The Burgh Mousa

In the Isle Mousa, one of the Shetland Islands, there is a remarkable object of antiquity styled the Burgh Mousa, belonging to a class known in the north of Scotland as the Pictish Towers.

The Burgh Mousa occupies a knoll close upon the rocky sea-beach, from which the materials for its construction have evidently been taken. The tower is round, inclining inwards until about half way up, then inclining outwards to the top. It is a hundred and fifty-eight feet in circumference at the foundation, and forty feet in height.

One doorway facing the sea is the only aperture. The wall is sixteen feet thick, and the top open to the sky. There is a stairway within, winding up to the summit of the building.

According to tradition, the Tower of Mousa was occupied by Erland, a Norwegian jarl, about 1154, when it successfully endured a siege undertaken to recover from within a runaway lady.

The Picts were the ancient inhabitants of the north-eastern provinces of Scotland. The Pictish nation consisted of two great divisions, called the Northern and the Southern Picts, the boundary between them being the mountain range known as the Grampians. The Picts were converted to Christianity at different periods. The Southern Picts received the faith from St. Ninian early in the fifth century. The Northern Picts owed their conversion to St. Columbia. The life of that abbot, from his leaving Ireland in 563 to his death in 597, was chiefly spent in converting the Northern Picts.

It is impossible to ascertain the precise character of the superstitions held by the Picts before their conversion, but their religion is said to have been a species of Druidism. The first Christian king of the Picts died in 586: the kingdom began to decline in 760, and its later history is involved in impenetrable obscurity; all that we know for certain is the final result.

Henry of Huntingdon refers to the utter destruction of the Picts, of their princes, their race, and their language, in a work published in the year 1864, though written some time previous.

"The Pictish vessel is seen in the distant horizon; she approaches rapidly, till you clearly distinguish the crew upon the deck; but, before you are near enough to hear their voices, she sinks, the waters close over her, and the wreck can never be raised.

"The total extinction of the Pictish language renders any further inquiry impossible."