ON þræll is defined in the go-to dictionary as ‘a thrall, serf, slave’ and the Norse were infamous for their slave trading. There are four names on Uist containing this component: Triallabreac Mòr; Trialabreck Beg; Triallabreac; Ardtrialish.
I shall deal with the last one first. It probably means ScG Àird + ON þræla áss = ON ‘slave ridge’ + ScG ‘height’ and is hard to interpret other than to say it is one of the remotest areas of North Uist and so not land that others might want to farm.
The other three are all smallish islands, the first two in the North Ford between Benbecula and North Uist and the last in South Ford between Benbecula and Wiay, a smaller island off its SE tip. The ScG mòr and the ScG beag are ‘big’ and ‘little’ respectively differentiating between the two adjacent islands. Essentially therefore there are really only two Triallabreac places.
The generic looks like ON brekka = ‘slope’ but the islands do not have a particular slope and there seems little reason for the slaves to have a slope.
To help look for another option, often going to a list of Icelandic places can help in providing options. There are 39 place names in Icleand beginning with þræla-showing the importance of slavery to that country then. There are no -brekka names and the only ones beginning with þrælab- are all boði = ‘sunken rock’ which is not very close or useful.
The letter ‘b’ and ‘v’ interchange pretty regularly in Norse/Gaelic and þrælav- is more encouraging with nine examples. There are four ON vík = ‘bay’ endings and then the next is the two ON virki names, þrælavirki.
ON virki is defined as ‘a work, wall, stronghold, castle’. A stronghold for slaves starts to make a lot of sense, an area in which to imprison them.
Although this name does not occur in Norway or Sweden, in Norway there are a Trelleborg, two Trelsborg and a Trælborg where ‘borg’ is another word for ‘fort or castle’. In Sweden the name Träleborg or variants occurs 28 times.
It does seem however a step from virki to breac. However another local name is a real help. What is now known on Benbecula as Casiteal Bhuirgh has had a variety of names ranging form Borve Castle (reflecting the ON borg as above) to Blaeu’s Castel Vrigh in 1654.
To my mind there is little doubt that this Castel Vrigh showed that instead of ON borg, in the early name the word ON virki, with the same meaning, was used. The changes ON virki underwent to form ‘vrigh’ are almost identical to the changes required for ON virki to become breac.
The technical word for the most significant change is metathesis and this is when two letters swap. Curiously another example on Uist is Dalebrog where the ‘o’ and the ‘r’ have swapped from what was Daleborg in the ON borg. Here the same has happened with the ‘i’ and the ‘r’.
A little tortuous but to my mind quite feasible.
There are two small pieces of evidence to perhaps support the reason for these places. The people living on Uist before the Norse were the Picts, a group that we are finding out a lot more about recently but not the precise tribe associated with the Uist.
Their iconic items are the Pictish Carved Stones of which only two have been found on the Outer Hebrides.
It is this people that presumably were the people that the first Norse might have enslaved on their arrival.
The stone shown here was found less than 500m from the Triallabreac islands there. The icon of the slaves tribe and a name involving them? A big coincidence?
Two coincidences or two genuine links?!
Whilst looking at this I came across another Tral- place, River Traligill in Assynt which stems from ON þræla gil = ‘ravine of the slaves’. Coincidentally very near the source of this river is a place Geodha Fir Chatta which is Gaelic for ‘men of cait ravine’. Cait was the tribe of the Picts here and on Uist and so somehow within a few metres of each other, we have a place name in Norse referring to slaves and in Gaelic referring to presumably the source of those slaves.
Three coincidences or three genuine links?!
And the name of the river that feeds into Loch Assynt? The self-same River Traligill discussed above!
Slighlty amazingly, to me at least, about 10km S towards a Norse borg name, Loch Borralan, there is an Allt Mhic Mhurchaidh Gheir. The last two components, if spoken, would sound like virki gerði = 'boundary of the fort'. This ScG mhurchaidh = 'Murdo' is something thast does seem to be attached to forts elsewhere. I shall probalby put up a blog about it shortly. Edge of the seats stuff I know.