[90] Innes, Ap. 3. Wynton, bk. 6, c. 10. Fordun, l. 4, c. 27.—The old chronicler calls the Northmen “Sumerlide”—summer army—an expression similar to the “micel sumorlida” of the Saxon Chronicle 871. In fact, piracy was the summer occupation of the Norsemen.
[91] Innes, Ap. 3. An. Ult. 964. The hostility of the house of Atholl was destined in the end to be fatal to the line of Duff.
[92] Innes, Ap. 3, 5. Fordun, l. 4, c. 28. An. Ult. 966. From the first authority it would appear as if Duff never recovered the throne, and the story of his death rather favours the idea that he was killed when in exile.
[93] Innes, Ap. 3, 5. An. Ult. 970. Wynton and Fordun give the name of Radoard to the British prince. The line of Constantine the Second generally appears in connection with the south of Scotland.
[94] Tigh. 977.
[95] Innes, Ap. 3. Kenneth’s ravages reached “ad Stammoir, ad Cluiam et ad stang na Deram,” according to Pinkerton’s version of the Chronicle. The captive is called a son of the king of the Saxons—probably of the Northumbrians.
[96] V. Chap. 2, p. 47.
[97] They were the sons of a female slave. The surviving legitimate sons of Rognwald were Thorer, who succeeded his father in Norway, and the famous Gangr Rolf, founder of the Norman dynasty, and ancestor of William the Conqueror. The Holder was the old Allodial proprietor amongst the Scandinavians of those days, answering to the Eorlcundman.
[98] Eric Blodæxe was killed in the year 954. His sons attacked Hakon the Good for the second or third time, after he had reigned twenty years, i.e., about 957. The arrival of Gunhilda and her sons in the Orkneys must have fallen between those two years.—Heimsk. Saga 4, c. 22.
[99] Hakon reigned for 26 years, and Harald Greyskin for 15, after the death of Harfager in 937, which would place the death of Harald in 978.—Heimsk. Saga 4, c. 28; Saga 6, c. 13. When the sons of Eric escaped to the Orkneys, immediately after the death of Harald, they found the sons of Thorfin in possession of the islands.—Do., Saga 6, c. 16. The Orkneyinga Saga says that Thorfin was still alive but died soon afterwards. His death must have occurred about the year 978.