It is pleasant to think, for the old minster’s sake, that it heeds the

rubs of fortune very little, and regards material changes just as so

many shifts of plumage. Its people are still flesh and blood, and its

islands rock and turf and heather, and it will take more than pails

and paint-brushes, and pledges and covenants to make them otherwise.

The winter days are as bleak as ever, and the summer evenings as long

and light, and the sun rises out of the North Sea among the flat green

islands, and sinks in the Atlantic behind the western heather hills; and

it is likely enough that from the height of the cathedral tower many

other most serious events look surprisingly unimportant.

J. STORER CLOUSTON.

(_“Macmillan’s Magazine.” By permission._)

[Illustration: _Kirkwall in winter._]

A ROAD IN ORCADY.

In southern lands—and most lands are southern to us—the road runs between

fragrant hedgerows or under shady trees; but in Orcady trees and hedges

are practically unknown. Yet the road lacks not its charm, for this is

a world of compensations. If we never breathe the fragrance of the may

or hear the whisper of the wind-stirred branches, we have, on the other

hand, nothing to shut out from our eyes the wide expanse of land and sea

or to hide the blue sky over us, no fallen timber after a gale to block

our way and make of our progress an involuntary obstacle race, and no

thorns to puncture our cycle tyres. The lover of the highway may miss

here much of the bird-life that enlivens the roads of the south; but our

road has a life and traffic of its own quite apart from the trickling

stream of men and horses which flows fitfully along its white channel.

Flowers and flies, birds and beasts, the road has something for each and

all of them. Even by day they use it, but from dusk to dawn they claim it

as their very own.

[Illustration: _By the Roadside—“Peerie Hooses.”_

1. Holm. 2. Harray. 3. Birsay. 4. Tankerness. 5. Orphir.]

I do not remember that Stevenson, who so loved the road, has written

anywhere of its little life—of the birds and beasts, the shy living

things, that haunt it. In the treeless isles of Orcady, at least, the

furred and feathered creatures seem to think that man makes the road for

their especial delectation. For all creatures of beach and bog, hill

and meadow, it has its charms; and hence it is ever beat upon by soft,

soundless feet and shadowed by swiftly moving wings, and many a little

comedy or tragedy is played out upon its stage. We walk upon it in spring

and summer through an air fragrant with the perfume of innumerable small,

sweet flowers, with the music of birds and bees about us, and ever, under

and behind all song, the voice of the great sea, full of indefinable

mystery as of a half-remembered dream.

The engineer who makes the road unwittingly plans it in such fashion as

to be of service to the folk of moor and marsh, of shore and furrow. In

Orcady every road, sooner or later, leads to the sea. In former days the

sea itself was the great highway, and therefore close to its shores are

found the old kirks and kirkyards. For by sea men came to worship God,

and by sea they were carried to their long home. The kirks and kirkyards

being beside the sea, the road comes thither to them. It comes down also

to the piers, the slips, and jetties, which play so important a part in

the lives of the islanders. Thus the road passes within a few yards of

the haunts of all the divers, swimmers, and waders that frequent our

shores.

Also in making a road the aim of the man who plans it is to avoid, so far

as possible, all ascents and descents. In carrying out this aim he raises

the road on embankments where it passes through low and marshy grounds,

and makes cuttings through the higher lands. Where it runs through such a

cutting the roadside ditches catch and keep a little store of water in

a dry season, and thither plover, snipe, redshanks, and dotterel bring

their velvet-clad birdlings to drink. If the season be wet, the road

raises above the marsh a comparatively dry platform, on which the birds

may rest when not feeding, and the roadside dykes offer a shelter from

wind and sun.

But our road draws feet and wings to it in many other ways. It passes

now through cultivated fields, with dry stone dykes fencing it on either

side; now it runs unfenced through the open moorland, and again along

the very margin of the sea. Here it is bordered by marshes and there by

a long reach of black peat-bog, and everywhere it woos with varied wiles

the living things of earth and air. Before the dykes have seen many

seasons they begin to deck themselves with velvet mosses, and to the

miniature forests of moss come insects of the lesser sorts, flying and

creeping things, red and brown and blue. In pursuit of these small deer

come the spiders, which lurk in crevices of the walls and spread their

cunning snares across the mouths of culverts where farm roads branch off

from the highway. Long-legged water-skaters dart to and fro among the

floating weeds on the surface of the stagnant ditches; and over these

ditches the midges weave their fantastic dances on summer evenings. The

litter of passing traffic brings hurrying, busy, burnished beetles,

which find harbourage in the loosely piled banks of ditch scrapings that

form the boundary between highway and moorland. Where the road, with

its generous grassy margin, runs like a white ribbon with green borders

through the brown moors, wild flowers that are choked or hidden in the

heather spread themselves to the sunshine—primroses and daisies, clover

red and white, milkwort and tormentil, hawkweed and violets, thyme and

crowfoot: their very names read like a poem. The number of small wild

flowers that grow in our roadside ditches and within reach of the road

is amazing when one begins to reckon them. Here the steep grassy bank is

gorgeous with rose-campion and with the purple and gold of the vetches,

and all the air is sweet with the perfume of wild mustard, which with

the pale yellow of its blossoms almost hides the green in that field of

springing barley. This wet meadow, on either hand all aglow with the pink

blossoms of the ragged robin, a little earlier in the year had its wide

and shallow ditches glorified by the broad green leaves and exquisite

feathery blooms of the bog-bean, while its drier grounds were starred

with the pale cups of grass of Parnassus. In spring the vernal squills

shone on yonder hillocks with a blue glory as of the sea in summer.

On this long flat stretch of peat-bog these are not untimely snowdrifts

but nodding patches of cotton-grass. In autumn, when a strong wind

blows from that quarter, all the road will be strewn with the silvery,

silken down that makes so brave a show among the purple heather of the

bog. Later still in the year the same bog will glow ruddy as with a

perpetual sunset, when the long, coarse grass reddens. Passing this way

on some gray afternoon the wayfarer will find it hard to believe that

the “charmed sunset” has not suddenly shone out through the clouds “low

adown in the red west.” And the peat-moss on which the road is built

has other glories—green moss and moss as red as blood, fairy cups of

silver lichen with scarlet rims, and long reaches of bog-asphodel,

shining like cloth-of-gold and sweetening the winds with their faint,

delicate perfume. Here, where our road runs on a firmer foundation, grow

the wild willows, all low-growing and all adding a beauty to the year

in their catkins. When the daisies have hardly ventured to thrust their

heads into a cold world the catkins gleam in silky silver, changing as

the days lengthen to yellow gold. Later on some of them are covered with

an exquisite white down which floats their seeds about the land. The

little burns which our road bridges ripple and chatter through miniature

forests of ferns and meadow-sweet, the foxglove shakes its bells above

the splendour of the gorse, and the yellow iris hides the young wild-duck

that are making their way by ditch and brooklet to the sea. These are but

a few of the flowers with which the road garlands and bedecks herself to

welcome the little peoples who love her.

To the flowers come all day long in summer the humble-bees. These little

reddish-yellow fellows, hot and angry-looking, have their byke or nest

in some mossy bank or old turf dyke, to which they carry wax and honey

for the fashioning of a round, irregular, dirty-looking comb. The chances

are that they will be despoiled of their treasure by some errant herd-boy

before July is half over. Their great cousins in black velvet striped

with gold prefer to live solitary in some deserted mouse-hole; but they

cannot, for all their swagger and fierce looks, save their honey from

Boy the Devourer. Though there are no wasps in Orcady, the roadside

blossoms have visitors other than the bees. Here come the white and

brown butterflies, and those dainty little blue creatures whose wings

are painted and eyed like a peacock’s tail. And at night moths, white,

yellow, and gray, flit like ghosts above the sleeping flowers, or dance

mysteriously in the dusk on silent wings.

Where the insects come, there follow the insect-eaters. On a June evening

there are parts of the road where one may see kittiwakes and black-headed

gulls hawking for moths. Wheatears and starlings, larks and pipits,

and, more rarely, thrushes, blackbirds, and wrens, with an occasional

stonechat, all come to prey on the insect life of the road. Swallows

there are none in Orcady, but the ubiquitous sparrow is there. To his

contented mind the road offers a continual feast. When the birds set

up housekeeping in spring, many of them choose their nesting-places in

the near neighbourhood of the road. It seems almost as if they argued

that here, under the very eye of man, they run less risk of discovery

than further afield, where he may expect to find their treasures. From

crannies of the loosely-built walls that bound the road you may hear

the hungry broods of starlings, sparrows, and wheatears chirping on

every side as you pass in May. I have seen a nestful of young larks

gape up with their foolish yellow throats from a tuft of grass on the

very edge of a roadside ditch, and have found a grouse’s nest in the

heather not fifty yards from the most man-frequented part of the road.

Yellow-hammers, too, and other buntings often nest in the long grass by

the ditchside. Here, in a hedge of whin or gorse which crosses the road

at right angles, are the nests of the thrush, the blackbird, and the

wren. If you drive along our road in spring you shall see the male pewit,

in all the glory of his wedding garments, scraping, a few yards from

the roadside, the shallow, circular hollow in which his young are to be

hatched; and a little later you shall see his patient spouse look up at

you fearlessly from her eggs, or even, if your passing be at noonday, you

may watch her slip off the nest as her mate comes up behind to relieve

her in her domestic duties. For these birds have learned that man on

wheels is not to be feared, though man on foot is one of their most

dreaded enemies.

In Orcady there are not many four-footed wild things, but those that

dwell among us are drawn to the road as surely as the birds are. In the

gloaming rabbits come down to the roadside clover where the bees have

gathered honey all day. Great brown hares, too, come loping leisurely

along the road—moving shadows that melt into the dusk at the least alarm.

Hares always like to make their forms near a road of some sort, for it

affords them a swift and ready means of flight when they are pursued.

They must be hard pressed indeed before they will dive like rabbits into

roadside drains or culverts, but these refuges are not to be despised

when greyhound or lurcher is close upon their heels. Mice, voles, and

rats find shelter in the banks of road-scrapings or in the walls and

drain-mouths; and the sea-otter does not despise the road when he makes

a nocturnal expedition inland. It is not long since a man who was early

afoot on a summer morning met a pair of otters almost on the street of

our sleeping island capital. Seals, of course, cannot use the road, but

where it runs by the sea-marge their shining heads rise up from the

water to watch the passers-by, and he who is abroad before dawn may find

them on the beaches within a few yards of the roadway.

The deer, roe, foxes, badgers, stoats, weasels, wild-cats, and moles of

Orcady are even as the snakes of Iceland. Tame cats ran wild, however,

we do not lack, and they take their tithe from the road as surely as do

the hawks and falcons. Neither snakes, lizards, nor frogs are found in

the isles, but on a damp autumn evening the road is dotted with toads of

all sizes, which sit gazing into infinity or hop clumsily from before the

passing wheel.

In pursuit of beetles, mice, and small birds, hawks and owls come to

the road. The kestrel of all hawks loves it the most. He sits upon

the humming telegraph wires or hangs poised, like Mahomet’s coffin,

in mid-air, ever watchful and ready to swoop down upon his prey. The

same wires which give him a resting-place often furnish him with food,

ready killed or disabled. When man first set up his posts along the

road and threaded them with an endless wire, sad havoc was wrought

among the birds. Plover—green and golden—snipe, redshanks, and grouse

dashing across the road in the dusk, struck the fatal wires and fell

dead or maimed by the wayside. I have seen a blackbird fly shrieking

from a prowling cat, and strike the wire with such force that his head,

cut clean off, dropped at my very feet. The older birds appear to have

learned a lesson from the misfortunes of their fellows, but every autumn

young birds, new to their wings, pay their tribute of victims to the

wires. More especially is this the case with the plovers, and though

the kestrel rarely touches so big a bird when it is whole and sound, he

feasts upon their wounded.

The hen-harrier skims to and fro along the roadside ditches, but he is

a wary and cautious fowl, and is never within gunshot of the road when

a man comes down that way. The merlin, that beautiful miniature falcon,

glides swift and low across the moors and meadows, flashes suddenly

over the roadside dyke, and before the small birds have time to realize

that their enemy is upon them, he is gone again—only a little puff of

feathers floating slowly down the air showing where he struck his prey.

The peregrine wheels high overhead, but is too proud and shy a bird to

hunt upon man’s roads. Nor has the road any charm for the raven, who

goes croaking hoarsely over it on his way from shore to hill. The little

short-eared owls hide all day among the heather near our road, and come

flapping up in the gloaming on noiseless wings to take their share of its

good things. In the treeless islands the kestrel is not the only bird

that sits upon the wires. There the starling sings his weird love song,

mingling with his own harsh notes the calls of every other bird that the

islands know; and the buntings chant their lugubrious and monotonous

ditties there.

The telegraph wires are not the only mysterious works of man which have

disturbed and interfered with the feathered life so near to and yet so

far apart from his. What a mystery must he be to those fellow-creatures

who watch him, with his continual scratching and patching of the breast

of kindly Mother Earth! Not wholly does he yield the road to them between

sunset and sunrise; but when he goes abroad in the dark it is often

in the guise of a rumbling dragon with great eyes of flame. Once, to

the writer’s knowledge, a gannet swooped down in valiant ignorance on

such a horrid creature of the night. He flashed suddenly, white out of

the darkness, into the circle of light of a doctor’s gig lamps. That

bold bird his fellows saw no more; and one may fancy that with his

disappearance a new terror was added to the fiery-eyed creatures that

roam the roads by night. He died, though not without a fierce fight for

his life; and his skin, cunningly filled out with wire and straw, stands

under a glass case in his slayer’s home even unto this day.

It is in spring and summer that the road sets forth its choicest lures

for its lovers, yet even in “winter and rough weather” it has its

beauties for the seeing eye. The puddles and cart-ruts shine like dull

silver when the clouds are heavy and gray overhead. When the rain cloud

blows over and the sky clears, these same shallow pools and channels

gleam with a cold, clear blue, more exquisite than that of the heavens

they reflect; and at night the stars besprinkle them with diamonds.

Again,—

“Autumnal frosts enchant the pool,

And make the cart-ruts beautiful.”

“When daisies go”—and of all roadside blossoms they linger latest and

reappear earliest (I have seen them lifting their modest crimson-tipped

heads in December and opening their yellow eyes before the coltsfoot

stars begin to shine)—but even when they are gone the gray stone dykes

have still a glory of green moss, of gray and golden lichens.

When all the land is soaked and sodden with heavy rains, the road, where

it climbs that low brown hill, will suddenly shine out across the

intervening miles like a sword flung down among the heather.

When the winter rains have given place to the first snowfall of the year,

go out early in the morning, before hoofs and wheels have blotted out

the traces of the night, and you shall learn, as nothing else save long

and close observation can teach you, how great is the nocturnal traffic

of birds and beasts upon the road. Like fine lacework you shall find

their footprints, to and fro, round and across, up the middle and down

again. Hares and rabbits, rats and mice, gulls and plovers, thrushes and

larks, water-hens and water-rails—these and many more have been busy here

while you slept. And even now bright eyes are watching you, themselves

unseen—those unsuspected eyes which are ever upon us as we follow the

road on our daily round of duty or pleasure. Do they look on us with

fear or wonder, with contempt or admiration, or with a mingling of all

these feelings? That we can never know while the great barrier of silence

stands between us and them. We blunder across their lives, doing them

good and evil indiscriminately, but we understand them no more than they

can understand us.

Now in winter, new birds come to our road. Great flocks of snow-buntings,

circling and wheeling with marvellous precision, at one moment almost

invisible—a dim, brown, moving mist—and the next flashing a thousand

points of silver to the level rays of the wintry sun. Scores of

greenfinches, which we never see in summer, rise from the road edges to

circle a little way and settle again. The “spink spink” of the chaffinch,

also unknown to us in summer, may now be heard; fieldfares spring

chuckling through the air far overhead, and red-winged thrushes hop

among the stubbles. Down this shallow pass between the low hills come in

the gloaming the lines of the wild swans, flying from the upland lochs

to the sea. Their trumpet call rings far through the frosty air, and as

we hear them there stir within us vague thoughts and dreams of the white

north whence they came. As if answering the thought, the wet road shines

with a new, faint, unearthly light, as flickering up the northern sky

come the pale shifting streamers of the aurora borealis.

Of the human life that pulses intermittently along our road there is not

space now to write. Boy and girl, youth and maiden, man and woman, day by

day, year in, year out, they follow the winding line, till for each in

turn the day comes when it leads them to the kirkyard or to the sea, and

the roads of Orcady know them no more.

DUNCAN J. ROBERTSON.

(_“Longman’s Magazine.” By permission._)

[Illustration: _Kirkwall Pier—a midnight photograph._]

A LOCH IN ORCADY.

It is one among many, in an island where the lochs lie scattered like

fragments of the sky fallen among the hills—one among many, and one of

the least known of them all. On it the fisherman casts no fly, or casts

it in vain, for fish have never prospered in its waters. It can never

be an ideal trout loch, for it is not fed, like its sister lochs, by

the innumerable small burns that channel our low hills. One surface-fed

streamlet indeed flows into it, a streamlet hardly worthy of the

courtesy-title it bears; but for the most part its waters are drawn from

the secret sources of the springs.

Its placid surface mirrors no hillsides purple with heather and green

with waving fern, but from its margin the land rolls back in low billows,

squared with fields that year by year darken under the plough and smile

again in due season with the homely crops of the isles. Yet the little

loch has charms of its own for those who know it—charms that its wilder

and more romantic sisters cannot boast. Not a quarter of a mile from its

western shore the Atlantic billows boom and thunder upon the cliffs, or

roll in, great and green, to burst and spread in a whirling smother of

foam upon the sands; and the quiet of the inland water is thrice welcome

to eye and ear when these are dazzled and wearied by the ceaseless

turmoil and tumult of the sea.

The valley in which lies the loch runs down to a deeply curved bay, swept

and scoured out by the sea, where there is a breach in the great cliff

rampart that guards our island’s western coast. Up this valley the wind

has, through the ages, heaped a huge sandhill which rolls and ripples

under its greensward down to the lip of the bay. Between the sand and the

clay lies the loch, narrowed by the rising slope of sand that forms its

northern bank.

At its eastern end is the germ of a village. A little shop, a post

office, the long, low building which was a school before these days of

school boards—these and a few cottages stand between the loch and the

sunrise. Close to the water’s edge runs the highroad leading from a steep

little seaport town, away through the quiet country, luring men to the

sea and the great world of adventure beyond it. For with us isles-folk

the tune that sings itself in the dreams of youth is not “Over the

_hills_,” but “Over the _seas_ and far away.”

Along the northern shore, as close as may be to the water, runs another

road—a road that leads to the kirk and the kirkyaird, and, incidentally,

to the laird’s house. Yet because men, who made the road, must preserve

an apparent sobriety and straightness of purpose, while Nature, who laid

the line between land and water, need care nothing for her reputation,

there runs between the road and the water a grassy margin. Here it is

of the narrowest, and there it spreads out into miniature capes and

peninsulas, where teal love to rest in the early morning, and rabbits

come down to nibble the juicy water-plants long before man is afoot.

[Illustration: _Some “Big Hooses.”—I._

1. Skaill, Sandwick. 2. Binscarth. 3. Hall of Tankerness. 4. Westness,

Rousay. 5. Holodyke, Harray.]

On the other side of the road the sandbank rises steep and green, a cliff

of sandy sward sometimes attaining a height of full twenty feet. There

the rabbits have their outposts. The green turf is splotched with the

scattered sand from their burrows, and their white tails bob and flutter

among the mounds they have made.

This is but the flank of the sandhill. Farther to the west, where man has

never ploughed the sand, the loch is bounded by low, green links which

swarm with rabbits. Bunkers and hazards there are to delight the soul of

the golfer; yet hither that lover of links comes but seldom. The rabbits

and the birds have it all to themselves, save where some little fields

are set amid the links, and one or two houses of men.

Out of the turf of the bank projects a great stone, gray with lichen, and

looking like the broken and petrified shaft of a mighty spear flung by

one of the giants who of old waged a titanic warfare from isle to isle.

Yet if a vague legend be true, the great stone is rather some bewitched

living creature waiting the breaking of spells; for, so they say, there

is a certain night in each year when it leaves its sandy bed and goes

down to quench its thirst in the waters of the loch.

Yet the birds do not fear it. The wheatear jerks and bobs upon its

topmost edge as we gaze and wonder how and when he came hither. Then

with a flirt of his tail he is off to repeat his cheerful, tuneless call

upon the nearest mound.

At its western end the loch widens and is divided into two little bays, a

bay of sand and a bay of mud. In the more northerly of these bays there

is being fought a long skirmish in the great, slow, endless war between

land and water; and now victory leans towards the land, for the sand,

blowing up day by day from the sea, settles here in the shallow water and

drives it back.

Twenty years ago, between the loch’s edge and the links lay a field of

shining yellow sand, to which the golden plover were wont to come down in

great flocks of an autumn evening. Once the sand had established itself,

the advance of grass and flowers began. Pushing forward a vanguard of

reeds and rushes, they pursued their steady march down to the water’s

edge; and now, where the sands were, is a grassy meadow, starred in its

season with the pale blooms of the grass of Parnassus, its landward side

meshed by rabbit tracks, the tiny rivulets winding through it beset with

scented beds of wild peppermint and haunted by snipe, and its outer

margin giving cover to duck and coots, to water-hens and dabchicks.

There are little islets beyond the meadow, some grass-grown, some still

of bare sand, and a little sandy beach at one place, where redshanks and

ringed plover run in the shallows. Thither too come the dunlin and the

sandpiper, and rarer birds—knots and ruffs, greenshanks with their triple

call, and whimbrels, the “summer whaups” of the isles-folk. Here you may

wade, knee-deep in clear water, to the very outer edge of the reeds

and find all the way a footing on hard sand. And the reeds will yield

their secrets. On this heaped pyramid the little grebe is hatching her

eggs, and that reedy platform is a coot’s nest. Or at a later season you

may chance, if the Fates be kind, to catch a glimpse of scurrying dusky

ducklings vanishing among the green stems, while their mother flutters

off, making-believe to have a broken wing.

A wide, shallow ditch divides the marsh from the fields on the south,

and where the ditch ends an old stone wall begins, marches a little way

towards the water, and then breaks off to run round the bay of mud, and

so up along the south shore of the loch. Where it turns off, this wall

seems at one time to have meditated an advance into the water, and in

its retreat has left a tumbled straggle of stones which runs out along a

little cape. Here at twilight come great gray herons, shouting hoarsely,

to sit gazing into the waters. Here, too, curlews are wont to gather,

keeping well out of gunshot from wall or ditch.

The southern bay—the bay of mud—holds a great reed-bed, where shelter

many water-fowl. The swans breed there, with coot and water-hen and

grebe. There, too, come the wild duck after their kind, mallard and teal,

pochard and scaup, golden-eye and merganser. But the bottom there is

muddy and treacherous, and it is a very doubtful pleasure to follow the

wild-fowl through their haunts in the reeds. About the inner margin of

the reed-bed, among the grassy tussocks and muddy pools, is a favourite

feeding-ground for snipe. There, too, the pewits gather, and gulls of

many kinds, while redshanks rise screaming from the water’s edge.

Out in the middle of the loch is a small islet or holm. This islet is

nested on every summer by a colony of black-headed gulls. There, too, the

terns breed, and there the great white-breasted cormorants, which come

up after the eels of the loch, sit with black wings widespread in the

sunlight. The circling, screaming cloud of gulls which hovers over the

islet is a sight never to be forgotten, and the very thought of the sound

of their calling brings back those wonderful summer days when all the

world was young, and a brighter sun shone in a bluer sky.

There are men scattered here and there about the world who look back to

the loch and its environs as to an earthly paradise; and ever in their

dreams the loch, the links, the shore are but a beloved and beautiful

background to one central figure—a boy with a gun. The seasons may

change and mingle, as seasons do in dreams, but the boy treads again the

familiar places, and renews his old disappointments and triumphs. Each

man sees different pictures and a different boy, but a boy with a gun is

always there.

It is strange to think that there may be other boys to-day who hold the

loch and all its pleasant places in fee as we hold it by the tenure of

our memories. Stranger still to think of all the vanished boys, back

through the years, the generations, the centuries, who have loved our

little loch, hunted by its margins, and dreamed strange dreams among the

sunny hollows of the links. Could they return to-day, islesman born,

Norseman, Pict, or Scot, they would find many changes; for man is ever

busy improving and altering the face of his kindly Mother Earth: yet the

loch they would see but little changed.

The waters shine as of old under the same sunlight, or ruffle into

miniature white-capped billows with the autumn winds, and by night

they mirror the unchanging stars. The splendour of the sandhills in

summer, when they robe themselves like kings with the purple and gold

of crowfoot and thyme; the hot scent of wild peppermint crushed under

foot; the trumpet call of the wild swans ringing through the frosty air

on winter nights; the pipings and flutings of the water-fowl among the

summer reeds; the screaming of falcons and croaking of ravens from the

cliffs; and overhead, from dawn to dusk, in the long days of the northern

summer, the myriad music of the larks;—all these things they would find

unchanged. And though the little fences and fields, the roads, the byres

and barns of men have changed the nearer scene, yet man has not altered

the “beloved outline of familiar hills,” nor silenced the deep music of

the eternal sea.

DUNCAN J. ROBERTSON.

(_“Longman’s Magazine.” By permission._)

[Illustration]

AMONG THE KELPERS.

In the end of March and the beginning of April, when the isles rise brown

from a steel-gray, wind-ruffled sea, their bare unloveliness is veiled by

pale blue smoke-drifts, which cast over the low, sloping shores a certain

charm of remoteness and of mystery. Later in the year, when the summer

seas are only less blue than the skies above them, and every island

shines like an emerald, white jets and spirals as from many altars rise

round all the shores. For spring and summer are the kelper’s seasons, and

long, dry days, which scorch and wither the young crops, are welcome to

the crofter who has secured a good stock of “tangles” in winter and a big

share in a “brook of ware,” now that “burning weather” has come.

Until recently no kelp was burned after Lammas—that is, August 2—but of

late years, when the season has been dry, the fires have been burned even

so late as October.

The kelper’s year may be reckoned from mid-November. Then he is paid for

his work in the year that is ended. Then the gales sweep up from north

or west, tearing from its deep sea-bed the red-ware, of which the long

supple stems are known to the islesmen as “tangles.” Should the wind

freshen to a gale during the night, the diligent kelper is up and out

before the first glimmer of dawn. Buffeted by the wind and lashed by the

stinging spray, he peers through the darkness, watching for those shadows

against the white surf of the breaking waves which he knows to be rolling

masses of seaweed and wrack. He is armed with a “pick,” an implement

resembling a very strong hayfork, but with the prongs set, like those of

a rake, at right angles to the handle. With this pick, struggling often

mid-thigh deep in the rushing waters, he grapples the tumbling seaweed

and drags it up the beach, out of reach of the waves. For the wind may

change, and the “brook,” as he calls a drift of weed, if not secured

at once, may be carried out to sea again, or even worse, to some other

strand where it will be lost to him. Of course, the winds and waves often

do this work alone, and pile the tangles in huge, glittering rolls along

the beaches.

When the brook is fairly on the strand, the work of the kelper is only

begun. He has to carry the tangles from the beach to the seabanks above,

in carts where that is possible, and where no carts can pass, then

laboriously on hand-barrows. I know of one strand on which the great gale

of November 1893 landed a brook of tangles which kept the kelpers busy

for three months. Once on the banks, the tangles are stacked in great

heaps on “steiths,” or foundations built of sea-rounded stones arranged

in such fashion as to give free ingress to the air. There they lie till

spring, when by the action of wind and sun they have become hard, dry,

and wrinkled—brands ready for the burning.

[Illustration: _Some “Big Hooses.”—II._

1. Trumbland, Rousay. 2. Graemeshall, Holm. 3. Melsetter. 4. Balfour

Castle. 5. Smoogro, Orphir.]

Only the tangles can be dried in winter; but the softer parts—the

foliage, one may call it—of the red-ware is not lost, but goes to manure

the fields, and until a sufficient quantity has been obtained for that

purpose none is made into kelp.

Each proprietor in the islands has right, generally under a charter

from the Crown, to the weed cast up on his shores. Each ware-strand, or

beach where drift-weed comes to land, is set apart for a certain number

of tenants on the estate to which it belongs, and each brook of ware as

it comes ashore is divided among these tenants, usually in proportion

to their rents. The general custom is, that it is decided by lot from

which portion of the brook each man shall draw his share. The middle is

generally considered the best part, as there the weed is in its greatest

bulk, and less rolled and beaten by the sea than at the ends; but it may

happen that one end is near the only part of the beach where the ware can

be carried up, and then the man who draws his lot there is saved much

labour.

The sharing of the ware is a fertile seed of dispute and an inexhaustible

source of quarrel. The “kelp grieve,” or overseer who acts for the

proprietor, generally settles all disputes; and each kelper, with the aid

of his family, carries up his share of the brook, and spreads it on the

drying-greens. These are most frequently links that know not cleek or

driver, and upon them in the early morning the ware is spread, as thinly

as may be, to be dried on the short, crisp grass by sun and wind.

To the man whose daily life is built about with stone and lime, the

summer work of the kelpers shines tempting as the waters to Tantalus.

He thinks not of that kelper in winter, plunging and struggling with the

slippery tangles amid the turmoil of the surf, but dreams only of quiet

summer days and the gray glimmer of sunlit waters seen through a veil of

drifting smoke.

[Illustration: _Kelp-burning._]

The links roll down in long, green billows from the ruins of an old

feudal castle, where the brown rabbit is the door-ward, and in whose

towers the starling nests unscared—roll down to a little bay, where

the long waves of the Atlantic come up unceasingly, curving in great,

green arches, before they break in thunder of white foam on the brown

rocks and yellow sand. Where the grass is thin and scant the sand shines

through, and this makes a bad drying-green, as kelp is of less value

when mixed with sand. But here is a short, close turf, nibbled upon by

rabbits, a racing-ground for lambs, where the thrift or sea-pink meets

the meadow-clover, and thyme and crowfoot break in ripples of purple and

gold to sweeten all the summer air.

Than this a better drying-green cannot be found. On one side of the bay

a long stretch of flat rocks runs down from the grass to the sea, and

they too are utilized, when tides allow, to dry the seaweed. Here, in

May and June, the whole air tingles with the song of larks innumerable.

Long before sunrise, before the last stars have faded in the west, they

are up, weaving a magical garment of song over all the green land. All

day and far into the dim twilight that is our northern night they sing

without ceasing. Larks are everywhere. In that tuft of grass at our

feet is a nest with four of the dusky-brown eggs which hold next year’s

music. There, in the ditch by the roadside, is another nest, from which

the featherless young raise feeble necks to gape for food, showing their

yellow tongues with the three black spots, which children here are told

will appear on the tongue of that child who takes the laverock’s nest.

Again, a fledgeling, speckled like a toad, rises suddenly from the clover

and flies a few yards, while its anxious parents circle close overhead

with little tremulous bursts of song, or flutter with trailing wing along

the grass.

That pretence of a broken wing, which now seems to be an instinct, must

surely at first have been arrived at by a process of reasoning. There

must have been long since a broken wing, and a boy, or a dog, or a snake

to chase the fluttering sufferer, and some wise observer among the

mother-birds of that forgotten day to see and make a note of the chase,

and with the heart-leap of a happy inspiration to find in it a new method

of protecting her eggs and tender young, and to hand down the lesson she

learned to our blithesome bird of the wilderness.

But this summer world, so thrilled with lark music, is not held by the

lark alone in fee. From every dry-stone wall young starlings are calling,

“Chirr! chirr! chirr!” and the old birds hurry to and fro between their

nests and the brown fields, soon to wave with oats and bere, where they

gather the insects and grubs their younglings love. Their bronze feathers

gleam in the sunshine as they pass, and at their harsh note of warning as

they see strangers near their homes the tumult of the young birds among

the stones is instantly hushed. The farmer owes these cheerful and busy

birds a heavy debt of gratitude, as the number of his insect enemies

which they destroy is incalculable.

On the smooth turf the dried ware is piled in conical heaps, like

giant molehills, to preserve it from the heavy night dews and from

possible rain, and among the brown hillocks the wheatear bobs up and

down, flirting his tail and repeating his cheerful “Tchk! tchk! chek-o!

chek-o!” At times the rapture of summer and of his love inspire him with

a vain desire of song. Up he goes, as if he were in very deed the skylark

he takes as his model, uttering harsh and unmelodious notes—a feeble

travesty of the golden rain of song that falls from the blue above him.

But his flight extends upwards only a yard or two, and he sinks down

again, chuckling to himself, as pleased with his song as any minor poet.

As the day wears down to afternoon the corncrakes begin to call from the

young grass, and all night long they answer each other from field to

field. Speak of them to the kelpers, and everywhere one hears the same

story of their hibernation in old walls. That landrails migrate has been

proved beyond question, but equally beyond question does it seem that

some few sleep out the winter here. Any kelper will tell how he, or if

not he himself then some one of his neighbours, once in winter found a

corncrake in some old dyke, to all appearance dead. He carried it home,

and, laying it before the fire, watched the death-like trance slowly melt

into life and motion.

As to the winter sleep I can only speak at second-hand; but I have seen

the birds in summer run like rats into the dry-stone dykes with which

our crofters so love to encumber and adorn their land. That these dykes

can be meant only for ornament is evident to the most casual observer in

this land where ponies, cows, sheep, ay, and the very geese, are ofttimes

tethered by the leg.

Yet if the dykes serve no other purpose, they provide nesting-places for

the starling and the wheatear, for the rock-pipit and the sparrow, which

save the crops of the crofter from destruction by grub and fly. Mice

also shelter in them, and rats in those islands where rats are found. In

the happy isle of which I write no rat can live. They come ashore time

and again from vessels touching at the little pier near the village, but

where they go or what fate awaits them none can tell—only this, that they

are seen no more on the green lap of the world.

But we have left the ware too long in the sun. Should rain come, the

kelper sees much of his profit melt away, for the salt which it causes

to crystallize on the dried weed wastes, and what is left makes inferior

kelp. All along the edges of the drying-greens are the burning pits or

kilns—hollows for all the world like huge plovers’ nests in shape, lined

with flat blue stones from the beach. They are about two feet deep and

some five feet in diameter.

When the ware is ready to be burned a smouldering peat or a handful of

lighted straw is laid in the bottom of the pit. Over this dry ware is

piled, slowly at first till the fire catches, and ever more rapidly as

the red core of smouldering flame waxes.

Sometimes ware and tangles are burned separately, but more frequently

the kelper burns them together. The tangles make the stronger and better

kelp. The pit is filled, and the ware or tangles are piled on till the

mass rises two feet or more above the level of the earth. Then for six or

eight hours it must be carefully watched and tended, and ever new fuel

piled on to prevent a burst of flame. When tangles are being burnt alone,

the kelper finishes off his pit with dried ware, as otherwise the tougher

knots and lumps of the latest burned tangles would not be thoroughly

consumed.

Each pit holds about half a ton, and takes the best part of a summer

day to burn, the actual time depending on the state of the wind and the

condition of the weed. When at last it smoulders low, it is “raked”

before being left to cool. One man takes a spade with a very small blade

and a handle fully seven feet long, the lower half being of iron; two

other workers, as often women as men, have “rakes,” implements not

unlike a rough caricature of a golfer’s iron, but with handles as long as

that of the spade. With these rakes the kelp is mixed and smoothed, while

the spadesman turns it up from the bottom of the pit. Hard work it is and

hot, great jets of flame shooting out under the spade from what looks

like gray crumbling earth mingled with black ashes and white quartz; for

the kelp assumes so many colours and forms that to describe it accurately

were impossible. As the kelper turns and tosses the glowing mass on a

warm June evening, he knows he has come near the end of that labour which

began in the gray winter dawn, when the rolls of red-weed lashed about

him amid the roaring backwash of the waves.

When the kelp has been sufficiently mixed, the pit is levelled and

smoothed over, all the outlying ashes are swept in with a handful of

dry ware, and it is left to cool and harden. Then, as the kelpers turn

homewards, the white sea fog creeps up by the rocks where all day long

the kelp smoke drifted.

Such is the work of the kelper, and such the places of his toil. An easy

and a pleasant life it is compared to that of the men who labour in the

bowels of the earth or in the great manufactories of smoke-darkened

cities. He has the green turf under his foot and the clear sky over

him, the sea makes music for him unceasingly, and the salt winds bring

him health and strength. The furred and feathered folks share his land

with him, and gather their harvest on the same shores. As he goes to

his work in the morning, through the silver mists of dawn, a flock of

blue rock-doves with great clatter of wings flash off through the clear

air. The redshank pipes shrilly at him from the copestone of the nearest

wall, and over the ploughed fields where their precious eggs are lying

the pewits wheel and scream. “Pewit-weet! pee-weet!”—their note has in

it for the isles folk, to whom the cuckoo is but a name, the very voice

of spring and hope and love. The ringed plover stands motionless on his

three-toed yellow feet, calling with his sweet, low note, and invisible

save to the keenest eye until he makes a little run and betrays himself.

Linnets swing and sing on the swaying thistles and among the heather. On

the blue waters of the bay a little fleet of eider ducks is afloat, and

their curious, hoarse, barking chuckle rolls up over the waters. Perhaps

a seal raises his round head, shining like a bottle, and gazes with

mild eyes at the men upon the beaches; while overhead gulls and terns

swing past, cleaving the strong air with careless wing. Far out to sea

the white gannets hawk to and fro. Suddenly one poises in mid-air for a

moment, then drops like a stone into the water, a fountain of white spray

flashing up in the sunlight as he disappears. Your kelper will tell you

how in his younger days he caught the solan geese by means of a herring

fastened to a board and sunk a few inches below the surface of the water.

The bird sees the fish, poises, and swoops down only to drive his mighty

bill through the board and break his neck.

Nearer shore than the gannets the kittiwakes are fishing, when suddenly

there glides among them a dusky skua, who forces the luckiest fisher to

drop his spoil, which the ravager catches in mid-air and bears off. A

true pirate of the air is the skua, and reminds me always of those low,

dark feluccas so dreadful and so dear to the sailor on the high seas

of romance. Far up in the blue ether a peregrine falcon sweeps round,

circling wide on motionless, outspread wings, or a raven goes croaking

from the cliffs to seek a prey, as he may have done for years unnumbered.

If the tradition of his longevity may be believed, that dark corbie who

flies croaking over the kelpers toiling in the morning sunlight, and sees

the white smoke rise from their harmless kilns—what fires may he not have

seen upon these beaches, and what strange smoke of sacrifice go up from

forgotten altars to the unchanging heavens? Give him even a shorter lease

of life than that which tradition assigns him, and still he may remember

the blazing beacons leap up to carry from isle to isle a warning of the

coming of Norse invaders. Allow him only two short centuries, and yet

he must have watched the smoke of many a burning homestead in the days

when the followers of the “Wee, wee German Lairdie” avenged their private

wrongs in the name of their king. The older men among the kelpers still

tell tales of the Jacobite lairds who lay hid like conies in the clefts

of the rocks till these calamities were overpast.

The old stories—the folk-tales of the isles—linger fragmentary among the

kelping people. One may hear from them how all the fairies were seen to

leave some island riding on tangles, and how they all went down in the

windy firth, never to be seen again of mortals. Here is a man, bowed and

crippled by rheumatism, who will tell how he was shot in the back by a

“hill-ane” when ploughing. He saw not his assailant, but only the shadow

of him on the earth. Another old man remembers having his side hurt as

a boy, and going to a “wise woman” to be cured. She told him he had been

“forespoken”—that is, bewitched—by a woman then dead, and made him drink

water mixed with earth from the “fore-speaker’s” grave. She then put a

hoop covered with a sheep’s skin on his head, a basin of water on that,

and poured melted lead through the head of a key into the water, giving

the patient a piece of the lead in the form of a heart as a charm. The

cure wrought by this modern Norna was not, however, effectual.

There are many quaint and even beautiful turns of speech among these

hard-working crofters. Their faces shine on my memory red like setting

suns through the white reek of the kelp pits. Here is one whose fathers

fled from Perthshire after “the ’45,” and who thinks that some day he

would like to go back to see the old place again—the “old place” which

none of his have looked upon for one hundred and forty years! He toils

night and day in summer cultivating his croft, fishing for lobsters, and

making kelp. His rent is perhaps seven or eight pounds. Books, you would

think, must be unknown to him; yet he will tell you he has “always been

a great reader of Sir Walter Scott’s works,” and under the spell of that

mighty wizard his hard life has budded and wreathed itself with romance.

At the next pit is a man of a very different type. Quiet and slow, this

man has led an honest life, with an eye ever to the main chance. Pressed

once for an answer to some question important to the settling of a kelp

dispute, after vain attempts at evasion, he burst out, “Gie me time, Mr.

Blank, to wind up me mind.”

Across the bay the pits are watched by an old bachelor—a _rara avis_

among the kelpers—a little, clean-shaven, mouse-like man, who has “money

in the bank.” He holds a croft where his ancestors have dwelt longer than

the memory of man extends. The peat fire smouldering on his hearth has,

to his certain knowledge, burned unquenched for two hundred years. How

much longer ago it was kindled tradition recordeth not. Every night his

last work is to “rest” that precious fire, and every morning it claims

his earliest care. All his life he has toiled, gathering a harvest both

from land and sea, and a harvest of content and happiness as well, such

as few crofters know how to reap. “When I come oot on a fine simmer

morning at four o’clock wi’ never anither reek but me ain, I’m laird o’

a’ the land as far as I can see.” He has the secret of the lordship of

the eye, which can give to a penniless man more profit of the pleasant

earth than to the greatest lord of land among them all.

Look at this fellow, gaunt, black, and shaggy; he might be one of

_Punch’s_ Scotch elders. Asked if he remembered some event of thirty

years ago—“No, sir,” he said. “Ye see, I wasna at hame then; I was divin’

in the face o’ the sea for a livin’.” He had been a fisherman, and quite

naturally chose to say so in this poetic phrase.

These are only a few from among the many typical kelpers whose friendship

I am proud to own. But if the types among them are many and various, in

one thing they are all alike—their capacity for hard work. That work

does not cease with the smoothing over of the smouldering pits. When

the kelp has cooled it is broken up and lifted out of the pit in great

lumps which look like gray slag, with streaks of white, blue, and brown

running through it. Should it be exposed to rain its quality is much

deteriorated, and to avoid this danger storehouses are built by the

lairds, to which the kelp is carted. The kelp grieve weighs each man’s

quantity as it is brought in, and he is paid a fixed sum per ton. When

a sufficient quantity is gathered in the store a vessel is chartered,

and where there is a pier the kelp is carted alongside. In islands

where there is no pier it must be taken off in small boats. The kelpers

themselves provide the carriage. Then the sails are spread, and the

produce of the year’s work is carried off to chemical works far over

sea, where, by processes unknown to me, iodine is extracted from it. The

kelper receives about two pounds ten shillings for each ton of kelp he

manufactures, and the importance and benefit of the industry to these

crofters cannot be overestimated. I have known a man paying a rent of

eight pounds receive thirty-four pounds for his kelp in one year. Nor

is the actual price he receives the only benefit the crofter derives

from kelp. Were it not for the share of the profit falling to the laird,

he too often could not, in these days, afford to assist his tenants in

improving either their houses or their land. On the whole, then, the

kelper’s lot is not an unhappy one. His work lies in pleasant places, and

it is eminently healthy, and his days, as a rule, are long in the land

and on the sea.

DUNCAN J. ROBERTSON.

(_“Longman’s Magazine.” By permission._)

A WHALE-HUNT IN ORKNEY.

“Whales in the bay so soon in the season!” exclaimed the clergyman,

starting to his feet. “Come away,” he continued, “you have yet another

day before you; we imitate the great of old, who entertained their guests

with tournaments.”

The manse garden commanded a fine view of Mill Bay, and on rushing out

into the open air we saw a long dark line of boats, some with sails and

some with oars, stretching across the blue waters of the broad voe,

upwards of a mile from the shore. The practised eye of my host caught the

gleam of dorsal fins in front of the boats, and we immediately hurried

down to the beach, scarcely drawing breath till we stood on the bank

above the sands of Mill Bay. The inmates of the neighbouring cottages

had already assembled in eager groups on the grassy downs, and other

islanders still came flocking from remoter farms and cabins to the shore.

Several of the men were armed with harpoons, while farm lads flourished

over their shoulders formidable three-pronged “graips” and long-hafted

hayforks.

Many of the matrons had their heads encased in woollen “buities,” and

this peculiar headdress imparted a singular picturesqueness to the

excited groups on the sea-bank. Other boats with skilled hands on board

put off from various points along the shore, and the fleet of small craft

in the bay was rapidly increased by the arrival of fresh yawls. The crowd

of urchins on the beach, who “thee’d” and “thou’d” each other like little

Quakers in the Orcadian vernacular, cheered lustily as boat after boat

hove in view round the headlands, swelling the fleet of whalers.

The line of boats was now little more than a quarter of a mile from the

beach. The bottle-nosed or ca’ing whales, showing their snouts and dorsal

fins at intervals, seemed to advance slowly, throwing out skirmishers and

cautiously feeling their way. As the beach was smooth and sandy, with

a gentle slope, the boatmen in pursuit were endeavouring to drive the

“school” into the shallows, where harpoons, hayforks, and other weapons

could be used to advantage.

The excitement of the spectators on land increased as the long line of

the sea-monsters drew closer inshore. From the boats there came wafted

across the water the sound of beating pitchers and rattling rowlocks,

and the hoarse chorus of shouting voices. This babel of noises, which

the water mellowed into a wild war-chant with cymbal accompaniment, was

meant to scare the “school” and hasten the stranding of the whales. But

an incident occurred that changed the promising aspect of affairs, turned

the tide of battle, and gave new animation to the scene.

Eager to participate in the expected slaughter, two or three farm lads,

whose movements had escaped notice, suddenly shot off from the shore in

a skiff rowing right in front of the advancing line. The glitter and

splash of oars alarmed the leaders, and the entire “school,” seized with

a sudden panic, wheeled round and dashed at headlong speed into the line

of pursuing boats.

A shout rose from the shore as the flash of tail-fins, the heaving of

the boats, and the rapid strokes of the boatmen showed all too plainly

the escape of the whales, and the success of their victorious charge.

Away beyond the broken line of the fleet they plunged in wild stampede,

striking the blue waters into spangles of silver foam. Arches of spray,

blown into the air at wide distances apart, served to indicate the size

of the “school” and the speed of the fugitives.

“Whew!” exclaimed my reverend friend, “that was a gallant charge, and

deserved to succeed; but I hope our brave lads will yet put salt upon

their tails. The boatmen have toiled hard for their share of the fish,

and great would be the pity if the whales made right off to the open sea.

It is not every day that a ‘drave’ a hundred strong visits our shores,

and there they go round the head of Odness in full career.”

A commotion among the crowd at a short distance along the beach here

arrested our attention. The exciting spectacle of the grand charge and

wild flight of the whales had so absorbed our gaze that we failed to

notice a mishap which was fortunately more ludicrous than alarming.

The three youths who foolishly rowed off from the shore and caused the

stampede had suffered for their rashness by getting their skiff capsized

when the sea-monsters wheeled round to the charge. On gaining the

outskirts of the crowd, we found the three luckless whale-hunters already

beached. Bonnetless, dripping, and disconsolate, they were the objects

of mirth to some, of commiseration to others.

At last they made off, and we immediately set out in the direction of

Odness to catch a sight of the whales, which had quite disappeared from

the bay. The boats had turned in pursuit when the “school” escaped, and

they were now making all haste to double the headland. On gaining the top

of the cliffs, we were glad to observe that the whales, recovered from

their fright, drifted leisurely along the coast, giving way at times to

eccentric gambols.

“All right!” cried my friend, handing me back my binocular; “they are

coasting away famously round Lamb Head, and they are almost certain to

take a snooze in Rousholm Bay, which is the best whale-trap I know in

Orkney. Let us sit down here on the top of the cliffs till the boats come

abreast, and then we shall take a nearer way to Rousholm than following

the coast.”

The summit of the rocks, softly carpeted with grass, moss, and wild

flowers, afforded a pleasant resting-place, and commanded a picturesque

prospect. To eastward there was a wide expanse of sea, stretching away

without a break to the Norwegian fiords. The whale-hunting fleet,

composed of all varieties of small craft, was soon well abreast of

our resting-place. A fine and favourable breeze had sprung up, and

fishing-yawls, with their brown sails outspread, coasted briskly along.

The rearguard of the fleet consisted of row-boats manned by patient

and determined boatmen, who pulled hard at the oars in the prospect

of winning some share of the spoil. We remained a short time on the

moss-crowned cliffs gazing on the animated scene, and listening to the

voices of the boatmen, the plash of the waves below, and the plaint

of restless sea-birds. On leaving our lair we dropped down upon a

neighbouring farmhouse, where a couple of “shelties” were placed at our

disposal, and away we trotted along field-paths and rough tracks to the

head of Rousholm Bay, on the south side of the island. From all the

cottages and farms in the district the islanders were flocking to the

shore of the bay, and we thus had good hope that a portion of the school

at least had run blindfold into the whale-trap of Rousholm. On nearing

the shore we were delighted to find that our hope was fulfilled. A large

detachment of the whales, supposed to number one hundred and fifty, had

entered the bay, while the rest of the school had disappeared amid the

reaches of the Stronsay Firth.

Rounding the point of Torness, and stretching across the mouth of the

bay, the fleet of small craft again hove into view, and pressed upon the

rear of the slowly advancing and imprisoned whales. Among the onlookers

there was now intense excitement, the greatest anxiety being manifested

lest the detached wing should follow the main army, and again break the

line of boats in a victorious charge. The shoutings and noise of the

boatmen recommenced, and echoed from shore to shore of the beautiful and

secluded bay. A fresh alarm seized the monsters, but instead of wheeling

about and rushing off to the open sea as before, they dashed rapidly

forwards a few yards, pursued by the boats, and were soon floundering

helplessly in the shallows.

The scene that ensued was of the most exciting description. Fast and

furious the boatmen struck and stabbed to right and left; while the

people on the shore, forming an auxiliary force, dashed down to assist

in the massacre, wielding all sorts of weapons. The wounded monsters

lashed about with their tails, imperilling life and limb, and the ruddy

hue of the water along the stretch of shore soon indicated the extent of

the carnage. Some of the larger whales displayed great tenacity of life;

but the unequal conflict closed at last, and no fewer than a hundred and

seventy carcasses were dragged up on the beach.

One or two slight accidents occurred, but to me it seemed marvellous that

the boatmen did not injure each other as much as the whales amid the

confusion and excitement of the scene. The carcasses, as I was informed,

would realize between £300 and £400; and grateful were the people that

Providence had remembered the island of Stronsay, by sending them a

wonderful windfall of bottle-noses fresh from the confines of the Arctic

Circle.

DANIEL GORRIE

(_“Summers and Winters in the Orkneys.”_)

[Illustration: _Wreck at Burgh Head, Stronsay._]

ARTICLES MADE OF STRAW.

The Orkney peasantry of two centuries ago lived in a poor country—a

country ground down by the tyranny of greedy and unscrupulous rulers; a

country whose inhabitants had neither the raw materials from which to

construct many necessary utensils nor the money to purchase them. It is

interesting to note some of the ways in which our forefathers overcame

the circumstances in which they were placed. One of the most notable is

the ingenious use of straw for the construction of many domestic utensils.

The materials from which articles of straw were made were principally

_bent_ and the straw of black oats. The bent, after being cut, was

loosely bound into rough sheaves and left to dry and wither. It was then

bound into neat sheaves called _beats_, the legal size of which used to

be two spans in circumference. Each beat was carefully pleated at the

upper end, gradually tapering upwards into a cord which served to bind

two beats together. The pair of beats so fastened was called a “band of

bent,” twelve of which formed a “thrave.” From this bent were made the

cords, always called _bands_, which were used in the manufacture of

straw. During the long winter evenings each ploughman was required to

wind into bands one beat of bent. The cord was spun or twisted by the

fingers, the two strands being each twisted singly, and at the same time

laid into each other in such a way that the tendency of the strands to

untwist was the means of keeping the two firmly twisted together.

The straw used was that of the common Orkney black oats, which was at

once tougher and more flexible than that of other cultivated kinds.

The straw to be used was not threshed with the flail, which would have

spoiled it, but was selected from the sheaves, held in a bunch between

the hands, and beaten on some hard edge to remove the grain. Such straw

was called _gloy_. From those two materials, bent bands and gloy, a very

wide variety of indispensable articles were manufactured by the Orkney

farmer.

These articles may be divided into three classes—flexible, semi-flexible,

and inflexible. Of the flexible type, the most simple and primitive

article was the _sookan_, or, to give it a still older name, the

_wislin_. This was simply straw twisted loosely into a thick cord of one

strand, for temporary use. If not at once used to tie round something, it

had to be wound into a clew to preserve its twist.

A very common use of sookans in the winter-time was to form what were

known as “straw boots.” A loop of the sookan was passed round the instep,

over the shoe or _rivlin_, the thick straw cord being then wound round

the ankles and the lower part of the leg. When the snow was deep, such

straw boots formed a very comfortable part of the peasant’s attire. Less

than a century ago, on a Sunday when the snow lay deep on the ground,

more than forty men wearing straw boots were seen in one Orkney church.

It must be added that on the way home some of them were severely reproved

by a neighbour for having performed this unnecessary labour on the

Sabbath day!

Next in order comes _simmans_. This was a strong straw rope made of two

strands, also twisted by hand, and rolled into great balls or clews, the

size of which was the width of the barn door. The main use of simmans

was to thatch the corn stacks, and also the roofs of the cottages. A

newly-thatched cottage, with the bright warm colour of the new straw

ropes, was a pleasing object in an Orkney landscape. The sombre colour

given when the simmans were twisted of brown heather was less cheerful,

but Nature did her best even here by her decoration of the low walls with

bright yellow and green lichens.

Most of the ropes and cordage required by the Orkney farmer were made

either of hair or of bent. The bent bands already noticed were made

into ropes on a rude machine called a _tethergarth_, and were used

for tethering cattle and sheep, and for “boat tethers” for small

fishing-boats. Finer bent ropes were applied to a great many uses, such

as flail “hoods,” sheep shackles, and all parts of horse harness. A very

important part of this, the collar or _wazzie_, was formed by twisting

four thick folds of straw together; and, when properly made, I suspect

the wazzie was much cooler for the horse than the modern collar with

its absurd cape. Even the plough-traces were made of bent ropes, which,

if quickly worn, were easily replaced. For bringing in the crop, a large

net made of bent cord, and called a _mazie_, was put round a bundle of

sheaves, and suspended, one on each side of the horse, from the horns of

the _clibber_, a rough kind of wooden pack-saddle.

_Flackies_, or mats made of straw bound together with bent cord, were

used for many purposes. Small ones were used as door-mats, and large

ones were hung up as an apology for an inner door. Horse flackies were

laid over the back of the horse to protect it from the friction of the

clibber, and his sides from the load which it supported. Flackies were

also fixed on the rafters, under the straw, when thatching house roofs.

We next come to what I have called the semi-flexible class of straw

articles. The first to be noticed is the _kaesie_, which, in various

shapes and sizes, was put to a great number of uses. It was made of

straw, bound by bent cord, like the flackie, but was of a closer texture,

and it was usually in the shape of a basket. The _meils-kaesie_ was so

called because it was made to hold a “meil” of corn—that is, a little

over a hundredweight.

It was in these meils-kaesies that the corn was carried to the mill, and

the meal brought back from it; for carts were unknown, and roads were

but paths or tracks. Each horse carried a full kaesie on either side.

The horses travelled in single file, the head of each being tied to the

tail of the one in front. A man was in charge of each pair of horses,

to attend to the proper balancing of their loads. A train of twenty or

thirty horses marching in this way was a picturesque sight. On arriving

at the mill, the burdens were removed, and the head of the foremost horse

was tied to the tail of the hindmost, which prevented their moving away

until their drivers were ready to return home.

Next may be mentioned the _corn-kaesie_, which was used to hold dressed

grain. These were shaped somewhat like a barrel, and were made in various

sizes. Then comes the common kaesie, used for carrying burdens on the

back. These also were of different sizes. In form they were narrow and

rounded at the bottom, and widened gradually towards the top, which was

finished by a stiff circular rim called the _fesgar_, to give firmness

to the basket. To the fesgar were fastened the ends of a bent rope of

suitable length, called the _fettle_, by which the kaesie was suspended

from the shoulders of the bearer.

To the same class as the kaesies belong the _cubbies_, the names and uses

of which are legion. These were smaller than the former, and firmer in

texture, while the shapes showed more variety, as might be needed for

their special uses. We need only mention a few. The windo’ or winnowing

cubbie was used to pour out the corn gently on the barn floor, while the

wind blowing in at one door and out at the other carried away the chaff.

The sawin’ or sowing cubbie carried the seed corn in spring. The horse

cubbie was used as a muzzle for a horse when necessary. The hen cubbie

was suspended as a nest for the domestic fowls. The use of the spoon

cubbie, which hung by the side of the fire, needs no explanation. The

bait cubbie and the sea cubbie must close our list, the former used for

carrying bait, and the latter for the catch of fish. A cubbie was always

carried by the beggars who swarmed before the introduction of the poor

law, and to “tak’ the cubbie and the staff” was a phrase meaning to be

forced to beg one’s bread.

We now come to what I have called inflexible articles. Here we may

mention first the _luppie_, once in universal use for holding all sorts

of dry materials, such as meal, burstin, eggs, and the like. Luppies were

round and barrel-shaped, close in texture, and as firm as a board. They

varied much in size, being made from about ten inches to three feet in

height. They had a rim round the lower end to protect the bottom, and two

“lugs” at the top. Those of the smallest size were used by housewives as

work-baskets.

The work on these luppies, and on the straw stools to be mentioned next,

was considered the finest and most durable. Small coils or gangs of straw

were firmly and closely laced over one another. The lacing cord was of

the strongest bent, and the projecting ends of the bent were carefully

clipped off. These bands were known as _stool bands_.

We now come to the straw stools or chairs, which were mainly of three

kinds. The first was a sort of low, round stool without any back. Such a

stool could be easily lifted to or from the fireside, and on an emergency

could be instantly converted into a luppie by simply being turned upside

down. The next was called the low-backed stool, having a semi-circular

back reaching to the shoulders of the sitter. Last comes the high-backed

or hooded stool, which was the easy-chair of the Orkney cottage. In

later times the seat was always made of wood, in the form of a square

box, with a slightly projecting top. Strips of wood were used to support

the front edges of the back, and to form elbow rests in front of these.

The seat box usually contained a drawer, in which the goodman kept his

supply of snuff, and perhaps the few books which made up the cottage

library. This form of chair, which is now regarded as the orthodox one,

was invented in the middle of the eighteenth century by a native of North

Ronaldsay, as the construction of the seat of wood took far less time

than working it all in straw; but the older form, with its circular straw

seat, and the side slips and elbow rests entirely covered with straw and

bent cords, was much more elegant in the lines of its form.

WALTER TRAIL DENNISON.

(_Adapted from “Orcadian Papers.”_)

[Illustration: _Making a straw-backed chair._]

THE WEATHER OF ORKNEY.

A foreign writer has said that Englishmen grumble more at their weather

than at anything else, while it is really the only thing about their

country of which they might be proud. His meaning is that, compared with

other regions of the world, the climate of Great Britain is singularly

free from disagreeable extremes of heat or cold, and of drought or flood.

And if this is true of Great Britain as a whole, it is especially true

of Orkney. In summer we rarely suffer from heat, and in winter we are

equally free from extreme cold. The mean temperature of the whole year in

Orkney (45·4°) is little below that of Aberdeen (46·3°), of Alnwick in

Northumberland (46·3°), or of Kew near London (49·4°).

The equability of our temperature, or its freedom from all extremes of

heat and cold, is due to the influence of the sea. The temperature of the

ocean varies only about 13° during the year; it is lowest in February,

being 41·6°, while that of the air is 38·6°, and is highest in August,

being 54·5°, while that of the air is 54°.

The smallness of the difference between the annual mean temperature of

Orkney and that of Kew is really due to the mildness of our winters.

Taking the mean of the three winter months, we find that of Orkney to be

almost the same as that of Kew, and slightly higher than that of Alnwick.

For the three summer months, however, Orkney is three degrees colder than

Alnwick and eight degrees colder than Kew. The hottest day in Orkney

during the last thirty years only reached 76°, while at Kew 92° was

recorded.

The extent to which the sea influences our climate can best be seen by

comparing it with that of an inland or continental station of similar

latitude. Winnipeg, in the province of Manitoba, formerly well known to

Orkney men as Fort Garry in the Red River Settlement, lies in nearly the

same latitude as London. Its mean temperature, however, during the three

winter months is only 0·9°, or thirty-one degrees below freezing-point,

and thirty-eight degrees lower than that of Orkney; in summer it is 66°,

or thirteen degrees above that of Orkney.

Not only is our climate ruled by the sea; it is ruled by a sea whose

waters are themselves somewhat warmer than their latitude might lead us

to expect. The temperature of the ocean is often affected by currents,

bringing water either from warmer or from colder regions. In the case of

the ocean waters round our coasts, the movement is from the south-west.

This movement is due at first to the Gulf Stream, which carries a great

mass of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico into the North Atlantic, and

afterwards to a surface drift caused by the prevailing south-westerly

winds.

Our coast waters are therefore somewhat warmer than they would be if

there were no such movement, and much warmer than if there were a current

in the opposite direction, sweeping along the shores of Norway from the

northern ocean. If we compare our climate with that of Nain, in Labrador,

which lies in nearly the same latitude, and is also on the Atlantic

coast, we shall see how much depends upon the ocean currents. The cold

Arctic current which washes the Labrador coast, bringing with it melting

icebergs, snow, and fog, reduces the mean annual temperature of Nain to

less than 26°, more than nineteen degrees below that of Orkney.

While the climate of oceanic islands is benefited by the equable

temperature of the ocean, it is often marked by excessive moisture and

rainfall. Yet even in this matter we shall see that Orkney has little to

complain of, while, of course, serious droughts are practically unknown.

Scotland, though small in area, shows great inequality in the

distribution of its rainfall, due to the diversity of its surface and to

the fact that most of its rain is brought by westerly winds. Districts

near the west coast, especially if mountainous, have a much greater

rainfall than those towards the east, which are also on the whole less

elevated. Thus considerable portions of the West Highlands have an annual

rainfall of over 80 inches, Ben Nevis recording over 150. Many parts of

the eastern Lowlands, on the other hand, have only 30 inches or less; and

Cromarty, which is the driest station in Scotland, has only 23 inches.

Compared with the mainland of Scotland, then, it does not seem that the

climate of our islands gives us much cause for grumbling, for our annual

rainfall varies from 37·7 inches at Sandwick to 30·7 at Start Point in

Sanday. Our wettest months are October, November, and December, during

which we receive from one-third to one-half of our yearly rainfall; our

driest months are April, May, and June, which together give us only

one-eighth of the total.

One fact about rain is sometimes overlooked: in cool climates rain brings

heat. This may not be noticeable at the time, but its general effect can

be observed. Just as it requires heat to turn water into vapour, and as

evaporation always produces cold, so the change back again from vapour

into water sets free some of this heat, raising the temperature of the

air, of the rain itself, and of the land on which it falls. Much of the

warming effect of our westerly winds is due not to the direct warmth of

the Gulf Stream, as used to be supposed, but simply to the fact that

these winds are rain-carrying winds. They thus bring to us the benefit

of that solar heat which far away to the south-west caused the vapour to

rise from the surface of the ocean.

The chief difference between our weather and that of Scotland is,

perhaps, the greater prevalence of high winds in Orkney. The land being

low, our islands are swept by the full force of the gales so common in

the North Atlantic. When speaking of winds, it may be useful to remember

the classification which is recognized by the Meteorological Office.

A wind moving at the rate of thirteen miles an hour is called a light

breeze; forty miles represents the velocity of a moderate gale, and

fifty-six miles a strong gale; seventy-five miles an hour is the speed

of a storm, and ninety miles that of a hurricane. We have the record of

only one hurricane, on November 17, 1893, with a velocity of ninety-six

miles. Several gales of over eighty miles have been experienced, and one

summer gale of seventy-five miles in the year 1890. During the fifteen

years 1890 to 1904 three hundred gales were recorded in Orkney, while

Alnwick experienced only one hundred and fifty-seven, and Valencia, on

the west coast of Ireland, one hundred and thirty for the same period.

Fleetwood, on the coast of Lancashire, however, had a record of three

hundred and six gales during those years.

Every Orcadian must have noticed a type of weather which is common all

the year round, but especially so in winter. On a blue sky wisps of

cirrus or “mare’s-tail” cloud appear in patches. Gradually these increase

till they form a continuous haze, in which a lunar halo or “broch,” and

occasionally solar halos or “sun-dogs,” may be seen. Then the wind, which

was light and probably westerly, backs to the southward and eastward, and

the sky becomes threatening. The wind increases, perhaps to a moderate

gale, and rain falls heavily. The wind then shifts towards the south and

south-west, increasing in force, sometimes quite suddenly, or it may

change still further round towards the north. Meantime the barometer,

which has been low and falling, begins to rise briskly, and the weather

clears.

To understand how this common series of weather changes comes about, a

little knowledge of cyclones is necessary. A cyclone is a movement in

the air resembling a whirlwind; the cyclones of the Indian Ocean and

the China seas, indeed, are real whirlwinds of the most violent and

destructive type. In the North Atlantic they exist for the most part as

enormous eddies in the great air-ocean, often several hundreds of miles

in diameter, probably rotating with the force of a gale near the centre,

and at the same time moving forward as a whole at a moderate speed. A

cyclone has been known to keep company with one of our Atlantic liners

during its whole voyage, but the rate of progress is often less than this.

A cyclone owes its origin to some local excess of heat, such as might

arise from a heavy rainfall, the heat causing an upward movement in

the air. The inrush of cool air which then follows begins a circular

or whirling motion. The moist air in front of the cyclone gives up

its moisture with the fall in temperature, causing the rains that are

invariably found in front of such a movement. The air after the rainfall

is dry and warmer, and its ascent keeps up a partial vacuum or area of

low pressure, which is the centre or vent of the cyclone. It is really

the rainfall in front of the cyclonic system that causes its forward

movement, assisted by the rotation of the earth. Each space relieved

of its moisture forms in its turn the new centre. A coast-line, or an

anti-cyclonic movement of the air in front of a cyclone, will alter its

course. When one reaches the shores of Europe, it soon spends itself for

want of the moisture-laden winds in front to keep up the system.

In the northern hemisphere the direction of rotation of a cyclone is

opposite to the movement of the hands of a watch; in the southern

hemisphere it is in the same direction as the movement of the hands of a

watch. This is the effect of the rotation of the earth, as will be clear

after a little thought on the matter. In the North Atlantic the forward

motion of a cyclone is always from the westward to the eastward; hence

the “storm warnings” which reach us from the United States.

[Illustration: _Diagram of a typical Atlantic cyclone._]

Our islands lie in the most common track of those Atlantic cyclones, and

the centre of the whirl often passes over or near the Orkneys. Now if you

will look at the chart or diagram of a typical cyclone as given here, and

suppose it to be moving slowly from south-east to north-west, or suppose

yourself to be moving through it in the opposite direction while it

remains still, you will see how the changes of wind and weather which we

have described must result from this movement.

During the greater part of the year our weather is mainly due to a

constant procession of those Atlantic cyclones, great and small, and

hence arises the changeableness of our winds and our weather. But in

the spring we often have weather of a different type. Our winds are

then often cold, sometimes dry, and frequently easterly or northerly

in direction for several days together. Such weather is due to

anti-cyclones—that is, areas of high pressure, from which the air flows

downwards and spreads outwards in every direction. An anti-cyclone is

the opposite of a cyclone in almost every respect. Its supply of dry air

often comes from the ascending air in the centre of a cyclone, which has

deposited its moisture. At the meteorological station on Ben Nevis it

was sometimes noticed that when an anti-cyclone was stationed over the

south of England, and a cyclone was crossing the north of Scotland, there

was an upper air-current travelling from the latter to the former, and

no doubt supplying the dry air of the anti-cyclone. This is a type of

movement which is usually found over land rather than sea, and it has not

the regular forward movement of the cyclone.

The last point which we may notice about our weather is the amount of

sunshine which we receive. At every well-equipped observatory, such as

that of Deerness, there is an instrument which records the duration of

sunshine, hour by hour and day by day, all the year round. In the matter

of sunshine, Orkney is not so badly treated as we may sometimes think.

The average number of hours of sunshine each year recorded at Deerness

is 1,177, while Edinburgh enjoys only 1,166. London is a little better,

with 1,260, while Hastings, on the more favoured south coast of England,

has an average record of 1,780 hours. Our brightest month is May, with an

average of 178 hours of sunshine, and our gloomiest month is naturally

December, with only 20·6 hours.

THE PLACE-NAMES OF ORKNEY.

Orkney place-names form an attractive subject of study. There is always

some reason why a certain place received its own particular name, though

that reason may often be difficult to discover. The use of a name is, of

course, to distinguish one place from other places of a similar class,

and the most obvious way of doing so is to refer to some special feature

or peculiarity of the place. In this way arise such names as the Red

Head, the North Sea, the Muckle Water, and Green Holm. Houses and farms

and islands are often named after the owner.

When people of a different race and language settle in a country, or

when the language changes, as happened in Orkney after its annexation to

Scotland, the old names may still be used, although when their meaning

is unknown or has been forgotten they are apt to be changed in various

ways. People rarely take the trouble of inventing a new name for a place

if they can find out the name already given to it. Thus if there had

been any Celtic or Pictish inhabitants left in Orkney when the Norsemen

settled there, the Celtic names of the islands and hills and bays would

have been handed down from them to us. But all the old place-names in

Orkney are Norse, and the only Celtic elements found in them refer to the

settlements and churches of the Culdees, as we have already mentioned.

The Norse place-names are usually descriptive, based either on the

appearance or the situation of the place, or on the name of its occupier.

Such names have an interest which is entirely wanting in the modern

names given to farms or houses, names which are often selected for

absurd or trivial reasons. There is little need for inventing any new

names in a land which has been so fully supplied with them already. For

it is not only the various islands and their most prominent physical

features that bear descriptive Norse names; hillock and meadow, field

and spring, rock, geo, and skerry—all have been named by our forefathers

with names of which the form as well as the meaning is now in many cases

forgotten. Those names should be regarded as relics entrusted to our

care, and we ought to learn them from the old people by whom they are

still remembered, and preserve them from alteration or oblivion, as the

material relics of our romantic history are now being preserved from

destruction and decay.

_Orkney_, the general name of the island group, is partly Celtic and

partly Norse. Pliny, the Roman geographer, mentions _Cape Orcas_,

probably Duncansby Head in Caithness, and calls the islands _Orcades_.

The Celtic Scots called them the _Orc Islands_, and southern writers use

the form _Orcanig_. The root of the name is supposed to be _orc_, which

meant the bottlenose whale. The Norse visitors added the termination

_-ey_, meaning “island.”

When the Norsemen settled in these islands, they gave to each a name

in their own language, and these names have been preserved with little

alteration, though their meaning has generally been forgotten. Some were

named from their configuration or appearance, as Hoy (_Ha-ey_), the high

island; Flotta (_Flat-ey_), the flat island; Sanday, the sand island;

Eday, the island of the _eith_ or isthmus; Burray (_Borgar-ey_), the

islands of the “brochs.” Some were named from their position, as Westray,

the west island; Auskerry, the east skerry. Some were named after

persons as Rousay, Rolf’s island; Gairsay (_Gareksey_), Garek’s island;

Graemsay (_Grimsey_), Grim’s island; Copinsay, Kolbein’s island. The name

_Rinansey_, the island of St. Ninian, often called Ringan, was afterwards

changed to Ronaldsay, with “North” prefixed to distinguish it from the

original Rognvald’s island, now South Ronaldsay. A few were named from

their uses, as Faray, the sheep island; and Hrossey, the horse island, an

old name for the Mainland (_Meginland_), or principal island of the group.

It is very odd to find in books and on maps the Latin name _Pomona_

applied to this last island—Pomona, the Roman goddess of harvest-plenty,

whose name was also used to indicate the fruits of the earth. The

explanation seems to be that a mistake was made by George Buchanan,

the greatest Latin scholar whom Scotland ever produced, in quoting a

passage from Solinus, an old Latin writer. Solinus, speaking of some

island which he calls Thylé or Thulé, says that it is five days’ sail

from the Orcades, and that it is large and rich in the constant yield

of its harvests (_pomona_). Buchanan, who knew much of Latin but little

of either Thulé or the Orcades, takes this to mean that “Thulé is large

and Pomona is rich and fertile,” and he concludes from this that Pomona

must be the chief island of the Orcades. Thus by a mere blunder the name

“Pomona” was given to the Mainland; but there is no good reason why

we should perpetuate this blunder. “Mainland” is the name which every

intelligent Orcadian should use. It is believed by some that the use of

the word _pomona_ itself is due to another blunder, the mistake of a

copyist, and that what Solinus really wrote was a contracted form of a

word which simply meant fruit.

Our place-names have suffered much from the blunders of surveyors and

map-makers who knew nothing of the Norse language. Whenever they found

a name which bore some resemblance to an English word, they immediately

changed it into what they supposed to be its correct English form. A

good example of a name thus “corrected” for us is that of the place now

called “Walls.” The proper name of the district is _Waas_, and this is

the name which it should bear on the map. But the intelligent surveyors

no doubt knew that there is an English word “walls” which is pronounced

“wa’s” in Scotland, and so they assumed that the Norse place-name “Waas”

ought to be written and pronounced “Walls.” This is of course an absurd

error. “Waas” is a form of “Voes,” a name which is admirably suited to

the district, the land of the voes or bays.

The name of our county town, Kirkwall, has been similarly disguised

by the well-meaning reforms of ignorant persons. Old people in the

islands still call it “Kirkwaa,” and this is the correct form of the

name. The Peerie Sea was called the “Kirk-voe” long before St. Magnus

Cathedral was built, the name being derived from the old church of St.

Olaf, whose doorway still exists, and this name, applied to the town,

naturally changed into “Kirkwaa.” It would probably be impossible now

to restore the old name; we can only be grateful that our map-makers

did not also turn “kirk” into the English form “church.” We may suspect

that the parish name Holm has been similarly tampered with. The local

pronunciation, which is “Ham,” indicates that the name may be derived

from _hafn_, a harbour, as in “Hamnavoe” (_Hafnarvagr_) and other cases,

but has no connection with _holm_, which means a small island. When the

meaning of _hafn_ had been forgotten, and the local pronunciation was

ignored, the name was naturally supposed to be connected with the _holms_

which lie off the shore.

A similar intrusion of the letter _l_ is found in _Pierowall_, and also

in _Noltland_, in Westray. The latter is sometimes, and more correctly,

written as “Notland.” The Norse name was _Nautaland_, the pasture for

“nowt” or cattle. The word _Pentland_ must be our last example of such

blunders. To the Norsemen the Scottish mainland was _Pettland_, the land

of the Picts; and even at the present day Orcadians, who have not been

misled by books and maps, still speak of the “Pettland Firth.”

The names of farms or small districts are often very interesting. A

common termination in these is _-bister_, which represents the Norse

_bolstadr_, a farmsteading, the first part of the name usually being

derived from the name of the original owner, as in “Grimbister” and

“Swanbister,” the farm of Grim and of Sweyn. The word is connected with

_bol_, a dwelling, which still exists in our local dialect in the form

“beul,” meaning a stall in a byre or stable. Two Norse words, _bu_ and

_bær_, meaning a home or a household, give rise respectively to the

common farm name Bu, and to several names ending in _-by_, as Houseby

and Dounby.

The termination _-ster_ or _-setter_, which is also very common,

represents the Norse word _setr_; the name _saeter_ is still used in

Norway for a summer pasture among the hills at some distance from the

farm. Several of our farms bear the name of Seatter, and the number of

compounds of this word is too large to need illustration.

_Garth_, which meant an enclosure, is akin to the English words _yard_

and _garden_, and is found in numerous farm names, sometimes alone, but

more frequently in compounds, where it appears as the termination _-ger_,

the _g_ being sounded hard. Other names for enclosed land were _quoy_

(_kvi_) and _town_ (_tun_), and in almost every district we find farm

names in which these words appear. The Norse _skali_, a hall, appears

as _skaill_, either alone or as an element in compound names. There

are other common terminations which might be mentioned, all of them

significant and worthy of study, but these may suffice to illustrate how

full of meaning and interest our common place-names really are.

We have said that the Norse word for “island” now appears as the

termination _-ay_ or _-a_. This termination, however, has in some cases a

different origin, especially where the name does not refer to an island.

Thus in the names Scapa and Hoxa the _-a_ is a contraction of _eith_,

meaning an isthmus. Scapa was _Skalpeith_, the ship-isthmus, and Hoxa was

_Haugseith_, the isthmus of the haug or howe. In the name of the island

of Sanday, the termination means “island;” in the name Sanday applied to

several places round Deer Sound, the reference is to the “Sand aith” or

isthmus already mentioned. In names of places such as Birsay and Swannay,

where a large burn is found, we may conclude that the _-ay_ represents

the Norse _-a_, meaning a river, as the _o_ does in Thurso.

As we should expect from a seafaring race, the Norsemen have left us a

very liberal heritage of names for the various natural features of our

shores. Projecting points of land are called “ness” or “moul” or “taing,”

according to their configuration, and even the less prominent rocks

are still known as “clett” or “skerry,” or bear other names which were

originally simple descriptions of their peculiar forms. In the same way

descriptive names were applied to the water features, and every “voe” and

“sound,” every “hope” and “geo” have names which offer us a fine field

for study.

In dealing with this last class of names, there are two Norse words

which may cause us some trouble—_hella_, a flat rock, and _hellir_, a

cave, both of which appear in place-names as _hellya_, while a third

word _helgr_, holy, sometimes assumes the same form. It is impossible to

determine what the original form and meaning of a name have been unless

we examine the place as well as its name.

In studying our place-names, we ought to remember that the correct names

are those that are used by the old people who live in the district, not

those that are found on the map, or are used by people who adopt the

pronunciation suggested by the spelling. By means of the knowledge of a

few dozen common Norse roots, and a careful examination of the places

to which the names belong, most of our old-fashioned place-names may be

made to yield up their ancient meanings, and to throw some light upon the

past condition of the islands. When studied in this way, our place-names

are seen to be fragments of fossil history, organic remains of an early

stratum of society, as eloquent of the past as are the geological fossils

of the early ages of plant and animal life.

[Illustration: _At the quern._]