wicked
Gunnhild and her daughter Ragnhild settled there for a time. Thorfinn
Hausa-kliufr had five sons, Arnfinn, Havard, Hlodver, Ljotr and
Skuli. Three of these, Arnfinn. Havard and Ljotr, successively married
Ragnhild, and Ragnhild rivalled her mother in wickedness. Arnfinn she
killed at Murkle in Caithness with her own hand; Havard she induced
Einar Oily-tongue, his nephew, to slay, on her promise to marry him,
which she broke; and finally she married Jarl Ljotr instead. Skuli,
the only other surviving son save Hlodver, went to the king of Scots,
who is said to have lightly given away what did not belong to him,
and to have created him Earl of Caithness, which then included
Sudrland.[22] Skuli then raised a force in his new earldom, no doubt
to carry out Scottish policy, and, crossing to Orkney, fought a battle
there with his brother Ljotr, was defeated, and fled to Caithness.
Collecting another army in Scotland, Skuli fought a second battle at
Dalar or Dalr, probably Dale in the upper valley of the Thurso River
in Caithness, and was there defeated and killed by Ljotr, who took
possession of his dominions. Then followed a battle between Ljotr and
a Scottish earl called Magbiod or Macbeth, at Skida Myre or Skitten
Moor in Watten in Caithness, which Ljotr won, but died of his wounds
shortly after, and is said to have been buried at Stenhouse in
Watten.[23] Thus the first Scottish attempt at consolidation of the
north failed.

During the last half of the tenth century there was constant war by
the kings of Alban against the Northmen who had seized the coast of
Moray, and Malcolm I was killed at Ulern near Kinloss, about the year
954, and his successor Indulf fell in the hour of his victory over the
invaders at Cullen in Banff.[24] But on the whole probably the Scots
had succeeded for a time in driving out the Norse from the laigh of
Moray, which the latter needed for its supplies of grain.

Hlodver or Lewis, (963-980), the only surviving son of Thorfinn
Hausa-kliufr, succeeded Ljotr in the jarldom; and by Audna or Edna,
daughter of Kiarval, king of the Hy Ivar of Dublin and Limerick,
Hlodver had a son, the famous Sigurd the Stout, or Sigurd Hlodverson.
Hlodver was, (as Mr. A.W. Johnston points out),[25] by blood slightly
more Norse than Gaelic. We know little of him save that he was a
mighty chief; and, according to the usual reproach of the Saga,
died in his bed and not in battle about 980, and was buried at Hofn,