In these days of scientific farming there is a tendency to refer to fields by number or acreage. This is a pity, for many of these field—names hold history unrecorded elsewhere. For instance, Kirk Shade (The Gask, Letham), and The College (Arbirlot), recall early ecclesiastic buildings of which not a stone now remains.

Some names record people, others events. Farm folk have a sense of fun, and some names are amusingly descriptive. The Dumplin (in the Mearns) has a prominent hump in the middle of it. Bare Breeks is a niggardly cropping field. The Himalayas (Balgavies) has its ups and downs. On the Devil’s Knowe the incline is so desperately steep they have to harness two tractors together to pull the binder at harvest time.

Many fields serve as memorials to farm-folk who have long since worked out their tenure with the sun, wind and rain. There is Maggie Hanton and Wattie Binnie at Arbirlot, and also Willie Craig. There is Jenny Barrie at Ascurry, Carmyllie, but her field is moorland now, and a windmill has assumed her name.

What looks like a name of this sort may simply be a description. Sandy Ireland, for instance, for Ire (or iar) may well mean “lying to the west.”

Some names record events, and unless the history of this event is known, a name may be quite puzzling. At Hole Field (Invergowrie Home Farm) a hole, sixty feet deep, suddenly fell in, and the field—name records this unusual happening!

Many fields were named after some feature of the surrounding landscape, chapel, croft, tree, castle, well, loch, bridge, wood, and so on. But what was a feature then may have disappeared by now. Trees fall or are felled; castles crumble; wells get covered over; lochs are drained and so on. In the Tayside region there are hundreds of field—names of this sort, and their importance is manifest.

I have listed many field-names, but of course it would be the work of a life-time to visit all the farms of this wide area. Then, even with “inside information" many names are difficult to understand. One thing soon becomes obvious, however. A Scots farmer may call a spade a spade, but he has all sorts of names for a field. It may be a shade, a ley, a rigg, a haugh, a fauld, a yard, a park, a bauk, a flat or butt! All these, and many others, appear on the detailed maps of farms and estates on Tayside.

If we cast a backward glance at the early farms, it is not to any imposing building as now occupied, but to a primitive dwelling that gathered round it a bothy, a byre, a steading, a barn, buchts or buchties and cottar houses, indeed, a farmtoun. To begin with, land was all open unclaimed common. In course of time this was cleared of shrubs and trees, and enclosed bit by bit. Names were given to these enclosures or fields for easy reference, and the genealogy of these names links the farm folk of today with their ancestors, reminding them of the debt due to the first farmers of this land of ours.

If you study field-names you will find that the following root words commonly occur: clach (stone), dob or dour (water), alt or ald (stream), ath (ford), breich (brink), grin (the sun), cluan (meadow), garth (yard), auch (field), blair or blar (field).

Descriptive syllables are also common—nor (north), sudr (south), ast or os (east), ire (west), mor (big), tu (little), braid or ruim (wide), crum (crooked), cam (winding), medda (middle), aird (high), fother (exposed), breac (mottled), maoth (soft, fertile).

The names given to hilly fields often contain one or other of the following—drum (a ridge), downie (a low hill), sid (a long slope), carr (a rock), knowe (a hillock), knock (a knoll), tullach or tully (hillocks).

Many field names derive from the Gaelic of the Irish-Scots, but Pictish influences survive—for instance, in names with auchter, for and pit. Many compounds of pit (meaning a cultivated bit of land) occur in farm names, like Pitcundrum, Pitlessie (Gaelic lios, a garden) and Pitskellie.

Now, here are some of the more interesting names:

Balcalk Farm (Tealing) gave Paislins, Crapodale, Twelve Dale, Hatton Well, Blackly Fauld, Girley Fauld, Knockmarumple, Tilliehaggleton, Scare Fauld, Crap Angry. The Tealing district also gave Thorters, a curious name.

The Carmyllie district gave Crippleshade, the Ingans, the
Twenty Pennies, Lady Brae, Pisgah, the Dourie, the Brogie, the Harey, the Marnies, Shuilbreds, the Milner, the Gruggle o’ the Wud. Are they not wonderful names, some of these?

Drumbertnot (Lunan), gave Deil’s Knapp, Fawn’s Castle, Scroggie and Cannon Den. Nearby, Courthill yielded Moor o’ Scare, and Fallaw had Paterscrede.

Fife, too, is very rich in field-names. Here are a few: Mungobo, Capernaum, Spittle Doup, Goschen, Glutty, Prior Inch, Priest’s Craig, Bloodhill.

Strathmore has, of course, hundreds of field-names, but I shall only mention here two from Alyth, the Gowpens and the Garret.

Some of these are difficult to explain. Crippleshade may refer to a sloping field with a cripple gap left in a dyke for sheep to go through. The Harey is possibly associated with a boundary stone, or a group of stones. The commonest origin of words with har (harstone, herstone) is a stone, grey and overgrown with moss and lichen, that had served as a boundary mark.

The Ingans suggests an entrance. In a ploughing match points are given for the ingans and the ootgans.

Pisgah illustrates a more modern fashion of bestowing Biblical names, and it could indicate a hilltop view of a better land. Zoar is a little well-watered patch (Genesis XIII., 10). The name Egypt occurs here and there, and seems to refer to sandy soil, or else a dried-up channel. The Twenty Pennies is connected with land measure and penny holdings, the pennies being payable to some Abbot. Other examples are Pennymuir and Merkland. As for Crap Angry, it has probably more to do with a kind of crop than with wrath.

The Goupens (Scandinavian, goupin) means a handful or two hands together, producing a good crop. The Garret recalls an old French word, garite, surviving in Scots and meaning a watch—tower.

Girley Fauld suggests a field ploughed in a gritty or gravelly soil. The scare of Scare Fauld has probably the same root as scaur, meaning a steep bank or ridge. In Scots dialect, however, a scare is part of a golf club and a fishing rod.

Thorter suggests Thor, the Thunder god of Norse mythology, just as Lucky Scaup (a sandbank of the Firth of Tay which probably troubled Norse invaders) suggests Loki, the mischief-making god. Thor was no doubt feared and worshipped by our early colonists. Tir is Gaelic for a bit of land, and Thor may have claimed a patch for himself. When next you walk up Thorter Row in Dundee (why not next Thor’sday?) then spare a thought for the forgotten scrap of history buried in that name!

But guesswork is risky in dealing with field or place-names, for a syllable may have several meanings. A visit to the locality is always helpful, and so is the pronunciation of old folk of the district.

But having mentioned Thor and his possible claims to ground, I should mention “the Guidman’s Croft,” sometimes called Halyman’s Rig, Cloutie’s Croft, or Black Foulie. This was a piece of land left unploughed and dedicated to the Devil, so that he would do no harm to crops or animals. It was, indeed, very like a pagan sacrifice. But with characteristic Scottish thrift the farmer usually saw to it that the Halyman’s Rig was of land of little consequence, often a moory or marshy bit of uneven ground!

So much for field-names, but I should like to add that there is a great deal of local history hidden in some of these names. Think of the Stannin’ Stanes, Whirley Briggs, Bress Braes, the Gallow Hill (these from Balgavies), or of Blue Breeks, Palace Green, and Knighters (these from Arbirlot).

As a footnote, may I recommend a visit to Paradise, a flowery meadow alongside the Elliot Water. You can also, should you wish, go haymaking in Hell! There is a field of that name at Findowrie, near Brechin.

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