NA TURE 



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THURSDAY, AUGUST ii, 1887. 



THE TOPOGRAPHY OF GALLOWAY. 



Studies in the Topography of Galloway; being a List of 

 nearly 4000 Names of Places with Remarks on their 

 Origin and Meaning. By Sir Herbert Eustace 

 Maxwell, Bart, M.P. (Edinburgh : Douglas, 1887.) 



SIR HERBERT MAXWELL will strike a sympa- 

 thetic chord in the minds of many readers, who 

 have not themselves time to search for the origin of 

 place-names over which they have pondered, and perhaps 

 speculated, without avail. We do not mean that the 

 limited district so thoroughly sifted by Sir Herbert Max- 

 well affords illustrations for place-names everywhere, but 

 his method of handling the subject serves as a model for 

 the useful imitation of students in other districts where 

 such a convenient hand-list is wanting. 



On a clear day, one ascending the backbone of 

 England, say at Cross Fell, beholds, beyond the Vale of 

 Eden, far to the south, Ingleborough and the Shap Fells, 

 on the west the Lake mountains, and towards the north 

 a broad arm of the sea, which he recognizes as the Solway 

 Firth, cutting off the wide-extended plain of the Vale of 

 Eden, which lies spread like a carpet far below him. 

 Beyond the Solway Firth there rises a huge hill capped 

 with cloud and backed by hilly country, cut off by the 

 sinuous coast-line as far as the eye can reach. The hill 

 is Criffel, "a hill of 1850 feet," called on a map in the 

 Bodleian Library, circ. 1330, " Mons Crefel," and by Pont, 

 in Blaeu's Atlas, 1654, " Crafel," a hill whose peculiar 

 granite boulders lie scattered plentifully in the drift over 

 the new red sandstone of the Vale of Eden. It is one of 

 the outposts of Galloway, the origin and meaning of 

 whose place-names form the subject of a most thorough 

 and searching investigation in the present work. These 

 names are conveniently arranged in dictionary form in 322 

 pages. Many are entered and left unexplained ; Sir 

 Herbert Maxwell, with true statesmanship, leaving to 

 others the invidious task of applying the unscientific knot- 

 cutting, or "guessing etymology," which he so scornfully 

 repudiates in the, if anything, somewhat prolix introduc- 

 tion of 44 pages. 



We in England, who do not all know our Bobelloth and 

 Bethluisnion as well as we might, come as learners to 

 Sir Herbert Maxwell's book, which displays much real 

 learning and a fair amount of bibliographical research. 

 Treating, as it does, of a language which is foreign to 

 our ears, a language rejoicing not only in " eclipses," or 

 a vast superfluity of unsounded consonants, but of 

 " triphthongs" or sequences of three vowels, equally un- 

 known to our modern English, Sir Herbert Maxwell's 

 task Hes very much in expanding to the full Gaelic form 

 the words from which the vast majority of the names are 

 derived, and at first sight it seems almost as hopeless a 

 task to follow him as to sit down unassisted to master 

 Russian. We can only make one or two observations on 

 the introduction, which digests much from O'Donovan 

 and Joyce. " The Basque word for water is ur," hence 

 "the rivers called Oure, Urr, Ure," &c. Like most other 

 Vol. XXXVI. — No. 928. 



words meaning a river, it also means a " bank" of a river : 

 e.g. beck ; burn (bruinne, a brink) ; river {ripa), &c. 

 " Ur denotat rivos aquarum impetuose ex alto delaben- 

 tium" (Junius, " Alph. Run.," 21) ; cf Lat. ora, A.S. ore, 

 Eng. ore, the shore. In Norway, ur is the rough slope 

 of a mountain ; Irish, ur, a border, brink. The author, 

 " dismissing as unattainable " all record of pre-Celtic 

 speech, finds, " from the evidence of these names," that 

 the Pictish of Galloway "belonged to the Goidhelic or 

 Gaelic rather than to the Brythonic or Welsh branch." 

 " No doubt," he adds, " there are names whose forms 

 would bear being assigned to a Brythonic origin, but with 

 these I have not ventured to deal." We will not venture 

 either, but in such glaring cases as the "Rhinns" of 

 Galloway; "maiden craigs" (W. Meiddyn, a cliff, preci- 

 pice), common in North England ; " cors," the fenny 

 district on the coast of Kirkbean (Chalm. " Caled." iii. 

 234); "carse," Kirkcudbright, "carse gowan," "carse 

 thorn," "carse land," in all of which the physical charac- 

 ter answers to the Welsh "cors," "a ;;mrj-/z, according 

 to the common acceptation " (Ed. Luid, " Adversaria," 

 p. 268) ; and in " Corsock," New Abbey, Wei. " corsawg," 

 fenny (Chalm. " Caled."), and several others, it is plain 

 that Welsh words do occur, and therefore have to be 

 dealt with. With the principles admirably set forth in 

 the introduction we fully agree. One or two sUps occur, 

 as (p. 41) where the author attributes to Pont, as original, 

 a passage copied from Camden's "Britannia." Sir H. 

 Maxwell seems to have followed Murray's error (Note D, 

 Append, to "Hist, of Gall.," 1822). The sentence is 

 "Neirunto this (Vigtoune) Ptolemee placed the city 

 Leucophibia," &c. Now, this sentence appeared in the 

 original Latin edition of Camden, 1586, p. 480, "Gallo- 

 way . . . Hac regione Leucopibiam urbem statuit Pole- 

 meus," &c., published when Pont was about nineteen ; 

 and for comparison with the passage from Font's manu- 

 script we give that from the first English translation o 

 Camden, 1610 : — " Neere unto this Ptolomee placed the 

 city Leucopibia, which I know not to say truth where to 

 seeke. Yet the place requireth that it should bee that 

 episcopall seat of Ninian which Bede calleth Candida 

 Casa, and the English and Scotish in the very same 

 sense Whitherne : What say you then if Ptolomee after 

 his maner (" suo more," 1586) translated that name in 

 Greek Aev oiKidia [sic], that is Whitehouses," &c. 



Again, the supposed identification of Rerigonium with 

 Bargeny, attributed by our author (p. 42) to Heylin, 

 1669, should be attributed to Camden. Thus, under 

 Carricta, Camden, 1610, has Rerigonium, " a towne. For 

 which Rerigonium is read in a very ancient copie of 

 Ptolomee printed at Rome in the year 1480, so that we 

 cannot but verily think it was that which "is now called 

 Bargeney." Sir Herbert Maxwell rightly points out the 

 anachronism between Loukopibia and Candida Casa. 

 Horsley — with several others who have discussed the 

 Ptolemaic names — avoids the trap, saying, with a 

 side glance at Camden, " others from a fancied ety- 

 mology place it at Whithern," which error the followers 

 of Camden have perpetuated to our own day. The form 

 " Lucotion " (" Brit. Chorog."), is conclusive. " Brigo- 

 mono," however, in which form Rerigonium appears in 

 "Brit. Chorog." (given in Gale, and Horsley, "Rom. 

 Brit." p. 490), does offer some suggestion of Bargeny. 







