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Updated: June 9, 2025
At first Hakon's men fell in great numbers, for the Jomsvikings fought with all their wonted strength. So many spears also were aimed at Hakon himself that his armor was split asunder and he threw it aside.
Bishops and priests from England Hakon had, preaching and baptizing what they could, but making only slow progress; much too slow for Hakon's zeal.
It seemed that Hakon's men who had been landed were either Christians, or else men who had taken the "prime signing" on them, which was the way in which they proved that they were ready to learn the new faith. Phelim would call them "catechumens," therefore, and that word may be known as meaning the same thing. Presently I was to hear more of that from him.
Possibly, however, they lived at Borrobol, the "Castle Farm"; and there "there were brought up by Frakark Margret, Earl Hakon's daughter, and Helga, Moddan's daughter," and also Eric Stagbrellir, Frakark's grandnephew, and son of her niece Audhild by Eric Streita, a Norseman, as well as Olvir Rosta and Thorbiorn Klerk, both Frakark's grandsons, all of whom come prominently into our story.
Hakon Jarl now had the advantage, confident that the gods had accepted the sacrifice of his son, and intended to give him the victory. It is said that some saw the maidens of Odin, the Valkyrias, standing at the prow of Hakon's ship, sending forth a deadly hail of unerring arrows.
Whereupon, instantly, the indignant Bonder and his Sunbeam of the Grove sent out their war-arrow, rousing all the country into angry promptitude, and more than one perhaps into greedy hope of revenge for their own injuries. The rest of Hakon's history now rushes on with extreme rapidity.
To this day, on a little plain to the south of the village, now town, of Largs, in Ayrshire, there are seen stone cairns and monumental heaps, and, until within a century ago, one huge, solitary, upright stone; still mutely testifying to a battle there, altogether clearly, to this battle of King Hakon's; who by the Norse records, too, was in these neighborhoods at that same date, and evidently in an aggressive, high kind of humor.
Erik saw that these two warriors were so fierce and mad that he would not long be able to withstand them, and that Earl Hakon's help must be got as quickly as possible. Yet he goaded his men on, and they made a brave resistance. Olaf was often attacked by three or four berserks at once, but he guarded every blow, and received but little hurt.
After some winters, however, they met in battle array in Mainland, and the fight was again stopped by the principal men on either side in their own interest, the final settlement being postponed until a meeting, which was to take place in Egilsay in the next spring, Magnus arrived first at the meeting-place with the small following of two ships agreed upon, but Hakon came later in seven or eight ships with a great force, and, after those present had refused to let both come away alive, Magnus was treacherously murdered under Hakon's orders by Hakon's cook on the 16th of April 1116.
When the Manx ships joined Hakon's navy at Skye, Roderic the Rover was welcomed above all other chiefs, and he offered that the isle of Gigha should be made the headquarters of the forces, from which they might easily swoop down upon Bute and Arran, and thence invade the mainland of Scotland.
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