Damsay
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Damsay is an islet in the
Orkney Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north ...
archipelago in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
. It is approximately in extent and rises to only above sea level. It is situated in the Bay of Firth north of the
Orkney Mainland The Mainland, also known as Hrossey and Pomona, is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkney's burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkney's ferry and air connections. Seventy-five per cent of O ...
near
Finstown Finstown () is a village in the parish of Firth on Mainland, Orkney, Scotland. It is the fourth-largest settlement in the Orkney Islands. According to travel author Eric Linklater, the homes in Finstown are tidy and well cared for. This settlem ...
. Nearby is the smaller islet of
Holm of Grimbister Holm of Grimbister is an inhabited tidal islet in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. Located in the Bay of Firth near Finstown it is connected to Mainland Orkney by a causeway. Geography Bay of Firth is an inlet of the Wide Firth that lies to th ...
.


History

It is now uninhabited, but at one time a Norse hall stood there, and it was the scene of the killing of Earl
Erlend Haraldsson Erlend Haraldsson (c.1124 – 21 December 1154) was joint Earl of Orkney from 1151 to 1154. The son of Earl Harald Haakonsson,Thomson (2008) p. 89 he ruled with Harald Maddadsson and Rögnvald Kali Kolsson.Thomson (2008) p. 101 This was a tur ...
by Earls
Rögnvald Kali Kolsson Rögnvald Kali Kolsson (Old Norse ''Rǫgnvaldr'' or ''Rögnvaldr''; nn, Ragnvald Kale Kolsson), also known as Saint Ronald of Orkney (c. 1100 – 1158), was a Norwegian earl of Orkney who came to be regarded as a Christian saint. Two of the Orkn ...
and
Harald Maddadsson Harald Maddadsson (Old Norse: ''Haraldr Maddaðarson'', Gaelic: ''Aralt mac Mataid'') (c. 1134 – 1206) was Earl of Orkney and Mormaer of Caithness from 1139 until 1206. He was the son of Matad, Mormaer of Atholl, and Margaret, daughter of ...
in 1154. Erlend celebrated after returning to the islet for Christmas and retired to his ship the worse for drink on the night of 21 December. Despite being warned of an attack by
Sweyn Asleifsson Sweyn Asleifsson or Sveinn Ásleifarson ( 1115 – 1171) was a twelfth-century Viking who appears in the '' Orkneyinga Saga''. Early career Sweyn was born in Caithness in the early twelfth century, to Olaf Hrolfsson and his wife Åsleik. Accordin ...
and the presence of a full moon his men were taken by surprise by the attack by his co-rulers and Erlend was killed.Haswell-Smith (2004) p. 360 Later a small
nunnery A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican C ...
was built on the islet leading to a legend that no frogs or toads (or possibly rats and mice) could live there. It is also said that unmarried woman who became pregnant would go there to pray at an abandoned shrine to St Mary. Jo Ben's 1529 ''Descriptions of Orkney'' says of Damsay:
Here there are no hills, and it is the most pleasant of all, and is called Tempe. The church in this island is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, to which many pregnant women make visits in style. No frogs, toads, or other noxious terrestrial animals whatever are ever found here. The women here are sterile, and if they do become pregnant never bring forth with life. It is related that sometimes the haughty he shoresare carried away for the space of one hour, but truly afterwards restored. The distance of this island from
Kirkwall Kirkwall ( sco, Kirkwaa, gd, Bàgh na h-Eaglaise, nrn, Kirkavå) is the largest town in Orkney, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. The name Kirkwall comes from the Norse name (''Church Bay''), which later changed to ''Kirkv ...
is two miles.


Archaeology

Archaeologist
Caroline Wickham-Jones Caroline Rosa Wickham-Jones FSA (25 April 1955 – 13 January 2022) was a British archaeologist specialising in Stone Age Orkney. She was a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen until her retirement in 2015. Life and career Wickham-Jones wa ...
has discovered a number of submerged structures off Damsay, which appear to be of
Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...
origin. She said: "We have certainly got a lot of stonework. There are some quite interesting things. You can see voids or entrances... The really interesting thing about this bay is the stories relating to things under the sea and sea-level change. Our ancestors were dealing with similar problems to ourselves and we'd like to see how they coped with it." She described a feature like a "stone table" made up of "a large slab about a metre and a half long and it's sitting up on four pillars or walls" and said that the "quality and condition of some of the stonework is remarkable. Nothing like this has ever been found on the seabed around the UK." A fieldwork report published in 2010 stated that "local ethno-archaeological information suggests the presence at one time of a causeway to the west, across a stretch of shallow water and existing skerries" that connected Damsay to the mainland.Bates ''et al'' (2010) p. 1


Footnotes


References

* Bates, R.; Bates, M.; Dawson, S.; Nayling, Nigel; & Wickham-Jones, C. R. ''The Rising Tide Report on Fieldwork June 2010''. University of St Andrews. * * Muir, Tom (2005) ''Orkney in the Sagas''. Kirkwall. ''The Orcadian''. * Omand, Donald (ed.) (2003) ''The Orkney Book''. Edinburgh. Birlinn. {{Orkney Islands Uninhabited islands of Orkney