Scandi This and Scandi That
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Well it’s rather happier return than the lines of the late and very great Robert Louis Stevenson, but we are home from the sea and a very great voyage into the frozen north it was. And it reminded me of the strong, strong links between our isles and the Viking voyagers and raiders of yesteryear. It’s there in all those place names and surnames related to place. Stenhouse Muir is perfect Norwegian. And of course there are those names that are almost straight from the Scandi languages. Macaulay derives from son of Olaf, MacIvor means sons of Ivar and MacSween is a son of Swein, not to forget MacAskill the sons of Asgeir. Now I’ve known a few MacAskills and they were pretty fearsome!
Of course most of the Scandi influences are in the outer and Western Isles, including the word isle itself. Stjarna the Norwegian for star and vágr gives us Stornaway and Wick, derives from the name of the Vikings themselves and the name for a stream. Many of my favourite whiskies are from Jura which is from the Norse meaning Deer Island, and of course to me it is a dear island! And the fearsome tartan army of the Seaforth Highlanders were named after the Norse for sea loch, sea fjord. Ah there’s history everywhere, even in words.
If you want call a child you say bairn, but in Norwegian it’s a barn. Edinburgh might reek, but in Norse it would røg, which actually sounds almost identical pronounced rerg. Here we might ken someone, but the Norwegians kende. And my mum would often talk about people doing a moonlight flit, with the landlord after them, and in Norse it would be a flytte. And if you want to save a muckle that would be a meget,
Which brings me in my usual contorted way on how to save a muckle for the moment, yes it only lasts a week! The one thing I noticed in the far north was the absence of colour, fewer animals in the winter and sharp contrasts between indoors and outdoors. And you can make the most of the indoors now with this lovely 60% off tall vase This beautiful Extra Tall Vase is part of Royal Scot Crystal's Dragonfly Giftware Collection and is an absolute beauty, standing some 300mm tall that’s about a foot I think. It comes in a classic box and is a real way to save that meget.
