_Thorfinn--Earl and Jarl._
Malcolm II, with whom Scottish contemporary records may be said to
begin, ascended the Scottish throne in 1005, and defeated the Norse at
Mortlach in Moray in 1010, and drove them from its fertile seaboard,
probably with the help of Sigurd Hlodverson, Jarl of Orkney. The men
of Moray, however, and their Pictish Maormors remained ungrateful, and
irreconcilably opposed to Scottish rule; and Moray, then stretching
across almost from ocean to ocean,[1] barred the way of the Scots to
the north.
What he could not achieve by arms, Malcolm, both before and after his
accession, decided to secure by a series of matrimonial alliances.
He had no son; but he had three available daughters,[2] of whom the
eldest was Bethoc, and the two others are said to have been called
Donada or Doada and Plantula.
1. _Bethoc_ he married to the most powerful Pictish leader of the
time, Crinan, Abthane of Dunkeld, the capital of the southern Picts,
and they had issue
(a) _Duncan_, afterwards Duncan I of Scotland, born about 1001;
(b) _Maldred_ of Cumbria, whose eldest son was Gospatrick, and whose
second son was Dolfin; but with Maldred we are not concerned;
(c) _A daughter_, who became the mother of Moddan, whom Duncan
I, after his accession in 1034, created Earl of Caithness or Cat,
probably about 1040, his father being possibly of the family of Moldan
of Duncansby, whose sons Gritgard and Snaekolf, if we may believe the
_Njal Saga_, were slain by Helgi Njal's son and Kari Solmundarson,
Moldan being said to be a kinsman of Malcolm the Scots king.
2. Malcolm's second daughter, _Donada_, he married to Finnleac or
Finlay Mac Ruari, Maormor of North Moray, and a chief of the northern
Picts, and they had a son, Macbeth, born about 1005, who succeeded
Duncan I on his death in 1040 as King of Scotland, but left no
issue.[3]
3. Malcolm's third daughter, said to have been called _Plantula_, he
gave, about 1007, as his second wife to Sigurd Hlodverson, who, as we
have seen, was killed in 1014 at the decisive battle of Clontarf, his
wife having died probably before that event; and their only child was
a son, born about 1008 and created Earl of Caithness and Sutherland,
who became the great Earl and Jarl _Thorfinn_.
The three marriages were intended to secure to Malcolm the south,
the middle, and the north of Pictland through the fathers of Duncan,
Macbeth, and Thorfinn respectively; and we may note that from Thorfinn
are descended all subsequent Jarls and Earls of Orkney and Shetland
and Caithness of the so-called Norse line.
Duncan I, Macbeth, and Thorfinn Sigurd's son were thus first cousins,
and, in spite of the fiction of Holinshed, Boece, and William
Shakespeare, they were all about the same age, being born within seven
years of each other; and none of them lived to old age.
By the victory of Carham in 1018 Malcolm II secured for ever the line
of the Tweed as Scotland's southern frontier; and this success in the
south, one of the most important events in Scottish history, left
him free to extend his kingdom and sovereignty towards the north, his
object being to unite into one realm the whole mainland at least
of Scotland. To accomplish this, he would have to bring under the
supremacy of the Scottish crown in addition to the Picts of Atholl,
whom the Scots had absorbed, the Gallgaels of Argyll, the Picts of
Moray and of Ross within and beyond the Grampians, and those of
the province of Cat, with the Norsemen there as well. He could thus
ultimately hope to oust Somarled, Brusi and Einar, Jarl Sigurd's sons
by his first wife, and their overlords, the Norse kings, from Orkney
and Shetland, and to add those islands to his dominions. Meantime,
Somarled, Brusi and Einar took no share in Cat. Thorfinn had Cat, all
for himself, as a fief of the Scottish king.
Although the history of the time of Thorfinn Sigurdson, the first
Scottish Earl of Caithness and Sutherland,[4] would have been of
great interest to inhabitants of those counties, the _Orkneyinga Saga_
contains but little information about his doings in them, because he
bent all his efforts towards extending his dominion over the islands
which formed his father Sigurd's jarldom, his policy, in his youth at
least, being directed to this object by his grandfather, Malcolm
II. Indeed during the life of that king, Thorfinn appears to have
established himself at Duncansby in Caithness, on the shore of the
Pentland Firth, and to have occupied himself in endeavouring to induce
his three surviving half-brothers, Somarled, Brusi, and Einar, to part
with as large a share as possible of Orkney and Shetland, and cede
it to himself. In this he had much assistance from King Malcolm.
Thorfinn, whose mother probably died in his infancy if we are to
credit his father's matrimonial stipulations as regards an Irish wife
in 1014, succeeded to the earldom and lands in that year, as a boy of
about six years of age, and was early in coming to his full growth,
the "tallest and strongest of men; his hair was black, his features
sharp, his brows scowling, and, as soon as he grew up, it was easy to
see that he was forward and grasping." From the description given in
the Saga at Chapter 22, he was no more a Norseman in appearance than
he was by blood. He was, in fact, by race and descent, almost a pure
Gael, and at Malcolm's court must have spoken only Gaelic.
Of his three half-brothers, Somarled and Brusi were not unwilling to
give Thorfinn a share of the Orkney jarldom. For they were meek men,
especially Brusi; and, when Somarled died, though Einar wanted two
shares for himself, and fought to retain them, he only wearied out
his followers and alienated them by his cruelty. They, therefore, went
over to Thorfinn in Caithness. More important still, Thorkel
Amundson, "the properest young man in Orkney," did likewise, and was
thenceforward known as Thorkel Fostri, foster-father to Thorfinn, whom
he aided at every crisis of his career.
When Thorfinn grew up, he claimed a third share of Orkney, and,
not getting it, "called out a force from Caithness" where he mostly
lived.[5] Brusi and Einar then pooled their share of the islands,
Einar having the control of both; and Thorfinn got his trithing,[6]
managing it by his men, who collected his scatt and tolls under
Thorkel Fostri, whom Einar plotted to kill. Einar next seized Eyvind
Urarhorn, a Norse subject of distinction, who had caused his complete
defeat in Ulfreksfirth in Ireland, but was sheltering from a storm in
Orkney, and killed him, to the great anger of the Norse king.
Grasping at once the opportunity thus created, Thorfinn determined to
turn it to his own advantage. He sent Thorkel to King Olaf in Norway
to seek protection for himself against Einar, and Thorkel came back
bearing an invitation to Thorfinn to visit the Norwegian court, from
which the jarl returned as much in favour with the king as Einar was
in disgrace. Brusi then tried to reconcile Thorfinn and Einar, and
Thorkel was to be included in the settlement. Thorkel, however,
after inviting Einar to a feast in his hall at Sandvik in Deerness,
a promontory south-east of Kirkwall, discovered a plot by Einar to
attack him by three several ambushes as they left the house. In a
striking scene, the Saga tells how Thorkel, wounded, and Halvard, an
Icelander, dispatched Einar at the hearth of the hall; how Einar's
followers did not interfere; and how Thorkel fled to King Olaf in
Norway, who was much gratified by the death of Einar, the slayer of
his own friend Eyvind Urarhorn.[7]
On Einar's death, Brusi tried to get two-thirds of the isles, but
Thorfinn now claimed a half share, and King Olaf, in spite of a visit
by Thorfinn to him in Norway, ultimately awarded Brusi two-thirds,
Thorfinn having the rest. Brusi, however, being unable to defend the
isles from pirates, about the year 1028 gave up one of his trithings
to Thorfinn on his undertaking the defence of the isles,[8] for which
a powerful fleet would be essential, and Brusi died in 1031.
After this settlement of their claims, Malcolm II died in 1034 at
the age of eighty; and his death wrecked his policy. For Duncan,
his grandson, the Karl Hundason of the Saga, on his accession to
the Scottish throne claimed tribute from his cousin Thorfinn for
Caithness. Payment was at once refused, and six years of strife,
interrupted by Duncan's unfortunate raids south of the Tweed, ended by
his creating Mumtan or Moddan, his own sister's son, Earl of Caithness
instead of Thorfinn. With a force collected in Sudrland, which thus
appears to have been on the Scottish side, Moddan tried to make good
his title, but Thorfinn raised an army in Caithness, and Thorkel
collected another for him in Orkney, and the Scots retired before
superior numbers. "Then Earl Thorfinn fared after them, and laid under
him Sudrland and Ross and harried far and wide over Scotland; thence
he turned back to Caithness," and "sate at Duncansby, and had there
five long-ships ... and just enough force to man them well."[9]
After his retirement in Caithness, Moddan went to Duncan at North
Berwick, and Duncan sent him back with another force by land to
Caithness, proceeding thither himself by sea with eleven ships. Duncan
caught Thorfinn and his five ships off the Mull of Deerness in the
Mainland of Orkney, where, after a stiff hand-to-hand fight, the Scots
fleet was defeated and chased southwards by Thorfinn to Moray, which
he ravaged.[10]
Finding that Moddan and his army were in Thurso, Thorfinn sent Thorkel
Fostri thither secretly with part of his forces, and he set fire to
the house in which Moddan was, and killed him there as he tried to
escape. Thorkel next raised levies in Caithness, Sutherland, and Ross,
joined forces with Thorfinn in Moray, and harried the land, whereupon
Duncan collected an army from the south of Scotland and Cantire and
Ireland, and attacked his enemies in the north.
A great battle ensued near the Norse stronghold of Turfness,[11]
probably Burghead, where peat is found in abundance, though now
submerged; and the battle was fought at Standing Stane in the parish
of Duffus, three miles and a half E.S.E. of Burghead, on the 14th of
August 1040.
The Saga gives the following description of the jarl and of the
fighting:--
"Earl Thorfinn was at the head of his battle array; he had a gilded
helmet on his head, and was girt with a sword, a great spear in his
hand, and he fought with it, striking right and left.... He went
thither first where the battle of those Irish was; so hot was he with
his train, that they gave way at once before him, and never afterwards
got into good order again. Then Karl let them bring forward his banner
to meet Thorfinn; there was a hard fight, and the end of it was that
Karl laid himself out to fly, but some men say that he has fallen."
"Earl Thorfinn drove the flight before him a long way up into
Scotland, and after that he fared about far and wide over the land and
laid it under him."[12]
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.[13]
"He fared then north to Caithness, and sate there that winter, but
every summer thenceforth he had his levies out, and harried about the
west lands, but sate most often still in the winters," feasting his
men at his own expense, especially at Yuletide, in true Viking style.
Allowing for exaggeration, it is not too much to say that Thorfinn
and his cousin Macbeth must, after the death of their cousin Duncan
in 1040, between them have held all that is now Scotland save the
Lothians, until about 1057, when Macbeth was slain. To us it is
interesting to note[14] that Duncan died, not in old age, (as
Shakespeare, following Boece and the English chronicler Holinshed
would have us believe) but a young man of thirty-nine years, either
in, or after, Thorfinn's battle, and that he fell a victim not of
Groa, Macbeth's wife's cup of poison, but possibly of her husband's
dagger at Bothgowanan or Pitgavenny, a smithy about two miles from
Elgin. We should also note that Thorfinn's cruelty made it difficult
for him ever to hope to obtain and keep the throne of Scotland, which
thus fell to Macbeth.
Meantime Jarl Brusi had died about 1031, and though he left a son
Ragnvald, this son was long abroad in Norway, where he was taught all
the accomplishments suitable to his rank, and remained there at the
time of his father's death.[15] Ragnvald Brusi-son was "one of the
handsomest of men, his hair long and yellow as silk, and he was stout
and tall and an able splendid man of great mind and polite manners."
He had saved King Olaf's brother Harald Sigurdson at the great battle
of Stiklastad, after King Olaf, Ragnvald's own foster-father, was
killed, and had fought with great distinction in Russia. Shortly after
his father's death, Ragnvald returned, and, fortified by a grant from
King Magnus of Norway, whom he had helped to gain the throne, claimed
his father's two trithings of the Orkney jarldom. To this Thorfinn,
who after 1034 had his hands full with his war with King Duncan, and
had always wars with the Hebrides and the Irish, agreed, and the
two joined forces, and sailed on Viking raids to the Hebrides and
England.[16]
About 1044 Thorfinn married Ingibjorg,[17] Finn Arnason's daughter,
and it is interesting to find that in the _Saga Book of the Viking
Club_, Vol. IV, page 171, Mr. Collingwood suggests that the King of
Catanesse, who fought for years to gain possession of Gratiana, the
lost wife of William the Wanderer, was Thorfinn. If this story be
founded on fact, as it probably is, this may account for his somewhat
late marriage with Ingibjorg.
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.
The two jarls met in battle in the Pentland Firth, off Rautharbiorg or
Rattar Brough in Caithness, east of Dunnet Head, Kalf Arnason with
his six ships standing out of the fight. Thorfinn had sixty ships,
smaller, and, save Thorfinn's own, lower in the waist than those of
his enemy, who thus easily boarded them, and then attacked Thorfinn.
Surrounded and boarded on both sides, Thorfinn cut his ship free and
rowed to land. Arrived there, he removed his seventy dead, and all
his wounded. Next he persuaded Kalf Arnason to join him with his six
ships, and renewed and won the fight, though Ragnvald himself escaped
to Norway.[18]
Sailing thence in 1046 with one ship and a picked crew, Ragnvald
surrounded Thorfinn,[19] who was wintering in Mainland of Orkney, and
set fire to the Hall at Orphir in which he was, but the earl tore
out a panel at the back, and, escaping through it with his young wife
Ingibjorg in his arms, rowed in the dark over to Caithness, where
he remained in hiding among his friends, all in Orkney believing him
dead. Ragnvald then seized all the islands, and lived at Kirkwall.
But, while Ragnvald was in Little Papey--now Papa Stronsay--to fetch
malt for Yuletide, Thorfinn returned, and surrounded the house in
which Ragnvald was, by night; and, on his escaping by leaping through
the besiegers in priestly disguise, Thorfinn's men followed him, and,
led by his lapdog's barking, discovered him among the rocks by the
sea, where Thorkel Fostri slew him, Thorfinn meanwhile annihilating
his following, save one man. This man, who like the rest, was one of
King Magnus' bodyguard, he bade go to his king and tell the tale, and
he seized Kirkwall by stratagem. Jarl Ragnvald is said to have been
a man of large stature and great strength, and to have been buried in
Papa Westray, but a grave nearly eight feet long, that would fit him,
has been found where he fell in Papa Stronsay.
All this left Thorfinn with his great aim achieved. He was now
sole jarl of Orkney and Shetland, and sole earl of Caithness and
Sutherland, and he also held Ross and the western islands and coast
down to Galloway, and part of Ireland, as his _rikis_ or conquered
tributary lands.
The fourth and last period of his career now begins with his dramatic
visit to King Magnus in Norway; and, on the death of that king, he
became the friend of his successor, Harald Hardrada, in 1047, and
after visiting King Sweyn in Denmark, and Henry III, Emperor of
Germany, rode south to Rome probably in 1050 along with, it is said,
his cousin Macbeth, king, and a good king, of Scotland, returning
thence to Orkney to his Hall at Birsay at the north-west corner of
Mainland. Thorfinn went to the Pope not only for absolution, but to
get Thorolf appointed bishop in Orkney, according to Adam of Bremen,
c. 243.
We now come to the last years of the fourth period of his life, when
"the earl sate down quietly and kept peace over all his realm. Then
he left off warfare, and he turned his mind to ruling his people and
land, and to law-giving. He sate almost always in Birsay, and let them
build there Christchurch,[20] a splendid Minster. There first was set
up a bishop's seat in the Orkneys."
The Annals of Tighernac record a great Norse expedition with the aid
of the Galls of Orkney and Innse Gall and Dublin to subdue the Saxons
in 1057, which failed. It is strange that we hear nothing of Thorfinn
in this, and the question arises whether he had died before it took
place. Had he been alive, such an expedition would hardly have been
possible without him.[21] It is interesting to note that so accurate
a chronicler as Sir Archibald Dunbar dates his widow Ingibjorg's
marriage to Malcolm III in 1059. (See _Scottish Kings_, p. 27.)
Thorfinn's life forms the subject of no less than twenty-six chapters
of the _Orkneyinga Saga_.[22] In his childhood, and later at all the
main turning points of his life, he was blessed with the constant care
and touching devotion, and with the able counsel and active assistance
of his foster-father, Thorkel Fostri, the slayer of his three
chief competitors--Jarl Einar and Earl Moddan and Jarl Ragnvald
Brusi-son--the captain of his armies, the collector of his revenues
and the guardian, in his absence on his Viking cruises and in his
travels abroad, of his widespread dominions. There is a tradition[23]
that Thorkel founded the rock-castle of Borve, near Farr on the north
coast of Sutherland, which was demolished by the Earl of Sutherland
in 1556; but Thorkel is a common name among Vikings, and the story is
otherwise unauthenticated.
According to the Saga, Thorfinn died of sickness "in the latter days
of Harald Hardrada," (who was killed in September 1066), near the
church which he founded, in his Hall at Birsay, north of Marwick Head
in the north-west corner of Mainland of Orkney, within a few miles
of the scene of Earl Kitchener's recent death at sea, so that the
greatest of our jarls and of our earls rest near each other, the great
Viking on the shore, and the great soldier in the ocean.
The chronology of Thorfinn and Ingibjorg his wife is extremely
difficult, but on the whole we incline to think that he was born in
1008, and, as grandson of the king regnant, was created an earl at his
birth, married Ingibjorg, then quite young, in 1044, and died in 1057
or 1058, after being an earl for his whole life of "fifty years,"
while his widow married Malcolm III in 1059. The phrase "in the latter
days of Harald Hardrada" is after all an expression wide enough to
cover the last seven years of a reign of twenty-one years, and it is
unlikely that a marriage of policy would be postponed for more than
the year or two after Malcolm's accession in 1057, during which he was
engaged in defeating the claims of Lulach to his throne and settling
his kingdom.