What's in a name

When you walk around the East Lothian shoreline it is next to impossible (weather permitting) to miss the Bass Rock with its castle, royal prison and lighthouse.

As an extinct volcano, made from extremely hard basaltic rock called Phonolite, the Bass has a reddish colour although this is often obscured by the volume of seabirds and their guano. It is also home to more Northern Gannets (Europe's biggest seabird) than anywhere else in the world, so visitors usually don't think too much about the Rock's name. This is a pity as it's an interesting story with more than one explanation.

The first comes courtesy of everyone's favourite villains - the Vikings. Many of the islands in the Forth owe their name to the Norse language with Fidra meaning feathers and May meaning seabirds or seagulls. Bass thankfully doesn't have anything to do with English breweries but instead is thought to mean something akin to big pointy rock in Norse.

The second and most patriotic explanation comes from the Scottish Chronicles, housed in Chambers Street' Museum of Scotland and written some time during the 14th century. They claim that in 952 a naval battle was fought in the Firth of Forth between the Danes and Scots. The Scots' fleet was led by a member of the Bass family who held sway in the local area and as the Scots won the day, the Rock was henceforth named after the successful commander. It must be said though that this explanation is not popularly thought to be true. The Chronicles were written hundreds of years after the supposed battle was fought and naval victories against Viking fleets were not common.

The third and more boring explanation is that the rock was simply named after the locally powerful Bass family. They were potentially in charge around East Lothian prior to the Lauder family were made keepers of the Bass Rock by Malcolm III (1058-93) - otherwise known as Malcolm Canmore (big chief) and the man who killed MacBeth.

So, next time you look at the Bass Rock and marvel at the soaring and diving Gannets with their fluffy Gugas, spare a thought about how our extinct volcano got its name!