It is a question whether Orkney and Shetland, with their Christian Picts and heathen Norse, in the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, were the birth-place of some of the Edda lays; and whether any of these lays were current there, as oral tradition, and taken down in writing in the twelfth century by earl St. Rögnvaldr and his Icelandic skálds. The solitary preservation and use of many Edda poetic words in Shetland is significant. The first notices we have of writing in the saga are in 1116, when Kali Kolsson, afterwards (1136), earl Rögnvaldr Kali, in a verse, numbered among his accomplishments, _bók_, reading and writing, and, in 1152, when earl Erlendr produced king Eysteinn’s _bréf_, letter, at the þing in Kirkjuvágr. With regard to person-names, it will have been noted that the Norse earls in the male line, although half Gaels, always gave their children Norse names, while the Gaelic earls, who were only of slight Norse descent, gave their children Norse, Gaelic and English names. So that the gœðingar and other leading families of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries, who also gave their children Norse, Gaelic and English names, were therefore probably, like the Gaelic earls, also of Gaelic descent in the male line. This is also in accordance with the known practice of other Gaelic settlers in Iceland, etc. The non-Norse characteristics of persons of Gaelic descent are most pronounced--black hair, swarthy complexion, quarrelsome, given to witchcraft, pawky and glib, oath-breakers, etc., which perhaps point to the Iberian element rather than to the true Gael; and that in comparison with the Norse--fair-haired, accomplished and well-bred, generous, makers of hard bargains, which they, however, kept, true to their word, etc. It must be remembered that these comparative characteristics are the observations of the Norsemen themselves, who wrote the saga, probably Icelanders, and therefore, presumably, exaggerated in their own favour. They are valuable, however, in placing beyond doubt the large strain of non-Norse people who lived in Orkney. It has been shown that the Gaelic earls, 1139-1350, adopted Norse patronymics, and that all persons in Orkney and Shetland before 1350 used Norse patronymics, including the numerous Gaelic families, which must have settled in the islands. There was no other alternative, just as it was, conversely, the case in the Hebrides, where the Gaels predominated, and where their language prevailed, and was adopted by the Norsemen. Here the Norse _Goðormsson_ became Gaelic _M’Codrum_, _Þorketilsson_: _M’Corcodail_, _Ivarsson_: _M’Iamhair_, etc., etc. Compare also the case in Ireland. Gaelic names in Orkney and Shetland in their Norse form have already been dealt with.