Rousay's Skaill Farm

On the west side of the Isle of Rousay lies the remains of the Viking Skaill Farm; known as Westness in the Orkney Sagas.  "Skaill" is derived from the term skáli, used to describe a Viking drinking hall.  The search is on, as it were, to find the Viking settlement near Skaill.

April 16, 2022

We visited Rousay on April 16, 2022 as Covid restrictions were being lifted around the world.  When we visited, the site had been buttoned up with rock-weighted heavy black plastic by archeologists in 2019, who expected to continue the dig the following year after they had just discovered the Viking drinking hall.  

April 16, 2022  Covered archeological site at Skaill on Rousay

The site would remain closed for nearly a three year hiatus due to the Covid pandemic.  Following our visit, digging again resumed.  Once excavation had continued, archeologists determined that Skaill Farm was a 'high status' site, most likely the residence of Sigurd of Westness.  Sigurd is mentioned in the Orkneyinga Saga.  

April 16, 2022  Black plastic covered dig at Skaill

The Orkney Saga, written by an unknown Icelandic writer sometime in the early 1200s, fuses myth, legend and history.  Not exactly gospel.  But with a large measure of salt, as an historical text, it is an accurate account...for those parts that can be verified.  Its English translation was published in 1873. 

In the sagas, Earl Paul Haakson traveled to Westness to feast with Sigurd many times.  They were close.  In 1135 or 1136, Earl Paul was captured by the Viking pirate Sweyn Asliefsson and taken to Scotland, where Earl Paul is said to have died in captivity.  This abduction opened Orkney for the taking by Earl Rognvald II, who then seized Orkney as Earl.

April 16, 2022  Malthouse at Skaill Farm

Skaill Farm ruin, is in the midst of important Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age sites--the so-called Egypt of the North.  According to archeologists, the farm evidently has an archeological layer below where it has currently been excavated.  Thus, Skaill Farm likely had its beginning long before the arrival of the Vikings.  It certainly continued long after Vikings departed, as a medieval farm followed by a Victorian Age sheep farm.  It witnessed, on Rousay, part of the infamous "highland clearances".  Depopulation at its finest.

Laird George William Traill (1787 - 1871) was the questionable individual who cleared Skaill Farm, replacing people (crofters) with sheep.  Arriving in 1816, Traill began a career as a politician, and began acquiring lands in Orkney.  By 1845, he netted the Skaill estate, and subsequently cleared the land of crofters, many of whom had crofted the land for generations.       

April 16, 2022 Skaill Farm ruins

I don't know which is worse.  Despotism by the sword, or despotism by the pen.  At any rate, for the most part, the present farm buildings at Skaill roughly date to the 18-19^th centuries.  They were followed by the 'Rousay clearances' during the mid-19^th century.  

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