Blair Collection > Place names in Strathbogie, with notes historical, antiquarian and descriptive

Place Names in StratJibo^ie.
similarity of names in a poem, particularly as Noth,
in its present form, is only about 300 years old.
Sometimes we have the name written Top o'
Noth, generally Tap o' Noth, and occasionally
Top o' Noath. The local pronunciation is Tap
a' Noth (Noth, short), and the Gaelic form may
be Taip-a-noc/id, with the meaning ' hill of obser-
vation or hill of the watching,' from noc/id,
'showing or revealing.' Taip means a 'conical
hill,' and perhaps we have it in this sense in Tap
Tillery, a hill name in the county (Deer).
If I am right in assuming Tap to be Gaelic,
there is nothing of vulgarity in speaking of the
Tap a' Noth, and it would be improper to speak
of the Top o' Noth in the English sense of top,
because the name is undoubtedly applied to the
entire hill, not to a part of it. The common
usage of the district cannot be overlooked, and
the natives uniformly speak of the ' head of the
Tap,' and the ' foot of the Tap.' It is difficult to
see how an expression such as the ' head of the
Tap ' could have become established over a wide
district if it has no other signification than the
' top of the top.' The hill really appears a sepa-
rate and distinct hill, not merely a point of a
range. Only on one side is it connected with
the hill of Noth by a narrow ridge, a consider-
able depression lying between the two hills, while
on all other sides the Tap rises like a cone from
the surrounding glens, without any other hill