May Williamson: The Non-Celtic Place-Names of the Scottish Border ...

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SELKIRKSHIRE
HARTWOODMYRES (Slk):
Hartwoodmyirs: cf No XX.
A “lost” name is The Carsmyir, 1535 Dryb, in A St B. This may be Gael cars, MSc carse,
“ground in a river-valley” and mire.
There are four other names in -mire: Foulmire Heights (Cst), Queen’s Mire (Cst), Drakemire
(B & Pr) which has a parallel in Cu near Catlowdy, and Skipmyre (Tnw). None of these
names is likely to belong to the ON period. They are all MSc formations, made when mire
was already an element in the Southern Scots speech.
Miscellaneous terms for hills, rocks, etc.
/315/ XCIII
(a)
ON fjall, “fell, hill”, occurs sixteen times, but there are no early spellings. It is
coupled with diverse first elements. Capell Fell (Ettr and Dmf) contains ME kapall,
“horse” a Norse loan from Irish. Loch Fell (Esk) and Craig Fell (Wam) are Gaelic.
English terms appear in Dod Fell (Cst) and (Wstk), Black Fell (Mof) and perhaps
Cowan Fell (H & C). Scaw’d Fell (Wam) contains a Scots dialect word, Norse in
origin: see No XXXI. Several first elements now English have been Norse words
anglicised: Berryfell (Cav) from ON berg, Birny Fell (Cst) from ON brynja, Pike Fell
(Hbk) and (Ew) from ON pík, Hart Fell (Mof) and (H & C) from ON hjörtr, and Wind
Fell (Ettr) from ON vindr. All may nevertheless be simply dialect formations. Swatte
Fell (Mof) might contain ON svæði, “open, exposed space”. Names in Fell occur
south and east of the Teviot in Rxb, in the southern part of Slk, and east of the Annan
in Dmf. The few examples in /316/ Nb are in Upper Tynedale. The term is in most
common use in Cu and We. It is also found in La, Y and Shetland.
(b) ON brekka, “a slope”, is the terminal of Torbeckhill (Mid): Thorbrec, 1194-1214
HMC (Drml); Torbrack hilles, 1552 Bullock; Torbok hill, Torbackhills, Blaeu. Gael
torr, “rock”, as in Torthorwald, may be the first element: both exhibit spellings with
initial th-. But cf Tarbock, La: Torboc DB; Thorbok, 1243; originally Thorn-brook
(PN La 113, 263), which makes þorn a possible first element here.
(c)
(d)
ON hreysi, “cairn”, “heap of stones”, is probably the latter element of Clenries (Sqr),
Stenries (Cum) and Stenrieshill House (Wam). Clenries is Clenry, Blaeu, and may
have some other etymology. Stenries is Steinreis(bech), 1194-1214 HMC (Drml);
Stanrase, 1446-7 ib, Stanyris, 1450 RMS; Stanereis, 1544 ib, from ON stein-hreysi
“cairn of stones”.
ON sker, “rock, cliff”, appears as the ending of six names for which there are no early
forms. Redscar Law (Cad) may have scar (from Fr escare), /317/ in the sense of
“gash” as may Red Scar (Glc). The other examples may be Norse compounds: Kidd’s
Scar (Rbt) from ON kið “kid”, Berryscaur (H & C) from ON berg, and Hallscar (Pnp)
from ON hallr “slope”, or “big stone”. Whan Scar (Dor) is a rock on a sandbank in the