About the same time that the proper Suðreyar were, with, regard to ecclesiastical matters, united with Man, many of them were, as to secular government, separated from that island; although, since the time of Harald Haarfager, all had been governed by the same kings. Jarl Somerled, who was related in various ways to the Norwegian chiefs on the islands, had assumed the dominion of Cantire, Argyle, and Lorn (the “Dalir i Skotlandsfirdi” of the Sagas). After a naval battle, in the year 1156, with the Manx king, Godred Olavesön, Jarl Somerled compelled Godred to resign to him all the Sudreyjar from Mull to Man, which possessions afterwards remained in his family (“Dalverja-Ætt”). His youngest son, Dugal, the founder of the family of the Mac Dougals of Lorn, obtained Argyle and Lorn, whilst Cantire and the islands were assigned to his eldest son Ragnvald, or Reginald. Meanwhile Godred Crovan’s successors reigned over Man, and frequently, as it seems, over the islands to the north of Mull likewise, and particularly Lewis. They constantly sought to strengthen their diminished power by forming alliances with royal families, and other powerful races in Ireland, Scotland, and Norway. Thus King Harald Olafsön, whose father King Olaf Godredsön had, in the year 1230, repaired to King Hakon Hakonsen in Norway, and taken the oath of allegiance to him, married King Hakon’s daughter Cecilie; but on the voyage home from Norway in 1248, the royal couple perished in the dangerous Somburg Röst, to the south of Shetland, together with the Manx bishop, Lawrence, and a numerous retinue of Manx chiefs. Harald’s brother, King Ragnvald, was shortly afterwards murdered by the knight Ivar, and was succeeded on the throne by his youngest brother Magnus, who was the last of Godred Crovan’s descendants, and above all the last Norwegian who filled the throne of Man.
The Scotch kings had long been aiming at the expulsion of the Norwegians from the north and west of Scotland. Alexander the Second (1214-1249) repeatedly sent ambassadors to King Hakon, in Norway, offering to purchase the right of that kingdom to the Norwegian possessions in Scotland; but as they did not succeed, Alexander declared that he would not rest till he had planted his banner on the farthest point of the Norwegian dominions in Scotland. But whilst he lay with part of his army at the island of Kerrera (“Kjarbarey”), not far from Mull, he fell sick and died, after which the army was disbanded. However, his successor, Alexander the Third (1249-1289), zealously prosecuted the plan for the expulsion of the Norwegians. The Scots having at length begun to ravage the Sudreyjar, and particularly the Isle of Skye, with fire and sword, King Hakon, when the tidings reached Norway, equipped a large fleet, and issued orders for an expedition to avenge the attack that had been made on his dominions.
Accordingly, in 1263, he sailed with a large and well-appointed force to Elwick (“Ellidarvik”) on Shapinsay, in the Orkneys, and thence to Ragnvaldsvaag (“Rögnvaldsvágr”) under South Ronaldshay, near Pentland Firth. He had despatched several ships before him to the Sudreyjar, whose crews devastated the coasts of Sutherland, particularly the district around the firth of Durness (“Dyrnes”), where they destroyed a castle and burnt more than twenty mansions. The King then sailed to the before-mentioned isle of Kerrera, where he assembled his fleet, consisting of about 200 ships. King Magnus from Man, and King Dugal from the Sudreyjar, joined him there; but Ion, the other king of the Sudreyjar, or, as he was called in Scotland, Ewen, was exempted by King Hakon from fighting against the Scots. King Hakon permitted his men to devastate the islands and coasts of the Firth of Clyde. Some of his chiefs sailed up Loch Long (“Skipafjörðr”), and hauled their ships over the narrow strip of land, called Tarbet, into Loch Lomond (“Lokulofni”), whence they harried the surrounding district of Lennox (“Lofnach”). Meanwhile verbal messages passed between the Norwegian and Scottish kings, but without leading to any reconciliation. The time was thus whiled away till late in the autumn, when King Hakon anchored with his fleet under Cumbrey in the Clyde, opposite the hamlet of Largs. Here he was assailed by such a furious storm, that his Norwegians, unacquainted with the equinoctial gales on the west coast of Scotland, imagined that the tempest had been evoked by witchcraft. Some of the King’s ships were driven ashore near Largs, when the Scots immediately began to attack them. As the Scotch king had in the meantime arrived on the spot with a large army, a fierce battle took place on the plain near Largs (3rd of October, 1263), in which the Norwegians, who were exhausted by their endeavours to save their ships, and who on account of the storm could not avail themselves of their whole force, were overpowered. King Hakon then sailed with the remainder of his fleet round Cape Wrath to “Goafjörðr” (undoubtedly the excellent harbour in Loch Eribol in Sutherland), and after suffering much from violent storms and tempests, at length again reached Ragnvaldsvaag in the Orkneys. He now prepared to pass the winter in Kirkwall, where, however, he shortly afterwards died (16th December, 1263).
The battle of Largs, the last combat in these western regions between the kings of Scotland and Norway, was of a decisive character. The kings in Sudreyjar and Man, who could now no longer venture to reckon upon adequate protection from Norway, submitted to the dominion of the Scotch king. King Magnus Hakonsön, of Norway, found it most advisable (1266) to cede Norway’s supremacy over the Sudreyjar and Man to the Scottish crown for the sum of 4000 marks sterling and a yearly tribute of 100 marks. But the Scots did not obtain immediate possession of Man. King Magnus died there in 1265, and was buried in the convent of Russin, near Derby Haven (“Rögnvaldsvágr”), which one of his forefathers had founded, or at all events enlarged, in 1134, and which already contained the bones of several Norwegian kings, chiefs, and ecclesiastics (as, for instance, of Bishop Reginald, + 1225; King Olave Godredsön, + 1237; and the chief Gospatrick, + 1240). With Magnus the family of Godred Crovan became extinct; but the powerful knight Ivar assumed the dominion of Man; and it was not till the year 1270 that the Scots, who had landed in Ragnvaldsvaag, succeeded, in a hard-fought battle, in killing Ivar, together with a great number of the leading men of the island, who had fought desperately for their independence.
Thus was terminated the actual Norwegian dominion over the Sudreyjar. As the battle of Largs considerably contributed to this event, it is no wonder that this battle, and above all King Hakon’s expedition, still figure in Scottish traditions. On the battle-field near Largs—where human bones, as well as “Danish axes” and swords, are often found—are still to be seen two almost unique barrows or tumuli, the most remarkable in Scotland, being about 25 feet high, and nearly 20 feet broad at the top, in which the Norwegians and Scots who had been slain are said to have been buried. One of the mounds, which stands just at the back of the town, and close to the shore, is probably the grave of the Norwegians; for the Sagas, whose accounts agree on the whole so exactly with the localities that they must have been derived from eye-witnesses, relate that King Hakon, the day after the battle, buried his dead on the coast, in the neighbourhood of a church. The other mound stands on the plain, a few thousand paces farther off. According to the statements of the common people, on the day of the battle, blood flowed instead of water in a little rivulet or beck that runs past “Killing Craig.” A number of smaller barrows and scattered stones, formerly to be seen on the plain, were likewise ascribed by tradition, though certainly without reason, to the same battle. They undoubtedly belonged to a far more ancient time; as is also the case with an excellent silver-gilt brooch found near Hunterston, about three miles from Largs, which was at once said to have been lost by some Norwegian who fled from the field of battle. There is a short Scandinavian runic inscription scratched on the back of it; but, from what has hitherto been deciphered, it would rather seem to denote the name of a Scotchman than of a Norwegian. Professor Munch reads, and certainly with good reason, as follows:—
“Malbritha a dalk thana” ... or, “Melbrigd owns this brooch.”
In workmanship, moreover, it resembles the contemporary Irish and Scotch more than Scandinavian ornaments.
The remembrance of this last expedition of the Norwegians is scarcely less vivid in several of the harbours which King Hakon visited with his fleet; as, for instance, Lamlash (“Melasey”), in Arran; Sanda (“Sandey”) near the south point of Cantire, where are shown the remains of a chapel and a churchyard, in which are said to repose the bones of many Danish and Norwegian chiefs; also in Gigha (“Gúdey”); Kerrera (“Kjarbarey”), with its “Danish” fort “Gylen;” and lastly, in Kyle Rhee (the King’s Strait), and Kyle Akin (Hakon’s Strait?), in the straits between the Isle of Skye and Lochalsh, on the coast of Ross-shire. According to a tradition, which is, however, entirely without foundation, King Hakon, in his flight from Largs, was attacked in this strait and killed, together with a great number of his followers. With similar exaggeration the Scots relate that all the Norwegians round about in the Sudreyjar were killed after the battle of Largs. On one of the islands near Barra was shown, not long since, and perhaps is even still, a heap of human bones, as the remains of the last Danes murdered there. On Lewis there is the following tradition—that when the Danes were quartered round about in the island, and were very troublesome on account of their oppressions, the Gaels laid a plan to murder them. The “fiery cross” was circulated through the island, with this brief announcement: “marbhadh ghach then a Bhuana;” that is, “every one shall kill his guest.” The strangers, who had not time to assemble together, were thus murdered one by one.
It cannot admit of a doubt that the Norwegians on the Sudreyjar, who for centuries had taken fast root in the islands, and become mixed with the families of the Scotch chiefs, could not thus disappear all at once without leaving a trace behind them. In Lewis, as I have before proved, vestiges of a Norwegian population still exist. The best refutation of the tradition is, however, the circumstance that with the exception of Man, the Sudreyjar continued to be governed by the same chiefs who had ruled the islands under the Norwegian dominion; and who, being descended from Somerled himself, were in a great degree of Norwegian extraction. Somerled’s successors also continued, after the old fashion, to defy the Scotch kings, who often sought in vain to subdue the bold “Lords of the Isles,” so famed in song and legend. Sometimes they declared themselves independent, and sometimes they were compelled to yield to the superior force of the kings, and acknowledge them as their feudal lords; until at length, but not before the sixteenth century, the power of these island chieftains was entirely subdued. Even to the present day many Highland clans assert that they are descended from the Danes, or Norwegians. This much is at all events certain, that several clans have Scandinavian blood in their veins, as appears clearly enough from the names of Clan-Ranald (from Reginald or Ragnvald) and Clan-Dugal (from Dubhgall, “the dark strangers,” the usual name for the Danes); both which clans, it is expressly stated, are descended from Somerled. To these may be added the clan of Macleod in Skye, whose chiefs still commonly bear the pure Norwegian names of “Torquil” and “Tormod.”
But the enduring influence of the Norwegian dominion in the Sudreyjar is best established by the fact that since the battle of Largs, the Isle of Man, through all the vicissitudes of fate, and after passing by sale into the possession of the English crown, has uninterruptedly retained its peculiar position as a kingdom, having its own originally Norwegian or Scandinavian constitution, and its annual assemblies on the identical Thing-hill, Tynwald (or, as it was formerly called Tingualla, “Þingavöllr”), from which, about a thousand years ago, the Norwegians governed the Sudreyjar. Although the British Parliament makes laws for England, Ireland, and Scotland, they are of no validity in the Isle of Man, unless they are in accordance with the ancient laws and liberties of the island, and, after being confirmed by its own Parliament, are proclaimed from Tynwald Hill.