The Celtic Placenames of Scotland

W. J. Watson, Simon Taylor, William J. Watson

• Publisher: John Donald
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN:
  9781788853613
• Print ISBN:
  9781906566357
• Subtopic: Languages

First published in 1926, this book remains the best and most comprehensive guide to the Celtic place-names of Scotland and is essential reading for anyone interested in Scottish history and the derivations of place-names the length and breadth of the country. It is divided into sections dealing with early names, territorial divisions, general surveys of areas and also looks at saints, church terms and river names. As the standard reference work on the subject it has never been surpassed.

This edition contains a new introduction which includes biographical material about the author, together with corrigenda and addenda. 

CHAPTER I

EARLY NAMES

We have noted that the old distinctive name of what is now Great Britain was Albion. The account of Himilco’s voyage, as turned into Latin verse by Rufus Festus Avienus, who flourished in A.D. 366, from the Greek translation of Eratosthenes (b. B.C. 276), states that at a distance of two days’ voyage from the Oestrymnides islands there lies the Sacred Isle, peopled widely by the race (gens) of the Hierni, and that near them stretches the isle of the Albiones. The two islands meant are Great Britain and Ireland. A Greek geographical tract, once ascribed to Aristotle, says that in the Ocean beyond the Pillars of Hercules (the Straits of Gibraltar) lie two very large islands, Albion and Ierne, called the Bretannic Isles, beyond the land of the Celts. Diodorus, probably after Posidonius, speaks of ‘those of the Pretanni who inhabit Iris,’ i.e. Ireland.¹ Isidore of Charax makes Albion the largest of the Bretannic Isles. Pliny says that Britannia was once called Albion, while the islands as a group were called ‘Britanniae,’ ‘the Britains.’ Ptolemy writes of ‘Albion, a Prettanic isle.’ From these references we note (1) that in the view of the ancients ‘the Britannic Isles’ was a group term, including Albion and Ierne; (2) that to Himilco, about B.C. 500, this group name was apparently unknown.

Bede, who died in A.D. 735, repeats the statement that Britain was once called Albion, but as a matter of fact the Irish form of Albion was current in that sense in Bede’s own time and long after it. The oldest form in Irish is Alpe, Albe (nom.), exactly as it ought to be. Somewhat later it is found as nom. Alba, Albu; gen. Alban; dat. Albain—on the analogy of Muma, Mumu (Munster); gen. Muman; dat. Mumain, as Kuno Meyer suggests. In Sc.G. it is now nom. Alba; gen. Albann; dat. Albainn, Scotland. The usage in earlier Irish literature needs only a few illustrations. In the glossary ascribed to Cormac mac Cuilenan, king of Munster, who died in 908, Alpa or Alba means regularly Britain, e.g. Glastonbury is in Alba. The antiquary Duald mac Firbis, murdered in 1670, quotes from an ancient poem:—

Fairenn Alban co muir nIcht

Gaoidhil, Cruithnig, Saix, Saxo-Brit.

‘The population of Alba to the sea of Icht (the English Channel) consists of Gael, Cruithnigh, Saxons, and Saxo-Britons.’¹ In the Book of Leinster, written about 1150, the men of Alba are defined as Saxons, Britons, and Cruithnigh;² the writer takes the Gael for granted. In short, in the earlier Irish literature Alba is used as the native term for Britannia. After the establishment of the Gaelic kingdom of Dál Riata in the west, its people are referred to as fir Alban, ‘the men of Britain,’ or, as Adamnan calls them, in Latin Scoti Britanniae, ‘the Scots (or Gael) of Britain,’ as distinguished from the Scots or Gael of Ireland. When Acdán mac Gabráin, king of Dál Riata, is styled rí Alban, ‘king of Alba,’ the term Alba appears to be used in a restricted sense equivalent to Gaelic Britain, as opposed to Cruithentuath, ‘Briton-land,’ ‘Pictland,’ or the eastern side of Scotland north of Forth. At a later period, Alba came to be used to denote the Gaelic kingdom of Scone, as Skene has shown.

As to meaning, Albion has been referred with some probability to the root seen in Lat. albus, white, whence also Alpes, older Albes, the Alps. The inference is that the name ‘White-land’ was given by the Celts of Gaul, with reference to the chalk cliffs of the south coast.

Adamnan says that the Scots of Britain are separated from the Picts by ‘the mountains of the ridge of Britain’ (montes dorsi Britannici). This is the range which was called in Gaelic Druim Alban, the oldest mention of which occurs in an ancient prophecy regarding Niall Nói-giallach, king of Ireland towards the end of the fourth century: bíet ile a gluinn ar Druim nAlpuind, ‘many shall be his deeds on Drum Alban.’¹ There is another Drumalban in Lanarkshire, south-east of Tinto, which may mean ‘the ridge of the men of Alba,’ for Albain is sometimes used in this sense.² The great upland of the head waters of the Tay has long been known as Bràghaid Alban, Breadalbane, the Upland of Alba. It is described as thirty miles (Scots) long from east to west, and ten miles broad between Glen-Lyon and Lairig Ìlidh (head of Glen Ogle).³ It thus included Glen Lòcha, whose river is still called Lòchá Albannach, ‘Locha of Alba,’ to distinguish it from the other stream of the same name which flows westwards from near Tyndrum to join the Orchy, and which is therefore called Lòchá Urchaidh, ‘Locha of Orchy.’ It is quite possible that in these two latter names we have a reminiscence of a period when Alba was used to denote the ‘Kingdom of Scone.’ In Strath Dinard, Sutherland, there is Allt an Albannaich, ‘the Albanian’s Burn.’ In Easter Ross we have Allt nan Albannach, called on record ‘Scottismennis burne,’ now Scotsburn, with tradition of a battle and a cairn ‘called cairnne na marrow alias Deidmanniscairne.’⁴ Two places called Scotsburn occur in Morayshire, and in Ayrshire there is Altan Albany or Albany Burn, a tributary of Stinchar, representing Mid.G. Allt an Albanaigh, ‘the Scot’s burn.’It would appear that the people who gave these names regarded the Scots as different from themselves, and that they date from a period when Alba was not understood to apply north of Spey, or south of the isthmus between Forth and Clyde. ‘Fons Scotiae,’ Scotlandwell, in Kinross-shire, may have been held the chief fountain of this Alba.

We have seen that in early usage the term Britannic Isles included Great Britain and Ireland, and that the larger island was called Albion. By Caesar’s time and thence-forward it is regularly called in Latin Britannia. Classical spellings of Britain and Britons vary greatly. We have first a set with initial P, preserved by Strabo and Diodorus, probably on the authority of Pytheas. They write Πρεττανοί with tt, but Stephanus of Byzantium (c. A.D. 500) states that Ptolemy wrote Πρετανίδες νη̑σοι with one t. Secondly we have the form Βρεττανοί used, if the texts can be trusted, by Polybius in the second century B.C., and later by Plutarch, Pausanias, Appian, and other Greek writers. Lastly there are Britannia, Britanni, used by Horace, Catullus, Juvenal, and Latin writers generally; Lucretius, however, has Brittanidis (gen. of Brittanis), VI., 1106.¹ The modern forms corresponding in Welsh and Gaelic certainly indicate that the spellings with P and single t are correct. The Welsh Prydain, older Prydein, Britain, implies an origin from an early Pritan(n)ia. With this goes Prydyn, commonly rendered ‘Picts,’ but obviously meaning originally Britons; it implies, according to Kuno Meyer, a singular Pryden. Parallel to Pryden, Prydyn, are the Old Irish Cruthen, plural Cruthin; compare W. pryd, G. cruth, form; W. pryf, G. cruimh, a worm. The whole group has been referred to a root qrt, cut, whence Lat. curtus, G. cruth, form, shape, giving to Pretani the meaning of ‘Figured Folk,’ with reference to the practice of painting the skin mentioned by Caesar. From other references it appears that the ancient pre-Celtic Britons tattooed as well as painted themselves. This is in substance the traditional explanation, and it makes the country, Britain, get its name from its inhabitants, the Britons, as Germani gives Germania; Galli, Gallia; Graeci, Graecia, etc. On this theory the Celts, who, probably before they crossed the Channel, called the land opposite them Albion, named its inhabitants Pretani. The latinized country name, Britannia, appears to have been a purely Latin formation. It is significant that the ancient Albion has remained as the name of Scotland in Gaelic.

From Cruthen are formed the compounds Cruthen-tuath, and Cruthen-clár (the latter poetic), meaning the land of the Cruithne, ‘Pictavia’ in Scotland; also applied to the Cruithnean territory in Ireland. Further formations are Cruithne, a collective term, and Cruithnech, a Cruithnean, plural Cruithnigh, Cruithnich. Hence come Clais nan Cruithneach, the Cruithneans’ Hollow, in Stoer, Sutherland; Airigh nan Cruithneach, the Cruithneans’ Shieling, in Applecross; an Carnán Cruithneach, the Cruithneans’ Cairnie, a hill in Kintail. These names, like those involving Breatan and Albannach, imply that the namers considered the Cruithne to be different from themselves.¹

Alongside of the ancient terms Pryden, Cruthen, we have another group: W. Brython, a Briton, a Welshman; G. Breatan, a Briton of Wales, Strathclyde, or Cornwall. These come from Britto, stem Britton-, a Briton, which is a shortened or hypocoristic form of Britannus, dating from the latter half of the first century and common in medieval Latin. In Gaelic there is from Britto also a noun or adjective Britt, ‘British,’ as in Fergna Britt, ‘Fergna of Britain’; an Britt a Cluaid, ‘The Briton from Clyde.’—Skene, P.S., 87; compare the surname Galbraith, i.e. ‘foreign Briton.’ Procopius (c. A.D. 500–565) has a strange account of an island which he calls Brittia, and which was thought to be Jutland, but must be really Britain. From Brittia comes Breiz, Brittany, but it has left no descendant in Welsh or Gaelic.

The plural of Breatan is Breatain, dat. Breatnaibh. In our names of places it is found both south and north of the Forth and Clyde isthmus. Hence Dùn Breatann, Dumbarton, ‘Fortress of the Britons,’ once the acropolis of the Strathcl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction by Simon Taylor
• Preface
• Abbreviations: Introductory
• Chapter I: Early Names
• Chapter II: Early Names (continued)
• Chapter III: Names in Adamnan’s ‘Life of Columba’
• Chapter IV: Territorial Divisions
• Chapter V: General Survey of Lothian
• Chapter VI: General Survey of Dumfries and Galloway
• Chapter VII: General Survey of Ayrshire and Strathclyde
• Chapter VIII: General Survey of Scotland North of Forth
• Chapter IX: Early Church Terms
• Chapter X
• Chapter XI: British Names
• Chapter XII: British-Gaelic Names
• Chapter XIII: River Names
• Chapter XIV: River Names (continued)
• Chapter XV: Some General Terms
• Additional Notes
• Index of Places and Tribes
• Index of Personal Names