Written around AD 1200 by an unnamed Icelandic author, the Orkneyinga Saga is an intriguing fusion of myth, legend and history. The only medieval chronicle to have Orkney as the central place of action, it tells of an era when the islands were still part of the Viking world, beginning with their conquest by the kings of Norway in the ninth century. The saga describes the subsequent history of the Earldom of Orkney and the adventures of great Norsemen such as Sigurd the Powerful, St Magnus the Martyr and Hrolf, the conqueror of Normandy. Savagely powerful and poetic, this is a fascinating depiction of an age of brutal battles, murder, sorcery and bitter family feuds. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Orkney Islands are a place of mystery and magic, where the past and the present meet, ancient standing stones walk and burial mounds are the home of the trows. Orkney Folk Tales walks the reader across invisible islands that are home to fin folk and mermaids, and seals that are often far more than they appear to be. Here Orkney witches raise storms and predict the outcome of battles, ghosts seek revenge and the Devil sits in the rafters of St Magnus Cathedral, taking notes! Using ancient tales told by the firesides of the Picts and Vikings, storyteller Tom Muir takes the reader on a magical journey where he reveals how the islands were created from the teeth of a monster, how a giant built lochs and hills in his greed for fertile land, and how the waves are controlled by the hand of a goddess.

The Orcadian archipelago is a museum of archaeological wonders. The Orcadian Neolithic is home to some of the best-preserved Neolithic sites in Europe: here we can find evidence of a dynamic society with connections binding Orkney to Ireland, to southern Britain and to continental Europe. Yet there is much that remains unknown about the societies that created these sites. In Orcadia, Mark Edmonds traces the development of the Orcadian Neolithic from the early fourth millennium BC through to the end of the period nearly two thousand years later, using artefacts, architecture and the wider landscape to recreate the lives of Neolithic communities across the region.

Reunited at long last, will they give in to their passion? After the death of his fiancée, Kai Ramsey left Scotland to roam distant lands. Having barely survived after being imprisoned as a spy during the Napoleonic War, Ramsay has lived on the edge of danger for years, but everything changes when a letter arrives for him from Scotland... Signy Matheson has dedicated her life to the people of Scotland’s remote Thorsay Islands. With a fiery spirit and agile mind, she is a faithful ally to the aging laird. Now their leader is ailing and Signy must summon the laird's successor at once – it’s time for Ramsey to come home. When Ramsay returns to Thorsay, he’s shocked to find that Signy has blossomed into an alluring beauty, and a force to be reckoned with. Because of their complicated past, Ramsey and Signy must deny their desire for each other. But after a wild storm sparks undeniable passion, the discovery of an ancestral treasure trove places them in harm’s way, and the two will have to come together to protect Thorsay. A thrilling Scottish Regency romance from New York Times bestseller Mary Jo Putney, for fans of Julia Quinn and Stephanie Laurens.

Making local energy futures, from marine energy to hydrogen fuel, at the edge of the world. The islands of Orkney, off the northern coast of Scotland, are closer to the Arctic Circle than to London. Surrounded by fierce seas and shrouded by clouds and mist, the islands seem to mark the edge of the known world. And yet they are a center for energy technology innovation, from marine energy to hydrogen fuel networks, attracting the interest of venture capitalists and local communities. In this book, Laura Watts tells a story of making energy futures at the edge of the world. Orkney, Watts tells us, has been making technology for six thousand years, from arrowheads and stone circles to wave and tide energy prototypes. Artifacts and traces of all the ages—Stone, Bronze, Iron, Viking, Silicon—are visible everywhere. The islanders turned to energy innovation when forced to contend with an energy infrastructure they had outgrown. Today, Orkney is home to the European Marine Energy Centre, established in 2003. There are about forty open-sea marine energy test facilities in the world, many of which draw on Orkney expertise. The islands generate more renewable energy than they use, are growing hydrogen fuel and electric car networks, and have hundreds of locally owned micro wind turbines and a decade-old smart grid. Mixing storytelling and ethnography, empiricism and lyricism, Watts tells an Orkney energy saga—an account of how the islands are creating their own low-carbon future in the face of the seemingly impossible. The Orkney Islands, Watts shows, are playing a long game, making energy futures for another six thousand years.

The two island groups of Orkney and Shetland have much in common. In each the grey stone houses and treeless landscapes are scoured in winter by stinging gales, and in summer lie under the endless days of the 'simmer din'. Originally Norwegian, they have been part of Scotland for five hundred years, but their many and varied legends, folk tales and customs are still saturated with Norse influences. While this book tells tales and discusses beliefs that are known throughout the northern isles, it also outlines those elements which are unique to each island group. The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland is the standard account of what to this day is one of the richest repositories of lore and custom in Britain. Ernest Marwick not only recounts countless tales which have been transmitted aurally and by writing, but also places these tales within geographical and historical contexts, thus enabling a deeper appreciation of this wonderful material. A bibliography is also included, together with an index of tale types and motifs.

For much of its history, Orkney had its own language, culture and institutions. The prehistoric inhabitants created monuments which are unmatched anywhere in Europe, and the medieval period saw the magnificent earldom that expressed itself through the Orkneyinga Saga and the building of St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall. Like Shetland, Orkney was heavily influenced by Viking traders and raiders from Scandinavia, and for a long period it formed an outlying part of the kingdom of Norway.Over 500 years ago, however, the islands lost their Scandinavian links and since then have had a sometimes difficult association with mainland Scotland. More recent times have seen the use of Orkney as a strategic stronghold during two world wars, and the far-reaching impact of oil and gas exploitation in the North Sea. This classic book covers the whole fascinating story and will be of interest to readers far beyond the rocky shores of Orkney itself.

Their names bespeak a rich past. From the Norse Hjaltland comes the modern Shetland: islands nominally Scottish, steeped in Nordic culture, closer to the Arctic Circle than to London. Important Neolithic sites are at Skara Brae and Maes Howe in the Orkneys. Holy Iona, island center of Celtic Christianity, the Isle of Man, former seat of rule over the Irish Sea, and Anglesey and Islay, homes of medieval courts at Aberffraw and Loch Finlaggan, are just a few of the more than 6,000 islands that form the archipelago known as the British Isles. The offshore isles are home to half a million people. Focusing on the eight islands or chains that have long supported substantial populations, this history tells the stories of Shetland, Orkney, the Hebrides, Anglesey, the Channel Islands, the Scilly Isles, and the Isles of Man and Wight, from their Neolithic settlement, to Roman, Norse and Norman occupation, to the struggle to maintain their uniqueness in today's world. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

“A haunting novel” about sex and obsession, set off the coast of Scotland and “full of otherworldly emotion and strange impulses” (Marie Claire). A professor marries his prize student, a woman forty years his junior, and at her request, he takes her to the sea for their honeymoon. His life’s work is a book about enchantment–narratives in literature, most of them involving strange girls and women—but soon he finds himself distracted by his own enchantment with his new white–haired young wife. They travel to the Orkney Islands, the ancient Mesolithic and Neolithic site north of the Scottish coast, a barren place of extraordinary beauty known as “the Seal Islands.” And as the days of their honeymoon pass, his desire and his constant, yearning contemplation become his normality. His mysterious bride becomes his entire universe. He is consumed . . . From the author of The Still Point, a winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize, this is a novel that “will appeal to literature aficionados: a Lolita–esque love, a romance born out of academia, and folklore come to life” (Booklist). “What begins as a familiar, almost fairytale–like narrative ends as something more fragmented, unsettling, and odd . . . Providing a brooding, bruised, ever–changing backdrop to all this is Orkney, the book’s most compelling character of all. In a tribute to Virginia Woolf’s experimental masterpiece, The Waves, the sea in Orkney functions as a kind of rhythmic talisman, its ebb and flow mirrored in the actions, ideas, and themes of the book. More than anything, Sackville’s Orkney is a breathtaking place in the most literal of senses.” —The Scotsman