The island of Bute lies in the Firth of Clyde in western Scotland and its history is bound up with those of other lands bordering the great Clyde waterway from Norse times onwards. The eleven essays in this volume are the result of new research on place-names, archaeology and history from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries, ranging from objects like the beautiful Bute Mazer to the eloquent remains of abandoned farms and the fascinating story of witches in the island.
Edited by Anna Ritchie
Foreword
John Baldwin – pp. vii-viii
Acknowledgements – p. ix
From Goill to Gall-Ghàidheil: Place-Names and Scandinavian Settlement in Bute
Gilbert Márkus – pp. 1-16
Scandinavians in Strathclyde: Multiculturalism, Material Culture and Manufactured Identities in the Viking Age
Courtney Helen Buchanan – pp. 17-32
The Norse in the West with Particular Reference to Bute
Barbara Crawford – pp. 33-48
Bute in the Age of the Sagas
Edward J. Cowan – pp. 49-60
A Casualty of War? The Cult of Kentigern of Glasgow, Scottish Patron Saints and the Bruce/Comyn Conflict
Tom Turpie – pp. 61-74
The Bute or Bannatyne Mazer – Two Different Vessels
David Caldwell, George Dalgleish, Susy Kirk, and Jim Tate – pp. 75-89
Mazer? What’s a ‘Mazer’? A History of the Word
Molly Rorke – pp. 90-96
Frontierland: Towards an Environmental History of Bute in the Later Middle Ages
Richard Oram – pp. 97-114
Bute from Norse Times to the Improvements: Some Notes on Landholdings and Rural Settlement Patterns
Angus Hannah – pp. 115-128
‘An Enormous Expense Enclosing and Dividing’: Agricultural Improvement in Eighteenth-Century Bute
George Geddes – pp. 129-149
The Witches of Bute
Lizanne Henderson – pp. 150-161