‘Farmers, Fishermen and Ferryloopers’: The Influence of the Scottish Presbyterian Church on Northern Isles Society and Culture in the Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
Iain D. Cameron
Download pp. 25-35

The Origin of the Kingdom of the Isles and Caithréim Chellacháin Chaisil
Clare Downham
Download pp. 37-51

All-Utterly Barbarous? Gille-Chaluim Garbh, Laird of Raasay, and a Sixteenth-Century Gaelic Poem from the Fernaig Manuscript
Aonghas MacCoinnich
Download pp. 52-78

The Baltic and North Sea Region in Scottish Burgh and Notarial Records, 1500-1700 (Part Two)
Thomas Brochard
Download pp. 79-100

Tracing the Settlement of Scottish Immigrants in Early Modern Stockholm
Alexia Grosjean and Steve Murdoch
Download pp. 101-130

Reviews

Dougie Strang, The Bone Cave: A Journey through Myth and Memory (Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2023)
Carola Huttmann
Download pp. 131-134

Neil McGuigan, Máel Coluim III ‘Canmore’: An Eleventh-Century Scottish King (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2021)
Marian Toledo Candelaria
Download pp. 135-138

Benjamin Allport, Rosalind Bonté and Hans Jacob Orning (eds), Networks in the Medieval North: Studies in Honour of Jón Viðar Sigurðsson (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023)
Cassidy Croci
Download pp. 139-142

Desmond Seward, The Greatest Viking: The Life of Olav Haraldsson (Birlinn: Edinburgh, 2022)
Harriet Clark
Download pp. 143-146

Tim Clarkson, A Mighty Fleet and the King’s Power: The Isle of Man AD 400 to 1265 (John Donald/Birlinn: Edinburgh, 2023)
Dirk H. Steinforth
Download pp. 147-149

Philippa Byrne and Caitlin Ellis (eds), Maritime Exchange and the Making of Norman Worlds (Turnhout: Brepols, 2023)
Rebecca Tyson
Download pp. 150-153

Alasdair C. Whyte with Katherine Forsyth and Simon Taylor, Glasgow’s Gaelic Place-Names (Birlinn Origin: Edinburgh, 2023)
Emma E. Horne
Download pp. 154-155

Robert Armstrong, Royalism and the Three Stuart Kingdoms: Ideas in Action in the Wars of the 1640s (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).
Tane Moorhouse
Download pp. 156-159

The post Northern Studies 55 (2024) appeared first on Scottish Society for Northern Studies.

12 October 2026

Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom are home to an exceptional tradition of academic research and teaching in the Humanities and Social Sciences, whose diversity and depth has long enriched our understanding of the histories, cultures, and languages of these islands and the wider world. This same tradition currently finds itself under severe and sustained threat.

A combination of structural deficits, increased costs, and the corporatisation and marketisation of the academic sector has led numerous universities across Scotland – and the UK as a whole – to announce considerable cuts to their research, teaching, and engagement activities in recent years.¹ As many as half of all universities have already moved towards cutting jobs and student programmes,² with many tens of thousands of university positions considered to be at risk.³

The Humanities and Social Sciences have been especially hard hit by these measures, with more than 4,000 subject-specific academic posts axed during 2024 alone.⁴ As programmes have been curtailed or withdrawn entirely, significant ‘cold spots’ have emerged throughout the UK and its constituent countries for the provision of subjects like Languages and Area Studies, Anthropology, and Classics, whilst History, Celtic Studies, and English are likewise considered at risk.⁵ The resulting lack of access to local and regional education particularly affects rural and disadvantaged areas, and is projected to exacerbate existing socio-economic inequalities across the length and breadth of Britain and Northern Ireland.⁶

The university sector is a significant contributor to the economy writ large: with a total annual impact of over £265 billion, every pound of public money put into higher education is returned fourteen-fold into the economy.⁷ In Scotland alone, universities support well over 50,000 jobs, sustaining entire local communities in the process.⁸ These are not merely academic bodies; they are also cornerstones of social cohesion, innovation, and economic prosperity. At the same time, Arts, Humanities, and Social Science graduates are seen to be especially versatile and in demand across a variety of industries, whilst being resilient to broader economic upheavals.⁹

Nevertheless, those embarking on a Humanities or Social Sciences degree now enter an academic system that is buckling under the pressures of a financial model no longer fit for service. A system in which institutions, anxious to retain student numbers, have shifted ever greater pedagogical and administrative responsibilities onto increasingly shorthanded and overburdened workforces, even as salaries have seen significant cuts in real value over the past decades.¹⁰ Students, in turn, find themselves with fewer options for modules and programmes, whilst having to contend with larger class sizes, less personal support, and a reduced overall quality of education.

Faced with this growing crisis, successive UK governments and their devolved counterparts have been reluctant to commit to structured plans for long-term sector sustainability, whilst maintaining a position that institutions themselves are primarily responsible for their finances.¹¹ As current UK government policy has favoured subjects aligned with its strategic economic and industrial priorities, the longer-term security of the Humanities and Social Sciences within Higher Education has been further imperilled.¹²

These issues directly impact university programmes based in (and focused on) Scotland, including those feeding into the work of the Scottish Society for Northern Studies. As such, in sounding the alarm about the direction and scale of change affecting Higher Education, the Society joins a growing chorus of like-minded organisations in Scotland and across the UK. If current trends continue unchecked, their consequences will be dire, taking generations to mediate or reverse. By reducing provision across the Humanities and Social Sciences, we will lose more than jobs and degree programmes; we risk depriving future generations of essential knowledge, skills, and wisdom, whilst making Scotland, and the United Kingdom as a whole, a less attractive and desirable place to teach, learn, work, and live.

We have to alter course, or we will all be so much the poorer for it.

The Trustees of the Scottish Society for Northern Studies

A version of the above statement has been submitted to all MSPs, Scottish MPs, and University Vice-Principals. We urge anyone sharing these concerns to likewise reach out to their respective MPs and MSPs.

A PDF version of the letter is available here. Please share this page freely, as well as our associated social media posts on Bluesky and Facebook.

1. House of Commons (Education Committee), Higher Education and Funding: Threat of Insolvency and International Students, Ninth Report of Session 2024–26 (London: 2026), 21-46, https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/52983/documents/295982/default/; Future Framework for Universities, A Funding Gap Analysis of Scotland’s University Sector (Edinburgh: 2026), https://www.futureframework.scot/pillars/funding-gap-analysis.

2. Universities UK, ‘Universities grip financial crisis – but at what cost to the nation?’, 10 Oct 2025, https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/creating-voice-our-members/media-releases/universities-grip-financial-crisis-what.

3. Patrick Jack, ‘Do UK university finances justify the redundancy wave – or v-c pay?’, Times Higher Education, 26 May 2026, https://www-timeshighereducation-com.liverpool.idm.oclc.org/depth/do-uk-university-finances-justify-redundancy-wave-or-v-c-pay.

4. Anna Bawden and Sally Weale, ‘Humanities among degrees being “extinguished” by hard-up universities’, The Guardian, 14 Jul 2026, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/jul/14/university-job-cuts-humanities-social-sciences.

5. British Academy, Cold spots: Mapping inequality in SHAPE provision in UK higher education (London: 2025), 23-34, https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/cold-spots-mapping-inequality-in-shape-provision-in-uk-higher-education/.

6. Helen Packer, ‘Humanities and arts degrees disappearing in parts of UK’, Times Higher Education, 10 Sep 2025, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/humanities-and-arts-degrees-disappearing-parts-uk.

7. London Economics, The economic impact of higher education teaching, research, and innovation: Report for Universities UK (London: 2024), 48,  https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/sites/default/files/field/downloads/2024-09/LE-UUK-Impact-of-university-TL-and-RI-Final-Report.pdf

8. Higher Education Statistics Agency, ‘Higher Education Staff Statistics: UK, 2024/25’, 19 Feb 2026, https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/19-02-2026/sb274-higher-education-staff-statistics.

9. British Academy, Qualified for the Future: Quantifying Demand for Arts, Humanities and Social Science Skills (London: 2020), https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications/skills-qualified-future-quantifying-demand-arts-humanities-social-science/.

10. University and College Union, ‘Value of university staff pay has plummeted in last decade, employers’ own research reveals’, 4 Oct 2019, https://www.ucu.org.uk/article/10342/Value-of-university-staff-pay-has-plummeted-in-last-decade-employers-own-research-reveals

11. House of Commons (Education Committee), Higher Education and Funding: Threat of Insolvency and International Students, Ninth Report of Session 2024–26 (London: 2026), 2, 6, 8, 13, 18, 25, https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/54398/documents/302177/default/.

12. UK Government (Labour Market Evidence Group), ‘Assessment of priority skills to 2030’, 5 Nov 2025, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/assessment-of-priority-skills-to-2030/assessment-of-priority-skills-to-2030.

The post The Humanities at Risk: A Statement from the Scottish Society for Northern Studies appeared first on Scottish Society for Northern Studies.

Further details on the registration and schedule will be released shortly. 

This year’s AGM will be held separately from the conference. The papers and feedback form for the AGM will be available via a members-only page on the website from the 19th to the 23rd of November 2026. Further details to come later. The AGM itself will be held from 19:00 – 20:30 GMT on Wednesday the 25th of November on the Zoom platform. Members will be advised of access details in due course.

Image © Walter Baxter

The post SSNS 2026 Conference – Darnick, Scotland appeared first on Scottish Society for Northern Studies.

The Postgraduate/Early Career Research Grant helped to facilitate my research trip to Ireland, where I conducted archival research at the Irish Art Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin and preliminary dissertation fieldwork. My dissertation, tentatively titled, “Anseo tá Arrachtaigh: The Christian Function of Monstrous and Grotesque Imagery in Pictland and Ireland, c. 700-1200,” will examine the function of monstrous and grotesque imagery at Pictish and Irish monastic sites, churches, and cathedrals, spanning from the eighth to the twelfth centuries. On this trip, I was able to visit Kells and Clonmacnoise to view their monumental high crosses, and the Nun’s Church at Clonmacnoise to study its architectural details. These visits helped to provide context for the placement of monumental sculpture and monstrous carvings around these monastic sites.

The post SSNS Funding – Irish Art Research Centre, Trinity College Dublin appeared first on Scottish Society for Northern Studies.

From 15^th-25^th June 2026, I attended the Summer School in Scandinavian Manuscript Studies Advanced Level course at the Árni Magnússon Institute in Reykjavík. The Summer School is a collaboration between the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies, the University of Iceland, the University of Copenhagen and the National and University Library of Iceland. I previously attended in 2024 on the Basic level, and returned this year with help from a Postgraduate/Early Career Research Grant from the SSNS.

Over the course of ten days, we engaged in a variety of topics, including medieval palaeography, advanced codicology, textual criticism, stemmatology, fragmentology, paper history, and more. This year was the first year to hold sessions on ‘Non-invasive analysis of medieval pigments’, where we saw how FORS and XRS systems are used to analyse the pigments and dyes found in medieval illuminations. I have been keen to develop my skills with digital tools for manuscripts and edition-making, and this course providing a strong foundation in training. After a taster session in XML in 2024, this time around we dug deeper into the system, to both transcribe manuscripts and to catalogue materials at the National Library. On the Saturday, we had an entire day on Digital Tools, where we learned about programmes such as eScriptorium and Transkribus, both of which I hope will prove useful in future research.

There were also opportunities for fun and creative learning on this trip as well. On the Sunday, we took an excursion to Snæfellsnes to visit places like Helgafell and the Berserkjagata. As I focused on Eyrbyggja saga in my MPhil, it was fantastic to actually see the area in-person and get a feel of what it would have been like in the medieval period (and why it seems that the peninsula has so much undead activity)! We also had several workshops where we got to make our own paper, write with a quill on vellum, pour a paper seal, and sew our own quires together into a little notebook. It’s sessions like these that add so much to the summer school, and that really help to exemplify how much work goes into producing the manuscripts that we see in the reading room or the archives.

Through this Advanced course, I have strengthened skills and developed new ones, and have taken with me a greater interest in the digital tools available in Old Norse studies and the importance of manuscripts even for saga scholars like me. It is always a wonderful time where I meet my fellow Old Norse scholars and learn so much. I hope to continue next year into the Masters’ course in Copenhagen and complete all three levels of the course. I would like to thank again the society for their generous grant, which allowed me to pay for the tuition to the summer school this year.

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There were a total of eight postgraduate speakers across three panels. The first panel, ‘Othered Bodies and Body Modification’, had papers on Kæi in Old Norse Arthurian material, and the historical evidence of Viking Age tattoos and tattooing. The second panel, ‘Gendered Mentalities and Emotions’, had papers on gender in Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks, female voice in letter writing, and the role of male inciters during conflicts. The final panel of the day, ‘Thought, Memory, and Neurodivergence’, had papers on ravens and thought, moral injury in Old Norse Eddic poetry, and trauma as memory in Egils saga and Grettis saga. The conference concluded with a keynote paper from Dr. Rebecca Merkelbach (University of Tübingen) titled ‘The Inner Lives of Trolls: Interiority, Trauma, and the Paranormal in the Sagas.’

Attendance was free and hybrid, with about twenty-five in-person attendees and around forty online attendees throughout the day. Over the course of the conference, connections were being made between papers, with many speakers and audience members exchanging contact information to discuss their research in further detail later. Several students spoke to the committee about how much they enjoyed the conference and how much they learned, and there were plenty of thought-provoking and conversation-starting questions about everyone’s research topics.

We would like very much to thank SSNS for helping to fund the conference and to allow us to continue to provide a welcoming space for up-and-coming researchers in the field of Old Norse and Viking Studies. Norse in the North aims to provide a platform for postgraduate students and ensure that Old Norse studies continue to flourish in Northern England (and beyond) for years to come. Thanks to the SSNS, we were able to continue that tradition and pass on the torch for another year, and we are very grateful for the support. The funding from SSNS helped up to cover catering costs for our tea/coffee breaks and our pizza lunch, for which we received many complements!

The post SSNS Funding – Norse in the North, University of Leeds appeared first on Scottish Society for Northern Studies.

The theme of our conference, “New Perspectives,” was intentionally broad, as we sought to include speakers in all stages of their careers to speak on all aspects of hagiography and to highlight the work of early career scholars. Professor Siân Grønlie, author of The Saint and the Saga Hero, delivered an incredible keynote lecture on Jóns saga postula. We were able to open the conference on 30 April with an exhibition of manuscripts at the Royal Irish Academy, and end with a tour of St Audoen’s Church, Christ Church Cathedral, and the National Museum of Ireland collections.

The question sessions for each panel were open discussion as we sought to establish and progress interfield and intergenerational dialogues. In the context of hagiography we felt this was crucial, considering the long history of the study of hagiography in Celtic Studies, and hagiography as a ‘new’ field in Old Norse/Scandinavian Studies. A comment that arose in many forms over the course of the conference was “I didn’t know that” and attendees felt they had learned much from the conference, which emphasises the importance and value of conferences with comparative themes, and the many perspectives presented by our speakers and given by attendees.

The conference was free of charge and streamed online, and we had around seventy total attendees online and in person over both days. The funding received from SSNS, which we are exceedingly grateful for, enabled us in many ways to facilitate this wonderful opportunity to bring the work of early career scholars to the forefront, as well as to commission a local artist (Patrick McHugh) to design a logo for our programmes and posters which embodied ‘Celtic’ and ringerike style knotwork in representation of our two networks coming together. We are glad to have been able to put on such a successful conference and to facilitate greater understanding of our respective hagiographies and saints, as well as new conversations and connections between our fields going forward.

Thank you so much for the support of the society again. The funds from SSNS were mainly used towards a drinks reception, printing costs (posters, programmes, etc), student dinner bursaries, travel costs, and dinner for our keynote speaker, and enabled us to host and organise an incredibly successful event.

• Dr Courtney Selvage (University of College Dublin)

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We began the first day in a lecture room at the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Orkney College. The team from Orkney Museum had transported a selection of inscriptions for us to examine. These included runic inscriptions on a variety of objects, all catalogued with Signum numbers such as Or 1, Or 10, Or 15, for example, with Or indicating their Orkney findspot. One of the highlights for me was Or 15, also known as Orphir II (see image below). It is a rib bone bearing an inscription that declares “this bone was…”. The object was discovered during excavations at Orphir, a site associated with the Orkneyinga Saga and Earl Paul’s Yule feast of 1136. Perhaps it was carved post-meal, where the rib meat was eaten by a rune-carver who then used the now-clean bone as their writing surface of choice. The inscription’s explicit reference to the object itself makes it particularly compelling to me, given my research interest in the relationship between runic inscriptions’ functions and the objects on which they are carved. Indeed, what could the function of Or 15 be, if it was carved after dinner on food waste, and then deposited with the rest of the scraps? Not all runic inscriptions were designed as monuments to great deeds, as Or 15 clearly shows! In the afternoon, we departed Kirkwall for Breckness and also visited the Bay of Skaill. Snacks from Argo’s Bakery (the best in Kirkwall!) and a little whisky were enjoyed while taking in views across the bay. The day concluded with a Rune Relay held at the St Magnus Centre in Kirkwall, where runologists each presented a favourite inscription to an audience of fellow scholars and members of the public. 

‘Or 15’ (Photo by Jasmin Higgs)

The second day began early with a site visit to Orphir, guided by the knowledgeable Colleen Batey, after which we divided into two groups to explore different locations. One group visited Maeshowe, where special permission allowed us extended time inside the chamber to photograph and study its runic inscriptions, while the other group went to the Ring of Brodgar before the groups swapped. At Maeshowe, I was particularly intrigued by Or Barnes 20 (see below). This inscription begins with twig runes, a cryptographic form of runic writing, before turning to more standard younger futhark runes, and states: “That man who is most rune-skilled west of the sea carved these runes with that axe which Gaukr Trandill’s son owned in the south of the country.” I enjoyed musing over the fact that, though we would never know whether this anonymous person was the best rune-carver, we are still deciphering their twig-runes and reading their inscription. After returning to Kirkwall, the day ended with a community dinner at the Town Hall.

‘Or Barnes 20’ (photo by Jasmin Higgs)

On our final half-day, we reconvened at UHI to review the inscriptions we had studied and to discuss new readings. This was followed by presentations on recent finds from Norway and Sweden, a reintroduction to Runor, an online database of Old Norse runic inscriptions, and the launch of a new collaborative initiative, The Runic Post, which aims to share new runic discoveries with a wider audience. 

During this trip, I was able to view many of the Orkney runic inscriptions and make my own readings, which will contribute to my upcoming research with Judith Jesch. I would like to thank the Scottish Society for Northern Studies for providing me with this fantastic opportunity.

– Barnes, Michael P. (1994), The Runic Inscriptions of Maeshowe, Orkney. Uppsala.
– Barnes, Michael P. and R. I. Page (2006), The Scandinavian Runic Inscriptions of Britain. Uppsala.

• Dr Jasmin Higgs (University of Nottingham)

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