Sutherland and the Reay country

144 SUTHERLAND AND THE REAY COUNTRY.
It may be well at the outset to state the different classes
of place-names which are to be met with in our county. We
may conveniently range them under five heads —
i. Remnants of the pre-Celtic speech. That there was a
race of non-Celtic origin in North Britain is clear, and that
some traces of these should be preserved in place-names is
natural. We have already referred to Ila, in Bun-illigh ;
the probability is that remnants of this pre-Celtic speech enter
more largely into our topography than is generally admitted.
2. Old Gaelic words now obsolete. A good example of
this class is found in Elphin in Assynt. This is a compound
word, ail (stone), and fionn (white), and neither word
is now in use. Fionn, white, occurs frequently in compound
words, and is often placed before its noun. Foinaven in
Durness, is probably fiionn-bhei?in, white-hill, so called from
its appearance when the sun shines on the huge masses of
rock on its summit.
3. Norse words. This class is a large one, and they are
mainly descriptive of physical features.
4. Well known Gaelic names, which may be easily
explained by the aid of a dictionary, and some knowledge
of Gaelic. In the following paper, these will be passed over
where they present no difficulty.
5. Double names for the same locality — generally a
Gaelic and a Norse name. Some of these are interesting.
Tongue, for example, may be designated in three ways, (1)
Gaelic Ceann-t-saik, Kintail i. e. head of the salt-water. To
distinguish it from another Kintail in a neighbouring county,
it was called of old " Kintail a' Mhic-Aoidh." (2) Kirkiboll,
Norse, the Kirk-town. (3) Tonga, Norse Tongue — from the
slip of land running into the sea at Tongue Ferry. Now all