BS: Otters and Vikings

Subject: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 12:54 PM

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?"

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: gnu
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 01:52 PM

Sven: "Near any beaver dam. I googled beaver and there are all kinds here ."

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Irene M
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 03:25 PM

They introduced otters because the Shetlands are cold and windy and they wanted to live somewhere otter.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,Observer
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 03:41 PM

Shimrod wrote:

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

Close, but not quite right...It went like this:

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

Olaf: "If you tink ve otter, I'll go find some..." And the rest is history.

Just wanted to set the record straight

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Bee
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 04:00 PM

I've no idea if it's true, but are there any other clothing-useful furbearing critters in the Shetlands? Maybe it was an attempt to fur-farm, sorta.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 04:04 PM

You could all be right ... but then, on the other hand ... you could all be mad.

I was only thinking the otter day ... do we really need beavers in the UK?

Hey, it rhymes!





Sorry ... I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 06:06 PM

Do you know how bad otters stink? Just visit the aquarium at Tynemouth to find out. No wonder the Vikings wanted to get shut! Or maybe the Vikings were just as bad?

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:16 AM

Why bother with little otters when there were dirty great deer roaming about the gloaming? Even better, the deer come with their own coat hooks.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 03:54 AM

Perhaps the local Indian takeaway introduced them for Tarka dhal?

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 04:15 AM

Not a lot of Gloaming in the Shetlands. Went there this year, liked it a lot, but sheep is about as high off the ground as animals get up there.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Megan L
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 04:17 AM

Weel heck Santa if you hid bin in Orkney or Shetland last nicht ye wid hae understood why man hid wis a fair blaw.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Mr Happy
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:38 AM

PMB,

Like the tale of the man down t'curry mile, goes in an Indian & orders 'A chicken Tarka, please'

Waiter: 'Surely you mean a Chicken Tikka, sir'

Customer: 'No, a Chicken Tarka - it's like a Chicken Tikka, but a little otter!'

Bum-bum


I'll get me coat!

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:55 AM

My memory could be playing me tricks, but I seem to remember there was an otter in the first (or it could have the second) line up of the Boys of the Lough. Come to think of it, the otter in question was wearing a Roman helmet.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 06:39 AM

As they say, Tarka the Otter and he's sure to appear!

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Emma B
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 07:13 AM

WLD - are you sure that wasn't a soldier of the Otterman Empire? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,Santa
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 07:20 AM

Various Shetland websites make the statement that there are no indigenous land mammals, all being introduced by man. So I guess the Vikings are as likely a candidate as any.

MeganL: I like to be able to see the seasons around in the Northern Isles, but my wife has an understandable attachment to her income and (future) pension.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Desdemona
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 09:46 AM

I have no idea whether it's true or not, but I do like picturing a bunch of Vikings hosting a cocktail party to "introduce" the otters to the Shetlands!

~D

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:24 PM

That's a party you otter pony up for....



A

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: gnu
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 02:51 PM

I forget the name of the comic I saw on TV who said her Irish boyfriend had a saying, "You are de otter of yer own fat."

Yes, otters do have a bit of a musky odour. Any animal that "lives close to the ground" does. Otter, mink, weasel (weasel is the worst), squirrel...

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Melissa
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:22 PM

I'm reading a book about China sending exploration/mapmaking/trading ships all over the world in 1421. They carried otters with them to drive fish toward the boats.
When the ships sank, animals and crew naturally went toward land when they could...and when there were pairs, they would have reproduced--which would have transplanted various creatures.

Apparently for a while, China was the only place with big enough boats and enough interest/money to undertake these journeys.
If Vikings also introduced otters, it probably would have had something to do with herding fish.

M

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 06:31 PM

Is herding fish anything like knitting fog or jelly nailing?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Gurney
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 11:11 PM

Otters have lavatory habits. They always poop in selected places, and nowhere else.
Maybe they have something to say about the visitors to Tynemouth zoo.

We had an oriental otter escape from our local zoo, and it was swimming between offshore islands quite freely for several weeks before recapture. Freshwater otter, too.
Why would they need help from norsemen to find England? You can see it from France!


Sounds like folklore to me.
'He took some green alligators, and long-necked geese,....'
Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Megan L
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 04:24 AM

Shetland was covered with ice during the last ice age. That wiped out native species (Weel several thousand years in the freezer kin cool onybodys ardour)

When the ice receeded the islands were to far from anything else for natural recolinisation to occur(Other perhaps than a few daft birds whit got lost turnin right at the Moray Firth instead o left)

So somebody brought them there. They are vicious beggers and would probably have enjoyed Sven and Olaf's company.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Santa
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 04:46 AM

since the last Ice Age the North Sea has risen to cover considerable areas of land between England and Germany/Denmark, land once inhabited by people. The geology is different in the north-west, but could there have been more islands above the water in pre-historic times? Perhaps the passage was not as difficult then as it is now?

Just a query: I suspect there is evidence to support Titchmarsh's claim, but it would be interesting to find out what it is.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: gnomad
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 05:58 AM

Anyone know offhand how far an otter can swim?

They live on the UK mainland OK and used to be widely distributed, not sure whether they are found in the Orkneys, which lie between the mainland and the Shetland Islands.

I just wonder whether human intervention was needed at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 02:09 PM

Apparently they considered The Orkneys, but there were no schools for little otters; it wasn't on a bus route, and there wasn't a fish counter at the supermarket. If you want otters you have to offer the kind of facilities that will attract young families, and a corner to crap in.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Santa
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 05:09 PM

There are otters on Orkney, but they are not sea-going creatures and it is definitely sea between Orkney and the Shetlands. The Pentland Firth is quite definitely sea too, but considerably shorter/narrower. It would have to have been a fine day....

Just for interest, nowadays Orkney is preferred to the Orkneys, despite some historical justification for the plural. You do have to be careful with the term "mainland", as that's the name of the largest island in both archipelagoes.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Emma B
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 05:17 PM

I've seen sea otters on the Isle of Arran, one of the last strongholds of the red squirrel too.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: gnu
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 07:13 PM

They otter be grateful the sea otters got lots to eat at sea.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Teribus
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 06:12 AM

No real need for the otters to swim there, or to necessarily have been brought there by man. Like the Northern European humans the otters would hunt and scavenge along the receeding ice, as first Orkney, then the Shetlands were uncovered the otters would have been "stranded" on those islands.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 06:59 AM

Boy I bet they were pissed off, when they discovered where the melted ice had left them.

In otter despair!

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,Tarka
Date: 11 Nov 07 - 08:57 AM

From the long lost Saga of Thorgeir Grimskullson:-

Thorgeir, son of Grimskull, son of Harald the Hairless.
Son of Erik the Bald, son of Ketil the Careless,
Spoke forth in the farmstead to his father and brothers;
'Let us raid in the Shetlands along with some others,
For I'm bored of these fjords and I long to go viking
Since rapine and pillage is much to my liking.'
The Grimskullsons cheered him with mead and with lager,
Ragni Rednose drank too much now he's out of this saga.
Thorgeir asked Earl Uther for longships and men,
And sundries and others - but he slipped with his pen -
The Earl was suprised, still he granted his wish,
Saying otters would be useful for herding the fish.
Uttered Uther 'An otter by no other beast can be bested,
At herding of herring it has oft been attested
That an otter no matter whate'er the water
Fends fish to the shore without moan or mutter.'

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 06:18 AM

Is that 'Tarka Dahl'?

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 06:48 AM

No, you're thinking of Rolled Dhal.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 07:46 AM

I didn't know Emma B's Soldiers of the Otterman Empire also wrote sagas, but Tarka seems to have found one. I am SO impressed at the scholarship which abounds (and a-creeps) here!

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 12:02 PM

'GUEST, Tarka',

That is brilliant! I'm convinced now that Vikings could have introduced otters to the Shetlands ... possibly ...

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Santa
Date: 12 Nov 07 - 02:07 PM

The Saxavord website suggests they were introduced for their pelts, which makes a bit more sense than herding fish.

I've tried to find more about why the Vikings are named, but apart from a fragment on Antiquities about otter faeces (presumably the absence of otherwise in different levels?) I can't get at any hard (or soft) statements.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 12:39 PM

"Not a lot of Gloaming in the Shetlands."

'Roaming in the gloaming' is wandering about at the darkening of the day.

Some winter days in Shetland there can't be much other than the dark bits, though, to be fair, they probably only get about 30 minutes between sundown and sunrise at midsummer. Perfect for otter spotting at that time.

Regards,

Rob

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: Santa
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 03:35 PM

Indeed, my mistake. I was thinking of trees, for some reason, perhaps because of the reference to deer. gloaming, groves, yeah, perfectly natural confusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Otters and Vikings
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Nov 07 - 03:36 PM

I agree, Tarka, brill!

Gurney asked 'He took some green alligators, and long-necked geese,....'
Why?

Umm...they were out of red and didn't have any of the short-necked variety?*bg*

Have been enjoying following this one immensely. Thanks!