Bagbie & Daffin

[John Shields]

From Alan James – 9 October 2020

I’ve taken a good look at the names at Bagbie and Daffin, they’re an interesting range, plenty to chew on. Of course any feedback on the plausibility or otherwise of my interpretations and observations will be most welcome.

 

Although these farms are outwith the range of ongoing projects in south-west Stewartry and the Glenkens, I’m copying to several who might find them of interest.

All the best

Alan

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[John Shields]

From Michael Ansell – 9 October 2020

Good afternoon Alan, thanks very much for the analysis of this interesting set of names. A couple of comments:

Cannigeesie. This seems to me to be Galloway’s version of Kingussie near Aviemore from Ceann a’ Ghùithsaich, ‘head of the pine wood’, the specific incorporating the same element as in the three Loch Goosey/Goosie place-names. In the loch place-names I imagine bog-pine being eroded from the peat edges at the shore line is what is being referred to. It would be interesting to ask Jean if there are any pines in the vicinity (granny pines can last several hundred years). Against this is the notion that pine is not really native to Galloway after the climate deteriorated 4000 years ago, if we accept that then this place may also have featured pine stumps submerged in peat.

Daffin. In plotting peighinn place-names on the map that John and I have been working on I (eventually) took the line that to qualify as a peighinn there had to be some evidence of a farm or other rural settlement (now or in the past). This enabled me to more objectively sort out examples that might be confused with your Scots element mentioned or potentially Brittonic pen (there are one or two odd potential peighinn seeming place-names in Carrick on hilltops which might be better considered Brittonic in origin). So I have put this Daffin in the ‘pending’ category.

Kind Regards

Michael

[John Shields]

From Alan James – 9 October 2020

Aye, I should have thought of Kingussie, it’s phonetically possible (cf. our recent discussion of [i]/[ɪ] pronunciations of Cuil, Buittle etc.), though as you say the only reflex of giuthsach we seem to have in Galloway is -goosie. Maxwell opined that referred to relics of pines found in the peat-bogs, but if present–day palaeobotanists are right about the age of those fossils and the extent of the retreat of P. sylvestris, while I don’t underestimate the old Gaelic speakers, I’m a bit doubtful whether they’d have identified them with trees they’d only have seen – if at all- a long way to the north. I wonder if giu(th)as had come to be used of another conifer, viz. juniper, the only one that would have been growing in the region. Come to think of it, I don’t recall coming across aitean in Galloway p-ns?

Still, the wood appears on the 1854 map as fairly open scrubby ground dotted with conifers. If you’re right, either Gaelic was still current when those were planted, which I doubt would have been before 1700, or pines clung on a lot later than the palaeobotanists tell us.

Alan

[John Shields]

From Michael Ansell – 9 October 2020

It’s an interesting question Alan, at first I took the -goosie/goosey place-names to be indicators that pine survived in Galloway (there is supposed to be a surviving small stand, engulfed in the Sitka of Kielder that might represent a survival) but the peaty nature or our goosies persuaded me it was stumps showing up from under the peat. At the moment if you go to Clatteringshaws you can see these as the water level is rather low. But that implies the Gaels could tell it was a pine versus an oak or whatever, maybe not that easy after several thousand years. The Clatteringshaws roots/stumps look like pine to me and commentators such as Derek Ratcliffe describe the stumps emerging from Loch Dungeon peat banks (Kells) as pine.

I also cant think of any Gaelic reference to juniper in Galloway but maybe unlikely Juniper would be growing at Bagbie? Not impossible.

It seems to me that the wood there might date back to Gaelic speaking times and that a proprietor had planted pine. On Google earth there are three larger trees with darker green foliage on the south edge of the wood that look like they might be old pines.

Interesting that one of the names on the farm óf Bagbie is Knockninchock, NX 493 554 probably G cnoc nan uinnseag, knoll of the ash trees. I suppose it might also be cnoc nan seabhag (of the hawks). Would need to check pronunciation.

By the way noticed on the OS Ist ed 6’’ that Daffin was a small farm at NX 497 548 so I would probably agree with you that one is at least a potential  peighinn place-name

Kind Regards

Michael

[John Shields]

From Alan James – 9 October 2020

Yes, Daffin is a farm, now (as I understand) combined with Bagbie. It doesn’t seem to be documented early, but pretty likely to have been a tuppenceworth.

Derek Ratcliffe ‘Galloway and the Borders’ 2007, 26, after giving quite good detail of the early palynological evidence up to c5080 bp (at Clatteringshaws), says frustratingly ‘Pine was present but infrequent throughout the succeeding period up to recent times’, but gives no evidence. Other naturalists (e.g. Olga Stewart for Kcb, Stace for Britain in general) all insist that any pines in our region only go back to planted stock – and as I say I doubt whether any was planted much before c1700, nor that Gaelic was spoken here later than c1500. It’s not a location where there’d be bog fossils, if the name refers to pines, they’d have been living ones. So, although there evidently are pines at Canniegeesie, I remain unsure about -ghiu(th)saich.

Looking at the evidence from Ireland, it pretty well mirrors Scotland, native P. sylvestris generally disappearing into the bogs by 2000 bp, but clinging on in the far west (coast of Co. Clare), planting from late 17th ct on. Giuthas and related words are well-attested, including ones for bog-pine -so it was recognised as such. And the early Irish Laws have typically elaborate regulations and punishments for cutting it, which aren’t easy to square with extinction 2000 years ago – even if we accept Kenneth Jackson’s ambitious claims for those laws as a ‘Window on the Iron Age’. But I don’t find any sign of them in the place-name sources I’ve got or can access.

 

As to juniper, it still grows mainly on cliff-tops at various locations along the Solway coast, especially near the Mull, and very sporadically inland – generally prostrate on the coast and scrubby inland. Canniegeesie is no more than 1 km from the high-water mark now, and close to the head of a cleft in the raised beach cliff where the Kirkbride Burn flows down to the sea, so quite a possible habitat for juniper in the past. But also one where pine might just possibly have hung on.

Alan

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