Thorstein was about to lift it, when Asmund the White called out, “Don’t
bear the banner, for all they who bear it get their death.” “Hrafn the
Red!” cried Earl Sigurd, “bear thou the banner.” “Bear thine own devil
thyself,” said Hrafn.[29] Then said the earl, “’Tis fittest that the
beggar should bear the bag,” and with that he took up the banner, and
was immediately pierced through with a spear. Then flight broke out
through all the host.
When the news of Earl Sigurd’s death reached Scotland King Malcolm gave
the earldom of Caithness to Thorfinn, his daughter’s son by Sigurd, then
only five years of age, and Sumarlidi, Brúsi, and Einar, Sigurd’s sons
by his former marriage, divided the Orkneys between them. Sumarlidi soon
died, and Einar got his portion. Einar made himself unpopular by the
violence with which he exacted his services from the Bœndr for his
viking expeditions, and was killed by Thorkel Fóstri (Amundi’s son) at
Sandwick, in Deerness. Brúsi then took possession of the whole earldom
of the Orkneys, as Thorfinn had that of Caithness. Thorfinn, however,
claimed a share of the Islands, and as he had the assistance of his
grandfather Malcolm, the King of Scots, Brúsi felt himself unable to
cope with him. He therefore went to Norway to negotiate with King Olaf
Haraldson for a grant of the whole of the earldom of the Islands.
Thorfinn followed him on the same errand, but the king was more than a
match for them both, and the result was that he gave each a third of the
Islands, declaring the third which had belonged to Earl Einar to be
forfeited to himself for the murder of his friend and henchman Eyvind
Urarhorn, whom Einar had slain in revenge for Eyvind’s helping the Irish
king Conchobhar against him at Ulfreksfiord. After Thorfinn’s departure,
however, he gave Brúsi to understand that he was to have the forfeited
third of the earldom, as well as his own third, to enable him to hold
his own against Thorfinn. An arrangement was afterwards made between
Brúsi and Thorfinn that the latter should receive two-thirds of the
Islands on condition of his undertaking the defence of the whole, as
they were at that time much exposed to the predatory incursions of Norse
and Danish vikings.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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