PLACE-NAMES of SCOTLAND Printed by Neill Tfc Company FOK DAVID DOUGLAS

GIFT OF SEELEY W. MUDD and GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN BRANCH JOHN FISKE JOSEPH H'DONOI f RARE BOOKS PLACE-NAMES OF SCOTLAND Printed by Neill tfc Company FOK DAVID DOUGLAS. LONDON . SIMPKIN, MARSHALL. HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO., LIM. CAMBRIDGE . MACMILLAN AND BOWES. GLASGOW . JAMES MACLKHOSE AND SONS. PLACE-NAMES OF SCOTLAND JAMES B. JOHNSTON, B.D. MIKISTK.r: (IF THE VKV.V. CIU'IKTI, 1'ALKIIIK EDINBURGH: DAVID DOUGLAS 1892 ( ;DA < 69 PKEFACE. THAT this book is an attempt, only an attempt, with many deficiencies, the writer of it is well aware. The would-be severest critic could not criticise it more severely than he. But a pioneer may surely at all "times claim a certain measure of grace and indulgence, if the critic find here anything that is truly useful all, he is courteously entreated to lend his much- needed aid to make the book better, instead of picking out the many shortcomings which a first attempt in this philological field cannot but display. The book has been long a-gathering, and has been compiled in the mere shreds and fragments of time which could be spared from the conscientious discharge of exception- ally heavy ministerial work. It has been composed away from all large libraries, to which the writer was able to make occasional reference and both in only ; the writing and in the passing through the press though he has done his best he has been subject to incessant interruption. But nobody else had hitherto attempted a task, whose accomplishment not a few seemed to desire ; hence this book. 11 PREFACE. Some may be disappointed with the large use of ' ' ' ' conjecture. The words perhaps and probably may occur oftener than they would like. But, from the nature of the case, this was unavoidable. And indeed all science is daily being advanced by the hypotheses of trained workers. The writer has endeavoured to keep all his conjectures within the bounds of scientific sobriety. It must not be expected that so satisfactory a guide to the Place-Names of Scotland can ever be produced as the public already has for the names of England and Ireland, and for this simple reason, that the materials to form its foundation, to a large extent, no longer exist. This is sufficiently explained in the body of the work. As will soon be seen, the majority of the names dealt with are Celtic, and the writer would at once frankly confess that he has only an amateur's of Gaelic but he has tried what he knowledge ; could, with the aid of dictionary and grammar, and also with the kind aid, to some extent, of a few Gaelic friends. The dictionary used is M'Leod and Dewar's, to whose standard the Gaelic spelling is usually con- formed. But a scholarly Gaelic dictionary, such as a philologist would like to be able to consult, is still sadly to seek. The book owes much to the work of others. Special mention must be made of the valuable contribution of the writer's only real predecessor, Sir Herbert Maxwell, in his Studies in the Topography of Galloway, 1885, of which considerable use has been made, and for which PREFACE. Ill most grateful thanks are now tendered to the author. The historical substratum has, of course, been taken chiefly from Dr W. F. Skene's classic history of Celtic Scotland, 3 vols., edition 1886. Would that the learned historian had condescended to explain some more of those difficult early names, about which he has given us a few most useful hints. The writer has to express his personal indebtedness to Dr Skene for more than one communication with which he has been favoured. For things Celtic and things Norse, too, this book owes not a little both to the published writings and to private letters of the Edin- burgh Professor of Celtic, Professor M'Kinnon. His article Gaelic, in the new edition of Chambers's Ency- has been above his clopcedia, very helpful ; but, all, scholarly series of letters on the Place-Names of Argyle, which unfortunately lie buried in the ephemeral columns of the Scotsman, October 1887 to January 1888. These letters are the most competent contribution to the subject which have yet appeared. To a much smaller extent the writer is under obligation to various publications of Professor Rhys, by whom he has been favoured with at least occasional private help. Hearty acknowledgment is, furthermore, due to the ready assistance of Dr J. A. H. Murray, the laborious editor of the great New English Dictionary, who can ten minutes to a friend and always spare help ; through the writer's connection with the great Oxford dictionary he has more than once been privileged to draw upon its unpublished as well as published stores. Topo- IV PREFACE. graphical books and articles innumerable have been ransacked. Special mention needs to be made of the interesting first chapter of Professor Veitch's History and Poetry of the Scottish Border, 1878, and Bishop Forbes' Kalendars of Scottish Saints. For more reasons than one no material has been borrowed from Isaac Taylor's well-known Words and Places. But both series of Dr P. W. Joyce's most scholarly and most entertaining Irish Names and Places have been freely used. A few things hitherto unpublished will be found in the Introduction ; but the chief contribution to knowledge will be found in the Alphabetical List of Names which follows, of which by far the most is original. No such collection of early name-forms (on which all scientific study must be based) has ever appeared hitherto. Many have been taken from various books, but most of them have been laboriously picked out by the writer from the valuable, but, as a rule, by no means easy to consult, publications of the Bannatyne and Spalding Clubs. The early charters have, to some extent, been systematised in Cosmo Innes' great but unfinished Origines Parochiales, 1851-55, which have been our chief quarry. Volume I. contains the parishes in Dumbarton, Renfrew, Lanark, Peebles, Selkirk, Volume II. Part all the Western Roxburgh ; I., Argyle, Isles, Lochaber, Bute, and Arran ; Part II., Ross and Cromarty, Sutherland, Caithness. The name-forms have each been dated as as but accurately possible ; detailed references have very rarely been given, as this PREFACE. V would have added very greatly to the bulk and labour of the work, with but little corresponding advan- tage. No attempt has been made to make the List exhaustive. Its size with ease be trebled might ; and F. H. Groome's excellent Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, 1885, contains many more names than are to be found here. Nevertheless the writer ventures to hope that he has omitted few names known beyond a ten-mile radius, and few names likely to interest the ordinary traveller by road, rail, or sea. Comparisons with places in England are chiefly based on the Postal Guide (July 1890), whose list is the most complete with which the writer is acquainted. Of course it is impossible for one man to know every site even in little Scotland and thus some few of the ; explanations conjectured may turn out inapplicable. But it is hoped that the critic will believe that, in several cases, this is not due to lack of effort, but to the fact that a reply post-card addressed to the writer is still lying unused in some spot not far away from the site in question. Valuable hints for the compilation of this list have been received from many friends. Speci- ally deserving of mention are the Rev. J. M'Lean, Mr A. J. Pitilie, Aberfeldy ; Stewart, Schoolhouse, Perth Dr Dr New- Moneydie, ; Joass, Golspie ; Laing, Dr Anderson Rev. John S. burgh ; Joseph ; Mackay, Fort Augustus, and probably others. To all those mentioned in this Preface the writer would again express his grateful indebtedness, but he would have vi PREFACE. it distinctly understood that for all errors and shortcomings he alone is responsible. Last, but by no means least, he must very warmly thank his publisher for not a few additions and much help most liberally rendered while the sheets were passing through the press. This only he would add, that all communications, corrections, and additions will be gladly welcomed by the reader's fellow-student, JAMES B. JOHNSTOX. FREE CHURCH MAXSE, FALKIRK, December 1891. CONTENTS. I'AGK INTRODUCTION, . IX CHAPTER I. CELTIC NAMES, . CHAPTER II. NORSE NAMES, . CHAPTER III. ENGLISH NAMES, Ixviii CHAPTER IV. ROMAN, NORMAN, AND PURELY MODERN NAMES. Ixxxi CHAPTER V. ECCLESIASTICAL NAMES, Ixxxvii ALPHABETICAL LIST OF THE PLACE-NAMES OF SCOTLAND. 1-250 ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PLACE-NAMES IN ENGLAND, . 251 ADDENDA, .... 254 PLACE-NAMES OF SCOTLAND. INTRODUCTION. EVERY science has its byways as well as its highways. It is along an interesting byway that this book invites the student to walk. The study of place-names may be said to stand to History and Ethnology in somewhat the same relation as the study of fossils stands to Geology. Each group or set of fossils represents, with more or less a distinct of time strictness, age geologic ; so, roughly speaking, does each group of place-names represent a period of historic or prehistoric time. All the place- names worth are fossils no man now studying ; living was present at their birth. Sometimes the geologist who wishes to map out his territory finds his task the for hundreds of monotonous simplest possible ; e.g., miles over the steppes of Russia he finds the same strata, the same soft Permian sandstones, lying hori- zontal and unaltered as on the day, or rather age, when first they hardened on the old sea-bottom.

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