The Dark Island

“The line goes out into the sea, it’s a narrow strip of land, where weird and grimm the standing stones in a circle there do stand.” The Standing Stones of Sterness, Traditional Orkney folk song.

We had a noon ferry over to the isle of Orkneys – a pleasant change from yesterday’s 7:30 ferry. It allowed us to take our times with the morning (I slept in until 9!). We gambled some more on the ferry and this time I only won two games, but some pretty damned large pots. So somehow I think I came out of it with the most monetary gain. A nice change, that.

The Orkneys immediately felt less mountainous and more hilly than the rest of Scotland (which is not to say that the hills here did not get as tall as mountainous terrain elsewhere). I saw a number of clouds clinging to hilltops. But the land flowed more, the hills were far less steep and thus the change in landscape less dramatic. The land felt both wild and less unified than the rest of Scotland.

The buildings here were largely made out of stucco, with some areas the exception by having a build of gray stone that gave them a charming and ancient look. Best of all, I don’t think they did it to be cute. I think they just did it.

If tourism was a strong industry in the Orkneys, I couldn’t tell. Though I susupect a good deal of tourism was present, it left no visible alteration to the land. To wander the shops, they seemed quaint and bizarre at times, but never touristy.

Best of all, standing stones are plentiful here, and integrated with respect, but not awe, into the land. The hills were simply freckled with them, mostly single stones or pairs of stones, surrounded by grazing sheep in the backyard of farmers. There were more standing stones than we could see in a week. The biggest circle, the Ring of Brodgar, sandwiched on a strip of land between two lochs, was both visible and quite a sight from miles away.

The land is also dotted by Cairns mostly estimated to be around 5000 years old. The cairns appear to be tall hills rising abruptly from the ground. Many of them are not confirmed cairns, as no one has bothered or dared to excavate them. Many of them could simply be hills abruptly rising like zits on the landscape, with no prize to give if popped.

Blackenings and the 4000+ year old room

Our first stop once in the Orkneys was to Maes Howe, the oldest and best preserved open cairn. It probably never would have been excavated except that the Vikings looted it long ago by breaking through the roof in the 1200’s. The embarrassment they’ll never know is that they completely missed the secret entrance concealed behind a boulder.

750 years later, a farmed figured out what was on his property, and suddenly Scotland was in possession of the oldest and best preserved cairn in Britain. Unfortunately, this meant that we could enter the cairn by tour only, which didn’t start for another hour. So with this time to kill, we went off to find lunch.

First we tried a local pub with a splendid view of the Ring of Brodgar. The door had the curious sign “No Blackenings” on it in the form of a handwritten note. In America, that sign might get someone shot, even if no one knew what it meant. I sure didn’t. So though they were no longer serving lunch (it was past 2) we went in and asked about the sign. Here’s the story: apparently when men get married, the local tradition is to cover the man in eggs, flour, and such and bring him around to all the local pubs. They call this, in case you haven’t guessed this, “The blackening”. Normally I’d never make the mistake of giving Steve / Matt / Dallas/ Darriel ideas, but by the time I turn 60 and finally manage to attract a nubile gold-digger to my riches, I figure you’ll all have forgotten. We ended up stopping for a light if unsatisfying meal at a sandwich shop before rushing off to our tour of Maes Howe.

The security of the Maes how was rather grand and I couldn’t help but think unnecessary. They had at least two fences encircling it, one of them with 5 strings of barbed wire. I can only imagine their primary concern was keeping out sheep, dogs, and sheepdogs, but perhaps the occasional trespasser as well.

The entrance to Maes Howe was arguably the most amazing part. The long tunnel-like entrance into the main chamber was of a size usually reserved for midgets. Even a hobbit like myself had to bend over as far as hobbitly possible to walk through them. This is not a design flaw, nor a sign that the designers were much shorter than you and I. The truth is much more impressive.

Every year on the winter solstice, and only on the winter solstice, the setting sun’s rays pierce through the length of the tunnel to shine, not in the main chamber, but through the main chamber and into the back wall of the smaller chamber past it. Built 5000 years ago, before any known written language or indeed any calendar in the region, it’s quite a feat.

Being in the main chamber itself casts an atmosphere that even a sardine packed group of tourists couldn’t spoil. The large room held an ancient, ominous, and above all calming feeling. Meditating there for just a moment, even standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers, was enough to feel utterly engulfed in the room. Then again, that might just have been a lack of sleep. Either way, I was very effected by the feeling.

Along the walls, written mostly in runic (and by written I mean carved into the stone). There were stories, family histories, bragging (“Helga is the most beautiful woman in the land”), sexual bragging (Broch was very good, Helga says so!”) , and just the plain old “Helga was here” ruins. Okay, if you hadn’t guessed by now, Helga’s the only name I remember from the translated ruins. In any case, ruins were carved all over the place and along the walls were a few well known drawings. Such drawings I later saw depicted in jewelry, paper drawings, shirts, and other crafts.

Viking text mentions their looting of Maes Howe which evidently has archeologists puzzled. The texts say that the Vikings took lots of treasure from the tomb. But the Viking’s notion of treasure was almost exclusively silver and gold, and historians agree that nothing like that could have been in the cairn. But the Vikings were proud people, and historian’s best guess is that the “treasure” the Vikings foface with ther peers. It wouldn’t have been a victory to brag to their peers the tale of how they spent half a day breaking into a big hill to find a bunch of bones.

After Maes Howe, we went to find our B&B and settle in before dinner. We departed again a deal later for a restaurant named Dunsby. My father had pessimistically proposed that perhaps the Orkney Brewery made their proud product only for exporting purposes, and thus could not be found on tap.
Lo, and behold, a grin spread across everyone’s face (well maybe not Scott’s) when we discovered that indeed, Dark Island is sold on tap – pints all around! It was splendid. It was less chewy than the bottles I’ve had, perhaps this had to do with freshness, or perhaps this was simply a difference in containment. Second pints were had by all except mom that night, following splendid food that, as usual, I am not going to touch on. I had reached the next step of my pilgramage.

The Ring of Brodgar

Following dinner, we [aid a 10 ‘o clock visit to the Ring of Brodgar, 11 huge stones still standing. Remember, there’s plenty of daylight at 10 pm here, so that wasn’t an issue. The Ring of Brodgar is one of the most perfectly circular stone circles, and the radius was far larger than any I’d seen before. Less powerful, more friendly was the feeling I took from the circle.

It was so much more truly circular than any other I’ve seen, more intact than most, and all the stones were clearly made of the same peculiar type of rock. The stones were reddish, with a texture that differed distinctly from rock to rock. Some stones had a texture of calm water, smooth with minor outcroppings and indentations. Other rocks were the texture of rougher waters, with larger indentations, outcroppings, and wave-like ripples. But the most common texture was that of truly wild water, smashing against walls, with huge swirl patterns, large pooling indentations, and that unique feel of peaceful chaos. The stone’s height ranged from half my size (though I imagine they were much taller 5000 years ago) to probably about twice my height.

One stone, split down the side most of the way, looks in essence like two intimately positioned people, like a man and a womanstanding together. A traditional song, “The Standing Stones of Storness” speaks of a lover’s stone.

“Lovers came and grasped their hands, what words of love were said. They spoke of futures, happy days, as through the stones they strayed. They walked up to the lover’s stone and through it passed their hands. They played it there, a constant troth sealed by lover’s steadfast bands.” We believe that the song probably meant this stone, for my mother and father were able to do the same thing.

Standing from the center (where visitors are requested not to go, but what can I say, I’m a dick) during the sunset is truly amazing. In fact, I’ve seen at least half a dozen postcards of this spectacle, and it is the illustration on all bottled of Dark Island beer. All the cards are quite beautiful, but no card could capture the atmosphere. The circle has such unity to it, and both the stones and the sunset are beauties in their own right. The result is a magnificent and powerful serenity.

The other people we saw there did not seem like tourists. They felt like locals out for a perambulation. A couple walking their dog certainly was. I am unbelievably envious of them, to incorporate such magnificence into their every day life. The idea of one day making this my place of home has become increasingly appealing with every day that passes.

Orkney’s Day 2: Casks, Castles, Cliffs, Clemency, Crap, Critters, and finally Calm

I think my mother and I agreed that the Orkney’s was our favorite stop almost from the moment we set foot on the mainland.

The navigator has planned a rather ambitious morning for us and we headed out to meet it promptly after breakfast. Our first stop was a place called the Brough of Birsay. Birsay is quite a neat place. Birsay is an island, but only at high tide. The visitor’s center on Birsay has variable hours, and is possibly the only visitor’s center in the world in which working hours are determined by the tide.

As the tide lowers from high to low, the water recedes to reveal a narrow path connecting Birsay to the mainland. This alone might have been cool enough to make me want to see it, but it just so happened that on the top of this hilly island remained the ruins of an ancient village.

Actually, to call this place an ancient village is an oversimplification of the truth. It is actually three ancient villages overlaying one another. Originally it had been built by the Picts. The Vikings came and either killed or drove off the Picts, and then turned it into their settlement, installing a convenient drainage system. Eventually the Christians came and killed or drove off the Vikings. They then destroyed most of the Viking Village, and made their own settlement. Then they left. Or died. Or something.

The ruins were fascinating to see, but not much to describe. The remaining runes, mostly from the Christians (although there were ruins of the Vikings too, because they built slighly more uphill than the Christians seemed to care for) were pretty sparse. The Viking drainage system was still pretty well intact, simply consisting of a downhill dugout covered by slate for protection. There were a few leftover runes of a church, but really, today I can’t even be sure it was a church.

Puffins & Patrick Stuart's Paradise

We didn’t spend much time at the runes themselves. My mother had heard word of alleged puffins nesting on the far side of the island, and she was eager to check them out. When we got to that side, the view of the chaotic ocean waves so far down the island’s cliffs was worth the trip all by itself. The is fortunate, because sadly the puffin watching was pretty sparse. We spied maybe two dozen sitting in the water, but given how tall a cliff it was, even with the binoculars it took effort to recognize them as puffins.

We did spy one lone puffin pretty close to us on a cliff, much closer than any puffin we’d seen up to this point. He was pretty cute and looks quite happy, lazily wedged onto a cliff ledge. But as cool as he was, nothing beats the feeling of standing at the edge of such a cliff and staring far out into the ocean, the familiar Atlantic in an unfamiliar place. What a wonderful feeling.

Just off the island were the remains of a small castle built by the Earl Patrick Stuart in the 1500’s. I’m not kidding about the name. It was a small castle, and very ruined, but there was some good ruin climbing, some tall chambers and dead ends. The oddest piece was when we discovered that there was one portion of this well-ruined castle that was locked. The room we at first took to be condemned was in fact fully and luxuriously furnished, with windowpanes installed where the castle window openings had been. It is very likely still the living space of someone to this day, and if that’s true, what a bachelor pad this person has. We might have stayed longer, but by this time I think everyone was ready for lunch.

But first: a very important stop.

The Orkney Brewery

As it happened, the Orkney Brewery was on the way to lunch. I was not the only member of the family looking forward to a tour. But rounding the bend of a steeply twisting downhill road, situated beautifully beside a pond was a building emblazoned with the familiar raven head trademark of the Orkney Brewery, and it was not as I’d expected.

Their beer is sold at stores across the Orkney’s, often proudly featured in shop windows. Their beer has been featured as the most popular in American Celtic festivals and possible, if difficult, to find in most cities. Yet for all this, the Orkney Brewery was only a size larger than my own house, and its humble white structure reminded me of a well-kept farmhouse.

A confused, but friendly looking man came out to greet us dressed in rain boots, a huge green smock, and dripping from head to toe in beer. He spoke with a thick Scottish accent, augmented by a severe lisp that made it near impossible to understand even a single word this man said. Somehow my mother seemed to manage, though, as he tried to explain to us in the nicest way possible that they did not give tours.

It was a rather anti-climactic end to my pilgrimage, but we satisfied ourselves with taking pictures of the brewery and trying to keep in mind the names the man gave us of local pubs that carry their beer. We also got a few good shots of their Orkney Brewery Mobile, which was pretty cool.

Ah well, the pilgrimage was done. I don’t think I could have had a better surprise than to find my beloved brewery tucked away by a pond, so quaint and modest in size. It will forever add a nice, personal feel to my favorite beer.

As we left I told the man that I absolutely loved their beer, and very much hoped that they would keep up their good work. With a broad smile he told me in his thick Scottish lisp “we’ll do our best!”

Skara Brea: Meet the Flintstones

The man’s directions led us to the Sterness hotel, alleged to have Orkney brews on tap. It was far more expensive of a place than we had counted on, but we had not tried either of the Orkney brews they had on tap. I tried a pint of the Red MacGregor, named for Rob Roy MacGregor, an infamous Scottish rebel. The name also served to label the beer as red. Overall I was a bit let down with it. My father had a pint of the Northern Light. Again, in case you missed the witty subtlety, it’s a light beer.

Northern Light was the Orkney beer I had the least interest in trying, since I’ve never tasted a good light beer. But I have to say, for a light beer, Northern Light was packed with flavor, and I stole many a sip from my father’s pint. Sadly, I never did get a chance to have my own pint of Northern Light, but I would easily place it in line with Dark Island and Skullsplitter as a very good beer. A light beer, what a surprise.

Later that night I would have the chance to try the other two beers I hadn’t tasted that the Orkney Brewery puts out, bought in the bottle from a local shop. Raven Ale fell somewhere between red and dark and was pretty tasty, but not one of my favorite beers all things considered. Dragonhead Stout, their newest beer, was nice and dark, but neither as chewy or flavorful in taste as I might have liked. Much like the Red MacGregor, I found it drinkable, but not great. Now back to the day at hand.
Our last sight for the day was perhaps the most impressive, or at least it should have been, the site of Skara Brae.

In the mid 1800’s I believe it was, a rough storm savaged the outer hills of the Orkney’s, tearing a layer of grass from several hills, and revealing the ruins of the 5000 year old settlement of Skara Brea. The settlement had been remarkably preserved through the ages by the grass that had grown over it as the land took the settlement back as hills. These prehistoric runes are far and away the best preserved in northern Europe.

On a side note, must the time span of 5000 years get less impressive with each passing day? The Ring of Brogar, Clanais, Maes Howe, and now Skara Brae? Sheesh, how much of this ancient crap is still lying around?

There are ruins on the wall in Skara Brae, but we know not how to read them, nor do we know anything of the language they spoke. For the most part, everything we know of these people came from this set of these ruins.

They made so many things from stone; their beds, their shelves, their boxes, and pretty much their entire house and everything in it was made of stone. They nested their settlement into the hills, more specifically DUG into the hills almost like a rabbit warren. Jewelry, fishing bait boxes, circles of stones laid out in the center of the room for a fire, all were amazingly preserved. To visit them should have been truly awesome. Sadly, it was far and away the most touristy place we visited.

We weren’t allowed to get close to, let alone touch any of the ruins, but were expected to walk around the hills above them and look from a distance. For the most part, I probably could have had better views looking for pictures of it on the internet. And worst of all, the most preserved “house” of the settlement had a film crew working inside it. We were still allowed to look in, but only from one side of the hill (god forbid we should cast an unwanted shadow!) and if the atmosphere hadn’t been killed by the swarming tourists or the guards, the film crew made it impossible to appreciate their “set”. Plus, of course, I was extremely jealous that the film crew got to play in the ruins, while I wasn’t even allowed to cast a shadow on them.

Brodgar by Night

Following this, my father insisted on calling it day. He’d had virtually no down time in the last week and felt exhausted from the constant driving (recall that only he could legally drive the car). He would take a long rest and go fishing with Scott by the Ring of Brodgar. So it was said and so it happened. As we set out for the water-sandwiched Ring of Brodgar around 9pm, there was one factor none of us had considered: flies. Oh Jesus, the flies.

Tiny flies. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands of them. We first knew something odd was going on when, driving to our destination, it seemed kind of like it was lightly snowing. The only difference is that rather than being white, the flakes were black, and they went splat on our windshield. Just tons and tons of these things. When I did finally, reluctantly choose to leave the car (the first 10 minutes or so I huddled inside with my mother) I breathed only through my nose and still worried about inhaling the buggers. My brother and father, who had gotten up their courage significantly before I found mine, we absolutely covered in them. A few dozen in their hair, more blanketing their shoes and pants.

What had finally spurred me out of the car was my mother’s reminder that the Ring of Brodgar was just behind us, and my own hope that these flies would be less present further inland.

Oh but let me not leave out the best part about these things. The reason these flies were so eager to land on things and people was not mere laziness. Wherever they landed they slowly shed their skin, leaving a shiny, quite sticky white insect-shaped skin behind them. As I write this, several days later, we still need to attend a car wash, for our car is covered in sticky insect skin, and our windows still smeared with their residue.

The flies were still present as I entered the Ring of Brodgar for my second time. It felt good and comfortable to see the stones again, it had a feeling of welcome to it. As I mentioned before, it was a very friendly circle. Though there were still flies here, there were only about 5% of the density that swarmed the land closer to the water. For about two hours I sat there, as my father and brother fished, sitting on a fallen standing stone and writing in this journal to the light of the setting sun.

My biggest regret in the Orkney’s is that I was not able to visit the Ring of Brodgar a third time. If ever I find a suitable woman, I want to get married in these stones.

Orkneys Day 3: Come on be a Tourist! Churches, Checkpoints, Shops, Ships and good Coffee

I think when we finally arose from sleep for our final day in the Orkney’s, we were all getting tired of the constantly-on-the-go point-to-point sightseeing. So our agenda for the day was to explore Kirkwall, a city with shops, leisurely eateries, and some minor tourist attractions.

It was much bigger a city than Sterness (if indeed you call Sterness a city), but the mood of the town was light. There were plenty of people, but it was not crowded.

We hit up some of the touristy, but still interesting shops for the first time since we got to Scotland. I was very happy to pick up a set of Orkney Brewery coasters and whiskey flavored condoms as gifts, as well as some nice shot glasses.

St. Magnus Cathedral, standing almost central to the city, was just as I expected from the outside (though I cheated by seeing a model of it ahead of time, so of course it was). The inside was a different matter. Outside it stood a significant structure in both height and width, a massive brick-red centerpiece to the city. I could understand how a city was built around a building like this.

On the inside there was little I’d anticipated. As I’d expected it was awe-inspiring, as most churches of a grand magnitude are. Since my trip to Ireland years ago I’ve known the feeling of it; just being inside a structure of such awesome magnitude feels both humbling and awe-inspiring. But what surprised and inspired me about St. Magnus Cathedral was the craftsmanship of everything inside the church. Chairs, desks, and certain pews were covered in ornate hand-carved designs. The pews behind the alter in particular all had figures carved into them. Some where animals, some where of people, but they were all ornate, grand, and impressive carvings. There were even wooden archways between rooms covered in these elaborate carvings.

Then, of course, there were the historical relics kept in the Cathedral. There was a very large and very old graveyard they kept outside. But several of their older gravestones had been moved inside for conservation. Several of the gravestones had elaborate pictures engraved upon them, and they had a rather clear theme. Most of these graves have skull and crossbones engraved on them, others hourglasses with no sand left to pour through. Whatever time period these stones are from, they display an uncomfortably strong fear and inability to deal with death within the culture that carved them. Though they were of the church, they were clearly terrified of the impending doom every person faces. One gravestone even read a eulogy of the deceased, ending with the isolated phase “Remember death.”

It was a truly magnificent structure with truly wondrous contents. I guess people will spare little effort to celebrate God’s beauty.

What I haven’t mentioned thus far, is that my father and brother have both been pushing for some fishing again. They’d made a token fishing attempt three times now, but with only a small trout to show for them. They decided it was time for a real trip. So we arranged for a charter boat later in the day to take us out. Fearing that I had already tasted my last Orkney beer on tap (an experience I fear I may never have again) I insisted that we go for a pint ahead of time. So we did, and my pilgrimage was finalized with a pint and a half of Dark Island on tap, and tasted superior to the last I’d had. It was a perfect end.

The fishing trip turned out to be more of an experience than I could have guessed. It was a tiny ship to be out on the ocean, there were a total of 10 of us I think, and that was crowded. First, the guide brought us to a good mackerel spot. Privately, I suspect this was to make sure everyone started in good spirits. Why? Because catching mackrel was as easy as putting your line into the water. We would no sooner stick our hooks into the water than we could start reeling them in, with not one, but two or three mackerel on the line.

I don’t speak of small fish, either. I’ve fished every now and again casually for my entire life. These were easily some of the biggest fish I’ve ever seen caught, let alone caught myself in sets of 2-3. By the time we moved onto another spot, we had a huge bucket of fish, and no one on the boat could have caught less than a dozen. The bucket alone probably could have fed every person on the ship in addition to their families, but we moved on.

The other spots were intended to catch other types of fish, but for the most part was a failure. Our biggest obstacle is that in order to get to the bottom of the waters, where the deep sea fish were, our bait had to make it through the swarms of mackerel. Not only were we still catching mackerel by the dozen, we couldn’t get our bait past them! By the end of the night we were all pulling up the line with three of the biggest fish we’d ever caught on it, and sighing wearily and complaining “Oh, only more mackerel!” and toss it to the seagulls behind us.

Oh, and the seagulls… we aren’t talking about a few gulls. The Seagulls may be bird brained, but they recognize an opportunity when they see it. When we first left harbor, we had a flock of gulls in our wake, but as we went further and further out it seemed that they got tired and gave up. They sometimes gave up so quickly that I suspected they were merely using the boat to play in the gusts of wind it left behind it. All I know is that once the boat stopped and began pulling up mackerel by the dozen, I looked up and there were at least 3 dozen large seagulls bobbing in the water just behind the boat.

There were seagulls of the sort local to Maryland, an assortment of smaller white gulls that looked similar to them but with different grayish beaks, and then there were brown gulls with a hearty strong look of intelligence about them (I know, intelligent looking gulls? It’s beyond belief). Of course I may simply have mistook their aggressive paranoia for intelligence, as the brown gull was clearly dominant.

Watching them, it occurs to me that football must owe its origins to someone watching seagulls. Once we throw a fish to them, 6 or 7 jump right after it at once, and the struggle is often quite lengthy. But the winner of the fish never dares attempting to eat the fish there and then. Instead, once they have a grip on it, they bolt. Trying to escape with the fish is no easy task, because the dozens of gulls that didn’t react quickly enough initially are all just waiting for their chance.

If the fish-holding gull is successfully tackled, he may drop it, and the game begins anew. Otherwise, he might be able to successfully fend off his attacker and fly to some spot that gives them momentary safety. The winner never bothers chewing, there’s no time. He just tosses his head back and swallows a fish larger than his head whole.

It’s a pretty amazing spectacle, and frankly I wish the birds would make some teams, because it’s much more interesting to watch than football.

The best gull spectacle happened when we first decided to change fishing spots. As we started the engine, one of the largest flocks of gulls I’ve ever seen, in their huge assortment rose up into the air to follow us in an almost regimental formation. The gulls were faster than we were, and their speeds were harder for them to control. One look at the wake of our ship would have made Alfred Hitchcock piss his pants.

By the time we got back from the fishing it was so late at night that the sun had almost set. Fishing isn’t my favorite activity, but it was nonetheless an excellent last day in the Orkney’s.