On the Nordic Trail in Scotland

The long summer nights in Shetland are the "simmer dim" (not "din"), and they're as beautiful as the 24-hours of daylight in arctic Norway. I was told by a native Shetlander that Norwegian was taught in local schools into the 1970s. I was fortunate enough to spend 12 long summers in Scotland, the Northern Isles, and Norway, and this article captures some of the highlights awaiting those who venture north. Ms. Abend visited in the summer, but as another reader commented, Up Helly Aa is a fantastic winter festival. And if world-class folk music from many countries appeals, plan to attend the Shetland Folk Festival, held from Thursday to Sunday in late April-early May. There's more than Viking heritage to enjoy, and it's not the end of the world (although I have a T-shirt that proclaims: "Unst: On the edge of another world.")

Perhaps the next travel journalist should be from Friesland.
That would be a much more interesting story about the anglo-saxon influence in what is now England and Scotland, together with the fundamental role that the Frisian dialect had in shaping both the English and old Scots languages.
The Norse stuff is literally peripheral and has had no lasting cultural influence on the majority of mainland Scotland.
However, I imagine the romanticising nonsense will appeal to some.

It's quite a trek up to Shetland and Orkney, even for anyone already living in Scotland so I commend the journalist's commitment to the story. Shetland and Orkney are indeed the motherlode of Viking heritage in Scotland. Their accent and dialect is also unique.

I'm surprised to see no mention of the Up Helly Aa festival that takes place on Shetland in January every year. It dates back in some form to time immemorial but became an established event from the late 1800s. It is a Viking-style festival of fire that culminates in the burning of a replica Viking longboat.

In short, the Viking traditions in Shetland and Orkney have always been there so it's unlikely that they are being developed as a marketing ploy in recent years or in any connection with the independence referendum. Still, a good read though and the Nordic-influenced culinary adventures sound enticing.

The photos of Andy Haslam are inspirational. As an Irish Celt, I was deeply stirred by the primitive , stark beauty of the images. I know them by heart.

What a load of twaddle. Utter twaddle. I am from northwest ENGLAND (Lancashire) and I can trace my ancestry back to Viking and Anglo Saxon settlement. I come from an area resplendent with Viking settlement names, generally ending in ham, ing, or ton, depending on the settlement patterns. This article is utter romantic nonsense. The British Isles are a melting of of cultures over millennia so don't dress this up as separatist nonsense. I can show your "reporter" Viking burials and names associated with Viking that do not exist in Scotland, e.g. a byre, a beck, muck, mire etc. Need I go on? Culinary? Try a Black Pudding! There are FAR more Viking connections in England (and Ireland) than Scotland.She needs to stay in Copenhagen. Travel? Visit either Great Britain or the British Isles.

Whisky, for goodness sake, not whiskey.

Having tramped up the Great Glen and then spent a week on Skye in 2014, we are ready for another trip to the lonely places of Scotland. Thank you for settling where that next holiday will be.

Humans have a strong tendency to romanticize history, maybe that's how we feel good about ourselves and heritage, wart and all. As least we are all thankful that after centuries of history, there's no more marauding and raping and pillaging and conquering since everyone has settled into their pattern and boundaries.

All of which makes me wonder if it would have to take a few more centuries for all those fightings and wars and country boundaries in the Middle East and Africa to get settled before everyone would wise up and become civilized. Sadly though, modern day warfare can be so much more deadly, with the use of machine guns and bombs and weapons, that I wonder if those countries and people could survive it like those withstanding the Vikings invasions. (There's too much of this in the news that I can't get these out of my head.)

Still, the article is fun to read. If I were younger with nary a worry of kids and family, I would have taken up the challenges to go see the-end-of-the-world myself in a heartbeat. Thank you again.

Ms. Abend, wonderfully written article, esp the first paragraph! Most enjoyable read. The Scot's sense of humor regardless of the serious issues they must contend with, makes them so admirable. And that combined with incredibly wild and beautiful terrain and ever changing climate causes Scotland to be so irresistible.

I must confess that just by seeing the pictures I'm fascinated, if someday I get the opportunity definitely I would like to visit Scotland. Actually I didn't even know that in Scotland there's a lot of places you can visit, and I bet you will never get tired of, there's a lot of things you can do there, maybe Scotland is not so big or famous as others countrys but if you are someone who likes to visit all around the world, Scotland is a good idea!

This is where the Times excels. A fascinating article supported by excellent pictures. Sadly, I will never visit but I sure enjoyed the read.

well, vineyridge,
articles are not uneducated, people are. The author is a travel writer, not a theorizing anthropologist. Its very nicely written, clear, entertaining, and observant, exactly what you want, but rarely get, from a travel writer. As far as your commentary is concerned, its generalizations making them meaningless. The refreshing difference with her observations is that she separate fiction from facts by leaving them open to interpretation. Your pseudo factual statement of when Harald Hårdråda "invaded" England is worthy of Fox News (a month before the Norman Conquest?, really? did you beam yourself in to check? and when and where exactly, time and location please, did it start?), and so far no DNA test has been made on the entire population of the people the British Isles but its fairly certain that the concentration of "Viking" DNA in Scotland is greater than in the south of England. Whatever the case, we were all over the region and in some cases we stole food,silver,women, before stopping to settle for the season. This account fairly reflects the facts as we know them, which isn't very accurate.
BTW, the rotten/fermented mutton dish can still be found on the Scandinavian peninsula in the form of fermented fish that is eaten every August. It stinks but its very good. Great job, Lisa, but move to Sweden, its better!

Thank you very much for this fascinating travel story. I guess I didn't actually realize how close Scotland was to Norway. The photographs are beautiful and the maps informative.

Delighted to see the Inn at John O'Groats featured in Lisa's article on nordic connections in Scotland. I am an American living in Edinburgh and was lucky enough to witness the regeneration of this iconic building as I work for the architects (GLM Architects) that designed it for Natural Retreats. John O'Groats is an unbelievable location that feels like you are on the edge of the world - I would highly recommend a visit and make sure to stay at the Inn!

This article reads like a rambling series of notes jotted down while taking a road trip. That a nordic connection developed seems secondary. Not to mention a slight excursion to wikipedia might have helped to enhance the author's sense of history.

Thank you for the perspective and for sharing your adventure .. The first known written history of my family name appeared in the Orkneys. Good job on your photos too, really captured the time, place and mood

The climate is nordic? Really? I suggest a trip to Scandanavia in the winter to disabuse anyone of that notion.

Scottish nationalists (in the Scottish National Party, not Nationalist Party) did hold up Norway often as a role model for an oil-rich independent Scotland during the referendum debate but this article really overplay the importance of Nordic heritage to the effort to be free of London. Only a tiny part of the populations has "Viking" roots. The Scottish independence argument is much more about self determination and economic issues as it is about perceived ethnic differences.

My father's mother and father were both firmly of established Nordic heritage (Iceland and Norway), well-proven back at least 250 years, yet my brother's and my DNA came back as 30-35 % Nordic composition (using both Ancestry and FamilySearch). If my father's genetic makeup was as firmly Nordic as we thought we knew it to be, our DNA should be 50% Nordic. Everyone defining themselves as Nordic might be interested in testing their DNA too, and don't be surprised to find the British Isles contribution that we did. It's a fun exercise. Having traveled in Scotland, and through Orkney, Scotland is a very obvious place to look for traces of Nordic culture...

Sorry, that should have been FamilyTree DNA, not Familysearch

I am a person of Scottish ancestry and red hair, freckles and pale skin are quite common among members of my family. I always suspected that Vikings were among my long-ago ancestors, and genetic testing done by the National Geographic's Genome 2.0 project disclosed my DNA shows a 40% affinity with DNA found in current-day Danes. Accordingly, I was delighted to read this article.

" lumberjack beards marked them as either Scandinavian or Brooklynite"...

Incorrect usage there, I'm afraid. Born and raised 10 blocks from Ebbets Field (it was there when I was born), the correct term would be 'Brooklynese'.

Dan Kravitz

This is a fine article. For her next piece, send Ms. Abend west from Glasgow. The Orkneys and the Shetlands are the Scottish islands closest to Scandinavia; but the Norse influence was as deep on the west coast of Scotland -- islands like Mull, Skye, Jura and Islay, collectively called the Sudreyjar, or Southern Islands. The kingship or lordship of these islands was bitterly contested in the middle years of the Twelfth Century. The fighting was between men who bore such names as Olaf, Thorfinn, and Godred; they sought alliances with Norwegian monarchs and the Viking principalities of Ireland. The name of the warlord Somerled, most notable of these Hebridean Norsemen, is commemorated on Skye, by Somerled Square in the town of Portree.

Europe has economic union and hopefully political union at some point.

So Scotland, Walloons, Basque, Catalans, Welsh, Brittany, etc., can break off, only to remain under the larger European Union umbrella.

It is possible only because now it does not matter, it is only a technicality that EU membership folds up directly rather than through a preexisting national step. Everything changes but nothing at all.

Although there is a bittersweet point to the lack of meaning of "independence": to explode all the German states or Italian regions for example, when their unification was the source of so much passion and blood only 150 years ago, is rather poignant.

This is first rate writing.

Well, if you want to eat 'bere' and 'raw meat salted in brine', I guess there is nothing to stop you doing that. But, we have visited Shetland twice and found a number of very good restaurants in Lerwick, the main town. There is excellent Indian food, good lamb dishes, North Atlantic fish (haddock, mackerel, halibut, and salmon), mussels, and out-of-this-world King Scallop. Because they are an island and have always been a crossroads for sea travel in the Atlantic, North Sea and the Arctic Ocean, their cuisine is actually very international. Being from east Texas, we were even amused by a restaurant that was serving Cajun cuisine. We didn't try it though preferring to eat the King Scallops and haddock instead (you know,'when in Rome...').

Shetland Islands is a wonderful place, sort of like an Indian reservation, living genteelly off welfare from London.

If Scotland breaks free of England, see Shetlands to break off quickly from Scotland.

Vineyridge got it right.
This is a completely fanciful description of the Viking influence on Scotland then and now.
And the idea that that the historic Norse influence on the outer islands had any bearing on the independence referendum is complete rubbish-I spend a lot of time in Scotland and have Scottish relatives so I know whereof I speak.
The nationalists only liked to compare Scotland to Norway because of oil in both countries-anybody seen the price of oil lately? This was just yet another aspect of their fantasy land which this writer seems to have bought into.

Does this writer know that Viking settlements were common all down the East coast of England?-York is a viking name. And so is Dublin for that matter.

The strongest cultural influence in Scotland was certainly from Ireland. A Scot was originally the description of someone from Ireland.

The 70,000 people of the Shetland, Orkney and Western Isles have a particularly strong Nordic heritage, but Lerwick to Edinburgh is as far as Edinburgh to London. Much of England was under the Danelaw, and of course the Normans were Norse men.

The modern political affinity felt by Scots of the Nordics is also felt by those in the North of England. This is less about shared genetic heritage and more about ensuring a universal basic provision of public services.

I enjoyed Guten Abend’s frothy jaunt and the pix were great.

My families clan, centered in the northeast corner of the Highlands, traces one of its primary roots to Norway. Its king, Harald Fairhair created the first earldom of Orkney in the 9th century. In the 13th century the Orkneyinga Saga was written. Our clan traces itself back to Ivar, Earl of the Uplands of Norway.

It only makes sense that the lands closest to Norway hold the greatest concentration of Scandinavian heritage. Vineyridge, I should think that DNA tests could settle a bet over whether the rest of Britain is no more or less Viking than Scotland.

While there a year ago I observed the Independence referendum. The most compelling presence in it was one Leslie Riddoch, author of Blossom: How Scotland could flower unleashed from England using the Nordic nations as models. (Their bottom-up democracies could also serve Bernie Sander's vision.)

In a small hall on the rocks above the North Sea, I saw her wipe the floor with her Labor opponent in a place where no Tory would ever speak out.

They feel no need. They were up in their lodges, on the Scottish rivers they own, with their tory paying guests. When the polls showed Independence winning, the powers that be in England pulled every string and scared enough Scots to prevail. But by the next parliamentary election, the Scots had regained their wits. They chose a delegation of 98% Scottish Nationalists.
It will happen.

Thanks for your travelogue Lisa. A correction: the name of the political party in power in Scotland is the Scottish National Party. "Scottish Nationalist Party" is a pejorative term sometimes used by members of the opposition parties.

Scotland wasn't seeking independence from England, it was seeking independence from the United Kingdom there's a difference.

Enjoyed the article but Viking influences are all over Britain and Ireland and survive in place names and words. For example, mywife spent a delightful holiday in Yorkshire . The place names York, Thirsk, Askrigg, Asgarth, and Gunnerside, for example. The local mountains are called "fells" which is clearly of Nordic origin--"fjell" in Swedish; and Hardraw Force, the hoghest single drop water fall in England. "Fors" (pronounced Forsh) means waterfall in Swedish. And "by" and "gate" which appear at the end of many place mames throughout England, are clear cognates of Scandinavain words for "town" and "street". And let us not forget the words "kirk" for church and "Doomsday". The word "dom" (pronounced "doom") means Judgment in Swedish. (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are very closely related languages. I am most familiar with Swedish.). Finally , the Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, was a great, great grandson of Rollo the Viking, who was given rule over Normandy, as itwas called thenceforth, by the French king, in exchange for an oath of fealty to the king and a promise to protect France from more Viking raids.

Lest I forget, the first great work of "English" literature, Beowulf, is set not in England but in what are now Denmark and southern Sweden. And Beowulf himself is a Geatish chieftan. The better thinking is that the "Geats" were the "götar" (pronounced in English roughly "yuhtar"), a related people who lived north of the Danes in southernmost Sweden, and the original "Swedes", a tribe living primarily around Uppsala, northwest of Stockholm. The story is essentially a Norse saga, with an overlay of Christianity to make it respectable.

On a July/August freighter passage from IJmuiden, Netherlands to Cleveland, OH, the ship passed through the Pentland Firth in sight of both John O'Groats and the Orkney's to the north. I could, of course, see only hints of what lay on shore, but this article has pulled me in the direction of a future visit. My wife and I will be pursuing family ties to Sweden and possibly northern UK.

While the article introduces some of the Nordic roots of today's Scotland, I was looking for a bit more depth or explanations. For example, she lands in St. Margaret's Hope and there is no mention of the notion that it's named for the Fair Maid of Norway. Since the death of the Fair Maid of Norway triggered the original Scottish Wars of Independence, it would have tied into her earlier discussion of the recent referendum on independence. Also, I don't think that St. Magnus Erlendsson would have called himself Norse "descended." I think he would have called himself Norse.

I would disagree with the commenter who says that Scotland is just like England in regards to the Viking presence and in fact I the characterization that Vikings in England were simply about raiding. York certainly was a Scandinavian town. The entire Western Isles were ruled through Scandinavia for many years. Scottish history is more complex than simply saying it was Celtic. There were Picts too. Certainly, there was the Gaelic Dalriada Kingdom in the southwest, but it is now disputed whether or not it was originally founded by monks from Ireland. The Vikings ruled the Western Isles, Argyle, the Isle of Mann and up to the Northern Isles. The Scottish Kings struggled for years to tame the Lords of the Isles.

Lastly, I missed mention of the Shetland Bus. That wonderful WWII operation where Norwegian fisherman based in Shetland went back and forth to Norway with spies and more.

While the Shetlands and Orkneys are unquestionably Norse/Scandanavian, the article is remarkably uneducated. All of the British Isles were ravaged and settled by Vikings--whether Danish or Norse. Dublin was a Danish settlement; there was the Danelaw in England in Anglo-Saxon times, and Harald Hardrada, a Norwegian, invaded England only a month or so before the Norman Conquest. The vast majority of Scotland is no more or less Viking than the rest of the British Isles.

It's Scotland's Celtic roots that set it apart from the vast majority of England--but not Cornwall or Wales. Scots Lowlanders, however, are apparently indistinguishable from English Borderers, and have Scandanavian as well as Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norman roots.

I've always remembered from the very early Chronicles that the Irish became Scots and the Scots became Irish.

Thank you for the lovely account. I visited Orkney in 2004 and it was pure magic. For readers who are unfamiliar with the place, besides the Norse sites you describe, Skara Brae--a neolithic fishing village built of unmortared stone that lay buried under the sand for eons--is one of the great UNESCO World Heritage Sites. And St Margaret's Hope, which you mentioned in passing (not actually part of the Mainland island but connected by causeway) reputedly has the finest restaurant in the UK, specializing in seafood. I could only look through the glass because they did not serve lunch. To keep the Orcadian magic alive when I returned home, I read the the Orkneyinga Saga and George MacKay Brown's historical novel "Magnus" about the martyred saint.