It was a bad time for the Orkneys during the stay of Eric Bloodaxe and his sons in England. He ruled from York, which had been the capital of Northumbria ever since the half-mythical days of Ragnar Lodbrok. Every summer Eric and his band of followers from Norway, bold and reckless men like himself, went on a cruise, plundering in the Hebrides and Orkneys, and as far as Ireland or Iceland. Wherever they appeared the people fled before them. In the Orkneys they committed great excesses and were much dreaded. This was in the time of Thorfin Skull-splitter, Torf-Einar’s son, and of Earl Hlodver, his son, the father of Earl Sigurd the Stout, who fell at the battle of Clontarf. Sigurd’s mother was Eithne, or Audna, an Irish princess, daughter of Karval, King of Dublin (872–887). It was she who worked the raven-banner that was carried before the earl at Clontarf, which brought its bearers ill-luck.[27] She was a very wise and courageous woman, and people thought she was a witch on account of her knowledge.
Earl Sigurd the Stout was a powerful man and a great warrior. While he was Earl of Orkney, Olaf Trygveson made a raid upon the Orkney Isles on his way to recover his kingdom of Norway. The earl had gathered his forces for a war expedition, and was lying in a harbour near the Pentland Firth, for the weather was too stormy to cross the channel. As it happened, Olaf, or, as he was then called, Ole (for he was still in hiding), ran into the same harbour for shelter. When he heard that Sigurd the Stout was lying there he had him called, and addressed him thus: “You know, Earl Sigurd, that the country over which you rule was the possession of Harald Fairhair, who conquered the Orkneys and Shetland (then called Hjaltland), and placed earls over them. Now these countries I claim as my right and inheritance. You have now come into my power, and you have to choose between two alternatives. One is that you, with all your subjects, embrace the Christian faith, be baptized, and become my men; in which case you shall have honour from me, and retain your earldom as my subject. The other is that you shall be slain on the spot, and after your death I will send fire and sword through the Orkneys, burning homesteads and men. Choose now which you will do.”
Though Sigurd saw well what a position he was in and that he was in Olaf Trygveson’s power, he replied at once: “I will tell you, King Olaf, that I have absolutely resolved I will not, and dare not, renounce the faith which my kinsmen and forefathers had before me, because I am not wiser than they; moreover, I know not that the faith you preach is better than that which we have had and held all our lives. This is my reply.”
When the King saw the determination of the earl he caught hold of his young son, who was with his father, and who had been brought up in the islands. The King carried the boy to the forepart of the ship, and, drawing his sword, said: “Now I will show you, Earl Sigurd, that I will spare no one who will not listen to my words. Unless you and your men will serve my God, I shall with this sword kill your son this instant. I shall not leave these islands until you and your son and your people have been baptized and I have completely fulfilled my mission.” In the plight in which the earl found himself, he saw that he must do as the King desired; so he and his people were baptized, and he became the earl of King Olaf, and gave him his son in hostage. The boy’s name was Whelp, or Hound, but Olaf had him baptized by the name of Hlodver, and took him to Norway with him; the boy lived but a short time, however, and after his death Earl Sigurd paid no more homage to King Olaf. It was fourteen years after the death of Olaf that the earl went to Ireland, and was slain at the battle of Clontarf in Dublin.
Note.—Olaf Trygveson reigned in Norway from 995–1000; Sigurd the Stout ruled in the Orkneys (according to Munch) from 980–1014. The Icelandic annals say that he was earl for sixty-two years, which would put his accession back to 952.
Chapter XVI
Murtough of the Leather Cloaks
Ireland as well as Norway and the Orkneys had her saga-tales of the events of the viking period. About the middle of the tenth century two princes, one in the north of Ireland and one in the south, are noted for their wars against the Norse. Both had strange and romantic careers, and of both we have full details told by their own poets or chroniclers. These two contemporary princes were Murtough of the Leather Cloaks, in Ulster, and Callaghan of Cashel, in Munster. The career of the former concerns us most.
Murtough was a prince of the O’Neills, and he ruled his clans from an immense fortress called Aileach, in North Londonderry, whose walls, with secret passages in their thicknesses, remain to the present day to testify to the massive strength of the old fortifications. He was son of a brave king of Ireland, Niall Glundubh or “Black-knee,” who had fallen in fight with the Danes of Dublin after a short but vigorous reign, spent in warring against his country’s foes. Murtough had been brought up in the tradition of resistance to the common enemy, and well did he answer to the call of duty. No doubt he was determined to avenge his father’s fall. Again and again he gathered together the clans over whom he ruled and endeavoured to push back the invader. His career is a brilliant succession of victories. We first hear of him in full chase of Godfrey and the Dublin Danes during one of their raids on Armagh. Murtough stole up behind, coming on their track at fall of night, and only a few of the enemy escaped in the glimmering twilight, because they could not be seen by the Irish. Four years afterwards he dealt them another severe blow on Carlingford Lough, in the middle of winter, which seems to have been Murtough’s favourite time for warfare, and here eight hundred were killed, and the remainder besieged for a week, so that they had to send to Dublin for assistance. King Godfrey came to their aid, and raised the siege; but these defeats seem to have discouraged the foreigners, for soon after this Godfrey left Dublin to claim the throne of Northumbria, left vacant by the retirement of Sitric Gale, and Murtough took advantage of his absence to make a descent on Dublin with Donagh, the King of Ireland, raiding south to Kildare.
Murtough on his Journey with the King of Munster in Fetters