Skottene - igjen

[gj03985]

With apologies for the length of this and for writing på engelsk (too complicated for my norsk skills)...

First, some quotes from past threads to provide context:

In December, Arne Langås opened the "Skottene - nok en gang" thread with three theories about the Scottish ancestors of many in Fosen:

"Tre mulige teorier trer fram:
- Soldaten var Åke, ung og sprek i 1612. Han kom til Fosen, ble gift og fikk sønnen Valter omkring 1615 (ti år feil i manntallet).
- Soldaten var Åke, en etablert mann med kone og barn. Resten av familien (deriblant sønnen Valter, ca. 10 år), kom til Norge kort etter 1612.
- Soldaten var Valter, født først på 1690-tallet (ti år feil i manntallet)."

Then, in February, I added the following to the "Else Sevaldsdatter" thread (not having read Arnes earlier posting):
"... We know from history that the Scottish troops in Gubrandsdalen were commanded by George Sinclair, George Hay and Alexander Ramsay. Ramsay's men were mostly prisoners from southern Scotland, but the others were from Caithness on the northern tip of Scotland, just adjacent to the Orkney Islands. To [the Scottish] listserves, I posed the question about a local word that would sound like Aage. Three individuals wrote back to say that Oag and Og were common family names (surnames, not given names) in Caithness. I then went to the Scottish genealogical records site and, indeed, found many such names there, though the records do not go back as far as that expedition through Norway. According to my correspondents, in the local dialect, Og and Oag are pronounced almost identically to Aage/Åge på norsk! O and Oa are pronounced as å and g as you would pronounce g, and there is a full stop between oa and g. Some families make the g into a k sound. ... I should also note that Walter is a very common name in Caithness. Rather than two escapees from the Gubrandsdalen battle ending up in Rissa, perhaps since Oag is a family name in Scotland there was just one by the name of Walter Oag? Or do we know of separate lines of descent from the two?"

[Note: Since I posted this, I have learned that Og means young or youthful in Irish and Scots Gaelic.]

En annen teori å følgje...

Dennis

[gj03985]

According to the local legend, Aage and Walter came to Rissa ca. 1615 after escaping in August 1612 from the battle with Col. Sinclair's company in Gubrandsdalen. One was large and one was small. It has been asserted that Oche has a meaning associated with size in Scottish or Gaelic, but that does not seem to be the case. The 1665 census shows a Walter Aagesen being born ca. 1605, so there are problems with these dates as has been noted earlier. If Aage and Walter were two people, then we know of descendants in Fosen only of Aage, and the name Walter was also passed on to his descendants.

Another theory that would fit what we know is that this family of Scotch descent came to Norway some other way, and was not part of Sinclair's company of soldiers. He could have been a soldier in the service of dansk-norsk kongen -- as was Walter's grandson "Store Ole" and great-grandson. Other utlanding who came to Fosen (e.g., kapt. Fredrik Ferdinand Klyver og sersjant Hybert Alexandersen) were soldiers loyal to dansk-norsk kongen. We know that, from the 8th century to the 15th century, Norway had a very close relationship to Caithness in Scotland and the nearby Orkney islands. We know that Sinclair chose the spot to land on the Norway coast because men from that part of Scotland were used to taking lumber from the Møre coast. In Diplomatarium Norvegicum, there are 3 mentions of the name Valter (including a servant named Valter Skotthe in diploma #533, dated 27.4.1525 from Bergenhus) and 3 more of Walter. There are 8 mentions of the word Skotthe (including a servant named Andhres Skotthe in diploma #589 dated 2.1.1533 from Österaat) and 17 mentions of the word Skotte (including Joen Skotte og Tomes Skotte from Trondheim in 1529 and 1537). Finally, we know from modern experience (Vietnam, World War II) that legends about soldiers do not always match the reality of what happened, so we should not be surprised if "our" Scot's involvement in Sinclair's debacle nearly 400 years ago was a surmise rather than a fact. So, clearly there were many Scots in or near Fosen before 1612/1615.

As for the large/small description, consider that in 1615, Walter Aagesen would have been small and his father Aage large. Or is that too simple?

Of course, it may be that the local legend is correct and so also one of the theories that have already been advanced, but I thought it would be helpful to suggest that it is possible they came to Fosen by some other means than as escapees from Gubrandsdalen.

mvh,

Dennis

[Stig Trygstad]

Hei alle skotte- og navnespekulanter!
Av alle innleggene i denne debatten ser det ut til at det kan bli problematisk å finne fram til en endelig løsning på hvordan/hvorfra disse skottene kom til Fosen. For å skape ytterligere forvirring har jeg hørt at et forlis av et skotsk skip utenfor Åfjord skulle ha ført til et ganske omfattende skotsk innslag i befolkningen der! Nærmere detaljer om tid og sted har jeg imidlertid ikke, men det har kanskje andre?
Ellers var det ganske gode forbindelser mellom Skottland og danskekongen og "Norgesvennen" Christian IV på 1600-tallet. Han benyttet bl.a. skotske "konsulenter", og i grenselandet Finnmark innsatte han en skotsk embetsmann til å ivareta de dansk/norske interesser. En av bivirkningene av dette var en usedvanlig aktiv brenning av hekser og trollmenn/kvinner - mest samer!
Så til navnet Åge/Åke: Jeg har forelagt det for en gaelisk-talende skotte, og har fått følgende svar (forhåpentligvis rett gjengitt): ".....Just a quick reply to your question for Stig. ---yes there is a Gaelic word 'Og', it means 'young'. There are Scottish names 'Oag' " 'Ogg' which probably are derived from 'og'. I'm not too sure. However, there are a lot of Gaelic names from Norsk. For example--MacPherson, which is thought to have sprung from the Viking occupation " rule of the Western Isles etc. A son of a man named Per or Persson had 'Mac'('son of' in Gaelic) --stuck on to it, hence MacPherson. The 'ph' comes from the Gaelic habit of aspirating the letter at the start of the word, or name, when using the Dative. (i.e. speakingto, or addressing the thing or person). What I mean is e.g. if you were speaking to somebody called Seamus, you'd say 'Hullo Sheamus'. This is pronounced 'Hamish' in Gaelic, --hence the now Scottish of 'Hamish'. Also the name 'Huisdean' is probably the Highland version of 'Øystein'. It is sometimes spelt 'Uisdean' too. I'm really intrigued with all the Norse names " words in Gaelic. I only wish I knew more about it. You say 'skrivit' (gammelnorsk og svensk, min anmerkning)and in Gaelic we say 'sgriobhag' --pronounced 'skrivag' and with the same meaning. I could go on and on but as you'll be in ahurry I'd better not right now.
The only other words I can find are 'oige'='youth' (pronounced, oy-ki),or 'aice'=hers (pro.,ech-ki). Old Irish has a word 'oge'=virginity, so that may be another source of this word 'Åge'??----Hope this is some help! If you need more, I'll ask a true expert and let you know the result.

Jeg er ikke sikker på om dette ble særlig mer oppklarende enn de teorier vi har operert med tidligere, men vi har i hvert fall muligheten til til å kunne skaffe eksperthjelp ser det ut til...

Stig