Both of Ketil's sons (and daughter Aude of Dublin) settled finally in Iceland. Helgi went first, it seems directly from Norway, and occupied vast districts in the south-western part of the country. Björn sailed first to the Sudreys or Scotland, where his relations were already established, but finding that they had all embraced Christianity, he felt so annoyed, that he followed the example of his brother, and took up his abode on the large peninsula protruding from the western coast of Iceland. His sister Aude of Dublin, after the decease of her husband, king Olaf the White, followed her son, Thorstein the Red, to Scotland.
There, Thornstein the Red and his sister Jocunda in company with her husband Sigurd the Mighty, the first Earl of Orkney, conquered Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Moray, and continued to rule for some time, until the Scotchmen rebelled, and killed him about A.D. 874. Finlath Aefgifu Sigurdssdottir was born in Scotland, and married Malcolm the Destroyer- both became the grandparents of Thorfinn the Mighty, Duncan I, Malred, Allan, Maelbride, Reynald of Croy, Herleva, Finella, and Macbeth.
Aude of Dublin went with her son Thornstein's children and the whole band of his followers to Orkney, where she stayed, as it appears, for a longer time, until the greater part, at least, of her grand-children were grown up. Groa married Duncan of Caithness-King Of Ailech, grandson of Gormflaith and Aed Findlath. It has been already mentioned that Aude of Dublin married one of her daughters, Groa Thorsteindottir, to Duncan, Earl of Caithness.
From Orkney Aude proceeded to the Faroe Islands, where likewise she married one of her grand-daughters, and from there to Iceland. Having suffered shipwreck near the abode of her brother Helgi, she repaired to him, but as he invited her only with the half of her company, she left him, disgusted with what she called his meanness, and went to her other brother, Björn, who met her with his retinue, and invited her with her whole troop. This invitation she accepted joyfully; afterwards she took lands in possession herself of an immense extent, and set up her abode at Hvamm, near the Breidfjord, where Olaf Feilan, the only son of Thorstein the Red, succeeded her at her death, on the very day he was married. She was a Christian, but did not build any church, erecting only some crosses, at which she said her prayers, and before her death she expressed a wish to be buried on the part of the beach covered by the sea at flood time, not willing, she said, to rest in unhallowed soil. She, as well as her brothers, were ancestors of powerful and illustrious descendants. Ivar the Boneless, Sigurd I The Mighty, Rognavald I The Wise, being cousins of Aude's husband Olaf the White.
In the Saga of Eric the Red, Thorstein became a warrior-king, and entered into fellowship with Earl Sigurd the Mighty, son of Eystein Glumra the Rattler. They conquered Caithness and Sutherland, Ross and Moray, and more than the half of Scotland. Over these Thorstein the Red became king, here he was betrayed by the Scots, and was slain there in battle.
In the valley of Hvin, in the south-west of Norway, lived a baron, named Grim, to whom a highborn man from Götaland, Björn, applied for reception, as he had been outlawed from his country. Thorir, the brother of Bödvar Bjarki (Beowulf?) in the Hrólf Kraki's saga is succeeded by the Siklings of who Sigar, the father of Siggeir, who genealogically corresponds to Ungvin, the king of Götaland in Gesta Danorum. Grim of Norway received Hvin (or Ungvin) in his house, but tempted by the immense mass of silver which Björn had carried with him, he planned a scheme to murder him; this, however, did not succeed, and Björn took up his abode with another baron, named Andott, who lived in the same district, and whose daughter he married, when his first wife, left by him in Götaland, was dead. Hither, also, the son of his first marriage, named Eyvind, repaired, and got all his ships of war, he himself being tired of piratical life, which he had carried on for some time during his exile.
Bernicia covered lands north of the Tees, whilst Deira corresponded roughly to modern-day Yorkshire. King Oswald re-introduced Christianity to the Northumbrian Kingdom, but this time, by appointing St Aidan, an Irish monk from the Scottish island of Iona to convert his people. The Treen system and the Celtization of Man is always associated with the conquest of West-Scotland and the Hebrides by the North-Irish tribe Dál Riada in the 5th and 6th centuries.
The Battle of the Brávellir or the Battle of Bråvalla was a legendary battle that took place in the eighth century on the Brávellir between Sigurd Ring, king of Sweden and the Geats of West Götaland, and Harald Wartooth, king of Denmark and the Geats of East Götaland. The historic Ragnar Lodbrok was an Earl at the court of the Danish king Hårek who participated in the Viking plunderings of Paris in 845. In 866, Ivar and Ubbe crossed the North Sea with a large army, sacked York, met King Aelle in battle, and captured him. They then moved south to East Anglia, on the way attacking the monasteries of Bardney, Croyland and Medeshampstede.
Eyvind, surnamed Austmašr, the Man from the East, made sail to the Western Islands, but entered, after the lapse of some time, into a treaty with the Irish king Cerbhal of Ossory, A.D. 858-888, by which he promised to defend his lands, on condition of becoming his son-in-law. Accordingly, he married his daughter Rafarta, and had by her a son, named Helgi, who was sent to be bred up with some people in the Sudreys. Two years afterwards, however, when his father and mother went to see him, they found him so lean and starved, that they could hardly recognise him, upon which they took him to themselves. From this circumstance Helgi got the nickname of magri, the meagre, lean. Meanwhile Thrond, a son of Björn, Eyvind's father, by the sister of Andott, had grown up to be a warrior like his half- brother, and of course set out on piratical expeditions as soon as possible. He fought in the great battle of Hafrsfjord AD. 872, where king Harold crushed the power of the petty kings in south-western Norway, on the side of the latter, and was obliged, like so many others of the vanquished, to take to flight. He sailed to the Sudreys, accompanied by a renowned Viking, Anund, from Rogaland, near Stavanger, who had fought at his side, and lost a leg in the battle, but nevertheless, when his wound was healed, continuing a staunch warrior on his wooden leg, from which he got the nickname of tréfót, wood-foot. When he was fighting his hardest, it is related that his men used to shove a block of wood to him; resting his maimed leg upon this, he laid about him manfully.
Cerbhal of Ossory married daughter of Malachy Mor and Flanna Ingen Diarmat. Cerbhal's grandson Donchadh married Aoife O' Faelain of Deisi Mumhain. Next Gilla Patraic I of Ossory married Maelmar Olafsson, daughter of Olaf the Red....
Thrond and Anund became intimate friends, and passed some years in piratical expeditions, chiefly on the Scottish coasts. One summer they went to Ireland, and spent some months in company with the aforesaid Eyvind, who generously made over to his half-brother Thrond all his part of the inheritance which might become due to him at the decease of their father Björn. At the end of the summer Thrond and Anund returned to the Sudreys. Some years afterwards Thrond received news from Norway of his father's death, and that the inheritance had been taken possession of in his name by his uncle Andott, but that the traitor Grim, now lieutenant to the king, claimed it in the name of the latter. Thrond, therefore, although now an outlaw in Norway, lost no time in returning thither, accompanied by his faithful friend Anund, and sailed from the Sudreys in so little time, that afterwards he got the surname of mjoksiglandi the fast-sailing.
They were well received by Andott, who very willingly paid over the inheritance, glad, he said, to see it in the hands of his relation, and not in those of the royal servants, but advised them earnestly to go away as soon as possible in order to avoid the persecutions of Grim. Thrond listened to the advice, and hurried away, with the intention of going to Iceland, which he also carried out, settling on the east coast. Anund, however, remained, saying that he would see his friends and relations in Rogaland. Thither accordingly he went, and passed a part of the winter there, living secretly at different places, and killing the man appointed by the king to superintend the estate which had formerly belonged to himself. Hearing, however, that Grim had killed his kind host, Andott, because he had yielded up the inheritance to his nephew Thrond, he hastened back to Agder, sought and found the young sons of Andott, who had been obliged to abscond, and assisted them not only in killing Grim by setting fire to his house, but also in extorting from the royal Earl in those parts large treasures as wergyld for their father. Afterwards Anund, in company with one of the brothers, went to Iceland, and both of them settled in the north of Iceland. The other brother, who had more difficulty in escaping from the persecution of the Earl's followers, came afterwards to Iceland, and took up his abode near his brother
Meanwhile, the son of Eyvind and his Irish princess, Helgi magri, had become a mighty chieftain, and married a daughter of Ketil Flatnef, sister to the aforesaid Queen Aude of Dublin. This circumstance appears to prove, what is also the most likely in itself, that he had passed the most of his time in the west, and was resident, either in Ireland or in the Sudreys; but that he was also no stranger to Norway, we see from the circumstance, that he had a son settled, and therefore likely born, there.
Like his other relations, Helgi migrated with sons and retinue to Iceland, about A.D. 880, where he chose his lands on the north side, in the inner part of the Eyjafjord, and became one of the most powerful Lords. The particulars about his arrival and taking possession of his territories are rather curious. He was, it is told, brought up in Christianity (which is also likely from his having an Irish mother), and believed in Christ, but was nevertheless much "mixed in his faith," using to invoke the aid of Thor, the pagan god, on expeditions at sea and wherever strength and hardihood were needed. When descrying the snow-clad peaks of Iceland far in the horizon, he applied to Thor for an oracular decision about what part of the coast he should land at, and the answer directed him to the Eyjafjord on the north side. Before detecting the opening leading to it, his son Rolf (that aforesaid son, previously settled in Norway) asked, whether it was the intention of Thor to assign the glacial ocean for their winter residence. Soon, however, they found the gap, and Helgi now occupied as his territory the whole district around the long and broad fjord, from the outermost promontories to the inner most recess, calling it Eyjafjord from its islands. He erected his own abode on a place which, being a Christian, he called Christnes, and that name continued, although his sons and descendants for three or four generations were pagans. Then he distributed lands to his followers, and afterwards to other newcomers, among whom were the aforesaid sons of Andott, the brothers-in-law of his father, who no doubt resorted to him on account of this relationship.