Cormorant - OE scealfor/scealfra, ON skarfr

The Old English word which probably applied to cormorant, scealfor, repeatedly translates mergus in Anglo-Saxon glossaries, the Latin word which became the scientific genus name for the mergansers. Probably, then, scealfor also referred to similar-looking diving water birds, including the shag. Old Norse skarfr became Scots Gaelic sgarbh (which is in plenty of Scottish topographical names), which refers to both shags and cormorants, as do the various terms for these similar-looking species in Irish Gaelic. It seems likely that the birds mentioned in the charters relating to near Whittlesey Mere south of Peterborough at the long-since-gone Fens were cormorants (although we cannot know to what extent cormorants were inland birds as much coastal birds as they are today). Norse skarfr and Old English scealfor probably have a common, onomatopoeic source (recalling the unmusical, croaking-type noises of these birds).

Under cormorants, it is worth mentioning another possible Old Norse word, skraki, which presumably derived from similarly onomatopoeic origins as skarfr, and which, it has been suggested, was a word for merganser (the root of modern Swedish for merganser, skrak). Or, more likely, an alternative for various species in a group of diving water birds (mergansers and cormorants do not look dissimilar in outline and behaviours on the water, despite the obvious size difference). Skraki relates to Scargill below (although other interpretations suggest this is a personal name, not a bird).

Another set of general bird term that no doubt applied to several species of diving or ducking water birds is dufedoppa (both parts of the word describing actions of diving/dipping—from which we also get the bird name ‘dove’). Also dop-fugel, dop-enid. The cormorant and shag might have been covered by the dop names too, as well as grebes, divers and ducks.

Scargill (Co Dur)

Cormorants/diving birds appear in charters relating to the following places: Witney, Oxon (11th cen.), Whittlesey, Cambs (11th cen.). The Whittlesey reference is to a scealfre mere ‘cormorant pool’ nearby to Ugg Mere (originally Ubba; the name survives in Ugg Mere Road).

Sources (see ‘About’ page for the full bibliography): Gelling and Cole, Landscape of Place-Names; www.langscape.org.uk.