ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN.
[Sidenote: Inquiry into Ethnology of Britain proper at this stage.]
Having thus given the traditionary history of that dark interval which
intervened between the departure of the Romans from the island of
Britain in the beginning of the fifth century, and the period when we
become once more acquainted with its history in the latter part of the
sixth century, and find the barbarian tribes who had assailed the Roman
province now settled in the form of kingdoms with definite limits; and
having endeavoured to extricate from it a chronological narrative of
events based on historic truth, we may pause here to make some inquiry
into the ethnology of the races composing these kingdoms.
The traditionary writers describe the whole of these four nations—the
Britons, Picts, Scots, and Saxons—as having been colonies of foreign
races who came into Britain at different periods; and, in a sense, this
is true of all of them, though the immigration of the first two took
place at a very remote period, and long before we have any historical
record connected with the inhabitants of the island. Archæology,
however, enables us to trace the previous existence of a people of a
different race, indications of which are to be found to a limited extent
in the earlier notices of Britain and in its topography.
[Sidenote: An Iberian or Basque people preceded the Celtic race in
Britain and Ireland.]
A distinguished writer on ethnology lays down certain propositions which
he terms fixed points in British ethnology. His first proposition is
this: ‘Eighteen hundred years ago the population of Britain comprised
peoples of two types of complexion, the one fair, and the other dark.
The dark people resembled the Aquitani and the Iberians; the fair people
were like the Belgic Gauls.’ His second proposition is, ‘The people
termed Gauls, and those called Germans, by the Romans, did not differ in
any important physical character.’ These two propositions we may accept
as well founded.[184] Certain it is that when the Romans entered Britain
and became acquainted with its inhabitants in that part of the island
nearest Gaul, they do not record any difference in their physical
appearance. On the contrary, Tacitus remarks that they resembled each
other in every respect. When the war with the Silures, who occupied
territories in the south-west, brought them in contact with that people,
Tacitus thus records the result of their observation. Their complexion
was different and of a darker hue. Their hair was curly, and they
resembled the Iberians: and when Agricola’s campaigns made them
acquainted with the inhabitants of Caledonia, the only observation they
made was that they were larger-limbed and had redder hair, and in this
respect resembled the Germans more than the Gauls.
At an early period, the Greek writers, in whom we find the earliest
notices of Britain, seem to have had a persuasion that the portion of
the inhabitants of Britain who were more particularly connected with the
working of tin, possessed peculiarities which distinguished them from
the rest. At first they knew only of islands called the Cassiterides, so
called from a word signifying tin, as the quarter from whence tin was
brought. They then became aware that tin was wrought in Britain as well,
and they came to view the Cassiterides as islands lying between Spain
and Britain. Diodorus tells us that ‘they who dwell near the promontory
of Britain which is called Belerion (Land’s End) are singularly fond of
strangers, and, from their intercourse with foreign merchants, civilised
in their habits. These people obtain the tin by skilfully working the
soil which produces it; this being rocky, has earthy interstices, in
which, working the ore, and then fusing, they reduce it to metal; and
when they have formed it into cubical shapes, they convey it to a
certain island lying off Britain, named Ictis; for at the low tides the
intervening space being laid dry, they carry thither in wagons the tin
in great abundance.’ He also says, ‘Above the country of the
Lusitanians, there are many mines of tin in the little islands called
Cassiterides from this circumstance, lying off Iberia, in the ocean, and
much of it also is carried across from the Bretannic Isle to the
opposite coast of Gaul, and thence conveyed on horses by the merchants,
through the intervening Celtic land, to the people of Massilia, and to
the city called Narbonne.’ Though the name Ictis leads one to refer this
description to the Isle of Wight, it is more probable that the present
St. Michael’s Mount is meant. At ebb tide it is accessible from the
mainland, and tin is found there in two ways, in streamlets and in
mines. By the Cassiterides, the Scilly Islands seem to be intended.[185]
Strabo reports of Posidonius that he says that tin is not found upon the
surface, as authors commonly relate, but that it is dug up; and that it
is produced both in places among the Barbarians who dwell beyond the
Lusitanians, and in the islands Cassiterides; and that from the
Bretannic Isles it is carried to Massalia; and he adds, ‘The
Cassiterides are ten in number, and lie near each other in the ocean,
towards the north from the haven of the Artabri: one of them is desert,
but the others are inhabited by men in black cloaks, clad in tunics
reaching to the feet, and girt about the breast; walking with staves,
and bearded like goats. They subsist by their cattle, leading for the
most part a wandering life. And having metals of tin and lead, these and
skins they barter with the merchants for earthenware and salt, and
brazen vessels.’ He mentions that they were visited by Publius Crassus,
apparently one of Caesar’s officers, ‘who perceived that the metals were
dug out at a little depth, and that the men being at peace were already
beginning, in consequence of their leisure, to busy themselves about the
sea,’[186] The black cloaks and goats’ beards seem to be an exaggerated
and distorted representation of the darkness of the complexion and the
curled hair attributed to the Silures. Pomponius Mela and Pliny in the
first century both allude to the Cassiterides, so called, say both,
because they abound in tin, and so does Solinus in similar terms; but
the latter also states that ‘a stormy channel separates the coast which
the Damnonii occupy from the island Silura, whose inhabitants preserve
the ancient manners, reject money, barter merchandise, value what they
require by exchange rather than by price, worship the gods, and both men
and women profess a knowledge of the future.’ His description resembles
that of Diodorus, and he probably considered Cornwall as an island, and
connects it by name with the Silures.[187]
In the following century we find that the name of Cassiterides has been
dropped, and they are now called the Hesperides, while their inhabitants
were believed to have been Iberians. Dionysius Periegeta says, in the
end of this century—‘But near the sacred promontory, where they say is
the end of Europe, the Hesperides Isles, whence tin proceeds, dwell the
rich sons of the noble Iberians.’[188] In the fourth century, Rufus
Festus Avienus calls these islands the Oestrymnides. He says that the
northern promontory of Spain was called Oestrymnis, and adds, ‘Below the
summit of this promontory the Oestrymnic bay spreads out before the
inhabitants, in which the Oestrymnic Isles show themselves’—
Lying far off, and rich in metals
Of tin and lead. Great the strength of this nation,
Proud their mind, powerful their skill,
Trading the constant care of all.
The broad boisterous channel with boats and southerly wind,
They cut the gulf of the monster-filled ocean;
They know not to fit with pine
Their keels, nor with fir, as use is,
They shape their boats; but, strange to say,
They fit their vessels with united skins,
And often traverse the deep in a hide.
Then, after mentioning the sacred island of the Hiberni and the island
of the Albiones, he adds, ‘It is customary for the people of Tartessus
to trade in the bounds of the Oestrymnides;’[189] and Priscianus
Periegeta, who flourished in the beginning of the sixth century, calls
them the Hesperides, and says that over-against the sacred promontory
which men call the end of Europe lie the Hesperides, full of tin, which
the strong people of the Iberi occupy.[190]
If these notices show that a persuasion existed among many that the
population of the Scilly Isles, Cornwall, and South Wales was Iberian,
an examination of the ancient sepulchral remains in Britain gives us
reason to suppose that a people possessing their physical
characteristics had once spread over the whole of both of the British
Isles. The latest writer on the subject thus sums up the result of the
investigation into the character of these remains:—‘The materials for
working out the craniology of Europe in prehistoric times do not justify
any sweeping conclusions as to the distribution of the various races,
but those which Dr. Thurnam has collected in Britain offer a firm basis
for such an inquiry. In the numerous long barrows and chambered-gallery
graves of our island, which, from the invariable absence of bronze and
the frequent presence of polished stone implements, may be referred to
the neolithic age, the crania belong, with scarcely an exception, to the
first two of these divisions (the Dolichocephali or long skulls). In the
round barrows, on the other hand, in which bronze articles are found,
they belong mainly to the third division (Brachycephali or broad
skulls), although some are Orthocephalous (having oval skulls). On
evidence of this kind Dr. Thurnam concludes that Britain was inhabited
in the neolithic age by a long-headed people, and that towards its close
it was invaded by a bronze-using race, who were dominant during the
bronze age. This important conclusion has been verified by nearly every
discovery which has been made in this country since its publication. The
long skulls graduate into the broad, the oval skulls being the
intermediate forms, and this would naturally result from the
intermingling of the blood of the two races.’[191] Ireland presents
precisely the same phenomena.[192] The same writer thus sums up the
result of the inquiry:—‘Dr. Thurnam was the first to recognise that the
long skulls, out of the long barrows of Britain and Ireland, were of the
Basque or Iberian type, and Professor Huxley holds that the river-bed
skulls belong to the same race. We have therefore proofs that an Iberian
or Basque population spread over the whole of Britain and Ireland in the
neolithic age, inhabiting caves, and burying their dead in caves and
chambered tombs, just as in the Iberian peninsula also in the neolithic
age.’[193]
[Sidenote: Ethnologic traditions.]
Of the Celtic race, which succeeded the Iberians in the British Isles,
and whose descendants still remain here, the Romans tell us nothing,
save that those in the interior of the country were believed to be
indigenous, and that those on the regions bordering upon the sea which
divides Britain from Gaul had passed over from the latter country; but
here we have the advantage of possessing an additional element of
information in their traditions. These represent, in more or less of an
archaic form, the popular notions prevailing among the people themselves
of their ethnology, their supposed descent, and their mutual relation to
each other. They usually appear in two different shapes—one in which the
tribes inhabiting the same country, but distinguished from each other by
national or ethnological differences, appear as successive colonies,
arriving at different times in the country from distant regions, founded
either upon genuine tradition or artificially upon some fancied
resemblance in name or characteristic; the other, where each race is
represented by an ‘eponymus’ from whom they are supposed to have been
descended, and to have derived their name, and these supposed eponymic
ancestors are connected together in an artificial family, in which the
paternal ancestor represents the race, and the maternal the country or
city they occupy. An analysis of these legends, then, is an almost
indispensable preliminary to any attempt to ascertain their true place
in the ethnology of the island.
[Sidenote: British traditions.]
For the oldest forms of the British traditions we must look to Nennius.
According to him, the Britons were a colony of Trojans who came from
Italy, and were the first inhabitants of the island. ‘Æneas the Trojan
had by Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, king of Italy, besides his son from
whom the Romans descended, a younger son, Brutus, who was expelled from
Italy and came to the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea. From thence he went
to Gaul and built the city of the “Turones,” called Turnis. At length he
came to this island, named from him Britannia, dwelt there, and filled
it with his descendants.’ His account of the colonies of Picts and Scots
which followed has been noticed in the preceding chapter. He then says
that he had learnt another account of these Britons from the ancient
books of his ancestors. According to this form, ‘the first man who came
to Europe of the race of Japhet was Alanus, with his three sons,
Hessitio, Armenon, and Negue. Hessitio had four sons, Francus, Romanus,
Britto, and Albanus. Armenon had five sons, Gothus, Ualagothus, Gebidus,
Burgoandus, and Longobardus. Negue, however, had three sons, Wandalus,
Saxo, and Boguarus. From Hessitio are sprung four nations, the Franci,
the Latini, the Albani, and the Britti. From Armenon five, the Goths,
Walagoths, Gebiddi, Burgunds, and Longobards; and from Neguius four, the
Boguarii, Vandals, Saxons, and Turingi.’ This is a rude attempt to
express in this form the ethnology of Europe. We have the Britons and
the people of Albania or the north represented by two brothers, Brittus
and Albanus; and we have the Saxons affiliated to another ancestor.
There is no appearance either in this or the previous form of ethnologic
tradition of these inhabitants of Britain having been preceded by the
Iberi.[194]
[Sidenote: Irish traditions.]
The Irish ethnologic legends are found in a prose tract, termed the
_Leabhar Gabhala_, or Book of Conquests.[195] The legends are supposed
to have been preserved by Fintan, who was baptized by St. Patrick, and
gave him an account of everything he remembered himself. It was reported
that he had lived before the flood, and had been miraculously preserved
in order that the memory of these events should not be lost.
The tale is this:—Forty days before the Deluge, Ceasar landed in Eirin,
at Dunnamarc, with Fintan, Bioth, and Ladhra, and fifty maidens, but
they all died before the Deluge happened. The first peopling of Ireland
after the Flood was by Partholon and his colony, who came from Migdonia
in Greece, and took his way through the “Muir Torrian,” or
Mediterranean, by Sicily, and, leaving Spain on the right, arrived in
Ireland, where he landed, with his three sons, Rughraidhe, Slainge, and
Laighline, and a thousand soldiers, at Inversceine, in the west of
Munster, on the 14th of May, but after three hundred years this colony
was entirely swept off by a plague at the Hill of Howth.
Thirty years after Nemhidh landed with a colony in Ireland. He came from
Scythia, through the Euxine Sea, past the Rhiphæan Mountains, to the
North Sea, whence he sailed to Ireland with his four sons, Starn,
Iarbhainel Faidh or the Prophet, Aininn, and Fergus Leithderg or
Redside. After his death his followers were expelled by a people called
the Fomhoruigh or sea robbers, and left Eirin in three bands. One, under
Simon Breac, son of Starn, went to that part of Greece called Thrace.
The second, under Iobaath, son of Beothuig, son of Iarbhainel, went to
the regions of the north of Europe; and the third, under Briotan Maol,
son of Fergus Leithderg, to Dobhar and Iardobhar, in the north of Alban,
and dwelt there.
Nemhidh and his race were two hundred and sixteen years in Ireland,
after which it remained a wilderness for two hundred years, when a
people called the Firbolg arrived in Ireland from Thrace. They were the
descendants of Simon Breac, and the Greeks had subjected them to
slavery, obliging them to dig the earth and raise mould, and carry it in
sacks or bags of leather, termed _bolgs_ in Irish. Whereupon they came
to a resolution to shake off the yoke, and make boats out of the
leathern sacks in which they carried the earth. They arrived under the
five sons of Deala—Slainge, Rughruidhe, Gann, Geannan, and Seangann—who
divided Ireland into five provinces. Their followers were divided into
three septs: the Firbolg, or men of the bags, who under Gann and
Seangann landed at Iorrus Domnann in Connaught; the Fir Domhnan, so
called from the _domhin_ or pits they used to dig, landed under Geannan
and Rughruidhe at Tracht Rughruidhe in Ulster; and the Fir Gaillian, or
men of the spear, so called from the _gai_ or spears they used to
protect the rest at work, under Slainge at Inverslainge in Leinster.
They founded the monarchy of Eirin, and held it thirty-six years; when
under Eochaidh, son of Erc, their last king, a people called the Tuatha
De Danaan arrived in Ireland. They were descended from Iobaath, son of
Beothuig, son of Iarbhainel the Prophet, son of Nemhidh, who had taken
refuge in the north of Europe. They lived in the land of Lochlin, where
they had four cities—Falias, Gorias, Finias, and Murias. After they had
continued a long time in these cities, they passed over to the north of
Alban, and dwelt seven years in Dobhar and Iardobhar, taking with them
four articles of value—the Lia Fal, or Stone of Destiny, from Falias;
the sword of Lughaidh Lamhfhada from Gorias; his spear from Finias; and
the caldron of the Dagda from Murias. After seven years they left Alban,
and landed on Monday the 1st of May in the north of Ireland, and sent
ambassadors to the king of the Firbolg, and demanded the sovereignty of
Erin. Upon this a great battle was fought at Muigh Tuireadh, in which
the Firbolg were defeated with the loss of ten thousand men, and the
remainder fled to the islands of Arran, Isla, Rachlin, and Innsigall,
where they remained till they were eventually driven out of the isles by
the Cruithnigh or Picts.
The Tuatha De Danaan remained one hundred and ninety-seven years in
Ireland, when the sons of Miledh arrived from Spain with the Scots, and
wrested the kingdom from them. This Miledh was said to have originally
borne the name of Golamh, and to be the son of Bile, son of Breogan, who
took possession of Spain. He had eight sons—two, Donn and Aireach
Feabhruadh, by Seang, daughter of Refloir, king of Scythia; and six,
Eibherfionn and Amhergin, Ir and Colpa, Arannan and Eireamon, by Scota,
daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. The Tuatha De Danaan were under the
rule of three brothers—MacCuill, MacCeacht, and MacGreine—who had their
seat at Oileach Neid in the north of Ulster, and from whose three
wives—Eire, Fodla, and Banba—the island had these names given to it. The
sons of Miledh arrived with their fleet at Inverslainge, now Wexford,
but were driven from shore by the spells of the Tuatha De Danaan, and
went round to Inbhersceine in the west of Munster. Three of the
sons—Donn, Ir, and Arannan—were drowned in a storm, but Eimher and his
followers landed at Inbhersceine, and encountered Eire with the Tuatha
De Danaan at Slieve Mis in Ulster, and defeated them. In this battle,
Scota, the wife of Miledh, fell. Eireamon, with another division of the
fleet, landed at Inbhercolpe, now called Drogheda, and was joined by
Eibhear there, when they met the rest of the Tuatha De Danaan at
Taillten in Meath, and slew there three kings with their wives. Having
thus entirely reduced the island, Eireamon became their first king. He
divided Ireland into four provinces. He gave the province of Ulster to
Emhear, son of Ir; Munster to the four sons of Emhear Finn; Connaught to
Un and Eadan; and Leinster to Crimthan Sgiathbhel of the Fir
Domnan.[196]
In the time of this Crimthan Sgiathbhel, king of Leinster, the
Cruithnigh came from the land of Thrace. They were the children of
Gleoin Mac Ercol, that is, of Gelonus, son of Hercules, and were called
Agathirsi. They came away with nine ships and three hundred and nine
persons, landed at Inverslainge under six brothers—Solan, Ulfa, Nechtan,
Drostan, Aengus, and Leithenn—and had passed through France, where they
built the city of Pictavis. The king of Leinster offered them a
settlement, provided they would drive out a people called the Tuatha
Fidhbhe. This they accomplished. Of the brothers, Leithenn died in
France; and Drostan, Solan, Nechtan, and Ulfa in Ireland. Gub, and his
son Cathluan, acquired great power in Erin, till Eireamon drove them
out, and gave them the wives of the men who had been drowned with his
brother Donn. Six of them remained in the plains of Bregia in Meath.
Those that left Erin sailed to Inver Boinne to dwell in the country
beyond Ile, and from thence they conquered Alban from Cath to
Forchu.[197]
An older account of the settlement of the sons of Miledh, and that of
the Cruithnigh in connection with it, is probably to be found in a poem
contained in the Book of Leinster, and attributed to Maelmurra of
Othain, who died in the year 884.[198] They are said in this poem ‘to
have been Greeks in their origin, and descended from Fenius, who came
from Scythia to Nembroth, where he built the great tower, and founded a
school for languages. This Fenius Farsaid had a son Nel, who went to
Egypt, and married Scota, daughter of Forann (Pharaoh), by whom he had a
son, Gaedhel Glass, and his people were called Gaedhil from him, Feni
from Fenius, and Scuith or Scots from Scota. After Forann was drowned in
the Red Sea, they seized his ships, and passed by India and by Asia to
Scythia; and then by the Caspian Sea to the Slieve Riffi or Rhiphæan
Mountains. They settled in Golgutha, where they dwelt two hundred years.
Brath, son of Deagath, then left Gaethligh for the islands of the Muir
Torrian or Mediterranean, and by Crete and Sicily to Spain. His son,
Breogan, conquered Spain, and founded Brigantia, or the tower of
Breogan. His son, Ith, discovered Erin, and landed at Bentracht or Magh
Ith in Leinster, and died at Slemnaibh (unknown). The six sons of
Miledh—Donn, Colptha, Amergin, Ir, Eber, and Erimon, with Luguid, son of
Ith, came to revenge his death with four-and-twenty plebeians to attend
them—two on each chief. Cruithne, son of Cing, took their women from
them, except Tea, the wife of Eireamon. They fought Banba with her hosts
at Sliabh Mis, Fodhla at Ebhlinne, and Eire at Uisneach. The Tuatha Dea
sent them forth, according to the laws of war, over nine waves. Eireamon
went with one half of the host to Inbhercolphtha; Donn with the other
half to Inbhersceine, but himself died at sea. They spread themselves
through Erin to her coasts, and made alliance with the Firbolg and the
clan of Nemid, their wives having been stolen from them. They made
alliance with the Tuatha Dea, and half the land was given to them.
Eireamon took the north as the inheritance of his race. Eber took the
south. Lugaidh, son of Ith, possessed certain districts, and Erin is
full of the race of Ir.’ Such is a short abstract of this curious poem.
The Milesians are here represented not as driving out the previous
inhabitants, but as making alliance with them, and obtaining wives from
the Tuatha De Danaan, their own wives having been taken from them by the
Cruithnigh.
Another version of this form of the legend of the Cruithnigh, is that
‘Cruithnechan, son of Cinge, son of Lochit, went from the sons of Miledh
to the Britons of Fortrenn, to fight against the Saxons, and remained
with them. But they had no wives, for the women of Alban had died. They
then went back to the sons of Miledh, and swore by heaven and earth, and
the sun and the moon, and by the dew and the elements, and by the sea
and the land, that the regal succession should be on the mother’s side,
and they took twelve of the women whose husbands had been drowned with
Donn.’[199]
In the form which these legends of the colonisation of Ireland assume in
the Book of Conquests there are five successive colonies, but the first
two, those of Partholan and Nemhidh, are separated from each other and
from the latter by long internals, while the last three, beginning with
the Firbolg, are continuous, each succeeding the other without interval.
The older form, as contained in Maelmurra’s poem, knows nothing of
Partholan and his colony, names the Firbolg first, and appears to
identify the Clanna Nemidh with the Tuatha Dea.[200] An unfortunate
resemblance between the name of the Firbolg and Cæsar’s Belgæ has led
most writers to assume that they were the same people, to the great
confusion of the early history of Ireland. There is nothing in the
legend—and what we are told of the Firbolg is simply legendary—to
warrant this, and the interpretation there given to the names Firbolg
and Firdomnan harmonises very singularly with the legendary accounts of
the tin-workers of Cornwall and the tin islands. It is not difficult to
recognise in the tradition that the Firbolg derived their name from the
leathern sacks which they filled with soil, and with which they covered
their boats, and the Firdomnan from the pits they dug, the people who
worked the tin by digging in the soil and transporting it in bags in
their hide-covered boats. The traditions too of the physical
characteristics of these early colonists of Ireland lead to the same
conclusion. It is thus quoted in the preface to M‘Firbis’s Book of
Genealogies: ‘Every one who is white [of skin], brown [of hair], bold,
honourable, daring, prosperous, bountiful in the bestowal of property,
wealth, and rings, and who is not afraid of battle or combat, they are
the descendants of the sons of Miledh in Erinn. Every one who is
fair-haired, vengeful, large; and every plunderer; every musical person;
the professor of musical and entertaining performances; who are adepts
in all Druidical and magical arts; they are the descendants of the
Tuatha De Danaan in Erinn. Every one who is black-haired, who is a
tattler, guileful, tale-telling, noisy, contemptible; every wretched,
mean, strolling, unsteady, harsh, and inhospitable person; every slave,
every mean thief, every churl, every one who loves not to listen to
music and entertainment, the disturbers of every council and every
assembly, and the promoters of discord among the people, these are the
descendants of the Firbolg, the Fir Gailian of Liogairné, and of the
Firdomnan in Erinn. But, however, the descendants of the Firbolgs are
the most numerous of all these. This is taken from an old book.’[201]
That there were two distinct types of people in ancient Ireland—‘one a
high-statured, golden-coloured or red-haired, fair-skinned, and blue or
grey-blue-eyed race; the other a dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-skinned,
small or medium statured, little-limbed race,’[202]—is very certain, and
the traditionary account of the characteristics of the Firbolg
identifies them with the latter, and with the lowest type of the Irish
people. They belong to the same class with the Silures, and may be held
to represent the Iberian race which preceded the Celtic. Of the
fair-skinned race the Tuatha De Danaan correspond in character with
Tacitus’s large-limbed and red-haired Caledonians, and the brown-haired
Milesians or Scots present a less Germanic type.[203]
In this legend of the sons of Miledh, too, we can recognise the
appearance of the second form in which such traditions usually embody
themselves—that of the ethnologic family. Miledh was descended from
Gaedhel Glass, the ‘eponymus’ of the Gaedhelic race. He was son of
Scota, who was also wife of Miledh, and represented Ireland under its
name of Scotia. His three sons, Heber, Heremon, and Ir, along with Ith,
son of Breogan, from whom the population of Ireland which succeeded the
Tuatha De Danaan is brought, represent the different races of which it
was composed. Bede distinguishes the Scots as divided into northern and
southern Scots.[204] The former are represented by Heremon, the latter
by Heber, who divided Ireland between them.[205] The descendants of Ir,
to whom Ulster was assigned, are the Cruithnigh, who were its
inhabitants till confined by the Scots to Dalaradia. The small tribes of
Ith, son of Breogan, who inhabited a district in the south-west of
Ireland, are the people whom Ptolemy calls Brigantes and places there.
The sons of Miledh are said, in the Annals of the Four Masters, to have
arrived in Ireland in the age of the world 3500, which, according to
their computation, corresponds with the year 1694 before Christ; and in
the following year Eremhon and Emher, or Heremon and Heber, are said to
have assumed the joint sovereignty of Ireland and divided it into two
parts between them. Then follows an artificially-constructed history, in
which the name of each successive king, with the length of his reign,
the son of Miledh from whom he was descended, and the battles he fought,
are given with the same minuteness of detail throughout, until we find
ourselves at length within what may be termed the historic period of
Irish history.[206]
It would be out of place here to enter into a critical analysis of these
annals, or to discuss further the ethnology of Ireland, except in so far
as it may tend to throw light upon that of Scotland; but it may so far
elucidate the legends which follow if we notice shortly what they tell
us regarding the descendants of Ir, to whom Ulster was assigned in the
distribution of the provinces of Ireland. About four centuries after the
arrival of the sons of Miledh the Annals place seven kings of the race
of Ir in succession upon the throne of Ireland. These are Ollamh Fodhla,
who is said to have established the Feis Teamhrach, or great annual
feast, at Tara, and to have appointed a Toshech over every cantred, and
a Brughaidh, or farmer, over every townland. He was called Ollamh Fodhla
because he had been first a learned Ollamh, or chief poet, and
afterwards king of Fodhla, or Ireland. He was followed by his son
Finachta, so named because snow (Snechta) fell with the taste of wine
(Fiona); and he by another son, Slanoll; and he by a third son, Gede
Ollgothach; and he by Fiacha, son of Finnachta; and Fiacha by Bearnghal,
son of Gede Ollgothach; and Bearnghal by Olioll, son of Slanoll, when
the government of Tara was wrested from the Ultu or race of Ir. The
oldest of the annalists, Tighernac, commences his annals in the year 305
before Christ, with Cimbaoch, son of Fintain, of this race, who reigned
at Eaman or Eamania eighteen years; and adds this significant sentence,
‘All records of the Scots before Cimbaoch are uncertain.’[207] From
Cimbaoch, Tighernac gives a succession of Irian kings reigning at
Eamania down to Fiacha Araidhe, who was slain in battle in the year 248
by the Heremonian kings of Tara and Leinster. His people are called by
Tighernac Cruithniu, and from him Dalaraidhe, or Dalaradia, takes its
name. In 254 he mentions that some of the Ultonians were driven by the
king of Ireland to Manann;[208] and in 332 he records the battle of
Achadh Leithdearg, in Fernmuigh, in which Fergus Foga, the last king of
Eamania, was slain by the three Collas of the line of Heremon, who, says
Tighernac, ‘afterwards destroyed Eamhian Macha or Eamania, and the
Ultonians did not dwell in it from thenceforth, and they took from them
their kingdom from Loch Neagh westward,’ which became known as
Airgialla, now Oriel. The Irians were from this time confined to the
district of Dalaradia, and now appear under the name of Cruithnigh.
An old form of the Irish legend contained in the Acts of Saint Cadroë,
compiled in the eleventh century, corroborates this account to some
extent. According to this legend, the Scots were Greeks from the town of
Chorischon upon the river Pactolus, which separates Choria from Lydia.
Having obtained ships, they went by Pathmos, Abidos, and the islands of
the Hellespont, to Upper Thrace, and being joined by the people of
Pergamus, and the Lacedæmonians, they are driven by the north wind past
Ephesus, the island of Melos, and the Cyclades, to Crete, and thence by
the African sea they enter the Illyrian gulf. Then by the Balearic Isles
they pass Spain, and through the Columns of Hercules to remote Tyle, and
finally land at Cruachan Feli in Ireland. On landing and exploring the
country, they discover the nation of the Picts.[209] They then attack
and defeat the inhabitants of Cloin, an ancient city on the Shannon. The
Chorischii then, seeing the land flowing with milk and honey, attack the
islanders, and take possession of Arlmacha, their metropolis, and the
whole land between Loch Erne and Ethioch. This is clearly the same event
as the taking of Eamania by the three Collas, and their precursors in
the country are here called the nation of the Picts. They then take
Kildare and Cork, a city of Munster, besiege and enter Bangor, a city of
Ulster. After many years, passing over the sea, they occupy the Euean
island, now called Iona, and crossing the contiguous sea enter the
region of Rossia by the river Rosis, and take possession of the towns
Rigmonath and Bellethor,[210] situated at a distance from it, and thus
the whole country, called after their own name Chorischia, they now
called Scotia[211] after the wife of a certain son of Æneas the
Lacedæmonian,[212] called Nelus or Niulus, who was their chief, and
obtained an Egyptian wife, Scota, and in her language, having lost their
own mother-tongue, and in course of years became converted to
Christianity by St. Patrick. This legend, in a great measure, appears to
refer to ecclesiastical foundations.
[Sidenote: Dalriadic legend.]
The only legend which we can connect directly with the Scots who settled
in Britain, and formed the small kingdom of Dalriada in the West
Highlands, is that contained in the poem of the eleventh century,
usually termed the Albanic Duan. It records the successive possessors of
Alban, and states that the first who possessed it was Albanus, son of
Isacon, and brother of Briutus, and that from him Alban of Ships has its
name. He was banished by his brother across the Muir n-Icht, or Straits
of Dover, and Briutus possessed it as far as the promontory of Fotudain.
Long after Briutus the Clanna Neimhidh or Nemedians possessed it. The
Cruithnigh then came from Ireland and possessed it. Seventy kings, from
Cathluan, the first king, to Constantine, the last, possessed the
Cruithnian plain. They were followed by the three sons of Erc, son of
Eochaidh, the children of Conaire, the chosen of the strong Gael, three
who obtained the blessing of St. Patrick, who took Alban after great
wars. The rest of this poem belongs to history.
This legend combines the British with the Irish forms. We have Briutus
and Albanus, sons of Isacon, as in the ethnologic family given by
Nennius, the ‘eponymi’ of the Britanni and Albani, and the latter
representing the first inhabitants of the north. The Nemedian colony is
obviously that part of the Irish legend in which one body of the
descendants of Nemedius settled in Dobhar and Iardobhar in North Alban,
out of which the Tuatha De Danaan emerge. The colony of the Cruithnigh
belongs also to the Irish form of the legend, and the settlement of the
sons of Erc is historic, except perhaps in so far as in this poem Loarn
is made to precede Fergus as the first king of Dalriadic Alban.[213]
There is no appearance here of the Firbolg, but they are made in the
Irish legend to precede the Picts in the Western Isles.[214]
[Sidenote: Pictish Legends.]
Of the Pictish legends there are still three forms to be noticed. One
which may be called the national legend of the Picts, and belongs
especially to the whole nation which possessed the country north of the
Firths of Forth and Clyde; a second, which is the legend of the Irish
Picts of Dalaradia in Ulster; and a third, connected with the Picts of
Galloway.
For the first and most important legend we must look to the Pictish
Chronicle, a work of the tenth century. There are two editions of it.
One in Latin, but obviously translated from a Gaelic original, and the
other in the Irish Nennius; and the first contains a preface, mainly
taken from the work of Isidore of Seville, in the sixth century, a work
which formed the basis of Nennius’s compilation also. In this preface we
have additional facts told us: first, that the Scots, who are now
corruptly called Hibernienses, were so called, either as Scythians
because they came from Scythia and derive their origin from it, or from
Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who was, it is said, queen of
the Scots. The second is that natives of Scythia were called from their
fair hair Albani, and that from these Albani both Scots and Picts derive
their origin.[215] It then proceeds to tell us that Cruidne, son of
Cinge, was the father of the Picts inhabiting this island, and had seven
sons—Fib, Fidach, Fodla, Fortrenn, Got, Ce, Circinn. The edition in the
Irish Nennius adds to this, ‘And they divided the land into seven
divisions as Columcille says,
Seven children of Cruithne,
Divided Alban into seven divisions:
Cait, Ce, Cirig, a warlike clan;
Fib, Fidach, Fotla, Fortrenn,
and the name of each man is given to their territories.’ Five of these
divisions can still be identified: Fib is Fife, Fotla is Athfoitle, now
corrupted into Atholl; Fortrenn is the district between the rivers Forth
and Tay; Circinn the district of Mearns, a name corrupted from
Maghgirginn, now Kincardineshire; and Cait is Cathenesia, or Caithness.
It is obvious, therefore, that this legend belongs to the Pictish
inhabitants of these seven divisions. The seven sons are then followed
by Gede Ollgothach, whose name is the same as one of the seven kings of
the descendants of Ir, who in the first legend occupied the throne of
Ireland. We then have Oenbecan and Olfinecta; and the Irish edition
tells us that Onbecan, son of Caith, son of Cruthne, took the
sovereignty of the seven divisions, and that Finach was lord of Erin at
that time, and took hostages of the Cruithnigh. He also is one of the
seven Irian kings. After three more names we have Brude bont, and are
told that from him thirty Brudes reigned over Albania and Hibernia or
Alban, and Erin, for a period of 150 years. These Brudes have each a
name attached to them, and the Irish edition tells us that these names
were also names of divisions of the country, and that the account is
taken from the books of the Cruithnigh.[216] It is obvious that this
legend views the Picts of Alban and of Erin as forming one people, and
being in close connection with each other.
The legend of the Irish Picts of Dalaradia has a close bearing upon this
one. It is called ‘Of the descent of the Dalaraidhe,’ and is this.
‘Twice eighteen soldiers of the tribes of Tracia went to the fleet of
the sons of Miledh to Germany, and they took them away with them and
kept them as soldiers. They had no wives, and afterwards took wives of
the race of Miledh; and when they had cleared their swordland among the
Britons, first Magh Fortrenn, and then Maghgirginn, the succession to
the sovereignty was through females. They took with them from Erin
thrice fifty maidens to become mothers of sons, whence Altnaninghean or
the rock of the maidens in Dalaraidhe is called. There were thirty kings
of the Cruithnigh over Erin and Alban, viz. of the Cruithnigh of Alban,
and of Erin, that is the Dalaraidhe. They were from Ollamhan, from
whence comes Mur Ollamhan at Tara, to Fiacha, son of Baedan, who
fettered the hostages of Erin and Alban. Seven kings of the Cruithnigh
of Alban governed Erin at Tara,’ Then follow the seven kings of the race
of Ir, who are said in the Irish legend to have ruled at Tara.[217] The
thirty kings of this legend who ruled over Erin and Alban are surely the
thirty kings who bore the name of Brude in the previous legend, who also
reigned over Erin and Alban during 150 years. In it Finach or
Ollfinachta, who precedes them, is said to have taken hostages of the
Cruithnigh. In this legend the thirty kings are said to have reigned
over Erin and Alban, to Fiacha, son of Baedan, who fettered the hostages
of Erin and Alban. Baedan was a king of Dalaradia, who died in 581, and
Tighernac records in A.D. 602 the battle of Cuile Cail, in which
Fiachaidh, son of Baedan, was victorious; and in 608 the death of
Fiachach, son of Baedan, by the Cruithnigh.[218] These entries relate
surely to the event above recorded, and give us a date between 602 and
608 for the termination of the reign of these thirty kings, and 452 or
458 for its commencement. This event no doubt marks the separation of
the Irish Picts or Cruithnigh of Dalaradia from all connection with the
kingdom of the Picts in Scotland, and their full incorporation into the
Irish monarchy.
The last of the Pictish legends relates to the Picts of Galloway. It is
inserted in the Irish Nennius, and follows the account of the final
departure of the Romans, when the Picts took possession of the districts
extending to the southern wall, and settled there as inhabitants. It is
as follows:[219] ‘After this Sarran assumed the sovereignty of Britain,
and established his power over the Saxons and the Cruithnigh. He married
Erc, daughter of Loarn, king of Alban, but she eloped from him with
Muredach, son of Eogan, son of Niall, to Erin, by whom she had a son
called Murceartach MacErca, afterwards king of Ireland. Sarran then
married her sister Babona, by whom he had four sons, Luirig and Cairnech
and Dallan and Caemlach, and he died after victory and triumph in the
House of Martain.’ By the House of Martain the monastery of Candida
Casa, founded by St. Ninian, and dedicated to St. Martin of Tours, is
evidently meant, which shows that Sarran’s Cruithnigh were the Picts of
Galloway. ‘Luirig succeeded him, and built a fort within the precincts
of the monastery of Cairnech his brother—that is, of Candida Casa—upon
which Cairnech promises Murceartach MacErca, who was at that time with
the king of Breatan, that is Luirig, learning military science, that he
should be king of Erin and Britain for ever, if he could prevent Luirig
from exercising his power against the church. Luirig refusing,
Murceartach kills him, and he and Cairnech take hostages and power in
that land (that is Galloway), and also the sovereignty of Britain and
Cat (Caithness), and Orc (Orkney) and Saxan (Saxonia or Lothian).
Murceartach then takes the wife of Luirig, and has by her four
sons,—Constantine and Gaedel Ficht, from whom descend the lords[220] of
Breatan and the kings of Breatan Cornd, or Cornwall; and Nellan, from
whom the race of Nellan, and Scandal, from whom the race of Scandal. It
is in Erin the descendants of the two last are.’ It is unnecessary to
follow the legend further. The kings of Cornwall and the knights of
Bretan are here said to be descended from Constantine and Gaedel Ficht.
Constantine is no doubt the legendary king of Cornwall, who is said to
have become a Christian missionary, and preached to the Scots and Picts,
and the latter is obviously the ‘eponymus’ of the Picts of Galloway,
from whom their lords, here called ‘Ruirig Bretan,’ are descended.
[Sidenote: Saxon legends.]
Such being the legendary matter connected with the Picts and Scots,
which appears to contain their popular traditions as to their origin, it
remains to add those which tell us of the original home of the Saxons
who settled in Britain. Bede says that the nation of the Angles or
Saxons who settled in Britain consisted of three peoples of Germany:—The
Jutes, from whom sprang the people of Kent and the Isle of Wight; the
Saxons, from whom came the East, Middle, and West Saxons—that is, those
of Essex, Middlesex, and Wessex; and the Angles, from whom came the East
and Mid Angles, the Mercians, and the whole race of the
Northumbrians—that is, all those nations of the Angles which inhabited
the country north of the Humber. He states that the original settlements
of these three races were in the Cimbric Chersonese, that the Saxons
came from Old Saxony, which seems to have been nearly modern Holstein;
the Angles from that country called ‘Angulus,’ which in his day was
nearly deserted, by which the present province of Angeln in Sleswick is
probably meant; and the Jutes north of them, the Angles being between
them and the Saxons. Whether in this Bede is reporting a tradition of
the people themselves, or whether it is merely a speculation of his own,
he does not tell us.[221] Nennius brings the Saxons from Germania
generally;[222] but in the genealogies annexed to his work, which are
not much later than the period when Bede wrote, he deduces the pedigrees
of the kings of Kent, East Anglia, Mercia, Deira, and Bernicia from four
brothers, sons of Woden; so that he seems to have considered these five
nations, being Bede’s Jutes and Angles, as forming one people, whose
successive arrivals he describes, under the name of Saxons,[223] while
he omits Bede’s three nations of East, Middle, and West Saxons, who did
not arrive in the island till the end of the fifth and the beginning of
the sixth century, thus confining his account to those who arrived in
the early part of the fifth century. The description which Bede gives of
the country from which the Saxons came does not correspond with what we
learn of its early history from other sources. The first people whom we
read of as inhabiting the Cimbric Chersonese were the Cimbri, the
Teutones, and the Ambrones, who assailed the Roman Empire about a
century before Christ. The name of Teutones appears to have passed
through several forms into that of Juthæ or Jutæ, and the Ambrones seem
to be the same people whom Ptolemy places in the southern part of the
peninsula, now Holstein, and calls Saxones, and to whom he also gives
three islands, now Northstrand, Busen, and Heligoland.[224] The Angles
Ptolemy places on the west bank of the river Elbe, somewhat more to the
south, in what is now the Duchy of Magdeburg.[225]
The name of Saxones, however, in the third century, no longer designated
a single nation, but had a much wider signification, and was applied to
a confederacy of the nations extending along the north coast from the
Elbe to the Ems, if not the Rhine. These were the Cauci, Cherusci, and
Angrivarii. Between the Ems and Rhine were the Frisii or Frisones. From
the Ems to the Elbe were the Cauci; and south of them were the Cherusci
and Angrivarii, about the Weser; and on the west bank of the Elbe the
Teutones and the Angles. It is in this wider sense that the name of
Saxons was applied to those people who harassed the coast of Britain in
the concluding half-century of the Roman province. It is to the people
inhabiting this country that the name of Old Saxons was applied, to
distinguish them from the Saxons in Britain. Beyond the Elbe were the
original Saxons, and mixed with both were Frisians—one body extending
along the coast from the Ems to the Weser, and another beyond the Saxons
in Sleswick, where Bede places his Jutes. The islands, too, which
Ptolemy called the islands of the Saxons, and which lay off the west
coast of the Cimbrian Chersonese, appear afterwards as Frisian Islands.
Whether this was an actual mixture of Frisians with the Saxons, or a
mere extension of the name to a part of the Saxons, it is difficult to
determine;[226] but although a small district in the east of Sleswick,
extending from the Schley to Flensburg, bore the name of Angeln, there
is no record of any people called Angli having ever occupied it. They
are placed on the west bank of the Elbe behind the Cauci, and their name
too probably spread much beyond its original limits.[227] Of the Saxons
who settled in Britain prior to the year 441, the colony which occupied
the northern district about the Roman wall were probably Frisians, as
the Firth of Forth is termed by Nennius the Frisian Sea, and a part of
its northern shore was known as the Frisian Shore, but the great bulk of
the immigrants were Angli. Bede gives us the expression of ‘the nation
of the Angles’ for the whole Saxon people. Augustine’s mission to Kent
was a mission to the Angles. The church he founded there was the church
of the Angles. The name of Anglia was, however, unknown to Bede; and in
his Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth he quotes a letter written by
Huaetberctus, abbot of the monastery of Wearmouth, to Pope Gregory in
716, in which he says his monastery was in ‘Saxonia.’[228] The name of
Saxons, applied in a general way to those who settled in Britain prior
to 441, seems therefore to have been used in its geographical sense.
Procopius was probably right in saying that they consisted of Frisians
and Angles.[229] The tribes who arrived much later, and founded the
petty kingdoms of the East, West, and South Saxons, probably alone
belonged to the Saxons proper. The bulk of the natives consisted of the
Angli, and their national name soon superseded the general appellation
of Saxons, though the geographical term ‘Saxonia’ still remained
attached to the most northern part of their territory.
[Sidenote: Languages of Britain.]
Having thus analysed the legends of the four races, it becomes
necessary, before we attempt to draw any deductions from them, to
inquire into the relation of their languages to each other. Bede gives
us a list of the languages used in Britain in his day. He tells us that
at that time in Britain the knowledge of the same divine truth and true
sublimity was confessed and studied in the languages of five
nations—viz., that of the Angles, the Britons, the Scots, the Picts, and
the Latins, which latter language, from the study of the Scriptures, has
become common to all.[230] None of these languages, of course, represent
that of the Iberians. For it we must look to the south of France and
Spain, where the Euskara, or Basque, appears to represent it. It is a
peculiar language, and has no relation to any of the languages belonging
to the Arian family. Putting it and the Latin aside, we have here the
languages of the four nations, the Angles, Britons, Scots, and Picts,
who succeeded the Iberians, and whose legends we have just analysed,
distinguished from each other. There can be no doubt of the race and
language to which the first three belonged. We have the remains of their
languages still spoken among us, and each possesses a literature which
enables us to trace the progress of the language from its older forms to
the present day.
[Sidenote: Anglic language.]
The language of the Angles was a Low German dialect, resembling most
nearly the Frisian; and in its earlier form consisted of three
varieties, the southern, midland, and northern English.
[Sidenote: British language.]
The language of the Britons is still spoken in Wales, but not now in
Cornwall, though it lingered there till the middle of last century. We
possess, however, written remains of the Cornish language, sufficient to
show that the Cornish and Welsh form two varieties of the British
language in the island, differing but slightly from each other, and
showing a dialectic difference somewhat resembling that between Low and
High German.
[Sidenote: Language of the Scots.]
The language of the Scots was undoubtedly the Irish language still
spoken there, and which is identic with the Gaelic of the Scotch
Highlands and the Manx of the Isle of Man. They form indeed but one
language, which may be called Gaelic, and show no greater variety among
each other than those which characterise the vernacular speech of
different provinces of the same nation.
These two languages—the British and Scottish—belong to the same family,
and are usually, for convenience sake, classed together as forming the
Celtic language of the British Isles; but the difference between them is
marked and wide, and they must be viewed as two distinct branches of the
Celtic language, possessing vital peculiarities of form and structure
which distinguish them from each other, and the people by whom they were
spoken, as forming two distinct races—cognate, indeed, as belonging to
the same Celtic family, but clearly separated by national and linguistic
differences. These two races are known in Irish as Breatan and Gaedheal,
and in Welsh as Brython or Cymry and Gwyddyl. To the one belong the
Welsh and the people of Cornwall and Bretagne, speaking three different
dialectic varieties of the same language. To the other belong the Irish,
the Scotch Highlanders, and the Manx, who all call their language
Gaelic.
[Sidenote: The Pictish language.]
In the attempt we are about to make to assign to the Picts their proper
place among these races, we shall, as the most convenient nomenclature,
call the two great divisions of the Celtic language, British and
Gadhelic; and the three varieties of the first, Welsh, Cornish, and
Breton; and of the second, Irish, Scotch Gaelic, and Manx. Those Pictish
words which obviously belong to either we shall class with them; but
where they are peculiar to the Picts, and yet have the characteristics
of Gadhelic, we shall term them Pictish Gaelic. The position of the
Pictish language differs from that of the others in this respect, that
we cannot point to any spoken language in the island which can be held
to represent it as a distinctive dialect, unless we could suppose it to
have merged in one or other of the spoken languages of the island.[231]
But here we are met at once by a difficulty. If Bede, by calling these
five distinct languages, meant to convey the fact that they were so
different from each other as to constitute separate tongues, then the
Pictish could not have belonged to the same family with any of the
others. It could not have been a German dialect, because it is
distinguished from the language of the Angles. It could not, on the same
ground, have been British, nor could it have been Irish or Scotch
Gaelic; but Bede’s language does not warrant so broad a conclusion as
this. He does not say that the Divine truth was studied in five
different languages, but in the languages of five nations. It implies
that the nations were distinct from each other, in so far as they formed
separate kingdoms, and that the Scriptures were studied in the language
of each. The differences between them may have been great, or they may
have been mere varieties of the same language, so far as any inference
from Bede’s language is concerned. It might very well be said in a Bible
Society report that the Scriptures were translated into French, German,
Dutch, Danish, and Swedish. Here French is as different from German as
Latin from Anglic; but Dutch is a Low German dialect, and resembles the
Low German more nearly than High German does; and Danish and Swedish are
quite as near to each other. The question then to be solved is, Where
are we to place the Pictish language? Is it a Celtic or a Teutonic
dialect? and if either, was it the same with any of the known spoken
dialects, or in what respect did it differ? The answer to these
questions will in a great measure show to what race they belonged.
The argument for the Pictish being a Teutonic language is mainly
historic, and is at first sight very plausible. It may be thus shortly
stated:—Tacitus says that the Caledonians had a German origin. The Picts
were the same people as the Caledonians. The Welsh Triads say that the
Picts came from Llychlyn, which is Scandinavia. The Picts occupied the
Lowlands of Scotland, and broad Scotch is the language of the Lowlands.
It is a Teutonic dialect, and no other language can be traced as ever
having been spoken in the same districts which the Picts had
occupied.[232] Such an argument as this could only have been stated with
any plausibility before the science of comparative philology existed. If
the Picts were the same as the Caledonians of Tacitus, of which there is
indeed no doubt, and if they were a Teutonic people, they must have left
their original country and settled in Caledonia prior to the first
century. A separation from the original stock for so many centuries must
infallibly have led to a great divergence in the language, and their
Teutonic speech must have presented marked dialectic differences from
that of the rest of the race from which they sprang. The broad Scotch,
however, of the Lowlands was absolutely identic with the northern
English, a variety of the Saxon, or rather Anglic, which prevailed north
of the Humber. Nor is it correct to say that this language was spoken in
all the districts occupied by the Picts, for they included in their
territories the North Highlands, where the spoken language has been,
equally far back, the Scotch Gaelic. Further, Tacitus infers a German
origin for the inhabitants of Caledonia, not from their language, but
from their physical characteristics—the large limbs and the red hair;
and it is now quite established that there was no essential diversity in
this respect between the German and the Celtic races viewed as a whole.
The Welsh Triads which contain the passage referred to may now be
regarded as spurious.
Are there, then, any historic grounds which would lead us, irrespective
of philological considerations, to consider the Picts as belonging
either to the Welsh or to the Gaelic race? The only answer that can be
made to this is, that there is almost a concurrent testimony of the
Celtic inhabitants of Britain to the Picts having belonged to that
branch of the race which the Welsh called Gwyddyl, and the Irish
Gaedheal. Throughout the whole of the Welsh documents the Picts are
usually denominated Gwyddyl Ffichti, while the Irish are simply termed
Gwyddyl. Although this word Gwyddyl is generally used to designate a
native of Ireland, and is so translated, this is its modern usage only;
and it is impossible to examine the older Welsh documents without seeing
that it was originally the designation of the Gadhelic race wherever
situated, and the Picts are thus clearly assigned to it.[233] This is
quite in accordance with what may be called the statement by the Picts
themselves. The two races of Cymry or Brython and Gwyddyl are symbolised
in the ethnologic family by the two brothers, Brittus and Albanus, from
whom descend the Britanni and Albani; and the Pictish Chronicle, which
may be viewed as their national record, states that the Scots and Picts
were two branches of the Albani. The race of the Picts were not,
however, confined to Britain. They originally extended over the whole of
the north of Ireland, and though eventually confined to the territory on
the east of Ulster called Dalnaraidhe, or Dalaradia, they remained there
as a separate people under the name of Cruithnigh till a comparatively
late period. Down to the beginning of the seventh century they formed,
with the Picts of Scotland, one nation; but during the whole period of
their separate existence the Irish Annals do not contain a hint that
they spoke a language different from the rest of Ireland; and in the
Irish ethnologic family they are made the descendants of Ir, one of the
sons of Milesius, whose descent is derived from Gaethel Glas, the
‘eponymus’ of the Gaelic race.[234]
It is true that Adamnan tells us that St. Columba used an interpreter in
his intercourse with the northern Picts, whom he converted in the sixth
century, but this is usually stated much too broadly. Adamnan describes
St. Columba as conversing freely with Brude, king of the Picts, with
Broichan, his Magus or Druid, and with the king’s messengers, without
the intervention of an interpreter.[235] On two occasions only does he
mention that an interpreter was required; and on both occasions it is
connected with his preaching the Word of Life.[236]
There is no point on which so much misconception exists as that of the
precise amount of divergence between two languages necessary to prevent
those speaking them from understanding each other. It is frequently
asserted that a Welshman can understand an Irishman, and conversely; and
it is invariably assumed that the three dialects of British—the Welsh,
Cornish, and Breton—are mutually intelligible. But this is not the case,
and, in point of fact, a very small difference is sufficient to affect
the mutual intelligibility. A mere change in the vowel sounds, with a
difference in the position of the accent, although the vocabulary might
be absolutely the same, would be sufficient to render mutual intercourse
difficult; and, although one might make a shift to follow a
conversation, or a few sentences of simple import might be understood,
no very great dialectic difference would be required to make a formal
address unintelligible.[237] Saint Columba was an educated man,
possessing all the learning of the age, and had to instruct a rude and
unlettered people whose vernacular idiom would vary in different parts
of the country from the cultivated language of a Christian ecclesiastic.
He seems to have had no difficulty with the king and those about him;
but of the two occasions when he is recorded to have used an
interpreter, one was when an old Pictish chief called Artbrannan arrived
by sea to meet him in the island of Skye, and therefore probably came
from some remote island or place still farther north where the
vernacular speech may have had a greater amount of difference from that
which Saint Columba used; and it may be remarked that the island
apparently furnished the interpreter, and its inhabitants undoubtedly
spoke a Gaelic dialect, as they called the spring where Artbrannan was
baptized ‘Dobur Artbrannan.’[238] The other case was when Saint Columba
preached the Word of Life to a peasant somewhere in the province of the
Picts;[239] and it may be added that when he preached the Word of Life
to an old man in the Vale of Urquhart, who was apparently of a higher
class, and lived not far from the headquarters of the Picts, no
interpreter appears to have been required.[240] Giving, therefore, the
fullest weight to this consideration, it amounts to no more than this,
that the difference between Pictish and Irish may not have been greater
than that between Breton or Cornish and Welsh.
Legend again comes in to help us here. The tale that the Picts or
Cruithnigh were a colony of soldiers, who had no wives, and that they
obtained wives from the Irish settlers by force or by agreement, has
undoubtedly a linguistic meaning. All legends are, in fact, attempts to
convey a popular explanation of some social or ethnologic peculiarity,
the origin of which is lost while the form survives; and when the
explanation of one feature has assumed the form that a part of the
native population had been a foreign colony from a different country,
then the fact of their speaking a native tongue was attempted to be
explained by supposing that they had married wives of the native race.
This idea is based upon the conception that children learn their
language from their mothers, and is conveyed in the popular expression
of ‘the mother tongue,’ Thus, in relating the legendary settlement of
the Britons in Armorica, Nennius, in order to explain how the settlers
retained their own language, has this addition in some copies—‘Having
received the wives and daughters (of the Armoricans) in marriage, they
cut out their tongues lest their children should learn the mother
tongue’[241] In the older form of the Irish legend, the race of Miledh,
who are brought from Scythia, are said on their settlement in Ireland to
have married wives of the Tuatha De Danaan, whom they found in the
country. In that contained in the Life of St. Cadroë the country is
named by Nel or Niul, in the language of his wife Scota, his own having
been corrupted. As soon, therefore, as the idea was formed that the
Picts of Scotland and Ireland were not the old inhabitants of the
country, but a foreign colony who settled among them, if their language
was at all akin to that of the native population, the popular
explanation must at once have arisen that they had married wives of the
native race, from whom they learned their language; and in the case of
the Picts of Scotland this would appear the more probable from a kind of
female succession to the throne having prevailed among them. In the
British form of the tradition they apply to the Britons for wives, and
are refused, and recommended to apply to the Irish, from whom they
obtain them; and this may imply that there was a British element in the
language of a part of the natives, though that of the main body was
Irish. In the Irish traditions they obtain their wives at once from the
sons of Miledh, who give them the widows of those of the Milesian colony
who were said to have been drowned in the attempt to land. In what may
be viewed as the legend of the Picts themselves, it is confined to that
of the Irish Cruithnigh, and does not appear in those of the Picts of
Scotland. That it was, however, understood as implying that the language
of the Picts was derived from these supposed ancestresses of the race,
seems to be clear enough. The legend is undoubtedly given in Layamon’s
Brut, in order to explain the language of the Picts, which adds—
Through the same women
Who there long dwelt,
The folk began to speak
Ireland’s speech.[242]
And in the chronicle quoted in the Scala Chronica it is said that they
obtained wives from Ireland ‘on condition that their issue should speak
Irish, which language remains to this day in the Highlands among those
who are called Scots.’[243]
The portion of the Pictish people which longest retained the name were
the Picts of Galloway. Completely surrounded by the Britons of
Strathclyde, and isolated from the rest of the Pictish nation, protected
by a mountain barrier on the north, and the sea on the west and south,
and remaining for centuries under the nominal dominion of the Angles of
Northumbria, they maintained an isolated and semi-independent position
in a corner of the island, and appear as a distinct people under the
name of Picts as late as the twelfth century, when they formed one
division of the Scottish army at the battle of the Standard.[244] If any
part of the Pictish people might be expected to retain their peculiar
language and characteristics, it would be the Picts of Galloway; and if
that language had been a Cymric dialect, it must have merged in the
speech of the British population around them. In one of the legends
which seems peculiarly connected with them, Gaedel Ficht or the Gaelic
Pict appears as the ‘eponymus’ of the race; and Buchanan tells us that
in his day, that is, in the reign of Queen Mary, ‘a great part of this
country still uses its ancient language.’[245] What that language was we
learn from a contemporary of Buchanan, William Dunbar the poet, who, in
the ‘Flyting’ between him and Kennedy, taunted his rival with his
extraction from the natives of Galloway and Carrick, and styles him
‘Ersch Katheraine,’ ‘Ersch brybour baird,’ and his poetry as ‘sic
eloquence as they in Erschery use.’ This word ‘Ersch’ was the term
applied at the time to Scotch Gaelic, as when Sir David Lyndesay says—
Had Sanct Jerome bene borne intil Argyle,
Into Irische toung his bukis had done compyle.
And Kennedy retorts upon Dunbar—
Thow luvis nane Erische, elf I understand,
But it sowld be all trew Scottismennis leid;
It wes the gud langage of this land.[246]
We find, therefore, that in this remote district, in which the Picts
remained under their distinctive names as a separate people as late as
the twelfth century, a language considered the ancient language of
Galloway was still spoken as late as the sixteenth century, and that
language was Gaelic.[247]
The question then remains, Are there any fragments of the Pictish
language still preserved upon which we can base a proper philological
inquiry into its place among the languages of Britain? For such an
investigation the materials are slender, but they are not totally
wanting. There are a few Pictish names and words preserved by Adamnan,
Bede, and other writers, and there is the list of Pictish monarchs, both
mythic and historical, preserved in the Pictish Chronicle. This list may
be divided into two parts, the mythic and the historical; but a
comparison of this list with other chronicles leaves little room for
doubt that the proper names throughout the whole are here presented to
us in their Pictish form, and the occasional occurrence of the addition
of epithets to the names aids the inquiry.[248] It is obvious that the
mere comparison of a very few words with the vocabulary of other
languages can do little to help us in this matter, and a list of proper
names still less; but the form of the words affords a very important
means of ascertaining the character of a language. This has been shown
in a very striking manner in the Teutonic dialects, by the operation of
Grimm’s law, and between the Celtic dialects there are also phonetic
differences equally available for such an inquiry. The interchange, for
instance, between Welsh and Gaelic of the labial or dental with the
guttural, and the digamma GW with F, and that between Welsh and Cornish
of T with Z, supplies us with a clue which can be easily applied to the
form of words, however few in number they may be; and, in this point of
view, the proper names likewise afford us a test of the character of the
language. A comparison of Pictish proper names with the Welsh and Irish
shows us that they are all constructed on the same principle, by the
combination of certain syllables as prefixes, with others as affixes, in
different varieties of connection; and where these syllables show the
phonetic differences of the dialects, they furnish as good a means of
comparison as the few words of the language which have been
preserved.[249] In examining these words and proper names, it will be
necessary, however, to endeavour to connect them with that part of the
Pictish nation to which they properly belong. It must not be assumed, at
the outset, that the Picts were strictly and entirely homogeneous, and
there may have been some dialectic differences in the language of
different parts of the same nation. Of a twofold distinction of some
kind, indeed, we find evident indication in their history. We have
already traced this twofold division among the tribes described by
Ptolemy as occupying the country north of the Forth and Clyde, and the
forms of their names do certainly indicate something of the kind. Of the
nine tribes who occupy the western district, the names of six begin with
the guttural or hard C;[250] while of the three great tribes which
extended on the east coast from the Moray Firth to the Firth of Forth,
one name begins with a dental, and the other two with the Roman V, which
represents Gw in Welsh and F in Gaelic.[251] In the third and fourth
centuries we find these same people divided into two nations, which
certainly implies a twofold distinction of some kind. The one appears as
Caledones and Dicaledonæ with the guttural C, and the other, first Mæatæ
and then Vecturiones with the Roman V. So far as we can judge from the
forms of these names, the presumption is, that the western tribes,
characterised by the guttural initial, belonged to the Gaelic race; but
there is nothing in the form of the names beginning with the V to show
to which race they belonged. When we proceed to analyse the list of
proper names contained in the Pictish Chronicle, we find that they
commence with Cruidne, son of Cinge, the ‘eponymus’ of the race. This is
undoubtedly an Irish form from Cruith, form or colour. He has seven
sons, who are said to have given their names to seven provinces. They
are Caith, Ce, Circinn, Fib, Fidach, Fodla, Fortrenn, and we can
identify five of the provinces—Caith representing Caithness, Circinn
Kincardineshire, Fib Fife, Fodla Atholl, Fortrenn the district between
the Forth and the Tay; but in these names we recognise the same
distinction. Three have the initial guttural and four the initial F; the
latter, however, belong equally to the Gaelic race, to which the initial
F is peculiar, and represents the Welsh Gw. The names, too, are Irish in
form. Fidach appears as an Irish name in the Annals of the Four Masters.
Fodla was the epithet of a king of Ireland; it was also the name of a
queen of the Tuatha De Danaan, and was one of the old names of Ireland;
and Fortrenn means in Irish powerful.[252] These seven sons are followed
by three kings, Gede Olgudach, Aenbecan, and Olfinecta. Two of these
names, the first and the last, are the same with two of the seven Irian
kings said to have reigned at Tara, and we are told in one of the
legends that Ainbeccan was son of Caith and ‘Ardrigh’ or sovereign over
the seven divisions while Finachta reigned in Ireland.[253] So far,
then, we find nothing but Irish forms. The next name in the list is
Guidid Gaedbrechach, and this is undoubtedly a Welsh form. In one of the
Irish editions he has the epithet of Breathnach or the Briton.[254] He
is followed by Gest Gwrtich and Wurgest, and these are Cornish forms.
Here, then, we trace the first appearance of a British element. We then
have the statement that thirty Brudes reigned over Hibernia, and Albania
or Erin, and Alban, for 150 years. In the list of the names only
twenty-eight are given, and they fall into two parts—one where each name
of Brude is followed by a monosyllable, and the other where the same
monosyllable has prefixed to it the syllable Wr; and one of the Irish
editions adds that they were not only the names of men, but of divisions
of land. It will be remarked that one half of these monosyllabic names
have the initial guttural, three beginning with C and four with G, and
of the other half, one begins with labial P, and two with F, which seems
to point to a twofold distinction similar to what we have already
noticed. The name Brude belongs to the northern Picts, as the first
historic king of the name is called by Bede king of the provinces of the
Northern Picts, and it may be viewed as an Irish form.[255] After these
Brudes we have a list of twenty-one names, beginning with Gilgide and
ending with Drust, son of Erb, which brings us to the end of the mythic
division. Of these names some are obviously mythic, as appears from the
length of their supposed reigns, and others appear to represent historic
persons. The eighth name in this list is ‘Dectotreic frater Diu’ or
‘Tiu.’ The form of the name is Teutonic, and is the same name as
Theodric. Nennius terms Theodric, son of Ida, Decdric, and there can be
little doubt that he is the king meant. He is called, in the Welsh
poems, Flamddwyn, or the Flame-bearer, and here the brother of Tiu, the
Germanic god of war. This portion of the list would appear, therefore,
to belong to that part of the Pictish people who occupied the eastern
districts up to the southern wall in the year 410, and were subjected by
the Angles of Bernicia, under Hussa and Theodric, the Flame-bearer, the
sons of Ida. The four names which follow have as much a Teutonic as a
Celtic appearance, and may also refer to these Bernician rulers. The
last nine names are, however, certainly Celtic. Ru is one of the thirty
Brudes. Of Gartnaith Loc it is said that four Gartnaidhs came from him;
and we find just four Gartnaidhs in the historic period. One of these,
who succeeded Brude Mac Mailchon, is said to have founded Abernethy, and
the legend of Mazota locates him in Forfarshire,[256] and another bears
the epithet ‘Duiperr,’ which is rendered in another list, ‘Dives’ or the
rich. It is the Irish word ‘Saoibher,’ rich, with the interchange of D
for S.[257] Of the names which follow Gartnaidh, Breth may be either
British or Irish. Uip Oignamet is one of the thirty Brudes;
Canatulachama is an Irish form, and is obviously the Catinolachan, said
in one of the Irish legends to be one of the sons of Cathluan, who led
the Picts to Alban, and one of their champions. Wradech Uecla is
represented in Irish by the name Feradach, and appears to be a Cornish
form, and this brings us to the historic names. We find the same names
here occur repeatedly. These are Drest, Drust, or Drostan nine times,
Talorcan six times, Brude six times, Gartnaidh four times, Nectan three
times, and Cinoid, Galan, Alpin, Ungust, and Wrgust each twice. Of these
names, Drest is an Irish form; the Welsh form being Gorwst or Grwst,
showing the interchange of D and G.[258] Talorcen may be either, though
more probably British. Brude, as we have seen, is an Irish form, and
belongs to the northern Picts. Gartnaidh, Nectan, and Cineoch or Cinoid
are Gaelic forms, and these names may be connected with the southern
Picts. Galan may be either. Alpin is represented by Elffin in Welsh, and
is a British name in a Gaelic form, showing the interchange of Ff and
P,[259] and Ungust and Wrgust are Cornish forms, and belong to the
province called ‘Fortrenn,’ or the districts of Stratherne and
Menteith.[260]
The result then of this analysis is that the earliest part of the list
of Pictish kings is purely Irish or Gaelic in its forms, and that this
Gaelic part belongs to the northern Picts; that another part of the list
shows Gaelic forms, but more removed from the Irish, with a considerable
British element; that this part of the list is more connected with the
southern Picts; that the British element is not Welsh but Cornish, and
belongs to that part of the territories of the southern Picts which lay
between the Tay and the Forth. The explanation probably is that this
district formed part of the territory occupied by the Damnonii, who, as
they bore the same name, were probably of the same race as the Damnonii
of Cornwall; and when a part of this tribe was included in the Roman
province, the northern part beyond the wall which formed the boundary of
the province was incorporated into the Pictish kingdom. They were
probably the ‘Breatnu Fortrein’ or Britons of Fortren of the Irish
legends,[261] and gave kings of its race to the throne; while Scone,
which was their capital during the latter period of the Pictish kingdom,
was exactly on the frontier between the two populations.