Originally delivered as a Presidential Address to The Viking Society for Northern Research, the following pages, as amplified and revised, are published mainly with the object of interesting Sutherland and Caithness people in the early history of their native counties, and particularly in the three Sagas which bear upon it as well as on that of Orkney and Shetland at a time regarding which Scottish records almost wholly fail us. When, however, these records are extant, use has been made of them

Anderson, Dr. Joseph. Rhind Lectures, "Scotland in Pagan Times." Edinburgh, 1883 and 1886. Antiquaries. Proceedings of The Society of Scottish. Bain. Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland in Record Office. Bannatyne Club—Publications of. Barry, History of Orkney. Edinburgh, Constable, 1805. Broxburn. (Strabrock.) History and Antiquities of Uphall, by Rev. James Primrose. Edinburgh, Andrew Elliott, 1898. Burnt Njal. Dasent's Translation. (B.N.) 2 Edinburgh, Edmonston & Douglas, 1861.

In the following pages an attempt is made to fit together facts derived, on the one hand, from those portions of the Orkneyinga, St. Magnus and Hakonar Sagas which relate to the extreme north end of the mainland of Scotland, and, on the other hand, from such scanty English and Scottish records, bearing on its history, as have survived, so as to form a connected account, from the Scottish point of view, of the Norse occupation of most of the more fertile parts of Sutherland and Caithness from its

The present counties of Caithness and Sutherland A together made up the old Province of Cait or Cat, so called after the name of one of the seven legendary sons of Cruithne , the eponymous hero who represented the Picts of Alban, as the whole mainland north of the Forth was then called, and whose seven sons' names were said to stand for its seven main divisions, 1 Cait for Caithness and Sutherland, Ce for Keith or Mar, Cirig for Magh-Circinn or Mearns, Fib for Fife, Fidach (Woody) for Moray, Fot

It was in the reign of Constantine I, son of the great Pictish king, Angus MacFergus, that the new and disturbing influence mentioned above appeared in force in Alban. Favoured in their voyages to and fro by the prevailing winds, which then, as now, blew from the east in the spring and from the west later in the year, the Northmen, both Norsemen and Danes, neither being Christians, had, like their predecessors the Saxons and Angles and Frisians, for some time made trading voyages and desultory p

Malcolm II, with whom Scottish contemporary records may be said to begin, ascended the Scottish throne in 1005, and defeated the Norse at Mortlach in Moray in 1010, and drove them from its fertile seaboard, probably with the help of Sigurd Hlodverson, Jarl of Orkney. The men of Moray, however, and their Pictish Maormors remained ungrateful, and irreconcilably opposed to Scottish rule; and Moray, then stretching across almost from ocean to ocean, 1 barred the way of the Scots to the north. What h

After Earl Thorfinn's death his sons Paul and Erlend jointly held the jarldom, but divided the lands. They were "big men both, and handsome, but wise and modest" 1 like their Norse mother Ingibjorg, known as Earls'-mother, first cousin of Thora, queen of Norway, mother of King Olaf Kyrre. On Thorfinn's death, however, the rest of his territories, nine Scottish earldoms, it is said, "fell away, and went under those men who were territorially born to rule over them;" that is to say, they reverted

From the short forecast of the future given above, let us turn back to the point whence we digressed, namely the year 1123, when Jarl Hakon Paulson died at the close of the reign of Alexander I of Scotland. Jarl Hakon was succeeded by his sons, Harald the Glib (Slettmali) and Paul the Silent (Umalgi). Jarl Paul lived mainly in Orkney, while Jarl Harald "was seated in Sutherland, and held Caithness from the Scot king" David I, who was crowned in 1124. 1 All Harald's sympathies seem to have been S

After the death of Jarl Ragnvald in 1158, Harold Maddadson at the age of twenty-five "took all the isles under his rule, and became sole chief over them." 1 Ever since 1139 he had been sole Earl of Cat save for Erlend Haraldson's grant, 2 though Jarl Ragnvald seems to have had a share of its lands and managed the Earldom of Caithness for Harold during his minority, bearing the title of his ward till the latter attained his majority in 1154. Harold had married Afreka, daughter of Duncan, Earl of

On the death of Earl Harold Maddadson in 1206, he was followed in the earldom of Orkney, without Shetland, by his elder surviving son, David, who also, it would seem, was allowed to succeed to the Caithness earldom and some of its territory. But out of the Caithness earldom there had been taken the lands forming the Lordship of Sudrland or Sutherland held by Hugo Freskyn from about 1196, and this comprised, as already stated, the parishes of Creich, (then including Assynt), Dornoch, Rogart, Kilm

After the death of Earl John in 1231, we come to a most perplexing time, and it is almost impossible to discover a way out of the maze of genealogical difficulties in which we find ourselves involved. Not only is there no chronicle of the period, but there are hardly any records at all to help us. The pedigree of the descendants of Earl Harold Maddadson, and particularly of his daughters, who are named in the Orkneyinga Saga , ceases; 1 and that of Earl John's family and of Harald Ungi and his s

We can now turn with some sense of relief from the intricate maze of the genealogy of the Caithness earls to the more open ground of Scottish history, which we left at the date of the death of William the Lion in December 1214, when he was succeeded on the throne of Scotland by his son, Alexander II, a youth who had then just entered his seventeenth year. We can then work the results of our genealogical conjectures into the general history of the northern counties. Alexander II, like his predece

Restless energy, and a religion that taught its followers that death in combat alone conferred on the happy warrior a title to immortal glory and a perpetual right to the unbroken joy of battle daily renewed in Valhalla drove the Viking to war. Headed off on the south by the vast army and feudal system of Charlemagne, this energy in war could be exercised, and its religious aims achieved, solely on the sea, which skill in shipbuilding and in navigation as well had converted from a barrier into a

The following abbreviations are used: H.B. for Hume Brown's History of Scotland. O.S. for Orkneyinga Saga. O.P. for Origines Parochiales. F.B. for Flatey Book. O. and S. for Tudor's Orkney and Shetland. B.N. Burnt Njal. And see List of Authorities (ante) for full titles of Books referred to. Save where otherwise stated the references to the Sagas are to the chapters not pages....

Rhind Lectures 1883 and 1886, and see The County of Caithness , pp. 273-307. Royal Commission 2nd Report, 1911 , and 3rd Report, 1911 ; see also Laing and Huxley's Prehistoric Remains of Caithness , 1866. Survivals in Belief among the Celts , 1911. Tacitus, Agricola 22-28. Coille-duine, or Kelyddon-ii. H.B. , vol. i, p. 5. Anderson, Scotland in Pagan Times , p. 222. Two plates of brass found in Craig Carrill Broch. Copper 84%, tin 16%. See Laing and Huxley's Prehistoric Remains in Caithness , La