TALK: Medieval Unst with Lesley McKay
Thursday, July 11th 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Auditorium, Shetland Museum and Archives
Tickets £5
It’s now sixty years since James III of Scotland acquired Shetland. Sixty years since Norway ruled Shetland. Did a Norse identity sustain in Unst? What evidence is there using language, Law and Archival documents.
Political, social and religious disruption is spreading through Denmark and Norway. 16yr old James V has escaped from his childhood captivity and is raising an army to seek revenge on his uncle Henry VIII. The Orkney Sinclairs have slaughtered their kinsmen, the Earl of Orkney, Shetland and Caithness and 300 of his men on Orkney. The deadly English Sweating Sickness has shut German ports and Bremen merchants cannot reach Unst.
Lesley McKay is a PhD researcher from the University of the Highlands and Islands and has collaborated with Oxford University and Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. She is the recipient of the 2024 Dorothy Dunnett Centenary Award for her historical research.
She publishes her creative work under Lesley Traynor and is Co-Chair of the Federation of Writers Scotland.
She we will be joined by the Shetland writer, Chris Tait, who will read a poem written at Haroldswick which includes Norn references.
Category: Lectures