Means and Ways
- Norse-Style
For all the time I have lived in Polbain by Achiltibuie, some twenty-five years now, I have wondered about Isle Ristol, two miles up the road, the most westerly of the larger Summer Isles before if not the open sea then the open Minch is reached. It does not take a genius, which I am not, to realise once seen not so long ago it may not have been an island at all. At low tide one cane still walk across. And then there is the name itself. It is not identifiably Gaelic so probably was Norse perhaps distorted by distance in time but what did it originally mean. Tanera, as in Tanera Mor, another, indeed the largest of the Summer Isles, which lies opposite my house across the kyle and Tanera Beag beyond, is with Gaelic add-ons said in the same Norse to mean “Harbour Island” and that is exactly what it is, a long island with on its sheltered side a bay that forms the protected, semi-circle of a perfect anchorage on one side.
But Ristol, locally said Risol, was different. It remained known but inexplicable, a roughly circular islet with, again on one side, a similarly sheltered anchorage, still very much in use today, with and on another a yellow-sanded beach, small at high tide, a good size at low but more importantly perfect for drawing up light boats on the former and relaunching them on the latter. Sixty years ago, as well-built men are said to have patrolled the mainland shore, a certain Royal Yacht Britannia is said to have regularly anchored off and lighters carried the Queen, family, children and retainers onto that beach for summer picnics.
However, that was until by chance I came across a paper by Dr. Barbara Crawford, now retired but once an Honorary Reader at the University of St. Andrews. Indeed, I know her to be extremely distinguished in her field because one of her former colleagues says so and lives just five house down from me.
In the paper Barbara Crawford, a specialist in all that is Norse, Viking and early Scandinavian, had looked at the map and noticed across the northern Highlands of Scotland a repetition of Ristol or names very like it. They came in various forms, Rosal, Rassal, Russel, even Rosehall and perhaps others. Moreover, she had noticed a repetition of something else, another name and one that was not always but often in the relative vicinity of, indeed close to, a “Ristol”. That name is “Langwell”. There is even one at the top of the glen or rather the strath on the left at Strathkanaird as I drive from my home to Ullapool and beyond. But “wells” are not “lang”, nor even long. They are shallow or deep. And at my Langwell I know there is no hole in the ground replete with water. I know it because I have visited the estate of the same name on many occasions. I have been to the house, seen the surrounds. In any case there is no need for a tobhar, as the Gaelic would be. There is more than enough uisge, water, for every purpose in the Canaird river that tumbles unceasingly down the brae and from there threads its way to the sea four or so miles beyond Blughsaray at Ceann a’Chaolais, the Head of the Kyle.
But here again Barbara Crawford provides an explanation. Langwell is a misnomer, not the first in the Highlands. It was perhaps said Langvoll, was a mishearing and does not mean “long well” at all. In its original Norse it was “Langvollr”, and that means long field, which fits precisely what even today is to be seen beside the Canaird on the floor of wide valley, which is exactly what strath means, it being a corruption of the Gaelic “srath” into English just as “well” is simply a corruption from Norse into the same. Furthermore, it was because of its position and length perhaps a special type of field, one for growing grass, of course, but also what for the moment I shall simply call grain.
In addition, not only does Barbara Crawford offer an explanation of Langwell she also does the same for Ristol, Rossal, Rosehall at al, one again into which I can add a little. In standard German the word for horse is Pferd. In Dutch it is “paard”, in Flemish “peerd” so similar and distinct not only to the word in English and also to the words for the same thing in modern or New Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, hest, hest once more and haest respectively. But I know from learning German in the south part of the country and in Switzerland there is another term for horse. In fact in those regions it is the most commonly used term. It is Ross, so not dissimilar to the English. Moreover, whilst Norway is deemed to be the probable source of most Norse there are two languages that have, simply through distance-isolation over time, remained more like the Old Norwegian than the New. They are Icelandic and Faeroese with the latter probably the closer. In Icelandic the standard word for horse is “hestur” so complying with the Scandinavian but in the Faeroes there are two, “hestur” again and all but Icelandic, modern Norwegian, Danish and Swedish, but once more “ross”. And those same two words are thought to have existed in Norse too, as “hestr” and “hross” with in the latter case the circle almost complete. It is but three small steps from “hross” to “hoross”, to “horss” to “horse”.
However, then there is a second word we all know, if rarely use in this context in the modern World. In Norwegian it is “stall”, in German and English too, but not what happens when you fail to coordinate gear and clutch but the place, the box, the pen to keep animal or animals. In Faeroese it is “stallur” and Norse it was “stallr”, at which point, given the Germanic predilection for compound nouns we can combine “hross” and “stallr” or more simply “ross” and “stall” and get Rosstall or Rostal or even Ristol. In fact high on the hill of Northern Scotland the open enclosures close to the farm or steading, in which animals, now mainly sheep and cattle, are kept are still called stalls, which implies that a Rosstall can and probably could be either in- or outdoor.
Now there are two more matters to take into consideration. The Ristol by me is an island. But the anchorage in its lee is one that is safe but at the lowest of tides almost empties. As already mentioned at such times one can walk over the exposed rocks from the mainland to the island but these rocks are not placed there artificially. In fact they look to be the remnants of something that was there previously, a small isthmus perhaps six feet wide and just above the water-line that had made Ristol not an island at all but an extension of the mainland, albeit a tenuous one yet wide enough for a horse and rider to cross at ease single-file. And there is another fact about the Ristol by me. It is the last sheltered shoreline to jut out into The Minch opposite the Hebrides, specifically Lewis and notably the safe anchorages on its eastern shore.
So, if there is a “Hrossstallr” by me and a ”Langvollr” not to far away, where are the others. The most northerly is Rosal in upper Strathnaver in Sutherland, for the most southerly there are two candidates, both Barbara Crawford’s, one island on Mull and the other mainland by Kishorn. My personal Ristol is the most westerly, on the mainland at least and for the most south-easterly there are once more candidates, one Barbara Crawford’s by Ardgay and, with some verbal gymnastics, two more again down to me, on the Black Isle and in Moray. Similarly with Langwell there is a spread from Applecross on the West Coast to Berriedale in the North and the Black Isle once more.
And it is at this point that Dr. Crawford takes her last interpretive step. She suggests that Ristols were not only where horses were kept but that it was done with a specific purpose in mind. They were staging posts, where fresh horses would also be fed and watered, in other words liveried. Moreover, Langwells not only provided grass but other horse fodder, of which the most important and one that readily grows in the Scottish climate as traditional, native, human foodstuffs confirm even today is coirce in Gaelic, hafri in Norse or in English, oats.
Yet just as with the livery stable or Pony Express in the American West staging posts have to have an economic incentive and form a network. Barbara Crawford suggests the former in the form of the interlinking for social and cultural reasons of scattered settlements throughout Norse Scotland avoiding sometime dangerous sea passages, notably Cape Wrath, where a storm can and did carry the unwary to Iceland or, worse still, to their deaths. But I suggest that same interlinking could equally have been, given known Norse history, a product of a desire on the part of the hierarchy for control and thus military manpower, tax revenue and eventually even to express Christian piety. And furthermore, whilst Barbara does not seem to see a network, I do, and one that I suggest extends beyond, that which she has pointed to.
So to the links starting with the one that stands alone. The monastery on Iona, within touching distance of western Mull, was founded by St Columba in 563 AD. It was placed because there he was amongst his Irish, his own Gaelic people and from there he could apostatise the heathen Picts and others but not the Norse. They would not sail over the horizon for more than another two centuries. And when they came with their pagan beliefs it was with no concern for local sensibilities. Iona was subjected to Norse raids in 795 AD, 802 AD and 806 AD but curiously that seems to have been it. Perhaps there was nothing left to take and hence the focus of attention moved to Ireland but equally an agreement could have been reached, one that would have increased in effectiveness as Christian conversion began and gained pace. Three generations later Aud, wife of the pagan, Norse king of Dublin took the new faith with her in her part in the settlement of Iceland. Four generation later still, so around 1000 AD, in fact 995 AD, the then Earl of Orkney, Sigurd Hlodvirsson, agreed to conversion somewhat under duress from the King of Norway, whilst being thought to have retained an attachment to the old religion. At his death at the Battle of Clontarf in 1014 he is said to have fought under a Raven banner, the raven being the symbol of Odin. And it was probably not until 1147 AD that the Diocese of Caithness was founded. So it seems likely that at sometime in that period the Mull Pilgrims’ way came into use quite probably using an existing route. And about half way along that route, whether from the corner of Mull nearest Oban or from the north of the island by Tobermory is the most southerly of the Crawford Rossal, farm and standing stone.
Then back on the mainland by Kishorn there are both a Russel, a flat promontory pushing out into sea-loch, and Rassal, a couple of miles up the glen-side. Moreover, a half a dozen miles or so westward on the other side of Bealach na Ba by Applecross is the first of the Langwells. The second is the one by me. The next are north and east, in the northern Strathcarron above Ardgay by Bonar Bridge and ten or so miles across the hill in Glen Oykel, between Doune and Loubcroy. And that Langwell is but a stone’s throw from Rosehall at the foot of Glen Cassley, two miles up which is Glen Rossal and Allt an Rasail, Rossal Burn, and four miles further Dail Langwell and Allt Langwell, meadow, field by anther name, or meeting-point and burn respectively.
And this same combination of Rossal and Langwell is repeated, if reversed, half-way down from Lairg to the sea in Glen Fleet, itself a Gaelic-Norse combination. In the valley by the river is a small Rossal, whilst on the open hill above are Langwells, East and West, precisely where the enclosures are still called stalls. Then thirty miles north-west beyond the Norse enclave of Helmsdale lies equally Norse Berriedale with the Langwell Estate immediately behind it. And finally there is most northerly of the, in this case, Rosal, at the southern end of Strathnaver with not Langwell but Langdale immediately across the river.
Yet still there is a distribution but no obvious network, at least not initially and not without what might simply be creative imagination. Parts of what was Norse Scotland have on the face of it been overwritten, although there is perhaps an alternative explanation, my own theory of space. It is based on a recognition of the very small populations that existed throughout the British Isles at the time. In 1500 AD Scotland’s inhabitants are thought to have numbered around 500,000, in 1000 AD about 300,000 and in 500 AD half that number. It means that at the time we are looking at the figure was perhaps 400,000, or 5 people per square kilometre and likely half that in the Highlands. It meant there was space, perhaps space enough for populations not to fight, where strife would mean male death and subsequent abandonment and starvation for woman and children, but simply to fit between each other, Norse by Pict, Norse by Gael, and for like communities to interact and communicate around the others. And the traces of those separated communities may have left their mark on map to the present day. Locally Ullapool is one. Mudale by Altanaharra is another, as is Merkland, the “borderland” halfway between inland Lairg and coastal Laxford, the “salmon ford”.
And as such places are identified it gradually becomes apparent that the joining up of Rossals and Langwells via them looks easier; distances narrow to between fifteen and thirty miles. Yet still there are gaps. The most obvious is almost directly after riding out of the Norse Caithness capital of the time, Halkirk. The next Rossal is thirty miles to the west, the one in upper Strathnaver. But there is halfway between the two, so a day’s ride over rough but do-able country, the obviously Norse Halladale at the head of which is Croc nan Gall, or from the Gaelic “the hill of the foreigner”, the foreigners in question no doubt being once more Norse and the hill perhaps firstly an implantation and secondly possibly the required staging-post.
Similarly, there is possibility of connectivity where there appears to none between the other outlying Langwell and Rossalls on the Applecross peninsula. Although there are none south of the Langwell in the Ardgay, northern Strathcarron Barbara Crawford, again in her analyses of the Norse world at the time, points out firstly its need for one particular resource, wood. It appears that timber stocks certainly on Shetland and Orkney were worked out early and that was being increasingly replicated in Caithness. It may even have been the driver for Norse expansion southward notably into the Dornoch, Cromarty and even Moray Firths, Firts, Fjirts, Fjorts or originally Fjords. The existence on the Cromarty “Fjord” of Dingwall is no accident. It was the place where Norse, specifically local Norse traditionally gathered collectively to hear orders and/or take decisions, as were the various Things to be found to this day throughout the new and old Scandinavian world. Nor are Scuddal, above Dingwall or Stavek, “staff-wick”, the tidal southern River Conon, the well-wooded Scatwell, the “tax-field” higher up that same River Conon or even perhaps nearby Glenmarksie coincidental. This was an area redolent with Norse activity, possibly for the cutting of timber but nevertheless requiring a land-connection with the northern Strathcarron and providing a link through to the Applecross Peninsula. Except the distance between Scatwell and Kishorn is the best part of forty miles. Simply put it would not be possible on horseback to complete a journey between the two in a day. It would require twice that. It would therefore require on intermediate staging-post.
Yet here too there is perhaps a solution. There is no Rossal, nor Langwell. There are not even any obviously Norse place-names en route. But there is one curious location. At the apex of Strath Ban and also of the southern Strathcarron is Achnasheen. And just south of there is Loch Gowan, which, if it can be taken on face value, means “Smith Lake”, perhaps Blacksmith, but in Gaelic equally Farrier, a shoe-er of horses with hose-shoeing known to be common practice throughout Europe, so perhaps even in Scotland, by 1000 AD.
So it seems we come to crux, the joining of Barbara Crawford’s pioneering points of recognition to form what becomes an integrated Norse network of inland trails from Caithness to the Dornoch Firth in the south-east, to the Moray Firth in the south, perhaps to Laxford in the north-west, to my own Isle Ristol in the west and Kishorn in the south-west. And it is perhaps the Dornoch and Moray connections that provide us with timings.
In 892 AD the then Earl of Orkney, Sigurd, called The Mighty, died reportedly of sepsis. He did so as he returned from a military incursion, where he took on the local Pictish leader, Mael Brigte of Moray, known as Buck-Toothed. Mael Brigte was killed and decapitated but as Sigurd carried his head back with him a protuberant tooth scratched and infected him. Legend has it that his burial was near Dornoch in a howe that is said still to bear his name and is taken to mark the southern limit of the territory under his full control but not necessarily the southern limit of Norse Scotland.
The events of 892 AD followed another documented one of fifty years earlier. In 839 AD there was a battle between Gentiles, i.e. Norse, and “men of Fortriu”, i.e. the Picts of Moray from their base at Craig Phadrig by Inverness, with Argyll Gaelic allies. The Norse had won with the Pictish king, his brother and the son of the king of the Gaels all killed. It had left the Moray Firth open. It had also led to a decade of Pictish in-fighting until the emergence of Kenneth MacAlpin. And it had perhaps allowed some Norse expansion into the Cromarty Firth and, as the Fortriu Picts revived and then lapsed into confusion again, the opportunity firstly for Sigurd’s southern raid, some consolidation and then the opening up the Scatwell to Kishorn connection.
Now that may have been it with the only questions perhaps left being, why should Isle Ristol and Kishorn have existed at all? But there may also have been more and with them comes not just a larger network in Scotland still but also an explanation of it.
But firstly its seems the most southerly Rossal of all could be English. Case-in-point it is to be found in Lancashire. Rossal Point lies just outside Fleetwood on the north-west tip of the Wyre Peninsula in an area that was settled by mainly Hiberno-Norse, Irish Norse, from the beginning of 10th Century so from shortly after 900 AD. And the point itself looks to be perfect in terms of communication not just into the Lancastrian hinterland but also to the Cumbrian coast, the equally Hiberno-Norse Isle of Man and Norse Ireland beyond.
However, the English Rossal seems to stand alone, whereas back in Scotland others could be seen as extensions of what is already surmised. First there is the Black Isle. At its north end overlooking the Cromarty Firth there is a Langwell, whilst five miles away on the other side of the peninsula are Rosehaugh and Rosemarkie, which may indeed refer to the flower but equally could respectively be horse-hollow and horse-border. Moreover, this Langwell overlooks the interestingly named Resolis and the old ferry to Norse Alness, itself at the southern end of Rusdale, possibly itself Horse-Valley, from where there was, it is said, an old route into the northern Strathcarron and even perhaps branches to both Ullapool and my Strathkanaird. It thus have been the ideal place for those from the north to pick up a horse for the crossing of the isle to said Rosemarkie, it with a second, ancient ferry-crossing. It is the one across the Moray Firth to Ardesier with Pictish Fortriu to the west and blocking the Kessock-crossing, a Rosefield six miles to the south and a Roseisle, now a hill with wood and pasture, and a Rosebrae both by Burghhead at the far end of a possible, twenty-five mile coastal route to the east and an area that was also probably Norse-controlled.
Altogether it means that a possible travel network by horse may have been extended to link the full extent of Norse settlement and enclave in the north and north-east of Scotland and that within that larger area the mesh was tightened. It may even had reached out to Orkney with the suggestion of a Langwell close to the southernmost point of Mainland. But still it leaves two points on mainland Scotland, Kishorn and my own Isle Ristol, seemingly as destinations to nothing. Except that Kishorn could be seen as a jumping-off point to Raasay and beyond to Skye, of which, if not all, namely the south of the island, but a large part was also within the Norse sphere. And my Isle Ristol is the nearest point to equally Norse Lewis. Moreover, the nearest point across the Minch to Isle Ristol is not the destination of today’s Ullapool ferry, i.e. Stornoway, but slightly further south at Loch Eireasort and on the northern shore at its mouth are two islands. Just the outermost is Tannaraidh, with its sheltered anchorage, a second Tanera, and inside it is Riosaigh, perhaps Rossay or Horse-Island, with, just like Ristol, a rock and bolder isthmus connecting it to Lewis proper and helpfully overlooked by a dun, a protective fort.
Furthermore just a few miles south of the loch is Kebock Head, below which is Mol nan Eich, in Gaelic the “Rounded Hill of the Horses”. It lies at the point nearest to northern Skye. And this is a pattern that is perhaps replicated on South Uist and Benbecula but curiously not on North Uist. There there are simply Gaelic coastal references to “foreigners”, “Rubna nan Gall” at the entrance to Loch Euphort and “Pol nan Gall” on its southern shore below Eaval, both perhaps Norse landing-points but with no evidence of anything else.
However, on Benbecula there is Rossinish, perhaps a Norse-Gaelic blend, Eilean nan Each, i.e. Horse Island and Camus a’Chapuill, Horse Bay. Additionally on South Uist, on Loch Sgiopoirt, there is another Eilean nan Each, which is once again not an island but a peninsula and close to the present pier at Caolas Mor and the road to it, Rubha Roiseal further south at the mouth of the Allt Rossel, the Rossel stream, and by Rossel Bay and a little futher south still a Rubha Rossel, which is also known again as Rubha Roiseal and is a peninsula close to a second, just as obviously Norse Halladale. Futhermore, all these places are at fan-like points that give the nearest access back across The Minch again to northern Skye.
It would seem therefore that a circle may be almost completed. Using sea-transport to move north-south on the lee-side of the Outer Hebrides each point on the islands allows on the one hand the crossing by land of them to the Atlantic side and on the other by water The Minch to northern mainland at my Isle Ristol or Skye at one or possibly two, perhaps three points. The first is Loch Bracadale with Merkadale at its southern limit below the interestingly-named Crossal by the again interesting Chaiplach and overlooking not just Loch Sligachan with its exit towards Kishorn but being also the starting point for ancient land routes northwards to Portree. The second is just south of Dunvegan Head on the west east shore of Loch Pooltiel. There north of Feriniquarrie at the foot of Ben Skiaig is Geodha nan Each, Horse Creek, and more tellingly Fang nam Each, the Horse-Pen in English or Hrossstal in Norse. And third by Balmacqueen on northernmost Trotternish at the nearest point to Harris and Lewis is Croc Riasal, Riasal Hill, perhaps Rossal Hill.
And that would seem to be that except for two last thoughts. The first is a final curiosity. On Rubna na Lice Uaine, Greenstone Point, at the mouth of Loch Ewe a little north of Mellon Charles and set just back from the shore is Glac na Capull, which could on the face of it be translated as “receiving or accepting horses”. It might be an additional staging post at the end of another trail, perhaps again via Ledgowan and be one corner of a triangle of sea communication linking Lewis and my Isle Ristol. And the second is a thought; that, given the seeming fascination for all things “Viking”, Barbara Crawford’s Norse Trails or at least sections of them might be revived as a further part of Northern Scotland’s tourism effort with staging-posts rebuilt for horse and human alike and old ways restored, reused as a modern, equine alternative to the linked footpaths of West Highland Way and roads of the North Coast 500.
N.B. In the concept of the "horse-stall" and "long-field" network there is much guesswork. Not least among it is the link between Halkirk and Caithness and Strathnaver. However, it assumes that such a connection would be required. But what if were not. It is a possibility because Caithness was not always Norse. It had its Pictish moments too. Moreover, at times Norse Caithness did not have the best of relations with Norse Orkney and Shetland. It leaves open the possibility that at times Caithness was not to be crossed but avoided and that would certainly provide and alternative explanation for the Rosal in Strathnaver and the Langwell by Berriedale. The latter could be a landing-point on the mainland giving access to said network but actually deliberately avoiding the territory between them and the former the first stop thirteen miles up Strathnaver from a similar landing-point now lost to identification but in Sutherland by today's Bettyhill.