PREFACE
I wish to thank Captain Malcolm Laing of Crook for the photograph from Sir Henry Raeburn’s portrait of Malcolm Laing, the historian; Andrew Wylie, Esquire, Provost of Stromness, for the portraits of Dr Rae and David Vedder; and J. A. Harvie-Brown, Esquire, Dunipace House, Stirlingshire, for the photograph of the Great Auk’s resting-place.
J. G. F. M. H.
ORKNEY
1. County and Shire
The word shire is of Old English origin, and meant charge, administration. The Norman Conquest introduced an alternative designation, the word county—through Old French from Latin comitatus, which in mediaeval documents stands for shire. County denotes the district under a count, the king’s comes, the equivalent of the older English term earl. This system of local administration entered Scotland as part of the Anglo-Norman influence that strongly affected our country after 1100.