Is there no end to podcasts with me rabbiting on about the #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney? Well, I'm not good at saying no and I particularly enjoyed this one with Natalie of @ifitaintbaroquepod.bsky.social - she asked some good questions! shows.acast.com/if-it-aint-b...
One of Rǫgnvaldr Kolsson's ships was named Fífa, see ch. 85 of #Orkneyingasaga #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney and his lausavísa 8: skaldic.ku.dk/q?p=skp/skal... #arrows #ships
And if you still haven't had your fill of #Orkneyingasaga #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney (who has?), I'm doing a webinar on 4th March: www.mymagazinesub.co.uk/history-scot... (see also Niall Sharples on #Vikings in the #Hebrides on Thursday)
This stanza provokes a celebrated retort by Ragna, 'It has now come to this, as is said, that few are so intelligent that they can see everything as it is, because this is from a stallion not a mare.' See ch. 81 of #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney #Orkneyingasaga and uonenglish.substack.com/p/who-is-rag...
Special offer on #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney extended to the end of this month! shop.orcadian.co.uk/product/sign...
Some interesting bishops in #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney #OrkneyingaSaga
The good folk at BBC's Radio Orkney interviewed me last week about the #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney which will be available in bookshops here this coming week. You can listen to it here at 17'30" in www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Can I convert those who have never quite managed to get through it???
On the left, the Bishop's Castle, or Scrabster Castle (with added wartime gun emplacement) and Scrabster pier in the background.
The site which may have been the Bishop's palace referred to in ch. 111 of the Saga of the Earls of Orkney.
In #Thurso this morning, I checked out the site which is possibly that mentioned in the #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney ch. 111, where it says that 'The bishop was in the palace at Scrabster'. The word I translated as 'palace' is 'borg', which is also used of brochs, and the site may once have been a broch.
And it all started when the Icelander Hallr rocked up in #NorthRonaldsay... Ragna, of @ragnasislands.bsky.social's fame, got him the introduction to Rǫgnvaldr's court. See #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney ch. 81.
Bishop Bjarni Kolbeinsson, from Wyre in Orkney, is described in ch. 84 of the #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney as a poet and plays a part in the saga. This long and fun poem about the Jómsvíkingar is not cited in the saga, and one Icelandic scholar thought it was 'composed in an unbishoplike manner'.
The first stanza of Arnórr jarlaskáld's poem in praise of Þorfinnr the Mighty, Earl of Orkney. This one is not recorded in the #SagaoftheEarlsofOrkney, though many others are.
