Recently I’ve been pondering the significance of the medieval place-name Banchor, which appears numerous times across Scotland (and the Celtic-speaking countries more broadly), and whose meaning has long been the subject of debate. The debate has two camps. One sees ‘banchor’ as a Gaelic name, meaning something like ‘horn-cast’
In which I propose a location in northern Pictland for a body of water that Adomnán, in his Life of St Columba, called stagnum Lochdae, or Loch Lochdae.
This post is more or less the transcript of a talk I gave this afternoon at the Scottish Place-Name Society Autumn conference, which took place on Zoom. Many thanks to Simon Taylor, Bill Patterson, Sofia Evemalm-Graham, Morag Redford and all of the other speakers for such an interesting day of
This blog is more or less a transcript of a talk I gave last weekend at the Highland Archaeology Festival in Inverness. It was a great conference and it was wonderful to meet so many people in person! Thanks very much to Grace from Highland Historic Environment Record for inviting
Details of upcoming talks I'm giving about my PhD research into the early church in the Moray Firthlands, Scotland.
Hello! This is just a quick post to let you know that I've moved my blog, Rabbit Holes of Early Medieval Scotland, from Substack to Ghost. If you were an email subscriber to my blog on Substack, you don't need to do anything. You'll
In which I investigate three intriguing places named in the tenth-century Life of St Cathroe.
In which I try to figure out what a place-name mentioned in 1150 actually meant
In which I propose that the place-name ‘caput regionis’ referred to Kinneddar in Moray
In which I suggest a link between ‘carden’ names and early medieval hunting grounds
In which I analyse Adomnán's Life of St Columba for overlooked clues to the location of the stronghold of Bridei mac Mailcon, King of Picts.
In which I examine the possible significance of 'David' sculpture in the Moray Firthlands
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In which I consider what these names might tell us about early medieval settlement along a stretch of the River Nairn
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In which I present the findings of my MA research in a 60-minute talk
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In which I take a new look at this puzzling place-name, and come to an unexpected conclusion.
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In which I investigate whether a series of ninth-century coin finds can tell us anything about the distribution of power centres in early medieval Moray
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Come and hear me talk about the landscape context of Sueno's Stone
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In which I go in search of the lost early medieval ecclesiastical site of ‘Pulvrenan’
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In which I try to figure out if a now-lost Moray place-name is relevant to my research.
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In which I ponder the significance of a lost river confluence mentioned in a twelfth-century charter of Kinloss Abbey
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In which I investigate how a lost well in Moray might have got its intriguing name.
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In which I try to find any evidence at all for water-mills in northern Scotland prior to 1150
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In which I examine Alex Woolf’s idea that Sueno’s Stone makes a cameo appearance in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s twelfth-century History of the Kings of Britain.
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In which I examine W.F. Skene’s suggestion that Sueno’s Stone records a legendary ninth-century battle.