Last night I was up until 1:00 AM, and it was still not completely dark. There was also a street light just outside the window so I couldn’t tell just how light it was. The sky looked more gray than black. Later that day we visited the Stenness Standing Stones and the Ring of Brogdan along with an archeological dig that we discovered by accident. The dig was being conducted by Orkney College. The two sets of stones are constructed like Stone Henge, large, tall stones standing on end in a circle. Most archeologists and historians surmise that the stones represent some type of religious setting, but no one knows for sure what their purpose was. So, I theorized about how those stones got there. What if about 5,000 years ago Og was sitting around with his buddies, Deg and Bik, and one of them said to the others, “You know those big slabs of stone lying in a pile across the island?” When the others said, “Yeh, we know,” he went on, “Well, I think those stones would look really great standing on end in a circle, and we could lever them up with dirt and poles. So, guys, what do think? I bet the fellas in the next valley will be green with envy.” Maybe they just wanted to see if they could do it. Well, maybe not. They might have put up one or two to see if they could, but they must have had some other motive to continue with the project and put 12 to 30 stones in two great circles. It’s way too difficult to do to just be fooling around. I’m awed to think that these folks probably did have some awareness of the Great Mystery, and went to a whole lot of trouble to make a special place to honor and worship it.
We went on to Kirkwall, the Orkney capitol, where we visited St. Magnus Church. Construction on the church was begun in 1137 by a Norseman who wanted to honor his uncle Magnus who had been killed by the enemy. We also walked through a 17th century palace built by Patrick Stewart, the Earls Palace. The church is still in use, and at least part of the congregation is Norse for we saw a Norwegian Bible on an altar. (There is still a strong Norwegian influence in the Orkneys. A number of households fly the Norwegian flag.) There was enough of the palace left to get a real feel for how it must have been in its day.
Today is Thursday, and after taking the ferry back to Scrabster we drove south along the eastern Scottish coast to Stonehaven, a small town just south of Aberdeen. The scenery was not nearly as special as the western side of Scotland. We did, however, see some offshore drilling rigs out in the North Sea, and two large wind farms, not in the North Sea. Actually we have seen several wind farms around Scotland. I’ll have to find out how much of their electricity is wind generated.
Thursday was our daughter-in-law Lisa’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Lisa. We love you and hope you had a wonderful day.
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