Reading the Gaelic Landscape. John Murray

can be a’ bhràighe or a’ bhràghad (uh VRAAut). Although tràigh (try), meaning beach, is feminine, it has a similar genitive to bràigh, which is tràghad (TRAut). Càrn can be càirn or cùirn in the genitive - the same as its plural.

      The logic governing genitive nouns without an article in singular and plural forms is harder to fathom. In the genitive, indefinite singular, masculine nouns lose the lenition of the genitive, definite singular, but otherwise remain the same, whilst feminine nouns are wholly unchanged. So our examples of cladach and cruach become cladaich and cruaiche respectively. Proper names are an exception to this rule, so Calum’s Mountain is Beinn Chaluim.

      In the genitive, indefinite plural masculine nouns revert, as in the definite plural, to the singular nominative, but in contrast to that, they lenite where possible. Feminine nouns in the genitive, indefinite plural both lenite, where possible, and take the plural form. So our examples become chladach and chruachan. The way in which one syllable adjectives agree with nouns in the genitive is shown in Table 4.

      Plural genitives, like plural nominatives, are easier, because nouns usually retain their form in the singular. Their article is either nan or nam before a B, F, M, or P. As masculine and feminine forms are identical, it is the learner’s favourite case. Bealach nan Corp NN556109 ( BYAluch nun corp) - The Pass of the Bodies, north of Ben Ledi, and Sgùrr nan Gillean (skoor nun GEELyun) at NG472253 - The Peak of the Boys in the Cuillins of Skye, are masculine. Coire nan Saighead at NN606157 (CAWryuh nun SYut) - The Corrie of the Arrows, Sgiath nam Mucan Dubha at NN497074 (SGEEuh num MOOchkun DOOah) - The Wing-shaped Hill of the Little Black Pigs in the Trossachs are feminine. Here the suffix an applyied to muc denotes the diminutive - little. For if the pigs had been of a normal size, muc would remain in its singular form. So, nam mucan in this context means; of the little pigs. Many monosyllabic adjectives like àrd - high, and mòr - big, behave in the same way as dubh in the plural, resulting in beanntan àrda and gleanntan mòra. Also note how it is not possible to distinguish The Corrie of the Arrows from Corrie of the Arrows.

       5: Place-name Classifications - Revealing Layers in the Landscape

      In the early 20th century, OS published a brief booklet on Gaelic words most frequently used on its maps. It was enlarged in 1951 and 1968. The current 2005 Guide to Gaelic Origins of Place-names in Britain is much larger, and runs to 36 pages of alphabetically listed toponyms, with definitive examples and grid references. It is available online at:

       http://www.gaelicplace-names.org/index.php

      As one of its authors states elsewhere:

      We have become such slaves to the alphabet that we frequently forget its very nature of mere convenience, and tend to look upon its sequence … as something which … classifies or categorises beyond the order which it imposes … Indeed this seemingly convenient tool is the enemy of all classification.

      (Nicolaisen 2001 2)

      With this caveat in mind, a greatly expanded version of the ‘Guide to Gaelic Origins of Place-names in Britain’ has been compiled here and divided into 7 categories and 23 sub-categories. The system chosen is based on the ideas of Meto Vroom, a Dutch academic, and will be familiar to many landscape architects. In his scheme, landscape is classified according to three interacting horizontal layers: the abiotic or non-living at the bottom, the biotic or living in the middle and occupational or cultural layer uppermost (figure 3). Place-name categories in Gaelic can easily be attached to such names such as: creag (rock), darach (oak) and baile (township). The top layer can be developed further by considering Patrick Geddes’s trio of ‘Place, Work, Folk’ to classify categories of land use, occupation and people, which would give àirigh (shieling), ceàrd (smith) and gille (boy). These layers themselves often influence one another, literally from the ground up.

      The choice of a summer shieling site or temporary summer habitation would have been governed by easy access to running water and well drained, fertile soils favouring grasses palatable to grazing animals. Once shielings had been established, the long-term effects of pasturing animals and their manure would change vegetation patterns. Cutting peats for fuel at the shieling would alter drainage regimes and cause erosion. Thus the layers of a landscape interact in a circular and continuous manner over time.

      Processes of landscape change can originate and conclude in one layer. As humanity has moved from a hunter-gatherer to a global communications culture, with technology able to overcome many past constraints on activities, the origins, relationships and consequences of landscape change now mostly exist in the topmost cultural layer of landscape. In contrast, more traditional societies, like past shieling dwellers of the Highlands, were more dependent on vertical processes in the landscape coming from living and non-living layers. Today, the dominant cultural layer is increasingly disjointed, as modernist influences spread virally from culture to culture through mass media. Sometimes this is expressed in the naming of streets after Hollywood movie stars, and the many squares and places commemorating African or American presidents throughout the world; and even earlier by British street names commemorating battles in the Napoleonic, Crimean and Boer wars.

      We might think that early Celtic culture was isolated from such rapid spread of cultural influences. Some might suppose, for example, that the women of the shieling sang songs of love and loss in a purely local context. Yet it has been argued that early Irish legend originating in Connacht and Sligo was transferred to the Perthshire Highlands in the 17th century (Meek 1998). The Lay of Fraoch - Laoidh Fhraoich, where Fraoch means heather but is also the name of the hero involved, and refers to the healing powers of rowan berries gathered from a heathery island in a loch. The legend was associated with a crannog in Loch Freuchie - Loch Fraochaidh, Amulree (NN864376) where heather is abundant among the hills. Before that, the loch was called after the Glen where it lies, Glen Quaich - Gleann Cuaich - Glen of a Cup (NN797396). Both names were known in the 18th century. Gleann Cuaich is probably named after Coire Quaich - Coire Cuaich (NN774375), which has the cup shape, which the Glen lacks.

Figure 3: Layers in the Landscape

      Similarly, the Lay of Diarmaid (Laoidh Dhiarmaid), whose origins can be traced to Ben Bulben (Irish: Binn Ghulbain) in Sligo, has been relocated to Ben Gulabin / Beinn Ghulbhain (NO102722) in Perthshire’s Glen Shee - Gleann Sìodh (plate 25). Both mountains are snout shaped (though the toponym might come from the personal name Gulban). Here is a place-name which has been applied to a new locality to accompany a ballad moving from Irish to Scottish culture. Moreover, the new context has been carefully chosen to echo the formal landscape character of the original location, so helping to sustain the authenticity of the narrative action. The previous name of Beinn Ghulbhain and any attribute of the mountain it described, snout shaped or otherwise, is unknown. The begs the question: when is a place-name not the name of an actual place? Is it when it represents a symbolic locale in an imaginary narrative?

      Walter Scott situated his poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’ on Loch Katrine in the Trossachs (plate 5). In his text he renames Eilean Molach, the shaggy or rough island, as Ellen’s Isle (NN487083) after the story’s heroine. The work became so popular that the name has persisted, albeit with the original Gaelic also shown on the map, along with another name from the poem, the Silver Strand - where other parts of the plot take place. Such an overlay of place-names coming from a poem and subsequently recorded by OS show a level of invention far beyond earlier practice. Later in the 19th century, the all pervading influence of Scott’s fictional geography caused widespread protests against the raising of the Loch’s level to supply water to Glasgow. This would have concealed most of the Silver Strand.

      How does a layer