Note Footnote 1 on p. 157 — Footnotes

403. Kjarekstad.—Munch identifies this place with the modern Karston or Careston, which lies on the inlet leading to the Loch of Stennis, a little to the north-east of Stromness. But this would make Arni, Rafn’s son, run a good ten miles without once remembering that he had his shield on his shoulder until it stuck in the door at Kirkwall. If this Kjarekstad be not the same with Knarrarstad at Scapa, which was Earl Rögnvald’s homestead (see p. 113), and might be the castle here spoken of, there is a Carness near Kirkwall (in old maps Carisness) which may be more readily supposed to be the Kjarekstad from which Arni ran than Careston near Stromness.

404. Munch says of this passage that the text reads, very improperly, “Gáreksey” for “Grimsey.” Hafnarvag he identifies with the Medalland’s hofn of Hakon Hakonson’s saga, which is the “Midland Harbour” lying between the Holm of Houston and the Mainland on the south side of Orphir. The name Hafnarvag, however, simply signifies a landing-place in a voe or inlet, and might more appropriately be applied to some place near the head of the inlet immediately opposite Grimsey, which goes up to the Loch of Stennis. If Harald and his men landed at “Midland Harbour,” they took the longest land route to walk to Firth; if they landed near the head of the inlet above mentioned, they chose the shortest land route.

405. The word Orkahaug is only known to occur twice—once here, and once in one of the Runic inscriptions on the walls of the chamber of Maeshow. Here it is given merely as the name of the place where Earl Harald and his men had a Yule-tide carouse, which disabled two of them from proceeding on their journey, so that they failed in surprising Earl Erlend at his Yule feast. In the inscription in the chamber of Maeshow it appears as the name of the burial-mound which was broken into by the Jorsala-farers in search of treasure. There seems to be little doubt that this name “Orkahaug” was the name by which the Maeshow was then known. The Orkahaug of the text must either mean the actual “how” itself, or a homestead near it which was named from it. There is an Orkhill (Orquill) not very far from Maeshow, and there was another Orkhill near Knarstane, Scapa, which is called Orquile in “the coppie of my Lord Sinclairis Rentale that deit at Flowdin.” No other Orkahaug, however, is known. (See under Maeshow in the Introduction.)

406. The castle at Freswick, elsewhere called Lambaborg (see p. 122).

407. The mouth of the burn of Freswick.

408. Moseyjar-borg, the burg or castle on the little island of Mousa, in Shetland. This curious structure is the best preserved example of the old Celtic strongholds, or “Pictish towers,” which were so thickly planted over the northern and western districts of Scotland, and specially in those districts exposed to the ravages of the Northmen. We learn from the Saga of Egill Skalagrimson that fully two centuries before the event here narrated Mousa had been occupied in a precisely similar manner by a couple who fled from Norway, and after celebrating their marriage in the deserted burg, lived in it for a whole winter. (See under Mousa in the Introduction.)

409. The Moray Firth.

410. Bly-holmar (lead islands) must refer to a group of islands not far to the south of Berwick, probably the Fern Islands.

411. Mosey, the Isle of May.

412. Off Sumburgh Head, now called Sumburgh Roost.

413. Beruvik, probably the inlet at the mouth of the Berriedale water, on the north side of the Ord of Caithness, where there is an old tower called Berriedale Castle. (See note at p. 18.)

414. This was probably the castle which was destroyed by King William the Lion in the end of the twelfth century, when he sent his troops against Earl Harald “to Turseha,” and destroyed the Earl’s residence there.

415. This is evidently a mistake in the text for Rögnvaldsey, or South Ronaldsay. In the MS. the contraction R.ey is used both for Rínarsey and Rögnvaldsey.

416. Vidivag, the voe or creek of the beacon; now Widewall, in South Ronaldsay.

417. Bardvik, the bay beside Barth Head; now Burswick, in South Ronaldsay.

418. Strandhögg, strand-hewing, or victualling the ships of a viking squadron, by driving cattle to the shore, and killing them there.

419. Ru Stoer in Assynt, on the west coast of Sutherlandshire.

420. Walls, in the Island of Hoy, Orkney.

421. Knarston, at Scapa, in the Mainland of Orkney. (See note at p. 113.)

422. Paplay, in Mainland, where Hákon Karl, the brother of Earl Magnus the Holy, had his residence. (See p. 96.)

423. Sandwick, in Deerness.

424. The Iceland Annals place the fall of Earl Erlend in A.D. 1154.

425. See p. 74.

426. None of these men are again mentioned in the Saga.

427. In the “Coppie of my Lord Sinclaire’s Rentale, that deit at Flowdin,” dating between 1497 and 1503, there is a Tyngwale in Rendale, set to John Selatter. The name still remains, but there is no other trace of an Orkney thing-stead in the Islands. (See p. 61.)

428. Mackaile and Sir Robert Sibbald both notice the existence of white hares in the hill of Hoy. Low, in his “Fauna Orcadensis,” states that they did not exist in his day; and he adds, “nor is there a hare of any kind to be found in the Orkneys.”

429. Cave Isle—now Eller Holm, a small island between Shapinsay and the Mainland of Orkney.

430. This seems to indicate that there was an ecclesiastical settlement on Eller Holm. Possibly it may have been the “isle Elon” referred to in the stanza made by Earl Rögnvald on the occasion of the singular apparition of the sixteen shaven crowns described in chap. lxvi. It is suggestive of this that Fordun gives the name of this island as Helene-holm instead of Eller Holm. (See note, chap. lxvi.)

431. Völuness has not been identified.

432. This must be Barswick, near Barthhead, in South Ronaldsay, as it is afterwards stated that from this headland Rögnvald and Swein saw Earl Harald’s ship coming across the Firth from Caithness to Walls.

433. In the text it is “Hrólfsey to R(inans)ey”—Rousay to North Ronaldsay, but Munch’s reading of the passage seems to be the true one. (See the next chapter.)

434. The Mainland of Orkney. This shows that in all likelihood it is Hrossey that is meant where the text has Hrólfsey at the beginning of the previous chapter.

435. Probably Rapness, in the south-east of the island of Westray.

436. It does not appear whether this is the Hákon Karl who lived at Papuli or not.

437. St. Mary’s, the largest of the Scilly Isles, called Syllingar in the Sagas.

438. This was the famous Somerled, styled by the Chronicle of Man “Regulus Herergaidel”—ruler of Argyle. This chronicle also adds the information that his marriage with Ragnhild was the cause of the ruin of the monarchy of the Isles. Although the Saga here makes Swein, Asleif’s son, kill Somerled about the year A.D. 1159, we learn from the more trustworthy sources of Fordun and the Chron. de Mailros that Somerled was killed at Renfrew on the 1st January 1164, having landed there with a fleet of 160 galleys in the attempt to make a conquest of Scotland. He had given his sister in marriage to Wimund, ex-bishop, alias Malcolm M’Heth, whom the Saga calls Earl of Moray. After the unsuccessful termination of Malcolm M’Heth’s attempt to gain possession of the crown of Scotland, his brother-in-law, Somerled, seems to have continued the hostilities against King David, and to have joined the party against Malcolm IV. when the attempt was made to place the “Boy of Egremont” on the throne. (See Fordun Skene’s ed.) II. 250, and Munch, Chron. Man. p. 80.

439. Dugald, Reginald, and Angus; from Reginald sprang the Macrories, Macdougalls, and Macdonalds of the Isles.

440. This is the Firth of Forth in chapter lxxvii. Here it evidently refers to one of the sea-lochs on the west coast, and may probably be Loch Gleann Dubh, the inner portion of Kyle Scow. At least the Norse name “Dark Fiord,” and the Gaelic “Loch of the Dark Glen,” are suggestively similar, and both equally descriptive of the upper part of the Kyle.

441. In reference to this passage, Jonæus, in his edition of the Saga (Hafniæ, 1780), says, that what is of the greatest moment is the fact which it points out, that at this date (circa 1158) there were reindeer in Scotland. In his Latin version of the original he translates the phrase “at veida rauddyri edr hreina” as “feras rubras et rangiferos venari,” and has no doubt or hesitancy about the matter. It is established by geological evidence that the reindeer was widely distributed in Great Britain in post-glacial times, although the instances of its occurrence within the human period, and in association with the remains of man, have been comparatively rare. Recently, however, evidence has been supplied by excavations in the ruins of the brochs, or “Pictish towers,” of the north of Scotland, which fully corroborates the statement of the Saga that the reindeer was actually hunted and eaten by the later occupants of these structures, their latest occupation on record being an occasional one by the Norsemen. In the refuse-heaps of several of these towers, the horns of the reindeer have been found, in some instances cut and sawn as if to be utilised for artificial purposes; while in other cases it is evident that the animals must have been killed when the horns were in the velvet. It is also significant that the reindeer moss (Cladonia rangiferina) still grows abundantly in Caithness. The question is very fully and ably discussed in a paper on “The Reindeer in Scotland,” by Dr. J. A. Smith, in the eighth volume of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

442. It is plain from the original that some words are here omitted from the text. One of the MS. copies of the Saga has had the additional words, which are thus rendered in the Danish translation preserved at Stockholm, “Der som vaar noget erg, det kalde vi setter,” etc. “There were there some shielings (erg), which we call setter; and there they took up their quarters for the night.” What is remarkable about this passage is that the Gaelic word for a shieling, Airidh, given phonetically by the old Norse saga-writer as “erg,” is glossed in the Danish translation by the word “setter”—summer pasturing-place, where rude huts were erected for temporary occupation. The word setter, which is common in the place-names of Caithness and the Northern Isles, is to this day understood by the inhabitants in the same sense, although the custom of sending the cattle to the hill-pastures in summer, and living in “shielings,” has now ceased, on the mainland at least. (See also the note on “Asgrim’s ærgin,” p. 187.)

443. A Norwegian ell is half a yard. The leap was thus four yards and a half.

444. Kalfadalsá, the Kalfadal’s stream, is the Burn of Calder, which, issuing from the Loch of Calder, falls into the Thurso water. The situation of Kalfadal, a valley running up from the valley of the Thurso water towards Forss, is exactly that of the valley of Calder.

445. The word ærgin is not Norse. It is, however, a Norse corruption of the Gaelic word for a shieling—airidh, plur. aridhean, which enters into the composition of many of the place-names in Caithness—e.g. Halsary, Dorrery, Shurrery, Blingery, etc. Asgrim’s ærgin is still recognisable in the modern Askary or Assary, near the north end of the Loch of Calder. It is curious to find thus incidentally in the Saga an indication of the blending of the folk-speech of the time, and to find also in the modern names of Norn Calder and Scotscalder a record (preserved on the spot) of the time when one portion of the dale was possessed by the Norsemen and another by the natives. Passing from Calder towards the coast the place-names are mostly Norse; and passing from Calder in the opposite direction towards the uplands, the place-names are almost entirely Gaelic.

446. The feast of the Assumption of St. Mary, or the 15th August. The Iceland Annals give 1158 as the year of Rögnvald’s death.

447. Earl Rögnvald was canonised A.D. 1192.

448. Skrud, a general term for fine cloth and costly stuffs.