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Placename notes from the Newsletters
Autumn 1999
Spring 1999
Winter 1998
Autumn 1998
Spring 1998
Autumn 1999
On the Trail of
Kentigern
Ogam Inscriptions Revisited
Flora Celtica
Place-names and White
Settlers
Professor Robin Adam:
a
tribute
Street-names and
plebiscites, a letter from Dr May Williamson
Ancient Denmark
More on (not) the Meaning
of
Liff)
ON THE TRAIL OF
KENTIGERN
In reconsidering John Morris' conjecture that St Kentigern was one-time
bishop of Senlis, Henry Gough-Cooper has been investigating place-names
outwith Scotland and Cumbria that appear to contain references to
Kentigern or Mungo. So far, he has noticed three such: "Mungo's Grave",
near Kelvedon, Essex; Llangendeirn, Carmarthenshire; and
Trégondern near St-Pol-de-Leon, Finistere. Further
suggestions
are welcome, and fully referenced notes available from: HenryWGC@AOL.COM
The disconcerting "Mungo's Grave" was the name of a great sarsen
boulder, still in situ
in the 1950's, lying on the axis of a system of rectilinear fields and
lanes of possible Roman origin. "Mungo's Grave" is unlikely to be a
reference to the saint. Unrecorded until the 19th century, it may be a
jokey reference to Mungo Park, the celebrated explorer who disappeared
on the river Niger in 1806. Enigmatically, however, a Breton personal
name Mingghi (stone+dog) occurs in Essex in the
12th century.
It is to be wondered what historians a thousand years hence will make
of "Hitler's Grave" in Galloway (NX515615) - complete with dated
inscription!
Llangendeirne in Carmarthenshire (SN456140) is the only place-name in
the British Isles exhibiting Kentigern's "full" name. The physical
evidence of the churchyard suggests an early origin but the place-name
can only be traced back to the 16th century and it has been suggested
that Llangendeirne may simply reflect a late dedication to the
founder's favourite saint. However, the names in llan-
usually display a marked conservatism: Landawke (Llandauc) came to be
dedicated to St Margaret of Scotland but preserves the original name
"Doccus". Two Kyndeyrns appear in the Welsh genealogies, but the entry
for Kyndeyrn map Kyngar is late and may be an attempt to "explain" a
dedication to Kentigern at Llangendeirne.
With Trégondern in Brittany is associated, curiously, Roserf
which appears to be ros+serf
"Serf's hillock". In legend, Serf is Kentigern's "godfather". However,
the etymologist of the Institut Géographique National,
Paris,
considers Trégondern to be tref+konk+edern
"the hamlet of the bay of (saint) Edern" (private communication). An
alternative etymology might be tref + condern "Condern's
vill" (compare Llangendeirne, 1609 Llangandern) in
which case, Condern (or Condiern) would be the saint, or machtiern
of the lan
around which Trégondern was constituted. In the absence of
earlier forms, it can only be tentatively suggested that the name of
the eponymous founder of this estate might be Kentigern rather than
Edern.
Henry Gough-Cooper.
OGAM INSCRIPTIONS REVISITED
This spring SPNSoc. member Dr Richard Cox of the Department of Celtic,
University of Aberdeen, brought out what may well prove to be the most
controversial book of the year in medieval Scottish studies. Entitled The
Language of the Ogam Inscriptions of Scotland,
with the secondary title ‘Contributions to the Study of Ogam,
Runic and Roman Alphabet Inscriptions in Scotland', it claims that many
of the Scottish ogams were in fact written in Norse. More on this in
the next issue.
Obtainable from Department of Celtic, University of
Aberdeen,
Aberdeen AB24 3UB price £12.50 (hardback) + p. & p.
UK
£1.50. Elsewhere £2.50 surface, £4.00
airmail.
FLORA CELTICA
SCOTLAND 2000
A Millennium Project co-ordinated by the Royal Botanic
Garden
Edinburgh.
‘Our natural resources, the traditional knowledge associated
with
them, and the habitats in which they are found, are fundamental
elements of our national heritage. In Scotland the tradition of using
native plants is strong, and it has defined much of the social,
economic and natural landscape. Nevertheless, traditional businesses,
products and crafts are now disappearing as their markets are
overtaken, and knowledge is lost as people become more and more
divorced from the land. At the same time, habitats are being destroyed,
and resources once important in local economies are vanishing.
The Millennium is a time when people across the world will be
re-examining their lives and cultures. It thus provides us with a
timely opportunity to look back at our relationship with our native
plants over the last thousand years, to examine our present use of
these resources, and to consider their roles in our future.'
Members of the SPNSoc. will realise that Scottish place
names
often
record information about plants and their occurrence, particularly in
the economic and natural landscape. If you are interested in plants in
place names and believe that you have useful information to pass on to
the Project co-ordinators, please contact the Vice Convenor, Doreen
Waugh, who has further information about the Project. You should
address letters to the Scottish Place-Name Survey, School of Scottish
Studies and mark the envelope FLORA CELTICA.
PLACE-NAMES AND WHITE
SETTLERS
White Settlers: the Impact of Rural Repopulation in
Scotland
is
the title of a book by C. Jedrej and M. Nuttall (Harwood Academic
Publishers, Luxembourg 1996; paperback £12.99, 195pp.). A
detailed review by SPNSoc. member Dr Mairi MacArthur of this
‘sympathetic and positive' book can be found in Scottish
Affairs
22 (Winter 1998), 129-33. There is a particularly good and important
chapter entitled ‘Contested Landscapes', which examines the
elements which build up a relationship between people and place. The
value of place-names is strongly spelled out as an astonishingly
detailed repository of information about people and events, belief and
practices. Incomers, who do not have the key to this local lore bank,
understandably create their own set of associations, and the highly
personal ‘memoryscape' thus comes to be eroded twice over:
once
through the loss of locals and the disappearance of a particular way of
life; and again by the superimposition of new names and/or meanings
from outside. The careful recording and publishing of local place-names
and their traditions therefore play a crucial role in bridging the
divide between the older population and incomers.
Thanks to Mairi MacArthur for drawing this to the
editor's
attention. The above draws heavily on her review.
PROFESSOR ROBIN ADAM: A
TRIBUTE
On 10 July 1999 the death occurred of Robin Adam, Professor of
Mediaeval History at St Andrews 1975-1987. He was 74. His obituary
appeared in both The Scotsman (5 August) and the Glasgow
Herald.
He took an active interest in the history of Scottish landscape and
settlement, and was therefore keenly involved in Scottish place-name
studies, as well as in Project
Pont.
In 1997 he gave a paper at the Pont Seminar in Edinburgh on the Pont
maps of Angus, a detailed examination of Pont 26, particularly its
right hand half, recording place-names, people and the history revealed
through the manuscript. As with everything he did, it was meticulously
researched, skilfully put together, and thought-provoking. More
recently he was researching Pont's depiction of Sutherland and
north-west Ross, and was making a special study of place-names in that
area, especially those containing the element poll.
He was a
frequent visitor to the NLS Map Library, and his knowledge, insights
and enthusiasm will be greatly missed. His published works of
particular relevance to Society members include: John Home's
Survey of Assynt, Scottish History Society 1960; Papers
on Sutherland Estate Management, SHS 1972; Calendar of Fearn,
SHS, 1991; ‘Meathie-Lour: A Parish Exploration', Records
of the Scottish Church History Society 1993.
Chris Fleet
FROM DR MAY
WILLIAMSON:
I am horrified by the suggestion (noted in a report in Scottish
Place-Name News
no. 6), mercifully from Ireland, that street names might be open to
change by local plebiscite. "Lakeside Park" is a glaring example of the
‘genteel-ising' so greatly favoured by developers as a
selling
point.
The proliferation of ‘Court', ‘Close',
‘Mews',
‘Park', ‘View' in private schemes, and even in
those of
local councils, is to be deplored.
No doubt the inhabitants did not want to be associated with James
Connolly [the Edinburgh-born socialist Irish republican politician
executed by the British at the time of the Easter Rising in 1916]. Such
naming after political figures, royalty, local landowners, was common
practice in the 19th century. And what about O'Connell Street in
Dublin? [as well as Connolly Station, Dublin's main station, named
after the same James Connolly].
The trend today by enlightened authorities to search old farm- and
track-names for new developments is admirable, although too often
marred by tacking on some unsuitable term for ‘street'. An
example in Edinburgh is Peacocktail Close, where the first element
commemorates a coal-seam in the Jewel colliery, but the
‘Close'
no doubt intended to suggest the aristocratic calm of the environs of
an English cathedral, is totally unsuited to its position in a former
mining area.
Dr May Williamson
Edinburgh
ANCIENT DENMARK
This was sent in by Mr David Wallace, a member from St
Andrews:
‘ "So there lie the place names, slumbering like soldiers in
Kaiser Frederik's underground fort; they are waiting for the correct
watchword, the blaring trumpet, which will rouse them from their sleep
and bring them to form their serried ranks," wrote the[Danish]
historian H.V. Clausen in his monograph Studies in the
Ancient Settlement of Denmark of 1916. To form serried ranks
of place names one has to date them. But can one?'
This is taken from L. Hedeager Iron-Age Societies: from tribe
to state in northern Europe, 500BC to AD700
(translated J. Hines), 1992, p.187. There then follows (pp.187-90) a
useful summary of toponymics and archaeology in Denmark, and how these
disciplines can together help towards a comprehensive picture of
Iron-Age settlement in Denmark.
MORE ON (NOT) THE MEANING
OF LIFF
In the last issue of the News (Spring 1999) I wrote a short piece on
Adams' and Lloyd's very unserious and toponymically unilluminating The
Meaning of Liff (1983).
In response I was pleased to receive from SPNSociety preses Prof. Bill
Nicolaisen an article he had written on the sequel, The
Deeper Meaning of Liff (1990), entitled ‘More Fun
and Names' in Sprache, Onomatopöie, Rhetorik, Namen,
Idiomatik, Grammatik: Festschrift für Prof. Dr. Karl Sornig
zum 66 Geburtstag edd.
Halwachs, Penzinger, Stütz, (Grazer Linguistische Monograpien
11,
Graz, 1994), 157-62 [!]. This is a more positive as well as more
scholarly analysis of Liff than my own. It succeeds
in
assigning the different invented meanings of the 130 Scottish
place-names to different categories, as well as making some very
thoughtful points about the relationship between names and words. As it
appears in an Austrian publication, it ends with 12 Austrian names
‘lifficised' i.e. place-names ‘de-nominalised' and
assigned
lexical meanings for which single words do not otherwise exist (neither
in German nor English), for example Sõll
(noun) ‘the itchy bit of skin under your wristwatch on a hot
day'; and traisen (verb) ‘to talk with
great authority on a subject about which one knows absolutely nothing'.
If 2 people traisen, then you have to hope that
there is no-one around who is able to inverinate,
which means, according to Adams and Lloyd, ‘to spot that both
people in a heated argument are talking complete rubbish'!
(Simon Taylor)
Spring 1999
Signage of the Times
Meal do naidheachd Sgoil
Lionacleit !
The Meaning of Liff
SIGNAGE OF
THE
TIMES
Since bilingual road-signs started to appear in the Western Isles and
parts of the adjacent mainland, controversy has arisen over the choice
and spelling of some of the Gaelic. It was perhaps inevitable; for
despite being heir to one of the world's oldest literatures, Gaelic
popular literacy is a relatively new phenomenon which has developed
after the Anglicised form of place-names became established in
documentary use - not that English signage is without its own
controversies!
Bilingual signage is likely to spread, as indicated by the plan for
Gaelic-English signing in the Scots Parliament building, reflecting the
modern distribution of Gaelic-medium education and of learners and
speakers. SPNS has been in contact with two councils about bilingual
signage programmes under consideration, Perth & Kinross and
Highland, which has formed a sub-committee to look at the textual
issues involved. SPNS was invited to be represented on this
sub-committee.
The SPNS response was as quick as the Council's need for haste, and the
national committee agreed to form a signage sub-committee of its own,
consisting of the society's convener Ian Fraser and committee members
Dr Simon Taylor and Peadar Morgan, with Peadar as representative on the
Highland Council sub-committee. The SPNS have been greatly helped in
the two signage programmes so far addressed - trunk road signs in Skye
& Lochalsh and street names in central Dingwall - by the
expertise
and advice of SPNS members Roy Wentworth in Wester Ross and Dr Richard
Cox of Aberdeen University Celtic Department.
SPNS has stressed the importance of local knowledge and consultation
(whilst recognising the pressures of time under which Council decisions
need to be reached and implemented), and urged the contracting of field
workers for each programme. This suggestion has been adopted by the
Highland Council sub-committee, and is being discussed by the Council
hierarchy.
These developments coincided with the decision of the Scottish
Place-Name Database working group to include fields for agreed
present-day Gaelic and Scots forms of names, which can act as a
national repository and encourage consistency. The SPNS sub-committee
also hopes that its work will build up a national standard on various
orthographic issues as they peculiarly affect toponyms - based of
course on modern Gaelic spelling conventions.
Agreed principles so far include combining elements where stress falls
on the initial element, with suspension of the matching vowel quality
and sd>st rules where appropriate (eg Staoineabrig,
Ròmasdal); the accent to be shown
on
capital letters; Achadh to always be spelt in
full; Mac family names (as opposed to genuine
patronymics) to be written as one word, two caps (eg Baile
MacAra).
Principles currently under discussion, in relation to the Dingwall
street names, include a Gaelic form of the generic Place - to stick to
Ionad as previously used (but now applied to shopping, sport and soup
& sandwich "Centres"), to go for an indigenous alternative, or
to
adopt the Irish term Plàs?
Answers, helpful suggestions and SAE for approved lists to date to
Peadar at: SPNS, c/o CLI, 62 Àrd Shràid, Inbhir
Ghòrdain, Siorrachd Rois IV18 0DH - it'll get there (if you
mind
the code!).
Peadar Morgan (Committee Member)
Congratulations to the
Lionacleit
Community School,
Benbecula, which in Autumn 1998 was awarded the Association for
Geographic Information (AGI) School Prize for its plans to carry out a
community project with the help of local residents to identify Gaelic
place-names for features in the landscape in the southern islands. A
report, written by Ms D. Freeman, Chair of AGI, states that it provides
scope for creative and imaginative work with GIS to preserve the Gaelic
names and English translations on digital base maps in conjunction with
pictures of the landscape and comments from the interviews. The
project, which was planned by a group of 14 to 16-year old pupils,
fulfilled all the criteria for the UK-wide prize, sponsored by the
Environmental Systems Research Institute and the Ordnance Survey.
THE MEANING OF LIFF
Those with an interest in the east Perthshire place-name
‘Liff'
(in the parish of Liff and Benvie, just west of Dundee) should not get
over-excited: the little book with the above title will enlighten them
not a jot. Written by Douglas Adams (of Hitchhiker's Guide
to the Universe
fame) and John Lloyd, and published in 1983 by Pan Books and Faber and
Faber, it is an amazingly silly book, with, for a toponymist, a most
alarming introduction.
‘In Life (and, indeed, in Liff), there are many hundreds of
common experiences, feelings, situations and even objects which we all
know and recognize, but for which no word exists.
On the other hand, the world is littered with thousands of spare words
which spend their time doing nothing but loafing about on signposts
pointing at places.
Our job, as we see it, is to get these words down off the signposts and
into the mouths of babes and sucklings, and so on, where they can start
earning their keep in everyday conversation and make a more positive
contribution to society.'
Its 191 pages contain such typical examples as ‘Mellon
Udrigle:
the ghastly sound made by traditional folk-singers' or
‘Poges:
the lumps of dry powder that remain after cooking a packet soup.' And
so it goes on, and on, and on. Get back to the signposts, that's all I
can say. (Ed.; thanks to Ian Higgins for bringing this work to my
attention.)
Winter 1998
Ghostly Battalions: Angus Place-Names in a
Poem
by Don Paterson
14:50: Rosekinghall
(Beeching Memorial Railway,
Forfarshire Division)
The next train on Platform 6 will be the 14:50
Rosekinghall — Gallowshill and Blindwell, calling at:
Fairygreen — Templelands — Stars
of Forthneth
— Silverwells —
Honeyhole — Bee Cott — Pleasance —
Sunnyblink —
Butterglen — Heatheryhaugh — St Bride's Ring
— Diltie Moss —
Silvie — Leyshade — Bourtreebush — Little
Fithie —
Dusty Drum — Spiral Wood — Wandershiell —
Windygates —
Red Roofs — Ark Hill — Egypt — Formal
—
Letter — Laverockhall — Windyedge —
Catchpenny —
Framedrum — Drumtick — Little Fardle —
Packhorse —
Carrot — Clatteringbrigs — Smyrna —
Bucklerheads —
Outfield — Jericho — Horn — Roughstones
—
Loak — Skitchen — Sturt — Oathlaw
—
Wolflaw — Farnought — Drunkendubs —
Stronetic —
Ironharrow Well — Goats — Tarbrax —
Dameye —
Dummiesholes — Caldhame — Hagmuir — Slug
of Auchrannie —
Baldragon — Thorn — Wreaths — Spurn Hill
—
Drowndubs — The Bloody Inches — Halfway —
Groan,
where the train will divide
God's Gift to Women
by Don Paterson, printed with the permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.
Railways and trains are everywhere in Paterson's work,
and at
first
glance the poem might be read as an elegy for the passing of a rural
network. A quick look at the map, however (O.S. Landranger 53 and 54)
will show that only a quarter of the place-names are actually on or
near a railway, dismantled or in operation. Clearly, Paterson is
organizing these names along a different theme, and the Forfarshire
Division of the subtitle nudges the reader along a fruitful
track. Division suggests a military unit, and the
lay-out and shape of the poem resemble that of a village war-memorial.
In 14: 50: Rosekinghall Paterson
mingles names which mean something with names whose sounds suggest a
meaning the words do not normally have. He skilfully juxtaposes names
in order to build up further layers of significance. The whole poem has
a shape and progression, from the sunny pastoral of the names of the
first four lines, hinting at seasonal order and stability, to the
chilling names at the end of the poem, as though the shadow of war were
creeping across the Forfarshire countryside.
Don Paterson is not the first poet to use place-names without other
parts of speech to achieve a semantic effect, and I am grateful to Ian
Higgins for drawing my attention to a poem by Louis Aragon, written
during the Occupation of France, and published in La Diane
Française by Seghers in 1945. In ‘Le
Conscrit des Cent Villages', place-names like Sommaisne,
Sommeilles and Sommerance inevitably
call up the ghost of the Somme; while Angoisse,
Adam-les-Passavant, Passefontaine and Treize-Vents
suggest, in Ian Higgins' words, the ‘life of a fugitive or a
Resistance courier, hunted, afraid, elusive, constantly on the move.'
(‘Tradition and Myth in French Resistance Poetry' by Ian
Higgins, Forum for Modern Language Studies vol.1
no.1,
January 1985, pp. 45-58).
Don Paterson's poem, too, has a strong forward movement, but his
place-names hit the ear like the tramp of infantry. After names that
hint at bucolic dalliance in l. 4, the first suggestion of war, of
military gear being taken off the shelf and cleaned, is neatly conveyed
in Dusty Drum. More Drum names
are used further on to suggest the sounds of infantry and cavalry on
the move. The other three names in line 5 suggest the disorientation
and discomfort experienced by the new recruit, while Red
Roofs might be the barracks, or else the last,
heart-wrenching glimpse of home. Arrival in Egypt
is immediately followed by the first casualty, in the ominously
juxtaposed Formal/Letter, while the lyrical
euphemism of Laverockhall is immediately exposed
by Windyedge.
Paterson paints a whole scene by ordering a sequence of names. From Framedrum
to Clatteringbrigs
we hear the army moving off then being held up by a laden and reluctant
horse, and we hear its hooves as it is coaxed over the bridge; in the Outfield
to Roughstones sequence the poet relies on his
readers' knowledge of an Old Testament story while simply giving the
key words, Jericho and Horn.
The reader must make the necessary associations between Outfield
and Roughstones, and then sees the encircling
army and the collapsing walls of the city. While Egypt
and Jericho would almost certainly be Biblical
names, Smyrna
might derive from an actual incident in the First World War. Embedded
in the fabric of the poem, such names lend exotic colour, forcing the
reader to imagine actual landscapes and colour them in.
Loak - Skitchen - Sturt, which have no
obvious
meaning, are nevertheless harsh and explosive, and Oathlaw
gathers the line into a string of oaths from a hard-pressed soldier. In
the last five lines, the names grow ever grimmer, redolent of the
cruelty, pointlessness and degeneration of war —Wolflaw
- Farnought - Drunkendubs— while a name like Goats
conjures up soldiers dying like cattle; dying in shell-holes like Dummiesholes;
killed by a sniper's bullet —Slug of Auchrannie;
drowning—Drowndubs; crawling The
Bloody Inches, but able only to get Halfway,
and die with a Groan.
It comes as a shock to remember that these are all names of villages,
farms, hills, or other landscape features in Angus, so completely does
Paterson shape them into a hellish landscape of the imagination. But
then, when a country goes to war, there is scarcely a village that does
not afterwards have names of its own to remember.
Anna Crowe
Autumn 1998
Mair Whisky
James MacIntyre Gunn (tribute)
Name-change in Ireland
Ayrshire
Old Scatness
MAIR
WHISKY
Previously, members may recall the editor's grouse (no pun intended)
about whisky firms
and their sometimes cavalier attitude to the meaning of place-names,
Glenmorangie being the immediate cause of complaint. I sent the firm a
copy of the Newsletter, with a covering letter, in which I added the
following: "Still on the subject of place-names, you also mention on
your packaging the near-by Tarlogie Springs, the source of your water.
This could offer you a more genuinely romantic spin for your product.
According to W.J. Watson (Place-Names of Ross and Cromarty 1904, p.33)
this name consists of a Pictish personal name, Talorgan, found as the
name of various Pictish kings (e.g. king of the Picts 653-657 A.D.; and
a king of Atholl drowned in 739 A.D.); it was also the name of a saint
(at Kiltarlity, Inverness-shire, near Beauly). Certainly the early
forms suggest this (Tallirky 1487; Tallarky 1559), and, although it is
rare to have a place-name which consists only of a personal name, it is
far from unknown." Pictish whisky - it could only be a best-seller. I
have not yet received a reply, not even a free dram.
Even better than a dram, however, I did receive in response to last
issue's 'Whisky' piece, a copy of Ian Keillar's article 'Macallan
- the parish that never was',
Moray Field Club Bulletin no.16 (1988), pp.16-20, sent by the author
himself. In the article, a fine piece of schloarly detective work, he
shows that not only is 'Macallan' a non-existent parish, it is also a
ghost- (spirit?)-name, probably the result of a misreading of
'Inverallan' by the 18th-century antiquarian Lachlan Shaw, and wrongly
assumed to be an alternative name for the medieval parish of Elchies
(now united with Knockando). As the author points out, most of the many
books and pamphlets about whisky usually mention the parish of
Macallan. However, I notice that the blurb on the Macallan boxes now
says nothing about parishes, and, despite the title 'A Place Called
Macallan', it wisely avoids all etymologising!
JAMES
MACINTYRE
GUNN
James MacIntyre Gunn, who died on 9th May, 1998, was born in the
village of Reay, Caithness in 1929. The family spent some years in
Latheron, in the south of Caithness, but returned to Reay in 1946 and
Jimmy spent the rest of his life in the village. He had a fund of
information about many aspects of the history of Reay, but it is for
his deep knowledge of local place names that I shall remember him. I
spent many hours in his company discussing the land he knew so well and
I was pleased to be able to assist, in the year before his death, with
the place-name section of a compilation entitled 'A Northern Study',
available from The Northern Studies Centre in Halkirk, Caithness. The
book is a memorial to a kind man who was always willing to share his
extensive local knowledge. He will be greatly missed. (Doreen Waugh.)
NAME-CHANGE
IN
IRELAND
In the Republic of Ireland the 1946 Local Government Act includes a
procedure for changing a place-name. If someone doesn't like the name
of the place they live in, they can propose a new one, organise a
plebiscite of the householders directly affected and, if a majority
vote for it, the new name replaces the old. An example of this was when
in the 1970s the residents of Connolly Crescent in Naas, Co. Kildare,
sucessfully voted to change the name of their street to Lakeside Park!
(From S. Hickey and L. Kenny, Naas - its highways and
byways, names and boundaries, Naas 1996).
A good idea for a Scottish Local Government Act? What do SPNSoc members
think?
AYRSHIRE
James Brown, a recent member of the Society, writes of his work in
Carrick, Ayrshire:
I have become entranced by Project Pont through the enthusiasm and
research of Professor McKean and my restoration proposals for Baltersan
Tower-house, Kirkoswald parish, AYR. The original manuscripts by Pont
of this area, sadly, do not seem to exist, so I am researching the
origins and meanings of place-names on the North Carrick map in Blaeu's
Atlas Novus of 1654. There are over 530 names to investigate including
the delightfully enigmatic "Poggyrodd" ! My working title is "One drew
over the Cuckoo's Nest" from the glorious name of Net Whowaig or Geik's
Seit (Gowk's Seat), which is mentioned in Watson's Celtic Place-Names.
The last native Gaelic speaker here reputedly died when Robert Burns
was 2 years old. Carrick was once part of the Lordship of Galloway, so
there is a long period of Gaelic-speaking, possibly in 2 directions,
from Galloway northwards and Argyll southwards.
There is a fair sprinkling of Welsh from the kingdom of Strathclyde of
course, and Northumbrian influences too. Ayrshire Scots still
flourishes in everyday speech here, so capturing the sounds of these
ancient names is that bit easier. I will be consulting local residents,
including a 92-year-old in Girvan !
This place-name work coincides with my research on the Kennedies of
Baltersan and their immediate contacts.
The two "sub-plots" I will look at are :-
1 Social changes in this immediate post-Reformation period which
allowed considerable new building of tower-houses and no doubt,
fermtouns.
There are numerous N. & O. examples, presumably Nether and
Ovir,
perhaps hinting at "new build". This place-name work coincides with my
research on the Kennedies of Baltersan and their immediate contacts.
2. Seeking a logic to the hierarchy of symbols in Blaeu
by
relating them to knowledge of the principal towers and lands.
The Baltersan url is :-
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/baltersan/index.htm
OLD SCATNESS AND ITS
BROCH:
SHETLAND
Doreen Waugh writes:
A very exciting archaeological excavation has been in progress at Old
Scatness, Sumburgh, Shetland since 1995 when Shetland Amenity Trust
organised purchase of the broch site and developed the Old Scatness
Project in partnership with the Department of Archaeological Sciences,
Bradford University. The edge of the broch had been exposed in 1975
during the construction of a new airport road but it was not until the
first stage of excavation had taken place that the real importance of
the site became evident. As James Moncrieff of Shetland Amenity Trust
says: 'In effect, the site is a chance time capsule combining an
exceptionally high degree of preservation of artefact survival. The
broch stands 4-5 metres high, but it is the emerging Iron-Age village
which sets Old Scatness apart.' (1) For those who wish to pursue the
archaeology of the site, I can recommend Old Scatness Broch, Shetland:
Retrospect and Prospect which tells the story thus far uncovered.
Part of the Amenity Trust's vision for the future is to 'maximise
public benefit and appreciation of the site and its context within the
landscape.' (2) As part of this process, I have been asked to undertake
a detailed study of place names in the vicinity of the site over the
course of the next three years. Place names, unfortunately, do not
extend back to the period of the brochs or the Iron Age: the earliest
names probably date from the Viking period and confirmation of the
presence of Vikings comes from artefactual evidence on the site. Place
names do, however, have a great deal to convey about life in the
environs of Old Scatness from the Viking period up to the present
century and, this year, I have interviewed several local informants who
have provided background information to illumine the names. I have also
spent some time in the Shetland Archives where, as always, Brian Smith,
the local archivist, was able to point to useful documentary sources in
which I was able to find some early forms of the names. A great deal of
work is yet to be done, but I am very pleased to have the opportunity
to be involved in this major multi-disciplinary undertaking and I look
forward to being in Shetland again next summer.
1 Moncrieff, James (1998) Old Scatness: The Vision for
the
Future.
Old Scatness Broch, Shetland: Retrospect and Prospect. University of
Bradford/Shetland Amenity Trust, North Atlantic Biocultural
Organisation, p. 44-45.
2 ibid. p.47.
Spring 1998
Medieval Marches
Lanarkshire
Wallace.
Whisky.
Devon<*Domnona?
California.
MEDIEVAL
MARCHES
In the Pictish Arts Society Journal, 10 (Winter
1996) pp. 17-22 an article by Elizabeth B. Rennie appeared called 'A
possible boundary between Dál Riata and Pictland'.
It is an exciting piece of research, in which she attempts to define
the said boundary chiefly by means of place-names containing various
'boundary' words such as crìoch and fodlach,
the latter a Middle Irish word meaning 'division, part'. Questions it
leaves unanswered are, for example, how far the boundary as defined in
the article corresponds to medieval parish and sheriffdom boundaries -
both types of boundary have proved elsewhere in Scotland to demarcate
extremely old territorial units. Another, related, question which must
be asked is what other boundaries, other than the boundary between the
two provinces, might have generated the boundary-names listed in the
article. The whole topic deserves much more research, but
congratulations to Ms Rennie for getting it off to such a good start.
Still on the subject of boundaries, Society member Ruth Richens has
written an excellent article entitled 'Ancient land
divisions in the parish of Lesmahagow [Lanarkshire]', Scottish
Geographical Magazine 108 (1992), 184-189. In it she uses
the wealth of medieval boundary charters from the twelfth-century
onwards, mainly from the Kelso Liber,
to reconstruct the medieval administrative and physical landscape of
the parish. Although not primarily about place-names, such a study is
essential for a better understanding of the toponymy of the area. I
know of few more exciting ways of engaging with the medieval, as well
as the modern, landscape and the language of landscape than by
following a medieval boundary charter, and we need more studies such as
the Lesmahagow one, which combines in-depth knowledge of the relevant
documentary evidence with an intimate acquaintance with the local
countryside.
An article on the medieval marches of the east Fife estate of Wester
Kinnear by Simon Taylor and Mike Henderson will be
appearing in the next issue of the Tayside and Fife
Archaeological Journal due out in autumn 1998.
LANARKSHIRE
Moving on from Lesmahagow in particular (see previous item) to
Lanarkshire in general, members with an interest in that county may be
familiar with the work of J.P. Miller. He did a series in 1931-32 for
the Hamilton Advertiser
on the place-names of Lanarkshire. There is a type-script (about 100
pages) of this in the possession of the Scottish Place-Name Survey,
School of Scottish Studies, University of Edinburgh, which is basically
an alphabetical list of many Lanarkshire place-names with their early
forms.
For a study on the place-names of the Strathaven area of Lanarkshire
(Lynne M. Prentice 1991), click
here.
WALLACE
Last year we mentioned the fine Wallace
place-name distribution map at the Wallace Exhibition (now
closed) at the Smith Art Gallery and Museum in
Stirling. A double trap lies in wait for the unwary
Wallace-name-spotter in Aberdeen. The seventeenth-century tower-house
at Seaton Park by the Don at Old Aberdeen is known as Wallace
Tower.
However, it was originally called ‘Well House', which has
become
corrupted to ‘Wallace', then had the epexegetic (i.e.
explanatory) ‘Tower' added, once ‘House' had been
swallowed
up by ‘Wallace', so to speak. To make matters even more
confusing
for distribution map makers, it originally stood in the heart of (New)
Aberdeen, and was rebuilt in its present position at the expense of
Lord Sieff, chairman of the Marks and Spencer after it had been
demolished to make way for the new M. & S. store in 1964. How
appearances - and names - can deceive! [Source: Glasgow
Herald 11 March 1988]
WHISKY
Glenmorangie is an excellent whisky - it's just a pity about the name,
which their latest advertising campaign, as well as the blurb on their
packaging, strongly imply means ‘Glen of Tranquillity'. It
means
no such thing; in fact even the ‘Glen' is bogus, lying as it
does
on a coastal strip. The name of the site where the distillery stands is
‘Morangie', first recorded as (the farm and mill of) Morinchy
in 1487, as Morinch in 1507, and as Morinschie
in 1618. It is made up of two Gaelic words: mór
‘big' and innis ‘haughland,
low-lying land beside a river or estuary', often found as inch
in place-names, such as the famous North and South Inches in Perth -
for more information see W. J. Watson's excellent book, Place-Names
of Ross and Cromarty
(1904, reprinted in paperback 1996 by Highland Heritage Books). But
when did the whisky advertisers let sound toponymics get in the way of
a good sales ploy? Scottish Place-Name News would
be glad to hear from readers about their favourite whisky place-name
nonsense. Slàinte.
DEVON
<
*DOMNONA?
The River Devon PER CLA KNR aquam de Douane c1173
(Glen)dovan 1210 (Glen)dofona 1271
has always been derived from *Dubona
‘Black One', or ‘Black Goddess' (W J Watson [CPNS:438]
Johnston [PNS:155], Nicolaisen [SPN:177]
and Angus Watson [The Ochils: Placenames, History, Tradition,
(Perth, 1995)]:56]), a meaning which Duibhe,
the Gaelic form of the name, would appear to confirm. However, this may
only have been an assimilation to a perceived dubh ‘black'.
In the 14th and 15th centuries the fort of Down Hill which
separates the Yetts o'Muckhart seems to have been Dundovane
[Watson 1995:56]. In West Lothian we have Pardovan,
from the Cumbric reflex of W par + dwf(y)n
‘deep pasture', ie ‘lush grazing?', Pardufin
in 1124, (an almost ‘Welsh' form), later Pardovin
and Pardovan in 1541 [MacDonald 1941 (Place-Names
of West Lothian):62]. Analogues exist in Pardivan near
Haddington ELO, Parduvine near Gorebridge MLO and Perdovingishill
RNF,
this last a 15th c. form. Despite confusion over vowels, it seems quite
probable that the river-name too comes, as its current form suggests
(cf Devon in England), < B *dumno-,
dubno- ‘deep', like the *Damnonii
themselves (recte Dumnonii), proto-Pictish *domno/dobno,
[cf John T. Koch ‘The Stone of the Weni-kones'
in Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29
(1980-82), pp87-9] thus < N.Br.*Domnona
‘Deep One, Mysterious One'[see PNRB
(Rivet, A.L.F. & Smith, C. 1979, Place-Names of
Roman Britain): 342-4], whether divine or not. And the oft
proposed derivation seems contradicted by the more southerly Black
Devon which rises by the suggestively named Aberdona
House (Aberdonie 1652), itself likely < *domn-.
Note too Devon, Kettle parish,
FIF,
earlier Dovan < G domhain
‘deep, low-lying', also Baldovan near
Dundee and a Ball Domin in the Gaelic Notes to
the Book of Deer.
It is not likely that the river commemorates the Romano-British
folk-name; however Cardowan Wishaw LAN and Dowanhill
Milngavie DNB possibly preserve the ethnicon of the first recorded
inhabitants of Strathclyde, and hint at former strongholds.
[NB: If *Domnonii represents a derivative of a
divine name [see PNRB loc. cit.], then *Domnowalos
> Dyfngual/ Domhnaill > Donald,
by analogy with Luguwalos ‘strong in
Lugus', the eponym of LUGUVALIUM now Carlisle, is
not necessarily ‘world-strong' but ‘strong in *Domn(on)os'
or the like, though perhaps ambivalently both.]
John Wilkinson, Torphin House
Harburn, West Lothian.
CALIFORNIA
In Strathmiglo FIF a brand-new street-name sign has appeared where
formerly there had been none: California.
It had been known as such by all the older inhabitants, but this is the
first time it has achieved any kind of official recognition. But why
California? It is on the extreme western edge of the village: could it
have been one of those humorous transferred names last century when
California, through the Goldrush, was famous world-wide as the epitome
of the far-flung, and somewhat wild, west? California does appear with
some frequency in minor Scottish place-names - are they always west of
the main settlements? Can anybody help throw light on this?
Simon Taylor
1996/1997
Latin Place-names.
Norway: Dokumentasjonsprojektet,
Oslo.
Place-names and William Wallace.
Pittendreich.
Malachi in Kirkliston.
Dunshalt or Dunshelt.
LATIN
PLACE-NAMES
The Latin Place Names File, sponsored by the RBMS Bibliographic
Standards Committee and the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young
University, U.S.A., is now available for examination and use at:
http://www.lib.byu.edu/-catalog/people/rlm/latin/names.htm (Click
here to view).
This file contains most of the Latin place-names contained in the
imprint field of pre-1801 books in the catalogues of the University of
Chicago, Yale University, the Huntington Library, and Brigham Young
University, together with their modern English equivalent. It includes
Scottish material. For more information, contact R. L. Maxwell,
Special Collections & Ancient Languages cataloguer, 6428 Harold
B.
Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602; Tel. (801)
378-5568.
Also: J.G.T. Graesse's Orbis Latinus (Berlin, 1909) is available either
via the above site address or via:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/Graesse/contents.html (Click
here to view). The Orbis Latinus is a dictionary of Latin
place-names from medieval and later documents, and includes Scottish
material.
Thanks to SPNSoc. member Thomas Clancy
for drawing the above to the attention of your Newsletter editor.
NORWAY
Dokumentasjonsprojektet in Oslo is an
ambitious
project which
aims to computerise and put on-line all the university-based archives
in Norway, including place-name material (Bustadnamnregistret and
Norske Gardnavne). Read all about this and other projects on
http://www.dokpro.uio.no (Click
here to view).
Thanks to SPNSoc. members Arne Kruse and Tom Schmidt, head of the
Project's Section for Name Studies, for this information.
If anyone has any other Intemet information which they
think
will be of interest to Society members, please contact the website co-ordinator.
PLACE-NAMES
and
WILLIAM WALLACE
In this the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Stirling Bridge, the
Sniith Art Gallery and Museum, Stirling, is mounting an exciting and
imaginative exhibition entitled 'Scotland's Liberator: the Life and
Legacy of William Wallace'. One of the exhibits is a list of all the
100 or so place-names in Scotland which contain the name of Wallce,
from Wallacetown in Shetland to Wallace's Hole in Wigtonshire. This is
accompanied by a large map showing their position, with an indication
of what kind of feature it is (antiquity, relief, settlement, water
etc.).
The Smith Art Gallery is in Duinbarton Road (A81), Stirling, a short
walk from the town centre. It is open Tuesday to Saturday 10.30 am to
5.00 pm, and Sundays 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm. Admission free.
The Wallace Exhibition runs until 15 December 1997.
PITTENDREICH
SPNSociety member Mr J.G. Pittendrigh, resident in
Geneva, has
over
the past few years undertaken an in-depth study of the Scottish
place-name which has given rise to his surname, and which occurs
usually as Pittendreich or Pittendriech, but also in the more reduced
form of Pendreich. It is the most frequently occurring of all the
Pitplace-names in Scotland, with Mr Pittendrigh's research uncovering
thirteen defimte ones, with two or three other possibles. They are also
amongst the most widely distributed of Pit-names, to be found in every
county down the east coast from Moray to Midlothian- The most likely
derivation of the specific element is Gaelic dreach 'aspect', thus
meaning 'estate' or 'holding of (good) aspect'. Mr Pittendrigh has
visited ahnost every one of the sites, and is able to comment on the
geographical location of each - the kind of practical field-work of
combhiing name with place which Scottish place-name studies needs much
more of. Mr Pittendrigh has written up the results of his research
clearly and readably in a c. 24 A4-sided paper, which includes a
distribution map and a full list of sources. This he has kindly agreed
to make available to members of the Society. Anyone wishing to obtain
his 'Notes on the place name Pittendriech and its variations',
should write direct to
Mr J.G. Pittendrigh, 16 Route de Sous-Moulin, 1225
Geneva, Switzerland,
enclosing £3 to cover photocopying andpostage. Please pay in
UK £1 stamps and not by cheque.
MALACHI IN
KIRKLISTON
On looking through my press-cuttings file, I came upon a
piece
from the Edinburgh Evening News 21
October 1994, under the headline 'Unholy row over street name'. it was
about a 'rebellion' in the Lothian village of Kirkliston over plans to
name a new 60-home development and sheltered housing complex Malachi.
Officials in Edinburgh's street naming department (sic) said that
careful research had shown that this had been the name of the
neighbouring field. They said that it was not the name of the Old
Testament prophet Malachi, but was derived from the surname of the
field's 'original' owner, spelled Malechi. They added that the Council
had a policy of using historical names for new streets. Although
everyone in Kirkliston who was quoted expressed shock horror over the
name, no one actually spelled out what was wrong with it, although one
resident said 'It rings of the poor house to me.' Was it the similarity
(at least if you change the stress and say it with an English accent)
to the word 'malarky'? Or am I missing something more obvious? I would
be most interested to hear from anyone who knows what the outcome of
this stushie was. Also, I very much hope that whichever body took over
the responsibilities of the 'street naming department' in the new
unitary council has kept to the laudable policy of their predecessors,
despite Malachi in Kirkliston.
Simon Taylor.
PLACE-NAMES
IN THE
NEWS DUNSHELT or DUNSHALT
There has been some press coverage recently regarding
the
small Fife
village which is divided over how to spell its name: Dunsheit or
Dunshalt. The Daily Express devoted a whole page to the issue on 1lth
July 1996, under the headline Thou shalt have your
proper title,
taking up a mention of the controversy in the Times Educational
Supplement of 7th June in a piece about the Scottish Place-Name
Society. The Daily Express piece was followed by the Courier
of 12th July, with the headline Villagers' spell of
uncertainty!
Both 'Dunshelt' and 'Dunshalt' are found on sign-posts in and around
the village, and the Telephone Directory carries an entry for Dunshelt
Post Office, giving its address as Dunshalt. But along with one of the
spellings goes a whole 'creation legend': those who subscribe to the
'Dunshalt' theory say that it came from the fact that the Danes halted
here on their pillaging way up the River Eden many centuries ago. Or
alternatively they say that it means "Dane's Hold", referring to the
prehistoric fort beside the village. A glance at the early spellings of
this word is enough to convince that the e-spelling
is historically correct, and that the name is originally of Gaelic
origin, and so can have nothing to do with Danes, whether they were
halting or holding. However, the name is an unusually complicated one,
and I would like to give some background details that were not
appropriate in the general press, and also (for the first time) to
suggest an alternative etymology which keeps those overworked Danes
firmly out of the picture.
Dunshelt lies in the parish of Auchtermuchty, about 1
kilometre
south of the burgh, on the road between Auchtermuchty and Falkland.
Let me start, as one always must when analysing a place-name, with its
early forms.
Early Forms
(the 'buttis in') Inschelt 1558 RMS
iv no. 1288 [a butt is a Scots word meaning
'ridge or strip of ploughed land']
Dunsherly 1590s Pont/EF
(the 'outsett' called) Dwnscheill 1611 RMS
vii no.488 [an outset is defined by the Concise
Scots Dictionary
as 1. a smaller piece of land outlying or detached from, but dependent
on, a main estate or holding; or 2. a patch of reclaimed and newly
cultivated, or newly inhabited, land, often taken in from moorland etc.]
(that 'outset' called) Dunschelt 1628 Retours
i Fife no.397
(the 'outsett' called) Dunscheill 1634 RMS
ix no.45
(the 'Feild lands de Bondhalf de Auchtermuchtie'
called) Inshalks 1661 Retours
i Fife no.905
('pretty populous village called') Dunshelt 1722
Geog. Coll. i 296
Dunsheat 1750s Roy's Military Map [misplaced
in
the hills north-east of Auchtermuchty.
Dunshill 1775 Ainslie's Map of the Counties
of
Fife & Kinross
Dunshelt 1828 Sharpe, Greenwood &
Fowler's
Map of the Counties of Fife & Kinross
Dunshelt 1890s O.S. 1" lst. edition
Dunshalt 1895 A.H. Miller, Fife:
Pictorial & Historical vol. i p.254 [Dane's Hold]
The earliest mention of the name has as its first or
generic
element the Gaelic innis,
with the meaning 'low-lying haugh-land beside a river'. This is a
perfect description of the site of Dunshelt, which lies on the
haugh-land of the River Eden. The second element of this name is
therefore not 'shelt' but 'elt'. This is no doubt the Gaelic ealt,
'drove, herd, flock (of birds or beasts)', from the Old Irish elta
'flock (of birds or animals)', and its related adjective eltach
'bird-haunted, abounding in flocks'. Given the ideal summer pasturing
conditions of this area, with many names in both Scots and Gaelic
reflecting its importance as a summer grazing resource (Sheils,
Bowhouse, Nochnary), the meaning 'herd' (most likely of cattle) is most
appropriate. So its meaning would be 'haugh-land of cattle-herd(s)'.
The name must have been coined in the Gaelic-speaking
period,
that
is sometime between about 900 and 1250 AD, many centuries before it
first appears in the written record (1558).
There are various ways in which the variant 'Dunshelt'
could
have
come about. One possibility is that in the Gaelic-speaking period part
of *Inchelt was also known as *Dunelt, Gaelic dun + ealt
'fortification of cattle-herd(s)'. The dun
in question would be the multivallate earthworks south of the Eden
beside the village, which the National Monuments Records of Scotland
describe as 'probably a rath, and therefore post-Roman'. When Gaelic
ceased to be understood in this part of Fife, the two forms of the name
became confused, and the ch or sh
of Inch-/Insch- got incorporated into the form
with Dun-.
So, as you can see, even without those Danes, the name
has a
fascinating history, and speaks of the vital pastoral use of the
low-lying, and in winter often flooded, meadows beside the Eden. It is
also a good example of just how complicated toponymy can be, and how
unsuited they are to media 'sound-bites' (or 'sight-bites', for that
matter)!.
The local pronunciation of the name is 'Dun'shelt' (or
'Dun'sholt'!), with the stress on the second element, e = e in 'egg',
and o = o in 'golf'.
Simon Taylor (1996).
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