

xl HISTORY OF THE OUTER HEBRIDES. 



/liable is discoverable in the " ul " of the modern name, 

 which may thus be a compound of four syllables, Ben- 

 bec-ul-a, signifying the island of the small bare mountain, 

 the Norse element in which consists of the last syllable only. 

 Ruaival is the only hill in the island, and this circumstance 

 readily suggests the derivation just noticed. 



It is probable that Barra is derived from the Icelandic 

 bara, a wave-billow, or a wave raised by the wind, Barray 

 thus signifying the " storm-tossed island," a singularly ap- 

 propriate designation. Giraldus Cambrensis, the Welsh his- 

 torian, tells us that his family name of de Barre was derived 

 from the Island of Barra, and thus from its patron saint, 

 Bishop Finn Barr of Cork, who died in 623. The place- 

 name is popularly believed to be connected with Saint Barr, 

 but it is much more likely that Burray in the Orkneys, 

 Burra in the Shetlands, and Barra in the Outer Hebrides, 

 have all a common origin, each of them being, in point of 

 fact, a " storm-tossed " island. This derivation is more 

 satisfactory than Colonel Robertson's "island of the 

 extremity " which is from the Gaelic barr^ a point ; and 

 Canon Taylor's Norse bar-ey, "bare island," is hardly 

 more convincing. Still less convincing is the derivation 

 from borgarey, "the island of the burgh or fort." Early 

 forms of Barra are Barrich, Barreh and Barre ; and Barray 

 was a very common rendering. 



From these excursions into the tangled region of 

 etymology, the predominance of Norse influences in the 

 Long Island, a thousand years ago, will be apparent. 

 Even at the present day, ethnological traces of the Norse 

 occupation are so obvious as to confirm in no uncertain 

 way the teaching of etymology. Worsaae, the Danish 

 antiquarian, states that when he visited Lewis, he was 

 struck by the difference of racial types represented in the 

 island. At Ness, he says he could have fancied himself in 

 Scandinavia, were it not for the language and the dwellings. 



