Page:Annals of Duddingston and Portobello.pdf/36

Rh Considerable licence was allowed to these inns, for except duing the hours of public worship on Bundays, there was no restriction as to when they might he open or closed. We rather fear in too many cases the drouthy parishioners, like Tam o’ Shanter, “drank as long as they had siller,” and in consequence the supervision of the Kirk Session was frequently taxed to the utmost in the preservation of morals and the peace of the Sabbath. We shall have occasion further on to give some curious examples from the local records of Church discipline arising therefro.

How and when Duddingston came by its name are points involved in considerable obscurity. In the early Statistical Account of Scotland (1796) Duddingston is said to be derived from a Gaelic word meaning “the house on the sunny side of the hill,” This is a correct enough description of the village, but the word is evidently of Saxon origin.

Of the many different immigrants who, since the Roman occupation, have settled in the Scottish lowlands, the Saxon and Norse Colonists have both left their impress in the names of places which they gave from their own family names. Most of the Norman settlers either retained their old seignorial surnames—as De Vesci, De Morevil, De Brus, etc., or assumed local designations from the territories they acquired. The Saxon and Norse Colonists, being perhaps usually of inferior rank and power, remained longer without that which soon became a badge of gentility. From them were named most of the places which bear the Saxon termination of town, and these, by a curious alternation, in a short time afforded surnames to their proprietors; thus Orm gave the name to Ormiston, Leving to Levingston, Elphin to Elphinston, and so on.

In like manner Duddingston has its derivation from being the settlement of a family of the name of Dodin prior to the twelfth century. We find the family name common enough in England, appearing in various forms in Worcester, Northampton, Herts, Wilts, and Northumberland as that of landed proprietors. In 715 one Doddo was the founder of the Monastery of Tewksbury. And we have such place-names as Dudding, Dodanford,