The Saga is still more to the point, and states that at the time of St. Magnus’s death William the Old was bishop, and the see was then at Birsa. But Torfœus, in three or more other passages, states that Bishop William was in Egilsey—not necessarily residing there.
We must understand (if Torfœus is right) that he generally lived in Birsa, but often officiated at Egilsey. We may thence infer that Egilsey was an important church in Bishop William’s time, and that it was fixed
Fig. 103.—Church on Egilsey.
on as the place of meeting of Haco and Magnus from being frequently the bishop’s abode. We do not, however, find the bishop mentioned in the account of the murder of St. Magnus as adviser or mediator.[130]
Wilson, in his Prehistoric Annals, p. 587, has a notice of this church, to which the reader is referred. He supposes it to be the work of Irish Christians before the expedition of Harold in 876, and to be the church which caused the Norsemen to give its present appellation to the island.
There is at all events nothing to disprove this, but if we put the tower for the moment out of the question, there is little to induce the assignment of so early a date. The absence of freestone, the round arches, the chancel vault, the small number and size of the windows, do not necessitate a date earlier than the twelfth century.
The tower, then, is the feature which specially points to an earlier period. Dr. Wilson apparently inclines to class this tower with the later round towers of Scotland and Ireland.
When, however, we compare it, there appears little or no resemblance except its circularity.