He lived, at least according to local lore, in the most northerly house in the most northerly village on the most northerly of these isles.

Fisherman Walter Sutherland of Skaw, Unst, died around 1850. His claim to fame is that he is supposed to have been the last speaker of Norn - the lost Scandinavian tongue of Caithness, Orkney and Shetland.

The story, of a lone seafarer living at the very top tip of Britain who still spoke “the language of Vikings”, is probably too good to be true.

At least that is what scholars argue. Norn, they say, would have been replaced over centuries, word by word, phrase by phrase. Even now some of its sounds, perhaps its prosody, and a little of its vocabulary survive in the “insular” dialects of Scots.

READ MORE: The biggest myths and misconceptions about Orkney Orkney and the unusual question of Orcadian independence

But it is easier to think of a language dying with one man. And so we talk of Mr Sutherland, not a half millennium of grinding, gradual change.

Over the last few weeks - as once again Silly Season newspapers fill with talk of the Nordic heritage of the Northern Isles - I keep finding myself thinking about Walter. Why? Because it was only after the man died that Orcadians and Shetlanders really started getting properly interested in their Scandinavian roots.

Take Up Helly Aa. This fabulously silly holiday - with its parades of mock Norse pirates and longship burning - kicked off a few decades after Walter passed away.

Yup, Shetlanders began celebrating their Norse links after their last real, living, linguistic connection to their Nordic neighbours was gone.

I suspect it is pretty widely known that the mythologised history and traditions of Scotland’s Northern Islands are not so much Viking as Victorian. And there is nothing wrong with that. Orkney and Shetland were not immune to 19th century Norse romanticism, to nostalgia for a lost past. A few Northern Islanders still pine for a culture they never knew.

Early this month Orcadian councillors - scunnered, they say, with the hearing they get from "sooth" politicians - voted to look at their constitutional future. There was even prank talk of the islands “rejoining Norway”.

That gambit came with a fascinating claim. Asked about Norway, the Orkney council leader, James Stockan, said something that made my ears prick up. “There is a huge affinity and a huge deep cultural relationship there,” he told the BBC.

READ MORE: Why Orkney won't be joining Norway

Mr Stockan’s personal interest in the Nordics is long and sincere. And I know where he is coming from. Visiting Faroe or Iceland - more than Norway, I must admit - I have always felt weirdly at home. But is this affinity “deep”, as Mr Stockan said? Does Orkney have a “deep” cultural relationship with Norway? I am afraid the answer to those questions is obviously “no”.

How do we know this? Well, I do not think it is easy to measure feelings of affinity and I think I am right in saying that nobody has tried in the Northern Isles.

But we can measure basic knowledge of Norway and its culture. How many people in Orkney can speak Norwegian? How many have some kind of level of proficiency beyond playing Duolingo or enjoying some leisure evening classes? Vanishingly few, I reckon.

Can you have a “deep cultural relationship” with a country whose language you cannot speak? Well, of course not.

This is the kind of thing that should not need saying out loud. You can’t have meaningly cultural knowledge without language skills - and vice versa.

Anyone telling you otherwise is plain deluded. Can you appreciate subtitled drama or enjoy some tasty treats from a place you have locked yourself out of. Sure. That is something, but “deep” it is not.

It is not just some Shetlanders and Orcadians who declare affinity or closeness to Norway and other Scandinavians and/or Nordics. Many mainlanders do too.

This has been especially the case for nationalists seeking to portray Scotland as having wider connections than just England and the Anglosphere. As in Orkney and Shetland the “we are more like Norwegians” line is part of an attempt to create a distinctive brand.

It does not stand up to much scrutiny. Because mainlander Scotia, like Northern Islanders, know diddly squat about Norway.

Now there have been admirable if modest attempts to build understanding between Scotland and the nations to our east. It would probably be unfair to characterise this as a few folk pootering about. But it is not much more than that.

The SNP administration in Edinburgh and islands councils who big up their Norse roots talk a good talk. But have they done anything to scale up knowledge and understanding? Nope, not really.

READ MORE: Orkney won't be joining Norway

There were - are - policies that governments, local and national, could pursue to build population-wide understanding of some of our neighbours. These are not easy, of course, which is why they have not been tried.

Orkney, as an example, could encourage Norwegian to be taught at schools. That would mean importing teachers - and paying them. It would mean subsidised evening classes for parents too. And expensive school trips and exchanges.

The Scottish Government could sponsor young people to study Scandi lingos and society at uni. Or pay for research trips across the North Sea. It would take years to start building up a capacity for area studies. But we would have to start somewhere. I am not suggesting we teach every bairn in the land to snakker a bit of Norsk. I am saying we need some to do so, in order to build a cadre of people who can bridge the North Sea for us.

Walter Sutherland would probably have been able to talk to a Faroese, though perhaps not easily. And he might have found it not too hard to learn Norwegian too.

Old Walter is dead. But that does not mean we cannot transform the shallow affinity so many Scots say they feel for the Nordic world in to something more meaningful, and useful.