III. NORTH ISLES
| Gairsay | Buckies |
| Wyre | Whelks |
| Egilsay | Burstin Lumps |
| Rousay | Mares |
| Shapansey | Sheep |
| Stronsay | Limpets |
| Sanday | Gruelly Belkies |
| North Ronaldshay | Selkies = Seals (also called 'Tangie Whessos') and 'Hides' |
| Eday | Scarfs = Shag or small Cormorant |
| Westray | Auks = the common Guillemot |
| Papa Westray | Doundies = spent Cod |
These are all the names I know or can hear of in Orkney. I wrote to Mr. Moodie Heddle of Cletts on the subject, as I knew him to take a great and intelligent interest in all such topics; and I have a most interesting letter from him, of which I shall give you the gist. He says he has no doubt that the origin of the names is that which you suggest, though some of the names do not at first sight appear to bear this out. Kirkwall 'Starlings' are easily accounted for, assuming that there have always been as many starlings about Kirkwall as there are now. They may well have been eaten by the townsfolk. I have tried them, and their breasts are not at all bad.
Skerry-scrapers.—The allusion here is to men who live off shell fish, 'dilse,' etc. off the skerries. There are—or were—excellent oysters on the St. Andrews skerries. Mr. Heddle tells me he has heard a woman insulting a man by saying she supposed he would soon leave no limpets in a certain bay, meaning that he was too lazy to work for his living.
Skate-rumple is, of course, the skate's tail. Deemess is the nearest land to a famous piece of water for skate, known as 'the skate-hole.'
Holm 'Hobblers' I do not understand, but shall make some further inquiries. I have an idea it is a reference to some bird; Mr. Heddle thinks it has something to do with seals, but neither of us knows.
Yearnings are, of course, the dried stomachs of calves used for making cheese.
Oysters.—The bay of Firth was famous for its oysters till the beds were overfished and destroyed some thirty years ago.
Stromness 'Bloody-puddings'—Mr. Heddle suggests that the people bled their cattle twice or thrice a year and made 'puddings' of the blood. This, of course, was done in the Highlands at one time.
Assie-pattles.—Either those who lay in the ashes or, Mr. Heddle suggests, who ate cakes baked in the ashes. Before iron girdles came much into use cakes were baked on flat stones; and there is a hill, known as 'Baking-stone Hill,' where the people used to come for stones that would not split in the fire. The peats used in Sandwick have a very red ash, which colours all persons and things near it.
Harray 'Crabs.'—Harray is the only parish in Orkney which does not touch the sea, and the name is given in irony. The old 'tee-name' is said to have been 'sheep.' The story is told that some fishermen passing through Harray dropped a live crab. The men of Harray could not make it out at all, and sent for the oldest inhabitant, who was brought in a wheel-barrow. After gazing at the monster for a few moments he exclaimed: 'Boys, hid's a fiery draygon; tak' me hame!'
I suspect there is some other tee-name than 'sheep-thieves' for the Rendall people, but will try to find out and let you know.
Hoy 'Hawks'—Mr. Heddle, who was formerly proprietor of Hoy, says he thinks 'auks' must have been the original word, as he believes 'tammy-nories' was the old name. 'Auk' is Orcadian for the common guillemot, and a 'tammy-norie' is a puffin. Both of these birds abound in Hoy.
Mr. Heddle also tells me that the old name of 'Lyars' for the people of Walls was to a great extent replaced by 'Cockles.' The 'lyars' were very common in Walls at one time, and were esteemed a great delicacy, but, Mr. Heddle tells me, were to a great extent killed out by the brown rat. He himself remembers men being bitten by rats when putting their hands into holes to look for young 'lyars.' Some three generations back enormous numbers of cockles were taken and eaten by the people of Walls, and they seem to have been called 'Cockles'—or, I presume, 'eaters of cockles'—in consequence.
Oily Bogies.—I hardly see how this can have been 'eaters of.' There might have been some old story to the effect that the Burray men stole and ate these buoys, but I never heard it.
South Ronaldshay has names for every district, which no other island but the Mainland has.
Gruties is, Mr. Heddle says, equivalent to 'Skerry-scrapers'—people who get their living from the 'grut' or refuse left in bights by the tide. ('Grut,' see Norse gröde = porridge or gruel.)
Scouties may be derived from the skua, though Mr. Heddle gives an unpresentable derivation. The word Birkies he did not know the meaning of, but asked two or three people, who all said the Sandwick people were so called 'because Sandwick was such a place for tangles coming ashore, and the people had such a habit of eating what they called "birken" tangles, i.e. the stout or lower ends of the large thick tangles.'
Burstin Lumps are a sort of preparation of oatmeal, once a very favourite dish in the Isles.
Rousay 'Mares'—There is an old tale of a Rousay man who, being a coward, killed his mare and hid inside her from his enemies. Mr. Heddle sends me an old rhyme on the subject:
As the Rousay man said to his mare:
'I wish I were in thee, for fear o' the war;
I wish I were in thee without any doubt,
Were it Martinmas Day before I cam' out.'The North Ronaldshay people did eat seals. Why Hides I do not know. Mr. Heddle here suggests it may have had to do with witchcraft, in which skins and especially seals' flippers were much used. Within the last ten years a man pulled down and rebuilt his byre because of some 'ongoings with a selkie flipper.'
The names are very old and must be of Scandinavian origin.
Yours sincerely,
DUNCAN J. ROBERTSON.
In addition to these names of 'eaters,' simple names of animals, we have shown in the text, are as commonly given to English villages as totemic names are given to the totem groups of savages.
ANCIENT HEBREW VILLAGE NAMES
In Robertson Smith's Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (p. 219) he says: 'I have argued that many place-names formed from the names of animals are also to be regarded as having been originally taken from the totem clans that inhabited them.' Now where totemism is a living institution I know no instance in which a locality is named from 'the totem clan that inhabits it.' The thing cannot be where female descent prevails, as many totems are then everywhere mixed in each local group. Where male descent prevails we do, indeed, get localities inhabited by groups mainly of the same totem name. But their tendency is to let the totem name merge in the territorial title, the name of the locality, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen prove for the Arunta and Mr. Dorsey for the Sioux.
Having found no instance where a totemic group gives its totem name to the locality which it inhabits, I was struck by a remark of Dean Stanley in his Lectures on the History of the Jewish Church (p. 319, 1870). He there mentions the villages of Judah which were the scenes of some of Samson's adventures (Joshua xv. 32, 33; Judges i. 35). The villages of Lebaoth, Shaalbim, Zorah, respectively mean Lions, Jackals, and Hornets. Nobody eats any of these three animals, and they may be names of totem groups transferred to localities—though of this usage I know no example among savage totemists—or they may merely be old Hebrew village sobriquets, as in England and France.
On consulting the Encyclopædia Biblica, under 'Names' (vol. iii. 3308, 3316) we find that 'there can be no doubt that many place-names' in Palestine 'are identical with names of animals.' Those 'applied to towns' (we may read villages probably) are much more common in the south than in the north. We have Stags, Lions, Leopards, Gazelles, Wild Asses, Foxes, Hyænas, Cows, Lizards, Hornets, Scorpions, Serpents, and so on. These may have been derived from old totem kins, though I think that theory improbable, or from the frequency of hornets or scorpions in this or that place, or the villagers' sobriquet may have become the village name. The last hypothesis has hitherto been overlooked. The frequency of animal and plant names in the Roman gentes, Fabii (Beans), Asinii (Asses), Caninii (Dogs), is an instance that readily occurs. These may be survivals of totemism or of less archaic sobriquets, while the totem names themselves, as we have argued, may have had their origin in sobriquets.
[1] Western Antiquary, vol. ix., pt. ii., p. 37, August, 1899.