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In Bute, the oldest form of Rothesay is Rothersay,
perhaps Hrothgar’s ey or á. Ascog is like
Ayscough, in Lancashire, – the ash-wood ask-skógr.
Arran has a few Norse names ; Brodick (anciently
Brathwik, broad-bay), Goat-fell, Scordale, Glaister
(-stadr), Ormidale, Glen Sherraig (in 1590 Sherwik).
And in the Clyde, Kumreyjar (Cumbraes) was the
Norse name for the isles of the Cumbri or Strathclyde
Welsh.
One of the most interesting names is Pabay,
variously spelt, for there are many examples in the
Hebrides as well as in the Orkneys and Shetland.
We know from the Saga form, Papey, that it means
the island of the priests, Papar ; and we know from
Dicuil that the Irish hermits were driven from their
"deserts" by the Norse early in the ninth century,
also from Landnáma that the same thing happened
later in Iceland. The Rev. E. McClure (Saga-book of
the Viking Club, i., p. 269) has suggested that the
word, like Kirkja, was learnt by the early Vikings
from the Goths of the Roman Empire, Christianised
from Greek influences, whence also the German
pfaffe. There is no doubt that the externals, and
some of the teaching, of Christianity were known to
the pagan Scandinavians long before they became
converts ; the earliest descriptions of their temples in
Iceland tell us that the apse was a feature of the
building, and much of their mythology was a distorted
glimpse of Christian beliefs. The name must have
been given to these islands of the Papar at the time
when the priests were first driven away, not in
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