Broch of Mousa

On the west coast of the island of Mousa ( Moor Island), which can be reached from Sandwick, stands at Mousa Broch of Mousa Sound of the best preserved Broch at all. It was built before the Christian era and still has a height of over 13 m. It has a base diameter of about 15 m, wherein the interior has a diameter of only about six meters. In the extremely thick walls are three large chambers, each with three or four small niches. Three other large slots are accessible from inside the vehicle. In the bottom 4.5 m thick wall is a staircase that leads to the wall runs. In formerly higher ground floors, which are often postulated, there is no indication. When Broch was once one today ausgegangenes Wheelhouse.

Literary

The Broch is the love story between Brynjulfsson Bjorn and Thora, the daughter Roalds connected. Torn In Norway, beached their ship in a storm off Mousa, where the lovers were married and lived through the winter in the Broch. For fear of parental revenge they moved to Iceland, where she recorded the singer Egill Skallagrimsson. 200 years later kidnapped Earl Erland his lover, the Earl of maddad of Atholl, whose wedding was her son, the Earl Harald Maddadarson prevent widow. He besieged the Broch without him being able to take and had to agree to the marriage.

In Ian Rankin's detective novel " The souvenir of the murderer " (orig. Black and Blue, 1997), the protagonist Detective John Rebus examined a witness in the Mousa Broch, who is hiding there.