Chapter II: Part 2

Short-horns and polled Angus are the favoured breeds of cattle, and many thousand head from the Islands pass through the Aberdeen auction marts every year. The finest of the beef—and prime Orkney beef is second to none—finally reaches Smithfield. Cheviots and Cheviot-Leicester crosses are the common sheep, the small native breed, of Norwegian origin, being now confined to North Ronaldshay. The old Orkney horse, itself probably a hybrid of half Norwegian and half Scottish extraction, has for several generations past been crossed with Clydesdale blood, and the resultant is a small-sized but very sturdy and serviceable animal. Oxen are still used to a small extent as draught animals. The export of eggs and poultry is a great and growing Orcadian industry, the annual output from the Islands being at least £60,000 in value, a larger figure be it noted than the purely agricultural rental of the county. The fattening of geese for the Christmas market is a special feature of Orkney poultry-farming, the birds being largely brought from Shetland at the end of harvest and put on the stubble. The open winter is a valuable consideration to poultry-keepers in the Islands, increasing the amount of natural food which the birds are able to pick up, and extending the period of laying.

Large quantities of sea-weed are available as manure in practically every part of the Islands, and marl in some localities. The chief disadvantages under which agriculture labours in Orkney are distance from the markets, and occasional damage to grain crops from sea-gust. Agricultural co-operative societies, however, which have obtained a firm footing in the Islands, are doing a great deal to counter-act the effects of the first-mentioned drawback.

11. Industries and Manufactures

The manufacture of kelp was introduced into the Islands in 1722, and by 1826 the annual export amounted to 3500 tons, valued at £24,500. The abolition of the duty on barilla, which is largely used in the manufacture of glass, destroyed this industry for a time; but since about 1880 there has been a considerable revival in the North Isles, the yearly export having again reached about 1500 tons. Orkney kelp is considered of the finest quality.

The making of linen yarn and cloth, introduced in 1747, was successfully carried on for many years, and flax was locally grown. This industry received a severe check during the Great War (1793-1815), and gradually disappeared.

The manufacture of straw-plait for bonnets and hats was begun about 1800, and fifteen years later the yearly export was valued at £20,000, from 6000 to 7000 women being employed in the industry. The material used was at first split ripened wheat straw; later, however, unripened, unsplit, boiled and bleached rye-straw was substituted. The reduction of the import duty on straw-plait finally destroyed this interesting home industry, of which Kirkwall and Stromness were the chief centres.

The present-day industries of Orkney are unimportant. No minerals are worked in the county, although flagstone is quarried at Clestrain in Orphir, and red sandstone of fine quality at Fersness in Eday. The numerous sailing boats used in the Islands are mostly of home construction, the broad-beamed, shallow-draught, and comparatively light Orkney yawl being a type specially designed to suit local conditions of weather and tide. The making of the well-known Orkney straw-backed chairs is restricted by a very limited demand, and the specimens made for sale are somewhat more elaborate than those used in the cottages. A small quantity of home-spun tweed is made in the Islands, and a certain amount of rough knitting—stockings, mittens, and other articles used by the seafaring classes—is done in some districts. Fish-curing is carried on at Kirkwall, and to a small extent, as a home industry, in country districts. There are distilleries at Stromness, Scapa, and Highland Park, near Kirkwall, the output at the last-named being large, and in high esteem among whisky-blenders.

12. Fisheries and Fishing Station

Of recent years Whitehall in Stronsay has become one of the great centres of the summer herring fishing, with an annual catch of from 80,000 to 90,000 crans, a total exceeded in Scotland only at the ports of Lerwick, Fraserburgh and Peterhead. As at many other places where this great industry is carried on, however, the boats, the capital, and the personnel come almost entirely from outside. There are smaller stations of this fishery at Kirkwall, Sanday, Stromness, Holm, and Burray, at the last-named of which alone the boats and crews are local.

The white fishing is carried on in a desultory fashion in Orkney waters by some 350 fishermen, who use small locally-made yawls, but the annual catch is not important compared with that of other fishery districts. Haddocks, cod, and saithe are the commonest fish. Saithe simply swarm, but are caught chiefly for household consumption. Some 250 other men who style themselves “crofter-fishermen” in the census returns, are in reality small farmers who do an occasional day’s fishing, mainly for the pot. Lobster fishing is the one branch of the industry which the “crofter-fishermen” do follow with any persistence, and lobsters and other shell-fish, mainly whelks, to the value of from £6000 to £7000, are exported from the Islands annually. The whelks are gathered mainly by women. There are 338 fishing boats in Orkney, of an aggregate burden of 2154 tons, and of a value, including fishing gear, of £16,095.

Sea-trout are plentiful along much of the Orkney coast, especially near estuaries; but although surreptitious netting is intermittently done by unauthorised persons, this fishing is not, as with proper care it might be, on any sound commercial footing. Sea-trout run to a large size in the Islands, fish of from 8 to 10 lbs. being not uncommon. Walls, Hoy, the Bay of Ireland, Holm, and Rousay are the best localities. The net season is from 24th February to 10th September, the rod season from the same opening date to 31st October.

Longhope and the Bay of Firth were of old famous for oysters, and at the latter place a praiseworthy effort was recently made to restore the fishery.

13. History of the County

Our knowledge of the Orkney Islands before the Norse settlement in the latter part of the ninth century is of a slight and fragmentary character. In particular, what Latin writers say gives no sure information, the references in poets like Juvenal and Claudian being manifestly for literary ornament.

The earliest writer of British race to throw any light on the Islands is Adamnan, who mentions that in the sixth century Cormac, a cleric of Iona, with certain companions, visited the Orkneys, and adds that the contemporary Pictish ruler of the Islands was a hostage in the hands of Brude Mac Meilcon, King of the Northern Picts. Whatever degree of power this Pictish king may have exercised over the Islands, we learn from the _Annals of Ulster_ that in the year 580 they were invaded by Aidan, King of the Dalriadic Scots, and as the next mention of the Orkneys in the native chronicles is the record of their devastation by the Pictish King Brude Mac Bile in the year 682, it is perhaps a fair inference that Dalriadic influence had predominated there during the intervening century. That the Islands were christianised about this period by clerics of the Columban or Irish Church, is a point too firmly established by archaeological, topographical, and other data to require any insistence on here. Many pre-Norse church dedications to St Columba, St Ninian, and other Celtic saints, tell their own story.

Little is known of the state of the Islands during two centuries preceding the date of the Norse settlement _c._ 872 A.D., but from that era until the year 1222 Orkney possesses in the _Orkneyinga Saga_ a record of the highest value. The _Saga_ states that the Islands were settled by the Norsemen in the days of Harald the Fair-haired (Harfagri), but had previously been a base for Vikings. Harald Harfagri had about the year 870 made himself sole King of Norway, and in so doing had incurred the odium of a large section of the Odallers, or landowners, many of whom in consequence emigrated to Iceland, Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, and the coasts of Ireland. The settlers in Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Islands took to piracy, and so inflicted the coasts of old Norway, that in 872 Harald followed up the fugitives, conquered all the islands of the Scottish seas, and placed his partisan Rognvald, Earl of Moeri, as hereditary Jarl over Orkney and Shetland. This nobleman, however, preferring to live in Norway, gifted his western jarldom to his brother Sigurd, who is commonly considered the first, as he proved one of the greatest, of the long line of Orcadian Jarls. Sigurd speedily spread his power over northern Scotland as far south as Moray, and from his time until the close of the thirteenth century the Orkney Jarls had the controlling hand in Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross. Jarl Sigurd died in 875, and was ultimately succeeded by the scarcely less strenuous Torf-Einar, a son of Jarl Rognvald, and a half-brother of Hrolf (Rollo), the conqueror of Normandy. Einar got his _sobriquet_ of “Torf” from the fact of his having learned in Scotland, and taught the islanders, the practice of cutting turf for fuel. He was succeeded by three sons, of whom the two elder, Arnkell and Erlend, fell in the battle of Stanesmoor in England, in 950. The third, Thorfinn Hausacliuf (Skull-Splitter), proved as good as his name, and well maintained the doughty reputation of a family which later, in a collateral line, produced William the Conqueror.

Let us pause here, however, to outline the polity and state of society which had now become established in the Islands. The Orkney Jarls were not autocratic rulers. The Odallers, assembled at the _Thing_, made the laws, on the advice or with the concurrence of the Jarls, but these laws were superimposed on a body of old Norse oral laws which the settlers had brought with them from over-sea. The land law taking no account of primogeniture, the sons of an Odaller succeeded equally to his estate, and a daughter could claim half the share of a son. The eldest son, however, could claim possession of the Bu (English _by_, as in Whitby), or chief dwelling. An Odaller could not divest himself of his odal heritage, except for debt, or in security for a debt, and in such a case a right of redemption lay for all time, not only with his nearest heir, direct or collateral, but on refusal of nearer heirs to avail themselves of it, with any descendant whatsoever. Under such a system free men without landed interest actual or prospective were few, and the odal-born formed the bulk of the population. Some of the wealthier Odallers, however, possessed a limited number of thralls, and thraldom was hereditary. Land tax, or _scat_, was paid by the Odallers to the Jarl, and by the Jarl to the King, but in both cases the payment was a fiscal imposition rather than a feudal exaction, the Crown of Norway recognising the obligation of defending the Islands against outside foes in final resort. Apart from this, the overlordship of the mother-country was so slight that in the European diplomacy of the times the Jarls were treated as sovereign princes.

Thorfinn Hausacliuf died _c._ 963; and the rule of his five sons, Havard, Hlodver, Ljot, Skuli, and Arnfinn is noticeable for the first of those family feuds which form so marked a feature of the history of the Jarls. Skuli took the title of Earl of Caithness from the King of Scots, and fared against Ljot with a host provided by the King and the Scots Earl Macbeth. Ljot defeated him in the Dales of Caithness, Skuli being slain. Earl Macbeth with a second host, was in turn defeated by Ljot at Skidmoor (Skitton) in Caithness, and here Ljot fell. His other brothers having already disappeared in domestic strife, Hlodver was now left sole. He married Edna, an Irish princess, and their only son Sigurd Hlodverson, the Stout, is one of the most famous characters of the _Saga_. Succeeding his father in 980, Sigurd held Caithness by main force against the Scots. A Scots maormor, Finnleik, the father of the celebrated Macbeth, having challenged him to a pitched battle at Skidmoor by a fixed day, Sigurd took counsel of his mother, for she, as the _Saga_ says, “knew many things,” that is, by witchcraft. Edna made her son a banner “woven with mighty spells,” which would bring victory to those before whom it was borne, but death to the bearer. Armed with this uncanny device, Sigurd defeated his challenger at Skidmoor, with the loss of three standard-bearers. An incident of wider consequence, however, befell Sigurd in the year 995. Olaf Tryggvi’s son, King of Norway, came on the Jarl aboard ship in a small bay in the South Isles. The King had the superior force, and, a recent convert himself, he there and then forced christianity upon the reluctant Jarl, and laid him under an obligation to impose the faith upon the people of Orkney. The _Saga_ adds, “then all the Orkneys became christian,” and so indeed the Islands henceforth remained. Sigurd himself, however, reverted to the old gods, and in the year 1014, he joined the great Norse expedition against Brian, King of Ireland, which led to the battle of Clontarf. In that famous fight the Skidmoor banner again did service, but the spell was broken. “Hrafn the Red,” called out the Jarl after two standard-bearers had fallen, and an Icelander who knew its fatal secret had declined to touch it, “bear thou the banner.” “Bear thine own devil thyself,” rejoined Hrafn. Then the Earl said, “’Tis fittest that the beggar should bear the bag,” at the same time taking the banner from the staff and placing it under his cloak. A little after, the Earl was pierced through with a spear.

Most famous of all the Jarls in the eyes of the Norse was Thorfinn the Great, Sigurd’s son by a second marriage with a daughter of Malcolm II, King of Scots. Sigurd, however, was at first succeeded in Orkney by Brusi, Somerled, and Einar, sons of an earlier marriage, while Thorfinn, a boy of five, who had been fostered by the Scots King, was invested by his grandfather in the Earldom of Caithness and Sutherland. 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. He even invaded England in the absence of King Hardicanute, and, according to the _Saga_, defeated in two pitched battles the forces that opposed him. In later life Thorfinn visited Rome, and he built a minster, known as Christchurch, in Birsay, the first seat of the Bishopric of Orkney. He died in 1064. Thorfinn’s sons Paul and Erlend succeeded, and two years later shared the defeat of their suzerain King Harald Sigurdson (Hardradi) at Stamford Bridge. Returning home by grace of Harold Godwinson, the Jarls ruled in peace for some years. As their sons grew up, however, Hakon, Paul’s son, quarrelled with his cousins Erling and Magnus (the future saint), Erlend’s sons, and matters grew so unquiet that in 1098 King Magnus Barelegs sent the two Jarls prisoners to Norway, and placed his own son Sigurd over the Jarldom. On the death of King Magnus in 1106, Sigurd returned to Norway to share the vacant throne with his brothers, and the overlords restored Hakon, Paul’s son, and Magnus, Erlend’s son, to the Jarldom. Quarrels were renewed, with the final result that in the year 1116 Magnus was murdered in the island of Egilsey, where the cousins had met to discuss their differences, by the followers of Jarl Hakon, Hakon himself more than consenting. The fame of St Magnus soon spread over the whole Scandinavian world, and at an early date a church was dedicated to him even in London. Jarl Hakon, after the manner of the times, made an expiatory journey to Rome and the Holy Land, and thereafter ruled Orkney with great acceptance until his death in 1126. He was succeeded by his son Paul. While in Orkney in 1098, however, King Magnus Barelegs had married Gunnhilda, a daughter of Jarl Erlend, to a Norwegian gentleman named Kol. To their son Kali, Sigurd King of Norway now granted a half share of the Islands, with the title of Jarl, and from a fancied resemblance to Jarl Rognvald I, insisted on changing his name to Rognvald. The royal grant being strenuously opposed by Jarl Paul, Rognvald vowed that if he succeeded in making good his claim, he would erect a stone minster at Kirkwall, and dedicate it to his sainted uncle, Jarl Magnus. After many vicissitudes by sea and land, Rognvald finally proved successful, and how he fulfilled his vow the Cathedral Church of St Magnus still shows. St Rognvald—for in 1192 he too was canonised—was at once the most genial and the most accomplished of the Jarls, and one of the great characters of the _Orkney Saga_. He made a famous voyage to Palestine (1152-1155), fighting, love-making, and poetising by the way. Incidental to his great struggle for power with St Rognvald, Jarl Paul had in 1137 been seized by the famous viking Swein Asleifson and carried off to Athole, where he was placed in the hands of Maddad, Earl of Athole, who had married his half-sister Margaret. The whole affair is shrouded by mystery, but Countess Margaret appears to have intrigued both with her brother and with Jarl Rognvald to have her son Harald, a boy of three, conjoined with Rognvald in the Jarldom. In the sequel Jarl Paul mysteriously disappears, murdered, according to one account, at the instigation of the Countess; and in 1139 Jarl Rognvald accepted the young Harald Maddadson as his partner. With occasional intervals of friction this somewhat oddly assorted pair ruled together until 1159, when the checkered career of the genial and many-sided St Rognvald was closed by his assassination in a personal quarrel in Caithness. Thereafter Harald ruled the Islands alone until his death in 1206. A powerful and overbearing man, he quarrelled with John, Bishop of Caithness, blinded the prelate and caused his tongue to be cut out; barbarities which brought King William the Lyon to the borders of Caithness with an army (1202). Harald bought off the King, and on the whole maintained his own in Caithness, although all the circumstances of the times show that a now feudalised Scotland is becoming increasingly able to reassert its authority in these northern parts. Harald got into difficulties with his Norwegian suzerain, King Sverrir, who deprived him of Shetland, which was not again conjoined with Orkney until two centuries later. Harald was succeeded by two sons, David and John, the former of whom died in 1214. Jarl John, like his father, came into conflict with the Church and with Scotland. Adam, Bishop of Caithness, successor to the mutilated Bishop John, having proved too exacting in the collection of Church dues, the laity appealed to the Jarl, who, however, declined to intervene. Whereupon the outraged laymen burnt the Bishop in a house into which they had thrust him. King Alexander II, came with an army, and not only heavily fined the Jarl, but also had the hands and feet hewn off eighty men who had been present at the Bishop’s death. Jarl John was slain in a brawl at Thurso in 1231, and, as he left no son, the line of the Norse Jarls of Orkney ended.

King Alexander II of Scotland granted the Earldom of Caithness, now finally disjoined from Sutherland, to Magnus, second son of Gilbride Earl of Angus, whose wife was a daughter or sister of the late Jarl, and Magnus was also recognised as Earl of Orkney by the King of Norway. The old Jarls had been Norse nobles who held the northern shires of Scotland more or less in defiance of the Scottish Crown, the future Earls of Orkney are great Scottish nobles holding a fief of the Crown of Norway. In consequence, an influx of Scots into the Islands now commenced, which, accelerated by their cession to Scotland in 1468, in the end was the means of transforming the Orcadians into a British community. The history of this Scoto-Norse period is obscure, the Icelandic records largely failing us, but the law of primogeniture being now tacitly applied to the succession, Earl Magnus was followed by two Earls of the name of Gilbride, and the second Gilbride by another Magnus. The latter is mentioned in the _Saga_ of King Hakon Hakonson, of Largs fame, as having accompanied the King on that expedition, after which the monarch came back to Orkney with his storm-shattered fleet, and died in the Bishop’s palace at Kirkwall on 15th December, 1263. By the treaty of Perth in 1266 Hakon’s successor, Magnus the Seventh, ceded to the Scottish Crown all the islands of the Scottish seas, except the Orkneys and Shetland, for an annual payment of 100 merks, to be paid into the hands of the Bishop of Orkney, within the church of St Magnus. Earl Magnus died in 1273, and was successively followed by his sons Magnus and John, the latter of whom, as Earl of Caithness, swore fealty to Edward I of England in 1297. In 1320, however, John’s son and successor Magnus subscribed, as Earl of Caithness and Orkney, the letter to the Pope in which the Scottish nobles asserted the independence of Scotland. This Magnus was the last of the Angus line of Earls, and was succeeded in 1321 by Malise, Earl of Stratherne, who is supposed to have married his daughter. Malise fell at Halidon Hill in 1333, and his son of the same name succeeded to the three Earldoms of Stratherne, Caithness, and Orkney. Malise II died _c._ 1350, leaving only daughters, and after an unsettled period of conflicting claims to the succession, Hakon King of Norway in 1379 finally invested Henry St. Clair of Roslin, grandson of Earl Malise I, and son-in-law of Malise II, not only in the Earldom of Orkney, but in the Lordship of Shetland also. Earl Henry made himself practically independent of Norway, and built a castle at Kirkwall in defiance of the Norwegian Crown. He was succeeded in 1400 by his son Henry, whose active and interesting career as Lord High Admiral belongs to the history of Scotland. The Earls of the Sinclair family lived with considerable state, styling themselves Princes of Orkney, and their rule was on the whole popular and fortunate; but little of outside interest took place in the Islands at this period. Scottish customs, however, and traces of Scottish feudal law were slowly encroaching on the old Norse system. Earl Henry II’s son William was the last Earl of Orkney under Scandinavian rule. By the Union of Calmar in 1397 the suzerainty of the Islands had already passed, with the crown of Norway, to the Kings of Denmark. In the years 1460-61 a series of raids were—not for the first time—made on Orkney by sea-rovers from the Hebrides, and Christian I, King of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, failing to obtain redress from the Scottish Crown for this and other grievances, demanded the long arrears of the annual tribute payable by Scotland in respect of the Hebrides, in terms of the treaty of 1266. Charles VIII of France having been called in as arbitrator, a somewhat ugly contretemps was happily adjusted by the marriage of Christian’s daughter Margaret to the young King James III of Scotland, and by the terms of the marriage-contract the Danish monarch not only relinquished the quit-rent for the Hebrides, but agreed to pay down a dowry of 60,000 florins. As Christian was able to find only 2000 florins of this money at the time, the Orkneys and Shetland were given in pawn to the Scottish Crown until the balance should be paid, the agreement expressly stipulating for the maintenance of Norse law in the Islands meantime. This happened in 1468, and a few years later King James negotiated the surrender by Earl William St Clair of all his rights in the Islands; whereupon by Act of the Scottish Parliament the Earldom of Orkney and Lordship of Shetland were in 1471 annexed to the Scottish Crown, “nocht to be gevin away in time to cum to na persain or persains excep alenarily to ane of ye Kingis sonis of lauchful bed,” a proviso which went by the board.

The long and painful story of Scottish oppression in Orkney and Shetland has a literature of its own, and can only be briefly referred to here. The Scottish Crown from the first treated the _scats_, in origin and essence a public tax, as a sort of personal perquisite of the King, or part of the Royal patrimonium, and farmed them out, along with the Earldom lands, to one needy favourite or importunate creditor after another, Orkney at the same time being now made liable to all Scottish taxation. Many of these grantees received the jurisdiction of Sheriff, a circumstance which led to the accelerated encroachment of Scottish feudal law on the old Norse legal system. Mere treaty stipulation proved a frail protection to the oppressed Odallers, when the only appeal against strained laws and unjust exactions lay to the Scottish Crown itself, which had installed the oppressors, and whose ministers and judges knew and cared nothing about Odal law. Twice indeed, first in 1503, and again in 1567, the Scottish Parliament expressly recognised the obligation to maintain Norse law, pious or perfunctory opinions which had no practical effect. The two most notorious, because the most powerful, of these Scottish oppressors of Orkney and Shetland were Lord Robert Stewart, whose half-sister, Queen Mary, in 1564 granted him the Sheriffship of both groups, together with all the Crown rights and possessions therein, and Lord Robert’s son Patrick. In 1581 Lord Robert was further created Earl of Orkney by his nephew King James VI, and Patrick succeeded him in 1591. Rents and scats being payable to a large extent in kind, by tampering with the old Norse weights and measures, these two harpies in a few years actually increased their revenues from the Earldom one-half. Owing to the unceasing complaints of all classes of the community Earl Patrick was finally imprisoned, and in 1615 executed for high treason. As it had now become apparent that the holders of the Earldom rights had all along simply utilised the local courts and forms of legal procedure for their private advantage, by an Act of the “Lordis of Secret Council,” of date 22nd March, 1611, all foreign (_i.e._ Norse) laws theretofore in use in Orkney and Shetland were discharged, and all magistrates in those islands were enjoined to use only “the proper laws of this kingdom.” Although this Act was of doubtful validity on more grounds than one, yet it has held good; and apart from the maintenance of Norse law in its integrity, an ideal which the conditions of the times rendered unattainable, the change was probably the best thing that could have happened for the Islands.

Although the fact had only a transient bearing on the history of the Islands, we must not fail to record that Queen Mary, on her marriage with Bothwell, in 1567, created him Duke of Orkney. After the Queen’s defeat at Carberry, Bothwell fled to the Islands, to be repulsed from Kirkwall Castle by the governor. Thence he proceeded northwards to play the pirate in Shetland, and finally to find imprisonment and death in Scandinavia. In the year 1633 the Earldom lands and rights were granted by the Crown to the Earls of Morton, one of whom sold them in 1766 to Sir Lawrence Dundas, with whose descendants, now represented by the Marquis of Zetland, they still remain.

Montrose on his way to invade Scotland in 1650, first landed in Orkney, and the major part of the force with which he met his final defeat at Carbisdale was recruited in the Islands. Under the Commonwealth Cromwell maintained a garrison at Kirkwall, and the Islanders are said to have picked up improved methods of gardening and other domestic amenities from the Ironsides. In the following century the vexed question of Stewart _versus_ Guelph brought Orkney its own share of commotion, but the details are, from an historical point of view, of purely local interest.

Of vastly wider import has been the latest appearance of the islands in the arena of history. In that great contest, the sound and fury of which has barely subsided as we write, the Royal Navy found in Scapa Flow an ideal base for the conduct of its widely-spreading operations. And if, as many skilful observers appear to hold, successful strategy at sea proved the slowly-working but inevitably certain cause of the final defeat of the foe, it is not too much to say that for four eventful years the little Archipelago, whose “rough island story” we have here told in outline, stood forth as the pivot of the world’s history and of its fate.

The dramatic death of the great Earl Kitchener in Orcadian waters, in June 1916, further riveted the attention of the modern world on a region which to its own sons has never ceased to be the haunted home of Harald the Fair-haired, Olaf Tryggvi’s son, and other sea-kings of old.

14. Antiquities

The Orkney Islands offer an especially fertile field to the archaeologist. The sites of a least 70 brochs have been located in the group, as against 75 in Shetland, 79 in Caithness, 60 in Sutherland, and some 70 in the northern Hebrides. These districts constitute the main area of the brochs, which rapidly decrease in number as one proceeds southwards, Forfarshire offering but two specimens, and Perthshire, Stirlingshire, and Berwickshire one each.

“The typical form of the broch,” says Dr Anderson, “is that of a hollow circular tower of dry-built masonry, about 60 feet in diameter and about 50 feet high. Its wall, which is about 15 feet thick, is carried up solid for about 8 feet, except where two or three oblong chambers, with rudely-vaulted roofs, are constructed in its thickness. Above the height of about 8 feet, the wall is carried up with a hollow space of about 3 feet wide between its exterior and interior shell. This hollow space at about the height of a man, is crossed horizontally by a roof of slabs, the upper surfaces of which form the floor of the space above. This is repeated at every 5 or 6 feet of its farther height. These spaces thus form horizontal galleries, separated from each other vertically by the slabs of their floors and roofs. The galleries run completely round the tower, except that they are crossed by the stair, so that each gallery opens in front of the steps, and its farther end is closed by the back of the staircase on the same level.

“The only opening in the outside of the tower is the main entrance, a narrow, tunnel-like passage 15 feet long, 5 to 6 feet in height, and rarely more than 3 feet in width, leading straight through the wall on the ground level, and often flanked on either side by guard-chambers opening into it. This gives access to the central area or courtyard of the tower, round the inner circumference of which, in different positions, are placed the entrances to the chambers on the ground-floor, and to the staircase leading to the galleries above. In its external aspect, the tower is a truncated cone of solid masonry, unpierced by any opening save the narrow doorway; while the central court presents the aspect of a circular well 30 feet in diameter bounded by a perpendicular wall 50 feet high, and presenting at intervals on the ground floor several low and narrow doorways, giving access to the chambers and stair, and above these ranges of small window-like openings rising perpendicularly over each other to admit light and air to the galleries.”

In some respects the most interesting broch site in Orkney is that at Lingrow, about two miles S.S.E. of Kirkwall. Contiguous to this building lies a perfect labyrinth of building of secondary occupation. A coin of Vespasian and two of Antoninus were found at Lingrow when the site was excavated in 1870. Another interesting specimen is that at Hoxa in South Ronaldshay. The little that remains of this building is situated on the west side of a small bight which opens northwards on Scapa Flow, and on the east side of the bight stands the site of a second broch. The two brochs together command both the bight itself and a narrow isthmus of land which connects it with Widewall Bay to the southward. Defence of the land passage between the two areas of water was obviously a prime motive of construction in this case. Other interesting specimens of brochs are at Okstro in Birsay, at Burgar in Evie, and at Burrian in North Ronaldshay; but many of the Orkney sites remain as yet unexcavated, or only tentatively explored. Stone hand-mills (querns), stone whorls and bone combs, both used in woollen weaving, stone lamps, imitated from Roman models, hair combs, and fragments of pottery are some of the articles found in the Orkney brochs, none of which now show more than a few feet of their original height.

A consideration of the geographical position of the main area of their distribution leaves one with little doubt that they were erected as the best and most economical means that a scanty and scattered population could devise to check continuous piratical incursions, probably directed from Scandinavia and the coastal regions of north-western Europe; but the exact era of their erection is a question that still awaits definite solution. One may safely conjecture, however, that they were gradually destroyed by the incursions which they were built to withstand.

Other primitive dwellings, of somewhat wider distribution in Orkney than the brochs, are the “Picts’ houses,” either in the form of chambered mounds, such as the widely-known Maeshowe, or of underground chambers of the type commonly known as weems. Maeshowe (the Maidens’ Mound) is situated in the parish of Stenness, near the high road from Kirkwall to Stromness, and its external appearance is that of a truncated cone 92 feet in diameter, 36 feet high, and about 100 yards in circumference at the base. The central chamber is reached by a straight passage 54 feet long, from 2 feet 4 inches to 3 feet 4 inches wide, and from 2 feet 4 inches to 4 feet 8 inches high. The chamber is 15 feet square on the floor, and 13 feet high, the roof being formed by the stones, at the height of 6 feet from the floor, gradually overlapping. The four angles of the chamber are supported by heavy stone buttresses from 8 to 10 feet high, and about 3 feet square at the base. Off the main chamber on the three sides other than that which contains the entrance, are subsidiary cells, the entrances to which are at a height of 3 feet from the floor. The walls of the central chamber are scored with Norse runes some of which tell that the place, which was known to the Norsemen as _Orkahaug_, or the Muckle Mound, was broken into by the Jorsala-farers, or pilgrims who accompanied St Rognvald to Jerusalem (Norse, _Jorsalaheim_) in 1152. Other stones show pictorial designs, several being of fine workmanship. Nothing is known of the date or origin of Maeshowe, which from its elaborate design and peculiarities of detail constitutes a thing unique among the antiquities of Britain. Among weems, or eirde houses, as they are sometimes called, which are irregularly-shaped chambers excavated below the ordinary level of the ground, perhaps the finest Orcadian example is that at Saveroch, near Kirkwall.

At a distance of about a mile and a half west and south-west of Maeshowe is the remarkable series of megalithic monuments collectively known as the Standing Stones of Stenness. The “Ring of Brogar” is the largest and most complete; thirteen of its stones are still standing, while the stumps of thirteen more are still _in situ_, and ten are lying prostrate. The highest stone stands about 14 feet above ground, and the total number of stones is calculated to have originally been sixty. This circle has a diameter of 366 feet, and encloses 2½ acres. Of the “Ring of Stenness” proper, which has a diameter of 104 feet, only two stones remain erect, but one of these is 17 feet 4 inches high, while another lying prostrate measures 19 feet × 5 feet × 1 ft. 8 inches, and has been calculated to weigh 10.71 tons.

In a valley in Hoy, between the Ward Hill and the precipitous ridge known as the Dwarfie Hammers, lies the celebrated Dwarfie Stone, most puzzling perhaps of all the antiquities of the Islands. This is a huge block of sandstone measuring about 28 feet in length, and varying in breadth from 11 to 14½ feet. Its height falls from 6½ feet at the southern to 2 feet at the northern end. On the west side of the stone is an entrance giving access to two couches or berths, the southern and larger of which has a stone pillow. When first mentioned in writing by Jo Ben in his _Descriptio Insularum Orchadiarum_, in 1529, the Dwarfie Stone was as great a puzzle as it is to-day, and no suggested explanation of its origin or _raison d’être_ appears to carry much probability.

Important discoveries of antique jewelry, coins, and other articles of the precious metals have been made in Orkney from time to time. Perhaps the greatest find was that made at the Bay of Skaill, in the parish of Sandwick, in March 1858, which consisted of 16 lbs. weight of silver articles, including heavy mantle brooches, torques, bars of silver, and coins, some of the last being Cufic, of the Samanian and Abbasside Kalifs, dating from 887 to 945 A.D., and others Anglo-Saxon.

15. Architecture—(_a_) Ecclesiastical

The cathedral church of St Magnus at Kirkwall, founded by St Rognvald in 1137 in memory of his uncle, is, except that of Glasgow, the only mediaeval cathedral in Scotland that remains complete in all its parts, and, in the words of the Danish historian Worsae, it constitutes incontestably the finest monument of their dominion that the Scandinavians have left in Scotland.

View from N. Transept looking towards Choir]

The church is a cruciform building, comprising nave and nave aisles, choir and choir aisles, north and south transepts, with a chapel off each transept to the east, and a central tower. The interior length of nave and choir is 217 feet 10 inches, exterior length 234½ feet; interior width of choir and aisles at the east end 47 feet 5½ inches; interior width across the transepts 89½ feet; height to vaulting 71 feet; height from floor under central tower to top of weather-cock 133 feet 4 inches. The stones used include two shades of red sandstone, one lilac, one yellow, and one veiny red and yellow, all brought from various parts of Orkney. Sir Henry Dryden professes to trace five distinct styles of architecture in the building, which he dates: 1137-1160, 1160-1200, 1200-1250, 1250-1350, and 1450-1500. All that is beyond conjecture as to the eras of erection, however, is that after St Rognvald’s death, in 1159, the building proceeded under the care of Bishop William the Old, until his death in 1168. Part at least of the church was consecrated before 1155, and received the remains of St Magnus, transferred from Christchurch in Birsay. The general impress of the building is severely Norman.

A conspicuous feature of the church is its great _apparent_ size, an effect deliberately produced by a skilful adjustment of proportions, especially by the great relative height, the restricted width, and the spacing of the piers both in nave and choir. Specially fine features of the building are the beautiful east window, and the exquisitely carved doorways in the south transept and west front. These doorways, says Sir Henry, “are probably the finest examples in Great Britain of the use of two stones of different colours in patterns.” Unfortunately much of this beautiful particoloured work is badly weathered.

The church is at present undergoing “restoration” at the hands of the town council of Kirkwall, who own the fabric, in fulfilment of a bequest by the late George Hunter Thoms, Sheriff of Orkney.

On the highest point of the little island of Egilshay stands a very interesting church, which has been the subject of much archaeological conjecture since its general style appears to combine early Celtic and Norse elements, while it possesses one of those Irish Round Towers the only other Scottish examples of which are at Brechin and Abernethy. Apart from the tower, the church consists of nave and chancel, the nave measuring 30 feet by 15½ feet, and the chancel, which is vaulted, 15 feet by 9½ feet. The tower is now 48 feet high and unroofed, but is said to have been lessened by 15 feet many years ago. An old print shows both church and tower with slate roofs, that of the tower being the conical cap typical of the Irish Round Towers. The church was used for service down to the early part of last century.

Dryden’s conjecture that the church of Egilshay was built by Norsemen after the Irish model shortly after the reconversion of the Islands to Christianity _c._ 998 A.D., is a view which presents no anomalies either architectural or historical, when we consider that at that date many early Celtic churches must have survived in Orkney, and that, in any case, the close connection between Norse Orkney and the Scandinavian colonies in Ireland would give Orcadians ready access to Irish models. The alleged dedication of this church to St Magnus rests on the late and doubtful authority of Jo Ben (1529), but it was no doubt popularly associated with the Saint’s name because, as the _Orkneyinga Saga_ tells, he entered it to pay his devotions on the day of his murder.

In the parish of Orphir, contiguous to the present parish church, stands the only example in Scotland of a circular church, built in imitation of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. All that remains of this interesting building, however, is the semicircular chancel, which is 7 feet 2 inches wide and 7 feet 9 inches deep, and about 9 feet of the circular nave on either side. From the curvature of the remaining portion, the diameter of the nave must have been from 18 to 19 feet. Dryden conjectures that the side walls of the nave may have been 15 feet or more in height, and that they were surmounted by a conical roof. This church was almost to a certainty erected by Jarl Hakon, the murderer of St Magnus, after his return from his expiatory pilgrimage to the Holy Land _c._ 1120.

16. Architecture—(_b_) Castellated

The early Norsemen in Orkney built their houses of wood imported from Norway, with only a slight foundation of stone; and the Norse theory of defence lay in attacking the foe, preferably on sea. Save, therefore, for a few buildings erected by Jarl or Bishop, and by one or two powerful Viking chiefs, stone masonry during the purely Norse period (870-1231) was practically confined to churches. Even during the Scoto-Norse (1231-1468) and Scottish periods men of sufficient power and wealth to erect imposing buildings of stone were still few. Compared, therefore, with an ordinary Scottish county the castellated architecture of the Islands is meagre in quantity; but several of the buildings of this class that remain are of exceptional interest and beauty.

At the north end of the island of Westray stands Noltland Castle, the only ancient military structure which Orkney can now show in a state of comparative preservation. The castle is clearly of two periods, but the best authorities now reject the once prevalent idea that the earlier portion could have been erected by Thomas de Tulloch, Bishop of Orkney from 1418 to 1460. The building is supposed to have been added to and beautified by a later Bishop, Edward Stewart, yet so late as 1529 Jo Ben described it as “Arx excellentissima sed nondum completa.” Adam Bothwell, the first protestant Bishop, feued the castle to Sir Gilbert Balfour, Master of the Household to Queen Mary, and a doubtful tradition says that Balfour had orders to prepare the place as a retreat for the Queen and Bothwell. Finally the place gave refuge to some officers flying from Montrose’s defeat at Carbisdale, and was on that account fired and left dismantled by Cromwell’s soldiers. The great staircase of Noltland is one of the finest in Scotland, excelled only by those of Fyvie and Glamis Castles. Another special feature of the castle is the exceptional number of shot-holes, splayed both outwards and inwards, which give its exterior walls the appearance of the hull of an old style man-of-war.

The Earl’s Palace at Kirkwall, built by Patrick Stewart, Earl of Orkney, about 1600, is one of the most beautiful specimens of domestic architecture in Scotland, and more regal in appearance than anything north of Stirling and Linlithgow. Fronting west, the building forms three sides of a square, and is practically entire save for the roof. On the ground floor is the grand hall, a magnificent apartment about 55 feet long by 20 feet wide, lighted by three splendid oriels, and a triple window in the gable, divided and subdivided by mullions and transoms. There are two fireplaces in the room, one being 18 feet wide. At the landing of the main stair there is a beautifully arched apartment of about 9 feet long by 7½ feet wide, commonly styled the chapel, but which may have been a waiting room. “It is a superb specimen of Scottish seventeenth-century architecture, its oriel windows and turrets being unsurpassed by anything on the mainland, and it is so rich in its details, and spacious in its accommodation, that it is with more than usual regret that one looks on its roofless and decaying walls.” The palace has not been inhabited since towards the close of the seventeenth century.

(c. 1600 A.D.)]

The Bishop’s Palace at Kirkwall, which stands in close proximity to the Earl’s Palace and the cathedral, is supposed to have been erected by Bishop Reid (1540-1558), on the site of an earlier building, in which King Hakon Hakonson died in 1263. A prominent feature of this building is its great length, originally about 196 feet, from which it is supposed that it formed, or was intended to form, one side of a quadrangle. Above what was originally the main entrance is the corbelling of a fine ruined oriel. There is a five-storeyed round tower at the north-west corner of the building, which contains in a niche of its exterior wall a statuette long erroneously believed to represent Bishop Reid. The chief apartment of the palace appears to have been about 26½ feet long by 24 feet wide. Part of the structure is still occupied.

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. Earl Patrick is said to have partly reconstructed his father’s building, modelling his alterations on Holyrood, but the building as it stands more resembles the later courtyard at Dunottar Castle.

17. Architecture—(_c_) Municipal and Domestic

Kirkwall Municipal Buildings, a handsome three-storeyed structure in the Scottish style, erected in 1884, forms the one specimen of municipal architecture in the county that calls for mention. The buildings include a Council Chamber, a Town Hall, a meeting-room for the Commissioners of Supply, a post office, and four or five suites of offices for the burgh officials. The main entrance has a fine semi-classic door-piece, surmounted by two statues of the ancient halberdiers of the burgh in full uniform.

Down to past the middle of the nineteenth century many Orcadian landed proprietors possessed town houses at Kirkwall, in which they lived during the winter. Several of these houses were buildings of some architectural quality, and an interesting survival is Tankerness House, in the Main Street, the property of Mr Alfred Baikie of Tankerness. This building is, with some later additions or conversions, a quaint conjunction of several old residences which at one time constituted manses of cathedral dignitaries. The house has, however, been in the possession of the Baikie family since 1641.

Balfour Castle in Shapinsay, the residence of Colonel W. E. L. Balfour of Balfour and Trenabie, is one of the finest specimens of Scottish Baronial architecture in the north of Scotland. Erected in 1847 from designs of the late David Bryce, R.S.A., Balfour Castle is effective as a whole without being conspicuous in detail. The house is surrounded by fine gardens and plantations.

Melsetter House in Walls, as it existed down to 1898, is an excellent example of the older Orcadian country houses, few of which now survive. The older part of the building, as it appears on page 32, dates from the later seventeenth century. The house was originally a country residence of the Bishops of Orkney, a fact which may account for its roughly cruciform construction. The place was twice sacked by Jacobites in 1746, during the absence of the owner, Captain Benjamin Moodie, with the Royal army. The gardens and grounds are exceptionally fine for those northern latitudes.

Two other interesting old Scoto-Orcadian mansions are Skaill House in Sandwick, and Carrick House in Eday, the latter erected in the seventeenth century by John, brother of Earl Patrick Stewart, who was himself created Earl of Carrick by King Charles I. At a later date the house was the property of James Fea of Clestrain, who in 1725 captured in the neighbourhood the celebrated pirate John Gow.

In the towns and villages of Orkney and Shetland, where the main street usually runs parallel to the shore, many of the houses stand with one gable towards the street and the other closely overlooking the sea, a feature which gives a distinctly foreign aspect to Lerwick and Stromness in particular. It is sober fact that in many houses in Stromness, granted a taste for fish, and a high tide at the appropriate hour, one can catch one’s breakfast from the gable windows before getting out of bed.

18. Communications, Past and Present

Before the days of steam communication there were two ferries across the Pentland Firth to Huna in Caithness, one from Walls and the other from South Ronaldshay. Edinburgh was the usual objective of Orcadians using this route, and Shanks’ nag the common means of locomotion, save for persons of quality, who rode horses. The only other means of reaching the Scottish capital, the sole place out of the Islands which old-world Orcadians considered of much account, and a place where all the well-to-do among them had relations, cronies, and “gude-gangin’ pleas,” was by occasional sailing packets from Kirkwall to Leith.

Steamboat communication between Kirkwall and Leith and Aberdeen was established about 1832, and nowadays there are two boats a week between these ports and the Orcadian capital, besides two to Stromness, and a fortnightly boat to St Margaret’s Hope. There is also a daily mail-steamer from Stromness, touching at Kirkwall (Scapa) and South Ronaldshay, to Scrabster in Caithness, thus connecting the Islands with the Highland Railway at Thurso. Stromness is farther connected with Liverpool and Manchester by a weekly steamer, and both Kirkwall and Stromness with Lerwick and Scalloway in Shetland. Kirkwall has communication with the more important of the North Isles, and Stromness with the chief of the South Isles (except South Ronaldshay and Burray) by local steamers sailing several times a week. Motor or horse conveyances run between Kirkwall and Stromness several times a day. There are no railways in Orkney.

The first Orkney Road Act was passed in 1857, and under that and subsequent local Acts, and finally under the Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act of 1874, the greater part of the roads in the county were constructed. The agricultural depression and land legislation of the “eighties,” by attenuating the incomes of proprietors, tended somewhat to check this development; but a dozen years or so later the Congested Districts Board came to the rescue with grants-in-aid, largely by means of which many miles of new roads were completed. With very few exceptions, all the islands of any population are now amply provided with good roads.

19. Administration and Divisions