Chapter XV
Wild Tales from the Orkneys
The wildest of all the vikings were those who settled in the Orkney Isles and carried on their raids from there. After Ragnvald had given up his possessions in the Isles to Earl Sigurd, the earl made himself a mighty chief; he joined with Thorstein the Red, son of Olaf the White of Dublin and Unn the Deep-minded, and together they harried and won, as we have seen, all Caithness, and Moray and Ross,[23] so that they united the northern part of Scotland to the Orkney and Shetland Isles. The Scottish earl of those lands was ill-pleased at this, and he arranged that he and Sigurd should meet and discuss their differences and the limits of both their lands. Melbrigd the Toothy was the name of the Scots’ earl, because his teeth protruded from his jaws; and they arranged to meet at a certain place, each with forty men. But Sigurd suspected treachery, and he caused eighty of his men to mount on forty horses. As they rode to the place of meeting Melbrigd said: “I shrewdly suspect that Sigurd hath cheated us; I think I see two men’s feet at each side of the horses; thus, they are twice as many as we. Let us, however, do our best, and see that each man of us can answer for a man of them before we die.” So they marshalled themselves to fight, and when Sigurd saw this he ordered one half of his men to dismount and attack from behind, while the other half set on them in front. They had a good tussle after that, and Earl Melbrigd fell with all his men, and Sigurd’s men cut off their heads and fastened them to their horses’ cruppers, and set off home boasting of their victory. The bleeding heads dangled behind them; and as he rode, Earl Sigurd, intending to kick his horse with his foot to urge him on, scratched his leg against a tooth of Melbrigd which stuck out from his head, and the wound became so swollen and painful that in the end he died of it. Sigurd the Mighty is buried in a “howe,” or burial-mound, on the banks of the Oikel, in Sutherlandshire.
When Earl Ragnvald heard that his possessions in Orkney were again without a lord, and that Sigurd his brother was dead, he sent one of his sons, Hallad, to take his place; but vikings went prowling all over those lands, plundering the headlands and committing depredations on the coast. The yeomen brought their complaints to Hallad, but he did not do much to right them; he soon grew tired of the whole business, resigned his earldom, and went back to Norway to take up his own property. When his father heard of this, he was by no means well pleased. All men mocked at Hallad, and Ragnvald said his sons were very unlike their ancestors. His eldest son, Rolf, was away in Normandy, plundering and conquering. He was a mighty viking, and he was so stout that no horse could carry him, and whithersoever he went he must walk on foot; hence he was called Rolf Ganger, or Rolf the Walker. He was the conqueror of Normandy, and from him the Dukes of Normandy and Kings of England were descended. King Harald drove him out of Norway because he had one summer made a cattle foray on the coast of Viken, and plundered there. King Harald happened to be in the neighbourhood, and he heard of it, and it put him into the greatest fury; for he had forbidden, under heavy penalties, that anyone should plunder within the bounds of his territories. Rolf’s mother, Hild, interceded for him, but it was of no avail. She made these lines:—
“Think’st thou, King Harald, in thine anger,
To drive away my brave Rolf Ganger,
Like a mad wolf, from out the land?
Why, Harald, raise thy mighty hand?
Bethink thee, Monarch, it is ill
With such a wolf at wolf to play,
Who driven to wild woods away,