Volume 3 - Electric Scotland

ETYMOLOGIES OF THE ISLANDS. 145
there are nineteen islands in the Dean's geography, and
on the south side of Isla there are just two. If we allow
him the east also as south, there are only nine, and three of
these are rocks; and, as to the names themselves, Texa
and Churn are the only ones that remain.
Thus it probably is that I have failed in those which
I have not explained : yet with so much of the work done,
those who follow may perhaps complete the catalogue.
It is not merely the solving of etymological riddles. Had
it been no more, I might have suffered it all to sleep, as
it has long done. But the derivations of the insular
names are instructive in another manner ; as indicating
the country and origin of the insular population. It is
rarely that local names are changed by a new people,
by conquerors. If they adopt the language of the con-
quered, still more do they continue the names of places,
however they may modify them to the character of their
own language. That even the Romans followed this
practice, is too well known to require examples. Hence
it is that, when we find the far larger proportion of the
insular names to be of Scandinavian origin, we are en-
titled to conclude, not merely that they were inhabited by
a Scandinavian people, but that they were not previously
occupied by a Celtic one. We cannot indeed aver that
positively, from this circumstance alone : but it is highly
probable that if the islands had been originally peo-
pled by Celts, they would have displayed more Celtic
names. If not absolutely uninhabited by that original
race, we may at least safely conclude that they were very
scantily occupied before the Normannish invasions.
I am aware however that some uncertainty must
always remain, from the known similarity of the Gaelic
and Gothic tongues. Thus, in the Icelandic, there are
such common words as these, which are also Gaelic or
British: Ern, an eagle; Lind, a cascade ; Laag, a valley
VOL. 111. L
;