I approached the circle of standing stones along a winding wooden walkway that traversed the tussocks and lichen. All around, the natural colors of this windswept island created a scene that was dreamy and romantic and somehow simultaneously severe. The deep blue of the loch paired with fields so green they were almost neon, dark shrubs rising on the flanks of big, bald hills, all around.
This henge is ancient, dating back as far as 2500 B.C. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. But until today, I’d really never heard of it. “Stonehenge isn’t as big as this, or as old,” my guide pointed out, noting the 341-foot diameter. Originally, there were as many as 60 stones here, although only 27 remain today. Why the disparity in popularity? While Stonehenge sits very close to England’s biggest cities, here, we were a long, long way from London.
An archipelago of about 70 islands just off the northern tip of mainland Great Britain, Orkney is a funny place. While indisputably Scottish, many Orcadians have Norse roots and speak a distinct dialect of Scots. Their flag features a Scandinavian cross and combines the colors of Norway and Scotland. Locals refer to outsiders as “ferry loupers.” They call the largest island here “the Mainland.” And the actual mainland? They just call that “the south.”
Human settlement here dates so far back that it stretches the imagination. Neolithic and Mesolithic tribes made this their home as many as 8,500 years ago. More recently, according to the Orkneyinga Saga, Vikings established themselves on these islands to use them as a base for their pirate operations.
In response, King Harold Fairhair made them (along with Shetland, to the north) a part of the Kingdom of Norway in the year 875. And then, with Shetland, another Norwegian king—Christian I—pledged Orkney as part of a dowry for his daughter Margaret to James III of Scotland, in 1468. And these islands have been Scottish ever since, formally absorbed in 1472.
Like the Norse before me, I also arrived by ship. Hopping on a motor coach, we rolled south on the Mainland. “Welcome to sunny Orkney—which I can now say, without a hint of irony,” said Mark, my guide, with a wan smile. Upon arrival, we had been greeted by the blustery weather that’s typical at these latitudes. But the skies had cleared and the sun appeared, with a rainbow arching over the sea.
Curling the curves of a roundabout near the largest town, Kirkwall, Mark explained that this area had great significance more than a thousand years ago. “This is where the Vikings would’ve brought up their longboats,” he explained. As we continued, he pointed out other landmarks, including the big, watery expanse of the Scapa Flow, one of the world’s greatest natural harbors. The United Kingdom used it as their primary naval base in both the First and Second World Wars.
Across the way, a part of the rugged, sweeping landscape, we saw the long, low outline of Flotta—one of many places here given a very basic and straightforward moniker by those old Scandinavians. “The Norse weren’t particularly creative when naming places,” explained Mark. “It translates as ‘flat island.’”
Given the landscape, and the weather, it’s perhaps not surprising that those rough and tough Vikings even had fears and frightening tales about this place. In the sagas, they wrote that one island was even inhabited by trolls. “They said you had to be careful when going there, lest you be abducted by strange creatures,” Mark said.
We passed two distilleries, including the world-renowned Highland Park, which has stood on its hilltop spot for 220 years. Mark said it’s the soil itself that gives the whisky here its special flavor. “The peat gives a sweet note to the smoky taste.”
But we don’t have time to stop for a sip. We were on our way to the main attraction—what UNESCO calls the Heart of Neolithic Orkney. That designation includes four sites, but we would only have time to see a couple. First, the Standing Stones of Stenness, perhaps the oldest henge in all the British Isles. Only a handful of the original stones remain, in part because a long-ago landowner, a farmer, was frustrated with people trespassing on his land. So he destroyed some—including the most significant, known as Odin’s Stone.
Nearby, we parked and strolled toward the most significant of all these stone-age sites, The Ring of Brodgar, approaching along that wooden walkway. As I reached them and strolled slowly around the circle, I wondered—what did those Neolithic people do here, exactly, among these towering stones? Truth be told, nobody really knows. Some believe the stone circle was used for religious rituals, or for observing the cosmos.
Mark offered a legend. “According to folklore, there was a race of giants, and they would come here and dance at the summer solstice,” he said. “They were turned to stone by the rising sun.” Returning to the ship, with the clouds gathering above, that sounded about right.
When You Go
Fly: From Kirkwall Airport (KOI), you can fly to a number of Scottish cities, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, and Britain’s biggest hub, London Heathrow (LHR). Most flights from North America will include a connection there. But many reach these islands by car, driving and then taking a ferry—the shortest crossing that carries autos, from Scrabster to Stromness, takes about 90 minutes.
