UKH

Fairly (fairy?) obscure this.

Ended up running up The Child's Seat / Suidh' an Fhir-bhig yesterday. Landranger 17 G.R. NC964253 https://getoutside.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/local/suidh-an-fhir-bhig-highland-o...

It's an unusual pointy summit above moorland and the name really interested me as it's not common to see dual English/Gaelic naming on OS maps.

A bit of googling suggests that the Gaelic and English translation might not quite match up as Fhir-bhig seems to translate literally as little men rather than child.

I wondered if...

It might have an association with the little people. It certainly struck me as the sort of place the faerie folk might congregate.

Or

As older maps have the name covering the saddle between SaFb and Creag nan Gearr it might be due to it resembling a high chair type seat.

Or

As other old maps have it just as Fhir-bhig it might be something like 'low man' which appears in some English hill names.

Or... something else entirely.

Can anyone shed any light on that? Or point me at anyone who could.

Cheers.

Or possibly Sutherland history it being slap bang on the border.

Ian Moireach, 2019, "Reading the Gaelic Landscape" might, and you might thoroughly enjoy it if you don't know it. I can't decline the nouns well enough to make fully effective use of his index so the answer may be hidden in there...

One thing he does grumble about is the OS effort at Gaelic naming - spellings and accuracy. 

Y

Aye the Gaelic and English is quite unusual. I think the Fhir-Beag would most accurately translate as the small boy (rather than little man or child). So 'The seat of the small boy'.

I like the fairie idea though... lets go with that!

Side note. If you've not read it, The Poachers Pilgrimage by Alistair MacIntosh is superb. Weaves together fairies, folklore and island culture.

That's next week's book sorted, thanks Gav.  

Sounds like Scottish magic realism?

Is it possible that there is a Norse influence which means that even the Gaelic name is a corruption of a previous Norse description?

I'd stick with "Seat of the Small Man" myself. To my mind, fhir-bhig is the genitive declension of fear beag. Fear is usually either an unspecified man, or more widely, one of a masculine noun/male instance of an animal/etc. Balach or Gille are used when boy is specified. As regards the fairy folk, there are many words in Gaelic to discuss them, the most common being Sìth, as in Glenshee (Gleann Sìth). 

Dave

if you still care...

There is so much more information on Irish than Gaelic and they're similar enough to be mutually intelligible particularly Ulster Irish. It's a good resource if you know how to move between them. Stick a Gaelic word in here and it will usually suggest a similar Irish word and a translation: https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/

Doesn't work for eveything, for example aonach means 'ridge' in Gaelic but 'fair/market' in Irish but there is a huge shared vocabulary.

Fhir-bhig is singular - small man, Fir can mean men or man depending on the grammar:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_declension

An attributive adjective mostly follows the noun and is inflected:

an fear beag "the small man"

an fhir bhig "of the small man" (genitive)

Almost certainly not fairy. sióg (Pronounced 'she-oge') would be the most common Irish; same word as Sith, mentioned above

https://www.teanglann.ie/ga/fgb/Fairy