Orkney Islands

 

July 1

This morning was spent at sea en route to the Orkney Islands.  Our luck continued with seeing seabirds from our little balcony (including our first view of an Atlantic Puffin). After lunch we toured several of the prehistoric sites near Kirkwell. The prehistoric village at Skara Brae dates from 3100 BC, and consists of the underground remnants of 10 stone built round houses. Each house had a long curving entrance passage with a very short (3 feet or so) doorway to reduce the effect of the relentless Orkney winds. Each had a single room with a central hearth and two rectangular stone boxes for sit-up sleeping. Not all of the ten houses were built simultaneously, and the (slightly) more recent ones had additional features like stone display shelves, sunken refrigeration boxes, or storage chambers in the walls. Today the village sits at the edge of a rapidly eroding sea cliff over a bay with headland at the mouth, and it seems an odd location. But at the time the village was active, it sat at some distance from a fresh water lake separated by a continuous headland from the sea. 

Next we visited the standing stones at Brodgar, of a similar age. Originally built of 60 standing stones (27 remain) each about 10 feet above ground and buried 3 feet into the ground. The perfect circle is 310 feet in diameter and surrounded by a deep ditch. As with other “henge” monuments, how Stone Age people quarried, moved and erected such stones is a marvel. It has been estimated that to dig the ditch itself would have taken 80,000 hours. The ring is in a beautiful setting with lakes on either side and a ring of low hills all around.  In addition, we saw both skylarks and a curlew there; skylarks are invisible and silent in the grass, and then shoot up to 30 feet in the air, hovering and trilling a strangely metallic song. Near the ring are a second smaller diameter but taller ring, a chambered passage tomb aligned to the winter solstice, and four Bronze Age burial mounds. 

Tonight after dinner, a local musical group, Saltfish Forty, came aboard the ship. The duo has been making music together for 25 years, playing a mix of fiddle, guitar and mandolin. Many of the tunes reminded us of “trad” sessions in the west of Ireland. Some songs were distinctly from the Orkney Islands, including a ballad about a local tradition of kidnapping a bride and groom about two weeks before their wedding, dousing them with molasses, coating them in flour, feathers and breakfast cereal, parading them through town in the back of a pickup truck and then tying them with cling wrap to the market cross in front of St. Magnus’ Cathedral.  Kevin asked if there is a high elopement rate here. Seriously, they were wonderful musicians and it was a lovely evening. 

Pictured: Skara Brae, Brodgar, and flying skylark and curlew (too bad I can’t post their songs!)