CONTEMPORARY PRINCES:
NORWAY: 863 Harald Fairhair
SCOTAND: 862 Constantine II
ENGLAND: 871 Alfred the Great
By the naval victory of Hafursfiord in 870 Harald Fairhair (Harfagri) became sole monarch in Norway. Large numbers of the wealthy and powerful odallers, whom he had dispossessed of their territorial possessions, fled to the Isles of Orkney (anciently known as Inistore) and Shetland, which for a full century previous to this time had been well known as the viking station of the western haf [the deep sea] - the rendezvous of the Northern rovers, who swept the coasts of the Hebrides and swarmed in the Irish Seas. Fugitives from their fatherland, and outlaws of the new kingdom which Harald had succeeded in establishing in Norway, they settled themselves permanently in the islands. Then they turned their haven of refuge into a base of operations for retaliatory warfare, harrying the Norwegian coasts during the summer, and living at leisure in winter, secure in the islands with their plunder.
At length King Harald, irritated by their incessant ravages, collected a powerful fleet, and, visiting Shetland, Orkney, and the Hebrides in succession, he swept their coasts clear of the plunderers, subduing the whole of the Northern and Western Islands as far south as Man. In this expedition he was accompanied by his favourite comrade-in-arms and most trusted counsellor, Rognvald, Jarl of Moeri and Raumsdahl, whose eldest son Ivar and brother Sigurd were also with the fleet. Ivar was slain in one of the numerous fights during the purgation of the Isles, and it is thought he was buried in Sanday, where there is a cairn known as Ivar's Knowe. In order to recompense Rognvald for the loss of his heir to Moeri, King Harald offered him the lordship of the twin archipelagoes with the title of Jarl of the Orkneys.
But as Rognvald had extensive possessions in his own country, together with many dependents and friends - as he was a favourite at the court of his sovereign, from whom he had received many, and expected perhaps still more favours - he preferred a residence at home to one in a distant country with all the wealth and honour it promised to bestow. Averse, however, to offend this prince by rejecting the benefits which his bounty had conferred on him, and, reluctant to let them go past his house, with the consent of his sovereign he transferred the royal gift to his brother Sigurd, who had been Harald's flag captain, and Harald gave him the title of Jarl before leaving the west, where Sigurd remained.
[From Orkneyinga Saga; Torfaeus and Barry]