[333]. Serving the table, and holding lights. The light-bearers or candle-holders were a distinct class of servants at the King’s court. This custom is said to have been first introduced by King Olaf Kyrre in the latter half of the eleventh century.
[334]. The emptying of horns of ale to the memory of departed heroes and comrades, with the accompaniment of speeches setting forth their famous deeds, was a recognised custom at the festivals of the Northmen.
[335]. Besides his evil repute as a turbulent fellow, Swein was suspected of sorcery, and thus obnoxious to the church (see p. [88]).
[336]. This must either he Paplay in South Ronaldsay, or Paplay on the Mainland. Munch says that the circumstance that the name of the island is always carefully added in the Saga when a Mainland district is not the one alluded to favours the supposition that it is the latter which is here meant.
[337]. Gói, the fourth month of the year, corresponding to our February and part of March. The ancient mode of reckoning among the Northmen was by “winters,” the year commencing on the 23d November. Gói was sometimes called “horning-month”—the month in which the deer shed their horns; and it was also the month in which, in heathen times, the great annual sacrifice took place at Upsala, as mentioned in the Saga of King Olaf the Holy.
[338]. Höfn, the haven, in Westray, is probably the modern Pierowall, the only safe natural harbour in the island, and the only place entitled to the name of “the haven.”
[339]. The thorp or village of Höfn here mentioned most likely stood on the shore by the landing-place at Pierowall. The fact that there are a number of graves on the links here, in which have been found the swords peculiar to the Norse viking period, shield-bosses, bronze tortoise brooches (a distinctively Scandinavian form), and other relics unquestionably of Norse origin, shows that the neighbourhood must have been largely frequented by the Northmen, and perhaps made a permanent settlement long before this time. The Church of Westray is mentioned among those vacant in 1327-28 by the Papal Nuncio, who collected the tithes for these years.
[340]. Although there is a curious similarity between this incident and that related in chap. lxxi. on the occasion of the visit of Bishop John to the Orkneys, yet the fact of Earl Rögnvald turning the procession into ridicule, whereas Bishop John’s party appear to have been received with all due respect, suggests that the two narratives can scarcely refer to the same incident. The reference here to the “isle Elon,” taken in connection with the statement in chap. xcix. that there were monks on Eller Holm (named “Helene-holm” by Fordun), may mean that there was a colony of clerics on the little island, whose dress and tonsure may thus have tickled the fancy of the rhyming Earl. In the rental of Shapinsay (1642), Elgin-holme is set in feu to Sir John Buchanan for payment of 12s. annually. In 1529 Jo. Ben mentions that there were foundations of houses and even of a chapel on Eloerholme, though it was then waste and uninhabited (see chap. [xcix]). Neale notices “the ruins of a very small chapel” on Ellerholm (Ecclesiological Notes, p. 111).
[341]. The Iceland Annals place Earl Rögnvald’s winning the Orkneys in the year 1136.
[342]. Evie Sound; from Efja, now Evie.