his son Sigurd to Biadmynia, the daughter of Murcertach, and fell in a
skirmish with the Irish in Ulster in 1103. He was buried in St.
Patrick’s church in Down.[35]
Sigurd, the son of King Magnus, remained Earl of the Orkneys until his
father’s death, when he succeeded to the throne of Norway.
Hakon Paul’s son, and Magnus Erlend’s son, then succeeded to the
earldom, and held it jointly until Magnus was murdered in Egilsey by
Hakon on the 16th April, A.D. 1115.[36]
After the murder of Magnus, Hakon became sole earl. He went on a
pilgrimage to Rome and the Holy Land, and after his return became a good
ruler, and was so popular “that the Orkneymen desired no other rulers
than Hakon and his issue.”
Earl Hakon left two sons, Harald and Paul (the silent). Harald, who had
succeeded to the earldom of Caithness, which “he held from the King of
Scots,” was in some way unintentionally put to death by his mother Helga
and her sister Frákork. As the Saga tells the story, he met his death by
insisting on putting on a poisoned shirt which the sisters intended for
his half-brother Paul, who, on Harald’s death, became sole Earl of the
Orkneys.
A new claimant arose, however, in the person of Kali, son of Kol, a
nobleman resident at Agdir, in Norway, who had married a sister of Earl
Magnus the saint. Kali received from King Sigurd the gift of half the
Orkneys, which had belonged to his uncle Magnus, and his name was
changed from Kali Kolson to Rögnvald, because his mother said that
Rögnvald Brusison was the most accomplished of all the Earls of Orkney,
and thought the name would bring her son good fortune.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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