Norse era in Caithness was our very own Game of Thrones
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He has taken some of the most dramatic events from a time when the county was the southern part of the Orkney earldom and condensed them into a rollicking, fast-moving narrative in The Katanes Saga (Katanes meaning “Headland of the Cats”, named after the local Pictich tribe).
It is based on a series of articles published in the John O’Groat Journal over a decade ago, reinterpreting source material from various sagas, and follows on from The Raven Banner, published in the mid-1990s and now out of print. Like that earlier work, The Katanes Saga is told in an unpretentious, engaging, sometimes blokey style. From the drunken arguments to the devious plots to the mutilations and killings, Cassells tells it like it is.
“The Raven Banner was basically a guide to Norse Caithness with a little bit about each area and what I thought were the main things that happened in Norse times,” he explains. “The Katanes Saga is far more in-depth.
“They were people like you and me. They had the same faults. You could meet three Vikings in the pub any night.
“One word I would use to describe the Norse is pragmatic. They were really pragmatic people. If that’s the way it works, that’s the way it works – if it doesn’t, I’ll do it my way.
“I do mention that of all the Norse earls of Orkney only a handful actually died in their beds. Most suffered violent deaths. One was killed with contact poison from his own auntie and mother on a shirt.”
Cassells (66) is a retired Royal Mail manager who previously worked as a lighthouse keeper on Muckle Flugga and Stroma. Those experiences inspired two other books, No More Paraffin-Oilers and A Light Walk.
The Katanes Saga sees him returning to a theme that first sparked his interest at an early age. Born in Barrow, he moved to Thurso in late 1950s when his father came to work at the Admiralty test establishment.
“I always liked Greek and Roman mythology and I started reading about Norse mythology as well,” he recalls. “As a young boy I lived in Sweyn Road in Thurso and I wondered who Sweyn was. A pal of mine said, ‘Ach, that’ll be Sweyn the pirate.’ So for about a year I had this happy vision of a Pugwash-type character that the street was named after. I then discovered Sweyn Asleifarson.”
Swyen (or Svein), variously described “the last of the Vikings” and “the greatest troublemaker in the westernlands”, had an estate at Duncansby and was renowned for raiding, plundering and pillaging. One of the many who suffered at his hands was Frakokk, who had featured in the poisoned-shirt incident: she was burned to death in her farmhouse at Helmsdale, along with other members of her faction, in a revenge attack led by Swyen.
It’s an example of the way in which many of the strands are intertwined, as Cassells points out.
“I read the sagas and I started taking a look at place names,” he says. “For a long time I lived at Scrabster – Skarabolstadr, the ‘homestead of the sea-mews’.
“And the stories were interesting to read. They were intriguing.
“You try and unravel it and it’s just more or less two families feuding all the way through it. That goes right to the very last act of the local earl being knifed in a beer cellar in Thurso.”
One of the most shocking events is the burning to death of Bishop Adam by a mob in Halkirk in a dispute over a butter tax.
“He got a bit greedy,” Cassells says. “They complained to the earl at the time who more or less said, ‘Damn the bishop, you can burn him as you please,’ so they took him at his word.
“Bishops crop up a couple of times. There was lot of enmity between the local Norse earldom and the Scottish king over bishops. A bishop got his eyes put out in Scrabster.
“After the bishop was murdered at Halkirk, the Scottish king came up here and carried out what was, for want of a better description, pure genocide of the people from the Halkirk area. I believe they were all massacred round about where the Pennyland estate is now in Thurso. Hundreds of people were killed there.
“In those days you just didn’t go burning bishops – they’re going to come down heavy on you.
“Ravenshill Road used to be known as the Gallows Hill, before the atomic houses were built there, so that has been a place for judicial executions for quite a long time.”
From the machinations of the “femme fatale” Ragnhild at Murkle to the murder of Earl Rognvald at Forsie to the Battle of Clairdon Hill outside Thurso, the power struggles and manoeuvrings come thick and fast. It’s a rapid-fire history lesson, but more than anything Cassells simply wants people to enjoy the stories.
“It’s a thing I never learned in school here. It was never mentioned,” he says. “This is our own local history, and I just hope people think it’s a good read.”
The Katanes Saga (£10) is self-published and is on sale in Caithness Horizons, newsagents in Thurso, and Wick Heritage Museum.
