An Comunn Gàidhealach Publications > Deo-gréine > Volume 17, October 1921 to September 1922

AN DE0-GR2INE.
HISTORY IN LOWLAND PLACE-
NAMES.
By Angus Hendkrson.
I am not going to give a catalogue of
names with their English equivalents, for,
though that were possible, it would be
foolish and confusing. My purpose rather
is to furnish a few specimens and indicate
the direction in which further knowledge
can be sought .
Place-names belong to different epochs in
our country’s history, and these epochs are
as elusive and insubstantial as the Stone
Age or the Roman Conquest. I say that
the Roman Conquest is an unknown
quantity with respect to chronology, for no
one knows when it commenced, although
we are pretty well informed as to the time
at which it ended. In like manner, the
Stone Age varies in incidence in different
countries. Even in different parts of the
same country there is considerable diverg¬
ence as regards time in the use of stone tools
and stone weapons. An equally inconstant
factor in the series of events and influences
that constitute our national history is the
influx of different races, bringing with them
different customs, different cultures, and
different languages.
The first dwellers of this island of whom
we have any certain record were the
Iberians, who, hailing from the shores of the
Mediterranean, worked their way up through
Italy, Western France, and Spain, until
they reached Britain. They spread with
much rapidity, conquering the older
inhabitants, and extending their range and
power to the most northerly parts of our
country. Traces of these settlers are still
discoverable in many districts, but are more
evident with respect to ethnology than
language or culture. They were superseded,
but not eliminated, by the Brythonic Celts,
who also came from the Continent—by way
of France and Ireland. These intermingled
freely with the aborigines, and came to form
with them a composite people, now known
as the Piets. An interesting incident in
nomenclature is provided by the name of
this residual race. In modem Gaelic it is
Cruithnich, a word that, in itself, has no
meaning. It is borrowed, however, from
the earlier Brythonic language—still
surviving in Wales and Brittany—a language
which, almost invariably, employs a “p”
where the more modem Goidelic would have
a “c” (hard)—not “q,” as we are so often
told. In Brythonic speech, this island was
called “Pritein” (or, as we now know it,
“Britain”), and, naturally enough, the
Goidelic immigrants adopted this cognomen,
simply commuting the initial “p” into a
“c” (hard) in conformity with the euphon-
ism of their own language. With them,
“Pritein” (or “Britain”) was changed into
Cruitein, or, with the middle “t” aspirated
in more recent usage, “Cruithein.” The
people of the island, instead of being
designated “Priteinich” or “Breatunnaich,”
were called by the newcomers “Cruite-
inich,” or now “Cruithnich,” and this name
has stuck to the hybrid people known in
English as the Piets. The Piets were forced
to relinquish their sovereign sway in north
Britain when the Goidelic immigrants
became sufficiently strong and numerous to
challenge their rights and privileges. This
happened m the reign of Kenneth MacAlpine
well within historic times.
What has this to do with Lowland place-
names ? It has everything to do; for, if the
Piets lost their language and their national
status in the eighth or ninth century, it is
obvious that they could not identify them¬
selves with places which were then outside
of their influence or rule What l mean is
this: that this race never attained to much
power within the boundaries represented by
the Forth and Clyde estuaries on the north
and Ayr and Berwick on the south. The
reason was that the original Iberians were
early driven out of this region by the
Brythonic Celts, who, in due time, had all
the places rechristened in a language which
they themselves understood. The reason
why they made a complete conquest of this
particular belt of country was that it was
superlatively fertile and lent itself to
cultivation and the raising of food-stuffs.
In the northern and southern uplands, they
were less successful in their penetration, and
never completely divested the ancient
Iberians of their landed possessions and
social standing. The consequence was that,
while in the northern and southern areas of
the country now known as Scotland, the
place-names gradually became partly
Iberian and partly Brythonic—or, to be
explicit, Pictish—in the middle regions, of
which Stirlingshire forms a part, they
became simply Brythonic, without a trace
or tinge of the Iberian element. In other
words, they were never Pictish. This
disposes of the theory that certain well-
known place-names which do not admit of
ready interpretation belong to the much-