123-414: The Ve Skerries or Vee Skerries ( Old Norse : Vestan sker , West Skerries) are a group of low skerries (rocky islands) three miles (4.8 km) north west of Papa Stour , on the west coast of Shetland , Scotland. They define the southwest perimeter of St Magnus Bay . The skerries are: This modern lighthouse on the west side of Ormal was erected following the loss of Elinor Viking . It replaced
246-417: A "tide lump" ( Shetland dialect : a rapid escalation of tidal activity) fell into the 20-foot (6.1 m) rowing boat which Smiling Morn had in tow, and it sank. Smiling Morn ' s skipper, John Jamieson, was adamant in attempting a rescue despite the danger to his own crew, and due to this a fight nearly broke out upon the ship, leading the rest of the crew to tie him up to keep him from doing so. Despite
369-727: A change known as Holtzmann's law . An epenthetic vowel became popular by 1200 in Old Danish, 1250 in Old Swedish and Old Norwegian, and 1300 in Old Icelandic. An unstressed vowel was used which varied by dialect. Old Norwegian exhibited all three: /u/ was used in West Norwegian south of Bergen , as in aftur , aftor (older aptr ); North of Bergen, /i/ appeared in aftir , after ; and East Norwegian used /a/ , after , aftær . Old Norse
492-740: A decision on its future. The German sailors opened the seacocks and scuttled all the ships . Most ships were salvaged, but the remaining wrecks are now a favoured haunt of recreational divers. One month into World War II, a German U-boat sank the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow. As a result, barriers were built to close most of the access channels; these had the additional advantage of creating causeways enabling travellers to go from island to island by road instead of being obliged to rely on ferries. The causeways were constructed by Italian prisoners of war, who also constructed
615-545: A distinctive dialect of the Scots language and have a rich body of folklore. Orkney contains some of the oldest and best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe; the " Heart of Neolithic Orkney " is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site . Orkney also has an abundance of marine and avian wildlife. Pytheas of Massalia visited Britain – probably sometime between 322 and 285 BC – and described it as triangular in shape, with
738-417: A female raven or a male crow. All neuter words have identical nominative and accusative forms, and all feminine words have identical nominative and accusative plurals. The gender of some words' plurals does not agree with that of their singulars, such as lim and mund . Some words, such as hungr , have multiple genders, evidenced by their determiners being declined in different genders within
861-412: A front vowel to be split into a semivowel-vowel sequence before a back vowel in the following syllable. While West Norse only broke /e/ , East Norse also broke /i/ . The change was blocked by a /w/ , /l/ , or /ʀ/ preceding the potentially-broken vowel. Some /ja/ or /jɔ/ and /jaː/ or /jɔː/ result from breaking of /e/ and /eː/ respectively. When a noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb has
984-409: A given sentence. Nouns, adjectives, and pronouns were declined in four grammatical cases – nominative , accusative , genitive , and dative – in singular and plural numbers. Adjectives and pronouns were additionally declined in three grammatical genders. Some pronouns (first and second person) could have dual number in addition to singular and plural. The genitive
1107-429: A lighted buoy itself put in place after the loss of Ben Doran. It was also put in place to serve the increase in shipping brought about by the construction of Sullom Voe oil terminal . Built by engineer R. J. MacKay, the lighthouse was first lit on 27 September 1979. The tower is anchored with 18 steel bars, which are secured between 10–16 feet (3.0–4.9 m) into the skerry below. It was built to tolerate forces from
1230-584: A long vowel or diphthong in the accented syllable and its stem ends in a single l , n , or s , the r (or the elder r - or z -variant ʀ ) in an ending is assimilated. When the accented vowel is short, the ending is dropped. The nominative of the strong masculine declension and some i-stem feminine nouns uses one such -r (ʀ). Óðin-r ( Óðin-ʀ ) becomes Óðinn instead of * Óðinr ( * Óðinʀ ). The verb blása ('to blow'), has third person present tense blæss ('[he] blows') rather than * blæsr ( * blæsʀ ). Similarly,
1353-554: A name that stems from a 16th-century mistranslation by George Buchanan , which has rarely been used locally. Usage of the plural "Orkneys" dates from the 18th century or earlier and was used by for example Sir Walter Scott . From the mid-19th century onwards this plural form has fallen out of use in the local area although it is still often used, particularly by publications based outside Scotland. A charred hazelnut shell, recovered in 2007 during excavations in Tankerness on
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#17327866378281476-598: A northern tip called Orcas . This may have referred to Dunnet Head , from which Orkney is visible. Writing in the 1st century AD, the Roman geographers Ptolemy and Pomponius Mela called the islands Orcades (Ancient Greek: Όρκάδες), as did Tacitus in AD 98, claiming that his father-in-law Agricola had "discovered and subjugated the Orcades hitherto unknown" (although both Mela and Pliny had previously referred to
1599-474: A noun must mirror the gender of that noun , so that one says, " heill maðr! " but, " heilt barn! ". As in other languages, the grammatical gender of an impersonal noun is generally unrelated to an expected natural gender of that noun. While indeed karl , "man" is masculine, kona , "woman", is feminine, and hús , "house", is neuter, so also are hrafn and kráka , for "raven" and "crow", masculine and feminine respectively, even in reference to
1722-607: A raiding base before being killed in 954. Thorfinn's death and presumed burial at the broch of Hoxa , on South Ronaldsay , led to a long period of dynastic strife. Initially a pagan culture, detailed information about the turn to the Christian religion in the islands of Scotland during the Norse era is elusive. The Orkneyinga Saga suggests the islands were Christianised by Olaf Tryggvasson in 995 when he stopped at South Walls on his way from Ireland to Norway. The King summoned
1845-476: A similar development influenced by Middle Low German . Various languages unrelated to Old Norse and others not closely related have been heavily influenced by Norse, particularly the Norman language ; to a lesser extent, Finnish and Estonian . Russian, Ukrainian , Belarusian , Lithuanian and Latvian also have a few Norse loanwords. The words Rus and Russia , according to one theory, may be named after
1968-512: A situation far beyond that normally expected of a helicopter on rescue service." Late on 3 August 2019, the UK-registered, Spanish-owned fishing vessel Coelleira was returning to Scrabster from about 18 nautical miles (33 km; 21 mi) north of Yell Sound 's entrance with a catch of approximately 15 tonnes of fish. Apart from the low light, the conditions were ideal - there was clear visibility, smooth seas and light winds. With
2091-608: A voiced velar fricative [ɣ] in all cases, and others have that realisation only in the middle of words and between vowels (with it otherwise being realised [ɡ] ). The Old East Norse /ʀ/ was an apical consonant , with its precise position unknown; it is reconstructed as a palatal sibilant . It descended from Proto-Germanic /z/ and eventually developed into /r/ , as had already occurred in Old West Norse. The consonant digraphs ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ occurred word-initially. It
2214-555: A volunteer crew was assembled, including Captain George Bain as the chief pilot, and Major Alasdair Campbell as a winchman . They reached the scene within about an hour and, with the aid of another helicopter and an RAF Nimrod trying to provide light in the dark conditions, they proceeded with the rescue attempt in horrendous weather. The light coming from dropped flares from the Nimrod was deemed impossible to time correctly with
2337-467: A vowel or semivowel of a different vowel backness . In the case of i-umlaut and ʀ-umlaut , this entails a fronting of back vowels, with retention of lip rounding. In the case of u-umlaut , this entails labialization of unrounded vowels. Umlaut is phonemic and in many situations grammatically significant as a side effect of losing the Proto-Germanic morphological suffixes whose vowels created
2460-448: A word. Strong verbs ablaut the lemma 's nucleus to derive the past forms of the verb. This parallels English conjugation, where, e.g., the nucleus of sing becomes sang in the past tense and sung in the past participle. Some verbs are derived by ablaut, as the present-in-past verbs do by consequence of being derived from the past tense forms of strong verbs. Umlaut or mutation is an assimilatory process acting on vowels preceding
2583-538: Is almost entirely Old Red Sandstone , mostly of Middle Devonian age. As in the neighbouring mainland county of Caithness , this sandstone rests upon the metamorphic and igneous rocks of the Moine series, as may be seen on the Mainland, where a narrow strip is exposed between Stromness and Inganess, and again in the small island of Graemsay ; they are represented by grey gneiss and granite . The Middle Devonian
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#17327866378282706-544: Is classified as Old West Norse, and Old West Norse traits were found in western Sweden . In what is present-day Denmark and Sweden, most speakers spoke Old East Norse. Though Old Gutnish is sometimes included in the Old East Norse dialect due to geographical associations, it developed its own unique features and shared in changes to both other branches. The 12th-century Icelandic Gray Goose Laws state that Swedes , Norwegians , Icelanders , and Danes spoke
2829-512: Is divided into three main groups. The lower part of the sequence, mostly Eifelian in age, is dominated by lacustrine beds of the lower and upper Stromness Flagstones that were deposited in Lake Orcadie . The later Rousay flagstone formation is found throughout much of the North and South Isles and East Mainland. The Old Man of Hoy is formed from sandstone of the uppermost Eday Group that
2952-465: Is expected to exist, such as in the male names Ragnarr , Steinarr (supposedly * Ragnarʀ , * Steinarʀ ), the result is apparently always /rː/ rather than */rʀ/ or */ʀː/ . This is observable in the Runic corpus. In Old Norse, i/j adjacent to i , e , their u-umlauts, and æ was not possible, nor u/v adjacent to u , o , their i-umlauts, and ǫ . At
3075-584: Is more common in Old West Norse in both phonemic and allophonic positions, while it only occurs sparsely in post-runic Old East Norse and even in runic Old East Norse. This is still a major difference between Swedish and Faroese and Icelandic today. Plurals of neuters do not have u-umlaut at all in Swedish, but in Faroese and Icelandic they do, for example the Faroese and Icelandic plurals of the word land , lond and lönd respectively, in contrast to
3198-459: Is that the nonphonemic difference between the voiced and the voiceless dental fricative is marked. The oldest texts and runic inscriptions use þ exclusively. Long vowels are denoted with acutes . Most other letters are written with the same glyph as the IPA phoneme, except as shown in the table below. Ablaut patterns are groups of vowels which are swapped, or ablauted, in the nucleus of
3321-557: Is unclear whether they were sequences of two consonants (with the first element realised as /h/ or perhaps /x/ ) or as single voiceless sonorants /l̥/ , /r̥/ and /n̥/ respectively. In Old Norwegian, Old Danish and later Old Swedish, the groups ⟨hl⟩ , ⟨hr⟩ , and ⟨hn⟩ were reduced to plain ⟨l⟩ , ⟨r⟩ , ⟨n⟩ , which suggests that they had most likely already been pronounced as voiceless sonorants by Old Norse times. The pronunciation of ⟨hv⟩
3444-620: Is unclear, but it may have been /xʷ/ (the Proto-Germanic pronunciation), /hʷ/ or the similar phoneme /ʍ/ . Unlike the three other digraphs, it was retained much longer in all dialects. Without ever developing into a voiceless sonorant in Icelandic, it instead underwent fortition to a plosive /kv/ , which suggests that instead of being a voiceless sonorant, it retained a stronger frication. Primary stress in Old Norse falls on
3567-623: Is up to 800 metres (870 yd) thick in places. It lies unconformably upon steeply inclined flagstones, the interpretation of which is a matter of continuing debate. The Devonian and older rocks of Orkney are cut by a series of WSW–ENE to N–S trending faults, many of which were active during deposition of the Devonian sequences. A strong synclinal fold traverses Eday and Shapinsay, the axis trending north-south. Middle Devonian basaltic volcanic rocks are found on western Hoy, on Deerness in eastern Mainland and on Shapinsay. Correlation between
3690-698: The -aibh representing a fossilized prepositional case ending. Some earlier sources alternatively hypothesise that Orkney comes from the Latin orca , whale. The Anglo-Saxon monk Bede refers to the islands as Orcades insulae in Ecclesiastical History of the English People . Norwegian settlers arriving from the late ninth century reinterpreted orc as the Old Norse orkn " seal " and added eyjar "islands" to
3813-617: The jarl Sigurd the Stout and said, "I order you and all your subjects to be baptised. If you refuse, I'll have you killed on the spot and I swear I will ravage every island with fire and steel." Unsurprisingly, Sigurd agreed and the islands became Christian at a stroke, receiving their own bishop in the early 11th century. Thorfinn the Mighty was a son of Sigurd and a grandson of King Malcolm II of Scotland ( Máel Coluim mac Cináeda ). Along with Sigurd's other sons he ruled Orkney during
Ve Skerries - Misplaced Pages Continue
3936-645: The Broch of Burroughston and Broch of Gurness . The nature and origin of these buildings is a subject of debate. Other structures from this period include underground storehouses and aisled roundhouses , the latter usually in association with earlier broch sites. During the Roman invasion of Britain the "King of Orkney" was one of 11 British leaders who is said to have submitted to the Emperor Claudius in AD 43 at Camulodunum (modern Colchester). After
4059-686: The Fair Isle Channel . The islands are mainly low-lying except for some sharply rising sandstone hills on Mainland, Rousay and Hoy (where the tallest point in Orkney, Ward Hill , can be found) and rugged cliffs on some western coasts. Nearly all of the islands have lochs , but the watercourses are merely streams draining the high land. The coastlines are indented, and the islands themselves are divided from each other by straits generally called "sounds" or "firths". The tidal currents , or "roosts" as some of them are called locally, off many of
4182-587: The Faroe Islands and Leith in ballast under the command of Captain Samuelson, Illeri went aground on the northeast end of the Ve Skerries early in the morning of Sunday 9 May 1909 due to poor visibility in thick fog. The conditions were calm enough to allow the crew to consider abandoning ship in a smaller boat kept aboard. When the ship started breaking up, the ship's papers were gathered and it
4305-535: The Latin alphabet , there was no standardized orthography in use in the Middle Ages. A modified version of the letter wynn called vend was used briefly for the sounds /u/ , /v/ , and /w/ . Long vowels were sometimes marked with acutes but also sometimes left unmarked or geminated. The standardized Old Norse spelling was created in the 19th century and is, for the most part, phonemic. The most notable deviation
4428-608: The Northern Isles , comprising Orkney and Shetland, in 875 (it is clear that this story, which appears in the Orkneyinga Saga , is based on the later voyages of Magnus Barelegs and some scholars believe it to be apocryphal). Rognvald Eysteinsson received Orkney and Shetland from Harald as an earldom as reparation for the death of his son in battle in Scotland, and then passed the earldom on to his brother Sigurd
4551-704: The Picts . Orkney was colonised and later annexed by the Kingdom of Norway in 875 and settled by the Norsemen . In 1472, the Parliament of Scotland absorbed the Earldom of Orkney into the Kingdom of Scotland , following failure to pay a dowry promised to James III of Scotland by the family of his bride, Margaret of Denmark . In addition to the Mainland, most of the remaining islands are divided into two groups:
4674-550: The RNLI 's Lerwick branch, George Theodore Kay, who was aware of the geography of the Ve Skerries, thought that a ship the size of Arora would struggle to come close enough to Ben Doran to effect a rescue attempt. He learned that a smaller motor boat named Smiling Morn was berthed in Voe, Delting , and suggested that this vessel accompanied by a four-oared rowing boat would have a better chance at success. He, with John Falconer, master of
4797-667: The Rus' people , a Norse tribe, probably from present-day east-central Sweden. The current Finnish and Estonian words for Sweden are Ruotsi and Rootsi , respectively. A number of loanwords have been introduced into Irish , many associated with fishing and sailing. A similar influence is found in Scottish Gaelic , with over one hundred loanwords estimated to be in the language, many of which are related to fishing and sailing. Old Norse vowel phonemes mostly come in pairs of long and short. The standardized orthography marks
4920-692: The Standing Stones of Stenness , the Maeshowe passage grave , the Ring of Brodgar and other standing stones. Many of the Neolithic settlements were abandoned around 2500 BC, possibly due to changes in the climate. In September 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of two polished stone balls in a 5500-year-old Neolithic burial tomb in Sanday . According to Dr Hugo Anderson, the second object
5043-474: The chartplotter , and while he did see a lighthouse light towards the port bow, he assumed it was a lighthouse on the mainland. At an unspecified time, the skipper left the wheelhouse , and (according to a Marine Accident Investigation Branch report) while the skipper was returning to his post at 01:24, Coelleira ran aground on the Clubb travelling at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). The crew awoke with
Ve Skerries - Misplaced Pages Continue
5166-668: The word stem , so that hyrjar would be pronounced /ˈhyr.jar/ . In compound words, secondary stress falls on the second stem (e.g. lærisveinn , /ˈlɛːɾ.iˌswɛinː/ ). Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark , runic Old Norse was originally written with the Younger Futhark , which had only 16 letters. Because of the limited number of runes, several runes were used for different sounds, and long and short vowels were not distinguished in writing. Medieval runes came into use some time later. As for
5289-557: The 11th century in most of Old East Norse. However, the distinction still holds in Dalecarlian dialects . The dots in the following vowel table separate the oral from nasal phonemes. Note: The open or open-mid vowels may be transcribed differently: Sometime around the 13th century, /ɔ/ (spelled ⟨ǫ⟩ ) merged with /ø/ or /o/ in most dialects except Old Danish , and Icelandic where /ɔ/ ( ǫ ) merged with /ø/ . This can be determined by their distinction within
5412-979: The 12th-century First Grammatical Treatise but not within the early 13th-century Prose Edda . The nasal vowels, also noted in the First Grammatical Treatise, are assumed to have been lost in most dialects by this time (but notably they are retained in Elfdalian and other dialects of Ovansiljan ). See Old Icelandic for the mergers of /øː/ (spelled ⟨œ⟩ ) with /ɛː/ (spelled ⟨æ⟩ ) and /ɛ/ (spelled ⟨ę⟩ ) with /e/ (spelled ⟨e⟩ ). Old Norse had three diphthong phonemes: /ɛi/ , /ɔu/ , /øy ~ ɛy/ (spelled ⟨ei⟩ , ⟨au⟩ , ⟨ey⟩ respectively). In East Norse these would monophthongize and merge with /eː/ and /øː/ , whereas in West Norse and its descendants
5535-668: The 13th century there. The age of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland is strongly contested, but Swedish settlement had spread the language into the region by the time of the Second Swedish Crusade in the 13th century at the latest. The modern descendants of the Old West Norse dialect are the West Scandinavian languages of Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , and the extinct Norn language of Orkney and Shetland , although Norwegian
5658-482: The 16th century, boats from mainland Scotland and the Netherlands dominated the local herring fishery. There is little evidence of an Orcadian fleet until the 19th century, but it grew rapidly, and 700 boats were involved by the 1840s with Stronsay and later Stromness becoming leading centres of development. White fish never became as dominant as in other Scottish ports. Agricultural improvements beginning in
5781-691: The 17th century resulted in the enclosure of the commons and ultimately in the Victorian era the emergence of large and well-managed farms using a five-shift rotation system and producing high-quality beef cattle. In the 17th century, Orcadians formed the overwhelming majority of employees of the Hudson's Bay Company in Canada. The harsh winter weather of Orkney and the Orcadian reputation for sobriety and their boat handling skills made them ideal candidates for
5904-634: The Agricolan fleet had come and gone, possibly anchoring at Shapinsay , direct Roman influence seems to have been limited to trade rather than conquest. Polemius Silvius wrote a list of Late Roman provinces, which Seeck appended to his edition of the Notitia Dignitatum . The list names six provinces in Roman Britannia: the sixth is the dubious "Orcades provincia", the possible existence of which recent researches re-evaluate. By
6027-573: The British Isles . Orkney's largest settlement, and also its administrative centre, is Kirkwall . Orkney is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, as well as a constituency of the Scottish Parliament , a lieutenancy area , and an historic county . The local council is Orkney Islands Council . The islands have been inhabited for at least 8,500 years, originally occupied by Mesolithic and Neolithic tribes and then by
6150-795: The British Isles that held out for the Jacobites and was not retaken by the British Government until 24 May 1746, over a month after the defeat of the main Jacobite army at Culloden . Orkney was the site of a Royal Navy base at Scapa Flow , which played a major role in World War I and World War II . After the Armistice in 1918, the German High Seas Fleet was transferred in its entirety to Scapa Flow to await
6273-572: The Faroe Islands, Faroese has also been influenced by Danish. Both Middle English (especially northern English dialects within the area of the Danelaw ) and Early Scots (including Lowland Scots ) were strongly influenced by Norse and contained many Old Norse loanwords . Consequently, Modern English (including Scottish English ), inherited a significant proportion of its vocabulary directly from Norse. The development of Norman French
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#17327866378286396-515: The Hoy volcanics and the other two exposures has been proposed, but differences in chemistry mean this remains uncertain. Lamprophyre dykes of Late Permian age are found throughout Orkney. Glacial striation and the presence of chalk and flint erratics that originated from the bed of the North Sea demonstrate the influence of ice action on the geomorphology of the islands. Boulder clay
6519-412: The Mainland, has been dated to 6820–6660 BC, indicating the presence of Mesolithic nomadic tribes. The earliest known permanent settlement is at Knap of Howar , a Neolithic farmstead on the island of Papa Westray , which dates from 3500 BC. The village of Skara Brae , Europe's best-preserved Neolithic settlement, is believed to have been inhabited from around 3100 BC. Other remains from that era include
6642-460: The Mighty . Sigurd went on to conquer northern parts of mainland Britain in the late 9th century, including Caithness and Sutherland . However, Sigurd's line barely survived him and it was Torf-Einarr , Rognvald's son by a slave, who founded a dynasty that controlled the islands for centuries after his death. He was succeeded by his son Thorfinn Skull-splitter and during this time the deposed Norwegian King Eric Bloodaxe often used Orkney as
6765-651: The North Isles and the South Isles. The local climate is relatively mild and the soils are extremely fertile; most of the land is farmed, and agriculture is the most important sector of the economy. The significant wind and marine energy resources are of growing importance; the amount of electricity that Orkney generates annually from renewable energy sources exceeds its demand. Temperatures average 4 °C (39 °F) in winter and 12 °C (54 °F) in summer. The local people are known as Orcadians; they speak
6888-605: The Norwegian Consul to Leith aboard SS Queen on Thursday 13 May . On 29 March 1930, the Aberdeen steam trawler Ben Doran ran aground on the north end of Heligoblo in bad weather and rough sea conditions, due in part to poor coverage in nautical charts of the area, and lack of knowledge of the tides around the shallow reef surrounding the Ve Skerries which were considered unpredictable even to experienced Shetland fishermen. Another passing trawler brought news of
7011-405: The Orkneys is also sometimes used, but is now considered incorrect. Part of the Northern Isles along with Shetland , Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north of Caithness and has about 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited. The largest island, the Mainland , has an area of 523 square kilometres (202 sq mi), making it the sixth-largest Scottish island and the tenth-largest island in
7134-470: The Ring of Brodgar, and various island sites such as Tofts Ness on Sanday and the remains of two houses on Holm of Faray . Excavations at Quanterness on the Mainland have revealed an Atlantic roundhouse built about 700 BC and similar finds have been made at Bu on the Mainland and Pierowall Quarry on Westray. The most impressive Iron Age structures of Orkney are the ruins of later round towers called " brochs " and their associated settlements such as
7257-416: The Swedish plural land and numerous other examples. That also applies to almost all feminine nouns, for example the largest feminine noun group, the o-stem nouns (except the Swedish noun jord mentioned above), and even i-stem nouns and root nouns , such as Old West Norse mǫrk ( mörk in Icelandic) in comparison with Modern and Old Swedish mark . Vowel breaking, or fracture, caused
7380-412: The Viking presence is widespread and includes the settlement at the Brough of Birsay , the vast majority of place names , and the runic inscriptions at Maeshowe. In 1468 Orkney was pledged by Christian I , in his capacity as King of Norway, as security against the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret , betrothed to James III of Scotland . However, the money was never paid, and Orkney
7503-432: The accident to Lerwick by 5pm, after which the Stromness Lifeboat Station in Orkney was notified, and Board of Trade's life-saving apparatus - a rocket propelled rope to shoot to another vessel, to allow for it to be towed to safety - was arranged and taken by lorry to Ronas Voe . The apparatus was taken aboard the steam trawler Arora and it departed towards the Ve Skerries at 2am on 30 March. Honorary Secretary of
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#17327866378287626-504: The assistance of John Henderson, and headed towards the Ve Skerries. Smiling Morn arrived before 5am at the Ve Skerries, which Arora had reached first. Heavy seas and high winds continued and proved to make a very difficult rescue attempt. Five of Ben Doran' s crew were seen clinging to the ship's rigging while sea spray hit them. Arora made an approach, however they only reached in far enough that their crew thought that they would not be able to return to safety, and still Ben Doran
7749-541: The beginning of words, this manifested as a dropping of the initial /j/ (which was general, independent of the following vowel) or /v/ . Compare ON orð , úlfr , ár with English word, wolf, year . In inflections, this manifested as the dropping of the inflectional vowels. Thus, klæði + dat -i remains klæði , and sjáum in Icelandic progressed to sjǫ́um > sjǫ́m > sjám . The * jj and * ww of Proto-Germanic became ggj and ggv respectively in Old Norse,
7872-419: The best place to live in the UK, according to the Halifax Quality of Life survey. In the modern era, the population peaked in the mid-19th century at just over 32,000 and declined for a century thereafter to a low of fewer than 18,000 in the 1970s. Declines were particularly significant in the outlying islands, some of which remain vulnerable to ongoing losses. Although Orkney is in many ways very distinct from
7995-419: The building of St Magnus Cathedral , still today a dominating feature of Kirkwall. The Scottish crown claimed the overlordship of the Caithness and Sutherland area from Norway in 1098. The jarls thereafter owed allegiance to the Scottish crown for their territory on mainland Britain, which they held as the Mormaer of Caithness , but owed allegiance to the Norwegian crown for Orkney and Shetland. In 1195,
8118-495: The cabin table still going." They were able to retrieve more of the ship's papers still aboard the vessel, which were passed on to the Receiver of Wreck in Scalloway . The following day Pole Star learned the crew had arrived in Olnafirth while delivering supplies to Muckle Roe. Some of the Illeri crew (including the captain) visited the wreck again on Monday 10 May, however the ship was by then "a total wreck". The crew were forwarded on to Lerwick on 11 May, and were then sent by
8241-420: The cable to Campbell, however he was able to be retrieved back into the helicopter and immediately offered to be lowered again. Using a rock which was repeatedly out of view with the swell as the best reference, Bain was able to keep the aircraft steady to continue the rescue. Through the following hour and twenty minutes, lowering approximately twelve times, Campbell was able to hoist up the crew. The last to leave
8364-411: The cluster */Crʀ/ cannot be realized as /Crː/ , nor as */Crʀ/ , nor as */Cʀː/ . The same shortening as in vetr also occurs in lax = laks ('salmon') (as opposed to * lakss , * laksʀ ), botn ('bottom') (as opposed to * botnn , * botnʀ ), and jarl (as opposed to * jarll , * jarlʀ ). Furthermore, wherever the cluster */rʀ/
8487-449: The diphthongs remained. Old Norse has six plosive phonemes, /p/ being rare word-initially and /d/ and /b/ pronounced as voiced fricative allophones between vowels except in compound words (e.g. veðrabati ), already in the Proto-Germanic language (e.g. * b *[β] > [v] between vowels). The /ɡ/ phoneme was pronounced as [ɡ] after an /n/ or another /ɡ/ and as [k] before /s/ and /t/ . Some accounts have it
8610-409: The effort put in by the crew of each of the would-be rescue vessels, they resolved that nothing more could be done and so they abandoned the rescue. The Stromness Lifeboat Station was alerted to the unsuccessful attempt by 4pm 30 March. By 4:45pm the Stromness Lifeboat departed, reaching Scalloway by 7:30am on 31 March. By the time the lifeboat arrived at the Ve Skerries, only the gallows for supporting
8733-406: The end, so the name became Orkneyjar "Seal Islands". The plural suffix -jar was later removed in English leaving the modern name Orkney . According to the Historia Norwegiæ , Orkney was named after an earl called Orkan. The Norse knew Mainland, Orkney as Megenland "Mainland" or as Hrossey "Horse Island". The island is sometimes referred to as Pomona (or Pomonia ),
8856-592: The epithet "Papa" in commemoration of these preachers. Before the Gaelic presence could establish itself the Picts were gradually dispossessed by the North Germanic peoples from the late 8th century onwards. The nature of this transition is controversial, and theories range from peaceful integration to enslavement and genocide . It has been suggested that an assault by forces from Fortriu in 681 in which Orkney
8979-627: The first half of the 11th century and extended his authority over a small maritime empire stretching from Dublin to Shetland . Thorfinn died around 1065 and his sons Paul and Erlend succeeded him, fighting at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. Paul and Erlend quarrelled as adults and this dispute carried on to the next generation. The martyrdom of Magnus Erlendsson , who was killed in April 1116 by his cousin Haakon Paulsson , resulted in
9102-505: The hunter feared he would not be able to hold on to the seal skin of Gioga all the way back, and pleaded to be allowed to cut holes in her skin to which he could hold, to which Gioga complied. The hunter was successfully transported to Akers Geo, Papa Stour, after which he dutifully retrieved Ollavitinus' skin from a skeo (Shetland dialect: a hut of loosely constructed stone for wind-drying meat or fish) in Hamnavoe, allowing him to return to
9225-430: The intention of returning as quickly as possible (due to unexpected delays in their fishing operations), the ship's mate set the vessel on a heading of 184° and proceeded at a speed of 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) to keep close to the coast in order to save time. At 21:42 the heading was set to 204°. At 22:30 the skipper (a 56-year-old Spanish national) took over watch from the mate, who went to bed. The skipper over
9348-533: The island of South Ronaldsay and Duncansby Head in Caithness . Orkney lies between 58°41′ and 59°24′ north, and 2°22′ and 3°26′ west, measuring 80 kilometres (50 mi) from northeast to southwest and 47 kilometres (29 mi) from east to west, and covers 975 square kilometres (376 sq mi). Orkney is separated from the Shetland Islands , a group further out, by a body of water called
9471-430: The islands ). The Byzantine John Tzetzes in his work Chiliades called the islands Orcades. Etymologists usually interpret the element orc- as a Pictish tribal name meaning "young pig" or "young boar ". Speakers of Old Irish referred to the islands as Insi Orc "islands of the young pigs". The archipelago is known as Ynysoedd Erch in modern Welsh and Arcaibh in modern Scottish Gaelic ,
9594-462: The isles are swift, with frequent whirlpools. The islands are notable for the absence of trees, which is partly accounted for by the strong winds. Only three settlements have a population of over 500; the towns of Kirkwall and Stromness and the village of Finstown . 7,500 1,790 500 Other villages include Balfour , Dounby , Houton , Longhope , Lyness , Pierowall , St Margaret's Hope , and Whitehall . The superficial rock of Orkney
9717-538: The jarls lost control of Shetland when it became a separate lordship. In 1231 the line of Norse earls, unbroken since Rognvald, ended with Jon Haraldsson 's murder in Thurso . The Earldom of Caithness was granted to Magnus , second son of the Earl of Angus , whom Haakon IV of Norway confirmed as Earl of Orkney in 1236. Around the same time, the earldom lost the southern part of its territory on mainland Britain when it
9840-546: The late Iron Age, Orkney was part of the Pictish kingdom, and although the archaeological remains from this period are less impressive, the fertile soils and rich seas of Orkney probably provided the Picts with a comfortable living. The Dalriadic Gaels began to influence the islands towards the close of the Pictish era, perhaps principally through the role of Celtic missionaries , as evidenced by several islands bearing
9963-399: The long vowels with an acute accent. In medieval manuscripts, it is often unmarked but sometimes marked with an accent or through gemination . Old Norse had nasalized versions of all ten vowel places. These occurred as allophones of the vowels before nasal consonants and in places where a nasal had followed it in an older form of the word, before it was absorbed into a neighboring sound. If
10086-411: The loss of their only way to return home (each selkie only possessing a single skin). In particular, one selkie named Ollavitinus would not be able to return to his wives and would be imprisoned on land. When the stranded hunter was spotted, Ollavitinus' mother Gioga offered to transport him back to Papa Stour as long as he would return her son's skin, which the hunter agreed to. With the weather worsening,
10209-544: The mid- to late 14th century, ending the language phase known as Old Norse. These dates, however, are not absolute, since written Old Norse is found well into the 15th century. Old Norse was divided into three dialects : Old West Norse (Old West Nordic, often referred to as Old Norse ), Old East Norse (Old East Nordic), and Old Gutnish . Old West Norse and Old East Norse formed a dialect continuum , with no clear geographical boundary between them. Old East Norse traits were found in eastern Norway , although Old Norwegian
10332-730: The most conservative language, such that in present-day Iceland, schoolchildren are able to read the 12th-century Icelandic sagas in the original language (in editions with normalised spelling). Old Icelandic was very close to Old Norwegian , and together they formed Old West Norse , which was also spoken in Norse settlements in Greenland , the Faroes , Ireland , Scotland , the Isle of Man , northwest England, and in Normandy . Old East Norse
10455-514: The nasal was absorbed by a stressed vowel, it would also lengthen the vowel. This nasalization also occurred in the other Germanic languages, but were not retained long. They were noted in the First Grammatical Treatise , and otherwise might have remained unknown. The First Grammarian marked these with a dot above the letter. This notation did not catch on, and would soon be obsolete. Nasal and oral vowels probably merged around
10578-445: The next 2 hours made five adjustments to the ships' heading in order to follow the coast. The skipper during this time worked on fish landing records and other managerial work. It is not known how often the vessel's position was checked. At 00:23 on 4 August, vessel was set to heading of 206° with the aim of keeping around 3.5 nautical miles (6.5 km; 4.0 mi) away from any navigational risk. The skipper did not see any hazards on
10701-443: The ornate Italian Chapel . The navy base became run down after the war, eventually closing in 1957. The problem of a declining population was significant in the post-war years, though in the last decades of the 20th century, there was a recovery and life in Orkney focused on growing prosperity and the emergence of a relatively classless society. Orkney was rated as the best place to live in Scotland in both 2013 and 2014, and in 2019
10824-641: The other North Germanic languages. Faroese retains many similarities but is influenced by Danish, Norwegian, and Gaelic ( Scottish and/or Irish ). Although Swedish, Danish and Norwegian have diverged the most, they still retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Speakers of modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can mostly understand each other without studying their neighboring languages, particularly if speaking slowly. The languages are also sufficiently similar in writing that they can mostly be understood across borders. This could be because these languages have been mutually affected by each other, as well as having
10947-495: The other islands and archipelagos of Scotland these trends are very similar to those experienced elsewhere. The archipelago's population grew by 11% in the decade to 2011 as recorded by the census . During the same period Scottish island populations as a whole grew by 4% to 103,702. Orkney is separated from the mainland of Scotland by the Pentland Firth , a ten-kilometre-wide (6 mi) seaway between Brough Ness on
11070-438: The rest of the group to assemble in their boat, but left him stranded. Despite trying to rescue him, he had to be abandoned due to the worsening weather. Several selkies (in the form of seals) then landed on the Ve Skerries, took off their skins and proceeded to rescue those of their kind who had been clubbed, stunned and skinned by the hunters. Those who had been skinned began to regain consciousness, and expressed their sorrow over
11193-493: The rigours of the Canadian north. During this period, burning kelp briefly became a mainstay of the islands' economy. For example, on Shapinsay over 3,000 long tons (3,048 t ) of burned seaweed were produced per annum to make soda ash , bringing in £20,000 to the local economy. The industry collapsed suddenly in 1830 after the removal of tariffs on imported alkali . During the 18th century Jacobite risings , Orkney
11316-536: The root vowel, ǫ , is short. The clusters */Clʀ, Csʀ, Cnʀ, Crʀ/ cannot yield */Clː, Csː, Cnː, Crː/ respectively, instead /Cl, Cs, Cn, Cr/ . The effect of this shortening can result in the lack of distinction between some forms of the noun. In the case of vetr ('winter'), the nominative and accusative singular and plural forms are identical. The nominative singular and nominative and accusative plural would otherwise have been OWN * vetrr , OEN * wintrʀ . These forms are impossible because
11439-441: The same language, dǫnsk tunga ("Danish tongue"; speakers of Old East Norse would have said dansk tunga ). Another term was norrœnt mál ("northern speech"). Today Old Norse has developed into the modern North Germanic languages Icelandic , Faroese , Norwegian , Danish , Swedish , and other North Germanic varieties of which Norwegian, Danish and Swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility . Icelandic remains
11562-529: The sea and his wives. This article incorporates text from the article Ve_Skerries on Shetlopedia , which was licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence until September 14, 2007. Cave dive sites: Old Norse language Old Norse , also referred to as Old Nordic , or Old Scandinavian , was a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse
11685-406: The sea of up to 2 long tons per square foot (22 t/m) at the base, and 0.5 long tons per square foot (5.5 t/m) at the peak. Despite its remote location, construction only took four months with the aid of helicopters , whereas using conventional techniques might have made construction take a matter of years. The use of post-tensioning in the lighthouse's construction was the first example of
11808-448: The set up of the bridge's controls may have made it more difficult to observe risks to the ship. Following his tour of Shetland, Samuel Hibbert reported that the Ve Skerries were recounted by Shetlanders as being a retreat of the " Haaf-fish " (more commonly known as selkies) - creatures that would take the appearance of seal, but could take off their skins and would appear human, allowing them to fraternise on land. Because seal clubbing
11931-532: The ship was deemed unsalvageable. In the following days the ship broke up and sank. In its report on the incident, the Marine Accident Investigation Branch concluded that the planning of the passage between the fishing grounds and Scrabster was inadequate, the ship's position was not kept track of, and bridge was empty when the ship went aground. They posed that the skipper's decision making may have been impacted by fatigue, while
12054-469: The ship was the skipper, who (either through hypothermia or shock) could not let go of the ships railing, requiring Campbell to hit him to continue the rescue. Despite the crew of the helicopter not being trained for rescue work, all 8 of Elinor Viking's crew were successfully winched to safety. Both Bain and Campbell received Queen's Gallantry Medals for "outstanding bravery, skill and determination in conditions of extreme weather and darkness operating in
12177-616: The ship's anchor could be seen. All of the nine crew members believed to have been on board were killed. The wrecking of Ben Doran and the deaths of the crew validated the need for a lifeboat to be stationed in Shetland. In 1933 the Aith Lifeboat Station was opened. The wreck of the Ben Doran is used as a dive site for sport divers and underwater photographers. On 9 December 1977 Elinor Viking , an Aberdeen trawler
12300-576: The sound of the collision, whereupon they assembled in the wheelhouse and donned survival suits and life jackets . Two lifeboats were launched off the starboard side. At 01:29 the Shetland Coastguard were notified of the accident, and in response the Aith lifeboat and a rescue helicopter were sent to the scene. All 15 crew were winched aboard the helicopter, and were returned to Lerwick uninjured. Attempts were subsequently made to refloat
12423-416: The technique's use in Scotland. In 2020 the lighthouse was nominated to become a Category B listed building . The lighthouse is not open to the public; its exposed location makes landings by sea difficult. Due to the low depth of water in the vicinity, and unpredictable currents, the Ve Skerries are notorious for their danger to passing ships. Many ships have wrecked on the rocks. While travelling between
12546-486: The trawler Boscobell , and W. H. Dougall from The Missions to Seamen proceeded to Voe and enrolled the assistance of Smiling Morn . They headed for Housa Voe, Papa Stour to procure the expertise of someone there with experience of the seabed around the Ve Skerries. By entering Housa Voe in rough conditions and during the night, they themselves nearly collided with a sunken rock. Upon landfall in Housa Voe they enlisted
12669-497: The umlaut allophones . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , /ɛ/ , /ɛː/ , /øy/ , and all /ɛi/ were obtained by i-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /o/ , /oː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , /au/ , and /ai/ respectively. Others were formed via ʀ-umlaut from /u/ , /uː/ , /a/ , /aː/ , and /au/ . Some /y/ , /yː/ , /ø/ , /øː/ , and all /ɔ/ , /ɔː/ were obtained by u-umlaut from /i/ , /iː/ , /e/ , /eː/ , and /a/ , /aː/ respectively. See Old Icelandic for information on /ɔː/ . /œ/
12792-482: The verb skína ('to shine') had present tense third person skínn (rather than * skínr , * skínʀ ); while kala ('to cool down') had present tense third person kell (rather than * kelr , * kelʀ ). The rule is not absolute, with certain counter-examples such as vinr ('friend'), which has the synonym vin , yet retains the unabsorbed version, and jǫtunn (' giant '), where assimilation takes place even though
12915-489: The vessel. The ship was surveyed with assistance from the Sullom Voe Terminal tug Tystie , however during the inspection the vessel rolled 5-10° to port, at which point the men aboard were evacuated. The emergency towing vessel Ievoli Black attempted to pull Coelleira off the Clubb on 7 August, however during the attempt the ship tilted over 55° to port, and with a forecast of poor sea conditions and weather
13038-412: The winch lowering, such that their only effective source of light was the helicopter's landing lights. Elinor Viking had developed considerable list as it began to sink. Campbell, upon his first attempt being lowered down to the ship, was unexpectedly swayed and his cable became caught in the mast of the ship. The risk of losing the helicopter meant that the winch operator nearly took the decision to sever
13161-442: Was "annihilated" may have led to a weakening of the local power base and helped the Norse come to prominence. Both Orkney and Shetland saw a significant influx of Norwegian settlers during the late 8th and early 9th centuries. Vikings made the islands the headquarters of their pirate expeditions carried out against Norway and the coasts of mainland Scotland. In response, Norwegian king Harald Fairhair (Harald Hårfagre) annexed
13284-419: Was (in the past) practised, and because seals would tend to lie on the Ve Skerries, the islanders of Papa Stour would go there to hunt the seals for the purpose of retrieving their skins, and according to these tales, would sometimes end up hunting the selkies. One such tale attested that a seal hunter in a party of several, after killing and skinning several seals, was caught out by a sudden swell which caused
13407-404: Was a moderately inflected language with high levels of nominal and verbal inflection. Most of the fused morphemes are retained in modern Icelandic, especially in regard to noun case declensions, whereas modern Norwegian in comparison has moved towards more analytical word structures. Old Norse had three grammatical genders – masculine, feminine, and neuter. Adjectives or pronouns referring to
13530-575: Was abandoned. The boat was directed to Muckle Roe , where they were redirected to Olnafirth where the Norwegian Olna Whaling Station was based, to which they safely arrived. On the same morning, a report from Sandness reached Divisional Officer Mr Rogers at Fort Charlotte , Lerwick that the ship had wrecked. He summoned the Northern Lighthouse Commissioners' steamship Pole Star (which
13653-500: Was absorbed by the Kingdom of Scotland in 1472. The history of Orkney prior to this time is largely the history of the ruling aristocracy. From then on ordinary people emerge with greater clarity. An influx of Scottish entrepreneurs helped to create a diverse and independent community that included farmers, fishermen and merchants that called themselves comunitas Orcadie and who proved themselves increasingly able to defend their rights against their feudal overlords. From at least
13776-400: Was also influenced by Norse. Through Norman, to a smaller extent, so was modern French. Written modern Icelandic derives from the Old Norse phonemic writing system. Contemporary Icelandic-speakers can read Old Norse, which varies slightly in spelling as well as semantics and word order. However, pronunciation, particularly of the vowel phonemes, has changed at least as much in Icelandic as in
13899-468: Was as the "size of a cricket ball, perfectly spherical and beautifully finished". During the Bronze Age , fewer large stone structures were built (although the great ceremonial circles continued in use ) as metalworking was slowly introduced to Britain from Europe over a lengthy period. There are relatively few Orcadian sites dating from this era although there is the impressive Plumcake Mound near
14022-583: Was heavily influenced by the East dialect, and is today more similar to East Scandinavian (Danish and Swedish) than to Icelandic and Faroese. The descendants of the Old East Norse dialect are the East Scandinavian languages of Danish and Swedish . Among these, the grammar of Icelandic and Faroese have changed the least from Old Norse in the last thousand years, though their pronunciations both have changed considerably from Old Norse. With Danish rule of
14145-456: Was largely Jacobite in its sympathies. At the end of the 1715 rebellion, a large number of Jacobites who had fled north from mainland Scotland sought refuge in Orkney and were helped on to safety in Sweden. In 1745, the Jacobite lairds on the islands ensured that Orkney remained pro-Jacobite in outlook and was a safe place to land supplies from Spain to aid their cause. Orkney was the last place in
14268-400: Was leaving port) by semaphore to return and conveyed the report to the chief officer. Pole Star then proceeded to the Ve Skerries, where they found the ship waterlogged and abandoned. The ships' state indicated it had been quickly abandoned - The Orkney Herald reported that "they found the sails merely clued up, but not stowed, the side lights burning, and a 24 hour alarm timepiece lying on
14391-593: Was made the separate earldom of Sutherland. In 1290, the death of the child princess Margaret, Maid of Norway in Orkney, en route to mainland Scotland, created a disputed succession that led to the Wars of Scottish Independence . In the 14th century the earls of Orkney also lost Caithness, after which the earldom just covered the islands of Orkney itself. In 1379 the earldom passed to the Sinclair family, who were also barons of Roslin near Edinburgh . Evidence of
14514-535: Was obtained through a simultaneous u- and i-umlaut of /a/ . It appears in words like gøra ( gjǫra , geyra ), from Proto-Germanic *garwijaną , and commonly in verbs with a velar consonant before the suffix like søkkva < *sankwijaną . OEN often preserves the original value of the vowel directly preceding runic ʀ while OWN receives ʀ-umlaut. Compare runic OEN glaʀ, haʀi, hrauʀ with OWN gler, heri (later héri ), hrøyrr/hreyrr ("glass", "hare", "pile of rocks"). U-umlaut
14637-444: Was out of reach. Retreating, they relayed that an additional two crewmembers were spotted in the rigging. Ben Doran 's position in the middle of the skerries (being 600 yards (550 m) west from the nearest skerry) meant there was no plausible means of rescue, owing to the shallow reef surrounding it. Kay, who examined the area 2 months later, commented that it was "abundantly clear that rescue would have been hopeless." At one point
14760-532: Was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements and chronologically coincides with the Viking Age , the Christianization of Scandinavia , and the consolidation of Scandinavian kingdoms from about the 8th to the 15th centuries. The Proto-Norse language developed into Old Norse by the 8th century, and Old Norse began to develop into the modern North Germanic languages in
14883-766: Was spoken in Denmark, Sweden, Kievan Rus' , eastern England, and Danish settlements in Normandy. The Old Gutnish dialect was spoken in Gotland and in various settlements in the East. In the 11th century, Old Norse was the most widely spoken European language , ranging from Vinland in the West to the Volga River in the East. In Kievan Rus' , it survived the longest in Veliky Novgorod , probably lasting into
15006-503: Was used partitively and in compounds and kennings (e.g., Urðarbrunnr , the well of Urðr; Lokasenna , the gibing of Loki). There were several classes of nouns within each gender. The following is an example of the "strong" inflectional paradigms : Orkney Orkney ( / ˈ ɔːr k n i / ), also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago off the north coast of mainland Scotland . The plural name
15129-460: Was wrecked on the east side of Reaverack due to extreme weather conditions. The Aith Lifeboat was sent to the scene, however due to the wreck's position it was not able to get close enough to the vessel to transfer to the crew to safety. Both of the ship's liferafts had been swept away by the sea, and the ship had been breached and lay half-filled with water. An appeal was made to Sumburgh Airport where British Airways had helicopters stationed, and
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