Messengers from the past
Here at the Centre for Nordic Studies we are looking forward to Friday the 21st of May. What happens then is that Dr. Berit Sandnes, from Lund University in Sweden, will hopefully come to Orkney. I say hopefully because we never know what Eyjafjallaj枚kull may have in store for us still! But providing she can get here, she is going to treat us to a really interesting public talk about our Orkney place-names.
Berit is an old friend of mine; indeed it was she who introduced me to Orkney in the first place. She was a PhD student in my birth town of Trondheim then, writing a thesis on the place-names of Evie, Firth and Rendall. Many of you who read this column will have met her, cycling around the Mainland on a slightly too peedie bicycle, asking folk about names and the right Orkney pronunciations of them. Before she studied the place-names of Evie, Firth and Rendall, she wrote her MA thesis on the place-names of Harray, which she started working on back in 1994. So Berit has been coming back and fore to Orkney for a long time.
The talk we are being treated to this time, which of course is open to anyone, is called 鈥淧lace names: Messengers from the past ... and from across the North Sea.鈥� What does she mean by that? The amazing thing about place-names is that you don鈥檛 really need to know what they mean in order to use them. So that way they can stay more or less unchanged for centuries, and here in Orkney that means that a great many place-names have survived the transition from Norn to Scots. But if you do know 鈥� or somehow manage to find out 鈥� what they mean, they can tell you a great deal about how the place was used in the past. The champion of place-name studies in Orkney was Dr. Hugh Marwick, who managed to trace a big collection of Orkney place-names back to their Old Norse roots.
I think it鈥檚 time for some examples. Let us take the name St. Margaret鈥檚 Hope. What was she hoping for? At a first glance, this name doesn鈥檛 make any sense. And what about all the other 鈥渉opes鈥� - Longhope, Pan Hope (Flotta), Kirk Hope (South Walls), Chalmers Hope (North of Lyness)and so on 鈥� what is the deal with all this hoping? It all starts to make sense once we know that 鈥淗ope鈥� comes from the Old Norse word 鈥渉贸p鈥�, meaning a shallow bay or a small land-locked bay or inlet connected with the sea. That also explains why Orcadians call St. Margaret鈥檚 Hope 鈥淭he Hop鈥�. That makes perfect sense: It鈥檚 just 鈥渢he shallow bay鈥�! Shallow bays were important to the Norse people who named them, because there they could land their ships and pull them ashore. A shallow bay is a good harbour.
Another name which doesn鈥檛 make much sense today is Holm. Normally, a holm is what in Standard English is called an islet, but the problem is that the district of Holm is not on a holm! So why is it called that? Here we have another name that tells us that this was a harbour back in Norse times. The name Holm comes from the Old Norse word 鈥渉ofn鈥�, later 鈥渉amn鈥�, which indeed means 鈥渉arbour鈥�. The 鈥渓鈥� is just a misunderstanding by some map-maker. In Scots, and traditionally in Orkney dialect as well, an 鈥渓鈥� is often dropped, depending on what comes after it. 鈥淐all鈥� is 鈥渃a鈥�, 鈥渉old on鈥� is 鈥渉aad on鈥�, the ball game in Kirkwall is called 鈥淭he Ba鈥�, and so on. So somebody must have heard people saying 鈥淗am鈥� and thought that it should be spelled 鈥淗olm鈥� with a silent 鈥渓鈥�. But, of course, the Orkney folk were right all along: 鈥淗am鈥� is very close to the Norwegian way of saying it: 鈥渉amn鈥�. That is why Berit cycled around in Harray, Evie, Firth and Rendall to ask local people about pronunciations, because local people are always the best at knowing the right way of saying it. They know the pronunciation which has been passed on through many centuries despite misunderstandings by map-makers. By the way, the name Kirkwall has also had some extra 鈥渓鈥漵 stuck to it for the same reason. Some map-maker didn鈥檛 know that 鈥渨a鈥� comes from Old Norse v谩gr, meaning 鈥渂ay鈥�, and thought that 鈥�-wall鈥� would be the right way to spell it. People in the old days said 鈥淜irkwa鈥�, but nowadays the name is pronounced as it is spelled. There are several other 鈥渨all鈥� names around Orkney too, such as North and South Walls. Another way of spelling names derived from Old Norse v谩gr is 鈥�-way鈥�, such as in for example Scalloway in Shetland. Yet another spelling is 鈥渧oe鈥�, as in Hamnavoe 鈥� which everyone who has read this article so far should know means 鈥渉arbour bay鈥�.
Another messenger from the past is the name Toab in St. Andrews. This name comes from Old Norse 鈥渢oll-h贸p鈥�, which was a harbour where ships had to pay toll. So even if we knew nothing about Toab鈥檚 past, we can read an important part of its history directly from the place-name!
There are currently two exciting research projects going on which are looking to find out more about Norse assembly sites, or 鈥渢hings鈥�. Again, place-names can help us. In Rendall we have the place-name Tingwall, where 鈥渢ing鈥� comes from the Old Norse word for assembly. The big mound there, near the jetty, would have served as an assembly site for the people of the North-West Mainland, Gairsay, Rousay, Egilsay and Wyre 鈥� a kind of mixture of what we today would call a court, a parliament and a community council. Also on the narrow isthmus connecting Deerness with the East Mainland is another name which probably contains the element 鈥渢hing鈥�, namely Dingishowe.
The many 鈥淧ap-鈥� names in Orkney also call out to us with messages from the past. There is Papa Westray, locally known as Papay; there is Papa Stronsay and Steeven O鈥橮apy and Papdale and Paplay. There are also lots of these 鈥淧ap-鈥� or 鈥淧ab-鈥� names in Shetland, Caithness and the Hebrides. These names tell us about ecclesiastical establishments of Celtic priests or monks who were there before the Vikings. The 鈥淧ap-鈥� names are the Vikings鈥� comment to what was going on there. I think it is nice that the Papa Stronsay monks of today chose Papa Stronsay, among all other places, as I like to imagine that what we are seeing today is a kind of reflection of the island鈥檚 ancient past. It is also very fitting that Papdale primary school is located at a former ecclesiastical site, as these were centres of study and learning.
In short, place-name studies is a really helpful tool to historians or anyone who wish to know more about the past. I am looking forward to seeing Berit again and hear the news of her latest research on place-names. Ah, it makes me nostalgic to think that it is ten years since she first took me to Orkney as part of a group of students. She introduced me to this paradise of beauty, history, culture and the friendliest people I have ever met, and it took me less than the six days we were here to completely fall in love with the place 鈥� and with a certain Orkney lad.