Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time Part 16

[Footnote 3: _Hakon Saga_, 245 and 307.]

[Footnote 4: _Genealogie of the Earles_, p. 30, and _Sutherland Book_, vol. ii, p. 3 No. 4; _O.P._, ii, 647 note. This is not the Cross now standing. See Macfarlane, _Geog. Collections_, vol. ii, pp. 450 and 467, where it is called Ri-crois. The story that Dornoch took its name from the slaying of this Chief with the leg of a horse is quite unfounded, for the name Durnach appears in a charter about a hundred years earlier, and has nothing to do with a "horse's hoof." Its derivation and meaning are alike obscure. Chalmers, _Caledonia_, v, p.

192, gives to Dornock in Dumfriesshire the derivation "Dur-nochd" or the "bare" or "naked water." Its situation is like that of Dornoch, with a wide expanse of tidal sands.]

[Footnote 5: _Sutherland Book_, vol. iii, p. 3, No. 4. See also _Two Ancient Records of Caithness_, Bannatyne Club. The bishop himself was a Canon.]

[Footnote 6: _Genealogie of the Earles_, pp. 6 and 31; _O.P._, ii, 601.]

[Footnote 7: _Liber Eccles. de Scon_, p. 45, No. 73. Viking Club, _Sutherland and Caithness Records_, No. 8, pp. 12 and 13.]

[Footnote 8: _O.P._, ii, p. 603. As regards the marriage of Iye Mor Mackay to the daughter of Walter de Baltroddi (Bishop), see _Book of Mackay_, p. 37.]

[Footnote 9: _Hakon Saga_, 312, 314.]

[Footnote 10: Do. 317.]

[Footnote 11: _Sutherland Book_, vol. 1, p. 15. _Genealogie of the Earls_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 12: _Hakon Saga_, 319.]

[Footnote 13: _Hakon Saga_, 318. As to the hostages and their expenses see _Compot. Camer._ 1-31. From additions to _Hakon's Saga_, Rolls edition, it appears that Caithness was also fined and an army sent there by the king of Scotland with a view to the conquest of Orkney.]

[Footnote 14: _Hakon Saga_, 319. The calculation was made by Sir David Brewster.]

[Footnote 15: Also called Port Droman. Possibly Hals-eyar-vik = neck-island-bay.]

[Footnote 16: _Hakon Saga_, 318.]

[Footnote 17: _Hakon Saga_, 327.]

[Footnote 18: There is a tradition that Hakon slaughtered cattle on Lechvuaies, a rock in Loch Erriboll.]

[Footnote 19: _Hakon Saga_, 328-331. Goafiord--Eilean Hoan at the entrance to Loch Erriboll still retains the name.]

[Footnote 20: See Tudor, _Orkney and Shetland_, p. 307. What happened to Earl Magnus III, who in July 1263 had been obliged to join his overlord, King Hakon, and sail with him from Bergen? The Orkneymen were far from Norway, but dangerously close to Scotland. Their jarl had large possessions in Caithness, which he feared to lose if he made war on the Scottish king. Magnus therefore "stayed behind" in Orkney, and never went to Largs, but probably went to the Scottish king.

Caithness first suffered from levies of cattle and provisions at the hands of Hakon, and afterwards from fines levied and hostages taken by the Scottish King, who sent an army, no doubt under the Chens and Federeths and others, to threaten Orkney and hold Caithness and levy the fine. Dugald, king of the Sudreys, intercepted the fine, and disappeared. Orkney had a Norse garrison, and the Scottish army never went to Orkney, Magnus was reconciled to Alexander III, and after the Treaty of Perth, in 1267, was reconciled also to King Magnus of Norway, on terms that he should hold Orkney of him and his successors, but that Shetland should remain a direct appanage of the Norse Crown, as it had been ever since Harold Maddadson's punishment in 1195. (See Munch's _History of Norway_; and _Torfaeus Orcades_, p. 172; and _King Magnus Saga_, Rolls edition of _Hakon's Saga_, pp. 374-7).]

CHAPTER XI.

[Footnote 1: _Scandinavian Britain_, p. 62. To Orkney and Shetland they came mainly from the fjords north of Bergen.]

[Footnote 2: _Oxford Essays_, 1858, p. 165, Dasent, an admirable account of the Nors.e.m.e.n in Iceland.]

[Footnote 3: _Hume Brown, History_, ante.]

[Footnote 4: _Scandinavian Britain_, p. 35.]

[Footnote 5: See _Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland_ (Henderson), _pa.s.sim_; and _Sutherland and the Reay Country_, (Rev. Adam Gunn), chapter on "Language," p. 172.]

[Footnote 6: Viking Club, _Old Lore Miscell._, vol. ii, 213; vol. iii, 14, 182, 234.]

[Footnote 7: See _Burnt Njal_, (Dasent) for a plan and elevation of a Skali. Skelpick may be Skaill-beg, or Little Hall.]

[Footnote 8: _Ruins of Saga-time_ (in Iceland) by Thorsteinn Erlingson, David Nutt (1899).]

[Footnote 9: See his _Essay_ with plans in the _Saga Book of the Viking Club_, vol. iii, pp. 174-216.]

[Footnote 10: i.e. Broadfield; see _O.S._, Rolls edition, p. 232, formerly Brathwell.]

[Footnote 11: Mousa in Shetland was twice so used, by two honeymoon pairs. See Tudor, _O. and S._, p. 481.]

[Footnote 12: _O.P._, vol. ii, 758.]

[Footnote 13: _O.S._, 84, 100 and 22; 58, 78, 100, 101, 102, 113, and pp. 226, 227, 228, in Rolls edition. Hjalmundal is the strath, not the village of Helmsdale.]

[Footnote 14: We find in Latheron in Caithness "Golsary" the shieling of Gol. Platagall, see _O.P._, ii, p. 680.]

[Footnote 15: The bodily form often follows that of fathers of a fair race, it is said.]

[Footnote 16: See p. 21.]

[Footnote 17: Frontispiece to vol. 1 of Du Chaillu's _Viking Age_.]

[Footnote 18: See _Scotland in Early Christian Times_, Dr. Joseph Anderson's _Rhind Lectures_ in 1879, pp. 141-2; _Scandinavian Britain_, p. 29.]

[Footnote 19: _Saga of Erik the Red_ and _St. Olaf's Saga_. See _Orig.

Islandicae_, vol. ii, Bk. v, pp. 588-756 "Explorers."]

[Footnote 20: Yet see the Romance of _Guillaume le Roi_, Chroniques Anglo-Normandes, vol. iii, Francisque Michel.]

[Footnote 21: As witness the Seaforths (Sae-fjorthr) of the 51st Division in France.]

[Footnote 22: Vol. 1, p. 45. See also Burton's _History of Scotland_, vol. i, chapter xi, and vol. ii, pp. 14 and 15.]