If this is so, our choice of an occupant lies within very narrow limits. We cannot well go back beyond the time of Harold Harfagar (876 to 920), who first really took possession of these islands, as a dependency of Norway, and created Sigurd the elder first Jarl of Orkney in 920. Nor can we descend below the age of the second Sigurd, who became Earl in 996, as we know he was converted by Olaus to Christianity, and was killed at Clontarf in 1014.[285] Within these seventy-six years that elapsed between 920 and 996 there is only one name that seems to meet all the exigencies of the case, and in a manner that can hardly be accidental. Havard "the happy," one of the sons of Thorfin, who was buried at Hoxay, was slain at Stennis in 970. Havard had married Raguhilda, the daughter of Eric Blodoxe, prince of Norway, and widow of his brother Arfin, but she, tired of her second husband, stirred up one of his nephews against him, and a battle was fought at Stennis, on a spot, says Barry, "which afterwards bore the name of Havardztugar, from the event or the slaughter."[286] The same story is repeated by Professor Wilson as follows, "Olaf Tryguesson, says Havard, was then at Steinsnes in Rossey. There was meeting and battle about Havard, and it was not long before the Jarl fell. The place is now called Havardsteiger. So it was called, and so M. Petrie writes me, it is still called by the peasantry to the present day."[287] Professor Munch, of Christiania, who visited the place in 1849, arrived at the conclusion "that most of the grave mounds grouped around the Brogar circle are, probably, memorials of this battle, and perhaps one of the larger that of Havard Earl."[288] In this I have no doubt he is right, but that larger one I take to be Maes-Howe, which is in sight of the circle, though not so close to it as those he was speaking of. One circumstance which at first sight renders this view of the case more than probable is, that Maes-Howe is, so far as we at present know, unique. Thorfin's grave, when found, may be a chambered tumulus, so may Halfdan's Barrow, when opened, but no others are known in Orkney. If it had been the tomb of a king or chief of any native dynasty, similar sepulchres must have been as numerous as they were on the banks of the Boyne or Blackwater. There must have been a succession of them, some of greater, some of less magnificence. Nothing of the sort, however, occurs, and till more are found, the Stennis group cannot be ascribed to a dynasty that lasted longer than the seventy-six years just quoted. That brief dynasty must also have been the most splendid and the most powerful of all that reigned in these islands, as no tomb there approaches Maes-Howe in magnificence. If such a description suits any other race than that of the Norwegian Jarls, I do not know where to look for an account of it.