Orkney
Archipelago in ScotlandWikipedia
696
MENTIONS
266
EPISODES
244
PODCASTS
Search complete. 696 mentions across 266 episodes found for "Orkney".
Sep 12, 2026
Mark StephenHOST
Ah.
Karen MillerSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
I would love to see the Orkney vole.
Mark StephenHOST
Really? Why?
Karen MillerSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Well, because they're just a bit different, aren't they?
26 MINS LATER
Rachel StewartHOST
... and they were saying just do, do...
Rachel StewartHOST
Well, I think it was Mark.
Rachel StewartHOST
Do you remember interviewing, uh, Becky Little, who had an exhibit of Orkney Earths as part of-
Mark StephenHOST
Yes
Thomas CopelandNARRATOR
I did not doubt that the monster followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have finished, that he might receive his companion.
Thomas CopelandNARRATOR
With this resolution, I traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the remotest of the Orkneys as the scene of my labors.
Thomas CopelandNARRATOR
It was a place fitted for such a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually beaten upon by the waves.
Thomas CopelandNARRATOR
The soil was barren, scarcely affording pasture for a few miserable cows and oatmeal for its inhabitants, which consisted of five persons whose gaunt and scraggly limbs gave token of their miserable fare.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
Eugene Field and Northern Lore.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
While in London, Eugene Field was always talking about the Orkney Islands, the dreariest, foggiest, and most uninteresting patches of land in the wet you want to see.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
He had discovered somehow that Queen Mary of Scots had created brute Bothwell, Duke of Orkney, a title reserved for members of the reigning family.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
Hence her bestowal of the title helped to emphasize still more the hatred of the nobles against her husband.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
He chewed the matter over for a month.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
Then one rainy afternoon at the Cafe Royal, he got it off his chest.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
I want to go to the Orkney Islands to find traces of Bothwell and perhaps get a new angle on that fearless lass, as fearless as she was vindictive, Mary.
John GreenmanNARRATOR
When the queen was taken prisoner, Bothwell made for the Orkneys and chose one of the smaller islands to assemble a piratical navy.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
The great dark king went thundering down upon his enemies.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
When the king of Orkney saw him coming, he cried, Oh, we are in great danger! I see King Bors, one of the best and bravest kings in the world, and he is helping our enemy.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
Then the other kings were astonished, for they did not know that Arthur had sent outside his country for help.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
But we will fight on, they said, no matter how powerful he is.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
While they were still fighting, but with great loss of courage, they heard the loud sounds made by the hooves of other tramping horses, and King Ban rode down on them, followed by his men.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
His black brows were frowning, and his green and gold colors glittered in the sun.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
"'Alas! alas!' cried the king of Orkney.
Robin CotterNARRATOR
"'Now in truth are we lost, for here is another king, no less great than his brother Bors, but we must neither flee nor yield.' The eleven kings, being agreed to this, continued the battle, though so many of their men were killed that the king of Orkney wept.
Tony FosterVOICE_ACTOR
They have cried now that there is room for all at some great feasting.
Tony FosterVOICE_ACTOR
Once have I seen the like before, and that was when I was with the ship Garth, when the Jarl fought his great battle in the Orkneys.
Tony FosterVOICE_ACTOR
We knew that he had fought by the same token.
Tony FosterVOICE_ACTOR
But my mother said that I was surely right.
Tony FosterNARRATOR
They have cried now that there is room for all at some great feasting.
Tony FosterNARRATOR
Once have I seen the like before, and that was when I was with the ship guard, when the jarl fought his great battle in the Orkneys.
Tony FosterNARRATOR
We knew that he had fought by the same token.
Tony FosterNARRATOR
But my mother said that I was surely right.
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
Sometimes these rings for confirming mutual contracts were placed upon the altar and there used.
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
We may perhaps trace this custom in the old form of marriage in the Orkneys, where the contracting parties joined their hands through a perforation of ring in a stone pillar.
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
We read of the Scandinavian use of a ring in Viga Glum's saga.
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
In the midst of a wedding party, Glum calls upon Thorarin, his accuser, to hear his oath, and taking in his hand a silver ring which had been dipped in sacrificial blood, he cites two witnesses to testify to his oath on the ring, and to his having appealed to the gods in his denial of the charge made against him.
1 HR 36 MINS LATER
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
Tonight show me the figure of the man who will take me to wife." There was an ancient superstition that in order to ensure good fortune to a bride, it was necessary that she should enter her house under two drawn swords placed in the form of St.
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
Andrew's cross.
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
In certain districts of the Orkneys, the people marry only when the moon is growing, believing that the waning moon is fruitless, a superstition which recalls the words of Theseus in the Midsummer Night's Dream, "Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon." Some couples even wish for a flowing tide at their nuptials.
Jennifer Beckett WoodNARRATOR
Thursday is also esteemed the luckiest day in the week for marriage by the Orcadians.
Alasdair DayGUEST
And so, again, long story short, we put in some concerto, which was the commercial variety of choice at the time, knowing that we'd grow, but also knowing it wasn't going to ripen.
Alasdair DayGUEST
We grew a variety called tartan, which was being grown in Orkney for Highland Park in the shorter growing season.
Alasdair DayGUEST
We grew some bare barley, because obviously it's an ancient land race, you know, it started life 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East and slowly moved as people migrated, arriving in Orkney and the Outer Hebrides about 2,500 years ago.
Alasdair DayGUEST
So it would naturally have adjusted to the climate.
Alasdair DayGUEST
We also put in some Escria.
Alasdair DayGUEST
There's no animal agricultural infrastructure, no other than small-scale crofting for probably, you would have to get to Dingwall, which would probably be about the closest place that you'd be growing.
Alasdair DayGUEST
you'd be growing barley with an infrastructure.
Alasdair DayGUEST
So, you know, the best example of that is we had to bring a plot combine down from Orkney to do the combining.
Niall Mac EachmharcaighGUEST
Gola for the day I hope lovely blue and white boat
Greg HughesHOST
yes you know an Orkney is it no no I think she's a bass boat she's only 16
Niall Mac EachmharcaighGUEST
foot that's perfect size
Greg HughesHOST
yeah
speaker_1NARRATOR
And Arabian mothers long awed their infants to silence with the name of the lion-hearted Plantagenet.
speaker_1NARRATOR
At one time it seemed that the line of Eucope was about to end as the Merovingian and Carlovingian lines had ended, and that a single great monarchy would spread from the Orkneys to the Pyrenees.
speaker_1NARRATOR
So strong an association is established in most minds between the greatness of a sovereign and the greatness of the nation which he rules, that almost every historian of England has expatiated with a sentiment of exultation on the power and splendour of her foreign masters.
speaker_1NARRATOR
and has lamented the decay of that power and splendour as a calamity to our country.
256 more episodes mention Orkney.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.