Thence the
fleet ran across to the Lewis, whence it proceeded on a southerly
course by Rona, into the Sound of Skye, and brought up at the Carline,
now the Cailleach, Stone, in Kyleakin or the Kyle of Hakon. The Norse
King was soon joined by King Magnus of Man, and Erling Ivar's son, and
Andres Nicholas' son, and Halvard and Nicholas Tart, the last having
made no land since he left Norway till he sighted the Lewis. Dougal,
king of the Sudreys also joined King Hakon, and the fleet shortly
afterwards reached Kerrera, near Oban in the Sound of Mull. The events
which followed are recounted, in considerable detail and with much
exaggeration on both sides, by Scottish and Norse chroniclers, but it
is impossible to reconcile their different versions of the story of
the battle of Largs. Nor does such detail, save in the result, affect
Sutherland or Caithness. Suffice it to say, then, that after much
fruitless negotiation between the two kings, purposely prolonged by
the Scottish monarch, a severe and protracted October storm drove many
of the Norse ships ashore near Largs, where the Scots attacked their
crews; and five days later King Hakon withdrew, and sailed with the
remnants of his starving and shattered fleet northwards by the Sound
of Mull and Rum and Loch Snizort in Skye, and thence round Cape
Wrath, to the Goa-fiord or Hoanfiord, which we know as Loch Erriboll,
reaching it on Sunday, October 28th, 1263, in a profound calm.
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