Great Britain -- Civilization -- Scandinavian influences; Great Britain -- History -- To 1066; Northmen -- Great Britain
that this must be the place where he should build his house; and he
took for himself all the land between Staff River and Lava Firth, and
dwelt there. Ever after it was called after him Biorn Haven.
But Ketill and most of his family went to Scotland, except Unn the
Deep-minded, his daughter, who was with her husband, Olaf the White,
in Dublin, though after Olaf’s death she joined her father’s family
in the Hebrides and Orkneys, her son, Thorstein the Red, harrying
far and wide through Scotland. He was always victorious, and he and
Earl Sigurd subdued Caithness, Sutherland, and Ross between them, so
that they ruled over all the north of Scotland.[15] Troubles arose
out of this, for the Scots’ earl did not care to give up his lands to
foreigners, and in the end Thorstein the Red was murdered treacherously
in Caithness.
When his mother, Unn the Deep-minded, heard this, she thought there
would be no more safety for her in Scotland; so she had a ship built
secretly in a wood, and she put great wealth into it, and provisions;
and she set off with all her kinsfolk that were left alive; for her
father had died before that. Many men of worth went with her; and men
deem that scarce any other, let alone a woman, got so much wealth and
such a following out of a state of constant war as she had done; from
this it will be seen how remarkable a woman she was. She steered her
ship for the Faröe Islands, and stayed there for a time, and in every
place at which she stopped she married off one of her granddaughters,
children of her son, Thorstein the Red, so that his descendants are
found still in Scotland and the Faröes. But in the end she made it
known to her shipmates that she intended to go on to Iceland. So they
set sail again, and came to the south of Iceland, to Pumicecourse, and
there their good ship went on the rocks, and was broken to splinters,
but all the sea-farers and goods were saved.
All that winter she spent with Biorn, her brother, at Broadfirth, and
was entertained in the best manner, as no money was spared, and there
was no lack of means; for he knew his sister’s large-mindedness. But in
the spring she set sail round the island to find lands of her own; she
threw her high-seat temple pillars into the sea, and they came to shore
at the head of a creek, so Unn thought it was well seen that this was
the place where she should stay. So she built her house there, and it
was afterwards called Hvamm, and there she lived till her old age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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