"
He had saved King Olaf's brother Harald Sigurdson at the great battle
of Stiklastad, after King Olaf, Ragnvald's own foster-father, was
killed, and had fought with great distinction in Russia. Shortly after
his father's death, Ragnvald returned, and, fortified by a grant from
King Magnus of Norway, whom he had helped to gain the throne, claimed
his father's two trithings of the Orkney jarldom. To this Thorfinn,
who after 1034 had his hands full with his war with King Duncan, and
had always wars with the Hebrides and the Irish, agreed, and the
two joined forces, and sailed on Viking raids to the Hebrides and
England.[16]
About 1044 Thorfinn married Ingibjorg,[17] Finn Arnason's daughter,
and it is interesting to find that in the _Saga Book of the Viking
Club_, Vol. IV, page 171, Mr. Collingwood suggests that the King of
Catanesse, who fought for years to gain possession of Gratiana, the
lost wife of William the Wanderer, was Thorfinn. If this story be
founded on fact, as it probably is, this may account for his somewhat
late marriage with Ingibjorg.
Thorfinn next claimed two trithings of Orkney from his nephew
Ragnvald, who demurred to giving up what the Norse king had conferred
on him, but, finding he could not cope with Thorfinn's Orkney,
Caithness and Scottish forces, Ragnvald fled to King Magnus, who gave
him a force of picked men, and bade Kalf Arnason also to help him,
although Kalf was Thorfinn's friend, and near connection by marriage.
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