NOTE.--Unless where otherwise stated this paper is founded on
_Orkneyinga Saga_ (Rolls Series, text and translation). Page
references are to _Orkney and Shetland Records_, Vol. I. Fb.,
_Flateyjarbók_. Hkr., _Heimskringla_. J.J., Jacob Jakobsen’s works.
S.S., _Sturlunga Saga_.
This paper is an attempt to describe the mixed races which inhabited
Orkney and Shetland from the foundation of the Norse earldom, in
872, until the end of the rule of the Gaelic earls, _circa_ 1350,
and it is a first instalment of the evidence on which a paragraph
on “person-names” was founded, in the _Introduction_ to _Orkney and
Shetland Records_, vol. I.
The earliest inhabitants, of whom we have any record, were the Picts,
and the Irish papas and Columban missionaries, who must have brought
some Irish settlers with them.
It has already been suggested that the Norse must have settled in
Orkney and Shetland, _circa_ 664, among the aboriginal race, the Picts,
who would have become their thralls, and with whom the settlers would
have intermarried.
The first Norsemen who came to Orkney and Shetland would have been
adventurers, and not settlers with wives, families and thralls, such
as later went to Iceland and Orkney. Consequently such adventurers
who settled in the islands would naturally have intermarried with the
aborigines. This kind of male settlement may have gone on for some
time, before the actual _bona fide_ colonisation took place.
It has already been pointed out that Shetland was not so fully
colonised as Orkney, at the commencement of the Norse migration, which
appears to account for the older Norse dialect forms in Orkney, and
for the survival of more Keltic island-names in Shetland.
A stronger Pictish strain is thus, on that account, to be looked for in
Shetland. The Norse would select the easiest landing-places, while the
Kelts would occupy the inland and inaccessible places, as they did in
the Isle of Man. The two inland districts of Hara and Stennes in Orkney
are especially rich in the remains of the pre-Norse inhabitants--stone
circles, brochs, etc.; and Ireland, the only sea-board of Stennes, is
particularly inhospitable for shipping.
Besides the archæological and topographical proof of the continued
residence of the Picts in Orkney and Shetland, there is the much more
reliable evidence of anthropology, in the existence of a large strain
of the small and dark race in both Orkney and Shetland, representing
the aboriginal race, the later prisoners of raids and the later
settlers from Scotland. Allowance must also be made for thralls brought
from Norway.
Queen Auðr djúpauðga (deeply-wealthy) or djúpúðga (deeply-wise),
passed through Orkney, in the ninth century, on her way to Iceland,
with twenty freed Irish thralls. After this, Einarr, grandson of earl
Torf-Einarr, went to Iceland from Orkney with two Vestmenn (Irishmen).
_Írar_, Irish, occurs in place-names in Iceland, Orkney and Shetland,
in each of which latter there is an _Ireland_.
It will now be proved that there were only three possible pure-bred
Norse earls of Orkney and Shetland, viz., the first three--Sigurðr hinn
ríki, his son, GuÞormr, and his nephew, Hallaðr.
The first earl of the main line was Torf-Einarr, who was half Norse
and half thrall, his mother being probably of the pre-Norse dark
race. His son, the next earl, married a Gael, and after this, through
repeated Gaelic marriages, the succeeding earls in the Norse male
line were never more than a cross between Norse and Gael, sometimes
almost approaching pure-bred Gaels, if the rules of a modern breeding
society are to be observed. The same holds good of earl St. Rögnvaldr,
a Norwegian, who succeeded on the distaff side, his mother being of
Gaelic extraction. The Gaelic conversion of the earls was completed on
the succession of the Gaelic earls in 1139.
The next step will be to show that the leading families, some of which
were related to the earls, were also mainly of Gaelic descent, and in
some cases probably in the male line.
As the Gaels did not give up patronymics and begin to assume permanent
surnames (usually those of their chiefs), until after 1350, those
who settled in Orkney before that, and became Norse in language
and customs, of course adopted the Norse, in place of the Gaelic,
patronymic, _i.e._, _-son_ for _mac-_. This was done by the Gaelic
earls in Orkney, in precisely the same way as had been done by the
Irish settlers in Iceland.
In reply to a query, Sir Herbert Maxwell writes: “You ask me to fix a
date ‘when patronymics flourished and ceased in the Highlands?’ I think
it would be impossible to do so. There were few, if any, fixed surnames
in England or Lowland Scotland before the middle of the thirteenth
century, other than territorial ones, derived from the feudal tenure
of land. In the Highlands, the adoption of fixed names appears to have
been indefinitely deferred. Such counties as Perth and Dumbarton,
being nearest the frontier of civilisation, their people would find it
convenient to conform to the habit of their neighbours. In more remote
districts the shifting patronymic prevailed much longer, and when it
was abandoned individuals frequently assumed the surname of their
chief or the name of his clan, which accounts for the old patronymic
‘Macdonald’ being the third commonest surname in Scotland; Smith and
Brown being first and second.”
In the following description particular attention will be called
to personal appearance, character, habits, superstitions, etc., as
indications of descent.