Protecting Orkney: The 12th century beacon and watch system

Orkneyinga saga provides remarkable detail on a Norse beacon system operating in Orkney and Fair Isle in the early twelfth century to provide advance warning of an attack from Norway via Shetland. The system may have been supplemented by other sentinel sites in the form of watch hills. This article uses the information in Orkneyinga saga and expands on a pioneering 1932 article by J S Clouston on the twelfth and seventeenth century beacon systems in which he identified some of the sites using place-names. Clouston’s work is here supplemented with more recent archaeological evidence plus additional sites located via map searches and local Orcadian information. Despite the rich details provided in Orkneyinga saga, many of the practicalities of operating the system are not provided, and this information is drawn from documents relating to the seventeenth century system. In addition, viewshed analysis is included to provide an overview of how the twelfth-century system may have worked. It is the twelfth century system reported on in Orkneyinga saga which is the focus of the article.