eeded 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.

On their way south, Erling Ivar's son, Andrew Nicolas' son, and
Harvard the Red had[16] "sailed into Scotland under Dyrnes, from which
they went up country, and destroyed a castle and more than twenty
hamlets." But on the return voyage the children of Heth were waiting
for the invaders, and on the day[17] "of St. Simon and St. Jude, when
Mass had been sung, some Scottish men, whom the Northmen had taken,
came. King Hakon gave them peace and sent them up into the country;
and they promised to come down with cattle to[18] him; but one of them
stayed behind as a hostage. It happened that day that eleven men of
the ship of Andrew Kuzi landed in a boat to fetch water. A little
after, it was heard that they called out. Then men rowed to them from
the ships, and there two of them were taken up, swimming much wounded,
but nine were found on land all slain. The Scots had come down on
them, but they all ran to the boat, and it was high and dry, and they
were all weaponless, and there was no defence. But as soon as the
Scots saw the boats were rowing up, they ran to