Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time; or, The Jarls and The FreskynsGray, James
History
Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time; or, The Jarls and The Freskyns
Gray, James
Caithness (Scotland) -- History; Freskin family; Sutherland (Scotland) -- History
Then followed Thorfinn's conquests in Fife, and after relating the
failure of a Scottish force, which had surrendered, to kill him by
surprise, the Saga gives a lurid picture of his burnings of farms and
slayings of all the fighting men, "while the women and old men dragged
themselves off to the woods and wastes with weeping and wailing," and
it also tells of his journey north along Scotland to his ships.[13]
"He fared then north to Caithness, and sate there that winter, but
every summer thenceforth he had his levies out, and harried about the
west lands, but sate most often still in the winters," feasting his
men at his own expense, especially at Yuletide, in true Viking style.
Allowing for exaggeration, it is not too much to say that Thorfinn
and his cousin Macbeth must, after the death of their cousin Duncan
in 1040, between them have held all that is now Scotland save the
Lothians, until about 1057, when Macbeth was slain. To us it is
interesting to note[14] that Duncan died, not in old age, (as
Shakespeare, following Boece and the English chronicler Holinshed
would have us believe) but a young man of thirty-nine years, either
in, or after, Thorfinn's battle, and that he fell a victim not of
Groa, Macbeth's wife's cup of poison, but possibly of her husband's
dagger at Bothgowanan or Pitgavenny, a smithy about two miles from
Elgin. We should also note that Thorfinn's cruelty made it difficult
for him ever to hope to obtain and keep the throne of Scotland, which
thus fell to Macbeth.
Meantime Jarl Brusi had died about 1031, and though he left a son
Ragnvald, this son was long abroad in Norway, where he was taught all
the accomplishments suitable to his rank, and remained there at the
time of his father's death.[15] Ragnvald Brusi-son was "one of the
handsomest of men, his hair long and yellow as silk, and he was stout
and tall and an able splendid man of great mind and polite manners."
He had saved King Olaf's brother Harald Sigurdson at the great battle
of Stiklastad, after King Olaf, Ragnvald's own foster-father, was
killed, and had fought with great distinction in Russia. Shortly after
his father's death, Ragnvald returned, and, fortified by a grant from
King Magnus of Norway, whom he had helped to gain the throne, claimed
his father's two trithings of the Orkney jarldom. To this Thorfinn,
who after 1034 had his hands full with his war with King Duncan, and
had always wars with the Hebrides and the Irish, agreed, and the
two joined forces, and sailed on Viking raids to the Hebrides and
England.[16]
About 1044 Thorfinn married Ingibjorg,[17] Finn Arnason's daughter,
and it is interesting to find that in the _Saga Book of the Viking
Club_, Vol. IV, page 171, Mr. Collingwood suggests that the King of
Catanesse, who fought for years to gain possession of Gratiana, the
lost wife of William the Wanderer, was Thorfinn. If this story be
founded on fact, as it probably is, this may account for his somewhat
late marriage with Ingibjorg.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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