No sooner had the Scandinavian Vikings settled themselves, in the ninth century, securely in these islands, than they became a central point for the Northmen’s expeditions not only to the British Islands, but also to Iceland and Greenland. Thus when Floke Vilgerdesön, or “Ravnefloke,” went on a voyage of discovery from Norway to Iceland, he landed on Hjaltland, or Shetland, in a bay which obtained from him the name of “Flokavágr.” This bay must probably be sought on the east coast of Mainland, about Cat Firth (Kattarfjörðr); for in its neighbourhood lay the Loch of Girlsta (originally “Geirhildarstaðir”), which is said to have obtained its name from the circumstance of Floke’s daughter, Geirhilde, having been drowned in it during her father’s short visit to the country. By degrees the islands became the rendezvous of a great number of discontented Norwegian emigrants, who, to avoid the new order of things, had withdrawn themselves from their old paternal home, and from this distant place of refuge continually harassed the coasts of Norway. This induced King Harald Haarfager to undertake an expedition against the Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, as well as against the Hebrides, on the west coast of Scotland; all of which he succeeded in subjugating. He gave the Orkneys and the Shetland Isles, as an earldom under the crown of Norway, to Ragnvald Möre-Jarl’s family. This family produced some great men, who extended their dominion over large tracts in the adjacent kingdom of Scotland. The islands continued, however, to be the resort of many malcontent and fugitive Norwegians. The renowned Ganger-Rolf, the founder of the royal Norman house, is said to have dwelt a long time on them before he undertook his expedition against Normandy. When King Erik Blodöxe, Harald Haarfager’s son, was driven with his queen, the atrocious Gunhilde, from Norway, he fled to Orkney, whence he carried devastation far and wide. Subsequently he obtained a kingdom in Northumberland; but, after his fall, his sons again sought the Orkneys; where they remained till they succeeded in obtaining the kingly power in Norway. Snorre Sturlesön states, that after the fall of this dominion, Gunhilde again fled to Orkney, where her daughter, Ragnhilde, had married a member of the Earl’s family. Ragnhilde trod entirely in her mother’s footsteps by occasioning dissension, and even murder, in the family of the Earl. Somewhat later the Orkneys were visited for a time by Kalf Arnesön, so well known in the more ancient history of Norway, who, at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030, was one of the chief leaders of the peasant army against King Olaf, the saint. He came to the Orkneys just in time to take part in a severely-contested naval battle, fought in the year 1046, near Rödebjerg (Rauðabjörg) in Pentland Firth, between the Jarls Thorfin and Ragnvald Brusesön. Kalf supported Thorfin with six long ships, and thus decided the victory in his favour.