SIB FOLK NEWS - Orkney Family History Society

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6 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY Issue No. 47 September 2008 WHAT’S IN A PLACE NAME ? Concentrated in its small geographical area, Orkney has a particularly rich and varied history of place names. Interest in the subject increases with time as people try to understand something of the meaning that place names convey about the lay of the land and who owned it, what it was used for, how it was divided up and developed, changes that took place over the centuries and all that still goes on. When family groups stayed a long time in one place, lasting centuries in some cases, they became closely linked to their environment to the extent that the family took the name of the land; thus the old area of Delday in Deerness gave the surname Delday; similarily the Skeaton district in Deerness has its continuity in the surname Skea. Both of these are good old Orcadian surnames to this day. It may be that before populations increased and surnames became essential, an older form of identification was used, and not only in Orkney. The first name of an adult man was followed my his place-name, usually the portion of land where he lived, and the two names were linked by o’ for short. So everyone would know where John o’ Grind, Davie o’ Fea, Robbie o’ Holland all belonged to in a parish. When there was little movement of people from outwith a parish, or indeed within it, there was no need for surnames. Fast-track now to the late 20th century – the troubles in Northern Ireland are in full swing and an Irishman brings his family safely to Orkney for security. In time he gets to know the County and some of its native people and expresses surprise to an Orcadian that so many Irish are living in Orkney. The Orcadian is equally surprised and asks how he has come to this conclusion. ‘Well’ says the Iriishman,’there is John o’ Newark, Billy o’ Donesquoy, Tam o’ Vestlebanks’. In the next few minutes of conversation all the ‘resident Irish’ were changed irrefutably into indigenous Orcadians. It is also said that a touch of class distinction was practised. If the head man of a family was both the occupier and proprietor of his land, the the word ‘of’ was used instead of the abbreviation o’, hence Alfred of Braebister. While static populations gave rise to certain family, and place names, the opposite is true. The largest early influx came with the Norse in the Viking Age with long-lasting effects, effects that fascinate people to this day. Then came the Scots and others, among them the mapmakers who Scotticised / Anglicised wonderfully descriptive and meaningful Old Norse names, leading us nowadays to have to delve into the past to appreciate their true mean- By Edna S. Panton. Member No 1094 ing. We are fortunate to have William Thomson’s recent book on the subject to fill the gap. Within living memory Orkney has had its fair share of population upheaval during the Second World War and for the previous generation, the First World War. The story which follows is a very small instance of how a combination of people, circumstance and environment can result in a place-name carrying a depth of history behind it. Visualise a tiny triangular patch of land, wet and marshy, where buttercups grow, which is such poor ground that it has never been cultivated. As such it has always been known as the ‘Myrrin’ belonging to Grind in the south-end of Deerness. Then came the First World War; a local man, James Sutherland, fought in the trenches in France and suffered the effects of gas. He was sent to a hospital in Leeds where he met a local girl, married and brought her back to Deerness. In the 1920s he built a small home on the ‘Myrrin’, and named it ‘Armlea Cottage’ after a district in Leeds, and everyone understood the reason for the attractive namer. Several occupancies later, Dr William Emslie bought the cottage for his family’s use at weekends and in the summertime. Both he and his wife belonged to Aberdeen and they renamed it ‘Persleyden’ which was and is a lovely area by the city and River Don. Once again a name had been taken from the original area of the owners and one that they liked. In the 1960s Agnes J. Petrie of Stonehall, Deerness, retired from the farm after over 40 years of life there. She bought Persleyden for her retirement home and had 21 years in it. During that time she toyed with the idea of changing the name on the basis that it had no Orkney connections and that she, an Orcadian born and bred, wished to have one with more local meaning. She was supported in this by my late husband, Norman A Panton, himself an Aberdonian, but who felt quite strongly about it. The onus fell on me to come up with a suitable name, one that would last, with hints of Old Norse if possible. The obvious was to call it ‘The Myrrin’, but on thinking on its interpretation, wet boggy and marshy ground, the answer was ‘No’. A natural spring would have given us the name ‘Keldur’, Old Norse for spring but that was rejected as a hard-sounding name. We also considered Old Norse names surrounding the shoreline of ‘Stonehall’; ‘Taracliff’, ‘Myzgar’, ‘Mahon’s’ and Rattans Gates’. ‘Dingeshowie’ and the field name ‘Suli’ were also possibles but the field of ‘Suli’ is in use to this day and we could not have kye being sent to the cottage insteadA
Issue No. 47 September 2008 NEWSLETTER OF THE ORKNEY FAMILY HISTORY SOCIETY 7 Fof the field. ‘Myzgar’, with a modern spelling, is still used in the parish and most of the others with the exception of ‘Taracliff’ did not sound right. Well we took the prefix ‘Tara’ and my husband suggested adding ‘homn’ which he heard meant haven in Old Norse. ‘Tarahomn’, we thought, had the right ring about it and for good measure we even put up a stone with the name at the front of the cottage. In a few years, we thought, probably no more than one hundred, people might be calling the cottage by its new name. But a little bit of the jigsaw remained a mystery. What is the Old Norse meaning of ‘Tara’? Several people, including our own Rev. Harold Mooney, had tried to solve it but it proved elusive. Then out of the blue we heard the word ‘Tara’ for the first and only time. We were watching a TV documentary on ‘The Year of the Bear’ with filming on the south shoreline of Shetland. One of those taking part was a well-known Shetlander, Mrs Rhoda Boulter. She spoke of her sister playing on this shoreline and how they used a ‘tara-heuk’. We both sat bolt upright and that evening I wrote to Rhoda Butler c/o BBC Lerwick. In two weeks came a letter of explanation. Sadly just two weeks later Rhoda had died. Rhoda, however, told us that ‘tara’ being connected to ‘Taracliff’ meant ‘where the waters meet and swirl around’. And that is how it is; ‘Taracliff’ faces southeastwards and in a southeasterly gale the waters certainly meet and swirl with a vengeance. So there we had it at last. ‘Tarahomn’; the haven at the meeting of the waters. It is a comfortable name, close to home, with Old Norse overtones, all rolled into one. There can be much to a place name. L 3 interesting items from Peter Leith James Coats The Paisley philanthropist Sir James Coats and the Stenness connection Eva Donald, member 1209, was seeking information in Sib News No 45 about the Paisley philanthropist and especially his generous gifts to Stenness which included ‘a thoroughly equipped library’ reading glasses for the p a r i s h i o n e r s who required that aid and school-bags for the children. Now, thanks to Peter Leith member 65, we have a picture of one of the schoolbags and it seems in fairly pristine condition. Also in the picture is the register of the Stenness Coats Library. From the size of the ledger the library appears to have been a well used facility. Putting Orkney, South Africa, on the map. Peter Leith, member No 65 was interested in the article ‘Putting Orkney on the World Map’ which appeared in Sib News No 46, June 2008. He points out, however that Item 6 referring to Orkney South Africa is not strictly accurate and has sent the following information extracted from a leaflet that came from Orkney, South Africa. This indicates that Thomas Smith Leask, an Orcadian Putting Orkney, South Africa, on the map FREE palaeography tutorial fortune hunter who came to South Africa in 1862, bought the Witkoppen farm situated on the banks of the Vaal River and began to mine gold on it. He registered the farm as the Orkney Gold Mining Company. He and a fellow director A M Campbell kept the mine active until 1892 and extracted 1228 ounces of gold from it. Orkney was to be proclaimed on 20 March 1940 on this very farm of Witkoppen where Leask and Campbell had dug for gold. The leaflet goes on to state that “It can be accepted that the name Orkney was derived from the Orkney Islands. ‘Orkn’ is the old Icelands for a sea lion and ‘Ey’ is the old Norse for islands. This is why a sea lion was chosen as an emblem for the town. Interested in reading old documents? Peter tells me that if you are interested in reading old handwriting, a FREE interactive website with an online palaeopgraphy tutorial is available at:www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/palaeography The National Archives is the national archive for England, Wales and the central UK government and it contains 900 years of history, from the Domesday Book to the present, with records ranging from parchment and scrolls through to recently created digital files and archived websites. Increasingly these records are being put online making them universally accessible. L
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