after which the islands may have been held by Håkon Eiriksson. Religion According to the Orkneyinga saga, the Northern Isles were Christianised by King Olaf Tryggvasson in 995 when he stopped at South Walls on his way back to Norway from Dublin. The King summoned jarl Sigurd and said "I order you and all your subjects to be baptised. If you refuse, I'll have you killed on the spot and I swear I will ravage every island with fire and steel." Unsurprisingly, Sigurd agreed and the islands became Christian at a stroke. This tale is repeated in St Olaf's Saga, (although here Olaf lands at South Ronaldsay) as is a brief mention of Sigurd's son "Hunde or Whelp" who was taken as a hostage to Norway by King Olaf. Hunde was held there for several years before dying there. "After his death Earl Sigurd showed no obedience or fealty to King Olaf." Death and succession The Orkneyinga Saga blandly reports that "five years after the Battle of Svolder" Earl Sigurd went to Ireland to support Sigtrygg Silkbeard and, after taking up the raven banner, was killed in a battle that took place on Good Friday. (The chronology is slightly awry in that Sigurd's death is known to have taken place 14 years after Svolder.)Njal's Saga provides a little more detail, alleging that Gormflaith ingen Murchada prompted her son Sigtrygg into getting Sigurd to fight against her former husband, Brian Ború: "She sent him to Earl Sigurd to beg for help ... Then King Sigtrygg fared south to Ireland, and told his mother that the Earl had undertaken to come." The 12th-century Irish source, the Cogadh Gaedhil re Gallaibh, records the events of the Battle of Clontarf in 1014. The "foreigners and Leinstermen" were led by Brodir of the Isle of Man and Sigurd, and the battle lasted all day. Though Brian was killed in the battle, the Irishmen ultimately drove back their enemies into the sea, and Sigurd himself was killed.Crawford (1987) p. 80 His death is corroborated by the Annals of Ulster, which record that amongst the dead was "Siuchraid son of Loduir, iarla Innsi Orcc" (i.e. of Sigurd, son of Hlodvir, Earl of Orkney). This is the earliest known contemporary reference to the earldom of Orkney. Sigurd left four sons: Brusi, Sumarlidi, Einar and Thorfinn, each of whom would also bear the title Earl of Orkney; the lands