The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. V]
. OF
SCOTLAND 6^
of the conquests of the mainland, assumed the title of king of
the half of Scotland. Thorstein had scarcely enjoyed his newly
acquired territories for six years when the chiefs of the north of
Scotland determined to make an effort for the recovery of the
districts which had been wrested from them by the Norwegians.
They united together, and under the command of Dungadi or
Duncan, the larl or Maormor of Caithness, they made a general
a pitched battle
and simultaneous attack upon Thorstein ;
ensued, which ended in the defeat and death of
Thorstein, and the expulsion of the Norwegians
from the north of Scotland.^
Thus terminated the first Norwegian kingdom in the High-
lands, which lasted too short a time to have had much effect
upon the population. And after this little can be gathered from
the Norse writers as to the state of Scotland till the close of the
tenth century. Thorfinn, who was Earl of Orkney about the
middle of that century, appears to have regained possession of
Caithness, but during a long reign, made no other attempt to
extend his conquest in Scotland ; he had married the daughter
of Duncan, the Maormor of Caithness, and in all probability
but with
founded a claim to the district from that circumstance ;
the exception of Caithness, the northern chiefs appear from the
Sagas to have enjoyed the undisturbed possession of their terri-
tories during the whole of this period.
After the kingdom of Thorstein, the Sagas throw somewhat
more light upon the internal state of the Highlands. From the
first Norwegian conquest under Thorstein to the end
under Sigurd H., we find frequent mention made of
of that
various
powerful Scottish chiefs, who universally appear under the Nor-
wegian title of larls, but in addition to this we can now distincthtrace
the division of the north of Scotland into a number of
tribes, possessing considerable extent of territory, whose chiefs or
Maormors it was to whom the Norwegians gave the title of larl.
The people who opposed the invasions of the Norwegians at this
period were unquestionably the descendants of the very same
people who fought with the Romans many ages before, and who
then exhibit the same division into tribes of a similar extent.
'
Sagas above referred to.