Orkney Folk Tales E-Book

Tom Muir

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 291

Beschreibung

The Orkney Islands are a place of mystery and magic, where the past and the present meet, ancient standing stones walk and burial mounds are the home of the trows. Orkney Folk Tales walks the reader across invisible islands that are home to fin folk and mermaids, and seals that are often far more than they appear to be. Here Orkney witches raise storms and predict the outcome of battles, ghosts seek revenge and the Devil sits in the rafters of St Magnus Cathedral, taking notes! Using ancient tales told by the firesides of the Picts and Vikings, storyteller Tom Muir takes the reader on a magical journey where he reveals how the islands were created from the teeth of a monster, how a giant built lochs and hills in his greed for fertile land, and how the waves are controlled by the hand of a goddess.

Leseprobe

Dedicated to my dear friend and fellow storyteller, Lawrence Tulloch of Shetland. We have shared many adventures around the world and I am proud to call him my brother; if not by blood then by choice.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Map of the Isles

1 Earth, Sea and Sky

2 Giants and Dwarves

3 Trows, Fairies and Hogboons

4 Mermaids

5 Fin Folk and Vanishing Islands

6 Selkie Folk

7 Two Classics and a Travellers’ Tale

8 Witches

9 The Devil

10 Ghosts

11 Shipwrecks

Notes and Explanations

Bibliography

Copyright

INTRODUCTION

The Orkney Islands lie just north of the furthest-most tip of Scotland, separated by the Pentland Firth where the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea converge in a violent struggle. Orkney, as it is simply known, is made up of around seventy islands, some large and some small, and has a population of around 20,000. The smaller islands are called ‘holms’ (a term still used in Scandinavia), where sheep are sometimes taken to graze. It has been said that the definition of a holm is an island with enough grass on it to fatten one sheep, feed two or starve three. This is a slight exaggeration, but only just. The islands are generally low-lying, flat and fertile. Farming has been the main stay of living for thousands of years as the rich, fertile soil is good for growing grass and cereal crops.

The first Orcadians (as the people of Orkney are known) were here during the Mesolithic period and the remains of flint tools used by those nomadic hunter-gatherers are found in small numbers around the islands. One site has been carbon dated to 8,000 years ago. During the Neolithic, Orkney supported a large population that built in stone, as trees on the islands were not as large and plentiful as they were in Scotland. Buildings are therefore preserved, including the Knap of Howar in Papa Westray; at 5,500 years old, these are the oldest standing stone buildings in Northern Europe. The 5,000-year-old village of Skara Brae contains furniture made of stone, while the dead were taken to their final resting place in the numerous tombs that cover the islands; the houses of the dead. The finest example of which, Maeshowe, is built so that the midwinter sun shines its setting rays up the long entrance passage and illuminates the chamber within. Standing stones and stone circles mark another way of thinking about the world in which the Neolithic people lived and they have remained special places for generations of Orcadians. A huge Neolithic temple complex is being excavated at the time of writing at the Ness of Brodgar, and now it seems that the great ceremonial stone circles originated here in the north and spread south.

The ‘brochs’, huge circular stone towers from the Iron Age, around 2,000 years ago, are scattered throughout the islands, suggesting a time of conflict and violence. The Picts, late Iron Age people, carved their enigmatic symbol stones in Orkney, as well as in their heartland in the Highlands. What the fate of the Picts was we simply do not know, but the Vikings from Norway arrived at the end of the eighth century and took possession of the islands. Pictish culture disappeared from the archaeological record, replaced by Viking traditions as the Norwegian settlers came west over the sea to farm the fertile land and to fish in the sea that encircles the islands. The Vikings also gave the islands their current names and the Norn language, a dialect of Old Norse, was still spoken in parts of Orkney until the early nineteenth century. The Earldom of Orkney in the mid-eleventh century, under Earl Thorfinn the Mighty, was said to include Shetland, all the north of Scotland, the Western Isles and part of Ireland. At the beginning of the twelfth century, in 1137, the beautiful red sandstone cathedral of St Magnus was founded, dedicated to a martyred earl who was killed during a time of civil war. This century was seen as the Golden Age of Orkney and its story is told in the Orkneyinga Saga, the only Icelandic Saga to be set in Britain.

Orkney was pawned to Scotland by King Christian I of Norway and Denmark in 1468, when he couldn’t raise the money to pay the dowry of his daughter Margaret on her marriage to King James III of Scotland. Shetland followed in 1469, but the dowry was never paid, leaving the Northern Isles as part of Scotland. The islands suffered a period of excessive taxation, land grabbing and tyranny under Scottish rule. To this day many islanders consider themselves Orcadian and not Scottish and there are still strong ties to Norway. When Mary Queen of Scots ruled over Scotland she made her half-brother, Robert Stewart, the Earl of Orkney. His cruelty and greed was legendary, but if he was bad then his son Patrick who followed him was worse. ‘Black Patie’, as he was known, became an Orkney bogeyman used to frighten unruly children into obedience; ‘Watch out, or Black Patie will get you!’ In 1615 Black Patie was publically beheaded in Edinburgh on a charge of treason having fallen afoul of his paranoid cousin, King James VI of Scotland (James I of England). His reputation was so bad that an old legend has it that his execution had to be delayed in order for him to learn the Lord’s Prayer.

Orkney carried on with large landowners, called ‘lairds’, filling the power vacuum. As the centuries passed these lairds grew, both in their power and their excesses, as is recalled in many stories. Their reign eventually ended after the First World War, when land taxes made these large estates economically unviable. The Crofters Act of 1886 also gave their often abused tenants’ rights which their grandparents could never have dreamed of. During the turbulent twentieth century, Orkney saw the huge natural harbour of Scapa Flow used as a naval base in both world wars. This brought hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women to Orkney; some of whom married and settled here.

So why am I telling you all this? This is supposed to be a book of folk tales, not a history. Well, you must excuse me, but I think that you cannot understand Orkney unless you have at least a brief background of its history. Here, more so than most places, we live alongside our history. Our past and our present exist side by side. Also, the different people who settled here brought with them their own stories and beliefs. The creatures of Orkney’s folklore are a mixture of Celtic and Scandinavian, with the emphasis on the latter. In Orkney it is possible to go to a place and see the actual spot where a fiddler played for the trows, or where a mermaid carried off a young man to her city under the sea. The sands where the selkie folk dance are as real as any cathedral, broch or tomb. Orkney is a special place and its stories are its hidden jewels.

But let me introduce myself. My name is Tom Muir and I first saw the light of day at Valdigar in Tankerness at 10.30 p.m. on Thursday, 13 June 1963. Light of day at 10.30 p.m.? Yes; in summer the nights are long and the sun has still not set at that hour. ‘Valdigar’, which in the Old Norse means the farm of Valdis (the name of the Viking who settled there and broke the soil), is a small farm in the East Mainland parish of Tankerness.

My father, Johnny Muir, was born in the island of Sanday in 1911, while my mother, Lizzie Drever, was born in the island of Westray in 1922. I was a latecomer; the youngest of a family of six and I was a feral child, forever wandering along the shore or in the uncultivated fields where wild flowers grow and wild birds nest. I was very close to nature and had a strong feeling of being a part of Orkney.

I was a school dropout, branded as slow and worthless. Dyslexia was not diagnosed in those days, so I overcame it by myself. I also had a hunger for myths, folk tales and all things old. I am a self-confessed book addict. I gathered all the Orkney stories of supernatural creatures into one book, The Mermaid Bride; and Other Orkney Folk Tales, published in 1998, as well as writing many other books.

As a teenager I had left the farm and joined an archaeological dig, which set me on the path to working in the Orkney Museum. I became a storyteller by accident (although, on reflection, I always have been), and many of the stories that I’d like to share with you in this book have connections both to Orkney’s history and to my own family. They are written as I would tell them, to give you a taste of an evening of Orkney storytelling, and they contain snippets of family history and information. The stories are brought to life by the illustrations that have been created by my good friend Sheila Faichney. She has breathed life into the stories, for which I thank her. I hope that you will enjoy these tales and maybe, just for a moment, smell the sweet fragrance of the meadow-sweet on the warm summer breeze, hear the song of the lark singing in the skies and catch the gentle lapping of the waves on an Orkney shore.

Tom Muir, 2014

1

EARTH, SEA AND SKY

When the Vikings came to Orkney they brought with them their stories, including this one, which is a great favourite of mine. You can see the origin of it in the myth of the Midgarth Serpent; one of the monstrous offspring of the evil god Loki. This huge sea serpent had grown so large that it was wrapped right around the world and bit its own tail. It would eventually be slain by the god Thor at Ragnorok, the battle at the end of time, but the poison that it spewed over him would also bring about his death.

ASSIPATTLE AND THE STOOR WORM

There was once a farmer who lived in a fine farm called Leegarth, which lay in a valley by the side of a stream. The farmer had a wife and seven sons, and they all worked hard on the farm. Well, that’s not strictly true, you see, the parents and six elder sons worked hard, but the youngest son did nothing but lie beside the fire, raking through the ashes, so they called him Assipattle, which means ash raker. Assipattle regularly became covered with ashes and when he went out the ash would blow from him like smoke from a bonfire. The boy was also a great storyteller although in his stories he was always the hero who killed the dragon and married the princess. His brothers hated him and they would kick him on their way out the door, while his parents would just shake their heads sadly when they looked at him.

Now, one day a terrible thing happened; the Stoor Worm arrived at the land where Assipattle lived. This was no ordinary stoor worm, but the Mester Stoor Worm, the oldest, biggest and baddest stoor worm in the sea. A sea monster so big that it was wrapped right around the world, and when it moved it caused earthquakes and tidal waves. It could crush the mightiest ship between the forks of its tongue, or sweep whole villages into its mouth, and if that wasn’t bad enough, its breath was poisonous and would kill any living thing it touched. What was worse, it was now lying off the coast of the land where Assipattle lived and it had started to yawn. This was a bad sign because it didn’t mean that the Stoor Worm was tired, it meant that it was hungry and it wanted to be fed.

The king gathered together all his advisers and asked them what could be done. No one had any idea, but one of them, who was slightly smarter than the rest, suggested that they ask the Spaeman who lived on the side of the mountain. A spaeman is a wizard, and this one was the cleverest man in all the kingdom. He had a long white beard and carried a staff in his hand. He gave the problem much thought before speaking, saying:

Your Majesty, the Stoor Worm has travelled all over the world and eaten all sorts of exotic people, but now it is old and has developed a bit of a sweet tooth. If you were to feed it seven maidens for its breakfast every Saturday morning, then it would spare the rest of the kingdom.

So, every Saturday morning seven maidens were bound hand and foot and placed on a flat rock in front of the Stoor Worm’s head. When it woke, it yawned seven great yawns and then flicked out its tongue and picked the girls up, one by one, between the forks of its tongue, gobbling them up like sweeties.

One Saturday morning, Assipattle and his family went to see the Stoor Worm eat his terrible breakfast. The old man went white. ‘There will soon be no more girls left in this land,’ he cried, ‘and I have seven sons. Who will they marry? Who will look after us in our old age if there are no more children?’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Assipattle, ‘I’ll fight the Stoor Worm, and kill it!’

His brothers laughed and threw stones at him until he ran away.

That evening his mother told Assipattle to go to the barn where his brothers were threshing corn and tell them to come in for their supper. Assipattle went to the barn calling, ‘Eh, boys; supper’s ready.’

‘Get him!’ shouted his eldest brother, and they all jumped on top of him and covered him with straw.

They would have smothered him if their father hadn’t gone out to see what was going on. He wasn’t very happy, because it’s kind of bad form to try to kill your brother. He gave them a smack on the lug as they went past him and he sent them to the house. He was still scolding them later at the table, but Assipattle said, ‘It’s all right father, if you hadn’t come in when you did I was just about to give them all a damned good thrashing!’

‘Well, why didn’t you?’ sneered his eldest brother.

‘Because I’m saving my strength.’

‘You? Saving your strength?’ Laughed his brother. ‘What are you saving your strength for?’

‘For when I fight the Stoor Worm, of course!’ said Assipattle.

His father shook his head and said, ‘You’ll fight the Stoor Worm when I make spoons from the horns of the moon!’

Time passed, and more maidens were fed to the Stoor Worm. Soon the people complained that this couldn’t be allowed to carry on. The king called the Spaeman back to his palace and asked him what could be done to get rid of the monster for once and for all.

‘Well,’ said the Spaeman, ‘there is one thing that would satisfy the Stoor Worm, but it is too terrible to say.’

‘Say it,’ shouted the king, ‘and that is an order!’

‘Well,’ said the Spaeman, ‘if you were to feed it the most beautiful maiden in the land; your daughter, the Princess Gem de Lovely, then it would go away and spare your kingdom.’

‘No!’ shouted the court officials. ‘That is too high a price to pay.’

But the king raised his hand and said, ‘No; it is only right that my daughter, my only child, descended from the god Odin and heir to my kingdom, should die so that her people can live. But, I crave one indulgence. Give me three weeks to find a hero who can fight and kill the Stoor Worm. If anyone can do that I will give him my magic sword, Sikkersnapper, my kingdom and my daughter’s hand in marriage.’

A proclamation went throughout the land asking for a hero to fight the Stoor Worm. Thirty-six brave knights rode into town, but when the first dozen saw the size of the Stoor Worm they rode right through the town, out the other side of the town and away home again. The second dozen fainted, and had to be carried out on stretchers, boots first. The third dozen sank into a deep depression and skulked in the king’s castle, drinking his beer and wine. The king looked at them and he was disgusted, because the blood of an older and nobler race ran through his veins!

‘Bring me my sword, Sikkersnapper,’ he ordered, ‘and make ready a boat. Tomorrow at dawn I will fight the Stoor Worm, or die in the attempt.’

News of this spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom; the king was going to fight the Stoor Worm. At Leegarth Assipattle was lying by the side of the fire. He was listening to his parents who were lying in their bed, and they were arguing.

‘So, the king is going to fight the Stoor Worm,’ said Assipattle’s father, ‘we can take my horse Teetgong; he’s the fastest horse in the land, you know.’

‘Yeah!’ snorted his wife, in a disapproving voice.

‘What’s up with you tonight?’ asked Assipattle’s father. ‘You’re in a very sour mood.’

‘And so I might be,’ retorted his wife.

‘Why? What have I done now?’ asked the poor old man.

‘You are keeping secrets from me, and I don’t like it!’

‘Why? What secrets am I keeping? I don’t have any secrets from you, my dear.’

‘Well, that horse of yours.’

‘Teetgong; fastest horse in the land, you know!’

‘I know,’ she snapped, ‘but there’s something that you do that makes that horse run so fast, and I want to know what it is.’

‘But, my dear, I can’t tell you that.’

‘And why not?’

‘Well – because – you see – it’s a – kind of – a – secret.’

‘Ah, ha!’ said his wife, triumphantly. ‘I thought as much! And if you have one secret then maybe you have others!’

‘Oh, I don’t have any secrets from you my dear.’

This went on for some time, and Assipattle was listening. After a while his father gave in and said, ‘All right, I’ll tell you the secret of Teetgong’s speed. If I want him to stand still, I pat him on the left shoulder. If I want him to run fast, I pat him on the right shoulder, but if I want him to run as fast as the wind, I blow through a goose’s thrapple (windpipe); I keep one in my coat pocket in case of emergencies.’

Once she had heard this she was contented and soon they were both fast asleep, snoring away merrily. Assipattle got up from the side of the fire and went over to where his father’s coat was hanging. He took out the goose’s thrapple and slipped silently outside and headed to the stable. When Teetgong saw him he started to neigh, rear up and kick, because this was not his master who was coming, but Assipattle gave him a pat on the left shoulder and he stood still. Assipattle got up on his back and gave him a pat on the right shoulder and away he ran, giving a loud neigh as he went. The sound of this woke up his father and he shouted to his sons to get horses and to ride after him.

‘Stop! Thief!’ they cried, because they didn’t know that it was Assipattle.

After a short time his father was catching up, and he shouted, ‘Hi, hi, ho! Teetgong, whoa!’

Teetgong stopped dead in his tracks, but Assipattle pulled out the goose’s thrapple from his pocket and blew through it.

PAARP!

As soon as Teetgong heard the sound that it made he pricked up his ears and shot over the horizon, like an arrow from a bow. The old man and his sons gave up and turned their horses towards home. Assipattle clung on to Teetgong, who was well named, as in Orkney a Teetgong is a sudden gust of wind, and this horse could run as fast as any wind.

Eventually they came to a hill and down below them they saw a wide bay, and in that bay there was a big black island. However, it wasn’t an island; it was the Stoor Worm’s head. Assipattle rode down to the bay where he found a small house and went inside. There he saw an old woman lying asleep in her box bed with her grey cat curled up at her feet. The fire had been ‘rested’ for the night. In those days is was considered to be very bad luck to let your fire go out, as the luck of the house could go with it, so the fire was kept smouldering by putting damp peats on top of it. In the morning you just put some dry peats on top, gave it a puff with the bellows and away it would go. Assipattle took an iron pot from the side of the fire and he picked up a glowing peat with the fire tongs and put it into the pot and then ran outside.

Down by the shore he saw the king’s boat with a guard standing in it and he was blue with cold.

‘Hello,’ said Assipattle, ‘what like?’

‘Cold!’ grumbled the guard.

‘Well, I’m just going to light a fire to boil some limpets for my breakfast; would you like to have a warm by my fire?’

‘Better not,’ said the guard, ‘I can’t leave my post or I’ll get into trouble.’

‘Better stay where you are then,’ said Assipattle and he started to dig a hole, like he was making a hearth to shelter his fire in. Suddenly he started to shout, ‘Gold! Gold! There’s gold here!’

‘Gold?’ said the guard. ‘Where?’

The guard jumped out of the boat and ran over to where Assipattle was, pushed him out of the way and started to dig in the ground like a dog. Assipattle picked up the pot with the peat in it, jumped into the king’s boat, cast off the rope, hoisted the sail and was away across the bay before the guard knew what had happened. When he looked around he saw the king and his men arrive, just as the sun appeared over the horizon. As the first rays of the sun kissed the Stoor Worm’s eyes it started to wake up and it gave the first of its seven great yawns. Assipattle positioned the boat alongside the monster’s mouth so that when it yawned again the boat was carried into the Stoor Worm’s mouth with the water that rushed inside and he went right down the Stoor Worm’s throat. Down, down, deeper and deeper inside the Stoor Worm went Assipattle and the boat.

Now, I don’t suppose that you are familiar with the internal plumbing of a stoor worm, so I had better explain. There was a large tunnel that ran right through the Stoor Worm, but here and there were smaller tunnels running off the big one and some of the water ran this way, some that way, until the water got shallower and shallower and the boat grounded. The inside of the monster glowed with a green, phosphorescent light, so Assipattle could easily see where he was going. He grabbed the pot with the peat in it and jumped out of the boat. Leaving the boat behind he ran and he better ran until he found what he was looking for; the Stoor Worm’s liver! Well, you know how much oil there is in a fish’s liver, so imagine the amount of oil in the Stoor Worm’s liver. It would be enough to solve our energy requirements forever. Assipattle took a knife from his belt with which he cut a hole in the Stoor Worm’s liver. Into the hole he put the burning peat and he blew and he better blew until the oil spluttered into flames and then he ran back to his boat.

Meanwhile, back on the shore, the king was having a bad day. First he’d had to get up really early in order to fight the Stoor Worm and meet certain death (which would be enough to put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day) and then he arrived just in time to see some idiot steal his boat, sail across the bay and get swallowed by the Stoor Worm. Oh great! It just doesn’t get any better than that, does it? As he stood by the shore, fuming with rage, one of his men said, ‘Eh, Your Majesty, I’ve never seen the Stoor Worm do that before.’

‘Do what?’ snapped the king, looking the other way.

‘Well, he’s kind of – he’s sort of – smoking.’

‘Smoking?’ shouted the king.

‘Aye, well, look!’

And sure enough, when the king looked out over the bay he could see black smoke starting to billow out of the Stoor Worm’s nose and out of its mouth. Now, the Stoor Worm started to feel sick and it spewed up all the water that was inside of it, which headed towards the shore as a huge wave. The king and his men, the old woman from the cottage with her cat and all the horses ran up the hillside to safety as the wave drew nearer, with Assipattle in his boat riding the crest of it. The boat was cast up high and dry right by the side of the king.

The thick, black smoke filled the sky and blocked out the sun, turning day into night. In its dying agony the Stoor Worm shot out its huge forked tongue so high that it caught hold of the moon. It would have pulled it from the sky, but the fork of its tongue slipped over the horn of the moon and it came back down to earth with a thundering crash, leaving a huge hole in the surface of the world. Water poured into the hole and it cut off the land of the Danes from Norway and Sweden. There it remains to this day as the Baltic Sea, and if you look at a map you can still see the great forks of the Stoor Worm’s tongue.

The Stoor Worm’s days were finally over. It rose its head up out of the sea in dying agony and it came back down to earth with a crash, which knocked out a lot of its teeth. These teeth fell into the sea and there they remain as the Orkney Islands. The head rose again and crash! More teeth were knocked out and these became Shetland. A third time the head rose and fell with a crash and more teeth were knocked out to make the Faroe Islands. Then the Stoor Worm curled up into a great big lump and died, and there it still remains; only now we call it Iceland. The flames that you see shooting out of the mountains there and the boiling water gushing out of the ground is caused by the Stoor Worm’s liver, which is still burning.

The king took Assipattle in his arms and called him his son. He strapped the sword Sikkersnapper to his side and said, ‘My boy, my kingdom is yours, as is my daughter, if she will have you.’

The Princess Gem de Lovely came over and as soon as she saw Assipattle she fell in love with him, because he was actually a very handsome young man, under all the ashes. The two of them were soon married and they reigned over the kingdom for many years and if they are not dead, then they are living yet.

You could well believe that story to be true if you have visited all the places created from the Stoor Worm’s teeth. Orkney must be its incisors, as the islands are fairly flat. Shetland is formed from its premolars, higher and rugged, while the mountainous Faroe Islands are its molars, huge islands rising sheer from the sea to jagged points.

While Orkney is relatively flat it does have hills and even an island that is almost mountainous. Hoy, the ‘High Island’ of the Vikings, has round-topped hills that can be seen from many parts of Orkney. It lies to the south, like a rampart protecting the islands. There is a story of how the hills came into being.

THE CAITHNESS GIANT

There was once a giant who lived in Caithness and there was nothing that he liked better than his garden. Although the earth where he lived was not too bad he looked north to Orkney with envious eyes. There he saw the green and fertile islands lying like emeralds in the sea and he coveted the dark, rich soil that lay there. One day he slung a straw basket on his back, took his staff in his hand, and waded across the Pentland Firth towards Orkney. He was so big that the water hardly came up to his knees. He stopped when he found a likely looking spot and he slung the straw basket onto the ground. With one of his huge hands he took a scoop of earth and dumped it into the basket, then with his other huge hand he took another huge scoop of earth and dumped it into the basket, filling it to the brim. He had left two great holes where he had taken the earth from and water ran into them, creating the Stenness and Harray Lochs. He slung the basket on his back and started on his journey home. As he went a huge lump of turf fell into the sea with a great splash, and there it remains to this day as the island of Graemsay. He had not got much further when suddenly, disaster struck! The straw rope that held his basket in place broke, spilling all his earth on the ground. The giant was so annoyed that he left it where it was and returned home, and there it remains as the Hills of Hoy.

In a slightly rude combination of the two stories already related, an old Orkney woman once remembered the story that she had heard as a child in the early twentieth century. A giant went to Norway to cut peats and he filled his basket and set off for home. As he waded through the sea he needed to answer the call of nature, so he dropped his trousers and, in her words, he ‘shet land’, and that was how Shetland was made. He carried on, but the strap of the basket broke and all his peats landed in the sea, and that’s how Orkney was made. My apologies to my friends in Shetland, a place that I love very much, but I felt that this old story was worth recording for posterity, as it has never been written down before.

Any islander’s life is dominated in one way or another by the sea; whether it’s through ruined travel arrangements due to cancelled ferries or through empty supermarket shelves when lorries of food are stuck in Scotland. The sea rules our lives, but who rules the sea? Well, there is a very ancient story about that too.

THE MOTHER OF THE SEA

The old people of Orkney long held the belief in the Mother of the Sea. She was invisible to mortal eye, but everyone knew that she was there, protecting them. She was the spirit who controlled the sea during the summer months; an ancient goddess who calmed the waves and brought life and regeneration to all the creatures that lived in the sea. When the Mother of the Sea ruled, the fishermen’s nets and creels were never empty. The seas were gentle and calm and people were safe to fish off the rocks or from their boats. It was a good time; a happy time of calm and plenty.

But the Mother of the Sea had an enemy. Teran was the spirit who ruled the sea in the winter time; a cold hearted, spiteful man who caused the storms that cast ships onto the jagged rocks that lie around the islands and made widows out of fishermen’s wives. When he ruled there was nothing to be had in either net or creel, as fish, lobsters and crabs hid in deeper waters to avoid the turmoil of the waves.

During the summer months Teran was bound in chains at the bottom of the sea; a prisoner of the Mother of the Sea who gives life to all. But as the year waned so her powers diminished; sapped of her strength by giving life and controlling the waves. Then Teran would grow strong, break his fetters and the two spirits would fight. This occurred at the time of the Autumnal Equinox towards the end of September, and the storms that mark this point of the year are caused by their great struggle under the sea. Teran won and drove the Mother of the Sea from her realm; she would have to take up her abode on the earth during winter, passing unseen by human eye. Then was the time for the terrible reign of Teran when the sea boiled with rage. But as the spring started to draw near the Mother of the Sea grew once more in strength until, at the end of March, she returned to the sea and took up the battle once more with Teran at the Vernal Equinox. As they fought the sea was wild with fury and storms raged. Now it was Teran’s turn to be overthrown, as his winter rage that drove the storms had in turn exhausted him. The Mother of the Sea bound him once more at the bottom of the sea and her reign began anew, bringing back life and calm to the sea once more. But as the year passed then Teran would once again break his bonds and regain control of the sea, and so it would be forever more until the end of time.

In Orkney a bad, wild person or animal was called a ‘teran thing’, but I’m not sure if there is a connection between the two. Quite likely there is. About twenty years ago a friend of mine told me that when he was a boy in Westray in the 1950s he had got himself a bamboo wand to go fishing off the rocks. On his way he passed my grandfather, Geordie Drever, who said to him, with a smile, ‘Beuy, thoo haed better waatch oot that thoo disna catch the mither.’1 He had no idea what Geordie meant by this, until he read the works of the nineteenth-century Sanday folklorist, Walter Traill Dennison, whose essays on Orkney folklore were virtually unknown at that time. My grandfather certainly wouldn’t have had access to a printed version of the story, but maybe he knew it already.