A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue (up to 1700)
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First published 2002 (DOST Vol. XII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
(Ȝelt,) Yelt, n. [Appar. Norw. dial. hjelte = Bokmål sjetlending a Shetlander (Norsk Riksmålsordbok, Oslo, 1937), f. On Hjalt-, stem of Hjaltland Shetland. Cf. 18th c. Eng. Yalt (once, 1774).] A name given, appar. erroneously, to a. An aboriginal inhabitant of Shetland, and b. A kind of cloth. — [J. Campbell Political Survey of Great Britain (London, 1774) 685, quoted in A. Fenton The Various Names of Shetland (Edinburgh, 1973, Introduction).
The natives call themselves Yalts, and their language Yaltmoll] —a. c1650-1700 Descr. Zetland 12.
The ancient inhabitants of this countrey were a people called Yelts: hence the name Yealtaland, & the people yet called by the Norwegians & Danes Yealtins, & their speech Yealta-Mole —b. 16… Macfarlane's Geog. Coll. III 248.
A General Geographical Description of Ȝetland … By the Norvegians it is called Yeltland, because in old time the inhabitants here, made a kind of course cloth, named yelt, which was carried to Norway
