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Icelandic Sagas Vol. 3 Chapters 1-6
2. After that Norr fared on into the firth that goes north from Sogn. There Sokni had ruled before in what is now called Sokni's dale. There Norr tarried a long time, and that is now called Norafirth. There came to meet him Gorr his brother, and neither of them had then heard anything of Goi. Gorr too had laid under him all the outer land as he had fared from the south, and then those brothers shared the lands between them. Norr had all the mainland, but Gorr shall have all those isles between which and the mainland he passes in a ship with a fixed rudder. And after that Norr fares to the Uplands, and came to what is now called Heidmörk (5); there that king ruled whose name was Hrolf of the Hill; he was the son of Svadi the giant from north of the Dovrefell. Hrolf had taken away from Kvenland Goi, Thorri's daughter; he went at once to meet Norr, and offered him single combat; they fought long together and neither was wounded. After that they made their quarrel up, and Norr got Hrolf's sister, but Hrolf got Goi to wife. Thence Norr turned back to the realm which he had laid under him, that he called Norway; he ruled that realm while he lived, and his sons after him, and they shared the land amongst them, and so the realms began to get smaller and smaller as the kings got more and more numerous, and so they were divided into provinces. 3. Gorr had the isles, and for that he was called a sea-king; his sons were they Heiti and Beiti, they were sea-kings and mighty overbearing men. They made many inroads on the realm of Norr's sons, and they had many battles, and now one, now the other won the day. Beiti ran into Drontheim and warred there; he lay where it is now called Beitsea and Beitstede; thence he made them drag his ship from the innermost bight of Beitstede, and so north over Elduneck, that is where the Naumdales come down from the north. He sat himself on the poop and held the tiller in his hand, and claimed for his own all that land that then lay on the larboard, and that is many tilths and much land. Heiti, Gorr's son, was father of Sveiði the sea-king, the father of Halfdan the old, the father of Ivar the Uplanders' earl, the father of Eystein the noisy, the father of earl Rognvald the mighty and the wise in council. (6) 4. Earl Rognvald joined Harold fair-hair when he seized the land, but he (Harold) gave him lordship over both the Mæren and Romsdale; (7) he had to wife Ragnhilda the daughter of Hrolf nosy; their son was Hrolf who won Normandy, he was so tall that horses could not carry him; for that he was called Ganging-Hrolf; from him are come the Rouen Jarls and the English Kings; their son was also Ivar, and Thorir the silent. Rognvald had also base-born sons, their names were Hallad and Hrollaug and Einar, he was the youngest. Harold fair-hair fared one summer west across the sea to chastise the Vikings, when he was weary at the peacelessness of those who harried in Norway in summer, but were in the winter in Shetland or the Orkneys. He laid under him Shetland and the Orkneys and the Southern Isles; he fared west too as far as Man, and laid waste the tilths of Man. He had there many battles, and took as his own lands so far west that no king of Norway has ever owned land further west since. And in one battle, Ivar, son of earl Rögnvald, fell. But when king Harold sailed from the west, then he gave to earl Rognvald, as an atonement for his son, Shetland and the Orkneys; but earl Rognvald gave both lands to Sigurd his brother: he was one of king Harold's forecastle men. The king gave Sigurd the title of earl when he went from the west, and Sigurd stayed behind there in the west. 5. Earl Sigurd made himself a mighty chief; he joined his fellowship with Thorstein the red, son of Olaf the white and Aud the deep-minded, (8) and they won all Caithness and much else of Scotland, Moray and Ross; there he caused to be built a burg southward of Moray. These two agreed between themselves to meet, Sigurd and Melbricta toothy the Scot-earl, that they should meet and settle their quarrel at a given place, each with forty men. And when the day named came, Sigurd thought to himself that the Scots were faithless. He made them mount eighty men on forty horses; and when Melbricta got to see them, he said to his men: "Now are we cheated by Sigurd, for I see two feet of a man on each horse's side, and the men must be twice as many again as the steeds that bear them. Let us now harden our hearts, and let us see that each has a man for himself ere we die;" and they got ready after that. And when Sigurd saw their plan, he said to his men: "Now half of our force shall get off horseback and come on them in flank when the battle is joined; but we will ride at them as hard as we can, and break in sunder their array." And so they met and there was a hard battle, and not long ere Melbricta fell and his followers, and Sigurd caused the heads to be fastened to his horses' cruppers as a glory for himself. And then they rode home, and boasted of their victory. And when they were come on the way, then Sigurd wished to spur the horse with his foot, and he struck his calf against the tooth which stuck out of Melbricta's head and grazed it; and in that wound sprung up pain and swelling, and that led him to his death. And Sigurd the mighty is buried under a "how" at Ekkjalsbakka. (9) Guttorm was the name of Sigurd's son; he ruled the lands one winter and died childless. And when earl Rognvald of Mæren learnt the death of that father and son, he sent his son Hallad west, and king Harold gave him the title of earl. And when Hallad came west, he sate down in Hrossey, but Vikings went about the isles and over in Caithness; they slew and robbed men. But when the yeomen brought their scathe before earl Hallad, then he thought it hard to right their lot, and he grew weary of the dignity; he turned himself out of the earldom, and took up his freehold right, and went back to Norway; and his journey was thought the greatest mark for mockery. 6. Two Dansk Vikings set themselves down in the lands; the name of the one was Thorir tree-beard, but the other's Kalf Skurvy; and when earl Rognvald learnt this, he took it very ill to heart, and fetched before him his sons Thorir and Hrollaug. Hrolf was then out warring. Rögnvald asked which of them would go west into the isles. Thorir bade him see about his passage. "So says my mind about this," says the earl, "that thy thriving will be most here, and thy ways lie not hence." Then Hrollaug asked, "Wilt thou that I go?" The earl says, "Not for thee will the earldom be destined, and the spirits that follow thee lie towards Iceland; there wilt thou increase thy race and be a famous man in that land."" Then Einar went forward, the youngest of his sons, and said, "Wilt thou that I go to the isles? I will promise that I will never come back into thy eyesight; besides I have here little good to part from, and it is not to be looked for that my thriving will be less anywhere else than here." The earl says, "Unlikely art thou for a chief for thy mother's sake, for she is thrall born on all sides, but true it is that I should think it all the better that thou goest soon away and comest late back." Rögnvaldr gave Einar a ship of twenty benches fully maned, but king Harold gave him the title of earl. Notes: 1. The sea in which are the Åland Isles in the Gulf of Bothnia. [Back] 2. Now Læssö in the Cattegat. [Back] 3. That is, were panic stricken and rushed wildly about. [Back] 4. Keel: The ridge of mountains which forms the watershed, backbone, or keel, between Sweden and Norway. [Back] 5. Now Hedemark. [Back] 6. "He was called Rognvald the mighty and wise in council, and men say both were true names." R. L. [Back] 7. "Both the Mæren" are North and South Mæren, which are divided the one from the other by the Romsdale firth. They stretch north-eastward along the coast from Stadt to Naumdale." [Back] 8. Fl. reads "very wealthy," as Aud was more commonly called. [Back] 9. The banks of the Oikel in Sutherland. [Back]
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