Jarl Sigurd Lodverson retained forcible possession of Caithness, intrusting it to the charge of his brother-in-law Havard, until intelligence reached him ere long that two Scottish nobles, whom the Saga describes as “Earls,” had slain Havard in Threswick and were ravaging his territories on the mainland. The Jarl waited only to collect his followers from the Orkneys, and crossing the Firth was joined by the men of his other earldom, who informed him that the Scottish leaders, to whom the Saga gives the names of Hundi and Malsnechtan, were at that moment in the neighbourhood of Duncansby Head. Unlike Sigurd, who was now advancing with his whole force united, the Scots allowed themselves to be drawn into action before the arrival of an expected reinforcement; and although victory inclined to their side in the early part of the battle, Malsnechtan was slain at the close, and Hundi driven from the field; though any advantage that might have arisen from Sigurd’s success was neutralized by the approach of “Earl” Malcolm, who appears to have landed during the contest with a considerable force at Dungall’s Bay. The Jarl’s men, already exhausted by a protracted and hardly contested struggle, were in no condition for a second engagement with the fresh army advancing under Malcolm, so collecting the trophies of his barren victory, Sigurd retreated to his island fastnesses, and the mainland conquests of the Orkney Jarls reverted for the time to other possessors.[101] It must have been soon after this battle that Olave Tryggveson, returning from England to Norway, touched at the Orkneys, and seizing upon Sigurd, who was totally unprepared for an attack, with all the zeal of a recent convert, offered him the alternative of immediate execution or of at once embracing the Christian faith, and acknowledging himself a tributary of Norway. Any lingering love of Odinism vanished before the necessity of the case, Christianity became the religion of the islands, and Olave carried off Hundi Sigurdson as a hostage for the fidelity of his father. His allegiance to Norway sat lightly on the Jarl, and ceased with the life of his son a few years afterwards; but as the conversion of the Orkneymen dates from this summary proceeding, and no allusion is ever made to a relapse, it may perhaps be concluded that his Christianity was more enduring.[102] Whilst these events were occurring in the North, and the attention of the Moray chieftains was fully occupied by the encroachments of their powerful neighbours, Kenneth, who appears to have been an able and energetic prince, seems to have been actively engaged in another quarter of his dominions; and although no account has been handed down of the nature of the transaction which eventually cost the king his life, there is much reason to connect it with an attempt on his part to reduce under his more immediate power a portion of the kingdom which had hitherto continued in a condition of comparative independence.