Note (return) — Chapter VI

Of the Moddan line the Saga says7—"These men were all of great family and great for their own sakes, and they all thought they had a great claim in the Orkneys to those realms which their kinsman Earl Harald (Slettmali) had owned. The brothers of Frakark were Angus of the open hand, and Earl Ottir in Thurso: he was a man of birth and rank." These children of Moddan were probably of royal lineage or kinship, as Moddan, who had been created Earl of Caithness by King Duncan I, was that king's sister's son, and was probably, as we have seen, their ancestor or kinsman. They were also probably descended more remotely from Moldan, Maormor of Duncansby, a kinsman of Malcolm II, but had all been driven back from the coast, save Earl Ottir, who lived at Thurso, and probably owned its valley up to its source in the Halkirk and Latheron hills.