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
Thorfinn next claimed two trithings of Orkney from his nephew
Ragnvald, who demurred to giving up what the Norse king had conferred
on him, but, finding he could not cope with Thorfinn's Orkney,
Caithness and Scottish forces, Ragnvald fled to King Magnus, who gave
him a force of picked men, and bade Kalf Arnason also to help him,
although Kalf was Thorfinn's friend, and near connection by marriage.
The two jarls met in battle in the Pentland Firth, off Rautharbiorg or
Rattar Brough in Caithness, east of Dunnet Head, Kalf Arnason with
his six ships standing out of the fight. Thorfinn had sixty ships,
smaller, and, save Thorfinn's own, lower in the waist than those of
his enemy, who thus easily boarded them, and then attacked Thorfinn.
Surrounded and boarded on both sides, Thorfinn cut his ship free and
rowed to land. Arrived there, he removed his seventy dead, and all
his wounded. Next he persuaded Kalf Arnason to join him with his six
ships, and renewed and won the fight, though Ragnvald himself escaped
to Norway.[18]
Sailing thence in 1046 with one ship and a picked crew, Ragnvald
surrounded Thorfinn,[19] who was wintering in Mainland of Orkney, and
set fire to the Hall at Orphir in which he was, but the earl tore
out a panel at the back, and, escaping through it with his young wife
Ingibjorg in his arms, rowed in the dark over to Caithness, where
he remained in hiding among his friends, all in Orkney believing him
dead. Ragnvald then seized all the islands, and lived at Kirkwall.
But, while Ragnvald was in Little Papey--now Papa Stronsay--to fetch
malt for Yuletide, Thorfinn returned, and surrounded the house in
which Ragnvald was, by night; and, on his escaping by leaping through
the besiegers in priestly disguise, Thorfinn's men followed him, and,
led by his lapdog's barking, discovered him among the rocks by the
sea, where Thorkel Fostri slew him, Thorfinn meanwhile annihilating
his following, save one man. This man, who like the rest, was one of
King Magnus' bodyguard, he bade go to his king and tell the tale, and
he seized Kirkwall by stratagem. Jarl Ragnvald is said to have been
a man of large stature and great strength, and to have been buried in
Papa Westray, but a grave nearly eight feet long, that would fit him,
has been found where he fell in Papa Stronsay.
All this left Thorfinn with his great aim achieved. He was now
sole jarl of Orkney and Shetland, and sole earl of Caithness and
Sutherland, and he also held Ross and the western islands and coast
down to Galloway, and part of Ireland, as his _rikis_ or conquered
tributary lands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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