Early English Settlement of Orkney and Shetland, The

In this new book by one of Britain’s foremost experts in mediaeval linguistics and history, Dr Graeme Davis counters popular historical belief by proposing that there was a Saxon settlement in both Orkney and Shetland during the fourth century AD. The Saxons were a minority group, and were ultimately subsumed into the Norwegian Viking population which migrated to the islands from around AD 790, but they had a four-hundred year presence in the islands, and constitute one of the first English settlements in the British Isles. Basing his thesis on extensive linguistic, historical and archaeological research, Dr Davis challenges some of the longest held beliefs about the settlement of Orkney and Shetland and casts a new light on the origins and history of the first island settlers.

Dr Graeme Davis is a specialist in the mediaeval world, its language, literature and culture. Recent books include studies of the language and literature of Anglo-Saxon, Old High German and Old Icelandic cultures. He is a research fellow at Northumbria University, previously a British Academy funded researcher at the University of Iceland, and an enthusiast for the North Atlantic region, where he has travelled extensively.