243.
We now come to the last years of the fourth period of his life, when
"the earl sate down quietly and kept peace over all his realm. Then
he left off warfare, and he turned his mind to ruling his people and
land, and to law-giving. He sate almost always in Birsay, and let them
build there Christchurch,[20] a splendid Minster. There first was set
up a bishop's seat in the Orkneys."
The Annals of Tighernac record a great Norse expedition with the aid
of the Galls of Orkney and Innse Gall and Dublin to subdue the Saxons
in 1057, which failed. It is strange that we hear nothing of Thorfinn
in this, and the question arises whether he had died before it took
place. Had he been alive, such an expedition would hardly have been
possible without him.[21] It is interesting to note that so accurate
a chronicler as Sir Archibald Dunbar dates his widow Ingibjorg's
marriage to Malcolm III in 1059. (See _Scottish Kings_, p. 27.)
Thorfinn's life forms the subject of no less than twenty-six chapters
of the _Orkneyinga Saga_.[22] In his childhood, and later at all the
main turning points of his life, he was blessed with the constant care
and touching devotion, and with the able counsel and active assistance
of his foster-father, Thorkel Fostri, the slayer of his three
chief competitors--Jarl Einar and Earl Moddan and Jarl Ragnvald
Brusi-son--the captain of his armies, the collector of his revenues
and the guardian, in his absence on his Viking cruises and in his
travels abroad, of his widespread dominions.
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