[9][note 2] According to Haraldssona saga within the thirteenth-century saga-compilation Heimskringla, in 1142 Eysteinn and Bjaðǫk were brought to Norway from west-over-sea by three prominent men of the realm: Árni sturla, Þorleifr Brynjólfsson, and Kolbeinn hrúga.

[16] Overseas sexual encounters between Norwegian royals and foreign women was evidently not an uncommon occurrence at the time.

Certainly, the thirteenth-century Chronica of Roger de Hoveden (died 1201/1202) pointedly remarks upon the low-status of the mothers of Norwegian monarchs.

At about this time, Guðrøðr Óláfsson (died 1187), son and heir of the reigning King of the Isles, visited Norway and rendered homage to Ingi.

Guðrøðr's Scandinavian stay coincided with that of Nicholas Breakspeare, Cardinal-Bishop of Albano (died 1159),[20] an Englishman who became pope in 1154.

Guðrøðr's cooperation with Ingi, therefore, could have been undertaken in the context of avoiding having to deal with Eysteinn and his seemingly Irish or Hebridean kin.

According to Magnússona saga, within Heimskringla, a Norwegian baron named Hallkell húkr voyaged from Norway to the Isles where he encountered Haraldr gilli and his mother.

[38][note 5] The accounts of Eysteinn's father gaining royal recognition illustrate that, although such claimants sometimes had to undergo ordeals to prove their paternity, the testimony of their foreign mothers also carried weight in the final decision.

[42] Eysteinn and Haraldr gilli lived during a remarkable period of Norwegian history in which civil warring waged for nearly a century, from 1130 to 1240.

[41] According to a much later tradition, dated to turn of the twentieth century and perhaps as early as the late eighteenth century, the grandfather of Somairle mac Gilla Brigte, King of the Isles (died 1164), Gilla Adamnáin, had a daughter who married a Norwegian king—a king who seemingly corresponds to Haraldr gilli himself.