In a series of narrative events that William P.L. Thomson suggests read more like folktale than history, the sons of Earl Thorfinn successively take both the Earldom of Orkney and Ragnhild Eiríksdóttir as wife. As I shall argue, the murder plots and serial marriages described in chapter 9 of Orkneyinga saga bear a striking resemblance to medieval Irish tales of a sovereignty goddess representing the land. In what follows, my intention is not to claim a genetic relationship between the two—that the sovereignty figure of medieval Irish literature is direct source for Ragnhild—but rather that chapter 9 of Orkneyinga saga has a narrative problem to solve concerning the succession of the earldom, and that the solution is reminiscent of the well-known sovereignty goddess motif.

A number of scholars have argued for the influence of medieval Irish literary culture on that of their insular neighbors, the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse. While degree and channels of influence generally require consideration on a case-by-case basis, William Sayers points out that

It is generally assumed by scholars that the Celtic settlers—however they made their way to Iceland—would have brought with them oral tales that influenced neighboring literary traditions by the time those traditions came to be recorded.