Part I.—The Story of the Past.

PREHISTORIC ORKNEY.

At what period of the world’s history were our islands first inhabited, and who were their first inhabitants? These are questions which we cannot now answer. History is always made before it is written, and long ages must have passed in the history of these islands before any written records began to be kept.

Yet there are some records of that dim, forgotten past, which patient research has gathered together, and which can be made to tell us a few fragments of our Island story. If we look into one of the museums where relics of the past are preserved, we may find such things as flint arrow-heads and knives, stone axes and hammers, bronze spear-heads, and other tools and weapons of the early inhabitants of our islands. These silent witnesses tell us a little about what manner of men they were, and how they lived their long-forgotten lives.

The use of stone implements marks a very primitive stage of life, yet one which may not be entirely savage. There are tribes now living which are still in their Stone Age. A recent traveller tells of having seen an inhabitant of the South American Andes skin a hare very neatly with a small flint knife. This knife is now in Kirkwall, and is precisely similar to many which have been dug up in Orkney.

[Illustration: _Flint Arrow-heads and Knives._]

Flint is not a common stone in the Orkney Islands. It is found in occasional lumps and pebbles among the clay which has been carried from other places by the glaciers and icebergs of the Ice Age. Flint is common in the southern parts of Great Britain, however, and the arrows and knives found in our islands may have been brought from the south, or the art of making them may have been learned from tribes among whom flint was a more common material. This kind of stone, the fine steel of the Stone Age, was used for small implements over a wide area of the world.

[Illustration: _Stone Hammers and Axes._]

Orkney must have had a large population in those early days. The number of ancient graves which have been found seems to indicate this, especially if we suppose that most of those graves with their heaped-up mounds are the resting-places of chiefs and great men rather than of the common people. The graves which remain are of varied types, from the simple cist of upright stones roofed with horizontal slabs and covered with earth, to the large mound with its carefully built chambers.

The variety of the objects found in those graves, from the rudest flint and bone implements to those which are carefully finished, and finally to objects made of metal, shows that the burials belong to different periods. They tell us of long ages of increasing though now forgotten civilization. Some of the mounds, indeed, show by their contents that they cover the remains, not of the original and unknown inhabitants, but of the Norse conquerors, and thus really belong to the period whose history has come down to us in writing. But in the very mound where the Norse warrior was laid to rest, there are sometimes also found the relics of burials of a much ruder age. Such mingling of the materials of our unwritten history makes the story which they tell a very difficult one to read.

There are few remains in our islands more striking than the chambered mounds, or Picts’ houses, as they are called. The most complete and probably the most recent of them is that known as Maeshowe. They consist of a mound of earth heaped over a rude building, sometimes of one apartment, but frequently of several, the entrance being a long, low, narrow passage, through which it is necessary to stoop or crawl in order to gain an entrance.

Possibly those Picts’ houses were built at first as houses to dwell in, though later used as tombs. It is not uncommon to-day to find buildings used for burial which were designed for other purposes. If ever our race and all its records were to vanish as completely as the primitive inhabitants of the Orkney Islands have done, we can imagine some future explorer of the ruins of St. Magnus Cathedral writing a learned treatise to prove that the largest building in our islands was erected as a burial-place for our dead.

Those mound dwellings, or Picts’ houses, may seem to us a very strange form of house to live in. Where can we find to-day houses of such a type, and with so very inconvenient a form of entrance? The Eskimos, as travellers tell us, are in the habit of building just such houses with blocks of snow, and they find this the best type in the extreme cold of their Arctic climate. Possibly the Picts’ house type of dwelling was used in Orkney and in other places for similar reasons.

[Illustration: _Polished Stone Celts._]

The brochs, or Pictish towers, as they are also called, are buildings of a different kind, which are also fairly common in Orkney. They are probably of later date than the Picts’ houses. Considerable skill, as well as co-operation in labour, must have been required for their erection.

The most complete broch in existence is that of Mousa in Shetland. Of those which are found in Orkney, only the lower portions now remain. Over seventy such ruins have been examined, the best specimens being in Evie (Burgar), Birsay (Oxtro), Harray, Firth (Ingashowe and Stirlinghowe), St. Ola (Birstane and Lingro), St. Andrews (Dingishowe and Langskaill), Burray (East and West Brough), South Ronaldsay (Hoxa), Shapinsay (Borrowston), and Stronsay (Lamb Head).

[Illustration: _Plan of Chambered Mound, Wideford Hill._

_b_, Entrance. _c_, Blind Passage.]

[Illustration: _Chambered Mound, Wideford Hill._

Section on line _a, a_ of plan.]

The typical broch is a large round tower, fifty or sixty feet in diameter, and probably as much in height. The wall is about fifteen feet thick, and solid at the base, except for some vaulted chambers which are made in it. Higher, the wall is hollow, or rather consists of an outer and an inner wall, with a space of four or five feet between them. This space is divided into a number of stories or galleries by horizontal courses of long slabs of stone, which form the roof of one story and the floor of that above it, and at the same time bind the two walls firmly together. A stairway gives access to the various stories, and light is admitted by small windows opening into the interior space of the tower, no windows being made in the outer wall. A single door in the lower wall forms the only entrance to the inner court of the broch.

These towers were probably constructed for the purpose of defence, and against a primitive enemy they would serve as well as did the castles of a later age before the invention of gunpowder. Indeed, we read of the broch of Mousa being actually used as a fort in the time of the Norsemen.

Who the builders of these towers were we cannot discover. They are undoubtedly very ancient; yet their builders and occupiers were by no means savages. From the remains which have been found in them we learn that they were used by a people who kept domestic animals, who cultivated the ground, and who could spin and weave the wool of their flocks into cloth. No weapons of the Stone Age are found in the brochs.

[Illustration: _Broch of Mousa, Shetland._

1. Exterior. 2. Section. 3. Section with inner wall removed.]

It is certain that they were built, and that most of them may have fallen into ruins, long before the Norsemen came. Many of the places where they stand were named by those settlers from the broch which was found standing there. The words _borg_, as in Burgar, and _howe_ (haug), as in Hoxa (Haug’s aith, or isthmus), are found in many place-names. It is certain, too, that the brochs were not then occupied, or we should have found some account of their siege and capture in the Sagas which tell of Norse prowess by land and sea.

Another type of ancient remains which is common in our islands is the standing stones. These are found in many places, either singly or in groups or circles. Regarding these relics of a distant past much has been written, but little is known.

[Illustration: _The Stone Circle of Stenness as now Restored._]

An upright stone is the simplest and most effective form of monument, and is that which we most commonly use to this day to mark the resting-places of our dead. To the ancient Orcadian it was a matter of more difficulty to quarry and to transport and erect such monuments, and doubtless they would be set up only in memory of some great event, such as a notable victory, or the fall of a great chieftain.

The great stone circles, such as those of Stenness and of Brogar, are supposed to have served a different purpose. They are believed by many to have been the temples of some primitive people, who met there to worship their gods. It has also been supposed that the people who erected those circles were sun-worshippers, as the situation of certain prominent stones seems to have been determined by the position of the rising sun at midsummer.

[Illustration: _Fallen Cromlech or Table Stone, Sandwick._]

But in these matters we cannot be certain of our conclusions. Most of our great churches and cathedrals are placed east and west, with the high altar towards the east, and even the graves in our churchyards are usually similarly oriented; but this does not prove that we are sun-worshippers, whatever our forefathers may have been before they accepted Christianity. We may indulge in much speculation about them, and form our own opinions as to what they originally meant, but those hoary monoliths remain a mystery, and the purpose of their erection we can only guess.

THE BEGINNINGS OF OUR HISTORY.

In the history of the ancient world some vague and fragmentary references are made to our islands, but from these little real knowledge of them can be gathered. As early as the time of Alexander the Great we come upon some notices of certain northern islands, which must be either Orkney, or the Hebrides, or Shetland, or the Faroes, but we cannot determine which. The Phœnicians, who were the great sea-traders and explorers of the early world, seem to have had a little knowledge of these northern archipelagoes.

In the time of the Roman occupation of Britain we have definite mention of the Orcades, but nothing which shows any real knowledge of them. They were visited by the fleet of Agricola after his invasion of Scotland, as recorded by Tacitus. About three centuries later, the poet Claudian sings of a victory by the Emperor Theodosius, who, we are told, sprinkled Orcadian soil with Saxon blood. We are not told, however, who the people called Saxons really were, or whether they were the inhabitants of the islands or not. They may have been early Viking raiders who had fled hither and been brought to bay among the group.

Early Church history has also some references to Orkney. After St. Columba had left the shores of Ireland to carry the message of Christianity to the Picts and Scots in Scotland, another Irish missionary, Cormac, went on a similar voyage among the Orkney Isles. Him, therefore, we may regard as the apostle to the northern heathen. St. Adamnan, the biographer of St. Columba, tells the story, and the name of Adamnan himself is still commemorated in the name of the Isle of Damsay.

After the visit of Cormac, the Culdee missionaries established themselves in various parts of Orkney, as the place-names given by the Norsemen show. In several of these names we find the word _pápa_, a form of _pope_, which was the name applied to the monks or clergy of the Culdee Church. Like Columba himself, who made the little island of Iona his headquarters, his followers seem to have preferred the seclusion of the smaller islands. To this habit are due such names as _Papa Westray_ and _Papa Stronsay_. Other Church settlements have left their traces in names such as _Paplay_ and _Papdale_.

Another place-name which records an old-world mission station is that of _Deerness_. At first sight this name seems rather to indicate that abundance of deer were found there; and some writers tell us, by way of proving this, that deer’s horns have been found in that parish. But as deer’s horns have also been found in many other places in the county, the proof is not convincing. We must remember that the Norse invaders were likely to name the place on account of its appearance from the sea. They may, of course, have noticed a chance herd of deer near the cliffs; but one thing is certain to have caught their eye—the unusual sight of a building of stone on the Brough of Deerness. Some remains of this building, and of a later one on the same site, still exist; and it was long regarded as in some way a sacred place, to which pilgrimages were made. This building was in fact one of those outposts of early Christianity—a Culdee monastery. When the Norse invaders came, they doubtless found it occupied by some of the Culdee clergy—_diar_, as they would be called by the strangers—and so the headland was named the Priests’ Cape, or Deerness.

It is quite possible that deer existed in Orkney down to the Norse period, but they were much more likely to be found in the hilly regions of the west Mainland, which was the earls’ hunting-ground. We read of an Earl of Orkney going over to Caithness for the chase of the deer, which seems to suggest that they were then scarce, if not extinct, in Orkney.

Among the remains of the Culdee settlements which are still found are monumental stones with Christian emblems inscribed on them, or with Irish Ogham writing, and ancient bells, probably used in the churches. The curious round tower which forms part of the old church of St. Magnus in Egilsay is of a type common only in Ireland. The name of that island is probably derived from an earlier church which the Norsemen found there, and heard called by its Celtic name, _ecclais_. It has been supposed by some that the name _Egilsay_ means Egil’s Island, so called after some man named Egil; but the probability is that it meant the Church Island.

All that we can learn, then, from the ancient relics of its first inhabitants, and from the brief references to the islands by old historians, amounts to very little. We know that Orkney was thickly inhabited by some ancient people, living at first the primitive life which is indicated by the use of stone implements. We may suppose that they had at one time a religion in some way connected with sun-worship. We know that they built earth-houses somewhat like the snow-houses of the Eskimos, many of which still remain, and that, in some cases at least, these have been used as places of burial by later inhabitants. We know that at one period strong circular towers were built, probably as fortresses, by a people of some degree of civilization. We know that in the time of St. Columba Christian missionaries or monks visited the islands, whose inhabitants were then probably of the race known as Picts, and whose chiefs are said to have been subject to the Pictish king of Northern Scotland. Some at least of those Culdees we may suppose to have been hermits rather than missionaries, although they may have combined the two characters. How many centuries of time are covered by these facts and suppositions we do not know, but they sum up all that can be said with certainty regarding Orkney before the coming of the Norsemen.

There is one very curious fact about the beginnings of the Norse records: they make no mention whatever of any inhabitants being found in the islands. The place-names afford evidence, as we have seen, of the presence of Culdee monks, but of other population there is no trace. The new-comers seem to have settled as in an uninhabited land, each Viking selecting and occupying his land without let or hindrance.

If there had been a native population, and if these had been either expelled or exterminated by the invaders, we should surely have been told of it by the Saga writers, who would have delighted in telling such a tale. It has accordingly been supposed that at the time of the Norse settlement the islands were uninhabited save by the hermits of the Culdee Church. When or how the former Pictish inhabitants disappeared it is impossible to say. Possibly some early Viking raids, of which no history remains, had resulted in the slaughter of many and the flight of the rest to the less exposed lands south of the Pictland or Pentland Firth. Whatever the reason may be, the chapter of our Island history which opens with the Norse settlement is in no way a continuation of anything which goes before, but begins a new story.

[Illustration: _Carved Stone Balls._]

THE NORSEMEN AND THEIR SAGAS.

It is late in the eighth century before the Northman or Norseman appears on the stage of history. From the day when Cæsar’s victorious legions brought the Gauls, the Germans, and the Britons under the sway of the imperial city, these nations of Western Europe are never again entirely lost to history. But Scandinavia and the countries round the Baltic remained unknown to Rome and to the world for long centuries afterwards. “There nature ends,” one of the Roman writers has said, when speaking of these northern lands. This brief yet expressive sentence well indicates how completely outside the Roman world lay the countries which were the cradle of our race.

There is another side to all this, which we find it difficult to picture clearly in our minds. To the inhabitants of Scandinavia and the lands round the Baltic, the southern parts of Europe were equally unknown. We find in a Scandinavian writer of the ninth century a description of an expedition which was made by one of the Viking chiefs to this unknown world. In the course of his travels he came upon a city which to the Norseman seemed mysterious and dread—a city of Niflheim, the under-world. This city, as we learn from contemporary Western writers, must have been Paris. Paris, now the gay capital of Europe, and even then a city of importance and of fame, was so unknown to the Norsemen of the early ninth century that it was deemed a part of Niflheim, the under-world!

During the period when the northern nations were hidden from the eye of history, many changes must have been going on among them. The building and management of ships could not have been learned in a day, and even when we first catch sight of the Norsemen they were the finest and most daring seamen in the world, and their ships probably the most perfect hitherto seen. Many voyages among their own islands and in the Baltic must have preceded the longer voyages to Britain, to Iceland, to Greenland, and to America. Numerous wars there must have been, quite unknown to history, before the northern warrior became the terrible fighter of the Viking Age.

We can imagine the delighted wonder with which the northern warriors first gazed upon the rich and fertile shores of South-Western Europe. We can imagine how they contrasted the fair fields and great cities of the south with the bleak and sterile shores of the north from which they came. What motives first led to their leaving their native shores it is difficult to say. Thirst for adventure, the pinch of poverty at home, the desire of possessing gold and treasure, all conspired to make them seek their fortunes in the wide and unknown lands which lay beyond the sea. When the first adventurers brought home accounts of the lands which they had seen—the fruitful fields, the great cities, the rich merchandise, and the yellow gold—great numbers of their fellow-countrymen would be seized with a longing to visit those wonderful shores where wealth was to be had for the taking. The roving spirit once roused spread rapidly over the northern lands. The storm of Viking fury burst on the lands of Western Europe almost without warning.

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the date A.D. 787, we read: “In this year King Beorhtric took Eadburh, King Offa’s daughter, to wife. And in his days first came three ships of Northmen from Haerethaland, and the reeve rode down to them and would drive them to the king’s _vill_, for he knew not what men they were, and they there slew him. These were the first ships of Danish men that sought the land of the English.” Thus we read of the first mutterings of the storm which was so soon to burst on the coasts of Western Europe. During the succeeding two centuries and a half the English learned to know well what men these were who came out of the wild north-east. The monks’ litany, “From the fury of the Northmen deliver us, O Lord!” tells us what _they_ thought of them.

[Illustration: EXPEDITIONS AND SETTLEMENTS OF THE NORSEMEN]

We can trace two distinct roads which the Viking raids followed. One, traversed chiefly by the Danes, led along the shores of Northern Europe to England, the English Channel, France, Spain, and the Mediterranean; the other, traversed chiefly by the Norsemen, led straight across the North Sea to the Orkneys, thence along the west coast of Scotland, to Ireland and the west of England. The islands lying off the coasts of Scotland, England, Ireland, and France were seized by the invaders, and from these as bases their raids extended far and wide. Monasteries felt the utmost fury of their attacks, for there they knew they would find abundance of spoil. At first the invaders confined themselves to plundering expeditions. The Norsemen early turned their attention to settlement and commerce; the Danes, on the other hand, remained for a longer period intent on plunder alone.

Civil wars in Western Europe had rendered the nations there incapable of effective resistance to the ruthless invaders. The Vikings descended now at one point, now at another. When they met with a more stubborn resistance than usual, they merely retired to their ships with whatever plunder they had seized, and sailed away to make an attack somewhere else. They wintered on the islands which they had seized, and as soon as spring was come they descended once more on the devoted lands. Ireland suffered severely at their hands. The Orkneys and the Hebrides became nests of Vikings; in fact, colonies of them must have been established there at a very early date. In these islands they were safe from all interference—a law to themselves; for as yet there was no arm in Europe long enough and strong enough to reach them. Nowhere could a more convenient base have been found for Viking raids on the British and Irish shores.

The first half-century of the Viking Age saw the Danes settled merely in outlying parts of the east coast of England. The Norsemen, on the other hand, had already seized on Orkney, Shetland, the Hebrides, and large tracts of Eastern Ireland. The first fifty years of the Viking Age may be called the first period of Norse colonization in the west.

It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that the Norsemen were merely turbulent sea-robbers, or that the only result of their migrations was to hinder the progress of civilization in Western Europe. As settlers in other countries, they brought new strength and vitality to the land of their adoption; but instead of remaining separate colonies, they were soon absorbed into the native population, and had no further history of their own.

Yet there were two great settlements abroad which left a deep mark on European history. The one was the colonization of the north of France, afterwards called Normandy. There the Norsemen soon adopted the language and the religion of the country, but retained so much of their native characteristics that the subsequent Norman Conquest of England may be regarded as really a Norse inroad of a specially successful type. The other settlement was that in the south of Italy and Sicily, later known as the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which occupied an important place in history during the Middle Ages.

Even the British settlements for the most part had only a brief period of separate history, and soon became merged into the general stream of national life. In Orkney and Shetland, however, where there was probably no native population at the time of the Norse invasion, the colony developed along its own special lines, and has left behind it a history which for centuries remained distinct from that of the rest of Great Britain.

The history of the Orkney Islands during the period of the Norse occupation is preserved for us in the Icelandic _Sagas_. Iceland was one of the earliest and most important Norse colonies, and there the old Northern language was preserved better than anywhere else. The Sagas are stories which, in the times of long ago, were told around the fires in Iceland and other Norse colonies to while away the long winter evenings. At festivals and merry-makings, during long voyages, or by the winter fireside, the Norseman listened eagerly to the recital of deeds done by his kinsmen in other times and in other lands. Storytelling was a popular pastime, and the man who knew many Sagas was ever a welcome guest.

Many of the Sagas have now been translated into English, and all of these are well worth reading. The greatest of all the Sagas is generally thought to be the Saga of Burnt Njal. It is one of the noblest stories to be found in any language, and it is besides nobly told. In this Saga we find the best account of the great battle of Clontarf. Among the other great Sagas are the Saga of the Settlers on the Ayre, the Saga of Laxdale, the Saga of Egil the son of Skallagrim, the Saga of Grettir the Strong, and the Saga of the Volsungs. The two last are mythical Sagas; they do not tell of real historical personages, but are paraphrases of old songs and legends which have come down from a more distant past. The Anglo-Saxon Saga of Beowulf tells some of the same stories, and is not a real Saga in the sense of a true story told by the fireside.

The stories of the earls and chiefs of Orkney form part of the great store of Saga literature, and these have come down to us in the form of the “Orkneyinga Saga.” It must be remembered, however, that this is merely the summary of a great number of stories which had been told long before by men who had no doubt taken part in the events related. It was a Saga-man’s pride to tell the truth—at least as it was told to him—and so we may in the main rely on the Orkney Saga as a true account of events which happened, although sometimes it may be exceedingly difficult to assign the correct dates. The Orkney Saga is not usually reckoned among the great Sagas. It partakes more of the nature of a general history than of a single and complete story. This Saga is the chief source of our knowledge of the history of our islands during Norse times.

The Orkney Saga consists of several parts, each of which might be called a separate Saga—the Earls’ Saga, Magnus’s Saga, and Rognvald’s Saga. The first relates the history of Orkney from its conquest by King Harald Fairhair of Norway down to the death of Earl Thorfinn, about the time of the Norman Conquest of England. The second relates the lives of Thorfinn’s sons, Paul and Erlend, but more especially of the holy Earl Magnus, of his murder, and of the wonderful things that happened afterwards through his holiness. The third part tells of the earls after St. Magnus, chiefly Earl Rognvald the Second, and the great Viking, Sweyn Asleifson of Gairsay, generally known as “the last of the Vikings.” The whole history given in the Orkney Saga includes the events of the three centuries from 900 to 1200.

In addition to what we learn from the Orkney Saga, we glean a few facts about the history of our islands from other Sagas, such as the Sagas of the Kings of Norway, usually called the “Heimskringla.” There are also many Norse poems which scholars say must have been written in Orkney, or in some other of the western Norse colonies, and from these we can learn much about the life of the people, their thoughts, and their beliefs, though very little about the actual history of the islands. We do not know who were the authors of these poems, but some of them were really great poets, greater, perhaps, than any then living in any other part of Europe.

Finally, there are occasional glimpses of our Norse ancestors to be caught in the pages of the chronicles and histories of the nations. Unfortunately, these references are so often distorted by fear or hatred, or so confused through scanty and imperfect knowledge, that they add very little to what we already know from Norse records. One good purpose, indeed, they serve: they show that the Saga-men were in the main truth-tellers, so that we can place reliance on their stories, even where these are not found in the records of other nations. The Saga-men also fill up many gaps in the history of those countries which the Norsemen visited, and thus they render our knowledge of the Viking Age more complete, more detailed, and more accurate, even as regards countries which were to them foreign lands.

[Illustration: _Ancient Bronze Spear-head; Horn Mounting still preserved._]

THE BEGINNING OF THE EARLDOM.

Before our story begins, Norway was divided into a number of small kingdoms. About the year 890 A.D. a king called Harald, who ruled over one of these small kingdoms, resolved to make himself master of all Norway. He made a vow that he would not cut his hair until he was acknowledged king throughout the whole country. This ambitious aim took some time to accomplish, and as the years passed his thick locks grew long and shaggy. Thus he got the name of Harald Shockhead.

One after another, however, he subdued the smaller kingdoms, compelling the earls and chiefs to acknowledge him as their king, or to leave the country. Then began what may be called the second period of Norse colonization in the west. Many of the proudest and boldest of the Norsemen, deeming it a disgrace to serve a king who was at best only their equal, preferred to trust themselves and all their belongings to the ocean, and take whatever fortune might await them.

Those nobles who fled from Norway, regarding Harald as their enemy, soon began to spread terror along the shores of Norway itself, returning to plunder, and slay, and burn, as their fellow-countrymen had so often done in the west. Their chief haunts were among the Orkneys and the Hebrides. Thither they betook themselves with their booty when winter came on. There they lived and feasted all through the winter, and when spring came they descended once more on the coasts of Norway. Ireland and the west coast of England also suffered from these raiders, and in France a determined effort to conquer the country was at this time made by the Norsemen. Hrolf or Rollo, the Norseman, became master of the north of France, and gave to it a new name—Normandy, the land of the Normans or Norsemen.

The last great effort made by these Norse nobles to break the power of King Harald was foiled by their defeat at Hafursfrith. A great league had been formed against Harald. Vikings from over the sea crowded back to Norway to avenge their own injuries and to help their kinsmen. The two fleets met at Hafursfrith in the south of Norway, and a long and stubborn battle ended in victory for Harald. This battle had far-reaching results. It was the end of the struggle for independence in Norway. Harald was then left free to turn his attention to the chastisement of the Vikings in the west. The result was the foundation of the Norse Empire in the west, and the colonization of Iceland and Greenland by those Norsemen who still scorned to own the sway of the Norwegian king.

With a large and splendidly equipped fleet, Harald swooped down on the Vikings in Orkney and the Hebrides. Their resistance was feeble enough. Some yielded themselves to the king; others fled before him. Nowhere was there anything like a pitched battle. As far south as the Isle of Man, Harald pursued his career of conquest. Turning north once more, he established Norse jarldoms or earldoms in Orkney and the Hebrides, to be subject henceforth to the Norwegian crown. Then, considering that his vow was fulfilled, Harald at last had his long hair cut, and was afterwards known as Harald Fairhair.

One of Harald’s chief friends and supporters was Rognvald, Earl of Moeri and Romsdal, who was called by the men of his time, “The mighty and wise in council.” This Rognvald was the father of Rollo of Normandy. He had other sons named Ivar, Thorir, Rollaug, Hallad, and Einar, and he had a brother called Sigurd. The family makes a very large figure in the history of those times. In one of Harald’s battles in the west fell Ivar, Rognvald’s son. Harald assigned to Rognvald the newly created Jarldom of Orkney in order to compensate him in some measure for the loss of his son. But Rognvald had already large estates in Norway. He thought that these were quite enough for one man to govern. Accordingly he handed over the Orkneys to his brother Sigurd, who thus became the first Jarl or Earl.

Sigurd, the first Earl of Orkney, sometimes called Sigurd the Mighty, was a strong and energetic ruler. When King Harald departed for Norway, the earl at once began to strengthen himself in his new dominions. He first allied himself with Thorstein the Red, son of the Norse king of Dublin, and with the Norsemen in the Hebrides, and then invaded Scotland in an attempt to add to his earldom Caithness and Sutherland. The Scots naturally offered a determined resistance. Their leader was Maelbride or Melbrigda—called Melbrigda Tusk because he had a large projecting tooth—Earl or Maormor of Ross.

After the war had lasted for some time, the two earls agreed to meet and settle their quarrel, each taking forty men with him. On the day fixed for the meeting, Sigurd, suspecting, as he said, the good faith of the Scots, mounted two men on each of his forty horses, and came thus to the place appointed. As soon as the Norsemen appeared in sight, Melbrigda saw that he had been trapped, and turning to his men, said, “We have been betrayed by Sigurd, for I see two feet on each horse’s side. The men must therefore be twice as numerous as the horses that bear them. Nevertheless let us harden our hearts and sell our lives as dearly as we can.”

Seeing the Scots prepared to die hard in the place where they were, Sigurd divided his force and attacked them at once in front and in flank. The battle was fierce and bloody, but it ended in the total extermination of the small band of Scots. Sigurd, exulting over his fallen foe, cut off Melbrigda’s head and fixed it to his saddle. On his way home, in spurring his horse his leg struck against the great projecting tooth which had given Melbrigda his nickname, and the tooth pierced his leg. Blood-poisoning followed, and a few days later Earl Sigurd died in great pain on the banks of the Dornoch Firth. He was buried at a place now called Cyder Hall (Sigurd’s Howe), near Skibo Castle.

Sigurd was succeeded in the earldom by his son Guttorm. Guttorm ruled the islands for one short and uneventful winter, and then died childless. For some time the earldom was without a ruler. Vikings once more began to make the Orkneys their headquarters, and to harass the more peaceful inhabitants of the islands. When King Harald heard that the Orkneys were without a ruler, he asked Earl Rognvald to make haste to send them another earl. Rognvald then had the title of Earl of Orkney conferred on his son Hallad, who sailed for the west as the third earl. But Hallad was weak and indolent. The western earldom was too turbulent and difficult to govern. He soon wearied of his dignity, and at last, deserting his earldom, went back to Norway. After his ignominious withdrawal from the earldom, the islands came under the rule of two Danish Vikings.

Although Hallad preferred a simple farmer’s life to an earl’s dignity, there were others of Rognvald’s sons who were more ambitious. Einar especially was eager to redeem the family honour by the expulsion of the Vikings from the islands. Accordingly Einar was chosen as Earl of Orkney, and after King Harald had conferred on him the title, he set out for his earldom. The old Earl of Moeri had never regarded his youngest son with much favour, and, to tell the truth, neither desired to see the other’s face again.

Einar was the best and greatest of the early Norse earls. In appearance he was tall and manly; his face was somewhat disfigured by the loss of an eye, but in spite of this he was reputed to be very sharp-sighted. His father had prophesied that Einar would never become a great chief; yet he became the most famous of all Earl Rognvald’s sons, with the exception of Rollo of Normandy.

The earldom was in a state of great disorder when Einar arrived. The Vikings had to be expelled, the government had to be settled and established, and the people had to learn to trust and obey their new earl. All these things were accomplished in a marvellously short space of time. The new earl also taught his people many useful arts. Wood was scarce: Einar knew that the people of Scotland used peat for fuel, and he taught the Norsemen in the islands to do the same. From this he got the name of Torf-Einar.

Soon a serious trouble arose. King Harald’s sons had now grown up to be very turbulent and overbearing men. They quarrelled with their father’s chiefs and earls. Two of them, Halfdan Highleg and Gudrod Bright, attacked and slew Rognvald, Earl of Moeri. Harald was enraged that his sons should thus murder his best and most faithful counsellor and friend. He marched against them with an army, and ordered them to be seized and brought before him. Gudrod gave himself up to his father, but Halfdan seized a ship and sailed west to the Orkneys.

Halfdan’s sudden arrival in the earldom caused panic for a time. Einar was quite unprepared for an invasion. He accordingly thought it wiser to escape to Caithness until he had time to collect his forces. In the meantime Halfdan seized the government of the isles, taking the title of King of Orkney and Shetland. The same summer saw Einar back in the Orkneys with a fleet and an army to regain his earldom. The two fleets met somewhere off the island of Sanday. A fierce battle took place, and Halfdan’s force was practically annihilated. In the dusk of the evening he himself leaped overboard and escaped.

Next morning the shores were searched for fugitives. All who were found were slain, but Halfdan himself had disappeared. While the search was still proceeding, Einar was observed to stop suddenly and gaze across the sea towards the island of North Ronaldsay, or Rinansey, as it was then called.

“What see’st thou, jarl?” asked one of his companions. “I know not what it is,” was the reply. “Sometimes it appears to rise up, and sometimes to lie down. It is either a bird in the air or a man on the rocks, and I will find out.”

This object which the earl saw was Halfdan, who had probably just dragged his weary limbs from the water, and was now struggling up over the rocks to the land. The earl’s men pursued and captured him. He was at once brought before the earl, who ordered him to be slain, to avenge his father’s murder, and as a sacrifice to Odin for the victory.

Angry as King Harald had been because of the murder of Earl Rognvald, the death of his son at the hands of Rognvald’s son was not likely to be very agreeable to him. Harald therefore determined to make a second expedition to the west.

When Einar heard of Harald’s intended visit to the Orkneys, he thought that he would be safer out of the king’s way, and accordingly he crossed the Pentland Firth. Messengers went backwards and forwards between the king and the earl for a while, arranging terms of settlement. At length the king demanded that the earldom should pay a fine of sixty marks. To that Einar agreed, and King Harald Fairhair bade farewell to his western dominions for ever.

It was no easy matter for the Orkneymen to raise the sixty marks, and the earl called a Thing or council to discuss the matter. At length the earl offered to pay the whole fine himself, on condition that all the freehold or udal lands of the Orkneymen were handed over to him in pledge for the amount that each had to pay, and to this the islanders agreed.

In this way the earl came into possession of all the udal lands in the Orkneys; and it was not till the time of Earl Sigurd the Stout, a century later, that the udal rights were restored to the Orkneymen. Earl Einar spent the rest of his days in peace. The earldom was well ruled. Vikings were afraid to plunder the dominions of so powerful a chief; and after a long and honourable reign the good earl died on a sickbed—what the Vikings called a “straw death”—about the year 933.

[Illustration: _Remains of a Viking Ship found in Sweden._]

THE DARK CENTURY.

The tenth century may fittingly be called the dark century of Orcadian history. We know very little of it except occasional glimpses afforded by obscure references in the Sagas; and the little that we do know tells of treachery and bloodshed and murder to an extent unusual even in the troubled annals of Orkney.

After the death of Torf-Einar the earldom came into the hands of his three sons, Thorfinn—usually called Thorfinn Skull-splitter—Arnkell, and Erlend. The disturbed state of Norway, consequent on the death of Harald Fairhair about the year 945, caused turmoil and confusion throughout all those lands which had been conquered and settled by the Norsemen. Harald left behind him a brood of wild, reckless sons, each of whom thought he had a right to a share of his father’s dominions. They filled the whole land with turbulence and bloodshed.

Eric Bloody-axe had been Harald’s favourite son, and he at first took over the chief rule in Norway. He was a brave and skilful warrior, but passionate, avaricious, and treacherous in his disposition. The same qualities were possessed in an even greater degree by his queen, Gunnhilda. Their deeds of violence soon estranged the hearts of their subjects.

Hakon, Harald’s youngest son, who had been brought up in England under the care of King Athelstan, came to Norway to claim his share of his father’s dominions. Hakon was at this time only in his fifteenth year, but he was daring and ambitious, and was the darling of the Norsemen both at home and abroad. Eric Bloody-axe and Gunnhilda were, on the other hand, regarded everywhere with hatred and detestation. When, therefore, Hakon invaded Norway and attempted to wrest the sovereignty from the hands of his elder brother, the latter was deserted by his people and was forced to flee from the country.

Eric crossed first to Orkney, where he gathered a band of followers as reckless as himself, and then held on to England and began to ravage the land in the usual Viking fashion. Close friendship had long existed between Athelstan and Harald Fairhair. Athelstan professed similar friendship for Harald’s sons, and now offered Eric the lordship of Northumbria. Eric was not so foolish as to reject this offer. Gunnhilda and he with their family abode in peace in Northumbria for about a year.

With the death of Athelstan fortune began once more to frown upon the exiled king. King Edmund thought it by no means desirable that the Norsemen should hold so large a portion of his kingdom. Knowing the insecurity of his tenure, Eric’s reckless spirit flashed at once into open rebellion. He left Northumbria, sailed to Orkney, seized the Earls Arnkell and Erlend, forced many other Orcadian chiefs to join him, and made a Viking raid on the west coast of England. The raiders met with resistance and a battle was fought; in this battle fell Eric himself, both the Orkney earls, and most of the other leaders.

When news of this disastrous expedition reached Gunnhilda, who had remained with her family in Northumbria, she in turn embarked for Orkney. She and her sons claimed the earldom, seized the taxes, and spread wrong and oppression over all the western colonies. For a short time the islands suffered the same misgovernment as Norway had already suffered at her hands. But war now broke out between Norway and Denmark. This seemed to afford her a chance of regaining the Norwegian crown, and Gunnhilda and her family sailed eastwards once more. Ragnhilda, her daughter, was left behind in Orkney to continue for a time her mother’s acts of treachery and bloodshed.

There are few worse characters in history than Ragnhilda as depicted by the Saga. She seemed to have a mania for plots and murders. Married first to Arnfinn, one of the sons of Earl Thorfinn, she caused him to be murdered at Murkle in Caithness, for no reason that we can find out, and then married his brother Havard. On the death of his father Thorfinn, shortly afterwards, Havard became earl. He is known in history as Havard the Harvest-happy, because during his time the islands were blessed with good harvests. Havard also met his death at the instigation of his wife. Ragnhilda persuaded Einar Oily-tongue, his nephew, to murder the earl, promising to marry him and secure for him the earldom when the deed was done. Einar set on Havard in Stenness, and slew him after a hard struggle. But it was apparently no part of Ragnhilda’s plan to marry Einar Oily-tongue. She now professed the greatest indignation and grief at the murder of Earl Havard, and called for vengeance on his murderer. Einar Oily-tongue had a cousin, also called Einar. He in turn fell a victim to the wiles of Ragnhilda. By promising or at least hinting that she would marry the man who avenged the murder of Earl Havard, she succeeded in getting the second Einar to murder the first, and ended by marrying Ljot, the third son of Earl Thorfinn, who was the real heir to the earldom.

This was by no means the end of Ragnhilda’s wickedness. Ljot had a brother, Skuli, who was not at all satisfied that the former should have the whole earldom. It was an easy matter to make trouble between the two brothers. In the end Skuli left the islands for Scotland, and became Earl of Caithness and a vassal of the Scottish king. Bad feeling continued between the brothers, and was carefully fostered by Ragnhilda. Ultimately they met in arms in Caithness, Skuli with a Scottish army, and Ljot with the forces of the earldom. The Scots were defeated and Skuli slain.

Ljot now added Caithness to his earldom, but the Scots again and again strove to reconquer it. Finally a great battle was fought at Skidmire in Caithness. The Norsemen gained the day, but the earl was fatally wounded. There remained one son of Thorfinn Skull-splitter, named Hlodver, who now became earl over an earldom exhausted and impoverished by twenty years of misgovernment and bloodshed, and embroiled in an arduous struggle with Scotland for the possession of Caithness.

The Orkney earldom, however, was now on the eve of a great expansion. Under the son and grandson of Hlodver, Sigurd the Stout and Thorfinn the Mighty, the Norse dominion in the west attained its widest bounds, and the earldom of Orkney its greatest importance. For more than half a century, with little or no interference from Norway, the Orkney earls helped to mould the history of Ireland and of Scotland; and until the union of England and Denmark took place under Canute, the Norse Earls of Orkney were probably the most powerful chieftains in the British Isles.

It was in the time of Earl Sigurd that Christianity was first introduced among the Norse inhabitants of Orkney. Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, King of Norway, had embraced the new faith, and his methods of promoting the religion which he professed were characteristic of his time and race. The story of the conversion of Earl Sigurd and his followers is thus given in the Saga:—

“Olaf, Tryggvi’s son, sailed from the west to the Orkneys; but because the Pentland Firth was not passable, he laid his ship up under the lee in Osmund’s Voe, off Rognvald’s Isle. But there in the voe lay already Earl Sigurd, Hlodver’s son, with three ships, and then meant to go a-roving. But as soon as King Olaf knew that the earl was there, he made them call him to come and speak with him. But when the earl came on board the king’s ship, King Olaf began his speech.” (We pass over his long historical review of the establishment of the Orkney earldom and its dependence upon the kings of Norway, and give only his closing sentences.)

“‘Now, as so it is, Earl Sigurd, that thou hast come into my power, now thou hast two choices before thee, very uneven. One is that thou shalt take the right faith and become my man, and allow thyself to be baptized and all thy undermen; then shalt thou have a sure hope of honour from me, and to have and to hold as my underman this realm, with earl’s title and full freedom as thou hast erewhile had it; and this over and above, which is much more worth, to rule in everlasting bliss with all-ruling God—that is sure to thee if thou keepest all His commandments. This is the other choice, which is very doleful and unlike the first—that now on the spot thou shalt die, and after thy death I shall let fire and sword ruthlessly rage over all the Orkneys, burn and brand homesteads and men, unless this folk will have salvation and believe on the true God....’

“But when Earl Sigurd had heard so long and clever a speech of King Olaf, he hardened his heart against him, and spoke thus: ‘It must be told thee, King Olaf, that I have firmly made up my mind that I will not and may not and shall not forego that faith which my kinsmen and forefathers had before me: for I know no better counsel than they, and I know not that that faith is better which thou preachest than this which we have now had and held all our lives.’

“And with that the king saw the earl so stiffnecked in his error, he seized his young son, whom the earl had with him, and who had grown up there in the isles. This son of the earl the king bore forward on the prow and drew his sword, and made ready to cut off the lad’s head, with these words, ‘Now mayst thou see, Earl Sigurd, that I will spare no man who will not serve Almighty God, or listen to my exhortations and hearken to this blessed message; and for that I will now on this very spot slay this thy son before thine eyes, with this same sword which I grasp, unless thou and thy men serve my God; for hence out of the isles will I not go before I have forwarded and fulfilled this His glorious errand, and thou and thy son, whom I now hold, have taken on you baptism.’

“And in the strait to which the earl was now come, he chose the choice which the king would have, and which was better for him, to take the right faith. Then the earl was baptized, and all the folk in the Orkneys. After that Earl Sigurd was made after this world’s honour King Olaf’s earl, and held under him lands and fiefs, and gave him for an hostage that same son of his of whom it was spoken before; he was called Whelp or Hound. Olaf made them christen the lad by the name of Hlodver, and carried him away with him to Norway. Earl Sigurd bound with oaths all their agreement, and next after that Olaf sailed away from the Orkneys, but set up there behind him priests to mend the folk’s ways and teach them holy wisdom; so they, King Olaf and Sigurd, parted with friendship. Hlodver lived but a scanty time; but after that he was dead Earl Sigurd showed King Olaf no service. He took to wife then the daughter of Malcolm the Scot King, and Thorfinn was their son.”

So does the Saga tell this dramatic tale; and we may notice that the earl’s allegiance to the new faith was as fickle as his fidelity to the king, for a few years later we find him fighting in the ranks of the heathen against the Christian king, Brian of Ireland, under the shadow of his raven banner, a flag endowed by his mother’s spells with the twofold magical power of ensuring victory to those who followed it, but death to him who bore it.

The story of “King Brian’s battle,” or the battle of Clontarf, is one of the most stirring in the old records, and we give it here as told by the Saga-man:—

“Then King Sigtrygg [of Ireland] stirred in his business with Earl Sigurd, and egged him on to go to the war with King Brian. The earl was long steadfast, but the end of it was that he said it might come about. He said he must have his mother’s hand for his help, and be king in Ireland if they slew Brian. But all his men besought Earl Sigurd not to go into the war, but it was all no good. So they parted on the understanding that Earl Sigurd gave his word to go; but King Sigtrygg promised him his mother and the kingdom. It was so settled that Earl Sigurd was to come with all his host to Dublin by Palm Sunday.

“Then King Sigtrygg fared south to Ireland, and told his mother, Kormlada, that the earl had undertaken to come, and also what he had pledged himself to grant him. She showed herself well pleased at that, but said they must gather greater force still. Sigtrygg asked whence this was to be looked for. She said that there were two Vikings lying off the west of Man; and they had thirty ships, and ‘they are men of such hardihood that nothing can withstand them. The one’s name is Ospak, and the other’s Brodir. Thou shalt fare to find them, and spare nothing to get them into thy quarrel, whatever price they ask.’

“Now King Sigtrygg fares and seeks the Vikings, and found them lying outside off Man. King Sigtrygg brings forward his errand at once; but Brodir shrank from helping him until he, King Sigtrygg, promised him the kingdom and his mother, and they were to keep this such a secret that Earl Sigurd should know nothing about it. Brodir, too, was to come to Dublin on Palm Sunday. King Sigtrygg fared home to his mother and told her how things stood. After that those brothers, Ospak and Brodir, talked together; and then Brodir told Ospak all that he and Sigtrygg had spoken of, and bade him fare to battle with him against King Brian, and said he set much store on his going. Ospak said he would not fight against so good a king. Then they were both wrath, and sundered their band at once. Ospak had ten ships and Brodir twenty. Ospak was a heathen, and the wisest of all men. He laid his ships inside in a sound, but Brodir lay outside him. Brodir had been a Christian man and a mass-deacon by consecration; but he had thrown off his faith and become God’s dastard, and now worshipped heathen fiends, and he was of all men most skilled in sorcery. He had that coat of mail on which no steel would bite. He was both tall and strong, and had such long locks that he tucked them under his belt. His hair was black.

“It so happened one night that a great din passed over Brodir and his men, so that they all woke, and sprang up and put on their clothes. Along with that came a shower of boiling blood. Then they covered themselves with their shields, but for all that many were scalded. This wonder lasted all till day, and a man had died on board every ship. Then they slept during the day. The second night there was again a din, and again they all sprang up. Then swords leapt out of their sheaths, and axes and spears flew about in the air and fought. The weapons pressed them so hard that they had to shield themselves; but still many were wounded, and again a man died out of every ship. This wonder lasted all till day. Then they slept again the day after. The third night there was a din of the same kind. Then ravens flew at them, and it seemed to them as though their beaks and claws were of iron. The ravens pressed them so hard that they had to keep them off with their swords, and covered themselves with their shields. This went on again till day, and then another man had died in every ship.

“Then they went to sleep first of all; but when Brodir woke up, he drew his breath painfully, and bade them put off the boat, ‘For,’ said he, ‘I will go to see Ospak.’ Then he got into the boat and some men with him. But when he found Ospak he told him of the wonders which had befallen them, and bade him say what he thought they boded. Ospak would not tell him before he pledged him peace, and Brodir promised him peace; but Ospak still shrank from telling him till night fell, for Brodir never slew a man by night.

“Then Ospak spoke, and said, ‘When blood rained on you, therefore shall ye shed many men’s blood, both of your own and others. But when ye heard a great din, then ye must have been shown the crack of doom, and ye shall all die speedily. But when weapons fought against you, that must forebode a battle. But when ravens pressed you, that marks the devils which ye put faith in, and who will drag you all down to the pains of hell.’

“Then Brodir was so wrath that he could answer never a word. But he went at once to his men, and made them lay his ships in a line across the sound, and moor them by bearing cables on shore, and meant to slay them all next morning. Ospak saw all their plan. Then he vowed to take the true faith, and to go to King Brian and follow him till his death-day. Then he took that counsel to lay his ships in a line, and punt them along the shore with poles, and cut the cables of Brodir’s ships. Then the ships of Brodir’s men began to fall aboard of one another. But they were all fast asleep; and then Ospak and his men got out of the firth, and so west to Ireland, and came to Kincora. Then Ospak told King Brian all that he had learnt, and took baptism, and gave himself over into the king’s hand. After that King Brian made them gather force over all his realm, and the whole host was to come to Dublin in the week before Palm Sunday.

“Earl Sigurd, Hlodver’s son, busked him from the Orkneys, and Flosi offered to go with him. The earl would not have that, since he had his pilgrimage to fulfil. Flosi offered fifteen men of his band to go on the voyage, and the earl accepted them; but Flosi fared with Earl Gilli to the Southern Isles. Thorstein, the son of Hall of the Side, went along with Earl Sigurd, and Hrafn the Red, and Erling of Straumey. He would not that Hareck should go, but said he would be sure to tell him first the tidings of his voyage. The earl came with all his host on Palm Sunday to Dublin, and there, too, was come Brodir with all his host. Brodir tried by sorcery how the fight would go. But the answer ran thus, that if the fight were on Good Friday, King Brian would fall but win the day; but if they fought before, they would all fall who were against him. Then Brodir said that they must not fight before the Friday....

“King Brian came with all his host to the burg; and on the Friday the host fared out of the burg, and both armies were drawn up in array. Brodir was on one wing of the battle, but King Sigtrygg on the other. Earl Sigurd was in the mid-battle. Now, it must be told of King Brian that he would not fight on the fast-day, and so a shieldburg was thrown round him, and his host was drawn up in array in front of it. Wolf the Quarrelsome was on that wing of the battle against which Brodir stood. But on the other wing, where Sigtrygg stood against them, were Ospak and his sons. But in mid-battle was Kerthialfad, and before him the banners were borne. Now the wings fall on one another, and there was a very hard fight. Brodir went through the host of the foe, and felled all the foremost that stood there, but no steel would bite on him. Wolf the Quarrelsome turned then to meet him, and thrust at him twice so hard that Brodir fell before him at each thrust, and was well-nigh not getting on his feet again. But as soon as ever he found his feet, he fled away into the wood at once.

“Earl Sigurd had a hard battle against Kerthialfad, and Kerthialfad came on so fast that he laid low all who were in the front rank, and he broke the array of Earl Sigurd right up to his banner, and slew the banner-bearer. Then he got another man to bear the banner, and there was again a hard fight. Kerthialfad smote this man too his death-blow at once, and so on one after the other all who stood near him. Then Earl Sigurd called on Thorstein, the son of Hall of the Side, to bear the banner, and Thorstein was just about to lift the banner. But then Amundi the White said, ‘Don’t bear the banner! for all they who bear it get their death.’ ‘Hrafn the Red!’ called out Earl Sigurd, ‘bear thou the banner.’ ‘Bear thine own devil thyself,’ answered Hrafn. Then the earl said, ‘’Tis fittest that the beggar should bear the bag;’ and with that he took the banner from the staff and put it under his cloak. A little after, Amundi the White was slain, and then the earl was pierced through with a spear. Ospak had gone through all the battle on his wing. He had been sore wounded, and lost both his sons ere King Sigtrygg fled before him. Then flight broke out throughout all the host. Thorstein, Hall of the Side’s son, stood still while all the others fled, and tied his shoestring. Then Kerthialfad asked why he ran not as the others. ‘Because,’ said Thorstein, ‘I can’t get home to-night, since I am at home out in Iceland.’ Kerthialfad gave him peace....

“Now Brodir saw that King Brian’s men were chasing the fleers, and that there were few men by the shieldburg. Then he rushed out of the wood, and broke through the shieldburg, and hewed at the king. The lad Takt threw his arm in the way, and the stroke took it off and the king’s head too; but the king’s blood came on the lad’s stump, and the stump was healed by it on the spot. Then Brodir called out with a loud voice, ‘Now man can tell that Brodir felled Brian.’ Then men ran after those who were chasing the fleers, and they were told that King Brian had fallen; and then they turned back straightway, both Wolf the Quarrelsome and Kerthialfad. Then they threw a ring round Brodir and his men, and threw branches of trees upon them, and so Brodir was taken alive.... After that they took King Brian’s body and laid it out. The king’s head had grown to the trunk....

“This event happened in the Orkneys, that Hareck thought he saw Earl Sigurd, and some men with him. Then Hareck took his horse and rode to meet the earl. Men say that they met and rode under a brae; but they were never seen again, and not a scrap was ever found of Hareck.”

_From the “Njala Saga,” translated by Sir G. W. Dasent, D.C.L. (By permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office.)_

[Illustration: _Ancient Bronze Weapons and Ornaments._]

EARL THORFINN AND EARL ROGNVALD.

Earl Sigurd, as has been mentioned, took as his second wife the daughter of Malcolm the Second, King of Scots. They had but one son, Thorfinn, called the Mighty, the greatest of his race, who became the most powerful of all the Orkney earls. When he was but five winters old Thorfinn was sent to his grandfather Malcolm to be brought up at the Scottish Court, and on his father’s death he was made Earl of Caithness and Sutherland.

Einar and Brusi, sons of Sigurd by his first wife, then ruled over the islands. Einar was ambitious and warlike, Brusi mild and peaceful. When they shared the earldom between them, Brusi was content with a third part, while Einar took over the remainder; and so matters stood for a time.

When Thorfinn grew up to manhood, he was not content with his large domains in Scotland. He put forward a claim to one-third of the Orkneys as his rightful share. Einar would have disputed the claim; but Brusi resigned his share to Thorfinn, and an agreement was made that when Einar died his share should be handed over to Brusi. So peace was kept for the time. But when Einar died, Thorfinn seized half of the whole earldom.

Brusi was unable to resist the great power of Thorfinn, so he resolved to go east to Norway, and ask Olaf the king to do justice between him and his brother. Thorfinn also went to Norway to plead his own cause. King Olaf, unwilling to increase the power of a subject already too powerful, decided in favour of Brusi. But when the two earls returned to the islands, Brusi found the task of ruling his dominions and defending them against the Vikings too heavy for him, and Thorfinn no doubt took care that there should always be plenty of trouble for him to face.

At last Brusi was glad to hand over two-thirds of the earldom to Thorfinn, on condition of his undertaking to defend the islands; and this arrangement lasted till Brusi’s death.

In the meantime, Rognvald, Brusi’s son, had been growing up at the Court of Olaf, King of Norway, and he was a close friend of Magnus, Olaf’s son, who afterwards became king. When Rognvald heard that Brusi, his father, was dead, and that Earl Thorfinn had seized the whole earldom, he prepared to fare westward and claim his share of the land. Thorfinn was now the most powerful ruler in all the western lands. He had defeated the Scots in a great sea-fight off Deerness; he had subdued the Western Isles; he had conquered great realms in Scotland; and he had made himself master of the half of Ireland.

At the time when Rognvald came to the Orkneys, however, Thorfinn had wars on his hands in the Western Isles and in Ireland, and he was glad to offer Rognvald two-thirds of the islands in return for his friendship and his help. So for a time the two earls lived in friendship with each other.

Then evil men made mischief between them, and Thorfinn demanded back the third of the land which had belonged to Earl Einar. Rognvald refused, and sailed away to Norway to ask help from King Magnus. With a fleet of Norwegian ships he came back to Orkney, and was met in the Pentland Firth by the ships of Earl Thorfinn. Earl Rognvald’s ships were fewer in number, but their larger size at first gave him the advantage. Earl Thorfinn was hard pressed; but at last he persuaded his brother-in-law, Kalf Arnesson, whose ships were lying by watching the fight, to come to his aid and row against Rognvald. Then the tide of battle turned against Earl Rognvald, and only by the darkness of the night was he enabled to escape, and once more to find his way to Norway.

Again King Magnus came to his help; but this time Earl Rognvald tried to take Thorfinn by surprise, so he sailed away to Orkney in the dead of winter with only one ship. Before there was any news of his coming, he surrounded the house where Earl Thorfinn was feasting, and set it on fire. Only the women and children were allowed to go free; but while the warriors were in confusion, seeking some way of escape, the great earl broke a hole through the side of the house where the smoke was thickest, and, carrying his wife, Ingibiorg, in his arms, he escaped in the darkness to the seashore, took a boat, and rowed across to Caithness.

Now it seemed that Rognvald’s success was complete, for he thought that Earl Thorfinn was surely dead. When Christmas-time was at hand, he prepared to hold a great feast at Kirkwall, and with some of his men he took a ship to Papa Stronsay to bring over a cargo of malt for the brewing. They stayed there for the night, and sat long over the fire telling of all their adventures. Meanwhile, however, Earl Thorfinn had come back from Caithness to seek revenge. In the darkness he and his men surrounded the house where Earl Rognvald sat, and set it on fire. All except the earl’s men were allowed to come out, being drawn over the pile of wood which Thorfinn’s men had placed before the door.

While this was being done, a man suddenly leaped over the pile, and over the armed men beside it, and disappeared in the darkness.

“That must be Earl Rognvald,” cried Thorfinn, “for no one else could do such a feat.” Then they all ran to search for Earl Rognvald in the darkness. The barking of his dog betrayed the earl’s hiding-place to his enemies, and soon he was found and slain among the rocks upon the shore.

Next morning Thorfinn and his men took Earl Rognvald’s ship and sailed to Kirkwall. And when Rognvald’s men who were in the town came, unarmed, expecting to meet the earl, they were set upon by Earl Thorfinn’s men, and thirty of them were slain. These men were of the bodyguard of King Magnus, and only one of them was allowed to go back to Norway to tell the tidings to the king.

Then for eighteen years Thorfinn ruled the earldom, till the day of his death. He was by far the greatest of the Orkney earls. He built Christ’s Kirk in Birsay, and in his time the Bishopric of Orkney was founded. During his later years the islands enjoyed peace, and many wise laws were made; and when the great earl died there was much sorrow in the Orkneys. So the poet sings in his honour:—

“Swarthy shall become the bright sun, In the dark sea shall the earth sink, Finished shall be Austri’s labour, And the wild sea hide the mountains, Ere there be in these fair islands Born a chief to rule the people— May our God both keep and help them— Greater than the lost Earl Thorfinn.”

Paul and Erlend, the two sons of Thorfinn, succeeded to the earldom, and for some time they ruled in harmony together. They fought for King Harald Hardradi against Harold, Godwin’s son, at the battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire in 1066, but were allowed to return in peace to their earldom. Trouble arose between the brothers when their sons grew to manhood, and Magnus Barefoot, King of Norway, made a descent upon the islands. He carried the two brothers into exile, appointing his own son Sigurd as “King” of Orkney, which post he held until his father’s death made him King of Norway. Hakon, Paul’s son, and Magnus, Erlend’s son, afterwards called St. Magnus, then became joint earls.

Their joint rule had the usual result, quarrels and misunderstandings, and was brought to an end by the murder of Earl Magnus in Egilsay in 1115. The story is told in the Saga of Earl Magnus, from which the next chapter is taken.

THE SLAYING OF EARL MAGNUS.

“St. Magnus, the isle earl, was the most peerless of men, tall of growth, manly, and lively of look, virtuous in his ways, fortunate in fight, a sage in wit, ready-tongued and lordly-minded, lavish of money and high-spirited, quick of counsel, and more beloved of his friends than any man. Blithe and of kind speech to wise and good men, but hard and unsparing against robbers and sea-rovers, he let many men be slain who harried the freemen and landfolk. He made murderers and thieves be taken, and visited as well on the powerful as on the weak robberies and thieveries and all ill deeds. He was no favourer of his friends in his judgments, for he valued more godly justice than the distinctions of rank. He was open-handed to chiefs and powerful men, but still he ever showed most care for poor men....

“Those kinsmen, Magnus and Hakon, held the wardship of the land for some while, so that they were well agreed.... But when those kinsmen had ruled the land some time, then again happened, what often and always can happen, that many ill-willing men set about spoiling their kinship. Then unlucky men gathered more about Hakon, for that he was very envious of the friendships and lordliness of his kinsman Magnus.

“Two men are they who are named, who were with Earl Hakon, and who were the worst of all the tale-bearers between those kinsmen, Sigurd and Sighvat Sock. This slander came so far with the gossip of wicked men, that those kinsmen again gathered forces together, and each earl faced against the other with a great company. Then both of them held on to Hrossey [the Mainland], where the place of meeting of those Orkneyingers was. But when they came there, then each drew up his men in array, and they made them ready to battle. There were then the earls and all the great men, and there, too, were many friends of both who did all they could to set them at one again. Many then came between them with manliness and good-will. This meeting was in Lent, a little before Palm Sunday. But because many men of their well-wishers took a share in clearing up these difficulties between them, but would stand by neither to do harm to the other, then they bound their agreement with oaths and handsels. And when some time had gone by after that, then Earl Hakon, with falsehood and fair words, settled with the blessed Earl Magnus to meet him on a certain day, so that their kinship and steadfast new-made peace should not be turned aside or set at naught. This meeting for a steadfast peace and a thorough atonement between them was to be in Easter week that spring on Egil’s Isle [Egilsay]. This pleased Earl Magnus well, being, as he was, a thoroughly whole-hearted man, far from all doubt, guile, or greed; and each of them was to have two ships, and each just as many men: this both swore, to hold and keep those terms of peace which the wisest men made up their minds to declare between them.

“But when Eastertide was gone by, each made him ready for this meeting. Earl Magnus summoned to him all those men whom he knew to be kindest-hearted and likeliest to do a good turn to both those kinsmen. He had two long-ships and just as many men as was said. And when he was ready he held on his course to Egil’s Isle. And as they were rowing in calm over the smooth sea, there rose a billow against the ship which the earl steered, and fell on the ship just where the earl sat. The earl’s men wondered much at this token, that the billow fell on them in a calm where no man had ever known it to fall before, and where the water under was deep. Then the earl said, ‘It is not strange that ye wonder at this; but my thought is, that this is a foreboding of my life’s end, may be that may happen which was before spoken about Earl Hakon. We should so make up our minds about our undertaking, that I guess my kinsman Hakon must not mean to deal fairly by us at this meeting.’ The earl’s men were afraid at these words, when he said he had so short hope as to his life’s end, and bade him take heed for his life, and not fare further trusting in Earl Hakon. Earl Magnus answers, ‘We shall fare on still, and may all God’s will be done as to our voyage.’

“Now it must be told about Earl Hakon, that he summoned to him a great company, and had many war-ships, and all manned and trimmed as though they were to run out to battle. And when the force came together, the earl makes it clear to the men that he meant at that meeting so to settle matters between himself and Earl Magnus that they should not both of them be over the Orkneys. Many of his men showed themselves well pleased at this purpose, and added many fearful words; and they, Sigurd and Sighvat Sock, were among the worst in their utterance. Then men began to row hard, and they fared furiously. Havard, Gunni’s son, was on board the earl’s ship, a friend and counsellor of the earl’s, and a fast friend to both alike. Hakon had hidden from him this bad counsel, which Havard would surely not join in. And when he knew the earl was so steadfast in this bad counsel, then he jumped from the earl’s ship and took to swimming, and swam to an isle where no man dwelt.

“Earl Magnus came first to Egil’s Isle with his company, and when they saw Hakon coming they saw that he had eight war-ships; he thought he knew then that treachery must be meant. Earl Magnus then betook himself up on the isle with his men, and went to the church to pray, and was there that night; but his men offered to defend him. The earl answers, ‘I will not lay your life in risk for me, and if peace is not to be made between us two kinsmen, then be it as God wills.’ Then his men thought that what he had said when the billow fell on them was coming true. Now for that he felt sure as to the hours of his life beforehand, whether it was rather from his shrewdness or of godly foreshowing, then he would not fly nor fare far from the meeting of his foes. He prayed earnestly, and let a mass be sung to him.

“Hakon and his men jumped up in the morning, and ran first to the church and ransacked it, and did not find the earl. He had gone another way on the isle with two men into a certain hiding-place. And when the saint Earl Magnus saw that they sought for him, then he calls out to them and says where he was; he bade them look nowhere else for him. And when Hakon saw him, they ran thither with shouts and crash of arms. Earl Magnus was then at his prayers when they came to him, and when he had ended his prayers then he signed himself [with the cross], and said to Earl Hakon, with steadfast heart, ‘Thou didst not well, kinsman, when thou wentest back on thy oaths, and it is much to be hoped that thou doest this more from others’ badness than thine own. Now will I offer thee three choices, that thou do one of these rather than break thine oaths and let me be slain guiltless.’

“Hakon’s men asked what offer he made. ‘That is the first, that I will go south to Rome, or out as far as Jerusalem, and visit holy places, and have two ships with me out of the land with what we need to have, and so make atonement for both of our souls. This I will swear, never to come back to the Orkneys.’ To this they said ‘Nay’ at once. Then Earl Magnus spoke: ‘Now seeing that my life is in your power, and that I have in many things made myself an outlaw before Almighty God, then send thou me up into Scotland to some of both our friends, and let me be there kept in ward, and two men with me as a pastime. Take thou care then that I may never be able to get out of that wardship.’ To this they said ‘Nay’ at once. Magnus spoke: ‘One choice is still behind which I will offer thee, and God knows that I look more to your soul than to my life; but still it better beseems thee than to take my life away. Let me be maimed in my limbs as thou pleasest, or pluck out my eyes, and set me in a dark dungeon.’ Then Earl Hakon spoke: ‘This settlement I am ready to take, nor do I ask anything further.’ Then the chiefs sprang up and said to Earl Hakon, ‘We will slay now either of you twain, and ye two shall not both from this day forth rule the lands.’ Then answers Earl Hakon: ‘Slay ye him rather, for I will rather rule the realm and lands than die so suddenly.’ So says Holdbodi, a truthful freeman from the Southern Isles, of the parley they had. He was then with Magnus, and another man with him, when they took him captive.

“So glad was the worthy Earl Magnus as though he were bidden to a feast; he neither spoke with hate nor words of wrath. And after this talk he fell to prayer, and hid his face in the palms of his hands, and shed out many tears before God’s eyesight. When Earl Magnus, the saint, was done to death, Hakon bade Ofeig his banner-bearer to slay the earl, but he said ‘Nay’ with the greatest wrath. Then he forced Lifolf his cook to kill Earl Magnus, but he began to weep aloud. ‘Thou shalt not weep for this,’ said the earl, ‘for that there is fame in doing such deeds. Be steadfast in thine heart, for thou shalt have my clothes, as is the wont and law of men of old, and thou shalt not be afraid, for thou doest this against thy will, and he who forces thee misdoes more than thou.’ But when the earl had said this he threw off his kirtle and gave it to Lifolf. After that he begged leave to say his prayers, and that was granted him.

[Illustration: _Church of St. Magnus, Egilsay._

_(From a painting by T. Marjoribanks Hay, R.S.W.)_]

“He fell to earth, and gave himself over to God, and brought himself as an offering to Him. He not only prayed for himself or his friends, but rather there and then for his foes and banemen, and forgave them with all his heart what they had misdone towards him, and confessed his own misdeeds to God, and prayed that they might be washed off him by the outshedding of his blood, and commended his soul into God’s hand, and prayed that God’s angels would come to meet his soul and bear it into the rest of Paradise. When the friend of God was led out to slaughter he spoke to Lifolf: ‘Stand thou before me, and hew me on my head a great wound, for it beseems not to chop off chiefs’ heads like thieves’. Strengthen thyself, wretched man, for I have prayed to God that he may have mercy upon thee.’ After that he signed himself [with the cross], and bowed himself to the stroke. And his spirit passed to heaven.

“That spot was before mossy and stony. But a little after, the worthiness of Earl Magnus before God was so bright that there sprung up a green sward where he was slain, and God showed that, that he was slain for righteousness’ sake, and inherited the fairness and greenness of Paradise, which is called the earth of living men.... There had then passed since the birth of Christ one thousand and ninety and one winters.”

_From the “Orkneyinga Saga,” translated by Sir G. W. Dasent, D.C.L. (By permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office.)_

THE FOUNDING OF ST. MAGNUS CATHEDRAL.

After the death of Hakon, the slayer of Earl Magnus, the earldom was divided between his two sons, Harald the Smooth-talker, and Paul the Speechless. There were many bitter quarrels between the brothers, until the death of the former left Paul as sole ruler. That happened in this wise.

When they had been reconciled after one of their quarrels, Harald invited Paul to a feast in his house at Orphir. On the morning before the feast, Earl Harald found his mother and his aunt working at a very beautiful shirt, which, they said, was a present for his brother Paul.

“Why should such a splendid garment be given to Paul and not to me?” asked the earl, taking it up in his hand to look at it. Then before the women could prevent him, he threw off the light cloak he was wearing and put on the gorgeous shirt. No sooner had it touched his skin than he was seized with violent pains, and with a sickness of which he died a few days later. The shirt had been poisoned in order to cause Earl Paul’s death, but it was Earl Harald who fell a victim to his mother’s cunning and treacherous design.

Earl Paul did not long reign in peace. A new claimant soon appeared for part of the lands. This was Kali, the son of Kol and of Gunhild, the sister of the murdered St. Magnus, who had been brought up at the court of King Harald of Norway. He was a man of noble appearance, bold and skilful in war, and a born leader of men. He was in addition a noted skald or poet, and many of the songs which he made have come down to us in the Sagas.

He now changed his name to Rognvald, which had been a popular name in the isles since the days of Rognvald, Brusi’s son, and he is known in history as Rognvald Kali, or Rognvald the Second.

Having the promise of help from Harald, the Norwegian king, Rognvald sent a message to Earl Paul, demanding that share of the islands which Earl Magnus had held. Earl Paul, who was a good ruler, and had many friends among the Orkneymen, replied that he would guard his inheritance while God gave him life. Rognvald then gathered ships and set sail for Shetland, but his fleet was destroyed in Yell Sound by the ships of Earl Paul, and he had to escape to Norway in a merchant vessel.

Earl Paul thereupon placed beacons on some of the highest hills in the islands, in order that he might have warning of any attempt by Rognvald to make a descent by way of Shetland, and the most important of these beacons was on the Fair Isle.

When Rognvald, angry and disappointed, arrived in Norway, he took counsel with his father Kol and with an old man named Uni, who was reckoned a very wise man; and as he had many friends among the men of Shetland, it was decided to make a new attempt in the spring. By the aid of King Harald and of his friends a new fleet was then got ready.

When the ships were assembled, Rognvald stood up on the deck of his war-dragon to address his men. “Earl Paul and the Orkneyingers,” he said, “have taken my inheritance, and refuse to give it up. My grandfather, the holy Earl Magnus, was treacherously slain by Paul’s father Hakon, and instead of giving compensation for the wicked deed, Earl Paul would wrong me still more in the matter of my inheritance. However, if it be the will of God, I intend to fare to the Orkneys, and there win what is mine by right, or die with honour.”

All the men cheered this speech, and when they were silent Kol rose to speak. He advised his son not to trust in his own strength for success. “I advise thee, Rognvald,” he said, “to make a vow that if St. Magnus secures to thee thine inheritance, thou wilt build and dedicate to him in Kirkwall a minster of such size and splendour that it shall be the wonder and the glory of all the North.”

Rognvald thought this the best of advice. Rising once more, he vowed to build in Kirkwall a splendid cathedral in honour of St. Magnus, and to remove thither with all reverence the remains of the sainted earl. No sooner had this solemn vow been taken than the wind became fair for sailing. The fleet at once put to sea, and reached Shetland in a few days.

Now Rognvald’s real difficulties began. How could he take Earl Paul by surprise, as he wished to do, with the beacon on the Fair Isle ready to give the alarm as soon as his ships came in sight? The wisdom of Kol and of Uni came to his aid. The former had a plan to cause the beacon to be lit on a false alarm, and the latter to prevent its being lit when it was needed.

Kol set sail from Shetland towards evening with a fleet of small boats. When they came in sight of the Fair Isle, they hoisted their sails half way up the masts, and with the oars the men kept back the boats so as to make them sail very slowly. At the same time they gradually hoisted their sails higher and higher, so that to those in charge of the beacon it might seem that a fleet was rapidly approaching When it was dark the boats returned to the land.

The trick was successful. The Fair Isle beacon flared up to the sky, those on North Ronaldsay and on Westray followed, and soon every hilltop in the islands showed its warning light. The Orkneymen took their weapons and hurried to Kirkwall, where Earl Paul had appointed them to gather in such a case, and all was ready to meet the enemy; but no enemy appeared. Those who had charge of the beacons came with the news of a fleet approaching; and after long waiting other men were sent to look for its coming, but they looked in vain. Quarrels soon began to arise as to who was to blame for the false alarm, for the men were angry at having been taken from their farm work to no purpose; so the earl had to make peace among them, and set other men to build up the beacons again and to watch them.

Now came Uni’s turn. He sailed to the Fair Isle with three companions, and pretended to be an enemy of Rognvald, saying many hard things against him and his men. His three companions went out every day to fish, but Uni himself stayed on shore. He gradually made friends with the people of the isle, and especially with those who had charge of the beacon. At last he offered to watch it for them, saying that he had nothing else to do, and his offer was accepted. Uni then poured water on the beacon, and kept it in such a state of dampness that it should be impossible to light it when it was needed.

Thus by the time that Rognvald was to set out from Shetland, Uni had everything prepared. As soon as his ships were seen from the Fair Isle, the men who had charge of the beacon tried to light it, but in vain. There was no time to warn Earl Paul, and Rognvald landed in Westray without any alarm being given. The bishop now interfered between the rivals, and a truce was agreed to in order that terms of peace might be arranged.

And now things took a strange and unexpected turn, so that Rognvald won the islands without any fighting. While Earl Paul was on a visit to his friend Sigurd of Westness, in Rousay, he went out before breakfast one morning and mysteriously disappeared. Sigurd sought him everywhere in vain. At last they discovered that he had been seized and carried off to Scotland by Sweyn Asleifson, and he never returned. Earl Paul’s men gradually came over to Earl Rognvald, and he became ruler over the whole earldom.

Earl Rognvald now set about fulfilling his vow and raising a great cathedral in Kirkwall in honour of St. Magnus. In 1137 the work was begun under the superintendence of Kol, but many a long year was to pass ere it should be finished. As the work went on it soon became very costly to the earl. In his difficulty he once more went to his father Kol for advice. Kol said that Rognvald should declare himself the heir of all landholders who died, and that their sons should have to redeem their lands from him. A Thing was called, and this law was passed; but the freemen also had the choice given them of buying their lands outright, so that the earl might not inherit them in the future. Most of the landholders took that plan, and now there was once more plenty of money for the cathedral.

When the work was so far advanced that part of the cathedral could be roofed in, the remains of St. Magnus, which had already been removed from Christ Church in Birsay, were laid to rest in the new minster. Many great men have been laid in the same place since then. Earl Rognvald himself was buried there, and there too the remains of King Hakon rested for a time before their removal to Bergen.

While on a visit to Norway, Earl Rognvald made the acquaintance of a Crusader who had returned from the Holy Land, and he determined that he also would become a “Jorsalafarer,” or pilgrim to Jerusalem. The story of this strange voyage, in company with the Bishop of Orkney and many of his countrymen—half Vikings, half Crusaders—is well told in the “Saga of Earl Rognvald,” and in our next chapter we give part of the narrative.

[Illustration: _On the “Viking Path.”_]

THE JORSALAFARERS.

“Earl Rongvald busked him that summer to leave the Orkneys, and he was rather late boun; for they had a long while to wait for Eindrid, as his ship did not come from Norway which he had let be made there the winter before. But when they were boun, they held on their course away from the Orkneys in fifteen big ships.

“They sailed away from the Orkneys and south to Scotland, and so on to England, and as they sailed by Northumberland, off Humbermouth, Armod sang a song,—

‘The sea was high off Humbermouth When our ships were beating out, Bends the mast and sinks the land ’Neath our lee off Vesla-sand; Wave with veil of foam that rises Drives not in the eyes of him Who now sits at home; the stripling From the meeting rideth dry.’

“They sailed thence south round England and to France. Nothing is said of their voyage before that they came to that seaburg which is named Nerbon There these tidings had happened, that the earl who before had ruled the town was dead. His name was Germanus; he left behind him a daughter young and fair, whose name was Ermingerd. She kept watch and ward over her father’s inheritance, with the counsel of the most noble men of her kinsfolk. They gave that counsel to the queen that she should bid the earl to a worthy feast, and said that by that she would be famous if she welcomed heartily such men of rank who had come so far to see her, and who would bear her fame still further. The queen bade them see to that. And when this counsel had been agreed on by them, men were sent to the earl, and he was told that the queen bade him to a feast with as many of his men as he chose to bring with him. The earl took this bidding with thanks; he chose out all his best men for this journey with him. And when they came to the feast, there was the best cheer, and nothing was spared which could do the earl more honour than he had ever met before.

“One day it happened as the earl sat at the feast that the queen came into the hall and many women with her; she held a beaker of gold in her hand. She was dressed in the best clothes, had her hair loose as maidens wont to have, and had put a golden band round her brow. She poured the wine into the earl’s cup, but her maidens danced before them. The earl took her hand and the beaker too and set her on his knee, and they talked much that day.

“The earl stayed there very long in the best of cheer. The townsmen pressed the earl to settle down there, and spoke out loudly about how they would give him the lady to wife. The earl said he would fare on that voyage which he had purposed, but said that he would come thither as he fared back, and then they could carry out their plan or not as they pleased. After that the earl busked him away thence with his fellow voyagers. And as they sailed west of Thrasness they had a good wind; then they sat and drank and were very merry.

“They fared till they came to Galicialand in the winter before Yule, and meant to sit there Yule over. They dealt with the landsmen, and begged them to set them a market to buy food; for the land was barren and bad for food, and the landsmen thought it hard to feed that host of men. Now these tidings had happened there, that in that land sat a chief who was a stranger, in a castle, and he had laid on the landsmen very heavy burdens. He harried them on the spot if they did not agree at once to all that he asked, and he offered them the greatest tyranny and oppression. And when the earl spoke to the landsmen about bringing him food to buy, they made him that offer, that they would set them up a market thenceforth on till Lent, but they must rid them in some way or other of the men in the castle; but Earl Rognvald was to bear the brunt in return for the right of having all the goods that were gotten from them.

“The earl laid this bare before his men, and sought counsel from them as to which choice he should take; but most of them were eager to fall on the castlemen, and thought it bid fair for spoil. And so Earl Rognvald and his host went into that agreement with the landsmen. But when it drew near to Yule, Earl Rognvald called his men to a talk, and said,—

“‘Now have we sat here awhile, and yet we have had nothing to do with the castlemen, but the landsmen are getting rather slack in their dealings with us. Methinks they think that what we promised them will have no fulfilment; but still that is not manly not to turn our hands to what we have promised. Now, kinsman Erling, will I take counsel from you in what way we shall win the castle, for I know that ye are here some of you the greatest men for good counsel; but still I will beg all those men who are here that each will throw in what he thinks is likeliest to be worth trying.’

“Erling answered the earl’s speech: ‘I will not be silent at your bidding. But I am not a man for counsel, and it would be better rather to call on those men for that who have seen more, and are more wont to such exploits, as is Eindrid the Young. But here it will be as the saying goes, “You must shoot at a bird before you get him.” And so we will try to give some counsel, whatever comes of it. We shall to-day, if it seems to you not bad counsel or to the other shipmasters, go all of us to the wood, and bear each of us three shoulder-bundles of fagots on our backs under the castle; for it seems to me as though the lime will not be trusty if a great fire is brought to it. We shall let this go on for the three next days and see what turn things take.’

“They did as Erling bade; and when that toil was over, it was come right on to Yule. The bishop would not let them make their onslaught while the Yule high feast stood over them.

“That chief’s name was Godfrey who dwelt in the castle; he was a wise man, and somewhat stricken in years. He was a good clerk, and had fared far and wide, and knew many tongues. He was a grasping man and a very unfair man. He called together his men when he saw Rognvald’s undertakings, and said to them,—

“‘This scheme seems to me clever and harmful to us which the Northmen have taken in hand. It will befall us thus if fire is borne against us, that the stone wall round the castle will be untrustworthy. But the Northmen are strong and brave; we shall have to look for a sharp fight from them if they get a chance. I will now take counsel with you what shall be done in this strait which has befallen us.’ But his men all bade him see to that for them. Then he began to speak, and said, ‘My first counsel is that ye shall bind a cord round me and let me slide down from the castle wall to-night. I shall have on bad clothes, and fare into the camp of the Northmen, and know what I can find out.’

“This counsel was taken as he had laid it down. And when Godfrey came to Earl Rognvald he said he was an old beggar carle, and spoke in Spanish; they understood that tongue best. He fared about among all the booths and begged for food. He found out that there was great envy and splitting into parties amongst the Northmen. Eindrid was the head of one side, but the earl of the other. Godfrey came to Eindrid and got to talk with him, and brought that before him that the chief who held the castle had sent him thither. ‘He will have fellowship with thee, and he hopes that thou wilt give him peace if the castle be won. He would rather that thou shouldst have his treasures, if thou wilt do so much in return for them, than those who would rather see him a dead man.’ Of such things they talked and much besides. But the earl was kept in the dark; all this went on by stealth at first. And when Godfrey had stayed a while with the earl’s men, then he turned back to his men. But this was why they did not flit what they owned out of the castle, because they did not know whether the storm would take place at all; besides they could not trust the landfolk.

“It was the tenth day of Yule that Earl Rognvald rose up. The weather was good. Then he bade his men put on their arms, and let the host be called up to the castle with the trumpet. Then they drew the wood towards it, and piled a bale round about the wall. The earl drew up his men for the onslaught where each of them should go. The earl goes against it from the south with the Orkneyingers, Erling and Aslag from the west, John and Gudorm from the east, Eindrid the Young from the north with his followers. And when they were boun for the storm they cast fire into the bale.

“Now they began to press on fast both with fire and weapons. Then they shot hard into the work for they could not reach them by any other attack. The castlemen stood loosely here and there on the wall, for they had to guard themselves against the shots. They poured out too burning pitch and brimstone, and the earl’s men took little harm by that. Now it turned out as Erling had guessed, that the castle wall crumbled before the fire when the lime would not stand it, and there were great breaches in it.

“Sigmund Angle was the name of a man in the earl’s bodyguard; he was Sweyn Asliefson’s step-son. He pressed on faster than any man to the castle, and ever went on before the earl; he was then scarcely grown up. And when the storm had lasted awhile, then all men fled from the castle wall. The wind was on from the south, and the reek of the smoke lay towards Eindrid and his men. And when the fire began to spread very fast, then the earl made them bring water and cool the rubble that was burned. And then there was a lull in the assault.

“After that the earl made ready to storm, and Sigmund Angle with him. There was then but a little struggle, and they got into the castle. There many men were slain, but those who would take life gave themselves up to the earl’s power. There they took much goods, but they did not find the chief, and scarcely any precious things. Then there was forthwith much talk how Godfrey could have got away; and then at once they had the greatest doubt of Eindrid the Young, that he must have passed him away somehow, and that he (Godfrey) must have gone away under the smoke to the wood.

“After that Earl Rognvald and his host stayed there a short time in Galicialand, and held on west off Spain. They harried wide in that part of Spain which belonged to the heathen, and got there much goods. After that they sailed west off Spain, and got there a great storm, and lay three days at anchor, so that they shipped very much water, and it lay near that they had lost their ships. After that they hoisted their sails and beat out to Njorfa Sound [the Strait of Gibraltar] with a very cross wind. They sailed through Njorfa Sound, and then the weather began to get better. And then, as they bore out of the sound, Eindrid the Young parted company from the earl with six ships. He sailed over the sea to Marseilles, but Rognvald and his ships lay behind at the sound; and men talked much about it, how Eindrid had now himself given proof whether or not he had helped Godfrey away.

“Nothing is told of the voyage of the earl and his men before they came south off Sarkland, and lay in the neighbourhood of Sardinia, and knew not what land they were near. The weather had turned out in this wise, that a great calm set in and mists and smooth seas—though the nights were light—and they saw scarcely at all from their ships, and so they made little way. One morning it happened that the mist lifted. Men stood up and looked about them. Then the earl asked if men saw anything new. They said they saw nought but two islets, little and steep, and when they looked for the islets the second time, then one of the islets was gone. They told this to the earl. He began to say, ‘That can have been no islets. That must be ships which men have out here in this part of the world, which they call dromonds; those are ships big as holms to look on. But there, where the other dromond lay, a breeze must have come down on the sea, and they must have sailed away; but these must be wayfaring men, either chapmen or faring in some other way on their business.’

“After that the earl lets them call to him the bishop and all the shipmasters; then he began to say: ‘I call you together for this, lord bishop and Erling, my kinsman: see ye any scheme or chance of ours that we may win victory in some way over those who are on the dromond.’ The bishop answers: ‘Hard, I guess, will it be for you to run your long-ships under the dromond, for ye will have no better way of boarding than by grappling the bulwarks with a broad-axe; but they will have brimstone and boiling pitch to throw under your feet and over your heads. Ye may see, earl, so wise as you are, that it is the greatest rashness to lay one’s self and one’s men in such risk.’

“Then Erling began to speak: ‘Lord bishop,’ he says, ‘likely it is that ye are best able to see this, that there will be little hope of victory in rowing against them. But somehow it seems to me that though we try to run under the dromond, so methinks it will be that the greatest weight of weapons will fall beyond our ships, if we hug her close, broadside to broadside. But if it be not so, then we can put off from them quickly, for they will not chase us in the dromond.’

“The earl began to say: ‘That is spoken like a man and quite to my mind. I will now make that clear to the shipmasters and all the crews, that each man shall busk him in his room, and arm himself as he best can. After that we will row up to them. But if they are Christian chapmen, then it will be in our power to make peace with them; but if they are heathen, as I feel sure they are, then Almighty God will yield us that mercy that we shall win the victory over them. But of the war spoil which we get there, we shall give the fiftieth penny to poor men.’ After that, men got out their arms and heightened the bulwarks of their ships, and made themselves ready according to the means which they had at hand. The earl settles where each of his ships should run in. Then they made an onslaught on her by rowing, and pulled up to her as briskly as they could.

“But when those who were aboard the dromond saw that ships were rowing up to them, they took silken stuffs and costly goods and hung them out on the bulwarks, and then made great shoutings and hailings; and it seemed to the earl’s men as though they dared the Northmen to come on against them. Earl Rognvald laid his ship aft alongside the dromond on the starboard, but Erling, too, aft on the larboard. John and Aslak, they laid their ships forward each on his own board, but the others amidships on both boards; and all the ships hugged her close, broadside to broadside. And when they came under the dromond, her sides were so high out of the water that they could not reach up with their weapons. But the foe poured down blazing brimstone and flaming pitch over them. And it was as Erling guessed it would be, that the greatest weight of weapons fell out beyond the ships, and they had no need to shield themselves on that side which was next to the dromond, but those who were on the other side held their shields over their heads and sheltered themselves in that way.

“And when they made no way with their onslaught, the bishop shoved his ship off and two others, and they picked out and sent thither their bowmen, and they lay within shot, and shot thence at the dromond, and then that onslaught was the hardest that was made. Then those on board the dromond got under cover, but thought little about what those were doing who had laid their ships under the dromond. Earl Rognvald called out then to his men, that they should take their axes and hew asunder the broadside of the dromond in the parts where she was least iron-bound. But when the men in the other ships saw what the earl’s men were about, they also took the like counsel.

“Now, where Erling and his men had laid their ship a great anchor hung on the dromond, and the fluke was hung by the crook over the bulwark, but the stock pointed down to Erling’s ship. Audun the Red was the name of Erling’s bowman; he was lifted up on the anchor-stock. But after that he hauled up to him more men, so that they stood as thick as ever they could on the stock, and thence hewed at the sides as they best could, and that hewing was by far the highest up. And when they had hewn such large doors that they could go into the dromond, they made ready to board, and the earl and his men got into the lower hold, but Erling and his men into the upper. And when both their bands had come up on the ship there was a fight both great and hard. On board the dromond were Saracens, what we call Mahomet’s unbelievers. There were many blackamoors, and they made the hardest struggle. Erling got there a great wound on his neck near his shoulders as he sprang up into the dromond. That healed so ill that he bore his head on one side ever after. That was why he was called Wryneck.

“And when they met Earl Rognvald and Erling, the Saracens gave way before them to the fore-part of the ship, but the earl’s men then boarded her one after another. Then they were more numerous, and they pressed the enemy hard. They saw that on board the dromond was one man who was both taller and fairer than the others; the Northmen held it to be the truth that that man must be their chief. Earl Rognvald said that they should not turn their weapons against him, if they could take him in any other way. Then they hemmed him in and bore him down with their shields, and so he was taken and afterwards carried to the bishop’s ship, and few men with him. They slew there much folk, and got much goods and many costly things. When they had ended the greatest part of their toil, they sat down and rested themselves.

“Men spoke of these tidings which had happened there. Then each spoke of what he thought he had seen; and men talked about who had been the first to board the dromond, and could not agree about it. Then some said that it was foolish that they should not all have one story about these great things; and the end of it was that they agreed that Earl Rognvald should settle the dispute, and afterwards they should all back what he said.

“When they had stripped the dromond they put fire into her and burnt her. And when that tall man whom they had made captive saw that, he was much stirred, and changed colour, and could not hold himself still. But though they tried to make him speak, he never said a word and made no manner of sign, nor did he pay any heed to them whether they promised him good or ill. But when the dromond began to blaze, they saw as though blazing molten ore ran down into the sea. That moved the captive man much. They were quite sure then that they had looked for goods carelessly, and now the metal had melted in the heat of the fire, whether it had been gold or silver.

“Earl Rognvald and his men sailed thence south under Sarkland, and lay under a seaburg, and made a seven nights’ truce with the townsmen, and had dealings with them, and sold them the men whom they had taken. No man would buy the tall man. And after that the earl gave him leave to go away and four men with him. He came down the next morning with a train of men and told them that he was a prince of Sarkland, and had sailed thence with the dromond and all the goods that were aboard her. He said, too, he thought that worst of all that they burnt the dromond, and made such waste of that great wealth that it was of no use to any one. ‘But now I have great power over your affairs. Now you shall have the greatest good from me for having spared my life and treated me with such honour as ye could; but I would be very willing that we saw each other never again. And so now live safe and sound and well.’ After that he rode up the country, but Earl Rognvald sailed thence south to Crete, and they lay there in very foul weather.

“The earl and his men lay under Crete till they got a fair wind for Jewry-land, and came to Acreburg early on a Friday morning, and landed then with such great pomp and state as was seldom seen there. The earl and his men stayed in Acreburg a while. There sickness came into their ranks, and many famous men breathed their last. There Thorbjorn the Swarthy, a liegeman, breathed his last.

“Earl Rognvald and his men then fared from Acreburg, and sought all the holiest places in the land of Jewry. They all fared to Jordan and bathed there. Earl Rognvald and Sigmund Angle swam across the river and went up on the bank there, and thither where was a thicket of brushwood, and there they twisted great knots. After that they fared back to Jerusalem.

“Earl Rognvald and his men fared that summer from the land of Jewry, and meant to go north to Micklegarth [Constantinople], and came about autumn to that town which is called Imbolar. They stayed there a very long time in the town. They had that watchword in the town, if men met one another walking where it was throng and narrow, and the one thought it needful that the other who met him should yield him the path, then he says thus, ‘Out of the way; out of the way.’ One evening as the earl and his men were coming out of the town, and Erling Wryneck went out along the wharf to his ship, some of the townsmen met him and called out, ‘Out of the way; out of the way.’ Erling was very drunk, and made as though he heard them not, and when they ran against one another, Erling fell off the wharf and down into the mud which was below; and his men ran down to pick him up, and had to strip off every stitch of his clothes and wash him. Next morning when he and the earl met, and he was told what had happened, he smiled at it.

“After that they fared away thence. And nothing is told of their voyage before they come north to Engilsness [Cape St. Angelo]. There they lay some nights and waited for a wind which would seem fair to them to sail north along the sea to Micklegarth. They took great pains then with their sailing, and so sailed with great pomp, just as they had heard that Sigurd Jewry-farer had done.

“When Earl Rognvald and his men came to Micklegarth they had a hearty welcome from the emperor and the Varangians. Menelaus was then emperor over Micklegarth, whom we call Manuel. He gave the earl much goods, and offered them bounty-money if they would stay there. They stayed there awhile that winter in very good cheer. There was Eindrid the Young, and he had very great honour from the emperor. He had little to do with Earl Rognvald and his men, and rather tried to set other men against them.

“Earl Rognvald set out on his voyage home that winter from Micklegarth, and fared first west to Bulgarialand, to Dyrrachburg. Thence he sailed west across the sea to Poule. There Earl Rognvald and Bishop William and Erling, and all the nobler men of their band, landed from their ships, and got them horses and rode thence first to Rome, and so homewards on the way from Rome until they come to Denmark, and thence they fared north to Norway. There men were glad to see them, and this voyage was most famous, and they who had gone on it were thought to be men of much more worth after than before.”

_From the “Orkneyinga Saga,” translated by Sir G. W. Dasent, D.C.L. (By permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office.)_

[Illustration: _A Great Viking._

_(From the picture by H. W. Koekkoek.)_]

SWEYN ASLEIFSON, THE LAST OF THE VIKINGS.

The sudden disappearance of Earl Paul, by which Earl Rognvald had been left in sole possession of the Orkneys, was, as we have said, due to a certain Viking, Sweyn Asleifson of Gairsay. This Sweyn is one of the most remarkable men in all Orcadian history. Among the Vikings of old he was the greatest, and he was the last. Of him the Saga says: “He was the greatest man in the western lands, either in old time or at the present day.”

For the slaying of one of Earl Paul’s men Sweyn had had to escape out of the isles. He abode for a time in the Hebrides, and afterwards sought refuge in the dales of Scotland, where Margaret, the daughter of Earl Hakon, was married to Maddad, Earl of Athole. He had promised to help Harald, their son, to become Earl of the Orkneys, and it was with a view to this that he kidnapped Earl Paul.

On that morning Earl Paul had gone out early from Westness to hunt the otter near Scabro Head. Sweyn had sailed over from Thurso, keeping to the west of Hoy and the Mainland, and was now rowing into Evie Sound, for he had heard that Earl Paul was staying with Sigurd of Westness. As they rowed near the land, Sweyn ordered all his men to lie hid except those at the oars, that the ship might look like a peaceful merchant-vessel.

When the earl saw the ship rowing near the rocks, he called out to the men that they should go on to Westness with their wares for Earl Paul. Then Sweyn, who was lying hid, bade his men ask where the earl was.

“The earl is here on the rocks,” was the reply.

“Row quickly to land at a place where they will not see us,” said Sweyn to his men; “and let us arm ourselves, for we have work to do.”

The ship was rowed to the shore, as he had said, and Sweyn and his men armed themselves and fell upon Earl Paul and his company. These, being unarmed, were soon disposed of. The earl was seized and taken aboard the ship, and Sweyn immediately set sail for Scotland by the way he had come.

Sigurd marvelled when the earl did not return from his hunting, and men were sent out to look for him. They came upon the bodies of the slain—nineteen of the earl’s men and six strangers—but the earl himself had disappeared. It was at first thought that Earl Rognvald had had something to do with his disappearance, and it was many days before men knew what had become of the vanished earl.

In the meantime Sweyn had carried Paul to Athole, and placed him in the keeping of Maddad and Margaret. His after fate is unknown. The story which Sweyn afterwards told is that Paul did not wish to return to Orkney, so shameful had been the manner of his leaving it; and that he wished it to be reported that he had been blinded or maimed, in order that men should not seek to bring him back. Sweyn himself came back to Orkney with this story; and he acknowledged Earl Rognvald, and became very friendly with him.

As the great Earl of Warwick has been called “the king-maker” in England, so Sweyn may be called the “earl-maker” in Orkney. He it was who caused Harald, the son of Maddad, to be made earl, and he also supported Earl Erlend in his claims while Earl Rognvald was in the Holy Land. He gained the friendship of David, King of Scots, Viking though he was, and the terror of the Scottish and Irish seas. Many of Sweyn’s Viking raids are told in the Orkney Saga, one of the most famous being that known as Sweyn’s “Broadcloth Cruise.” The following account is given of this cruise, and of the death of Sweyn:—

“These tidings happened once on a time, that Sweyn Asleifson fared away on his spring-cruise, and Hakon, Earl Harald’s son, fared with him; and they had five ships with oars, and all of them large. They harried about among the Southern Isles. Then the folk were so scared at him in the Southern Isles that men hid all their goods and chattels in the earth or in piles of rocks. Sweyn sailed as far south as Man, and got ill off for spoil. Thence they sailed out under Ireland and harried there. But when they came about south under Dublin, then two keels sailed there from off the main, which had come from England, and meant to steer for Dublin; they were laden with English cloths, and great store of goods was aboard them.

“Sweyn and his men pulled up to the keels and offered them battle. Little came of the defence of the Englishmen before Sweyn gave the word to board. Then the Englishmen were made prisoners. And there they robbed them of every penny which was aboard the keels, save that the Englishmen kept the clothes they stood in and some food, and went on their way afterwards with the keels; but Sweyn and his men fared to the Southern Isles and shared their war-spoil.

“They sailed from the west with great pomp. They did this as a glory for themselves when they lay in harbours, that they threw awnings of English cloth over their ships. But when they sailed into the Orkneys, they sewed the cloth on the fore-part of the sails, so that it looked in that wise as though the sails were made altogether of broadcloth. This they called the Broadcloth Cruise.

“Sweyn fared home to his house in Gairsay. He had taken from the keels much wine and English mead. Now when Sweyn had been at home a short while, he bade to him Earl Harald, and made a worthy feast against his coming. When Earl Harald was at the feast, there was much talk amongst them of Sweyn’s good cheer. The earl spoke and said: ‘This I would now, Sweyn, that thou wouldst lay aside thy sea-rovings; ’tis good now to drive home with a whole wain. But thou knowest this, that thou hast long maintained thyself and thy men by sea-roving; but so it fares with most men who live by unfair means, that they lose their lives in strife, if they do not break themselves from it.’

“Then Sweyn answered, and looked to the earl, and spoke with a smile, and said thus: ‘Well spoken is this, lord, and friendly spoken, and it will be good to take a bit of good counsel from you; but some men lay that to your door, that ye too are men of little fairness.’ The earl answered: ‘I shall have to answer for my share, but a gossiping tongue drives me to say what I do.’

“Sweyn said: ‘Good, no doubt, drives you to it, lord. And so it shall be, that I will leave off sea-roving, for I find that I am growing old, and strength lessens much in hardships and warfare. Now I will go out on my autumn-cruise, and I would that it might be with no less glory than the spring-cruise was; but after that my wayfaring shall be over.’ The earl answers: ‘’Tis hard to see, messmate, whether death or lasting luck will come first.’ After that they dropped talking about it. Earl Harald fared away from the feast, and was led out with fitting gifts. So he and Sweyn parted with great love-tokens.

“A little while after, Sweyn busks him for his roving cruise; he had seven long-ships, and all great. Hakon, Earl Harald’s son, went along with Sweyn on his voyage. They held on their course first to the Southern Isles, and got there little war-spoil; thence they fared out under Ireland, and harried there far and wide. They fared so far south as Dublin, and came upon them there very suddenly, so that the townsmen were not ware of them before they had got into the town. They took there much goods. They made prisoners there those men who were rulers there in the town. The upshot of their business was that they gave the town up into Sweyn’s power, and agreed to pay as great a ransom as he chose to lay upon them. Sweyn was also to hold the town with his men and to have rule over it. The Dublin men sware an oath to do this. Next morning Sweyn was to come into the town and take the ransom.

“Now it must be told of what happened in the town during the night. The men of good counsel who were in the town held a meeting among themselves, and talked over the straits which had befallen them; it seemed to them hard to let their town come into the power of the Orkneyingers, and worst of all of that man whom they knew to be the most unjust man in the western lands. So they agreed amongst themselves that they would cheat Sweyn if they might. They took that counsel, that they dug great trenches before the burg-gate on the inside, and in many other places between the houses where it was meant that Sweyn and his men should pass; but men lay in wait there in the houses hard by with weapons. They laid planks over the trenches, so that they should fall down as soon as ever a man’s weight comes on them. After that they strewed straw on the planks so that the trenches might not be seen, and so bided the morrow.

“On the morning after, Sweyn and his men arose and put on their arms; after that they went to the town. And when they came inside beyond the burg-gate, the Dublin men made a lane from the burg-gate right to the trenches. Sweyn and his men saw not what they were doing, and ran into the trenches. The townsmen then ran straightway to hold the burg-gate, but some to the trenches, and brought their arms to bear on Sweyn and his men. It was unhandy for them to make any defence, and Sweyn lost his life there in the trenches, and all those who had gone into the town. So it was said that Sweyn was the last to die of all his messmates, and spoke these words ere he died: ‘Know this, all men, whether I lose my life to-day or not, that I am one of the Saint Earl Rognvald’s bodyguard, and I now mean to put my trust in being there where he is with God.’ Sweyn’s men fared at once to their ships and pulled away, and nothing is told about their voyage before they come into the Orkneys.”

_From the “Orkneyinga Saga,” translated by Sir G. W. Dasent, D.C.I. (By permission of the Controller of H.M. Stationery Office.)_

[Illustration]

THE DECAY OF THE EARLDOM AND THE END OF THE WESTERN KINGDOM.

After the death of Earl Rognvald, the islands were ruled for almost fifty years by Harald Maddadson. Harald’s later days were full of troubles. With the decay of his powers the glory of the earldom also faded away. In 1194, when Sverrir was King of Norway, a rebellion took place, with the object of placing Sigurd Erlingson on the throne. Sigurd’s party, known as the “Eyjarskeggjar” or “Island-beardies,” had their headquarters in the Orkneys. There they collected their forces, and there the rebellion was organized. The rebels were completely overthrown in a great battle fought near Bergen. Sverrir summoned Earl Harald before him in 1196 to answer for his share in the matter. As a punishment for permitting plots against him to be hatched in Orkney—plots which the gray-haired old earl had been powerless to prevent—the king compelled him to surrender the government of Shetland. For nearly two centuries thereafter Orkney and Shetland were separate, the former ruled by the earl, the latter by a governor appointed by the Norwegian crown.

The result of this was twofold. In the first place it weakened the power of the Orkney earldom; in the second place it caused the earldom to draw nearer to Scotland, and to come more and more under Scottish influence. But the aged earl’s cup of sorrow was not yet full. He quarrelled also with the Scottish king. As a consequence of this quarrel he was stripped of his Scottish possessions, and his son Thorfinn perished miserably, a prisoner in Roxburgh Castle. When Earl Harald died in 1206, full of years and of sorrows, the earldom was but the shadow of its former self.

After Harald’s death, his two sons, John and David, succeeded to the earldom. David did not live long, and John was then left sole earl. This earl, the last of the old Norse jarls, was Earl of Orkney excluding Shetland, holding that earldom from the Norwegian king, and Earl of Caithness, including Sutherland, holding that from the King of Scotland. Matters continued in this state generally till the pledging of the islands in 1468, the only change being that Shetland was again added to the Orkney earldom in 1379, when Henry, the first of the St. Clairs, became earl.

The days of Earl John, like those of his father, were stormy, and disaster after disaster fell upon the isles. The burning of Bishop Adam at Halkirk in Caithness brought down on the earl the vengeance of King Alexander the Second of Scotland. The earl had no hand in the murder, but he was near by, and, in the opinion of King Alexander, might have prevented the tragedy. Then a feud arose between the earl and some of the leaders of a Norse expedition to the Western Isles. The earl was attacked suddenly in Thurso, and there murdered. This took place in the year 1231. The murderers took refuge in the Castle of Weir, where they were besieged by the earl’s friends and adherents. Ultimately both parties agreed that the case should be submitted to the Norwegian king.

The chief men of the islands embarked for Norway to be present at the trial of the murderers, which ended in their conviction and punishment. But a terrible disaster for the Orkney earldom followed. All the leading men of the islands left Norway in one ship, and set sail for Orkney late in autumn. Stormy weather set in shortly after their departure. Fears which were entertained for the safety of the ship proved to be only too well founded: the ship was never heard of again. With her went down nearly all the nobility of the earldom. This disaster, which happened in 1232, was irremediable. Well does the Saga of Hakon Hakonson say, “Many men have had to suffer for this later.” The earldom never recovered from the loss of its best blood, and but for this loss the after course of events might have been very different. Henceforth the Orkney earldom plays but a subordinate part in the history of the North.

In 1232 King Alexander of Scotland granted the Earldom of Caithness to Magnus, son of Gilbride, Earl of Angus. Magnus was at the same time confirmed in the Earldom of Orkney by the King of Norway. But King Alexander made Sutherland a separate earldom, William Friskyn being created first earl. Thus within a period of forty years the earldom, which had at one time rivalled the power of Scotland itself, and had been at once the centre and the defence of the Norse Empire in the west, was stripped of more than half its territories.

The Scottish king had a deep purpose to serve in thus weakening the northern earldom. He was already casting covetous eyes on the Hebrides, and every blow struck at the power of the Orkney earl was a step towards the conquest of the Western Isles. In the heyday of Norse ascendency there was danger of the western Norse colonies swallowing up Scotland rather than of Scotland swallowing up these colonies. But Hakon of Norway was now too busy at home repressing internal disorders to give much thought to the ambitions of the Scottish king, and the Orkney earl was too weak to form a serious obstacle, besides which he was more than half Scottish himself.

For many years the chiefs of the Hebrides and the Western Isles had been wavering in their allegiance to the Norwegian crown. King Alexander was also doing his utmost to undermine Norse influence in the west. While he was carrying on intrigues with the western chiefs, he at the same time kept sending embassies to Norway to treat with Hakon for the purchase of these islands. Hakon’s answer was brief and decided: He was not yet so much in want of money that he needed to sell his lands for it.

The next King of Scotland, Alexander the Third, had the same ambitions as his father, and as resolutely pursued his schemes for the subjugation of the Hebrides. He was, moreover, a young, energetic, and warlike king. He found the island chiefs very troublesome neighbours. His father’s policy of intrigue was too slow for him, and he determined to take by force what he could not obtain by treaty.

In 1262 the Scots invaded the Norse dominions in the west. Hakon, who had now pacified his own kingdom, was at last roused to make a serious effort to preserve his over-sea dominions. In the summer of 1263 he “let letters of summons be sent round all Norway, and called out the levies both of men and stores as he thought the land could bear it. He summoned all the host to meet him early in the summer at Bergen.”

A mighty fleet assembled in obedience to the king’s command, and, under the leadership of Hakon himself, set sail from Norway in the end of July 1263. After delaying through the summer in Shetland and Orkney, this ill-fated expedition reached the Firth of Clyde in late autumn. Alexander the Third, knowing well that he could not hope to meet the Norsemen at sea, prepared to give them as warm a reception as possible wherever they might land. In the meantime he pretended to be anxious for peace. Negotiations were opened between the two kings. Alexander temporized: winter was approaching.

Hakon’s patience at last gave way, and breaking off negotiations, the Norsemen began to harry the country, receiving willing aid from the various half-Celtic chieftains, who enjoyed nothing so much as an opportunity of ravaging the fertile Lowlands. But that ally whose coming Alexander had been awaiting came at length; on the first of October a great storm from the south-west arose suddenly during the night. Hakon’s ships began to drag their anchors. They fouled each other in the darkness, and several were driven ashore on the Ayrshire coast. When morning dawned, Hakon found his own ship within bowshot of the shore, while the Scots were already plundering one which had stranded near by.

During a lull in the storm Hakon managed to land a detachment of his men to protect the stranded galley. But the storm increased in fury once more. The Norsemen on shore were outnumbered probably by ten to one, and no help could be sent from the ships. The Vikings threw themselves into a circle bristling with spear-points. Onset after onset of the Scots forced the ring of spears slowly back towards the shore, but they could not break it. All day long the battle raged—the Norsemen with the angry sea behind them, and no hope of succour from their fleet; the Scots determined to drive the invaders into the sea, or slay them where they stood.

As evening began to fall the storm moderated, and Hakon was able to send reinforcements on shore. The Scots were borne backwards by the onset of the fresh warriors. But night was falling, and the Norsemen were anxious to get back to their ships, for the storm was not yet over. They accordingly hastened to take advantage of the breathing-space which they had won, and retired to their ships.

Such was the famous battle of Largs, which both Scots and Norsemen claim as a victory. In itself it was little more than a skirmish; but the events of that night and day, the storm and the battle together, gave the death-blow to Norse dominion in the west. The heart of King Hakon failed him. His men also were discouraged. The shattered remains of the once splendid fleet set sail for Orkney, and the great invasion of Scotland was over.

Broken in spirit and shattered in health, Hakon reached Orkney only to die. Part of his fleet was ordered to proceed to Norway, and part was laid up for the winter in Scapa Bay and Houton Cove. Scarcely had these matters been attended to when his fatal sickness seized the king. In the Bishop’s Palace in Kirkwall he spent his last hours. Here at midnight, on Saturday, December 15, 1263, in the sixtieth year of his eventful life, died Hakon Hakonson, the last of the great sea-kings of Norway.

The remains of the king were carried to the cathedral, where they lay in state, and were afterwards temporarily interred in the choir near the shrine of St. Magnus. When spring came, Hakon’s body was exhumed and taken to Bergen in Norway, where it was finally laid to rest in the choir of Christ Church.

After the death of Hakon, his son Magnus, now King of Norway, sent ambassadors to the Scottish king to treat for peace, and a treaty was signed at Perth in 1266. By this treaty Norway resigned her rights in the Hebrides, in consideration of Scotland’s paying down four thousand marks, besides a tribute of one hundred marks to be paid annually in St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall. This tribute, called the Annual of Norway, was the direct cause of the troubles which preceded the marriage of James the Third of Scotland and Princess Margaret of Denmark.

A large proportion of King Hakon’s forces had to be maintained in Orkney during the winter succeeding Largs. To provide for this, the lands of the earldom were divided into sections, and charged with the maintenance of the soldiers in proportion to the amount of “skatt” each section owed the king. The Skatt Book of the earldom was prepared—a list of the lands therein, and the amount of skatt which they paid. It was the Domesday Book of the Orkneys. On this Skatt Book were based the Scottish Rentals, which came into such prominence in the history of the Scottish oppressions during the sixteenth century.

[Illustration: _Ruins of the Bishop’s Palace, Kirkwall._]

THE ANNEXATION TO SCOTLAND.

The history of Orkney during the two centuries which intervened between the battle of Largs and the annexation to Scotland contains little of interest. The earldom was held by Scottish families, first the Strathernes, and then the St. Clairs. The sympathies of the earls were with the Scots, the people were mainly Norse, and as a natural consequence quarrels frequently arose between the earls and their subjects. Another source of trouble was the fact that the earls generally held possessions in Scotland, and were thus subjects of Scotland as well as of Norway. The islands were neglected by both countries, being of little importance to Norway as governed by foreigners, and of little interest to Scotland as owned by a foreign country.

Several of the earls took a prominent part in the affairs of Scotland, and were men of mark and highly esteemed by the Scottish sovereigns. Thus Magnus, the last of the Angus line, was one of the eight Scottish noblemen who, in 1320, subscribed the famous letter to the Pope asserting the independence of Scotland; and Henry, the second of the St. Clairs, was entrusted by King Robert the Third with the task of conveying the young Prince James to a safe asylum in France, when that prince was made prisoner by the English.

In the history of Orkney itself the only man of note among the Scottish earls was Henry, the first of the St. Clairs, the builder of Kirkwall Castle. Henry became earl in 1379. Under his rule Orkney and Shetland were once more united. He is the only one of the Scottish earls who can be at all compared with the old Norse jarls of Orkney. In everything except name he was king of his island dominions, ruling them as he pleased without much thought of either Norway or Scotland.

It was in the time of William, the third of the St. Clair earls, that the transference of Orkney and Shetland to Scotland took place. The circumstances which led to this important event must now be related.

After the battle of Largs a treaty of peace between Norway and Scotland had been signed at Perth in 1266, Norway resigning the Hebrides in return for an immediate payment by Scotland of four thousand marks, and in addition a tribute of one hundred marks to be paid annually in St. Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall. For every failure to pay this tribute—known in history as the Annual of Norway—Scotland was liable to a penalty of ten thousand marks. This treaty was afterwards confirmed by Hakon the Fifth and Robert the Bruce at Inverness in 1312.

In 1397 Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were united under one sovereign. When, in 1448, Christian the First became king of the united realms, payment by Scotland of the Annual of Norway had been neglected for some forty years. According to the Treaty of Perth, Scotland was therefore liable to a penalty of over four hundred thousand marks. Christian’s exchequer was empty; here was an opportunity of replenishing it. About 1460 Christian made a threatening demand for payment of the whole sum due.

The sum demanded was so large that it would have been no easy matter for Scotland to pay it, however willing she might be. Christian had concluded an alliance with France, and France had always been the firm friend of Scotland. When a rupture between Denmark and Scotland seemed inevitable, the French king employed all his influence to secure a compromise. He suggested that a marriage should be arranged between Prince James of Scotland, afterwards James the Third, and Margaret, Christian’s daughter, trusting that the negotiations in connection with the marriage would lead to the friendly settlement of the matters in dispute.

Prolonged negotiations took place between the two countries. Scotland at first demanded the remission of the Annual of Norway with arrears, the cession of Orkney and Shetland, and a dowry of a hundred thousand crowns. To these terms Christian refused to listen. The death of James the Second at the siege of Roxburgh Castle suspended negotiations for a time. Some years after the accession of James the Third they were resumed. The final result was the Marriage Treaty of 1468, which brought about the transference of Orkney and Shetland to Scotland.

The main provisions of the Marriage Treaty were these:—(1.) That the Princess Margaret’s dowry should amount to fifty thousand florins; ten thousand to be paid within the year, and the islands of Orkney to be pledged for the remaining forty thousand.—Only two thousand florins were paid, Shetland being pledged in the following year for the remaining eight thousand. (2.) That the rights of Christian as King of Norway should be exercised in the islands by the Scottish king until the forty thousand florins were paid. (3.) That the islanders should enjoy their own customs and laws while under Scottish rule.

Christian would not consent to the permanent cession of the islands to Scotland under any conditions. In fact nothing but the direst financial straits can account for his even pledging them. But he had just finished a costly war in Sweden, his exchequer was empty, and the Scottish marriage seemed to him very desirable.

On this Marriage Treaty of 1468, and on the agreement afterwards made with Earl William, Scotland bases her claim to the islands of Orkney and Shetland. It is certain that Christian intended to redeem the islands, and even as late as 1668 the plenipotentiaries of Europe assembled at Breda declared that Denmark—it ought to be Norway—still retained the right to redeem them.

Scottish influence in Orkney had been increasing for many years previous to the annexation. The needy dependants of the various Scottish noblemen who held the earldom found the islands a happy hunting-ground for their avarice or for their need. There was thus a strong party in Orkney in favour of the annexation to Scotland. But the large majority of the inhabitants could not but regard the change of masters with dismay. Scotland was an alien power, and had usually been a hostile one. Her laws and institutions had little in common with those of the northern earldom. Besides this, her tenure being only temporary, she had no inducement to promote the welfare of the islands, but on the contrary her obvious interest was to make as much profit as possible from her opportunity.

From 1468 onwards, till long after the termination of Scottish and the beginning of British rule, the lot of the islanders was far from enviable. The transformation of the leading Norse earldom into a minor Scottish county was the work of those years. The process by which this was accomplished was a long-continued series of injuries and oppressions, the story of which forms too long a tale to be fully told here.

[Illustration: _Knocking Stone and Mell._]

UDAL AND FEUDAL.

Orkney and Shetland were handed over to Scotland, but care was taken to secure the rights of the inhabitants of the islands by the provision in the treaty of 1468 that they should be governed according to their own laws and usages. These were different from those of Scotland in several important particulars. Unfortunately, the new Scottish rulers did not know the laws of the earldom, and did not care to learn them.

With regard to the holding of land, the laws of Scotland were entirely different from those of Orkney. In Scotland land was held according to the feudal system, in Orkney according to the udal system. Under the feudal system the king was nominally the owner of all the lands in the kingdom. The various landlords held their lands from him as their superior, in exchange for certain services to be rendered or payments to be made, and by a written title, without which they had no legal claim to the land.

The udal system has been described as “the direct negation of every feudal principle.” The udaller held his land without any written title, subject to no service or payment to a superior, and with full possession and every conceivable right of ownership. The udaller was a peasant noble; he was the king’s equal and not his vassal. He owed king or jarl no services, duties, or payment for his udal lands, which he held as an absolute possession, inalienable from him and his race.

It must not be supposed that all the land in Orkney was held udally, or that all the inhabitants were udallers. There were some udallers who held part of their land as tenants, and many of the islanders held no udal land at all. All landholders, whether udallers or tenants, had to pay a tax, called “skatt.” This was a tax levied to meet the expenses of government and defence. Skatt was paid sometimes to the King of Norway, sometimes to the Earl of Orkney, but it was legally the property of the crown. Hakon, when he lay dying in Kirkwall, levied skatt on the landholders of Orkney for the support of his troops during the winter. In this he was only exercising the undoubted right of the crown of Norway. But the skatt was never a rent, and never carried with it the acknowledgment of king or jarl as the real landowner.

When Orkney came under Scottish rule, the King of Scotland became entitled to the skatt. Some Scottish nobleman or churchman was usually appointed to collect the revenues of the crown in the earldom. This nobleman or churchman was paid a commission on what he collected, together with any trifles he might extort “in ony manner of way.” Sometimes the revenues of the earldom were farmed out to the collector, an annual sum being paid by him into the royal treasury as rent. This arrangement afforded much room for extortion, and all the more so because the crown collector was ignorant, or could pretend to be ignorant, of Orkney law and of the udal system.

In 1471 the Scottish crown purchased from Earl William all the lands and revenues which he held as Earl of Orkney. In 1472 Bishop William Tulloch was appointed to collect the revenues of the crown in Orkney. The period of Scottish oppression at once began. The bishop was deeply imbued with feudal prejudices. He had a rental drawn up, in which he registered the lands of udaller and tenant indiscriminately, with a studied confusion of their different rights. Both udal and feudal payments were exacted as rents from all holders of land.

The udaller had no one to whom he could appeal to right his wrongs and protect him against oppression. He had no written titles. The bishop ruled the bishopric as bishop, and he ruled the earldom as representative of the crown. The churches were filled with Scottish priests subservient to his will. The struggle was hopeless from the beginning, but it took a century to reduce the peasant nobles of Orkney to the position and rank of tenant farmers, and in the meantime the various rulers of the islands reaped a rich harvest.

Bishop Tulloch’s rule lasted for seven years, and was followed by six years under Bishop Andrew. Then in 1485 Henry St. Clair was appointed representative of the crown in Orkney. The St. Clairs had always been popular in the islands, and the islanders rejoiced at the appointment of Lord Henry. He redressed a number of grievances, but the fundamental change of udal into feudal which had begun went on unchecked. It was too profitable a confusion to be put right.

After the death of Lord Henry St. Clair at Flodden, turmoil and confusion reigned in the earldom. His widow, Lady Margaret Hepburn, held the crown lands in Orkney for nearly thirty years, but she was quite unable to rule the islands. A report got abroad that the king intended to give Orkney a feudal lord. In 1529 the trouble came to a head. James St. Clair, the most popular of that popular family, was made Governor of Kirkwall Castle, and put himself at the head of the discontented faction. Open rebellion followed. Lord William St. Clair, son of Lady Margaret remained loyal, and had to escape to Caithness.

Allied with the Earl of Caithness, Lord William invaded the islands with a considerable force. The invaders were met at Summerdale in Stenness by the rebels under James St. Clair, and were defeated with great slaughter. Many old stories about this battle still exist. The Caithness force landed in Orphir, and on their march they are said to have encountered a witch, whom they consulted as to the omens of success. She walked before them, unwinding together two balls of thread, one blue and the other red. She asked them to choose one of the balls as the symbol of their fortune, and they chose the red. The red thread was the first to come to an end.

Unwilling to accept this omen, they demanded that the witch should give them yet another sign. She thereupon informed the Earl of Caithness that whichever side lost the first man in the fight would lose the day. Soon afterwards a boy was met herding cattle, and by order of the earl he was slain. Only after the deed was done did they discover that the boy was not an Orcadian but a native of Caithness.

Already prepared for defeat by these bad omens, the invaders came upon the Orcadian force at Summerdale. The Orcadians assailed them with showers of stones, and the Caithness force was quickly destroyed. Only one Orcadian is said to have fallen. He, having dressed himself in the clothes of one of the fallen enemy, was slain in the dusk of the evening as he returned home. His mother mistook him for one of the invading force, and felled him by a blow with a stone in the foot of a stocking.

Such are some of the tales tradition has woven round this fight. It was the last stand of the udallers, and the last pitched battle fought on Orcadian soil, if we except the siege of Kirkwall Castle during the rebellion of the Stewarts.

After the battle of Summerdale the islands still remained in a very unsettled condition, until in 1540 James the Fifth thought his presence necessary to restore tranquillity. The king stayed with the bishop in Kirkwall, though not in the ancient Bishop’s Palace, which had witnessed the death of King Hakon. The visit of the king led to the removal of many abuses. But his death in 1542, and the long minority of his daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, brought back the former evils in an aggravated form. For twenty years the records of the islands are records of murder, violence, and oppression. The udallers were now a comparatively feeble folk, but their worst period of oppression was still to come.

THE STEWART EARLS.

In 1565 began the most cruel oppression which the islands suffered under Scottish rule. Lord Robert Stewart, a son of James the Fifth and half-brother of the Earl of Moray, obtained a feu charter of Orkney and Shetland. This grant was illegal in every way. It was not sanctioned by Parliament, and it disposed not only of the actual property which the crown of Scotland had acquired in the islands, but of the lands and services of the udallers or free landowners, which had never belonged to Norway or Denmark, and could not therefore have been acquired by Scotland. In exchange for the revenues of the Abbey of Holyrood, the new earl also obtained possession of the lands and revenues of the Bishopric of Orkney.

To oppress the udallers so as to compel them to accept feus from him was the unvarying object of Earl Robert’s policy. He aggravated the burdens of the islanders by making them use weights and measures of his own devising, and increased their liabilities to him by a coinage of his own valuation. He raised the rents of the tenants to the limits of endurance, made every occasional or special payment an annual burden, imposed parish taxes as household taxes, and by pretended decrees of the Thing, or council, evicted many udallers without a show of justice. Heavy tolls and duties were laid on all fishermen and traders who came to the islands, and secret encouragement was given to pirates, whose booty was shared by the earl.

The more bitter the complaints of the islanders, the more grievous became their oppression. To prevent these complaints reaching the ears of the authorities in Edinburgh, the earl forbade any one to cross the firths or ferries without his permission. It began also to be whispered that Earl Robert was plotting to sever once more the connection between Orkney and the Scottish crown. He had made additions to the old palace at Birsay, and on a stone over the principal gate he had caused to be inscribed: DOMINUS ROBERTUS STEWARTUS FILIUS JACOBI QUINTI REX SCOTORUM HOC OPUS INSTRUXIT—that is, “Earl Robert Stewart, son of James the Fifth, King of the Scots, erected this building.” Those who know a little Latin will observe that by his using the nominative case _rex_, it is Earl Robert himself and not James the Fifth whom he describes as “King of the Scots.” This was probably a mere mistake in the earl’s Latin, but a much graver meaning was attached to it by the Scottish King and Parliament when the whisper of treason somehow reached their ears.

The complaints of the udallers might be unheeded, but the accusation of treason was a much more serious matter. The earl was summoned to Edinburgh to answer the charges against him. He was kept for some time a prisoner in Linlithgow Castle, but the storm quickly blew over. No trial ever took place. That ordeal Earl Robert escaped by the help of his powerful friends and relatives; and not only so, but in 1581 he was once more granted the Earldom of Orkney and Shetland, with extended powers.

When Robert Stewart died, the islands were granted to his son, Patrick Stewart, the most cruel oppressor of all. Skilful in tyranny and extortion as Earl Robert had been, his son showed still more ability and ingenuity in his evil courses. The multiplication of enactments and penalties for the most trivial offences, confiscation, torture, and judicial murder—these were the additions Earl Patrick made to the machinery of oppression used by his father. He had palaces built for him at Scalloway and at Kirkwall by the same forced labour that had already reared Earl Robert’s palace in Birsay. But Earl Patrick’s career is best described in the words of Mackenzie:—

“Earl Patrick—still remembered in Orkney tradition as ‘Black Pate’—was a man of kingly ideas, and had his lot been cast in Egypt instead of in Orkney, would have done very well as one of the Pharaohs. ‘Heaven is high and the Czar is far away,’ says a Russian proverb. Orkney is far from Holyrood and farther from London, and the earl did his own pleasure in his domain, without having the fear of the distant king before his eyes.

“Most astounding and extraordinary was the system of tyranny and extortion which he carried on. He accused one and another of the gentry of the islands of high treason, and tried them in his own court. But it was not his object to punish these gentlemen as traitors against the king. In that case their forfeited estates would go to the king, which would be no profit to the earl. The earl was not so simple. The frightened udallers were glad enough to compound with the formidable earl by making over to him a portion of their lands to save the remainder and their own necks.

“The Orkney potentate dealt in exactions of every description. He extorted taxes and duties. He created ferries and levied exorbitant tolls on them. He compelled the people to work for him all manner of work. He forced them to row his boats and man his ships, to toil in his quarries, to convey stones and lime for the building of his palace and park walls, and to perform whatever other kinds of slave-labour he chose to demand, ‘without either meat or drink or hire.’

“The Czar though far away sometimes hears at last. The doings of this tyrant of the isles attracted the attention of the law. He was seized and put in ward in Dumbarton Castle. What schemes were in his proud, fierce head it is difficult to guess. This is known, that, under his instructions, his son Robert occupied the castle of Kirkwall with armed men, fortified the cathedral, and stood ready to hold his own.

“As soon as it became known in Edinburgh that Orkney was in rebellion, the king’s Secret Council dispatched the Earl of Caithness to bring it under. Two great cannons were wheeled down from Edinburgh Castle and shipped at Leith along with a strong military force. The expedition landed safely within a mile and a half of Kirkwall. The great cannons were pointed against the castle. They shot and got their answer in shot. The siege continued about a month, when the rebels gave in. Caithness returned to Edinburgh with Robert Stewart and other prisoners, and the two great cannons passed up the High Street in triumph, to the sound of drum and trumpet, with the keys of Kirkwall Castle hanging at their muzzles.

“Robert Stewart was condemned to death and hanged at the Market Cross along with five of his accomplices. The people pitied him greatly, for it was his father’s scheming that had led him to destruction. His father’s execution soon followed. The ministers who tried to prepare him for death, finding him so ignorant that he could not say the Lord’s Prayer, asked the Council to delay his execution for a few days, till he could be better informed. The request was granted, and then he went his way into the great darkness.”

The rebellion of Earl Patrick led to the abolition of the Thing and the ancient laws of Orkney and Shetland, but there was little change for the better in the government of the islands. They were assigned to one nobleman after another, no one having any interest in their improvement. It was, indeed, not till the eighteenth century that any very great effort was made to give them the benefits of good government and a chance to regain somewhat of their ancient prosperity.

[Illustration: _Pot Querns and Saddle Quern._]

THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.

During the long period of oppression by the Scottish earls, the state of our islands had been indeed deplorable, and recovery was slow. The spirit was crushed out of the people. Industry was vain when plunder was sure to follow. Agriculture could not advance when the alien landlord claimed all the profit. An Orkney writer of the eighteenth century gives a sad picture of the condition of the country in his day:—

“The inhabitants, in general, are very polite, hospitable, and kind to strangers; but I am sorry to say that so little is industry encouraged in our country that no means can be assigned by which the lower class of people can get their bread. By reason of having no employment they must live very wretchedly; they become indolent and lazy to the last degree, insomuch that rather than raise cabbage for their own use they will steal from others; and instead of being at pains to prepare the turf, which they have for the mere trouble of cutting up and drying, yet, rather than do so, they will steal it from those who are richer or more industrious than themselves.... Every Saturday, which day they are privileged to beg, a troop of miserable, ragged creatures are seen going from door to door, almost numerous enough to plunder the whole town were they to exert themselves against it in an hostile manner—at least, if their valour was in proportion to their distress.”

The dawn of a brighter day came slowly, and it is difficult now to trace the steps by which the prosperity of the islands was restored. Agriculture remained in a very primitive state till the nineteenth century had well begun. An Orkney “township” had a very different appearance in those days from what we now see. The farms were not divided from one another; each patch of cultivated ground belonged to all the farmers in the township, who shared it on the “run-rig” system, each “rig” being worked by a different owner.

The only pasture was the natural grass of meadow and hill, and this also was common property. A “hill-dyke,” usually of turf, surrounded the corn-land, and formed a somewhat indifferent protection against the flocks of sheep, cattle, horses, and pigs which found their summer food on the “hill.” The names “Slap” and “Grind,” borne by farmhouses in many districts, remind us of the gateways in these old hill dykes.

With the corn-land subdivided in this way, and the pasture-land undivided, there was no inducement for any farmer to improve his methods of agriculture. Farm implements were of the rudest kind. The soil was scratched rather than tilled by means of wooden ploughs with only one stilt or handle, a model of which may be seen in the museum in Stromness. There were no carts; loads were carried pannier-fashion on the backs of horses, along the rough tracks or bridle-paths which served for roads.

Of the old style of farmhouse scarcely a relic now remains. One entrance usually served the farmer and his cattle, who lived under the same roof, though in separate apartments. In the kitchen, or “but-end,” the fireplace was simply a raised hearth in the centre of the room, with a low wall or “back” against which the peat-fire was built. There was no chimney, but a large opening in the roof allowed the smoke to escape in a leisurely fashion. Behind the “back” there was often accommodation for poultry, calves, and other domestic animals. The better class of houses had beyond the kitchen a parlour, or “ben-end,” which was used only on great occasions.

Rough and primitive as was their manner of life, yet at the beginning of last century the Orcadians had already made a very considerable advance in prosperity. A writer of the time tells us that the small farmers had more money among them than could be found among people of similar station in any other part of the British Isles.

It was not till the second quarter of the century that the land was divided up into separate farms, and modern methods of agriculture began to be employed, with rotation of crops and improved implements. A little later the beginning was made of the system of roads which now spreads in a network over the islands.

While agriculture was yet in its infancy, the islands were much benefited by various forms of industry and occupation which have now mostly fallen into disuse, as the need for their help has passed away. One of these industries, introduced towards the end of the eighteenth century, was the spinning of flax and the weaving of linen. Flax was largely grown in the islands at one time, and the dressing, spinning, and weaving of it was a common occupation.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century the manufacture of straw-plait was introduced, and soon took the place of the linen industry. It is said that over six thousand women and girls were at one time employed in straw-plaiting. Though the workers were paid but little, and that usually not in money but in goods, the straw-plaiting increased considerably the wealth and the trade of the county.

The manufacture of kelp was introduced early in the eighteenth century, and gave occupation to many of the inhabitants. Large profits were made in this business, not so much, of course, by the actual workers as by the landlords and other agents who exported the kelp. At one time, indeed, it seemed as if the attention given to this industry was to prove a hindrance to the advance of agriculture, which is the only foundation of true prosperity in these islands; and when other substances began to take the place of kelp, the decline of this trade was really a benefit to the islands.

Fishing has always been an important industry in Orkney, but it was not till near the middle of the nineteenth century that the improvements in boats and in gear made the fisheries a really valuable asset to the islanders. Fishing, however, cannot be called one of those temporary industries which we mentioned. The herring fishery and the white fishing, as well as other branches of this industry, have continued to increase, and next to agriculture, fishing is the great natural source of wealth for the people.

During the centuries now under our notice, Orkney had a closer connection with the seafaring life than it has to-day. When all trade was carried on by sailing ships, and when westerly winds were quite as common as they now are, vessels passing through the Pentland Firth for America or elsewhere found Stromness a convenient port of call, and its harbour was often crowded with shipping. This was especially the case during the French wars of the eighteenth century, when the English Channel was avoided by shipping as being too near the enemy’s shores. Fleets of trading ships used to gather at Stromness while waiting a convoy of men-of-war to accompany them across the Atlantic.

An interesting relic of those busy times in Stromness is the old Warehouse and Warehouse Pier at the north end of that town. This store was built about the middle of the eighteenth century for the convenience of the rice ships from America, as being the safest place for them to discharge their cargoes. Before the end of the century, however, the Stromness Warehouse was deserted in favour of Cowes in the Isle of Wight. A writer of the time makes out a strong case in favour of Stromness and against the English Channel, but the fact that Cowes is nearer to London seems to have settled the matter in favour of that port.

During these prolonged naval wars, it is said that as many as twelve thousand Orkneymen served in the navy. Many of them went as volunteers, but probably most of them served against their will, as the pressgang was very active among the islands. Many a young sailor who began his voyage on a peaceful trader was soon transferred to one of His Majesty’s ships. Traditions of those troublous times are still preserved among many families in the islands. Hundreds of these men were never heard of again, for those were not the days of telegraphs and war correspondents. The years passed, and the son or the brother did not return, but when or how he fell his friends never knew. It was a heavy war-tax the islands paid; the full extent of it has never been disclosed.

About 1740 the ships of the Hudson’s Bay Company began to visit the islands, not only to wait for a wind to start them on their annual voyage, but to engage labourers and tradesmen to carry on the fur trade among the Indians of the west and north of Canada. The connection thus begun is not yet quite extinct, but in the earlier part of the nineteenth century there was a constant stream of young men flowing to the Far West. At one time from fifty to a hundred men left Stromness for Hudson Bay every summer. Some remained as pioneers and colonists; some returned after a sojourn of five years or more, with a tidy sum of money to start them as farmers or tradesmen at home. Many of them who settled in the Great Lone Land rose to high positions in the Company’s service. The most famous of this band of empire-builders was Dr. John Rae, the discoverer of the fate of the ill-starred Franklin Expedition, and a noted Arctic explorer, whose monument may be seen in the nave of St. Magnus Cathedral.

The Company then ruled over the greater portion of what is now the Dominion of Canada. The names of Fort York, Moose Factory, and Red River were as familiar to the Orkney boys of those days as Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen are to us to-day. But Canada changed even more than Orkney during the latter part of the nineteenth century, and the great Hudson’s Bay Company have now handed over their vast territories to the rule of the Dominion. The fur trade still exists in the North-West, and there are Orkneymen still in the employment of the Company; but the days have gone by when this was one of the chief industries of the wander-loving sons of our islands.

After the “Nor’-Wast,” as the Hudson Bay service was called, the “Straits” had the next claim on our youth. The Davis Strait whale-fishing fleet made an annual visit to our islands to complete their crews. This was in the spring or “vore,” when the crops were in the ground, and many men, both young and middle-aged, looked to the annual whaling trip to the north as a means of gain, just as their Norse ancestors did to the annual “vore-viking” raid on the richer shores of the South. This also has passed away; the harpoon and whale-lance are rarely seen in the islands; whales and whaling fleet alike have almost become extinct. But while agriculture was still in its infancy in Orkney, the “Straits” gave much-needed employment and modest gains to many of our hardy forefathers.

The general tendency of life in Orkney has been away from dependence upon the sea for a living, and towards agriculture and the trade and commerce which it brings with it. In its methods of farming and in its general prosperity the county now compares well with any other part of the kingdom. But most of this progress has been made during the last half century or so.

It was in 1833 that the Aberdeen, Leith, and Clyde Shipping Company, now the North of Scotland and Orkney and Shetland Navigation Company, first decided to send one of their steamers—the _Velocity_—to call at Kirkwall. The call was made once a fortnight, and only during the months of June, July, and August. The mails were then carried across the Pentland Firth in a small boat. The growth in traffic since that time is indicated by the fact that the trade and commerce of the islands now requires the weekly call of two steamers at Kirkwall and three at Stromness, with a daily mail steamer to both towns, in addition to numerous occasional trips of other steamers and sailing vessels, especially during the fishing season, while four smaller steamers maintain communication between the various islands.

The Orkney farmer still has a somewhat niggardly soil and a stormy climate to contend with. His acres are few, and his boys will often turn to richer lands to seek their fortune. But life in these islands to-day is easy and comfortable compared with what it was during any of the ten centuries whose history we have passed in brief review.

The boys and girls who aim at seeking wealth and fame in other lands, though by other means than those of their Viking ancestors, may now set forth on their voyage as well equipped by education and otherwise as the youth of any country in the world. Those who remain at home will still find a worthy task in carrying on the improvement of the homeland, as their fathers have done; for whatever stage of progress we may attain, it is never merely an end but also a beginning.

[Illustration: _Old-fashioned Fireplace_]