1055.—St. Magnus, Kirkwall.details

The Reformation in Scotland, which had so nearly caused the destruction of Glasgow Cathedral, spared one other building of the same kind, and only one—the Cathedral of St. Magnus, at the seaport twn of Kirkwall (Fig. 1055), the capital of the Orkney Islands, and this pile too has become familiar to us through the writings of the great novelist, who has made the neighbourhood the scene of his romance of ‘The Pirate;’ and with happy propriety; for the spot chosen may be said to have been dedicated from the very earliest period to the service of those who adopted on the largest scale the principle—

The Orkneys formed the general rendezvous of the Danish pirates, and the Cathedral itself was founded by a Danish monarch, Olave.

Rollo, Earl of Orkney, was the conqueror of Normandy, and the ancestor of the conqueror of England. It will beseen from the engraving that St. Magnus’ is in excellent contition; it is still the parish church. (p. 302)