Professor Heddle’s ‘grand tour of Orkney’

Professor Donna Heddle, director of the Centre for Nordic Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands “grand tour of Orkney”, to deliver an inaugural lecture, gets under way next week.

The lecture, entitled From the fury of the Northmen, good Lord, deliver us?, explores the various facts and fictions about Norse influence in Scotland.

The tour will replace the inaugural lecture which was scheduled for December 2013 and had to be cancelled due to bad weather.

Professor Heddle said: “I’ve had many enquiries about the lecture that was due to take place in 2013 upon being awarded my professorship with the University.

“Going out and about is very much part of the centre’s community engagement strategy, and I was delighted to respond to the many requests to go on tour with the lecture.  I am very much looking forward to it!”

Professor Heddle’s tour begins on Tuesday, December 1, in Stromness, and will cover the islands of North Ronaldsay, Eday, Shapinsay, Sanday, Stronsay and Rousay as well as Kirkwall, Stromness, St Margaret’s Hope and Deerness.

The full programme can be found at www.nordic.uhi.ac.uk.