CHAPTER IV.
_Thorfinn--Earl and Jarl._
Malcolm II, with whom Scottish contemporary records may be said to
begin, ascended the Scottish throne in 1005, and defeated the Norse at
Mortlach in Moray in 1010, and drove them from its fertile seaboard,
probably with the help of Sigurd Hlodverson, Jarl of Orkney. The men
of Moray, however, and their Pictish Maormors remained ungrateful, and
irreconcilably opposed to Scottish rule; and Moray, then stretching
across almost from ocean to ocean,[1] barred the way of the Scots to
the north.
What he could not achieve by arms, Malcolm, both before and after his
accession, decided to secure by a series of matrimonial alliances.
He had no son; but he had three available daughters,[2] of whom the
eldest was Bethoc, and the two others are said to have been called
Donada or Doada and Plantula.
1. _Bethoc_ he married to the most powerful Pictish leader of the
time, Crinan, Abthane of Dunkeld, the capital of the southern Picts,
and they had issue
(a) _Duncan_, afterwards Duncan I of Scotland, born about 1001;
(b) _Maldred_ of Cumbria, whose eldest son was Gospatrick, and whose
second son was Dolfin; but with Maldred we are not concerned;
(c) _A daughter_, who became the mother of Moddan, whom Duncan
I, after his accession in 1034, created Earl of Caithness or Cat,
probably about 1040, his father being possibly of the family of Moldan
of Duncansby, whose sons Gritgard and Snaekolf, if we may believe the
_Njal Saga_, were slain by Helgi Njal's son and Kari Solmundarson,
Moldan being said to be a kinsman of Malcolm the Scots king.
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