The same name appeared on the 1st series OS mapping, surveyed in 1876, and a clip is reproduced below courtesy of the excellent NLS Maps site.
The entry in the book reads "This name is applied to a rugged piece of land situated west of Balranald House and extending in a north westerly direction to the east end of Gouskie. It is chiefly Rough Pasture and is the property of Sir J. P. Orde Bart [Baronet]. This name signifies "The fiddlers Pasture"."
That then is the end of the written record and all seems very simple.
It is a Gaelic name because of the order generic+specific.
ScG Gearraidh is a word that the Gaels loaned from the ON gerði meaning the site of an enclosure. The Gaelic definition is rich and varied:
- Point or knuckle-end of land, often used in placenames in Uist, as Hougharry, Tigharry, &c.
- Green pasture-land about a township.
- The land between the machair and monadh, the strip where the houses stand — Lewis.
- Fenced field.
- Enclosed grazing between the arable land and the open moor.
- Common grazing and arable land Between the moor and the crofts.
- Place where the sheilings are built.
Confusingly there is a similar Gaelic word ScG garradh which was also loaned from ON garðr meaning the dyke of an enclosure - as we still use in English as garth. The Gaelic definition for ScG garradh is
- Garden.
- Wall, dyke.
- Mound.
- Gratuity.
There does then seem to have been some movement in what these words mean in Norse times with ON garðr listing the following meanings
- Fence, wall quotations (especially in compounds) an enclosed space, yard quotations
- Courtyard, court quotations
- House, dwelling quotations (especially in compounds) a stronghold, castle, hold
The meaning of ON gerði came to mean the fence/dyke sometimes as well as the enclosed area.
Either way ScG Gearraidh an Fhidhleir here would I am sure refer to an enclosed area, as do the other nearby names e.g. Garry Hougary, Garry-hosta andf Garry-tigary on the OS 1st series. Indeed looking at the placement of those other names, rhe meaning is almost certainly the latter ones, grazing between the arable machair land and the moorland.
ScG fhidhleir means fiddler and occurs in sixteen places names in Scotland in the 1st Series OS mapping, although there are no others on the Western Isles. The OS name book meaning of The fiddlers pasture is clearly logical.
Place-names however are never as simple as one thinks on the Western Isles. The language used before the arrival of the Norse is still a matter of real academic debate. However it is clear from the place-name evidence that Old Norse then dominated as the language for several hundred years before Scottish Gaelic (re-?) asserted itself..
Sometimes as a consequence Norse place-names get hidden by a process of Gaelicization. My suspicion is that this is what happened here.
ON fit = meadow near water and is common in Icelandic place-names. ON lœkr = brook or rivulet or ON lǫgr = sea or lake are borh possibly relevant words. ON Fitarlœkr = Brook of the meadow near water occurs twice in Iceland, always a good sign. Topographically as can be seen from the map extract above, it is spot on.
Note here the order is now as it should be in Old Norse with the specifc first (water meadow) followed by the geneirc (brook) as opposed to the ScG generic + specific
Richard Cox - the Lewis expert on Gaelic place-names - writes that ON fit becomes loaned as ScG fid and ON lœkr becomes loaned as ScG leig so ON Fitja-lœkr (ON fitja being the genitive of ON fit) would sound very much like ScG Fid-leig which then itself would sound very close to Fhidhleir.
The story therefore would be that the Norse arrived, settled the area and called the brook ON Fitja-lœkr. It would probably be quite a significant Brook linking a larger un-drained Loch Paible to the sea at Hougarry.
When the Gaels then came to prominence, they did not understnad what Fitja-lœkr meant but knew if referred to a nearby feature and they heard it as Fhidhleir. Snce it was part of their pasture they then called it Gearraidh an Fhidhleir, effectively doubling up the pasture component.
Somewhere, probably now lost in the past, I suspect there is a story explaining why it was called Fiddler's pasture, an example of what is called a folk etymology.
Further evidence for the Norse influnece in the area comes from the two other gearraidh names just north of Gearraidh an Fhidelir, appeairng on the OS 1st Series as Garry-tighary and Garry Hougary. Unlike Gearriadh an Fhidhleir these have not been anglicized but have the same form of Garry folowed by a specfic. To my eyes the repeat of garry means that the Gaels diid not understnad the meaning of the words Hougary and Tighary but as they were using them as a unit for the name of two townships, they then added the pasture garry for that area of land.. Hougary is certainly of Norse deirvation ON haugr + gerði = enclosure of the mound whilst Tighary is less clear but colud be ScG taigh + gearraidh = house of the pasture but then Garry-tighary would be an obvious double naming. ON týr + gerði = enclosure of God would be very temptiing with the chapel remains there on the coast nnearby but is a long shot!
Sadly most of this is surmise as the written record is so thiin in the Western Isles. However that is where my money is for the derivation.