s the most peerless of men, tall of growth, manly, and lively
of look, virtuous in his ways, fortunate in fight, a sage in wit,
ready-tongued and lordly-minded, lavish of money and high spirited,
quick of counsel, and more beloved of his friends than any man;
blithe and of kind speech to wise and good men, but hard and unsparing
against robbers and sea-rovers; he let many men be slain who harried
the freemen and land folk; he made murderers and thieves be taken,
and visited as well on the powerful as on the weak robberies and
thieveries and all ill-deeds. He was no favourer of his friends in his
judgments, for he valued more godly justice than the distinctions of
rank. He was open-handed to chiefs and powerful men, but still he ever
showed most care for poor men. In all things he kept straitly God's
commandments."

As for Hakon, his cousin Magnus' death without issue left him sole
Jarl, "and he made all men take an oath to him who had before served
Earl Magnus. But some winters after, Hakon ... fared south to Rome,
and to Jerusalem, whence he sought the halidoms, and bathed in the
river Jordan, as is palmer's wont.[18] And on his return he became a
good ruler, and kept his realm well at peace." He probably then built
the round church at Orphir in Mainland of Orkney, the only Templar
Church in Scotland.

By Helga, Moddan's daughter, whom he never married, Hakon had a
son Harald Slettmali (smooth-talker, or glib of speech), and two
daughters, Ingibiorg and Margret. Ingibiorg afterwards married Olaf
Bitling, king of the Sudreys; and Ragnvald Gudrodson, the great
Viking, was of her line, and, as we shall see, in 1200 or thereabouts,
had the Caithness earldom conferred upon him for a short time. To
Margret we shall return later. By a lawful wife Hakon had another son,
Paul the Silent, and it seems certain that Paul was not by the same
mother as Margret or Harald Slettmali, and that Paul's mother was not
of Moddan's family.

Moddan, Earl of Caithness, was killed in 1040. His mother, daughter
of Bethoc, must have been born after 1002. If she was married at
seventeen, her son Earl Moddan could not have been more than twenty
when killed in 1040, and any son of his must have been born by 1041 at
latest. This son may have been Moddan in Dale. Dale was the valley of
the upper Thurso River, the only great valley of Caithness, and the
Saga states as follows:--

Moddan[19] "then dwelt in Dale in Caithness, a man of rank and very