aithness with a strong force. In a pitched battle "near Wick," said
to have been fought at Clairdon near Thurso, he slew Harald Ungi,
and utterly defeated his army, in 1198.[40] Harold the Old then
endeavoured to make terms with the king, and offered him a large
sum for the redemption of Caithness. The king, however, attached as
conditions to any regrant, that the earl should put away Gormflaith,
the daughter of MacHeth, and take back his wife, Afreka of Fife, and
deliver up Laurentius, his priest, and Honaver, son of Ingemund,
as hostages.[41] The earl, on his part, refused the terms; and,
the earldom thus remaining forfeited, King William at once invited
Ragnvald Gudrodson, the great Viking king of the Sudreys and Man, and
then his friend and ally, to assemble a force and drive Harold out
of Caithness, promising to confer that earldom upon his general, if
successful in the campaign.

Ragnvald Gudrodson, it may here be noted, had, if we pass over his own
illegitimacy, in the absence of direct male heirs of Earl Hakon since
Erlend Haraldson's death in 1156, probably the best title to receive
a grant of the jarldom of Orkney and Shetland and the earldom of
Caithness of all the surviving descendants of Earl Thorfinn Sigurd's
son. For Ragnvald Gudrodson was the grandson of Ingibjorg, Earl
Hakon's elder daughter, while Harold Maddadson was the son of
Ingibjorg's younger sister, Margret of Athole. Ragnvald Gudrodson's
title was, but for his own illegitimacy (in spite of which he held his
own kingdom) equal, if not superior to that of all survivors of the
Erlend Thorfinnson line, which was now represented in the male line
only by another Ragnvald the son of Eric Stagbrellir, who would claim,
in default of male heirs of Jarl St. Magnus, through the female line
of Erlend Thorfinnson, as being descended successively from Gunnhild,
Erlend's daughter, her son Ragnvald Jarl and Saint, and Ingigerd his
only child. And there is no proof that Ragnvald Ericson was alive at
this date, or that he ever returned from Norway to prefer his claim.

Ragnvald Gudrodson forthwith collected a great army in Ireland and the
Sudreys and invaded Caithness,[42] and, meeting Harold Maddadson in
battle at Dalharrold,[43] where the River Naver issues from the loch,
drove him northwards down the strath to the coast, whence he escaped
to Orkney. The Saga says simply that Harold stayed in Orkney, and this
location of the battle near Achness rests solely on