Note (return) — Chapter XI

Of outward and visible monuments, save here and there a howe or grave-mound, the Vikings, unlike their Pictish predecessors, have left us little or nothing on the mainland. In Iceland the skali7 or farm-house of the Norseman was built with some stone and turf below, and a superstructure of wood which has long ago perished,8 and but slight traces of foundations are visible on the surface there. From the frequent burnings in the Saga we know that such houses were of highly inflammable materials which would soon perish. The place-name, "Skaill," remains both in Sutherland and Caithness. But no skilled antiquary, has as yet laid bare by excavation the secrets of likely sites of Norse dwellings in these counties, as Mr. A.W. Johnston has done at The Jarls' Bu at Orphir, in Orkney.9 And yet, if Drumrabyn or Dunrabyn, Rafn's Ridge or Broch, be the true derivation of Dunrobin (and the name is found at a time when as yet no Robin had inhabited the place) possibly the Norse Lawman Rafn had a house of consequence there like his Pictish predecessors, if, indeed, he did not inhabit the Pictish broch whose foundations were found on or under the present castle's site. There was also a castle of note on the northern shore of the modern port of Helmsdale, which is probably the castle of Sorlinc of Mr. Collingwood's William the Wanderer, also called Surclin, both words being a corrupt form, it is suggested, of Scir-Illigh, the old name of the parish of Kildonan.