Christianity is believed to have been introduced into Orkney before the
Norwegian conquest by King Harold Harfager, in 895; but the race who
inhabited the country at that period are said to have been extirpated or
driven out by the Scandinavians, who were worshippers of Odin and Thor.
In the end of the tenth century, the King of Norway, Olaf Tryggveson,
renounced Paganism for Christianity, which he forced both on Norway and
Orkney at the point of the sword. M. Depping, in his _Histoire des
Expéditions Maritimes des Normands_, tom. ii. p. 60. ed. 1826, states
that Sigurd, the second Earl of Orkney (whose brother Ronald, Earl of
Mære, the first Norwegian Earl of Orkney, was the common ancestor of the
Earls of Orkney and Dukes of Normandy), drove the Christians out of
Orkney. This was towards the beginning of the tenth century. It has been
overlooked by Barry, the local historian, or unknown to him, who
mentions (p. 123.) the introduction by King Olaf Tryggveson as either
the first introduction, or at least the final establishment of the
Christian religion. I have looked into Torfæus' _Orcades_, the
Orknayinga Saga, and the Sagas of the two kings, Harold Harfager and
Olaf Tryggveson, in Mr. Laing's translation of Snow's Hermskringla, and
have not found the expulsion of the Christians by Sigurd mentioned in
any of those works. Will some of your learned correspondents be so
obliging as to point out M. Depping's authority for this fact? I have
just now fallen in with a curious example of the rude Christianity of
the Northmen, who worshipped both Thor and Christ, and the passage is
perhaps worth quoting. Torfæus, in his _Orcades_, p. 15., mentions a
Scandinavian chief called Helgius, who lived in Iceland about 888, and
says:
"Christianis sacris quibus infans initiatus est, per totam vitam
adhæsit, valde tamen in religionis articulis rudis; nam Thorem, ad
ardua negotia, itineraque maritima feliciter expediunda,
invocandum, cætera Christum dictitavit, tanquam cum Thore divisum
imperium habentem. Simile Witichendus Monachus et Sigebertus
Gemlansensis, de Danis, in primis religionis incunabulis,
prodidere."