to his heirs
and assigns whomsoever, all Creich and much of Dornoch parish up to
the boundaries of Ross, and the date of this grant was probably
about 1211. The Mackays were beginning to occupy the western parts of
Strathnavern, their title being probably their swords, and they held
their lands "manu forti," their country being a refuge for their
Morayshire kinsmen, the MacHeths, who were in constant rebellion. The
eastern portion of Strathnavern, and particularly the neighbourhood
of Loch Coire and Loch Naver, and all the Strathnaver valley were
probably insecurely held by members of the Erlend and Moddan family
after Harald Ungi's death at the battle of Clairdon in 1198; and
Gunni, probably a grandson of Sweyn Asleifarson, who had married
Ragnhild, Harald Ungi's youngest sister, after the death in the same
battle of Lifolf Baldpate, her first husband, became chief of the
Moddan Clan there and in Caithness. After 1200 Ragnhild had by Gunni
a son called Snaekoll Gunni's son, who thus became, on his father's
death, the chief representative in Scotland, both of the Moddan family
and of the line of Jarls Erlend Thorfinnson, St. Magnus, and St.
Ragnvald, and of Eric Stagbrellir and of Earl and Jarl Harald Ungi;
and Snaekoll afterwards laid claim to their possessions in Orkney,
as the sole male representative of this line. Gunni and Ragnhild
must have held the Strathnaver lands, and the Moddan family lands
in Caithness, formerly Earl Ottar's estates, till their deaths, and
Snaekoll was their sole known male heir. The Harald Ungi share of the
Caithness earldom lands, which _The Flatey Book_ and _Torfaeus_ state
that Jarl Ragnvald had held, does not appear to have been granted to
David, or to any successor to the Caithness earldom of his line, or to
any other person at this time. Indeed, the line of Paul were the last
persons to whom such a grant would be made.

It was, therefore, to a very much reduced territory and earldom that
David succeeded in 1206, as Earl of Caithness. We hear almost nothing
of him, save that for the latter part of the eight years of his
rule,[1] more or less inefficient probably through ill health, he
shared the earldom and what had been left to him of its lands with
his younger brother John. David died without issue in 1214[2] probably
soon after Hugo Freskyn, and David was succeeded by his brother John
in the jarldom of Orkney and in the reduced earldom of Caithness as
sole jarl and earl.

Immedi