CLOG (Univ. of Glasgow)

King, Jacob

English

George Broderick Placenames of the Isle of Man

Fraser, James E

144
Irish, Trinity College), 37–49. [A version of this article can be found on pp. 
13–26 of this volume.]
Cox, Richard A. V., forthcoming, ‘Old Norse Loan-words in Scottish Gaelic’, 
Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis, Studia Celtica Upsaliensia 7, Proceedings of the 
7th Symposium of Societas Celtologica Nordica (Oslo, May 2005), ed. Jan Erik 
Rekdal (Uppsala).
Henderson, George, 1910, The Norse Influence on Celtic Scotland (Glasgow).
Kruse, Arne, 2005, ‘Explorers, Raiders and Settlers. The Norse Impact upon 
Hebridean Place-Names’, in Cultural Contacts in the North Atlantic Region: 
The Evidence of Names, ed. Peder Gammeltoft, Carole Hough and Doreen 
Waugh (Lerwick), 141–56.
Marstrander, Carl J. S., 1915, Bidrag til det norske sprogs historie i Irland (Kristiania).
Oftedal, Magne, 1956, The Gaelic of Leurbost, Isle of Lewis, A Linguistic 
Survey of the Gaelic Dialects of Scotland III, Norsk tidsskrift for sprogvidenskap 
Supplementary Vol. IV (Oslo).
Oftedal, Magne, 1962, ‘Norse Place-Names in Celtic Scotland’, Proceedings of 
the International Congress of Celtic Studies (1959) (Dublin), 43–50.
Oftedal, Magne, 1964, ‘Norse Steinn in Hebridean Place-Names’, 
Fróðskaparrit 13, 225–34.
PICTS IN THE WEST IN THE 670S? SOME THOUGHTS ON AU 673.3 AND AU 
676.3
James E. Fraser, University of Edinburgh
Among its records for the year 673 (recte 672), the Annals of Ulster contain the 
notice gabail Eliuin mc Cuirp 7 Conamail filii Canonn, ‘the capture [of Eliuin mc 
Cuirp ?] and of Conamail mac Canonn’ (AU 673.3; Hennessy 1887, 126 note). 
Conamail may be identified fairly readily. A Conamail mac Canonn appears in 
the early eighth-century Dalriadic genealogical tractate Cethri prímchenéla Dáil 
Riata as a scion of Cenél nGabráin, whilst the killing of a man of this name in 
705 (iugulatio Conamlo (sic) m. Canonn) is recorded later in the same chronicle 
(CP §17; AU 705.4). This man’s appearance in Cethri prímchenéla occurs 
couched within the pedigree of his son, Congus, who may be identified as the 
father of Talorc mac Congusso, a Dalriadic figure who flourished (probably in 
the Cenél nGabráin kingdom of Kintyre) in the 730s, until his capture by his 
brother, who turned him over to hostile Picts in 734 (AU 731.6; AU 734.5; 
Dumville 2000, 187; Fraser 2004, 87–88). It is an interesting point that both 
grandfather and grandson appear to have suffered the indignity of capture. 
The chronicle record of the late seventh century, originating largely from the 
James E. Fraser
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JSNS 1, 2007, 144–48
145
pro-Cenél nGabráin monastery at Iona, appears to disagree with the pro-Cenél 
Loairn Cethri prímchenéla on the matter of the ancestry of Conamail mac 
Canonn, which in its view does not descend from the eponymous Gabrán. The 
fact that the two textual witnesses exhibit different political affiliations almost 
certainly explains this inconsistency (Fraser 2004, 87–89).
Hennessy offered the straightforward reading and translation of Eliuin mc 
Cuirp (‘captured’ with Cano’s son Conamail in 672) as a personal name, ‘Elvin 
son of Corp’ (Hennessy 1887, 127). However, Anderson noted the ‘suspicious 
resemblance’ between this name and that of an unidentified place besieged in 
742, in an episode recorded in the same chronicle: obsesio Auiliuin filii Cruip 
(AU 742.10). A similar record from 744, again in the Annals of Ulster, bellum 
Ailiuin da Berrach, also implies that auiliuin/ailiuin refers here to locations 
where fighting took place (AU 744.5). Hennessy, Anderson and others took 
this term to represent oiléin /ailéin, the genitive singular of ailén / oilén ‘island’; 
Anderson for his part was taken with the suggestion that these two ‘islands’ 
were in fact crannogs (Anderson 1990, 238; Hennessy 1887, 204 note). Be that 
as it may, the earlier sentence gabail Eliuin mc Cuirp 7 Conamail filii Canonn 
implies that Eliuin mc Cuirp, like Conamail filii Canonn, represents the name 
of a person, not a place-name. This was appreciated by Hennessy, and also, after 
consideration, by Anderson, who suggested that the actual name represented by 
Eliuin was Elpin, in line with Hennessy’s ‘Elvin’ and, for that matter, the ‘Elffin’ 
offered by Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill, in the second of the two Eliuin /Auiliuin 
annals linked together by Anderson (Anderson 1990, 182; AU 742.10). With 
due consideration of the problem, Charles-Edwards has now preferred to regard 
Eliuin mc Cuirp as a place-name, ‘Eilén of Mac Cuirp’ (Charles-Edwards 2006, 
159). There is no particular reason that, despite ‘suspicious resemblance’, we 
cannot be dealing here with two separate subjects, namely a person called Elpin 
or Elphin, captured in 672, and an island (or possibly a crannog) called Ailén 
meicc Cruip, besieged in 742.
Indeed, further analysis of Eliuin mc Cuirp may tend to confirm its status 
as a personal name. One may begin from the hypothesis put forward by Mac 
Neill that Dairchill m. Curetai, recorded in the same chronicle five years later, 
ought to be emended to Dairchill moccu Retai, signifying that this Dairchill 
belonged to the tribe descended from the eponym of the Dalriadic Corcu 
Réti (AU 678.2; Mac Neill 1911–12, 80; Fraser 2006, 1–9). Were one, for 
the sake of argument, to apply the same thinking to Elpin (or Elphin) mc 
Cuirp, taking mc Cu- to signify moccu, the result would be the personal name 
Elpin (or Elphin) moccu Irp. Moccu Irp is a striking designation in the Scottish 
context implied by the joint presence of Conamail mac Canonn. Among its 
early kings, the longer recension of the Pictish king-list attaches considerable 
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146
pseudo-historical significance to two brothers, called Drust and Nechtan, 
whose father’s name is rendered variously Erp, Erip, Wirp, Urb, Irb and Yrb 
in the various manuscripts of the list (Anderson 1973, 246–47, 262, 272, 
280). Moreover, the king-list also includes another Nechtan, apparently with 
an early seventh-century floruit, called nepos Uerb in the longer list and filius 
Irb or Yrb etc. in the shorter list (Anderson 1973, 248, 262, 272 and 280). 
It must be encouraging that the putative moccu Irp of the emended chronicle 
record seems a fairly straightforward gaelicisation of a name like nepos Uerb, 
making due allowance for the range of different manuscript renderings of the 
key name that are to hand.
Moreover, we even have a plausible intersection of the putative Elpin (or 
Elphin) moccu Irp and the king-list’s Nechtan nepos ‘Uerb’ in the chronicles. 
The obit of a certain Alphin (or Alpin) mac Nechtain (or Nectin) occurs in 
the same record as the obit of the Pictish king Bridei map Beli in 693 (AU 
693.1; AT 693.2). Given that the man captured with Eliuin in 672 did not 
die until 705, it is entirely plausible that the putative Elpin (or Elphin) was in 
fact Alpin (or Alphin) mac Nechtain, who died in 693. After all, if the latter 
man’s father Nechtan was the king-list’s Nechtan nepos ‘Uerb’, a son of his 
could readily have borne the putative moccu Irp designation of the emended 
record from 673 (recte 672) (Macquarrie 1993, 10, offers other speculations 
about this man). The acceptance of such an emendation would confirm Eliuin 
mc Cuirp as a personal name – Elphin moccu Irp or something similar – and 
would encourage identification of Alphin mac Nechtain as a son of Nechtan 
nepos ‘Uerb’, with Elphin and Alphin emerging as one and the same man.
Such an acceptance would also result in a striking parallel between the 
gabail recorded in 672 and the events of 734 in Argyll, when another Pictish 
dynast, Talorcan of Atholl, and Conamail’s grandson, Talorc, were taken 
captive. In the latter case, the men were turned over to Pictish custody and 
put to death (AU 734.5–6; AU 739.7). There is no clear evidence of Pictish 
involvement in the gabail of 672, but the chronicles do record that just three 
years later ‘many Picts were drowned i Llaind Abae’ (AU 676.3). Adomnán’s 
Vita Sancti Columbae speaks of a Columban monastery stagno adherens Abae 
fluminis ‘beside the lake of the River Aba’, which river Watson identified as 
Abhainn Abha, the River Awe in Lorn, such that the monastery in question 
lay upon Loch Awe (VSC i.31; Watson 1926, 75). Thus, the chronicle’s i 
Llaind Abae should probably be emended to i Lind Abae ‘in Loch Awe’, 
which makes a more comfortable fit with the watery context of the events 
described than (nom.) Land Abae, which Charles-Edwards takes as possibly 
an ecclesiastical place-name (Charles-Edwards 2006, 161). Certainly the 
place-name Eadarlinn ‘between lochs’, at the isthmus of land between Loch 
James E. Fraser
—
147
Awe and Loch Ederline in Mid-Argyll, indicates that Loch Awe was indeed 
regarded as a linn (DIL 1983, 435 [1 linn]; Watson 1926, 105).
Whether Land Abae or Lind Abae was intended by the chronicler, this 
record places Pictish activity in the heart of Argyll in the middle of the 670s, 
just as in the middle of the 730s. Pictish involvement in the ‘capture’ of 
‘Elpin’ and Conamail should thus not be ruled out. After all, the chronicle 
record traces Conamail’s pedigree to a Gartnait mac Accidain, who, along 
with his brother Talorc, shared names common in the Pictish royal corpus 
(Fraser 2004, 87). The emendation that would transform Eliuin mc Cuirp 
into Elphin moccu Irp, or something similar, could in other words affect 
our understanding of Picto-Scottish relations during the reign of Bridei map 
Beli. Insistence that Eliuin must refer to an island, with the consequence of 
locating the capture of the Dalriadic Conamail mac Canonn at ‘the island of 
the people of Irp’, need not invalidate such a conclusion.
REFERENCES
Anderson, A. O., 1990, Early Sources of Scottish History, A.D. 500 to 1286 Vol. 
1 (Stamford) [first published 1922].
Anderson, A. O. and M. O. Anderson, eds, 1991, Adomnán’s Life of Columba 
(2nd edn, Oxford).
Anderson, M. O., 1973, Kings and Kingship in Early Scotland (Edinburgh and 
London).
AU : Annals of Ulster: Mac Airt and Mac Niocaill 1983.
AT: Annals of Tigernach: Stokes 1993.
Charles-Edwards, T M., trans., 2006, The Chronicle of Ireland Vol. 1 (Liverpool).
CP : Cethri prímchenéla Dáil Riata: Dumville 2000, 175–82.
DIL: Dictionary of the Irish Language, 1983 (compact edn, Dublin).
Dumville, D. N., 2000, ‘Cethri prímchenéla Dáil Riata’, Scottish Gaelic Studies 
20, 170–91.
Fraser, J. E., 2004, ‘The Iona Chronicle, the Descendants of Áedán mac Gabráin, 
and the “Principal Kindreds of Dál Riata” ’, Northern Studies 38, 77–96.
Fraser, J. E., 2006, ‘Dux Reuda and the Corcu Réti’, in Cànan & Cultar /
Language and Culture: Rannsachadh na Gàidhlig 3, ed. W. McLeod and others 
(Edinburgh), 1–9.
Hennessy, W. M., ed., 1887, Annals of Ulster Vol. 1 (Dublin).
Mac Airt, S. and G. Mac Niocaill, eds, 1983, The Annals of Ulster (to A.D. 
1131) (Dublin).
Mac Neill, J. [i.e. Eoin], 1911–12, ‘Early Irish Population-Groups: their nomen-
clature, classification, and chronology’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 
29C, 59–114.
Varia
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148
Macquarrie, A., 1993, ‘The Kings of Strathclyde, c. 400–1018’, in Medieval 
Scotland: crown, lordship and community, ed. A. Grant and K. J. Stringer 
(Edinburgh), 1–19.
Stokes, W., ed., 1993, The Annals of Tigernach Vol. 1 (Felinfach) [first published 
1896, Revue Celtique 17].
VSC = Vita Sancti Columbae: Anderson and Anderson 1991.
Watson, W. J., 1926, The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh 
and London).
PITMICLARDIE IN FIFE
Robert Henery and Simon Taylor
W. J. Watson’s The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland 1 is without doubt 
the single most important work published on Scottish toponymics, and, while 
Watson is not infallible, everything he says on the subject of place-names has to 
be given careful consideration. For a long time now I have been aware of a name 
which he lists as an example of a Pit-place-name containing a personal name: 
“Pitmiclardie in Fife is for Peit mhic Flaithbheartaigh, ‘MacLaverty’s share’; the 
personal name means ‘Rule-bearing’” (408–09). I have worked on Fife place-
names for many years and this name has always eluded, intrigued, and worried 
me. I was therefore delighted to see that Robert (Bob) Henery has solved the 
problem. It is a salutary lesson to anyone working with Scottish place-names 
not to base too much on a single, late form.                                               (ST)
Pitmiclardie is a ghost name. It occurs only once in the historical record, in a 
context full of misheard or miscopied place-names, and even then it is given as an 
alternative: ‘the lands of Pittencardie (or Pittmiclardie)’ (1654 Retours (Fife) no. 
1591). Pittencardie is easily identified: it was the property of the Buchanans of 
Leny PER in the 16th century and was almost always paired with Ledenurquhart, 
Strathmiglo FIF. It is first recorded in the Tax Roll of Fife in 1517. This exists 
in two printed versions. In the more reliable, it appears as Pitincartie and Lady 
Urquhart (Purves 151).2  It is Pittuncarty, Abernethy PER, a farm just a mile to 
James E. Fraser
1 Published 1926, it has been re-printed numerous times, the most recent being a paperback 
edition, with a new introduction, corrigenda, some addenda and a full W. J. Watson 
bibliography by Simon Taylor (Birlinn, 2004).
2 The less reliable, but more accessible, version of this Tax Roll derives from Robert Sibbald’s 
History of Fife and Kinross (1710; 2nd edn Cupar, 1803), reproduced by W. C. Dickinson in Fife 
Ct. Bk., Appendix G, where, in the words of the editor, ‘no attempt has been made to correct 
Sibbald’s numerous misreadings of the place-names’ (p. 394). This source has clearly misread t 
for l in Pittuncarlie and Leaden Urquhal (p. 396).
JSNS 1, 2007, 148–50


Picts in the West in the 670s? Some thoughts on AU 673.3 and AU 676.3

Grant, Alison

179
Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1910–11). It may also be worth noting that a 
number of the words initially presented as Scandinavian borrowings could, 
as the more detailed discussion usually explains, have alternative origins. 
For example, ‘msch. misdeme Vb. < an. misdæma’ (p. 324) [‘misjudge’], 
could simply be a native construction from mis- and deme (p. 325). Such 
ambiguities should encourage the reader to examine each case in detail in 
order to take account of the more complex picture underlying the inception 
of each Scots word.
By regarding Scots as a separate language, and keeping this important 
cultural distinction firmly in view, this study has pursued research questions 
that might not otherwise have been proposed. Not only that, but Kries 
has successfully identified a whole stratum of linguistic interaction which 
would otherwise have been inadvertently suppressed if Scots were simply 
regarded as a dialect of English without a cultural context of its own. That 
Kries’s work was so ably facilitated by DOST also serves as a testament to the 
important achievements that have been made in the historical lexicography 
of Scots. The tables that summarise her findings for each lexical item provide 
a very clear statement of the impact of the Scandinavian languages (pp. 
473–98). Kries work forms a very valuable contribution to the history of 
Scots, and effectively dispels the myth that there is little to be gained from 
an assessment of Scots as a separate language.
MARGARET SCOTT, Scottish Language Dictionaries
Diana Whaley, A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names, EPNS Regional 
Series Volume 1, Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, 2006. lv + 423 
pp. £20. ISBN 0-904889-72-6
Diana Whaley’s A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names is an estimable 
foundation for the English Place-Name Society’s Regional Series. The remit 
of the book is to provide coverage of ‘the place-names shown on the Ordnance 
Survey One Inch map of the Lake District … falling within the boundaries 
of the Lake District National Park’ (p. xi). This is delivered in an attractively 
produced and well-illustrated book, whose format ensures suitability for 
a wide readership. An extremely thorough introduction offers a valuable 
summary of the historical and linguistic background to the place-names of 
North-West England. There is also a detailed guide to using the dictionary, 
including a sample entry, explanation of the layout and a comprehensive list 
of abbreviations helpful to those unfamiliar with toponymic terminology, 
all of which will undoubtedly ensure that this volume is more readily 
accessible to the general readership than the relevant EPNS Survey volumes. 
Reviews
JSNS 1, 2007, 179–81
180
The plentiful supply of historical spellings and the extensive bibliography 
will be reassuring to the more academic readership, as will the carefully-
compiled elements index. Rather than simply assembling an alphabetical 
list of definitions of frequently-occurring elements, the author discusses 
each entry in context, and potential alternative meanings are carefully 
considered. Particularly pertinent to this section is that whilst the indexes 
of elements in older publications conventionally provided only the earliest 
form of a place-name element as it appears in the root language, often 
creating a misleading sense of antiquity, Whaley has helpfully addressed 
this imbalance by providing where relevant the more modern reflexes of 
each element. 
The EPNS volumes for the former counties of Cumberland and 
Westmorland date from 1950–52 and 1967 respectively, and since their 
publication a significant body of work has been produced on the North-
West of England, most notably Gillian Fellows-Jensen’s seminal publication 
Scandinavian Settlement Names in the North-West (1985). Whaley’s book 
incorporates material from the useful but dated EPNS volumes together with 
material from both subsequent scholarship and her own original field-work 
and archive-work. This offers a fresh perspective on the undeniably complex 
linguistic situation in the North-West of England, which incorporates the 
Brittonic, Anglian, Gaelic and Scandinavian languages, and as such will 
no doubt be of use to anyone interested in areas of Scotland with a similar 
linguistic blend, for example, Dumfries and Galloway in the south-west.
This new publication reflects the fact that scholarly opinion regarding 
the Lake District has evolved over the last half-century. For example, the 
Cumberland and Westmorland Surveys both indicated that Ireland was the 
likely point of origin for the Gaelic-Scandinavian immigrants to the North-
West (see Armstrong and others, The Place-Names of Cumberland, p. xxiii, 
and Smith, The Place-Names of Westmorland, p. xli) but, as Whaley notes, 
current scholarship favours the theory that the settlers migrated not from 
Ireland but from the western seaboard of Scotland (p. xxiii).
Another issue which arises in the Lake District which is also pertinent 
to Scotland is the problem of differentiating between the Brittonic and 
Goidelic branches of the Celtic family of languages in place-name 
formations, due to profusion of cognate elements. For example, Whaley 
notes that the editors of the EPNS volumes for Westmorland offered 
Brittonic etymologies for glen- names such as Glencoyne and Glenridding, 
namely *glinn ‘valley’ and cawn ‘reed-grass’ in the case of the former name, 
and *glinn ‘valley’ and rhedyn ‘fern, bracken’ in the case of the latter (Smith, 
The Place-Names of Westmorland Vol. 2, 222–23). Whaley points out that 
Alison Grant
181
more recent scholarship indicates that *glinn is relatively uncommon in 
Brittonic place-names, and where it does occur it is usually in simplex form, 
‘whereas its Gaelic equivalent gleann is extremely prolific in Scottish and 
Irish p.n.s, often qualified by following adjs or nouns’ (p. 400). She suggests 
that Glencoyne may be a purely Gaelic name, containing gleann and Gaelic 
cáin, Ir. caoin ‘pleasant, fair’ (p. 132). [Editor adds: for the Scottish reader, 
the terminology here is a little misleading, since ‘Gaelic’ in its second 
occurrence in this sentence clearly refers to Old Irish, rather than to modern 
Scottish Gaelic, its usual meaning, especially when contrasted with Irish. 
In Terms & Abbreviations (p. xlii) ‘Gaelic’ is equated with Goidelic, ‘the 
p-Celtic [recte Q-Celtic] group of languages comprising Irish, Scottish and 
Manx Gaelic.’ Even by this definition, the labelling of cáin as Gaelic, caoin 
as Irish is confusing. The use of Old Gaelic, a term which could usefully 
be applied more by Scottish toponymists, might help here.] She also raises 
the intriguing possibility that Glenridding, together with some of the other 
glen-names in the Lake District, might have been created by the addition 
of gleann to pre-existing Brittonic stream names by Gaelic-Scandinavian 
immigrants (p. 400). This type of discussion regarding the complexities of 
linguistic interaction should prove extremely valuable to anyone attempting 
to tackle similar issues in place-names north of the border.
It is regrettable that the coverage of the book does not extend to the 
study of field names, although this is understandably beyond the scope of 
a single-volume dictionary covering such an extensive geographical area. 
Similarly, it would have been useful to have seen a larger selection of maps, 
perhaps detailing the distribution of individual generics. However, this may 
also fall into the category of pushing this publication beyond its remit, 
and A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names is otherwise a remarkably 
comprehensive piece of work.
ALISON GRANT, University of Glasgow
Reviews


Diana Whaley: A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names

Taylor, Simon

Henery, Robert

148
Macquarrie, A., 1993, ‘The Kings of Strathclyde, c. 400–1018’, in Medieval 
Scotland: crown, lordship and community, ed. A. Grant and K. J. Stringer 
(Edinburgh), 1–19.
Stokes, W., ed., 1993, The Annals of Tigernach Vol. 1 (Felinfach) [first published 
1896, Revue Celtique 17].
VSC = Vita Sancti Columbae: Anderson and Anderson 1991.
Watson, W. J., 1926, The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland (Edinburgh 
and London).
PITMICLARDIE IN FIFE
Robert Henery and Simon Taylor
W. J. Watson’s The History of the Celtic Place-Names of Scotland 1 is without doubt 
the single most important work published on Scottish toponymics, and, while 
Watson is not infallible, everything he says on the subject of place-names has to 
be given careful consideration. For a long time now I have been aware of a name 
which he lists as an example of a Pit-place-name containing a personal name: 
“Pitmiclardie in Fife is for Peit mhic Flaithbheartaigh, ‘MacLaverty’s share’; the 
personal name means ‘Rule-bearing’” (408–09). I have worked on Fife place-
names for many years and this name has always eluded, intrigued, and worried 
me. I was therefore delighted to see that Robert (Bob) Henery has solved the 
problem. It is a salutary lesson to anyone working with Scottish place-names 
not to base too much on a single, late form.                                               (ST)
Pitmiclardie is a ghost name. It occurs only once in the historical record, in a 
context full of misheard or miscopied place-names, and even then it is given as an 
alternative: ‘the lands of Pittencardie (or Pittmiclardie)’ (1654 Retours (Fife) no. 
1591). Pittencardie is easily identified: it was the property of the Buchanans of 
Leny PER in the 16th century and was almost always paired with Ledenurquhart, 
Strathmiglo FIF. It is first recorded in the Tax Roll of Fife in 1517. This exists 
in two printed versions. In the more reliable, it appears as Pitincartie and Lady 
Urquhart (Purves 151).2  It is Pittuncarty, Abernethy PER, a farm just a mile to 
James E. Fraser
1 Published 1926, it has been re-printed numerous times, the most recent being a paperback 
edition, with a new introduction, corrigenda, some addenda and a full W. J. Watson 
bibliography by Simon Taylor (Birlinn, 2004).
2 The less reliable, but more accessible, version of this Tax Roll derives from Robert Sibbald’s 
History of Fife and Kinross (1710; 2nd edn Cupar, 1803), reproduced by W. C. Dickinson in Fife 
Ct. Bk., Appendix G, where, in the words of the editor, ‘no attempt has been made to correct 
Sibbald’s numerous misreadings of the place-names’ (p. 394). This source has clearly misread t 
for l in Pittuncarlie and Leaden Urquhal (p. 396).
JSNS 1, 2007, 148–50
149
the east of the farm of Ledenurquhart. The Fife-Perthshire border now passes 
between the two, but up until 1891 Pittuncarty was in that part of Abernethy 
parish which lay in Fife. It is clear, therefore, that Pitmiclardie is a confusion of 
Pittencardie, an earlier form of Pittuncarty.
The confusion does not begin or end there, however. Pitwhanatrie, Forteviot 
PER, 10km (six miles) west of Pittuncarty, is recorded earlier than Pittuncarty, 
first appearing in 1392 as Petqwhonardy. Though Pitwhanatrie is no longer on 
the maps, its site is about 100m north west of Craighead farm, in the Ochils. 
Curiously it too belonged to the Buchanans of Leny. It was still in their hands 
in 1532 (RMS iii no. 1233), when Patrick Buchanan laird of Leny held the 
lands of Pitwhanatrie and the lands of Ledenurquhart Wester, Pittuncarty and 
Ledenurquhart Easter, in the parish of Strathmiglo (Pitquhanarty et terrarum 
de Ladinurquhart-Westir, Pytthunquharty et Ladinurquhart-Estir, in parochia de 
Strameglo). Pitquhanarty is clearly not the same place as Pytthunquharty, but the 
two places are linked by their mutual association with Ledenurquhart and by 
common ownership by the Buchanans of Leny. The stress in Pitwhanatrie is on 
the second syllable, and this may have influenced the modern pronunciation of 
Pittuncarty, which is also stressed on the second syllable.3 
Variants of Pittuncarty have generated some fanciful theories as to its origin. 
Without realising that the three names all refer to the same place, W. J. N. Liddall 
in his book, Place Names of Fife (1896), gives three wildly differing origins: 
‘Pitlumbertie (1542) Pette+lann+Brigit = portion of St Bride’; Pittoncardy (1557) 
‘Pette+cearda = portion of the artificers’; Pittmiclardie (1654) = ‘McClarty’s 
portion’.                      (RH)
PITTUNCARTY, ABERNETHY PER 
(PRE-1891 ABERNETHY FIF) NO190115
Early Forms
Pitincartie 1517 Purves 151
Pittuncarlie 1517 Fife Ct. Bk. 396 [for Pittuncartie]
Pytthunquharty 1532 RMS iii no. 1233
Petlunbertie 1542 Retours (Fife) no. 1 [indexed as Pitlumbertie]
Pittoncardy 1557 RMS iv no. 1190
Pittencardie (or Pittmiclardie) 1654 Retours (Fife) no. 1591 [the latter form is 
partly the result of a misreading (through minim confusion) of *Pittinclardie 
or the like]
Pittoncharrey 1654 Blaeu (Pont) East Fife
Pittunkarty 1654 Blaeu (Gordon) Fife [also Gordon MS map]
Varia
3 If the analysis suggested below is correct, however, Pittuncarty has always borne the stress on 
the second syllable.
150
Discussion
‘Land-holding (Gaelic pett) of (the) ?longphort’. Gaelic longphort originally 
meant ‘ship-harbour’, clearly not applicable to this upland farm, but which 
early came to mean any encampment, and later developed meanings such as 
‘sheiling’ and ‘hunting booth’. The word has given rise to several important 
place-names, including Luncarty PER (stressed on the first syllable), and is 
discussed by Watson (1926, 493–95).
Pittuncarty is pronounced with the stress on the second syllable.       (ST)
REFERENCES
Fife Ct. Bk.: The Sheriff Court Book of Fife 1515–22, ed. W. C. Dickinson (SHS 
1928).
Purves: Sir William Purves, Revenue of the Scottish Crown 1681, ed. D. M. Rose 
(1897).
Retours: Inquisitionum ad Capellam Domini Regis Retornatarum, quae in publicis 
archivis Scotiae adhuc servantur, Abbreviatio, 3 vols, ed. T. Thomson (1811–
16): Vol. 1 Fife and Kinross.
RMS: Registrum Magni Sigilli Regum Scottorum, ed. J. M. Thomson and others 
(Edinburgh 1882–1914).
ENDRICK AND LUNAN
Jacob King, University of Edinburgh
1. ENDRICK
There are two examples of this name in Scotland: 
(i) Endrick Water NS4258961  STL
in Anneric, in Annerech 1234 × c.1270 Lenn. Cart. 34
infra aquam de Hanerch’ 1371 RRS vi no. 478 [original document]
Ainrick fl. c. 1590 Pont map 17 
Ainrick fl. c. 1590 Pont map 32
aquarum de Enrich et Auldcher 1617 Retours i (Dunbartonshire) no. 19 
Ainrik river c. 1640 Pont text 140r 
piscariis aquarum de Enrick et Auldhor, 1646 Retours i (Dunbartonshire) no. 45 
Anarici fluminis 1654, p. 66 Blaeu text
in Annerico amne 1654, p. 66 Blaeu text
amnes Innericum 1654, p. 67 Blaeu text [‘jacens inter amnes Innericum, 
Blanum, Kelvinum, Clydam, & Levinum’]
Robert Henery and Simon Taylor
1 All co-ordinates for river names relate to their lowest point.
JSNS 1, 2007, 150–56


Pitmiclardie in Fife

Hammond, Matthew H.

The Use of the Name Scot in the Central Middle Ages Part I: Scot as a by-name

McNiven, Peter

The Gart-names of Clackmannanshire

King, Jakob

Topographical Varia: Endrick and Lunan

174
too one-dimensional in our linguistic analyses of names – without chance 
oral recording, lateral thinking alone would not have been sufficient to 
indicate that March Brown and Seagull Field commemorates, respectively, 
a Colonel Brown of military gait, and a one-legged bird famed for surveying 
the fieldwork from a favourite vantage point on a gate (p. 78).
PEADAR MORGAN, University of St Andrews
George Broderick, A Dictionary of Manx Place-Names. English Place-Name 
Society: Nottingham, 2006. 234 pp. £14.00. ISBN 0-904889-71-8
For the non-academic interested in Manx place-names, or anyone without 
several hundred pounds to spare, the much shorter Dictionary of Manx 
Place-Names is a concise version of the seven-volume Placenames of the Isle 
of Man series (see pp. 157–68 of this volume). It has an excellent series of 
introductions to the main corpus of the dictionary, with brief discussions 
of the various linguistic strata, a bibliography and parish maps of Man. 
The main weakness here is the pronunciation guide. Whilst the multi-
volume series uses the International Phonetic Alphabet, the approach here 
is somewhat ad hoc. For instance the vowel represented in the International 
Phonetic Alphabet as [:] is represented as ‘ar’, intuitive for a speaker of 
Southern English, but surely confusing for most other readers.
The main body of the book comprises the dictionary, which is divided 
into general names, treen names, and parish names. I found this decision 
slightly puzzling, since the average user of this book would not know into 
which category any particular name fell. Within these sections, each entry is 
listed in strict alphabetical order, giving the head-form, parish, four-figure 
OS grid reference, pronounciation, old forms, derivation and discussion, 
and type of place signified. The old forms, presumably for reasons of brevity, 
are only given with dates, not sources, greatly reducing the usefulness of this 
book for the more serious researcher. It is to be commended, however, that, 
as with the seven-volume series, the cognates of many of the Manx elements 
are given in Scottish Gaelic or Irish Gaelic orthography; for instance, under 
the entry for AWIN BALLOO (p. 5), the derivation is given as, ‘Manx 
(Mx) awin ny balloo, Gaelic (G) abhainn nam balbh, ‘river of the deaf 
people’.’ As to the selection of a name from the larger corpus for inclusion 
in this one-volume work, it would seem to be heavily biased towards the 
Manx and Scandinavian names and away from later English names.
The parish sections are usefully introduced by a short parochial history 
and a discussion of the relevant patron saints, and enhanced by illustrations 
dating from 1830 of each parish church.
Jacob King
JSNS 1, 2007, 174–75
175
After the dictionary sections comes the place-name elements index, 
cross-referencing Manx terms with its cognates in other languages, e.g. Mx 
noa ‘new’ has its own entry, as does ScG nuadh ‘new’. The listing of all 
names containing this element within the dictionary is a welcome policy. 
One criticism here would be of the decision to treat elements separately 
depending on their orthography. For instance, names cognate with ScG 
dubh ‘black’ are to be found under two entries: one under dhoo, the 
dictionary head-word form, and another under doo-, which is how this 
element appears in many place-names. Since they do not stand next to 
each other in the list and are not cross-referenced, it would be very easy to 
miss one of these entries. Lastly there is a personal name index, each entry 
mentioning the place-name in which the personal name occurs. 
These criticisms of organisation of material and editorial policy do little 
to detract from the excellence of this book as a popular and affordable guide 
to Manx toponymy which has so much of interest, both intrinsically and 
for the countries which surround it.
JACOB KING, University of Edinburgh
Susanne Kries, Skandinavisch-schottische Sprachbeziehungen im Mittelalter: 
Der altnordische Lehneinfluss, in North-Western European Language Evolution 
Supplement Vol. 20, Odense: University Press of South Denmark, 2003. xii + 
498 pp. 375.00kr. ISBN 87-7838-873-2
Susanne Kries invites her readers to reconsider the historical interaction 
between Scotland and Scandinavia and the impact of these cultural 
connections on the development of Scots. As she states in the English 
summary of her work, it is a major concern of hers to question ‘the 
convention of previous scholarship ... to regard Older and Middle Scots as 
variants of Middle English.’ While she is not the first scholar to disagree 
with this convention or to discuss its weaknesses, she is entirely correct to 
raise the issue and to demonstrate some of the ways in which such a view has 
prevented adequate attention being paid to ‘the intercultural and linguistic 
connections that spanned the northern North Sea and linked Scotland with 
Scandinavia.’ If Scots is treated as a separate language, it then becomes 
necessary for etymologists to re-examine the assumption that all Scots words 
of Scandinavian origin entered the language via Middle English. As Kries 
amply demonstrates with this work, the argument previously advanced by 
many scholars, including the late A. J. Aitken, that ‘there exist practically 
no Scottish borrowings from Scandinavian, which are not also northern 
Reviews
JSNS 1, 2007, 175–79


George Broderick: A Dictionary of Manx Place-Names

Scott, Margaret

175
After the dictionary sections comes the place-name elements index, 
cross-referencing Manx terms with its cognates in other languages, e.g. Mx 
noa ‘new’ has its own entry, as does ScG nuadh ‘new’. The listing of all 
names containing this element within the dictionary is a welcome policy. 
One criticism here would be of the decision to treat elements separately 
depending on their orthography. For instance, names cognate with ScG 
dubh ‘black’ are to be found under two entries: one under dhoo, the 
dictionary head-word form, and another under doo-, which is how this 
element appears in many place-names. Since they do not stand next to 
each other in the list and are not cross-referenced, it would be very easy to 
miss one of these entries. Lastly there is a personal name index, each entry 
mentioning the place-name in which the personal name occurs. 
These criticisms of organisation of material and editorial policy do little 
to detract from the excellence of this book as a popular and affordable guide 
to Manx toponymy which has so much of interest, both intrinsically and 
for the countries which surround it.
JACOB KING, University of Edinburgh
Susanne Kries, Skandinavisch-schottische Sprachbeziehungen im Mittelalter: 
Der altnordische Lehneinfluss, in North-Western European Language Evolution 
Supplement Vol. 20, Odense: University Press of South Denmark, 2003. xii + 
498 pp. 375.00kr. ISBN 87-7838-873-2
Susanne Kries invites her readers to reconsider the historical interaction 
between Scotland and Scandinavia and the impact of these cultural 
connections on the development of Scots. As she states in the English 
summary of her work, it is a major concern of hers to question ‘the 
convention of previous scholarship ... to regard Older and Middle Scots as 
variants of Middle English.’ While she is not the first scholar to disagree 
with this convention or to discuss its weaknesses, she is entirely correct to 
raise the issue and to demonstrate some of the ways in which such a view has 
prevented adequate attention being paid to ‘the intercultural and linguistic 
connections that spanned the northern North Sea and linked Scotland with 
Scandinavia.’ If Scots is treated as a separate language, it then becomes 
necessary for etymologists to re-examine the assumption that all Scots words 
of Scandinavian origin entered the language via Middle English. As Kries 
amply demonstrates with this work, the argument previously advanced by 
many scholars, including the late A. J. Aitken, that ‘there exist practically 
no Scottish borrowings from Scandinavian, which are not also northern 
Reviews
JSNS 1, 2007, 175–79
176
M[iddle] E[nglish]’ (quoted on p. 419) is untenable. A list of the words 
identified by Kries as occurring in medieval Scots but not medieval English 
is provided (pp. 414–19) and her conclusions invite further investigations 
of this area of research.
Besides this important clarification of linguistic relationships, Kries 
succeeds in illuminating a number of other historical issues, including the 
likelihood of ‘primary Scandinavian influence in the region of southwest 
Scotland, reflecting direct contact between Scandinavians and Angles 
living there during the 9th and 10th centuries.’ Her early chapters provide 
extensive background information on the topics in question, discussing the 
known evidence for Scandinavian influence in Scotland and providing a 
useful account of the history and lexicography of Older and Middle Scots. 
While many other works address these same issues, there is something of 
a tradition, in studies of this type, for the author to provide a diachronic 
assessment of Scots which facilitates the assertion of their own views 
regarding the much-debated question of linguistic status. No two studies 
are exactly alike, and the objectivity that non-British commentators are able 
to bring to the debate is often refreshing. Kries’s account is informative, and 
its reference to numerous recent publications reflects the current healthy 
state of Scots scholarship at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Further chapters examine the historical influence of Scandinavians and 
Anglo-Saxons on Scotland and England, with particular regard to language 
contact and change, though her discussion of the theoretical approaches is 
perhaps a little too involved for this context. Following the introductory and 
supporting chapters is the real substance of this work, the extensive section 
which analyses many of the Scandinavian loanwords in Old and Middle 
Scots. She divides this material into the following semantic categories: 
everyday words (closed class words, colours, household objects, clothing, 
communication, parts of the body and miscellaneous terms), fauna, flora, 
trades, crafts, warfare, agriculture and husbandry, units of measurement, law 
and administration, seafaring, topography and environment, and abstract 
terms. A thorough index of all Middle Scots terms under discussion is 
provided at the end of the book.
Each category contains discussions of the individual words in question, 
providing the earliest known Scots uses and meanings (mainly from A 
Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (DOST  )) and comparative evidence 
from England where available. Kries often includes place-name evidence 
from Scotland and England in her analysis. Given the focus of this new 
journal, it seems appropriate to provide some assessment of the use of name 
evidence. Her discussion of Middle Scots kell ‘a spring, fountain, headspring’ 
Margaret Scott
177
from Old Norse kelda, for instance, includes reference to the 13th-century 
place-name forms Keldeleth and Kyldeleth. It is unfortunate that the 
corresponding modern name, Kinleith, and its Midlothian location are not 
specified, as such information cannot be inferred. Although the source for 
this information is not provided, a comparison with the entry for kell n.2 
in DOST quickly solves this problem, without further recourse to trawling 
through the various onomastic publications listed in the bibliography. Kries 
has largely relied on DOST ’s place-name evidence without pursuing such 
matters further. Kinleith, for example, was discussed by Norman Dixon in 
his PhD thesis, ‘The Placenames of Midlothian’ (University of Edinburgh 
1947), but there is no mention of Dixon in Kries’ otherwise extensive 
bibliography. There is also no evidence to suggest that other pioneering 
works such as May Williamson’s PhD thesis, ‘The Non-Celtic Place-Names 
of the Scottish Border Counties’ (University of Edinburgh 1942) and 
Angus Macdonald’s The Place-Names of West Lothian (Edinburgh 1941) 
were consulted. Nevertheless, it is encouraging to see this type of linguistic 
analysis accord due status to onomastic evidence, rather than restricting its 
scope to lexis.
Although relying substantially on the mainstays of Scots and English 
historical lexicography – DOST, the Scottish National Dictionary (SND), the 
Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and the Middle English Dictionary (MED) 
– Kries also consults further resources as necessary. A typical example entry 
is that for Middle Scots holm, borrowed from Old Norse holmr, holmi (p. 
366):
msch. holm Sb. < an. holmr, holmi
SCHOTTISCH: ‘a stretch of low-lying land beside a river, a meadow’ 
(seit a1230 Liber Calchou 81, 1386 Bk. Carlaverock, Wynt.), auf 
den Orkneys und Shetlands auch ‘an islet’ (seit 1535, vorweigend in 
Urkunden);
ENGLISCH: bereits im Spätaltenglischen in der Bedeutung ‘a small 
island’ (Angelsächsischen Chronik MS C an. 902); im Mittelenglischen 
begegnet das Lexem in dieser Bedeutung in PParv. und schließlich 
erst wieder im Frühneuenglischen (1556 W. Towrson in Hakluyt Voy. 
(1589)). Daneben sind ‘hill’ (Lay. Brut) und ‘a stretch of low-lying land 
beside a river’ (seit (c1200) Reg. Lin. in Lin. RS 34 183, c1350 (904) 
Chart. in Birch Cart. Sax. 2.264) bezeugt.
DISKUSSION: Die Bedeutung von ae. holm ist ‘sea, wave, ocean, 
water’ (nur in poetischer Verwendung), von as. holm ‘hill’ und von an. 
holmr, holmi ‘islet, holm’. Das Lexem begegnet in Ortsnamen, z. B. in 
Reviews
178
Kerlyngholm (c1240) und Mikylholmesyd (c1320). Die unterschiedliche 
Semantik des Lexems im Altenglischen – ‘sea, wave, ocean’ einerseits und 
‘a small island’ andererseits – scheint nahezulegen, daß das heimische 
Lexem zum Ende der altenglischen Zeit bzw. im Frühmittelenglischen 
(nach Ausweis von Lay. Brut) unterging und im Spätaltenglischen erneut 
durch Entlehnung aus dem Skandinavischen, jetzt in der Bedeutung 
‘island, holm’, in den englischen Wortschatz drang. Gestützt wird 
diese Annahme durch Interpretation der Ortsnamensbelege, die dieses 
Element zeigen (vgl. Smith I 1956:258–9).
QUELLE: an. holmr, holmi ‘islet, holm’;
‘Middle Scots (MSc) holm noun < Old Norse (ON) holmr, holmi
SCOTS ... on the Orkneys and Shetlands also ‘an islet’ (from 1535, 
predominantly in documents);
ENGLISH: already in late Old English (OE) with the meaning ‘a small island’ 
... in Middle English (ME) the word is found with this meaning in PParv and 
not again until early Modern English ... There is also evidence for ‘hill’ ... and 
‘a stretch of low-lying land beside a river’.
DISCUSSION: The meaning of OE holm is ‘sea, wave, ocean, water’ (only in 
poetry), from Old Saxon ‘hill’ and from ON holmr, holmi ‘islet, holm’. The word 
is found in place-names, e.g. in Kerlyngholm (c. 1240) und Mikylholmesyd 
(c. 1320). The various meanings of the word in OE – on the one hand ‘sea, 
wave, ocean’, on the other ‘a small island’ – strongly suggest that the native 
word disappeared at the end of the OE or in the early ME period (as seen 
in Lay. Brut.) only to re-enter English vocabulary in the late OE period as a 
Scandinavian loan-word, with the meaning ‘island, holm’. This supposition is 
supported by the interpretation of place-names which contain this element (cf. 
Smith I, 1956, 258–59).
SOURCE: Old Norse holmr, holmi ‘islet, holm’;’
As I hope this example serves to demonstrate, Kries’s analysis of individual 
Scots words and their origins is presented in an accessible format which 
is reasonably (and practically) sympathetic to readers lacking fluency in 
German. The synthesis of information in each entry provides a very 
convenient overview of onomastic and lexical data. These qualities 
notwithstanding, there are perhaps some additional reference materials 
which could have been consulted. There is no mention, for example, of 
Ásgeir Blöndal Magnússon’s Íslensk Orðsifjabók (1989), even though it 
contains a wealth of information about Scandinavian etymologies and often 
provides a different perspective from that found in Jan de Vries’ Altnordisches 
Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1962) or Falk and Torp’s Norwegisch-Dänisches 
Margaret Scott
179
Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1910–11). It may also be worth noting that a 
number of the words initially presented as Scandinavian borrowings could, 
as the more detailed discussion usually explains, have alternative origins. 
For example, ‘msch. misdeme Vb. < an. misdæma’ (p. 324) [‘misjudge’], 
could simply be a native construction from mis- and deme (p. 325). Such 
ambiguities should encourage the reader to examine each case in detail in 
order to take account of the more complex picture underlying the inception 
of each Scots word.
By regarding Scots as a separate language, and keeping this important 
cultural distinction firmly in view, this study has pursued research questions 
that might not otherwise have been proposed. Not only that, but Kries 
has successfully identified a whole stratum of linguistic interaction which 
would otherwise have been inadvertently suppressed if Scots were simply 
regarded as a dialect of English without a cultural context of its own. That 
Kries’s work was so ably facilitated by DOST also serves as a testament to the 
important achievements that have been made in the historical lexicography 
of Scots. The tables that summarise her findings for each lexical item provide 
a very clear statement of the impact of the Scandinavian languages (pp. 
473–98). Kries work forms a very valuable contribution to the history of 
Scots, and effectively dispels the myth that there is little to be gained from 
an assessment of Scots as a separate language.
MARGARET SCOTT, Scottish Language Dictionaries
Diana Whaley, A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names, EPNS Regional 
Series Volume 1, Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, 2006. lv + 423 
pp. £20. ISBN 0-904889-72-6
Diana Whaley’s A Dictionary of Lake District Place-Names is an estimable 
foundation for the English Place-Name Society’s Regional Series. The remit 
of the book is to provide coverage of ‘the place-names shown on the Ordnance 
Survey One Inch map of the Lake District … falling within the boundaries 
of the Lake District National Park’ (p. xi). This is delivered in an attractively 
produced and well-illustrated book, whose format ensures suitability for 
a wide readership. An extremely thorough introduction offers a valuable 
summary of the historical and linguistic background to the place-names of 
North-West England. There is also a detailed guide to using the dictionary, 
including a sample entry, explanation of the layout and a comprehensive list 
of abbreviations helpful to those unfamiliar with toponymic terminology, 
all of which will undoubtedly ensure that this volume is more readily 
accessible to the general readership than the relevant EPNS Survey volumes. 
Reviews
JSNS 1, 2007, 179–81


Susanne Kries: Skandinavisch-schottische Sprachbeziehungen im Mittelalter: Der altnordische Lehneinfluss

Sliabh in Scottish Place-names: its meaning and chronology

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