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Earl Rognvaldâs Sons: Einar of the Orkneys and Rolf, Conqueror of Normandy
According to the thirteenth-century Icelandic Heimskringla, before the Viking Rollo became the first ruler of Normandy and of the Normans â the people who later conquered much of England, Ireland, and Sicily â he was known as Hrolf Ganger, or Rolf the Walker. Why the son of Earl Rognvald (Eysteinsson) â the legendary Norwegian nobleman and friend of King Harald Fairhair â ended up creating a powerful ducal dynasty in the early tenth century on the coast of modern-day France is less known because it may have involved his older brother Einar â who at the behest of their father sailed to the Orkneys from their home in Møre (western Norway) and established his own dynastic earldom enduring centuries.
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