These four sons of Harald's Finn wife are subsequently to be met with in this Saga; which tells how "they grew up to be very clever men, very expert in all exercises." When Harald was fifty years of age, he gave to three of them, as to his other sons, "the kingly title and dignity," assigning to them, as their portion of his kingdom, the territories of "Ringerike, Hadeland, Thoten, and the lands thereto belonging." But one of the four, Halfdan, did not live to attain this dignity. Several years before, he, like Harald's many other sons, had resented his exclusion from place and dignity, and the advancement of mere "earls" instead; "for they [Harald's sons] thought earls were of inferior birth to them." Consequently, Halfdan and his brother Gudrod "set off one spring with a great force, and came suddenly upon Earl Rognvald, Earl of Möre, and surrounded the house in which he was, and burnt him and sixty men in it." Then, leaving his brother in temporary possession of that earldom, "Halfdan took three long-ships, and fitted them out, and sailed into the West Sea." The Earl of Orkney at that time was Einar ("Turf" Einar), and on Halfdan's unexpected appearance he fled. For six months the Finn woman's son ruled over Orkney. But in the autumn, Einar returned, and "after a short battle," totally defeated and put to flight Halfdan and his followers. "Einar and his men lay all night without tents, and when it was light in the morning they searched the whole island, and killed every man they could lay hold of. Then Einar said: 'What is that I see upon the Isle of Ronaldsha?[54] Is it a man or a bird? Sometimes it raises itself up, and sometimes lies down again.' They went to it, and found it was Halfdan Haaleg, and took him prisoner." Einar thereupon killed Halfdan, and he and his men raised a mound of stones and gravel over the corpse; which mound, if not yet opened, will no doubt disclose to some modern craniologist the exact ethnological status of this semi-Finn.[55]
With regard to another brother of Halfdan's, Rognvald Rettilbeine, it is stated that he ruled over Hadeland, and became famous for his skill in witchcraft, in which he was no doubt instructed by his Lapp relatives. This, indeed, was the cause of his death. For, at the instigation of their common father, his half-brother Eric (Bloody-axe) "burned his brother Rognvald in a house along with eighty other warlocks," on account of these same alleged malpractices.
These are only a few recorded instances, which reveal the Finns and the non-Finns as sometimes closely allied not only by association, but by blood. But from them it may be inferred that many other intermarriages between the two races took place, and that the Finns, although eventually conquered as a distinct people, were frequently men of rank and importance among the Scandinavians of eight or nine centuries ago. As an instance of a Finn occupying an official position (certainly much inferior to that of the semi-Finnish kings of Ringerike, Hadeland, and Thoten), we have the "Finn Sauda-Ulfsson," who appears as "engaged in drawing in King Inge's rents and duties" at Viken, Norway, in the twelfth century ("Heimskringla," Saga XIV, chap. vii). And a certain notable Ketill flat-nose,[56] or Ketill Finn, whose memory is doubtless embalmed in Ketill's-sæter (now Kettlester), in the island of Yell, Shetland, was clearly of Finn blood. When he, and such as he—the semi-Ugrian sons of Harald, for example—held sway in Shetland and Orkney, and when men and women of either race occasionally, perhaps frequently, lived together, a state of things existed that closely resembled that described in Mr. Karl Blind's Shetlandic traditions—when "Finns came ow'r fa Norraway" and practised magic and witchcraft, and domineered over the people of the northern islands.
Of course, it is impossible to say what proportion the Finn blood bore to the other. Yet it is quite evident that the Finns, while often at war with the race that overcame them, were also frequently their allies, and that the two peoples became to some extent blended in blood. Consequently, when one discovers among modern British people physical traces of a race "not unlike the modern Eskimo," in localities famed as the scene of many a Scandinavian raid, these traces may reasonably be attributed to those very inroads.
CHAPTER VI.
The references made in the two preceding chapters bear specially upon those Finns who "came ow'r fa Norraway" to the islands of Shetland and Orkney. But if the assumption be correct that many of the Finns who landed in Shetland and fished in Shetlandic waters came thither direct from the Hebrides, it is to be presumed that Gaelic as well as English tradition has something to say regarding them. And as there are several words in use in Shetland which are also in use among West Highlanders,[57] it is not unlikely that these people may be known in the West Highlands by the same name as in Shetland.
It is quite clear that Highland tradition does bear testimony to the former existence of a special race or caste of people known by a name which resembles that of the Finns so closely that it may reasonably be regarded as only a variant of "Finn." In a certain charter of Alexander II. of Scotland (A.D. 1214-49, reference is made to a well which is known in Gaelic as Tuber na Feinn, Feinne or Feyne; and an old gloss (date unknown) explains that this term signifies "the Well of the grett or kempis men callit Fenis."[58] Or, in more modern English, "The Well of the great men or champions called Feens, Fenns, Feenies, or Fennies."[59] Here, then, we have record of a certain race of "kempies" or fighters, who were known in English as Feens, etc., and in Gaelic as the Feinne. One does not require to know much of Gaelic tradition—one need not know anything of it—to be well aware of the fact that that legendary lore is fairly alive with stories of the "Feinne," whatever may have been the ethnological position of the caste thus named. And, just as in modern Shetland we have people proclaiming with pride their descent from the Finns, so have we West Highlanders and Hebrideans boasting that the Feinne were among their forefathers. Just as Mr. Karl Blind met with a modern Shetland woman who asserted that she was "fifth from da Finns," so did the late Mr. J. F. Campbell, in 1871, converse with a Skyeman, "Donald MacDonald, styled Na Feinne"[60]—that is, "of the Feens." If the "Feinne" of Gaelic story are really the same people as the "Finns" of Shetlandic tradition, it will not be for lack of statements made regarding them if we do not learn a great deal more about these people through Gaelic channels.
Without either hastily accepting or condemning this hypothetical identification, let us look a little further into the circumstances of the Gaelic Feinne. And it may be as well first to decide upon an English equivalent of this Gaelic plural. Mr. J. F. Campbell states that the singular is Fiann; but, even when writing in English, he prefers to adhere to the Gaelic form of the plural—thus, "the Feinn" or "the Feinne." However, both Dr. Skene and another writer (the late Rev. J. G. Campbell, Tiree), have Englished this into "the Fians." This approaches so closely to the marginal "Fenis" of the old charter of Alexander II., that we may take "the Feens" as a good enough modern English equivalent for the Gaelic plural. (For the vowels in Fians and Feinne receive the old or Continental pronunciation, these words having the sound of "Feeans" and "Fane," or "Fayny," according to modern English spelling.) In order, therefore, to avoid the confusion that might arise from Englishing "the Feinne" into "the Finns" (although we are tacitly assuming, in the meantime, that the latter really expresses the ethnological position of the former), let us refer to "the Feinne" of Gaelic story as "the Feens."[61]