Series 1 > Diary of the Reverend John Mill, minister of the parishes of Dunrossness Sandwick and Cunningsburgh in Shetland, 1740-1803. With selections from local records and original documents relating to the district

VII.
EARL ROGNVALD AND THE DUNROSSNESS MAN.1
AN UNPUBLISHED STORY OF THE TWELFTH
CENTURY.
It so happened one day south in the Dunrossness sea2 in
Hjaltland3 that an old and poor country man (bdndi) was
waiting long for his boatmen, while all the other boats that
were ready rowed off. Then came a man with a white cowl to
the old country man, and asked him why he did not row off to
the fishing as the other men did. The country man replied
that his mates had not come. ‘Bondi,’ said the man of the
cowl, ‘would you like me to row with you?’ ‘That will I,’
says the country man, ‘ but I must have a share for my boat,
for I have many children {bairns) at home, and I must work
for them as much as I can.’ So they rowed out in front of
Dynraust-head4 and inside Hundholm.5 There was a great
stream of tide where they were, and great whirling eddies; and
they were to keep in the eddy, but to fish outside the must?
1 The word in the original Icelandic for the Dunrossness ‘ man ’ is bdndi, the
common term in the Scandinavian north for husbandman, land-cultivator,
yeoman, i.e. the ordinary farmer of the north, who at the same time derived a
portion of his sustenance from the sea, as he still does in Iceland, Faroe, and the
Scottish Isles. The term lingered in Orkney and Shetland until comparatively
recently. In the present translation, ‘ country man ’ is used as perhaps the
simplest equivalent. The proper place for the story is in the Orkneyinga Saga,
but it does not appear in the English version of that Saga (Edinburgh, 1873),
not having been brought to light at the time of its publication.
2 Literally Dynraust-ness Voe.
3 Hjaltland: the old Northern form of Shetland.
4 Dynraust-head •. i.e. Sumburgh Head.
5 Hundholm : i.e. Dogholm. The name has disappeared.
6 The Raust of Sumburgh, still so called, a fierce tideway, but a favourite
fishing-ground.