What a Saga – stranded in Orkney turns out to be an inspiration!
Opening my eyes was a mistake.
I look left as the horizon lurches halfway up the window and back down again. It won’t stay still!
No, best to keep your eyes firmly closed in a reclining seat on the Stromness ferry back to Scrabster. On a stormy day like this at least.
We’ve waited for the privilege long enough. Two previous ferries were cancelled and, like your mother’s saying in the good old days, ‘we just had to wait’. In our case, that involved booking another night’s accommodation and hoping for Storm Dennis to clear off where he came from.
But Orkney, it turns out, is a pretty perfect place to be stranded, if stranding is unavoidable. I was here on a research and fact-checking mission for my latest work in progress, a Norse Scotland story set in Norway, Orkney and on the Isle of Lewis, currently titled The Chessmen Thief.
I wanted to know what it feels like to have the wind tug at your hair there, to stand on the beaches I describe in the book, how the land lies, how many paces the old Round Kirk at Orphir really measures. Visits to Kirkwall Museum and St Magnus Cathedral answered a few of my questions and raised a whole load of others – and that’s exactly the way I like it.
The story evokes the place and the place in turn, informs the story. I absolutely loved exploring the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar, too – both would have already been ancient history by the time my imaginary Norsemen roam the moors, and I must make sure I weave those places in.
Now, let’s be clear about something. I never intended to write about Orkney at all.
This was a book of two halves, set in Norway and on the Isle of Lewis, with the eponymous Lewis Chessmen in a starring role. But the more I researched the time in which my manuscript is set, the more I realised how impossible it was going to be to do all of this without studying the Orkneyinga Saga, a fantastic 12th-century account and evocative source I would ignore at my peril.
The more I read of this accessible and compelling book, the more I moved aside and allowed Orkney to elbow its way into my tale.
The manuscript is all the better for it. After all, Orkney is an isle of writers. George Mackay Brown, Eric Linklater, Edwin Muir – all of these are commemorated in Kirkwall cathedral – alongside the Earls of Orkney who now feature in my story.
An extra day on the island was a gift, nothing less. Despite frequent and heavy showers, we set off for Skara Brae, Europe’s best preserved Stone Age village – Neolithic Orkney at its best. We were rewarded by dark skies, rainbows, bright sunshine and turquoise waters… until the skies opened.
I cannot recall a time in my life when I was quite so drenched, quite so quickly. Hailstones bounced off the prehistoric settlement like ping-pong balls, rain lashed the ancient paths. As our friends sped for the visitor centre, the man and I stood still and waited.
The darkness cleared, the light emerged, all the more glorious for its reflection on all the rain-soaked surfaces.
And I found that I was happy to be stranded.
Look out for: Three Orkney-inspired reads this week!
I couldn’t resist buying Joan Lennon’s Silver Skin, set at Skara Brae and featuring folklore elements and time travel in an enticing mix.
To any lover of Viking tales, I cannot recommend the Orkneyinga Saga highly enough, a thoroughly fresh and accessible translation which truly brings the early Middle Ages in Norse Scotland to life.
And no Orkney book list would be complete without mentioning Amy Liptrot’s successful The Outrun, where memoir and nature writing meet.
