With the death of Athelstan fortune began once more to frown upon the exiled king. King Edmund thought it by no means desirable that the Norsemen should hold so large a portion of his kingdom. Knowing the insecurity of his tenure, Eric’s reckless spirit flashed at once into open rebellion. He left Northumbria, sailed to Orkney, seized the Earls Arnkell and Erlend, forced many other Orcadian chiefs to join him, and made a Viking raid on the west coast of England. The raiders met with resistance and a battle was fought; in this battle fell Eric himself, both the Orkney earls, and most of the other leaders. When news of this disastrous expedition reached Gunnhilda, who had remained with her family in Northumbria, she in turn embarked for Orkney. She and her sons claimed the earldom, seized the taxes, and spread wrong and oppression over all the western colonies. For a short time the islands suffered the same misgovernment as Norway had already suffered at her hands. But war now broke out between Norway and Denmark. This seemed to afford her a chance of regaining the Norwegian crown, and Gunnhilda and her family sailed eastwards once more. Ragnhilda, her daughter, was left behind in Orkney to continue for a time her mother’s acts of treachery and bloodshed. There are few worse characters in history than Ragnhilda as depicted by the Saga. She seemed to have a mania for plots and murders. Married first to Arnfinn, one of the sons of Earl Thorfinn, she caused him to be murdered at Murkle in Caithness, for no reason that we can find out, and then married his brother Havard. On the death of his father Thorfinn, shortly afterwards, Havard became earl. He is known in history as Havard the Harvest-happy, because during his time the islands were blessed with good harvests. Havard also met his death at the instigation of his wife. Ragnhilda persuaded Einar Oily-tongue, his nephew, to murder the earl, promising to marry him and secure for him the earldom when the deed was done. Einar set on Havard in Stenness, and slew him after a hard struggle. But it was apparently no part of Ragnhilda’s plan to marry Einar Oily-tongue. She now professed the greatest indignation and grief at the murder of Earl Havard, and called for vengeance on his murderer. Einar Oily-tongue had a cousin, also called Einar. He in turn fell a victim to the wiles of Ragnhilda. By promising or at least hinting that she would marry the man who avenged the murder of Earl Havard, she succeeded in getting the second Einar to murder the first, and ended by marrying Ljot, the third son of Earl Thorfinn, who was the real heir to the earldom.