Shetland literature is literature written in Shetland, Scotland, or by writers from Shetland. The literature is often written in Shetland dialect or its parent language, Norn, and often depicts the history and folklore of Shetland. Common themes include reflections on island life and proximity to the sea, it is fishing and crofting traditions, the weather and seasons as determined by Shetland's climate, Shetland's unique landscape, its flora and fauna, and the influence of the people's Viking heritage. Folklore often displays features seen similarly in Scandinavia and some Celtic traditions.
The earlier Norse language faded slowly, taking at least three hundred years to die out in certain isolated parts of Shetland such as Foula and Unst, as first Lowland Scots and then English became the language of power. The Norn language influences the variety of Lowland Scots spoken in Shetland today, in lexicon and grammar. This unique mix has come to be called either Shetland dialect, or simply "Shetland" by Shetlanders.
Little remains of the old Norse tongue, Norn, in script form, and what is extant (such as the ballad "Hildina", The "Unst Boat song" and various Norn fragments collected by Jakob Jakobsen) [1] is often corrupted. These works have been studied in depth, and scholars have notionally fixed the old Shetland Norn as kin to Faroese and Vestnorsk. The oral tradition for which Shetland was famed in the Norse era (when it was known as a land of bards)[ citation needed ] died with the language, though it may well be that some of the old folktales and ballads were translated into the oral tradition now known in Shetland dialect, and that the continuing proliferation of writers in Shetland could be considered an ongoing form of that tradition of 'bards', even across the difficult cultural shift from Scandinavia to Britain.
Shetland is mentioned, however, in sources from the surrounding countries. For example, the Orkneyinga saga , mainly about Orkney talks about the archipelago on a number of occasions.
In the British era, which properly began for Shetland with the Napoleonic Wars, Shetlanders developed a literature in variant written forms of the spoken Shetland dialect, as well as in English. The first widely published writers were two daughters of the Lerwick gentry, Dorothea Primrose Campbell and Margaret Chalmers, [2] who wrote for the most part in a rather formal English. Subsequent Shetland dialect writers such as Haldane Burgess, [1] James Stout Angus, George Stewart and Basil R Anderson helped forge the written form of the native tongue. [2]
There are now a number of titles that might be termed Shetland dialect classics, in the sense that they found a ready market among Shetlanders when first published and became definitive of some part of the islands' culture. These works are not always the works of natives – incomers and visitors to Shetland have made considerable contributions to literature about Shetland, as in the cases of Jakob Jakobsen and Hugh MacDiarmid [2] for instance. Much of this literature is currently out of print and has been, in some instances, for a very long time. As a result, subsequent generations of Shetlanders have grown up unaware of this tradition – and specialist readers, the scholars beyond the islands who might be interested, remain oblivious to the work.
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These include:
Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken in the Northern Isles off the north coast of mainland Scotland and in Caithness in the far north of the Scottish mainland. After Orkney and Shetland were pledged to Scotland by Norway in 1468–69, it was gradually replaced by Scots. Norn is thought to have become extinct around 1850, after the death of Walter Sutherland, the language's last known speaker, though there are claims the language persisted as late as the 20th century.
Shetland, also called the Shetland Islands, is an archipelago in Scotland lying between Orkney, the Faroe Islands, and Norway. It is the northernmost region of the United Kingdom.
Doric, the popular name for Mid Northern Scots or Northeast Scots, refers to the Scots language as spoken in the northeast of Scotland. There is an extensive body of literature, mostly poetry, ballads, and songs, written in Doric. In some literary works, Doric is used as the language of conversation while the rest of the work is in Lallans Scots or British English. A number of 20th and 21st century poets have written poetry in the Doric dialect.
A trow is a malignant or mischievous fairy or spirit in the folkloric traditions of the Orkney and Shetland islands. Trows may be regarded as monstrous giants at times, or quite the opposite, short-statured fairies dressed in grey.
Uyea is an uninhabited island, lying south of Unst in Shetland, Scotland.
Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb was a Faroese Lutheran minister who established the modern orthography of Faroese – the language of the Faroe Islands – based on the Icelandic language, which like Faroese, derives from Old Norse.
Old Norwegian, also called Norwegian Norse, is an early form of the Norwegian language that was spoken between the 11th and 14th century; it is a transitional stage between Old West Norse and Middle Norwegian.
Skaw is a settlement in the Scottish archipelago of Shetland, located on the island of Unst. It is located north of Haroldswick on a peninsula in the northeast corner of the island, and is the most northerly settlement in the United Kingdom. It is currently inhabited by a single inhabitant whose business is sheep farming.
Shetland dialect is a dialect of Insular Scots spoken in Shetland, an archipelago to the north of mainland Scotland. It is derived from the Scots dialects brought to Shetland from the end of the fifteenth century by Lowland Scots, mainly from Fife and Lothian, with a degree of Norse influence from the Norn language, which is an extinct North Germanic language spoken on the islands until the late 18th century.
Orcadians, also known as Orkneymen, are an ethnic group native to the Orkney Islands, who speak an Orcadian dialect of the Scots language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history, culture and ancestry. Speaking Norn, a native North Germanic language into the 19th or 20th century, Orcadians descend significantly from North Germanic peoples, with around a third of their ancestry derived from Scandinavia, including a majority of their patrilineal line. According to anthropological study, the Orcadian ethnic composition is similar to that of Icelandic people; a comparable islander ethnicity of North Germanic origin.
The languages of Scotland belong predominantly to the Germanic and Celtic language families. The main language now spoken in Scotland is English, while Scots and Scottish Gaelic are minority languages. The dialect of English spoken in Scotland is referred to as Scottish English.
Jakob Jakobsen was a Faroese linguist and scholar. The first Faroe Islander to earn a doctoral degree, his thesis on the Norn language of Shetland was a major contribution to its historical preservation.
Vagaland, was a poet from Shetland.
James John (J.J.) Haldane Burgess was a Shetland historian, poet, novelist, violinist, linguist and socialist, a noted figure in Shetland's cultural history. His published works include Rasmie's Büddie, Some Shetland Folk, Tang, The Treasure of Don Andreas, Rasmie's Kit, Rasmie's Smaa Murr, and The Viking Path, the latter being translated into German. He was one of the Shetlanders who gave assistance to Jakob Jakobsen, in his researches into the Norn language in Shetland.
James Stout Angus was a writer from Shetland, Scotland.
A nuggle, njuggle, or neugle, is a mythical water horse of primarily Shetland folklore where it is also referred to as a shoepultie or shoopiltee on some parts of the islands. A nocturnal creature that is always of a male gender, there are occasional fleeting mentions of him connected with the Orkney islands but he is more frequently associated with the rivers, streams and lochs of Shetland. He is easily recognised by his distinctive wheel-like tail and, unlike his evil counterparts the each-uisge or the nuckelavee, has a fairly gentle disposition being more prone to playing pranks and making mischief rather than having malicious intents.
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 parish.
"Hildina" is a traditional ballad thought to have been composed in Orkney in the 17th century, but collected on the island of Foula in Shetland in 1774, and first published in 1805. It tells a story of love, bloodshed and revenge among characters from the ruling families of Orkney and Norway. This ballad is written in Norn, the extinct North Germanic language once spoken in Orkney and Shetland, and is the only surviving work of any length in that language. It is one of two Norn ballads included in The Types of the Scandinavian Medieval Ballad, where it is classified as type E 97.
Fethaland or Fedeland is an abandoned settlement at the extreme north end of Mainland, Shetland. It was the site of the largest Haaf fishing station in Shetland.
This article incorporates text from the article Shetland's_Literature on Shetlopedia, which was licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence until September 14, 2007.