Findan

This is a view of the Holm of Papay across from the main island of Papay, papa-ay, priest island. Findan was captured by or given over to a Viking slave-raiding party on the Irish coast (around 845AD) and was en route to Norway. According to Christopher Lowe, '(d)uring an enforced sojourn in Orkney, during which the raiding party rested and awaited a fair wind, Findan was able to make good his escape from an uninhabited island. On meeting a group of strangers, he was subsequently taken to a bishop whose episcopal seat was nearby' (p 8). He stayed with the bishop for two years. The bishop 'had been instructed in the study of letters in Ireland and was quite skilled in the knowledge of this language'. It has been suggested that the uninhabited island was the Holm and that the bishop would have been based at Monkerhoose or St Boniface kirk. Could Findan really have slipped away and landed on South Wick and found 'strangers' who took him to the bishop a mile or so away? Perhaps the raiding party didn't miss him or think it was worth the trouble to go after him. Perhaps they would have met with too much resistance, enough to keep them on the Holm until they got their fair wind? How hard would it be to find him, anyway? But an Irish adventure in Orkney and an episcopal seat on Papay, part of a mission station with good farming land ... An early raiding party, before they got serious. Was there genocide later on these islands?