He is said to have
been "a tall man, ugly, with one eye, but very keen-sighted,"[16] a
faculty which he was soon to use.
When Jarl Ragnvald of Maeri, the first of the Orkney jarls, was killed
in Norway by two of Harald Harfagr's sons, one of them, Halfdan Halegg
or Long-shanks fled from their father's vengeance to Orkney. When
Halfdan landed, Torf-Einar took refuge in Scotland, but returned in
force, and after defeating Halfdan--who had usurped the jarldom--in
North Ronaldsay Firth, spied him as a fugitive, in hiding, far off on
Rinarsey or Rinansey (Ninian's Island) now North Ronaldsay, and seized
him, cut a blood-eagle on his back, severed his ribs and pulled out
his lungs, and, after offering him as a victim to Odin, buried his
body there.[17]
Incensed at the shameful slaughter of his son, Harald Harfagr came
over from Norway about the year 900 to avenge him, but, as was then
not unusual, accepted as a wergeld or atonement for his son's death a
fine of sixty marks of gold, which it fell to the islanders to pay. On
their failure to find the money, Torf-Einar paid it himself, taking in
return from the people their odal lands,[18] which were lost to their
families until Jarl Sigurd Hlodverson temporarily restored them as a
recompense for their assistance in the battle fought by him between
969 and 995 against Finleac MacRuari, Maormor of North Moray, at
Skidamyre in Caithness.
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