14/04/2025, by aezcr

Scapa…part two… the klif-hanger…

In Scapa… part one… we concluded by saying that the name describes an important, traversable, isthmus in close proximity to Kirkwall and that the saga attests to it being a recognisable landing-site used for expeditious access to Kirkwall for assemblies and social gatherings, and for trade (as evidenced by the mention of cargo ships). We left the blog on a bit an early attestations klif-hanger though…

Notably, there are occasions in the AM 325 I 4to manuscript (ca. 1290–1310) in which ‘alternative’ names are used for what is understood, in saga translations, to be the same place. In chapter 66 we have til Skalpeiþs, in chapter 92 a Klifseid, and in chapter 94 til Skalpeiþs and viþ Skallfiorþ. In later manuscripts in which the same chapters (92 and 94) survive there is no variation from the skalpr and eiðelements.The Skallfiorþ form has a double <l> and lacks the terminal <p> we would expect to see for skalpr, however this can perhaps be attributed to the tendency in ON for consonant combinations of three or more to be simplified, or a scribal copying error, rather than another name for the same place. The second element, ON fjǫrðr ‘fjord, inlet, firth’, on the other hand can perhaps be attributed to something else. Can the variation in elements, particularly those occurring within the same chapters be explained by the possibility that these names were describing places whose names had not yet been fully formed or established? Or, by the possibility that while these names were being applied to the same general area, they were describing different features in that area.

With Klifseid we have a different specific element, ON klif ‘(steep) slope/bluff, cliff, (narrow) path (through the cliffs), mountain pass’, and with Skallfiorþ both a different specific and generic. Considering why Klifseid might have been applied rather than Skálpeið we can still observe that the bay leading to the shore where the narrow neck of land begins does have cliffs descending to shallower slopes on either side, some of which are fairly high (85m) at the entrance to the bay, but which do lower substantially on the approach to the beach at Scapa.

In chapter 92 Sveinn was going to Orkney from Caithness with both cargo-ships and rowing-boats, arriving at Scapa (a Klifseid), and so here the cliffs can be understood as an important navigational feature at the entrance to the bay that takes you to the eið. There is the implication too, given the types of boat described, that this was a place to which you brought cargo, perhaps for trade.

While the ‘path’ and ‘pass’ elements of a cliff interpretation may be tantalizing given the saga references to being able to walk from Scapa to Kirkwall, the cliffs of Scapa Bay do not extend into an inland pass or path, rather they funnel the waterborne traveler through the bay towards the beach. So, it seems unlikely that the name Klifseið applied to the eið itself, but perhaps referenced the cliffs at the entrance of the bay that signalled the way to the eið.

In chapter 94, the earls are heading to Scapa (til Skalpeiþs) in their ships, but upon arrival ‘Earl Rǫgnvaldr wanted them to stay on the ships for a while’ and so they ‘lay with fourteen ships at Scapa’ (viþ Skallfiorþ). Here, then, there seems to be a distinction in the same chapter and manuscript between two places, the isthmus and the inlet. The inlet component is important, they haven’t quite arrived at the eið, but instead are staying on their ships near the inlet, near the fjǫrðr, perhaps they are out in Scapa Bay. So, rather than being entirely attributable to scribal error, there is the possibility that Skallfiorþ is naming not the eið, but the body of water on the approach to the eið.

The alternative Klifseid and Skallfiorþ names remain intriguing and are perhaps echoes of names that existed contemporaneously with Skálpeið, describing slightly different places in the vicinity, but which disappeared before they could be recorded and documented beyond the saga manuscripts.

Corinna Rayner and Matthew Blake

Further Reading

Bates, Martin, Richard Bates, Barbara Crawford, and Alexandra Sanmark, ‘The Norse Waterways of West Mainland Orkney, Scotland’, Journal of wetland archaeology, 20 (1–2) 2020, pp. 25–42.

Cleasby, Richard and Gudbrand Vigfusson, An Icelandic-English Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1874).

Crawford, B. E. 2006, ‘Huseby, Harray and Knarston in the West Mainland of Orkney: Toponymic Indicators of Administrative Authority?’, in Names through the Looking-Glass, ed. by P. Gammeltoft and B. Jørgensen (Copenhagen: C. A. Reitzels Forlag A/S, 2006), pp. 21–44.

Historic Environment Scotland, Canmore – National Record of the Historic Environment, https://canmore.org.uk/

MacKenzie, Murdoch (Senior), ‘Pomona or main-land’ (London: Printed for the author, Imprint 1750) https://maps.nls.uk/coasts/chart/4143

Marwick, Hugh, Orkney Farm Names (Kirkwall: W. R. Mackintosh, 1952).

Rygh, O., ‘Gaardnavne i Buskerud Amt’, Norske Gaardnavne, 6, (Kristiania: W. C. Fabritius & Sonner A/S, 1907).

Rygh, O., ‘Gaardnavne i Buskerud Amt’, Norske Gaardnavne, 5, (Kristiania: W. C. Fabritius & Sonner A/S, 1909).

Sandnes, Berit, From Starafjall to Starling Hill: An investigation of the formation and development of Old Norse place-names in Orkney (Scottish Place-Name Society, 2010).

Sigurðardóttir, Aldís et al. (eds), Dictionary of Old Norse Prose (ONP) (Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1989‒2021) https://onp.ku.dk/onp/onp.php.

Thomson, William P. L., Lord Henry Sinclair’s 1492 Rental of Orkney, (Kirkwall: The Orkney Press, 1996).

Thomson, William P. L., Orkney Land and People, (Kirkwall: Kirkwall Press, 2008).

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