I Beg Your Pardon...Do You Garden?

Gunnie Moberg:Double exposure images made in the garden at Don. These ones date between 1996 -2003. The scans are made from Gunnie’s test prints.

We complain about the weather a lot on this blog and typical Orkney has provided plenty of grist for our grumpy mill this year with thunder, torrential rain, heat-waves and icy winds. Sometimes all in one morning.


The mood is definitely more Summery now though and we have had a lot of lovely days. We should probably do our gardens but we will probably just lie around eating twixes instead. (Other chocolate bars are available... like wispas....or snickers.... or, oooh, the yorkies with raison and biscuits in... mmmmmm)




It has been over a year now since Rebecca Marr left the Gunnie Moberg Archive but her lovely blog about the process of cataloguing the collection is still active and it is worth taking a look at this post on Gunnie's beautiful Stromness garden if you are feeling gardeny yet lazy.




You can look at Rebecca's own photographs here.

The 12 Seals of Christmas #3

SEAL: I've told my mum about how you tricked me and she says it's really unfair!

ARCHIVER: Not now Seal. We're working.

SEAL: Yeah, working at ruining others' self -esteem...

ARCHIVER: Oh come now, have a Twix.

SEAL: Ok.



Today's fab seal is another burgess ticket, this time for the burgh of Wick in favour of Robert Baikie of Tankerness. The date is 4th November 1878.

The Wick seal is lovely, a wee townscape of buildings beside the shore.

Orkney Archive Reference: D24/9/131

Going... going...scone!

There has just been a booksale at Orkney Auction Mart and our assistant archivist has made her usual visit both to obtain new stock for the Archive and, more importantly, to wink at farmers over a mince roll in the cafe.

The bidding process is quite stressful and so she is always rolled and tied into an old duvet beforehand to soak up all the sweat and we tuck several twixes beneath the twine so that she can keep up her strength. This means that some chocolate always gets onto her David Dickinson-esque pin-striped suit but there's usually a bit of fake tan on there already. There is always quite a lot of competition over the best stuff and A.A. had to punch three other bidders to the ground, but we ended up with three boxes of haul.

 These include Stromness Shopping Week programmes, an admiralty map and this brilliant 1952 book of recipes which was made to raise money for the St Andrews Church repair fund:

Mmmmmmmmm oatmeal buns...

Recipes include those for various cakes, mmmmmm... cakes..., a fruity filling for pies, mmmmmm...pies..., Magic macaroons,Treacles Scones, Creamed Potatoes and Lemonade. It also contains a little rhyme telling how to brew the perfect cup of tea:

That Cup Of Tea.

Be sure to heat the earthen pot

And have your water boiling hot.

Put in a teaspoonful per cup

That each of you intend to sup.

Allow to stand for minutes four,

Then off the leaves be sure to pour.

When serving put the milk in first,

Add sugar and allay your thirst.

With this delightful, fragrant brew

You'll be refreshed and live anew.

There are also some useful household hints at the back as well as a pressed plant:

There is no indication as to the contributors of the recipes. Can anybody enlighten us?

GWA (Geeks With Attitude)'s Ode To Archiving in Honour Of Ice Cube's B'Day

You are about to witness the strength of geek knowledge...

Straight outta storage, dusty letters from dead dudes,

Catalogued by geeks with attitude

When I'm called on, I get my gloves on,

Open the folder and get my read on,

You too sir, if you read the rules

The archive staff are gonna hafta come and shush you,

If you chat, or get a mobile out,

If you eat a twix or a bun, we'll throw you out,

Readers start to grumble, they wanna copy stuff,

Over five percent and man you've had enough!

Goin off on an archivist like that,

When all she doin is protectin old tat,

So give up the phone,

I'm just doin my job, so no need to moan,

Here's a heavy weight to keep yo stuff flat,

It's in old writin, how you like that?

Paeoleography is the name,

It's just part of the archivin game,

Me n you can make it out, no maybe,

I'm takin records out the box, daily,

Yo weekly, monthly, yearly,

Until them dumb, dusty letters read clearly,

And I'm there with the archival sticky tape,

Sir, you can't fix like me,

So when I'm in the searchroom, you better wait,

Coz archivist is packin up stuff,

As I leave, believe I'm clompin,

But when I come back, I'm comin straight out of storage...

Rapped to the tune of Straight Outta Compton by NWA. There can be no youtube link to such a profanity filled song on this innocent blog, (and our firewall restrictions make it hard for us to access anything related to NWA.) but you probably all own it anyway, I am sure.

Not Sure If You're Registered For Tommorrow?

The Orkney Library and Archive had an amazing May Day holiday thanks for asking. Our mums made us a pack lunch and we sat at the back of a bus singing 'You cannae push your granny off a bus..' and 'Stop the bus I need a wee wee...drink of tea.'

We went 'round all the tourist sites and then headed back to Kirkwall for our session at Jungle World. Who do you think we met there? Only Craig David!

'Craig!' we cried, 'what are you doing here?'

'It's my birthday Hot Stuff, I love the ball pit!'

'Ah, but do you prefer it to laser quest?'

'It's Six of one, half a dozen of the other.'

'Shall you be voting tomorrow Craig?'

'I thought the election was in 7 days.'

No silly, it's tomorrow.'

I can't remember if I've registered to vote, can you fill me in on how I can find out that information?'

'Just check the electoral register, dummy, it's at the archives desk on the first floor.'

'Thanks.'

May Day

I hope you all remembered to wash your faces in May Day dew this morning, as that is a tradition that is known in Orkney and all over Scotland and one that apparently boosts your looks. None of the staff here bothered because we're all ridiculously good-looking anyway but we saw fit to remind the rest of you.

I hope also that all you single ladies out there remember to set out your fresh buckets of urine, ready to receive a peat from the May Day fire, which you will then fish out in the morning and split open to reveal the colour of your future lover's hair. People actually did this.

May Day, or Beltane is the sun God festival and a celebration of the end of winter and the beginnings of peat cutting and crop planting. 'Bel' or 'Bael' is the old name for the sun god and 'tain' means fire.

May Day was thought to be an indicator of how the crops would fare:

If the wind is in the Sooth

Thir'll be braed for every mooth;

If the wind is in the Aest

There'll be dule for man an' baest;

Sud the wind blas fae the West

The muckle shaeves are ill tae fest;

If the wind comes fae the Nort

Aa' the rigs are tight and short.

It was thought that building great big fires would warm the earth and attract the attention of Bal who would then bless the earth with sun. Up until quite recently, Shetlanders and Orcadians would not cut a single peat until 12th May which was when Beltane was originally celebrated. When the fires were lit, people sensibly leapt through and over the flames.

The image above shows the relationship between Maeshowe, The Ring of Brodgar and The Stones of Stenness. The various alignments between these monuments seemed to tally with the sun festivals; the solstices, the equinoxes, Hallowmas and Beltane.

Most festivals require a feast, or special meal of some kind and there is indeed a Beltane bannock. This bannock was often spread with a mixture of egg, milk and oatmeal which, quite frankly, sounds repulsive.

As regular readers will already know, Orkney Library and Archive fear fire above all other things and we are greatly offended by untasty food. We shall, therefore, be celebrating this ancient festival by eating a twix beside a radiator whilst taking great care not to get crumbs on the documents.

Information taken from:

D31/BBC/7 - Ernest Walker Marwick's Island Calendar

D32/3/22&23 - Magnus Spence notebooks.

The Silver Bough Volumes 1 & 2 by F. Marian McNeill

Illustration taken from County Folklore Volume III, Orkney and Shetland Islands by G. F. Black