When Earl Ragnvald heard that his possessions in Orkney were again without a lord, and that Sigurd his brother was dead, he sent one of his sons, Hallad, to take his place; but vikings went prowling all over those lands, plundering the headlands and committing depredations on the coast. The yeomen brought their complaints to Hallad, but he did not do much to right them; he soon grew tired of the whole business, resigned his earldom, and went back to Norway to take up his own property. When his father heard of this, he was by no means well pleased. All men mocked at Hallad, and Ragnvald said his sons were very unlike their ancestors. His eldest son, Rolf, was away in Normandy, plundering and conquering. He was a mighty viking, and he was so stout that no horse could carry him, and whithersoever he went he must walk on foot; hence he was called Rolf Ganger, or Rolf the Walker. He was the conqueror of Normandy, and from him the Dukes of Normandy and Kings of England were descended. King Harald drove him out of Norway because he had one summer made a cattle foray on the coast of Viken, and plundered there. King Harald happened to be in the neighbourhood, and he heard of it, and it put him into the greatest fury; for he had forbidden, under heavy penalties, that anyone should plunder within the bounds of his territories. Rolf’s mother, Hild, interceded for him, but it was of no avail. She made these lines:-- “Think’st thou, King Harald, in thine anger, To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger, Like a mad wolf, from out the land? Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand? Bethink thee, Monarch, it is ill With such a wolf at wolf to play, Who driven to wild woods away, May make the King’s best deer his prey!” What she had predicted came to pass, for Ganger-Rolf went west over the sea to the Hebrides, and thence to the west coast of France, which the Norsemen called Valland, where he conquered and subdued to himself a great earldom, which he peopled with Northmen, from which it was called Normandy. He was ancestor of William the Conqueror, King of England, and ruled in Normandy from 911 to 927. Earl Ragnvald had three other sons living at home with him, and after Hallad’s return from Orkney he called them to him and asked which of them would like to go to the islands; for he heard that two Danish vikings were settling down on his lands and taking possession of them. Thorir said that he would go if his father wished. But Ragnvald replied that he thought he had need of him at home, and that his property and power would be greatest there where he was. Then the second, Hrollaug, said: “Father, would you like me to go?” The earl said: “I think your way lies toward Iceland; there you will increase your race, and become a famous man; but the earldom is not for you.”