[NB The brief explanation given below has been drafted on the assumption that the reader is already familiar with the basic building-blocks used in Celtic topographical place-names (Chapter 1 of the Home menu), with the structure of compound place-names (Chapter 2) and with the structure of Celtic river-names (Chapter 19)]
This tribe is referred to in the Geography of Ptolemy.
The tribal name is based directly on a topographical place-name of the form Cornavion, the name indicating that the place concerned had been occupied by people who used the hill-letter r but was taken over by people using the hill-letter n2, these latter people being the tribe we know as the Cornavi. We see their hill-letter n in Carvedunum (probable original form of Ptolemy’s Tarvedum) at Holborn Head, just north of Scrabster in Caithness and we see their river-letter l in Ptolemy’s river Ila, the river Helmsdale. Cornavion appears to have been the hillfort on Ben Griam Beg (NGR: NC 831 412), though of course this is not certain.
[This page was last modified on 24 March 2021]
