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Thus did those Sea-kings sail away from and forsake the land of Norway. On their voyage westward they fell in with many ships from other quarters containing countrymen, Sea-kings and vikings like themselves, who had also left their native land to seek new homes in Shetland, Orkney, and the other isles north of Scotland, rather than submit to the yoke of Harald Haarfager.
I had seen many floating pieces of ice during the past few days, but this, from the noise it made, seemed to be an unusually large piece. I feared it might even be an iceberg, and I hastened up on deck. I shall never forget the sight that greeted me. The whole sky was aglow with the light of the aurora borealis or the Merry Dancers, as we call the phenomenon in Orkney.
And as it is known that the Lady of Strathearn, a daughter of the Earl of Orkney, involved herself in the quarrels between Bruce and Baliol, and was, after the ascendency of the former, in a parliament held at Scone in 1329, doomed to perpetual imprisonment for the crime of laesoe majestatis, it is no violent stretch of conjecture to come to the conclusion that this very lady may have been one of the unhappy victims whose remains have been thus accidentally brought to light.
Another case may be mentioned, that of an Inverness vessel, which sailed for Liverpool on a Christmas Day, reached Stromness Harbour, in Orkney, on the 1st of January, and lay there windbound, with a fleet of other traders, until the middle of April following!
My name is Sir Gareth of Orkney and Sir Gawaine is my brother, though neither he nor King Arthur, whose sister is my mother, knows of it. I pray you to keep it close also. Now word was brought unto the besieged lady by the dwarf that her sister was coming to her with a Knight sent by King Arthur.
Apicius, who ought to be the patron saint of epicures, made a voyage to the coast of Africa on hearing that lobsters of an unusually large size were to be found there, and, after encountering much distress at sea, met with a disappointment. Very large lobsters are at present found on the coasts of Orkney.
The old Orkney men of the Hudson Bay Company servants must have seen in such a ration the realization of the poet's lines, "O Caledonia, stern and wild! Meet nurse for a poetic child," etc. All these people at Fort Pitt were idle, and therefore were not capable of eating as much as if they had been on the plains.
So he did alight, and they did great battle together more than an hour, and either hurt other full sore. At the last Sir Gareth gat the duke to the earth, and would have slain him, and then he yield him to him. Then must ye go, said Sir Gareth, unto Sir Arthur my lord at the next feast, and say that I, Sir Gareth of Orkney, sent you unto him.
Moodie was the youngest son of Major Moodie, of Mellsetter, in the Orkney Islands; he was a lieutenant in the 21st Regiment of Fusileers, and had been severely wounded in the night-attack upon Bergen-op-Zoom, in Holland.
"Take also this purse of gold in token of friendship," continued the jarl, "and remain with us, for I knew thy father." Thus Frithiof and the jarl became good friends, and Frithiof consented to stay for a while in the Orkney Islands; but after a time he ordered out his good ship "Ellide," and set sail for his native land. But fearful things had come to pass since he had left his home!
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