Fethaland

Fethaland, or Fedeland, is an abandoned settlement at the extreme north end of the Shetland Mainland. It was the site of the largest haaf fishing station in Shetland — the haaf being the deep-sea fishery worked far offshore in open six-oared boats. The name derives from Old Norse and means rich pasture — fat land, word for word. A local tradition instead derives it from the Picts, said to have been driven from Fethaland as their last refuge and to have called out from the water 'Fae da land, fae da land'.

That story is most likely apocryphal. The shout is well-formed modern Shetland dialect, which the Picts would not have spoken, so the tradition explains an old name using a language several centuries too young for the people it describes. Fishermen at the station lit their böds — the small stone huts they lodged in during the season — with oil lamps made from common whelk shells, known locally as buckies. An example from Fethaland was collected by the ethnographer Dr Arthur Mitchell and is kept in the Shetland Museum.

Mitchell used the lamp to make an argument about how objects should be read. He allowed that everyone would admit the lamp elegant and pretty, but held that the fisherman used a shell only because a shell was easily obtained — that doing so proved neither a sense of beauty in him, nor, from his coarsely made sinker, the reverse. The fishing station was designated a scheduled monument on 10 October 1994. Because of the risk of erosion damaging the site, a survey including laser scanning was carried out in August 2010.

Fethaland, together with more of the north tip of the Mainland including Uyea, forms part of the Shetland National Scenic Area, and the site carries a second designation as a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its natural rather than its industrial interest.