Given it is early May and the cuckoos are back in Carrick, this week’s featured lost name is Net Whowaig or Geks Seit. Only attested once, in the Blaeu atlas, it is shown as a farm, close to a the surviving holding of Corphin (perhaps Còrr Pheighinn ‘prominent pennyland’) Barr at approx. NX 284 965.
Watson (CPNS p.355) derives Net Whowaig from Gaelic Nead Chuthaig ‘cuckoo’s nest’. A nice name for a farm!
Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland
The Blaeu name, collected by Timothy Pont in the 1590s provokes some questions. He helpfully provided a near Scots translation in ‘Geks Seit’, perhaps we would say ‘gowk’s sait’ locally. I wonder why he provided the Gaelic-Scots translation in this particular case? Was it because he had the meaning explained to him, or because Geks Seit existed as an alternative name for the place?
Be that as it may, due to Pont’s cartography being based on river-courses and Nead Chuthaig being shown as just across the Corphin Burn, I guess it was approximately at the location of the red cross, in the improved ground shown on Billy McRorie’s photo below.
cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Billy McCrorie – geograph.org.uk/p/3730359
Incidentally, the wind-turbines on the background are what is now called Hadyard Hill but which was called Druym Girvan ‘the ridge of the (river) Girvan’ by Pont.
The database of Carrick names being created by Ainmean Charraige will enable spatial analysis of a whole range of place-name specifics such ‘bird-names’ in this case.
Leave a Reply