Shetland Islands

Over 100 islands make up the Shetland Islands, the most northerly point in the British Isles. Only 15 of the islands are inhabited, by a little over 22,000 people. The Shetland Isles are as far north as Anchorage in Alaska or St Petersburg in Russia, although it's not as cold as you might think. These remote lands have over 5,000 years of history, a history of Viking settlement, island kingdoms and Norwegian folklore.

Many of the place-names are derived from the Norse language, and Norse has influenced the stories, language and history of Shetland for at least five hundred years. Many local writers write in the Shetlandic dialect.

Shetland has a rich folklore tradition of stories and sagas. In the late 19th century, Faroese philologist, Jakob Jakobson, collected many of these stories.