The
Death of the Mainland Trows
"Wans de Mainlind
wis cheust rife wi' trows. De peedie folk filled a de knowes an howes, in whan
de sun geed doon at the aynd o' da day, dey ahll cam oot fur tae mak devilment.
Bit whaur ir they ahll geen noo?"
Anonymous Orcadian
For
years the Orkney Islands were home to the trows.
The
creatures were found in every howe and knowe across the county, and when darkness
fell the good people of the islands made certain they took steps to avoid meeting
the peedie folk. But there came a day when the trows on
the Orkney Mainland decided that they'd had enough. A
new religion had taken root in the isles and the trows, like Orkney's other preternatural
inhabitants, could not abide the cross or the Holy Word. The
sound of the ministers preaching and the priests praying annoyed the mound dwellers
so much that they decided the time had come for them to leave. Instead they would
find somewhere where they were less likely to be disturbed by the voices of the
holy men. So an ambitious plan was hatched. The
trows all thought that the nearby island of Hoy would be a fine place to take
refuge. So for months, the trowie hordes set to weaving massive lengths of simmons
- straw ropes - that they finally fastened together into one long rope. The
time for the exodus arrived and the Mainland trows gathered at the Black Craig
to the north of Stromness. Securing one end of the rope to the craig, one of the
assembled trows took hold of the other end and with a magical leap cleared the
churning waters of the Hoy Sound out to the island of Hoy. Clambering
to the top of Ward Hill, he hauled the rope tight and tied it tightly. Back
at the Black Craig, the mass of trows slowly began to climb onto the rope and
shimmy their way out across the water. One by one they edged out further and further
until eventually the last trow had climbed onto the rope. By this time however,
the first had yet to reach the other side. The trow on
Ward Hill watched with glee as his companions made their way towards Hoy but then,
to his sheer dismay, the rope snapped and the trows tumbled to their deaths in
the raging sea below. With a howl and a scream the solitary
trow watched his companions perish before he hurled himself into the water to
his doom. And that is why there are no trows left on the
Mainland. |