(The ferry service linking Lerwick in Shetland with Bergen in Norway has been discontinued. The alternative is the summer-only twice-weekly flights from Sumburgh Airport south of Lerwick to Bergen in Norway, operated by flybe.)
Lerwick | Saro Lerwick |
In the British era, which properly began for Shetland with the Napoleonic Wars, Shetlanders have developed a literature in variant written forms of the spoken Shetlandic tongue, as well as in English - the first widely published writers were two daughters of the Lerwick gentry, Dorothea Primrose Campbell and Margaret Chalmers writing for the most part in a rather formal English.
After the resignation of his friend and former ministerial colleague Nicol Stephen, Scott declared his candidacy for the leadership of the Scottish Liberal Democrats on 7 July 2008 at Lerwick harbour, surrounded by a group of men dressed as Vikings which is a tradition in Shetland called Up Helly Aa where Shetlanders celebrate their Viking heritage.
The event happens all over Shetland and is currently celebrated at ten locations – Scalloway, Lerwick, Nesting and Girlsta, Uyeasound, Northmavine, Bressay, Cullivoe, Norwick, the South Mainland and Delting.
Further evidence in support of this claim is the similarity of place names in the Zenos' "Islanda" to modern day Shetland, for instance the island of Bressay for "Bres" and Danaberg sound near Lerwick for "Damberc".