186 Scotch Place-Names. By Miss Russell. 



Bishops of Galloway are frequently seen acting as suffragan 

 bishops in England. In fact, while this was probably a 

 civilising measure of David's, the wild Scot of Galloway does 

 not seem to have been more affected by it than by the actual 

 Saxon occupation of the eighth and ninth centuries, or by 

 the rule of some of the Cumbrian heroes of the sixth. 



I see an approximate date for the siege of Lindisfarne and 

 the death of Urien, an important event in early history. Th(? 

 Annales Camhrice, as quoted by Bishop Forbes, give the death 

 of Dunaut Rex at 594 ; while, as all the other Welsh accounts 

 are unanimous as to the identity of Dunawd Yawr, one of 

 the chiefs who conspired against Urien, with the Dinooth 

 Abbas, who was killed with his monks at Chester about 607, 

 that one can only suppose that 594 was the year of his 

 dying to the world, with circumstances to be ignored. 



This would make the murder somewhere about 592. Dunawd 

 was obliged to retire into a convent, for which a Welsh prince 

 gave him land. All this shows the improbability of the 

 assertion that Asaf, who succeeded Kentigern at Llanelwy, 

 in or about 573, was the nephew of Dunawd, as the family 

 were Men of the North till driven southward. 



Arn for Alder (the Alter, not the Bourtree) is a word which 

 ought to have been included in the paper on Gaelic words 

 in spoken Scotch ; it is evidently the Gaelic name fearn or 

 fearna, with the digamma dropped. It is still in use in 

 Perthshire and Dumbartonshire, and no doubt was used 

 further south. 



I see the carriage of Mons Meg was made from the Alder 

 woods of Ironsidp, in Fifeshire; and the name of Arniston, 

 on the Midlothian South Esk, rather looks as if it migiit be 

 from this tree, though Arne was a Scandinavian name. 



The Welsh form, gwern, besides an Alder, means a marsh, 

 a meadow, or a spring. Dreghorn is interpreted as Tref- 

 gwern. Township of Springs. The Malverns may be the Hills 

 of Springs. I see it mentioned, in the history of Shrewsbury, 

 that there seems no foundation for the tradition that that 

 town was founded by Maelgwn Gwynedd, that is, of North 



