ISLANDS OF THE NORTH
B; JAMES FERGUSSON
KIRKWALL, the capital of the Orkneys, celebrated a fortnight ago the eight hundredth anniversary of the founding of St. Magnus Cathedral. It was a remarkable, almost a unique occasion, and the strange inadequacy of the published reports and photographs, together with the chance questions and comments of acquaintances in southern Scotland, showed those who travelled north to witness it how little interest was taken in it outside those distant islands.
Yet it was incontestably a notable event. What was it that brought representatives of the rulers of three countries, and of two national churches, to this small and remote city ? —for Kirkwall prides herself on being a city, as well as a royal burgh with a charter more than 45o years old. They came to pay homage to an ancient culture, and to a building which is its greatest monument in four kingdoms. Such a gathering was, it is true, " news," and as such it was reported —with jejune brevity. But it had a deeper significance, and a lesson more worth heeding, than much that passes under that comprehensive title.
An octocentenary of any notable building is uncommon. That this anniversary of a cathedral, one of the only two Scottish cathedrals to survive from pre-Reformation times practically undamaged by ill-treatment or decay, should be celebrated by a solemn religious service, an historical pageant, and the reception and entertainment of many distinguished guests, was not in itself surprising. (The pageant was perhaps an unusually ambitious effort—no one, for instance, attempted to celebrate in this way the recent octocentenary of Melrose Abbey.) But it was the character and the small size of the community concerned, the list of guests, and the scope and dignity of the whole festival, which might justly be called remarkable, and which none the less seemed to pass unnoticed south of, say, Domoch Firth. There has been nothing like it within living memory in Scotland.
But was it in Scotland ? On the first evening of the festivities, when Kirkwall's guests were assembled in the Town Hall to enjoy municipal hospitality and to hear speeches of congratulation, more than one of them must have vaguely wondered what exactly was the geographical and political setting of this old grey town with its narrow, twisting streets, its tall, crow-stepped houses and stone roofs, and its huge dark-red Cathedral. The only flag displayed in the hall was a Scandinavian one. Among the speakers were a representative of the King of Norway ; Herr Karl Holter, a famous Norwegian actor who had given his services to the pageant ; and Herr Jon Baldvinsson, President of the Althing —the thousand-year-old parliament of Iceland. Reidar Kaas, the celebrated Norwegian baritone, sang a Norwegian song, and was toasted with cries of " Skoal ! " The Icelander presented a gorgeously illuminated address of congratulation from the Althing. Karl Holter announced the gift to the public library of Kirkwall of two hundred volumes of Norse literature from the associated publishers of Norway. The long history of the Cathedral of St. Magnus, of the burgh, and of the islands, the kinship of Norseman and Orcadian, the pride of race of the " Northern folk "—such were the recurrent themes and overtones of the speeches. No cne who heard the heartiness with which the National Anthem was later sung could doubt Orcadian loyalty to the King of Great Britain ; but no one equally could escape the con- sciousness that his thoughts were being summoned northward, not southward, and that to Kirkwall and to Orkney there was more reality and more pride in the heroic age of the Orkneyinga Saga, in the centuries of Orkney's greatness under its own semi-independent Earls, than in nearly five hundred years of subsequent history. Scotland seemed remote : England did not exist.
Among the foreign guests, besides those already mentioned, was the Bishop of Nidaros (Trondhjem), who delivered an eloquently simple address during the morning's service in the Cathedral. Among the Scottish ones were the Lord Lieutenant of Orkney, representing King George VI, the Lord Lyon King of Arms, a representative of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Moderator and ex-Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Sheriff- principal of Orkney, Shetland, and Caithness, the Sheriffs of these three counties and the Provosts of their burghs. To what other small town in Scotland could such an embassage of native and foreign officials and dignitaries have been sent ? Their entertainment, in its thoughtfulness, its courtesy, and its dignity, would have done credit to any town or city in Great Britain. So also would the Pageant of Saint Magnus, given twice during the day before large audiences.
Pageants often betray bad management, inexperience, lack of taste, or dramatic or historic absurdity. Here there was nothing of the kind. • The " book " was the work of two distinguished Orkney writers, J. Storer Clouston and Eric Linidater, the latter of whom spoke the prologue to each scene—noble prose, nobly delivered. Its eight scenes told the tale of the murder of Earl Magnus, the winning of the Orkneys by his nephew Earl Rognvald, and Rognvald's founding of the Cathedral to his saintly uncle's memory. There was a cast of nearly six hundred, and almost everyone associated with the production belonged to Orkney, the exceptions being the Pageant Master, Sir Ronald Sinclair (a Caithness man), Karl Holter, and another voluntary assistant, Reidar Kaas, who sang two songs with magnificent effect. The acting was sincere and forceful, dominated though not dwarfed by Karl Holter's splendid characterisation of Earl Rognvald. Grouping and movements were superb ; and the pageant field had for background the majestic ruins of the Earl's Palace and the Cathedral tower itself.
This great and memorable festival was carried out in a burgh whose population, 3,50o, is not much more-than that of a good-sized English village. We knew before that the people of Orkney were hospitable, industrious, prosperous, and contented. We know something,xnore about them now : that they have a lively appreciation of their history and traditions, a spirit of dignity worthy of their great past, an artistic fertility out of all proportion to their numbers, and a welcome incapacity to conceive that inferiority has any rela- tion to size. Scotland has something to learn from Orkney.
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