150 THE SHETLANDS IN THE 



Helen of Troy, who, in the days of King Stephen, was 

 carried off to Mousa by Harold Erland, was a lady of as 

 much taste as beauty, she may, with the help of a few 

 gay-coloured bullock skins as sofa covers and curtains 

 to keep off the draughts, have made herself very com- 

 fortable as things went in those days during the long 

 siege which the castle stood before her marrage with 

 the turbulent lover who had compromised her. 



The wall to the height of the top of the chamber 

 dome is (excepting the chamber spaces) a solid heap 

 of stone, between 15 and 16 feet thick. A little 

 above the level of the tops of the chamber domes the 

 wall divides, and thence to the top of the castle is built 

 double in two concentric circles. In the hollow be- 

 tween the two walls a staircase (F), or rough stone 

 path, not unlike the paved gradient by which the horses 

 reach the stables over the coach-houses of Marlborough 

 House, entered from the court by a door (E and I), 

 leads up to the top of the castle, and six horizontal 

 galleries (H) run round the building, lighted by holes 

 opening inwards (K). Each gallery ends abruptly a 

 few feet from the stairs, and all are so arranged that no 

 one could reach the top of the tower without stooping 

 and exposing himself to a knock on the head from an 

 unseen enemy at each successive stage. The only 

 break in the outside wall is at (A) the entrance to the 

 courtyard. 



Unless, as is not impossible, the walls have been 

 nipped by settlements, the Picts, or whoever else they 

 may have been who first designed the castle and bur- 



