Sigurd himself, on his voyage from Orkney, fell into the
hands of the Norse king, Olaf Tryggvi's-son, who was returning from
Dublin to Norway, in the bay of Osmundwall or Kirk Hope in Walls;
and the king insisted on the jarl being baptized on the spot, under
penalty, if he and all the inhabitants of his jarldom did not become
and remain Christians, of losing his eldest son Hundi or Hvelpr,
whom the Norse king seized and retained as a hostage. He also sent
missionaries to evangelize the jarldom. Such was the conversion of
Orkney and its jarl from the worship of Odin, at or about the end of
the first millennium of the Christian era.
On his son's death in captivity, Sigurd seems to have deserted the
Norse for the Scottish side, and to have devoted himself to seeking
the favour, by his assistance in completing the conquest of Moray from
the Norse, of the Scottish king Malcolm II, whose third daughter he
married as his second wife.[30] He was, by race, more than two-thirds
Gaelic, and he clearly at first held Caithness in spite of all
Scottish attacks, and probably later on agreed to hold it from the
Scottish king.
A few other persons are referred to in the Sagas as connected with
Caithness at this time.
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