09/05/2025, by aezcr

Gaitnip: a case of ‘synonym substitution’

Geitaberg now Gaitnip (St. Ola) occurs once in the Saga of the Earls of Orkney where we hear in chapter 76 that ‘Borgarr, the son of Jaddvǫr Erlendsdóttir, who lived at Gaitnip… had seen the cargo-ship as it sailed from the south and back south’, with Sveinn Ásleifarson aboard. Sveinn had come ‘to meet Earl Rǫgnvaldr and offer him a choice of who he would rather share the territory of the Orkneys with, Earl Páll or Haraldr’ (chapter 75). We know that Borgarr who, it is implied, informed people of Sveinn’s comings and goings, had also lived with his mother Jaddvǫr (illegitimate daughter to Earl Erlendr and half-sister to St. Magnús) at Knarston, Knarrarstaðir (chapter 56).

Geitaberg and the later recorded Gaitnip, despite their differing second elements, are likely to be the same place. This is because the second elements in these names are synonymous topographical terms, with ON berg ‘hill, cliff, prominence in the landscape, crag, cliff-face’ (ONP) in the saga attestation, with the later -nip attestations being derived from ON gnípa ‘high headland or cliff with a steep overhanging face’ (ONP). In addition, we know from the saga that Geitaberg is in close proximity to Knarston, as is the case today with Gaitnip and Knarston. Gaitnip, with its alternative but synonymous generic gnípa, is first recorded in the 1492 rental and while this is only some 100 years after Geitaberg’s appearance in Flateyjarbók (1387-1394) we cannot assume that the name had changed within that period, since the Flateyjarbók scribe will have been copying from an earlier, now lost, manuscript. The reason for the change in generic is uncertain. Sandnes calls this change ‘synonym substitution’ and remarks that place-name ‘elements are occasionally replaced by more or less synonymous elements in the same language’ (Sandnes, 2010: 352). Both generics, however, are apt since the place is high up near cliffs overlooking Scapa Bay, thus a good vantage point from which Borgarr could observe Sveinn’s comings and goings. Indeed, in the 1845 statistical account for Kirkwall and St. Ola, Gaitnip is described as one of the highest places in the parish which ‘on the whole, [is] not very elevated; the only considerable hill being that of Wideford, rising about 500 feet above the level of the sea’ and that towards ‘Gait-nip on the east side of Scapa bay, are the highest crags’ (Gordon, 1845: 1).

Returning to the first element, Lamb suggests the ON verb gǽta ‘observe, heed, follow, observe, pay attention to’ (ONP) as the specific in this name, arguing for a ‘to watch’ interpretation given the context of the saga (Lamb, 1993: 30). The Dictionary of Old Norse Prose, however, records no occurrences of \ǽ/ developing into \ei/ in this verb, so this seems unlikely. For Marwick and Dasent, whom Marwick follows, the first element is ON geit ‘goat’ (Marwick, 1952: 97, ONP). While Taylor deliberates over a ‘goat’ interpretation, he opts for the specific to be the weak masculine form of the personal-name ‘Geitir found in [Norwegian] place names’ such as ‘Geita stadhir… now Gjestad, Ullensaker’ (Taylor, 1931: 41–42). The examples he gives, however, do not seem to preclude a ‘goat’ interpretation (Judith Jesch, personal communication). It is difficult to argue the case for one interpretation over the other. Personal name specifics are commonplace and can be attached to a variety of generics, so an understanding of how often personal names compound with cliff and hill generics in Orkney versus how often animal names do might swing the balance of interpretation one way or the other.

We know that animal place-names, particularly those incorporating svín ‘pig’ (see our blog on Swona), and ON fǽr ‘sheep’ are very common in Orkney, as are bird-names for coastal features. An entry in the 1796 statistical account for Orkney, however, indicates that goats ‘have never been common here, though one would imagine from the hills, and rugged rocks bold and steep, with which Orkney in several places abounds, they might have been of benefit to the proprietors’ (Sinclair, 1793: 546). What this entry in the statistical account does do is highlight the environments in which goats, when they are found, are likely to be and this fits nicely with both our berg and gnípa generics.

The presence of goats in Orkney, and thus their likelihood to occur in place-names in this period, is perhaps a more apposite question to consider but would require significant trawling through and interpretation of archaeological reports. Looking to other Orkney place-name evidence, however, we can turn to such places as Aversquoy (Costa), possibly ON hafr ‘male goat’ and kví and Buckquoy (Evie), possibly ON bukkr ‘he-goat’ again with kví to support a goat interpretation for Gaitnip (Sandnes, 2010: 161, 172). Looking further afield, Evans discusses the Icelandic feminine ‘goat’ place-name Geitdalr in Hrafnkels saga, which is notable as here the compounding generic is a topographical feature (Evans, 2017: 65). She goes on to discuss how she-goats were prized more highly than he-goats on account of their food value, and so perhaps despite there being apparently few feminine ‘goat’ place-names in Orkney, a feminine goat specific is not unknown in conjunction with a landscape feature in this period (Evans, 2017: 92–93).

On balance, then, the ‘goat’ interpretation favoured by Marwick and Dasent seems more probable, and is perhaps more noteworthy in an Orkney place-name context, because of the conspicuous rarity of the goat in the Orkney archipelago.

Corinna Rayner

Further reading

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

Evans, Harriet Jean, Animal-Human Relations on the Household-Farm in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland, Unpublished PhD (University of York, 2017).

Gordon, J. (ed.), The New Statistical Account of Scotland / by the ministers of the respective parishes, under the superintendence of a committee of the Society for the Benefit of the Sons and Daughters of the Clergy, Kirkwall:  Orkney, Vol. 15 (Edinburgh: Blackwoods and Sons, 1845), p. 1. https://stataccscot.ed.ac.uk:443/link/nsa-vol15-p1-parish-orkney-kirkwall

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

Lamb, Gregor, Testimony of the Orkneyingar: the placenames of Orkney (Orkney: Byrgisey, 1993).

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

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.

Sinclair, Sir John. The Statistical Account of Scotland, Kirkwall, Orkney, Vol. 7 (Edinburgh: William Creech, 1793) https://stataccscot.ed.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/viewer/osa-vol7-Introduction_to_volume_7_of_account_1/.

Taylor, Alex B., ‘Some saga place-names’, Proceedings of the Orkney Antiquarian Society, IX (1931), pp. 41–45.

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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