iùbhrach, ‘yew-wood’, was evidently in use in the sense of ‘barge’, ‘yacht’, for which the S.G. term now is birlinn, a loan from the Norse. In the Tale of the Hero of the Red Shield the name of the boat was An iùbhrach bhallach, ‘the speckled barge’ (Campbell's Tales, ii. p. 456). The word is used with the same meaning by several modern authors. Was yew a favourite wood in old times with boat-builders?
| From The Glenmasan Manuscript (Author: [unknown]), p.104 Column 3 (section 1.) | Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition Close footnote |