What did the Vikings ever do for us?

By Derek McGlashan

Planet Earth (Autumn 2003)

Introduction: When the Vikings weren’t burning, raping and pillaging, they weren’t averse to a legal system, and some of their laws survive today. The Vikings used their laws to rule many Scottish islands, dominating most strongly in Orkney and Shetland. But about 500 years ago, Orkney and Shetland came under Scottish rule. This meant that there were two different legal systems, Viking and Scots. Viking, or udal, laws of property and ownership still exist in parts of Orkney and Shetland. Udal law is very different from the Scots system of property ownership, called feudal law. And it can get very complicated when it comes to beaches, so pay attention.

Viking and Scottish legal systems both use tidal levels to define the amount of coastal land someone can own. The tide comes in and goes out (usually twice a day), but each time it reaches a different level on the beach. We can predict this, as the tides follow a series of cycles between spring tides (the highest high tides and lowest low tides) and neap tides (the lowest high tides and highest low tides).


Under Scots law, private landowners can generally only buy land to the average level of the spring high tides (the highest high tides). But, under Viking laws, they can buy land down to the lowest level the low tide is predicted to reach in any year (the lowest astronomical tide).

Click here to read this article from the Natural Environmental Research Council

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