The Orcs

     While I mentioned that I would spare you readers the travelogue, a few articles caught my eye as if tugging at me not to forego this part of history.  Nothing specific, mind you, but...well, you'll see.  Now I have to mention that while many of my friends are fascinated by history and tend to put its timelines together in an interesting way, this was never my strength.  Take the entire history of this area we were in --from Great Britain to much of western Europe and Scandinavia-- and I can remember one part of its history: the Norman Conquest in 1066.  That said, I couldn't tell you much more about it.  Who was involved and what was it about?  Were they before or after the Vikings and the blue bloods?  Heading east and south, how did the Persians and the Dutch, much less the Russians, fit into the timeline?  And did Nordic relate to Norman (yes, at least linguistically).  So, see what I mean?  Dare I say that I wasn't about to start piecing together the histories of China or Russia or Persia, where history had already taken a leap in the depth of knowledge brought to our world.

     But here we were, perched on one of the nearly 800 islands of Scotland (although less than 100 hold populations of people), a land that was and remains rugged, not only in its landscape but in its peoples and its history.   Nature had created the Boundary Fault which somewhat split the land vertically, a "moat" which eventually became the scenic but built-too-late Caledonian Canal (by the time it was finished, commercial ships were too large to slip through).  And Scotland, like Ireland, is also split into religious factions, the "traditional" Scotland one envisions with kilts and bagpipes being heavily Catholic in the north (the Highlands), while the urbanized cities and Protestants tend to gather in the south (the Lowlands).  Even now, those in the highlands seem to lead the quest for independence and will seemingly fight to the end (think Braveheart), something even the Romans discovered and built the extensive Hadrian's wall to keep back the "rift-raft" (some historical accounts say that the wall just marked the end of the Roman empire's northward march.  See the difference?  Me neither.)   

     So with all that going on, how did Scotland still become a part of England?  Answer: largely by accident due to that changing chessboard of royal bloodlines and then-Queen Victoria's closest relative being a Scot (what??).  It you thought visualizing the sliding geographical borders, and peoples, and languages, were difficult to make sense of in Great Britain, try figuring out the lineage of the royal "blue bloods."  But the monarchy is like that, complete with quirky hand waves and taxpayer-supported castles for all who have even a speck of "royal" blood in their bodies...a true roll of the dice.  When the Catholic Bonnie Prince Charlie (an actual royal and not a nursery rhyme) lost his battle in 1745, Protestant kings and queens continued to rule Great Britain.  But wait, if Protestants ruled the country in Scotland and other parts of Great Britain, why is it the reverse in Ireland where the majority are Catholic?  Huh?  Okay, let's skip that part and jump to using the correct sort of money while you're there: wait, it's just pounds and euros, right?  Well sort of, but four of Ireland's banks make their own pounds, as do three of Scotland's banks.  Go way north in the Highlands (still festering that movement for independence) and the English pound may or may not be accepted.  And then there's the flag of Great Britain itself with that British X and its colors representing every part of Great Britain...except for Wales.  Ah well, you can't please everyone.  Yes, as boring as this was in school for me, it’s history...in many respects.  So is anyone still awake?  Here's the thing with such travel stories and histories: unless you're from there, or on such a trip (as we were now), nobody cares.  A quick picture or two, along with a two-minute soundbite, and it's on to better things, like another glass of wine.  It's a bit like someone bringing you back a souvenir key chain of Mandoon.  Would you ever go?  Or want to go?  Not likely.  And besides, who wants to hear about your visit to a country or resort when you can't even picture yourself having a vacation for the next few years.  Begone, good sir...

     But forget all of that since none of this post is really about Scotland, at least not the mainland part.  Our cruise had now moved offshore to one of the 70 islands of the Orkneys (quick lesson: I was politely told that while visiting Orkney, one never uses that word, "the Orkneys," saying only "Orkney" or "the Orkney islands").  And it was here that things now sent all of that previous "history" more or less out the window.  The Orcadians don't feel that they're "highlanders" or even Scottish (although ironically, they're fiercely pro-British).  And no wonder since much of their island's history goes back before Stonehenge (indeed, the center altar stone at Stonehenge came from Orkney).   Despite the cool, damp mist floating around, the sun occasionally breaking through as if wanting to peek through the curtain, the days here were once far warmer, said our guide; the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic proved too inviting and even back 3000 or 5000 years ago, this area may have had a population of thousands.  For what was now a bay was once land, the fierce storms that would come later eventually taking it out and letting in the sea.  And it was just such a storm in 1850 that revealed what may have been washed away, uncovering a small section of a burrowed village, one still being threatened by the oncoming waters (barrier walls have been built in an effort to allow archeologists more time to uncover what may still be buried).  The village of Skara Brae wascomplete with movable stone doors and connecting passageways, a place where Vikings are said to have danced and partied, never realizing that buried beneath them was a long-abandoned but thriving population (our guide felt that she'd heard that it wasn't the ocean that caused them to leave, but the encroaching sand which prevented any sort of farming).

     Move back some 300 years before Stonehenge and you discover the 36 remaining stones of the Ring of Brogdar, and the nearby Stones of Stennes.  Only these stones, nearly exact in their placement, were constructed centuries before Stonehenge; centuries before the Great Wall; centuries before the Pyramids.  And the digging continues.  Throughout the Orkney Islands rest untold numbers of mounds and walls; the few sites so far uncovered have been shown to be somewhat sophisticated burial mounds such as Maeshowe which was built several centuries before the village at Skara Brae.  And there was more, as other ancient civilizations made the 6-hour sea voyage from the outer Hebrides and built their own circles and tombs, wrote Discover.  Just from that overview, the Orkneys stand out as an archeological treasure chest in another remote corner of the world.  It was only later that Vikings discovered the area and made it a base for their ocean explorations.  After them, historians believe the Romans navigated the waters.  But 5000 years ago one had to ask, why here?  What made them chance the rough seas in primitive vessels to come to this area?  And once here, why did they leave?  And to add to the mystery, Smithsonian wrote that onboard a recovered Viking ship was an even older artifact...from Asia.

     Ask geologists or boaters where one could find a near-perfect natural harbor and the Scarpa Flow would likely be near the top of the list; its the world's 2nd largest natural harbor, or that's what both the British and the Germans thought during both WW I and WW II.  Now, many of the sunken ships and shot-down planes join the clutter of decaying barriers, nets, and buoys built to prevent their entrance.  The Vikings apparently built or docked shipping fleets here.  And yet almost all of those tales of wars and conquest pale when compared to the ancient stones and pillars and homes being partially exposed as if just waking from their earthly slumber.  Walk among the stones and feel the history, the digging of a ditch around the site at Brogdar (one 10 meters wide and 3 meters deep), the alignment of the stones with the stars and the moon and the sun, the precise calibration of the spacing.  Touch the stones and you can feel something travel through you as if you need to be in awe, otherwise you are in violation.   Would I have "found" any of this out had I not been on this cruise?  Would I have looked this area up and made it a place to visit?  Not likely.  I had only heard of the Orkney Islands because I occasionally enjoy a glass of Highland Park scotch (I did find the distillery there and discovered that my favorite variety of their makings, the Magnus, had been discontinued many years ago...I still happen to have a few bottles, which I'll now treasure even more).  

     On the other side of the coin, I was thinking back to a piece in The London Review about our wants and needs, and psychoanalysts who may feel that such "things" are simply our imaginations working to create an image of our identity, specifically how Freud implies that what we think we want "is where the problem starts."  Pragmatist Richard Rorty instead argues that it is our "purposes" and not our desires that matter.  The article added, quoting Rorty: "...the point of reading a great many books is to become aware of a great number of alternative purposes, and the point of that is to become an autonomous self."  Alternative purposes because we need to see what's available to us to transform.  Despite all of our differences --our attitudes, our abilities, even our purposes-- perhaps travel provides that same function of making us aware of the alternatives.  To taste other foods, to visit other cultures, to see that what we may consider as having just "the bare essentials" may actually be quite a happy life for others, even centuries ago...and maybe ourselves.  Seeing these monuments makes one question our own contentment with our time here on this planet.  Did we see enough, do enough, help others enough, care enough, love enough?  On that final breath, would we find that our life here wasn't meant to find our own purpose, but rather to explore and take in all that was around us, and to let it absorb us?   Perhaps such a cruise wasn't for everyone; but I found it a bit ironic that despite my lack of knowledge when it came to history, I was being pulled back into it.  It was the poet T.S. Eliot who summed it up best: -And the end of all our exploring -Will be to arrive where we started -And know the place for the first time.