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6. The Earldom of Orkney.
That the earliest Norse settlers in Orkney and
Shetland found Irish priests in the islands, is known
from the names of Papa Stour, Papa Little and Papa
in Scalloway, Papal in Unst and Yell, and Papil in
Burra (Shetland), also Papa in Westray and Stronsay,
Paplay in South Ronaldsay and in Holm, and Papdale
near Kirkwall (Orkney). It has been remarked (p. 241)
that the word Papar for "priests" must have been
brought by the Norse ; it shows that, contrary to
Dasent’s opinion, the Shetlands were not uninhabited,
and that the heathen invaders recognised the priests
from the first. The persistence of the names Rinansey
(St. Ninian’s Isle), Enhallow (Holy Isle), and Damsey
(St. Adamnan’s Isle) in Orkney, and St. Ninian’s Isle in
Shetland, together with the preservation of chapels of
early Celtic type, suggests that the priests were not
exterminated, in spite of a local tradition in Unst
(quoted by the Rev. A Sandison, Saga-book of the
Viking Club, i. 244) that the Picts fought until only
a priest and his son were left, and they perished
refusing to tell the secret of the heather-ale, as in the
Highland story picturesquely retold by Niel Munro
in The Lost Pibroch. Early dedications to Ninian,
Columba, Brigit and Triduana may have survived the
invasion ; and it is possible that some of the sculptured
stones with ogams may be pre-Norse. On the other
hand, in the ogams of the Bressay stone (Shetland)
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