Chapter XXXVIII: The Offers of Earl Magnus

HAKON and his men came up in the morning, and ran first to the church and ransacked it, but did not find the Earl. He had gone to another part of the island, to a certain hiding-place, accompanied by two men. But when the holy Earl Magnus saw that they searched for him, he called to them, and thus made known to them where he was, and said they need search no farther. And when Hákon saw him, he and his men ran thither with loud yelling and clangour of their weapons.

Earl Magnus was praying when they came up to him, and when he had finished his prayer he made the sign of the cross, and said firmly to Earl Hákon: “You did not act well, kinsman, when you broke your oaths, and it is highly probable that you were instigated to this more by the wickedness of others than your own. Now, I will make you three offers, that you may rather accept one of them than break your oaths, and slay me who am innocent.”

Hákon’s men asked what these offers were.

“The first is, that I shall go to Rome, or away to Jerusalem, and visit the holy places, taking with me two ships from the Orkneys, with the necessary equipment for the journey, and obtain benefits for the souls of us both. I shall swear never to return to the Orkneys.”

This offer was promptly rejected.

Then said Earl Magnus: “Now, because my life is in your power, and I have offended against Almighty God in many things, you shall send me to Scotland, to our mutual friends, and keep me in custody there, with two men for companionship. Make such provision that I shall not be able to escape from this custody.”

This too was promptly refused.

Magnus then said: “There is yet one more offer which I will make, and God knows that I think more of your soul than of my own life, for it were better that you should do as I shall offer you than that you should take my life. Let me be maimed as you like, or deprived of my eyes, and throw me into a dark dungeon.”

Then said Earl Hákon: “This offer I accept, and I ask for no more.”

But the chiefs started up and said to Earl Hákon: “One of you will we kill now, and from this day you shall not both rule the lands of the Orkneys.”

Earl Hákon replied: “Slay him then, for I will rather have earldom and lands than instant death.”

Thus their conversation was related by Höldbodi, a truthful Bondi in the Sudreyar, who was one of the two of Earl Magnus’s men who were with him when he was taken.