S54 Extracts from Dr Hibbert’s Description 
Before quitting the Burgh of Mousa, I endeavoured to ex- 
plore some of the chambers belonging to it, but owing to the 
ruined state of the floors, the attempt was too hazardous. A 
lively historian has remarked, that in Scandinavia, such recesses 
were often devoted in days of yore to the security of young 
damsels of distinction, who w'ere never safe while so many bold 
warriors were rambling up and down in quest of adventures. 
It is also surmised, that galleries like these which run winding 
around the walls, were, from the direction which they took, 
not unfrequently distinguished by the name of Serpents or 
Dragons ; and hence the many allegorical romaunts that were 
coined concerning princesses of great beauty being guarded by 
such monsters. It is unlucky, however, for the historical inte- 
rest of the Dragon-fortress of Mousa, that within the dismal 
serpentine windings of its apartments, was confined a damsel 
past her prime of life, and as well entitled to be “ shrined for 
her brittleness,” as any of the frail heroines of antiquity. In 
the fourteenth century, when, by the rights of udal succes- 
sion, there were joint Earls of Orkney, Dame Margareta, the 
widowed-mother of one of them, listened to the lawless im- 
portunity of the gay Brunnius, Harold, her son, became im- 
patient of the family disgrace, and banished from the islands 
his mother’s paramour, as well as the illegitimate offspring that 
were the fruits of the connection. But, in the course of a short 
^time. Dame Margareta’s beauties attracted the notice of a more 
honourable suitor, who was no other than Harold’s partner in 
the Earldom of Orkney and Shetland. Erlend preferred love 
to the Dame, which she returned, but as her son, from some 
cause, was averse to the nuptials, the parties entered into a 
tender engagement without his consent, and afterwards fled 
from his fury with all speed into Mousa. Then must Harold 
needs follow them, his hostile barks sailing in pursuit, as fast as 
if all the winds of heaven had driven them ; and then, anon, 
fled the dame Margareta and Erlend into the fort, within the 
dark recesses of which they nestled like two pigeons in a dove- 
cot. The Burgh was beset with troops, but so impregnable 
was its construction, that the assaulter found he had no chance 
of reducing it, but by cutting off* all supplies of food, and by 
this means waiting the result of a tedious siege. And now 
