Law Ting Holm (also known as Tingaholm) is a small promontory at the north end of the freshwater Loch of Tingwall, Mainland Shetland, Scotland. It was once an islet entirely surrounded by water, joined to the shore by a stone causeway wide and long."Law Ting Holm"
Shetlopedia/Way Back Machine. Version of 8 September 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2014."Law Ting Holm"
RCAHMS. Retrieved 15 August 2010. In the 1850s the levels of the loch were lowered and the holm evolved to its present form.Smith (2009) The Loch of Tingwall is west of the town of

Lerwick Lerwick (; non, Leirvik; nrn, Larvik) is the main town and port of the Shetland archipelago, Scotland. Shetland's only burgh, Lerwick had a population of about 7,000 residents in 2010. Centred off the north coast of the Scottish mainland ...

and has one additional island - Holm of Setter. Law Ting Holm in Tingwall Loch - geograph

Norse parliament

Law Ting Holm was the location of Shetland's local parliament until the late 16th Century."Thing"
Shetlopedia/Way Back Machine. Version of 1 October 2012. Retrieved 12 July 2014. There are documents relating to assemblies taking place in Tingwall from as early as 1307, although the only reference to the

Thing (assembly) A thing, german: ding, ang, þing, enm, thing. (that is, "assembly" or folkmoot) was a governing assembly in early Germanic society, made up of the free people of the community presided over by a lawspeaker. Things took place at regular in ...

meeting on the holm itself comes from a letter dated 1532. As was common with other such meeting places, a mound may have been made from handsful of earth from the various local things represented at the meeting, so that all members could say that they were on their home ground. A small, much eroded mound can still be seen and the remains of a wall were found on the perimeter of the island, suggesting the creation of secluded area for meetings. Locations where the deliberations of the assembly could be seen but not easily overheard are typical of thing sites. The stones on which the "Ford" and other officials of the meeting sat, were reportedly removed at some time in the 18th century to improve the grazing potential. In the 1570s Earl Robert Stewart moved the thing to nearby

Scalloway Castle Scalloway Castle is a tower house in Scalloway, on the Shetland Mainland, the largest island in the Shetland Islands of Scotland. The tower was built in 1600 by Patrick Stewart, 2nd Earl of Orkney, during his brief period as de facto ruler of S ...

, although the holm was used once more in 1577 when over 700 Shetlanders brought a complaint against the local Foud, Lawrence Bruce, before royal commissioners from Edinburgh. Writing in 1774, Low reports that the stone seats had been ripped up to create more room for grazing, although in 1809 Edmonston suggests that the sites of a stone table and bench can still be traced upon the holm. Excavation undertaken in 2011 as part of the HERA funded Assembly Project revealed the remains of a Late

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 appl ...

/ Pictish settlement at the Law Ting Holm but did not produce clear evidence of later activities. However, archaeological finds indicate that the causeway continued to be maintained well into the 19th century.

Other Thing Sites

Thing assembly sites are found throughout Northern Europe, as a result of a shared Norse heritage. They are often identifiable by their shared ''thing, ting, ding '' and ''fing'' place names. Examples include

Þingvellir Þingvellir (, anglicised as ThingvellirThe spelling ''Pingvellir'' is sometimes seen, although the letter "p" is unrelated to the letter "þ" (thorn), which is pronounced as "th".) was the site of the Alþing, the annual parliament of Iceland f ...

in Iceland,

Tinganes Tinganes is the historic location of the Faroese landsstýri (government), and is a part of Tórshavn. The name means "parliament jetty" or "parliament point" in Faroese. The parliament met there for the first time in the Viking ages when No ...

in the Faroe Islands,

Tynwald Hill Tynwald Day ( gv, Laa Tinvaal) is the National Day of the Isle of Man, usually observed on 5 July (if this is a Saturday or Sunday, then on the following Monday). On this day, the Island's legislature, Tynwald, meets at St John's, Isle of Man, ...

in the Isle of Man, Fingay Hill in England, and

Dingwall Dingwall ( sco, Dingwal, gd, Inbhir Pheofharain ) is a town and a royal burgh in the Highland council area of Scotland. It has a population of 5,491. It was an east-coast harbour that now lies inland. Dingwall Castle was once the biggest cast ...

in Scotland. Tingwall is just one of a number of 'ting' names found in Shetland. The parish names

Sandsting Sandsting is a parish in the West Mainland of Shetland, Scotland, forming a southern arm of the Walls Peninsula. After the parish of Aithsting was annexed into Sandsting in the sixteenth century, it became known as Sandsting and Aithsting pari ...

Aithsting Sandsting is a parish in the West Mainland of Shetland, Scotland, forming a southern arm of the Walls Peninsula. After the parish of Aithsting was annexed into Sandsting in the sixteenth century, it became known as Sandsting and Aithsting pari ...

Delting Delting is a civil parish and List of community council areas in Scotland#Shetland, community council area on Mainland, Shetland, Mainland, Shetland, Scotland. It includes the Sullom Voe oil terminal and its main settlements are Brae, Mossbank, Sh ...

Lunnasting Vidlin (from Old Norse: ''Vaðill'' meaning a ford) is a small village located on Mainland, Shetland, Scotland. The settlement is within the parish of Nesting. History It is at the head of Vidlin Voe, and is the modern heart of the old parish ...

and Nesting all suggest that a wider network of local thing sites once operated in the islands . The names ''Gnípnaþing, Þvætaþing '' and ''Rauðarþing'' can also be found in early documents, but have since gone out of use.

THING Project

Law Ting Holm is one of a number of sites included in the Northern Periphery Programme's three year transatlantic THING Project."The THING Project - THing sites International Networking Group"
Northern Periphery Programme. Retrieved 10 June 2012. The Project, which includes partners from

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, the

Faroe Islands The Faroe Islands ( ), or simply the Faroes ( fo, Føroyar ; da, Færøerne ), are a North Atlantic island group and an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. They are located north-northwest of Scotland, and about halfway bet ...

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 ...

Shetland Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands and formerly Zetland, is a subarctic archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom. The islands lie about to the no ...

Highland Scotland The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Sco ...

and the

Isle of Man ) , anthem = "O Land of Our Birth" , image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg , image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg , mapsize = , map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe , map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green) in Europe ...

, aims to explore and promote the shared links between the Northern European thing sites, and develop sustainable business and tourism opportunities in each of the partner regions. Amongst other things the delegates explored the possibility of a transnational

World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

nomination, based on an expansion of Iceland's existing World Heritage site

, at a meeting in Dingwall in September 2011."News"
Thing Project. Retrieved 10 June 2012. This initiative was publicised by the Shetland Islands Council sponsored "Move.Shetland" newsletter"May 2010 Newsletter"
move.shetland.org. Retrieved 3 August 2010. and the results of the process will be published in a report in 2012.

Wildlife

Tufted duck The tufted duck or tufted pochard (''Aythya fuligula'') is a small diving duck with a population of close to one million birds, found in northern Eurasia. The scientific name is derived from Ancient Greek '' aithuia'', an unidentified seabird ment ...

red-breasted merganser The red-breasted merganser (''Mergus serrator'') is a diving duck, one of the sawbills. The genus name is a Latin word used by Pliny and other Roman authors to refer to an unspecified waterbird, and ''serrator'' is a sawyer from Latin ''serra'', ...

and

common Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally com ...

and

black-headed gull The black-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus ridibundus'') is a small gull that breeds in much of the Palearctic including Europe and also in coastal eastern Canada. Most of the population is migratory and winters further south, but some birds res ...

frequent the loch, which is also home to Shetland's only

mute swan The mute swan (''Cygnus olor'') is a species of swan and a member of the waterfowl family Anatidae. It is native to much of Eurosiberia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is an introduced species in North America, home ...

s."Tingwall Central Mainland Law Ting Holm Shetland Parliament"
. iknow-scotland.co.uk Retrieved 15 August 2010.

The arts

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) premièred Chris Stout's composition ''Tingaholm'' in

on 4 March 2012, a piece named after the Þing site.

Notes

References

* Ballantyne, John, H. & Smith, Brian (2009). "Shetland Documents 1195-1579". Lerwick. ''Shetland Times'' Ltd & Shetland Council. * Coolen, J. and N. Mehler (2011): Archaeological Excavations at the Law Ting Holm, Tingwall, Shetland 2011. Data Structure Report/Interim Report.
"TAP Field Report No 4"
(pdf) Retrieved 28 May 2012. * Coolen, J. and N. Mehler (2014): Excavations and Surveys at the Law Ting Holm, Tingwall, Shetland. An Iron Age settlement and medieval assembly site. British Archaeological Reports (BAR) British Series 592. Archaeopress. * Edmonston, Arthur. (1809) ''View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands''. * Graham-Campbell, James and Batey, Colleen E. (1998) ''Vikings in Scotland: An Archaeological Survey''. Edinburgh University Press. * Low, George. (1774) ''A Tour through the Islands of Orkney and Schetland''. Kirkwall. * Smith, Brian, (2009) "On the nature of tings: Shetland´s law courts from the middle ages until 1611". ''New Shetlander'' No. 250, 37–45.

External links

*https://web.archive.org/web/20170802015728/https://www.thingsites.com/ - official website for the Northern European Thing Sites Network *http://www.thingproject.eu - website for the NPP funded THING Project *http://www.khm.uio.no/english/research/projects/assembly-project/ - information about the HERA funded Assembly Project. {{Coord, 60, 10, 2, N, 1, 15, 5, W, display=title, region:GB_type:isle Freshwater loch islands of Scotland Thing (assembly) Mainland, Shetland