The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

68 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
of it as far as the Mounth, that that conquest must have com-
prehended only the eastern and less mountainous parts of these
districts. Thorstein retained possession of his conquered
territories for six years, and during this period it might be
expected that the native tribes inhabiting these districts would
be almost driven out—those whose possessions included moun-
tain districts would take refuge there in order to escape the
invader, but it is scarcely to be expected that any tribe whose
.sole possessions were on the coast would escape almost total
annihilation.
When the unconquered tribes, however, succeeded in driving
the Norwegians out of the country, those who had taken refuge
in their mountain recesses would regain possession of that part
of their territories which they had lost, while the districts which
had belonged to any tribe that had been totally crushed and
overwhelmed by the Norwegians, would probably become the
possession of the nearest tribe. Now the Loiigai was almost
the only tribe whose possessions were confined to the coast,
and in the numerous Norse accounts of Thorstein's kingdom,
we find traces of the extinction of the family of but one of
the many Scottish larls who opposed him. The Landnamabok
mentions the slaughter of Meldun, a Scottish larl, and the
slavery of his whole family, who did not recover their freedom
even on the reconquest of the northern districts by the native
chiefs. There can be little doubt from this that the tribe
inhabiting the coast of Sutherland had been almost entirely
annihilated by the conquest of Thorstein, and that the tribe
inhabiting the interior of this district had, on the extinction of
the Norwegian kingdom, obtained possession of the whole.
The changes which had taken place in the relative situation
of the northern tribes in the second and in the eleventh century,
will be more easily understood from the following Table :—
Names of the districts of the Names of the Tribes inhabiting
loth century;
thetn ;
from the Norse Sagas. from Ptolemy.
Katanes or Caithness ... By the Kournaovioi.
Ness — Durnes and Ed- Kairinoi.
derachyhs.