dc.description.abstract | This is a study of the Old Norse (hereafter abbreviated to ON) setr/sætr
and ærgi place-names in areas of Scandinavian settlement in Scotland.
The elements setr/sætr and ærgi all have a general meaning of a place for
summer grazing in the hills, referred to in Scotland as a shieling. However,
the related terms setr and sætr, are employed as shielings names in
Norway and are indistinguishable from each other in Britain. It is only in
areas of Scandinavian settlement in Britain and the Faroes that ærgi is
found to signify a shieling site. The element ærgi was adopted as a
loanword from either, the Scottish Gaelic àirigh or Irish áirge, both of which
can also have the meaning of a shieling.
What is unusual about this adoption is it is rare for a more prestigious
speech community (ON in this instance) to adopt a word from, what is
believed to have been, a less prestigious language at the time (Gaelic).
Various scholars have looked at this question, but none have adequately
explained the reason for the adoption. Much of the previous research has
relied on comparisons of local farming systems that were recorded many
centuries after the Viking Age. Farming techniques from the fifteenth to
twentieth century are unlikely to adequately represent the agricultural
situation in the Viking Age due to different social imperatives. The overall
question I want to answer in this thesis, is why Scandinavian settlers in
Scotland adopted ærgi, when they already had corresponding ON terms
for a shieling.
The distribution of ON settlement names is one of the main pieces of
evidence to prove Scandinavian settlement in Scotland during this period.
This is especially true of secondary settlements, such as shielings, which
rarely feature in early documentation. The language shift to either Gaelic
or Scots-English is likely to have led to the loss of many ON place-names,
but will also have fossilised some names in the landscape. The location of
these settlement names can give an understanding of how Scandinavian
settlers utilised the landscape and highlight differences in the use of
different shieling names.
This thesis is interdisciplinary in nature, but one based on cultural and
historical geography. The first element of the study is to understand why
shielings developed in Scandinavian society and if there are identifiable
environmental factors behind their location. Studies in Norway suggest
shielings developed as a response to environmental constraints to
agriculture and social pressures to produce a surplus. A locational study of
shielings in areas that were the likely origin of Viking settlers in Norway,
highlighted seven key locations for shielings. These locational factors were
then compared to setr/sætr-names in Scotland. The locations were broadly
similar to Norwegian shielings, however, Scottish setr/sætr-names were
more likely to be situated in slightly more fertile locations than Norwegian
examples studied.
A comparison of Scottish setr/sætr-names with ærgi-names also revealed
the latter to be more likely found on even richer grazing land. The
conclusion being, setr/sætr had a more general meaning of a place for
summer grazing, whereas, ærgi was specifically linked to richer soils and
richer grazing land. This link may relate to an intensive dairy economy,
something which is known from contemporary documentary sources from
the Gaelic world, but has not been proven in pre-Viking Age Norway. | en |
dc.relation.hasversion | Foster, R. (2017). The use of the Scandinavian Place-Name Elements -sætr and - ærgi in Skye and the Outer Hebrides: a site and situation study. In Cooijmans, C. (ed), Traversing the Inner Seas: Contacts and Continuity around Western Scotland, the Hebrides and Northern Ireland. Edinburgh: Scottish Society for Northern Studies, 107-139. | en |