In the year 1157 or 1158, Sweyn defeated Gilli Odran, steward of Earl Ragnvald’s lands in Caithness, who had fled to the west and was caught in Murkfjord (possibly Loch Glendhu at Kylestrome in Eddrachilles) and was slain there with fifty of his men by Sweyn.[37]

In 1158, Ragnvald and Harold went, as they did every year, to hunt red deer and reindeer[38] in Caithness, their hunting ground being probably near the Ben-y-griams, which lay on the way to Kildonan, or Strathnaver, where Eric probably lived; and some think there are still remains of walls used as a pen for driven deer on Ben-y-griam Beg, though these are more probably the ancient ramparts of a hill-fort.[39] When they landed at Thurso, they heard that Thorbiorn Klerk was hiding and lying in wait in Thorsdale[40] in order to make an onslaught on Ragnvald, if he got a chance.  After riding with a band of a hundred men, twenty of them mounted, they spent the night at a place where there was what the Celts call an “erg” (airigh) but the Norse call “setr,” the modern sheiling.  Next day, as they rode up along Calfdale, Ragnvald was in advance of the party, and, at a homestead called Force,[41] Halvard hailed him loudly by name.  Thorbiorn was inside the house, and burst out through an old doorway, and dealt Ragnvald a great wound, and the jarl fell, his foot sticking in his stirrup, when Stephen, an accomplice, gave him a spear thrust; whereupon Thorbiorn, after dealing him another wound, and receiving a spear thrust in the thigh himself, fled to the moor.  Earl Harold at first would not interfere; and though Magnus son of Havard Gunni’s son insisted, Earl Harold again declined to pursue Thorbiorn to the death, but left Magnus to besiege him at Asgrim’s Ergin or Shielings,[42] now Assary, near Loch Calder, where, by setting fire to the hut in which he was, his pursuers succeeded in smoking him out and killing him.  They then brought the jarl’s body from Force to Thurso, and thence took it over to Orkney, to be buried in the choir of St. Magnus’ Cathedral, which he had founded and built in his uncle’s honour.

“Jarl Ragnvald’s death was a very great grief, for he was very much beloved there in the Isles, and far and wide elsewhere.”  It took place on the 20th August 1158.

“He had been a very great helper,” the Saga adds, “to many men, bountiful of money, gentle, and a steadfast friend; a great man for feats of strength, and a good skald” or poet.  In 1192 he was canonised as St. Ragnvald[43] with, it is said, full Papal sanction.  Save during Harold Maddadson’s minority he was never Earl of Caithness, and then had the title only as guardian of his ward Harold.