After the battle King Harald (Godwinson) permitted Olaf, the son of King Harald Sigurdson, and the Earls to leave England, with all the troops that had not fled. Olaf sailed in the autumn from Hrafnseyri[286] to the Orkneys. The same day and at the same hour as King Harald fell, his daughter Maria died, and it is said that they had but one life.
Olaf spent the winter in the Orkneys, and was very friendly to the Earls, his kinsmen. Thóra, the mother of King Olaf, and Ingibiorg, the mother of the Earls, were daughters of two brothers. In the spring Olaf went to Norway, and was made King along with his brother Magnus.
While the brothers (Paul and Erlend) ruled the Orkneys they agreed extremely well a long time; but when their sons came to manhood Erling and Hákon became very violent. Magnus was the quietest of them all. They were all men of large stature, and strong, and accomplished in everything. Hákon, Paul’s son, wished to take the lead among his brothers; he considered himself of higher birth than the sons of Erlend, as he was the daughter’s son of Earl Hákon Ivar’s son, and Ragnhild, the daughter of King Magnus the Good. Hákon wished his friends to have the lion’s share of everything before those who leant to the sons of Erlend, but Erlend did not like his sons to be inferior to any in the Islands. Matters went so far that the kinsmen could not be together without danger. Then their fathers persuaded them to compose their differences. A meeting was appointed, but it soon became apparent that each [of the fathers] was inclined to take the part of his sons, and therefore they did not agree. Thus dissensions arose between the brothers, and they parted without coming to an agreement, which was by many considered a great misfortune.
AFTER this well-disposed men interfered and tried to reconcile them. A meeting for reconciliation was appointed in Hrossey,[287] and at that meeting they made peace on the understanding that the Islands should be divided in two shares, as they had been between Thorfinn and Brúsi, and thus matters stood for a while.
When Hákon had arrived at the age of manhood he was continually on war expeditions. He became a very violent man, and greatly molested those who adhered to Erlend and his sons; and this went so far that they came to open enmity a second time, and attacked each other with numerous troops. Hávard, Gunnar’s son, and all the principal friends of the Earls, consulted once more and tried to make peace between them. This time Erlend and his sons refused to make peace if Hákon remained in the Islands; and because their friends considered their quarrels so dangerous to themselves, they besought Hákon not to let the condition that he should leave the Islands for a time stand in the way of peace. Then, by the advice of good men, they became reconciled.