[483]. This account of Sigurd’s death, which is more detailed than that in the Orkneyinga Saga, is taken from the Flatey book (see Anderson’s Orkneyinga Saga, p. 204). The word Bakki means in Icelandic the bank of a river; and Ekkialsbakki has usually been assumed to be the river Oikell, which separates Sutherlandshire from Ross-shire. Dr. Anderson, whose opinion is entitled to weight, takes this view, and fortifies it by a very plausible identification of Sigurd’s grave on its north bank. The place he mentions is, however, not on the north bank of the river Oikell, but on the Dornoch Firth, and he is obliged to admit that this identification of Ekkialsbakki is inconsistent with other passages. A comparison of the accounts of Sigurd’s conquest shows that it must have been at or near the southern boundary of Moray; and the passage in chapter lxxii., where Swein Asleif’s son goes to Moray, and thence by Ekkialsbakki to Atholl, points to the Findhorn, which is remarkable for a high bank, has an estuary which ships could enter, and would be the natural route to Atholl. The resemblance between the name Oikell and Ekkial is merely accidental. The battle may have been fought near Forres, and the sculptured pillar known by the name of Sweno’s Stone a record of it. Its connection with the name Sweno is no older than Hector Boece, and it seems to tell the tale. On one side are two figures engaged in apparently an amicable meeting, and above a cross with the usual network ornamentation. On the other side we have below a representation which it is difficult to make out, but it seems to show a number of persons as if engaged in council, the background probably representing the walls of some hall or fortification. Above we see a party of horsemen at full gallop, followed by foot-soldiers with bows and arrows. Above that we have a leader having a head hanging at his girdle, followed by three trumpeters sounding for victory, and surrounded by decapitated bodies and human heads. Above that we have a representation of a party seizing a figure in Scottish dress; and below it a party, in which in the centre is a figure in the act of cutting off the head of another, and above all a leader riding on horseback, followed by seven others. Something to this effect seems represented, and its correspondence with the incidents in this tale is striking enough. When digging into a mound close to the pillar in 1813 eight human skeletons were found (Stuart, Sculptured Stones, p. 9), and in 1827 there was dug out of a steep bank above the Findhorn a coffin of large dimensions, composed of flagstones, containing the remains of a human skeleton.—N. S. A. vol. xiii. p. 222.
[484]. War of the Gaedhil with the Gaill, p. 29. The death of Donnchadh, king of Cashel, which took place in 888, fixes the date. ‘In hujus regno bellum est factum in Visibsolian inter Danarios et Scottos. Scotti habuerunt victoriam. Oppidum Fother occisum est a gentibus.’ This place, called Visibsolian, or Visibcolian, may be Collie, near Dunkeld. Oppidum is, in this chronicle, the Latin rendering of Dun, and the place where he was slain—for this seems what is meant by ‘occisum est’—was Dun Fother. That this place was in Kincardineshire, and has improperly been supposed to mean Forres, is apparent from St. Berchan, who says
‘Nine years to the king
Traversing the borders,
One after another in every place;
With Galls, with Gael.
He will disperse the Gael for a purpose
At the end over Fotherdun.
Upon the brink of the waves he lies
In the east in his broad gory bed.’