While Thorstein the Red ruled on the northern mainland of Scotland, Guttorm, the son of Sigurd Eysteinson, had succeeded to the Orkney earldom on the death of his father, but after having held it for one year he died childless. Meantime, when Rögnvald, Earl of Moeri, heard in Norway of the death of his brother Sigurd, he obtained a grant of the earldom of Orkney from King Harald for his own son Hallad. Hallad found the Islands so much infested by vikings that he soon gave up the earldom in disgust, and returned to Norway, preferring the life of a farmer to that of an earl.[14] Then Rögnvald sent another son, Einar, to take possession of the earldom. Einar was a man of a different stamp from Hallad. He soon made his power felt among the western vikings, and freed his possessions entirely from their ravages. The sons of Harald Harfagri, Halfdan Hálegg and Guthrod, grew up to be men of great violence. One spring they went north to Moeri and burnt Earl Rögnvald in his own house with sixty of his men. Halfdan Hálegg then sailed west to Orkney to dispossess Einar of the earldom, but having allowed himself to be surprised by Einar, he was captured in Rinansey, and killed by having a blood-eagle cut on his back.[15] Harald Harfagri came west, and fined the Orkneys in sixty marks of gold for the death of his son. Earl Einar offered to the Bœndr[16] that he would pay the money on condition that he should have all the odal possessions in the islands—a condition to which they agreed the more readily, says the Saga, “that all the poorer men had but small lands, while those who were wealthy said they would redeem theirs when they pleased.”[17] But the odal lands remained in the possession of the earl till Einar’s great-grandson, Sigurd Hlödverson, was obliged to buy the assistance of the odallers against the Scots when hard pressed by the Scottish earl Finnleik.[18]