TAP Field Report No. 5 A survey of Shetland's gallow hills Joris ...

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TAP Field Report No. 5 Figure 46 Parish division of Shetland asdocumented in the Old Statistical Account(1791-99) with the location of gallow hills andpossible gallows sites.Parishes: 1 Dunrossness; 2 Sandwick; 3 Burra; 4Cunningsburgh; 5 Tingwall; 6 Bressay; 7 Whiteness;8 Foula; 9 Sandsting; 10 Walls; 11 Nesting; 12 Sandness;13 Aithsting; 14 Whalsay; 15 Papa Stour; 16Lunasting; 17 Delting; 18 Northmavine; 19 South-Yell; 20 Fetlar; 21 Unst; 22 North-Yell; 23 Mid-Yell;24 Weisdale; 25 Lerwick; 26 Quarffanother, more interesting thing: several of thediscussed gallows sites are indeed close to the(theoretical) border of different parishes. Thebest examples are the Know of Wilga, whichlies at the border of Cunningsburgh and Sandwick,and the Gallow Hill of Walls, which isclose to the border of Sandsting, ‘guarding’the Bridge of Walls. If we assume that Deltingwas divided into several parishes, with St.Magnus church in Laxobigging and St. Olaf’schurch in Olnairth as the principle churches,Figure 47 Pre-reformation parish churches(after Cant 1975, see also ig. 44) and theirassociated parishes modelled as Thiessen-polygonswith the location of gallow hills and possiblegallows sites.the Gallow Hill of Brae would be exactly at theborder. The same applies to Gulga in Gluss, locatednear the theoretical border between theparishes of St. Ofaf’s church in Ollaberry andSt. Magnus’ (?) church in Hillswick, as well asto Muckle Heog, at the border between theparishes of St. Mary’s church in Haroldswickand St. John’s in Baliasta. The so-called GallowsKnowe at Holsigarth in Mid-Yell is rightat the border between Mid- and South-Yell,both of which are listed separately in the OldStatistical Account. As stated above, the GallowHills of Unst, Fetlar and Whalsay can alsobe considered to be located at the border oftheir parishes.However, it needs to be stressed that not all32
Gallow hillsof the discussed sites follow this rule. The GallowHill of Huesbreck, Golgo in Sandwick andthe Watch Hill (Gallow Hill?) in Northmavineare in the centre rather than at the border oftheir respective parishes.Summarising the above, it is hard to see anyconnection between the gallows place namesand the alleged thing-sites or the division ofthe thing-districts. There is, however, a verystrong link with the pre-Reformation parishchurches and the early modern parish division.Most of the gallows sites are close toan old parish church and directed towardsan internal parish boundary; that is, near theborder of several parishes, which must havebeen joined together before the 17th century.Gallows and prehistoricmonumentsOne of the common features that Smith(2006) identiied in his analysis of Shetland’sgallows sites was their close associationwith prehistoric monuments. Most of thesemonuments can be identiied as Neolithicand Bronze Age burial cairns. Only in Golgo inSandwick, the place of execution is reportedto have been a standing stone, which, unfortunately,does not survive.The association of (Medieval) gallows withprehistoric monuments, especially barrows,is well known from all over north-westernEurope (Meurkens 2010; Reynolds 2009).However, we need to distinguish betweenprehistoric barrows called Gallow Hill, andlarge, natural hills, which bear the same nameand have prehistoric burials on their summitor slope. In the former case, the namerefers to the prehistoric monument itself(although the nature of the monument neednot have been apparent to those, who coinedthe name); in the latter case, the name refersto a natural hill, which just happens to hostone or more prehistoric sites. In the lattercase, the association between the prehistoricmonument and the place of execution is lessevident and needs further veriication. Forthe gallows sites in Shetland, this is very dif-icult, since we do not know the exact locationof any of the gallows. To assume that they mayhave been located on or near the prehistoricmonuments would be an obvious circularargument.Of the 13 sites discussed above, seven arehilltops or hillocks with a cairn on their summit.At least three of them are problematic:the summit of the Gallow Hill in Tingwall ismerely marked by a small, undateable stoneheap, which does not seem to have formed animpressive monument at any time. There aresome more elaborate structures nearby, butagain, we do not know the exact location ofthe gallows. The same applies to the GallowHill of Unst, which has some truly spectacularcairns, but lacks a distinct summit. For thetime being, the evidence for the gallows sitein Gluss is very weak, and its identiication,as Smith (2006) argued, is partially based onthe presence of a prehistoric cairn. Hence, thissite should be excluded from the discussion toprevent circular reasoning.In ive cases, there is no evident associationof the gallows site with any prehistoric monuments.There are burial cairns on the GallowHills of Walls and Brae, but they are located atthe base or on the slope of the hill. The GallowHills of Scalloway and Fetlar and the hill ofHolsigarth do not host any visible prehistoricsites at all.To this it must be added, that it is harder toind a hill without visible prehistoric remainsin Shetland than one with. In my opinion,there is not enough evidence to postulate ageneral association of the Medieval places ofexecution in Shetland with prehistoric (sepulchral)monuments.However, the situation is slightly differentfor the vanished standing stone at Golgo inSandwick. Here, the tradition directly describesthe use of a possibly prehistoric monumentas a gibbet. There is a similar examplefrom Aberdeenshire: the Hanging Stone onGallows Hill near Rosehearty, a tall standingstone now included in a ield wall (Fig.48), is also said to have been used to hangpeople. 32 In fact, numerous standing stones33
Page 1 and 2: TAP Field Report No. 5A survey ofSh
Page 3 and 4: Gallow hillsTable of contentsIntrod
Page 5 and 6: Gallow hills
Page 7 and 8: Gallow hillssite’s biography and
Page 10 and 11: TAP Field Report No. 5to the northw
Page 12 and 13: TAP Field Report No. 5Figure 11 Top
Page 14 and 15: TAP Field Report No. 5 Figure 17 V
Page 16 and 17: TAP Field Report No. 5Hills (252m).
Page 18 and 19: TAP Field Report No. 59) Watch Hill
Page 20: TAP Field Report No. 5Figure 28 Top
Page 23 and 24: Gallow hillsFigure 36 Topography of
Page 25 and 26: Gallow hillsWilgi Geos should proba
Page 27 and 28: Gallow hillsboth from the sea and l
Page 29 and 30: Gallow hillsFigure 44 Location of p
Page 31: Gallow hillsas Herrisdale (Park) an
Page 35 and 36: Gallow hillsturn are strongly conne
Page 37 and 38: Gallow hillsNotes1Brian Smith, foru
Page 39 and 40: Gallow hillsCrawford, O.G.S. 1922.
Page 41 and 42: Gallow hillsAppendix IHistorically
Page 43 and 44: Gallow hills‘Luckymenis Ness’ (
Page 45 and 46: Gallow hillsto be naild to the gall
Page 47 and 48: Gallow hills47
Page 49: Gallow hills49

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