Then Einar, the youngest, came forward; he was a tall, ugly man, with only one eye, yet very keen-sighted, and no favourite with his father. What he said was: “Would you wish me to go to the islands? One thing I will promise you that I know will please you; it is that I will never come back. Little honour do I enjoy at home, and it is hardly likely that my success will be less anywhere else than it is here.” Earl Ragnvald said: “Never knew I any man less likely for a chief than yourself, for your mother’s people come of thralls; but it is true enough that the sooner you go and the longer you stay the better pleased I shall be. I will fit out for you a ship of twenty benches,[24] fully manned, and I will get for you from King Harald the title of Earl of Orkney in my place.” So this was settled, and Einar sailed west to Shetland and gathered the people round him, for they were glad to get rid of the vikings. They slew them both in a battle in the Orkneys, and Einar took possession of their lands. He was the first man who found out how to cut turf for fuel, for firing was scarce on those islands and there was little wood; but after that men used peat; and they called him Torf-Einar, or Turf-Einar, on account of that. The chief difficulty that Torf-Einar had was from King Harald Fairhair’s sons, who were now grown to be men. They were overbearing and turbulent, for they thought their father ought to have given his lands to them and not to his earls, and they set themselves to revenge their wrongs (as they thought them) on the King’s friends. They came down suddenly on Earl Ragnvald and surrounded his house and burnt him in it and sixty with him. The King was so angry at this that one of them, Halfdan Long-legs, had to fly before his wrath, and he rushed on shipboard and sailed west, appearing suddenly in the Orkneys. When it became known that a son of King Harald was come, the liegemen were full of fear, and Earl Einar fled to Scotland to gather forces to resist him. But later in the year, about harvest-time, he came back and fought Halfdan, and gained the victory over him. Halfdan slipped overboard in the dusk of eventide and swam to land, and a few followers after him, and they concealed themselves in the rocks and cliffs of the islands. Next morning, as soon as it was light, Einar’s men went to search the islands for runaway vikings, and each man who was found was slain where he stood. Then Torf-Einar began to search himself, and he saw something moving in the island of Ronaldsay, very far off, for he was more keen-sighted than most men. He said: “What is that I see on the hillside in Ronaldsay? Is it a man or is it a bird? Sometimes it raises itself up and sometimes it lays itself down. We will go over there.” There they found Halfdan Long-legs, and they cut a spread-eagle on his back, and killed him there, and gave him to Odin as an offering for their victory; and Einar sang a song of triumph over him, and raised a