Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor
HTML Transcription
© F.Coakley , 2004
[From 3rd Manx Scrapbook ]
1. Names within the Island.— 2. Fishing places and their Bearings.— 3. Notes on some of the Names.— 4. Gleanings from old maps.— 5. " Manx Place-names in Cumbria."— 6. The Names of the Island.
To the collecting of little place-names there is no end. A lifetime could be misspent in adding Croit Vegs to Gob ny Creggans, Magher Banes to Cronk Mooars, without obvious benefit to the world. If the names of the Island itself are the gold of the currency, and the major local names are the silver (often clipped by speakers who have lost the language), then croft-names and field-names are the coppers, battered and defaced more by use than by time. Amassing such trifling and often fugitive appellatives as these last serves no good purpose, but others may have extrinsic value, and for those certain sources still remain untapped. If the many hundreds of place-names in the manuscript records at the Rolls Office, for example, were sifted, a useful residuum might result. A small number dating to the late 17th century and the early 18th, noticed while searching for other material, will be included in the list to follow.
Manx place-names are on an average much more recent than English place-names, for most of the latter must belong to the centuries immediately succeeding the Anglo-Saxon invasion, whereas extant Manx names originated in a great measure during a much later period. Furthermore, the continual supersession of old names by new has kept Manx nomenclature in a fluid state. A simple test of this proposition is provided by the names in the Abbey Boundaries recorded in the 15th or late 14th century. Of these forty-four names (excluding two dedications of churches), fewer than a dozen are still in use ; viz., Russin (as Rushen), Totnamby (Tosaby), Byulthan (Balthane), Balesalazc (Ballasalla), Glennadroman (Glentrammon), Sulaby (Sulby), Skynnescor (Skinscoe), Laxa (Laxey), and Gretastaz (Gretch). If the " veteres sicca " of the Lezayre Boundary is to be taken as a translation of a then-existing Close Chirrym, it is still extant in the latter form.
The smaller and less important a feature of the land is, the more recent its name is likely to be, broadly speaking ; and vice versa. If there is any pre-Celtic sediment in Manx nomenclature it need only be sought in the names of the Island itself, and not within its borders.
It is now no better than a truism that archaeology, social history, folk-lore and philology find place-names useful as clues or evidence in their several fields of enquiry. For that reason I have added these to the collection in the first Scrapbook . The few names which are not fresh are included for the purpose of further comment. Those which have not been obtained orally (mostly on the spot or near it), are in almost all cases referred to their source, or at the least are dated, when that seems sufficient. Corrections relating to names in the two previous Scrapbooks will be found. As the total number of names in each parish is small they have been arranged in a single alphabetical list. Among them are a considerable number of additions to those in the first Scrapbook which bear witness to the Island's wealth of supernatural beings-fairies, spirits and demonic animals, but in its place-names chiefly giants. Of other extinct fauna, otters (if the Island had any) may sometimes be signified by moddey (literally " dog "), especially in watery places. In the mountains it might mean " wolf " if we had any reason for thinking there were wolves in Man when its surviving place-names were bestowed. But the Moddey-doo, the spectral Black Dog, is more likely to be concerned in some of these dog names.
The irregular spellings of Manx words which will be noticed hereunder is mainly due to some of the names having been taken from books and manuscripts. I am conscious of not having always been consistent myself in the spelling of a few words, such as booilley, which is the more usual form, whereas bwoailley is the dictionary spelling. But the Manx language has not yet been disciplined by a comprehensive standard of orthography, and the need for it has passed.
The Abbey Cottage and Works (O.S. map), West of St. John's, on the North bank of the river Neb. An abbey is popularly believed to have stood in the field next below the road, between the road and the present brickworks.
Aih Beggey and Aih Charran were two " gaps " on the way from Amogarry to the Lonan mountains, according to an Enquest of 1710. Aih or aah is a river-crossing ; Kelly's dictionary adds " or rising ground." The " way " was probably the track which now leads from Ballaquine to a place on the Mountain Road called the Bungalow ; but it crosses no streams requiring fords.
Arragh in Manx place-names. In the Celtic Review, ix. 166, and in his Celtic Place-names of Scotland, page 479, Professor Watson mentions a number of old walls in Sutherland and Ross-shire constructed of stone or turf, which run across moor, mountain and glen in a very remarkable manner, much in the style of the Manx Cleiy yn Arragh, Lezayre, but on a far greater scale, for " the length of one is said to be nearly thirty miles. They were probably constructed, at least in some cases, to restrict deer, sheep, or other animals to the higher ground." Professor Watson quotes a passage from J. G. Campbell relating to Mull, where in old times a wall of turf was commonly built to separate the crop-land from the hill-land. The higher ground was known as the eirbhe. (In the same intention hill-dykes were built in Orkney to keep the sheep from the oats and potatoes.) In the neighbourhood of such Highland walls are found the place-names Altnaharra, Altnaharrie, and Maoil na h-Eirbhe. Eirbhe or aiybhe,1 which sufficiently explains these names, was a word, now obsolete, for an ordinary hedge or wall, as well as for certain obstacles that Irish druids set up by magical means. In some of the Manx examples the final " gh " requires explanation ; but I am told that Ballarragh, Lonan, for instance, is sometimes pronounced " Ballarrey " by the older people. As regards Cleiy yn Arragh, cleiy, " hedge," which involves a duplication of meaning, would naturally be prefixed after eirbhe in its Manx form had gone out of use.
As eirbhe did not necessarily mean a mountain hedge, it merits consideration with reference to Ballaharra and Shenharra, German. Ballaharry, Marown, lies immediately below mountain land, but a field named Cleiy Narra borders the river below Ballaberna, Maughold.
Awin Juan Bill, Patrick, is the correct form of the " Awin Jim Billy" given in A Manx Scrapbook , page 453. This stream was so-named from a former resident (one Cringle) in the adjacent house, now derelict.
Awin Ving, Lonan, a stream flowing from Braid Farrane Fing (O.S. map) into the Laxey river. Its source used to be visited in the course of the August pilgrimages into the mountains.
Baie Track ny Foawr, Ballacannell, Maughold. See Track ny Foawr.
Balladolby, " The Division of Balladolby betwixt Wm. Cain of Peeltown and Thomas Gell of Dolby " formed the subject of a Setting Quest case in 1711. This is an interesting stage in the development of the name which is now Ballelby. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say (since the spelling in the Manorial Roll of 1643 was Ballelby) that it shows the conservatism of the legal mind in preserving a much older form.
Ballaholley is " another name " colloquially for one of the three Ballasalla farms in Jurby. It has value in reference to Bal-ny-Hollach, mentioned in the first Scrapbook (pages 361, 362) as a traditional name of Ballasalla, Malew.
Ballakesh Bank, off the coast of Bride, should be added to " Whitestone Bank " as a land-name given to a sandbank or fishing-ground ; see the first Scrapbook , page 188. Ballakesh is a Bride farm.
Ballaknock (1710), Ballachrink farm, Ballaglass Glen. (Records.)
Ballavoddan, Andreas and Malew. There was an old Scottish personal name Moddan. Torfaeus mentions two men in the bodyguard of Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, who fell at Clontarf in 1014, sons of " Count " Maddan of Dungalsby (Dungansby) ; also another Maddanus in Caithness about the year 1100. There is no such personal name now extant in the Isle of Man.
Barebane and Toltamitchal. A parcel of land in Kirk Maughold called Barebane was declared to belong to Toltamitchal by an Enquest of 1709 (Enq. and Petn. Files, 10. 48 ; Reg. of Deeds).-Bayrbane," White Road." Toltamitchal is now Thalloovitchell. While the modern and dictionary meaning of tholtan is a " a small ruinous building," the exact sense of tolt is not so clear.
Barley Dub, a pool at the South end of Maughold churchyard, between the fence and the embankment, and near a well (now closed) and a chapel-site. (See Lioar Manninagh, i. 386.) Even trivial names in this important area are worth keeping in view.
Barrule. With regard to Sir John Rhys's suggestion in Moore's Place-names that Barrule is the same word as Wardfell, there is an eminence called Cahir-barool in Co. Cork which could not be thus explained. It is the site of a dolmen and an engraved pillar-stone mentioned in Borlase's Dolmens of Ireland, pages 33 and 34, from a MS. of J. Windele.
Bayr Beg, Bayr Jeg, and Bayr Noa, are the three roads that come together near the Jalloo in Maughold. The first runs South-West from that point, the second runs up towards Maughold Church, the third runs due West. " Little, Red (Jiarg), and New Road."
Bayr Dhowin, runs from the Jurby road near Ramsey through a cutting down to the river, and across it to the Lezayre road at Milntown. " Deep Road."
Bayr Hogg, Lonan, runs from Gretch Vane to the now partitioned farm of Thalloo Hogg, " Hogg's land." Hoggs were a local family.
Bayr Jiarg Charrin, " Red Road of Mt. Karrir.," is thus distinguished from other Red Roads because it climbs the West side of that hill. The invading Parliamentary forces under Colonels Duckenfield and Birch made use of it in 1651. From Ballachurry in Andreas " they marched to Sulby, went up Bairjiarg-Charrin, and passing (sic) over the mountains in a direct line for Castletown " (Quiggin's Guide, 1848).
For a description of the road see A Manx Scrapbook , page 138, last item.
Bayr Jiarghey, " Red Road," runs from the river at Old Ballaugh to the main road near Orrisdale. It is evidently an ancient highway which has fallen into disuse, being at times choked with blown sand. (Listed as Bayr Jegga, the current pronunciation, in A Manx Scrapbook ; also known as Bollan Jiarghey.) In many of the road-names and others in which it occurs, jiarg would perhaps be more appositely rendered " yellow " or " brown."
Beeal Faaie ny Nink or ny Hink. The suggestion made under this head in A Manx Scrapbook , page 521, that " ink " meant grazing-ground, is supported by the definition of " Inks " in The Gallovidian Encyclopedia as a salt-marsh affording coarse grass for sheep. The word recurs in Chibber Nink, Lonan.
Beeal Liauyr, " Long Mouth, or Opening," is a rock below Maughold Lighthouse with an " eye " or loophole through it resembling that at the Calf, but much smaller. The second term in the name appears to be the Mx word for "long," and is so pronounced ; but the Norse name for a cliff with this feature was Ljóraness. A ljóri was the hole in the roof of a house which let the smoke out and the light in.
Booilley Greg, the field adjoining that containing Keeill Chiggyrt on Ballaberna, Maughold. Booilley ny Greg, " Cattle-fold, or Milking-place, of the Rocks."
Birroo Bridge, The (stress on first syll.), crosses the Awin Ruy on the road between St. Mark's and Ballamodda at a point near the Black Fort (now removed), which was presumably the birroo or mound, as in The Birroo, an earthwork near Ballacorris, Santan.
Boayl Feeagh, " Raven Place," a field on Cloughur, Malew. The name is a relic of the time when ravens frequented the vicinity of the farms ; now they survive precariously on the rocky parts of the coast. To those pre-gunpowder days probably relates a proverb quoted in this connexion by Mr. P. G. Ralfe : " Throw a piece to the raven and he'll come again."
Boayl ny Grongan, " Place of the Hillocks," Dreemskerry, Maughold, is rough sloping land, where no hillocks or tumuli are now noticeable.
Boayl ny Niee, "Place of the Washing," on the Struan ny Niee, between Ballaberna and Croit Woods, Maughold. For description and folk-lore see page 351 ff.
Bon Rock, The, is an isolated shore-rock at the top of Perwick Bay, Rushen. " Bon " is the common term for small firewood, which might be thrown up here.
Booilley Lowal (rhyming with " avowal "), a field on Ballaberna, Maughold. " Lowal " is probably for liauyr, long.
Booilley Vicar (part of Ballakilley) and Rhen Bulnarenny, intacks, are mentioned in a reference to the allotment of seats in Rushen Church when it was enlarged in 1775. (Manx Quarterly, No. 12, page 1137.)
Booley Jaghey. " A way through the field called Tithe Fould or Booley Jaghey " in Rushen Sheading in 1703. " Red Cattle-fold."
The Bothagan, a farm road at the Howe, Rushen. (Blanche Nelson's MSS.)
Breeches Bay, Rushen (O.S. map), was perhaps formerly Baie Brishtey, " Split, or Divided, Bay," which would suit its configuration.
Bwoailtyn Vaney, North Lonan. Some years ago, while listening to a Lonan man's discourse, I caught the word " Broolton." Enquiry elicited that this was the more usual name for " Brooilley Venney " (or Vanney, it was difficult to be sure), the English for which would be " Fragments," and probably " White Fragments." Later I learnt that this was a croft consisting of half a dozen small sheep-grazing fields and a ruined house " called Booilley Vaney." In a copy of a deed of sale dated 1803 I found the name written " Bwoailtey Vaney," which suggested that the correct form was " Bwoailtyn Vaney," " White (i.e. fallow) Folds." On getting the exact bearings of the place I discovered that it corresponded to the Ordnance map's " Craftwallyvean," a version which would not be approved by anybody in the district. " Croft-walty-vean " would have more resemblance to the correct name, and perhaps this was what was intended.
Such are the habits of the small Manx place-name in its wild state. The piece of land thus variously entitled now pertains to the farm of Cronk y Chuill. It has the reputation of being the only ground within the radius of a mile which is not haunted.
Brummish Veg (so pronounced, though Kennish, Mona's Isle, spells it " Brumish "), was a celebrated inn standing in what is now the haggart-field of Ballaglass farm in Maughold. Some of its stones are still visible in the walls. (Less accurately located in A Manx Scrapbook , page 398.) Traditions on page 355.
The Buggane fort, Andreas, on the margin of the Lagaugh Mooar pool (A Manx Scrapbook , page 198), may owe its name to its having been haunted, but certainly not to brooghane, a little bank, as I suggested.
Bunjey, The. Besides the croft at the Northern extremity of Patrick (O.S. map), a piece of land at the top of Close Clark, Malew, bears this name. Probably the Manx banjagh or banejagh, " fallow land."
Bwoaillee Mona Hummer, Maughold (recorded thus by the Rev. S. N. Harrison). The first two terms are familiar. With regard to the last, it may be noted that Ellwood's Lakeland Glossary explains " hummer " as " a swamp," a word very frequent in Icelandic placenames but almost obsolete in the Cumbrian dialect. A personal name may, however, be represented by " Mona Hummer."
Cabbal ny Chooilley. See Cooilley, the.
Calloo. A middle-aged native of North Lonan tells me that the road leading up from the Ballarragh Chapel towards the mountains was called Bayr Calloo. On the lower or South side of it was Croft y Calloo. In one of its fields was (and is) Chibber y Calloo. A family named Callow which formerly lived here probably gave its name to the road, croft and well; but see the item next below.
The Bayr Calloo, he further informs me, was haunted. The spectre of a young woman was seen upon it by a postman and others at various times in the past.
Callow Caraugh. In a boundary dispute between Christian of Milntown and Cannell of Claghbane in 1694 the boundary terminated at " an old hedge below in Callow Caraugh and thence Westward to Milntown hedge." (Enq. & Petn. Files, fo. 55.) The evidence dated back several generations.
Callow. The Norse kalfy, calf, applied to objects near larger ones of the same sort, suits the Calf Island, called in Manx yn Calloo or yn Calloo, and it may possibly explain Calloway (O.S. map), a portion of Perwick, Rushen ; but the callow under notice is more likely to be a native word, probably from the Gaelic calbh, " bare, a bare place." Croit Callow, for example, is the local name for the spot popularly called John o' Groats. Kelly's Dictionary, s.v. " Pillar," has " calloo, a thing that is under the arch of the bridge " -presumably the keystone ; but nothing of this description can be connected with any of the abovenamed places.
Caraugh, if accented on the second syllable, would be reminiscent of the name of the little stream which here divides the parishes of Maughold and Lezayre, the Struan ny Crawe ; but it is more likely to stand for keyragh, genitive of keyyee, a sheep.
A durrag or dirrag was a wicket-gate in the lower half of a wall ; nowadays a large slate is substituted.
Carbadell. " The mere [boundary] between Ballantore and Carbadell near Scroundall in Ballaugh " (1710). Now Ballathoar and Carmodal respectively, but the latter name is written and pronounced in many different ways.
Carn y Crock, " Cairn of the Urn," at the South side of Dalby Mountain, near the high-road.
Carrig Creen, " Dry-herbage Rock," a flat, steepsided rock on Ballaskeg, Maughold, where the youngsters used to assemble for games on Sundays. This may be the same as " the Giant's Table," q.v.
Casement's Croft. " Collays Croft, commonly called Casement's Croft," in a boundary dispute in 1694 between Christian of Milntown and Cannell of Claughbane (Enq. and Petn. Files, fo. 55). The evidence given was traditionary. The croft appears to have been the modern Crossags farm.
Chibber. For names beginning with this word see under " Wells," except Chibbey y Calloo (see Calloo), and Chibbey Feeyney (see Feeyney).
Chinnaean, Lonan (now pronounced thus, or nearly), the road from Ballarragh Chapel down towards King Orry. A ninety-year-old local resident's pronunciation, which I happened to hear in 1929, was the same as that of the Manx word for " tongues "— chenghaghyn. When I asked him to repeat it he added that the spot " was a great fairy place, where they were often heard whispering and chattering at night." He did not say explicitly that the name meant " tongues," nor do I.
Claghyn Daa Holt or Hit, at the Sloc, Rushen. " The young men used to go there in the fine evenings and on Sundays to amuse themselves, running and jumping and playing about the stones." So a woman well on in her eighties told me in 1929. She had made a similar statement even more briefly once before, and it was all she had to say, unfortunately, about these standing-stones or the pits near them. In A Manx Miscellany, ii. 14 (1880), spectral forms are said to haunt the place. (Additional to page 510 of A Manx Scrapbook .)
Clagh Vedn and The Giant's Stone are names for the quartz boulder which rests on the highest point of Shellag brooghs, Bride.
"The refracting spar of old Claugh-veddin
Shone bright, like a star in emerald green " (Quarrie, "The Melliah ").
It is said locally to bear the finger-prints of the giant who hurled it from the top of Barrule at an enemy's ship which he saw approaching the coast.
Cleiy Narra, a field bordered by the Struan ny Niee where it flows between Ballaberna and Croit Woods, Maughold. See Arragh above for a possible explanation of the name. The adjoining field is Cleiy Clagh, " Boulder I-ledge."
Close Emmel, on the North-West side of the Sharragh Vane, Ballaugh (Award Plans of the Disafforesting Commissioners, 1861). Cf. Bayr Cronk yn Yemmel, Dalby (A Manx Scrapbook , page 137). But Emell was a fem. forename.
Close Rush, Sandy gate, Jurby. " Underwood Enclosure." Cf. Park Rash, Rass ny Muck, Ross Vedn, Ross y Reema, and Pooylroish (now Pulrose), with reference also to the word " Rushen."
Coan Argid, Michael. (See Glanbeasht.)
Cooilley, The, " the back, or inner, part," was a name for a portion of Ballakermeen, Bride. Quarrie, " Tittlewhack," speaks of old " Kerry na Coolyeh," as he spells it. She is still remembered there for her sundry eccentricities and adventures. When past 80 she was as strong as a horse. She kept house for the farmer of Ballakermeen East, where she was never seen to sit on a chair but on the floor only. Notwithstanding her general toughness she took to heart a quarrel with her employer so keenly that she tried, though without any luck, to drown herself in the claydub on the farm. . . . Some of the remarkable characters sketched by Quarrie are still remembered in the North.
Cabbal ny Chooilley, " Chapel of the Rear Part," is the local name for the ancient keeill in the field called Creggan ny Chooilley on Ballakermeen. " The big stone that the Ballakermeen man took away for a gatepost, but he got no sleep that night and put it back first thing next morning," is pointed out on the mound of the chapel.
Cooil y Voddey, " Nook, or Hiding-place, of the Dog; " perhaps the otter. An intack in Lezayre Curragh.
Corrodee was the name of a now-deserted croft just below where the " Mountain Pillars " stood on the road from Dalby to the Round Table, Patrick. There is another " Corrody," in a still more elevated position, on the South side of Sulby Glen (O.S. map), for which one example of an earlier spelling " Corrany " has been recorded by J. J. Kneen. It has an ancient chapel and probably a prehistoric burial-place. The absence, so far as is known, of the English custom of Corrody from Man leaves room for some other explanation of the name.
Craftwallyvean (O.S. map). See Booilley Vane.
Craig Hughy Hom Sill, in Archallaghan Plantation, at the top of Cooillinjill Glen, Marown (Award Plans, as above), is a capital specimen of Mx personal placenames. "Rock of Hughy, (son of) Tom, (son of) Silvester."
Craves, a street in Castletown, according to a footnote in T. E. Brown's Collected Poems, page 224.
" Over the Craves, and all down New Street, And up Kirk Arbory and Kirk Malew Street."
The name seems to have been forgotten before 1932. Mr. P. G. Ralfe told me he had never heard it.
Creanagh, " a place of ripe or withered herbage," on the Western boundary of Lezayre, a few hundred yards South of its junction with Jurby and Ballaugh.
Creena Chrink (Creen ny Chrink), " Withered-place of the Hill," a field on Ballaberna, Maughold.
Creggan ny Chibbert, " Rocky-place of the Well," a hill on the West Berk, Michael. A tumulus is marked hereabouts on the Ordnance map.
Croit Air, " East Croft," South of Ballaglass Mill, Maughold.
Croit Vess, Ramsey. See Lowde's House.
Croft Woch, " Hare Croft," North of Ballaglass Mill.
Cronk Breek (O.S. map), below Grenaby Bridge, Malew. " Speckled, or Parti-coloured Hill." The tenant here paid-up to the end of the 19th century, at least-—a mill-rent to the owner, so the tenant in 1928 told me. There is not, nor was there when the mill-rent was still being paid, any visible trace of the mill itself. It had stood in the riverside meadow immediately below the old Cronk Breek house, which was still standing a few years ago. The millstream was taken from the river near the single-slab footbridge known as " the Old Slate."
Cronk y Cashnel, a rocky peak on the Gob y Volley side of the entrance to Sulby Glen. Probably for Cronk y Cashtal, " Hill of the (natural) Castle." The " Cashnel " form is sufficiently well established to have been given to a village band.
Cronk y Croghee, above the Northern end of Ramsey Mooragh (A Manx Scrapbook , page 247). This " Hill of Hanging " is doubtless the " Hangman's Hill " where the coastal Night Watch for the parish of Lezayre was kept in 1627 (see I.M.N.H. and A.Soc.Proc., new ser., iii. 259). It was probably the small enclosure marked " Fort " on the Ordnance map, now otherwise nameless. Who, unless the Bishops, could have authorised capital punishment at this spot ? All civil hangings were supposed to have been carried out at Castletown. " You'll not die on the Northside ! " was a proverbial sarcasm.
Cronk Cunney, a field on Crowville, Maughold. Pronounced as here spelt, and not " cunya," as conney, furze, and the surname Quinney, are pronounced.
Cronk-end, a house and fields one-third of a mile W.S.W. of Ballacorey, Andreas. " Knock-ean " on the maps.
Cronk Glass, " Green Hill," on Glen May claddagh. This is a bush-covered tumulus which has not yet been investigated, so far as I am aware.
Cronk y Rushen is the name of a rough field on the East side of the old Douglas pack-road between Ballure Bridge and the Hibernian. It lies on the Rhoan land, adjoining the boundary with Folieu, and forms part of the hillside sloping down from Slieu Lewaigue to Ballure Glen. It contains no tumulus as does its namesake near Castletown. The name is an interesting addition to the half-dozen others in the Island containing the word Rushen, about the meaning of which opinions have differed. In Ireland it is fairly common in such forms as Rusheen, Rossane, Rushen, Rushin, Russaun, and Slieve Rushen. In Scotland it is often Rossan, which the Gallovidian Encyclopedia explains as " bramble-covers." Though it is a derivative of ros, wood or promontory, the latter sense does not fit any of the Manx examples and is the less usual one in Ireland. Dinneen, s.v., says " Ros, a wood or copse ; often the site of an old cemetery," and that maybe the case with more than one of the Manx derivatives. Here " Brushwood Hill " would suit. For Ros in Cornwall see Gover, London Mediæval Studies, i., pt. a, 1938.
Cronk Sharrey adjoins the bridge (Dro;had Ruy) between Dalby and the Mountain Pillars, on the road to the Round Table. Sharragh (literally " foal ") is used for inland boulders as cabbyl, " horse," is used for larger cliff-rocks. There is, however, one sharragh on the coast in the name Gob y Sharrey, South of Niarbyl, Patrick.
Cronk y Skaddhan, " Hill of the Herrings," Port Mooar, Maughold. Here fishermen used to spread their nets on Saturdays to dry over the week-end.
Cronk y Tholt is the ridge between the two portions of Andreas village. Tholt, which occurs in several place-names, is represented in the dictionaries and colloquially only by its diminutive tholtan, understood to mean a small ruinous building.
Cronk y Vate. The English word " mate " seems to have been adopted into Manx to a sufficient extent to figure in field-names. Cronk y Vate, a field on Doarlish Cashen, Patrick, is said locally to take its name from a man known as " the Mate."
Cronk ny Vessy, a croft on Cronk ny Fedjag, Michael. Probably " Bessy's Hill."
Crot y Calloo, Lonan. See Calloo.
Crot Unjin is a long-abandoned holding in Glen Chaltun (" the Sound "), on the South side of the stream called Awin Jim Billy and opposite Dub ny Bunt or Punt. " Ash Croft." Ash-trees are still plentiful here.
Crot y Vrow, on Ballaratcliffe, Andreas, is an example of the Northside diphthongal pronunciation of broogh, bank. Cf. dow for doo.
Curragh Patrick, Ayre Sheading. Presentment in reference to the way to and from Curragh Patrick, 1704. (E. and P. Files, fo. 36.) There was a bridge on it. Probably the same marsh as Lough Pherick, Bride, q.v.
Curragh Rowany. The long strip of ground lying between the Granite Mountain, Malew, and the highroad between Castletown and Foxdale, bears this name. Turf for fuel was formerly obtained here. The Rowany, Port Erin, is land of a similar nature, the name of which, at the beginning of the 16th century, was written Edremony ; i.e. " Amid the turf-ground," or " Between the two turf-grounds."
In the Perambulation of the Abbey Turbary occurs at this spot the name " Sbinan Rowany," adjacent to " the Curragh " and " Sornan Barrule." Both " Sbinan " and " Sornan " are most probably errors for " Struan," " river," in Cumming's transcript — the only one — of the lost original. The Struan Barrule is the brook which rises on that mountain, and Struan (" Sbinan ") Rowany would be the one which joins it from the Curragh Rowany.
Curragh y Whilya (thus pronounced), Lonan. Here the track to Gob y Daa Chen crosses the stream beyond the mountain gate above Ballarragh Chapel. " Whilya " may be for chooilley, " back part."
Dal Mooar, " Great Portion," is a small croft above the Ballaglass river, Maughold, on the left bank below the mill.
Daluacarney, Maughold. " From the lowest end of dall nacãrney from that Broken Browe above ye deepe pooll " to the easement of Crowcreen and other farms, in an Enquest of 17o2 (E. and P. Files, fo. 68). This must be very close to the modern bridge at Ballaglass Mill. There is an easement for watering cattle, now disused, just below the bridge. "Portion of the Carney family." An obs. surname. Cf. Ballacarney, Patrick.
Whereas the smaller Mx glens have kept their old names, most of the larger ones have lost theirs. Ballaglass Glen, Dhoon Glen, Ballure Glen, Elfin Glen, Ballaugh Glen or Ravensdale, Laxey Glen and Valley, Colby Glen, and Silverdale, all these must have replaced purely native names which, if they could be retrieved, might in some cases be found to preserve Celtic stream-names not now extant in the Island.
Dal y Veitch (O.S. map), Sulby Glen. Earlier forms of this name, given by Mr. Kneen, negative the suggestion (A Manx Scrapbook , pp. 135, 265) that beetchagh, an inn-keeper, might be concerned in it. Beetchagh, by the way, is one of the many words that require to be added to the Mx dictionaries.
Dem ny Tarroo Ushtey is now merely a boggy area " lying on both sides of the road and river above Booilley Velt gate, Maughold, but mostly on the S.W. side, where there are traces of a causeway across it. " Dam (hence Pool) of the Water Bull." For folklore see page 380.
Dhyrnane (O.S. map), just North of Port Mooar, Maughold. The " r " is not sounded, and the name was written " Port Donnan," " Danane " and " Danane " in the 17th cent. Dinneen, Ir. Dict., has Donán, gen. donain, for a kind of rock-fish. If this word was ever in use by Mx fishermen it would explain the name of the little inlet, and pair with Port y Bloggan, the harbour of the pollack or rock-cod, almost adjacent. But Donnan is also a surname, though not Mx.
Diamond Gate, North East of Greeba Mountain, Marown (Award Plans, as above).
Doarlish Allen, " Allen's Gap," is at the Rhullic ny Quakeryn, the former cemetery of the Quakers, where the road passes through a gateway. Allen is a local family-name. The family are said to have been Protestant refugees from Norwich in the reign of Queen Mary. They became associated with Quakerism in the Isle of Man.
Dockspout Bridge, Sulby Glen (Jenkinson's Guide, 1874). Manx name Droghad y Cabbal, Bridge of the Chapel. The stone bridge a quarter of a mile below it is known as Bishop Murray's Bridge. The Manx for this, Droghad Aspet, would easily be corrupted into " Dockspout," which name may have been misplaced either by Jenkinson or his informant. This conjecture will not appear extravagant to those who are familiar with other transformations of native names.
Dooagan, Balnylhergy, Patrick, is a name belonging to the steep hillside overlooking Glen May village from the South. The idea of " darkness "appears to be involved, either from the colour of the ling or from the shadow cast on the lower part of the village in winter. Round the East side of the hill winds the
Dooags Road, a green trackway.
Dreem Drow, field on Ballafayle Kerruish, Maughold. " Drow " may be a corruption of drughaig, the hip-thorn.
Dreemshuggle, " Rye-ridge," Ballavair, Bride, though its name has no intrinsic interest, deserves to be remembered as the first field in the Island where a reaping-machine was seen at work. (Quarrie, " The First Reaping-machine.")
Dubba ny Sack, " Pool of the Sacks," was close to " Fargher's Mill "-presumably Mullenaragher on the Santon river. A stream came from the " dubba," (Mx dubbyr), to the mill. (Enquest of 1704.)
Dub ny Hollach, " Pool of the Cattle," under the water-slide in the gill above Ballig Bridge, Maughold.
Ellan, The, " the Island," is the next field but one to the S.W. of Andreas Church, containing several acres of glebe-land. Most of it consists of a low, flattish eminence surrounded by traces of a moat. This " island " has a general resemblance, on a much larger scale, to the " fort " called locally Port y Candas, near Ballacraine Corner in German. Andreas tradition asserts that " a parson's house " formerly stood on the Ellan, and was reached by a drawbridge. Archdeacon Moore's comment is said to have been to the effect that the Andreas people must have been a bad lot in the old times if their parson had to defend himself from them in this way.
Ellan y Voddey, " Island of the Dog." Intack in Ballaugh Curragh. (Documentary.)
Egypt. An area at the Southern foot of Pennypot mountain, but in Braddan parish, between the two branches of the upper West Baldwin valley. (Award Plans of Disafforesting Commnrs.)
Fairy Pool, The, is the name (translated from Mx ?) . of a deep place in the Ballacuberagh river, Lezayre, above the quarry.
Fairy Stone, The, stands at the junction of the two streams below Rhenass waterfall, German. It figures in the scenery of The Captain of the Parish, pages 270 and 275. A small, grey, insignificant-looking stone, standing upright.
Feeyney. This puzzling term was touched upon in A Second Manx Scrapbook , pages 225-6. To the list there given of place-names in which it occurs must be added two more :
(1) Garey Feeyney, Ballavitchell, Marown, was pointed out to me by Mr. William Cubbon in 1932, when a house was being built at its lower end. It is a strip of land formerly about 120 yards in length and averaging 6 to 8 yards in width. On the East side it is bordered by a field, and on the West side by a road of which it appears to have originally been part.
(2) Glion ny Feeyney, Lonan, contains the Northern branch of the Laxey river, flowing from Clagh Height.
(3) Garey Feeyney, Malew. Since the publication of the second Scrapbook I have gathered the history of this bit of ground, a history which is as curious in a small way as its shape and situation. It is really part of the farm of Wigan, but the "New Road "-the present line of highway from Ballamodda to Castletown-cut it off and left it physically attached to Ballachrink. Being so small it was neglected and left to run wild. It then came into the hands of a Mrs. Kinvig, who, with her son, a schoolmaster at Ballamodda, cleared it and cultivated it as a vegetable garden. Afterwards it was again abandoned to the sallies, briars and ferns which now adorn it. A few yards of its acute angle have been taken off in the course of quite recent " road improvements." The name Garey Feeyney is not now well-known locally. It was mentioned to me casually before I knew the site, by a friend whose childhood was spent in the immediate neighbourhood.
(4) Garey Feeyney on Gob ny Creg, Greeba, just inside the Marown boundary, is merely a miniature natural lawn a few feet square which forms the roof of a cave. How did such a tiny patch of soil-carpeted rock come by a name, and get it entered on the 6 in. Ordnance map ? There must have been romantic associations of some sort. (See Fratlag.)
(5 and 6) Lheeaney Feeyney and Chibber Feeyney, Ballacree, Bride. The first is very like what (7) Cooill ny Feeyney in North Ramsey was before the Town Commissioners began to civilize it and its Chibber y Woirrey according to their lights. It (No. 5) is a sloping, uncultivated piece of ground, sedgy, gorsy and rushy, with a small bog in the low-lying North corner. From this a rill flows out in a North-Easterly direction. In the bank just above the bog was once the (6) Chibber Feeyney, but this well has been drained into the field. A hillock or tumulus called Cronk y Villey, the Hill of the Tree, stood near until it was demolished in 1860. The whole place was evidently venerated and frequented not very long ago, but I found no one who even remembered these names, though not many years have passed since they were recorded by Mr. P. M. C. Kermode.
(8) Chibber Feeyney, Glen Roy, Lonan, is a deep roadside well with a stone superstructure and steps leading down to the water.
(9) Cronk ny Feeyney is a field on Mwyllin-yQuinney adjoining the roadway opposite Ballavagher gate in Santon and extending up to the Glebe. The last term is pronounced " Fendy " hereabouts, but the estate-plan has it " Feeyney," and that is admitted locally to be " the right name." The field forms the lower portion of a hill which was doubtless all Cronk ny Feeyney at one time. It was formerly two separate fields until Captain Bacon of Seafield removed the dividing hedge, which is still traceable by the eye when the grass is short.1
(10) Traie ny Feeyney, N.W. of Maughold Head, is a narrow strip of boulder-strewn beach at the foot of a steep cliff where mine-working has been carried on.
(11) Traie Feeyney, or The Wine Shore, Ballaquane, Patrick, is a sandy shore with outcropping rocks of a fair height and a large cave at its Northern end.
After examining all the places in the Island known to me whose names contain the word feeyney I am unable to say that there is a single natural feature or quality common to them all. The pronunciation usually has the slender " n," but not invariably. Professor Watson (Celtic Place-names of Scotd., page 437), in dealing with fion, wine, and fine, vine, in river and well names, explains them as referring to the virtue attributed to the water through its rising or flowing near a sacred site.2But in six of the eleven Mx places there is neither stream nor well. If the Mx feeyney is to be translated "wine " in every case it is open to three different interpretations :-(a) Literally, for places used by smugglers to conceal wine and spirits, or by others to store them. 3 (b) As " sacred " or " magical " water. (c) In a purely fanciful sense, " a vineyard," for a small plot of ground.
Traces, however, of a tendency to understand feeyney as equivalent to "fairy" or "supernatural" create a suspicion that the companions of Fionn MacCumhaill, in Sc. Gaelic na Féinne, may be concerned. For these Kelly's Dictionary gives the Mx as Fenee, singular Feniaght. In Scottish and Irish stories the Fein are superhuman but not supernatural. MacRitchie (Fians, Fairies and Picts, pp. 27-38), quite fails to prove tha the Fians were, to use his own words, "either identical with, or closely akin to, the Fairies." Many of the passages he cites from Gaelic literature show that they were clearly distinguished from each other, and more evidence to that effect could be adduced. And in the Mx fragment of a Fenian epic, " Finn as Oshin " (obviously derived straight from a Scottish source), they are free from any supernatural atmosphere. But in the native folk-lore they do seem to have reached the status of other-world beings before they were entirely forgotten, as witness the concluding lines of the old " Song of the Fairies," literally translated :
" Finn MacCoole and all his company,
The Fairy of the Glen and the Buggane,
If they were to gather about thy bed,
Then would they run off with thee in a straw-rope." (Manx Ballads, page 71.)Independently of Finn and his merry men, fe'inne in its absolute sense of " band," " troop," could well have been used euphemistically for fairies or giants, in the Mx form feeyney. On the other hand, only one of the eleven places described above gives off a fairy aroma, and that is of the slightest.
Superficially similar terms for fairies and the like are current in France and parts of Germany. The Maison des Feins at Tressé, Ille et Vilaine, is a dolmen where fairies dwelt and kept their cows. The fairies of the Upper Rhone, near its source, are called Fenettes. The Fanettes of Central France were semi-animal fairies. The Fions (perhaps merely a diminutive of fée, like fayon) inhabited the sea-caves of Brittany (Folk-lore de France ; see Index). Germany appears to have borrowed Feen and Feinen from the mediaeval French romances. In one of the Tristram poems a little fairy hound " was sent to the Duke out of Avalon, the fairy (Feinen) land, by a Goddess." (See Keightley, Fairy Mythology, p. 12.) In Altmark, Central Prussia, during the week before Christmas, die Feien, " the Fairies," men dressed as women, danced through the villages. (Eng. Folk Song and Dance Soc., ii, 97.) Another term, fän, signifying an elf or demon of the wild, has been compounded in Fänsweibchen, " elf woman," Fänsquelle, " elf-spring or brook," etc. Fänken or Fanggen, a kind of nature-spirits in the Tyrol, are quoted by Leland, Gypsy Sorcery, p. 67.
1 Mwyllin y Quinney has other features of interest. The claghan at the ford was remarkable for the size of its boulders, placed there in time out of memory for stepping-stones. Only the four biggest still stand, the lesser ones having been washed down the river and lost to view in the violent flood of September, 1930. A gravestone with an undecipherable inscription was dug up in the garden of Mwyllin y Quinney house some years ago, the tenant told me a few years ago.
2 In Hanover the general name used by the natives for a sepulchral tumulus is Weinberg, or in the Wendish, Feinberg, for which they can give no meaning " (Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland, p. 544). Borlase no doubt meant that they could not explain why the hillocks should be associated with wine; for the ordinary sense of these names, as of Cronk ny Feeyney, would be " Wine Hill."
3 One clear case of connexion between a Mx well and wine is on record in the Castle Rushen Papers, where, circa 1694, it appears that the " Dark Well " in the Castle precincts was used for storing wine, and in such quantities that shelving must have been necessary. But this well was not called Chibber ny Feeyney. It may have been the Chibber ny Hidey, " Well of the Tides," in the main courtyard.
Flasks, The, flattish shore-rocks just East of Perwick, Rushen. " The Wet (Rocks) " flesc, Cormac's Gloss., fleasg, Shaw's Highland Dict. O'Davoren's Gloss. renders it traigh, shore.
Folestoles (" of " as in " polka "), a place in the Sound, Patrick, below the Dooags road. The name is obviously much corrupted.
Fratlag, a spot in Greeba Plantation, Marown, where there are standing stones (Kermode, List of Antiquities, page 2). Probably the Mx fritlag, a remnant, a foolish trifle. It lies below the woods in which is the Garey Feeyney (see Feeyney No. 3).
Shortly before 1863 Dr. Oliver, an antiquary, added amenities to the Greeba Plantations and threw the grounds and the Tower open to the public, under the fanciful name of " Monte Cassino." (Thwaites, Isle of Man, page 352.) About 1875 the place was let as a pleasure-ground and boarding-house to a man named Clague from Glen Helen. These enterprises may explain the presence of apparently aimless pathways in the woods, the erected stones and grottoes, and this Mx name for one of the sham antiquities.
Garee Streeu, " Rough-ground of Strife," on the N.E. side of the Bayr Ballagawne, Malew, was so-named because its ownership was long in dispute at some former time, according to local tradition. A Leany Strew was a Malew intack in the Lord's Composition Book, 1703. Lheeaney Streeu, Kewaigue, Braddan, has a tradition that it used to be the scene of trials by combat. For the name of Boayl Streeu, Raby, Lonan, I should like to hear an explanation. In coastal names streeu is used in its literal sense for the warfare of currents and tides.
Garey ne Cheperaught. " The Way from the How to Garey ne Cheperaught " in Garff Sheading (Enquest of 1707 ; Files, fo. 30). " Rough-ground of the spring-place." The " Way " might have been from either the Barony Hough, or Howe, in Maughold, or from Banks' Howe in Conchan, but the latter is rendered more likely by a mention of an intack named Garey ne Chibbraugh in the Lord's Composition Book, 1703.
Garey Clady (thus pronounced), a piece of ground alongside the Vicar's garden in Kirk Maughold village. " Clady " is perhaps a corruption of cleyree, " clerical," belonging to the clerk.
Garey Mollaugh. See Glonnamannan.
Garey Nell, a small area on the Northern slope to the Dhoon stream, Maughold, just above the old Dhoon Church. It looks as though it had been the site of a dwelling ; was it Nell's ?
Garrey Yaulganack. " The Church Way in Tho. Gawn's land through Garrey Yaulganack " in Rushen Sheading (Enquest of 1710 ; Files, fo. 50). The " Way " is probably the present road leading from Kirk Christ Rusben North-Eastward to the cross-roads, past the old Parish School. " Yaulganack " looks like an adj. derived from jiolgane, a species of leech. The ground there was formerly a marsh.
Giant's Stone, Kionlough, Bride. See Clagh Vedn.
Giant's Table, a large flat shore-rock South of Traie ny Halsall, Maughold. No discoverable legend.
Glan-Beasht and Coan Argid. A Great Enquest of 1709 (Files, fo. 57), concerning a mere (boundary) hedge between Ballagawne and Ballagranane (now Ballagranane) in Michael, defines it as running from Glan-beasht down along the river, partly on one side and partly on the other, to Coan Argid. The last two names are obsolete, but the places they indicate must lie in what is now Glen Mooar, between the highroad and the shore.
" Beasht " might be taken as a mis-writing of reasht if the use of the latter term were not almost wholly confined to the hill-country. Is some superstitious belief connoted by the name ? The diminutive of beisht — peishtag — is the usual word when mere insects are in question. Moore, Manx Ballads, page 25, translates beishtyn as " ogres." The Mx word is apt to be employed loosely, but some kind of animal or reptile is commonly intended; it may be real or imaginary, but in either case it is disagreeable. Some times it is a water-bull or water-horse. Bugganes, e.g. that of the Kione-dhoo, Rushen, were called yn Beasht. Coan Argid, " Money, or Silver, Hollow," might have been a place where treasure had been found, or where it was believed to be hidden. In that case the Beisht might have been its legendary guardian.
Glenfaba, Patrick. Papa, in its personal sense, a source long favoured for this name, is only translated " hermit-priest, Culdee," hence a tutor, master, or friend. But it is noteworthy, when the configuration of the land at Glenfaba Bridge is borne in mind, that in Shetland the term papa is associated with rocks, cliffs and gorges ; and in early Cumberland occurs the place-name Stan-papa or Stain-papa.*
* For the Shetland and Cumberland names see Ekwall, Scandinavians and Celts, pp. 47 and 59.
Glen Garragh, " off Glen Rushen," is said to have contained the old mill called Mwyllin y Sayle.+ Is there some confusion with Glion Corragh (O.S. map) ? Mwyllin y Sayle stood on Ballacottier, Glen Rushen, not in Glion Corragh, on the left of the track going up. + Morrison, Manx Fairy Tales, page 48.
Glen Reast. In Standford's map of the Isle of Man, 1861, what is now called Druidale is named " Glen Reast " (" Desert Glen "), and the ground on the South side of it is " The Reast." " Druidale " is printed in the Stanford map across the tributary glen beside which Druidale farm (formerly Eairy Kellue or Kelly) actually stands.
Glen Rowany. A " streamlet which runs down the crease, called Glen Rowany, about the middle of the village " of Port Erin, is mentioned in a quotation in Shaw's Guide (1871), from Edwin Waugh, the Lancashire writer, who spent one or two holidays at the Port. The streamlet in the " crease " must be the Struan Snail. Glen Rowany, derived evidently from the adjoining Rowany estate, is a name which has, I think, gone quite out of use.
Glewn Nee-a-Nee (stress on last syll.), Bride. In the good old times the fairies danced here under the light of the moon. (Quarrie, " A Place to Remember," Manx Quarterly, No. 24). The name of this glen, which is probably on Ballavair, suggests that some legend of a fairy washerwoman belongs to it, resembling those told of Boayl ny Nice in Maughold. (See pages 351, 352.)
Glion ny Feeyney, Lonan. See under Feeyney.
Glon e Taaid is a name occurring in the will of Ellenor Sayle of Lonan, 1802 (Museum Library MSS.). On Amogarry treen, by the context.
Glonnamannan. From the Garey Mollaugh (" Rough Moorland "), which was " fenced as the rest of the quarterland of Barrool belonging to Wm. Clucas . . . to the gill they call Glonna-Man-nan, that Intack was equally in common pastured betwixt the two quarterlands of the sd. Clucas and his neighbour John Quirk " (evidence given before a Rushen Enquest in 1706, whose decision was confirmed by the Great Enquest of Glenfaba. Files, fos. 26 and 27).
The meaning of mannan in Irish and Scottish placenames has long been a subject of speculation. For comparison here may be mentioned the Manx " Follaght y Vannin " and " Follet y Vannin " (O.S. map), names of uncertain significance belonging to low-lying spots, the first in German parish and the second in Maughold. The popular local translation of the Maughold name is "Hiding-place of the Manx," with vague allusions to invaders or press-gangs ; but " of the Isle of Man" would be more accurate if " Mannin " is to be taken at its face-value. The other name is not generally remembered, but it has been recorded by the late P. M. C. Kermode. Mannan is the Manx for " kid," but possibly the term was formerly applied to the animal at a later stage of its existence, since meann is a Scottish Gaelic word for a goat. " Snipe " (Gaelic meannan-aeir) has been suggested also, by Joyce and others, in explanation of similar place-names in Ireland and Scotland.
Apart from these conjectures, but in connection with the native rendering " Hiding-place of the Manx " (for which, however, we should expect Vanninee), an obscure Irish place-name is of interest on account of its apparent resemblance. A hollow not far from the foot of Slieve Gallon or Gullion in Co. Derry is called " Fallach (recte folach) Eireann, that is, the Hiding, or Covering, of Ireland."* Eire (genitive Eireann) was, of course, the eponymous deity of Ireland. A story which looks as though it had been invented to explain the name says that a chieftain of the O'Neills ordered one Cadhan, who had been promised as much land as he could see around him, to stand for the purpose in the bottom of this hollow.
To revert to Glonnamannan. This little glen where the lands of Quirk and Clucas met in 17o6 probably lies along the boundary between Patrick and Malew, just South of the present village of Upper Foxdale, and near the N.E. end of South Barrule.2 The Lansdowne MS. note on the mythical history of the Isle of Man states that the sole rent imposed by the arch-magician Manannan upon his people was " that on Midsomer Even they shuld all bring gruene Rushes, some to a place called Wragfeld, and some other to a place called Man." The entire note is paraphrased in the earlier portion of the " Supposed True Chronicle " prefixed in manuscript to certain old copies of the Statutes.3 In this paraphrase the words " and yet is so called " are added to the foregoing passage. Wragfeld (Warfield in the " Supposed True Chronicle"), is South Barrule. The identity of the " place called Man " has provoked curiosity and speculation. The Rhymed Chronicle or " Manannan Ballad," which comes down to about 1522, renders the name more fully in the line " Ec Manannan erskyn Keamool "" To Manannan above Keamool," which places are said to lie below Barrule mountain.4 " Keamool " has not hitherto been identified. For the other name perhaps " Glonnamannan " (Glion ny mannan) may furnish a clue.
* Quoted by Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland, p. 878, from O'Donovan's Ordnance Survey Letters for Co. Derry.
1 In the 1510 Manorial Roll two families named MacQuyrke and MacLucas share a quarterland near Foxdale, probably that now known as Kerroocottle or Ardole.
2 It is printed in An Abstract of the Laws, Manx Soc., xii., p. 6.
3 Train, History of the Isle of Man, vol. ii. The various accounts of the Tribute of Rushes are brought together and discussed in A Second Manx Scrapbook , chap. x., sec. i.
Gob ny Garvain (O.S. map), a peninsular hillock on the coast of Maughold, is now called Gob y Gowan by some of the local people, as though it meant " Point of the Smith." I have heard it also as Gob y Vain, which suggests that the stress at one time fell on the last syllable of " Garvain." Its "remains of an ancient Scandinavian fort well-known in the district as 'the Caishtal ' " (O.S. Name Books), have been animated with a legend of a magic smith.* Gob yn Chashtal (Mooae, Manx Names,) may be yet another name for the Gob y Garvain headland. If so, the fort itself was known formerly as the Rhaa Mooar.
A story from the border of Ayrshire and Lanarkshire may not be out of place here. A traditional personage, a fairy armourer called Gorman an Uird, Gorman of the Hammer, lived in a hillock in that region. In his hillock the local smiths used to bury their sword and dagger blades for seven days and seven nights after they were finished ; this gave them a keener and more lasting edge than mortal craftsmen could produce. In the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, xxiv. 395, where the legend is related, the fairy smith's name is translated " Little Green Man of the Hammer," evidently from the colour-term gorm. But it is the legend rather than the name (whatever that may really mean) which is reminiscent of that attached to Gob ny Garvain.
* In a previous note on this name (A Manx Scrapbook , p. 381), " goat " should be " groats "-in Manx gayvain-in the folk-etymology there quoted from the Ordnance Name Books. My error.
Gob y Rheeyn, " Point of the Division," a promontory on the East side of Port Mooar, Maughold, on Baldromma land.
Golland. An Enquest concerning an encroachment on the highway at Golland in Michael Sheading was held in 1709 (Files, fo. 18). Possibly Golane at Sandygate, Jurby, was the spot. This appears to get its name from its proximity to the Lhane trench.
Gownies, The (gownagh, a heifer or " stripper are two rocks on the South side of Dhoon Bay, Maughold.
Haman, The. A local name for the immense heap of " deads " (mine refuse), which beautifies the top end of Laxey village.
Hee Kerna or Kenna (as pronounced), is the name given locally to a large sea-cave on the West side of Port Mooar, Maughold, which has two entrances known as the Big Hee Kerna and the Little Hee Kerna. It runs a considerable distance inland and is even reputed to have a third opening at Gob ny Scuit on North Barrule. Other folk-lore concerning it will be found on page 374. The name is so corrupted that it could only be guessed at.
Hibernian, The, Maughold. Formerly an inn, now private. So-named, it is said, from an Irishwoman, Rachel Reid or Read, who built and ran it. She brewed her own ale there — also, it is whispered, illicit whiskey in a secret chamber at the rear of the building, reached by a tunnel.
Illiam's Fall, a small stream and gully on the West side of Port Mooar, Maughold. The fall is not discoverable.
Jacob's Well, Marown. See under Wells.
Jeeig yn Ushtey Villish, " Trench of the Sweet Water," an artificial watercourse in Lezayre Curragh.
Jeeig y Voddey, " Trench of the Dog," adjoined West Nappin, Ballaugh, in 1718.
Keeill Ushniagh or Cooill Ushniagh, a field on Cronk y Chuill, Lonan. The pronunciation is very variable, but on the whole favours keeill, " church." The field is haunted, as are most of those in this neighbourhood.
Keeill Worrish, a field on Ballacannell, Arbory. No keeill is known to have existed on this farm.
Keeym Crossags is the pathway which makes a short cut from the Ballarragh road down to the top of the Dhoon Glen. Also known as " the Dhoon Steps." The steps are said to have been made for the benefit of Ballarragh children attending the school which was for a time held in the disused " Dhoon Church." Keeym, a path ; crossag is used for a short cut. In the Highlands the latter term is confined to tracks across mountain spurs and ridges.
Kessagh. Half a dozen examples of the use of this word in Mx place-names were given in A Manx Scrapbook , page 181, and an allusion made on page 145. To those names may be added, for greater completeness, two from Mr. J. J. Kneen's Place-names of the I. of Man : " the Kessagh " on the boundary of Ballathona and Kiondroghad, Santon, and the one implied by " the Kessa road," Ballabooye, German. Mr. Kneen's " Kessah on Arragon," Santon, is probably the one I mentioned as being on Ballafurt, adjoining Arragon. It is characteristic of these little watering places to occur on farm-boundaries.
The word kessagh clearly derives from the Sc. Gaelic casach, " the outlet of a lake " (McAlpine) -McClure, British Place-names, adds " a ford "-and not from the Irish ceisach or ceasach, as I suggested, loc. cit. The germinal idea in the word is " foot," hence a low, shallow spot where water collects.
Kill, The. Formerly a dwelling-house, now used as a storehouse, on a field called " the Thoar," Ballarragh, Lonan. No kiln or keeill near.
Kishtey Wooar, " Big Chest," a large boulder in Ballaglass Glen, to which, it is said, the salmon run up, but never any farther. Folk-lore on page 385.
Kitterland, a field on Ballacottier, Glen Rushen, Patrick, sloping down to the river. With this name, borrowed from the extreme South of the Island, may be compared "The Sound," a mile to the N.W., in which valley there is also a field called Kitterland.
Knockdaraugh, " Wood, or Oakwood, Hill," a field on Balladoole, Malew (Diocesan Reg., 1743, per Mx Mus. Jnl., ii. 35).
Knockdoo, " Dark Hill," in a boundary dispute between Christian of Milntown and Cannell of Claghbane in 1694 (Enq. and Petn. Files, fo. 55). It lay above the present Crossags.
Lagaugh Moar, " Great Slough." " Depositions taken concerning the fall or course of the Water called Lagaugh Moar, adjoining to Ballaconnor " (Enquest of 1696; Files, fo. 71). At Ballacunner, Andreas, where there is or was a " fort."
Lag Evil. The name of this miniature coriie at the base of Slieu Whallian and overlooking the Peel road at Gordon, Patrick, though it has been claimed as Norse, may well be Celtic. Ireland has Ballyevil or Ballyavil, Carrickevil, Craganevil and Toberevil. Eibhil was a place in the semi-mythical " Spain " of the old Irish romances (e.g. Hyde, Literary Hist. of Ireland, page 370). Some of these names certainly derive from that of the Munster fairy queen Aoibheall. The same word, however, means " pleasant, joyful," and this is more likely to have been its sense in Manx usage. In Scotland it is eibhinn. Beinn Eibhinn, " Pleasant Mountain," in Badenoch.
Lag ny Ferrishyn, " Hollow of the Fairies," is the dip made by the green-surfaced road which leaves the highway nearly opposite Ballawhane, Andreas, and makes for " the Loughan " (Lough Gat y Whing). There is a stone-built well, with steps down to it, on the right side of the road, whose name I should like to know. The home of the celebrated "fairy doctor," Teare Ballawhane, is close to Lag ny Ferrishyn.
Lag Geal. " An Enquest concerning a Way from Lag Geal to Clenaugh Curragh," in Ayre Sheading (E. and P. Files, fo. 99). " Geal " for geill ; hence " Spring-hollow." " Clenaugh " is probably the present Clanaugh croft in Lezayre Curragh.
Lag Thalloo Wyllin, " Mill-land Hollow," a field on Ballakarka, Patrick.
Lag y Voddey lies at the head of the small bay next East of Perwick, Rushen. " Hollow of the Dog "probably a Moddey-doo that haunted it.
Lag y Vollagh, " Hollow of the Road," is traversed by the steep lane leading down to Ballaglass Mill from the Eastward.
Landmark, The, (West) Ballacree, Bride. " A slight mound of rough ground which the tenant has always been forbidden to plough " (Kermode, List of Antiquities, page 35).
The Lar Wood, the steep and densely wooded hillside just across the river from Ballaglass Mill. Haunted. Qu. " Lhargagh Wood " ?
Lezayre, the parish, and Lez or Le Soulby, the treen in Jurby, were in all probability named from their proximity to the Ayre and to Sulby, or to the former course of the Sulby river, respectively. The same construction is used in France and England. How it arose is explained by Professor Mawer in his Placenames of Northumberland and Durham. He says of Chester-le-Street that " le " is not the definite article but the Old French preposition lis, " near," as in Plessis-lis-Tours, etc. The Low Latin latos, equivalent to juxta, became lis, while latum, its accusative case, became lë.
The applicability of this Norman-French construction to the Mx parish-name was pointed out forty-five years ago by the Rev. A. A. Bridgman, Vicar of Lezayre.
Lheeaney Arick, Lezayre. See under Struan Ayick. Lhen, in " the Lhen, or Lhane, Mooar," and probably in " the Carlane, or Killane," the two watercourses which form, approximately, the boundary of Jurby parish, is satisfactorily explained by the English and Scottish dialect word " lane, the hollow course of a large rivulet in meadowland ; a brook whose movement is scarcely perceptible ; the smooth, slowly moving part of a river " (Ekwall, Place-names of Lanes., page 126). It occurs in Galloway also (Maxwell, Sc. Land-Names, page 102), for a sluggish stream. These definitions suit the Mx streams perfectly, and it is difficult to understand why Moore (Manx Names, page 103), and others, should have been dissatisfied with them. A Norse rather than an Anglo-Saxon origin is probable in Man.
Lhen ny Dhurrag, a field on Ballaquane, Dalby, from which sheep have access to the sea brows. For durrag or dirrag see under Callow Caraugh.
Lhingey Vooar, " Big Pool," in Ballaglass river, beside the abandoned Bellite factory, was the Ballachrink watering-place for animals before the days of farm pumping-machinery.
Little London, Michael (O.S. map). Early records of the name are wanting. Moore suggested Norse lundr, " grove." Mr. Kneen says it is gliontan, " little glen." Little Londons occur frequently in England, and Lundane occurs in Scotland, but a local origin is not impossible here. The Hampton family named its farms from its surname : Southampton, Hampton Court, Hampton's Croft. The name was pronounced by the Mx people as " Hunten." Members of the family lived in the neighbourhood ; in 1634 one of the sidesmen of Kirk German was Richard Hunten (Mx Mus. Jnl., No. 2~). The lane going down to Little London was known as Bayr Hunten, " Hunten's Road." " Little London," therefore, may be a whimsical perversion of " Little Hunten." But Feltham's mention of " the Gill of Lunnon " in 1798 may tell against this conjecture, as it suggests that the " d " is intrusive. On a programme in Mx of a patriotic gathering held in 1872 (Manx Quarterly, No. 20, p. 273), it is similarly Lunnin veg, for what may be worth.
Loghan y Voddey, " Lakelet of the Dog " ; a half quarterland in Jurby.
Loughnegreagh. Enquests were held in 17o6 and 1718 concerning a watercourse from the Archdeacon's Close to Loughnegreagh in Ayre Sheading. " Lake of the Stack or Heap." Moore gives the name without locating it. Among the Jurby intacks, Composition Book, 1703.
Lough House, The, Douglas, " was situate on the Crescent, directly below Falcon Cliff mansion " (Annals, 1793). Where was the lough ?
Lough Nehaggeran, " or Lough Ballavarran " (Great Enquest, Michael Sheading, 1718). In Jurby.
Lough Pherick or Curragh Beg, Bride, with an outlet Eastward to the sea at the Dog Mills (Kermode, Lioar Manninagh, i. 183). Is this the area known as Curragh Patrick ? (q.v.).
Lough Wheanagh, Bride ; 17o6. A watercourse issued from it. Probably the same as the Lough Queenaugh intack of the Composition Book, 1703.
Lough e Yhoung, Ayre Sheading, in an Enquest of 1697. If the " Y " was sounded separately, comparison may be made with Loch na Whoying, Rossshire (Watson, Celtic Place-names, page 473), where the general sense is "narrowness "-i.e. an isthmus, a narrow channel or passage ; literally " yoke," the Mx quing, as in Gat y Whing, Andreas and Lough Gate a Whinny, an Andreas intack in 1703, where the " y " may be a mistake for " g." " The Whing " now seems to have an undetermined but rather wide application locally. If " Yhoung " is meant for this word it is rather a bad shot at the sound.
In the case of Gat y Whing the quing might be the opening in the cliff, to which the road leads from the farmhouse. An alternative derivation is the Ir. muing, " sedgy bogland," as in Ballinwing and Moanwing ; from mong, literally a growth of herbage, figuratively a swamp. But this term, Joyce says (Ir. Names, ii. 370) is confined to the South West, so far as Ireland is concerned.
Lowde's House or Croit Vess, Ramsey, are names in 18th-century documents. In a deed of settlement by Charles Cowll, glover, of Ramsey, dated 1781 (Museum Library), the spot is stated to have been Bishop's land. In a bond of 1815 it is called " Lowde's Garden, a dwelling-house formerly." This house is believed to have stood on the site of the present Lough House at the Old Cross, built by Vicar-General Corlett, and the location given in A Manx Scrapbook , page 247; is inaccurate.
The piece of land in question, called " the Lough " and " Joe's Lough," belonged in the first half of the 17th century to William Sumpter, who sold it in 1648 to Hugh Black. From Black it passed into the hands of a branch of the Christian family (see Rev. M. W. Harrison, South Ramsey and its Churches). Black would probably be a brother of the John Black, " Scottishman," of Ramsey, who became a naturalized Manxman in 1654 (Lib. Scacc., fo. 41). John died in 1664 and was buried at Lezayre, as were Hugh's four children (Mon. Inscrns.). The Sumpters and the Christians, and probably the Blacks, were allied by marriage. From these Blacks are descended the local family of the name.
Magher Jeg, a field on Ballacrye, Ballaugh. Are all these " Jegs " jiarg, " red," or something else ?
Magher Traie, " Shore Field," Aust, Lezayre. As Aust lies inland this may be an instance of the use of traie for the margin of a lake or marsh. Similarly in the 14th-century name " Leath-Kostray " in the Lezayre Abbeylands boundaries, where Kostray probably signifies " at foot of, or alongside, the stream."
Meir ny Foawyr, " Fingers of the Giants," are three pointed rocks at Dhoon Bay, Maughold. For their legend see page 371.
Moanee ny Moddee, " Turf-ground of the Dogs," intack in Malew. (Documentary.)
Mona Tottaby. In a Return of four members of a Great Enquest Jury, made at an Abbey Court at Ballasalla in 1694, concerning a piece of turbary (part of the Four Nobles), called Mona Tottaby (E. and P. Files, f0. 49), they advise that it should not be enclosed, " by reason that the Tennants of Kirk Malew will be much Indamaged thereby, by the reason of many highways that pass thorow it; also for the loss of the use of the Turbery and water springs which was convenient to the Tenants and the loss of it will mightily Indamage them. . . . '
" The Four Nobles " appears, in the Manorial Roll of 1511 as " a certain land " held by the Abbot of Rushen at 26s. 8d. per annum-i.e. the sum of four nobles, paid to Lord Derby. It has been supposed to be included in the present Barrule farm, N.W. of the Granite Mountain. Mona Tottaby, however, lay on the S.E. side of the Granite Mountain, adjacent to the present farm of Tosaby, and in the Treen of Totnamby, of which name (Mona) Tottaby, (Money) Todaby, (Disafforesting Commnrs., 1861), and Tosaby are corruptions. The earliest recorded form is Totmanby in the Abbeylands Boundaries, 14th-15th cents. It is not clear how a part of the Four Nobles could also be a part of Totnamby Treen , but it is noticeable that all the intervening land was Abbey Turbary. Except for trifling sums paid for the rent of a chamber and garden in Castletown and for the use of certain millwater in German, this sum of 26s. 8d. was the only rent then paid by the Abbey to the Lord. The Four Nobles must therefore have been a late acquisition ; partly, perhaps, as a convenient depot for turf. The high rent is noteworthy ; it was often a vicar's stipend in England.
Neenagh, The. This name was given to me by the late Capt. Walter Cowley of Port St. Mary as " an old name for Kentraugh," because members of the Gawne family were called " the Neenagh boys." But the Gawnes owned the brewery at the Smelt, and " Neenagh " may be a form of Ennaug, the name of the shore there ; (O.S. map). It would then agree with " Neanagh," cited by Mr. Kneen for, presumably, that spot.
Nickerish (rhyming with " lickerish ") is a field on Ballafayle Kerruish, Maughold.
Nollags, The, a croft West of Clybane, North Lonan. Cf. " the Nulligs," Dhoon Glen, and Chibber Nullig, Lonan.
"Old Mud Chapel, The," at Jurby East, was built shortly after John Wesley's missionary tour of the Island. It had clay walls five feet thick, a sod roof, an earthen floor, and two small windows only. The last were both on the same side; looking out on the road. The name of the spot remains, but the chapel has, I think, disappeared.
Paradise, a field on Ballaglass, Maughold.
Park Arthur, land on the East side of Glen Trammon, Lezayre. (Award Plans).
Peesh Veg. The English word " piece " was adopted into Mx to a sufficient extent to figure in field-names. Peesh Veg is a small field on Doarlish Cashen, Patrick.
Polerope, The, is a narrow lane between walls and backs of houses, passing from the harbour at Hope Street into Malew Street under an archway. I am not sure how far the name is now remembered.
Pool na Hulla, a spring somewhere between Kirk Michael village and the mountains, is named in an Enquest of 1709. Perhaps " Pool of the Cattle," ollagh ; or " of the Hillock," tullagh, if that word was ever in use. Kelly's Dictionary gives it.
Pooyl Tarroo, " Bull Pool," lies in the Struan Reagh beach below Maughold Lighthouse, just South of the Head.
Struan Arick and Lheeaney Arick, in Upper Sulby Glen, " Arick's Stream " and " Meadow," were named from Arick (Averick) Corlett, a remarkable character who lived there in the latter part of the 17th century, and who is, or was till recently, locally remembered. Is she the " Eric-ny-Moaney " of Kelly's Dictionary ? A descendant of Averick Corlett, one " Nan Willy," similarly left her name on a well, house, and field near Sulby Chapel.
Struan ny Breck, " brooklet which joins Ballaglass Mill.
Struan ny Chulil (soft " ch "), is runs past Cushington through the Gretch vooar, and falls into the Laxey River. The name is evidently related to that of the adjacent ridge of Cronk y Chuill.
Terroo, The, a field lying alongside the Clerk's Glebe on Baldromma, Maughold. Probably so-named from its bulls, natural or supernatural.
Thalloo Crarnmon, " Pellety land " ; which the soil remains lumpy when broken up. A field on Ballakarka, Patrick.
Thalloo Kenna, " Kenna's land," above the Whallag, Malew ; not " Croit y Kenna," as erroneously given in A Manx Scrapbook , page 340. The description and legend hold good.
Thie Lhionney, adjacent to the remains of the Friary, Arbory, is of course " Ale-house," not " House
Stream of the Trout," is a the Struan ny Niee above the stream which Reservoir to i.e. land in by the Stream," as I was careless enough to say in A Manx Scrapbook , page 134. A survival here from the days of the Friars seems not impossible, if, like other monastic establishments, they brewed ale and sold what they did not consume themselves.
Thie ny Strung, Cregneish, Rushen, was a ruin in 1899. It belonged to a family of Nelsons nicknamed " Strung " (Blanche Nelson's MSS). I.e. stroin, " nose." Adjacent is their well, Chibber Strung (A Manx Scrapbook , page 65).
Toltamitchal, Maughold. See Barebane.
Track ny Foawr, " Track of the Giant," Ballacannell (Ballafayle), on the Maughold coast. For remarks on this place and those in the next item, see page 371,foot.
Traie ny Foam, " Beach of the Giant," lies in Baie Track ny Foawr below Track ny Foawr. See preceding item.
Traie ny Seg, " Beach of the Cask " (saagh), is the old name for the next beach South of Traie ny Foawr above. It is now called "the Crown shore," on account of the wreck there of a ship named The Crown.
Traie ny Uainaigue (map spelling; prond. " Winnag "), Maughold coast. The second term, " Window " (Mx uhcnag), is a common one in Highland place-names, as Uinneag compounded, for a cleft or opening in a cliff or rock. The Maughold traie extends Northward under the cliffs. Probably a fishermen's name, given from the seaward point-of-view.
Trowley-pot or Trowl-pots, a small river-gorge 11 miles S.W. of Peel. The same name is given by Peel about a quarter of a mile South of Killabraga, on the West side of Sulby Glen. We may suppose it to have been the haunt of a dreaded Water-bull. " Pooyl Terriu," is included in Moore's Manx Names, but without any indication of its locality. His is a more grammatical form.
Port, The, abandoned dwellings in Glen Dhoo, above Ballaugh Glen. Formerly Pot (pronounced " pawt ") ; i.e. sedgy or boggy ground. Cf. Port y Candas and " Pot-mine Curragh " in the Abbey Turbary boundaries.
Port, The, a farm-name near Cranstal, Bride, may stand for " Port Cranstal," the lost harbour.
Port Bankes, an inlet on the Howstrake estate at the North end of Douglas Bay ; (Hillary's Chart, 1849.) Perhaps another name for Onchan Harbour or a smaller inlet on the Banks family's estate.
Purt-na-Marnee is given in An Anglo-Manx Vocabulary, s.v. Purt, as a name for Peel, equivalent to Purt ny Manninee, " Port of the Manxmen."
Purt ny Muck, " Harbour of the Pigs," on the East side of Port Mooar, Maughold, was named from a number of pigs washed ashore from a wreck.
Purt Naw, " New Port," Malew. " The Boundary from Purt Naw 'twixt Colts land and little Langness " (E. and P. Files, 17o6).
Raclay or Reckley, Rushen. The suggestion hesitatingly made in A Manx Scrapbook , pages 99 and 531, that this coastal name could be related to that of the several Irish Rathlins can be ignored. Rdrklif, " Roedeer-cliff," has been proposed as an etymon, but the Scandinavian klif was such a rare word that Prof. Ekwall (Intro. to Eng. Place-names, pt. i., p. 67) is driven to suggesting that some at least of the " cliff " names in England-Rawcliffe, Rockliffe, Radcliff, etc. -are Scandinavianized forms of English names ; an order of changes which would of course be impossible in Man. The likeliest source of the Mx name is " Red Cliff," as a translation of a Mx name, like "Blue Point," Andreas. Though not now precipitous, Raclay appears to have suffered severe disintegration, in common with its name.
Rade Thommy, " Tommy's Road," was a way leading to the Curragh-land adjoining " Scaldaby " (now Scolaby), and Surby, Rushen, in 1718.
Regia Via and other ancient highways. A Regia Via is mentioned as coinciding (evidently for a short distance only) with the East side of the Lezayre Abbeylands boundary appended to the Chronicon Manniae. The manuscript dates to about the end of the 14th century, but it and the other Abbeylands boundaries, may, of course, have been copied from earlier documents. On the nature of the Regia Via, and the course taken by it under the name of Bayr ny Ree,* an enthusiastic paper by Mr. William Cubbon, of the Museum, appeared in the Transactions of the Nat. Hist. and Antiqn. Sec., n.s., iii. 217.* The plural article ny is sometimes a perversion of the singular yn.
But the Regia Via of the Abbeylands boundaries was not so remarkable as Mr. Cubbon would have us believe. As in England, the term was in use for highways in general. In the Royal Prerogatives declared by the Deemsters to Sir John Stanley in 1422 the section dealing with Sanctuary for murderers runs thus : " And if he [the murderer] choose to forswear the King and his Kingdome, and takes unto a Harbour, the Coroner ought to set him in the King's Highway, and cut him across. And if he houlds not the King's Highway, and if the Coroner find him without it, he may arrest him by the King's Yard and bring him to the King's Jayle." " King " means, of course, the reigning Stanley. In the same Declaration to the second of the Manx Stanleys, " whosoever foresetts the King's Highway for any man . . . he forfeits his Body and Goods to the Lord his Pleasure " (Statutes). If these traditional laws had been recorded in Latin we should have had Via Regis or Regia Via for " King's Highway " ; if in Manx, Bayy yn Ree.
In England the King's Peace was supposed to protect wayfarers on the " Royal Roads," which were in the first instance the Roman roads.* Their name soon gave rise to fictions about their having been constructed or used by royal personages, both in England and in Wales. Such " traditions " were already being perpetuated by that eminent romancer Giraldus Cambrensis in the early part of the 12th century. At the bottom of the matter, in all likelihood, were the Roman emperors and their Viceroys, and the Pax Romana.
* Among many examples, a piece of the Watling in Salop was called " the Royal Road " in a writ for its repair in 1319. The 45 miles of Roman road from Lincoln to Caistor, and a shorter section of another in Cheshire, are still called " King Street " or " King's Street " (Codrington, Roman Roads). Another section of the Watling Street, where the garden suburb named Watling now stands, was " Regia Via " in a conveyance of 1434. Watling Street at Hendon was in 1574 " the King's Highwaie of the West " (Notes and Queries, 30-9-33).
The ancient thoroughfare called a Royal Road in the boundary of the Sulby Abbeylands is traceable on a large-scale map (if the boundary-points have yet been correctly identified) from the foot of Skyhill in Lezayre along the hilltops and down, at any rate, to Douglas. In prehistoric and early historic times it must have been a road of considerable importance. Since Manx history began, however (and it may be said to have begun during the rule of the mixture of races called the Norse invaders), the two principal thoroughfares must have been :
(1) That from the Lhen Mooar, or a little North of it, through Old Ballaugh and Kirk Michael, over the hills past Ballavaish to St. John's, and so down to Castletown by a different route from the present road, perhaps looping in Ballasalla by the way. On this highway stood the Island's four seats of authority Tynwald Hill, Castle Rushen, Bishopscourt, and Rushen Abbey. It was also used by the Abbey, according to tradition, in communicating with its Lezayre possessions. One section bears the name Raad Managhan, " Monastery Road."
(2) The road crossing the Southern half of the Island between the hills and the marshes, and linking Peel with Douglas via the religious communities of Marown.
Where these two roads intersect, and doubtless in consequence of their intersection, stand the Lawmound, fair-ground, battle-ground and burial-mounds of Tynwald, all within the compass of a couple of fields. This nodal point, where State and Church joined in council, was the nucleus of the Island's political history ; second to it, and dependent upon it, came Castle Rushen. Douglas, another of the termini of these three ancient highways, is commonly accounted a place of only modern importance, but there may be good grounds for suspecting that Douglas has a forgotten past.
That all these old roads link port with port is due simply to the fact that the chief centres of population on an island are apt to lie on the coast, until industrial conditions give importance to inland places. The port at the Lhen Mooar, of which the sea has spared perhaps only a rudiment, was the first landing-place that offered to boats coming down the North Channel from the Scottish Isles or Scandinavia. Such early traffic is epitomized in the mythical tradition of King Orry's landing at the Lhen. Distinct traces of the same theme are visible in a confused and perhaps composite piece of folklore about a three-headed giant who likewise came ashore there to rule, tax, and befriend the Andreas people (Swynnerton). Another giant, or the same, named Jiarg, of similar provenance, kept the Ballaugh people in order, and left his name, according to popular etymology, on the Bollan Jiarg, the Bayr Jiarg Karrin, Brough-jiarg, and other localities.
Rhen Bulnarenny, " Division of the Place of the Ferns," Rushen. See Booilley Vicar.
Rheynn Shenn Yane, " Old Jane's Portion." If Ballafreer, Marown, still knows one of its fields by this name, it is due to the fact that Nicholas Kewley built a house on it for his widowed mother, Jane Karralagh from Balneshlig, Braddan, in the early part of the 17th century. The house fell on her and killed her. (Ballafreer Commonplace Book; MS. in Mx Museum.)
" The Round Meddowe on the East side of the Burn " at Ballaughton, Braddan, appears in a document dated 1667. This is a translation of Lheeaney Rhunt, a placename and feature of the landscape apt to occur on the borders of streams, and associated elsewhere with the Fenoderee.
Samson's Castle is a tumulus on Kionlough, Bride. Samson has also given his name to a lofty rock near Chester, Michael, from the top of which he or John Wesley, according to different versions of the legend, preached to the people below. It has a somewhat pulpit-like top. The nest-riddled clay cliff overlooking the sea close to Samson's Castle is called " the Jackdaws' Church," a place of worship which will remind ecclesiologists of Keeill ny Ghoayr, " the Church of the Goats," a sea-cave at the Southern end of Patrick.
Seoarn, The (as pronounced), a spot containing abandoned dwellings up Glen Shoggil, Ballaugh. " Dan-y-Scoarn " was a noted beggarman who toured the Northern parishes a generation or so back. The place is probably that marked on the maps as " Nascoin," in the older spellings of which, however, there is no " r." These suggest eas, " a rapid," and coan, " narrow," prefixed by the article.
Senna, Douglas. To my tentative suggestion in A Manx Scrapbook , page 183, that this little locality may have got its obscure name from the Norse word for sand, I would add that the old name of Strand Street, which Senna and Senna House adjoin, was " Sandside," and later " Sand Street." The Galloway coast has its " sennicks "-sand-wicks, or sandy inlets -a term which might easily have become " Senna " on Mx tongues. In Jura it is Sannaig, and Sannox in Arran includes three sandy bays.
A name of the same appearance which occurs in Cumberland may be worth mentioning, though it has seemingly a different origin. Prof. Ekwall cites* a " Hallsenna, a hamlet near Gosforth, formerly Hall Senhouse," and adds that " Senhouse " is said to be equivalent to " Sevenhuys " near Rotterdam ; in which case, he says, " Hallsenna " would stand for " Senna Hall." But the editor of the Register of St. Bee's thought that a certain hamlet known as " Sevenhoues " stood there previously. With this Prof. Ekwall agrees, for the genuineness of the inversion " Hall Senna " is rendered very doubtful, he thinks, by the existence at that spot of the name " Becksenowyate " in 1657, which shows that there was a "Beck Senna " by the side of Hall Senna.[* Scandinavians and Celts in N.bh. England, page 15 ; from Sedgfield's Place-natives of Cumberland.]
Shan Cashtal, " Old Castle," is the local name for the remains of the " Fort " (O.S. map), at the foot of the cliff on the South side of Gob y Gorum, Andreas.* It is a deep hollow with an earth-wall to seaward. I have heard it said there that " the fairies used to go in at the Shan Cashtal and travel under the ground till they came up in Maughold Churchyard."j' Also that there was a great battle at this place between the Manx and the Norse or some other invaders. The Manx stood at the top of the cliff and yowled big stones on the fallas in the Shan Cashtal, and druv them away. Juan Gob y Gorum (I forget his legal surname), who lived in the house above till he died of old age a few years ago, was favoured with waking visions of a crowd of big men with horned helmets landing on the shore from long boats and marching landward. But he may have been reading history, or hearing it.
This name and its folk-lore compare with those of Cashtal Ree Gorry (A Manx Scrapbook , page 198). The comment there made on Blue Point, however, is incorrect, which illustrates the unwisdom of writing about a place in detail before one has explored it.
Sinnan or Sinnen (indistinguishable as pronounced), was the name of the spot where the Slieu Whallian Reservoir now stands.
* " Blue Point " on the maps. Govm (generally pronounced " gurrm," but " gorum " in the North), is conventionally translated " blue," but it is applied to the hue of grass and other vegetation. Artists, by the way, have assured me that grass is blue, not green.
+ What actually does " come up in Maughold Churchyard " is an old mineshaft, one of a number thereabouts which resulted from the enterprise of Captain Kitto of Foxdale in the 19th century. Much Mx tunnel-lore is due to similar mining-trials.
Skull, The, the site of a squarish opening in the cliffs on the N.E. side of Port Mooar, where iron was bored for. Now partly obliterated.
Slieu Lhosht, " Burnt Hillside," is the name for the height North of Shen Ree, Conchan, in the Award Plans of the Disafforesting Commnrs., which preceded the Ordnance maps. It is apparently part of Shen Carn Gerjoil.
Sloe Dhow, " Dark Cleft," an opening on the Maughold coast, South of Straledn or Stockalane. Sloe ny Muck, " Gully of the Pigs," between Dhyrnane and Port Mooar, Maughold, is so-named from Port ny Muck, q.v.
Sound, The, a castle-like rock North of Gob ny Garvain, Maughold.
Spear Gate appears in the Award Plans on the South side of Slieu Chiarn, Marown, on the main road. Spooyt Myleeharaine. See under Wells.
Spooyt Vane, " White Waterfall," is the outlet of the small stream which rises at Great Meadow, Malew, and reaches the sea at Pooylvaaish. I know of no fall near here, and give the name (oral) with all reserve. It may possibly be explained in the same way as the next item.
Spooyt Vane, Maughold. Just below the bridge at Ballaglass Mill is a pool with this name. Presumably some obstruction which caused a cascade was levelled in building the bridge, the name, " White Fall," nevertheless, persisting. (See Glover's Guide, 1868, page 239.)
Step Rock, Maughold, lies South of Baie Track ny Foawr, Ballafayle. Men used to fish from it with lines all night at a certain period in the summer. Straledn is the local name of a croft on the Stafflands at the mouth of Port Mooar, Maughold. Officially it is known as Stockalane or Stocklane, of which Straledn may be a corruption. A " cave " here with a squarecut entrance has a story attached to it.
A steamer crossing from Liverpool to the North of Ireland got off her course in a dense fog ; she was close to the coast, but the captain didn't know exactly what point of it. A member of the crew, named Callow, offered to tell him for a bottle of whiskey. When his offer was accepted and he was in possession of the whiskey, he said they were close in to Port Mooar, and if they didn't keep her nose to and go astern at once they'd be on the rocks. Afterwards the captain asked him, confidentially, how he knew. He replied that he recognized the peculiar sound made by the swell beating into the mouth of the cave, for Straledn was where he was reared. A somewhat similar story is located at a spot on the other side of Port Mooar. One may be a duplication of the other, or both may be true. Or neither.
Less credible is the legend that this cave (or whatever it really is), is the mouth of a tunnel which has its other end at Gob ny Scuit high up on the East side of Barrule. On these cliffs, too, the Dooiney Oie was often heard ; a hypothesis framed by deep thinkers is that he came down from the mountain, where he had his home, by means of this underground passage. Stronabaek (Norse, " Shore of the Bank "), is the children to one of the " beds " or compartments in the chalked-out diagram of the Mx form of hopscotch. (See An Anglo-Manx Vocabulary, s.v. " Narra.")
Trunk or Trunks, The, is an extensive fishing-bank lying about seven miles S.W. of Castletown Harbour. Rocky, and good for cod, bollan, etc. This name of obscure meaning is perhaps related to those of Glen Trunk, Michael, Glen Drink, Lonan (which is sometimes pronounced " Trunk "), and The Druin, West of Ramsey ; all on the 6 in. O.S. map. Possibly these can be derived from Mx dron, gen. druin, a hump, a hillock, and its adj., dronnagh. But " Trunk " appears in the same form in Ireland. Trunk na Caillighe, a dolmen-cairn four miles S.E. of Armagh, is mentioned in Dolmens of Ireland, page 11i.
Valvedn, the area lying between Shen Lhean and Slieu Rea, Lonan (oral).
Wooilley Gowan " (the) Smith's Cattle-fold," is the name, in Sherwood's Plan of Douglas, 1849, of the land now crossed by the upper part of Rose Mount. It then lay outside the town boundary.
1 * Not in Dinneen, but used in Irish sagas, e.g. " the Sons of Uisnech."
Brandy Well, above the top of Druidale, Michael. This name, in all probability a modern one, has been accounted for in various ways, some of which I have mentioned in the two previous volumes. Since then a letter from Mr. James Mylchreest of Onchan has furnished the following interesting reminiscence. When he was a boy he often heard " that travellers after sheep went to it and drank, whether they were thirsty or not; that it got its name from the colour and taste of its water. It got famed; someone built a hut or improvised house beside it, enclosed it, and sold its water, many carrying bottles-full away. Later, I believe, there was yet another hut built there. It was said that the water not only had the same colour and taste as brandy, but had the same effect.'' Yet it does not appear, so far as I can learn, to have been a wishing-well or a cure-well, and therefore could never have been a holy well.
The foregoing information, involving the existence of the name " Brandy Well," relates to over half a century ago. The earliest name on record is Chibber Sliew ne Magarell, which is also that of an intack in the Lord's Composition Book, civca 1703. This name for the well (taken from the hill above it), reappears so late as 1861 in the Award Plans of the Disafforesting Commissioners.
Chibber y Bucket, Kerrookiel, Malew, has a bucket and windlass which explain the name.
Chibber Calloo. See Calloo above.
Chibber y Chiarn, " Well of the Lord,'' lies a few yards behind the abandoned Eairy-bane house on Ballacuberagh, Lezayre. The water now merely trickles out of the sloping ground, and was apparently nothing more than a domestic supply without traditions, notwithstanding the name. It is nowhere near the Ballacuberagh keeill.
Chibber Feeyney (two). See Feeyney above.
Chibber Hidey, in the Courtyard of Castle Rushen. Besides the sympathy with the tides, already mentioned in A Manx Scrapbook, which this well evinces, it is a Wishing-well. Walk seven times round it, wishing hard, and drop in a coin.
Chibber Laish in Ballaugh Curragh. There is an interesting reference to this cure-well in " Ballaugh Parochialia," a manuscript account of the parish written by an incumbent of the eighteen-seventies. John Stephen the Coroner, aged 83, says the proper name, as he has always understood, is Chibber Glashtyn, as being the haunt of the fabled water-sprite, the Glashtyn." Joyce, however, in his Irish Names vol. A, has a " Tober-an-leish,'' "Well of the Physician," and either this or the surname Lace would explain the current Mx form. Two names may possibly have been in use; in which case Moore's. "Chibber Glass '' for the same well would be a sort of compromise.
Chibber Mun-laa, Cardle, Maughold, means, at its face-value, "Mid-day Well," for which no explanation is to be had. A man born and bred at Cardle tells me that the right name is Chibber My-lich"' (" My-half Well'), because the use of it was shared between the two adjoining farms of Cardle Vooar and Cardle Veg. Mr. P. M. C. Kermode has recorded it as Chibber Lieh-laa ("Half-day Well''), and Chibber Malaa, which is virtually the now current Mun-laa. Lich-myr-lieh, "half-and-half, or turn about,' would suit the circumstances better than My-lieh; but all these approximations to some forgotten name are given here merely in case they can be resolved into that of the unknown saint to whom the adjacent chapel was dedicated.
Chibber ny Niee, " Well of the Washing," is in the S.E. corner of a field called Strowan ny Niee about 100 yards North of the Hibernian, Maughold, where the struan (locally " " strowan'"'), with that title passes under the highroad. The water of this well had special virtues, and the spring is not yet forgotten, though it has been allowed to choke. The name must derive, like that of the field, from the river-name, and that again from a spot further down-stream (see Boayl-ny- Niee above).
Chibber y Noe or Knowle lies inconspicuously in the next field below the sepulchral mound marked on the Ordnance map " Cronk y Knowle," a mile N.W. of Ramsey. It was probably considered at one time to be a holy well, since its water was prized by those who were on the point of death.
Chibber y Phunch or Punch lies, I am told by an old mountain-shepherd who knows it well, at the foot of Pennypot mountain, and is not identical with the Brandy Well, as I and others have stated. Possibly the name was transferred to the latter.
Chibber yn Rhullic, " Well of the Graveyard," is a medicinal spring, now much overgrown, on the summit of South Barrule. This is the spring which was believed to have direct communication with the sea, and which could never be found a second time in the same day. It is difficult enough now to find it once. It wells up out of the level ground in the N.W. portion of the enclosed area, and soaks into the soil again. The name would seem to confirm that of Rhullic.y Dhoon, " Graveyard of the Fort," for the enclosure, which is not to be confused with Rhullic y Dhoonee, Graveyard of the Church," for the keeill- site on Barrule Veg, given by Kermode, List of Antiquities, page 73.
Further inquiry in that neighbourhood brought out a confused explanation that there were, when my informant* was a boy, stone houses on the summit of Barrule which were made use of by the Surveyors They lived up there and bought milk, butter and a from his parents at Cronk ny Geay below to supplement the food they got from Ballasalla. After these houses were " felled " the remains were called " the Rhullic." but the stones were afterwards taken away by farmers and others. Though these statements about stone houses appear absurd, I think, considering the nature of folk-tradition, that they ought to be recorded, on the chance that there may be something in them or ae example, the enclosure contained an early Christian cemetery there would probably be a chape.
l*The late Tom Taggart of the Kerrookiel, at the base of South Barrule, then aged about 83; a good Manx speaker whose parents, he used to boast, could speak no English
Chibber ny Vaarlee, "Well of the Thieves." Balla- kelly, Andreas. "The Thieves" was perhaps the Nickname of some family residing by it.
Chibber y Veen, Ballaghenny, Bride. An ordinary domestic well, I am told. Joyce, Ivish Place-names vol. iii., has two wells called Tobernaveen in which name veen is the result of eclipsis operating on two different words: Fian, the legendary companions of Fionn MacCumhaill, and fionn, white. In the latter case the well was believed to cure cataract, popularly called " "" white spots.' Veen in the Manx name, how- ever, is more likely to denote the delicate quality of the water.
Chibber Vreezha, "(St.) Bride's Well," lies in a field on the left side of the Curragh Vreezha road going from the Whallag ford up to Ronnag, Arbory. This well must have served the ancient chapel there which was dedicated to St. Bride, and consequently it deserves the title of Holy Well.
Jacob's Well. A covered well on the Garth road, Marown.
St. Ann's Well. This is not the roadside well South of Santon church, as stated in the first Manx Scrapbook, but the one in the enclosure due North of, and adjoining, the churchyard. It is a deep draw-well over which a pump has been erected, and a pipe now leads its water to the Vicarage. It has always been known as " the Church Well," and doubtless supplied the water for baptisms in former times. C/Azbber Sanctan or Santan would be the correct form of its name in Manx.
"St. Maughold's Well," Ballaugh. ""There was and is a well just above or near the quarry at Ballaneddin that was considered to be St. Maughold's Well, a sacred well, and people used to frequent it for cures. Mrs. Teare, Ballaneddin, told me, 28th December, 1895, that she remembered her grandmother wishing for some of its water to drink on her death-bed, and it is said also that in old days a man styled a giant lived near to it." (Note added by Rev. E. W. Kissack to " Ballaugh Parochialia." From Mr. P. W. Caine.)
Subsequent inquiry points to a hillside spring on East Ballaneddin as the one mentioned in the MS. For purposes of identification it may be described as standing high above the main road and just above the track to the quarry ; the water is now led through a stone-lined channel and a pipe to an iron " cooler." Mr. Teare of Ballavolley remembers hearing his father talk about it, but knows of no name for it.
Of the giant alluded to by the late incumbent I have heard before from an old Ballaugh woman, but understood that he lived at the well-preserved little circular earthwork just over the Cronk Ould boundary, marked " Fort, Yn Cashtal'"' on the Ordanance map. However that may be, there is on the green hillside just above this fort a spring of the horse-shoe shape which holy wells are supposed to assume. The earth about it has fallen in to such an extent that half an hour's digging would be needed to clear it,
St. Maughold's Well, Maughold. For additional folk-lore see pages 326-8.
Spooyt Mylecharaine, "Mylecharaine's Jet,'' Glen-drink, Lonan (accidentally omitted from the list of Wells in the first Scrapbook), was highly esteemed for rheumatic complaints. Sufferers used to take stools and sit beside it, to let the water flow over the affected limb as long as they could endure the chill, |
The White Well, Ballachrink, Marown. This is the current name for the " Well on Dreemlang," described on pages 83 and 86 of A Manx Scrapbook. Antiquaries who have since visited it believe it to be the remains of along barrow. Perhaps the tumulus was raised over a spring, or else water has tended to lodge there since the caving-in or demolition of the upper part of the structure. At present it is used as a drinking-place for animals. The Guidebook's description I quoted is, I find on viewing the " well," a gross exaggeration, as might have been expected. a Wishing Well, Silverdale, Malew. (Illustration in A Manx Scrapbook.) "An old well, the waters of which are reputed to possess medicinal properties. Tradition says that in the old times this was one of those wells which people resorted to on Midsummer Eve, the custom being to walk round the well three times with the mouth filled with water from the well, then drink the water and go away, leaving a gift at the well-side to propitiate the fairies." (Brown's Guide, page 315.)
A Cure Well is approached by a path from the Laxey and Ramsey road opposite the old King Orry Inn, now called "" Northcliff."' Its reputation is not forgotten,but I have been unable to discover its name.
The lheihs given below are rescued from a multitude which have existed all round the Manx coast except that of Andreas. As a class they are obsolescent, and most of them may soon be completely forgotten.
Some were used with the flood tide, a few during the ebb, the inshore marks at various heights of the tide. In bygone times all the position-finding land- marks had, of course, to be memorized. They were not revealed to outsiders as a rule, and even among the men themselves there was occasional jealousy. More recently, short written memoranda were some- times carried. For many of the names of marks lying off the coast of.Michael and German, and how they were located, I am indebted to a retired fisherman, Mr. Frank Comaish of Kirk Michael. The others come from various sources, ashore and afloat. The theory of such marks and their bearings, and the technical terms used in connexion with them, will be found in A Manx Scrapbook, pages 184-188. Briefly, the places at sea were fotind by getting the landmarks into certain relative positions. :
Aahley Noa. Ballajuckley house on North corner of Glen Mooar, and the Bollagh in Ballarhenny barn.
The Baltic. Baltic house on North corner of Glen' Mooar, and top of Colden in the hollow at the Carrick.
Bullen y Dhine or Dhrine. Hedge in Ballakaighen in the point of Gob y Dhaigin, and top of Slieu Farrane coming in sight.
The Bushag. A _ flood-tide mark. Skyhill in Ballamona trees, the butt on Jurby Head South of the church by the width of a cart-track, and the whole of Teare's smithy open (i.e. in full view).
The Cairn. Half of West Berk dwelling-house in South corner of Glen Mooar, and Cain Corvalley's chimney peeping over Skerestal.
Craig Mooar. Shalgaige dwelling-house in South corner of gap in Ballagawne, half of Mitre Hotel in South corner of Glen Wyllin, and Bollagh just inside Ballacurn dwelling-house.
Craig Veg. Butt on Berk Hill in hollow in Glen y Ghiark, and Bollagh coming in sight over North end of Glen Wyllin.
Cramman ny Lharg. Top of Colden in hollow at Carrick.
The Creg, two and a half miles out. The hump on Carn Vary on the quarry on Knock Sharrey.
Cronk y Kinnag. Point of Calf visible and Bollagh in highest point of Orrisdale Head.
Eliza. Railway Hotel in South corner of Balleira Glen, and King Dan's house in Glen Trunk.
The Fairy Mark. Brew's house on South corner of Glen Mooar, and James Kaighen's house in the humps at the Quarry.
Grunt-y-Guilley-Wooar. An extensive fishing-ground off Peel. : The Jibblins, a fishing-place off the Carlane or Killane.
Mertihagin. Jonathan Kelly's house in North corner of Glen Mooar, and Bollagh Beg just coming into sight.
North Tom-y-Killey. The Fingans peeping round Peel Castle, and Lhergy Vreck house on top of the Railway Hotel.
The Pollagh. Spire of Michael Church in Lhergy Vreck pigstyes, Cooley Lodge in Clarke's road, and the Bollagh just peeping.
The Steeples. Clagh Height in the stream between sartel and Slieu Farrane, and Jurby Church outside of Orrisdale Head.
Thie Rhunt. Get Ballanayre barn in Glen Broogh, with Thie Rhunt in view.
Thom-y-Cleiy. Tower of Peel Castle in inside step of Cronk-yn-Irrey-Lhaa, and Glen-y-Ghiark house in Ballanea top road.
Tommy Lhan-Darry. Tower on Peel Castle touch and go, and mouth of Glen Cam Railway-bridge just open.
The following spots were also favoured, but I have no knowledge of the bearings by which they were picked up. If any old fisherman should chance to read this he may be able to fill in some of the necessary " pallags " and " crammans "' from his early memories. Ailey Veg, Betty, the Big Kellag mark, Chaglyn Spainey, the Chibber, Christian's mark, Cut Fem, Flat-y-Corkan, Jane Mooar, Meg, the Miller, the Poull, Slieu Chairn. (See also A Manx Scrapbook,
Aahley Noa and Veg, " New, and Little, Fishing- places."' Often pronounced " ellyeh."
Big Kellag, a rock at the Calf; hellagh, "" cock."
Bollagh, Bollagh Beg. These names comprise the high ground North of Mount Karrin in Sulby Glen, between that hill and the main road from Ramsey to Ballaugh. Gob y Volley is its Northern extremity,
Ballavolley and Close y Volley lie adjacent. Bollagh, " road."'
Bullen y Dhine or Dhrine. Probably for Boovlley yn Dhyrine, " Cattlefold of the Thorn-tree." If " " Dhine,"' it might mean " Fold of the Doyne family," an obsolete surname. JBalladoyne treen is in the adjoining parish of German.
Bushag. Perhaps a dim. of " bush," the herring- shoal.
Carn Vary, "Beary Cairn," is the top of Beary Mountain. (S.v. The Creg.)
Carrick, " " Rock,"' is the hill near Stockfield, German, where a Thread Fair used to be held. (S.v. The Baltic.)
Chaglyn Spainey, sandbanks off Spanish Head. According to the dictionaries, cagleeyn means only " boundaries."
Chibber, "Well," a deep spot.
Clagh Height (recte Hoit, from sow, fixed), a name for the standing-stone at Glen Mooar, S.W. of Michael village ; also known as " the Garden," as a landmark. (S.v. The Sieeples). Corn is said to have been ground on it, hence the pitting.
Cramman ny Lharg, " Little Hump of the Hill- side."'
Cronk ny Kinnag, " Hill of the Kinnags,"' an old form of the surname now spelt Kennaugh. There is a Ballakinnag farm S.E. of Kirk Michael village.
Eliza. Named after a woman who lived in a cottage near the shore. Some women's names were believed to be lucky and productive of fish.
Fingans, " " Pointed rocks,'' represents Cronk yn
Irree Lhaa or a part of it. (S.v. North Tom-y- Killey.)
Glen y Ghiark, " Glen of the Grouse," is the South fork of the upper part of Glen Wyllin. The other fork is Glen y Malish in Stanford's map; probably for Maarliagh, " Robber." (S.v. Tom-y-Cleiy and Craig Veg.)
Grunt y Guilley-Wooar, " Ground of the Big Fellow."
Jibblins. Probably Norse djupletkr, " " depth," or djupligr, " deep." " " Jeelings'"' are deep places in the Curragh, according to P. M. C. Kermode.
King Dan was a local celebrity, and his wife was another. Their house stood just North of Kirk Michael church. (S.v. Eliza.)
Mertlhagin (stress on first syll.). Possibly for mairtlanyn, " " maw-worms," used as bait.
Poull, " pool," a deep place.
Slieu Chairn, "" Cairn Mountain," a fishermen's name for the higher or S.W. end of Slieu Whallian.
The Rhunt, " Round House," a building on the old horse-walk at Ballanayre Mill.
Tommy Lhan-Darry; " Tommy of Glen Darragh," an habitué of the mark.
Tom y Clety, "" Tom of the Hedge, or Embankment."
Certain forms of the name of Port St. Mary suggest an original Purt Keeill Moirrey, " Port of Mary's Church," rather than the accepted Purt Noo Morrey, "Port of St. Mary," or Purt ny Morrrey, " Port of Mary." For example, "Portel-Mary"' and " Portill Bay" recur with slight variations, and Mercator's map of Westmorland, Lancs., Ches., and N. Wales (1595), has " " Mary portgill."'
The same map, which preceded the publication of that drawn by Thomas Durham, gives " Ranaldsway als. Port Darby" for Derbyhaven, and " Our Ladies Kirk '' for Ballaugh - i.e. the Church of St. Mary. "St. Michael '' for Kirk Maughold is interesting in view of the customary association, in early documents, of the dedication " " St. Michael and St. Maughold " for Kirk Maughold.
Blaeu's map of Anglia (1662) has a " " Whetston"' near the coast between Laxey and Maughold. Both " Port Iron" and " Port Earn"' occur for Port Erin on sundry old maps.
The German map in the Latin Ptolemy of 1525: shows the Isle of Man in the shape of a swastika, and names it "" Dricam."'
In the Ptolemy map of the British Isles, 1478 (Elton's Origins), the first one to portray the Isle of Man, the coast line of Mona Insula is more nearly correct than those in much later maps. It departs from a fairly accurate small-scale outline only in omitting the Calf and in making the North West corner much more protuberant than it is now and probably was then. But the old map-makers were highly conservative, or imitative, and lost land at that point is traditional. In the Ptolemy " " Gaul," 1478, the same outline of Man is transferred to the South East side of England and called Vectis Insula! But the Island, or at least its name, has travelled much further than that from the Irish Sea, perhaps because of the early myths which connected it with Hy Brasil and other mysterious islands of the Atlantic. Thus Dalorto's map of 1325, while faithfully inserting Man in the neighbourhood of Ireland and Scotland, associates with its position the legendary Brasil (as " " Braschia"'), and the partly legendary Inish Bofin. In later maps both Man and Brasil have gone West. Nicolay, 1560, places Brasil off the Canadian coast, and Man along with it and an Isla de Verde" as fragments of a fancifully- disintegrated Newfoundland; Man is shown plainly on the lower side of the Straits of Belleisle. There- abouts likewise appears, in Ramusio's map of 1550, the " Isla de Moni," with pictures of its little demonic inhabitants. In this region is still to be found on modern maps the Grand Manan Isle, a precipitous piece of land some 25 miles long. Does its name perpetuate the old Indian word for it ?
W. G. Collingwood's article with the above title in the Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiqn. Soc., vol. 13 (1895), contains the following comments and suggestions.
Peel, he says, was a name adopted by the Norse in Cumbria.
Park for a high grazing-ground occurs in the Cumbrian dialect, as in Man.
Spout (Manx spooyt) has "no substantive analogue in Icelandic."
Bayr, Manx for "road,'' has been borrowed from Manx into some Cumbrian place-names. So has
Glass, for a stream.
Borran is used in Cumbria for rocky land in general. As a proper name it is attached to land covered with ruins; e¢.g. Borrans Ring, a Roman camp near Ambleside ; High Borrans, Windermere ; Low Borrans, where a Roman road crossed Troutbeck. It is frequent, says Collingwood, on Roman roads, and is but rarely applied to sites only naturally rocky. Elsewhere he pronounces it a Viking borrowing from Irish.
(With regard to this it should be remembered that the two Mx promontory-forts near Dalby called " The Borranes ''\u2014stress on ultimate\u2014are natural elevations with artificial earthen walls on the landward side, but devoid of stone or traces of buildings. Cer- tainly there is rock at the seaward bases of both, but the whole South-Western coast-line is rocky. Other forms of the word Borran for Roman camps in Cumberland besides those given by Collingwood, such as Burwens, Borrowens, Burwain, appear to show that "" burrow,' a mound, is in question\u2014the Norse borg, found in Man as Burroo and Birroo.
The names hereunder are extracted from a chapter on the subject which was too long to include in the present volume. Reference to sources and authorities,illustrative quotations, early allusions to Man, other occurrences of the names in the British Isles, and the inferences to be drawn from these, have been omitted.
The names by which the Island has been known since the beginning of history virtually fall into two groups: (a) British, borrowed by the Gaels: (d) Gaelic.
(a) Man. Old Irish Mana, the genitive of which, Manann, Manand, later replaced it. Hence the Manx Ellan Vannin and the name of its legendary ruler Manannan, " the Manx One." Old and modern Welsh, Manaw. Anglo-Saxon Mang; but King Alfred called it Monige. In the Icelandic sagas, Mon; on the Mael Brigit cross, Kirk Michael, it is Maun, which, Prof. Marstrander tells me, presupposes the pronunciation "Mon." Latinized forms were Monapia, Monabia, Menavia (metathesized as Mevania),* Manuba, Mannia, Mania, Monia. The title-page of Camden's Britannia (1607) has Monaina\u2014perhaps a misprint for a misplaced Monarina, 7.e. Arran.
" Man " is probably Gaulish in its remote provenance, and passed via the Celts of Britain into Gaelic use. The "p" in the name of the colonizing Menapians from Belgica (Menapians in Ireland), is represented by the "w" of Manaw, and in the earlier of the Latinized forms. All these appear to preserve a vestige of the Old Celtic afia, water; in this case the water of a river or marsh. Comparable is the old Latinized name for Armorica: Letavia, Litavia ; Middle Irish Letha, modern Welsh Llydaw; meaning approximately a place reached across water. The termination implying water is fairly common in modern Belgian place-names as "-eppe'' and the like. The first element Man- or Men- may be con- jectured to mean "small," or "tributary "' in the case of a river.
* Colgan, Acta Sanct., p. 60, note 4, expressed the opinion that " " Mevania'"' was related to " Eamhain," and therefore was not the result of metathesis.
(b) Emhain, variously spelt, the native Irish name, was Latinized as Evonia, Evania, Ewannia, Eumonia, Eubonia, Eubolia; and adjectivally as Ebnanensis, Ardebnansensis; the latter is comparable with the Irish Arddae Huimnon. Eamhain Abhlach was applied also to Arran, Islay and Mull, in semi-historical and legendary material. Evonicasium (" Maccuil episcopus Evonicasium civitate;'' Probus, Life of St. Patrick), denotes a religious establishment, probably at Maughold. Cf. " " Inis-cais" for Whithorn. In romances and fairy-tales Eilein Eubnaidh, Isle of Euphony, Eufania, and other variants, chiefly Scottish, stand for a vaguely-located island of enchantment.
Irish eamhain implies duplication, but I have seen no connexion with this word suggested, or other explanation attempted, for Emhain or Eamhain as a place-name. It would be interesting to learn how the Isle of Man came to be known by the same name as the site of Ulster's capital from some date long anterior to the Incarnation down to the end of the 3rd century ; during which period the latter was " Emhain Macha."
(c) Falga. This name is preserved in an Irish story entitled " The Siege of the Men of Falga," an adaptation of a folk-tale to events not posterior to the 7th century. The Falga of this story is alluded to also in a romance, " " Da Derga's Hostel.'"' In the Prose Dindsenchas of Mag Breg " " Falga " signifies the Land of Promise, the Celtic Elysium.
(2) Dricam is affixed to a German map of 1525, based on the Latin Ptolemy. Possibly it is a blunder for the word " Britain," either misplaced or intended to signify Welsh occupation of the Island. There may be grounds for this tradition. The Cambridge Medl. History, vol. ii, map 17, goes so far as to depict Man as Brythonic about 700 A.D.
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received
The Editor |
||