The Sunday Ishmael: a Christmas Story about some Christians.

For most of December, Orkney has squatted under a porridge-like bank of impenetrable cloud, like a wet toad. Not a cold toad - it has been unseasonably warm. 

Not for us the cold, crisp December mornings of Yorkshire or Northumberland, waking to a frosty world of white under a high blue sky. Nope - rain in abundance, lots of mud, that sort of thing.

This has been most frustrating for the solstice-hunters who flock to Orkney to see the magic of Maeshowe. No sun = no magic.

I have to admit that although I have lived here for more than a quarter century, I had never seen the moment that the tomb was designed for. I tried a couple of times, then got bored, so gave up the attempt. So when the sun came out yesterday, with bright blue skies, only a week past the solstice, I took my visitors across to the Neolithic landscape of West Mainland.

LIDAR (light detection and ranging) imaging has revealed the existence of many unexcavated Neolithic villages, farms and tombs beneath the surface of what is described as a ritual landscape.  The stuff we know about is pretty stupendous, including the Ness of Brodgar, revealed in 2003, when a home owner was having his garden dug over and a stone of clearly archaeological significance was unearthed - well, one thing led to another, and by 2024,  40 structures had been uncovered, indicating it was a significant settlement during the Neolithic period. The Ness features large stone buildings, decorated and painted stone slabs, and evidence of a stone wall measuring 6 meters thick. It is thought that it was used for ceremonial purposes, possibly functioning as a temple. (Or Cathedral, as the popular press insisted).

The Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site covers approximately 2.5 hectares, and includes the Stones of Stenness - a stone circle older than Stonehenge; the Ring of Brodgar, which is a vast ceremonial stone circle,  Barnhouse Village, a Neolithic settlement near Stenness; Maeshowe, which is a chambered tomb; Skara Brae - a domestic village on the coast; and the Ness of Brodgar.

Maeshowe is one of the most sophisticated Neolithic structures in Europe. It is still in almost perfect condition - apart from the top of the dome, destroyed when the Victorian archaeologists adopted a gung-ho approach to breaking into the tomb, then replaced the roof, probably using the original stones. That part of the tomb's roof is painted white, to distinguish it from the ancient tomb. 

It’s not just a tomb — it’s a masterpiece of engineering, astronomy, and ritual imagination. The passage-way entry is long, low and narrow and aligned to the setting sun at the solstice.

 For a few weeks around the solstice, sunlight passing between a cleft in the hills of Hoy glows down the passage to illuminate the far wall of the tomb, which is in darkness the remainder of the year. The solstice alignment suggests ceremonies marking death and rebirth, the return of the sun and the turning of the year. 5,000 years ago, when it was built, a  communal effort involving the excavation of massive stones from Firth and dragging said stones from the quarry across country on sledges lubricated by seaweed, Orkney's climate was much better than it is now, with more of a chance of that winter sunlight hitting in the right spot. And it still works today. Five thousand years later. 

The guide took us into the tomb, where we stood uneasily, but grateful not to be stooping, and turned the lights off, the better for us to observe the magic of the returning light. For quite a while it was just a gentle glow, softly lighting the passage and across the floor, then around 3.00pm, there was a sudden, spear-shaped lozenge of brilliant light on the back wall, which quickly grew and widened. Five thousand bloody years and this celestial clock is still working. It wasn't in the centre of the back wall, it was off to the left, but that was because I was observing it 7 days after the solstice. How on earth could those people do that? It is thought that the ritual specialists, the astronomers and the building engineers lived in nearby Barnhouse Village, as an elite community, handy for devising and perpetrating this amazing thing. It was built in Old Red Sandstone, which splits naturally into flat slabs, allowing the builders to create straight walls, build the corbelled roof and long, stable passage. And it is all still there. The corbelled roof  makes you feel you are standing inside a vast stone beehive. It is thought that there was a ceremonial forecourt, a paved area, with standing stones and a gathering space outside the entrance where people assembled for rituals, especially at midwinter. Involving bones and ancestor worship. Bodies were usually de-fleshed outside, with the assistance of scavenger birds, then the skulls and long bones were brought inside. DNA analysis of bones found in similar tombs has demonstrated familial connection - not everyone got buried in these tombs - just the elites. Most people were disposed of at sea.

All of this is scene setting for my Christmas story about Christian folks.

By the 12th century, Orkney's climate had become much more severe. The entry passage to Maeshowe was blocked by rubble, but the mound still stood proud in the landscape, as it still does today. Orkney was Norwegian, as it was to remain until 1472. Harald Maddadsson and Earl Rognvald Kali Kolsson were in a period of violent rivalry. Harald had recently tried to seize more control of Orkney, whereas Rognvald’s supporters were scattered across Orkney Mainland. Winter raids were not unusual — in fact, they were often advantageous because enemies were indoors, feasting, and off guard. Vikings, you know. Still Vikings, and pagan at heart, despite Norway having succumbed to Christianity in the 9th century.  Trade, plundering raids, and travel brought the Vikings into close contacts with Christian communities, but their conversion only started after powerful chieftains decided to receive baptism during their stay in England or Normandy. Haakon the Good was the first king to make efforts to convert the whole country, but the rebellious pagan chieftains violently resisted. Olaf Tryggvason started the destruction of pagan cult sites in the late 10th century, and Olaf Haraldsson achieved the official adaption of Christianity in the 1020s. The Vikings took to Christianity like a duck to water, as it gave them a theological justification and purpose for mass killing and looting. The Viking Crusade was led by King Sigurd 1 from 1107 to 1111. He sailed from Norway in the autumn of 1107 with 60 ships and 5,000 men, wintered in England,

did a lot of pillaging and looting across Europe and the Med, and finally reached Constantinople in 1110. 

The men who went with Earl Harald on his Orkney Christmas raid in 1153 were undoubtedly Christian - a Crusader cross has been carved into the ancient stonework of Maeshowe.

Here's what the Orkneyinga Saga tells us: 

“Earl Harald set out for Orkney at Christmas with four ships and a hundred men.
He lay for two days off Graemsay, then put in at Hamnavoe on Mainland.
On the thirteenth day of Christmas they travelled on foot over to Firth.
During a snowstorm they took shelter in Orkahaugr (Maeshowe), and there two of them went insane, which slowed them down badly, so that by the time they reached Firth it was night-time."

Other sources, and the archaeological and graffiti evidence in Maeshowe give us more detail. Earl Harald stayed with his ships and most of his men in Stromness (Hamnavoe). He sent a raiding party overland to Firth, where his rival, Earl Rognvald, was holding a Christmas feast. The intention was to eliminate his rival. Fortunately for Earl Rognvald, the raiding party was held up by snow and by the time they eventually reached Firth, their quarry had finished his feast and left.

It is the role of Maeshowe in this Christmas tale of murderous Christian Vikings that is absolutely intriguing. There they were in a blizzard on a flat plain, surrounded by lochs. In this featureless, snowy landscape, they saw an entirely unnatural, snow covered mound. They recognised it as a burial mound. There was no other shelter. There was no entry passage to be seen. They climbed to the top of the mound and dug through the covering snow, turf and soil, then prised up the capstone and dropped several feet into the pitch dark. When they got their lanterns lit, the flickering light revealed shadowy side chambers, a passage way blocked halfway down, and they found themselves standing in a central chamber of cold, echoing stone. These Christian Vikings retained their pagan belief structures - they knew that these ancient burial chambers were guarded by a hogboon - a mound dweller, which was surely affronted by the tomb having been violated. Two of the raiding party "went insane" - was it the hogboon, the dark, the strange acoustics, the side chambers harbouring god knows what? The relentless storm, the howling of the wind? This delayed the party - did the rest of them have to restrain the insane? Did they have to be manhandled back through the hole in the roof? Then frogmarched to Firth? And back to Stromness?

Meanwhile, the other chaps amused themselves by carving graffiti onto the ancient walls. There are four separate handwriting styles at work. The Viking graffiti consist of 30 runic inscriptions and on a corner pillar three engraved figures; a dragon or a lion, a walrus and a knotted serpent.

Some of the inscriptions talk of treasure. Examples include; 'It is long ago that a great treasure was hidden here'; 'Happy is he who might find the great treasure'; 'Hakon alone bore the great treasure out of the mound' - which is probably a joke at Hakon's expense. Other inscriptions show names of the men, boastful tales of their exploits and jokes. 'Ingigerth is the most beautiful of all women'. This was carved alongside a rough drawing of a slavering dog. Other examples include a rune-writing competition:

'Ofram the son of Sigurd carved these runes'

'Haermund Hardaxe carved these runes'

'Tholfir Kolbeinsson carved these runes high up' ( that is - I'm tall)

'Arnfithr Matr carved these runes with this axe owned by Gauk Trandilsson in the South land'.

Basically; banter, showing off and misogyny - twelfth century soldiers bored and disturbed by the creepy tomb and its guardian, their insane comrades and keeping up their spirits as best they could. There's a Netflix series in this, isn't there?

Although the archaeological dig at the Ness of Brodgar was officially closed in 2024 and covered over, there will be a small, time-limited excavation of an unusual feature at the Ness in 2026, led by the Time Team. The nature of the feature has been kept secret, to build expectation for the Time Team's Big Reveal. Keep it quiet, then - but apparently, it is a round feature.

Hope you are having yourselves a Merry Little Christmas.