Christina Blackie

“ The composite structure of our English speech, in fact, tends to conceal from us the natural organism of language; so that in our case, it requires a special training to make us fully aware of the great truth announced by Horne Tooke, that “in language there is nothing arbitrary.” Nevertheless, the curiosity about the meaning of words, though seldom cherished, is not easily extinguished; and, in this age of locomotion, there are few scraps of information more grateful to the intelligent tourist than those which relate to the significance of topographical names. ”

“ Cornwall, almost every parish is named after some saintly apostle, who, in days of savage wildness and wastefulness, had brought light and peace and humanity into these remote regions. In the Highlands of Scotland, the Kilbrides (kill from cella, a shrine) , Kilmartins, Kilmarnocks, and Kilmallies everywhere attest the grateful piety of the forefathers of the Celtic race in days which, if more dark, were certainly not more cold than the times in which we now live. ”

“ EILEAN (Gadhelic) ,
EALAND (A.S.) ,
EYLANDT (Dutch) ,
INSEL (Ger.) ,
an island, cognate with the Lat. insula. The Gaelic word is generally applied to smaller islands than innis; e.g. Eilean-sgiathach or Skye (the winged island) ; Eilean-dunan (the isle of the small fort) ; Eilean-na-goibhre (of the goats) ; Eilean-na-monach (of the monks) ; Eilean-na-Clearach (of the clergy) ; Eilean-na-naoimbh (of the saints) , often applied to Ireland; Eilean-nam-Muchad or Muck (the island of pigs) , in the Hebrides; Flannan, in the Hebrides, i.e. Eilean-an-Flannan (of St. Flannan) ”

“ The most obvious characteristic of any place, whether mountain or plain or valley, would be its shape and size, its relative situation high or low, behind or in the front, its colour, the kind of rock or soil of which it is composed, the climate which it enjoys, the vegetation in which it abounds, and the animals by which it is frequented. ”

“ GOBHA (Gadhelic) ,
a blacksmith—in topography Gow or Gowan; e.g. Ardgowan (the blacksmith’s height) ; Balgowan, Balnagowan, Balgownie, Balgonie, in Scotland, and Ballygow, Ballygowan, Ballingown, Ballynagown, in Ireland (the dwelling of the blacksmith) ; Athgoe (the blacksmith’s ford) . In early times the blacksmith was regarded as an important personage, being the manufacturer of weapons of war, and the ancient Irish, like other nations, had their smith god, Goban, hence the frequent use of the word in their topography. ”

“ The name Petersburg, whose Teutonic character it is impossible to ignore, indicates the civilisation of a Sclavonic country by an emperor whose early training was received from a people of German blood and breed; while Constantinople recalls the momentous change which took place in the centre of gravity of the European world, when the declining empire of the Roman Cæsars was about to become Greek in its principal site, as it had long been in its dominant culture. ”

“ If it were doubted, for instance, whether at any period the Lowlands of Scotland had been possessed by a Celtic race, and asserted roundly that from the earliest times the plains had been inhabited by a people of Teutonic blood, and only the mountain district to the west and north-west was the stronghold of the Celt, the obvious names of not a few localities in the east and south-east of Scotland would present an impassable bar to the acceptance of any such dogma. ”

“ In the Highlands tigh and bail are the commonest words to denote a human dwelling, the one manifestly an aspirated form of the Latin tignum (Greek στἐγος, German dach) , and the other as plainly identical with the πόλις which appears in Sebastopol, and not a few cities, both ancient and modern, where Greek influence or Greek affectation prevailed. With regard to bal, it is noticeable that in Ireland it generally takes the form of bally, which is the full form of the word in Gaelic also, baile, there being no final mute vowels in that language ”

“ These single enclosures became the nucleus of a village which, gradually increasing, became a town or city, in the same manner as villages and towns arose around the Celtic duns, raths, and lises. This root, in the names of towns and villages, is more common than any other in Anglo-Saxon topography, being an element in an eighth part of the names of dwelling-places in the south of Great Britain. The greatest number of these names is connected with those of the original proprietors of the places, of which but a few examples can be given here. ”

“ The geologist, when, in the far-stretching bogs east of Glencoe, and near Kinloch Ewe, and in many other places of Scotland, he calls attention to the fact of layers of gigantic trees lying now deeply embedded under the peat, adduces an argument with regard to the primitive vegetation of our part of the world not a whit more convincing. The same fact of a lost vegetation is revealed in not a few places of England which end in the old word hurst, signifying a forest. ”

“ The other Saxon or Scandinavian terms frequently met with throughout England and in the north-east of Scotland are—ton, setter or ster, stead, stow, stoke, hay, park, worth, bury, thorp, toft, thwaite. In Germany, besides heim and hausen, as already mentioned, we have the English hay, under the form hagen, a fence; and thorp under the form dorf, a village; and worth under the forms worth and werth, which are merely variations of the Greek χόρτος, English yard, and the Sclavonic gard and gorod, and the Celtic garad, the familiar word in the Highlands for a stone wall or dyke. ”

“ It is right, for instance, to say generally that the Celtic language has everywhere in Europe retreated from the plains into the mountainous districts; but the people often still remain where the language has retreated, as the examination of any directory in many a district of Scotland, where only English is now spoken, will largely show. In Greece, in the same way, many districts present only Greek and Sclavonic names of places, where the population, within recent memory, is certainly Albanian. Inquiries of this nature always require no less caution than learning ”

“ INGA,
an affix used by the Teutonic races, as a patronymic, in the same sense as Mac is used in Scotland, ap in Wales, and O in Ireland. Ing is generally affixed to the settlement of a chief, and ingen to that of his descendants. Ing, preceding ham, ton, dean, ley, thorp, worth, etc., is generally an abbreviation of ingen, and denotes that the place belonged to the family of the tribe, as in Bonnington, Collington, Collingham, Islington (the home of the Bonnings, the Collings, and the Islings) . In French topography ingen takes the forms of igny, igné, or inges ”

“ The streets of great cities, as one may see prominently in Paris, in their designations often contain a register of the most striking events of their national history. Genuine names of streets in old cities are a historical growth and an anecdotal record, which only require the pen of a cunning writer to make them as attractive as a good novel. ”

“ Many a dark and odorous close in Old Edinburgh also, to men [xxxii] who, like the late Robert Chambers, could read stones with knowing eyes, is eloquent with those tales of Celtic adventure and Saxon determination which make the history of Scotland so full of dramatic interest; while, on the other hand, the flunkeyism of the persons who, to tickle the lowest type of aristocratic snobbery, baptized certain streets of New Edinburgh with Buckingham Terrace, Belgrave Crescent, Grosvenor Street, and such like apish mimicry of metropolitan West Endism, stinks in the nostrils and requires no comment. ”

“ On this the eager genius of archæological discovery, ever ready to poise a pyramid on its apex, forthwith raised the theory, that the district of Scotland where the Abers prevailed had been originally peopled by Celts of the Cymric or Welsh type, while the region of Invers marked out the ancient seats of the pure Caledonian Celts. ”

“ The only other features of natural scenery that play a noticeable part in topographical etymology are the rivers, lakes, wells, and waterfalls; and they need not detain us long. The Gaelic uisge, water, of which the Latin aqua is an abraded form, appears in the names of Scottish rivers as Esk, and of Welsh rivers as Usc. The familiar English Avon is the Gaelic amhainn, evidently softened down by aspiration from the Latin amnis. This avon often appears at the end of river names curtailed, as in Garonne, the rough river, from the Gaelic root garbh, rough. ”

“ Nordereys and Sudereys—from this word Sudereys, the Bishop of Sodor and Man takes his title— (the north and south isles) , names given by the Norsemen to the Hebrides and the Orkneys under their rule; Oesel (seal island) ; Oransay (the island of St. Oran) ; Pabba and Papa (priest’s isle) . The Papae or Christian anchorites came from Ireland and the west of Scotland to Orkney and Shetland, and traces of them were found in Iceland on its discovery by the Norsemen, hence probably such names as Pappa and Crimea (the island of the Cymri or Cimmerians) ; Morea (the mulberry-shaped island) ”

“ Thus the notion of the highest mountain in a district may be broadly conveyed by simply calling it the big mount, or, according to the order of words current in the Celtic languages, mount big; which is exactly what we find in Benmore, from mor, big, the name of several of the highest mountains in the Highlands of Scotland, specially of one in the south of Perthshire, near Killin, of another in Mull, the highest trap mountain in Scotland, and a third in Assynt. ”

“ In the designation of the intervening hollows, or low land, the variety of expression is naturally less striking. Glen serves for almost all varieties of a narrow Highland valley. A very narrow rent or fissured gorge is called a glachd. The English word dale, in Gaelic dail, means in that language simply a field, or flat stretch of land at the bottom of the hills. It is to be noted, however, that this word is both Celtic and Teutonic; but, in topographical etymology, with a difference distinctly indicative of a twofold origin. ”

“ Kilmore generally means the great church, but Kilmore, Co. Cork, is from Coillmhor (great wood) , and in many places in Ireland and Scotland it is difficult to determine whether the root of the names is cill or coill; Kildare, from Cill-dara (the cell of the oak blessed by St. Bridget) ; Kilmun, in Argyleshire, is named from St. Munna, one of St. Columba’s companions; Kilrush, Co. Clare (the church of the promontory or of the wood) ; Kells (the cells) is the name of several places in Ireland, and of a parish in Dumfries ”

“ This heim in a thousand places of England becomes ham, but in Scotland, where the Celtic element prevails, appears only rarely in the south-east and near the English border, as in Coldingham and Ednam—the birthplace of the poet Thomson—contracted from Edenham. Another root very widely expressive of human habitation, under the varying forms of beth, bo, and by, is scattered freely from the banks of Jordan to the islands of the Hebrides in the north-west of Scotland. ”

“ There is another Sanscrit word arb (to ravage or destroy) , with which the Gadhelic words garw, garbh (rough) may be connected; and, on the other hand, there is the Welsh araf (gentle) . According to the locality and the characteristics of the stream, one must judge to which of these roots its name may belong. There are, in England, the Aire, Arre, Arro, Arrow; in France, the Arve, Erve, Arveiron, etc.; in Switzerland and Germany, the Aar, Are; in Spain and Italy, the Arva, Arno; and in Scotland, the Ayr, Aray, Irvine, etc. ”

“ The word den or dean, as in the Dean Bridge, Edinburgh, and the Den Burn, Aberdeen, is Anglo-Saxon denn, and appears in the English Tenterden, and some others. Another Celtic name for field is ach, the Latin ag-er, which appears in a number of Highland places, as in Ach-na-cloiche (stone field) , in Argyleshire. A hollow surrounded by mountains is called by the well-known name of LAGGAN, which is properly a diminutive from lag, in Greek λάκκος, in Latin lacus, a hollow filled with water, and in German a mere loch, or hole, into which a mouse might creep. ”

“ A regular fringe of Scandinavian names along the north and north-west coast of Scotland would, to the present hour, attest most indubitably the fact of a Norse dominion in those [xxxv] quarters operating for centuries, even had Haco and the battle of Largs been swept altogether from the record of history and from the living tradition of the people. To every man who has been in Norway, Laxfiord, in West Ross-shire, a stream well known to salmon-fishers, carries this Scandinavian story on its face ”

“ GARRAD (Gadhelic) ,
GARRD, GARZ (Cym.-Cel.) ,
an enclosed place, either for plants or cattle, then a farm. It is sometimes found in the form of gort in Ireland and Scotland; e.g. Garton (the enclosure or enclosed town) ; Applegarth (the apple enclosure or farm) ; Hogarth (an enclosure for hay) ; Weingarten (an enclosure for vines, or a vineyard) ; Stuttgart and Hestingaard (an enclosure for horses) ; Nornigard (the sibyl’s dwelling, norn, a prophetess) ; Fishgarth or Fishguard (the fisher’s farm) , in Wales; Noostigard (the farm at the naust or ship station) ; in Shetland ”

“ ALIT (Cym.-Cel.) ,
ALT (Irish) ,
a height or cliff; e.g. Alltmaur (the great height) ; Builth, in Wales, i.e. Bu-allt (the steep place of the wild oxen) . The Alts (heights or glen-sides) , Monaghan; Altachullion (the cliff of the holly) ; Altavilla, i.e. Alt-a-bhile (the glen-side of the old tree) ; Altinure (the cliff of the yew-tree) ; Altanagh (abounding in cliffs) ; Altan (the little cliff) .
ALP, AILPE (Celtic) ,
AIL,
a rock or cliff; e.g. the Alps; Albainn (the hilly or high land) , the anc. name of Scotland; Albania, with the same meaning ”