what was shetland called before norse times?

[brunalf]

i've been told that unst and yell are older names that norse names,therefore liklee to be pictish i'd imagine.

are there any more pre norse names in shetland?with their meanings would be good but highly unliklee i suspect,

but mainly my question is what was shetland known as before the 800s?

i don't think ultima thule should count on this occation.

ta muchly.

[Njugle]

There's some literary conjecture that Ultima Thule isn't even Shetland, given that it was apparently written that Ultima Thule could be see from the islands thought to have been Orkney, which would mean that Ultima Thule was really Fair Isle.

 

(I'm aware that older speculation puts Ultima Thule as the Western Isles also, but the Fair Isle point was fairly recent, as far as I'm aware.)

 

 

Best place to ask would be the Vatican, perhaps. They might have documents pre-800s.

[groilick]

but mainly my question is what was shetland known as before the 800s?

^^^^^^^^^^

Wanguidforsakenhol

[Twerto]

surely that is Wanguidforsakenrak?

[Kephas4]

Seem to mind reading somewhere the Gaelic for Shetland was 'Sealtain' (or something like that, please excuse spelling - I don't speak Gaelic and it was a while ago). If Gaelic was as prevalent as some would have us believe, it's not impossible that this was the pre-Norse name for Shetland.

Incidentally, is this name also the source of the thoroughly annoying adjective 'sheltie'?

[EM]

There's some literary conjecture that Ultima Thule isn't even Shetland, given that it was apparently written that Ultima Thule could be see from the islands thought to have been Orkney, which would mean that Ultima Thule was really Fair Isle.

There's been a pretty big shift in the establishment interpretation of the "Dispecta est et Thule" issue recently. In a nutshell it comes down to a major translation error of the key Tacitus source. For a long time the story was that Agricola conquered Orkney and that Thule was merely "observed from afar." Turns out that the Latin actually says "examined closely." More on this from Brian Smith here and for the in-depth discussion see this academic material.

[Fifi]

Thule and Ultima Thule seems to be used in quite a wide context, certainly not just for Shetland, as some might imagine.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thule

[Malachy]

Yes, Thule is a very big subject. In Shetland we tend to know of it through Tacitus because it's fairly clear that Tacitus was referring to Shetland, or one of the Shetland Islands. But it was first mentioned by Pythaes, 300 years BC. And it's pretty difficult to know where he was talking about because his book has been lost, and we only know about it because it's mentioned by later writers. The general consensus (just about) is that Pythaes' Thule was probably Iceland, though whether he actually got there or not is another matter. But other folk reckon Faroe, Northern Norway, even Estonia. So on old maps you see Shetland referred to as Thule on some, but then Iceland as Thule on others.

There's an excellent book about Thule called The Ice Museum by Joanna Kavenna, which I think is in the ST shop.

[splodger]

I read in "The Scottish Islands" by Hamish Haswell-Smith (a very good and interesting book) that according to early Irish documents the pre-Norse name for Shetland was Inse Catt, i.e the islands of the Catt tribe whose totem was a cat.

This was the same tribe who gave its' name to Caithness - Catt Cape.

 

The Norwegian historian, A W Brogger, has suggested the Norsemen were talking of the land of the Catt, or Cattland. This they would have prenounced as chatland, alternately spelt as Hjaltland.

 

If anyone's interested the equivalent name for Orkney was Inse Orc- islands of the tribe of the orc whose totem was an orc, or boar.

[brunalf]

thank god fur ^^^^^^ doo managed tae answer me question athoot mentioning thule wance,good on dee.

ta tae da rest o you though,but if splodger is right yun's da kindo line o thinking i wis looking fur.

onybody ken o ony ider names shetland was kent by?

[Ghostrider]

i've been told that unst and yell are older names that norse names,therefore liklee to be pictish i'd imagine.

 

One Scandinavian expert theorised that the name Unst, while probably pre-Norse could well contain a mutation of the early Norse root am, meaning difficult to pass. Which found some support on account of the strength of the tide that runs at the NE corner of the isle.

[brunalf]

"hard to pass",does dat mean dey had pubs dere dan adays too?

i wis windering,if shetland wis da isle o cats and orkney wis da isle o grice mibee dere's a link wi da tomb o da eagils in orkney?when we wir dere dey found anider tomb wi dog bones,they assumed the eagils were da emblim fur dat tribe,da dog wis fur dat ider tribe.mibee dere wis a grice tribe etc in orkney,and so if dere wis a cat tribe in shetland i winder whit ider tribes dere might've been?ony ideas??????

[soljey]

Before the Vikings arrived, the Picts called Shetland "Ours!"

[brunalf]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

good een