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When Maeshowe was first excavated, in 1861, the chamber's original entrance passage was inaccessible.
So, to allow access, the excavators drove a shaft down through the top of the mound. Once inside, however, they found proof that that they were not the first to have broken into the tomb. The walls of the Stone Age chamber were covered in with runic graffiti.
The 30 inscriptions found in Maeshowe, make it one of the largest, and most famous, collections of runes known in Europe.
According to Orkneyinga saga, over 800 years previously, in the darkness of an Orkney winter, a group of viking warriors had sought shelter from a terrible snowstorm.
Leading the men was Earl Harald, who, at Christmas, 1153, was making his way from Stromness to the parish of Firth.