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326 expedition to the Shetlands, the Orkneys and the west coast of Scotland, received their submission and gave the Northern Islands to Sigurðr, brother of Rögnvaldr, earl of Möre, as his vassal. Sigurðr's successor Einar, known as Turf Einar because he first taught the islanders to cut peat for fuel, founded a long line of Orkney earls. Warrior and skald, he came into collision with Harold Fairhair, but made his peace on promise of a heavy fine. When the peasants declared themselves unable to pay it, Einar paid it himself and received in return all the óðal (the holdings of the freeholders) as his own property. The most famous of the Orkney earls was Sigurðr Loðvesson, who succeeded c. 980. Though he acknowledged the overlordship of Earl Hákon, he ruled with almost independent power, and made himself popular by the return of the óðal. After a reign of thirty years he fell fighting for the Viking cause at Clontarf in 1014. Of the Vikings in the Western Islands from Lewis to the Isle of Man we have less definite and continuous record. There was a line of kings in the tenth century, of whom the most famous were Maccus or Magnus and Guðröðr, the son of one Harold. They are found ruling with certain officers known as "lawmen" by their side. The Isle of Man, which had kings of its own, was at times under their authority, at others under that of the kingdom of Dublin. It was probably from the Isle of Man that the extensive Norse settlements in Cumberland and Westmorland were made, and either from here or from Ireland came the various Viking raiders who throughout the tenth century made attacks on Wales. There they founded no permanent kingdom, but left a mark in place nomenclature along the coast from Anglesey to Pembrokeshire and in some districts of South Wales.

From the days of Guðröðr in the beginning of the ninth century to those of Harold Gormson (Bluetooth) in the middle of the tenth, Denmark had paid little heed to her Slavonic neighbours, but the rivalry between Harold Gormson and the Emperor Otto probably turned the Danish king's attention eastwards, and it was in his days that the great Viking settlement of Jómsborg was established at the mouth of the Oder. For many years there had been an important trading centre at Julin on the island of Wollin, where merchants from Scandinavia, Saxony and Russia were settled. Large finds of Byzantine and Arabic coins belonging to the tenth century have been made both in Denmark and in Wollin, bearing witness to the extensive trade which passed through Julin between Denmark and the Orient, using as its high road the broad stream of the Oder and the great Russian rivers. To secure to Denmark its full share in the products of the rich lands south of the Baltic and in the trade with the East, Harold built the fortified town of Jómsborg close to Julin and established there a famous Viking community. He gave them certain laws, and we probably find their substance in the laws given by Palnatóki to his followers in the unhistorical account of the founding of Jómsborg given in Jómsvíkingasaga. No one under 18 or over 50