In this new book by one of Britain's foremost experts in mediaeval linguistics and history, Dr Graeme Davis counters popular historical belief by proposing that there was a Saxon settlement in both Orkney and Shetland during the fourth century AD. The Saxons were a minority group, and were ultimately subsumed into the Norwegian Viking population which migrated to the islands from around AD 790, but they had a four-hundred year presence in the islands, and constitute one of the first English settlements in the British Isles. Basing his thesis on extensive linguistic, historical and archaeological research, Dr Davis challenges some of the longest held beliefs about the settlement of Orkney and Shetland and casts a new light on the origins and history of the first island settlers.