Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Page 152

160
Norn in Shetland
1439 the Orkney lawman writes his evidence in Scots; this
language does not appear in a Shetland document until
1525, in a isolated paper about church matters. Orkney was
close to Scotland, and had in St Magnus’ Cathedral the
centre from which clerics spread over both groups of is«
lands, both before and after the Reformation of 1560. Kirk<=
wall was made a Scots burgh in 1486 and became a gate*
way for Scots incomers. Orkney’s trade was mainly with
Scotland; Shetland looked to Hamburg, Bremen, and Nor*
way. Orkney had many Scots settlers; Shetland had few,
and then usually secondhand Scots of the second or third
insular generation, almost islesmen in fact.
One difference had come over the Shetlanders which has
led to some false assumptions. The last (and only Scots)
Foud or governor in Shetland was Laurence Bruce of Cult*
malindie, whose exactions caused an official enquiry in 1577.
At that time 141 out of 759 udallers who complained against
him had acquired surnames after the Scots fashion. The
remaining 618 had surnames ending in *son, or were simply
referred to by their farm, for example, Ola a Hamar, as is
indeed normal spoken practice in country districts in Shet*
land to this day. The *son names were not family surnames,
but changed with each generation, for example, John Man*
son might have a son called Nicol Johnson, whose son in
turn became John Nicolson. This type of naming lasted
until the beginning of the 19,h century, and one or two
people in 1910 registering for their first Old Age Pension
found that they had been baptized in this way. When these
patronymics became fixed surnames, the corresponding
»daughter« termination for a woman went out of use.
In a list of 816 wills made between 1611 and 1648 the
proportion of surnames had increased to 362, though the
number of separate family names had not increased. By
far the greater number of these people were not Scots in«
comers, but Shetlanders on the mother’s side.
A change from the 16th to the 17th century which is