STORM’S EDGE is a remarkable and wonderful book — extraordinary in both scale and erudition. Peter Marshall, Professor of History at Warwick University, is himself an Orcadian. His writing is as personal and engaged as it is meticulously researched.

One key aspiration lies at the heart of this book — which will seem as puzzling to some as it is completely obvious to others. Places such as Orkney are often and inevitably seen as peripheral and insignificant. But Marshall suggests that what seems peripheral may also be central. The smaller canvas of Orkney’s story can give to the broad sweep of history a focus and clarity that might otherwise be missed. He affirms this in personal terms: “Everyone lives at the centre of their own social and moral universe.” Typical of Orkney and other apparently peripheral places is the closeness of friendship and the warmth of community life. He describes it as “the marriage of random encounter and common connection”.

Storm’s Edge traces the story of Orkney through the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. In political terms, these turbulent years brought the gradual movement of Orkney away from Scandinavia and towards a new status as part of Scotland. This was the period in which modern Scotland and modern Britain were shaped. It was also during this period that the Reformation played its part in shaping a new kind of faith community in Orkney and in Scotland as a whole.

Behind this engrossing story of “life, death and magic in Orkney”, there lurks some darkness. The reference to “magic” in the title reminds us that Marion Paulson, one of Marshall’s ancestors, was murdered by a witch in the early 17th century. To the modern mind, the story of witchcraft in Orkney seems to belong in another world. Marshall bridges that gap by describing a simple stone memorial that was put in place in 2019 in what was Orkney’s place of public execution. In commemorating those accused of witchcraft, it bears the simple message, “they wur cheust folk”: they were just people.

Marshall begins his historical account with the first visit to Orkney by a Scottish Sovereign. The visit of King James V of Scotland to Orkney in 1540 was on many levels a significant event — not least because it marked the start of a deteriorating relationship with King Henry VIII. Marshall calls the movement of Orkney towards Scotland and also towards Britain a “road to modernity”. During the Reformation in Scotland, there was ruthless suppression of popery and constant tension between King and Kirk.

Storm’s Edge is a demanding read: 480 closely written pages. But it is warmly personal, full of humour, and includes 30 illustrations. Over and over again, I found echoes in my own life and identity of that desire to “make the peripheral central”. The absence of a more conventional sense of where the “big picture” may lie allows geographical remoteness and close-knit community to bring a special kind of richness to the story that Marshall tells. Those who have always lived at what they assumed was “the centre of things” may find this difficult. But this remarkable book teaches us that the big truths are often easier to grasp when they are played out on a smaller canvas.

The Rt Revd David Chillingworth is a former Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Storm’s Edge: Life, death and magic in the Islands of Orkney
Peter Marshall
Harper Collins £25
(978-0-00-839439-4)
Church Times Bookshop £22.50