The Picts and their Brochs
considered an altogether satisfactory place to resort to for a honeymoon; but if it afforded little comfort to the refugees, its stout walls were an ample defence against the angry kinsmen who beseiged it. Another broch, in the Loch of Clickimin near Lerwick, with its causeway and massive external defences, is perhaps fully more typical of the usual form of Shetland broch. It is now nearly forty years since it was excavated by the Society of Antiquaries, and though it is under the protection of the Ancient Monuments Act, it has suffered much from youthful depredators and other vandals.
In his introduction to the “Orkneyinga Saga,” Dr. Anderson gives the following enumeration of known sites of Shetland brochs:—In Unst, 7; in Whalsay, 3; in Yell, 9; in Fetlar, 4; in Mainland and its outlying islets, 51; in Foula, 1—total, 75. This list, however, cannot be regarded as complete.
Few of the Shetland brochs have been
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