The Autobiography of Samuel Laing of Papdale
Edited by Dr R. P. Fereday

On the gable of Papdale House there is a plaque which commemorates Malcolm Laing, the historian, and his younger brother Samuel Laing, the translator of Heimskringla. There very nearly was no plaque and no house to put it on. In the 1960s it was fashionable to pull down historic homes for which there was no immediate use.

The building was saved by a group which included Ernest Marwick, the Grimonds, Harold Leslie (Lord Birsay), Eric and Marjorie Linklater and Magnus Magnusson. Another member of this group was Ray Fereday and, as secretary of the newly-formed Heritage Society, he had less than his share of the credit but probably did more than his share of the work.

The reason for fighting for the preservation of Papdale House was partly that it is a handsome building which graces the skyline as seen from the Papdale Valley, but also that it was the home of one of Orkney’s most distinguished families. Samuel Laing was a bit like Dr Who: he was constantly re-inventing himself and appearing in a new guise. He had a series of different careers, any one of which would have been enough for most people.

In Dr Fereday’s new book we first meet Samuel as a young man, greatly enjoying the Napoleonic Wars, and skating along the frozen canals of Holland to escape the French. Then he appears as a popular and progressive provost of Kirkwall, and as a public-spirited benefactor of the town.

Next we meet Laing as an agricultural improver. At Stove in Sanday he removed cottars from the land of the main farm as a preliminary to growing new crops and introducing improved breeds of cattle and sheep. The displaced cottars were resettled on self-contained crofts adjacent to the farm. His scheme was widely copied, and large farms with peripheral crofting communities became a common pattern of settlement throughout the islands. The attempt to introduce Merino sheep to Stove was less successful.

Laing is also remembered as the founder of the herring fishing in Stronsay. In 1816, he engaged six Fife fishing boats with a promise of a guaranteed return for their efforts. In his memoirs he describes how the early season was an utter failure, then early one morning the returning boats appeared different; ‘it never occurred to me that they were loaded,’ he wrote, but for the remainder of the season huge catches fetched excellent prices. The following year 400 Orkney boats were fitted out for the herring fishing, and within a few years the Stronsay fishery grew to extraordinary proportions.

Then there was another change of career when Laing was financially ruined by the collapse of kelp. Rather than accept a reduced position in Orkney society, he cut his ties completely and went off to live in Norway. It was a very comfortable bankruptcy: he was a great admirer of Norway, he was looked after by a cook, a maid and a man-servant, and he embarked on a new career as a writer.

Laing’s many books on European countries are seldom read nowadays, but at the time they had a wide readership which included politicians and economists who wanted to be better informed. What has not been forgotten, however, is his translation of Heimskringla. This is not a single saga, but a collection of no less than 17 sagas, tracing the history of Norwegian kings from mythical beginnings down to the 12th century. At various points these sagas contain valuable information about Orkney.

This was the first time sagas had been translated into English, and it had an enormous impact. Laing’s Heimskringla has the distinction of being one of the books which, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, has been longest in print. Heimskringla first appeared in 1844 and ran through many editions before finally going out-of-print only in the 1990s. Its success owed much to Laing’s vigorous and direct style of writing which is much in keeping with the original spirit of the saga-writer.

Given Laing’s distinguished Orkney career and his international reputation as a writer, it is very regrettable that a few years ago an OIC sub-committee rejected the proposal that he should be commemorated in St Magnus Cathedral along with other writers and poets. Perhaps the appearance of this book will lead to a re-consideration of that decision.

Ray Fereday is a bit like Samuel Laing. After a long career in Kirkwall Grammar School, he too cut his ties and lives in exile in Plymouth rather than Norway and he continues to write. He is the author of Orkney Feuds and the ’45, The Orkney Balfours, and Saint-Faust in the North, besides many papers on different aspects of Orkney history. Further books on the Balfour family and on Professor Thomas Traill are in progress.

This latest book is entitled an ‘autobiography’ but it is more than that. Samuel Laing did not write it for publication, but simply to inform his family. The original manuscript can no longer be traced, but a 1957 typescript copy survives. Due to the difficulties of Samuel Laing’s handwriting, and the typist’s unfamiliarity with the subject matter, the names of people and places are often barely recognisable. The book has required the meticulous editing which Dr Fereday does so well.

Laing laid the manuscript aside for long periods, then took it out to add further sections. The autobiography is all the better for having been written in this way, but it is sometimes rather disjointed. Dr Fereday’s answer has been to write a four-chapter biography of Laing which provides an orderly supplement to Laing’s own memoirs. Thus the book consists of three ingredients, Laing’s own memoirs, the explanatory notes, and Dr Fereday’s biography.

Bellavista Publications are to be congratulated on a handsome volume which contains 19 black-and-white illustrations and 15 maps.

WPLT