Orkney

“ Some are in the regular army, some in the navy, and some in the plucky, fighting little navy, patrolling England and her brood of coastwise islands. They are a tough, rough, hard lot, but I love them all better than anything else in this world. There are a good many Vedder houses in Orkney, and they are all full of little squabbling, fighting, never clean, and never properly dressed little brats, from four to eleven years old. ”

“ While wishing, with true Orcadian love of the sea, to sail for foreign countries in one of the large vessels I had so often seen in the haven of Stromness, I yet believed that there was no place in all the world like the Orkney Islands--no cliffs so high, no sea so blue, no homes so dear--and this new possibility of sailing with Davie Flett in the Falcon among our own islands was more agreeable to me, since it would not necessitate any very long absence from my home, three weeks or a month being the usual extent of the voyage. ”

“ Circumstantial evidence is against Hákon kló, a gœðingr, with the uppkvöð of the leiðangr, levy of ships and men, being landlocked in one of the very few inland townships in Orkney, situated from two to three miles from the nearest easy landing place. ”

“ In the Orkney and Shetland Islands, which were so long occupied as a Norse jarldom, the relics of Scandinavian art are, as might be expected, more abundant than in any other part of the country. The woodcut represents a bronze pin about one-fourth of the natural size, which was found in a tumulus at Sandwick, in Orkney. Another nearly similar to this, preserved in the local museum at Kirkwall, is said to have been found in a cist containing a human skeleton, and sticking in the skull, as if it had been the instrument of death. ”

“ Such things of course the shores of Orkney exhibit in no common measure, but to show how far they are from exhausting the coastal features of Orcadian life and scenery, it is only necessary to say that of twenty-one civil parishes in the county all but one (Harray) possess miles of sea-board, and that of the centres of population, only some two or three hamlets are inland. No spot in the Mainland is above five miles from the coast, no point in any other island more than three miles. ”

“ The Scotch trader came also, and the slipshod Norse way of barter and bargaining had no chance with the Scotch steady prices and ready money. But even through all these domestic and civic changes Orkney was constantly in zones of danger. In the first half of the nineteenth century England was at war with France and Spain and Russia, and the Orcadeans have a fine inherited taste for a sea fight. The Vikings did not rule them through centuries for nothing: the Orcadean and his brother, the Shetlander, salt the British Navy, and they rather enjoy danger zones. ”

“ But if Kenneth did not add permanently to his kingdom on the south, we find that the districts beyond the Spey, on the north, had again fallen under the dominion of the Norwegian earl of Orkney. The earl who ruled at this time was Sigurd ‘the Stout.’ He was the son of Hlodver, the previous earl of Orkney, whose father Thorfinn, called the ‘Skull-cleaver,’ was the son of Earl Einar, and by his marriage with Grelauga, daughter of Dungadr or Duncan, the jarl of Caithness, had brought that district to the Norwegian earls of Orkney. ”

“ Snaekoll himself, who, as the heir of Jarl Ragnvald, was too valuable a pawn to be sacrificed, was retained, and lived long in Norway with Earl Skuli, and afterwards with King Hakon.21 It is noteworthy that a gaedinga ship (no Jewish Ship,22 as Torfaeus states, but a ship of the gaedingar or lendirmen of the Earl of Orkney) was, on the return voyage, lost at sea; and, bearing in mind the large number of Orkney notables who had been slain at the battle of Floruvagr in Norway in 1194, men of means and standing must have been scarce in Orkney for long after this time. ”

“ Petrie's attention was directed to a large tumulus or green knoll, which stands about half-way up the western declivity of Wideford-hill, overlooking the beautiful bay of Frith on the mainland of Orkney, and within a short distance of the Pict's house of Quanterness, described in Barry's History of Orkney. Being on a steep and unfrequented part of the hill, it appears to have almost entirely escaped observation. ”

“ At length King Harald, irritated by their incessant ravages, collected a powerful fleet, and visiting Shetland, Orkney, and the Hebrides, in succession, he swept their coasts clear of the plunderers, subduing the whole of the Northern and Western islands as far south as Man.
In this expedition Ivar, a son of Rögnvald, Earl of Moeri, was killed. [10] In order to recompense Rögnvald for the loss of his son, King Harald bestowed on him the territory of the subjugated isles of Orkney and Shetland, with the title of Earl of the Orkneys. ”

“ Orkney, on its gala, days, is a land of ladies. What seems to be the typical countenance of these islands unites an aquiline but not prominent nose to an oval face. In the ordinary Scotch and English countenance, when the nose is aquiline it is also prominent, and the face is thin and angular, as if the additional height of the central feature had been given it at the expense of the cheeks, and of lateral shavings from off the chin. ”

“ In 1569 Lord Robert exchanged the temporalities of Holyrood House for the temporal estates of the see of Orkney with Adam Bothwell, bishop of Orkney; but in 1570 the bishop of Orkney explained that Lord Robert had ‘violently intruded himself on his whole living with bloodshed and hurt of his servants;’ that ‘after he had craved justice, his and his servants’ lives were ‘sought in the very eye of justice in Edinburgh;’ and that he was ‘then constrained, of mere necessity, to take the abbacy of Holyrood by advice of sundry godly men’ (ib. p. 531) . ”

“ As the Gaels did not give up patronymics and begin to assume permanent surnames (usually those of their chiefs) , until after 1350, those who settled in Orkney before that, and became Norse in language and customs, of course adopted the Norse, in place of the Gaelic, patronymic, i.e., -son for mac-. This was done by the Gaelic earls in Orkney, in precisely the same way as had been done by the Irish settlers in Iceland. ”

“ We can not pass the Orkneys without a word of notice. They were the Isles-West-Over-the-Sea of the Vikings. Here they fled at first from the wrath of Harald, here they fitted out their expeditions for all lands, here they recuperated and quarrelled with themselves and the mixed race of the mainland of Scotland. Here was written that great Saga of the northland, the Orkneyinga Saga, a stirring tale of Harald, the Earls of Orkney and of Scotland. Passing Kirkwall, the square Norman tower of its ancient cathedral attracts the eye. Pleasing is the crescent city on the quiet bay. ”

“ All that has been said as to the adaptability of Maes-how to any of the well-known fairy stories is equally applicable to this Irish "how." The Boyne mound, however, as will be seen from its measurements, is much larger than the Orkney one; though the stone structure in its interior is of much the same dimensions as the other. The interior of the "Broch of the Boyne," however, represents a much ruder and more primitive stage in such architecture, and compared with it, the Orkney "how" is a most finished and elaborate work. ”

“ On attaining manhood, however, Thorfinn made good his claim to a share of Orkney also, and after many vicissitudes of fighting and friendship with his half-brothers, and with Jarl Rognvald I, Brusi’s son, was finally left sole ruler there. He extended his power far and wide over northern Scotland, controlled the Hebrides, and ruled certain parts of Ireland. ”

“ Orkney occupies the somewhat anomalous position of being a wholly insular shire whose economic interests [3] are overwhelmingly agricultural. Most of the islands are flat or low; and in several, such as Shapinsay, Stronsay, Sanday, and South Ronaldshay, the proportion of cultivated land exceeds 70 per cent. of their total areas. In the Mainland, however, there are large stretches of hill and moorland, while in Hoy and Walls the natural conditions of by far the greater portion of the island closely approximate to those of the Scottish Highlands. ”

“ Meantime, when Rögnvald, Earl of Moeri, heard in Norway of the death of his brother Sigurd, he obtained a grant of the earldom of Orkney from King Harald for his own son Hallad. Hallad found the Islands so much infested by vikings that he soon gave up the earldom in disgust, and returned to Norway, preferring the life of a farmer to that of an earl. ”

“ Clair. In 1396 a deed was executed at Roslin by John de Drummond of Cargyll, and Elizabeth, his wife, in favour of Henry, Earl of Orkney, Lord Roslyn, “patri nostro,” by which they renounce in favour of the earl’s male issue, and for them and their heirs, all claims to the earl’s lands “infra regnum Norvagie.” [97]
The Diploma states that after the death of the first Henry St. Clair, his mother, the daughter of Malise, [98] came to Orkney, and, outliving all her sisters and all their sons and daughters, became the only heiress of the earldom. ”

“ Bye, a dwelling, is the Orkney Bu or Boo, a pure Icelandic word.
Other instances could be given; and there is nothing remarkable in this when it is considered that the invaders of Orkney and Normandy were the same people at the same period, and the better preservation of the Norse tongue in Orkney is readily to be accounted for. ”

“ In 1379 he and a certain Malise Sperra laid claim to the earldom of Orkney, and the claim was decided in Sinclair's favour by Hakon VI of Norway (‘Diploma of Thomas, Bishop of Orkney and Shetland, addressed to Eric, King of Norway, respecting the Genealogy of William Saint Clair, Earl of Orkney,’ in the Bannatyne Club Miscellany) . He held a sort of sovereign power over the islands under the king of Norway, and maintained a royal state. ”

“ Overlooking the sea, in the extreme north-west of the Mainland, stand the ruins of the Palace of Birsay, erected by Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney, about 1580, on the site of an old palace of the Norse Jarls. Less elaborate in design, and in a worse state of preservation than the building erected by his son, Earl Robert’s palace is sufficiently commodious and noble of outline to make one marvel at the passionate taste for fine buildings of a race which required two such imposing structures in two successive generations. ”

“ They are not of clay, but of stone. They are not circular, but oval or irregularly four-sided in shape. They vary extremely in size, the largest known being 6 feet in circumference, and the smallest less than 5 inches long and 3 inches high. They are characterised by extreme simplicity of form and decoration. When they are ornamented the decoration is confined to the scoring of two or more lines underneath the rim, and rudely parallel to it. Their range, so far as is at present known, is confined to Caithness, Orkney, and Shetland, the area proper of the old Norwegian Earldom of Orkney. ”

“ Fig. 1085.—The Collegiate Church of Rosslyn. Caps of Openings to Choir.
flory, for Orkney; 3rd a cross engrailed for St. Clair, being the 1st and 3rd quarters of the arms of the Earl of Orkney; Sinister, in base a heart, and on a chief three mullets, for Douglas, the shield being surmounted of a fess charged with three fleurs-de-lys (2 and 1) for Touraine. Lady Elizabeth died in 1452.
The barrel vault of the sacristy (see Fig. 1087) is semicircular, and supports a flat roof formed with overlapping stones. ”

“ Cliefden was purchased by Lord George Hamilton (fifth son of the Duke of Hamilton) , who was created Baron Dechemont of Linlithgow, Viscount Kirkwall of Orkney, and Earl of Orkney, in 1696. His lordship completed the mansion, and did much towards beautifying the grounds. Dying without male issue in 1737, his eldest daughter, Anne, became Countess of Orkney, and succeeded to the Cliefden estate. She, however, did not reside here, but [1272] let it to H.R.H. Frederick, Prince of Wales, father of King George III., who for many years made it his summer residence. ”

“ In the west of Europe, where superstition prevailed, there were many formidable demons, whose history originated in Celtic, Teutonic, and Eastern fables. In Orkney, even during the last century, lovers met within the sacred circle of stones dedicated to Scandinavian deities, to plight their love. ”

“ The same fact is further illustrated by similar relics of a subterranean stone dwelling at Saverock, near Kirkwall, in Orkney, situated, like the natural caverns of Torbay, close to the sea-shore. Accumulated remains of charcoal and peat ashes lay intermingled with bones of the small northern sheep, the horse, ox, deer, and whale, and also with some rude implements illustrative of primitive Orcadian arts ”

“ The Iceland Annals, under the date 1389, have the following entry:—“Malise Sperra slain in Hjaltland, with seven others, by the Earl of Orkney. He had previously been taken captive by him. From that conflict there escaped a man-servant who with six men in a six-oared boat got away safely to Norway.” ”

“ Orkney pursued the French at the head of a large body of cavalry as far as Louvain. He commanded a force at the passage over the Dyle, and was at the siege of Menin in July 1706. On 12 Feb. 1707 Orkney was elected one of the sixteen representative peers for Scotland to sit in the first parliament of Great Britain. ”

“ Arrival of Olaf the White in Ireland. He seizes Dublin, establishes himself there as king, makes an expedition to Scotland, and besieges and takes Dumbarton.
872. Harald Harfagri becomes sole King of Norway; makes an expedition against the western Vikings, who have established their viking station in Orkney, drives them from their haunts, and subdues Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, and Man. He gives Orkney and Shetland, as an earldom of Norway, to Rögnvald, Earl of Mœri, father of Hrólf (Rollo) , the conqueror of Normandy. ”