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  • The Early English Settlement of Orkney and Shetland
  • Don Henson
Graeme Davis , The Early English Settlement of Orkney and Shetland. John Donald: Edinburgh, 2007. £9.99 paperback. ISBN 978 1 90460 775 5

Every so often a book comes along which invites us to challenge long-held beliefs or assumptions. This particular book aims to provide a new interpretation of the history of Britain in the fourth and fifth centuries, i.e. that there was Anglo-Saxon settlement in Orkney and Shetland from the fourth century onwards. Such an attempt is to be welcomed. We all need our thinking to be challenged. However, successful challenges need to be backed up by comprehensive and detailed scholarship. It is here that this book fails to meet its aim. It is best regarded as a plea for new thinking, rather than a finished and polished interpretation. [End Page 116]

The author's enthusiasm for his subject is evident. Unfortunately, the study of late antiquity and the early medieval period demands an unusual degree of familiarity with a wide range of evidence, covering documents, archaeology, linguistics, art history etc. Very few scholars can accomplish this, and even experts in one of these areas will often make inappropriate use of evidence from other areas they are less familiar with. The author's approach is to use evidence from these areas, but, unfortunately, there are various errors of fact or of approach which render his arguments suspect. Some of his statements are plain wrong; e.g. that the Vandals were not a Germanic people. Others reflect long out-of-date ideas; e.g. that Edinburgh was founded by King Edwin. His idea that the Picts were a people of native origin conquered by Celts speaking Old Irish reflects a poor understanding of the complexities of history and linguistics in the first millennium A.D.

The core of the book's argument relies on three pieces of evidence. First the Historia Brittonum; but this work written in the ninth century is of dubious reliability for events in the fifth century, and in any case the wording of the relevant extract will simply not sustain the idea of Anglo Saxon settlement in Orkney at the time. It speaks (§38) of an attack on the Orkneys, not settlement there.

The linguistic evidence he puts forwards is of the lack of a specific change in phonology of Germanic speech in the Norn spoken in Orkney and Shetland: he claims that Norn language does not show Germanic i-mutation, and must therefore be a relict of fourth-century settlement (when i-mutation had not yet taken place). The details of this are open to debate and at least some of the examples he gives can be disputed. Even were this claim correct, it would not necessarily support his conclusions.

The final evidence is an Imperial panegyric by the Roman poet Claudian, describing a campaign by a Roman fleet during the fifth century against Saxons and Picts. The poet's description of the Orkneys running red with Saxon slaughter does not support an interpretation of Saxon settlement in the northern isles, but more likely (if we can rely on Claudian at all) narrates the Roman pursuit of Saxons who happened to end up being slain there.

Although the hypothesis of the book is not one that can be sustained by the evidence presented, there is an interesting topic within the book. The whole issue of Saxon and Pictish relations in the fourth century does need to be looked at afresh, as does the relationship between the Christian missions of Ninian and Columba, and their respective roles in evangelising the Picts. Should the author wish to address these issues, he would be welcome to contact experts in their fields who could advise him on the pitfalls for the unwary in grappling with the evidence for early medieval Britain. [End Page 117]

Don Henson
Council for British Archaeology
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