After the affray they crossed over to Orkney, where they
fortified the small but massive castle[20] or tower of Kolbein Hruga
or Cobbie Row, in the Island of Vigr or Wyre, now called Veira, near
Rousay in Orkney, and provisioned it for a siege, which lasted the
whole winter, and was raised only after both sides had come to an
agreement that all questions arising out of the earl's death at
Thurso, should be referred, not to the Scottish courts, but to the
Norse king, Hakon, in Bergen.
Both parties, with their witnesses, accordingly crossed the North
Sea in 1232, and Hakon heard the case, and punished the partisans
of Snaekoll, some with death and others with imprisonment. Snaekoll
himself, who, as the heir of Jarl Ragnvald, was too valuable a pawn to
be sacrificed, was retained, and lived long in Norway with Earl Skuli,
and afterwards with King Hakon.[21] It is noteworthy that a _gaedinga_
ship (no Jewish Ship,[22] as Torfaeus states, but a ship of the
_gaedingar_ or _lendirmen_ of the Earl of Orkney) was, on the return
voyage, lost at sea; and, bearing in mind the large number of Orkney
notables who had been slain at the battle of Floruvagr in Norway in
1194, men of means and standing must have been scarce in Orkney for
long after this time.
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