Hi Fiona, another excellent article, bravo. A few comments: in Scotland souterrains tend to be Iron Age or Roman Iron age rather than EM. The terms have slightly different uses between Scotland and Ireland. In terms of mottes, its worth checking the first use of it for your site. Round Stirling the 1960s RCAHMS' volume uses it rather too broadly. Some 'mottes' are lightly defended natural hillocks, they might be med, EM or Iron Age (Will Wyeth has done a section on this somewhere). I suspect in some locations the term is as useful as dun, basically a catch all for things that don't quite fit.
Hi Murray, happy New Year! Thanks very much for this, very good info. I did think the souterrain angle was stretching it a bit - that just came from watching Cormac Bourke's lecture and he mentioned sundials and souterrains in relation to bells and it tickled me to realise that Auldearn has both! The motte at Auldearn is first recorded in 1186 as a 'castle' - and there definitely was an Anglo-Norman castle there, but whether the 'motte' it stood on was built in the C12th or existed previously is not known. I'm not sure that the second motte is actually a motte at all - RCAHMS called it a "possible motte" and Historic Scotland "the remains of a later medieval motte": https://canmore.org.uk/site/15602/hillend-motte so it may well be the type of defended hillock you're describing. I will track down Will Wyeth's article, sounds useful.
Hi Fiona, here's part of a comment by a placename expert - he says he is "doubtful though about whether the Gaelic form could refer to a toísech. eDIL https://dil.ie/41302 doesn’t make very clear how the noun was declined in its early forms, but I would guess that the genitive singular about 1000 years ago was usually spelt toísig, in which the final consonant would have been very weak, leading to disappearance in modern Irish, though in Scottish Gaelic the final consonant of toísech was reconstructed from the nominative, so it is now tòisich. Where an anglicised name contains -int- it can be very difficult to work out how it got there. It can be genitive masculine definite article an + a word beginning t-; genitive masculine article an t- + noun with lenited (cancelled) initial s-; genitive feminine article na + noun beginning t-; and that will not be exhaustive. And I don’t see what sense could be made of cinn ‘at the head of’ a/the tóisech. If such a name did exist, I would have expected more likely *Kintoshie.
I have to agree with him here, that 'head of the toísech' makes no apparent sense, unless you're cutting his head off and sticking it on a stone! Anyway, here's the next bit:
'Wiki says little about Kintessack, but does say that it was also formerly spelt Kintessock or Kintessoch. This -ch / -ck variation is not uncommon. Given its low and nearly flat location, we can doubtless rule out an easach burn, i.e. one with cascades or waterfalls. Curiously, there is an Earnhill Farm 1km NE of Kintessack, and for what it is worth (probably nothing) there are a Kincorth House and Wood close to the north of them which must record a standing stone or stones (coirthe). https://www.streetmap.co.uk/map?x=299579&y=860730&z=120&sv=kintessack&st=3&tl=Map+of+Kintessack,+Moray+[Town]&searchp=ids&mapp=map
If you look at the topography, including the obviously artificial drainage channel, Belmack Burn, NNE of Kintessack, which cuts through the 10m contour, you may agree with me that the flat strip of land between Kintessack and Wellhill looks likely to have been a shallow loch. Typically Cinn names refer to the ‘heads’ of lochs. Of https://dil.ie/36988https://dil.ie/37276 and https://dil.ie/37286 I think the first and third are the more likely to have possible descriptive relevance here. But very very tentative and all very uncertain.'
Hi Helen, happy New Year! Thanks very much for all this info. I agree, 'head of the thane' would make no sense - I was thinking more along the lines of 'head' or 'limit' of the thanage, i.e. the thane's estate, rather than the thane himself. In the same way that Kinneddar, ceann-foithir, is the 'head of the district' (foithir seems to have taken on a different meaning in north-east Scotland - it seems to denote a kind of administrative district - than in Ireland, where it means 'terraced slope'). I don't know if there was a word for 'thanage' that came from 'toisech', though.
There may have been a loch at some point around there, like Cran Loch and Loch Loy just to the west. The landscape around that bit of the Moray Firth coast has changed so dramatically that it's hard to know for sure. Pont doesn't show a loch in that location on his pre-Improvement 1590 map: https://maps.nls.uk/pont/view/?id=pont08 but the ground around there would surely all have been pretty marshy. Good spot on Kincorth; I don't know of a standing stone in that location but maybe someone reading does.
Great stuff, Fiona. The dewar of St Ternan's Bell ('ronnecht') in Banchory was assigned 'the deraycroft' which I think was next to the glebe - sorry don't have the sources to hand. It was found buried in the 19th century during the building of the railway at a place which is now called 'Bellfield park' in commemoration. I've presumed it was buried at the Reformation for safe-keeping.
Thanks, Katherine - it does sound from Ross's notes as though the 'bellaiker' in Auldearn was somewhere near the church, but I've found no sign of anything remotely resembling it or a 'Deraycroft' type name on the NLS maps site so far. Might require a visit to an archive - an experience I've yet to have!
Hi Fiona. Another great and thought provoking piece. Well on your way to your doctorate! 😀
Couple of comments/thoughts:
Half Davoch, the settlement on the Altyre Estate, is pronounced dach locally rather than doch
It is intriguing that a Kin place name ends up as a Pen as they are (or can be) synonyms for “the head of” in Gaelic and Brythonic (and Pictish) respectively. I’m no linguist/toponymist but a shift from Gaelic to Brythonic/Pictish at a late date would be unusual so I would guess that that is not the cause of the Pen…. Most places that retain a Pen prefix are in areas that went straight from Brythonic to Inglis (or with only a short Gaelic phase) e.g. Lothian, Lanarkshire. Another option is that it was originally a Pen place and reverted, but would need full toponymy research to get to the bottom of things
Hi Alastair, thanks for this comment, and good info on the pronunciation of 'davoch', thank you. Is that 'dach' with a kind of 'ah' sound? I've always thought it was somewhere between 'ah' and 'o', maybe more like 'dauch', but I'm probably overthinking it!
I hadn't thought about 'Penick' coming straight from 'Kinteisick'. Penick was 'Pethenach' in 1140, which feels like it might be a different place-name altogether. Maybe it's a Pit/Pet name, but it doesn't feel like one, as the second element seems a bit formless. (I'm not a toponymist either, as as you can tell...) I've actually been thinking about Pictish/Brythonic names along the Laich as I'm not sure there are that many. 'Forres' is a bit of a mystery, so it could be one. And 'Moythas' is interesting but I haven't looked it into at all, so it may just be a Gaelic name I don't recognise.
I agree a full place-name survey would be fantastic, but at the same time it's quite fun to speculate about place-names that the experts haven't looked at yet :)
Yes, the pronunciation of Davoch does tend towards au but is still on the a side of that.
Given that it seems Kintesack has moved, could the original location be a mistake and Penick/Pethenach never have been displaced as a name. It certainly does look like a pit/pet place name and I would suggest that Enach is a personal name which would not be unusual as the second element. That said, I can’t find Enach as an attested Pictish name but it certainly has similar form to ones that are.
Where are the topynomists and linguists when you need them!
Nice one, Fiona! a couple of comments if I may. A few of these gaily-called Norman mottes have now been dated in Ireland, and they are turning out to be Neolithic, it's like a sacred place stays that way through the centuries no matter what brand of ideology is on top.
The other thing is that Columba's feast day is 9 June not the 21st. Dates, because of calendar realignments, can be a little out, no doubt, but that big a gap is not usual. The 21st is of course the summer solstice, the biggest pagan festival of them all, so I'd be careful about assigning it to the saint. Of course things like this can be confused and conflated at any time in the past, so it's possible the festival is both, but I've learnt the hard way to be super wary not to fall for the trap of ignoring the pagan past, mottes or festivals.
(PS. your tweet about the passive was hilarious, and telling. I've often thought it would be fun to write a book of 'passive' incidents, but I fear only the weirdest of linguists would get the joke...)
Hi Helen, thanks for this! Hope you're well. Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the motte turned out to be quite ancient, and there are in fact two 'mottes' in Auldearn, a stone row, the remains of a stone circle, and various other earthworks and prehistoric finds, so there has been activity here for millennia.
Good spot on Columba's festival/solstice; I hadn't thought to check. Ross gives his source as Lachlan Shaw's History of the Province of Moray but I can't immediately see any reference to a dedication to Columba or to a fair in there. I'll add an update to the blog.
What was my tweet about the passive voice? It does sound like something I'd tweet about but I can't remember :)
... obviously you took the advice on board :-) it was the tweet where you were being told to use the passive, but I disagree. You start off with ..." I weigh the evidence for a Nairnshire village as an early medieval settlement site" but in papers in this field they write in the passive ... in which the evidence for a Nairnshire village is weighed. I hate this, because it takes away the honesty of opinion and thinking, and elevates the idea to an unembodied unemotional unfraught statement that can then be made to look like fact. Or at least other people then mistake the statement as fact, and we end up in all sorts of messes.
PS totally agree on use of passive voice to obscure the facts - it's very frowned upon in my day job as a marketing content writer. Comes to something when marketing is more insistent on honesty and clarity than academia!
Ha, yes, I remember - about re-learning to write in an academic style. I attended a seminar the other day on academic writing and the tutor said "remember, your audience is other academics" and I just find that attitude really dispiriting. Scholarship should be for everyone and accessible to everyone.
Could well be - although I do think he was unwittingly on to something with the bell, especially given the other ones at Barevan, Birnie and Burghead (and the possible bell manufacturing workshop at Burghead).
Happy new year! No problem at all.
At least one of them near Stirling is 9th/10th century.
Will’s on Twitter and very nice if you struggle to find the reference it may have been it’s phd!
Hi Fiona, another excellent article, bravo. A few comments: in Scotland souterrains tend to be Iron Age or Roman Iron age rather than EM. The terms have slightly different uses between Scotland and Ireland. In terms of mottes, its worth checking the first use of it for your site. Round Stirling the 1960s RCAHMS' volume uses it rather too broadly. Some 'mottes' are lightly defended natural hillocks, they might be med, EM or Iron Age (Will Wyeth has done a section on this somewhere). I suspect in some locations the term is as useful as dun, basically a catch all for things that don't quite fit.
best wishes
murray
Hi Murray, happy New Year! Thanks very much for this, very good info. I did think the souterrain angle was stretching it a bit - that just came from watching Cormac Bourke's lecture and he mentioned sundials and souterrains in relation to bells and it tickled me to realise that Auldearn has both! The motte at Auldearn is first recorded in 1186 as a 'castle' - and there definitely was an Anglo-Norman castle there, but whether the 'motte' it stood on was built in the C12th or existed previously is not known. I'm not sure that the second motte is actually a motte at all - RCAHMS called it a "possible motte" and Historic Scotland "the remains of a later medieval motte": https://canmore.org.uk/site/15602/hillend-motte so it may well be the type of defended hillock you're describing. I will track down Will Wyeth's article, sounds useful.
Hi Fiona, here's part of a comment by a placename expert - he says he is "doubtful though about whether the Gaelic form could refer to a toísech. eDIL https://dil.ie/41302 doesn’t make very clear how the noun was declined in its early forms, but I would guess that the genitive singular about 1000 years ago was usually spelt toísig, in which the final consonant would have been very weak, leading to disappearance in modern Irish, though in Scottish Gaelic the final consonant of toísech was reconstructed from the nominative, so it is now tòisich. Where an anglicised name contains -int- it can be very difficult to work out how it got there. It can be genitive masculine definite article an + a word beginning t-; genitive masculine article an t- + noun with lenited (cancelled) initial s-; genitive feminine article na + noun beginning t-; and that will not be exhaustive. And I don’t see what sense could be made of cinn ‘at the head of’ a/the tóisech. If such a name did exist, I would have expected more likely *Kintoshie.
I have to agree with him here, that 'head of the toísech' makes no apparent sense, unless you're cutting his head off and sticking it on a stone! Anyway, here's the next bit:
'Wiki says little about Kintessack, but does say that it was also formerly spelt Kintessock or Kintessoch. This -ch / -ck variation is not uncommon. Given its low and nearly flat location, we can doubtless rule out an easach burn, i.e. one with cascades or waterfalls. Curiously, there is an Earnhill Farm 1km NE of Kintessack, and for what it is worth (probably nothing) there are a Kincorth House and Wood close to the north of them which must record a standing stone or stones (coirthe). https://www.streetmap.co.uk/map?x=299579&y=860730&z=120&sv=kintessack&st=3&tl=Map+of+Kintessack,+Moray+[Town]&searchp=ids&mapp=map
If you look at the topography, including the obviously artificial drainage channel, Belmack Burn, NNE of Kintessack, which cuts through the 10m contour, you may agree with me that the flat strip of land between Kintessack and Wellhill looks likely to have been a shallow loch. Typically Cinn names refer to the ‘heads’ of lochs. Of https://dil.ie/36988 https://dil.ie/37276 and https://dil.ie/37286 I think the first and third are the more likely to have possible descriptive relevance here. But very very tentative and all very uncertain.'
Hi Helen, happy New Year! Thanks very much for all this info. I agree, 'head of the thane' would make no sense - I was thinking more along the lines of 'head' or 'limit' of the thanage, i.e. the thane's estate, rather than the thane himself. In the same way that Kinneddar, ceann-foithir, is the 'head of the district' (foithir seems to have taken on a different meaning in north-east Scotland - it seems to denote a kind of administrative district - than in Ireland, where it means 'terraced slope'). I don't know if there was a word for 'thanage' that came from 'toisech', though.
There may have been a loch at some point around there, like Cran Loch and Loch Loy just to the west. The landscape around that bit of the Moray Firth coast has changed so dramatically that it's hard to know for sure. Pont doesn't show a loch in that location on his pre-Improvement 1590 map: https://maps.nls.uk/pont/view/?id=pont08 but the ground around there would surely all have been pretty marshy. Good spot on Kincorth; I don't know of a standing stone in that location but maybe someone reading does.
Great stuff, Fiona. The dewar of St Ternan's Bell ('ronnecht') in Banchory was assigned 'the deraycroft' which I think was next to the glebe - sorry don't have the sources to hand. It was found buried in the 19th century during the building of the railway at a place which is now called 'Bellfield park' in commemoration. I've presumed it was buried at the Reformation for safe-keeping.
Thanks, Katherine - it does sound from Ross's notes as though the 'bellaiker' in Auldearn was somewhere near the church, but I've found no sign of anything remotely resembling it or a 'Deraycroft' type name on the NLS maps site so far. Might require a visit to an archive - an experience I've yet to have!
Hi Fiona. Another great and thought provoking piece. Well on your way to your doctorate! 😀
Couple of comments/thoughts:
Half Davoch, the settlement on the Altyre Estate, is pronounced dach locally rather than doch
It is intriguing that a Kin place name ends up as a Pen as they are (or can be) synonyms for “the head of” in Gaelic and Brythonic (and Pictish) respectively. I’m no linguist/toponymist but a shift from Gaelic to Brythonic/Pictish at a late date would be unusual so I would guess that that is not the cause of the Pen…. Most places that retain a Pen prefix are in areas that went straight from Brythonic to Inglis (or with only a short Gaelic phase) e.g. Lothian, Lanarkshire. Another option is that it was originally a Pen place and reverted, but would need full toponymy research to get to the bottom of things
Hi Alastair, thanks for this comment, and good info on the pronunciation of 'davoch', thank you. Is that 'dach' with a kind of 'ah' sound? I've always thought it was somewhere between 'ah' and 'o', maybe more like 'dauch', but I'm probably overthinking it!
I hadn't thought about 'Penick' coming straight from 'Kinteisick'. Penick was 'Pethenach' in 1140, which feels like it might be a different place-name altogether. Maybe it's a Pit/Pet name, but it doesn't feel like one, as the second element seems a bit formless. (I'm not a toponymist either, as as you can tell...) I've actually been thinking about Pictish/Brythonic names along the Laich as I'm not sure there are that many. 'Forres' is a bit of a mystery, so it could be one. And 'Moythas' is interesting but I haven't looked it into at all, so it may just be a Gaelic name I don't recognise.
I agree a full place-name survey would be fantastic, but at the same time it's quite fun to speculate about place-names that the experts haven't looked at yet :)
Hi Fiona,
Yes, the pronunciation of Davoch does tend towards au but is still on the a side of that.
Given that it seems Kintesack has moved, could the original location be a mistake and Penick/Pethenach never have been displaced as a name. It certainly does look like a pit/pet place name and I would suggest that Enach is a personal name which would not be unusual as the second element. That said, I can’t find Enach as an attested Pictish name but it certainly has similar form to ones that are.
Where are the topynomists and linguists when you need them!
Ah, well, I've now had a look in Watson's Celtic Place-Names of Scotland, and his view was that "Pethenach is now, I think, Penick, in Gaelic a’ Pheighinneag, ‘the little pennyland'": https://spns.org.uk/resources/history-of-the-celtic-placenames-of-scotland/general-survey-of-scotland-north-of-forth. So according to Watson at least, not a Pictish name after all :(
Nice one, Fiona! a couple of comments if I may. A few of these gaily-called Norman mottes have now been dated in Ireland, and they are turning out to be Neolithic, it's like a sacred place stays that way through the centuries no matter what brand of ideology is on top.
The other thing is that Columba's feast day is 9 June not the 21st. Dates, because of calendar realignments, can be a little out, no doubt, but that big a gap is not usual. The 21st is of course the summer solstice, the biggest pagan festival of them all, so I'd be careful about assigning it to the saint. Of course things like this can be confused and conflated at any time in the past, so it's possible the festival is both, but I've learnt the hard way to be super wary not to fall for the trap of ignoring the pagan past, mottes or festivals.
(PS. your tweet about the passive was hilarious, and telling. I've often thought it would be fun to write a book of 'passive' incidents, but I fear only the weirdest of linguists would get the joke...)
Hi Helen, thanks for this! Hope you're well. Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if the motte turned out to be quite ancient, and there are in fact two 'mottes' in Auldearn, a stone row, the remains of a stone circle, and various other earthworks and prehistoric finds, so there has been activity here for millennia.
Good spot on Columba's festival/solstice; I hadn't thought to check. Ross gives his source as Lachlan Shaw's History of the Province of Moray but I can't immediately see any reference to a dedication to Columba or to a fair in there. I'll add an update to the blog.
What was my tweet about the passive voice? It does sound like something I'd tweet about but I can't remember :)
... obviously you took the advice on board :-) it was the tweet where you were being told to use the passive, but I disagree. You start off with ..." I weigh the evidence for a Nairnshire village as an early medieval settlement site" but in papers in this field they write in the passive ... in which the evidence for a Nairnshire village is weighed. I hate this, because it takes away the honesty of opinion and thinking, and elevates the idea to an unembodied unemotional unfraught statement that can then be made to look like fact. Or at least other people then mistake the statement as fact, and we end up in all sorts of messes.
PS totally agree on use of passive voice to obscure the facts - it's very frowned upon in my day job as a marketing content writer. Comes to something when marketing is more insistent on honesty and clarity than academia!
Ha, yes, I remember - about re-learning to write in an academic style. I attended a seminar the other day on academic writing and the tutor said "remember, your audience is other academics" and I just find that attitude really dispiriting. Scholarship should be for everyone and accessible to everyone.
Ah that's probably why he left it out in the book!
Could well be - although I do think he was unwittingly on to something with the bell, especially given the other ones at Barevan, Birnie and Burghead (and the possible bell manufacturing workshop at Burghead).