Neither Paul nor Erlend seems to have been much in Sutherland or
Caithness, in which the representatives of the Gaelic Maormors or
Chiefs probably regained power, especially the family of Moddan, and
extended their territories.
Meantime King Magnus Barelegs[9] of Norway, instigated by Hakon,
and taking advantage of the contentions between 1093 and 1098 of
the various claimants of the Scottish crown, Donald Bane (whom he
supported), Duncan II, and Edgar, had made his several expeditions, in
the closing years of the eleventh century, against the western islands
and coasts of Scotland and Wales. In the battle of the Menai Straits
in 1098 we find that he had with him young Hakon Paulson, and also
Erling and Magnus, Jarl Erlend's sons, though Magnus, who had repented
of his early Viking ways, after declining to take part in the fight
against an enemy with whom he had no quarrel, escaped to the Scottish
court.[10] In 1098 King Magnus had deposed and carried off Jarls Paul
and Erlend to Norway, where they died soon after; and in the meantime
he had appointed his own son, Sigurd, to be ruler of Orkney and
Shetland in their place.[11] But on King Magnus' death, during his
later expedition to Ireland, where Erling Erlendson probably also
fell, Prince Sigurd had to quit Orkney in order to ascend the
Norwegian throne, leaving the jarldom vacant for the two cousins,
Hakon Paulson and Magnus Erlendson.
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