Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns by James Gray
page 37 of 311 (11%)
page 37 of 311 (11%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
defeated by another expedition of these invaders; and in 934 Athelstan
and his Saxons burst into Strathclyde and Forfar, the heart of Constantine's kingdom, and the Saxon fleet was sent up even to the shores of Caithness, as a naval demonstration intended to brave the Norse, who had joined Constantine, on their own element. Lastly, in 937 Athelstan and Constantine met at Brunanburg, probably Birrenswark near Ecclefechan, and Constantine and his Norse allies were completely defeated.[12] Meantime, since 875, a succession of jarls had endeavoured to hold, for the kings of Norway, Orkney and Shetland, as well as Cat, which then included Ness, Strathnavern, and Sudrland.[13] The history of these early jarls is not told in detail in any surviving contemporary record, for the Sagas of the jarls as individuals have perished; but there is a brief account of them in the beginning of the _Orkneyinga Saga_, another in chapters 99 and 100 of the _St. Olaf's Saga_, and a fuller one in chapters 179 to 187 of the _Saga of Olaf Tryggvi's Son_, contained in the _Flatey Book_.[14] From these the following story may be gathered. After Jarl Sigurd's death, his son Guthorm ruled for one winter, and died without issue, so that Sigurd's line came to an end. When Jarl Ragnvald of Maeri heard of his nephew's death, he sent his son Hallad over from Norway to Hrossey, as the mainland of Orkney was then called, and King Harald gave him the title of jarl. Failing in his efforts to put down the piracy of the Vikings, who continued their slayings and plunderings, Hallad, the last of the purely Norse jarls, resigned his jarldom, and returned ignominiously to Norway. In the absence at war of Hrolf the Ganger, who became Duke of Normandy and was an ancestor of the kings of England, two others of Ragnvald's |
|