There was a custom among the lower class of people in this country which has
entirely subsided within these twenty or thirty years. Upon the first day of
every new year the common people, from all parts of the country, met at the
Kirk of Stainhouse (Stennis), each person having provision for four or five
days; they continued there for that time dancing and feasting in the kirk.
This meeting gave the young people an opportunity of seeing each other, which
seldom failed in making four or five marriages every year; and to secure each
other's love, till an opportunity of celebrating their nuptials, they
had resource to the following solemn engagements: The parties agreed stole
from the rest of their companions, and went to the Temple of the Moon, where
the woman, in presence of the man, fell down on her knees and prayed the
god Wodden (for such was the name of the god they addressed upon this occasion)
that he would enable her to perform all the promises and obligations she
had and was to make to the young man present, after which they both went to
the Temple of the Sun, where the man prayed in like manner before the woman,
then they repaired from this to the stone [known as Wodden's or Odin's Stone],
and the man being on one side and the woman on the other, they took hold of
each other's right hand through the hole, and there swore to be constant
and faithful to each other. This ceremony was held so very sacred in those
times that the person who dared to break the engagement made here was counted
infamous, and excluded all society.
Source: County Folk-Lore, vol.
3: Examples of Printed Folk-Lore Concerning the Orkney &
Shetland Islands, collected by G. F. Black and edited by Northcote W. Thomas
(London: Folk-Lore Society, 1903), pp. 212-213. Black's source: George Low,
A Tour through the Islands of Orkney and Shetland, containing Hints Relative
to their Ancient, Modern, and Natural History, collected in 1774 (Kirkwall,
1879), p. xxvi.
Notes : The "Temple of the Moon"
is a circle of standing stones also known as the "Ring of Stennis."
Or "The Stones of Stennis". The "Temple of the Sun" is a circle of standing
stones also known as the "Ring of Brogar."