When Maeshowe was first excavated, in 1861, the chamber's original entrance passage was inaccessible. So, to allow access, the excavators drove a shaft down through the top of the mound. Once inside, ...

The Goodman of Thorodale hailed from the Mainland parish of Evie. He married a wife and she bore him three sons. After her death, he married another, the bonniest lass in Evie, and Thorodale loved the ...

Perhaps the most impressive of all Orkney's brochs is the Midhowe Broch on Rousay. The broch is one of the many archaeological structures covering the island's western coast. Looking across the ...

One of the great mysteries surrounding the Picts is the language they spoke. This topic has stimulated much discussion and argument over the ensuing centuries. According to the few surviving ...

For centuries, political and religious power in Orkney centred around a small tidal island off the north-western corner of the Mainland. This island goes by the name of the Brough o' Birsay. With an ...

Descriptio Insularum Orchadiarum, ascribed to the enigmatic Jo Ben, is the oldest surviving account of the Orkney Islands, after they transferred to Scotland in 1468. Although the Jo Ben manuscript ...

Almost 641 sea-eagle bones, the remains of at least eight birds, were found inside the Isbister cairn and earned the site its nickname - The Tomb of the Eagles. These magnificent birds, with their two ...

In early accounts of Orkney folklore, the word “trow” was a generic term used to refer to a wide range of supernatural creatures. Although there are clear elements of fairy folklore mixed in among the ...

There was once a king and a queen who lived in Rousay. The king died and the unfortunate queen was forced to move to a small house with her three daughters. There, they kept a cow and carefully tended ...

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The following tale was written by the eminent Orkney Folklorist, Walter Traill Dennison. Dennison was born in Sanday and, from an early age, was keenly interested in the oral traditions, language and ...

The trows' inclination to become more active, and dangerous, at midwinter - particularly Yule - has clear parallels to the ancient belief that the draugr grew more powerful in darkness. As the ...