THE VIKING’S PICTURE

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 May 1935, Page 10

THE VIKING’S PICTURE

A SCRATCH ON A SLATE. Nearly 1000 years ago an artist in the Shetland Isles started to make A picture. j He was a Viking, so, of course, the, picture was of a. ship. Instead of a’ canvas he had a piece of slate, and he scratched on it with a sharp point, while (no doubt) people looked on and ciiticised, as they do to-day. The picture was found during excavations carried out at Sumburgh Vce, in the Shetland Isles. Here the storms uncovered ruins of very ancient dwellings and excavations begun 30 years ago. We know now that people dwelled on the site, from the Stone Age till the tenth or twelfth centuries. Their homes, hearths and pottery have been found We know that they lived with their cattle, for the most part, and the bones and shells in their middens tell us what they ate in the different ages. The Vikings’s picture has been admired and criticised afresh, after lying hidden for centuries. There are about 50 other bits of slate decorated with designs, but none so ambitious as the Viking ship. It has a mast forward, with stays and shrouds. The prow and stern are high, with a steering oar at the stern. Single strokes suggest the crew, 10 oarsmen, three steersmen, and the skipper. There is something quite extraordinarily interesting and moving about this contemporary picture of a Viking ship. No doubt she meant as much to the artist as the Golden Hind or the Victory do to the Englishmen. The finest house is the Viking house lately excavated, which is 96 feet long and had a huge lire with two fireplaces and a raised dais for table and benches. Here on the bitter Shetland nights men were warm and merry. Here they sang songs like the Sea. Reiver’s Song, and here they admired tile masterpiece of the very old master whoso name we shall never know, though we know his work, the Viking ship scratched on a bit of slate seven inches by two inches.