Scotland's Storybook: stories in English (1.1 - Education Scotland

ST MAGNUS
St Magnus Erlendsson was the son of the Earl of Orkney, and expected to rule
over part of the islands after his father’s death. His father, Erlend, ruled Orkney
with his brother Paul, and the two men were great friends and shared the
islands between them. Paul’s son, Hakon, was a greedy and violent man who
quarrelled with Magnus and even brought about strife between their fathers,
the two earls. They divided the islands between them so that they held their
own territory separate from each other. Hakon was sent to Norway, then
travelled to Sweden to visit relatives. In Sweden he consulted a sooth-sayer who
told him that he and his descendants would rule Orkney, but that during his
lifetime he would commit a great crime that he might never be forgiven for,
both in this life and in the next. Hakon persuaded King Magnus Bare-legs to lead
a great expedition to the west, which he did in 1198, but he sent the two Earls of
Orkney to Norway as exiles and set his own son over the islands in their place.
He took the young St Magnus on his raid through the Hebrides and as far south
as Anglesey, where St Magnus refused to fight, but sat and sang from his Psalter
while the battle raged around him. He fled from the king’s wroth, but returned
to Orkney after the king was killed while raiding in Ireland in 1103.
For a while Magnus and Hakon ruled their own half of the islands in peace,
but troublemakers persuaded Hakon to try to seize the half that Magnus held
and so the islands were plunged into civil war. Men of peace went between the
warring cousins and they held talks at a ting on a large mound at present day
Tingwall in the West Mainland parish of Rendall. It was agreed that they would
hold peace talks on the island of Egilsay the following Easter, around the year
1116, and that both sides would each take two longships and a certain number
of men. When the time came Magnus got his two ships ready and they sailed
towards Egilsay. The weather was fine and the water calm, when suddenly a
wave rose from the tranquil waters and broke over Magnus where he sat
steering the vessel in the stern of the longship. Magnus declared that this was
an evil omen, and that he felt that treachery was afoot and that his death was
near. He refused to turn back but sailed to the small green island of Egilsay to
await his fate.
Hakon arrived on the island later that day, but instead of the two longships
that was agreed he had brought eight ships fully armed with warriors. He seized
St Magnus and had him brought before him. Magnus gave him three choices, in
order to save Hakon’s soul from the stain of oath breaking and murder. His first
offer was to go on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and never to return, but this
was rejected. The second offer was to be sent south to Hakon’s territory in
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