Pennyland

A subdivision of the ounceland, usually a twentieth, assessed by render rather than area.

The working unit of Norse land assessment, and the one that got into the map. Gaelic peighinn, it divides again into halfpennylands and farthinglands, and all three survive in place names: Pennymore on Loch Fyne, Lephinmore — leth-pheighinn mhor, the big halfpennyland — and an Fheòirling, the farthingland.

It was never an area. Like the ounceland above it, the pennyland recorded what a holding owed, so the same assessment covered more ground on poor land than on good.

The word is still in conventional use in at least one place. At Elgol on Skye, a crofter’s allotted stretch of march-dyke and seaweed shore is called the peighinn of that croft — a Norse tax unit surviving as a description of who maintains which length of wall.

It should not be confused with the Brythonic pen in names such as Penicuik, which is unrelated.