Wyntoun, however, states that afterwards, at Christmas
festivities at Forfar,
"Thare borwyd that erle than his land
That lay unto the Kyngis hand
Fra that the byschape of Cateness,
As yhe before herd, peryst wes."[14]
By this "borrowing," however, Earl John recovered only the reduced
earldom above described, that is without the Lordship of Sutherland,
to which William de Moravia, Hugo's son, had succeeded between 1211
and 1214, and without that south-western portion of it, which, as
stated, had been given to Gilbert de Moravia by Hugo in 1211, and
without the Moddan family's lands near Loch Coire and in Strathnaver
and Caithness, and without Harald Ungi's moiety or half share of the
Caithness earldom; and, as already stated, the lands appertaining
to this share were probably occupied by his family as represented by
Gunni and Ragnhild, Eric Stagbrellir's youngest daughter, and by the
members of the Moddan clan, and the retainers of the Erlend line.
In 1223, Earl John was again at Bergen, with Bishop Bjarni of Orkney
and others, to consider the rival claims of King Hakon and Jarl Skuli
to the Norse crown,[15] and in 1224 he went thither again to leave
his only son, Harald, as a hostage for his own loyalty.
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