Martin Behem found one of these islands covered with beech-trees, and called it therefore Fayal, from the Portuguese word Faya, a beech-tree. Another island, abounding in sweet flowers, he called Flores, from the Portuguese, Flor, a flower. Terceira, one of the nine islands forming the group, is said to have been so called, because, in the order of succession, it was the third island discovered (from Ter and ceira, a bank). Graciosa, as a name, was conferred upon one of peculiar beauty, a sort of paradise. Pico derived its name from its sugar-loaf form. The raven found at Madeira and the Canary Islands is probably also a native of the Azores, and might have suggested the Portuguese name of Corvo for one of the nine. St. Mary, St. Michael, and St. George complete the names of the group, of which St. Michael is the largest and Corvo the smallest.
WM. YARRELL.
Rider Street.
Scologlandis and Scologi (Vol. v., p. 416.).
—As these names occur in a Celtic country, we are justified in seeking their explanation in the Celtic language. I therefore write to inform G. J. R. G. that the word scolog is a living word in the Irish language, and that it signifies a farmer or husbandman. It is the word used in the Irish Bible at Matt. xxi. 33., "he let it out to husbandmen"—tug se do scologaibh ar chios i.
I may also mention that the name Mac Scoloige is very common in the co. Fermanagh in Ireland, where it is very generally anglicised Farmer, according to a usual practice of the Irish. Thus it is not uncommon even now to find a man known by the name of John or Thomas Farmer, whose father or grandfather is John or Thomas Mac Scoloige, the name Mac Scoloige signifying "son of a farmer."
The Scologlandis, in the documents quoted by G. J. R. G., must therefore have taken their name from the scologs or farmers, by whom they were cultivated, unless we suppose that they were anciently the patrimony of some branch of the family of Mac Scoloige, whose remains are now settled in Fermanagh.
In Scotland the word is now usually written sgalag, and is explained by Armstrong in his Gaelic Dictionary "a farm servant." And the word does certainly seem to have been used in ancient Irish to denote a servant or menial attendant, although the notion of a farm servant seems to have grown out of its other significations. Thus in a very ancient historical romance (probably as old as the ninth or tenth century), which is preserved in the curious volume called Leabhar breac, or Speckled Book, in the library of the Royal Irish Academy, the word scolog is used to designate the servant of the Abbot of St. Finbar's, Cork.
J. H. T.