Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Near as I can figure it, through the possibly flawed perceptual filters of my own reality tunnel, the most likely answers this week, seem to me to be:


Q1. North Ronaldsay

Q2. Knap of Howar (aka Knap o' Howar, aka Barrow or Mound houses)


N.B. for question two, the name of the houses seems to be derived from the Norse word 'haugr' meaning 'mound' or 'barrow', so they could be looking for this as the answer but a trawl through some of the archaeological pages on the subject, didn't throw up any other specialised name for this type of house. They don't seem to be 'Brochs' (which are a type of double walled, complex Atlantic roundhouse, which are more like fortified towers than farmhouses).

The initial clues seem to place us on the island of North Ronaldsay, in the Orkney archipelago. The OS map shows a trig point there that is marked at twenty metres or around sixty six feet in old money. I found some reference sources which claim that Halfdan Longleg was the son of King Harald Fairhair and that he was involved in a bit of power struggle shenanigans with his brother Gudrod, which resulted in them burning alive sixty of the opposition and their leader Rognvald Eysteinsson, inside a building. King Harald got a bit upset at this and ordered Halfdan Longleg sacrificed to Odin by Rognvald's son, in a mysterious ritual called the 'Blood Eagle', on North Ronaldsay (no doubt involved smoking herbs, glugging whisky infused with fly agaric, drumming, chanting and incantations/casting of runes by a potty shaman and pulling the lungs of the hapless victim through the skin so that they appeared to have wings). These events appear to have been chronicled in a book called 'The Orkneyinga Saga' (c 13th century).

The map shows an 'Old Beacon' on the north east of the island.  This seems to have been built by Thomas Smith (born c 1752) around 1787, with the new one hundred and thirty nine foot, red brick lighthouse being built by Alan Stevenson (born c 1807), to the north west of the old beacon.

Travelling west from North Ronaldsay would bring us to Papa Westray and this is where an Earl called Rognvald Brusason was buried c 1046. Rognvald was according to some of his biographies, the son of Brusi Sigurdsson. About half a click west of the airfield on Papa Westray, lie the 'barrow' or 'mound' houses of Knap of Hower. These puport to be the oldest stone houses in Europe, with some of the archaeological pages claiming they have been dated to c 3700 BC. I couldn't find a specialised archaeological name for this type of house and they do not fit the description for brochs, think they are just called the farmhouse at Knap of Hower. The flight from Papa Westray to Westray, according to some of the reference sources I checked, does appear to be about two minutes in duration.

N.B. Due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a comment or quip related to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.