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One day Grettir observed a ship approaching, rowed by twelve men; it landed near Thorfinn's boat-stand, wherein was his boat which was never launched by less than thirty men; nevertheless these twelve pushed it down to the water's edge, laid their own boat upon it, and bore it into the boat-stand.
Grettir counted the men; there were twelve in all, and their aspect did not look peaceful. After hauling up their boat out of the water they all made for the boat-house where Thorfinn's great boat, mentioned already, was stowed. She always required thirty men to put her to sea, but the twelve shoved her along the beach at once. Then they brought their own boat into the boat-house.
On Thorfinn's death, however, the rest of his territories, nine Scottish earldoms, it is said, "fell away, and went under those men who were territorially born to rule over them;" that is to say, they reverted to Scottish Maormors; but Orkney and Shetland remained wholly Norse, and under Norse rule.
Thorfinn next claimed two trithings of Orkney from his nephew Ragnvald, who demurred to giving up what the Norse king had conferred on him, but, finding he could not cope with Thorfinn's Orkney, Caithness and Scottish forces, Ragnvald fled to King Magnus, who gave him a force of picked men, and bade Kalf Arnason also to help him, although Kalf was Thorfinn's friend, and near connection by marriage.
Then followed Thorfinn's conquests in Fife, and after relating the failure of a Scottish force, which had surrendered, to kill him by surprise, the Saga gives a lurid picture of his burnings of farms and slayings of all the fighting men, "while the women and old men dragged themselves off to the woods and wastes with weeping and wailing," and it also tells of his journey north along Scotland to his ships.
Paul and Erlend, Hakon and Magnus. After Earl Thorfinn's death his sons Paul and Erlend jointly held the jarldom, but divided the lands. They were "big men both, and handsome, but wise and modest" like their Norse mother Ingibjorg, known as Earls'-mother, first cousin of Thora, queen of Norway, mother of King Olaf Kyrre.
Thorgeir Bottleback was the first to get on to the whale where Flosi's men were. Thorfinn, who was spoken of before, was cutting it up, standing near the head on the place where he had been carving. "Here I bring you your axe," said Thorgeir. Then he struck at Thorfinn's neck and cut off his head. Flosi was up on the beach and saw it. He urged on his men to give it them back.
O fair giver forth of gold, Whereof can great words be told, 'Midst the deeds one man has wrought, If this deed should come to nought?" The good wife said, "Surely thou art like unto very few men who are now living on the earth." So she set him in the high seat, and all things she did well to him, and now time wore on till Thorfinn's coming home was looked for.
He was very stiff from his struggle with Kar, but he turned his steps towards Thorfinn's house, carrying the treasure along with him. He found them all at supper. Thorfinn cast a severe glance at him and asked what he had found so pressing to do that he could not keep proper hours like other men. "Many a trifle happens at eve," he replied.
Ragnvald Jarl, at Kirkwall, which took the place of Thorfinn's church at Birsay as the seat of the Orkney bishopric. Magnus, it seems, was all through assisted by the Scottish king, and favoured by the Caithness folk, yet the Saga jealously claims him as "the Isle-earl," and adds the following description of him:
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