Whether it was the Orkney jarls or their
superiors, the kings of Norway, who owned them in the meantime, the
odal lands were finally sold back to those entitled to them by descent
by Jarl Ragnvald Kol's son about 1137, in order to raise money for the
completion of Kirkwall Cathedral. Odal tenure in Orkney was thus in
abeyance for over two centuries, save for a short time, and in any
case its inherent principle of subdivision would have killed it, and
after its renewal, in spite of its many safeguards against alienation
to strangers, it gradually died out under feudalism and Scottish law
and lawyers.[19] In Cat it never seems to have taken root.
After holding the jarldom for a long term, Torf-Einar died in his bed,
as the Saga contemptuously tells us, probably in or after the year
920, leaving three sons, Arnkell, Erlend, and Thorfinn Hausa-kliufr or
Skull-splitter, of whom the two first, Arnkell and Erlend, fell with
Eric Bloody-axe, king of Norway, in England. The third son, Thorfinn
Hausa-kliufr or Skull-splitter, himself about three-quarters Norse
by blood, married Grelaud, daughter of Dungadr, or Duncan, the Gaelic
Maormor of Caithness by Groa, daughter of Thorfinn the Red, thus
further Gaelicising the strain of the Norse Jarls of Orkney,[20] but
adding greatly to their mainland territories.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55