against the race of MacHeth from the hills and the Norse invader from the sea; and that on the extensive territories which they possessed, they built stately castles and endowed cathedrals and churches with lands and tithes, providing from their family not only high ecclesiastical dignitaries to serve them, but distinguished soldiers and administrators to give them peace; services which their successors in the thirteenth century were, in their turn, destined to repeat and continue in Sutherland, Strathnavern and Caithness, when the old Norse earldom there had been broken up and effectively incorporated in the kingdom of Scotland. CHAPTER VIII. _Earls David and John._ On the death of Earl Harold Maddadson in 1206, he was followed in the earldom of Orkney, without Shetland, by his elder surviving son, David, who also, it would seem, was allowed to succeed to the Caithness earldom and some of its territory. But out of the Caithness earldom there had been taken the lands forming the Lordship of Sudrland or Sutherland held by Hugo Freskyn from about 1196, and this comprised, as already stated, the parishes of Creich, (then including Assynt), Dornoch, Rogart, Kilmalie (now Golspie), Clyne, Loth, and by far the greater part of the parishes of Kildonan and Lairg. Out of these lands Hugo granted, as already stated, to his relative Gilbert de Moravia, Archdeacon of Moray from 1204 till 1222, and to his heirs and assigns whomsoever, all Creich and much of Dornoch parish up to the boundaries of Ross, and the date of this grant was probably about 1211. The Mackays were beginning to occupy the western parts of Strathnavern, their title being probably their swords, and they held their lands "manu forti," their country being a refuge for their Morayshire kinsmen, the MacHeths, who were in constant rebellion. The eastern portion of Strathnavern, and particularly the neighbourhood of Loch Coire and Loch Naver, and all the Strathnaver valley were probably insecurely held by members of the Erlend and Moddan family after Harald Ungi's death at the battle of Clairdon in 1198; and Gunni, probably a grandson of Sweyn Asleifarson, who had married Ragnhild, Harald Ungi's youngest sister, after the death in the same battle of Lifolf Baldpate, her first husband, became chief of the Moddan Clan there and in Caithness. After 1200 Ragnhild had by Gunni a son called Snaekoll Gunni's son, who thus became, on his father's death, the chief representative in Scotland, both of the Moddan family and of the line of Jarls Erlend Thorfinnson, St. Magnus, and St. Ragnvald, and of Eric Stagbrellir and of Earl and Jarl Harald Ungi; and Snaekoll afterwards laid claim to their possessions in Orkney, as the sole male representative of this line. Gunni and Ragnhild must have held the Strathnaver lands, and the Moddan family lands in Caithness, formerly Earl Ottar's estates, till their deaths, and Snaekoll was their sole known male heir. The Harald Ungi share of the