Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/14

 and drove out the Picts. The islands were also settled by the Scots, so that to-day the real Shetlander is a mixture of Pict, Norse, and Scotch.

These people are a very simple folk, who follow the sea from June until September, the herring fisheries of the islands being the most important industry.

The main island of Shetland is about fifty miles in length, but it is so indented with voes, or bays, and so irregular that nowhere is the inland farm more than three miles from the sea.

This island of Shetland is the largest of the one hundred islands that form the Shetland group. Its seacoast is as wild and weird as nature could well make it. The winds and the waves have been hammering away at the coast-line for untold ages, and their workmanship is very wonderful. Thus it is that one sees caves and grottoes along the coast. Great pillars of solid rock, called drongs, stand far out at sea, rearing their heads like the giants of