ave Thorfinn's own, lower in the waist than those of
his enemy, who thus easily boarded them, and then attacked Thorfinn.
Surrounded and boarded on both sides, Thorfinn cut his ship free and
rowed to land. Arrived there, he removed his seventy dead, and all
his wounded. Next he persuaded Kalf Arnason to join him with his six
ships, and renewed and won the fight, though Ragnvald himself escaped
to Norway.[18]

Sailing thence in 1046 with one ship and a picked crew, Ragnvald
surrounded Thorfinn,[19] who was wintering in Mainland of Orkney, and
set fire to the Hall at Orphir in which he was, but the earl tore
out a panel at the back, and, escaping through it with his young wife
Ingibjorg in his arms, rowed in the dark over to Caithness, where
he remained in hiding among his friends, all in Orkney believing him
dead. Ragnvald then seized all the islands, and lived at Kirkwall.

But, while Ragnvald was in Little Papey--now Papa Stronsay--to fetch
malt for Yuletide, Thorfinn returned, and surrounded the house in
which Ragnvald was, by night; and, on his escaping by leaping through
the besiegers in priestly disguise, Thorfinn's men followed him, and,
led by his lapdog's barking, discovered him among the rocks by the
sea, where Thorkel Fostri slew him, Thorfinn meanwhile annihilating
his following, save one man. This man, who like the rest, was one of
King Magnus' bodyguard, he bade go to his king and tell the tale, and
he seized Kirkwall by stratagem. Jarl Ragnvald is said to have been
a man of large stature and great strength, and to have been buried in
Papa Westray, but a grave nearly eight feet long, that would fit him,
has been found where he fell in Papa Stronsay.

All this left Thorfinn with his great aim achieved. He was now
sole jarl of Orkney and Shetland, and sole earl of Caithness and
Sutherland, and he also held Ross and the western islands and coast
down to Galloway, and part of Ireland, as his _rikis_ or conquered
tributary lands.

The fourth and last period of his career now begins with his dramatic
visit to King Magnus in Norway; and, on the death of that king, he
became the friend of his successor, Harald Hardrada, in 1047, and
after visiting King Sweyn in Denmark, and Henry III, Emperor of
Germany, rode south to Rome probably in 1050 along with, it is said,
his cousin Macbeth, king, and a good king, of Scotland, returning
thence to Orkney to his Hall at Birsay at the north-west corner of
Mainland. Thorfi