e Scottish king, but the news
was disbelieved, and Hakon, at the time, had every reason to think
that, while he was sure of the support of the Orkneymen and their
earl, the western islanders would support him to a man. Quitting
Shetland, therefore, he sailed to Orkney, and his fleet lay first at
Ellidarvik or Ellwick in The String off the south of Shapinsay, a few
miles from Kirkwall. While it was here, King Hakon conceived the idea
of sending a squadron of his ships to raid the shores of the Moray
Firth, and there is little doubt that this project was aimed at the
lands of the families of De Moravia in Sutherland and Moray. The
question, however, was submitted to a council of the freemen of the
fleet, who proved to be unwilling that any of them should leave their
king and decided that the fleet should not be divided, but that the
original object of the expedition, the reconquest of the Western Isles
and West of Scotland, should be adhered to instead. What Earl Magnus'
feelings on the subject were is not recorded, but it can hardly have
been pleasing to him to find that his people in Caithness were to be
subjected to a fine by his suzerain in Orkney, though, probably by his
advice, the Caithness folk paid the fine exacted from them,[13] and
had hostages taken from them, in consequence, by the Scottish king.

Hakon's fleet then sailed round the Mull of Deerness into the
roadstead of Ragnvaldsvoe, in the north of South Ronaldsay, which is
now known either as St. Margaret's Hope or possibly as Widewall Bay in
Scapa Flow, and it was while it was there that the annular eclipse
of the sun, ascertained by astronomical calculation[14] to have taken
place on the 5th August 1263, was reported by the writer of the Saga
to have been seen by him. While the fleet was here, it appeared that
the Orkney contingent of ships which Hakon had commanded to join him,
were not "boun" or ready for sea, and Jarl Magnus accordingly "stayed
behind" with his people in Orkney under orders to follow the main
fleet.

On St. Lawrence's day, the 10th of August 1263, Hakon weighed anchor
without the jarl, or his men, and the fleet, the largest then ever
seen in these waters, sailed from Ragnvaldsvoe into the Pentland
Firth, and, rounding Cape Wrath on the same day, anchored in
Asleifarvik, now corruptly called Aulsher-beg or Old-shore, on the
west coast of the parish of Durness[15] in Sutherland. Thence the
fleet ran across to the Lewis, whence it proc