ll, near Dornoch, which, when translated, is Sigurd's Howe.[9]
"Thenceforward," as Professor Hume Brown tells us, "the mainland
was never secure from the attacks of successive jarls, who for long
periods held firm possession of what is now Caithness and Sutherland.
As things now went, this was in truth in the interest of the kings of
Scots themselves. To the north of the Grampians they exercised little
or no authority; and the people of that district were as often their
enemies as their friends. Through the action of the Orkney jarls,
therefore, the Scottish kings were at comparative liberty to extend
their territory towards the south; and the day came when they found
themselves able to crush every hostile element even in the north.[10]

It is this process of consolidation in the north which it is proposed
to describe so far as Sutherland and Caithness are concerned, using
both Norse and Scottish records, and piecing them together as best
we can, and, be it confessed, in many cases filling up great gaps by
necessary guess-work when records fail.

In the reign of the great king Constantine III, between the years 900
and 942, the Danes again gave trouble. In 903 the Irish Danes ravaged
Alban,[11] as Scotland north of the Forth was then called, for a
whole year; in 918 Constantine and his ally, Eldred of Lothian, were
defeated by another expedition of these invaders; and in 934 Athelstan
and his Saxons burst into Strathclyde and Forfar, the heart of
Constantine's kingdom, and the Saxon fleet was sent up even to the
shores of Caithness, as a naval demonstration intended to brave the
Norse, who had joined Constantine, on their own element. Lastly, in
937 Athelstan and Constantine met at Brunanburg, probably Birrenswark
near Ecclefechan, and Constantine and his Norse allies were completely
defeated.[12]

Meantime, since 875, a succession of jarls had endeavoured to hold,
for the kings of Norway, Orkney and Shetland, as well as Cat, which
then included Ness, Strathnavern, and Sudrland.[13] The history of
these early jarls is not told in detail in any surviving contemporary
record, for the Sagas of the jarls as individuals have perished; but
there is a brief account of them in the beginning of the _Orkneyinga
Saga_, another in chapters 99 and 100 of the _St. Olaf's Saga_, and a
fuller one in chapters 179 to 187 of the _Saga of Olaf Tryggvi's Son_,
contained in the _Flatey Book_.[14] From these the following story may
be gath