Two's company, three's a crowd

The Isle of Wyre is a small place.  One might even say a tiny place.  The inhabited island tips the scales at 1.2 total square miles.  Not the smallest inhabited island in Scotland, but still. Wyre is small. 

April 15, 2022  The "moat' at Cubbie Roo's

As for how many people currently inhabit the island, it depends.  Census data (normally considered the most accurate even if it somewhat lags) put Wyre's population at 18 in 2001.  Ten years later, the 2011 census reported it as 29.

April 15, 2022  Foot bridges on the "moat"

If true, that means Wyre had a net growth of 38%.  On our walk of the island in 2022, however, no such growth was evident.  We came across no one the entire time we were there.  

Some say the current population of Wyre is more on the order of 8.  Others will hedge bets and say the island's population is "maybe 20 residents".  Still others punt, calling Wyre a "fluctuating population".  In any case, whether it is 8 or 29, Wyre is a small and fairly remote island.

April 15, 2022  Bottom of tower ruins 

This post is about Wyre, specifically the ruins found there.  But first, I should mention some logistics.  To get to Wyre, Orkney Ferries runs a regularly scheduled route between the Orkney Mainland (at the ferry terminal in Tingwall just north of Kirkwall) out to the islands of Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre.  For reference, the whole of the Orkney Islands (population 20,020 per the 2024 census) is comprised of 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited.  And of those, only 13 have scheduled ferry service. 

April 15, 2022 Ruins of Cubbie Roo's Castle, Wyre

Ordinarily then, given Wyre's low population, one might not expect regular ferry service.  Even Egilsay is no large place, and that's at double Wyre's size (2 1/2 square miles with a population said to be 17).  Obviously, the economics of operating ferry service to such places are questionable.  But strictly speaking, Orkney Ferries is not a commercial venture.  It is a government-owned entity (by the Orkney Islands Council) to provide lifeline services to inhabited islands like Wyre that otherwise would not have them. 

April 15, 2022  No ground level entrances, Cubbie Roo's Castle

In Orkney in 2022, we set up camp at The Ayre Hotel in Kirkwall.  On day two, we stopped by the Orkney Ferries office in Kirkwall to book a number of intra-island ferries. The fares were nominal.  Roundtrip (passenger) from Tingwall to Egilsay was £3.45, and Egilsay to Wyre (passenger) was only £1.70.  As for taking a vehicle, the round trip from Tingwall to Rousay was only £14.45.  So, one can book cruises on the cheap in Orkney, "blue collar" cruises as it were.

April 15, 2023  Outer defensive wall Cubbie Roo's Castle

Given the small size of both Wyre and Egilsay, we opted to leave our rental vehicle at the terminal in Tingwall for the day and hoof it.  That decision proved a good one.  We're not adverse to using a vehicle to expand our range and decease the travel time.  And as such, we booked the passenger/vehicle fare from Kirkwall out to Eday.  But Eday is a significantly larger island, and we also needed to make sure our day trip could be done in time to make the last ferry off Eday back to Kirkwall.  So in this instance, we took a vehicle to make better use of our time. We're all for the environment; but just not teetotaler weenies.  

Afoot with the Tingwall-Egilsay-Wyre-Tingwall ferry schedule in hand, we split our day trip in half--about 4 1/2 hours on the island of Egilsay and about 3 1/2 hours on Wyre.  We boarded the MV Eynhallow at Tingwall, fortified with packed lunch items--rolls, meat and cheese, fruit, bottled water, beer, stem-ginger shortbread and a pack of Tannock's thrown in from TESCO in Kirkwall.  TESCO (which was only a block or so from The Ayre) was a relatively easy supermarket to access with ample parking.  [For disclosure, I hold a few shares of TESCO in a couple stock accounts.]  

Anyhow, we visited Egilsay the first half of our day trip, and Wyre the second half, before retrieving our rental vehicle back at the Tingwall ferry terminal that evening.

April 15, 2022  Thick walls Cubbie Roo's Castle

As to the ruins on Wyre, to borrow from the spouse, it was the first "proper castle" we visited in Scotland.  "Proper" taking the meaning of having a moat with a bridge over water that more or less surrounds it.  This proper castle belonged to Cubbie Roo (Kolbein Hrúga)--the oldest documented square stone keep castle in Scotland.  Built in 1145 AD, it is an impressive structure even in ruins.  

April 15, 2022  Earthworks at Cubbie Roo's Castle

Half myth, half historical character, the story of Cubbie Roo comes down to us through the Orkneyinga Saga.  Kolbein Hrúga, said to be a large man, was a Norse chieftan who settled in Orkney in 1142 and farmed Wyre.  He married into the Orkney aristocracy.  

Prior to settling in Orkney, Hrúga seemed to be a landowner of means in Norway.  Apparently, he was a tax collector for the Norwegian king, although who that may have been is somewhat uncertain.  Hrúga lived during the Norwegian civil war era, which first broke out in 1130 when Harald Gille (himself an Irish claimant of Norway's throne) seized the crown and ruled for six years until his death in 1136.  Hrúga may have collected taxes for Gille.

April 15, 2022  Flagstone slabs at Cubbie Roo's Castle

The Norwegian civil war era lasted, on again off again, for over 100 years.  It turns out that Kolbein Hrúga played an instrumental part.  At the time Hrúga settled on Wyre, Norway was under a precarious collective joint rule, akin to a regency.  Three sons of King Gille were involved--one said to be legitimate, two not.  As long as their guardians were alive, a tentative peace held.  But guardians do not live forever, especially not in Viking times.

April 15, 2022  St. Mary's Kirk from Cubbie Roo's Castle

Gille's two young sons were: the illegitimate Sigurd II Munn (1136-1155) and the legitimate Inge I Krokrygg (1136-1161).  Yet another young son, Magnus Haraldsson, died c. 1145.  Into this already tenuous mix, a third son Øystein II Haraldsson (1142-1157)--apparently Gaelic and illegitimate but at least an adult--was installed by three prominent men in 1142.  Those three men were Árni Sturla, Þorleifr Brynjólfsson and none other than Kolbein Hrúga.  

Two's company; three's a crowd, as they say.  Civil war, which first ended in 1130 with Gille taking the throne, soon renewed.  In 1155, the three half-brothers met at Bergen, Norway.  Fighting broke out between men of King Sigurd and King Inge, and Sigurd was killed.  King Øystein, whether by design or by happenstance, arrived late at Bergen.  Sigurd was already dead. 

April 15, 2022  The Bu farmstead--above Cubbie Roo's home

So, an uneasy peace now existed between Inge and Øystein  (It is claimed that Sigurd and Øystein planned to kill Inge and divide his holdings between them--but this is a disputed account.)  In any event, peace between Inge and Øystein did not hold for long.  Two years later, on August 21, 1157, both sides gathered forces for a confrontation, meeting at Moster, an island off the west coast of Norway (where King Olave II imposed Christianity upon his heathen brethren).  Øystein was forced to flee, was caught and killed by his captors in the Oslofjord area.  This left only Inge.  

April 15, 2022  Cubbie Roo's Castle

Well played, except that followers of Øystein were disinclined  to pledge loyalty to Inge.  So, they propped up Håkon II Sigurdsson (called Broad-shouldered; only 10 years old at the time), and continued the fight against Inge.  On February 3, 1161, they succeeded in killing Inge at the Battle of Oslo.  Now King Håkon assumed the throne, and roughly a year later King Håkon would himself be killed (at the seasoned age of 14 or 15) at the Battle of Sekken on July 7, 1162.   

And so it went for a hundred years.  No less than 46 candidates emerged seeking recognition as king during the Norwegian civil wars era.  24 of these candidates succeeded, but only two held royal authority throughout the realm of Norway.  

April 15, 2022  Fortifications at Cubbie Roo's Castle

Kolbein Hrúga built his castle on Wyre defensively, to protect his family and livestock more from raids by fellow Norsemen than not.  The structure is mentioned in Haakon’s Saga, which describes the castle as "a difficult place to attack".  In 1145, according to the Orkneyinga Saga, "At that time there was a very able man called Kolbein Hrúga farming on Wyre in Orkney. He had a fine stone fort built there, a really solid stronghold."   

Solid indeed.  It's walls were over 6 feet thick. Thought to have been built on an Iron Age broch, the castle is a rare instance of Norsemen building in stone.  It rests on the highest ground on Wyre island, and consists of a tower (presumably three stories high) that gave it a commanding view over Gairsay Sound and the sea approaches.  The tower was set within an oval enclosure that was surrounded by two ditches, a wall, and ramparts.  It had no ground floor entrance.  So, presumably, internal ladders were used to access the top floors.  

April 15, 2022  Rock cut well at Cubbie Roo's

During his lifetime, Kolbein Hrúga never had to defend the castle, though historians believe that in 1231, Kolbein Hrúga's great grandson did successfully survive a siege at the site about 100 years after Kolbein Hrúga died.  In the early 1500s, the castle was finally abandoned.  So lived the alleged giant, Kolbein Hrúga--Cubbie Roo--the man, the myth, the legend.