Mousa, Unst, St Ninian...

Our last view of Shetland

Before we move back to the Scottish mainland and visit Aberdeenshire, we’ll take one last look at the Shetland islands today, focusing on three disparate spots, in the southeast, the middle west coast, and the far north. Plus bonus photos from the southwest.

Mousa is a small island, about 1 by 1-1/2 miles, off the southeast coast of Shetland. It’s no longer inhabited by people, being a nature reserve home to many seabirds and seals.

We took the 15-minute boat from Sandwick to Mousa, and walked around the whole island, taking in the sea views, the seabirds, the geology of the island, and a few ruins of old buildings and stone walls.

Below is a view of some of the seabirds perched artistically on the edge of a rock, and at right, a view of a stone wall, with, in the distance, the top of an Iron Age broch.

Brochs were common about 2000 years ago in the north and west of Scotland. The Mousa Broch is one of the best preserved. It’s about 40 feet high, and like other brochs, has a double wall made of drystone, with a winding staircase between the walls, allowing for a strong, tall, self-supporting structure. It’s not known what was used for roofing material.

Below, you can see a view of the whole broch, and a shot taken from nearby, showing the curve of the outer wall.

Below is a schematic drawing of how the broch might have been used on the inside. In the middle is a view of the stairs between the walls, and the photo on the right is one I took from the top looking down at our group gathered on the floor of the broch. Along the walls you can see stone shelves, and in the center of the floor, a stone hearth.

The view from the top of the broch is beautiful on all sides. Here are two shots from up there. In the grass on the right, you can see stone walls and the ruins of a two-story stone house.

One type of bird that nests on the island of Mousa is the storm petrel, a small bird that spends its life at sea except for when it comes to land to breed. To avoid predators, it only flies to the land at night. Mousa hosts the UK’s largest colony of these birds, about 12,000 pairs, several hundred of which like to nest right in the broch.

A Shetlander told us a bit about the broch, and when I learned that the Shetland name for the storm petrel is “da alamootie,” it put a smile on my face. That’s the name of a nice reel by Tom Anderson, which I’d heard played by the great Shetland fiddler Aly Bain on his 1984 album (originally self-titled but now known simply as First Album). The whole album is worth listening to if you can get it. Here it is from YouTube (though the sound quality is not as good as the CD; “Da Alamootie” starts at 31:12.

In the midwest coast of the Shetland mainland (#5 on the map in the article about Wool Week) is Sandness, where there’s a series of curiously designed horizontal grain mills.

Many people have used the power of rivers and streams to grind oats (referred to in Shetland as “coarn”) or other grains, and turn them into meal or flour. In these mills, the water usually flows or falls vertically onto a paddlewheel.

The mills outside Sandness are horizontal mills, where small dams or sluices direct the water into a wooden trough onto a horizontal wheel known as a tirl. The flow of water pushes a wheel sideways, using gears to use that motion for powering the grinding stones at the mill.

Below is a photo of the inner workings of one of the mills, and a schematic drawing of how they’re designed, in case you’re interested.

Here’s what they looked like when we came across them.

Out to sea from the Sandness area, where the mills are, is the island of Papa Stour, famous for some of its music and dance, including their sword dance. One resident of Papa Stour that I was lucky enough to take a class from at Fiddle Frenzy (see earlier article) was Debbie Scott, a great fiddler and composer. She doesn’t like to get out too much, but has a couple of nice albums that are well worth a listen. One of them was made by an Orkney label back when she was only 16, accompanied by the great Shetland trad/jazz guitarist, Peerie Willie Johnson.

In the far north of Shetland is Unst, the farthest north you can get in these northern Scottish islands. In fact, it’s only a few hundred miles south of the Arctic Circle, which is the southernmost point where at midsummer, the sun never sets, and in midwinter, it never rises.

To get to Unst, we drove to the ferry from Lerwick, which took exactly the length of a CD (I liked to provide a soundtrack of music related to the places we passed through). The ferry took us to the island of Yell, which we crossed to get to the ferry to Unst. Off to the east of Yell is the island of Fetlar, which we did not pass through. That’s where fiddler Maurice Henderson grew up, which may be why he knows so much about the trows! There are lots of stories of trows on Fetlar, including the stone ring that the band Haltadans was named after. The small standing stones that make up Haltadans were once trows playing and dancing the evening away so intently that they forgot to escape the rays of the morning sun, and were turned to stone. (Sad when that happens!)

In Unst, we visited its largest settlement, Baltasound, which back in the early 1900s, was the biggest herring port in Shetland. There, we got to participate in a local dance, with some of us playing along with the local musicians, and others joining in the dancing. (I couldn’t find any pictures; I guess I was too busy!) It was a great time for all, and pretty special and welcoming that they set up the dance to coincide with our visit.

Near Haroldswick, we got to explore the replica of a Viking ship, based on a ship excavated in 1880 that is thought to have belonged to King Harald Fairhair, for whom Haroldswick is named (“wick” meaning “bay” in Norse). Harald reigned in Norway in the 9th and 10th centuries.

We also visited Hamar, a well-preserved Viking longhouse. A reconstruction of one of these longhouses was open for us to explore. Some of us even got out our fiddles and played for others to have a dance.

One part of Unst is quite barren but is also the only place in the world where Edmonston’s chickweed can be found. It flowers in late May and early July, so although we looked for it, we pretty much knew we were too late to find it, since we were there in early August.

Below is a photo I took, not of the rare chickweed, but of a picture of it posted at the site. The middle picture shows a Red Admiral butterfly I spotted there. On the right, is a knoll with a particularly large hole that looks suspiciously like the home of trows. Fortunately, we were there in broad daylight. (Public service announcement: don’t bring a fiddle and play it near one of these at dusk! Someone might invite you in to play for them and give you a delicious elixir to enchant you.)

By the time the day was ending, we were far from any trowie knolls, had passed the “Welcome to Unst” sign at the ferry terminal, had driven through Yell, and were safely waiting for our last ferry, from Yell back to mainland Shetland, when we saw this colorful scene.

I leave you with some bonus photos from one more spot in Shetland. This beautiful near-island, connected to the southwest mainland by a strip of sand, is called St Ninian’s Isle. Below, you’ll see stacks, ruins of an ancient church, sheep hanging out on the beach, and more. Enjoy!