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                          THE ORKNEYINGA SAGA




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                        Printed by R. & R. Clark

                                  FOR

                    EDMONSTON & DOUGLAS, EDINBURGH.

                LONDON          HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.
                CAMBRIDGE   MACMILLAN AND CO.
                GLASGOW      JAMES MACLEHOSE.




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[Illustration: ST. MAGNUS CATHEDRAL
(South Transept and part of Choir)]


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                                  THE


                            ORKNEYINGA SAGA



                     TRANSLATED FROM THE ICELANDIC
                 BY JON A. HJALTALIN AND GILBERT GOUDIE



                  EDITED, WITH NOTES AND INTRODUCTION

                           BY JOSEPH ANDERSON

      KEEPER OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND



                               EDINBURGH
                         EDMONSTON AND DOUGLAS
                                  1873


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                                PREFACE.

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THE ORKNEYINGA SAGA is the history of the Orkneymen, Earls and Odallers
of Norwegian extraction, who established an Earldom of Norway in the
Northern Scottish Isles a thousand years ago, and whose descendants for
several centuries held sway over the Hebrides and Northern Mainland of
Scotland. Commencing with the conquest of the Isles by Harald Harfagri,
the Saga relates the subsequent history of the Earldom of Orkney under
the long line of its Norse Jarls, and is, for a period of three
centuries and a half, the principal authority for the history of
Northern Scotland. The narrative is mainly personal, and therefore
picturesque, pourtraying the men in person and character, impartially
recording their deeds, and mentioning what was thought of them and their
actions at the time. Occasionally the Saga-writer is enabled to do this
in the words of a contemporary Skald. The skaldic songs, so often
quoted, were the materials from which the Sagas were subsequently
elaborated. In estimating their value as historical materials, it must
be borne in mind that all history has begun in song. When great events
and mighty deeds were preserved for posterity by oral recitation alone,
it was necessary that the memory should be enabled to retain its hold of
the elements of the story by some extraneous artistic aid, and therefore
they were welded by the word-smith’s rhymes into a compact and
homogeneous “lay.” Thus, worked into a poetical setting (as the jeweller
mounts his gems to enhance their value and ensure their preservation),
they passed as heirlooms from generation to generation, floating on the
oral tradition of the people. Snorri Sturluson tells us that the songs
of the skalds who were with Harald Harfagri in his wars were known and
recited in his day, after an interval of nearly four centuries. “These
songs,” he says, “which were sung in the presence of kings and chiefs,
or of their sons, are the materials of our history; what they tell of
their deeds and battles we take for truth; for though the skalds did no
doubt praise those in whose presence they stood, yet no one would dare
to relate to a chief what he and those who heard it knew to be wholly
imaginary or false, as that would not be praise but mockery.” Our
earliest Scottish chroniclers did not disdain to make use of the
lay-smith’s craft, as a help to history, long after the Iceland skald
had been succeeded by the Saga-writer, and the flowery recitative of an
unclerkly age superseded by the terser narrative of the parchment
scribe. The art is as old as Odin and the gods, if indeed it be not
older, and these its creations. But its golden age had passed ere
Paganism began to give way before Christianity, and the specimens we
have in this Saga are mostly of the period of its decadence and by
inferior skalds. Yet it is significant of the esteem in which the art
continued to be held by the settlers in the Orkneys, that we find Earl
Sigurd honouring Gunnlaug Ormstunga with princely gifts, Arnor
Jarlaskald enjoying the special favour and friendship of Earl Thorfinn,
and Earl Rögnvald, the founder of the cathedral, courting for himself
the reputation of an accomplished skald.

But though we can thus trace to some extent the authorship of the
unwritten materials from which the Saga was framed, there is nothing to
show where or by whom it was written. There is proof, however, that it
was known in Iceland in the first half of the thirteenth century. Its
earlier chapters, down to the division of the Earldom between Thorfinn
and Brúsi, are incorporated into the Olaf Saga of Snorri Sturluson, and
are there cited as from the “Jarla Saga,” or Saga of the Earls. It must
therefore have been in existence as a completed work before 1241, the
date of Snorri’s death. The compiler of the Fagrskinna, which is shown
by internal evidence to have been written between 1222 and 1225, also
quotes from it, by the title of “Jarla Sagan.” The closing chapters of
the Orkneyinga Saga, in its present form, recording the burning of
Bishop Adam, could not have been written before 1222; but, as it is
stated in the last chapter that the terrible retribution exacted by the
Scottish King for the murder of the Bishop was still in fresh memory, it
may very well have been completed before 1225. No manuscript of the
Jarla Saga is known to exist, and the original form of what is now
called “The Orkneyinga Saga” is thus matter of conjecture. We know it
only as the substance of its earlier chapters was given by Snorri
previous to 1241, and in the expanded version of the Flateyjarbók, where
it is pieced into the Sagas of Olaf Tryggvi’s son and Olaf the Holy. The
Flateyjarbók, however, is nearly a century and a half later than
Snorri’s work, having been written between the years 1387 and 1394.

The object of the present issue being simply to provide a plain,
readable, and unadorned translation of the Orkneyinga Saga (which has
been hitherto inaccessible to the English reader), it has been deemed
advisable to adhere to the form of the Saga adopted by its first editor
Jonæus, though not to Jonæus’s text, which is by no means free from
corruptions. The Christiania edition of the Flateyjarbók, printed
literally from the manuscript, has afforded the means of rectifying the
text where necessary; and the expanded version of the earlier chapters
given in the Flateyjarbók has also been translated and inserted as an
appendix, for the sake of the fuller details which it supplies of the
earlier history of the Earldom. In one sense it might have been
desirable to have compiled a text which would have given the fullest
history of the Orkney Earls, but this would not have been the
“Orkneyinga Saga.” It would have necessitated the collection and
critical collation of all the passages in all the Sagas and early
writings relating to the history of the Northmen in Scotland—a work
which has long been in progress in abler hands, and under more
favourable auspices.

The Introduction, however, has been compiled with a view to supplement
the Saga narrative, as well as to furnish a continuation of the history
of the Earldom down to the time when it ceased to form part of the
Norwegian dominions. Some account of the islands previous to the Norse
invasion, and a few notices of their antiquities and ecclesiastical
remains, as well as of the existing traces of the Norsemen, seemed
requisite to supplement the notes in illustration of the text.
Chronological and Genealogical Tables have been added to facilitate
reference; and on the maps of Scotland and of the island-groups which
formed the Earldom proper are shown the names of the principal places
mentioned in the Sagas as known to the Northmen.

In conclusion, I have to express my obligations to those kind friends
who have aided me with their advice and assistance. To Dr. John Stuart,
Dr. John Hill Burton, Sir Henry Dryden, Bart., and Colonel Balfour of
Balfour and Trenaby, I am indebted for many valuable suggestions. To the
first-named gentleman I am also under obligations for the use of the
woodcuts of the symbols of the Sculptured Stones. The Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland have generously contributed the woodcuts of the
Bressay Stone, the Saverough Bell, and the Sword and Scabbard-tip; to
the Society of Antiquaries of London I am indebted for the illustrations
of the Stones of Stennis; to Mr. James Ferguson and Mr. John Murray for
those of Maeshow; to Mr. Thomas S. Muir for the Dragon of Maeshow, the
etchings of the churches of Weir and Lybster, and the ground-plans of
the ancient churches; to Messrs. Chambers for the woodcut of Mousa; and
to Dr. Daniel Wilson and Messrs. Constable for those of the Brooch and
Comb, illustrating the burial-usages of the Norsemen. The view of
Egilsey church is from a photograph, for which I am indebted to Mr.
George Petrie of Kirkwall, whose pleasant companionship in a pilgrimage
among the localities described in the Saga is gratefully remembered.

                                                                   J. A.

         NATIONAL MUSEUM
    OF THE ANTIQUARIES OF SCOTLAND,
         October 1873.


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                               CONTENTS.


INTRODUCTION.

                                                        PAGE

                I. EARLIEST HISTORICAL NOTICES OF         ix
                     THE ORKNEYS

               II. EARLY CHRISTIANITY OF THE              xi
                     ISLANDS

              III. ARRIVAL OF THE NORTHMEN AND           xxi
                     ESTABLISHMENT OF
                      THE EARLDOM OF ORKNEY AND
                     CAITHNESS

               IV. THE EARLDOM IN THE NORSE LINE,      xxiii
                     872-1231

                V. THE EARLDOM IN THE ANGUS LINE,       xlvi
                     1231-1312

               VI. THE EARLDOM IN THE STRATHERNE          lv
                     LINE, 1321-1379

              VII. THE EARLDOM IN THE LINE OF ST.        lxi
                     CLAIR, 1379-1469

             VIII. THE BISHOPRIC OF ORKNEY,             lxxi
                     1102-1469

               IX. THE BISHOPRIC OF CAITHNESS,         lxxix
                     1150-1469

                X. ANCIENT CHURCHES OF ORKNEY        lxxxvii

               XI. MAESHOW AND THE STONES OF              ci
                     STENNIS

              XII. MOUSA AND THE PICTISH TOWERS          cix

             XIII. REMAINS OF THE NORTHMEN               cxi

                   CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE                  cxxv

                   GENEALOGICAL TABLES                cxxxii


            ORKNEYINGA SAGA.                          1-201
                  APPENDIX                          201-212
                  INDEX                                 213


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                         LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

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                           ON SEPARATE PAGES.

         View of South Transept and part of Choir Frontispiece
           of the Cathedral of St. Magnus

         Map of Scotland, with Norse names                viii

