Note 26 — III. THULE, PART OF GREAT BRITAIN

In Icelandic “Orkn” and “Orkn-selr” are applied to a seal. (Compare Lat. orca, supposed to be the grampus: Cleasby.) Pliny makes orca a kind of dolphin (D. orca), and orec or orc is the Gaelic form; hence Cape Orcas, which is popularly identified with Dunnet Head, the extreme northern point of Scotland. We have no need to derive “Orkneys” from εἴρκω (coercio), these isles breaking and restraining the force of the raging waves; or from “Erick” or “Orkenwald,” or any other “Pictish prince famous there at its first plantation.”