Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1964, Qupperneq 218

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Norse Steinn in Hebridean Place-Names
The word steinn ‘stone’ as a placername element is fre-
quent both in Norway and in the western Norse settle-
ments from Iceland to Man. It is found in the Faroes, in
Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, and the Hebrides. In Ireland,
the remaining Scandinavian place-names are so few, compa-
ratively spoken, and so little explored, that nothing can be
inferred from its apparent absence from Irish toponymy.
Steinn, in Norwegian place-names, “usually refers to large
earthbound stones or to stones crected by human hands,
or else to mountains, tall rocks in the sea, and small islands
Only in a limited number of cases the reference is to
stony ground; in this connection the term generally used
is griót (a collective word). In some cases, place-names
containing steinn have reference to something built of stone,
such as Steinbrú ‘stone bridge’.” This statement, abbreviated
and translated from the introductory volume to O. Rygh’s
Norske Gaardnavne, p. 79, seems to be valid for the
western settlements as well as for the monther country.
Thus, de Stenaveljen in Shetland is the name of “a piece
of field adjoining a large, earthfast rock” (Jakobsen p. 102).
In Orkney, the parish name Stenness and the farm names
Stembister and Stenigar denote localities characterized by
one or more monoliths still standing (Marwick pp. 110,
86, and 164); the same is true of at least one of several
Stemster names in Caithness. Reference to something built
of stone is found in the Hebridean name “Stoneybridge”,
see below. The element griót for ‘stones’ collectively is
found in many of the Viking settlements from Iceland to
the Hebrides and seems to be especially frequent in Shet-
land, see Jakobsen pp. 48-9 (but curiously enough, Mar-
strander makes no mention of it in Man).
As the first constituent of place-names, steinn is used in
three different forms: the bare stem stein-, the genitive
singular steins-, and the genitive plural steina-.
The greatest difficulty in this as in other fields of place-
name research is the reconstruction of the original forms