After this, Jarl Paul banished these ladies from Orkney about 1127, and they “fared away with all their kith and kin, first to Caithness, and then up into Sutherland to those homesteads which Frakark owned there,"[4] and tradition[5] locates her residence at Shenachu or Carn Shuin, on the east side of the River Helmsdale near Kinbrace above the road.  Possibly, however, they lived at Borrobol, the “Castle Farm";[6] and there “there were brought up by Frakark Margret, Earl Hakon’s daughter, and Helga, Moddan’s daughter,” and also Eric Stagbrellir, Frakark’s grandnephew, and son of her niece Audhild by Eric Streita, a Norseman, as well as Olvir Rosta and Thorbiorn Klerk, both Frakark’s grandsons, all of whom come prominently into our story.  Audhild’s son, Eric Stagbrellir, in the end was the survivor of these, as well as of all males of the Moddan line, and ultimately we hear of no descendants in Cat of any of them save of Eric, and Eric’s marriage with Ingigerd, St. Ragnvald Jarl’s only child, is the link between the line of Erlend and that of Moddan, which united the Erlend and Moddan estates.

Of the line of Thorfinn we already know the royal origin and descent from Malcolm II’s third daughter.

Of the Moddan line the Saga says[7]—­“These men were all of great family and great for their own sakes, and they all thought they had a great claim in the Orkneys to those realms which their kinsman Earl Harald (Slettmali) had owned.  The brothers of Frakark were Angus of the open hand, and Earl Ottir in Thurso:  he was a man of birth and rank.”  These children of Moddan were probably of royal lineage or kinship, as Moddan, who had been created Earl of Caithness by King Duncan I, was that king’s sister’s son, and was probably, as we have seen, their ancestor or kinsman.  They were also probably descended more remotely from Moldan, Maormor of Duncansby, a kinsman of Malcolm II, but had all been driven back from the coast, save Earl Ottir, who lived at Thurso, and probably owned its valley up to its source in the Halkirk and Latheron hills.

The death of Harald the Glib by poison left Paul de facto sole jarl of Orkney.  We are told[8] that “Paul was a man of very many friends, and no speaker at Things or meetings.  He let many other men rule the land with him, was courteous and kind to all the land-folk, liberal of money, and he spared nothing to his friends.  He was not fond of war, and sate much in quiet.”  We may be sure that he was little, if ever, in Sutherland, the country of his enemy Frakark.  His rule was, however, destined to be disturbed, on the one hand by the Moddan family’s plots, and, on the other hand, by a Norse competitor for the jarldom, Kali, son of Kol and Gunnhild, Jarl St. Magnus’ sister, who had been re-named Ragnvald from his resemblance to the handsome Jarl Ragnvald Brusi’s son, and was afterwards designated Jarl of Orkney by King Sigurd of Norway, as the representative of the line of Erlend, Thorfinn’s son.