The Orkneyinga Saga, written by an Icelandic chronicler around A.D. 1200, tells the story of Norse settlement in Orkney. Prior to that, we have only the archaeological remains and passing references from sources of varying reliability. The Saga tells us nothing of the people who lived in the islands prior to the Norse arrival. It is likely they bore the blood of both Iron Age ancestors and more recent Celtic immigrants. The archaeological evidence points to a Pictish-style culture. Their kings owed a token allegiance to the Pictish kings of Caithness, but geographic isolation gave them a certain degree of independence.

So what happened? Did a Viking invasion wipe them out in battle, or did the newcomers arrive gradually, welcoming the opportunity to settle in a place that offered good grazing land and sheltered fishing grounds? The transition to the dominance of Norse blood and Norse ways may have been peaceable, intermarriage eventually causing the absorption of one culture into another. That raises its own set of questions. Can such a change occur without the loss of something precious and irreplaceable: ancestral identity?

Such “gray areas” in history are an irresistible lure for writers of historical fiction. In Wolfskin I have not attempted to recreate the history of the first Norse arrival in Orkney. A great deal of the story, not least its magical and folkloric elements, is imagination. I’ve simply presented one possible picture of how it might have been when the old inhabitants of the isles first encountered these fearsome strangers from the east with their vastly different culture. What might each have thought? Was it ever possible for them to understand one another? How much did each stand to lose?