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Published 01/10/24
1bruga m. [ˈb̥ɾuɡ̊ə],
Cf. /brugə/ (AFB˄).
gen. idem., ‘(mossy) ground, mound or hillock’. Henderson (1910, 206) derives SG bruga ‘rough, mossy ground’, along with the forms brugan and brugannan, from ‘N. brok “bad, black grass”’, a word that occurs in the Icelandic place-name Brokey in Landnámabók (Cleasby 1874) and that is compared with Nn. brok ‘stiff, course grass (NO)’. While McDonald (2009, 346) considers the derivation uncertain, he later (2015, 156) considers it likely. An ON *brok would formally yield SG *[b̥ɾɔɡ̊] or *[b̥ɾoɡ̊].
Henderson associates bruga, brugan and brugannan with Lewis; cf. bruga ‘rough, mossy ground’ in Skye (Faclan bhon t-Sluagh˄), and brugan ‘a very small hillock or mound’ in Harris (ibid.) and Lewis (ibid.: [bɾu̟ɡɑṉ]; AFB˄: /brugan/). MacLennan (1925) seems to imply that the form brugan ‘a small conical rising in the ground’ is from an (otherwise apparently unatttested) EG brug ‘lump’ + the nominally diminutive suffix -án, but this may be an inadvertent conflation of brug (i.e. bruġ), a by-form of bruiġ ‘land; region; abode etc.’, and bruth ‘a (glowing) mass, lump; charge of metal’ (eDIL˄).
Cf. MacLennan’s SG brugh m. ‘large house, tumulus, dwelling of fairies’, from OG mruig > EG bruig (leg. mruiġ and bruiġ, for which, see under Borgh).
The plural form brugannan *[ˈb̥ɾuɡ̊əᵰ̪ən] occurs in the place-name Na Brugannan, which denotes a group of skerries in the Sound of Eriskay.
The modern-day causeway between Eriskay and South Uist runs across two groups of skerries. The more northerly group (NF781129) is named An Easgann (leg. An t-Easgann ‘the eel’) and the more southerly group Na Brugannan (NF781128) on the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba Ordnance Survey digital map˄. However, King with Crouse (2019, 45–46, 77, 79) and the Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba˄ website locate both An t-Easgann and Na Brugannan over the more northerly group. They also note that the modern form of the latter is Na Brùchdannan, which is translated as ‘?seaweed islands’ (for which see under brùc), and it seems that the former name Na Brugannan has been altered via folk etymology to the current Na Brùchdannan. Note also that Goodrich-Freer (1902, 296) mentions the names of two groups of skerries in the vicinity: Am Bruga, which is placed within the Sound of Eriskay, and Na Brugannan, which is placed off the shore of South Uist, at Kilbride (possibly at NF764138), off the coast from the freshwater loch Loch a’ Bhruga (located at NF762142), but it seems likely the names have been inadvertently transposed, i.e. that Am Bruga in fact refers to the skerries off the coast of South Uist – hence the name Loch a’ Bhruga (with the genitive of Am Bruga as specific) – and Na Brugannan (now Na Brùchdannan) to the southerly group of skerries within the sound itself.
SG bruga, pl. brugannan, and the diminutive form brugan possibly derive from Scots brug, brugg, recorded as ‘a sandy, mossy or heathery hillock; a small height or mound, flat on the top; a stump of earth standing with the sward intact in a place where the ground has been broken by the continued action of the weather’ (SND˄, s.v. 1brug), which Jakobsen (1928) takes as probably a contraction of *bruek, with bru ‘brow’ + the diminutive suffix -e(c)k. However, SND˄ compares SG brugan (after MacLennan), but which is already under discussion here, and brug, gen. bruighne, ‘a hillock, the residence of fairies’ (after MacLeod and Dewar 1839), for which read brugh, but which is unlikely to be related to bruga (s.v. Borgh).
MacLeod and Dewar’s entry reads ‘brug, brugh, gen. bruighne’, after Shaw 1780 and Armstrong 1825.
SND˄ also lists Scots brogg ‘a low bank; a knoll; a large lump of earth’, which it suggests (while noting brug) might be a metaphorical form corresponding to ON borg ‘a dome-shaped hill’, although Jakobsen regards it is as a reflex of brokk, from ON *brokka, a by-form of brekka f. ‘slope’.