Influence of the Pre-Reformation Church on Scottish Place-Names

Abstract

The Celtic and the Roman Churches have both left their mark broad and deep on the place-names of Scotland.The Kirks and the Kils, numerous though the names are that they help to form, constitute but a small part of the whole.Many names, such as St. Andrews, St. Boswells, and St. Fillans, have either lost or have never had attached to them the terms Kil or Kirk.A considerable number are associated under one or other of her designations with the Virgin Mary, such as Kilmuir, Maryculter, Ladybank, and Motherwell.The names of many places contain the words chapel, cross, hospital or spittal, templar, or annat, and have to be taken into account.The monastery, the diocese, and the parish, with their possessions, jurisdictions, and officials, have given such names as Appin, Monkland, Arnmannoch, Abbotshill, Arnprior, Bishopric, Chanonry, and many others.There are also the retreats, caves, Dysarts or deserts of the early saints, landscape features like Portpatrick, Loch Maree, and Inchaffray, portions of land like Godscroft, dwellings like Balnespick, and stone seats or standing stones with ecclesiastical associations.The subject is reviewed by Mr. Mackinlay with a wealth and accuracy of enumeration and detail in all its branches.Kirks and Kils have seven of the thirty chapters of the book devoted to them; crosses and the diocese have each two, and monasteries and landscape features each three chapters.Every effort evidently has been made to bring together all that bears upon the subject.The list of works referred to which fills ten pages without exhausting the number, shows how much has been accomplished and how little has been overlooked.The admission of some things that are questionable, and the omission of names worthy of notice are defects that are inevitable in a work that covers such an extensive area and that is based upon so many authorities.The cave at Weem in Perthshire was the retreat of St. Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, to whom the church of Weem is dedicated, and not of the fifteenth century, ' St. David Menzies,' as is shown in A Few Notes on the Parish of Weem, by the Rev. R. G. Dunbar.The name of the old burying-ground in the parish is, not Cill Daidh, but Cill Da-Bhi, that is Kildavie with the accent on the last syllable, and commemorates a Saint BI, of whom there were two, with 'do,' thy, prefixed instead of the more frequent 'mo,' my.Aberfeldy means not the confluence of Palladius but mouth of the Peldy, Gaelic Peallaidh, older Pealldaidh, now called Moness Burn.Peallaidh, in this instance the name of a stream, is familiar in the folklore of the district as the name of a famous hruisg, i.e. brownie, or water-kelpie, specially