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The origin of "Orkney"
The name Orkney as it comes to us
today is simply a corruption of the islands' Old Norse name - Orkneyjar.
Pronounced "orc-nee-yahr", the
name is generally taken to mean Seal Islands - the Norsemen's
interpretation of the islands' older name. However,
the Ork- element predates the Norse interpretation by centuries.
First mentioned by the Roman writer Diodurus Siculus in the first century BC, Diodurus
referred to the islands as the Orchades, a name echoed by
the Roman geographer Pliny, who calls them Orcades.
Pliny added that across the Pentland Firth
on the northern tip of the Scottish mainland was Cape Orcas -
a location that has been suggested is Duncansby Head in Caithness.
Away from the classical scribes,
the old Gaelic name for Orkney used by Irish historians was Insi
Orc and simply meant Island of the Orcs. The orc element, meaning young pig, is generally thought to refer
to the wild boar. Thus we have the Islands of the Wild Boar.
This has led to the theory
that at one time a predominant "tribe" in the islands
- possibly Pictish - had the boar as some form of tribal totem.
It is interesting to note that the early Norwegian settlers in Orkney
referred to the chambered cairn Maeshowe as Orkahaugr which could mean The Howe (Mound) of the
Orcs. However, it could equally derive from Orkis' Howe, where
Orkis was the name of a person.
As mentioned above, when the Norsemen settled
in Orkney, they interpreted the ancient orc element as orkn,
their word for seal. The added the suffix -eyjar meaning
islands and the islands became known as Orkneyjar - the Seal
Islands.
The name was finally shortened by later
Scots speakers, who dropped the last syllable of the Norse name,
leaving Orkney.
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