een used by the later jarls, and
a few miles south of Halkirk are the foundations of the Spittal of St.
Magnus,[12] part of which, and of St. Peter's Church at Thurso may be
Norse.

Though the towns of Wick and Thurso[13] are frequently mentioned
in the _Orkneyinga Saga_, and earls and jarls stayed at both, no
Sutherland village (if any save Dornoch existed) is named in it; but
the site of modern Golspie (Gol's-by) appears in ancient charters as
Platagall, "the Flat of the Stranger."[14]

If in his outward and visible man the Norseman has all but faded away
in Sutherland, he remains more in evidence in Caithness, in spite of
Celtic mothers and successive waves of Scottish immigration. The high
Norse skull, the tall frame with broad shoulders and narrow hips,[15]
the fair hair and skin, the sea-blue eyes and sound teeth are still
to be seen; and from time to time, amid greatly preponderating Celtic
types, we are startled by coming across some perfect living specimen
of the pure Viking type almost always on or near the coast.

But, if the outward type is rarely seen, its inward qualities remain.
What were those qualities?

The late Professor York Powell summed up the character of the Viking
emigrant folk in his introduction to Mr. Collingwood's _Scandinavian
Britain_, as follows:--

"A sturdy, thrifty, hardworking, law-loving people, fond of good cheer
and strong drink, of shrewd, blunt speech, and a stubborn reticence,
when speech would be useless or foolish; a people clean-living,
faithful to friend and kinsman, truthful, hospitable, liking to make a
fair show, but not vain or boastful; a people with perhaps little
play of fancy or great range of thought, but cool-thinking, resolute,
determined, able to realise the plainer facts of life clearly, and
even deeply."[16]

Blend these qualities with those of the Gael, and what infinite
possibilities appear; for the characteristics of the two races
supplement each other. Fuse them together in proper proportions for
a few generations, the improvident and dreamy with the thrifty and
energetic, the voluble with the reticent, the romantic and humorous
with the truthful and blunt of speech, the fiery and impulsive with
the sober of thought, and how greatly is the type improved in the new
race evolved from the union of both.

Turning from eugenics to more practical matters, it was the brain and
the manual skill of the Viking that invented and perfected our modern
sailing