[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].)