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When Jarl Ragnvald of Maeri, the first of the Orkney jarls, was killed in Norway by two of Harald Harfagr's sons, one of them, Halfdan Halegg or Long-shanks fled from their father's vengeance to Orkney.
The third son, Thorfinn Hausa-kliufr or Skull-splitter, himself about three-quarters Norse by blood, married Grelaud, daughter of Dungadr, or Duncan, the Gaelic Maormor of Caithness by Groa, daughter of Thorfinn the Red, thus further Gaelicising the strain of the Norse Jarls of Orkney, but adding greatly to their mainland territories.
Nowhere were military tenants so essential as they then were in the extreme north of Scotland on lands immediately adjoining the territories of Norse jarls owing double allegiance, and therefore of doubtful loyalty to the Scottish Crown. For this reason also no part of the lands of the Erlend line would be granted to the line of Paul, as an addition to their own.
Harald Haarfagr had a good many sons and daughters; the daughters he married mostly to jarls of due merit who were loyal to him; with the sons, as remarked above, he had a great deal of trouble.
"In Anglia King Guthrum has divided the land among his jarls, and there they seem disposed to settle down; but elsewhere they care not for the land, preferring to leave it in the hands of its former owners to till, and after to wring from the cultivators the fruits of the harvest; then, as the country becomes thoroughly impoverished, they must move elsewhere.
But also I think that the cruel deeds wrought by the jarls while he was yet but a child will be thought his work also, for men will forget how young he was when the crown came to him, seeing that in utmost loyalty the jarls spoke of him ever as commanding, as the old viking ways bade them.
To the north of the Grampians they exercised little or no authority; and the people of that district were as often their enemies as their friends. Through the action of the Orkney jarls, therefore, the Scottish kings were at comparative liberty to extend their territory towards the south; and the day came when they found themselves able to crush every hostile element even in the north.
The two jarls were busy at the mooring place, and I could only answer her that I could look to her alone for help. Now at that I knew what had sprung up in my heart for Osritha, and that not in this only should I look for help from her and find it, but if it might be, all my life through. For now in my trouble she looked at me with a new look, answering: "I will help you, whatever betide."
And once set on that matter, the two honest men were unwearied in telling tales of the valour and skill of their master, so that I had no room for my own thoughts, which was as well. Then came a man, riding swiftly, to say that the jarls had left their hunting, and that we were to be taken to the great house. Moreover, that Rolf and Raud were to be held answerable for our safe keeping.
Leaving Caithness, Hakon at once went to attack Magnus in Orkney where he had landed; but the "good men" intervened, and an equal division of Orkney and Shetland and Caithness was made between the jarls.
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