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Pearsall Surname Project
Number of Pearsalls By Location
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Surname
History and Genealogy
of the Pearsall Family in England
and America:
Volume I
Front Cover
Inside Front Cover
The Motive
Thanks
Illustrations
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Appendix I
Volume II
Volume III
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slept
in a loft, and as he leapt down from the balcony of the loft, Thorkel hewed at him, struck him on the neck and took
his head off. Many men were slain, some fled, and others surrendered and
got peace. [Scottish Historical Magazine, vol. 12.]
Earl
Thorfinn carried the war into the enemy's camp
and devastated 'south in Fife.' This
expression 'south in Fife' occurs also
in the old lay of Gudhrun in the Poetic Edda, a coincidence which has been noted by Vigfussion. The Scots, after craving for and getting peace,
played the earl false, with the result that, the inhabitants having fled
to the woods and forests, he burned all the thorps and homesteads in that
district, so that not a cot remained. All the able-bodied men were slain, many were taken captive and put in bonds. In
the words of Arnor, 'the earl's poet' (of which
the following is a literal translation):
Destroyed
were the homesteads when he burnt
Failed
not that day danger,
Lept into the smoky thatch
Red
fire-the Scots' dominion:
The
slaughter-master dealt to men
Harm;
in one summer
Got
they, by the prince,
Three
times worsted.
[Scotland
Under Her Early Kings, by E. William Robertson, vol. 1, page 113-116.]
The
personal energy of Thorfin, the great accession
of territory resulting from his connection with Malcolm the Second, and
the union of all the northern islands with his wide possessions on the
mainland, enabled him in 1014 to take advantage of their weakness; and if
the Sagas are correct, in attributing to him a large Riki
in Ireland, and in extending his dominions from Thurso
Skerry to Dublin. The Jarl of the Orkneys may
have assumed the prerogatives of the earlier kings of Dublin, exacted tribute from their
dependants, and become the acknowledged leader of the Scottish and Irish Northmen. During the ascendancy of Thorfin the islands were for some time under the rule
of a certain Gille, and of Suibne
Mac Kenneth, names pointing to the Gaelic element amongst the Callegael; and it is not unlikely that they owed
their rise to the Jarl, and were amongst the earliest of the mainland
chiefs of the Orir-Gael who disputed the
possession of the Hebrides with the kings of Man. [Scottish Historical
Magazine, vol. 12.]
Brusee had children: *17. Ragenwald, *18. Ingreda,
*19. Margarita, *20. Olaus.
During
this period Thorfin was for a while associated
with his nephew *17. RÖGNWALD in the government of the earldom of the
Orkneys. The sagas tell the story most beautifully.-Earl Thorfin and his
joint-earl and nephew, Rognvald, sometime in
1037-1045 (when King Hardicanute was away in Denmark), made an expedition into England, to avenge an
indignity he had received from the English the previous year. Here he
fought and won a great battle on a Wednesday morning, called in the saga Yggsmorgin, Yggr being one
of the names of Odin, and then fared far and wide over England and
harried and slew men and burned the habitations wherever he went.
[Scottish Historical Magazine, vol. 12.]
In
1046, mischief-makers succeeded in estranging Earl Thorfinn,
who ruled Caithness,
from his joint-earl and nephew, Rognvald, who
ruled Orkney, with
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