The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

Standing on the sands at Jarlshof, we could see, toward the northwest, the towering promontory of the Fitful Head, rising nine hundred and twenty-eight feet above the sea. This seemed a little puzzling at first, for Scott places the residence of Norna of the Fitful Head at the extreme northwestern edge of the Mainland. The Pictish burgh, or broch, which Norna is supposed to have inhabited, is on the island of Mousa,[[1]] off the eastern coast about ten miles north of Sumburgh Head. The Wizard, for a very good reason, set the old tower on the top of a great headland, ten miles to the south-west, and then moved the combination fifty miles to the north.

CROSS-SECTION OF THE BROCH OF MOUSA

The dwelling of Norna, therefore, which to the casual reader seems so weird, was a very real thing. It represents one of the earliest forms of architecture, a rude attempt to construct a dwelling of loose stones, without cement or timber, and with very slight knowledge of the art of building. The Norsemen did not come to the Shetland Islands until late in the eighth century and they found many of these brochs already in existence. The most perfect of them all is the one on the island of Mousa. It measures fifty-three feet in diameter at the base and thirty-eight feet at the top. It is forty-two feet high. The interior of what appears, externally, to be a rather large building, is less than twenty feet in diameter owing to the peculiar construction of the walls, which are really double. They are seventeen feet wide at the base. Inside the walls is a kind of rude stair, or inclined plane, winding around the building, and a series of very narrow galleries or chambers. These receive air through openings in the inner wall, but, excepting the door, there is no aperture in the outer wall.

This is the real building which Scott made the residence of Norna because of his profound interest in it as a structure of unknown antiquity. But standing in full view, firmly planted on a solid and easily accessible rock, its situation was too commonplace for the requirements of the story. He knew well how to create quite a different impression, by supposing the same kind of house situated in a wild and remote locality, on a ragged piece of rock split off from the main plateau and leaning outward over the sea as though the slightest weight would tumble the whole structure, rock and all, into the ocean. Then, to supply the needed air of mystery, he fancied it occupied by a crazy old witch, claiming sovereignty over the winds and the seas; her servant an ugly, big-mouthed, tongueless dwarf, with malignant features and a horrible, discordant laugh; her favourite pet an uncouth and uncanny trained seal; her companions the unseen demons of the air; and her occupations the utterance of sibylline prophecies and the incantation of weird spells. Clearly, all this would have been impossible on the island of Mousa, so the author simply adjusted the geography of the country to the requirements of his romance.

SCALLOWAY, SHETLAND

Although Lerwick is now the only town of importance in the Shetlands, the village of Scalloway, directly across the Mainland on the eastern coast, once held that distinction. It is picturesquely situated on an arm of the sea. Approaching from the east, we paused at the top of the hill to look down upon it. Just below was one of those long narrow voes, so common in these islands. The whale-hunt described in 'The Pirate' came instantly to mind. It was easy to understand how one of these monsters might come in at high tide and find himself stranded at the ebb. At the mouth of this voe and circling around a small bay of its own lies the quaint little village. At the extremity of a point of land between the voe and the bay, rising higher than any of the surrounding buildings, stands the ruined Castle of Scalloway. It was built in 1600 by Patrick Stewart, the Earl of Orkney to whom I have previously referred. He was the 'Pate Stewart' whose name is still a synonym on the islands for all that is cruel and oppressive. He compelled the people to do his bidding. They were obliged to work in the quarries, drag the stone to the town, build the house as best they could without proper appliances, and perform any kind of menial service he might exact. For this they received a penny a day if the Earl felt good-natured. Otherwise they received nothing. If they displeased him they were thrown into dungeons and not infrequently hanged. A huge iron ring near the top of the castle, which was used for this purpose, still bears witness to Pate Stewart's cruelty. He is said to have boasted that the ring seldom lacked a tassel. As mentioned in 'The Pirate,' the inhabitants only remembered one thing to his credit, and that was a law which accorded well with Patrick's own ideas of the rights of people to possess their own property. This was the law, so dear to boyish hearts, of 'finders keepers.' Property washed up from wrecks at sea belonged to those who found it. There was a prevalent superstition that to save a drowning person was unlucky, and no doubt this was one of the results of Pate Stewart's ruling. If a man was not rescued he could claim no rights of property. It was this superstition, so prevalent on the islands, that Scott wove into his plot, making the rescue of Cleveland and the saving of his chest an extremely unlucky occurrence for Mordaunt Mertoun.