Part 3
The coasts and sounds of Orkney are studded with innumerable skerries and sunken reefs. Few of these call for any special notice, but the reader should know that in a few cases—Auskerry, the larger Pentland Skerry, Sule Skerry—the name skerry is locally applied to soil-covered islets of considerable area. There are no raised beaches in Orkney, all oceanological and geological data going to show that the islands were once united, and the coastline in consequence at a lower level than it occupies to-day. Traces of submerged forests are to be found at Widewall Bay, in South Ronaldshay, and a few other localities. Coast erosion in the Islands is too slight a factor to have any practical significance.
Apart from the fine natural harbours, the outstanding physical feature of the Orkney coasts is the gigantic cliff scenery of the Atlantic sea-board, particularly that of Hoy and Walls, which both for loftiness and splendour of colouring stands unrivalled in Britain.
For a distance of about two miles from the Kaim of Hoy southwards to the Sow the average height of the cliffs is above 1000 feet, the huge rampant culminating about midway between these two points in St John’s Head, also called Braeborough, which attains a height of 1140 feet. About a mile southward of the Sow stands the famous Old Man of Hoy (450 feet), tallest of British “stacks”—
A giant that hath warred with heaven, Whose ruined scalp seems thunder-riven.
Of many other fine cliffs in this island we have space to mention only the Berry, in Walls, a sheer precipice of 600 feet in height, which forms, so to speak, one of the jaws of the Pentland Firth, the other jaw being Dunnet Head on the Caithness side. For beauty of colouring and indeed of outline, the Berry excels any cliff in this wonderful coastline, which the late Dr Guthrie described as, after Niagara and the Alps, the most sublime sight in the world. There is much fine rock scenery elsewhere in the Islands, particularly in the West Mainland, Rousay, Eday, and South Ronaldshay.
The tideways in many of the sounds which separate the various islands are remarkable for their turbulence and velocity, a speed of 8 knots an hour being reached in Hoy Sound, and 12 knots in the Pentland Firth. In the Pentland Firth also are two whirlpools, the Wells of Swona and the Swelkie of Stroma, the latter as famous in fable as the by no means more formidable Maelström. The total coastline of the Islands extends to between 500 and 600 miles.
8. Weather and Climate
Insular climates are almost invariably milder than those of continents, or even those of the inland regions of large islands, in the same latitudes, and the climate of Orkney is no exception to this rule. Like so many other things Orcadian, the climate is conditioned by the proximity of the sea, and in this case by a sea whose waters are considerably warmer than their latitude might lead one to suspect. The warm surface drift of the North Atlantic is of itself sufficient to explain the relatively mild winter of Orkney, and the presence of the widest portion of the North Sea on the eastern side of the Islands has also a modifying influence. It must also be borne in mind that in cool climates rain brings heat. Our westerly and south-westerly winds, passing over sun-bathed seas, collect in their courses the vapour of warmer climates, and when this vapour, coming into contact with the cooler air of more northerly latitudes, is again condensed into water, a certain amount of the heat thus collected is set free, and raises the temperature of the air, of the rain itself, and of the land on which it falls.
TABULAR STATEMENT OF ORKNEY WEATHER.
Mean Mean Mean Temperature. Hours Sunshine. Rainfall. Years 1871-1905. 1880-1907. 1841-1907.
January 39.0° 29.7 3.72´´ February 38.5 55.5 3.05 March 39.3 101.1 2.82 April 42.4 154.1 1.99 May 46.4 178.5 1.81 June 51.3 160.9 1.97 July 54.2 141.3 2.57 August 54.0 121.8 3.01 September 51.5 108.8 3.09 October 46.4 75.5 4.43 November 42.4 36.5 3.97 December 39.9 20.8 4.21 ---- ------ ----- Mean 45.4 Total 1184.5 Total 36.65
It will thus be seen that the mean annual temperature of Orkney is 45.4°, which compares with 46.3° at Aberdeen and at Alnwick in Northumberland, and with 49.4° at Kew Observatory. The total range of temperature is only about 16°, as against 20° at Thurso, just across the Pentland Firth, 22° at Leith, and 25° at London. In this respect the Islands resemble the S.W. coast of England and the W. coast of Ireland. The lowest temperature recorded in Orkney in the eighty-seven years during which meteorological observations have been made was 8°, which occurred on 18th January 1881, the highest was 76°, on 16th July 1876. The temperature of the ocean varies only about 13° during the year, from 41.6° in February, to 54.5° in August. The mean annual rainfall of about 37 inches compares with over 80 inches in many parts of the West Highlands, and with 23 inches at Cromarty, the driest station in Scotland. The wettest months are October, November, and December, during which the Islands receive from one-third to one-half of their annual rainfall, the driest months are April, May, and June, which together receive only one-eighth of the total fall. Thus Orkney is practically never troubled with excessive rainfall, and serious droughts are equally unknown. The mean annual sunshine of 1185 hours compares favourably with 1164 hours at Edinburgh. London enjoys 1260 hours, Hastings 1780. Orkney’s brightest month is May, with an average of 178 hours of sunshine, the gloomiest is December with 20.6 hours.
Apart from the fact that Orkney enjoys the mildest winter of any Scottish county, the chief difference between the weather of the archipelago and that of Scotland in general is perhaps the greater prevalence of high winds in the Islands, which owing to the general lowness of the land receive the full force of the North Atlantic gales, and which moreover lie in the most common track of the Atlantic cyclones, a circumstance which leads to great variability of wind and weather. Orkney has record of only one hurricane, on 17th November, 1893, with a velocity of 96 miles. Several winter gales of over 80 miles have been recorded, and one summer gale of 75 miles in the year 1890. During the fifteen years 1890-1904, 300 gales were recorded in Orkney, practically the same as at Fleetwood in Lancashire, while Alnwick experienced only 157, and Valentia on the west coast of Ireland only 130. Atlantic cyclones are the dominating factor in Orkney weather during the greater portion of the year, producing gales of greater or smaller magnitude, and being almost invariably accompanied by rain, with sudden changes both in the direction and the force of the wind. In the spring season, however, anticyclones frequently cause spells of dry, cold weather, with fairly steady winds from the eastward or northward.
Winter in Orkney is in general a steady series of high winds, heavy rains, and ever varying storms, with much less frequent falls of snow, and fewer severe or continuous frosts than elsewhere in Scotland. Under the shelter of garden walls we have seen strawberry plants in blossom at Christmas and roses in January, while chance primroses may be found in sheltered nooks in any month of the year. The spring is cold and late, but the prevailing winds from N.W., N.E., or E. have not the piercing coldness so often felt in the spring winds along the east coast of Scotland. The summer is short, but remarkable for rapidity of growth. Fogs are fairly common during summer and early autumn, and come on and disperse with exceptional suddenness. Thunder in Orkney occurs mostly in winter, during high winds and continuous falls of rain or snow. The heaviest rains and the most prevalent and strongest winds are from the S.W. and S.E.
MEANS OF OBSERVATION IN ORKNEY FOR THIRTY-THREE YEARS—1873-1905
Rainy Snowy Days on Thunder Clear days. days. which storms. sky. Overcast. Gales. Hail fell. 219 31 14 6 31 156 79
9. The People—Race, Language, Population
It is unsafe to dogmatise on the early races of Orkney; but from the undoubted community in blood, speech, and culture with other northern counties of Scotland during the Celtic period, we may fairly conjecture that the Islands must have similarly shared in whatever pre-Celtic population—Iberian or other—these regions as a whole possessed.
Into the vexed question whether any remnant of Celtic population survived the Norse settlement of the Islands in the ninth century we cannot enter here. It is certain that for centuries after that era Norse speech, law, and custom were as universal and supreme in Orkney as ever Anglo-Saxon speech and institutions were in Kent or Norfolk. The place-names of the Islands are, save for a late Scottish and English element, entirely Norse.
The Scottish immigration into Orkney, which commenced about 1230, came for centuries almost exclusively from the Lowlands—the Lothians, Fife, Forfarshire, and those parts of Stirlingshire, Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, and Moray which lie outside the “Highland Line,” being the chief areas drawn from. A later and much slighter strain of immigration from Caithness, Sutherland, and Ross, which affected the South Isles more especially, was itself quite as much of Norse as of Celtic ancestry. The people of Orkney must therefore be put down as in the main an amalgam of Norse and Lowland Scots.
There never was any very rigid line of division between these two races in the Islands. So much is it the case that, while the Norse were being Scotticised in speech and custom, the incomers were at the same time being Orcadianised in sentiment, that the opprobrious epithet of “Ferry-loupers,” hurled by native Orcadians at successive generations of Scots intruders, is itself of Scottish origin. The _genius loci_ was a very potent spirit, and the Scoto-Orcadian was often prouder of being an Orcadian than of being a Scot.
The humblest Orcadians have for centuries past spoken English more correctly and naturally than was at all common among the Scottish lower orders before the advent of board school education, a circumstance largely due to the fact that a great portion of the population exchanged Norse speech for Scots about the period—the later sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries—when educated Scots were themselves adopting English. Add to this the constant presence of passing English vessels and the presence of Cromwell’s soldiers. At the same time a modified Scots dialect is commonly spoken by the less educated classes, but even in this the admixture of pure English is pronounced. A few Norse words, mostly nouns, survive imbedded in the local speech, whether English or Scots. Norse speech lingered in Harray until about 1750.
The population of Orkney, which numbered 24,445 in the year 1801, increased almost uninterruptedly to a maximum of 32,395 in 1861. Every subsequent census, except that of 1881, has shown a decrease, and the 9.8 per cent. rate of intercensal decline recorded in 1911 was the heaviest revealed by the census of that year for any Scottish county. The population in that year was 25,897, being 69 to the square mile.
Under modern conditions Orkneymen have resumed the roving instincts of their Norse ancestors, and the variety of capacities under which the sons and daughters of the Islands live in the far corners of the earth is astonishing. The ostensible local causes of this movement are in reality of secondary importance. The real causes are improved education, improved communications, and the grit to take advantage of them. Can any Scottish or English county show the equivalent of _The Orkney and Shetland American_, a little newspaper published for years in Chicago? “A Shields Shetlander,” too, is a current descriptive tag which might well be supplemented by “A Leith Orcadian.”
10. Agriculture
Farming is the very life of Orkney, giving full or partial employment to no less than 6400 of the population. The great era of agriculture in the Islands followed, and was partly the consequence of the failure of the local kelp industry in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. The area under crop and permanent pasture rose from about 30,000 acres in 1855 to 86,949 acres in 1870. It is now 107,941 acres, while in addition at least 52,941 acres of heath and mountain land are utilised for grazing. The chief crops are oats, 33,153 acres; turnips, 13,877 acres; and hay, 9425 acres. Stock rearing is the cornerstone of Orcadian farming.
Short-horns and polled Angus are the favoured breeds of cattle, and many thousand head from the Islands pass through the Aberdeen auction marts every year. The finest of the beef—and prime Orkney beef is second to none—finally reaches Smithfield. Cheviots and Cheviot-Leicester crosses are the common sheep, the small native breed, of Norwegian origin, being now confined to North Ronaldshay. The old Orkney horse, itself probably a hybrid of half Norwegian and half Scottish extraction, has for several generations past been crossed with Clydesdale blood, and the resultant is a small-sized but very sturdy and serviceable animal. Oxen are still used to a small extent as draught animals. The export of eggs and poultry is a great and growing Orcadian industry, the annual output from the Islands being at least £60,000 in value, a larger figure be it noted than the purely agricultural rental of the county. The fattening of geese for the Christmas market is a special feature of Orkney poultry-farming, the birds being largely brought from Shetland at the end of harvest and put on the stubble. The open winter is a valuable consideration to poultry-keepers in the Islands, increasing the amount of natural food which the birds are able to pick up, and extending the period of laying.
Large quantities of sea-weed are available as manure in practically every part of the Islands, and marl in some localities. The chief disadvantages under which agriculture labours in Orkney are distance from the markets, and occasional damage to grain crops from sea-gust. Agricultural co-operative societies, however, which have obtained a firm footing in the Islands, are doing a great deal to counter-act the effects of the first-mentioned drawback.
11. Industries and Manufactures
The manufacture of kelp was introduced into the Islands in 1722, and by 1826 the annual export amounted to 3500 tons, valued at £24,500. The abolition of the duty on barilla, which is largely used in the manufacture of glass, destroyed this industry for a time; but since about 1880 there has been a considerable revival in the North Isles, the yearly export having again reached about 1500 tons. Orkney kelp is considered of the finest quality.
The making of linen yarn and cloth, introduced in 1747, was successfully carried on for many years, and flax was locally grown. This industry received a severe check during the Great War (1793-1815), and gradually disappeared.
The manufacture of straw-plait for bonnets and hats was begun about 1800, and fifteen years later the yearly export was valued at £20,000, from 6000 to 7000 women being employed in the industry. The material used was at first split ripened wheat straw; later, however, unripened, unsplit, boiled and bleached rye-straw was substituted. The reduction of the import duty on straw-plait finally destroyed this interesting home industry, of which Kirkwall and Stromness were the chief centres.
The present-day industries of Orkney are unimportant. No minerals are worked in the county, although flagstone is quarried at Clestrain in Orphir, and red sandstone of fine quality at Fersness in Eday. The numerous sailing boats used in the Islands are mostly of home construction, the broad-beamed, shallow-draught, and comparatively light Orkney yawl being a type specially designed to suit local conditions of weather and tide. The making of the well-known Orkney straw-backed chairs is restricted by a very limited demand, and the specimens made for sale are somewhat more elaborate than those used in the cottages. A small quantity of home-spun tweed is made in the Islands, and a certain amount of rough knitting—stockings, mittens, and other articles used by the seafaring classes—is done in some districts. Fish-curing is carried on at Kirkwall, and to a small extent, as a home industry, in country districts. There are distilleries at Stromness, Scapa, and Highland Park, near Kirkwall, the output at the last-named being large, and in high esteem among whisky-blenders.
12. Fisheries and Fishing Station
Of recent years Whitehall in Stronsay has become one of the great centres of the summer herring fishing, with an annual catch of from 80,000 to 90,000 crans, a total exceeded in Scotland only at the ports of Lerwick, Fraserburgh and Peterhead. As at many other places where this great industry is carried on, however, the boats, the capital, and the personnel come almost entirely from outside. There are smaller stations of this fishery at Kirkwall, Sanday, Stromness, Holm, and Burray, at the last-named of which alone the boats and crews are local.
The white fishing is carried on in a desultory fashion in Orkney waters by some 350 fishermen, who use small locally-made yawls, but the annual catch is not important compared with that of other fishery districts. Haddocks, cod, and saithe are the commonest fish. Saithe simply swarm, but are caught chiefly for household consumption. Some 250 other men who style themselves “crofter-fishermen” in the census returns, are in reality small farmers who do an occasional day’s fishing, mainly for the pot. Lobster fishing is the one branch of the industry which the “crofter-fishermen” do follow with any persistence, and lobsters and other shell-fish, mainly whelks, to the value of from £6000 to £7000, are exported from the Islands annually. The whelks are gathered mainly by women. There are 338 fishing boats in Orkney, of an aggregate burden of 2154 tons, and of a value, including fishing gear, of £16,095.
Sea-trout are plentiful along much of the Orkney coast, especially near estuaries; but although surreptitious netting is intermittently done by unauthorised persons, this fishing is not, as with proper care it might be, on any sound commercial footing. Sea-trout run to a large size in the Islands, fish of from 8 to 10 lbs. being not uncommon. Walls, Hoy, the Bay of Ireland, Holm, and Rousay are the best localities. The net season is from 24th February to 10th September, the rod season from the same opening date to 31st October.
Longhope and the Bay of Firth were of old famous for oysters, and at the latter place a praiseworthy effort was recently made to restore the fishery.
13. History of the County
Our knowledge of the Orkney Islands before the Norse settlement in the latter part of the ninth century is of a slight and fragmentary character. In particular, what Latin writers say gives no sure information, the references in poets like Juvenal and Claudian being manifestly for literary ornament.
The earliest writer of British race to throw any light on the Islands is Adamnan, who mentions that in the sixth century Cormac, a cleric of Iona, with certain companions, visited the Orkneys, and adds that the contemporary Pictish ruler of the Islands was a hostage in the hands of Brude Mac Meilcon, King of the Northern Picts. Whatever degree of power this Pictish king may have exercised over the Islands, we learn from the _Annals of Ulster_ that in the year 580 they were invaded by Aidan, King of the Dalriadic Scots, and as the next mention of the Orkneys in the native chronicles is the record of their devastation by the Pictish King Brude Mac Bile in the year 682, it is perhaps a fair inference that Dalriadic influence had predominated there during the intervening century. That the Islands were christianised about this period by clerics of the Columban or Irish Church, is a point too firmly established by archaeological, topographical, and other data to require any insistence on here. Many pre-Norse church dedications to St Columba, St Ninian, and other Celtic saints, tell their own story.
Little is known of the state of the Islands during two centuries preceding the date of the Norse settlement _c._ 872 A.D., but from that era until the year 1222 Orkney possesses in the _Orkneyinga Saga_ a record of the highest value. The _Saga_ states that the Islands were settled by the Norsemen in the days of Harald the Fair-haired (Harfagri), but had previously been a base for Vikings. Harald Harfagri had about the year 870 made himself sole King of Norway, and in so doing had incurred the odium of a large section of the Odallers, or landowners, many of whom in consequence emigrated to Iceland, Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, and the coasts of Ireland. The settlers in Orkney, Shetland, and the Western Islands took to piracy, and so inflicted the coasts of old Norway, that in 872 Harald followed up the fugitives, conquered all the islands of the Scottish seas, and placed his partisan Rognvald, Earl of Moeri, as hereditary Jarl over Orkney and Shetland. This nobleman, however, preferring to live in Norway, gifted his western jarldom to his brother Sigurd, who is commonly considered the first, as he proved one of the greatest, of the long line of Orcadian Jarls. Sigurd speedily spread his power over northern Scotland as far south as Moray, and from his time until the close of the thirteenth century the Orkney Jarls had the controlling hand in Caithness, Sutherland, and Easter Ross. Jarl Sigurd died in 875, and was ultimately succeeded by the scarcely less strenuous Torf-Einar, a son of Jarl Rognvald, and a half-brother of Hrolf (Rollo), the conqueror of Normandy. Einar got his _sobriquet_ of “Torf” from the fact of his having learned in Scotland, and taught the islanders, the practice of cutting turf for fuel. He was succeeded by three sons, of whom the two elder, Arnkell and Erlend, fell in the battle of Stanesmoor in England, in 950. The third, Thorfinn Hausacliuf (Skull-Splitter), proved as good as his name, and well maintained the doughty reputation of a family which later, in a collateral line, produced William the Conqueror.