the districts where the Norse element had not entirely displaced the Celtic, or the border districts between the Norse earldom and the purely Celtic territory “where Scotland and his (Thorfinn’s) own land meet.”
268. Raudabiorg, or Red Headland, must be looked for in the neighbourhood of Dunnet Head, where the red beds of the Old Red Sandstone form the distinctive feature of the coast. A little to the east of Dunnet Head there is an outlying crag named Brough of Rattar, or Rattar Brough—in all probability a corrupted form of the old name Raudabiorg. Still farther to the eastward, where the burn of Rattar enters the Firth, are the ruins of an old “Pictish tower,” or broch—in old Norse, borg. In its immediate vicinity is a little promontory called Kirk o’ Taing (Kirkiu Tunga, the Tongue, or Ness of the Kirk), on which are the ruins of one of the small rudely-built chapels of the early Christian time. On the north side of the chapel the edges of a number of stone cists are visible through the turf; and from two of these, which were dug up in cutting a drain in the spring of 1872, eight silver armlets of the ancient penannular form were obtained. These correspond exactly with the armlets which formed part of the great hoard exhumed at Skaill, in Orkney, on the opposite side of the Firth, with Cufic and Anglo-Saxon coins of the tenth century—in all probability a hoard deposited by some of the vikings on their return from a plundering expedition. As Earl Thorfinn and his men were Christians, it seems probable that, if the chapel was then in existence, the bodies of the seventy slain in the fight off Raudabiorg, which were landed here, would be buried in the consecrated ground attached to this chapel.
269. The Mainland of Orkney.
270. The two Papeys, the great and the little (anciently Papey meiri and Papey minni), now Papa Westray and Papa Stronsay, are both mentioned in the Saga. Fordun, in his enumeration of the islands, has a “Papeay tertia,” which is not now known. There are three islands in Shetland called Papey, and both in Orkney and Shetland there are several districts named Paplay or Papplay, doubtless the same as the Papyli of Iceland. Munch considers that these names betray a Kelto-Christian origin. They probably indicate the settlements of Irish ecclesiastics in the islands previous to the arrival of the Northmen. The recent discoveries in Orkney of ecclesiastical bells of the early square form, and of stone monuments with Ogham inscriptions (in one case associated with a figure of the cross of an early form), seem to point to the settlement of ecclesiastical communities in the islands at a very early period. (See Introduction.)
271. Now Papa Westray.
272. King of Denmark.
273. Harald Sigurdson is the famous Harald Hardradi who afterwards fell at the battle of Stamford Bridge, near York, fighting against Harald Godwinson the Saxon King of England, in 1066.
274. A small island off Lindesnes, in the south of Norway.
275. The district round the head of the Christiania Fiord.
276. Scania, the southern part of Sweden.
277. Aalborg, in Jutland.
278. Earl Thorfinn’s pilgrimage to Rome took place most probably about the year 1050. King Magnus died in A.D. 1047, and some time must have elapsed before Thorfinn heard of his death. Then his messengers went to Norway, and returned; and his own expedition was thereafter prepared. After visiting King Harald Hardradi in Norway, he stayed some time with Svend Estridson, the King of Denmark. Then he visited Henry III., Emperor of Germany, and would probably reach Rome soon after the accession of Pope Leo IX., who occupied the Papal throne from 1049 to 1055. As Macbeth, the only Scottish sovereign who ever visited the city of Rome, made his pilgrimage thither in the year 1050, and Thorfinn and he were close friends and allies, it is probable that they went together. (Compare Saga of King Harald Hardradi; Wyntoun, vol. ii. pp. 468, 469; Marianus Scotus, in Mon. Hist. Brit., p. 604; Florence of Worcester; Chron. de Mailros; Ritson’s Annals, vol. ii. p. 116; Skene’s Highlanders, chap. v.; Grub’s Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, chap. xiii.)
279. This quotation from Arnór seems to have reference only to Thorfinn’s conquests in Ireland. Doubtless the extent of these is considerably exaggerated. The Thussasker appear to be the outlying skerries off the S.E. of Ireland, still known as the Tuscar Rocks.
280. Malcolm II., Mac Kenneth.
281. Harald Sigurdson (Hardradi) was slain at Stamford Bridge in 1066, and Earl Thorfinn died in 1064.
282. Transferred their allegiance to the native chieftains, to whom they belonged by hereditary right.
283. This marriage is unknown in Scottish history, and rests on the authority of the Sagas alone. Duncan is said by the Scottish historians to have been a bastard, while the Sagas make him the legitimate offspring of Malcolm and Ingibiorg, who must by this time have been old enough to be Malcolm’s mother. She was married to Earl Thorfinn before Kálf Arnason was banished by King Magnus (chap. xiv.), which was some time between 1036 and 1041. Earl Thorfinn died in 1064, seven years after King Malcolm was crowned at Scone, in 1057. Malcolm’s marriage with the Princess Margaret of England took place in 1067, or less than three years after Ingibiorg became a widow. Munch supposes that Ingibiorg must have died in childbed with Duncan, and suggests that the fact that Duncan claimed the crown before Edgar, the son of Malcolm by Margaret, may be taken as showing that he must have been the offspring of a previous marriage. Macpherson (Wyntoun, vol. ii. p. 472), while accepting the statement of the Saga, accounts for Duncan being called a bastard from the circumstance that Malcolm’s marriage with Ingibiorg was within the degrees of propinquity forbidden by the canon law.
284. This William Odling (the Noble) is William of Egremont (the boy of Egremont), son of William Fitz Duncan, and consequently grandson of Duncan. The reference here to him as the person whom all the Scots wished to have for their king is explained by the fact that, on the death of David I., by the old Celtic law of succession, he became in the eyes of the Celtic population the rightful heir to the throne; and his claims were supported by no fewer than seven Earls, among whom were those of Strathern, Ross, and Orkney. The insurrection was speedily put down, but the claim was subsequently revived by Donald Bane Macwilliam, who, on the same principle, obtained the support of the northern chiefs. (See Skene’s Highlanders of Scotland for a full account of the conflict between the feudal and the Celtic systems of succession.)
285. This is a mistake. Morkere was present at the battle of Hastings, and he and Waltheof went afterwards to Normandy with William the Conqueror.
286. Fordun (v. chap. i.) records the landing of Macduff “at Ravynsore in England.” Camden mentions a place on Holderness, at the mouth of the Humber, formerly called Ravensere. It no longer exists, having been destroyed by the encroachments of the sea.
287. Now called the Mainland of Orkney.
288. The reference here must be supposed to be to the murder of St. Magnus.
289. “Hugh the Stout” was Hugh, Earl of Chester; and “Hugh the Bold,” Hugh of Montgomery, Earl of Salop. According to Odericus Vitalis, King Magnus came into the Menai Straits with only six ships, carrying a red shield on the mast as a sign of peace and commercial intercourse. The Welsh King Griffith was at that time engaged in war with the Norman Earls above mentioned, who had invaded his territories, and advanced as far as the Straits, when the arrival of King Magnus gave an unexpected turn to the course of events, in the death of the Earl of Montgomery, as here narrated.
290. Hálogaland, the most northern part of Norway.
291. The Saga writer (says Munch) has been here misled by the Scottish denomination of the reigning monarch, Edgar MacMalcolm. Malcolm Canmore died in 1093, the year of King Magnus’s first expedition to the west. The second expedition, which was in 1098, was the one in which he fought with the two Norman Earls in Anglesea Sound. The events of the two expeditions are here mixed up together, and the references to Malcolm Canmore do not synchronise with either. It is possible that the offer of the islands (as here mentioned) may have come to King Magnus from Donald Bane, the brother of King Malcolm, to secure the support of King Magnus in his attempt to retain the throne against Edgar, although the incident of the drawing of the boat across the isthmus may have taken place in the reign of Edgar. The “Fagrskinna” (p. 156) adds that King Malcolm of Scotland, sent his daughter out to the Orkneys to be married to Magnus’s son Sigurd, he being then nine and she five years of age, and that he left her in the Orkneys when he went to Norway. The author has confounded Malcolm with Mýrkiartan.
292. Pennant mentions (1772) that not long previously it was customary for vessels of nine or ten tons to be drawn across the isthmus by horses, in order to avoid the dangerous and circuitous passage round the Mull.
293. Scotland’s Firth—the channel between the west coast of Scotland and the Hebrides.
294. Muircearteach, grandson of Brian Boroimhe, King of Munster.
295. Now Drontheim, so called because situated at the mouth of the Nid.
296. See note at p. 38.
297. Ulster, in Ireland.
298. King Sigurd, the Jorsala-farer, set out on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1107.
299. Borgarfiord, the “fiord of the Borg,” now Burra Firth, on the west side of the Mainland of Shetland, so named by the Norsemen on account of the “borg,” or “Pictish tower,” which still stands on the little holm of Hebrista, though greatly ruined. It is probable that the reason of Thorbiörn’s connection with Borgarfiord was its affording him and his followers a shelter and defensive position in the borg. The old name Borgarfiord occurs in a document in the Norse language dated 1299. It is a record drawn up in the Lagthing of certain charges made against Herr Thorvald Thoresson, by a woman named Ragnhild Simonsdatter, who accuses him of malversation of the land-rents of Brekasettr. (Diplom. Norvegicum, vol. i. p. 81.) Harald of Borgarfiord in Shetland witnesses a document in 1498.
300. The place where the Orkney Things were held is nowhere more particularly indicated. Stennis has been suggested, on the supposition that the great stone circle there would have been thus utilised by the Northmen. It does not appear, however, that the occasion on which Havard, son of Thorfinn Hausakliuf, was killed at “Steinsness” was a Thing meeting there, and this is the only occasion on which Stennis is mentioned in the whole of the Flateyjarbók. “Tingwale,” in the parish of Rendale, occurs in the Orkney Land List of 1502. This seems to be the only trace of the old Thing-völl in Hrossey.
301. Egilsey, in Jo. Ben’s description of the Orkneys (1529) called “Insularum Ecclesia,” is regarded by Munch as deriving its name not from the Norse proper name Egil, but from the Irish Eaglais, a church. “To this day,” he says, “Egilsey contains a church shown by its construction to have been built before the Northmen arrived in Orkney, or at all events to belong to the more ancient Christian Celtic population. (See under “Egilsey” in the Introduction).
302. These dates are self-contradictory, and utterly irreconcilable. King Magnus Barelegs fell in Ireland in the year 1103; and it is stated in the Saga of Sigurd, the Jorsala-farer, that Hákon, Paul’s son, came to Norway to King Sigurd “a year or two after King Magnus’s fall.” The King gave him the earldom and government of the Orkneys, and he went back immediately to Orkney. Then it is added that four years after the fall of King Magnus—that is, in 1107—King Sigurd set out on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Now, it is mentioned in this Saga (chap. xxxiii.) that Earl Magnus went to Norway to see King Eystein, “for King Sigurd had then gone to Jerusalem.” This must have been after 1107. King Eystein gave him his patrimony, one-half of the Orkneys. If his visit to Norway was in the year after King Sigurd’s departure, as seems likely from the narrative, or in 1108, and “he had been seven winters Earl in the Orkneys along with Earl Hákon,” this would bring the date of his death exactly to the year assigned in the Iceland Annals appended to the Flateyjarbók, or to 1115. The entry in the “Annalar” for that year is: “Pindr enn heilagi Magnus jarl i Orkneyium.” Torfæus dates this event in 1110. The Saga of St. Magnus says he had been twelve winters Earl of the Orkneys jointly with Hákon, counting evidently from the vacancy of earldom in 1103 by the accession of Sigurd, Magnus’ son, then Earl of the Orkneys, to the throne of Norway. This also gives the date 1115.
303. A curious catalogue of cases in which diseased and infirm people were miraculously restored to health and vigour, after paying their vows at the shrine of St. Magnus, is given in the Magnus Saga. These pilgrims mostly came from Shetland. Two of the cases are interesting as affording the earliest notices of leprosy (líkthrá) in Shetland—a disease which seems to have continued in the Islands till towards the close of the last century.—(Sir James Simpson’s Archæological Essays—Leprosy and Leper Hospitals in Britain.) These cases appear to have been overlooked by Sir James. Schröder has published a curious Swedish version of the story of St. Magnus, in which the account of his miracles is considerably varied.
304. That is for sixty-six years. As William died, according to the Icelandic Annals, in 1168, and was bishop in the year of St. Magnus’s death, 1115, he was undoubtedly bishop for fifty-three years. That he was bishop for the long period of sixty-six years, as this passage seems to imply, may be open to some doubt. Munch supposes that the “seventh decade” may be an error for “sixth.” This would place his consecration to the see of Orkney in 1112; but the Saga of St. Magnus says he was bishop sixty-six years.
305. Rekavík is either the modern Rackwick, on the northern point of the Island of Westray, in Orkney, or Rackwick, in the Island of Hoy; more probably the latter.
306. Sigurd Slembir or Slembidiakn had a most romantic history. In his youth he was considered the son of a priest, Adalbrekt by name, and was brought up for the church. His tastes appear to have lain in quite another direction, however; and he soon broke loose from the restraints of ecclesiastical life. He gave himself out as an illegitimate son of King Magnus Barelegs, and commenced a life of roving and adventure, visiting the Holy Land, and turning an honest penny occasionally by trading expeditions to Scotland, the Orkneys, Ireland, and Denmark. In the latter country he proved his paternity by the ordeal of hot iron, as King Harald Gilli had done. He then went to King Harald, and asked him to recognise him; but instead of this he was placed on his trial for the slaying of Thorkel Fóstri, Sumarlidi’s son. He managed to make his escape by jumping overboard with two of his guards in his arms, and soon after returned and killed King Harald Gilli in his bed in Bergen. Then he tried to place Magnus the Blind on the throne by assistance from Denmark; but the expedition was met on the south coast of Norway by the sons of King Harald, and totally defeated. Magnus was slain, and Sigurd Slembir was taken, and put to death with almost incredible tortures. (See the account of him in the Sagas of Magnus the Blind and the sons of Harald in the Heimskringla.)
307. Westness, in Rousay (Hrólfsey), see p. 73.
308. Thorkel Fóstri Sumarlidi’s son, foster-father to Earl Paul, not to be confounded with Thorkel Fóstri, Amundi’s son, previously noticed as foster-father to Earl Thorfinn Sigurdson.
309. Stofa. In the twelfth century men began to live more comfortably, and broke up their large halls into separate compartments. Thus, a portion of the Skáli at the upper end, where the pall or dais was, was shut off, and called stofa.—(Dasent’s preface to the Njals Saga.)
310. Gefsisness. No place answering to this name can now be traced in Westray, but a various reading of the passage has Reppisness; and there is a place on the south-east side of the island still called Rapness, probably the place here indicated.
311. Fluguness does not again occur in the saga, and has not been identified. It is the same as the Flydruness of p. 92.
312. Knarrarstadir seems to signify the district at the head of Scapa Bay, south of Kirkwall. Munch derives the name from knörr, a merchant-ship. It is said at p. 110 that Játvör and her son Borgar lived at Geitaberg, which seems to be the place now called Gatnip, on the east side of Scapa, anciently Scalpeid.
313. Brekkur in Straumsey may have been the name of a homestead in the island of Stroma. There is some confusion as to the locality, however. It is said in chap. lxvii. to have been in Stronsay. The name is not now recognisable in either of the islands.
314. Glaitness, near Kirkwall, is probably the modern representative of the ancient Glettuness. In the testament of Sir David Synclair of Swynbrocht (Sumburgh, in Shetland), in the year 1506, there is a bequest “to Thorrald of Brucht, and to his wife and his airis, ten merks land in Glaitness, and fifteen merks land in Linggo, with all guids there contenit, and twenty-two merks in Pappale, ten merks in Brucht.”
315. Harald Gillichrist, who subsequently became King of Norway, under the name of King Harald Gilli. See p. 84, note.
316. Comparing men. This was a favourite occupation of their leisure hours among the Northmen. A curious instance of it occurs in the Saga of King Sigurd, the Jorsala-farer, in the Heimskringla, where the narrative states that as the ale was not good the guests were very quiet and still, until King Eystein said, “It is a common custom over the ale-table to compare one person with another, and now let us do so.” As in this case, a quarrel was the usual result.
317. Osló, or Opslo, was the old capital of Norway. Its site is now included in that of Christiania.
318. Hauga-Thing, so called apparently because the place of meeting was a haug, or barrow. Whether this was a local name at Túnsberg, or whether it refers to a special assembly held at the burial-place of the King, is not clear.
319. Harald Gillichrist, illegitimate son of King Magnus Barelegs, was of Celtic extraction, his mother being a native of the Hebrides. He and his mother were brought over to Norway from the Southern Hebrides in a ship belonging to a Norwegian merchant named Halkel Húk. When the story of Harald’s parentage was told to King Sigurd, he consented to allow Harald to prove his paternity by the ordeal of hot iron, but on condition, that if he succeeded in proving his descent according to his claim, he should not desire the kingdom in the lifetime either of King Sigurd or of his son, King Magnus, and to this Harald bound himself by oath. This seems to be the oath referred to as given under compulsion. “The ordeal,” it is added in the Saga of King Sigurd, “was the greatest ever made in Norway, for nine glowing ploughshares were laid down, and Harald walked over them with bare feet, attended by two bishops, and invoking the holy St. Columba”—another testimony to his Celtic birth. His feet were then bound up, and he was laid in bed. After the customary three days had elapsed, his feet were examined, or, as the Saga has it, “the ordeal was taken to proof, and his feet were found unburnt.” His claims were therefore held to have been proven, and made good. It is curious to find that among the privileges granted by the Scottish King David to the monks of Holyrood, they were specially empowered to make trials by the ordeal of hot iron.
320. In Vík, in the south of Norway.
321. Now Ferlof, in Sogn, Norway.
322. Vík meant properly the bay of Oslo, the upper part of which is now called the Christiania Fiord, but it was also applied to the district bordering on the bay.
323. Harald and Eric, Kings of Denmark, had sworn mutual brotherhood.
324. Alasund is now Yell Sound, the ancient name for the island of Yell being Jala. In the latest known Hjaltland document, written in Norse, and dated in 1586, the name of the island appears as “Yella.”
325. Outsittings, a peculiar kind of sorcery resorted to in order to obtain foreknowledge of the future, in which the person sat out at night under the open sky, and by certain magical rites or incantations summoned the dead from their graves to consult them. A curious instance is given in the 40th chapter of the Færeyinga Saga, in which Sigmund Brestisson is brought from the dead, with his head in his hand, to show who was his murderer.
326. The Moul Head of Deerness.
327. The Norsemen were in the habit of carrying stones on board their warships to be used as missiles. It is told in the Færeyinga Saga of Sigmund Brestisson that when about to attack the ships of another Viking lying on the opposite side of an island on the coast of Sweden, he spent the whole night in landing the goods and plunder from his vessels, and breaking up stones, and loading his vessel with them to serve as missiles in the attack. The same thing had been done by the Earl’s men in this case before the commencement of the fight.
328. Probably at the place now called Swiney, in Caithness, near Lybster. Though the context here seems to imply that Swiney, in Caithness, is meant, it seems that Grim was in the island of Swona (the small island between Hoy and South Ronaldsay), when Swein, Asleif’s son, visited him (see p. 92). Perhaps Swiney, in Caithness, was so named from its being the property of Grim of Swona.
329. Aurrida Firth, or Salmon-trout Firth, now the Bay of Firth.
330. Flydruness seems to be the same as Fluguness, in Hrossey (Mainland), mentioned as the residence of Blan and his father Thorstein, at p. 74.
331. The Earl’s seat at Orphir appears to have consisted of a cluster of buildings, of which the main hall or skáli answered to the public room of the residence. The descriptions given of the Orkney skális are wanting in that minuteness which is necessary to enable us to understand the details of their construction. No doubt they were similar to those of Iceland, the larger of which were constructed partly of stone and partly of timber, the middle division of the hall being higher in the roof than the “aisles” on either side of it, and separated from them by a row of pillars running parallel to each of the side walls. The walls of the aisles and the spaces between the pillars were covered with wainscoting, sometimes with carved work, and on high days hung with tapestry. Shields and weapons were hung along the sides of the hall, above the benches, and the fires were lit on hearths in the middle of the floor. The benches were ranged along both sides of the hall; the “high seat” of the Earl, or owner of the skáli, was in the centre of the south side, and the seats of highest honour were those next to him on either side.
332. Probably a large flagstone set on end to serve as a partition-wall. This is a common feature of the ancient structures in Caithness and Orkney. It was in the shadow of this flagstone that Swein, Asleif’s son, stood when he killed Swein Brióstreip (see p. 95).
333. Serving the table, and holding lights. The light-bearers or candle-holders were a distinct class of servants at the King’s court. This custom is said to have been first introduced by King Olaf Kyrre in the latter half of the eleventh century.
334. The emptying of horns of ale to the memory of departed heroes and comrades, with the accompaniment of speeches setting forth their famous deeds, was a recognised custom at the festivals of the Northmen.
335. Besides his evil repute as a turbulent fellow, Swein was suspected of sorcery, and thus obnoxious to the church (see p. 88).
336. This must either he Paplay in South Ronaldsay, or Paplay on the Mainland. Munch says that the circumstance that the name of the island is always carefully added in the Saga when a Mainland district is not the one alluded to favours the supposition that it is the latter which is here meant.
337. Gói, the fourth month of the year, corresponding to our February and part of March. The ancient mode of reckoning among the Northmen was by “winters,” the year commencing on the 23d November. Gói was sometimes called “horning-month”—the month in which the deer shed their horns; and it was also the month in which, in heathen times, the great annual sacrifice took place at Upsala, as mentioned in the Saga of King Olaf the Holy.
338. Höfn, the haven, in Westray, is probably the modern Pierowall, the only safe natural harbour in the island, and the only place entitled to the name of “the haven.”
339. The thorp or village of Höfn here mentioned most likely stood on the shore by the landing-place at Pierowall. The fact that there are a number of graves on the links here, in which have been found the swords peculiar to the Norse viking period, shield-bosses, bronze tortoise brooches (a distinctively Scandinavian form), and other relics unquestionably of Norse origin, shows that the neighbourhood must have been largely frequented by the Northmen, and perhaps made a permanent settlement long before this time. The Church of Westray is mentioned among those vacant in 1327-28 by the Papal Nuncio, who collected the tithes for these years.
340. Although there is a curious similarity between this incident and that related in chap. lxxi. on the occasion of the visit of Bishop John to the Orkneys, yet the fact of Earl Rögnvald turning the procession into ridicule, whereas Bishop John’s party appear to have been received with all due respect, suggests that the two narratives can scarcely refer to the same incident. The reference here to the “isle Elon,” taken in connection with the statement in chap. xcix. that there were monks on Eller Holm (named “Helene-holm” by Fordun), may mean that there was a colony of clerics on the little island, whose dress and tonsure may thus have tickled the fancy of the rhyming Earl. In the rental of Shapinsay (1642), Elgin-holme is set in feu to Sir John Buchanan for payment of 12s. annually. In 1529 Jo. Ben mentions that there were foundations of houses and even of a chapel on Eloerholme, though it was then waste and uninhabited (see chap. xcix). Neale notices “the ruins of a very small chapel” on Ellerholm (Ecclesiological Notes, p. 111).
341. The Iceland Annals place Earl Rögnvald’s winning the Orkneys in the year 1136.
342. Evie Sound; from Efja, now Evie.
343. Húdfat—skin-bags, or sleeping haps, made of hides sewed together, so as to envelope the sleeper as in a sack.
344. Still known as the Swelkie, a dangerous whirlpool in certain states of the tide, off the island of Stroma, fabled to be caused by the waters being sucked down through the eye of the quern “Grotti,” which once belonged to King Fródi. Grotti was found in Denmark, and was the largest quern that had ever been known. It would grind for King Fródi gold or peace, which he pleased. But the sea-king M[‘y]sing took Grotti, and caused white salt to be ground in his ships till they sank in Pentland’s Firth. This is why the Swelkie has been there ever since. As the waters fall through the eye of the quern, the sea roars as the quern grinds; and, moreover, this is how the sea first became salt.—(Elder Edda, Grottasöng.) Traces of this legend still linger in the locality.
345. Ekkialsbakki is three times mentioned in the Flateyjarbók, and Ekkial once by Arnór Jarlaskáld (see p. 22). Earl Sigurd, Eystein’s son, who killed Malbrigd (Maormor of Mar according to Skene), was “hoy-laid” (buried in a how or barrow, haugr), on Ekkialsbakki. “There cannot be the least doubt,” says Worsaae, in his ‘Danes and Northmen,’ “that Ekkial is the river Oykill (Oykel), which still forms the southern boundary of Sutherland. But nobody is able to point out the barrow of Sigurd Jarl. The tradition relating to it has vanished with the Norwegian population.” But, fortunately, there are records more permanent and reliable than popular tradition, by which the truth of the Saga narrative may be verified, and the locality of Sigurd’s grave-mound indisputably fixed. There is a place near the Ferry on the north bank of the Dornoch Firth (into which the Oykel runs) which is now somewhat inappropriately called Cyder Hall. In Blaeu’s Atlas (1640) it appears as Siddera. In older charters it is conjoined with Skebo, and called Sythera. In a deed of the year 1275 the Bishop of Caithness claims right to “six davochs of Schythebolle and Sytheraw, with the ferry.” In the deed of constitution of the Cathedral Chapter of Caithness, executed between 1223 and 1245, there are assigned to the treasurer the rectorial tithes of Scytheboll and Siwardhoch, its conjunction with Scytheboll showing it to be the same place which is called at subsequent periods Sytheraw, Siddera, and Cyder Hall. This place, named Siward’s Hoch (Sigurd’s haug) at that early date, could be no other than the traditional site of Earl Sigurd’s grave-mound, and the Ekkialsbakki on which he was buried must thus have been the north bank of the Oykel’s estuary. But the Ekkialsbakki twice mentioned in connection with Swein Asleifson’s journey to Athole can scarcely be the same with that of the earlier narrative. It seems probable that in Swein Asleifson’s narrative the word may have been originally Atjoklsbakki—the coast on the side of the Breidafiord (Moray Firth) next to Atjöklar (Athole). The word bakki is sometimes used for a “coast.” The Saga writer may have been misled by the similarity of sound to substitute Ekkialsbakki for Atjoklsbakki. (See p. 115.)
346. The name of Maddad, Earl of Athole, appears in contemporary documents as Maddoc, Madach, and Madeth. In the foundation-charter of Scone by King Alexander I. and his queen Sibilla, “Madach Comes” is a witness. “Maddoc” and “Madeth Comes” also witness charters of King David I. From a charter by King Malcolm the Maiden, granting aid for the restoration of the Abbey of Scone, we learn that the style of the Earls of Athole was “Comes de Ethocl,” the Atjokl of the Saga.—(Regist. de Dunferm. Regist. de Scone.)
347. Geitaberg is probably the place now known as Gatnip, on the east side of Scapa Bay, near Kirkwall. It is formerly stated that Játvör and her son Borgar lived at Knarrarstad, which is evidently the name for the district, while Geitaberg was the name of Borgar’s homestead. Gatnip is the highest point on that side of the bay, and thus Borgar was able to notice the barge rowed by Swein’s men as it passed up and down the Firth.
348. Magnus, in the text here, is clearly a mistake for Hákon.
349. The erection of St. Magnus’ Church was commenced apparently between the years 1136 and 1138. The remains of St. Magnus appear to have been transferred to it from Christ’s Church, in Birsay, previous to the departure of Earl Rögnvald to the Holy Land in 1152. After Earl Rögnvald’s death, in 1158, the building of the cathedral was carried on by Bishop William, until his death in 1168, after which we have no record of its progress.
350. The odal tenure of the lands in the islands was first modified by Harald Harfagri in the time of the Earl Torf Einar. Earl Sigurd Hlödverson restored the odal rights in return for the assistance of the Bœndr at the battle of Skida Myre (see Appendix). This arrangement subsisted till the imposition of the succession-dues by Earl Rögnvald, which were subsequently bought up, as here narrated.
351. Knarrarstad, as has been formerly explained, was applied to the district at the head of the Bay of Scapa. It was so called because it was the place where the merchant-ships lay—from Knarrar, genitive of knörr, a merchant-ship; and stadr, a stance or stead. The name is preserved in old estate-lists as Knarstane. In the near neighbourhood there is an ancient “broch” or “Pictish tower,” recently excavated by Mr. George Petrie. Remains of very extensive buildings have been found within and around it, evidently belonging to a secondary occupation of the tower, of later date than that of its original construction. Among the relics found in these secondary buildings there are some which correspond with relics of the later Viking period found in Scandinavia. This gives a certain amount of probability to the supposition that the ruins of this “Pictish tower” may have been occupied and utilised by Earl Rögnvald’s men, as we know that the similar tower of Mousa, in Shetland, was on different occasions, one of which is narrated in chap. xcii. of this same Saga.
352. This incident bears a remarkable similarity to that related in chap. lxvi.
353. It is curious that Cæsar has described the ancient Britons as observing in his time the same custom of shaving the lower part of the chin, and wearing the hair long on the upper lip.
354. Borgarfiord seems here to be a misreading for Breidafiord (the Moray Firth), unless we suppose that there was another Borgarfiord besides the one in Shetland. Jonæus has nordr instead of sudr, thus making Swein sail north to Borgarfiord, which in this case would be in Shetland. But it is hardly probable that he would have taken Shetland in his route from Orkney to the coast of Moray.
355. Dúfeyrar must have been situated on the sandy shore of the parish of Duffus, on the Moray coast, eyri signifying a spit of sand. It has been supposed, with some degree of probability, that Burghead is the place here meant.
356. Ekkialsbakki, probably for Atjoklsbakki. (See note on p. 107.)
357. Hjalmundal, Strath Helmsdale, or Strath Ulli, which runs up along the south side of the Ord, the mountain chain separating Caithness from Sutherland. The expression “near the middle of Sutherland” must mean that Swein came up through the central or inland region of the country, and thus came down into Strath Helmsdale, a long way from the coast, or “near the middle of the land.”
358. Ines in Jonæus; it has not been identified.
359. Probably Lundy Island, in the Bristol Channel.
360. Syllingar, the Scilly Islands. There was an ecclesiastical settlement there in Olaf Tryggvason’s time. It was in the Scilly Islands that he was baptized, and embraced the faith which he afterwards propagated with the strong hand both in his own kingdom and in Orkney.
361. Lúdr.—This same signal was used by the army of the Bœndr at the battle of Stiklestad (Flateyjarbók, ii. 352). The signal-horn used at the present day by the Shetland fishermen still retains the ancient name, “the ludr-horn.”
362. Clavis Rhythmica, apparently a kind of rhyming dictionary or repertory of versification. Torfæus states that this joint production of Earl Rögnvald and Hall, Ragna’s son, is still extant in the library at Upsala.
363. From the description of Lambaborg, and its situation with regard to the coast and the river at Freswick, it seems to have been the fortalice now called Bucholly Castle, from a Mowat of Bucholly who possessed it in the 17th century, and by whom it was partially rebuilt.
364. Probably now represented by Duffus in Moray.
365. This passage supplies the name of a prior of the monastery of May, not otherwise on record. (See records of the Priory of the Isle of May, issued by the Soc. Antiq. Scot. 1868).
366. See p. 123.
368. The Stockholm translation of the Saga has “in Vigr,” instead of “in the Islands.”
369. In the Saga of Hakon Hakonson it is stated that Kolbein Hruga’s castle was on the island of Vigr, now Weir. It was to this stronghold that Snækoll Gunnason fled when he had slain Earl John (son of Harald Maddadson), the last of the Norse Earls of Orkney, in A.D. 1232; and the Saga states that the castle was so strong that it resisted all the efforts of the Earl’s friends to take it. In 1529 we learn from Jo. Ben that the ruins were still visible. Barry describes it as a small square tower, 15 feet square inside, and the walls 7 feet thick, strongly built with large stones, well cemented with lime. It is now a green mound, like the older Pictish towers; but to this day among the peasantry of the locality the mound bears the name of Cobbie Row’s (Kolbein Hruga’s) Castle.
370. See note on p. 84.
371. Probably in the body-guard of the Greek Emperor, which, the Byzantine historians of the period inform us, was composed of natives of the remote north, whom they call Varangians. The name Varangi first appears with them in the year 935, but they are said to have served of old in the body-guard, and to have come partly from Thule and partly from England. In the Saga of Harald Hardradi his exploits during his sojourn in the East are minutely detailed, and it is recorded that he became chief of the Værings, who were at that time in the Imperial service. For several centuries these mercenaries in the pay of the Emperors were renowned for their bravery, discipline, and fidelity. After the Norman conquest of England, a body of Anglo-Saxon youth, under Siward of Gloucester, choosing exile rather than the ignominy of submission to the conquerors, went to Constantinople, and enrolled themselves among the Værings. So many followed them that a mixture of Danish and Saxon became the official language of the guards of the Imperial Palace. Hoards of Eastern coins and ornaments are almost annually discovered in Norway and Sweden, and occasionally in Orkney and the North of Scotland. The museum of Stockholm possesses a collection of more than 20,000 Cufic coins found in Sweden, dating from the close of the 8th to the end of the 10th century, and vast quantities of those silver ornaments of peculiar forms and style of workmanship, which are also believed to have been brought from the East, partly by trade and partly by the returning Værings.
372. The scene of the shipwreck seems to have been near Gulberwick.
373. The MS. translation at Stockholm reads “two Icelanders.”
374. Having studied probably at the University of Paris. Schröder gives the names of several Swedish students at the University of Paris as early as 1275. (De Universitate Parisiensi: Joh. Hen. Schröder.)
375. Valland, probably for Gaul-land, the Norse name for the west coast of France.
376. Verbon has not been identified.
377. Galicialand, the modern Galicia, the north-west corner of Spain.
378. Heathen Spainland must refer to the provinces then in possession of the Moors. The Saga of Sigurd the Jorsala-farer says that when he visited Lisbon, four years after the fall of King Magnus Barelegs (circa A.D. 1107), “there lies the division between Christian Spain and heathen Spain, and all the districts that lie west of the city are occupied by heathens”—meaning Moslems.
379. Njörfasund, the Straits of Gibraltar.
380. Serkland, or Saracen land—the north coast of Africa.
381. Dromones, originally used for long and swift ships, was in later times applied to the larger ships of war (Du Cange sub voce). In the early French romances it appears as “Dromons,” and “Dromont.” Matthew Paris, in his account of the crusading expedition of Richard I. of England (A.D. 1191) notices the capture of a Saracen ship—“navis permaxima quam Drómundam appellant.”—Hist. Angl. vol. ii. p. 23, Rolls Ed.
382. The tying of knots at the Jordan is also alluded to in the saga of Sigurd the Jorsala-farer. King Sigurd and his brother Eystein are “comparing each other’s exploits,” and Sigurd says:—“I went to Palestine, and I came to Apulia, but I did not see you there, brother. I went all the way to Jordan, where our Lord was baptized, and swam across the river; but I did not see thee there. On the edge of the river-bank there was a bush of willows, and there I twisted a knot of willows, which is waiting thee there; for I said this knot thou shouldst untie, and fulfil the vow, brother, that is bound up in it.” The tying of knots seems also to have had another meaning covertly alluded to in the stanzas.—(See the story of Gunnhild and Hrut in the Njáls Saga, p. 18.)
383. This seems to be no place-name, but a name formed, as the Turks formed the name Istambol, from hearing the Greeks constantly talking of going “εις την πολιν”—“to the city,” meaning Constantinople.
384. Probably the promontory of Sigeum, at the mouth of the Dardanelles. It might be called Ægisness, from its being at the entrance to the Ægean Sea. It is called Engilsness in the saga of “King Sigurd the Jorsala-farer,” and it is stated that Sigurd’s fleet also lay here for a fortnight waiting a side-wind, that they might show off their sails (which they had stitched over with silks) as they passed up to Constantinople. There was, however, a town called Ægos, at the mouth of a stream of the same name, near the northern end of the Dardanelles, a little below the modern Gallipoli.
385. See note at p. 127.
386. Manuel I., successor of John Comnenus, who reigned from 1143 to 1180.
387. Dýraksborg must be Durazzo, the ancient Dyrachium, a seaport in Albania, on the Adriatic, opposite to Brundusium in Italy.
388. Pull, the ancient Apulia or Puglia, in Italy, on the opposite shore of the Adriatic from Dyrachium. Apulia had been under the dominion of its Norman dukes from the middle of the eleventh century, and this may have been the reason why the route homewards through Apulia was chosen both by Sigurd the Jorsala-farer and Earl Rögnvald.
389. Hákon Herdabreid (the broad-shouldered) became King in 1161. (For an account of his death, and that of King Ingi and Gregorius Dagson, see the sagas of the sons of Harald Gilli and Hákon Herdabreid, in the Heimskringla.)
390. Near Bergen.
391. Viken, in the south of Norway.
392. Bishop’s-tongues, a district lying between three rivers in the south of Iceland, also mentioned in the Njáls Saga.
393. See note on p. 21.
394. One of the MS. copies of the saga has “Rögnvaldzeyiar.”
395. Harald Hardradi, son of Sigurd Syr, who was slain in the battle of Stamford Bridge. See p. 47.
396. See the account of her elopement with Earl Erlend Ungi in chap. xcii., and of her relations with Gunni, Olaf’s son, chap. lxxxvii.
397. This was Malcolm the Maiden, the grandson, and not the son, of King David I.
398. Malcolm the Maiden.
399. Malcolm the Maiden was twelve years old when he came to the throne. Perhaps the Saga-writer meant that he had then been nine winters king.
400. The Mull of Deerness, or Moulhead of Deerness, as it is called in the maps, in the north-east of the Mainland, Orkney.
401. Skeggbjarnarstad was probably a homestead on Skebro Head, in Rousay. The old form of Skebro Head might be Skeggbjarnarhöfdi.
402. Hofsness, probably Huipness, the most northerly point of Stronsay.
403. Kjarekstad.—Munch identifies this place with the modern Karston or Careston, which lies on the inlet leading to the Loch of Stennis, a little to the north-east of Stromness. But this would make Arni, Rafn’s son, run a good ten miles without once remembering that he had his shield on his shoulder until it stuck in the door at Kirkwall. If this Kjarekstad be not the same with Knarrarstad at Scapa, which was Earl Rögnvald’s homestead (see p. 113), and might be the castle here spoken of, there is a Carness near Kirkwall (in old maps Carisness) which may be more readily supposed to be the Kjarekstad from which Arni ran than Careston near Stromness.
404. Munch says of this passage that the text reads, very improperly, “Gáreksey” for “Grimsey.” Hafnarvag he identifies with the Medalland’s hofn of Hakon Hakonson’s saga, which is the “Midland Harbour” lying between the Holm of Houston and the Mainland on the south side of Orphir. The name Hafnarvag, however, simply signifies a landing-place in a voe or inlet, and might more appropriately be applied to some place near the head of the inlet immediately opposite Grimsey, which goes up to the Loch of Stennis. If Harald and his men landed at “Midland Harbour,” they took the longest land route to walk to Firth; if they landed near the head of the inlet above mentioned, they chose the shortest land route.
405. The word Orkahaug is only known to occur twice—once here, and once in one of the Runic inscriptions on the walls of the chamber of Maeshow. Here it is given merely as the name of the place where Earl Harald and his men had a Yule-tide carouse, which disabled two of them from proceeding on their journey, so that they failed in surprising Earl Erlend at his Yule feast. In the inscription in the chamber of Maeshow it appears as the name of the burial-mound which was broken into by the Jorsala-farers in search of treasure. There seems to be little doubt that this name “Orkahaug” was the name by which the Maeshow was then known. The Orkahaug of the text must either mean the actual “how” itself, or a homestead near it which was named from it. There is an Orkhill (Orquill) not very far from Maeshow, and there was another Orkhill near Knarstane, Scapa, which is called Orquile in “the coppie of my Lord Sinclairis Rentale that deit at Flowdin.” No other Orkahaug, however, is known. (See under Maeshow in the Introduction.)
406. The castle at Freswick, elsewhere called Lambaborg (see p. 122).
407. The mouth of the burn of Freswick.
408. Moseyjar-borg, the burg or castle on the little island of Mousa, in Shetland. This curious structure is the best preserved example of the old Celtic strongholds, or “Pictish towers,” which were so thickly planted over the northern and western districts of Scotland, and specially in those districts exposed to the ravages of the Northmen. We learn from the Saga of Egill Skalagrimson that fully two centuries before the event here narrated Mousa had been occupied in a precisely similar manner by a couple who fled from Norway, and after celebrating their marriage in the deserted burg, lived in it for a whole winter. (See under Mousa in the Introduction.)
409. The Moray Firth.
410. Bly-holmar (lead islands) must refer to a group of islands not far to the south of Berwick, probably the Fern Islands.
411. Mosey, the Isle of May.
412. Off Sumburgh Head, now called Sumburgh Roost.
413. Beruvik, probably the inlet at the mouth of the Berriedale water, on the north side of the Ord of Caithness, where there is an old tower called Berriedale Castle. (See note at p. 18.)
414. This was probably the castle which was destroyed by King William the Lion in the end of the twelfth century, when he sent his troops against Earl Harald “to Turseha,” and destroyed the Earl’s residence there.
415. This is evidently a mistake in the text for Rögnvaldsey, or South Ronaldsay. In the MS. the contraction R.ey is used both for Rínarsey and Rögnvaldsey.
416. Vidivag, the voe or creek of the beacon; now Widewall, in South Ronaldsay.
417. Bardvik, the bay beside Barth Head; now Burswick, in South Ronaldsay.
418. Strandhögg, strand-hewing, or victualling the ships of a viking squadron, by driving cattle to the shore, and killing them there.
419. Ru Stoer in Assynt, on the west coast of Sutherlandshire.
420. Walls, in the Island of Hoy, Orkney.
421. Knarston, at Scapa, in the Mainland of Orkney. (See note at p. 113.)
422. Paplay, in Mainland, where Hákon Karl, the brother of Earl Magnus the Holy, had his residence. (See p. 96.)
423. Sandwick, in Deerness.
424. The Iceland Annals place the fall of Earl Erlend in A.D. 1154.
425. See p. 74.
426. None of these men are again mentioned in the Saga.
427. In the “Coppie of my Lord Sinclaire’s Rentale, that deit at Flowdin,” dating between 1497 and 1503, there is a Tyngwale in Rendale, set to John Selatter. The name still remains, but there is no other trace of an Orkney thing-stead in the Islands. (See p. 61.)
428. Mackaile and Sir Robert Sibbald both notice the existence of white hares in the hill of Hoy. Low, in his “Fauna Orcadensis,” states that they did not exist in his day; and he adds, “nor is there a hare of any kind to be found in the Orkneys.”
429. Cave Isle—now Eller Holm, a small island between Shapinsay and the Mainland of Orkney.
430. This seems to indicate that there was an ecclesiastical settlement on Eller Holm. Possibly it may have been the “isle Elon” referred to in the stanza made by Earl Rögnvald on the occasion of the singular apparition of the sixteen shaven crowns described in chap. lxvi. It is suggestive of this that Fordun gives the name of this island as Helene-holm instead of Eller Holm. (See note, chap. lxvi.)
431. Völuness has not been identified.
432. This must be Barswick, near Barthhead, in South Ronaldsay, as it is afterwards stated that from this headland Rögnvald and Swein saw Earl Harald’s ship coming across the Firth from Caithness to Walls.
433. In the text it is “Hrólfsey to R(inans)ey”—Rousay to North Ronaldsay, but Munch’s reading of the passage seems to be the true one. (See the next chapter.)
434. The Mainland of Orkney. This shows that in all likelihood it is Hrossey that is meant where the text has Hrólfsey at the beginning of the previous chapter.
435. Probably Rapness, in the south-east of the island of Westray.
436. It does not appear whether this is the Hákon Karl who lived at Papuli or not.
437. St. Mary’s, the largest of the Scilly Isles, called Syllingar in the Sagas.
438. This was the famous Somerled, styled by the Chronicle of Man “Regulus Herergaidel”—ruler of Argyle. This chronicle also adds the information that his marriage with Ragnhild was the cause of the ruin of the monarchy of the Isles. Although the Saga here makes Swein, Asleif’s son, kill Somerled about the year A.D. 1159, we learn from the more trustworthy sources of Fordun and the Chron. de Mailros that Somerled was killed at Renfrew on the 1st January 1164, having landed there with a fleet of 160 galleys in the attempt to make a conquest of Scotland. He had given his sister in marriage to Wimund, ex-bishop, alias Malcolm M’Heth, whom the Saga calls Earl of Moray. After the unsuccessful termination of Malcolm M’Heth’s attempt to gain possession of the crown of Scotland, his brother-in-law, Somerled, seems to have continued the hostilities against King David, and to have joined the party against Malcolm IV. when the attempt was made to place the “Boy of Egremont” on the throne. (See Fordun Skene’s ed.) II. 250, and Munch, Chron. Man. p. 80.
439. Dugald, Reginald, and Angus; from Reginald sprang the Macrories, Macdougalls, and Macdonalds of the Isles.
440. This is the Firth of Forth in chapter lxxvii. Here it evidently refers to one of the sea-lochs on the west coast, and may probably be Loch Gleann Dubh, the inner portion of Kyle Scow. At least the Norse name “Dark Fiord,” and the Gaelic “Loch of the Dark Glen,” are suggestively similar, and both equally descriptive of the upper part of the Kyle.
441. In reference to this passage, Jonæus, in his edition of the Saga (Hafniæ, 1780), says, that what is of the greatest moment is the fact which it points out, that at this date (circa 1158) there were reindeer in Scotland. In his Latin version of the original he translates the phrase “at veida rauddyri edr hreina” as “feras rubras et rangiferos venari,” and has no doubt or hesitancy about the matter. It is established by geological evidence that the reindeer was widely distributed in Great Britain in post-glacial times, although the instances of its occurrence within the human period, and in association with the remains of man, have been comparatively rare. Recently, however, evidence has been supplied by excavations in the ruins of the brochs, or “Pictish towers,” of the north of Scotland, which fully corroborates the statement of the Saga that the reindeer was actually hunted and eaten by the later occupants of these structures, their latest occupation on record being an occasional one by the Norsemen. In the refuse-heaps of several of these towers, the horns of the reindeer have been found, in some instances cut and sawn as if to be utilised for artificial purposes; while in other cases it is evident that the animals must have been killed when the horns were in the velvet. It is also significant that the reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina) still grows abundantly in Caithness. The question is very fully and ably discussed in a paper on “The Reindeer in Scotland,” by Dr. J. A. Smith, in the eighth volume of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
442. It is plain from the original that some words are here omitted from the text. One of the MS. copies of the Saga has had the additional words, which are thus rendered in the Danish translation preserved at Stockholm, “Der som vaar noget erg, det kalde vi setter,” etc. “There were there some shielings (erg), which we call setter; and there they took up their quarters for the night.” What is remarkable about this passage is that the Gaelic word for a shieling, Airidh, given phonetically by the old Norse saga-writer as “erg,” is glossed in the Danish translation by the word “setter”—summer pasturing-place, where rude huts were erected for temporary occupation. The word setter, which is common in the place-names of Caithness and the Northern Isles, is to this day understood by the inhabitants in the same sense, although the custom of sending the cattle to the hill-pastures in summer, and living in “shielings,” has now ceased, on the mainland at least. (See also the note on “Asgrim’s ærgin,” p. 187.)
443. A Norwegian ell is half a yard. The leap was thus four yards and a half.
444. Kalfadalsá, the Kalfadal’s stream, is the Burn of Calder, which, issuing from the Loch of Calder, falls into the Thurso water. The situation of Kalfadal, a valley running up from the valley of the Thurso water towards Forss, is exactly that of the valley of Calder.
445. The word ærgin is not Norse. It is, however, a Norse corruption of the Gaelic word for a shieling—airidh, plur. aridhean, which enters into the composition of many of the place-names in Caithness—e.g. Halsary, Dorrery, Shurrery, Blingery, etc. Asgrim’s ærgin is still recognisable in the modern Askary or Assary, near the north end of the Loch of Calder. It is curious to find thus incidentally in the Saga an indication of the blending of the folk-speech of the time, and to find also in the modern names of Norn Calder and Scotscalder a record (preserved on the spot) of the time when one portion of the dale was possessed by the Norsemen and another by the natives. Passing from Calder towards the coast the place-names are mostly Norse; and passing from Calder in the opposite direction towards the uplands, the place-names are almost entirely Gaelic.
446. The feast of the Assumption of St. Mary, or the 15th August. The Iceland Annals give 1158 as the year of Rögnvald’s death.
447. Earl Rögnvald was canonised A.D. 1192.
448. Skrud, a general term for fine cloth and costly stuffs.
449. After the divorce of his first wife Afreka. (See chap. cix.)
450. The Celtic form of her name is Gormlath.
451. This “Malcolm, Earl of Moray,” has a curious history. He appears first as Wimund, a monk of Savigny, and priest in the Isle of Skye. Afterwards he became Bishop of Man, and subsequently appeared in the character of a pretender to the Scottish crown, giving himself out to be Malcolm MacHeth, son of that Angus MacHeth who was defeated by King David, and slain at Strickathro A.D. 1130. Assisted by Somerled of Argyle and by this alliance with the Earl of Orkney, he ravaged the western coasts of Scotland, until he was captured by King David, and confined in the Castle of Roxburgh in 1134. He was released by Malcolm the Maiden after the death of King David, and received from the young king the sovereignty of a portion of the ancient kingdom of Cumbria. His tyranny was such that his subjects revolted, took him prisoner, put out his eyes, and confined him in the monastery of Bellaland (Byland), in Yorkshire. (Munch, Chron. Man. p. 80.)
452. Thorfinn, the son of Earl Harald, appears on record about the year A.D. 1165. In the Chartulary of Scone there is a document by “Harald, Earl of Orkney, Hetland, and Cataness,” granting to the monks of Scone a mark of silver to be paid annually by himself, his son Turphin, and their heirs.—Lib. Eccles. de Scone, p. 37. Thorfinn died in prison in Roxburgh Castle, after being mutilated by King William the Lion, to whom he had been given as a hostage for his father.
453. William the Lion.
454. The “Fagrskinna” has (p. 148) “er fell i Vik”—he fell at Wick; but there is nothing to fix the locality of this battle more definitely. The tradition of the district points to Clairdon Hill, between Murkle and Thurso, as the scene of the encounter. The church which is here said to have been erected on the spot where Harald fell, and which is spoken of as standing there when the Saga was written, is not now in existence. The ruins of a chapel, which was traditionally believed to mark the spot, were removed when the ground was brought under cultivation by the late Sir John Sinclair. A remonstrance by the late Rev. Mr. Pope, of Reay, seems to have had the effect of causing the erection of an edifice (now used as the tomb of the Sinclair family) over the place where an old chapel stood. It is now known locally as “Harold’s Tower.” Large quantities of human bones, and several of the peculiarly-shaped Norse swords which Mr. Pope describes as “odd machines resembling ploughshares, all iron,” have been dug up in the neighbourhood.
455. The Bishop advised the people to allow him first to speak with the Earl, in the hope that he would be able to mollify him.
456. This seems to imply that it was at the grave of the holy Tröllhæna that the Bishop received his sight. Tröllhæna seems to be the Celtic St. Triduana or St. Tredwell, who, according to her legendary history, came from Achaia with St. Regulus in the fourth century. Being of extraordinary beauty, she was solicited by a Gallic prince, and to put an end to his solicitations she cut out both her eyes, and sent them to him skewered on a twig. Sir David Lindsay alludes to this:—
“Sanct Tredwall, als, there may be sene,
Quhilk on ane prick hes baith her ene.”
She died at Restalrig, near Edinburgh, and her tomb there continued, so late as Lindsay’s time, to be a resort of pilgrims who came to “mend their ene.” There is a chapel dedicated to St. Tredwell in the island of Papa Westray, which Munch considers likely to have been erected by Celtic ecclesiastics previous to the Norse invasion. There was another chapel dedicated to her at Kintradwell, in Sutherlandshire, where she is known as St. Trullen; but there is now no trace of a St. Tredwell’s chapel in Caithness.
457. The letter of Pope Innocent to the Bishop of Orkney, prescribing the penance to be performed by the man Lomberd, who cut out the Bishop’s tongue, gives the additional information that when the Earl’s men took the “borg” they killed almost all that were in it. (See the Introduction.) The “borg,” or castle, at Scrabster, may have been an earlier building on the site of the “Bishop’s Castle,” an old fortalice on the cliff near the present hamlet of Scrabster, or it may have been the ruins of one of the still older Pictish towers, not far off, which the Caithnessmen may have occupied for the occasion as a defensible position.
458. Eysteinsdal is not now represented in the topography of the district.
459. The battle of Floruvogar took place in 1194, according to the Iceland Annals appended to the Flateyjarbók.
460. Shetland then passed into the immediate possession of the Crown of Norway. Its revenues were granted by King Hakon Magnusson, in 1312-19, to the Mary-kirk in Osloe (Christiania) for the completion of the fabric, with the proviso that then they should revert to the crown.
461. According to the Iceland Annals of the Flateyjarbók, King Ingi Bardson “took the kingdom” in 1204, and Harald Maddadson died in 1206.
462. The death of Hakon Galinn took place in the year 1214, according to the Annals appended to the Flateyjarbók.
463. A spann = 24 marks, or 12 lbs. Scottish.—Balfour’s Odal Rights, p. 99.
464. Halkirk, in the Thurso valley.
465. The Icelandic Annals place the burning of Bishop Adam in the year 1222, and add that the King of Scots caused the hands and feet to be hewn off eighty men who had been concerned in the Bishop’s burning. Among the documents found in the King’s treasury at Edinburgh in 1282 (and subsequently lost) was one entitled: “A quit-claiming of the lands of the Bondi of Caithness for the slaughter of the Bishop.” A bull of Pope Honorius, dated 23d January 1223, and addressed to the Bishops of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Dunkeld, and Dunblane, speaks in terms of high commendation of King Alexander’s zealous desire to avenge such an unheard-of crime as the burning of a bishop, and thoroughly corroborates the Saga account of the manner of Adam’s death, stating that these “wolves” and “demons,” having stripped their Bishop of his garments, stoned him, mortally wounded him with an axe, and finally burned him in his own kitchen. (Theiner’s Vetera Monumenta, p. 21.)
466. See note at p. 107.
467. The Mainland of Orkney.
468. Haugaheith, now Hoxa, a peninsula on the north-west side of South Ronaldsay, on which there are still several ancient grave-mounds, and one mound larger than the rest, which has been ascertained to cover the ruins of a Pictish tower. The grave-mound of Earl Thorfinn has not been identified, but Low mentions that in his time there was a tradition that the son of a King of Norway had been buried in the How (haug) of Hoxa (Haugs-heith).
469. Steinsness, in Hrossey, is the “ness” or promontory at the Loch of Stennis on the Mainland of Orkney, now so well known as the site of the “standing stones of Stennis.” The Norsemen evidently named it Steinsness from the stone circles and monoliths which stood on it when they first knew it. (See the Introduction, under “Stennis.”)
470. There is a place at Stennis called Havard’s-teigr by the country people to the present day; teigr meaning an individual’s share of the tún-land.
471. Nithing—cowardly miscreant.
472. The name Magbiód is suggestive of Macbeth, but the date is too early for Macbeth Mac-Finlay.
473. Audna is probably the Irish name Eithne. Kiarval, her father, is the Cearbhal or Carrol of the Irish Annals, who was King of Dublin 872-887. He is mentioned in the opening chapter of the Landnamabók as King of Dublin when Harald Harfagri ruled in Norway and Sigurd was Earl of the Orkneys. The two branches of the Hy Ivar, Kings of Dublin and Limerick, were the descendants of Ivar the Boneless, son of Ragnar Lodbrok. (See War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, App. pp. 271, 299.)
The End