I had the telly on in the background last night and I'm sure I heard Alan Titmarsh (oh dear, I seem to have misspelled that) say that the Vikings introduced otters into the Shetland Isles. Does anyone know if this is remotely true (or even feasible)? If they did introduce said fish-eating mammal into said islands - why?

The following conversation came, unbidden, into my head:

Olaf: "You know, Sven you can have too much of the old raping and pillaging."

Sven: "You could be right, Olaf. In fact I'm feeling a bit jaded meself."

Olaf: "Trouble is we're not qualified for anything else."

Sven: "You're right there, Olaf."

Olaf: "What we need is a project - something to take our minds off the tedium of it all. Any ideas?"

Sven: "Well, you know ... just off the top of me head ... don't laugh or anything ... but we could introduce otters into the Shetlands ..."

Olaf: "Brilliant! Let's go for it! Any idea where we can get our hands on some otters?"