Today was a quiet day, catching up on work and waiting for it to stop raining. So some photos of a slightly soggy Kirkwall, the largest town in Orkney.
Harbour.
Harbourside hotel.
Main street.
Still main street.
The museum, which was a large private house and before that two residence for people associated with the cathedral opposite. Now it has lots of rooms.
There is a Stone Age room
and an Iron Age room
and a room for Picts! (Picts were big on carving pictures on large stones. Possibly that’s where most of what is know about them comes from.)
There’s a room of earls! (So many earls.) The room has a wall showing how they’re all connected but it’s very confusing. Nearby is a panel that says:
The Last of the Norse Earls
“Earl John, a descendent of Earl Thorfinn, was murdered in a dispute over in heritance rights in 1231. The rival claimants went to the Norwegian court to settle the matter and on the return journey, according to Hukon’s Saga, they “the best men of the islands” drowned. The result was that there was no Norse heir to the earldom, and the Scots nobility stepped into this power vacuum.
Don’t put all your claimants in one boat?
Also in amongst everything else, are the remains of a witch’s spell box, found in peat moss near Stromness.
