v1.0
Published 01/10/24
dùn m. [d̪̥ũ̟ːn], [d̪̥ũːn], gen. dùin [d̪̥ũ̟ːɲ], [d̪̥ũːɲ],
For the genitive forms dùine and dùna, see Cox 2022, 681–82.
‘heap; hill, hillock, mound; fortified house or hill; fortress, castle; fastness; tower; hedge’ (Dwelly 1911) occurs in a dative plural form dùnaibh in Rob Donn’s (1714–1778) song ‘Am Bruadar’ (the dream): (Stanza 19) ’S na h-uile bean bha pùsta sin, | A’ dol nan dùnaibh suas
Adapted from Mackay 1829, 271: ’S na h-uile bean bha pùsda sin, | A’ dol ’n an dùnaibh suas. The Morrison (1899) edition hypercorrects pùsda to posda [sic], losing the aicill rhyme pùsda : dùnaibh: (p. 73) ’S na h-uile bean bha posda sin, | A’ dol ’n an dùnaibh suas. The Gunn and Mac Farlane (1899) edition re-establishes the aicill rhyme pùsda : dùnaibh, but also introduces dul for dol: (p. 47) ’S na h-uile bean bha pùsda sin, | A’ dul ’n an dùnaibh suas. Beard 2018 follows the Morrison edition, losing the aicill rhyme, but also truncates the second line: (p. 63) ’S na h-uile bean bha pòsta sin, | A’ dol ’n dùnaibh suas.
(with every woman there that was married, going en masse
For nan dùnaibh suas (lit. ‘up in their heaps’) in the sense ‘en masse’, cf. Stanza 2: Chunnaic mi gach seòrsa ʼn sin, | A’ tighinn nan cròthaibh, cruinn (I saw every sort there, coming en masse (lit. ‘together in their enclosures/folds [huddles]’)). (Beard takes nan dùnaibh suas in the sense ‘up into their fortresses’ and nan cròthaibh, cruinn in the sense ‘in their forms, assembled’, for the latter perhaps confusing crò m. (dat. pl. cròthaibh) with cruth m. ‘form, shape, figure’ (dat. pl. cruthaibh).)
). Mackay (1897, 91) takes dùnaibh to mean ‘band [of people]’, a sense he considers to be borrowed from Ice. dunn m. ‘band, gang, drove’ (Cleasby 1874: idem [leg. dúnn]; cf. ON dúnn m.). Although an accusative ON dún would indeed be expected to yield SG [d̪̥ũ̟ːn], [d̪̥ũːn], there seems to be no need to look beyond SG dùn itself for an explanation of Rob Donn’s usage, although the senses ‘hill, heap etc.’
As in the example Agus chruinnich iad r’a chéile ’nan dùnaibh iad ‘and they gathered them together in (their) heaps’ (An Seann Tiomnadh 1783: Ecsodus VIII: 14).
are extensions of the earlier sense ‘fort’ (EG dún), cf. the use of SG tòrr m. ‘hill’ in the extended senses ‘mass, much, many’.
McDonald (2009, 350) considers the derivation unlikely, on the basis that Mackay’s definition of SG dùn ‘is not elsewhere supported’.