|
Outer Skerries
The Out Skerries are an archipelago of islets, some inhabited, in Shetland, Scotland, and are the easternmost part of Shetland. Locally, they are usually called Da Skerries or just Skerries. Geography The Out Skerries lie about northeast of Whalsay and Bound Skerry forms the extreme points of the United Kingdom, easternmost part of Shetland, lying just 186 miles (300 km) west from Tjeldstø in Norway. The main islands are Housay, Bruray and Grunay. A large number of skerry, skerries, islets and stacks surround the main group. These include the Hevda Skerries and Wether Holm to the north, the Holm to the south and Lamba Stack and Flat Lamba Stack to the east. Stoura Stack and the Hogg are to the south of Grunay. Bound Skerry, which has a lighthouse, is flanked by Little Bound Skerry and Horn Skerry. Beyond Mio Ness at the southwest tip of Housay are North and South Benelip and the Easter Skerries, as well as Filla, Short and Long Guen (the Guens), Bilia Skerry, and Swa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ordnance Survey
, nativename_a = , nativename_r = , logo = Ordnance Survey 2015 Logo.svg , logo_width = 240px , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = , picture_width = , picture_caption = , formed = , preceding1 = , dissolved = , superseding = , jurisdiction = Great BritainThe Ordnance Survey deals only with maps of Great Britain, and, to an extent, the Isle of Man, but not Northern Ireland, which has its own, separate government agency, the Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland. , headquarters = Southampton, England, UK , region_code = GB , coordinates = , employees = 1,244 , budget = , minister1_name = , minister1_pfo = , chief1_name = Steve Blair , chief1_position = CEO , agency_type = , parent_agency = , child1_agency = , keydocument1 = , website = , footnotes = , map = , map_width = , map_caption = Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bergen
Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen. The city centre and northern neighbourhoods are on Byfjorden, 'the city fjord', and the city is surrounded by mountains; Bergen is known as the "city of seven mountains". Many of the extra-municipal suburbs are on islands. Bergen is the administrative centre of Vestland county. The city consists of eight boroughs: Arna, Bergenhus, Fana, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg, Ytrebygda, Årstad, and Åsane. Trading in Bergen may have started as early as the 1020s. According to tradition, the city was founded in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre and was named Bjørgvin, 'the green meadow among the mountains'. It served as Norway's capital in the 13th century, and from the end of the 13th century became a bureau city of the Hanseatic Leag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picts
The Picts were a group of peoples who lived in what is now northern and eastern Scotland (north of the Firth of Forth) during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and what their culture was like can be inferred from early medieval texts and Pictish stones. Their Latin name, , appears in written records from the 3rd to the 10th century. Early medieval sources report the existence of a distinct Pictish language, which today is believed to have been an Insular Celtic language, closely related to the Common Brittonic, Brittonic spoken by the Celtic Britons, Britons who lived to the south. Picts are assumed to have been the descendants of the Caledonians, Caledonii and other British Iron Age, Iron Age tribes that were mentioned by Roman historians or on the Ptolemy's world map, world map of Ptolemy. The Pictish kingdom, often called Pictland in modern sources, achieved a large degree of political unity in the late 7th and early 8th centuries through the expa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Norsemen
The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the predecessor of the modern Germanic languages of Scandinavia. During the late eighth century, Scandinavians embarked on a large-scale expansion in all directions, giving rise to the Viking Age. In English-language scholarship since the 19th century, Norse seafaring traders, settlers and warriors have commonly been referred to as Vikings. Historians of Anglo-Saxon England distinguish between Norse Vikings (Norsemen) from Norway who mainly invaded and occupied the islands north and north-west of Britain, Ireland and western Britain, and Danish Vikings, who principally invaded and occupied eastern Britain. Modern descendants of Norsemen are the Danes, Icelanders, Faroe Islanders, Norwegians, and Swedes, who are now generally referred to as "Sc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Selkie
In Celtic and Norse mythology, selkies (also spelled ', ', ') or selkie folk ( sco, selkie fowk) meaning 'seal folk' are mythological beings capable of therianthropy, changing from seal to human form by shedding their skin. They are found in folktales and mythology originating from the Northern Isles of Scotland. The folktales frequently revolve around female selkies being coerced into relationships with humans by someone stealing and hiding their sealskin, thus exhibiting the tale motif of the swan maiden type. There are counterparts in Faroese and Icelandic folklore that speak of seal-women and seal-skin. Terminology The Scots language word ' is diminutive for ' which strictly speaking means 'grey seal' (''Halichoerus grypus''). Alternate spellings for the diminutive include: ', ', ', ', ', ', ', etc. The term ''selkie'' according to Alan Bruford should be treated as meaning any seal with or without the implication of transformation into human form. W. Traill De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trow (folklore)
A trow (also trowe, drow, or dtrow) is a malignant or mischievous fairy or spirit in the folkloric traditions of the Orkney and Shetland islands. Trows may be regarded as monstrous giants at times, or quite the opposite, short-statured fairies dressed in grey. Trows are nocturnal creatures, like the troll of Scandinavian legend with which the trow shares many similarities. They venture out of their 'trowie knowes' (earthen mound dwellings) solely in the evening, and often enter households as the inhabitants sleep. Trows traditionally have a fondness for music, and folktales tell of their habit of kidnapping musicians or luring them to their dens. Terminology The trow , in the Scots dialect, is defined as a ‘sprite or fairy’ of mischievous nature in dictionaries of Scots, particularly Orkney and Shetland dialects. Etymology The standard etymology derives the term trow from ''troll'' ( no, trold; non, troll) of Scandinavian folklore. It should be borne in mind that Norwe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Troll
A troll is a being in Nordic folklore, including Norse mythology. In Old Norse sources, beings described as trolls dwell in isolated areas of rocks, mountains, or caves, live together in small family units, and are rarely helpful to human beings. In later Scandinavian folklore, trolls became beings in their own right, where they live far from human habitation, are not Christianized, and are considered dangerous to human beings. Depending on the source, their appearance varies greatly; trolls may be ugly and slow-witted, or look and behave exactly like human beings, with no particularly grotesque characteristic about them. Trolls are sometimes associated with particular landmarks in Scandinavian folklore, which at times may be explained as formed from a troll exposed to sunlight. Trolls are depicted in a variety of media in modern popular culture. Etymology The Old Norse nouns ''troll'' and ''trǫll'' (variously meaning "fiend, demon, werewolf, jötunn") and Middle High Germa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly applied to Iron Age Europe and the Ancient Near East, but also, by analogy, to other parts of the Old World. The duration of the Iron Age varies depending on the region under consideration. It is defined by archaeological convention. The "Iron Age" begins locally when the production of iron or steel has advanced to the point where iron tools and weapons replace their bronze equivalents in common use. In the Ancient Near East, this transition took place in the wake of the Bronze Age collapse, in the 12th century BC. The technology soon spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin region and to South Asia (Iron Age in India) between the 12th and 11th century BC. Its further spread to Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and Central Europe is somewhat dela ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broch
A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure found in Scotland. Brochs belong to the classification "complex Atlantic roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. Their origin is a matter of some controversy. Origin and definition The word ''broch'' is derived from Lowland Scots 'brough', meaning (among other things) fort. In the mid-19th century Scottish antiquaries called brochs 'burgs', after Old Norse ', with the same meaning. Place names in Scandinavian Scotland such as Burgawater and Burgan show that Old Norse ' is the older word used for these structures in the north. Brochs are often referred to as ''duns'' in the west. Antiquarians began to use the spelling ''broch'' in the 1870s. A precise definition for the word has proved elusive. Brochs are the most spectacular of a complex class of roundhouse buildings found throughout Atlantic Scotland. The Shetland Amenity Trust lists about 120 sites in Shetland as candidate brochs, while the Royal C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fetlar
Fetlar ( sco, Fetlar) is one of the North Isles of Shetland, Scotland, with a usually resident population of 61 at the time of the 2011 census. Its main settlement is Houbie on the south coast, home to the Fetlar Interpretive Centre. Fetlar is the fourth-largest island of Shetland and has an area of just over . History One of the strange features of Fetlar is a huge wall that goes across the island known as the Funzie Girt or Finnigirt Dyke. It is thought to date from the Mesolithic period. So sharp was the division between the two halves of the island that the Norse talked of East and West Isle separately. Another attraction on the island is the Gothic Brough Lodge, built by Arthur Nicolson in about 1820, and which is undergoing restoration by the Brough Lodge Trust. The Fetlar sheepdog trials take place annually, normally in July. The Fetlar Foy, once very popular with Shetlanders and tourists alike, took place at midsummer on the Links at Tresta where folk were entertain ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hjaltadans
Haltadans, also known as Fairy Ring or Haltadans stone circle, is a stone circle on the island of Fetlar in Shetland, Scotland. This site is a ring of 38 stones, of which 22 are still fixed in the soil, and it is in diameter. Inside this is an earthen ring in diameter, with a gap in the southwest side. In the center of the rings are two rectangular pillars. According to Jakob Jakobsen, the name ''Haltadans'' means: "lame or limping dance". This is a reference to the legend that the circle of stones was once a circle of dancing trolls and that the two rock pillars in the centre were once a fiddler and his wife. They had fiddled and danced all night long, and, heedless of the time, were still fiddling and dancing when the sun rose and petrified them all. See also * * Stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany * List of stone circles *Neolithic Europe The European Neolithic is the period when Neolithic (New Stone Age) technology was present in Europe, roughly between ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second principal period of the three-age system proposed in 1836 by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen for classifying and studying ancient societies and history. An ancient civilization is deemed to be part of the Bronze Age because it either produced bronze by smelting its own copper and alloying it with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or traded other items for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Bronze is harder and more durable than the other metals available at the time, allowing Bronze Age civilizations to gain a technological advantage. While terrestrial iron is naturally abundant, the higher temperature required for smelting, , in addition to the greater difficulty of working with the metal, placed it out of reach of common use until the end o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
