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The Swan at LerwickShetland: A Very Short History

For almost all of the 5,000 years or more that people have inhabited Shetland, their living came from farming and fishing. Before the Viking invasion, Pictish peoples occupied Shetland. They left no written history but there are many physical remains including settlements, the astonishing towers called brochs, carved stones and beautiful silver objects. From about 800AD, they were either displaced by - or absorbed into - waves of Norse immigration. Shetland was to remain under Norwegian control for around 600 years.

In 1469, King Christian I of Norway mortgaged the islands to the Scottish crown to raise part of the dowry for the marriage of his daughter Margaret to King James III of Scotland. In 1472, the islands were annexed to Scotland. Scottish landowners moved in; law, architecture and religion became Scottish. The language of Scotland also spread northwards, though today’s dialect and place-names provide abundant evidence of Old Norse influence. A strong Scandinavian thread still runs through other aspects of Shetland’s culture.

Shetland’s fishing grounds have always been especially rich and merchants from the Hanseatic League traded in fish for three exchanged cash, grain, cloth, beer and other goods for shiploads of salted cod and ling. The ending of the trade, as a consequence of the Act of Union in 1707, was a serious setback. Later in the eighteenth century, Shetland-based merchant landowners gradually built up fishing businesses, forcing tenants to fish for them, but Shetland’s economy remained fragile.

In the 19th century, landowners undertook ‘clearances’ in several parts of Shetland, replacing people with more profitable sheep. However, there were also periods of real prosperity based on fishing.

Fishing also prospered, despite difficulties, in the later decades of the 20th century and fish and shellfish farming became important too. Ashore, there began to be a new appreciation of the potential value of Shetland’s indigenous agricultural products, in particular lamb flavoured by grazing on heather or the seashore. This was accompanied by renewed interest in the islands’ extraordinary heritage and a flourishing of music and the arts.

Today, the best of Shetland produce is appreciated not only by the 22,000 inhabitants of the islands but by discerning customers nationally and internationally.