Sandlins Craig
Sandlins Craig KRY C NO575034 1 374 1m
Sandlins Craig 1855 OS 6 inch 1st edn
? Sc sandyling + Sc craig
‘Sandyling rock’. ‘It takes its name from a small fish called Sandyling which are taken about it’ (OS Name Book 82, 90). However, no such word is recorded in the major Scots dictionaries (DOST, SND or CSD).
The form of the alleged fish-name may have been influenced by ‘ling’, a common fish of this coast. However, not only is no such word recorded in the dictionaries, it is not known locally (Harry Watson (HDW)). It may rather have referred originally to the sanderling, a genus of small wader, Calidris alba (HDW). It is referred to locally as The Saurlins /ðəˈsɔrlɪnz/, and is pictured, along with the Craignoon skelly, in Watson 1986, 117. The development of –andl- to –aurl- (by way of *–an(d)l- and *–aunl-) is a local dialectal feature, another example being (the) haurlins for ‘handlines’, i.e. handline-fishing (HDW).
This place-name appeared in printed volume 3