This Rognwald was father of Turf-Einar, who first invented peat in the Orkneys, finding the wood all gone there; and is remembered to this day.

Einar, being come to these islands by King Harald's permission, to see what he could do in them,--islands inhabited by what miscellany of Picts, Scots, Norse squatters we do not know,--found the indispensable fuel all wasted.

Turf-Einar too may be regarded as a benefactor to his kind.

He was, it appears, a bastard; and got no coddling from his father, who disliked him, partly perhaps, because "he was ugly and blind of an eye,"-- got no flattering even on his conquest of the Orkneys and invention of peat.

Here is the parting speech his father made to him on fitting him out with a "long-ship" (ship of war, "dragon-ship," ancient seventy-four), and sending him forth to make a living for himself in the world: "It were best if thou never camest back, for I have small hope that thy people will have honor by thee; thy mother's kin throughout is slavish." Harald Haarfagr had a good many sons and daughters; the daughters he married mostly to jarls of due merit who were loyal to him; with the sons, as remarked above, he had a great deal of trouble.