When Ragnvald reached Norway in 1153, he heard what had been going on at home during his absence in the east. King Eystein of Norway, King Harald Gilli's son, had seized Jarl Harold Maddadson, then a young man of twenty, at Thurso, and made him swear allegiance to himself, letting him go on his paying three marks of gold as his ransom. Then Maddad, his father, Earl of Athole, died; and the widowed Margret, Harold's mother, came north to Orkney, still dangerous, still beautiful and attractive, especially to Gunni, Sweyn's brother, by whom she had a child, for which Gunni was outlawed, a punishment which alienated his brother Sweyn from Harold Maddadson.[27]
Erlend, only son of Harald Slettmali, and really entitled to the whole earldom, obtained from his relative[28] King Malcolm, then a boy of under twelve, through his powerful kin, a grant of half of the earldom of Caithness jointly with Harold Maddadson, who objected to give him half the Orkney jarldom unless King Eystein confirmed the grant. Erlend then went to Norway to get it confirmed. Meantime Sweyn seized a ship of Harold's; but, to help Erlend, tried to reconcile Harold to him, as King Eystein (said Erlend) had given him half of Orkney. And the half given to him was, he added, Harold's half.[29]
Sweyn and Erlend then force Harold, who had then just come of age, to agree to give up this half, under duress, in order to secure his own liberty, and the Orkney folk agree that Erlend shall have this half, Ragnvald having the other. This, Sweyn knew, Harold would not stand, and, as he drank at a feast with his house-carles in his castle in Gairsay,[30] the wily Viking said, slily rubbing his nose, "I think Harold is now on his voyage to the isles," a shrewd surmise which proved correct in spite of the midwinter storm then prevailing. Harold's expedition, however, failed, and he went back to Caithness to raise a force to kill a man called Erlend the Young who had seized his mother Margret and taken her by force to Shetland, where he fortified Mousa Broch[31] and held her prisoner there. After a siege, Harold, who had followed them, at last allowed their marriage, Erlend the Young becoming his ally, and going that summer with his wife and Harold to Norway. When that was heard in the Orkneys, Sweyn and Earl Erlend went raiding off the east coast of Scotland and afterwards a-viking to North Berwick, and got much plunder, and Harold returned in the autumn to Orkney. In the winter Jarl Ragnvald came back from the east to Turfness (Burghead), whence he went about Yule 1153 to Orkney, to find that the Orkney-men want himself and Erlend, not himself and Harold, as joint jarls over them.
Harold had then to fight for his own hand; and, finding that Earl Erlend and Sweyn were in Shetland, he sought them out but missed them, and afterwards, though he hated Jarl Ragnvald, tried to get him on his side.
We come to another Sutherland event, historically of the first importance to us, in 1154.[32] "Jarl Ragnvald was then up the country in Sutherland, and sat there at a wedding at which he gave his only daughter and child Ingirid or Ingigerd, to Eric Stagbrellir," who, as we have seen, as Audhild's son, had been brought up in Kildonan. "News came to him at once that Earl Harold was come into Thurso. Jarl Ragnvald, rode down with a great company to Thurso from the bridal.[33] Eric was Harold's kinsman and tried to reconcile the earls."
There was a fight in Thurso between their followers, Thorbiorn Klerk instigating it, no doubt because after Eric's marriage with Ingigerd, Ragnvald's daughter, he knew he could not hope to force Eric to give up the Moddan lands in Strathnavern and in the upper valleys and hills of Sudrland and Caithness, to which he had a claim. Thirteen of Ragnvald's men fell in the fray, and he himself was wounded in the face. Ultimately, the earls were reconciled on the 25th of September 1154, and about 1156 joined forces and went to Orkney against Sweyn and Erlend, who pretended they were sailing for the Hebrides, but put their ships about at Store[34] Point in Assynt, and after all but seizing Jarl Ragnvald at Orphir in Orkney, captured his ships, though he and Harold escaped, each in a small boat, across the Pentland Firth to Caithness.[35] Returning thence, in Sweyn's absence for the night they attacked Erlend, who had disregarded all Sweyn's warnings and advice to keep a good look-out, off Damsey, near Finstown. In this fight Jarl Erlend, the last descendant in the male line of Thorfinn then alive, was slain, while drunk, his body being found next day transfixed by a spear, and he left no issue to inherit his title of earl or the other Moddan lands, left to him by Earl Ottar, which probably devolved on Eric Stagbrellir in 1156, as he could hold them against Thorbiorn Klerk.
All Erlend's success, if we are to believe the Saga, this portion of which is written largely to glorify Sweyn, probably by his relative Bishop Bjarni, had been arranged by Sweyn's really marvellous cunning; and Ragnvald, no doubt feeling how dangerous an enemy Sweyn was, and that he was backed by the Scottish king, immediately sent for him in order to reconcile him to Harold. But Harold, soon afterwards, robbed Sweyn's house in Gairsay; and Sweyn, in his turn, attacked the house where Harold was, and nearly succeeded in burning him alive. Later on Harold all but caught Sweyn off Kirkwall, but Sweyn gave him the slip, by running his ship into a tidal cave in Ellarholm, off Elwick in Shapinsay, in 1155, and disappearing till the coast was clear, when he got away in a small boat.
Afterwards Sweyn and Earl Harold were reconciled, and Sweyn and Thorbiorn Klerk and Eric Stagbrellir went on a viking cruise to the Hebrides, and, after a great victory at the Scilly Isles, returned with much booty to Orkney.[36]
In the year 1157 or 1158, Sweyn defeated Gilli Odran, steward of Earl Ragnvald's lands in Caithness, who had fled to the west and was caught in Murkfjord (possibly Loch Glendhu at Kylestrome in Eddrachilles) and was slain there with fifty of his men by Sweyn.[37]