Scottish Land-Names

Gc 941.003 M45s 1267963 ,y\L.OG> i COLLfjCriON COUNTY PUBLIC UBRARY 3 1833 00858 3160 SCOTTISH LAND-NAMES Kfit Mimli %tcmi8 in atrcfjaologg SCOTTISH LAND-NAMES THEIR ORIGIN AND MEANING SIR HERBERT MAXWELL, Baet., M.R. RHIND LECTUEER IN 1893; AUTHOR OF 'studies IN THE TOPOGRAPHY OF GALLOWAY,' ' MERIDIANA,' ' LIFE AND TIMES OF THE RIGHT HON. W. H. SMITH,' ETC. ETC. •Sbc WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBUliGII AND LONDON MDCCCXCIV All Rights reserved 1267363 PEEFACE. ^HESE lectures are offered as a contribution to a budy conducted until lately on lines the reverse of scientific. What the late Dr Eeeves and Dr Joyce have done for the place-names of Ireland, Canon Isaac Taylor has done for those of England, and Mr A. W. Moore for those of the Isle of Man, has never been adequately performed for Scotland. It was my original intention to expand these lectures, condensed from material collected dur- ing many years, into a tolerably exhaustive trea- tise on the subject ; but I am advised to publish them at once, just as they were delivered; and I am encouraged by the numbers and attention of those who listened to them in the belief that there are plenty of students ready to apply sound principles and cautious analysis to a branch of vi Preface. arcliseology and philology at present in a very backward state, I have, it is needless to say, derived much assistance from the writings of the scholars above mentioned, as well as from those of Professors Rhys and W. W. Skeat, and the late Dr Skene, I have also availed myself largely of the volume on Scottish Place-Names lately published by the Rev. J. Johnston, of Falkirk, who has rendered good service to students by the extensive list which he has compiled. I regret that the pressure of other occupations has not allowed me to supply what undoubt- edly ought to have been given — viz., exact ref- erence to authorities quoted, and the different manuscripts from which old spellings have been collected. I can but offer an apology to my readers for this omission, with the assurance that they may rely on the care with which such ex- tracts have been made. HERBERT MAXWELL. MoNUElTH, January 1894. — CONTENTS. LECTURE I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Difficulties to be encountered—Every place-name means something —Permanence of place-names—Their origin not usually poetical, but matter-of-fact—Arbitrary orthography—Importance of early spelling—Changes in vowel sound—The significance of stress—Its movement with the qualitative in compounds— In- fluence of railways on pronunciation—Popular and map-makers' blunders—Exaggeration—Deceptive forms, LECTURE IL THE LANGUAGES OF SCOTTISH PLACE-NAMES. Traces of pre-Celtic speech —The Iverian or Silurian race—The Fir- bolg of the Irish Annalists—The Ernai—The two main branches of Celtic speech— Obsolete words—The operation of umlaul— Linguistic change— Effects of aspiration and eclipse— Diflerence between Gaelic and Welsh—Q Celts and P Celts—Test words Similarity of Gaelic and Welsh—Ghost-names, . h — Vlll Contents. LECTURE III. THE LANGUAGES OF SCOTTISH PLACE-NAMES. Pictish speech— Conflict of authorities—Place-names in Pictland Mythical descent of the Picts—Columba's mission to Pictland — Pictish vocables— Polyglot passage in Bede's Chronicle—The place-names of Galloway—Conclusions—Anglo-Saxon speech The Frisian colonies—Order of generic and specific in Teutonic compounds—Corrupt forms, ..... LECTURE IV. THE LANGUAGES OF SCOTTISH PLACE-NAMES. Scandinavian or Old Norse and Danish — Obliteration of Celtic speech in the Northern Isles — Mixture of tongues in the Western Isles —Norse names disguised as Gaelic—Aspiration of Gaelic consonants—Confusion on the maps—Gaelic names disguised as Norse—Relative antiquity of certain place-names —Traces of Norse occupation in Scotland—Resemblance between Norse and Saxon speech—Norse test-words—Their dis- tribution — Inferences therefrom — Mixture of languages in Strathclyde — The Gaelic dal and Norse dalr — Difterence in their meaning—Norse and Saxon loan-words in English, LECTURE V. THE LESSON OF PLACE-NAMES. Succession of races not explained by place-names—These illustrate former appeai-ance of the country—The old forest —Its trees and undergrowth—Humbler vegetation—Crops—Animals locally or generally extinct—The chase—Deer and other animals—Names of animals borne by men, ..... 103 Contents. LECTUEE VI. THE LESSON OF TLACE-NAMES. The land— Its surface and divisions—Open land inseparable from the idea of fighting — Norse pennylands — Occupations and trades—Crime and punishment—Poverty—Disease—Rivers and streams — Ecclesiastical names — Early dedications of chapels and wells—Priests and monks—Land not usually named by the early Celts from ownership—But frequently so by Teutonic people — Land-names given to men — Men's names given to lands— Conclusion, . .130 Index of place-names referred to in the text, SCOTTISH LAND-NAMES. LECTURE I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES. DIFFICULTIES TO BE ENCOUNTEIIED—EVEKY PLACE-NAME MEANS SOMETHING—PERMANENCE OF PLACE-NAMES—THEIR ORIGIN NOT USUALLY POETICAL, BUT MATTER-OF-FACT—ARBITRARY ORTHOGRAPHY—IMPORTANCE OF EARLY SPELLING—CHANGES IN VOWEL SOUND—THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STRESS—ITS MOVE- MENT WITH THE QUALITATIVE IN COMPOUNDS—INFLUENCE OF RAILWAYS ON PRONUNCIATION—POPULAR AND MAP-MAKERS' BLUNDERS—EXAGGERATION—DECEPTIVE FORMS. NQUIRY into the origin and mean- Difficulties ing of Scottish place-names is a task countered, beset with difficulties of a peculiar kind. Most of these names were con- ferred by people speaking a language which has long ceased to be heard in the districts where the names remain — a language, moreover, which was practically unwritten, for, unlike Ireland, Scotland possesses but a few uncertain fragments of 2 Scottish Land-Names. Gaelic or Erse literature. Scottish Gaelic, therefore, has never, until recently, been subject to that check which writing and printing set upon the tendency of speech to alter in meaning and pronunciation with every succeeding generation. Even when a language has become thoroughly literary, the process of change, though greatly retarded, still goes on. In English, for example, the changing shades of meaning in popular intensives, such as " awful," " blooming," " tremendous," &c., occurring in ephem- eral songs and other light literature, may prove a snare to the student who, in after-ages, shall attempt to interpret them according to their strict etymology. Every But there is one sure source of encouragement place-name . ^ means towards the solution of place-names, in that every "' such name has a real meaning, however darkly it may have been obscured by linguistic change or phonetic expression in the lips of people speaking another language. No man ever attempted success- fully to invent an arbitrary combination of sound- ' ' signs to designate a locality: every place-name, in whatever language, is a business-like definition derived from some peculiarity or leading feature, as we might say the Green Hill, the White House, the Oak-wood ; or from some incident, as the Battle- Eield, the Murder-Stone, the Forge-Hill ; or of pos- session, as John's town, William's field, the Priest's land. Once localities are thus distinguished, it is very — General Principles. 3 difficult to dispossess them of the names they have Peman- euce of acquired, even though Greenhill should lose all its place- verdure, though the Whitehouse (or Whithorn Anglo-Saxon hwit cern) should be pulled down and a red one built in its place, and the oak-wood be levelled with the ground. In a.d. 43 the Eoman general Aulus Plautius, in the course of operations against the British King Cunobeliue, intrenched him- self on the marshy ground above the junction of the Lea with the Thames. There is no record of a town there previous to this, and the Celtic natives prob- ably called it Ion dijn ro dun—London—the marsh fort, to distinguish it, perhaps, from hen dun—Hen- don— the old fort, the stronghold of Cunobeline, a few miles to the north-west. The place where the Tower of London now stands was then marsh land, and this is a good example of an ancient name pre- serving a picture of a landscape which has under- gone complete change in the process of civilisation. The Eoman conquerors altered Ion dihi into Lon- dinium ; but in order to commemorate their conquest of Britain, they subsequently decreed that the town which grew up round the camp of Aulus Plautius should be known as Augusta, and that, or Londinium Augusta, was for a time its official title : yet the simple native name could not be got rid of, and by that name it will continue to be known as long as one of its stones remains upon another. Now, the lesson of this example is that poetical and metaphorical interpretations of place - names : 4 Scottish Land-Names. should generally be looked on with great suspicion the true origin is commonly matter of fact. There is, indeed, a certain class of names of a somewhat figurative derivation, as when we speak of the brow, flank, or shoulder of a hill, from analogy with the human figure. Gullane, in East Lothian, so well known to golfers, is the Gaelic guallan, a shoulder, descriptive of the side of a headland ; and the Braid Hills, near Edinburgh, are named from hraghad (braad), the breast, in the sense of upland. The Norsemen, who have left a deep impression on Scottish topography, call a small island beside a big one a calf, as Manarhalfr, still known to us as the Calf of Man, and to the Highlanders as an Calhh Manan- nach ; but the motive in such cases is not poetical or sentimental, but an attempt by means of comparison with familiar objects to convey a definition.

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