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Updated: June 20, 2025


There landed, indeed, in North Ronaldsay, during the last decade of the eighteenth century, a traveller whose life seems really to have been imperilled. A very little man of a swarthy complexion, he came ashore, exhausted and unshaved, from a long boat passage, and lay down to sleep in the home of the parish schoolmaster. But he had been seen landing.

He was certainly no earl of the present Sutherland line; neither was Walter. In the time of Sigurd Hlodverson, Ulf the Bad, of Sanday in Orkney, murdered Harald of North Ronaldsay, and seized his lands in the absence of Harald's son Helgi, a gentle Viking, on a cruise. On his return, Helgi, to revenge his father's death, slew Bard, Ulf's next of kin, in fight.

If a farmer in Ronaldsay told him he was badly in want of a plough or a pony the skipper would speedily find a farmer in another island who had a plough or a pony to sell, and by thus bringing buyer and seller together he made himself a friend to both. Nothing was out of Flett's way. He had a genius for commerce.

We were making for South Ronaldsay, and had been beating about all night, making very little headway; and when the mist lifted before noon, it was discovered that we had been driven down by the current, and had come nigh to running into the black rocks of Stroma Island.

Patrick Neill, were received by an old lady in a Ronaldsay hut. Her hut, which was similar to the model described, stood on a Ness, or point of land jutting into the sea. They were made welcome in the firelit cellar, placed "in casey or straw-worked chairs, after the Norwegian fashion, with arms, and a canopy overhead," and given milk in a wooden dish.

"But it's a pity ye're not better at the geography. How many islands have we in Orkney? Can you tell me that?" "Seventy-two twenty-eight islands and forty-four holms." "And can ye name them all, the twenty-eight islands?" "Yes, the dominie taught us them last Martinmas;" and I proceeded to name them, from the North Ronaldsay down to the Muckle Skerry of Pentland.

The mist having lifted, Captain Flett had a reef or two let out, and himself took the helm until he got us into calmer water, when we luffed to the windward and headed for South Ronaldsay, with a stiff breeze springing up that gave us a clear seaway to get past the Lother Reef, when we sailed steadily through a lesser rush of tide across a quiet, landlocked sea, into the little haven of Burwick, where in the gathering darkness the chain went rattling down, and we came to a restful anchorage.

W. Traill’s Address upon the occasion Subsequent Proceedings on Sanday Island North Ronaldsay Lighthouse Melancholy Accident Importance of the Northern Lighthouses. The coast of Scotland is deservedly celebrated for the skill and enterprise of its lighthouse system. This coast, extending to about two thousand miles in circuit, is, perhaps, the most dangerous of any in Europe.

In the year 1789 a lighthouse had been completed at North Ronaldsay, but the experience of twelve years had proved that this was not calculated to prevent the numerous wrecks on the islands of Sanday and Stronsay.

The grass grew beautifully green on the flat house-top, where the family would assemble with their dogs and cats, as on a pastoral lawn; there were no windows, and in my grandfather's expression, 'there was really no demonstration of a house unless it were the diminutive door. He once landed on Ronaldsay with two friends.

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