The Edinburgh Geologist
Issue no 42

When you think of Eigg, what first comes to mind is that great eminence, sticking out of the island, much more like a sore thumb than many other things that are so characterised the Sgurr of Eigg, An Sgùrr.

But where does the word sgùrr come from? Edward Dwelly's Gaelic dictionary translates sgùrr as a high sharp-pointed hill or a large conical hill and points us in the direction of sgòr. This he defines as a sharp steep hill rising by itself or a little steep precipitous height on another hill or mountain. He also gives it as a peak or pinnacle, a tail of a bank in the sea or a concealed rock jutting into the sea. Peter Drummond suggests that sgòr also has the nuance of a rock cleft or notch.

The association between sgòrs and concealed sea-rocks would make you wonder whether the word is connected to a skerry, an offshore rock. This comes from the Norse word sker, which is closely related to the Gaelic sgeir. According to Dwelly, this is much more narrowly defined as a 'rock in the sea nearly or quite covered by neap-tides and quite covered by spring-tides'. Alternative meanings are peat-bank; cliff; sharp, flinty rock; or a covering top-layer as on cold porridge.
Somehow a Norse root seems more likely because many of the names in the Hebrides date from when the Vikings ruled the seas around Scotland and the north of England. Indeed, Eigg itself stems from an old Norse word meaning a notch. Peter Drummond suggests an interesting derivation of the Gaelic word sgùrr. It is dominantly a west-Highland word and rather than An Sgùrr being derived from the Gaelic, he puts the cart before the horse and suggests that the Gaelic word sgùrr might come from An Sgùrr. And he suggests that this comes from a Norse word sguvr meaning a cliff.

The word sguvr has several descendents as well a sgùrr. It is responsible for the Scots word scaur, meaning a sheer rock, precipice or steep, eroded hill (Concise Scots Dictionary). From this comes another Scots word, score, a crevice, cleft or gully in a cliff face. Perhaps the best known Scores are those that  run along the cliff tops in St Andrews, parallel to North Street. The English word scar can also claim paternity from the Norse sguvr. The Lake District has a profusion of fells and pikes, respectively coming from the Old Norse fjall, a mountain, and pik, a peak. And they all come together in Sca Fell Pike the peak of the cliff-mountain, which is just what it is. More mundane scars can be found in Scarborough, the town of the cliff, and perhaps Ravenscar, further up the coast.

But back to An Sgùrr Peter Drummond suggests that with this prominence on Eigg being called 'The Scurr' as it were, many other similarly shaped hills in the area were called sgùrrs after it. The Skye Cuillin are almost all sgùrrs:

Not all of the Skye Cuillin mountain names have a geological connections, though some do. Sgùrr nan Eag, for example ­ the notches are a result of preferential weathering in the gabbro. Incidentally, eag comes from the same Norse notch as the island of Eigg.

Sgùrr Dubh Mòr is that colour because of the darkness of the gabbro. The mòr identifies it from Sgùrr Dubh an Dà Bheinn, the black peak of the two hills, while Sgùrr Dearg is red because the same gabbro is here weathered due to there having been more iron in the magmatic fraction. Lastly, the gullies of Sgùrr nan Gillean, like those of Sgùrr nan Eag, result from the preferential weathering in the ultrabasic rocks.

While we are on the geological significance of colour, there are a few other sgùrrs that might be of interest ­ Sgùrr Bàn in the Fisherfield Forest and Sgùrr Fiona on nearby An Teallach. Both of these are white peaks.

Peter Drummond again:

There are three 'whiter shades of pale' in Gaelic, with bàn, fionn and geal. Often translated simply as white, they have in fact distinct nuances. While both bàn and fionn mean pale, white, wan or fair ­ and fionn hints also at the colour of lilac and at the condition cold ­ geal means white, clear or bright.

And so to complete the trio, there is Sgùrr nan Clach Geala, which is the peak of the white stones. All these whites stem from the Cambrian quartzite that covers their tops. With frost action, this breaks along the joint planes into rectangular blocks and these spill down the face of the mountain, giving it the appearance of being iced like a cake. From a distance, that is close-up it is a different matter because the rectangular blocks make for extremely uncomfortable walking.

Further to the east, the sgòrs have similar colours, though not always for the same reasons. In the Cairngorms, Sgoran Dubh Mòr is the big black pinnacle even though it is graniticó but it lies in the shadow of Sgòr Gaoith, the windy peak. And in Appin, are the Munro Sgòrr Dhearg and its subsidiary Top Sgòrr Bhan, red and white peaks respectively and both again granitic. There's another red peak, of course, Sgòr Ruadh, in the Torridon area, but that is another story altogether.

References:

Bearhop, Derek, Editor, 1997. Munro's Tables, Scottish Mountaineering Trust.

Drummond, Peter, 1991. Scottish hill and mountain names, Scottish Mountaineering Trust.

Dwelly, Edward, 1973. The illustrated Gaelic-English dictionary, 8th edition, Gairm Publications, Glasgow.

Robinson, Mairi, Editor, 1999. Concise Scots Dictionary, Scottish National Dictionary Association and Polygon at Edinburgh, Edinburgh.
 

This article completes this series of What's in a Name? The next issue of The Edinburgh Geologist will see the start of a new series on Mountain Geology, where you can read further on the comforts of walking on different mountains in Scotland, as well as which hills are gabbroic, which granitic and which arkosic.
 
 

The Sgùrr of Eigg from the southeast (photo Caroline Paterson)
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