Criffel is a hill in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire,

Dumfries and Galloway Dumfries and Galloway ( sco, Dumfries an Gallowa; gd, Dùn Phrìs is Gall-Ghaidhealaibh) is one of 32 unitary council areas of Scotland and is located in the western Southern Uplands. It covers the counties of Scotland, historic counties of ...

, south-west

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It is high but appears higher because of its great isolation and high

prominence In topography, prominence (also referred to as autonomous height, relative height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop or relative height in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contou ...

. It is a prominent feature in many of the views from the northern

Lake District The Lake District, also known as the Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous for its lakes, forests, and mountains (or ''fells''), and its associations with William Wordswor ...

on a clear day. It is surrounded by a host of satellites, including Long Fell, Maidenpap and Bainloch Hill. The slopes of Criffel feature the upland vegetation of heather, bog cotton and blaeberry and are inhabited by

skylarks ''Skylarks'' is a 1936 British comedy film directed by Thornton Freeland and starring Jimmy Nervo, Teddy Knox and Nancy Burne.Low p.386 Nervo and Knox were a comic team, who became associated with the larger Crazy Gang grouping with whom they ...

. Loch Kindar sits at the foot of the hill. A new path to the summit is currently finishing construction.

Etymology

The name Criffel is recorded in 1273 as ''Crufel''. The second element, -''fel'', is either

Older Scots Older Scots refers to the following periods in the history of the Scots languageSuch chronological terminology is widely used, for example, bScottish Language Dictionaries Ltd.(formally SNDA), Dr of th and by th. It is also used in the ''Oxford Comp ...

or Northern Middle English ''fell'' or

Old Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and t ...

''fjall'' 'mountain'. Because Old Norse ''fjall'' had been borrowed into Middle English by the twelfth century, it is not possible to determine whether or not the name was coined by Scandinavian speakers. There have been a number of proposals for the etymology of the first element. The name is recorded as ''Crofel'' in 1319 and in 1330 as ''Crefel''. (Drummond also gives the form ''Crafel'' in 1330; it is not clear if this refers to the same source.) In 1892 Johnston proposed

Gaelic Gaelic is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". As a noun it refers to the group of languages spoken by the Gaels, or to any one of the languages individually. Gaelic languages are spoken in Ireland, Scotland, the Isle of Man, and Ca ...

''crich'' 'boundary' + Icelandic ''fell'' in ''Place-Names of Scotland''. However, by the second edition of 1903 he thought a derivation from Icelandic ''kryfja'' 'to split' was more probable. In the third edition in 1934 this is the only derivation offered. Mills also takes the name to be Old Scandinavian ''kryfja'' + ''fjall'' but adds that the first element is 'doubtful'. In 1930 Maxwell proposed Scandinavian ''kraka fjall'' 'raven's or crow's hill' or Lowland Scots ''Craw Fell''.

William J. Watson William John Watson FRSE LLD (1865 – 9 March 1948) was a toponymist, one of the greatest Scottish scholars of the 20th century, and was the first scholar to place the study of Scottish place names on a firm linguistic basis. Life Watson ...

rejected a derivation from ''kraka fjall'' on the grounds that it would develop into a form like ''Crackel''. Geoffery Barrow suggested that Criffel incorporates the name ''Cro'', which also appears in ''Desnes Cro'', the name of a

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residenc ...

located between the rivers Nith and Urr. Here ''Cro'' represents the Gaelic word for sheepfold.

References

Marilyns of Scotland Mountains and hills of Dumfries and Galloway {{DumfriesGalloway-geo-stub

Etymology

See also

References