UKC

On Wednesday I had a cheeky afternoon off work and went for a walk in the Campsies. Cracking day, t-shirt weather in October! On the way home I wondered about the name, Campsie Fells. I've always thought of fells as a name for English hills, are there other hills in Scotland which have fell or fells in their name?

Are they the Campsie Fells? Funny, I've always just heard them referred to as "The Campsies". The word for hill in Swedish/Norwegian is fjell - so I wonder why the viking inflection stuck with those hills but not any further north? Aren't lots of the highland hill names Norse corruptions of Gallic or vice versa though? 

There is Goat Fell on Arran, and also all the vals which come from the same Norse root. Conival Barkeval Trollaval etc

Don't confuse things by bringing the French into it!  

I've lived locally all my life and I've always known them as the Campsies, but on road signs and I think on maps they're the Campsie Fells.

Aha! The amount of times I've been up there, I should've remembered that!

The entirety of the west coast is so Norse-influenced but interesting that fell did not stick more. I grew up near the Campsies but also knew them also as the Campsies Fells.

I've heard it coming from Gaelic 'cam sìth' ("camshee") but that might just be someone's speculation.

Culter Fell and Hart Fell, both in the borders, come to mind, and most probably there are others around there. However, as mentioned above, there are numerous 'vals' on various islands, although off the top of my head I can't think of any on the mainland west coast, apart from Conival.

Whereas Dale is common to the N of England and to Scotland, right up into the N

Interesting stuff. I knew the Norse roots of the word fell but I hadn't made the connection with val. So does dale share the same root?

Same root as in linguistic origin? According to wiki it’s old english as well as Norse, whereas Fell is just Norse. I enjoy the occasional doubling up of words you find in the West if Scotland eg glen allendale 

Conival is more likely (but not certainly) Cona' Mheall; like the Cona Mheall down the road by Inverlael.

Another doubling-up Western Isles quirk would be Loch Langabhat.

Val tal dal dale .

I have probably missed a couple but have always been intrigued by how similar valley words are in several languages.

Vale. But this adds confusion, I see where you're getting valley, but fell is the hill that forms the valley. Hmm...

I did wonder if Helvellyn could once have been norse similar to Hallival, with added llyn or lleyn (ie Red Tarn) which would fit in Cwymbrian as a composite name Halli's Fjaell with a Llyn

After all there is Hallin's Fjael nearby  without a Llyn

Am I right in saying that Langdale translates as "long valley"?

Yorkshire tripples up - Luddenden Dean

Yes. As does Langstrath, which is a curiously Scottish sounding name. The suffix "-dale" can be found all over the Borders so there is a substantial crossover.

And much further north - Coire Attadale for instance.  That Haakon had a lot to answer for.

I always thought Shieldaig might have  a similar origin to N and S Shields

I always wondered about York and New York.

And England and New England.

touche

is "the campsies" not just conversational shortening of the name viz deacon blue "the campsies over christmas" in fergus sings the blues? i seem to remember "the campsie fells" from primary school geography

You're right. Cona Meall/Conival is Gaelic slang (literally "the dog's lump"), used for the smaller one of a pair. Supposedly it's a man and his dog, with the bigger one being the man and the smaller his dog. There are half a dozen of them scattered around, all of them with a bigger close neighbour.

Shieldaig is a gaelicised version of the Norse "Sild Vik", Herring bay. I was under the impression (but am not sure) that N & S Shields are from the Anglian word for summer pasture, as in "shieling" north of the Border.

That makes a lot of sense too!  Though the N  of England is riddled with Norse names of course.   I was told a story at work  by a broad Geordie speaking planner in Wallsend that they were in the pub one night with a load of Norwegian sailors and managed to converse quite well having so many words in common that were still close enough to be recognisable by both parties.

That story gets told in Aberdeenshire too. It's probably a) exaggerated and b) more to do with Geordie and Doric being from the Anglian rather than the Saxon roots of English, so being closer to the Scandinavian rather than the Frisian branches of Germanic. Neither Northumbria nor Aberdeenshire got much Norse settlement, unlike areas north and south of them, as they were good land and well defended. If you were a 9th/10th century Viking looking for land (as opposed to booty) it made more sense to either grab it in the collapsing kingdoms of central England/Yorkshire or in the Hebrides/Sutherland where killing a few dozen people could get you a whole island/valley.