Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 2.djvu/138

 130 CHRONICLE OF THE saga vii. earl, and was a man of great power. Halfdan Haaleg, a son of Harald Haarfager, assaulted Torf Einar, and drove him from the Orkney Islands ; but Einar came back and killed Halfdan in the island Ronaldsha. Thereafter King Harald came with an army to the Orkney Islands. ■ Einar fled to Scotland, and King Harald made the people of the Orkney Islands give up their udal properties, and hold them under oath from him. Thereafter the king and earl were recon- ciled, so that the earl became the king's man, and took the country as a fief from him ; but that it should pay no scatt or feu duty, as it was at that time much plundered by vikings. The earl paid the king sixty marks of gold ; and then King Harald went to plunder in Scotland, as related in the " Glim Drapa." After Torf Einar, his sons Arnkel, Erlend, and Thorfinn Hausaklyfur* ruled over these lands. In their days came Eric Bloodyaxe from Norway, and subdued these earls. Arnkel and Erlend fell in a war expe- dition ; but Thorfinn ruled the country long, and became an old man. His sons were Arnfinn, Haavard, Lodver, Liot, and Skule. Their mother was Grelaud, a daughter of Earl Dungad of Caithness. Her mo- ther was Groa, a daughter of Thorstein Raude. In the latter days of Earl Thorfinn came Eric Bloodyaxe's sons, who had fled from Earl Hakon out of Norway, and committed great excesses in Orkney. Earl Thor- finn died on a bed of sickness, and his sons after him ruled over the country, and there are many stories concerning them. Lodver lived the longest of them, and ruled alone over this country. His son was Sigurd the Thick, who took the earldom after him, and became a powerful man and a great warrior. In his days came Olaf Tryggvesson from his viking expedition in the Western ocean, with his troops,
 * Hausakliufr — the splitter of sculls.