the shores of Assynt on the Skotlands-fiorthr or Minch.




CHAPTER IV.

_Thorfinn--Earl and Jarl._


Malcolm II, with whom Scottish contemporary records may be said to
begin, ascended the Scottish throne in 1005, and defeated the Norse at
Mortlach in Moray in 1010, and drove them from its fertile seaboard,
probably with the help of Sigurd Hlodverson, Jarl of Orkney. The men
of Moray, however, and their Pictish Maormors remained ungrateful, and
irreconcilably opposed to Scottish rule; and Moray, then stretching
across almost from ocean to ocean,[1] barred the way of the Scots to
the north.

What he could not achieve by arms, Malcolm, both before and after his
accession, decided to secure by a series of matrimonial alliances.
He had no son; but he had three available daughters,[2] of whom the
eldest was Bethoc, and the two others are said to have been called
Donada or Doada and Plantula.

1. _Bethoc_ he married to the most powerful Pictish leader of the
time, Crinan, Abthane of Dunkeld, the capital of the southern Picts,
and they had issue

(a) _Duncan_, afterwards Duncan I of Scotland, born about 1001;