New Books

Peter Drummond, Scottish Hill Names, Scottish Mountaineering Trust, 2007, 240 pages (£15); ISBN 9780907521952.

This is a welcome revision and expansion of the much-acclaimed Scottish Hill and Mountain Names (1991). An extended 'Introduction' includes a background to maps, map-makers, hill naming and place-name studies, whilst 'Hill Name Generics' gathers together formerly scattered material and adds new material -most particularly for Southern Scotland. It discusses generics alphabetically from Scotland's core languages, Cumbric, Gaelic, Norse and Scots - everything from pen, beinn, fell and law to caer, dronnag, kame and curr. It is particularly strong on Gaelic and Scots terms, with Norse and Cumbric more generally treated within such geographical chapters as 'The Islands', the North-West Highlands' and 'The Southern Uplands' - a new layout that echoes the titles of Scottish Mountaineering Club guidebooks. The eagle-eyed may spot the occasional omission. What, for instance, of Gaelic spéic, spìc, spike (Speicein Còinnich in Coigach)? Cognate with Dwelly's spice (obs.), a pinnacle, conical peak, anything pointed (Caithness) and a simple alternative for Spidean Còinnich (Quinag)?

Given that Scottish Hill Names is published for SMC, its primary focus is those areas most popular with hill-walkers and climbers. Given the growing popularity of less well-known areas, however, and improved transport links to and between islands formerly considered less accessible, a future edition might devote more attention to the Northern Isles and a larger number of Western Isles. They may be less rugged, but provide excellent walking and their sea-cliffs have become much favoured by climbers.

Given also Ordnance Survey maps with names in real as opposed to anglicised Gaelic and a better orthographic stab at names of Norse origin in the Northern Isles, there is a case for including more hill (and cliff) names from, say, the smaller Hebrides as well as individual entries for such as Westray and Rousay (Orkney) and Unst, Yell, Fetlar and Burra (Shetland). Fuller consideration of the wider Norse contribution might then extend coverage for Hoy and Foula - which latter also has Eig, Hamar, Hornalie and the enigmatic Crugar, whilst Tounafield likely originates in Old Norse tún + fjall (the mountain above the tún/farm) and Soberlie is Old Norse sauðr + berg + (h)líð, an excellent sheep grazing on steep slopes ending in a rocky sea-cliff. Indeed it may be helpful to re-group Scotland's vast array of islands under 'Shetland', 'Orkney', 'Outer Hebrides' and 'Inner Hebrides' - which would avoid Orkney lying between Mull and Raasay, with Hoy between Harris and Iona!

But enough of this! These are matters primarily for the publisher and detract but little from a book that provides so many answers to so many questions that haunt those who enjoy the hills and prefer to call them by their 'real' names. Why use a part-translated 'Fiddler' when you can now better pronounce as well as understand Sgùrr an Fhìdhleir (Coigach), or tautological Knockan Crag for Cnocan (Elphin)?

In addition to a useful guide to Gaelic pronunciation and well-chosen line-drawings, this new edition includes a number of colour plates, most especially of 16th-17th century maps now accessible on the National Library of Scotland's invaluable website. The extent of Peter Drummond's investigations is shown, for instance, in his discussion of Montes Marmorei and Montes Alabastri (Ortelius 1573, facing p. 65, p.144). It may well be that the latter point to Torridon's quartzite hills and the former to those of Assynt, but perhaps we should not discount the possibility of an earlier recognition of the architectural qualities of those metamorphised limestones currently quarried at Ledmore (greenish-white marbles that produce spectacular banding, veining and blotching)? Pennant, for example, in his Tour of Scotland (1772) passed 'under some great precipices of limestone, mixed with marble' between Strathkanaird and Camloch; and quartered at Ledbeg he added that: 'This country is environed with mountains; and [as well as limestone burnt to improve the land] all the strata near their base, and in the bottoms, are composed of white marble, fine as the Parian: houses are built with it, and walls raised ...'. (1998, p.38)

Boxed entries - a welcome new feature - focus on such specific issues, not least nuances between Gaelic words for colours; and the final chapters remind us of the importance to those who named the hills of the natural environment, their rural lifestyle, mythical beasts, lookout hills and the exploits of individuals whose names would otherwise have been lost - a veritable gamut of social and cultural history!

A mine of well-researched information that will make any map-browser's or hill-goer's expeditions infinitely more rewarding, Scottish Hill Names should also be required reading for those responsible for interpretation and publications of all kinds. For it is surely time that we tried harder to conserve and disseminate Scotland's remarkably diverse place-name heritage more accurately and effectively than hitherto. This book is an admirable step in the right direction.

Postscript:
Post-publication, the author mentioned that Blaeu has two forms for the Pentland Hills (p.169) - plural Pent-land Hills (Tweeddale map) and singular Penth-landt hill (Lothian map). Both are placed above Carlops/Ninemileburn. On the Lothian map, Blaeu [see extract on back page - with acknowledgements to NLS] also has a Pentland hill above the farms of Lyips and Penth land, and gives Roslyin more for Woodhouselee (linked with Woodhousley beside Roslin) - in which case this Pentland hill may equate with Pentlandmuir (attached to 'Old' Pentland and from which Holyrood Abbey was granted the teinds c.1230; compare also 15th/16th-century Kirktoun de Pentland[-mure] within Glencorse). This suggests a certain volatility in the 16th century, and tends to support the view that 'northern' Pentland hill could still refer to the hill-grazings of the settlement of Penth land, even if increasingly, maybe generally, the term was now used for the range as a whole.

The Pentland Hills in the mid 17th century Atlas of Scotland published by the Blaeu family firm in Amsterdam .
The settlement of 'Penthland' (now Old Pentland), 'Pentland Hill' and 'Penth-landt Hill' all appear.
(with acknowledgements to NLS)

Looking into Creich, published by Bonar Bridge History Society (1 Foundry Bank, IV24 3EG). £7.99 (or £9.99 including a CD-ROM of the place-names spoken)

This is a survey of local place-names in the parish of Creich around Bonar Bridge in south-east Sutherland. It is well illustrated with 30 colour photos, but the text disappoints. There is an Introduction, with a very fragmented history, followed by a four-page table entitled "Random Gaelic Words often Found in Place-names". Why random? Wouldn't an alphabetical list have been more useful? Not only is it alphabetically random, but equally random are whether the word is capitalised or not, and whether it has the definite article or not (e.g. leac, but Am bealach): even the choice of words seems random, for while many are common place-name topographic features or colours, how often do ruathair (skirmish) or tosgaire (messenger) feature in place-names? Further, eich is not 'horse' and mhadaidh is not 'wolf' (or, more likely, dog or fox) but their genitive form, to indicate but two such inaccuracies.

This raises fears that the core of the book, a list of the area's place-names, might be less than satisfactory. The first thing that strikes you is, with the exception of the name Creich itself, the almost complete absence of historical forms of the place-names, fundamental in place-name study. Anyone can now access the old maps of Scotland through the NLS website (e.g. Blaeu's Southerlandia map, 1654, which covered the area) while books such as W J Watson's, which includes investigation of some of the local names, are widely available. Watson [CPNS, p.210, and in Sutherland chapters of Place-Name Papers, republished 2002] for instance discussed the River Oykel, main watercourse along the parish edge, and says it is "not Gaelic nor is it Norse, but it may go back ultimately [like many major river names] to Early Celtic uxellos", high. Yet this book baldly states on page 16 that "the rivers Cassley and Oykel (both Norse names) …". I spent a brief hour looking through the RMS (Register of the Great Seal) for the main names of this parish, and found references from 1581, 1583 and 1620 to nine of the settlement names of the area. This book has none of them.

The bulk of the 325 place-names listed are topographical features with straightforward Gaelic names, transparent to a modern speaker (or Gaelic dictionary user). There is a CD available, in which a local speaker pronounces all these names, and this is definitely a useful feature. However a quick glance at a modern map of the parish would raise the eyebrows of most Scots interested in place-names, for there appears to be a group of Scandinavian names, including Ospisdale, Migdale, Spinningdale, and Swordale; but there is no discussion of how these names came to be here. Migdale - a popular tourist destination because of its Wood - is not even listed as a name. Watson derived it from Pictish *mign (bog) and Norse dalr (dale): the Norse occupied the area before the Gaels, sometimes taking over parts of the pre-existing Pictish names. Ospisdale, the book says, is from a Norse personal name Ospis: however its1620 recording Tospistell might suggest hospital (in the sense of hospice or hostel) as nearer the mark. Swordale (Sordell in 1591, Swordell and Sordaill in 1606) is one of several spots of this name in Scotland, literally the 'dale of the (green) sward', and the book at least gets this right. Spinningdale the book says it is from spenja-dalr, attractive dale, although spenja is a Norse verb, not an adjective, and it does not mention Blaeu's Spainidail: Watson thought it might be spann, pail, from the bay's shape. The book then throws its own Norse etymology into confusion by stating later (page 70) that Spinningdale had a mill built in the mid-19th century by the owner of Skibo estate "introducing spinning and weaving of cotton to the Highlands." Roy's map of 1755 marks only one settlement here, Inverochin at the mouth of the river, which indicates that it may have locally been known by this Gaelic name as an alternative to the Norse (as Norse name Dingwall, was Gaelic Inbhir Pheofhearain): an 1820 map returns to the old name Spinningdale. No mention of this in the book.

Even with the parish name Creich, although old forms are given, and the (probably correct) etymology in Gaelic crìoch, boundary [that between Sutherland and Ross?], the waters are then muddied when it states that researchers found that the name came from "a rock known in Caledonian-Pictish time as Din-Crûg, a word meaning a place of striking visual impact".

The SPNS is happy to help local groups in place-name research; it's a pity this didn't happen here.

Peter Drummond

BIBLIOGRAPHY
(Compiled by Simon Taylor, with help from Carole Hough and Doreen Waugh.)

Bonar Bridge History Society, 2007, Looking in to Creich (including a CD-ROM of the place-names spoken) [reviewed above].

Breeze, Andrew, 2006, 'The Names of Blantyre, Carluke, and Carnwath, near Glasgow', Scottish Studies 34 (2000-2006), 1-4.

Broderick, George, 2007, 'Goedelic-Scandinavian language contact in the place-names of the Isle of Man', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 1-26.

Cavill, P., and G. Broderick (eds), 2007, Language Contact in the Place-Names of Britain and Ireland, EPNS Extra Series 3 (Nottingham: English Place-Name Society) [papers from the International Conference on Language Contact in the Place-Names of Britain and Ireland, organised by the Institute for Name Studies, University of Nottingham, in conjunction with the Centre for Manx Studies (University of Liverpool), Douglas, Isle of Man, held in Douglas, Isle of Man, 17-18 September 2004]

Cavill, Paul, 2007, 'Coming back to Dingesmere', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 27-42.

Coates, Richard, 2007, 'Invisible Britons: the view from toponomastics', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 43-56.

Cox, Richard, 2007, 'The development of Old Norse -rð(-) in Scottish Gaelic', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 57-96.

Fellows-Jensen, Gillian, 2007, 'Some thoughts on English influence on names in Man', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 97-110.

Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 2007, 'The change from Pictish to Gaelic in Scotland', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 111-22.

Sandnes, Berit, 2007, 'Describing language contact in place-names', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 123-36.

Stempel, Patrizia de Bernardo, 2007, 'Pre-Celtic, Old Celtic layers, Brittonic and Goidelic in ancient Ireland', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 137-164.

Stuart-Murray, John, 2006, 'Differentiating the Gaelic Landscape of the Perthshire Highlands', Scottish Studies 34 (2000-2006), 159-77.

Taylor, Simon, 2007, 'Gaelic in Glasgow: the Onomastic Evidence', in Glasgow: Baile Mòr nan Gàidheal/City of the Gaels, ed. Sheila M. Kidd (Glasgow), 1-19.

Thomson, William P. L., 2008, Orkney Land and People (The Orcadian Limited, Kirkwall Press) [two chapters specifically about place-names: Chapter 1: Orkney Farm-names; Chapter 13: The Place-names of the Crofter Pioneer Fringe]

Waugh, Doreen, 2007, 'From the 'banks-gaet' to the 'hill-grind': Norn and Scots in the place-names of Shetland', in Cavill and Broderick (eds), 165-83.

Autumn 2007

Simon Taylor with Gilbert Márkus, (2006) The Place-Names of Fife, Vol.1, Shaun Tyas, Donington

It is a delight to welcome the publication of this first volume in The Place-Names of Fife, a work which indeed does what it says on the dustcover and, “sets new standards in county place-name research”. The structure and contents of this volume give Scottish place-name publications a new framework and high academic standards to meet. It is particularly welcome as the beginning of a series about one county. For anyone interested in Scottish place-names it is frustrating that there have been only two county publications: W. J. Watson’s Place-Names of Ross and Cromarty (1904) and Angus MacDonald’s Place- Names of West Lothian (1941). There is a welcome body of other types of publications, but none of these draw together the history, culture and development of place-names in the way that a parish by parish approach to a county can do.

As the first volume in a series the introduction sets out clearly the areas of Fife to be covered in each volume, this covering the parishes between the Firth of Forth and the River Leven, to be followed in volume 2 by the parishes between the River Leven and the River Eden and in volume 3 the parishes those between the River Eden and the Firth of Tay. Volume 4 will contain an outline history and analysis of the place-names, with an Elements glossary. This is a series to approach as a whole, and many readers will wait anxiously for the discussion in volume 4, but in volume 1 Taylor and Márkus have shown that the text can be dipped in and out of on a number of levels and across numerous academic disciplines. The introduction itself gives a definition of Fife, explains the importance of parishes, the languages place-names were coined from, pronunciation and a glossary of place-name terms. There are 4 pages explaining the layout of each entry and the abbreviations used within them, followed by standard abbreviations, a bibliography and list of sources: all material that is normally found tucked away in the back of texts but which is it vitally important to understand and to read first. The framework established within the first 36 pages of this book provides a model for others to follow, whether with counties or individual parishes. It does however take the reader some time to become accustomed to the structure of each entry and to remember what the different abbreviations mean. A bookmark with the key information about the different sections in each entry would have been very useful.

After the introduction the book has two sections, the first on linear features and unidentified sites, the second, much larger, contains the parish entries. The volume ends with an index which contains the place-names and some personal and saints names. The authors are to be commended not only for establishing the structure of each entry from the earlier work done in England and Northern Ireland county volumes, but also the very clear approach to the volume as a whole. The entire layout is straightforward and each part is explained so that the reader knows exactly what they can find within it. This is an important asset in a place-name text that will be used by many people for a great variety of purposes.

The parish entries open with two maps; the first are mostly from Ainslie (1775) and the second a map with the main settlements and features of the parish. This sets the historical context and current situation; it also shows the reader key geographical features. The introductions to each parish provide an astounding wealth of detail about landholding and the development of the parish. The place-names themselves follow in alphabetical order, with a list of references, the possible meaning and then a discussion about the meaning. The discussions within each entry link the place-names to comments by earlier place-name authors, similar names and to the history of the place itself. It is fascinating to follow the links made to the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland. This volume builds on the work of W.J. Watson (1926) and later place-name research. The connections built bear across sources and analysis will be a valuable source for academic audiences across several disciplines. However, the accessibility of the language and structure means that the book will be used by many people, from those looking up an individual name, to local historians and members of the Scottish Place-Name Society.

I enjoyed reading this volume for many reasons. The first that the structure and style of writing make it an enjoyable read, the second that the discussions are easy to follow and connected across the text, so the reader gains without realising it a greater understanding of the place-names across Fife. The places themselves are well described; I particularly liked the description of Raith Hill (p.129). I appreciated the fact that when referring to early documents a translation is given in the text, so that it flows for all readers but for those who want to see the original, it is there in the foot notes. The reader is given direct quotations from entries in the National Monuments Records Scotland cards and references to the Statistical Accounts. The authors don’t always reach a conclusion but have pulled together all the relevant information the reader could possibly want. It is the detail that makes this such a wonderful volume and illustrates the vital importance of Toponymics in cultural history, bringing together people, place, landscape and history. I would urge all society members who have not already done so to take advantage of the offer from Shaun Tyas and purchase this volume. This is volume one of what will be a classic place-name text, for Simon Taylor is surely the W.J. Watson of his generation.

Morag Redford

Compiled by Simon Taylor, with help from Carole Hough, Maggie Scott and Doreen Waugh. This bibliography includes individual articles from Names through the Looking Glass: Festschrift in Honour of Gillian Fellows-Jensen, edd. P. Gammeltoft & B. Jørgensen (C. A. Reitzels Forlag A/S, Copenhagen, 2006) [reviewed by Alison Grant in SPNNews 22 (Spring 2007), 11-12]. A list of articles in Journal of Scottish Name Studies (JSNS) 1 (September 2007) can be found below. Please let Simon Taylor know of omissions, and these will be included in the next Newsletter.

Breeze, Andrew, 2006, ‘Historia Brittonum and Arthur’s Battle of Tribruit’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 80, 53-8.
Breeze, Andrew, 2007, ‘Tacitus, Ptolemy and the River Forth’, Classical Quarterly 57 (2007), 324-28.
Butter, Rachel, 2007, ‘Cill-names and Saints in Argyll: a way towards understanding the early church in Dál Riata?’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
Clancy, Thomas Owen, 2007, ‘Spaghetti Junction: OI rót, roüt, ScG ròd, rathad, Scots rod, rode, Eng. road and some other minor by-ways’, in Fil súil nglais: A Grey Eye Looks Back, edd. Sharon Arbuthnot and Kaarina Hollo (Ceann Drochaid/[Brig o’ Turk]), 17-28.
Crawford, Barbara E., 2006, ‘Houseby, Harray and Knarston in the West Mainland of Orkney. Toponymic indicators of administrative authority?’, in Gammeltoft & Jørgensen, 21-44.
Drummond, Peter. ‘Scottish Hill Names’, Scottish Mountaineering Trust, 2007. ISBN - 9780907521952. £15.
Fellows-Jensen, Gillian, 2007, ‘Nordic and English in East Anglia in the Viking Period’, North-Western European Language Evolution, NOWELE Vol. 50/51 (University Press of Southern Denmark), 93-108.
Fellows-Jensen, Gillian, 2007, ‘The Scandinavian element gata outside the urbanised settlements of the Danelaw’, in West Over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement before 1300, edd. Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (Brill: Leiden and Boston), 445-59.
Fox, Bethany, 2007, ‘The P-Celtic Place-Names of North-East England and South-East Scotland’, The Heroic Age (An on-line Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe) 10
Gammeltoft, Peder, 2006, ‘Scandinavian influence on Hebridean island names’, in Gammeltoft & Jørgensen, 53-84.
Gammeltoft, Peder, 2007, ‘Scandinavian Naming-Systems in the Hebrides – A way of Understanding how the Scandinavians were in Contact with Gaels and Picts?’, in West Over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement before 1300, edd. Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (Brill: Leiden and Boston), 479-95.
Graham-Campbell, James, 2006, ‘Some reflections on the distribution and significance of Norse place-names in northern Scotland’, in Gammeltoft & Jørgensen, 94-118.
Kerr, John, 2007, The Atholl Experience [see item in Notes and Queries for Autumn 2007].
Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 2007, ‘Gaelic sliabh revisited’, in Fil súil nglais: A Grey Eye Looks Back, edd. Sharon Arbuthnot and Kaarina Hollo (Ceann Drochaid/[Brig o’ Turk]), 175-86.
Sandnes, Berit, 2006, ‘Toponyms as settlement names – of no relevance in settlement history?’, in Gammeltoft & Jørgensen, 230-53.
Taylor, Simon, 2007, ‘The Rock of the Irishmen: an early place-name tale from Fife and Kinross’, in West Over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement before 1300, edd. Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (Brill: Leiden and Boston), 497–514.
Thomson, William P. L., 2007, ‘The Orkney Papar-names’, in West Over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement before 1300, edd. Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (Brill: Leiden and Boston), 515-37.
Waugh, Doreen, 2005, ‘From Hermaness to Dunrossness: some Shetland ness-names’, in Viking and Norse in the North Atlantic. Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Viking Congress, Tórshavn, 19–30 July 2001, eds. A. Mortensen and S. V. Arge, Annales Societatis Scientiarum Færoensis, Supplementum 44 (Tórshavn: Faroese Academy of Sciences), 250-56.
Waugh, Doreen, 2006, ‘The -by/-bie names of Shetland’, in Gammeltoft & Jørgensen, 298-321.
Waugh, Doreen, 2006, ‘Place-Name Evidence for Portages in Orkney and Shetland’, in The Significance of Portages: Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Significance of Portages, 29th September-2nd October 2004, in Lyngdal, Vest-Agder, Norway, arranged by the County Municipality of Vest-Agder, Kristiansand, ed. C. Westerdahl (BAR International Series 1499), 239-49.
Waugh, Doreen, 2007, ‘Placing Papa Stour in context’, in West Over Sea: Studies in Scandinavian Sea-Borne Expansion and Settlement before 1300, edd. Beverley Ballin Smith, Simon Taylor and Gareth Williams (Brill: Leiden and Boston), 539-53.
Woolf, Alex, 2007, ‘The Cult of Moluag, the See of Mortlach and Church Organisation in North Scotland in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries’, in Fil súil nglais: A Grey Eye Looks Back, edd. Sharon Arbuthnot and Kaarina Hollo (Ceann Drochaid/[Brig o’ Turk]), 299-310.
Journal of Scottish Name Studies 1, contents as follows:
Articles
Coates, Richard, 2007, ‘Yell’, JSNS 1, 1-12.
Cox, Richard A. V., 2007, ‘The Norse Element in Scottish Place-names: syntax as a chronological marker’, JSNS 1, 13-26.
Drummond, Peter, 2007, ‘The Hill Names of Southern Scotland: a work in progress studying name change’, JSNS 1, 27-36.
Hammond, Matthew H., 2007, ‘The Use of the Name Scot in the Central Middle Ages Part I: Scot as a by-name’, JSNS 1, 37-60.
McNiven, Peter, 2007, ‘The Gart-names of Clackmannanshire’, JSNS 1, 61-76.
Márkus, Gilbert, 2007, ‘Gaelic under Pressure: a 13th-century charter from East Fife’, JSNS 1, 77-98.
Taylor, Simon, 2007, ‘Sliabh in Scottish Place-names: its meaning and chronology’, JSNS 1, 99-136.
Varia
Coates, Richard, 2007, ‘Bordastubble, a Standing-stone in Unst, Shetland, and Some Implications for English Toponymy’, JSNS 1, 137-9.
Cox, Richard A.V., 2007, ‘Notes on the Norse Impact on Hebridean Place-names’, JSNS 1, 139-44.
Fraser, James E., 2007, ‘Picts in the West in the 670s? Some thoughts on AU 673.3 and AU 676.3’, JSNS 1, 144-8.
Henery, Robert and Taylor, Simon, 2007, ‘Pitmiclardie in Fife’, JSNS 1, 148-50.
King, Jacob, 2007, ‘Endrick and Lunan’, JSNS 1, 150-56.
Review Article
Jacob King on George Broderick Placenames of the Isle of Man (7 volumes, 1994-2005), JSNS 1, 157-68.
Reviews
Peadar Morgan on Stan Beckensall Place Names and Field Names of Northumberland (2006), JSNS 1, 169-74.
Jacob King on George Broderick A Dictionary of Manx Place-Names (2006), JSNS 1, 174-5.
Margaret Scott on Susanne Kries Skandinavisch-schottische Sprachbeziehungen im Mittelalter: Der altnordische Lehneinfluss (2003), JSNS 1, 175-9.
Alison Grant on Diana Whaley A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names (2006), JSNS 1, 179-81.

Autumn 2006

Beckensall, Stan, 2006, Place Names and Field Names of Northumberland (Tempus, Stroud).

Breeze, Andrew, 2005, 'Medcaut, the Brittonic Name of Lindisfarne', Northern History 42, 1878.

Breeze, Andrew, 2005 Brittonic Place-Names from South-West Scotland, Part 6: Cummertrees, Beltrees, Trevercarcou, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 79, 91-2.

Broderick, George, 2006, A Dictionary of Manx Place-Names, English Place-Name Society, Nottingham.

Gammeltoft, Peder, Hough, Carole, and Waugh, Doreen (edd.), 2005 Cultural Contacts in the North Atlantic Region: The Evidence of Names (NORNA, Scottish Place-Name Society and Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, being the proceedings of their joint conference, Shetland, April 2003).

King, Jacob, 2005, ''Lochy' names and Adomnán's Nigra Dea', Nomina 28, 6991.

Macniven, Alan, 2006, 'The Norse in Islay: A Settlement Historical Case-Study for Medieval Scandinavian Activity in Western Maritime Scotland', unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh.

Pratt, Stella, 2005, 'Summer Landscapes: Investigating Scottish Topographical Place-Names', Nomina 28, 93114.

Taylor, Simon, 2006, 'Place-names in the Historical Landscape: Changing Land Use in the Howe of Fife', in Landscape and Environment (in Dark Age Scotland), ed. Alex Woolf (St Andrews),7590.

Taylor, Simon (with Márkus, Gilbert), 2006, Place-Names of Fife vol. 1 (West Fife between Leven and Forth) (Shaun Tyas, Donington).

Whaley, Diana, 2006, A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names, English Place-Name Society Regional Series Vol. 1, general editor Richard Coates, Nottingham.

(compiled by Simon Taylor with the help of Carole Hough and Maggie Scott)

Spring 2006

Welsh Origins of Scottish Place-names, William Oxenham 2005, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, £6.50, €10.50 from 12 Iard yr Orsaf, Llanrwst, LL26 0EH, Wales (www.carreg-gwalch.co.uk).

Ó Lyon go Dún Lúiche: Logainmneacha san Oidhreacht Cheilteach, Art Ó Maolfabhail 2005, Clódhanna Teoranta, €10.00 from An Siopa Leabhar, 6 Sráid Fhearchair, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Late 2005 saw the publication in Wales and Ireland of two books of direct interest to the study of Scottish place-names. Informed interest from elsewhere is healthy and instructive. Sadly the Welsh offering, on The Welsh Origins of Scottish Place-names, does not fall into this category.
William Oxenham is unabashed in believing that the study of place-names can only ever be imprecise, and thus is open to free interpretation. He does recognise that there is a literature on the subject. However, he does not recognise that the authors he uses do not all enjoy equal standing.
To be charitable, the good thing about Oxenham’s book is that it reminds us of the PCeltic languages (he insists on lumping them all together as ‘Welsh’) which existed across Scotland and, though not as much as he would fondly wish, its toponymy. The mixed blessing about the book is its affordable price.
The bad news is that it is likely to put back the awareness and understanding of the role of the British, Pictish and Cumbric languages in Scotland’s heritage and its place-names, in the same way that earlier unbridled enthusiasm for seeing Gaelic behind every name has resulted in popular ignorance – including Oxenham’s –of the language’s southern and eastern distribution.
Indeed, Oxenham even detects Welsh craig ynys ‘crag meadow/island’ behind Craignish in Mid Argyll, as if names float in a context-less void. Likewise, it is easier to admit that Pity Me in northern England is an ironic name of English derivation, rather than getting involved in a discussion as to whether it is Brythonic peth or pit.
And then there is the cavalier ignoring of semantic possibility where toponymic parallels do not exist. If Carrifran Gans in Dumfriesshire really does represent Caer y Fran Ganos, ‘fortress of the songful crow’, then I fully expect a neighbouring hill to be called Dùn na Muice Sgèith, ‘hill-fort of the aerial hog’. [Webmaster's note: Gans is probably from a northern English or Scots dialect word for 'jaws' (compare O.E. ganian 'to gape') and thus unrelated etymologically to Carrifran]

The steep-sided Carrifran Gans, right middle distance, flanks
the entrance to the short Carrifran valley off Moffatdale. Its
partner on the left has, alas, the topographically apt name
Saddle Yoke, not Dùn na Muice Sgèith.

But then the author admits to having but one dictionary apiece for Scots and Irish Gaelic (pp 56, 57, 62), which the bibliography shows to be neither Dwelly nor the Dictionary of the Irish Language –in fact he puts much weight on the absence of certain Gaelic elements from his copy of the Oxford Irish Minidictionary.
Far more enlightening is a thinner book from Art Ó Maolfabhail, former Chief Place-names Officer with the Ordnance Survey of Ireland. This takes a look at a series of elements –with examples of names, changes in nuance of meaning, and major diversionary look-alikes – found in the modern Celtic nations and in the European territories which once hosted related languages.
Scotland is relatively well treated, though inevitably in a short book of this kind reliant on a few examples gleaned from the standard authorities of Watson and Nicolaisen. Of most value for us are perhaps the international comparisons. Each element has a European distribution map, but these are very small (and on at least one occasion slightly contradict the text) and so can only be indicative.
This book is in Irish, but if you have ScotsGaelic it is well worth persevering with gleaningwhat you can from it –the format of the book and bilingual presentation of names makes reading of the sister language easier than might normally be the case. But to delve into the book in depth, especially if venturing into publishing arguments based on it, it is to be strongly advised that you arm yourself with more than just a minidictionary.
The elements appearing in Scottish names are –in Scottish orthography –ail, airgead, bàrr, beann, bruach, cam, camas, ceann, darach, doire, dùn, feàrn, fionn, innis, iubhar, Lugh, magh, eilean, ràth, ros and sruth.

Peadar Morgan

Cultural Contacts in the North Atlantic Region: the Evidence of Names, Peder Gammeltoft, Carole Hough and Doreen Waugh (eds.), published by NORNA, the Scottish Place-Name Society and the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland, paperback, 269 pages, £10.
In April 2003 a well attended conference took place in Shetland organised by three place-name societies, NORNA, the Scottish Place-name Society, and the Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland. This book publishes eighteen papers from the conference: they mainly deal with Shetland but, as the title suggests, they discuss Shetland names in the context of the wider North Atlantic region including Orkney, the Hebrides, Britain, Iceland and Norway.
Eileen Brooke-Freeman describes the Shetland Place-name Project in a paper which will gladden the hearts of all those with an interest in placenames. This ambitious project aims to establish a database of all names available from documentary and oral sources, and to link the names to digital maps. Her paper includes case studies of how local groups have been able to supplement and expand the earlier research of people such as Jakob Jakobsen and John Stewart. The value is not just in recording all these new names but in successfully engaging the enthusiasm of a wide variety of participants from Primary School pupils to elderly day care residents. One branch of the Place-name Project has been the collection of meads (fishing marks and cross-bearings) and a separate paper by Gunnel Melchers provides an interesting discussion of this unusual type of place-name.
Several papers look at recurring place-name generics. Gunnstein Akselberg writes about staðir-names in Shetland and Western Norway, providing a close analysis of the research of Jakobsen and Stewart, and coming to the conclusion that staðir-names are not so exclusively combined with a personal specific as these early researchers believed. A paper by Richard Coates also deals with personal habitative compounds by examining the grammar of place-names in Scandinavian England. Inge Særheim contributes an analysis of –land names in Shetland, Orkney and Norway; Alison Grant broadens the geographical scope by a study of bý-names in Ayrshire, and Svavar Sigmundsson describes the many close parallels between Shetland and Icelandic names. Diana Whaley writes about a less familiar class of names, those deriving from stöng/stang (a pole), and she lists the occurrence of these names in the Scandinavian countries and in the British Isles.
Since documentary sources for the Viking-age in Shetland and Orkney hardly exists, place-names play a big part in attempts to understand the nature of Norse settlement. Two interesting papers tackle the thorny ‘War or Peace?’ question. Was there continuity with the pre- Norse population, or does the evidence point to extermination, or at least displacement? Gillian Fellowes-Jensen studies the survival or otherwise of native names in the Isle of Man, Normandy and the Danelaw, and argues that the absence of pre-Norse names in the Northern Isles may be due in part to the weakness or absence of a literate Pictish administration. Arne Kruse has a similar approach to the problem, in this case by examining the relationship of Norse and Gaelic in the Hebrides, but comes to the more straightforward conclusion that the absence of pre-Norse names just indicates that there was a clean break with the Pictish past.
A paper which may or may not take us back to the Pictish past is Barbara Crawford’s contribution on the papar-names. Her on-going work on the ‘Papar Project’ can be found on the web-site <http://www.paparproject.org.uk> but here she poses a very basic question: were these pre-Norse clerics a real feature of the Viking Age in the Northern and Western Isles, or were they ‘a twelfth century myth’? She sets out the issues although a definitive answer, if there is one, may only be possible when work on the Papar Project is completed.
The question of contact between Norse and native is further explored by David Sellar who is interested in the personal names used by the great families - the earls of Orkney, the kings of Man and the Isles, the descendants of Somerled and the early MacLeods. He highlights interesting differences in the choice of Norse or Gaelic names, and variations in the practice of using royal Norwegian personal names. The interaction of Scots and Norse is also discussed by Peder Gammeltoft and Berit Sandnes: the former looks at some 200 names of islands and skerries in Shetland, and distinguishes between Scandinavian and Scots coinages, and the latter discusses how to decide whether place-names in Orkney are Norse or Scots. And, although we are accustomed to think of place-names spreading outwards from Scandinavia, cultural contacts were not all one way: Tom Schmidt lists and discusses an impressive body of onomastic
evidence for a considerable presence of Faroese and Shetlanders in Norway.
Two papers provide micro-studies of Shetland names. John Baldwin presents a study of the names around Da Burn a Ham in Foula which builds on his many years of fieldwork in the island. Doreen Waugh, who is also one of the editors, contributes a good paper on place-names from Twatt on da Wastside (the West Mainland) which combines documentary sources with oral history in the form of stories gleaned from local folk. Story-telling is also the basis of Katherine Campbell’s collection of names and legends gathered from all over Shetland about fiddlers who were reputed to have learned well known fiddle tunes from the supernatural creatures who lived inside the trowie knowes.
In a short review it is impossible to do justice to this interesting set of conference papers. All that I am able to do is to give some idea of the contents and to commend the collection, not only as a huge step forward in Shetland placename studies, but of wider interest - and at a price of only £10 this attractive volume is excellent value for money.

William P L Thomson

Autumn 2005

Maclean, Roddy, 2004: The Gaelic Place Names and Heritage of Inverness.
Culcabock Publishing, Inverness, 96pp.
ISBN 0-9548925-0-X. £5.99.
The Scottish Place-Name Society’s conference held in Inverness on November 27th 2004 was greatly enlightened by a well-illustrated talk [for which see above] on the place-names of the Inverness area by Roddy Maclean, the author of this attractive little book. Separation of myth from fact, and of oral tradition from documentary record, has always been a problem with local surveys of this kind, but here, Roddy Maclean has successfully bridged these gaps, having scrutinised such sources as Inverness Burgh Court Books and other town records from as early as the 13th century.
A short history of Gaelic in Inverness (pp. 15-44) contains much of interest to the onomastician, including the use of Gaelic patronymics among the inhabitants of 16th century Inverness, and the accounts of contemporary visitors and writers up to the modern period. Gaelic was spoken by a few old people native to the area, especially in The Leachkin, to the west of the town, right up to the 1950s, so the place-name record reflects this Gaelic tradition.
After dealing with a list of place-names no longer in use, such as Clachan Donachy, the old name of Culcabock village and The Maggot, a section of the town close to the river (on Hume’s map of 1774 as Maggat) the main body of Inverness place-names is discussed and analysed (pp. 57-88). In each case, the Gaelic form is given where available, early forms discussed, OS grid references provided and illustrative material, such as road signs, map extracts, street signs and even a pub sign (in the case of the Clachnaharry Inn). The text is interspersed with short sections on specific names, such as ‘Horses in Inverness Place Names’ where capall, marc and each are found, and ‘Baile in Inverness Place Names’ which discusses the process of baile- to –ton.
Overall, this booklet is not only informative but a good read. The people who use, or have used, these names on a day-to-day basis did so from consciousness of their own Gaelic heritage, and even as late as the mid-19th century one gets a feeling of a strongly bilingual situation which, despite the decline in Gaelic today, has left many Invernessians with a warm regard for Gaelic, even if they do not speak it. Roddy Maclean’s book cannot but serve to encourage Gaelic in the city, and to reinforce the Gaelic consciousness of Invernessians in general. It is fitting, also, that he has dedicated the book to the memory of the late and sorely lamented Roy Wentworth, who would very much have enjoyed using it.

Ian A. Fraser

Scottish Language Dictionaries is about to add a New Supplement to the Scottish National Dictionary to the electronic Dictionary of the Scots Language (DSL); it will be available free of charge with the main dictionaries at www.dsl.ac.uk.
The DSL already consists of the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST, 12 volumes), covering the language from its earliest records in the 12th century up to 1700 and the Scottish National Dictionary (SND, 10 volumes), from 1700 to the 1970s, including the first Supplement.
The New Supplement now updates the record of Scots language to the 21st century. Sources are mainly literary works of the last three decades. Oral material is also included where possible.
This project has been made possible by a three-year grant of £90,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund, along with continuing funding from the Scottish Arts Council.
For further information please contact Scottish Language Dictionaries at 27George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD, phone 0131 650 4149 or email mail@scotsdictionaries.org.uk.
There is a separate website for Scottish Language Dictionaries at www.scotsdictionaries.org.uk.
(Thanks to Dr Maggie Scott for this information.)

Compiled by Simon Taylor, with help from Carole Hough and Doreen Waugh. Please let Simon Taylor know of omissions, and these will be included in the next Newsletter.

Allan, Norman, [2005], The Celtic Heritage of the County of Banff [Banff] [52 pages]
Isaac, G. R., 2004, Place-Names in Ptolemy’s Geography, CD-ROM, CMCS Publications, Aberystwyth [this includes G. R. Isaac’s Antonine Itinerary data base, 2002]
Márkus, Gilbert, 2004, ‘Tracing Emon: Insula Sancti Columbae de Emonia’, Innes Review 55, 1-9.
Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 2005, ‘Seenamen. 3. Grossbritannien und Irland. c. Scotland’, in Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, 2nd edn, edd. H. Beck, D. Geuenich and H. Steuer, vol. 28 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter), 49–51. [names of lochs]
Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 2005, ‘Shetlandinseln. I. Namenkundlich’, in Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, 2nd edn, edd. by H. Beck, D. Geuenich and H. Steuer, vol. 28 (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter), 259–62. [Shetland Islands]
Smith, Robert, 2004, The Road to Maggieknockater: Exploring Aberdeen and the North-East through its Place Names (Birlinn, Edinburgh).
Taylor, Simon, 2005, ‘The Abernethy Foundation Account & its Place-Names’, History Scotland vol. 5 no. 4 (July/August), 14-16.
Waugh, D., 2005, ‘From Hermaness to Dunrossness: some Shetland ness-names’, in Viking and Norse in the North Atlantic: Select Papers from the Proceedings of the Fourteenth Viking Congress, Tórshavn, 19-30 July 2001, edd. A. Mortensen and S. V. Arge (Tórshavn), 250-6.
Waugh, D., 2005, ‘What is an aith (ON eið)? Place-name evidence from portages in Shetland’, in The New Shetlander: Simmer Issue2005, No. 232, ed. L. Johnson and B. Smith (Lerwick), 33-8.

Cultural Contacts in the North Atlantic Region: The Evidence of Names
Edited by: Peder Gammeltoft
Carole Hough
Doreen Waugh
This substantial volume contains papers from the joint name-studies conference held in Shetland in April, 2003. The three societies – NORNA, Scottish Place-Name Society and Society for Name Studies in Britain and Ireland – are all well represented in the volume. Papers range geographically from the Isle of Man to Iceland, via Ayrshire and many other localities and all topics are of interest to name scholars. As Professor Nicolaisen states in his Introduction: ‘…this volume is more than a record of what went on at the conference: it is an independent collection of essays which gains cohesion from a central theme, as well as a sense of place and a view of the world.’
The volume will be available for purchase before the end of 2005 at the extremely reasonable price of £10.00 plus postage and packaging. This has been made possible by generous support from the Shetland Amenity Trust and the Dorothea Coke Memorial Fund. Details will be issued to members at the November conference and by post to those unable to attend.

Spring 2005

NEW PUBLICATIONS
Compiled by Simon Taylor, with help from Carole Hough. Please let Simon Taylor know of omissions, and these will be included in the next Newsletter.

Breeze, Andrew, 2004, ‘Some Celtic Place-Names of Scotland: Ptolemy’s Verubium Promontorium, Bede’s Urbs Giudi, Mendick, Minto, and Panlathy’, Scottish Language 23, 57-67.
Breeze, Andrew, 2004, ‘Brittonic place-names from south-west Scotland, part 5: Minnygap and Minnigaff’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 78 (2004), 121–23.
Breeze, Andrew, 2004, ‘Scottish place-names: the way ahead’, in Doonsin’ Emerauds: New Scrieves anent Scots an Gaelic/ New Studies in Scots and Gaelic, edited by J. D. McClure (Belfast: Queen’s University), 18–23.
Cox, Richard A. V., 2004, ‘The Norse element in Scottish place names: syntax as a chronological marker’, in Unity in Diversity: Studies in Irish and Scottish Gaelic Language, Literature and History, Léann na Tríonóide Trinity Irish Studies No. 1, edited by C. G. Ó Háinle and D. E. Meek (School of Irish, Trinity College, Dublin), 37–49.
Dorward, David, 2004, The Sidlaw Hills (with illustrations by Colin Gibson) (Balgavies, Angus).
Gammeltoft, Peder, 2004, ‘Among Dímons and Papeys: What kind of contact do the names really point to?’, Northern Studies 38, 31-49.
Gammeltoft, Peder, 2004, ‘Scandinavian-Gaelic contacts. Can place-names and place-name elements be used as a source for contact-linguistic research?’, North-Western European Language Evolution, 44, 51–90.
Grant, Alison, 2002, ‘A New Approach to the Inversion Compounds of North-West England’, Nomina 25, 65-90.
Grant, Alison, 2004, ‘A Reconsideration of the Kirk-Names in South-West Scotland’, Northern Studies 38, 97-121.
Hough, Carole, 2004, ‘Two “bird hall” names in Kirkpatrick Fleming’, Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 78, 125–30.
Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 2004, ‘A gallimaufry of languages’, in Namenwelten. Orts- und Personennamen in historischer Sicht, edited by A. van Nahl, L. Elmevik and S. Brink, Ergänzungsbände zum Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde, 44 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 233–40.
Ralton, Andrew, 2005, ‘The Roads that led by Prestoungrange’ (Prestoungrange University Press) [Focuses on history of local roads and industries, but text and extracts of old maps contain many defunct place-names and older forms of surviving ones.]
Sandnes, Berit, 2003, Fra Starafjall til Starling Hill: Dannelse og utvikling av norrøne stednavn på Orknøyene, published Ph.D., NTNU Trondheim, Norway. [‘From Starafjall to Starling Hill: formation and development of Norse place-names in Orkney’, an in-depth study of the Norse place-names of the parishes of Evie, Rendall and Firth on the west mainland of Orkney]
Scott, Margaret, 2004, ‘Uses of Scottish place-names as evidence in historical dictionaries’, in New Perspectives on English Historical Linguistics. Selected Papers from 12 ICEHL, Glasgow, 21–26 August 2002. Vol. II: Lexis and Transmission, edited by C. Kay, C. Hough and I. Wotherspoon (Amsterdam, John Benjamins), 213–24.
Stylegar, Frans-Arne, 2004, “‘Central Places” in Viking Age Orkney’, Northern Studies 38, 5-30.
Taylor, Simon, 2003, ‘Place-names and Archaeology’, History Scotland vol. 3 no. 6 (November/December), 50-3.
Taylor, Simon, 2004, ‘Celtic Place-Names of Clackmannanshire’, History Scotland vol. 4 no. 4 (July/August), 13-17.
Taylor, Simon, 2004, ‘Scandinavians in central Scotland: bý-place-names and their context’, in Sagas, Saints and Settlements,edited by Gareth Williams and Paul Bibire (Leiden, Netherlands), 125-45.
Watson, W. J., 1926 (2004), Reprint of Watson’s classic History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland, with an Introduction, full Watson bibliography and corrigenda by Simon Taylor, Birlinn (paper-back).
Wilkinson, John Garth, 2004, ‘*LANUM and Lugudunum: Full Lune, and Light on an Unkempt Wraith’, Nomina 27, 71-89 [includes discussion of the name ‘Lothian’ in context of Londesborough, East Yorkshire (Lodenesburg 1086)].

Spring 2004

Actually a collection of papers and reviews by Alexander MacBain originally published in 1922 (with an introduction by W.J.Watson), 'Place Names of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland' has now been reprinted by The Grimsay Press of Glasgow. It is only available by special order either through bookshops or the usual on-line sellers at £29.95.

Spring 2003

This is a well produced book, 110 pages in length, with attractive covers featuring colour photos of the locality, and a set of crisp black-and-white photos in mid-book. The typeface is easy to read and the names under consideration are picked out in bold. The book is not laid out in the dry dictionary style adopted by books of Scottish place-names that are aimed at tourist shops, but has chapters that follow a theme, picking up and inspecting place-names like pebbles as it explores its by-ways.

He starts with Stranraer, the local centre of human gravity, and its environs: first its street-names then its roads, moving out to rural names swallowed up by the town's growth, and of course the Stranraer name itself - which he suggests is struthan reamhar, 'fat (or thick) stream-place'. He points out that on Pont's map the Town Burn, the main stream and source of the name, is irregularly-shaped and forms intermittent lochans, long since drained by canalisation, and that this may be the origin of the adjective in the name. He also quotes an Irish idiom which suggests that fat could refer to the bounty of fish to be had there, as another possible shade to the place-name meaning. My only surprise is that he doesn't deal with J B Johnston's proposal that the old version of Stronerawar pointed at sron reamhar, 'thick nose or headland'. Johnston's book is often used lazily by the tourist books mentioned, and elsewhere MacQueen often outlines other suggestions for names - for instance from Maxwell's Place-names of Galloway, or the contemporaneous Daphne Brooke - and agrees or argues with them.

The core of the book, occupying half its pages, are his two chapters on Gaelic names. In this he does more than simply translate or explain the names, but works to date them in relation to the earliest settlements from Ireland before 500 AD, the influence of the early Irish Church in the Age of the Saints, and the second major wave of settlement post 900 AD. His methodology here is faultless: he considers the meanings suggested both in their linguistic context, and as to how apt they are in the landscape and farming practices of the time. For instance he traces Losset back to losaid, literally 'a kneading trough to prepare bread', but picks up on its use in nearby Ireland for a field fertile enough to produce the wherewithal for the dough, and its consequent use in several place-names both sides of the Irish Sea.

The book's essential structure is geological - that is, it starts at the most recent names (English and Scots) - and bores down through the linguistic strata, particularly the thick beds of Gaelic names, into Norse and British names. This makes for an absorbing read, for even a stranger to the Rhinns, knowing but a handful of the names, can see where the narrative is taking us yet is keen to turn the next textual corner. John MacQueen's knowledge of place-name material, studies and methodology of recent decades - particularly Bill Nicolaisen's work - and his own detailed local knowledge of the area, have fused to produce a very fine work on the place-names of our south-westernmost corner.

Watson's writings are principally known to members of the Society in the well-established History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (1926) and his earlier Place-Names of Ross and Cromarty (1904). These have an invaluable place on our bookshelves, and have served as reference works for all students of Scottish place-names. However, Watson was an indefatigable contributor of scholarly articles to the learned societies and journals of his day. These were mostly societies with a Celtic or Northern slant, such as the Celtic Review, the Inverness Scientific Society and Field Club, and the Gaelic Society of Inverness.

This book includes not only his articles in these journals, but a series of six Topographical Varia which were published in the Celtic Review in the years 1908-13. This journal was edited by Elizabeth Carmichael, who became the second Mrs W J Watson in 1906. Copies of the Celtic Review are now rare, and it is good indeed to see these articles, now a century old, in print once again. Here, Watson analyses a number of Celtic elements which gave contemporary scholars so many problems - terms like Old Welsh tros 'across', O.lr esc 'water', Old Celtic céto-n 'wood' (W.coed), O.lr fas, foss 'residence', and many others. Equally useful are the district surveys of such areas as Strathdearn, Breadalbane and the Lyon Basin where Gaelic has now died out, but where Watson was able to pick up local pronunciations from what was then a vigorous Gaelic-speaking population. In addition, his predilection for oral tradition, and it immeasurable value to the onomastic record, is evident on virtually every page.

The collection includes an appreciation, 'In Praise of William J Watson', by Prof. Bill Nicolaisen, which reviews his life and work. He reminds us that although Watson's scholarship was not confined to onomastics, in every sphere of study, whether of Celtic literature, language, education or archaeology, 'Watson's fascination with name studies would not be denied, whatever the topic' (p.21).

The publisher is to be congratulated on producing this attractive paperback of Watson's collected articles and reviews. They have, in many instances, been out of public view for many decades, and it is extremely useful to have them now accessible in such a compact and user-friendly format.
I.A.F

Many of our readers will possess a copy of the original hardback edition of this book, first published in 1996 by Gordon Wright Publishing, Edinburgh. This paperback edition is a welcome development, as the Gordon Wright publication was originally priced at £40, and despite being aimed at the general reader, must surely have been a considerable investment for the average book-buyer.

Harris's work is arranged alphabetically, with a lengthy introduction (pps. 9-42.) This is particularly useful in that it deals with the terminology associated with the complex urban development of Edinburgh, focussing on the estates, farming names, mills, and the burgh names which form such an important part of the city's nomenclature. Since Harris was on the staff of the now-defunct City Architect's Office (as Senior Depute City Architect) he was in a unique position to deal with the source material for the volume, as many of the street-names have their origins in the rapid expansion of the New Town and the many suburban developments of the nineteenth century.
If the entries for some of the major suburbs lack academic rigour, this is more than compensated for by the wealth of detail and comprehensive treatment of the street-names, which reveal Harris's intimate knowledge of his city. This edition will therefore be much more acceptable to the reader, and no serious student of the city's history can afford to be without it.

The area covered by this book is, basically, the northern part of the County of Angus. It runs from the Perthshire boundary in the west to Mount Battock in the east, and is bounded on the north by the great ridge which runs between Broad Cairn and Mount Keen, on the Aberdeenshire march. This upland zone, which the author defines as 'The Glens of Angus', is of enormous interest from the point of view of the place-names student, since it contains Pictish, Gaelic and Scots place-names, many of which have been considerably altered in spelling since their original coinage.

David Dorward has divided the book into a number of sections, beginning with 'The Landscape' which contains a brief account of geology, vegetation, rivers and lochs, wildlife and habitations. 'The Languages' outlines the linguistic strata which are explored; 'Angus Glen by Glen' looks at, amongst other things, land ownership, and 'The Written Records' contains an account of the documentary material available to the researcher, the evidence of early maps, and accounts by early travellers and writers. Among these, the most colourful was by John Taylor, an Englishman whose comments on the journey from Glen Esk across the hill to Mar, in 1618, bear repeating: '… the way so uneven, stony and full of bogges, quagmires and long heath, that a dogge with three legs will out-runne a horse with foure.'
The next section (pp32-76) deals with 'Some Interesting Names and the Stories behind them'. This will prove to be of especial interest to the general reader, since the well-used principle of 'the story behind the name' is put to good use. It is here that Dorward includes the snippets of popular tradition which often enliven publications of this kind. Two examples will suffice to illustrate this. The name Nathro in Glen Lethnot, 'dating from before 1462, was borrowed from a nearby stream, notable for its snake-like course. One would not wish, however, to discount a queer but persistent old folk-tale in the glen of a white adder that led its progeny through a holed stone' (p64). Mount Blair (p63) was according to popular tradition, the site of a battle between the Picts (or in some versions, the Danes) and the Scots, perhaps because Gaelic blàr can mean 'battlefield' as well as 'plain'. There's no historical evidence for this, of course, but folk tradition of this kind is widely found.

Finally, a gazetteer section takes up the second half of the book. This consists of the place-name, a three-letter contraction for the parish-name, a six-figure OS grid reference, a pronunciation where available, and a brief note on the derivation, giving the elements involved where these are applicable. Inevitably a proportion of the Gaelic derivations must be speculative, which the author admits. However, David Dorward has succeeded in producing a highly readable and user-friendly little volume, for a part of Scotland which is much under-researched as far as place-names are concerned. As such it deserves a good reception from both the general reader and those with a specialised interest in place-names. With attractive line-drawings by the late Colin Gibson, whose work as an illustrator is much regarded in the Angus and Tayside area, this is good value at £7.99.

Autumn 2002

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

Compiled by Simon Taylor (with help from Carole Hough). Note that this includes several articles from the past three years which had been mistakenly omitted from earlier `Recent Publications' lists in Scottish Place-Name News.

Breeze, Andrew, 1999, 'The Name of Trailtrow, near Lockerbie, Scotland', Northern History 35, 205-7.

Breeze, Andrew, 1999, 'Some Celtic Place-Names of Scotland, including Dalriada, Kincarden, Abercorn, Coldingham and Girvan', Scottish Language 18, 34-51 [Other names discussed are: Froissart's Montres and Melrose Abbey; William Worcestre on Stormont and Dercongal; William Worcestre on Lough Hakern, Islay; Insula Leverith, the old name of Cramond Island; Penchrise, near Hawick; and Aberlosk, near Moffat.]

Breeze, Andrew, 2001, 'The British-Latin Place-Names Arbeia, Corstopitum, Dictim, and Morbium, Durham Archaeological Journal 16, 21-25 [mainly dealing with names in north of England, but with material relevant also to southern Scotland.]

Breeze, Andrew, 2001, 'Brittonic place-names from south-west Scotland, Part 2: Ptolemy's Abravannus, "Locatrebe", Cumnock, Irvine and Water of Milk', Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 75, 151-58.

Breeze, Andrew, 2002, 'The Battle of Alutthèlia in 844 and Bishop Auckland', Northern History 39 (1: March), 124-5.

Breeze, Andrew, 2002, 'Pennango [now obsolete] near Hawick and Welsh angau 'death', Northern History 39 (1: March), 126.

Clancy, T. O., 2001, 'The real St Ninian', Innes Review 52 (no. 1 Spring), 1-28.

Coates, Richard, and Breeze, Andrew, with a contribution from D. Horovitz, 2000, Celtic Voices, English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in England, Stamford.

Close, R., 2002, The Street Names of Ayr (Ayr: Ayrshire Archaeological and Natural History Society).

Cox, Richard A. V., 1999, 'Leumaragh-Leumrabhagh', Scottish Gaelic Studies 19, 253-56.

Cox, Richard A. V., 2001, `Maintenance of the Norse legacy in Scottish Hebridean nomenclature', Studier i Nordisk Filologi 78, 45-52.

Gammeltoft, Peder, 2001, The place-name element bólstaðr in the North Atlantic area (Copenhagen).

Gammeltoft, Peder, 2001a, "'I sauh a tour on a toft, tryelyche i-maket': on Place-Names in -toft, -tote and -tobhta from Shetland to the Isle of Man", Nomina 24, 17-32.

Grant, James H., 1999, 'The Gaelic Heritage of Rothiemurchus', in T. C. Smout and R. A. Lambert (eds) Rothiemurchus: Nature and People on a Highland Estate 1500-2000 (Scottish Cultural Press, Dalkeith) [focussing on place-names].

Hannah, Angus, 2000, 'Bute farm names with personal name elements', Transactions of the Buteshire Natural History Society 25, 61-7.

Hough, Carole, 2001, 'Notes on Some Scottish Field Names', Names 49.1 (March 2001), 37-53.

Hough, Carole, 2001, 'The Place-Name Penninghame (Wigtownshire)', Notes and Queries 246 [New Series Vol. 48], No. 2, June 2001, 99-102.

Hough, Carole, 2001, 'P-Celtic tref in Scottish Place-Names', Notes and Queries 48, No. 3, September 2001, 213-15.

Fraser, Ian A., 1999, 'Place-Names [of Perthshire]', in D. Omand (ed.) The Perthshire Book (Edinburgh), 199-210.

Maclennan, J., 2001, Place-Names of Scarp, edited by C. J. Mackay (Stornoway: Stornoway Gazette).

MacQueen, John, 2002, Place-Names in the Rhinns of Galloway and Luce Valley, Stranraer and District Local History Trust.

Nicolaisen, W.F.H., 2001, Scottish Place-Names (revised edition, Edinburgh; first published London; 1976).
(see review below)

Saerheim, Inge, 2001, `Settlement names of two millenniums. The dating of the land- names and the semantics of the ending -land', Northern Studies 36, 91-107.

Taylor, Simon, 2001, `Place-Names', in Oxford Companion to Scottish History, gen. ed. M. Lynch (Oxford), 479-84.

Taylor, Simon, 2001, `The Cult of St: Fillan in Scotland', in The North Sea World in the Middle Ages, edd. T. R. Liszka and L. E. M. Walker (Dublin), 175-210. [Full analysis of place-names containing the name, dedications, etc.]

Taylor, Simon and Wentworth, Roy, 2001, 'Pont and Place-Names', in The Nation Survey'd, ed. I. Cunningham (East Linton). [Looking at Pont's treatment of place-names in Fife and Wester Ross]

Taylor, Simon, 2002: regular series of articles on Scottish place-names in the bright new bi-monthly magazine History Scotland (available from most Newsagents): 'Reading the Map: Understanding Scottish Place-Names', Vol. 2 no. 1 (Jan/Feb), p. 13; 'Norse in the Islands' [with special reference to Peder Gammeltoft's work on b6lstadr-names; see also above], Vol. 2 no. 2 (March/April), pp. 42-5; 'Place-Names and the Changing Landscape: the Howe of Fife, a Case Study', Vol. 2 no. 3 (May/June), pp. 49-51; 'Stormont: the Name and the Place', Vol. 2 no. 5 (Sept/Oct).

Waugh, Doreen J., 2001, 'In (and around) Scatness', Northern Studies 36, 69-90 [Place-names in south Shetland; see also Scottish Place-Name News 10, 8-9]

Waugh, Doreen J., 2001, `Fae da nort tae da suddart' in G. Fellows-Jensen (ed.) Denmark and Scotland: the environmental and cultural resources of small nations (Copenhagen) [Norse settlement in Shetland with special reference to Unst and Old Scatness]

Those of us who became involved in place-name studies over the years have used Nicolaisen's text virtually as a bible since it first appeared in 1976. It is fair to say that it is the most important work on Scottish place-names to have been published in the twentieth century, since it covers such a wide range of names, tackling the major issues with impressive scholarship, and skilful use of previously unexplored data. Bill Nicolaisen is the first to admit that in the quarter-century since the original appeared, the science of Scottish onomastics has moved on, and there have been significant developments in the use of distribution maps, digital processing, and linguistics. Moreover, archaeological research has revealed much more about our material history.

A preface to this new edition outlines the author's response to these new developments. Here, 'some of those aspects of the original publication which require clarification in a modern context' (p xvi) are discussed. For example, the distribution of names in Gaelic. Sliabh (Anglicised Slew) is now recognised as requiring modification in view of the fact that the element remains productive in parts of the Western Isles. However, Nicolaisen insists that the distribution (p.56) 'does not invalidate it in part as a visual impression of an otherwise geographically elusive early phase of the presence of Gaelic in Scotland.'

The overall text has been amended and rephrased to improve its overall acceptability to the general reader, and a substantial bibliography of publications since 1976 is included (pp.257-273.) This is considerably longer than the original bibliography, demonstrating the scope of Scottish onomastic research over the last quarter-century.
10

This book is very welcome, since the original hardback and, and the paperback version first published by Batsford in 1986 (and reprinted in 1989) has long been unavailable. The attractive John Donald edition, with a cover illustration of a map from Blaeu's Atlas Major, is a prequisite of any library with a Scottish interest. At the competitive price of £12.99, it is excellent value, and should continue to serve as a standard text for many years to come.

Spring 2002

W.F.H. Nicolaisen's Scottish Place-Names: Their Study and Significance, first published by Batsford in 1976, has appeared in a new edition. This is priced at £12.99, and has a John Donald imprint. The main changes, compared with the original, are the inclusion of a short preface for this edition, and an additional bibliography (1976-2001) which runs to over 200 items, which will be a valuable reference in its own right.

Spring 2001

BO CLUAIDH GU CALASRAID: FROM CLYDE TO CALLANDER, by Michael Newton.
Gaelic Songs Poetry, Tales and Traditions of the Lennox and Menteith in Gaelic with English Translations.
Published by Acair, Stornoway, 1999, ISBN 0 86152 265 6

When we consider the position of the Lennox and Menteith, on the edge of the old Gaelic-speaking area, few modern Gaels would associate these areas with a rich heritage of literature, poetry and song. But Michael Newton has produced a compendium of historical and religious legends, clan tales (mainly of the MacGregors, MacFarlanes and Colquhouns), poetry and songs.
Most readers of the Newsletter will find the most fascinating material that which covers 'History in Names', and the traditional accounts of saints linked to the area, including St Bearachan of Aberfoyle, and St Ceasag, the saint of Lennox and Menteith. Historical characters are described in later chapters, such as Black Duncan of the Cowl (Donnchadh Dubh a' Churraic), the crafty chief of the Campbells of Glenorchy, and Rob Roy, whose deeds were recounted many years after his death. The final section, on the post-1745 period, contains a number of songs now rarely heard, but which Michael Newton has gathered from a number of sources.
This excellent volume deserves a wide readership, as it covers a great deal of ground, uses a range of source material, and deals very sensitively with a part of Scotland which merits much more investigation, by historians and onomasticians alike.
Copies can be had from Acair, Stornoway, tel. 01851 703020 (or from the better bookshops). I A F

THE PLACE-NAMES OF SCARP, by John Maclennan,
ed. and published by Calum J Mackay, 2001. 48pp ISBN 0903960 82 6, price £6 + 60p p&p.

This island lies on the west coast of North Harris. Deserted in 1971, it once boasted a population of 213 (in 1881) and was a thriving community. The late John Maclennan, born on Scarp, was a man who had an intimate knowledge of the place-names and general lore of the island, and it had always been his intention to publish a list of the Scarp names before his death in 1998. Friends in Harris, including a number of natives of the island, were instrumental in assembling the material and preparing it for publication under the editorship of Calum John Mackay, Headteacher of the Sir E Scott Secondary School, Tarbert.
The collection was based on John's extensive notes, supported by 6" OS maps. This attractive booklet, splendidly illustrated by useful colour photographs therefore gives an accurate picture of the place-name record, which forms an important part of the oral tradition of this fascinating place.
The collection lists 321 place-names, in two sections, each of which is accompanied by a 1:10 000 OS map reproduction, with a number key. These offer a good degree of accuracy, not always easy when one deals with the complex of rocky summits and gulleys which make up much of the northern section of the island, and the highly-indented coastline which is a usual feature of all the Western Isles.
The names provide us with a range of Gaelic generics, with the usual cnoc, lag, uamh, glac, carn and creag-names. Less common, however are terms like leoba 'cultivated plot' (59), glupa 'wet hollow' (121), and aonaig 'steep slope' (218,219). Norse generics are well represented on the topographic names, with terms like mol 'pebbly beach', gil 'ravine', and palla 'high step' (from ON pallr) being quite frequent. One significant habitative name from Norse is An t-Alabost (83), from ON bóst 'stead', marked on the OS map as Alabost. This was a 'once cultivated area, north of the village' and where John Maclellan's father and other crofters had corn-rigs.
This little book is well presented, and is warmly recommended. Copies can be had from Calum Mackay, 1 Ardhasaig, Isle of Harris HS3 3AJ. Please make cheques payable to 'Scarp Placenames'.

RECENT PUBLICATIONS OF TOPONYMIC INTEREST

Black, R.J., 2000, 'Scottish Fairs and Fair-Names', Scottish Studies 33, 1-75.
Breeze, A., 2000 'The names of Bellshill, Carmichael, Lauder and Soutra', Innes Review 51 no. 1, 72-79.
Breeze, A., 2000a, 'Four Brittonic Place-Names from South-West Scotland: Tradunnock, Trailflat, Troqueer and Troax', Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 74, 55-60
Dorward, D., 2001, The Glens of Angus: Names, Places, People (with illustrations by Colin Gibson) (Balgavies). [more on this in the next issue of Scottish Place-Name News.]
Gammeltoft, P., 2000, 'Why the Difference? An attempt to account for the variations in the phonetic development of place-names in Old Norse bólstaðr in the Hebrides', Nomina 23, 107-119.
MacGregor, A., 1886, A Gaelic Topography of Balquhidder Parish (Edinburgh University Press 1886, computer enhanced reprint 2000). [Rev. A MacGregor was minister of Balquhidder Parish Kirk; the book includes comments (post 1886) by his successor, Rev D Cameron. It is a thorough survey of local place-names, with otherwise unrecorded place-name lore and traditions. Sold in aid of the Fabric Fund of Balquhidder Parish Kirk. £2.75; original pagination given (5-32).]
Newton, M., 1999, Bho Chluaidh gu Calasraid: From the Clyde to Callander (Stornoway)
Newton, M., 2000, A Handbook of the Scottish Gaelic World [section on place-names and sense of place.]
Rixson, D., 1999, Knoydart: A History (Birlinn, Edinburgh) [section on place-names with early forms + close study of land-units.]
Scott, M., 2000, "Bullion" in Scottish Place-Names' Nomina 23, 37-48.
Taylor, S., 2000, 'Place-Names of Fife', in The Fife Book ed. D. Omand (Edinburgh), 205-20
Taylor, S., 2000, 'Columba east of Drumalban: some aspects of the Cult of Columba in eastern Scotland', Innes Review 51 (2), 109-30
Urquhart, R.H.J. and Close, R.(edd.), 1998 The Hearth Tax for Ayrshire 1691 (Ayrshire Records Series vol. 1, published by the Ayrshire Federation of Historical Societies, Ayr) [valuable early forms of place-names, many of which seem to reflect contemporary pronunciation; arranged by the three bailliaries of Carrick, Kyle and Cunninghame, and alphabetically by parish within each bailliary.]
Watson, A., in Hall, M., Forsyth, K., Henderson, I., Trench-Jellicoe, R., Watson, A., 2000, 'Of makings and meanings: towards a cultural biography of the Crieff Burgh Cross [cross slab], Strathearn, Perthshire', Tayside and Fife Archaeological Journal 6, 154-88 [A. Watson's section on place-names relating to the landscape and early lordship of Strowan parish, Perthshire, the place where the cross-slab was found, 169-74.]
Waugh, D., 2000, 'A Scatter of Norse in Strathnaver', in The Province of Strathnaver, ed John R Baldwin, 13-24.
Waugh, D., 2000, 'In (and around) Scatness', in Old Scatness Broch & Jarlshof Environs Project: Field Season 1999, 68-79

Compiled by Simon Taylor. Please let Scottish Place-Name News know of any publications not included, but which would be of interest to Society members.

Autumn 2000

The Province of Strathnaver, ed. John R Baldwin, Scottish Society for Northern Studies, IASBN 0 9535226 0 1, 249 pp, £12.00.
Many members of the SPNS will be familiar with the publications of the Scottish Society for Northern Studies. Over the last thirty years, the Society has published small volumes of studies on all the most northerly districts of the mainland and the Northern Isles, including Shetland (twice), Orkney, Caithness, the Firthlands of Ross and Sutherland, and north-west Ross. This volume, the proceedings of the SSNS Conference held in Bettyhill in 1992 effectively plugs the geographical gap, since it deals with the remote and scantily-peopled area west of Caithness and the north of the present-day county of Sutherland. The papers are divided into three sections - The Medieval Province, the Post-Medieval Province and Pre-Medieval Times.
Insofar as name studies are concerned, our main interest lies in the first two chapters, where Dr Barbara Crawford examines 'Medieval Strathnaver' and incorporates a good deal of place-name evidence in her assessment of the province's name, extent and status. Dr Crawford is well-known as a keen user of onomastic evidence in the reconstruction of the past, and it is particularly valuable in this case, where historical information is extremely scarce.
Doreen Waugh's chapter 'A Scatter of Norse Names in Strathnaver' will be of most interest to members of the SPNS. West from Reay to Strath Halladale, the proportion ofGaelic names rises, and that of Norse names becomes lower. However, Norse is still an important element in the nomenclature of the whole of Strathnaver province, and Dr Waugh examines a series of Norse generics found in the zone, beginning with dalr 'valley' and vollr 'field', moving on to skálr 'residence', bólstadr 'farmstead', aergi 'shieling' and saurr 'mud' and finally a group incorporating gil 'ravine', vík 'bay', gjá 'geo', skinandi 'the shining one' (referring to a river) and sker 'skerry'. From the place-name evidence, which discusses key names like Skaill, Kirkiboll, Fresgill, Skinnet and Torrisdale, Dr Waugh concludes that Strathnaver was in many respects a continuation westwards of the Norse colonisation of Caithness, and that it became part of the Caithness earldom.
There are many fascinating papers in this attractively-produced and well-illustrated book which will stir a great deal of discussion, in particular the account of traditional medicine practised by the Beaton and Mackay physicians, by Mary Beith and the account of souterrains in Sutherland with an accompanying list and map by Alex Morrison. The editor, John Baldwin, is to be congratulated for assembling a rich mix of studies, with his own paper on seaweed working a particular delight.
The book is available from Scottish Book Source Ltd., 137 Dundee Street, Edinburgh, EH11, 1BG, tel: 0131 229 6800, fax: 0131 229 9070, or by email £12.00 plus £1.50 post and packaging.

Ian A. Fraser, The Place-Names of Arran, The Arran Society of Glasgow: Glasgow, 1999. 168 pp., £9.75 (paperback). [Available from the Editor at £9.00 (postfree) to members of the SPNS]
This is a valuable contribution to Scottish toponymics, bringing together not only the expertise of the author, lan Fraser, who has been working at the Scottish Place-Name Survey, School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh, for several decades, but also the oral collections made by W.F.H. Nicolaisen in the early 1960s. Nicolaisen's informants came from both the Gaelic and the Scots speaking communities on the island, the former consisting of only a few score of folk.
The names are set out alphabetically in three separate sections: 'Settlement Names', 'Topographical Names', and 'Field Names and Minor Names'. There is also a useful Elements Index divided into 'Gaelic' and 'Norse', giving the full form of each element, as well as examples of places containing the element in question.
There is an extensive discursive section which helps put Arran place-names into a wider Scottish context. This looks at the different languages which have contributed to the place-nomenclature of Arran, from the probable pre-Gaelic name of the island itself, by way of Gaelic, Norse and Scots names, to 'names of the future', coined in Standard Scottish English.
It is to be regretted that this otherwise so comprehensive book has no maps, apart from the map of Arran taken from Blaeu's Atlas (1654), used as an attractive cover design. Even one showing the two parishes, Kilmory and Kilbride, and the chief glens and settlements, would have been a great asset. In the discussion of elements such as baile ('farm, estate') and achadh ('field, secondary farm') and their distribution, reference is made to distribution maps, but one has to look for these elsewhere, for example in the Scotland-wide distribution maps of Nicolaisen (in Scottish Place-Names [1976] or the Atlas of Scottish History [1996]). An interesting feature to emerge from Fraser's analysis of baile-names (pp. 20-1) is how late several of them are, referring to small-holdings and small tenanted units established as late as the 19th century. Out of the 38 named king's farms in Arran in the mid-15th century, there are no places containing baile, and J. Burrell's list of 105 farms from the year 1766 contains only three. This contrasts with names containing achadh, which is not only more common but also occurs earlier in the record, with three of the above-mentioned king's farms containing this element (Auchencairn, Auchagallon and Auchencar). This ties Arran in with Renfrewshire and north Ayrshire, where baile-narnes are very thin on the ground, in contrast to the ubiquitous achadh-names.
Norse settlement is discussed in a separate section in the Introduction (pp. 52-60). Since there are no habitative elements in the Norse place-names of Arran, Fraser assumes that 'if they [the Norse] had a serious interest in the island, it was in terms of its natural resources - timber, fish and game'. The implication here is that they did not actually settle on Arran. However, it is difficult to imagine how so many important settlements and features can have retained Norse-derived names to this day without a period of fairly intensive settlement by Norse-speakers, names such as Brodick, Sannox, Ranza, Goat-fell. In fact, the topographic names - names referring to topographic features such as valleys, rivers and bays, without any direct reference to human habitation - are likely to have been given to Norse settlements in the earliest phase of Norse colonisation. The lack of names with habitative elements points rather to the fact that by the time secondary settlements were formed from the core holdings, Norse was no longer the chief language of Arran. This is the model put forward by Andrew Jennings in his Ph.D 'An Historical Study of the Gael and Norse in Western Scotland from c.795 to c.1000' (Edinburgh, 1994). It was also clearly expounded and elaborated by Arne Kruse in his paper given to the SPNSoc. Conference in Perth in May.
Other important names of Norse derivation, but later incorporated into Gaelic names, are Glenrosa, containing the Norse hross-á 'horse river', Glenormisdale and Glenashdale (Glenascadale 1503). Glenshurig almost certainly belongs to this same group: early forms such as Glenservaig and Glensherwik make Fraser's tentative suggestion that it contains Gaelic searrach 'foal' unlikely.
The importance of topographical names in the early settlement-nomenclature of Arran is equally pronounced in the Gaelic-derived names. One has only to look at the names of the medieval royal lands, many of which contain such generic elements as leitir 'slope' in Letternagannach, now Letter, machair 'machair, raised beach, fertile coastal strip' in Machrie, cnoc 'hill(ock)' in Knockankelly, and monadh 'muir, upland grazing' (or perhaps mòine 'peat-bog, moss') in Monyquil (Monyculye) and Monamore (Monymor).
This book is an essential addition to the library not only of anyone interested in Scottish toponymy, but also of all who care about the history and culture of this magnificent island.
Simon Taylor
This is a shortened version of a review to appear in Cothrom no. 25, the bilingual quarterly magazine for new Gaelic learners, 62 High Street, Invergordon X18 ODH <www. gaelic. netlcli >.

Margaret Gelling and Ann Cole, The Landscape of Place-Names, Shaun Tyas: Stamford, 2000. xxiv + 391 pp. (ISBN 1-900289-26-1), £17.99.
One could be forgiven for assuming at first sight that this is simply a re-issue of Margaret Gelling's remarkable work Place-Names in the Landscape (1984). Both books examine the use and range of meanings of a large number of topographical place-name elements in England. The chapter headings group link terminology together, as for example 'Hills, Slopes and Ridges' (Ch. 5), and within each chapter, the elements are arranged alphabetically. However, there are some important differences.
The Landscape of Place-Names has been written in collaboration with Ann Cole, who has contributed the majority of the maps and a case study on the topographical elements of the Chilterns (pp. 288-316). Cole's sketches of specific landscape features add a further dimension to Gelling's often precise definitions. It is easy to appreciate the definition of Old English beorg as 'rounded hill, tumulus' in names like Rook Barugh and Roseberry Topping in the North Riding of Yorkshire when confronted with an image of these sites (p. 147).
The majority of the material relates to England, and so Scottish place-name enthusiasts may feel misled by the general map, which includes Scotland south of the Forth-Clyde line. Although there is slightly more reference to Scottish place-names in the more recent volume, as in the discussion of Primitive Cumbric coid, Welsh coed 'wood, forest', Gelling is quick to draw attention to the lack of comprehensive studies of individual elements in Scotland (p.224). This point is a reminder that Scotland, as yet, lacks onomastic resources comparable with the published volumes of the English Place-Name Survey.
As indicated by the bibliography, substantial progress has been made in this area of English place-name scholarship during the intervening sixteen years. Many individual articles have been published, and the English Place-Name Survey has continued its steady production of detailed county investigations. Those with good memories may recognise some familiar paragraphs, but the majority of the work has been rewritten in order to take account of more recent research.

This journal, which will be familiar to many SPNS members, has been published since 1973. I have stocks of all the back numbers at £1.50 for Nos 1-19, and £2.50 for Nos 20-34, post-free. Many short articles on onomastic topics have appeared in the journal, so a list is included here. If you wish a copy, please contact me, enclosing a cheque for the requisite amount, payable to 'SSNS'.
Vol 4 1974 lan A Fraser: 'The Place-Names of Lewis - the Norse Evidence', 11 -21.
Vol 7/8 1976 W F H Nicolaisen: 'Scandinavian Place-Names in Scotland as a Source of Knowledge', 14-23.
Vol 9 1977 Aiden Macdonald: 'On Papar Names in N&W Scotland, 25-30.
Vol 13 1979 Rudolf Simek: 'Old Norse Ship Names and Ship Terms', 26-36.
Vol 15 1980 Adam MeNaughton: 'Edinburgh's Runestone', 29-33.
Vol 16 1980 Alexander Fenton: 'Northern Links', 5-16.
Vol 18 1981 Gillian Fellows Jensen: 'A Bibliography of Onomastic and Related Topics relating to Scotland and Scandinavia', 13-19.
Vol 21 1984 lan A Fraser: 'Some Further Thoughts on Scandinavian Place-Names in Lewis', 34-41.
Vol 22 1985 Veronica Smart: 'The Penny in the Pennylands: Coinage in Scotland in the Early Middle Ages', 65-70.
Vol 23 1986 Lindsay J Macgregor: 'Norse Naming Elements in Shetland and Faroe', 84-101.
Vol 27 1990 W F H Nicolaisen: 'Aberdeen: A Toponymic Key to the Region', 50-63.
Vol 29 1992 W F H Nicolaisen: 'Arran Place Names. A Fresh Look', 1-13.
Arne Kruse: 'A Few Names in a Vast Land - Scandinavian Place-Names in the Midwest'(USA), 25-34.
Vol 31 1996 Hermann Pálsson: 'Aspects of Norse Place-Names in the Western Isles', 7-24.
Vol 32 1997 Berit Sandnes: 'The Bu of Orphir, Burn of Gueth - a Gaelic Pattern in Orkney Place-Names', 125-128.
Vol 33 1998 Peder Gammeltoft: 'Sowing the wind? Reaping the crop of bólstadr', 25-36.
Vol 34 1999 Berit Sandnes: 'Place-Names in Orkney as Evidence for Language Contact', 23-34.

Spring 2000

Clancy, T. O., 1999, 'The foundation legend of Laurencekirk revisited', Innes Review 50, 83-8.
Downie, D. A., 1999, Street Names in the Village of Kemnay(Kemnay) [available from Time Pieces, Kirkstile, Kemnay AB51 5PS. Price £3.75].
Durkan, J., 1999, 'The place-name Balmaha', Innes Review 50, 88.
Fraser, D. M., 1998, 'An investigation into Distributions of ach-, bal- and pit- Place-Names in North East Scotland', unpublished M.Litt thesis, University of Aberdeen.
Fraser, I. A., 1999, The Place-Names of Arran(Glasgow) [just out; more on this in next Newsletter]
Macquarrie, A., 1996, 'An eleventh-century account of the foundation legend of Laurencekirk, and of Queen Margaret's pilgrimage there', Innes Review 47, 95-109 [discussion and translation substantially reprinted in Macquarrie The Saints of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1997, 216-22].
Morgan, P., 1999,Rum: Island Place-Names/Rùm: Ainmean Àite an Eilein (with separate map) (Scottish Natural Heritage, Rum).
Newton, M., 'The Sense of Place in the Gaelic Tradition (as localised in Strath, Isle of Skye), John Muir Trust Journal and News 25 (Summer 1998), 22-6.
NicIain, C., 1999, Ainmean Aiteachan Sgire Sholais.
Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 'The Earliest English Place Names in North East Scotland', Northern Scotland 18 (1999), 67-82.

Autumn 1999

Clancy, T. O., 1999, ‘The foundation legend of Laurencekirk revisited', Innes Review 50, 83-8.
Cox, R. A. V., 1999, The Language of the Ogam Inscriptions of Scotland (Aberdeen)
Durkan, J., 1999, ‘The place-name Balmaha', Innes Review 50, 88.
Fraser, D. M., 1998, ‘An investigation into Distributions of ach-, bal- and pit- Place-Names in North East Scotland', unpublished M.Litt thesis, University of Aberdeen
Macquarrie, A., 1996, ‘An eleventh-century account of the foundation legend of Laurencekirk, and of Queen Margaret's pilgrimage there', Innes Review 47, 95-109 [discussion and translation substantially reprinted in Macquarrie The Saints of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1997, 216-22]
Morgan, P., 1999, Rum: Island Place-Names/Rùm: Ainmean Àite an Eilein (with separate map) (Scottish Natural Heritage, Rum)
Newton, M., ‘The Sense of Place in the Gaelic Tradition (as localised in Strath, Isle of Skye), John Muir Trust Journal and News 25 (Summer 1998), 22-6.
Nicolaisen, W. F. H., ‘The Earliest English Place Names in North East Scotland', Northern Scotland 18 (1999), 67-82.

Autumn 1998

(see also reports from the May 1998 Conference for details of some of the following and other publications)

(b) Journal Articles etc.
Barrow, G.W.S. 1998, 'Religion in Scotland on the eve of Christianity' in Forschungen zur Reichs-, Papst- und Landesgeschichte, edd. K. Borchardt and E. Bünz, Part 1 (Stuttgart), 25-32 [a study of nemeton-place-names in Scotland].
Breeze, A., `Etymological notes on Kirkcaldy, jocteleg "knife", klaugh "trouble", striffen_ "membrane" and cow "hobgoblin"', Scottish Language, 16 (1997), 97-110 [`The Fife place-name Kirkcaldy' at 97-99].
Drummond, P., 'Scottish Hill-Names - the Irish connection', Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal 1997.
Drummond, P., 'Scottish Hill-Names - the English connection', Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal 1998.
Gough-Cooper, H., 'Some notes on the name "Ninian"', Transactions of the Dumfries and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society 72 (1997), 5-10.
Keillar, I., 1988, 'Macallan - the parish that never was', Moray Field Club Bulletin no.16, 16-20.
Stone, J.C.: 'Robert Gordon and the Making of the First Atlas of Scotland', Northern Scotland, 18 (1998), 15-29.

THE DUMMIEDYKES
Society member Charles Coventry has sent in a copy of p. 5 of the first issue of the Dumbiedykes Newsletter (Dec. 1996), which has a brief explanation of some of the street-names of the south side of Edinburgh around the Dumbiedykes area. Dumbiedykes itself (locally known as The Dummiedykes) takes its name from the fact that there was a school for deaf-mutes there. 'Briery Bauks' (baulk 'unploughed rig') recalls a more agricultural past, while the Radical Road, below Salisbury Crags, is named after the radical west-country unemployed weavers, who built it in the 1820s.

SCOTTISH RURAL SOCIETY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
This, the title of a well-researched book by M. Sanderson (Edinburgh 1982) also contains a useful appendix on place-names (pp.237-43): 16th-century field- and croft-names, compiled from feu charters of church lands in many parts of the country. They are listed alphabetically according to what the author regards as the key element, usually the generic, such as acre, cruik, daill ('an allocated share of land, formally demarcated', as defined in the Glossary pp.248-56), shed ('piece of land clearly marked off from its surroundings'); but sometimes the specific, such as almoner in Almoner's Croft, Amurryland.

SCOTTISH RURAL SOCIETY IN THE EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY
Ruth Richens of Cambridge would like to draw the attention of other Society members to the edited letters of her grandfather which she published in six books in the 1980s. Entitled Your Loving Father, Gavin Scott: Letters from a Lanarkshire Farmer they contain letters written between 1911 and 1917 to Gavin Scott's son George, a medical officer in Malaya. Until 1911 Scott had farmed at Hallhill, Lesmahagow, before retiring to the nearby village of Crossford, when the farm was taken over by his son Tom. The letters present rural Lanarkshire society in these years of change in a vivid, humorous and very individual way, as well as containing much of farming interest. Volume 2 (the letters of 1912, published 1982) contains two plans of the farm, one based on a map of 1850 (p.103), the other based on the farm as Gavin Scott knew it. Both contain field-names, some remaining the same (such as the ? unique 'Sautless Kail'), others changing, such as Purroch and Berrygill of the 1850 map becoming Waterworks Park 50 years later. The letters often refer to the different fields by name, so that their wider usage can be appreciated e.g. 'We have Saltless Kail all in rick, and 11 ricks in Westpark.' (Vol. 2, p.99).
A complete set of Your Loving Father, Gavin Scott: Letters from a Lanarkshire Farmer 1911-17 edited by R. Richens, 6 vols. can be obtained from Mrs M. Gow, 14 South Croft Road, Biggar ML12 6AJ; price £12 + p. & p.. Individual volumes range from £1.20 to £3.50 each.

THE EARLY MAPS OF SCOTLAND
Committee member Dr David Munro, Director of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, writes:
In 1934 the Royal Scottish Geographical Society celebrated its jubilee with the publication of The Early Maps of Scotland. Under the general editorship of H. R.G. Inglis, it provided the first survey of Scottish maps and map-making, in addition to lists of maps ranging from early agricultural maps to railway maps. This 120-page volume also contained two brief chapters by John Mathieson on early surveying and the work of the Ordnance Survey in Scotland.
As a result of this publication details of additional maps were received and a second edition was published in 1936 by the RSGS. The work was further revised and extended with the inclusion of 'A History of Scottish Maps' by the Society's Secretary Donald Moir. This was published as two volumes in 1973 and 1983.
An invaluable resource for those using maps in search of place-names, the third edition also notes the libraries where these maps can be found.
Copies of The Early Maps of Scotland in 2 volumes (1973 & 1983) can be obtained from the RSGS, 40 George St., Glasgow G1 1QE. Cost £15 for the pair, including p. & p.

FIELD-NAMES AND ESTATE PLANS
Estate plans of the 18th and 19th century are an invaluable tool in our understanding of the evolution of the Scottish countryside, and a rich source of place-names, many of which became obsolete in this period of intensive agricultural change. An excellent introduction to these estate plans is the following article by B.M.W. Third: 'The Significance of Scottish Estate Plans and Associated Documents', Scottish Studies 1 (1957), 39-64.

LARGE SCALE GAZETTEERS FOR GREAT BRITAIN
Under a new agreement with the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain, Toponymics of Anstruther, Fife (formerly trading as Gazetteer Systems of Hawick), are to provide custom-built all-feature gazetteers for Great Britain at scales of up to 1:10 000.
At the 1:50 000 scale [Landranger], there are approximately 250,000 place/feature names for the whole of GB; at 1:25 000scale [Pathfinder], 1000,000, and at 1: 10 000 scale there are 3,500,000.
Each place/feature name will be geographically referenced using the graticule, [4 figure-] national grid references, and map sheet numbers for existing OS map series such as Landranger and Explorer.
Each place/feature name will carry a classification i.e. vegetation, settlement, water feature, etc. and data identifying the survey source of the place/feature name.
The gazetteers will be made available in either hardcopy or digital formats with the provision of interrogation software for digital data if required.
Toponymics original product, the 'PATHFINDER GAZETTEER (1.0v) Scotland', a 194,429 place/feature-name gazetteer captured at 1:25 000) is still available in both digital and hardcopy forms. There is an upgraded version of the gazetteer (1.5v) available in hardcopy only.
For more information telephone Mr Robin Hooker on 01333 312750.

REVIEWS:
Jeffrey C Stone: 'Robert Gordon and the Making of the First Atlas of Scotland', in Northern Scotland, 18 (1998), 15-29. This article, by an acknowledged expert on Pont, Blaeu and Gordon, discusses Robert Gordon of Straloch and his role in the preparation of maps for Joan Blaeu's Atlas Novus (1654.) While not directly an onomastic article, it is nevertheless important to our understanding of the development of the first atlas of Scotland, and contains much discussion on the place-name material contained in several of the maps.

David Dorward, Dundee: Names, People and Places, Mercat Press (53 South Bridge, Edinburgh), Paperback, 164pp, £9.99. The author, a Dundonian, and a member of the Society, has produced a very readable book on the nomenclature of the city, both place- and personal-names, ranging from Abertay and Airlie to Wellgate and Wishart. The format is alphabetical and discursive, with much historical information and source material quoted in the text. It's a ptiy it lacks a bibliography as such, and there is no locational map apart from a reproduction of William Crawford's stylish and attractive plan of the city (1793.) These criticisms apart, Dorward's usual racy and informative narrative will make this a sure-fire success in the bookshops.

K. Forsyth, 1998, Language in Pictland, Stichting Uitgeverij de Keltische Draak, Postbus 2726, 3500 GS Utrecht, Netherlands. ISBN 90-802785-5-6. Paperback, pp. 48 + 4 colour plates, £7.40. Important book on early language in Scotland. Available also from Pinkfoot Press, Balgavies, Forfar, Angus DD8 2TH (add 60p. for p&p.).

Spring 1998

The first publication of the Scottish Place-Name Society appeared in November 1997:

INDEX OF CELTIC ELEMENTS IN W.J. WATSON'S
HISTORY OF THE CELTIC PLACE-NAMES OF SCOTLAND
Compiled by
Eric B. Basden

It is an essential companion to Watson's classic work on Scottish Place-Names, containing some 5,000 different entries (73 A4 sides) plus a seven-page Subject Index, with a preface by Simon Taylor, a brief User's Guide by Alan James, and a note on Eric Basden by his son, Nicholas Basden.
Copies are available from the Scottish Place-Name Society, price £7 including p. & p.

Remember this book? Some of you will even remember paying for this book, which is based on the Uses of Place-Names Conference held in St Andrews in 1996. Scottish Cultural Press, writes:

The publisher wishes to apologise to subscribers of The Uses in Place-Names for the delays experienced in the publication of this volume, which have mainly been caused by other books in the production system failing to meet their deadlines, thus preventing other titles from proceeding as planned. We are pleased to announce that this book is now in an advanced stage of production and will be shortly available.
Jill Dick, Director, S.C.P.

The book can be obtained from St Andrews Scottish Studies Institute [SASSI], The University, St Andrews, Fife KY16 9AL, Tel. 01334 462667 (cheques made out to University of St Andrews); or Scottish Cultural Press, Unit 14, Leith Walk Business Centre, 130 Leith Walk, Edinburgh EH6 5DT, Tel. 0131 555 5950 (cheques to S.C.P.).
Cost £9.99 + £1.50 p. & p.

Recent Publications:

a) Books
Conroy, S., The Name's the Same. Scottish Placenames Worldwide. Glendaruel, Argyll: Argyll Publishing, 1996.
Harris, S., The Place Names of Edinburgh. Their Origins and History. Edinburgh: Gordon Wright, 1996. ISBN 0-903065-83-5. £45.00.
Koch, J.T., 1997, The Gododdin of Aneurin: Text and Context from Dark-Age North Britain. [Contains material on early place-names.]
MacDonald, Murdoch, Old Torridon. Notes on the History of Torridon. Torridon Publishing, 1997. ISBN 0 9530978 0 3. [Includes two chapters on place-names.]
Whyte, D., Scottish Forenames. Their Origins and History. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 1996.

(b) Journal Articles etc.
Breeze, A., ‘Simeon of Durham's annal for 756 and Govan, Scotland', Nomina 20 (1997) or Nomina 21 (1998). Forthcoming.
Brooke, D., ‘The Place-Name and Port of Menybrig, Leswalt', Transactions of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, 71 (1996), 115-8.
Cox, R., ‘Modern Scottish Gaelic reflexes of two Pictish words: pett and lanerc', Nomina 20 (1997) Forthcoming (soon).
Hough, C., ‘The earliest Old English place-names in Scotland,' Notes and Queries, 44 (1997), 148-50.
Lockwood, W. B., ‘Further remarks on the early history and origin of the names Orkney and Shetland', Namn och Bygd, 84 (1996), 134-35.
Mowat, M., ‘Place-names in Whalsay', The New Shetlander, 202 (1997), 12.
Ó Muraíle, N., ‘The Columban Onomastic Legacy' in Studies in the Cult of Saint Columba, ed. C. Bourke (Dublin 1997), 193-218.
Pálsson, H., ‘Aspects of Norse place-names in the Western Isles', Northern Studies, 31 (1996), 7-24.
Rennie, E. B., ‘A possible boundary between Dál Riata and Pictland', Pictish Arts Society Journal, 10 (Winter 1996), 17-22.
Robb, J. G. 1996, ‘Toponymy in Lowland Scotland: Depictions of Linguistic Heritage', Scottish Geographical Magazine, 112, no.3, 169-176.
Sandnes, B., ‘The Bu of Orphir, Burn of Gueth: a Gaelic pattern in Orkney place-names?' Northern Studies, 32 (1997), 125-28.
Taylor, S., 1996/7 ‘Ainmean Gàidhlig air a'Ghalldachd (Gaelic names in the Scottish Lowlands)/Nightmare on Distribution Map', Cothrom 10, 17-20.
Taylor, S., 1997 ‘Gàidhlig an Dùthchas nan Gall/Gaelic in Lowland Heritage', Cothrom 11, 14-16.
Taylor, S., ‘Seventh-century Iona abbots in Scottish place-names,' Innes Review, 48 (1997), 45-72.
Taylor, S., ‘Generic Element Variation, with special reference to Eastern Scotland', Nomina 20 (1997) Forthcoming (soon).

Thanks to Dr Carole Hough for compiling the bulk of these references. Please let us know about any articles we may have overlooked, or forthcoming articles which should be included in the next issue.

Please note that back copies of Scottish Place-Name News are available from the Society for £1.50 (which includes p. & p.). Issue no.2 contains a Directory of Members, with their interests and publications, up-dated in issue no.3. A further up-date will appear in the next issue.

1996/97

In 1995 Perth & Kinross District (now Council) Libraries published Angus Watson's The Ochils: Placenames, History, Tradition (159 pages). This is a handsomely produced, well illustrated and well-researched book on place-names in the Ochils (above c. 80 metres) from Stirlingshire to Fife.

The book retails at £10.95. Perth & Kinross Council Libraries are offering the book to SPNSociety Members at the special price of £10 per copy INCLUDING postage and packaging. To order your copy at reduced price, please write to:

Mr M. Moir, Head of Libraries & Archives, The A.K. Bell Library, York Place, Perth PH2 8EP, saying that you are a member of the Scottish Place-Name Society, and enclosing the necessary amount. Please make out cheques to 'Perth & Kinross Council Libraries'.

If you live in or near Perth, you can buy your copy direct from the Library shop at 10% discount (for £9.85). Again, the code word is 'Scottish Place-Name Society'. Please note that you can order (or buy direct) more than one copy at these special prices.

OTHER BOOKS

In March 1996 Highland Heritage Educational Trust issued a reprint of W.J.Watson's invaluable study of the place-names of Ross and Cromarty, first published in 1904, and reprinted for the first time in 1976. Since that reprint, demand has far outstripped supply, hence this new reprint.

It retails at £10.99, and can be ordered through any bookshop (ISBN 0 9509882 6 X). Highland Heritage Educational Trust have also brought out a map and gazetteer of Gaelic Place-Names of Easter Ross, Mid Ross and the Black Isle. For more details contact the Highland Heritage Educational Trust c/o Rob Gibson, Tir nan Oran, 8 Culcairn Rd., Evanton Ross-shire IV16 9YT or telephone 01349 830388.

Recent Publications

Crawford, B. E,, ed., Scandinavian Settlement in Northern Britain: Thirteen Studies of
Place-Names in their Historical Context (London: Leicester UP, 1995).

Crawford, B. E., ed., Scotland in Dark Age Britain (Aberdeen: Scottish Cultural Press, 1996). [Seven studies by various authors]

Hooke, D., and S. Burnell, eds, Landscape and Settlement in Britain AD 400-1066 (Exeter: Exeter UP, 1995). [Six studies by various authors]

MacDonald, M., 'Old Torridon: Notes on the History of Torridon' (Torridon Publishing 1997, ISBN No 0 9530978 0 3).

Robson, M.J.H., 'A Break with the Past, Changed days on two Border sheepfarms (Langburnshiels and Riccarton)', Robson 1991.

Smart, R. N., and K. C. Fraser, St. Andrews Street Names: Their Origin and Meaning (St. Andrews University Library, 1995).

Thomson, W.P.L. (Ed) 'Lord Henry Sinclair's 1492 Rental of Orkney. (The Orkney Press, 1996).

Waugh, D. J., ed., Shetland's Northern Links: Language and History (Lerwick: Scottish Society for Northern Studies, forthcoming October 1996). [Seventeen studies by various authors]

Williamson, M. G., The Origins of Street Names in Dalkeith (Midlothian Council Libary
Service, 1996).

Clancy, T. 0., 'Annat in Scotland and the origins of the parish', Innes Review 46 (1995), 91-115.

Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 'In praise of William J. Watson (1865-1948): Celtic place-name scholar', Scottish Language 14/15 (1995/1996), 15-30.

Nicolaisen, W. F. H., 'Viking place names in Scotland', NORNA-rapporter 154 (1994), 31-49.

Proudfoot, E., and C. Aliaga-Kelly, 'Place-names and other evidence for Anglian
settlement in south-east Scotland', Landscape History 17 (1995), 17-26.

Taylor, S., 'Babbet and Bridin Pudding or polyglot Fife in the Middle Ages', Nomina 17 (1994), 99-118.

Taylor, S., 'Some early Scottish place-names and Queen Margaret', Scottish Language 13
(1994), 1-17.

Wonders, W. C., 'Northern ties: Shetland and Scandinavia over the years', Northern Scotland 15 (1995), 95-121.