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Birsay,
to the north of mainland was the beloved home and burial place of Thorfinn,
Earl of Orkney and Caithness
who lived at the time of Macbeth. Indeed he was a cousin to both Macbeth
and Duncan through their mothers who
were daughters of Malcolm II of Scotland.
Shakespeare
in his play 'Macbeth' made that noble
the villain of the piece obviously for the sake of his writings but
in reality it was Duncan who was, if not evil, at the very least
inept in his short rule of Scotland. Orkney legends have it that
it was Thorfinn who met and killed Duncan in battle at
Pitgaveny near Elgin. Whether
this was in collusion with Macbeth we don't know for sure but
what is sure is that Duncan was heading north to recover from
his own defeat at Durham and to try to rally his northern forces
who had just been beaten by Thorfinn further to the west of Forres.
Now the fact that this battle was fought in Macbeth's Moray
domain leads one to believe there was collusion but history is silent
on that fact. Macbeth was declared king and crowned at Scone
some time later and this is where it becomes complicated for he was
to be at odds with Thorfinn for the seventeen years of his reign
over the lands of Sutherland which both had already been contesting.
On every occasion someone tried to 'sort out' Thorfinn that worthy
warrior sent them home with their tails between their legs.
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At the end of the
millennium Thorfinn was to set out
for Rome in the expectation of the 'Second Coming' to which event
most of the nobles of Europe were gathering including Macbeth.
Prophecies not being of man's interpretation had left many so called
'churchmen' and their predictions in tatters and Thorfinn returned
to Birsay disappointed but moved by the experience for he set
about building the most magnificent church.
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