Orkney Wonders

Okay, so here we are in Scotland, visiting landmarks and buildings, older than the Pyramids of Egypt. Amazing places that give insights into how Stone Age Man lived.
We started our day by letting the kids run around the stones at Stepness. Just as the area around Stonehenge has standing stones around the place, so to do the Orkneys...only some of them are even older than those found at Stonehenge. They are in paddocks, and even in some peoples front yards. They are generally a thinner wedge than the ones in England that we have seen, but still sizable enough when you are standing alongside of them.
Our next stop was the one I was most looking forward to - Skara Brae. The water was once further off than it now is, on the coastline at Skail, and Stone age man, had a settlement there. Thing is, that no one knew that, because sometime between the six hundred years when it was inhabited, and the last few centuries, it had become completely covered in Sand and dirt, and no one knew it was there...until in 1860, when a fierce storm blew madly over the coast, blowing away the sand, so that the Laird of Skail House found a village, amongst the post-storm debris.
The amazing thing was, that there was still the 'furniture' inside the dwellings that were uncovered. We are not talking wicker settees here, but stone shelving, stone beds (minus the fillings and coverings...the only thing that lasts for five thousand years, is rock. Leather and fabrics would have been long ago perished. The houses were set down into the ground, with a hearth at the centre of the dwelling, a set of shelves against on wall, (think two big rocks lying on their sides, with a slab across them, then another two rocks on their sides, with another slab across them). Against the walls, there were two sections where slabs of rock jutted out creating the three more walls needed to make a 'box' for sleeping in. These bed areas had little shelves worked into the stone walls next to them. There was another 'box' like area with an enclosed area of dirt in front of it for I don't know what, along with several smaller 'box' holes in the ground, which I am also at a loss to adequately explain.
You get to walk through a replica of house no.7, but it isn't until you take the walk out to the edge of the sea, and (sticking to the path most strictly) walk amongst rooftops of the actual village that you get a good sense of the lay out of such a village.
A room like the one we walked through, made up 1 individual house and was joined by a network of tunnels to other homes of very similar layout. They are believed to be from the Neolithic Period (the late stone age) but really fascinatingly, they were actually built atop of older ones, with some mild differences in design, eg. the older ones built the sleeping alcoves into the walls, instead of having them jut out into the room. It is always amazing to imagine that people so long ago, already had a history so old that they were building on top of it!
We also went for a wander through Skail House, home of the man who discovered Skara Brae. This was interesting, but nothing 'wowish'. From there we drove to the Brough of Guerney. (Brough is pronounced, 'brock') Again, a fascinating look at the way people would have dwelt, but again, so old that we can only guess at so much stuff...like clothing and diet...as it is pre-history....nothing concrete to go by, just lots of inferences to be made. This reminded me of prefabricated buildings. You know in the city, how they manage to take an empty block and have a massive shed built on it a couple of days later, all with the use of prefabricated, concrete walls, that are shipped in in huge slabs and put together? Well, obviously, they didn't have concrete to make slabs, but they did have slabs of rock - and whilst they didn't come in sizes to order, they did serve as most useful to the builders of the time. A slab serves as a wall, as a barrier, a door, the edges of the bed (as described at Skara Brae) etc. The stone work here is all small stones, that is, they look a lot narrower than the stone work in wall and fences in other areas of Scotland. The centre of the Brough reminds me of a bee hive, sticking up above the ground, with a network of trenches, tunnels and hills, all weaving around it in a way that I am unable to complete the picture of.
We then drove on to the Brough of Birsay, which is on a piece of land which is only accessible when the tide is out. We didn't even visit the Brough, but enjoyed walking around the island, playing on the rocks, watching the ocean on either side of us, and hoping that the seals who were just off shore, would come in and give us a closer look.
Late in the afternoon, we returned to the hostel to do a load of washing, look in the shops along the street and grab some tea (from the chippy, and I add this simply to say that amongst the battered morsels we consumed, there was a slice of black pudding. Shane and I really like it but don't know if we should. Sam and Lilli both ate it without complaint- Eliza screwed up her nose at it though....I wonder when we should tell them what it is...)before heading to a Seven Pm tour of the Maeshowe site.
Lilli was getting herself a bit worried about this, as it is presumed to be a tomb, although no bodies have ever been able to prove this assumption. On the way to our tour, we stopped at the Ring of Brodgar for a quick look. This is the most significant looking of the standing stones, as they make a very large circle on a slight rise. They looked quite spectacular, with the centre of the ring being thick with heather, their purple, added to the stones, with dark green hills in the back ground, really was a sight to behold.
Maeshowe looks from the road, like a hill that shouldn't be there. It is a green mound that stands out for its height, on an otherwise flattish piece of land. Underneath the ground is a stone hut with four walls, which lean in, brick by brick to form a roof (which by now is long gone, and was replaced by a farmer last century, rather poorly I am afraid). There are three little 'L' shaped chambers, and then the low tunnel by which we entered. There were never any treasures found in there, which could be one of two things...one, that there never were any treasures, or two, that the Vikings took them all. And Vikings were most definitely there at some point, as they left their graffitti throughout. Seriously juvenille runes, like, "Eric the Viking wrote this rune this high," and the one above it saying something like, "John the Viking,wrote this higher than Eric the Viking" Apparently there are a lot of crude and crass things there as well, which the guide books do not share.
The Vikings are believed to have spent four days in there at some point, with two stories giving the reason. One being related to the treasure thing, that they came to plunder, and that it took them four days to do it. The other being that they were caught in bad weather and sought refuge within, staying - or being stuck there, for four days.
No one knows. One thing that they do know, is that on Winter Solstice, the sun shines through a wee gap above the original entrance doorway, lighting up the hallway and illuminating the 'tomb' with a lovely red light.
Tomorrow we must leave the island on the midday ferry and hope to do both the Queen Mum's house, "The Castle of Mey" and "Mary-Anne's Cottage" in the few hours left to us in the afternoon, before heading along the north coast, in a westerly direction, towards our next destination. We could have spent quite a bit more time here as there is so much to see, but I guess we have had a good taste of the history that the Orkney Isles offer, and shall have to leave island hopping, and artist trails for another time..or life...