The Battle of Summerdale, in 1529, as any Orcadian should be able to tell you, was the last pitched battle fought on Orkney soil.

Although history and local tradition now treats this confrontation as a battle, it is likely that it was little more than brief, but bloody, skirmish on the boundary of the parishes of Orphir and Stenness.

When people first began to communicate in writing, their implements were crude, forcing them to make do with simple drawings that could be easily scratched on stone or wood.

Aside from the runic collection found in Maeshowe, one of the largest, and most famous, in Europe. there have been 19 examples of runes found in Orkney - as well as a few whose authenticity are open to question.

The ancient Orcadian beliefs surrounding death probably had something to do with the development of a number of Orkney's stranger ghost stories.

One belief in particular, the varden, could account for a large proportion of Orkney's spectral harbingers of doom. In Orkney it was once thought that everyone had a varden - a companion spirit - usually in the shape of an animal. This varden accompanied the person everywhere and would howl dismally when the mortal was about to die.