Rousay

Rousay is a beautiful island surrounded by many other islands: Eynhallow and Mainland to the south, Westray to the north, Egilsay and Stronsay to the east.Its westerly coast is unsheltered: this is reflected in the rich seam of archaeological sites – Pictish and Viking graves and homesteads – along the west shore of the island.

Rousay is almost like a microcosm of Orkney: the rolling hills, the flatter areas, the shelter and the wind-blighted coasts. Along with the archaeology, in the place names we can see a cross-section of all Orkney represented in this one island.

Scara Taing, a rocky area of the north-west coat of Rousay, is a bird-infested steep reach: this is reflected in the etymology of the name: Scara is from ON skarfr, a cormorant. (Current Orkney dialect for the bird is skarfie, scarf or skart). Taing is a straight translation from the ON singular tangi, a point.

Itherie Geo, too points at a bird origin: this time from the Old Norse for the eider duck, aeðr. Geo is a ravine, gjá.

Sinians of Cutclaws…a mystery mostly this one, as many Orkney placenames are. The first element though derives from ON sin, a type of coarse grass or sedge. Cutclaws could be from ON klessa, meaning here a sense of being daubed or smeared.

The Brae of Moan, a hill I have scaled with a case of concussion, is a wet, marshy nightmare. The meaning of the latter part of the name testifies too this: it is from mór, moorland.