First, we have a portrait of the young Ragnvald as Kali Kolson in his
youth at Agdir in Norway, with his mother Gunnhild, sister of Jarl St.
Magnus Erlend's son, and his shrewd old father Kol. We are told that
Kali was "the most hopeful man" or man of promise, "of middle stature,
fine of limb, with light brown hair"; how he "had many friends, and
was a more proper man both in body and mind than most of the other men
of his time, a good player at draughts, a facile writer of runes,
and a reader of books, good at smith's work, ski-ing, shooting, and
rowing, and as skilful at song as at the harp."[9]
At the age of fifteen, he traded to Grimsby, where many Norwegians
and Orkneymen came, and many from the Hebrides; and here he met Harald
Gillikrist, who became his firm friend, and confided in him alone that
he, Harald, was the son of King Magnus Barelegs, asking how he would
be received by King Sigurd of Norway, and obtaining the diplomatic
reply that he would be well received by the king, if others did not
spoil his welcome. Then Kali returns to Bergen in 1116, about the
time of Jarl Magnus' murder by his cousin Jarl Hakon, and after a
friendship and a feud with Jon Peterson, which is amicably settled
by the marriage of Jon with Kali's sister Ingirid, and of which the
description well illustrates the manners and law of the times, is made
Jarl Ragnvald of Orkney by King Sigurd; and on that king's death in
1126 he is confirmed in the title by his friend King Harald, for whom
he fought in the battle for the throne at Floruvoe near Bergen, when
King Magnus was captured, maimed, and deposed by Harald in 1135.
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