Thorfinn The Mighty - Death and Legends

Death and Legends

The Orkneyinga Saga dates Thorfinn's death no more precisely than placing it "towards the end" of Harald Sigurdsson's reign, which is far from exact. Thorfinn returned from Rome in around 1050 and Harald Sigurdsson died at the battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066, leaving a period of perhaps a decade in which Thorfinn's death might be placed. Historians offering a later date, sometimes as late as 1065, propose that King Máel Coluim mac Donnchada married a postulated daughter of Thorfinn named Ingibiorg rather than his widow. If a date in the early 1050s is presumed, then Máel Coluim could well have married Thorfinn's widow as the saga says.

Archie Duncan argued that Máel Coluim mac Donnchada came to marry Thorfinn's widow because he spent some or all of the period of Mac Bethad's reign in Orkney or Caithness at Thorfinn's court. Thorfinn and Máel Coluim were both descendants of Máel Coluim mac Cináeda, daughter's son and daughter's grandson respectively, and both had good reason to be hostile to Mac Bethad and his kinsmen, the Kings of Moray.

A less orthodox suggestion was made by author Dorothy Dunnett in her 1982 novel King Hereafter. In the 19th century, William Forbes Skene noted that the historical sources which mention Thorfinn do not know of Mac Bethad, and vice versa. Pursuing this further, Dunnett wrote a novel taking Mac Bethad and Thorfinn to be the same person.

He was followed as earl by his sons Paul and Erlend.

Thorfinn was buried in the grounds of St. Magnus Church, Birsay, Mainland Orkney. He is known to history as Thorfinn the Mighty, and at his height of power, he controlled all of Orkney and Shetland, the Hebrides, Caithness and Sutherland, and his influence extended over much of the north of Scotland. The Orkneyinga Saga makes a grander claim - that he controlled seven earldoms in Scotland. As there were only seven earldoms in total, this seems to claim he was King of Scots; but is more probably referring to the strong alliance he held with his half-brother or cousin (historians still debate on this) Macbeth of Moray, King of Scotia. This claim may reflect a royal pretension of his, derived from maternal descent from a king Malcolm (who probably was Malcolm mac Melbrigte, ruler of Moray and titular high king of Alba). Maternal descent, according e.g. Bede's historical accounts, was a strong right to Pictish throne, the lands of Moray and Alba ('seven earldoms').