The Country of Sir Walter Scott

by Charles S. Olcott

Scott visited the Stones of Stennis in 1814. Had he arrived a year later he would not have seen the Stone of Odin, for some irreverent Orcadian broke it up, probably to help build the foundation of his cottage.

Leaving, with some reluctance, these relics of a civilization more than a thousand years old, we resumed our journey toward Stromness. The town lies on the slope of a hill, resembling Lerwick in this respect and in the closeness of the houses to the sea. Some of the buildings stand so near the water that parts of the bay look like a miniature Venice. Our motor-car frequently occupied the entire width of the street, sidewalks and all, as we twisted our tortuous course for a mile along the main thoroughfare. From the high ground behind the town, we had a fine view of the sea, and across the sound, the great towering island of Hoy, the highest and most impressive of all the Orkney group. On the western side a long line of precipitous cliffs, rising a thousand feet above the sea, opposes an unbroken front to the full force of the Atlantic. At the western end as we saw it from above Stromness, the rocks form the profile of a man's face, not so stern as that in the Franconia Notch of the White Mountains, but having rather a more genial look. It is said to resemble Sir Walter Scott, a likeness which, I confess, I could see only when I shut my eyes and thought of Chantrey's bust.

The island of Hoy plays an important part in 'The Pirate.' It was the original home of Norna when the old witch was a handsome young girl. The Dwarfie Stone, where she met the demon Trolld, and bartered her life's happiness for the power to control the tempests and the waves of the sea, is on the southwest slope of Ward Hill, the highest peak of which rises to a height of over fifteen hundred feet. It is in a desolate peat-bog, two miles from the nearest human habitation. The stone is about thirty feet long and half as wide. Hollowed out of the interior is a chamber, with two beds, one of them a little over five feet long. It is difficult to conceive why any human being should have taken the trouble to cut out the rock for a hermitage or place of refuge, or why any one should seek so desolate an abode. Tradition therefore affirmed that the rock was fashioned by spirit hands and was the dwelling of the elfin dwarf, Trolld. It was to this island that Norna conducted Mordaunt after he had received a wound at the hands of Cleveland.

It was at Stromness that Scott, in 1814, made the acquaintance of Bessie Millie, an aged dame who made her living by selling favourable winds to mariners at the reasonable price of sixpence each. The touch of insanity, and the strong influence she possessed over the natives of the island, who feared her power, were strongly suggestive of Norna. This old sibyl related to Scott the story of John Gow, whose boyhood was spent in Stromness. This daring individual had gone to sea at an early age and returned to the home of his youth, a pirate, commanding a former English galley of two hundred tons which he had captured and renamed the 'Revenge.' He boldly came ashore and mingled with the people, giving dancing-parties in the village of Stromness. Before his real character was known he became engaged to a young woman, and the two plighted their troth at the Stone of Odin. The houses of his former neighbours were plundered and many acts of insolence and violence committed. At length, through the exertions of a former schoolmate, Gow was captured with his entire crew and speedily executed at London. The young woman journeyed to London, too, for the purpose of touching her former lover's dead body. In that way only, according to the superstition of her country, could she obtain a release from her vow and avoid a visit from the pirate's ghost, in case she should ever marry. Gow's brief career furnished an excellent model for Cleveland, though the author endowed his 'pirate' with some very commendable qualities which the prototype probably did not possess.

Bessie Millie, the old hag of Stromness, needed, in addition to her own eccentricities, only a few touches of the gipsy nature, to make her a good 'original' for Norna. A local preacher in the parish of Tingwall, whom Scott met on his visit to Shetland, is said to have suggested Triptolemus Yellowley. Three or four families, in whose homes the novelist was a welcome visitor, have laid claim to the honour of supplying the 'originals' of Minna and Brenda Troil. These two delightful characters, however, were no doubt intended merely to embody the ideal of perfect sisterly affection, and external resemblances to real people, though such might easily be fancied, were probably far from the author's purpose.

STROMNESS, ORKNEY

For the rest, the great charm of 'The Pirate' lies in the expression of the novelist's enthusiasm for the fresh and fascinating scenery of a wild country, where strange weird tales are wafted on every breeze, where the quaint customs of past ages are still retained, where Nature reveals herself in a constant succession of new and ever captivating forms, where the rush of the wind and the roar of the sea impart fresh joys to the senses and fill one's soul with renewed veneration for the Power that rules the elements.

As we sailed away for Aberdeen, it was with very much the same feeling which Scott expressed at the close of his diary of the vacation of 1814.[[2]] He said he had taken as much pleasure in the excursion as in any six weeks of his life. 'The Pirate' was not written until seven years later, but it carries as much freshness and enthusiasm as though it had been composed on the return voyage.