Sir Walter Scott, The Pirate (1822*)
* "1822" on the title page. It was actually published on 21 or 22 December 1821 (Edinburgh) and 24 December 1821 (London). It was in three volumes (I: Advertisement and Chs 1-13, II: Chs 14-27, III: Chs 28-42, using the modern numberings).
The Pirate in the original three volumes, conveniently gathered together:
Better for general online reading, The Pirate on Project Gutenberg: this is a two-volume edition with Editor's Introduction by Andrew Lang (1893).
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42389/42389-h/42389-h.htm
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I read The Pirate very early in my journey through Scott's novels and didn’t think much of it compared to his "real" Scottish novels; I was too ready to accept the prevailing view that Scott's worthwhile legacy was a slim one. But forty years later I happened across the enthusiastic notices in The Scottian and decided it was high time to have another go at The Pirate, and what a wonderful neglected pearl I found.
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Mordaunt Mertoun
Of course the literary critics were right to an extent. Scott didn't know Shetland and Orkney deep in his bones, not the way he knew the borders and lowlands and even the Perthshire highlands.
He only went to the Northern Isles once, in August 1814; he packed an enviable amount into that fortnight, and was so captivated by these new scenes that his companions were afraid to disturb him.
The combination of a strong desire to do justice to his setting, and a lack of qualification for the task (which Scott was keenly aware of), makes for a rather unique blend in The Pirate. It's highly researched and constructed, but research doesn't always have to smell of the lamp; sometimes it can sharpen memory and awaken spontaneity. The Pirate stands out for its attention to landscapes and weather, its fresh sense of being somewhere remarkably different and yet not alien. Here on the dubious edges of Scotland Scott's thoughts ranged over immigration, colonization, legality, cultural and national identity, not to mention his own pretensions to being a national author. Central to the novel are the themes of honesty, integrity, deception and delusion.
Those themes are easy to see at the end, when Norna sees she's built a career on deceiving herself and others, and when Minna sees that a passionate commitment to the implausible has messed up her life. But how do they relate to young Mordaunt Mertoun, with whom we navigate through the first half of the novel?
(The Pirate is one of Scott's treacherously shifting structures, like Guy Mannering and The Heart of Midlothian. Later Mordaunt almost disappears, Brenda and Minna take centre-stage, and then we're in Orkney with Cleveland. Its a novel of half-told stories.)
I might cast my vote for Mordaunt as the most loveable of all Scott's male leads. We admire the cheerfully unresenting way that he makes a life with a misanthropic father who shows him no affection. Elsewhere his activity and sociability make him a general favourite, not least in the household of Magnus Troil. If he takes the lead (as sportsman, masquer or dancer) it's from an infectious love of life and a natural sympathy with others, not from a high idea of himself. He thinks nothing of long journeys in any weather to be with his friends. He even wins the affection of such hard nuts as Swertha and Baby Yellowley.
So he doesn't see it coming when communications with Burgh-Westra abruptly cease. Here he is being tormented by Bryce Snailsfoot.
“Dance!” repeated Mordaunt—“Dance on St. John’s Even?—Were you desired to bid me to it, Bryce?”
“Na—but ye ken weel eneugh ye wad be welcome, bidden or no bidden. This captain—how ca’ ye him?—is to be skudler, as they ca’t—the first of the gang, like.”
“The devil take him!” said Mordaunt, in impatient surprise.
“A’ in gude time,” replied the jagger; “hurry no man’s cattle—the devil will hae his due, I warrant ye, or it winna be for lack of seeking. But it’s true I’m telling you, for a’ ye stare like a wild-cat; and this same captain,—I watna his name,—bought ane of the very waistcoats that I am ganging to show ye—purple, wi’ a gowd binding, and bonnily broidered; and I have a piece for you, the neighbour of it, wi’ a green grund; and if ye mean to streek yoursell up beside him, ye maun e’en buy it, for it’s gowd that glances in the lasses’ een now-a-days. See—look till’t,” he added, displaying the pattern in various points of view; “look till it through the light, and till the light through it—wi’ the grain, and against the grain—it shows ony gate—cam frae Antwerp a’ the gate—four dollars is the price; and yon captain was sae weel pleased that he flang down a twenty shilling Jacobus, and bade me keep the change and be d—d!—poor silly profane creature, I pity him.”
Without enquiring whether the pedlar bestowed his compassion on the worldly imprudence or the religious deficiencies of Captain Cleveland, Mordaunt turned from him, folded his arms, and paced the apartment, muttering to himself, “Not asked—A stranger to be king of the feast!”—Words which he repeated so earnestly, that Bryce caught a part of their import.
“As for asking, I am almaist bauld to say, that ye will be asked, Maister Mordaunt.”
“Did they mention my name, then?” said Mordaunt.
“I canna preceesely say that,” said Bryce Snailsfoot;—“but ye needna turn away your head sae sourly, like a sealgh when he leaves the shore; for, do you see, I heard distinctly that a’ the revellers about are to be there; and is’t to be thought they would leave out you, an auld kend freend, and the lightest foot at sic frolics (Heaven send you a better praise in His ain gude time!) that ever flang at a fiddle-squeak, between this and Unst? Sae I consider ye altogether the same as invited—and ye had best provide yourself wi’ a waistcoat, for brave and brisk will every man be that’s there—the Lord pity them!”
He thus continued to follow with his green glazen eyes the motions of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who was pacing the room in a very pensive manner, which the jagger probably misinterpreted, as he thought, like Claudio, that if a man is sad, it must needs be because he lacks money. Bryce, therefore, after another pause, thus accosted him. “Ye needna be sad about the matter, Maister Mordaunt; for although I got the just price of the article from the captain-man, yet I maun deal freendly wi’ you, as a kend freend and customer, and bring the price, as they say, within your purse-mouth—or it’s the same to me to let it lie ower till Martinmas, or e’en to Candlemas. I am decent in the warld, Maister Mordaunt—forbid that I should hurry ony body, far mair a freend that has paid me siller afore now. Or I wad be content to swap the garment for the value in feathers or sea-otters’ skins, or ony kind of peltrie—nane kens better than yoursell how to come by sic ware—and I am sure I hae furnished you wi’ the primest o’ powder. I dinna ken if I tell’d ye it was out o’ the kist of Captain Plunket, that perished on the Scaw of Unst, wi’ the armed brig Mary, sax years syne. He was a prime fowler himself, and luck it was that the kist came ashore dry. I sell that to nane but gude marksmen. And so, I was saying, if ye had ony wares ye liked to coup for the waistcoat, I wad be ready to trock wi’ you, for assuredly ye will be wanted at Burgh-Westra, on Saint John’s Even; and ye wadna like to look waur than the Captain—that wadna be setting.”
“I will be there at least, whether wanted or not,” said Mordaunt, stopping short in his walk, and taking the waistcoat-piece hastily out of the pedlar’s hand; “and, as you say, will not disgrace them.”
“Haud a care—haud a care, Maister Mordaunt,” exclaimed the pedlar; “ye handle it as it were a bale of coarse wadmaal—ye’ll fray’t to bits—ye might weel say my ware is tender—and ye’ll mind the price is four dollars—Sall I put ye in my book for it?”
“No,” said Mordaunt, hastily; and, taking out his purse, he flung down the money.
“Grace to ye to wear the garment,” said the joyous pedlar, “and to me to guide the siller; and protect us from earthly vanities, and earthly covetousness; and send you the white linen raiment, whilk is mair to be desired than the muslins, and cambrics, and lawns, and silks of this world; and send me the talents which avail more than much fine Spanish gold, or Dutch dollars either—and—but God guide the callant, what for is he wrapping the silk up that gate, like a wisp of hay?”
(The Pirate, Ch 9)
Bryce is admirably discreet when it comes to business (note his repeated assurances that he doesn't know the captain's name) but like all really gifted operators he avoids awkward silences and seems to prattle on without any forethought; and we wonder if there's a single word that falls from his lips that isn't perfectly aimed and intended.
How much real malice there is in Bryce's web of words is debatable. The narrator puts it all down to honest commercial greed, but Scott's narrators are often quite slippery themselves. I think when we look back on this scene after finishing the novel, we may see something else in Bryce's green glazen eyes.
Because when things start to turn against Mordaunt we discover that he isn't quite such a universal favourite as we (and he) have been lured into imagining. Behind the limitless Shetland hospitality he's still perceived as the "young stranger" who arrived as a fourteen-year-old, and "stranger" is a loaded term. He may have forgotten his childhood (Scott takes care never to refer to it), but others are keenly aware that this delightful young man is as unaccounted-for as his taciturn father. The resentment of local Shetlanders smoulders, usually hidden but sometimes exposed by e.g. Eric Scambester. Bryce has surely not forgotten Mordaunt's condemnation of the wrecking culture he lives by.
And local gossip is resentfully busy about Mordaunt's position in the Troil household.
“It was a pretty thing, indeed,” they usually concluded, “that he, no native born, and possessed of no visible means of subsistence that is known to any one, should presume to hesitate, or affect to have the power of selection and choice, betwixt the two most distinguished beauties of Zetland. If they were Magnus Troil, they would soon be at the bottom of the matter”—and so forth. (Ch 3)
It's an unstable situation. It only needs someone to whisper to Magnus what all are saying behind his back (even without the gross calumny of Mordaunt bragging) to cool his affection. Minna and Brenda, no less than Magnus, bristle with the family pride that flames up when caught in a false position.
Mordaunt has half-persuaded his father that he truly has no thought of choosing Minna or Brenda for himself (Ch 7). Yet in the crisis of falling out of favour he sways first towards Minna (Ch 12), then more decisively towards Brenda (Ch 16). To be sure Mordaunt never bragged, but he had a complacency about the sisters that he only recognizes when it's torn away. Less charitable eyes had seen it clearly enough.
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Dates and seasons
Like most of Scott's novels The Pirate is set in the light time of the year. But unlike most of the other novels it takes a lot of interest in the changeable weather and landscape.
Relevant are both Scott's personal memories of visiting the Shetlands and Orkneys in 1814, and the actual writing of the novel in 1821.
The visit
In August 1814 Scott visited the Shetlands and Orkneys as the guest of a lighthouse inspection trip. His superb diary of the trip is in Lockhart:
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42062/pg42062-images.html#page124
The "Lighthouse Yacht" left Leith on 29 July 1814, and sailed up the east coast of Scotland.
2-3 August at sea looking for the Shetlands; rough weather, failed to find Fair Isle as intended, eventually back on track after speaking a passing whaler.
They reached Lerwick late on 3 August.
4-5 August, Lerwick. (Robert Stevenson and the "Lighthouse Yacht" leave Scott and his companions here while continuing up to the northern Shetlands.)
6 August, Noss and Bressay, back to Lerwick.
7 August (Sunday). Tingwall, Scalloway, back to Lerwick.
8 August. Lerwick. The yacht returns in the evening and they depart.
9 August. Mousa. Fail to enter the inlet between Sumburgh Head and Fitful Head as planned, instead drop anchor in a roadstead on the south-eastern side, perhaps at Grutness (Scott says Quendal Bay, but I think he must have been confused; Quendal Bay is where they were trying to get to). Scott climbs Sumburgh Head.
10 August; bad night on board. Left Shetland, roughly handled by the roost of Sumburgh again, visited Fair Isle, slept soundly while sailing towards Orkney.
Morning of 11 August, reached Orkney (Start of Sanda). Sail on, seeing a mass of stranded whales, then Lingholm Bay.
12-13 August: Kirkwall, St Magnus' cathedral.
14 August, Sound of Holm, attempt to reach Thurso on the mainland and give up, bay of Long-Hope.
15 August: the Skerries, Long-Hope, Sound of Hoy.
16 August: Stromness, Stennis, Hoy.
17 August: Stromness (story of Gow the pirate). They leave the Orkneys.
Composition
By Scott's standards the composition of The Pirate was unusually protracted. The first volume was composed April-August 1821. Composition speeded up in September and the novel was completed in the second half of October.
As often happens, the seasons described in the novel are broadly in sync with what the novelist was actually seeing outside the window.
Apart from his own travel diary (above), Scott drew on his extensive reading about Norse lore, Shetland and Orkney; with further contributions from his friend and house-guest William Erskine (now Sheriff of Orkney and Zetland). He also drew on his expertise as editor of Dryden's Works; and his current re-reading of Smollett, whose inventive nautical phraseology he plundered for Captain Cleveland and the other pirates.
(Source: http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/pirate.html .)
Date and season in the novel
The Pirate is set in the late seventeenth century, when there were still Udallers and the Norn language lingered on.
The continuous action begins when "The spring was far advanced" (Ch 4). Swertha in Ch 11 says that Magnus was still friends with Mordaunt as late as Whitsunday (typically late May).
Magnus' feast celebrates St John's Eve (23 June).
The Kirkwall Fair, on which the characters converge in the later part of the novel, took place on Saint Olla's Day (3 August) and the following few days, according to the novel itself (Ch 31). Other sources simply associate the fair with Lammastide (beginning 1 August); as does the rhyming advertisement on Bryce Snailsfoot's booth in Ch 32.
No specific year is named, but Scott had 1689 in mind, as modern editors have pointed out. The deposition of James II has already occurred (Claud Halcro mentions it in Ch 12) and Mordaunt, dreaming of going to sea, reflects that "war was again raging" (Ch 9). This sounds recent, and presumably refers to James' invasion of Ireland (March 1689) and the formal declaration of war against France on 17 May 1689. It isn't only with reference to the Norse traditions of Shetland that Magnus warns: "We are all subjects of one realm" (Ch 15); Halcro and Snailsfoot talk lightly of revolutions abroad, and Minna sees a chance for the islands to throw off the Scottish yoke (Ch 18).
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A splendidly exasperated Adam Roberts on The Pirate (but with a lot of insights too):
https://medium.com/adams-notebook/walter-scott-the-pirate-1821-f107f10a9d63
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On random Norse and Scandinavian matters
The name "Shetland" appears only once in the text of The Pirate. Generally Scott writes "Zetland", but Claud Halcro and Norna prefer the Norse name "Hialtland" (Hjaltland). The "Z" in "Zetland" represents the obsolete letter yogh (Ȝ), here supposed to represent the Norse sound "hj".
Magnus Troil: Scott clearly intended the surname "Troil" to indicate Norse ancestry. It was a surname of the nobility in Sweden. Most likely Scott took it from Uno Von Troil (1746 - 1803), whose Letters from Iceland (trans Robson, 1780) were well-known; they are a lively account of his 1772 journey to Iceland (and Orkney) with Joseph Banks, Daniel Solander and other scientists. He was later royal chaplain and archbishop of Uppsala.
Claud Halcro: "Halcro" is a surname and place-name found in Caithness, Orkney, Shetland and Ireland, considered to be of Norse derivation, e.g. the name "Hálkr". But there's nothing Norse about"Claud" (Scott might have encountered it as a frequent given name of the aristocratic descendants of Claud Hamilton, a champion of Mary Queen of Scots). Maybe Scott intended to suggest the relatively cosmopolitan outlook of the islanders (i.e. compared to many in mainland Scotland). Claud Halcro, the unofficial bard of local Norse culture, has also travelled widely, lived among the London wits and even claims a tenuous connection with "glorious John" Dryden.
"Take heed, jarto." (Ch 27) . I don't know where Scott picked this up, but it's genuine Norn (See jarta in Jakob Jakobsen's wordlist), literally meaning "heart" (ON hjarta) but apparently used only as an endearment ("my dear").
The Norn language and the Hildina ballad:
https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2025/10/hildina.html
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Sir Walter Scott's novels, a brief guide
Labels: Sir Walter Scott
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