42 FEBRUARY 



sect and divide the holdings, a form of barrier even 

 more forbidding than the tombstones. Then, afar 

 on the southern horizon, Morven, landmark for all 

 Caithness, lifts his lonely peak, marking ' the high 

 light ' with snowy cone. Only in the north, where 

 the cloud lowers darkest, the headlong precipices 

 of Hoy, southmost of the Orkneys, refresh the eye 

 with deep, rich blue. 



What can it have been that induced the Norse- 

 men, for centuries lords of this shore, to name this 

 river after their most vengeful deity ? Thurso 

 that is, Thorns a the river of Thor should be 

 something majestic or appallingly destructive, one 

 would say ; but this stream, though dark and deep, 

 is insignificant in volume compared to the rivers of 

 Scandinavia, and even when in full flood is not to 

 be feared like the Spey or the Findhorn. Perhaps 

 their imaginations were touched by the intense 

 dreariness of the near landscape and the mysterious 

 gloom which so often hangs over the sea. It was a 

 sense of the overwhelming forces of nature that has 

 caused their English-speaking descendants to twist 

 the old Norse name of the headland lying to the 

 west of Thurso Bay into one expressive of the 

 implacable storms which rage there in winter. Cape 



