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Scenes and Stories of the North of Scotland
Scenes and Stories of the North of Scotland Author:John Sinclair General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1891 Original Publisher: Thin Subjects: Scotland History / General History / Europe / Great Britain Travel / Europe / General Travel / Europe / Great Britain Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos ... more »or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VI. THE TOWN OF THUESO. Thurso is the most northern town on the mainland of Great Britain. The origin of the name I hold to be still uncertain, and am prepared to give my reasons. Will my readers join me in a short excursion into the region of etymology ? There are two derivations given of the word Thurso -- the one Scandinavian, the other Celtic. Naturally, I should prefer the former, but there are circumstances about the latter which stagger me. What are these rival views ? Let me first present the case from the Norse aspect. The original form of the name, according to many, was Thorsaa, that is, Thor's aa, which means Thor's river. From the stream the name passed to the town, and thence in later times to the Bay. It thus appears that from a very early period the river and town were under the protection of Thor, the son of Odin the supreme being, and, therefore, the second in rank of the Scandinavian deities. Being the most valiant among them, he acted the part of defender and avenger of all the other gods. His great weapon was a mallet or hammer, which, as often as he discharged it, returned to his hand again. He also wore a girdle, which had the peculiar virtue of renewing his strength again when he A P Hi was faint or weary. This was the tutelary deity of Thurso. Now for the Celtic view of the question. The Gaelic name of Thurso is Bal-inver-Horsa, that is, the town of the river-mouth of Horsa, or sometimes simply Inver- Horsa, th...« less