Funzie Girt dyke
Encyclopedia
Funzie Girt is an ancient dividing wall that was erected from north to south across the island of Fetlar
in Scotland. Some sources describe it as having been built in the Neolithic
, but the date of construction is not certainly known. The line of the wall, which ran for over 4 kilometres (2.5 mi), once divided the island in two almost equal sections. Also known as the Finnigirt Dyke, it has vanished in places at the southern end, although the ruins are clearly visible along much of the uninhabited north of the island where it is a conspicuous feature of the landscape. The dyke's original purpose is not known, nor is its relationship to other archaeological sites of a similar age nearby. There are various folk tales about its construction and it is the subject of various pieces of Shetland folk music
.
inhabitants of the islands who were said to possess magical powers. (The later Iron Age inhabitants of the Northern Isles
were actually Pictish
, although the historical record is fairly sparse.) The variation between Finn and Funzie is due to widespread confusion of the letter ȝ (yogh)
with the cursive
form of the letter z. An earlier name for the dyke was simply "Finnigord" and Finnigirt dyke is thus tautologous as gord already means "dyke".
The dyke could have had a role in the naming of Fetlar itself. The division of the island by the dyke was so marked that the Norse seemed to treat Fetlar as two distinct islands—which they called "Est Isle" and "Wast Isle". Haswell-Smith (2004) suggests that the derivation of the name is from fetill, the Old Norse
for a "strap" or a "tie", and that Fetlar could therefore mean "two islands tied together" by the dyke. Gammeltoft (2010) however, argues that fetlar actually means "shoulder-straps", that this description is hardly an obvious one for an island name and Fetlar is thus most probably a Norse adaptation of a precursor language. This was probably the Pictish language
although there is no unequivocal evidence for this.
"), crosses an RSPB reserve to the west of Vord Hill, then vanishes near the enclosure of Whilsa Pund. It reappears at the southern shore of Skutes Water, and is particularly well-preserved between Riggin of Setter and Rivs Dale, but its line is then lost again as it skirts the settlement of Houbie. It may have crossed an area known as Vallahamars by the ruins of a later broch
reaching the south coast of Fetlar near Stack of Billaclett, although local tradition asserts that it ended at the edge of the cliffs of Clemmels Geos . The total length would therefore originally have been 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) or more.
Whilsa Pund is constructed using a similar technique and was probably built at a similar time to Funzie Girt. Its stone-built perimeter is oblong in shape and measures roughly 293 metres (320 yd) from north to south and 128 metres (140 yd) transversely. The remains of various structures lie within it and on the west side there is a shallow bay that forms an enclosure approximately 15 square metres (161 sq ft) in area.
There are various other prehistoric ruins near the line of the wall, including the Bronze Age
Hjaltadans stone circle
north of Skutes Water, which is only 6 metres (20 ft) from the dyke, and the three stone circles of Fiddler's Crus to the north-west. There are also two Neolithic heel-shaped cairns, a style of chambered cairn
unique to Shetland, near the summit of Vord Hill.
The hamlet of Funzie and the nearby Bay of Funzie and Loch of Funzie are some 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east of Houbie and appear to have no direct connection with the dyke itself.
provenance and a Bronze Age
date has also been mentioned although the Neolithic is quoted by some authoritative sources. However the distinction between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages is not especially marked in Shetland and a date prior to the 1st millennium BC is likely.
There are numerous old boundary dykes in Shetland and Funzie Girt is considered to be the best surviving example. It both divides the island west to east and also marks an upland/lower land boundary, with the higher slopes of Vord Hill to the east of the dyke. It is constructed from local stones with the largest slabs and boulders placed either on end or on edge and forming the base. The human effort required would have been considerable and suggests a relatively high Neolithic population for Shetland—perhaps as much as 10,000. Although most likely built as a territorial boundary of some kind, the original purpose of the dyke is not certain. In historic times it acted as a boundary marker or hagri, but its huge scale is difficult to reconcile with the available prehistoric human resources. It has been described as a "Bronze Age Berlin Wall", which may have separated two competing tribes.
By contrast, "fealie dykes" were made of turf such as the nearby example at Burn of Feal less than 0.5 kilometres (546.8 yd) east of the line of the Funzie Girt south of Skutes Water. Even when they had stone bases these dykes needed regular maintenance and in historic times were often mounted with fences to make them stock-proof.
" of the bounds in 1820.
The northern, and most complete section of Funzie Girt has been protected as a scheduled monument since December 1957. The notification to Sir Harold Stanley Nicolson of Brough Lodge, Fetlar states that the protected area is "2000 yards or thereby" (i.e. about 1,828 metres) in extent. The text provides a detailed description and the associated map indicates the line of the wall. No land on either side is included. The scheduled area is however contiguous with that of the "irregular polygon" surrounding Whilsa Pund that received similar protection in 1998.
" (or "trow" in Shetlandic
), suggesting that there was a belief at one time that the dyke had been constructed by these mythical creatures. Trolls were also supposed to inhabit a nearby cave on the coast. A local story concerns the farm at Colbinstoft to the west of the dyke on the north coast of Fetlar. The farmer desired a boundary fence for his property and promised that if one appeared during the night he would give up his best cow to the Finns. The next morning the dyke had appeared but the cow was gone. There is also a tradition that it was constructed as a result of a disagreement between two landowners.
Hjaltadans means "limping dance" and local folklore has it that a fiddler and his wife were dancing at night with trolls. They failed to notice the dawn and were all petrified in place when the sun rose, so turning the trolls into the circle of stones, with the two recumbent stones at the centre being the resting place of the humans.
Debbie Scott, a fiddle
player from Papa Stour
recorded the song "Da Hill o' Finnigirt – Da Burn o' Finnigirt" on her 1985 album The Selkie
's Song which features guitarist Peerie Willie Johnson
. There is also a fiddle tune called the " Muckle Reel O' Finnigirt", which accompanied a dance whose steps have now been lost, although it is known that it was played as a break from the more strenuous reels
.
Fetlar
Fetlar is one of the North Isles of Shetland, Scotland, with a population of 86 at the time of the 2001 census. Its main settlement is Houbie on the south coast, home to the Fetlar Interpretive Centre...
in Scotland. Some sources describe it as having been built in the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
, but the date of construction is not certainly known. The line of the wall, which ran for over 4 kilometres (2.5 mi), once divided the island in two almost equal sections. Also known as the Finnigirt Dyke, it has vanished in places at the southern end, although the ruins are clearly visible along much of the uninhabited north of the island where it is a conspicuous feature of the landscape. The dyke's original purpose is not known, nor is its relationship to other archaeological sites of a similar age nearby. There are various folk tales about its construction and it is the subject of various pieces of Shetland folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
.
Etymology
Pronounced ˈfɪni ɡɜrt, the name "Funzie Girt" means "Finns' dyke", the Finns being the legendary pre-NorseNorsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
inhabitants of the islands who were said to possess magical powers. (The later Iron Age inhabitants of the Northern Isles
Northern Isles
The Northern Isles is a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney...
were actually Pictish
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
, although the historical record is fairly sparse.) The variation between Finn and Funzie is due to widespread confusion of the letter ȝ (yogh)
Yogh
The letter yogh , was used in Middle English and Older Scots, representing y and various velar phonemes. It was derived from the Old English form of the letter g.In Middle English writing, tailed z came to be indistinguishable from yogh....
with the cursive
Cursive script
Cursive script may refer to* Cursive, handwriting styles* Roman cursive script, a style of Latin calligraphy.* Hebrew cursive script, a style of Hebrew calligraphy.* East Asian cursive script, a style of Chinese calligraphy....
form of the letter z. An earlier name for the dyke was simply "Finnigord" and Finnigirt dyke is thus tautologous as gord already means "dyke".
The dyke could have had a role in the naming of Fetlar itself. The division of the island by the dyke was so marked that the Norse seemed to treat Fetlar as two distinct islands—which they called "Est Isle" and "Wast Isle". Haswell-Smith (2004) suggests that the derivation of the name is from fetill, the Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
for a "strap" or a "tie", and that Fetlar could therefore mean "two islands tied together" by the dyke. Gammeltoft (2010) however, argues that fetlar actually means "shoulder-straps", that this description is hardly an obvious one for an island name and Fetlar is thus most probably a Norse adaptation of a precursor language. This was probably the Pictish language
Pictish language
Pictish is a term used for the extinct language or languages thought to have been spoken by the Picts, the people of northern and central Scotland in the Early Middle Ages...
although there is no unequivocal evidence for this.
Geography
Originally 1 metres (3 ft) wide it begins at the north shore by the cliffs of Muckle Funziegord Geo ("big Finns' dyke gullyGeo (landscape)
A geo or gio is an inlet, a gully or a narrow and deep cleft in the face of a cliff. Geos are common on the coastline of the Shetland and Orkney islands. They are created by the wave driven erosion of cliffs along faults and bedding planes in the rock. Geos may have sea caves at their heads...
"), crosses an RSPB reserve to the west of Vord Hill, then vanishes near the enclosure of Whilsa Pund. It reappears at the southern shore of Skutes Water, and is particularly well-preserved between Riggin of Setter and Rivs Dale, but its line is then lost again as it skirts the settlement of Houbie. It may have crossed an area known as Vallahamars by the ruins of a later broch
Broch
A broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found only in Scotland. Brochs include some of the most sophisticated examples of drystone architecture ever created, and belong to the classification "complex Atlantic Roundhouse" devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s....
reaching the south coast of Fetlar near Stack of Billaclett, although local tradition asserts that it ended at the edge of the cliffs of Clemmels Geos . The total length would therefore originally have been 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) or more.
Whilsa Pund is constructed using a similar technique and was probably built at a similar time to Funzie Girt. Its stone-built perimeter is oblong in shape and measures roughly 293 metres (320 yd) from north to south and 128 metres (140 yd) transversely. The remains of various structures lie within it and on the west side there is a shallow bay that forms an enclosure approximately 15 square metres (161 sq ft) in area.
There are various other prehistoric ruins near the line of the wall, including the Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
Hjaltadans stone circle
Hjaltadans
Hjaltadans, also known as Fairy Ring or Haltadans stone circle, is a stone circle on the island of Fetlar in Shetland, Scotland. This site is a ring of 38 stones, of which 22 are still fixed in the soil, and it is in diameter. Inside this is an earthen ring in diameter, with a gap in the...
north of Skutes Water, which is only 6 metres (20 ft) from the dyke, and the three stone circles of Fiddler's Crus to the north-west. There are also two Neolithic heel-shaped cairns, a style of chambered cairn
Chambered cairn
A chambered cairn is a burial monument, usually constructed during the Neolithic, consisting of a cairn of stones inside which a sizeable chamber was constructed. Some chambered cairns are also passage-graves....
unique to Shetland, near the summit of Vord Hill.
The hamlet of Funzie and the nearby Bay of Funzie and Loch of Funzie are some 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) east of Houbie and appear to have no direct connection with the dyke itself.
Construction
The date of construction is unknown. Haswell-Smith (2004) speculatively implies a MesolithicMesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
provenance and a Bronze Age
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
date has also been mentioned although the Neolithic is quoted by some authoritative sources. However the distinction between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages is not especially marked in Shetland and a date prior to the 1st millennium BC is likely.
There are numerous old boundary dykes in Shetland and Funzie Girt is considered to be the best surviving example. It both divides the island west to east and also marks an upland/lower land boundary, with the higher slopes of Vord Hill to the east of the dyke. It is constructed from local stones with the largest slabs and boulders placed either on end or on edge and forming the base. The human effort required would have been considerable and suggests a relatively high Neolithic population for Shetland—perhaps as much as 10,000. Although most likely built as a territorial boundary of some kind, the original purpose of the dyke is not certain. In historic times it acted as a boundary marker or hagri, but its huge scale is difficult to reconcile with the available prehistoric human resources. It has been described as a "Bronze Age Berlin Wall", which may have separated two competing tribes.
By contrast, "fealie dykes" were made of turf such as the nearby example at Burn of Feal less than 0.5 kilometres (546.8 yd) east of the line of the Funzie Girt south of Skutes Water. Even when they had stone bases these dykes needed regular maintenance and in historic times were often mounted with fences to make them stock-proof.
History and scheduling
A strip of land 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi) wide that ran along the dyke's eastern side was once known as "Houbie", now the name of Fetlar's principal settlement. Fetlar was surveyed in 1850, at which time part of the Funzie Girt formed the east end of one of the important "marches" or property boundaries for Russeter, west of Colbinstoft on north Fetlar. At that time the oldest man on the island, one Andrew Johnson, claimed to have been on the last "ridingCommon Riding
Common Riding is an annual event celebrated in Scottish Border towns and in some other places, to commemorate the times of the past when local men risked their lives in order to protect their town and people.- Hawick :...
" of the bounds in 1820.
The northern, and most complete section of Funzie Girt has been protected as a scheduled monument since December 1957. The notification to Sir Harold Stanley Nicolson of Brough Lodge, Fetlar states that the protected area is "2000 yards or thereby" (i.e. about 1,828 metres) in extent. The text provides a detailed description and the associated map indicates the line of the wall. No land on either side is included. The scheduled area is however contiguous with that of the "irregular polygon" surrounding Whilsa Pund that received similar protection in 1998.
Folklore and music
A large rock known as "the Haljer o' Fivlagord" lies near the south end of the dyke. Fivl means "trollTroll
A troll is a supernatural being in Norse mythology and Scandinavian folklore. In origin, the term troll was a generally negative synonym for a jötunn , a being in Norse mythology...
" (or "trow" in Shetlandic
Shetlandic
Shetlandic, usually referred to as Shetland by native speakers, is spoken in the Shetland Islands north of mainland Scotland and is, like Orcadian, a dialect of Insular Scots...
), suggesting that there was a belief at one time that the dyke had been constructed by these mythical creatures. Trolls were also supposed to inhabit a nearby cave on the coast. A local story concerns the farm at Colbinstoft to the west of the dyke on the north coast of Fetlar. The farmer desired a boundary fence for his property and promised that if one appeared during the night he would give up his best cow to the Finns. The next morning the dyke had appeared but the cow was gone. There is also a tradition that it was constructed as a result of a disagreement between two landowners.
Hjaltadans means "limping dance" and local folklore has it that a fiddler and his wife were dancing at night with trolls. They failed to notice the dawn and were all petrified in place when the sun rose, so turning the trolls into the circle of stones, with the two recumbent stones at the centre being the resting place of the humans.
Debbie Scott, a fiddle
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
player from Papa Stour
Papa Stour
Papa Stour is one of the Shetland Islands in Scotland, with a population of under twenty people, some of whom immigrated after an appeal for residents in the 1970s. Located to the west of mainland Shetland and with an area of 828 hectares , Papa Stour is the eighth largest island in Shetland...
recorded the song "Da Hill o' Finnigirt – Da Burn o' Finnigirt" on her 1985 album The Selkie
Selkie
Selkies are mythological creatures that are found in Faroese, Icelandic, Irish, and Scottish folklore....
's Song which features guitarist Peerie Willie Johnson
Peerie Willie Johnson
"Peerie" Willie Johnson was a Scottish folk guitarist and bassist...
. There is also a fiddle tune called the " Muckle Reel O' Finnigirt", which accompanied a dance whose steps have now been lost, although it is known that it was played as a break from the more strenuous reels
Reel (dance)
The reel is a folk dance type as well as the accompanying dance tune type. In Scottish country dancing, the reel is one of the four traditional dances, the others being the jig, the strathspey and the waltz, and is also the name of a dance figure ....
.
External links
- Black and white image of the dyke by RCAHMS