The emptying of horns of ale to the memory of departed heroes and comrades, with the accompaniment of speeches setting forth their famous deeds, was a recognised custom at the festivals of the Northmen. Footnote 335: Besides his evil repute as a turbulent fellow, Swein was suspected of sorcery, and thus obnoxious to the church (see p. 88). Footnote 336: This must either he Paplay in South Ronaldsay, or Paplay on the Mainland. Munch says that the circumstance that the name of the island is always carefully added in the Saga when a Mainland district is not the one alluded to favours the supposition that it is the latter which is here meant. Footnote 337: Gói, the fourth month of the year, corresponding to our February and part of March. The ancient mode of reckoning among the Northmen was by “winters,” the year commencing on the 23d November. Gói was sometimes called “horning-month”—the month in which the deer shed their horns; and it was also the month in which, in heathen times, the great annual sacrifice took place at Upsala, as mentioned in the Saga of King Olaf the Holy. Footnote 338: _Höfn_, the haven, in Westray, is probably the modern Pierowall, the only safe natural harbour in the island, and the only place entitled to the name of “the haven.” Footnote 339: The _thorp_ or village of Höfn here mentioned most likely stood on the shore by the landing-place at Pierowall. The fact that there are a number of graves on the links here, in which have been found the swords peculiar to the Norse viking period, shield-bosses, bronze tortoise brooches (a distinctively Scandinavian form), and other relics unquestionably of Norse origin, shows that the neighbourhood must have been largely frequented by the Northmen, and perhaps made a permanent settlement long before this time. The Church of Westray is mentioned among those vacant in 1327-28 by the Papal Nuncio, who collected the tithes for these years. Footnote 340: