Shetland Literature

Shetland literature reflects the history of Shetland: five hundred years of Norse rule, followed by five hundred years of Scottish and British - this, in very simple terms, is the political reality of the last millennium. Before the Norse, millennia of mysterious peoples and an immediately precedent Christian Celtic period; prior to and into the British age, three hundred years of Hanseatic trade with "Dutchies" (usually Dutch, sometimes, Germans). All of these aspects of history have inspired and influenced Shetland's writers - just as the unchanging landscape of the 'Auld Rock', its weather, seasons, its flora and fauna, have provided a touchstone in the midst of sometimes tumultuous change; as the land itself is refuge from that other great favourite subject - the sea.