Grimsay (Gaelic form Griomasaigh) is the name of the island we live on – I’ve used it for the name of our website. The perceived wisdom is that it comes from ON grims ey = ‘Grim’s Island’. The ON ey = ‘island’ is clear and a common root up here. ON grimmr = ‘grim’ or ‘stern’. ON ey is strong feminine noun and so if my understanding of Norse grammar is correct, the correct root would be ON grimma ey – i.e. no /s/. Either way, names beginning with Grim- have a strongly Norse focus as can be seen of the plot of all those names on the OS 2nd edition mapping. |
A website I trust talks about the name: ‘In Old Norse, Grímr is related to the word gríma ‘mask’ and mythological texts relate that is one of the god Óðinn’s by-names, deriving from his penchant for travelling about in disguise.’ There are examples of /grims/ as the first component of place names with a feminine noun (e.g. Grimsquoy from ON Grims kví in Marwick Orkney Farm-names p98) and so it is not unreasonable to arrive at the derivation Grim’s Island.
However I have been perusing my recently arrived (at considerable expense) second-hand copy of the Marwick book and very interesting it is too. He was lucky enough to have considerably more early forms of names that we do.
In particular, a name that caught my attention was Grimbust which is a name that could occur here but probably in the form Grimbost. The early forms he had were:
1492 Granabustir; 1500 Grambuster; 1595 Grenebustar
For our Grimsay we have a 1722 Grimsay and a 1799 Gremsay before the OS furnished us with the current name and three alternatives that they discarded in 1877: Gremsay; Grimisay; Grimiseidh.. The /ay/ ending at least is consistent if one ignores Carmichael’s gaelicization.
Marwick ended up with the root as ON grœni - bólstaðr = ‘green farm’. Could this work for us here?
As mentioned above ON ey is a strong feminine noun and so here we would expect ON grœnnar whilst if it has been masculine or neuter, we would have got ON grœns. So it can’t be that - until one looks at Icelandic place names and finds a Grænsey along with a Grænseyri and a Grænstjörn where ON eyrr = ‘gravel bank’ and ON tjörn = ‘tarn’ are themselves feminine nouns. I suspect it might be a little like English where green has taken on the meaning 'a green place' - think golfing - and tihs has a gender that could be neuter or masculnie alowwing for the gentival /s/ to appear.
The development æ > i is regular as in n > m and so phonetically it is not a huge leap. There is supported by the 1799 name, Gremsay.
Looking around the modern mapping however, two things occur.
Firstly, the adjacent island is called Ronay stemming from ON hraun ey = ‘rough island’. ON grœnn has another meaning of ‘good’. The names would them make a good counterpoint – good island, bad island – and this occurs regularly elsewhere in the toponymic world.
Secondly, opposite Grimsay on the N shore of Benbecula is Gramsdal which again I had assumed was an ON dalr = ‘valley’ name. I had struggled to find a root for the first component. The only other name starting with /Gram-/ is Grames Ness in Shetland.
Going back to Marwick and seeing one of his earlier forms was Grambuster, one wonders does Grimsay and Gramsdal share the same first component? If they do share the same root, then æ > a is less of a pheonetic leap than æ > i.
However I have been perusing my recently arrived (at considerable expense) second-hand copy of the Marwick book and very interesting it is too. He was lucky enough to have considerably more early forms of names that we do.
In particular, a name that caught my attention was Grimbust which is a name that could occur here but probably in the form Grimbost. The early forms he had were:
1492 Granabustir; 1500 Grambuster; 1595 Grenebustar
For our Grimsay we have a 1722 Grimsay and a 1799 Gremsay before the OS furnished us with the current name and three alternatives that they discarded in 1877: Gremsay; Grimisay; Grimiseidh.. The /ay/ ending at least is consistent if one ignores Carmichael’s gaelicization.
Marwick ended up with the root as ON grœni - bólstaðr = ‘green farm’. Could this work for us here?
As mentioned above ON ey is a strong feminine noun and so here we would expect ON grœnnar whilst if it has been masculine or neuter, we would have got ON grœns. So it can’t be that - until one looks at Icelandic place names and finds a Grænsey along with a Grænseyri and a Grænstjörn where ON eyrr = ‘gravel bank’ and ON tjörn = ‘tarn’ are themselves feminine nouns. I suspect it might be a little like English where green has taken on the meaning 'a green place' - think golfing - and tihs has a gender that could be neuter or masculnie alowwing for the gentival /s/ to appear.
The development æ > i is regular as in n > m and so phonetically it is not a huge leap. There is supported by the 1799 name, Gremsay.
Looking around the modern mapping however, two things occur.
Firstly, the adjacent island is called Ronay stemming from ON hraun ey = ‘rough island’. ON grœnn has another meaning of ‘good’. The names would them make a good counterpoint – good island, bad island – and this occurs regularly elsewhere in the toponymic world.
Secondly, opposite Grimsay on the N shore of Benbecula is Gramsdal which again I had assumed was an ON dalr = ‘valley’ name. I had struggled to find a root for the first component. The only other name starting with /Gram-/ is Grames Ness in Shetland.
Going back to Marwick and seeing one of his earlier forms was Grambuster, one wonders does Grimsay and Gramsdal share the same first component? If they do share the same root, then æ > a is less of a pheonetic leap than æ > i.
There are other options for the /dal/ ending and for a while, I didn’t think there was an obvious valley here until one considers the South Ford which cuts through here and forms a flooded valley. The Norse tended to occupy valleys and it is quite conceivable that they treated the South Ford as a valley and so the name could be shared across.
Without the earlier forms we shall probably never know but the little hints direct me to the ‘green’ interpretation. I think I'd prefer to be living on that green island rather than the grim one!
With thanks as ever to Google Earth for the satellite imagery and the National Library of Scotland for the use of their excellent GB1900 project.
Without the earlier forms we shall probably never know but the little hints direct me to the ‘green’ interpretation. I think I'd prefer to be living on that green island rather than the grim one!
With thanks as ever to Google Earth for the satellite imagery and the National Library of Scotland for the use of their excellent GB1900 project.