Norse Names on the Isle of Man: Sources and Corrections

Tynwald is Old Norse þingvöllr, assembly field, and the Isle of Man still gathers there every year to hear its new laws. Laxey is the salmon river, Ramsey probably the wild garlic river, and Snaefell the snow mountain. Grenaby and Dalby are Norse farms, Fleshwick a Norse landing creek, and Peel's oldest name, Holmtown, is Norse. Man has 34 Norse rune-stones. This page gives the source for every slide.

Every factual claim in our carousel on Norse names and Norse heritage on the Isle of Man and in its caption, with its source. It is the fifth in our place-name series, after the Norse names of the Welsh coast, Swansea, Anglesey, Milford and Fishguard. Section numbers 01 to 05 match the number at the top of each slide; 07 to 10 are the later slides' places in the carousel. The cover and 05 are modern illustrations. The photographs in 01 to 04 and 07 are real, credited below.

How we cite. Our main guide to the names is J. J. Kneen, The Place-Names of the Isle of Man (1925 to 1929), in the transcription by Frances Coakley on the Manx Note Book; we cite it by parish. That transcription sometimes prints á as "d", so Laxey's Laxá appears as "Laxd". The modern standard is George Broderick's Place-Names of the Isle of Man (seven volumes, 1994 to 2005), which we did not read; his readings reach us through Kay Muhr, "Manx Place-Names: an Ulster View" (Scottish Society for Northern Studies, 2002), who cites him by volume and page (PNIM). For Tynwald we follow Broderick's article "Tynwald: a Manx cult-site and institution of pre-Scandinavian origin?" (Studeyrys Manninagh, 2003), archived in the Internet Archive, which quotes the Chronicle of Man in Latin with his English translation. The Chronicle itself we read in P. A. Munch's edition, The Chronicle of Man and the Sudreys (1860). Its early dates run a few years off, and Munch corrects them; we give his dates. The rune-stones follow Michael P. Barnes, The Runic Inscriptions of the Isle of Man (Viking Society, 2019), the current corpus, with R. I. Page's essay "The Manx Rune-Stones" (1983) in his Runes and Runic Inscriptions (1995) and P. M. C. Kermode's Manx Crosses (1907). Objects come from the iMuseum records of Manx National Heritage. Word meanings come from Cleasby and Vigfusson's Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874), surnames from A. W. Moore's The Surnames and Place-Names of the Isle of Man (1890). Where we quote Tynwald's own history page, we label it as Tynwald's own claim: it is the parliament describing itself. We did not read Broderick's volumes, Holman's 1996 runic corpus, or Bersu and Wilson on the Viking graves.

Slide by slide

Cover. "The Isle of Man still meets on a Norse 'assembly field'."

On "still meets", Tynwald's own site says gatherings probably took place from the earliest times at St John's, "where the annual Tynwald Day ceremony still takes place today". Broderick: Tynwald "meets in open-air session once a year on Tynwald Fair Day, held usually on Old Midsummer Day 5 July". "Norse 'assembly field'" is the name; the evidence is in 01. The cover says the field is Norse, not that the Vikings founded the meeting; see 01 and the list below.

The picture is a modern illustration made for this post: an early 13th-century assembly, the crowd seen from behind, a king in red with two elders and a priest on top of a turf mound, a man on the tier below calling out with one arm raised, a green hill behind. The Chronicle of Man records assemblies at Tynwald in 1228 and 1237 but does not describe the place. The tiered form of Tynwald Hill is known from later centuries, so the mound we drew is illustrative, not a reconstruction of the hill as it stood then.

01. A parliament with a Norse name

Kneen (German parish): "Tynwald Hill ... c. 1376 Chron. Mann. Tyngvalla ... Scand. Thingvollr, 'parliament field.' Hill where the thing or court sat." Broderick: "The name Tynwald derives from Scandinavian thing-vǫllr assembly field." Cleasby and Vigfusson, under Þing-völlr: "[cp. the Manx Tynwald, Shetland Tingwall] the 'parliament-field,' the place where a þing sat". Tynwald's own site agrees: "derived from the Norse word Thingvollr, meaning assembly field." Hence "Tynwald is Old Norse þingvöllr, 'assembly field', the same word as Þingvellir in Iceland." Þingvellir is the plural of the same word, and Dingwall, which we traced in our Scotland sources, is another.

"Every year the island gathers at Tynwald Hill to hear its new laws announced in Manx and English." Tynwald's own site: "The Deemsters read out loud, in Manx and English, the title and a short description of each Act that has been passed during the previous session." So the laws are announced by title and summary, not read in full. Kneen, writing in the 1920s, already says that at Tynwald Hill "from remote times the people have assembled at Midsummer to hear the laws promulgated."

"The name is Norse. The meeting may be even older." Broderick's conclusion: "terms such as Tynwald, Deemster, etc, would be Scandinavian titles of institutions and offices almost certainly already in being in Man." Tynwald's own site says only that "assemblies on the Scandinavian model" were likely taking place "by the late 10th century", and that "there is no documentary evidence confirming the date of a first sitting in 979." The slide therefore gives no founding year.

Sources: Kneen, Kirk German; Broderick (2003), section on the name; Cleasby-Vigfusson, under Þing-völlr; Tynwald's own site, History. Photo: Stephen Darlington, "Tynwald Hill", St John's, September 2015, geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added. It shows the hill as it is today, with its turf tiers and flagpole.

02. Two rivers and a snow mountain

Laxey. Kneen (Lonan): "Laxey ... 1316 Chron. Mann. Laxa. 1511 Man. Roll Laxay. Scand. Laxd, 'salmon river.'" (Laxd is the transcription's Laxá.) Muhr, from Broderick: "Laxey, 'salmon river' from ON laks-á, the river noted for salmon fishing in 1668." Cleasby and Vigfusson give lax-á, "a salmon river". Hence "Laxey is laks-á, 'salmon river'."

Ramsey. Muhr: "Ramsey, 'wild garlic river' from ON hrams-á", after Broderick (PNIM iv 167), who connects it with the Manx stream name Strooan ne Crawe, "stream of the garlic". Kneen (Garff sheading) lists "Scandinavian á (river) in Laxey, Ramsey". The Chronicle confirms the river: at Godred Crovan's battle reuma maris Ramso amnis alveum impleverat, the tide had filled the bed of the river Ramso. Older writers read the first part as hrafn, raven (Munch: "Hrafnsá"), so the slide says "probably". The slide's "both towns took their rivers' names" is Muhr: "As with Ramsey, and the Gaelic name Douglas, the name has been transferred to the settlement from the river" (PNIM iv 326).

Snaefell. Muhr: Snaefell "snow mountain" (PNIM iii 464). John Rhŷs, in his preface to Moore's Manx Names (1903): "Snjófjall, which is now called Snaefell, meaning 'Snow Mountain'". For "the island's highest peak", Moore (1890) calls Snaefell "the name of the highest mountain in the Island". "Iceland has a Snæfell too": the Vatnajökull National Park describes it as "Iceland's tallest mountain, apart from the glaciers, at 1833 metres above sea level." Same name, not a proven namesake. Kneen (Introduction) only conjectures that the name came from a people who knew a peak "covered with snow all the year round".

Sources: Kneen, Lonan, Garff and Introduction; Muhr (2002), pp. 36 to 52, citing PNIM iii 464, iv 158, 167 and 326; Munch, Chronicle text and notes; Cleasby-Vigfusson, under lax; Moore (1890 and 1903). Photo: Chris Morgan, "Lady Isabella, the Great Laxey Wheel", June 2026, geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added. The wheel is Victorian, not Viking: the Manx Note Book's page on the wheel gives "Built 1854", to drain the Laxey mines, and Manx National Heritage calls it a feat of "Victorian engineering". It stands in the valley of the river that gave Laxey its name.

03. Norse farms and landing creeks

The farms. Muhr, from Broderick: by, farm, "as in Grenaby QL 'green farm' (PNIM iii 342)", and "Dalby TR (i 95) 'dale farm'". Kneen (Malew) agrees on Grenaby: "1511 Man. Roll. Grenby ... S. Grænbyr, 'green farm.'" Jurby is the hedged one. Muhr gives Broderick's "deer settlement, animal farm", Old Norse djúra-bý (PNIM ii 245). Kneen (Jurby) quotes Moore's older "Ivar's farm", after Worsaae, and adds Dyrabyr, "beasts or animals homestead". Hence "Jurby probably an 'animal farm'."

The creeks. Kneen (Rushen) gives Fleshwick as Flesvík, "'green spot creek'", first recorded as Fleshik in 1595. Muhr repeats it, and Cleasby and Vigfusson define fles as "a green spot among bare fells and mountains". The slide's "one of the creeks where Norse boats came ashore" is Kneen's introduction to Rushen sheading, which names Fleshwick, Spaidrick, Aidrick, Rarick, Perwick and Sandwick as the creeks the Norsemen "used as landing-places".

Peel. Kneen (German): "The earliest documentary form is the Norse Hólmtún, 'island town'", recorded as Holme Towen in a papal bull of 1231 and as Holmetowne up to 1662. Peel itself is not Norse: the town "took the name Peel town, of course, from the castle." Hence "Even Peel's oldest name, Holmtown, 'island town', is Norse."

Sources: Muhr (2002), citing PNIM ii 245, iii 342, i 95; Kneen, Malew, Jurby, Rushen, Rushen sheading and German; Cleasby-Vigfusson, under fles. Photo: Dr Neil Clifton, "Peel Castle", May 2015, geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added. The castle stands on St Patrick's Isle; Manx National Heritage describes "fortifications built over 700 years". We do not date the walls in the frame.

04. 34 rune-stones on one small island

Barnes: "At the current count thirty-six rune-bearing stone objects, complete or fragmentary, have been found on the island (thirty-four Scandinavian, two English)", to be compared with "the approximately fifty rune-stones known from Viking-Age Norway". Man "is only some 570 km2 in area". Hence "Man has 34 Norse rune-stones; all of Viking-Age Norway has about 50." Older counts were lower: Kermode had "twenty-six inscriptions in the later Scandinavian Runes", and Page twenty-six or so substantial stones. Barnes's figures replace them.

Thorwald's Cross, Andreas (MM 128). Barnes describes one face: "a human figure bearing a spear; a raven perches on his shoulder, while below a wolf tears at one of his legs (interpreted as Óðinn at Ragnarǫk attacked by the wolf Fenrir)." Kermode reads the same scene as Ragnarök, "when Odin ... is swallowed by the Fenris wolf", and the iMuseum record of the replica of Thorwald's cross says "Odin, one of his ravens on his shoulder, stabs at the wolf Fenrir with his spear". It is an interpretation, so the slide says "usually read as Odin". On the other face, Barnes: "Christian symbolism: a human figure bearing a cross and a book, and trampling on a serpent; a fish is by his side." The museum record: the figure "is interpreted as a priest", and the trampled serpent as "the triumph of Christ over evil". Hence "with a Christian figure on the back", not Christ himself. The runes read þurualtr:r(i)s(ti):krus, Þorvaldr raised this cross. The date is disputed, so we give none beyond the Viking Age.

Gautr. Kirk Michael II (MM 101), in Barnes's translation: "Máel-Brigti son of Áedacán the smith put up this cross for his soul... Gautr made this one and all in Man." Both patron names are Irish: "Máel-Brigti 'devotee of Brigit'" and "Áedacán"; "The third name, Gautr, is Norse". Hence "Gautr carved one for an Irish-named man": the name is Irish; who the man was, the stone does not say. "Boasted" is Page's point. Scholars have used the claim to date the cross early, an argument he says is made "by scholars who believe all they hear in television commercials". Across the corpus "about a quarter" of the names are Irish (Barnes).

Sources: Barnes (2019), ch. 2 pp. 32 to 37, MM 128 p. 102, MM 101 pp. 171 to 172; Page (1995), pp. 227 and 231; Kermode (1907), Andreas 102 and p. 82; iMuseum 2003-0141 and the cast of the cross, 2019-0020/128C. Photo: Malost, "Thorwald's Cross, Kirk Andreas", via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped by us, with text added. The crop shows the Christian face of the cross: the figure holding a cross, with the serpent beside him. The Odin face is on the other side of the stone and is not in the frame.

05. The assembly that ended in a fight

The Chronicle of Man for 1237, in Broderick's translation: on 25 October "an assembly of the entire Manx populace was held at Tynwald" (congregatio totius mannensis populi apud tingualla). Neil's three sons came with their men from the Isles; Lochlann, the guardian of Man, came with his. After "a bitter verbal contest", "the two factions leapt out of the meeting of the people and attacked each other with hostile intent", and Lochlann's men "killed on the spot two of Neil's sons, Dougal and Molmore", and the king's friend Joseph. Hence "Two factions leapt out of the meeting and fought, and two of Neil's sons were killed."

"Nine years earlier a king had routed his own brother there." The Chronicle for 1228, in Broderick's translation: on 14 February "King Olaf came with his host to the place called Tynwald"; as "Reginald his brother" approached, Olaf charged and "put them to flight like sheep." These two entries are the first records of the name.

Sources: Chronicle of Man, s.a. 1228 and 1237, Latin and translation in Broderick (2003). The picture is a modern illustration made for this post, a second view of the assembly on the cover: the king in red with two elders and a priest on the mound, a man calling out on the tier below, the crowd from behind. It shows the gathering before any fight. As on the cover, the tiered mound is illustrative; the Chronicle does not describe the place.

07. Does your place have a Norse name? Comment below

"Tell us the place and we will tell you what it meant." We start from the oldest written forms, as Kneen does: Laxa in 1316, Fleshik in 1595, Holme Towen in 1231. A modern spelling can mislead; Kneen's own example is Scacafell, "'wooded hill,' in Kirk Christ Lezayre, another Norse name", which "has now been glorified into" Sky Hill. On Man, look for -by, farm, -wick, creek, -fell, mountain, and -a or -ey from á, river. In the sheading of Garff, Kneen found that "Of the old treen names five-sixths are Norse and one-sixth Gaelic"; elsewhere the share is lower, and in Michael sheading most are Gaelic.

"Know a Manx name we got wrong? Send the source and we'll pin the correction." Corrections are listed below.

Photo: Richard Hoare, "Activity on Peel Promenade", August 2012, geograph.org.uk, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0. Cropped by us, with text added. Peel Castle, from 03, is on the skyline.

08. The Norse named people too

A byname was what other people called you. The Chronicle of Man introduces the founder of its royal line as Godredus cognomento Crouan filius Haraldi nigri, Godred called Crovan, son of Harald the Black: two bynames in one line. Our free Viking name generator draws on given names and bynames attested in medieval sources.

09. Put a name on steel

Any blade in our personalized Viking blades collection can carry a farm, a town or a family name, laser-engraved letter for letter, exactly as you approve it. The knife on the slide reads ERIKSSON: Old Norse Eiríksson, "son of Eiríkr". The photograph shows a forged blade with a raven's head at the pommel, a leather-wrapped grip and a stitched leather sheath.

10. Silver from Douglas

The Ballaquayle hoard. The iMuseum record of its Eadgar coin: "The hoard was discovered in 1894 whilst digging foundations for a new house on Derby Road, Douglas", and it "was buried around AD 970", with "hundreds of other coins, and complete and fragmentary pieces of Viking Age jewellery". Some coins were "taken to a rubbish tip"; that coin was "The very first artefact to be given an official number" in the Manx national collections. Among the silver is a "Twisted two-strand annular armlet" of 46.88 g. Hence "Around AD 970 someone buried Viking silver in Douglas; it turned up in 1894 when a house's foundations were dug."

The ring is our handmade wolf sterling silver ring, with a Norse animal wrapped round the band: 925 sterling silver, made to order in your size. It is not a copy of anything in the Ballaquayle hoard.

Caption. The field, the rivers, the ambush

"Tynwald is Old Norse þingvöllr, the same word as Þingvellir in Iceland and Tingwall in Shetland." Cleasby and Vigfusson name the Manx Tynwald and "Shetland Tingwall" under Þing-völlr; see 01.

"Around 1079 Godred Crovan, a survivor of Stamford Bridge, took the island by hiding 300 men in the wood on Sky Hill, Norse Scacafell, "wooded hill"." The Chronicle: after the Norse defeat at Stamford Bridge, Godred Crovan, fleeing the rout, "came to Godred son of Sytric, who then reigned in Man", and was honourably received (our translation of venit ad Godredum filium Sytric qui tunc regnavit in Mannia, et honorifice susceptus est ab eo). On his third attempt he came by night ad portum, qui vocatus est Ramsa, and hid trecentos viros, three hundred men, in silva ... qui vocatur Scacafel, in the wood on the slope of Scacafell. Kneen gives Scacafell as "'wooded hill'", now Sky Hill. The Chronicle dates the conquest 1075; Munch shows it "must have taken place in 1079 or 1080, not, as our Chronicle has it, in 1074 or 1075", and Tynwald's own site gives "In 1079 Godred Croven landed at Skye Hill". Hence "around 1079". The Chronicle adds that he spared the Manx because he had once been brought up among them, apud ipsos per aliquod tempus nutritus fuerat.

"And in 1237 an assembly of the whole Manx people at Tynwald ended in a fight." See 05.

"Several common Manx surnames are Norse too: Corkill is Mac Þorketill, "son of Þorketill", and Corlett is Mac Þorljótr." Kneen (Garff sheading) derives Corkill from Thorketill, through McCorkell, and lists "Thorljótr in McCorleot now Corlett", with Corteen from Thorsteinn. Moore (1890): "Corkhill, contracted from Mac-Þor-Ketill", with MacCorkyll in 1408, and Corlett "from the (O.N.) personal name Þorljótr (the initial c representing the Celtic prefix Mac)". On "common": Moore found that in Ballaugh and Lezayre "nearly one-fourth part of the population are Corletts." We read no count of all Manx surnames, so the caption says "several".

The rest of the caption repeats the cover and 01 to 05. The photo line credits Stephen Darlington, Chris Morgan, Dr Neil Clifton, Richard Hoare and Malost; each file and licence is linked above.

What we do not claim

• That Tynwald has met since 979, or that it is the oldest parliament in the world. Tynwald's own site calls itself "the oldest continuous parliament in the world" and also says there is no documentary evidence for 979. The name is first recorded for 1228.
• That the Vikings founded Tynwald. The name is Norse; Broderick argues the institution may be older.
• That Tynwald Hill looked in 1228 or 1237 as it does today, or as on our cover. The Chronicle does not describe it.
• That Ramsey means ram's island or raven's island. The Chronicle calls Ramso a river, and the modern reading is wild garlic river.
• That Snaefell was named after Snæfell in Iceland. Same name, no proof of a namesake.
• That Laxey still has salmon. We did not check.
• That the Laxey Wheel is Viking. It was built in 1854.
• That Godred Crovan came from Iceland. The Chronicle says de Ysland, which may be Islay; Munch says only that his origin is not stated.
• That Godred took Man in 1075. Munch corrects the Chronicle to 1079 or 1080.
• That Gautr carved every cross on Man. It is his own boast.
• That Máel-Brigti was a Viking. His name is Irish.
• That Thorwald's Cross certainly shows Odin, or that its other face shows Christ. The first is the usual reading; the museum reads the second figure as a priest. Nor do we give the cross an exact date.
• That Man has more rune-stones than Norway. Barnes: 34 Norse on Man, about 50 from Viking-Age Norway.
• That Peel is a Norse name. The town is named after the castle; Holmtown is the Norse name.
• That Jurby certainly means Ivar's farm, or that Soderick means south creek or sunny creek. Kneen leaves Soderick open.
• That most Manx surnames are Norse, or that Cottier certainly is. Moore records a Huguenot family tradition for Cottier.
• That the north of Man is all Norse. Kneen counts Michael sheading's old treen names as eighteen Gaelic to ten Norse.
• That King Orry's Grave is Godred Crovan's grave. We did not check it.
• That the woman buried at Ballateare was a sacrificed slave. The museum's record of her skull says "It cannot be said for certain whether the hole was made prior to death", and nothing calls her a slave.
• That the man buried at Balladoole had a longship, or that his grave was meant to insult the Christian cemetery under it. The grave-goods record says he was "Buried in his flat-bottomed, coastal trading boat", and leaves the motive open.
• That the Ballaquayle silver is 11th-century. One armlet record gives that date, but the hoard was buried around AD 970.
• That our ring copies the Ballaquayle silver, or that the cover and 05 show a real event as it happened.

Corrections

None yet. If you find an error, tell us, with a citation.

Frequently asked questions

What does Tynwald mean?

Tynwald is Old Norse þingvöllr, assembly field, the open-air place where a thing, or assembly, met. It is the same word as Þingvellir in Iceland and Tingwall in Shetland. The Chronicle of Man records assemblies at Tynwald in 1228 and 1237, and the island still gathers at Tynwald Hill every year.

Is Tynwald the oldest parliament in the world?

Tynwald calls itself the oldest continuous parliament in the world, but its own history page says there is no documentary evidence for a first sitting in 979. The name is first recorded in the Chronicle of Man for 1228. The name is Norse, and the scholar George Broderick argues the assembly itself may be older than the Norse.

Which place names on the Isle of Man are Norse?

Laxey, salmon river, Ramsey, probably wild garlic river, and Snaefell, snow mountain, are Norse. So are farm names in -by such as Grenaby and Dalby, and creek names in -wick such as Fleshwick, where Norse boats landed. Tynwald is Norse, and Peel's oldest recorded name, Holmtown, island town, is Norse too.

How many Viking rune-stones are on the Isle of Man?

Michael Barnes's 2019 corpus counts 34 Scandinavian rune-stones on Man, against about 50 from all of Viking-Age Norway, on an island of some 570 square kilometres. Thorwald's Cross at Andreas is usually read as Odin and the wolf on one face, with a Christian figure on the other.