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

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Other names merely incorporate Danish elements. ODan klint (cf ON klettr) is seen in Clints
(Chan) /liii/ and Clinthill (Mrt). It may also be the first element of a lost *Clinkskaillis, near
Coldingham, the terminal of which, however, appears to be Norse.
Danish terms must have been accepted into the Southern Scots dialect at an early date.
Newbigging is no doubt a dialect formation rather than of Danish origin. Skaithmuir contains
ODan Skeið in some dialect sense not yet fully ascertained: cf Skaithmuir (PN WLth., 7). ON
titlingr, “meadow pipit”, occurs in Titling Cairn.
Such names as Fellcleugh, Scarlaw, Whitemire may have been formed at any date.
That one or two isolated Danish settlements occurred in Dumfriesshire is suggested by the
name Denbie (No LXXXI), which denotes “Danes’ village”. These must have been people
who crossed from the eastern colonies, following the route by which Halfdan harried the
Scots and British.
WEST COAST
The first Norwegian settlements on the west coasts were in the Hebrides, Man, and Ireland
where the Norse kingdom of Dublin was established in the latter half of the 9 th century. It was
from these bases, and not directly from Norway, that the Vikings descended upon North-West
England. Intensive settlement may have /liv/ begun in the first years of the 10 th century, when
King Ingemund, expelled from Dublin, was given land near Chester by Eðelfrida.
By 937 there must have been a considerable Norse population in the area where Brunanburh
was fought; and although defeated upon that occasion, the Norwegians were strong enough
six years later to drive the English forces as far south as Tamworth. In 945 the Norse in the
old Cumbrian area were so troublesome that Eadmund harried eall Cumbra Land, and gave it
to Malcolm, King of the Scots, in return for a promise of aid when required (ASC, a. 945).
Cumbra land must have denoted Westmorland and Cumberland, but it is doubtful whether the
country around Carlisle and the lowlands of Dumfries were also included as some historians
believe. There is no evidence that Strathclyde ever recovered any territory south of the
Lowther Hills after 603. The numerous Gaelic names in Dumfriesshire may have been formed
during the time of Malcolm’s overlordship of Cumbria, since whether Dumfries was Anglian
or British it must have been friendly to Malcolm to allow him free passage south, and
considerable Scottish infiltration may have taken place.
The colonisation of North-West England appears to have been carried out mainly by
individual companies, /lv/ and was not an organised process as in the Danelaw. There is no
evidence of formal division of land. Whether the settlement was peaceable or not is a matter
for conjecture. The fact that the Norse and Strathclyde Britons were allied against the English
by 937 points to a friendly conquest, but the lines of “Wargraves” at Bromborough, if not
marking the site of Brunanburh, attest at least to a local encounter of some magnitude,
perhaps between Norse and British.
It is very doubtful whether Dumfries was colonised from Ireland and the Hebrides. It is more
probable that there was a gradual penetration from the previously established settlements on
the Southern shore of the Solway. The almost complete absence of Irish and Gaelic loanwords
in the Norse place-names, especially the absence of ON erg from Gael airidh, Irish