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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
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
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
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
From Alan james – 3rd October 2020
A curious one. I think the most likely lead is SND sense III:
†III. adv. As in Eng. Comb. smacksmooth, adj., completely smooth and even, level, flush with the surface. Also in Eng. dial.; adv., smoothly, uninterruptedly, evenly.
which would imply that the field had been well cleared of stones, leaving it pretty well ‘smack-smooth’, with a clearance cairn in some out-of-the-way corner.
Otherwise, there’s an Older Scots sense ‘taste, scent’, I suppose a cairn might have had a smell, but I think it should have been investigated! Or a big, hearty kiss, which is in the spirit of Cuddle Cosy, but a cairn might be a rather conspicuous place for it. 😊
Alan
From Rachel Lucas – 3rd October 2020
H
following the ‘taster’ article in the Galloway News this week, John has had an email from John Sproat (brother of Benji from Lennox Plunton). He has (long story) a stack of letters from relations who emigrated to Canada and in this one from 1824 there is a reference to fields on Borness Farm. We have them recorded, but we have two Cairn fields. Any idea on Smack Cairn?
Rachel
From Alan James – 13 May 2020
Nothing very obvious comes to mind for ?abie. I think the likeliest might be Mabie as a surname. Although it doesn’t appear in the standard reference works, a less than scholarly ‘ancestors’ website asserts that the surname Mabey ‘is first found in Kirkcudbrightshire’, and the ‘family seat’ was there – obviously Mabie (Hotel, Forest etc.). Actually, the English surname Mabey has various origins, and I’ve not tracked down anyone surnamed Mabie or Mabey in the Stewartry, but it’s at least possible (and, if it isn’t from the place-name, it could, like some cases of Mabey, be a from pet-form of Mab for Mabel etc.)
I overlooked Port Cheek – or rather I didn’t realise it was a field-name rather than an object.
Scots port is a gate, but usually a rather grand town gate (though bee-skeps may have ports).
But there might be a hint of a special sense in this SND definition:
SND Port n1
2 A piece of open ground near a town gate used as the site of a feeing market or hiring fair, esp. for farm workers; hence the feeing-market itself (see 1786 quot. above). Combs. port-day, the day of a hiring-fair, port-wages, the official rate of pay fixed at a hiring fare.As for cheek, again the meaning is basically the same in Scots as in English,
but I think this Galloway usage is interesting, and may suit the location:
SND supp 1976 Cheek
4: A specially built portion of a dry-stone wall (see quot.). Gall. 1957 F. Rainsford-Hannay Dry Stone Walling 76:
The usual skill is shown when building up a steep slope. “Heads” are built at frequent intervals. In Scotland they would be called “cheeks” or solid pieces of single walling against which the rest of the work can lean.
So just possibly a gate in the long drystane dyke that bounds the north-west of the Balmangan lands, at a point where the was such a ‘cheek’ (and possibly one where labourers came hoping to be hired?)
But all of this is very much in the realm of guesswork!
Alan
From Archie ? – 14 May 2020
Good afternoon Rachel
Please note that I am not a professional, Graham is I think a bit of one but mainly an archivist but now retired. Chris of course looks at maps all day and everyday. My background is in sawmilling!
Anyway I was having a quick squint at the videos (…which are all excellent and great scenery!) and was minded of a map. It belongs to Dumfries Museum and is a bit modern for us…but they wanted it copied. Not sure that there are any names that you will not have but it should be fun if you are down that way. I think they were done for an archeological dig of some sort. Please use for study only and not for reproduction.
On your questions…
Yes we also had a look at Port Cheek. I started off by thinking that it was a Port Check or a place where the customs boys could have stood to tax any incoming material landed on the peninsula. Graham pointed out my mistake but actually this could have been what it actually was. “Cheek” in this instance is the “cheek” of a dyke…the bit of walling that abuts the gatepost…so we think that this was indeed a barrier/gate of some sort which would have been manned to cut down the smuggling. By the time the road was changed (to the darker red one) smuggling was not so prevalent(???) and the gate no longer required at that point. The new road would have been post 1786 when Gillone would have been hired by Lord Daer who was organising the roads in the area at the time. This leads me to believe the map was slightly earlier than this…but Graham thinks it later…and the new road added as and when.
I have also had a go at reading the ?abies…and also failed! …but is there only one letter?
I presume that a watch was kept on Watch Hill…but it does not perhaps need a tower. A stand for a beacon or bonfire would have sufficed…but not sure what a watch was kept for… smugglers, shipwrecks, Norse invaders…who knows?
All best
Archie
From Alan James – 7 May 2020
It is indeed similar, but it’s a Scots word corresponding to ‘clough’ in Yorkshire and the north, Old English clōh, and means a ‘gorge or ravine with steep rocky sides, usually the course of a stream’, which doesn’t seem appropriate for that field 🙂
From Rachel Lucas – 7 May 2020
I’m just updating the new extra large map and have noticed that there’s a feature next to Langlands (649 520) labelled Cleuch. To me that’s not too dissimilar??? But then what do I know of Gaelic????
From Michael Ansell – 6 May 2020
Good evening all
A very good summary of the problem here Alan I’d say. I can offer no better solution at the moment. Maybe the closest is the Manx hedge sense, but Broderick seems to suggest M cleigh was mainly pronounced Cleiy or something like that which doesn’t fit cleagh/cleich. P-N of NI 5 p 70 has Clay from An Chlèith, the hurdle, but none of the early anglicised forms have the terminal ‘ch’ sound. So I’d say this was a remnant specific that somehow survived as a field name, ie the original might have been achadh na cloiche. The slenderisation in the genitive case here might produce cleich in Scots (with a bit of imagination!?)
A difficult one!
Kind Regards
Michael
From Alan James – 6 May 2020
Thanks David
I think Cleich helps a bit, though I’m afraid mainly i na negative way. -ch came to be used increasingly in the past century in preference to the -gh generally used in Irish-English spellings, for the aspirated consonant that is the familiar, strongly sounded Scots ‘ch’, but in Irish tends to be weakened and lightly voiced [j], or lost altogether. In Manx, -gh was (according to George Broderick) closer to the Scottish sound. The variation between Cleagh and Cleich leaves it unclear whether the consonant in Gaelic was velar (‘broad’) or palatal (‘slender’), the distinction would have been lost in Scots speech. I think Cleich makes cliathach ‘sloping’ doubtful, it would hardly be the reflex of disyllabic [i-a] , and anyway doesn’t really really suit the field. And –ch makes clais ‘trench’ (as in the neighbouring field, The Clash), cliath ‘hurdle’, claig ‘hollow, dimple’, or cla(i)dh ‘digging’, also ‘grave, graveyard’, all less likely. Manx cleigh ‘hedge, stone dyke, fence’ looks closest to Cleich, but I’m not sure (pace Broderick) whether the -gh in that word is for [x], as it’s the equivalent of Sc G cla(i)dh, and Cregeen recorded Cleiy as an alternative. Some connection with clach, ‘stone’, would make sense, but I can’t see how Cleich can be a form, variant or relative of that word in Scottish, Irish or Manx Gaelic.
So I think it remains a mystery.
Mike may have other ideas!
Alan
From David Devereux – 6 May 2020
Hello Rachel,
That’s a great find – well spotted. Could I forward your email and images to Lisa Allen, who leads the Kirkcudbright Rock Art group? She will be very interested to see this.
Alan and Mike – going back to field name ‘Cleagh’, the Stewartry inventory (1914) gives a description of its particular locality which may perhaps be helpful. And then just today I’ve found another version of the name in Morris (1979) ‘Prehistoric Rock Art in Galloway and the Isle of Man’ (p.80) which he gives as ‘Cleich’. He would have been very familiar with Coles’ earlier article, but doesn’t use his spelling. Does that mean that his is a phonetic spelling of the word as spoken to him at that time? I don’t know if this helps or hinders the interpretation, but I thought you would like to know! Scan of both pages attached
David
From Rachel Lucas – 4 May 2020
Hi
A new ‘old’ field name! How lovely is that???
But on a slightly different note, I don’t think I’ve shared the new cup and ring marked rock with you all, which we found between us (High Chapelton) and Muncraig in the field called High Craig Ends. Not too far from Dalarai??? Andy Nicholson was quite excited by it.
From Alan James – 4 May 2020
Yes, the vb. is cited in DIL as OIr claidid (3rd sg), in Dwelly as cladhaich (root form), a’cladh(ach)ach, Dinneen as cladhaim (1st sg.), and Cregeen as cleigh or cleiy (3rd sg.).
Kelly lists no less than 17 ‘Cleigh’ names on IoM, translating it as ‘hedge’. plus Cool Cleigh ‘corner of the fence’, Faaie Cleigh ‘hedge flat’, and Shen Chleigh ‘old hedge’.
I suppose the ‘graveyard’ sense of cladh might have been imaginatively applied here but I remain doubtful about cladh in any of its meaings being involved.
