In the time of the Roman occupation of Britain we have definite mention of the Orcades, but nothing which shows any real knowledge of them. They were visited by the fleet of Agricola after his invasion of Scotland, as recorded by Tacitus. About three centuries later, the poet Claudian sings of a victory by the Emperor Theodosius, who, we are told, sprinkled Orcadian soil with Saxon blood. We are not told, however, who the people called Saxons really were, or whether they were the inhabitants of the islands or not. They may have been early Viking raiders who had fled hither and been brought to bay among the group. Early Church history has also some references to Orkney. After St. Columba had left the shores of Ireland to carry the message of Christianity to the Picts and Scots in Scotland, another Irish missionary, Cormac, went on a similar voyage among the Orkney Isles. Him, therefore, we may regard as the apostle to the northern heathen. St. Adamnan, the biographer of St. Columba, tells the story, and the name of Adamnan himself is still commemorated in the name of the Isle of Damsay. After the visit of Cormac, the Culdee missionaries established themselves in various parts of Orkney, as the place-names given by the Norsemen show. In several of these names we find the word _pápa_, a form of _pope_, which was the name applied to the monks or clergy of the Culdee Church. Like Columba himself, who made the little island of Iona his headquarters, his followers seem to have preferred the seclusion of the smaller islands. To this habit are due such names as _Papa Westray_ and _Papa Stronsay_. Other Church settlements have left their traces in names such as _Paplay_ and _Papdale_. Another place-name which records an old-world mission station is that of _Deerness_. At first sight this name seems rather to indicate that abundance of deer were found there; and some writers tell us, by way of proving this, that deer’s horns have been found in that parish. But as deer’s horns have also been found in many other places in the county, the proof is not convincing. We must remember that the Norse invaders were likely to name the place on account of its appearance from the sea. They may, of course, have noticed a chance herd of deer near the cliffs; but one thing is certain to have caught their eye—the unusual sight of a building of stone on the Brough of Deerness. Some remains of this building, and of a later one on the same site, still exist; and it was long regarded as in some way a sacred place, to which pilgrimages were made. This building was in fact one of those outposts of early Christianity—a Culdee monastery. When the Norse invaders came, they doubtless found it occupied by some of the Culdee clergy—_diar_, as they would be called by the strangers—and so the headland was named the Priests’ Cape, or Deerness.