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REVIEW BY CH
Located more than 100 miles from the Scottish mainland, the cluster of islands collectively known as St Kilda have variously been mythologised as a romantically remote place whose hardy inhabitants were torn from their traditional way of life by circumstances beyond their control, or a lesson in hubris, a doomed attempt at colonising an impossibly extreme environment. Today the Hebridean islands are a World Heritage Site (see CA 263, CA 312, and CA 369) renowned mainly for birdlife; the last human inhabitants departed in 1930. This relocation is often painted in tragic shades, but the story of St Kilda is much more complex – as this comprehensive new book by Andrew Fleming reveals.
An expert in prehistory and landscape history, Fleming has carried out archaeological work on Hirta, the archipelago’s only inhabitable island (work that he wryly describes as ‘a rough gig’), and over the course of nearly 300 pages he explores the experiences of the people who have made St Kilda their home over thousands of years. Tracing the origins of this activity is no mean feat: the first written reference to the archipelago appears in a 13th-century Icelandic saga, and the first detailed description is mid-16th-century in date. As for archaeological evidence, it has traditionally been thought that people did not settle St Kilda until the Iron Age, but Fleming draws together diverse clues to make a persuasive case for occupation beginning in the Neolithic.
Particularly interesting is his exploration of the islands’ place in the history of early Christianity: no saint called ‘Kilda’ is known to have existed, and while 17th-century antiquarian accounts refer to multiple early medieval chapels, no physical remains of these have been identified. We also learn about the impact of Viking activity, and for later periods Fleming delves deeply into written evidence, making illuminatingly efficient use of the digitised resources of the British Newspaper Archive. His later chapters are rich with social history, counteracting stereotypes of the island community’s final decline to produce a much more nuanced and interesting view. His aim, he notes, is to create ‘a three-way conversation between anecdote, opinion, and analysis’, and this approach is very effective.
The Gravity of Feathers: Fame, Fortune, and the Story of St Kilda
Andrew Fleming
Birlinn, £25
ISBN 978-1780278810
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