... He went
thither first where the battle of those Irish was; so hot was he with
his train, that they gave way at once before him, and never afterwards
got into good order again. Then Karl let them bring forward his banner
to meet Thorfinn; there was a hard fight, and the end of it was that
Karl laid himself out to fly, but some men say that he has fallen."
"Earl Thorfinn drove the flight before him a long way up into
Scotland, and after that he fared about far and wide over the land and
laid it under him."[12]
Then followed Thorfinn's conquests in Fife, and after relating the
failure of a Scottish force, which had surrendered, to kill him by
surprise, the Saga gives a lurid picture of his burnings of farms and
slayings of all the fighting men, "while the women and old men dragged
themselves off to the woods and wastes with weeping and wailing," and
it also tells of his journey north along Scotland to his ships.[13]
"He fared then north to Caithness, and sate there that winter, but
every summer thenceforth he had his levies out, and harried about the
west lands, but sate most often still in the winters," feasting his
men at his own expense, especially at Yuletide, in true Viking style.
Pages:
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78