472 1'B.OCEEDINGS of the SOCIETY, APRIL 10, 187G. DID
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2 47 1'B.OCEEDING SOCIETYE TH f SO , APRI , 187GL10 . I. NORTHMEE TH D DI N EXTIRPAT CELTIE ETH C INHABITANTE TH F SO HEBRIDES IN THE NINTH CENTURY ? BY CAPT. F. W. L. THOMAS, R.N., F.S.A. SOOT. y lamenteM d friend,' Professor Munc f Christianiaho ,a cop sen e ym t of his edition 6f the " Chronicle of Man " on its publication. This work contain sursa e foundatio histora Hebridee r th nfo f yo s durin Norse gth e period. Wit s characteristihhi c liberality e stateh , s therei . xviii.(p n ) " That in the western islands the original population was never wholly absorbe e Norwegiath y db n settlers Orkneyn i s a ,perhapd an , n Shetsi - land." J In reply, I informed him that in that part of the Hebrides in whic hI wa s stationed, nearly every farm, island lakd an ,e bor Norsa e e name thad e topographicath an ;t l e terminologth e n sami th s ea s ywa 1 So also Dasent—"The original inhabitants were not expelled, but held in bondage s thralls."—Pa . clxxxiv. vol . i Burnt. Njal-. Again r MurraM , s beeyha n in- formed that in St Kilda " All the topical names are Celtic, and the Northmen seem never to have reached the island."—Dialect of South. Counties of Scotland, p. 236. ease Nowth tislane n sidhilla th o , f f whics edi o o , name hth s evariousli y written ' Oiseval,' Ostrivail,' and by Martin 'Oterveaul,' which is a clerical error either for ' Osterveaul, ' Oserveaul, r o origina' e th bees d ha "lan n Austr-fell (Norse East-fell)= , East-hill. No Gael could have bestowed that name. Macaulay records another 'fell,' ' Ruai-mhail, ' whic translatee h s 'Red-hill. ' Conagir,' ' 'Conager,' 'Co- nagra,' is not a Gaelic name ; neither is ' Camper,' which, although Macaulay trans- lates it from the Gaelic as ' crooked bay,' is the common Norse name 'Kambr' — crest, ridge e nameadjacene Th th .f so t islands, Borera Soayd Norsee yan ar , e latteth , r being Sai$!-ey — Sheep-isle. Even their greatest bonne bouche, the Fulmar (Procellaria glacialis) s correctli y describe Fal-indry b d (Norse) =t i Stinkinr Gull o d w an ; Ma g maybe suspected that their ' universal sauce,' Gibean, which is bird-grease preserved stomace inth Solaa f s namho it nd goosee ha forme s ha , d fro Norse mth e verb gubba — to voinit. But the place-names are sufficient proof that the St Kilda group has been inhabite Scandinaviansy db . The following paragraph, written originally in Gaelic, at Tigheary, North Uist, on 12te th h August 1800, state opinio e islandere sth th f no s themselve e occupath n so - e e Northmen:—"Thislandth th tio f y o b ns e Scandinavians (Lochlinnicho wh ) invaded the Isles and the Highlands, long after the times of the Feinne, were not able chango t e languageeth destror o , monumente yth r ancestor descende ou th f s o r fo s; - ant thesf o s e heroes maintained their independenc themainn eo land, &-c.''— "Report H. 8. on Ossian, p. 49." ON THE EXTIRPATION OF THE CELTS IN THE HEBRIDES. 473 Orkney d Shetland an e s30t1862a y lette th saysn he f Ma I h o ,r . — " What you tell me of the Hebrides has astonished me very much. That oar forefathers should have thoroughly populate islee madd dth san e their language universal there was to be expected, but the apparently preponder- ating number of Gaelic names now found on the maps prevented me from giving way to that belief, and so I had no choice but to assume that the Northmen had only been the lords, not properly the inhabitants of these islands. Your remarks abou transmogrificatioe th t f well-knowno n Norse forms into uncouth Gaelic denominationse th r fo eyee t t th onl ,no r ,ye yfo ear, have certainl t matterypu more o rightst th the d e an ,ar ywelcom e aboum a writ o I t t s littla a e , teome geographical treatis thosn eo e very Hebrides durin Norwegiae gth n times." Indeed, it was no wonder that the Norwegian historiographer should have been dismayed by the changes which the necessities of Gaelic gram- mar and orthography caused to be made in the original nomenclature ; every Norse name commencing wit aspiraththe e (H)supposewas , be dto in the genitive case, and when used as a nominative had a T prefixed and Je t th abstracted; thus Ha hossupposes genitivea wa t e b writteo d dt an , n Thaboist, from which a nominative, Tabost, was made. Names beginning with S followed by a slender vowel (e or i) have the initial sound of Sh, e samth e' f sure;i n wort i «e bu th 'd f o becomeo r a Gaelis c genitive the sound of Sh vanishes altogether; Setr, Norse = Setter, Seat, in English, is written Siadairin Gaelic, and pronounced Shader, of which the genitive is Shiadeir, pronounced Adir. The Norse ey (island) is written aibh in Gaelic, which, although it has exactly the -same sound, puzzlina s ha g appearanc a Teuton o Norse t Th .e ties becomes nisn i Gaelic, and is pronounced nish; and the / in fjorffr (firth), following a Gaelic law, becomes in a compounded word, fh, and is in pronunciation simply dropped: Sneisfjorffr, in Gaelic Sneisfhord, pronounced Snizort. Fortunately publicatioe th , Joyce'f no s admirable wor "n ko Iris h Names of Places" has put those Gaelic "accidents" within the compass of the ordinary Teutonic mind; yet, with every assistance, the change which Norse names underg beinn oo g adopte theiy db r Gaelic elder siste stils ri l astonishing. My youthful recollections are associated with the comfort of the manse of Neap,in Shetland, which in Icelandic is Gnipr, and means "a peak; ". 474 PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY,"APRIL 10, 1876. under Gaelic influenc s writtei t ei n Gnip, pronounced an d Kreep. Hofn, earlhavenn a a = yd , dialectiha ,N. c riva Homm,n i l familias i e d th an n i r northern islands as Hamnavoe; in Lewis it appears as Loch ThamnaWiaidh. Holmr, N., becomes Tolm, G.; Fell becomes Bhal, G.; Vdtn, N., becomes Bhat, G.; Vile, N., becomes Shig, G.; Eiff, N. (an isthmus), becomes Didh, G.; Kvisetr, N., becomes Cuidhseadair, G.; Helsvagr, N., becomes Loch Thealasbhaidh;—"a amonn t knowso motheno e r gth d nhe ha r skeleton f thaso t gaunt crew." • • / askede b y ,her d ma "Wh t eAn i y writ namee eth s in Gaelic forms oil the Government maps and charts? Or, Why not write the Gaelic name Gaelin si c orthography converse th d an , e wit e Norsth h e1 Well, uthio t p s timecoulo wh , d tell which were effece Norsee f th th o , d t an ? writing Gaelic names in vulgar English is to render them unintelligible. Gaelic word aspirationy sb , combination changeo s cas d e an ,ear d froe mth nominative, tha f expressei t foneticn i d Inglesh their meanin quits i g e lost. Nor do the Norse words suffer any real injury; if the rules of Gaelic orthography are strictly followed there is no difficulty in resolving them into their original forms. Sometime e Gaelisth c writer seemo t s have wanted the " courage of his convictions," and thus we find on the Ordnance Map such anomalies as Sh,eshadir, Sheabost; but they are very few. A mere selection of Norse names occurring in the Hebrides would have required but little application; but my object has been to prove, in one important island, the absolute and relative extent and value of the Norse name-system whicr fo ; h purpos printeea d"e copLewith f yo s Rental," given mane r Jm -V Si yMathesony yearb o s ag selecte s e textth wa , r ;dfo and for Harris, a printed " Proved Eental," taken apparently in 1830. namee Th s were numbered d formean , firsda t e columnsecondth n I ,. the same names from every available authority. The third column con- tained identical names in other parts of the Hebrides. In the fourth column are identical and cognate names in the Orkneys, principally supplied from " Peterkin's Eentals, whicf " o contai o firse htw th t n about 1100 names. In the fifth column, the same for Shetland, on the authority of Balfour's " Oppressions " (wit names)4 hDuncan'48 d an , s " Shetland Directory, whicn i " h ther 180e ear 0 name e sixth th farmsf e so n th ,I . same for Iceland, from the Landnamabok which has about 2000 names; ON THE EXTIRPATION OF THE CELTS IN T7IE HEBRIDES. 475 and the Ny Jarffarlok fyrir I'sland (Valuation Eoll), which has over 7000 entries. Altogether about 12,700 names were examined, besides as many map chartd san couls sa obtainede db sixte Th h. colum fols -wa n lowed by the etymology and remarks. The etymology was a simple affair ; for either in Iceland, Shetland, or the Orkneys nearly every name of Norse origin in the Lewis, identical or cognate, is to be found. It is not proposed to print this comparative table, for the following pages con- tain most of the results; but a copy will be deposited in the library of e Societ benefie folloy th th r f ma p thithos o wu yfo to s ewh branc f ho history, whic f continuehi Skyeo dt , Mull Islayd an , , woul equalle db y interestin importantd gan .