Nov. 10. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



357 



LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 1855. 



RONALD, SAINT OF OBKJKET. 



' Ronald, Earl of Orkney, the second of tliat 

 name, and nephew of Earl Magnus Erleudson, the 

 great Scandinavian saint, St. Magnus the Martyr, 

 is himself said to be a saint. lie had to contest 

 his right of succession to his uncle's share of the 

 earldom by arms, and being unsuccessful on a first 

 attempt, made a vow that should he succeed in 

 another, he would raise a church built of stone, 

 dedicated to St. Magnus, superior to any pre- 

 viously in the Orkney Islands. All things, the 

 chronicler tells us, then became favourable to him, 

 and having succeeded in getting possession of his 

 uncle's earldom, in pursuance of his vow, he 

 founded the cathedral of St. Magnus in Kirkwall, 

 which was built between 1138 and 1160, in the 

 same century with the cathedral of St. Mungo in 

 Glasgow. Accompanied by William, the first 

 Scandinavian Bishop of Orkney *, Earl Ronald 

 made a voyage to the Holy Land, visited Jeru- 

 salem, bathed in the river Jordan, and returned 

 by Constantinople across the country to Durazzo, 

 thence over the Adriatic, and by Rome through 

 Italy, Germany, and Norway. The account of 

 this voyage, which was as warlike as religious, 

 is given at some length in the Orkneyinga Saga, 

 and with the interspersed poetry, partly impro- 

 vised by the earl and his companions, is one of 

 the most interesting passages in the book. This 

 earl is characterised by Torl'aeus in his Orcades as 

 liberal, moderate, true to his friends, skilled in 

 various arts, and an excellent poet. He was 

 murdered on August 20, 1158, near Thurso in 

 Caithness, where he and. his kinsman. Earl Harold, 



* William was bishop sixty-six j'ears. During his 

 incumbency, a titular Bishop of Orkney, appointed l)y the 

 Archbisliop of York, Ralph Nowell, fought in the English 

 aj?my in the battle of the Standard at Northallerton, in 

 1138. Th« Orkney Norwegian bishopric was in the 

 diocese of Drontheim, transferred to St. Andrew's after the 

 annexation of Orkney to Scotland in 14G8. Bishop 

 William's body was found within these few years, when 

 making repairs in the choir of St. Magnus. It was 

 identified by a leaden plate, inscribed " Il(ic) reqiiiescit 

 Williamus Senex felicis memorie," and on the back, 

 "pmus. epis." (primus episcopus), the first Norwegian 

 bishop, which also distinguishes him from the later 

 Williams, Bishops of Orkney. Christ's Kirk in Birsay, 

 built in the preceding century by Earl Thorfiii, was the 

 first bishop's kirk, but on the'building of St. Magnus at 

 Kirkwall, Bishop William made it the cathedral church 

 of the Bishops of Orkney, and it continued to be occupied 

 as such by the Koman Catholic or Protestant bishops, and 

 on the abolition of Episcopacy by the clergy of the Esta- 

 blished Kirk of Scotland. It is just now refitting as a 

 Presbyterian parish church, with attention to comfort, 

 but I cannot say so much to the liking of the tasteful 

 antiquarj', 



JNo. 315.] 



had gone during the summer, as was their wont, 

 to hunt the roe and red deei*. His body was first 

 laid in the church of Our Lady in South Ronald- 

 shay, but, becoming resplendent in miracles, was 

 raised with the Pope's leave by Bishop Biarn, and 

 buried in the church of St. Magnus, when Earl 

 Ronald was added in 1192 to the number of saints. 

 So says Torfaaus ; but the Saga tells only that his 

 body was raised and buried again with the Pope's 

 leave by Bishop Biarn. Torfaeus's assured ac- 

 curacy forbids a supposition of incorrectness in the 

 statement of Earl Ronald's canonization ; yet I 

 may observe that his name does not appear in 

 Butler's Lives of the Saints, or in lists of Scottish 

 saints I have seen, and I would ask the favour of 

 some learned clerical correspondent to mention 

 his saint's day, and note any work where an ac- 

 count of him is given The 16th of April is 

 St. Magnus saint's day, which led to the notice of 

 that saint in the Acta Sanctorum ; but in this vo- 

 luminous work, without a general index, I could 

 not trace the name of Ronald. Much information 

 in addition to what is told in the Orkneyinga^ 

 Saga and Torfaeus's Orcades, is scarcely to be ex- 

 pected, but there may be some such curious 

 prayers and hymns as appear in the account of 

 St. Magnus in the Acta Sanctorum. Earl Ronald's 

 life does not show any of the ascetic virtues to be 

 remarked in St. Magnus, and so much admired in 

 his age ; and except the founding of the cathedral 

 of St. Magnus, and the journey to the Holy Land, 

 the religious pre-eminence he possessed, that 

 claimed his accession to the roll of saints, is not 

 readily to be seen. The journey to the Holy 

 Land was very much the cruising voyage of a ship 

 of war, in which sea-coast towns were attacked ; 

 and the good Bishop William had his part in a 

 fight with a large vessel called a dromuad or dro- 

 medary, belonging to the Mooi's, ofi' Serkland, or 

 Saracens' lands, between Sardinia and the Barbaiy 

 coast. This is the voyage of a sea-king, and — 



" Spanie Land oc Myklagaard, 

 De ligge sa langt af lee" — 



with the land of Spain and jNIyklagaard, or Con- 

 stantinople, lying far on the lee, as in the fragment 

 of the old Danish song preserved by Olaus 

 Wormius. However doubtful may be Earl Ro- 

 nald's right to canonization, he is one of the best 

 of the Orkney earls, and the virtues of the man 

 make us wish to know, and induce us to believe, 

 the excellence of the saint. W. H. F. 



KirkwalL 



POPE AND MR. BATHURST. 



My attention having been directed to a letter 

 bearing the signature P. A. B., in A''o!. xii., p. 60., 

 in which your correspondent has fallen into several 

 errors, 1 beg to say, on the best authority, that 



