THE VIKING BATTLE OF RAUDABJORG, 1045 A.D.

The Battle of Raudabjorg, 1045 A.D.,
Between Earl Thorfinn the Mighty
and his nephew Earl Rognavald Brusison.


“The Battle of Raudabjorg”, an article by Dan Mackay, was featured in the Caithness Courier of 12th August 2009. This was of particular interest to me as Castlehill Heritage Centre have been engaged since June 2008 in their Viking Heritage Project. This relates particularly to the Dunnet Area, with six weeks of field work undertaken beginning in July of that year and ending in August. Much digging was done, many samples and cores taken by a group of enthusiastic amateur archaeologist volunteers. This work was done over the Links of Dunnet by kind permission of George Campbell of Thurdistoft and Hamish Pottinger of Greenland Mains, and of Jimmy Swanson just North of the Dunnet Forest. We still await the final analysis of the samples, which can take some time.
My own contribution towards this project was to look again for clues in the Orkneyinga Saga. This had been required school reading in Stronsay with my headmaster John Drever, and on which we had to do a Bursary Competition. There have been many translations of the Saga, written originally allegedly in Iceland circa 1200 AD, translations in Latin by Torfeus in Norway, by Rev. Alexander Pope, Minister of Reay, who translated and transcribed the Latin of Torfeus. A signed copy of Pope’s work is in the Archives in Wick Library, inscribed 1774 by Pope to his friend Thomas Pennant. Other translators were Anderson in the late 1800s and Professor Pallson, Penguin Classics 1993 edition. There have been others. The late Jack Saxon in 1974 had a wide ranging article on the Battle of Raudabjorg in Caithness Field Club transactions, still attainable through Caithness.Org, and well argued.
What Dan Mackay and all the others overlooked was the furious tidal vicissitudes of the Pentland Firth. That same Pentland Firth was the same waters crossed by one of my double great great grandfathers, James Tait, eventually tenant of Inkstack from 28th May 1843 till his death in 1854. He and three of his sons, William of Quanterness, John of Campston and James of Inkstack, crossed the Pentland Firth many times with cattle bought in Orkney. One well documented trip was with 240 cattle bought in the North Isles and carried in 18 North Isles boats at 12 cattle per boat, by sail and by oars when needed. They set off from Carness near and North of Kirkwall, rounded Mull Head in Deerness, came into Scapa Flow at St Marys in Holm only to find the weather had turned nasty for the Pentland Firth crossing. So they went into the shelter of Longhope, the old Viking harbour of refuge called Asmundasvagr, and there they waited a week for better weather. Setting off again, the weather once more turned nasty. Nine boats carried on and got through, nine turned back and waited another week before a successful crossing. The cattle were then driven, first to Grotistoft in the Hill of Barrock, then, after shoeing their cloven hooves, the long walk or trek to Carlisle to Mr Thomas Morton of Brough on the Solway Firth. Took nearly four weeks droving, hard work for hard men.
Morton, classed in the Census of 1841 as a husbandman, was in Alterwall in Lyth on 15th April 1815 for the christening of Janet, daughter of James Tait and Elizabeth Nicolson then living there. James Tait was Morton’s local agent in the North for buying cattle, in this instance from Orkney. Morton being in Alterwall for the christening was fortuitous, his trip North was to see James Tait as to buying cattle that coming season, taking money North to pay for the beasts, cash on the nail when delivered by local boats to Carness.
So too with Earl Rognavald in his attempt in 1045 A.D. to defeat his uncle Earl Thorfinn the Mighty. Castlehill Heritage hope to publish later in the year a fuller version of research and views, but space requires this to be reasonably brief. Suffice that they are all out of step with “Oor Jock”, i.e. - myself. They are looking in all the silliest places for the location of the Battle, a classic example of “Hunt the Thimble”. The only place the Battle of Raudabjorg could have taken place was out of the ferocious tides of the Pentland Firth and on the quiet sea under Dwarwick Head in Dunnet Bay. It took place just off the Red Broch of Dunnet, (O.N. Raudabjorg), still there in attenuated form 120 metres to the East of the Salmon Bothy, with a triangulation point in its centre from the first Ordnance Survey of 1873. It was built with red stone taken off the beach, fallen from the red cliffs of Dwarwick Head and driven along the grey bedrock of the shore to lie conveniently below the Broch site. Hence the name Raudabjorg – Red Broch - a Norse name for a structure built by the Picts a thousand years before the Vikings arrived in Caithness.
The Old Norse did not call a cliff “bjorg”. Witness the Orkneyinga Saga the broch called Moseybjorg in Shetland, the Broch of Mousa. We do not need to conjecture that it was off Ratter, off the Kirk o’ Tang, off the mythical Roberry Head of Pallson in South Walls in Hoy which does not even exist. Look at the Map of Hoy if you doubt me. It was quite impossible for Viking Longships to sail against the wind, or to buck the violent opposing tides of the Pentland Firth, slender wooden craft driven by sail and if need be by oars
Grappled side to side, sails down and stored out of the way, oars useless, the ships could only fight in sheltered waters such as a sea loch like Loch Vatn in Ireland, or the Menai Straights between Anglesey and Wales, or a Norwegian Fyord such as the Battle of Solvidor.
Perhaps more interesting in the time of the Battle of Raudabjorg was the Norse influence over all of Britain. Raudabjorg was a local sea Battle between Earl Thorfinn Sigurdson the Mighty and his nephew Earl Rognavald, son of his brother Brusi.
A few years later in 1066 A.D. the Norse and Danes under Harold Hardrada invaded England by way of the Orkneys and landed at Riccall near York with a force probably numbering about 10,000 men. They were badly defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on 25th September 1066 by King Harold Godwinson of England. After that Battle two of Thorfinn’s sons, Earls Paul and Erland, were allowed to return to Orkney with the surviving Vikings and the attenuated remnants of the Viking Fleet.
Harold Godwinson immediately marched South to oppose William, Duke of Normandy, a direct descendant of Hrolf the Ganger of Norway, renamed Rollo, Duke of Normandy, after having Normandy ceded to him by the French Monarch. Hrolf was the oldest brother of the bastard youngest brother Torf Einar who conquered Orkney, and is reputed to have taught the Islanders to cut peats, or turf. Believe the peat story as you wish.
They met at the Battle of Hastings, too well known to require mention.
It has been suggested that if Harold had first met Duke William at Hastings before his Army was decimated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, Harold would have defeated William. It was a close call anyway. Then a subsequent defeat of Harold at Stamford Bridge might well have ended in the Throne of England being held by a Viking Earl from Orkney. Another suggestion is that the two armies knew of each others attack on England, that the cunning Duke William allowed Stamford Bridge to take place first, giving him the main chance which he took.
So who in the tangled web of History is to tell that the Battle of Raudabjorg, fought just under the red rock shelter of Dwarwick Head, did not have some influence in the Monarchy of England.