United States or Kenya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Andrews, for a payment of two thousand pounds of silver, which Munch conjectures may have been handed over to Ragnvald Gudrodson to replace the sum which he had paid to the king for the earldom; and it is true that we hear no more of Ragnvald in connection with Caithness, though he lived until 1229.

He probably then built the round church at Orphir in Mainland of Orkney, the only Templar Church in Scotland. Ingibiorg afterwards married Olaf Bitling, king of the Sudreys; and Ragnvald Gudrodson, the great Viking, was of her line, and, as we shall see, in 1200 or thereabouts, had the Caithness earldom conferred upon him for a short time. To Margret we shall return later.

Ragnvald Gudrodson, it may here be noted, had, if we pass over his own illegitimacy, in the absence of direct male heirs of Earl Hakon since Erlend Haraldson's death in 1156, probably the best title to receive a grant of the jarldom of Orkney and Shetland and the earldom of Caithness of all the surviving descendants of Earl Thorfinn Sigurd's son.

For Ragnvald Gudrodson was the grandson of Ingibjorg, Earl Hakon's elder daughter, while Harold Maddadson was the son of Ingibjorg's younger sister, Margret of Athole. Magnus, through the female line of Erlend Thorfinnson, as being descended successively from Gunnhild, Erlend's daughter, her son Ragnvald Jarl and Saint, and Ingigerd his only child.

The Saga says simply that Harold stayed in Orkney, and this location of the battle near Achness rests solely on tradition, which, however, in the Highlands, is often a solid enough foundation. King William next conferred the earldom on Ragnvald Gudrodson, for, it is said, a considerable sum of money, reserving his own annual tribute.

Ragnvald Gudrodson forthwith collected a great army in Ireland and the Sudreys and invaded Caithness, and, meeting Harold Maddadson in battle at Dalharrold, where the River Naver issues from the loch, drove him northwards down the strath to the coast, whence he escaped to Orkney.

The earl, on his part, refused the terms; and, the earldom thus remaining forfeited, King William at once invited Ragnvald Gudrodson, the great Viking king of the Sudreys and Man, and then his friend and ally, to assemble a force and drive Harold out of Caithness, promising to confer that earldom upon his general, if successful in the campaign.

On receiving the earldom, Ragnvald Gudrodson left in charge of Caithness six stewards, of whom Lagmann Rafn was the chief, and went back to the Isle of Man.