Teutonic names, belongs to the Picts who took the eastern districts
between the walls from the British population, and were in turn
subjected by the Angles. The only names in the list which can be
attached to the Picts of Galloway are Drust and Cindaeladh, and these
are Gaelic forms, the latter showing the Gaelic ‘Ceann,’ a head.
Reginald of Durham, who wrote in the latter part of the twelfth century,
reports one word of the Pictish language of Galloway. He tells us that
certain clerics of Kirkcudbright were called in the language of the
Picts, ‘Scollofthes,’ and in the title of the chapter he implies that
the Latin equivalent was ‘Scolasticus.’ This word is in Welsh
‘Yscolheic,’ and in Irish ‘Sgolog.’ This word does not therefore give us
the means of discriminating, though it approaches most nearly to the
Irish form.[262]
[Sidenote: Evidence derived from topography.]
Such being the results which we obtain from an analysis of the lists of
Pictish kings, and an examination of the few Pictish words preserved to
us, the meaning of which we can ascertain, there remains one other
source of information. The topography of the country furnishes us with a
not unimportant element of evidence in endeavouring to ascertain the
character of the languages of the tribes which have possessed it, and
the linguistic family to which they belong, but this test has hitherto
been much too loosely and carelessly applied. It can only be depended
upon, if rightly used, under certain conditions, and controlled by
definite rules of interpretation and comparison.
The oldest names in a country are those which mark its salient physical
features,—the large rivers and mountains, the islands and promontories
jutting into the sea. These usually resist longest the effect of changes
in the population, and the introduction of different languages, and
their primitive names remain attached to them through successive
fluctuations in the speech of the people who surround them; while the
names belonging to the inhabited part of the soil, and places, connected
with the social life of the people, and their industrial occupation,
give way more readily, and are less tenaciously attached to them. The
names of rivers and islands are usually root-words, and sometimes so
archaic that it is difficult to affix a meaning to them. Those of the
mountains and valleys, the townships and homesteads, are more
descriptive, and consist of two words in combination,—one which may be
termed generic and common to the class to which the physical feature
belongs; and the other specific, distinguishing one member of the same
class from another by some peculiarity of form, colour, or situation. In
countries where the topography obviously belongs to the same language
with that spoken by the people who still possess it, though perhaps in
an older stage of the language, it presents little difficulty. It is
only necessary to ascertain the correct orthography of the names, and
apply the key furnished by the language itself in that stage of its
forms to which the words belong. This is the case with the greater part
of Ireland and with the Highlands of Scotland, where the local names
obviously belong to the same Gaelic language which is still the
vernacular speech of its population. It is the case too with Wales,
where the people still speak that form of British to which its
topography belongs; and with Cornwall, where the language was spoken to
the middle of last century; but in that part of the country where the
Saxon, or rather the Anglic, has superseded the Celtic as the language
of the people, the case is different, and great caution must be used in
applying this test. This is the case in the north-eastern Lowlands of
Scotland, and in the whole country south of the Firths of Forth and
Clyde, including Galloway, where the people speak what is usually called
broad Scotch, and is the same with the old Northumbrian English.
There is no difficulty in distinguishing the names which have been
imposed by the Angles themselves, and which have superseded the older
Celtic names. There is one broad distinction between the Anglic and the
Celtic forms. In the latter the generic term precedes the specific, and
in the former it follows it. But in order to ascertain what Celtic races
occupied these districts before they were superseded by the Angles, we
must examine the older stratum of Celtic names which still remain, and
compare them with those of the districts in which the language is still
spoken by the people. The usual mode in which this has been done has
been either to assume that wherever a Celtic name in the one district is
also found in the other, it affords proof that the Celtic people who
occupied the two districts belonged to the same branch of the Celtic
race, or else to take the modern form of the word, and to interpret it
by such words in the different Celtic dialects as appear to come nearest
to it in sound.[263] There is, however, a great fallacy in both methods.
In the first, because there is a very considerable number of words which
are common to both branches of the Celtic language, and this number was
greater formerly than it is now, and the words approached more closely
to each other in form; but some words which were once common to both are
now obsolete in one and preserved in the other, and the form of the same
word has sometimes become differently modified in each so as to have
less resemblance. When the name therefore belongs to this class it
affords no test of difference or similarity of race. There is also in
people belonging to the same race a capricious preference by one of one
synonym, and by the other of another, which shows an apparent difference
of nomenclature when none really exists.[264] The only true test, in a
comparison of this kind, is to limit it to those words, in the form of
which the phonetic differences between the different dialects must be
apparent. The fallacy in the other mode is that when the population of a
country speaks a different language from that to which its topography
belongs, the names of places undergo a process of corruption and change
till the modern form diverges very much from the original word, and in
order to ascertain its true meaning, or to make it the means of
affording a genuine comparison with the topography of those districts
where the language still remains, it is necessary to trace back the word
historically to its oldest form, and interpret it by the language in its
then stage of progress.[265]
In examining, then, the Celtic topography of those districts in which
the people and language have been superseded by the Anglic, we ought
first to look to those names of places which have been preserved by
writers contemporary with the existence of the four kingdoms as separate
states; and before doing so we may remark that in the river and island
names, which are the oldest, there are one or two archaic words which we
may venture to recognise as Iberian or Basque. A common appellation of
rivers is the Celtic word for water. Uisge in Gaelic and Wysg in Welsh
furnish the Esks and Ouses which we find here and there; so do Dobhar in
Gaelic and Dwfr or Dwr in Welsh, as well as Gwy, which signify water,
and give us the Dours and the Wyes. The Basque word for water is Ur, and
analogy would lead us to recognise it in the rivers called Oure, Urr,
Ure, Urie, Orrin, and Ore. The syllable Il, too, enters largely into the
topography of the Basque countries; and the old name for the island of
Isla, which was Ile, and which legend tells us was occupied by Firbolg,
is probably the same word, as are the rivers of that name in Banff and
Forfar, and the Ulie in Sutherland, known to Ptolemy as the ‘Ila.’
Tacitus furnishes us with five names in this part of
Britain—‘Caledonia,’ the ‘Tavaus’ estuary, the ‘Clota’ or Clyde, the
‘Bodotria’ or Firth of Forth, and the ‘Mons Granpius,’ Of these names
two only are genuine survivals to the present day—the ‘Tavaus’ estuary
and that of ‘Clota.’ There is little doubt that the former takes its
name from the Gaelic word ‘Tamh,’ smooth. The Welsh equivalent is Taw,
from which the name of the Welsh river the Tawi is formed.[266] Ptolemy,
besides the ‘Tava,’ ‘Bodotria,’ or‘ ‘Boderia’ as he calls it, and the
‘Clota’ or Clyde, has of the islands the names of which still survive,
‘Maleus’ or Mull, and ‘Scetis’ or Skye; and of the rivers, the ‘Longus,’
which corresponds with the river in Argyllshire called the Add, and in
Gaelic the ‘Abhainn Fhada,’ or long river, the ‘Deva’ or Dee in
Aberdeenshire, the ‘Loxa’ or Lossie, the ‘Celnius’ or Cullen, the ‘Deva’
or Dee in Galloway, and the ‘Tinna’ or Eden in Fife. Of these the Deva
comes more nearly to the Gaelic Dubh, black, than to the Welsh Du.
Gildas, in the sixth century, mentions only the ‘Mons Badonis,’ which,
if it is rightly placed in the north, affords no criterion. In the
following century the geographer of Ravenna gives us a large collection
of local names, many of which are obviously corrupted forms of those in
Ptolemy. Although the exact position of each name is not defined, yet
they are obviously placed in geographical groups, three of which belong
to the region with which we are dealing. One group, consisting of
forty-eight names, is placed between the Roman wall extending from the
Solway to the Tyne, and what the geographer describes as ‘where Britain
is discerned to be most narrow from sea to sea,’[267] by which the
narrow isthmus between the Firths of Forth and Clyde is obviously meant,
and includes the stations on the wall; the second with ten names placed
upon this isthmus; and the third with twenty-seven names beyond it. In
the first group we can recognise two Welsh forms in the names placed
together, and next to ‘Carbantium,’ which must be ‘Carbantorigum’ the
town of the Selgovæ, of ‘Tadoriton’ and ‘Maporiton.’[268] In the second
group, we have the sixth name, ‘Medio Nemeton,’ which latter word is
surely the Irish Nemed, a sanctuary.[269] When we enter the third group,
we come at once upon Gaelic forms. The fourth name, ‘Cindocellun,’ is
obviously compounded of the Gaelic ‘Ceann,’ a head, and the name of the
Ochil range. Besides these three groups we have a small group of eight
names termed places, _loca_, by which districts seem to be meant, as the
last four ‘Taba, Manavi, Segloes, and Daunoni’ are obviously the
district about the Tay; Manau or Manann; the district occupied by the
Selgovæ, or Dumfriesshire; and that occupied by the Damnonii, or the
shires of Ayr, Renfrew, and Lanark. There is then a list of rivers in
Britain generally, and another of islands, which need not be adverted
to.
Most of the names furnished by Adamnan in the seventh century belong to
the Western Isles, among which he mentions Ilea, Malea, Egea, and Scia,
and to the territory of the Scots, but a few belong to what he terms the
province of the Picts, and some of these he gives only in their Latin
equivalents.[270] There is the ‘Stagnum Aporicum’ or ‘Aporum,’ in which
we recognise Lochaber. The river of ‘Nesa,’ the lake called ‘Lochdiæ,’
and the district of ‘Ardaibmurcol,’ and bay of ‘Arthcambus,’ are
obviously Gaelic forms. He also mentions the ‘Petra Cloithe,’ or rock of
Cluaith, by which Alcluith is meant. Eddi, who wrote about 720, in his
_Life of Wilfrid_, gives us two names in the district of
Lothian—Coludesburg, now Coldingham; and Dyunbaer, now Dunbar.[271] The
former is Saxon, but the latter unmistakably Gaelic, and must belong to
the Picts, who superseded the British Ottadeni, and formed the
population of that district during the fifth and sixth centuries.
Bede, in the same century, gives us in one chapter of his work an
important group of names. In describing the Firths of Forth and Clyde,
he says that the former has in the middle of it the city of ‘Giudi;’ and
the latter, on the right bank, the city Alcluith, which he says
signifies the ‘petra’ or rock Cluith. Giudi belongs to the Welsh form,
and Ail is the Welsh for a rock. Then, in describing the northern wall,
he says it begins at a place two miles west of the monastery of
‘Aebbercurnig,’ in a place called, in the language of the Picts,
‘Peanfahel,’ but in the language of the Angles ‘Penneltun,’ and
terminates near ‘Alcluith.’[272] The place meant can only be the village
of Walton, which is exactly three English miles from Abercorn. Now these
names belong to that district in which the territories of the four
kingdoms met, and which we have termed the debateable land. Its original
population consisted of a part of the tribes of the Damnonii. It was
overrun by the Picts, and was occupied by Octa’s colony of Frisians or
Angles. We learn from a passage added to Nennius, that the British name
of this place was Penguaul; and, just as we might expect where there is
a mixed population, the Picts adopt the name in the form of Peanfahel,
retaining the Pen but altering the British Gu to the Gadhelic F, while
the Angles, likewise retaining the Pen, omit the Gu and add the Anglic
‘tun,’ a town, at the end. It no more follows from this passage that the
first syllable Pen was a Pictish form than that it was Anglic; and when
in the same passage of Nennius it is said that the Scotch name was
‘Cenail,’ the writer seems to have mistakenly identified the place with
Kinneil, which is three miles farther west and six miles from Abercorn.
Aebbercurnig may be either British or Pictish Gaelic, and Alcluith is,
as we have said, a British form. Bede gives us also a few names in
Lothian. These are the city of Coludi, Mailros, Degsastan, and
Incuneningum. These are all Anglic forms except Mailros, which seems to
belong more to the Gaelic form. The name Incuneningum has been supposed
to mean the district of Cuningham in Ayrshire; but Bede distinctly says
that it was in the region of the Northumbrians, which is quite
inapplicable to any part of Ayrshire, which was in the kingdom of
Strathclyde, and though for a time subjected to the Northumbrians, had
recovered its liberty in 686, while the king of Northumbria is recorded
in 750 to have then only added Cyil and the adjacent regions to his
kingdom. The place meant is more probably Tyninghame in East
Lothian.[273]
The Irish Nennius gives us three words as the three old names of
Ireland—Eire, Fodla, Banba—derived from three queens of the Tuatha De
Danann. According to the legend, however, these Tuatha De Danann came to
Ireland from Alban, or Scotland, where they inhabited a territory called
Dohbar and Iardohbar, obviously of Gaelic form; and in the north-eastern
Lowlands we find these three words entering into the topography. On the
south shore of the Moray Firth we have the river Eren, now the Findhorn,
and Banbh, now Banff. The word Fodla enters into the name of Atholl; and
in Perthshire we have again Banbh, or Banff, and Ereann, now the river
Earn.[274]
Having thus passed rapidly under review the local names reported to us
by these early writers, we come now to deal with the topography of these
districts, as it presents itself in the present day, and to consider
what light we may derive from it as to the race and language of those
who imposed these local names. Here, at the outset, we are met by the
argument which is usually urged and popularly considered to be
conclusive. It may be thus stated in the words of Mr. Isaac
Taylor:—‘Inver and Aber are also useful test words in discriminating
between the two branches of the Celts (the Cymric and the Gaelic).... If
we draw a line across the map from a point a little south of Inveraray
to one a little north of Aberdeen, we shall find that (with very few
exceptions) the Invers lie to the north of the line, and the Abers to
the south of it. This line nearly coincides with the present southern
limit of the Gaelic tongue, and probably also with the ancient division
between the Picts and the Scots.’[275] This would be a plausible view if
it were true, but unfortunately there is no such line of demarcation
between the two words; and though it may be true that it would nearly
coincide with the present southern limit of the Gaelic, it is
historically false that it was the ancient division between the Picts
and the Scots. When we examine, however, the real distribution of these
words, we find it very different from the representation of it given
either by Mr. Kemble or by Mr. Taylor. South of Mr. Taylor’s line there
are in Aberdeenshire thirteen Abers and twenty-six Invers; in
Forfarshire eight Abers and eight Invers; in Perthshire nine Abers and
eight Invers; and in Fifeshire four Abers and nine Invers. Again, on the
north side of this supposed line there are twelve Abers extending across
to the west coast, where they terminate with Abercrossan, now
Applecross, in Rossshire. In Argyllshire alone, which was occupied by
the Dalriadic Scots, there are no Abers. The true picture of the
distribution of these two words north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde
is this—in Argyllshire, Invers alone; in Inverness-shire and Ross-shire,
Invers and Abers in the proportion of three to one and two to one; and
on the south side of the supposed line, Abers and Invers in about equal
proportions. But the distribution south of the Firths must not be
overlooked. It has a material bearing on this question. If these words
afford a test between British and Gadhelic, we might naturally expect to
find as many Abers in what was the Strathclyde kingdom as in Wales; but
there are no Abers in the counties of Selkirk, Peebles, Ayr, Renfrew,
Lanark, Stirling, and Dumbarton, occupied by the Damnonii; four Abers in
Dumfriesshire, and six in Lothian, occupied by the Selgovæ and Ottadeni,
and none in Galloway occupied by the Picts; and when we proceed farther
south we find nothing but Abers in Wales, and no appearance of them in
Cornwall. These words, therefore, afford no test of dialectic
difference, and do not possess those phonetic changes which would enable
us to use them as a test. There were in fact three words used to express
the position of rivers towards each other, or towards the sea—Aber,
Inbher, and Cumber or Cymmer, which were originally common to both
branches of the Celtic language. They obviously come from the same root,
‘Ber,’ and they do not show any phonetic differences. These words are
severally retained in some dialects, and become obsolete in others.[276]
Aber and Inver were both used by the southern Picts, though not quite in
the same way, Inver being generally at the mouth of a river, Aber at the
ford usually some distance from the mouth. Aber has become almost
obsolete in Cornwall, part of Strathclyde, and among the northern Picts,
where we can almost see the process by which it passes over into Apple,
or Obair, in Scotland, and into Apple in Cornwall.[277] In Ireland Inver
seems undergoing a similar process, being once very numerous, but now
reduced to comparatively few names.
The same remarks apply to a group of generic terms which enter largely
into the topography of these districts, and are popularly supposed to be
peculiar to the Welsh, but are in reality common to both dialects, such
as Caer, Llan, Strath, Tor, Glas, Eaglis, and others.
In order to afford a proper test, we must take words which contain the
phonetic interchange of consonants, such as P and C in Pen and Ceann, Gw
and F in Gwyn and Finn, or words that similarly show the dialectic
differences. Mr. Taylor attempts to apply this test. He says, ‘In
Argyllshire and the northern parts of Scotland the Cymric _pen_ is
ordinarily replaced by the _ben_ or _cenn_, the Gaelic forms of the same
word. The distinctive usage of _pen_ and _ben_ enables us to detect the
line of demarcation between the Cymric and Gaelic branches of the Celtic
race. The Gadheli _Cenn_, a head, is another form of the same
word.’[278] Accepting this statement, when we examine the real
distribution of these words it is fatal to the author’s argument. There
is not a single Pen north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, and the
districts occupied by the Picts abound with Bens and Cenns or Kins.[279]
We find, however, in these districts four root-words that are peculiar
to them, and are met with nowhere else. These, therefore, may be
considered as Pictish. The first is Pit, the old form of which is Pette.
It is not to be found in Wales. It appears to signify a portion of land,
and is used synonymously with Both, a dwelling, and Baile, a town.[280]
The other three are Auchter, For, and Fin. Auchter is obviously the
Gaelic ‘Uachter,’ upper, and as such we have it in Ireland. It is not in
Wales. The old forms of For and Fin are Fothuir and Fothen.[281] They do
not occur in Wales, and are obviously Gaelic forms, from the initial
consonant F.
In Galloway there are no Pens. The root Bar enters very largely into its
topography. It is also very common in Argyllshire, and is also to be
found in Ireland. It is the Gaelic Barr, the top or point of a thing. Ar
and Arie also appear frequently in Galloway and Argyllshire. It is the
Gaelic ‘Airidh,’ a hill pasture.
The Celtic topography of these districts thus resembles a palimpsest, in
which an older form is found behind the more modern writing, and the
result of an accurate examination of it leads us to lay down the
following laws:—
1_st_, In order to draw a correct inference from the names of places, as
to the etymological character of the people who imposed them, it is
necessary to obtain the old form of the name before it became corrupted,
and to analyse it according to the philological laws of the language to
which it belongs.
2_d_, A comparison of the generic terms affords the best test for
discriminating between the different dialects to which they belong; and
for this comparison it is necessary to have a correct table of their
geographical distribution.
3_d_, Difference between the generic terms in different parts of the
country may arise from their belonging to a different stage of the same
language, or from a capricious selection of different synonyms by
separate tribes of the same race.
4_th_, In order to afford a genuine test for discriminating between
dialects, the generic terms must contain within them those sounds which
are differently affected by the phonetic laws of each dialect; and
5_th_, Applying these laws, the generic terms do not show the existence
of a Cymric language in the districts occupied by the Picts.[282]
-----
Footnote 184:
See _Critiques and Addresses_ by Thomas Henry Huxley, LL.D., 1873, p.
167. As the author substantially adopts Professor Huxley’s
conclusions, he thinks it unnecessary to enter into the grounds on
which they are based.
Footnote 185:
Diod. Sic., Lib. ii. cc. 21, 22, 38. The reasons for supposing the
Cassiterides to be the Scilly Islands are thus stated in Camden’s
_Britannia_: They are opposite to the Artabri in Spain; they bend
directly to the north from them; they lie in the same clime with
Britain; they look towards Celtiberia; the sea is much broader between
them and Spain than between them and Britain; they lie just upon the
Iberian sea; there are only ten of them of any note; and they have
veins of tin which no other isle has in this tract.—Camd. _Brit._ p.
1112, ed. 1695.
Footnote 186:
Strabo, _Geog._ Lib. iii. 4.
Footnote 187:
In Celticis aliquot sunt (insulæ) quas quia plumbo abundant uno omnes
nomine Cassiterides appellant.—_Pomp. Mela._
Ex adverso Celtiberiæ complures sunt insulæ Cassiterides dictæ Græcis
a fertilitate plumbi.—_Plin._
Siluram quoque insulam ab ora, quam gens Britannia Dumnonii tenent,
turbidum fretum distinguit: cujus homines etiamnum custodiunt morem
vetustum: nummum refutant: dant res et accipiunt: mutationibus
necessaria potius, quam pretiis parant: Deos percolunt: scientiam
futurorum pariter viri ac feminæ ostentant.—_Solin. Poly._ c. 22.
Cassiterides insulae spectant adversum Celtiberiæ latus: plumbi
fertiles.—_Ib._ c. 23.
Footnote 188:
Αὐτὰρ ὑπ’ ἄκρην
Ἰρὴν ἣν ἐνέπουσι κάρην ἔμεν Εὐρωπείης
Νήσους θ’ Ἑσπερίδας τόθι κασσιτέροιο γενέθλη,
Ἀφνειοὶ ναίουσιν ἀγαυῶν παῖδες Ἰβήρων.
Footnote 189:
Sub hujus autem prominentis vertice
Sinus dehiscit incolis Oestrymnicus,
In quo insulæ sese exserunt Oestrymnides
Laxe jacentes, et metallo divites
Stanni atque plumbi. Multa vis hic gentis est,
Superbus animus, efficax sollertia,
Negotiandi cura jugis omnibus:
Notisque cymbis turbidum late fretum,
Et belluosi gurgitem Oceani secant:
Non hi carinas quippe pinu texere,
Acereve norunt, non abiete, ut usus est,
Curvant faselos; sed rei ad miraculum,
Navigia junctis semper aptant pellibus
Corioque vastum sæpe percurrunt salum.
* * * * *
Tartessiisque in terminos Oestrymnidem
Negotiandi mos erat.
Footnote 190:
Sed summum contra sacram cognomine, dicunt quam Caput Europae, sunt
Stanni pondere plenae Hesperides: populus tenuit quas fortes
Iberi.—_Prisc. Per._
Footnote 191:
_Cave Hunting_, by W. Boyd Dawkins, M.A., 1874, p. 191.
Footnote 192:
See _The Beauties of the Boyne_, by Sir William R. Wilde, 1850, p.
228, for an account of the Irish skulls.
Footnote 193:
_Cave Hunting_, p. 214. For the facts on which these conclusions are
based, reference is made to this work and that of Sir William Wilde.
Footnote 194:
The author does not import anything from the Bards, as it is difficult
to say how far they contain genuine tradition, or have been
manipulated by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The author confines himself as
much as possible to Welsh documents before his time, and the so-called
Historical Triads he rejects as entirely spurious.
Footnote 195:
The Leabhar Gabhala, or Book of Conquests, is, strictly speaking, the
work of Michael O’Clery, one of the compilers of the Annals of the
Four Masters, but it is founded upon older documents, and upon a more
ancient Book of Invasions, a fragment of which is contained in the
Leabhar na Huidhri and the Book of Leinster, and complete editions in
the Books of Ballimote and Leacan. A full account of it will be found
in O’Curry’s _Lectures on the MS. Materials_, p. 168. It is much to be
desired that this ancient tract should be published.
Footnote 196:
This account of these legendary colonies is abridged from Keating, who
takes it from the _Book of Conquests_.
Footnote 197:
_Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, p. 30.
Footnote 198:
See Irish Nennius, p. 221.
Footnote 199:
_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 45.
Footnote 200:
This seems clearly implied. Gillacaoman, in a poem quoted by Colgan,
_A.SS._ p. 198, also identifies the Nemedians with the Tuatha de
Danaan. Two of the three bands of the Nemedians who left Erin,
according to the Book of Conquests, seem obviously the same—the one
under Fergus Leth Derg settling in a district in Alban called Dobhar
and Iardobhar, and the Tuatha De Danaan coming to Erin from the same
district.
Footnote 201:
O’Curry, _Lectures on MS. Materials_, p. 223.
Footnote 202:
O’Curry’s _Lectures on Manners and Customs of Ancient Irish_.
Introduction by Professor Sullivan, p. lxxii.
Footnote 203:
The colony of Partholan seems to have been the same with the Firbolg.
Partolan has three sons—Slainge, Rudhraige, and Laighlinne—and two of
these, Slainge and Rudhraige, are among the leaders of the Firbolg. If
we may consider the following passage from the Welsh Bruts as
containing genuine tradition, they seem to have considered them as
Iberian or Basque: ‘Gwrgant, on his return, as he was passing through
the isles of Orc, came up with thirty ships, which were full of men
and women, and finding them there, he seized their chief, whose name
was Partholym. Hereupon this chief prayed his protection, telling him
that they were called Barclenses, had been driven from Spain, and were
roving on the seas to find a place of settlement, and that he
therefore entreated Gwrgant to grant them permission to abide in some
part of the island, as they had then been at sea for a year and a
half. Gwrgant having thus learned whence they were and what was their
purpose, directed them with his goodwill to go to Ireland, which at
that time lay waste and uninhabited. Thither therefore they went, and
there they settled, and peopled the country, and their descendants are
to this day in Ireland.’
Footnote 204:
B. iii. c. iii. where he distinguishes between ‘Septentrionalis
Scottorum provincia,’ and the ‘Gentes Scottorum, quæ in australibus
Hiberniæ insulæ partibus morabantur.’
Footnote 205:
Heber appears also to have in one view represented the old Iberians of
Munster, with whom, indeed, the name seems connected. Partholan is
said to have divided Ireland into four parts among his four sons, Er,
Orba, Fearran, and Feargna; and Heremon, when he divides Ireland,
gives Munster to Er, Orba, Fearran, and Feargna, the four sons of
Heber. The southern Scottish royal race are brought, however, from
Conmaol, son of Heber.
Footnote 206:
The turning-point appears to be the battle of Ocha, which was fought
in the year 478 by Lughaidh, son of that Laogaire who appears as
king of Ireland in the Acts of St. Patrick;—Murcertach MacErca,
Fiachna, king of Dalaradia, and Crimthan, king of Leinster, against
Olioll Molt, son of Dathi, king of Ireland. It is made an era by
most of the annalists, and undoubtedly was viewed as accomplishing a
revolution which secured the throne of Ireland to the Hy Neill, or
descendants of Niall Mor of the nine hostages. There is also a
marked difference in the annals that precede and follow it, as those
incidents which evidently belong to a mythic period—such as the
death of Dathi by a flash of lightning at the foot of the Alps, and
that of Laogaire by the elements, because he had violated an oath he
had sworn by them—here come to an end. Murcertach MacErca, too, who
followed the short reign of Lugliaidh, was the first Christian
monarch of Ireland. The author considers that the real chronological
history of Ireland begins here, and that the previous annals are an
artificially-constructed history, in which some fragments of genuine
annals, and some historic tales founded on fact, are imbedded in a
mass of tradition, legend, and fable.
Footnote 207:
‘In anno xviii. Ptolemæi, initiatus est regnare in Eamain Cimbaoch
filius Fintain qui regnavit annis xviii. Omnia monumenta Scotorum
usque Cimbaoch incerta erant.’ Eaman was the great capital of Ulster,
now Navan, near Armagh.
Footnote 208:
A.D. 236. Fiacha Araidhe regnat an Eamain An. x. Bellum oc Fothaird
Muirtheimne Mebuig re Cormuic hua Cuind agus re Fiachaig Muillitain
Righ Mumhan fer Cruithniu agus for Fiacha Araidhe.
254 Indarba Ullad a h Erend a Manand re Cormac hua Cond.
Footnote 209:
Igitur ad terram egressi, ut moris est, situm locorum, mores et
habitum hominum explorare, gentem Pictaneorum reperiunt.—_Chron. Picts
and Scots_, p. 108. Colgan considers that by the Gens Pictaneorum the
Tuatha De Danaan are meant.
Footnote 210:
They entered apparently by Loch Broom, and proceeded by the river
which flows from Loch Droma near the head of Loch Broom, through the
valley called the Dearymore, till it falls into the Conan near
Dingwall. It is now called the Blackwater, but was formerly known as
the Raasay. Rigmonath is St. Andrews.
Footnote 211:
Colgan considers that it was Ireland which was formerly called
Chorischia and not Scotia; but as the sentence follows the settlements
in Scotland, it seems more applicable to that country, and elsewhere
in the Acts Scotia is used for Scotland. The word Chorischia is
probably taken from what Tacitus says of the Horesti. The passage is
this: ‘Nec satis, post pelagus Britanniæ contiguum perlegentes, per
Rosim amnem, Rossiam regionem manserunt; Rigmonath quoque Bellethor
urbes, a se procul positas, petentes, possessuri vicerunt; sicque
totam terram suo nomine Chorischiam nominatam, post cujusdam
Lacedemonii Aeneæ filium nomine Nelum seu Niulum, qui princeps eorum
fuerat, et olim Ægyptiam conjugem bello meruerat, nomine Scottam, ex
vocabulo conjugis, patrio sermone depravato, Scotiam vocaverunt.’
Footnote 212:
Æneas the Lacedæmonian is obviously the Fenius Farsadh of the other
legend.
Footnote 213:
The Albanic Duan gives him a reign of ten years, and to Fergus
twenty-seven in place of three. Taking A.D. 501 as the date of
Fergus’s death, this would place the settlement of the Dalriads in
461.
Footnote 214:
There is a native fort in the island of St. Kilda called Dunfhirbolg.
Footnote 215:
Scotti qui nunc corrupte vocantur Hibernienses quasi Sciti, quia a
Scithia regione venerunt et inde originem duxerunt; sive a Scotta
filia Pharaonis regis Egypti, que fuit, ut fertur, regina
Scottorum.—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 3.
Albani de quibus originem duxerunt Scoti et Picti.—_Ib._
Footnote 216:
See _Chron. Picts and Scots_, pp. 4 and 24.
Footnote 217:
_Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, p. 319.
Footnote 218:
602 Cath Cuile Cail in quo Fiachaidh mac Baedan victor erat.
608 Bass Fiachach chraich mic Baedan la Cruithnachu, p. 68.
Footnote 219:
_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 52.
Footnote 220:
The word is _Ruirig_, plural of _Ruire_, a champion, a knight; also
Dominus, a lord.
Footnote 221:
Bede, _Ec. Hist._ B. i. c. xv.
Footnote 222:
Nennius implies in a part of his legend of Hengist and Guorthegirn
that Hengist’s people came ‘de insula Oghgul,’ which is probably
Heligoland.
Footnote 223:
There are two poems which preserve Saxon traditions connected with the
mainland. These are the Battle of Finnesburgh, and Beowulf. Kemble
considers that they were nearly contemporary with the events they
relate, and not far removed from the coming of Hengist and Horsa into
Britain. They describe a war between Hengist, an Eoten and vassal of
the king of Denmark, and Finn, son of Folcwald, king of the Frisians.
Nennius makes Finn, son of Folcgwald, grandfather of his Woden.
Footnote 224:
Zeuss, _Die Deutschen und die Nachbarstämme_, p. 141. Nennius has
‘Omne genus Ambronum, id est Aldsaxonum Saxonum;’ and again, ‘Et
nunquam addiderunt Saxones Ambronem ut a Pictis vectigal exigerent.’
Footnote 225:
Mannert, _Geographie_, iii. 330.
Footnote 226:
Zeuss inclines to the latter view; see _Nachbarstamme_, p. 938.
Footnote 227:
Thus Angrivarii appear also under the form of Angrii, and in the
Notitia as Anglevarii. They were probably the same people with the
Angli.
Footnote 228:
Bede, _Vit. Sanct. Ab. Mon. im Uyramutha_, c. 14.
Footnote 229:
Adam of Bremen (i. 3) says that the Saxons first had their habitations
on the Rhine, and thence passed over to Britain.
Footnote 230:
Hæc in praesenti, juxta numerum librorum quibus Lex Divina scripta
est, quinque gentium linguis, unam eamdemque summæ veritatis et veræ
sublimitatis scientiam scrutatur et confitetur, Anglorum, videlicet,
Brettonum, Scottorum, Pictorum, et Latinorum, quæ meditatione
Scripturarum cæteris omnibus est facta communis.—Bede, _H. E._ B. i.
c. i.
Footnote 231:
Henry of Huntingdon, in repeating Bede’s statement as to the five
languages, adds, ‘Quamvis Picti jam videantur deleti, et lingua eorum
ita omnino destructa, ut jam fabula videatur, quod in veterum scriptis
eorum mentio invenitur.’ This is true of the language if it was
different from the others, but not if it resembled one of them so
closely that one of the spoken languages might equally represent it;
neither is it true of the people, as almost in the very year he makes
this statement he mentions the Picts as forming an entire division in
David the First’s army at the Battle of the Standard.
Footnote 232:
Pinkerton first urged the argument for the Picts being a Teutonic
people, and, with the knowledge then possessed, with much force.
Chalmers is equally clear that they spoke Welsh; but the philological
arguments of both have little value, as the science of comparative
philology was not then known or understood. Mr. Burton has discussed
this question in the first volume of his _History of Scotland_, p.
183, but in a very unsatisfactory way. He has dealt with it as if the
whole materials for deciding the question were contained in the
discussion between Pinkerton and Chalmers, and writers of that period,
and as if nothing remained for him to do but to estimate the value of
their respective arguments. He contributes nothing additional to the
solution of the question.
Footnote 233:
The author does not here adduce the superabundant evidence furnished
by the old Welsh poems, which will be found in _The Four Ancient Books
of Wales_. Neither does he refer to the so-called Historic Triads,
because he considers them spurious; but among the genuine ‘Triads of
Arthur and his Warriors’ (_ib._ vol. ii. p. 457) there is one to this
effect:—‘Three oppressions came to this island, and did not go out of
it. The nation of the Coranyeit, who came in the time of Llud, son of
Beli, and did not go out of it; and the oppression of the Gwyddyl
Ffichti, and they did not again go out of it. The third, the
oppression of the Saxons, and they did not again go out of it.’ Here
the term Gwyddyl Ffichti is clearly applied to the whole Pictish
nation who settled in Britain. The same designation is given to them
by one edition of the Chronicle called the Brut of Tywysogion, which
records, in A.D. 750, ‘the action of Mygedawc, in which the Britons
(Britanyat) conquered the Gwyddyl Ffichti, after a bloody battle’
(_Myv. Ar._ vol. ii. p. 472). This is the same battle which Tighernac
thus gives: ‘A battle between the Pictones and the Britones, viz.,
Talorgan, the son of Fergus, and his brother, and the slaughter of the
Piccardach with him.’—_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 76.
Footnote 234:
The Irish Archæological Society have published (in 1842) the ancient
Historical Tale called the Battle of Magh Rath. This was a battle
fought in 637 between Congal Claen, king of Uladh, the head of the
Cruithnigh of Ulster, with the assistance of the Scotch Dalriads and
other allies from Britain, against the king of Ireland; but throughout
this tale there is not the slightest hint of any diversity of language
between the Cruithnigh and the Scots.
Footnote 235:
Reeves’s _Adamnan_ (ed. 1874), pp. 174-176.
Footnote 236:
Verbo Dei a Sancto per interpretem recepto (B. i. c. 27).
Verbum vitae per interpretatorem sancto praedicante viro (B. ii. c.
33).
Footnote 237:
The Rev. T. Price of Cwmdû, one of the best and soundest of the Welsh
scholars, when he visited Brittany, remarks, ‘Notwithstanding the many
assertions that have been made respecting the natives of Wales and
Brittany being mutually intelligible through the medium of their
respective languages, I do not hesitate to say that the thing is
utterly impossible. Single words in either language will frequently be
found to have corresponding terms of a similar sound in the other, and
occasionally a short sentence deliberately pronounced may be partially
intelligible; but as to holding a conversation, that is totally out of
the question.’—_Price’s Remains_, vol. i. p. 35. And Mr. Norris, the
highest Cornish authority, says, ‘In spite of statements to the
contrary, the writer is of opinion that a Breton within the historical
existence of the two dialects could not have understood a Cornishman
speaking at any length, or on any but the most trivial subjects. He is
himself unable to read a sentence in Armoric of more than half-a-dozen
lines without the help of a dictionary.’—Norris, _Ancient Cornish
Drama_, B. ii. p. 458. O’Donovan says: ‘An Irish scholar would find it
difficult to understand a Manx book without studying the language as a
distinct dialect.’—_Introd. to Irish Grammar_, p. lxxx. An English
Greek scholar cannot follow a conversation in modern Greek, where the
difference consists mainly in the vowel sounds and in the accent. This
quite accords with the author’s own experience. Although familiar with
German from boyhood, and acquainted with most of its provincial
varieties, when he first entered the Bavarian Alps he could not
understand what was said to him till he made out that the difficulty
arose almost entirely from a difference in the vowel sounds, the
_umlaut_ being applied almost universally; and at one period of his
life, when a branch of the Irish Society employed Irishmen to read the
Irish Scriptures to their poor countrymen in Edinburgh, and, as one of
the Committee, he had to examine them as to their fitness, he found he
could readily understand a Connaught man from the vowel sounds
approaching most nearly to those of Scotch Gaelic; but he had great
difficulty in following an Ulster man, the vowel sounds being very
different, while the position of the accent, which in Irish is on the
last syllable, and in Scotch Gaelic on the first, and the use of the
eclipsis in the former, which the latter is without, added to the
difficulty.
Footnote 238:
Fluviusque ejusdem loci in quo idem baptisma acceperat, ex nomine
ejus, Dobur Artbranani usque in hodiernum nominatus diem, ab accolis
vocitatur (B. i. c. 27). An old Irish Glossary, quoted by O’Reilly,
under Aidhbheis, has
Bior, is An agas Dobhar
Tri hanmann d’uisce an domhain.
Bior and An and Dobar,
Three names for water in the world.
Footnote 239:
Quidam cum tota plebeius familia (B. ii. c. 33).
Footnote 240:
Ibidemque quidam repertus senex, Emchatus nomine, audiens a Sancto
verbum Dei prædicatum, et credens, baptizatus est (B. iii. c. 15).
Footnote 241:
Acceptisque eorum uxoribus et filiabus in conjugium, omnes earum
linguas amputaverunt, ne eorum successio maternam linguam disceret.
Footnote 242:
_Chron. Picts and Scots_, p. 160.
Footnote 243:
Sure condicioun qe lour issu parlascent Irrays, quel patois demurt a
iour de huy du haute pays entre lez uns, qest dit Escotoys.—_Ib._ p.
199.
Footnote 244:
Reginald of Durham, writing in the last half of the twelfth century,
mentions, in 1164, Kirkcudbright as being ‘in terra Pictorum,’ and
calls their language ‘sermo Pictorum.’—_Libellus_, c. lxxxiv.
Footnote 245:
Sequitur in eodem latere, et littore occidentali, Gallovidia.... Ea
magna ex parte patrio sermone adhuc utitur.—Buchanan, _Rerum
Scoticarum Hist._, Lib. ii. 27.
Footnote 246:
Laing’s _Poems of William Dunbar_. Chalmers’s _Poems of Sir David
Lyndesay_, vol. ii. p. 350. Mr. Burton, in his chapter on ‘The Early
Races’ (_Hist._ vol. i. p. 206), makes the assertion that the Gaelic
of Scotland ‘was ever called by the Teutonic Scots, Irish, Ersch, or
Erse.’ In this he is mistaken. It was not so called before the
fifteenth century, but invariably ‘Lingua Scotica,’ or Scotch.
Footnote 247:
The inference as to the language of the Picts is the same, even though
Chalmers’ imaginary colony of Irish Cruithne in the seventh century
really took place.
Footnote 248:
The author has thrown these materials into the form of an alphabetical
list, which will be found in the Appendix I., with a comparison with
similar words and names in the other dialects.
Footnote 249:
The names of the primary colours which enter into the composition both
of names, persons, and places will illustrate this:—
_Gaelic._ _Welsh._
Ban } white Cán } white
Finn } Gwyn }
Breac } speckled Brych } speckled
Brit } Brith }
Ciar } black Du black
Dubh
Glas green Glas green, blue
Gorm blue Gwrm brown
Liath grey Llwyd gray
Dearg } red Coch } red
Ruadh } Rhudd }
Here some are so alike as to afford no test, others again are
different from each other; but those in which the phonetic differences
occur—as Finn, Gwyn; Ban, Cán—afford at once a test of the dialect.
Again, the features of the face and form enter both into epithets and
names of places. We may take a few—
_Gaelic._ _Welsh._
Ceann head Pen head
Claggan skull Clopen skull
Cluas ear Cluit, Clyw ear
Bronn breast Bron breast
Falt hair Gwallt hair
Sron nose Trwyn nose
Drum } Cefn }
Cul } back Trwm } back
Cil }
Lamh hand Llaw hand
Troidh foot Troed foot
Here, also, some are so alike it would be impossible to distinguish
the dialect, but Ceann and Pen, Claggan and Clopen, Falt and Gwallt,
Sron and Trwyn, afford at once a criterion. So also in proper names,
where the phonetic differences are equally apparent.
Footnote 250:
The tribes are Caledonii, Canteæ, Creones, Carnones, Curnaovii,
Carini. The other three are Epidii, Lugi, Mertæ. The two latter
occupied Sutherland. Ptolemy has the river Lugia in Ireland, and this
can be identified with Belfast Lough. The Irish name was Loch Laogh,
and Adamnan renders it by Stagnum Vituli. Laogh is a calf in Irish,
and is probably the word meant by Lugia. If the same word enters into
the name Lugi, it is rather remarkable that Mart should be the Irish
word for a heifer. It would seem as if the two tribes of the Lugi and
Mertæ took their names from these animals, which would indicate their
belonging to the Gaelic race.
Footnote 251:
The tribes are Vacomagi, Vernicomes, Taexali.
Footnote 252:
Sluind Aed _fortren_ Ferna.
Name Aed, the powerful of Ferna.
Angus Culdee, _Feliré_ at 31st Jany.
Footnote 253:
The age of the world 3923. This was the first year of the reign of
Finnachta, son of Ollamh Fodhla, over Ireland. The age of the world
3960, the first of the reign of Gede Ollgothach over Ireland.—_Annals
of Four Masters._
Aen is a common prefix in Irish names, and Becan occurs repeatedly as
an Irish name.—_Index An. IV. Masters._
Footnote 254:
Bede mentions that the ‘Sinus Orientalis (Firth of Forth) habet in
medio sui urbem Giudi.’ It is not impossible that this town may have
taken its name from this Guidid or Giudid Gaethbrechach, and if it was
on Inchkeith, the island may have taken its name from Gaeth. He must
therefore have belonged to the British people of the Ottadeni, whose
frontier city this was.
Footnote 255:
The name Bruidhe appears among the kings of O’Faly in Leinster, and in
the Annals of the Four Masters in the form of Bruaideadh. We find in
Ireland analogous names to these of the thirty Brudes applied to
districts. In Leinster we have Tola and Fortola (_An. IV. M._ 571). In
Ulster in Tirconnell, Guill and Irguill (_ib._ 718). In Alban, Dobhar
and Irdobhar. In this list Cal and Urcal, etc., and in one of the
Welsh pedigrees Cein, son of Gwrcein, son of Doli, son of Gwrdoli, son
of Dubhn, son of Gwrdubhn. In the Manumissions of Bodmin we have as
Cornish forms Guest, Wurguest, Ceint, Wurceint. This will show the
exact position of this form as between Irish and Cornish. The author
is inclined to think that this legend of the thirty Brudes whose names
were given to their portions of land is based upon the Irish system of
land denominations, as that of the seven sons of Cruithne evidently
was. There were thirty townships or _baile betaghs_ in a barony or
_triocha ced_, and the Irish Annals tell us that the mythic King
Ollamh Fodla ‘appointed a _Taoisech_ over every _triocha ced_ and a
_Brughaidh_ over every _baile_.’—_An. Four Masters_, vol. i. p. 53.
Footnote 256:
_Brev. Ab., Pars Hyem._ f. xxii.
Footnote 257:
The following words may be cited as examples of the interchange of S
and D in Gaelic:—Suil, Duil, _hope_; Seangan, Deangan, _an ant_; Seas,
Deas, _stay_; Samh, Damh, _learning_; Seirc, Deirc, _almsgiving_;
Sonnach, Tonnach, _a wall_.
Footnote 258:
Welsh G passes into D in Gel, W., Daoil, Ir., _a leech_; Gloin, W.,
Dealan, Ir., _coal_; Gwneyd, W., Deanadh, Ir., do.; Gobaith, W.,
Dobhchais, Ir., _hope_. St. Drostan was son of Cosgrich, and nephew of
Saint Columba, and a Scot by descent.
Footnote 259:
F, or as it is written in Welsh Ff, passes into P in Irish, as in Kyf,
_lame_, Ir. ceap, etc. Of the two Alpins in the list, the father of
the first is not given, but, as we shall see afterwards, his father
was a Dalriadic Scot. The father of the second was Wroid; this is near
the Cornish form, which would be Uored. In this form the name appears
in an inscription on one of the sculptured stones at St. Vigeans. Mr.
Whitley Stokes thus reads it:—
Drosten:
Ipe uoret
Elt For
Cus.
It is a good specimen of the mixture of forms we find in this part of
the Pictish territory. Drosten is not a Welsh form but Gaelic; Ipe
Uoret, Cornish; and Forcus unmistakably Irish. See _Adamnan_, ed.
1874, p. 120, for Forcus. An Ogham inscription on a stone at Aboyne
has been thus read:—
Neahhtla robbait ceanneff
Maqqoi Talluorrh.
‘Neachtla or Neachtan immolated Kinneff to the sons of Talore.’ The
word ‘robbait’ is the Irish word ‘robaith,’ used in the Book of Deer
for a donation to the church.
Footnote 260:
The Manumissions in the Bodmin Gospels, from which the Cornish forms
are taken, have Wurgustel and Ungust among the names.
Footnote 261:
_Chron. Picts and Scots_, pp. 45, 319, 329.
Footnote 262:
‘Clerici illi, qui in ecclesia illa commorantur, qui Pictorum lingua
Scollofthes cognominantur’ (cap. lxxxv.). Reginald of Durham was a
Norman, and it probably merely represents his attempt to pronounce a
word ending with a guttural. He would soften Sgolog to Sgolofth, just
as the Normans softened Bannockburn to Banoffburn.
Footnote 263:
This is the process which George Chalmers has gone through in
endeavouring to show that the Cymric language originally pervaded the
whole of Scotland. He has, in vol. i. p. 33, an elaborate comparison
between the names in north and south Britain, which in reality proves
nothing; and in applying his Welsh etymologies to the names of places,
he proceeds entirely upon the mere resemblance of sounds in the modern
form of the word. This mode, which the author has elsewhere termed
phonetic etymology, taints almost all the attempts which have been
made to attach the local names in Scotland to one or other of the
Celtic dialects.
Footnote 264:
We have an instance of this in two Gaelic synonyms for a mountain,
Sliabh and Beann, the one being mainly used in Ireland and the other
in Scotland.
Footnote 265:
This may be well illustrated by showing the various forms which the
word Traver has assumed, and the false etymologies it has given rise
to. The word is properly Treabhar, and in John O’Dugan’s Forus Focail,
quoted by O’Reilly, it is glossed by Taobhnocht, a naked side. It does
not occur in Wales.
Travernent, now Tranent (Had.).
Traverquair, now Traquair (Peebles).
Traverbrun, now Trabroun (Rox.).
Travereglys, now Terregles (Dumfries).
Travertrold, now Trailtrow (do.).
Traverflat, now Trailflat (do.).
Traverlen, now Crailing (Roxburgh).
Footnote 266:
In the Welsh poems the name Tawi is also applied to the Tay.
Footnote 267:
Ubi et ipsa Britannia plus angustissima de oceano in oceano esse
dinoscitur.—Ravennatis Anonymi _Cosmographia_.
Footnote 268:
In Welsh Tad is father, Map son.
Footnote 269:
In Latin ‘sacellum’ (see Zeuss, _Grammatica Celtica_, p. 10). Can this
refer to the building called Arthur’s O’on?
Footnote 270:
For the names in Adamnan, the reader is referred to Reeves’s edition
of Adamnan’s _Life of St. Columba_, in the series of Historians of
Scotland for 1874.
Footnote 271:
Eddi, _Vita S. Wilfridi_ apud Gale, pp. 70, 71.
Footnote 272:
The passages regarding the wall are as follows:—
A mari Scotiæ usque ad mare Hiberniæ id est, a Cair Eden civitate
antiquissima duorum ferme millium spatio a monasterio Abercurnig, quod
nunc vocatur Abercorn, ad occidentem tendens, contra occidentem juxta
urbem Alcluith.—Gildas, _Capitula libri_.
Incipit autem duorum ferme milium spatio a monasterio Aebbercurnig ad
occidentem, in loco qui sermone Pictorum Peanfahel, lingua autem
Anglorum Penneltun appellatur; et tendens contra occidentem terminatur
juxta urbem Alcluith.—Beda, _Hist. Ec._ B. i. c. xii.
Per vero miliaria, passum unum a Penguaul, quæ villa Scottice Cenail,
Anglice vero Peneltun dicitur, usque ad ostium fluminis Cluth et
Cairpentaloch.—Ad. to Nennius.
Footnote 273:
Simeon of Durham calls it ‘Tiningaham,’ and says it was in the diocese
of Lindisfarne, and belonged to the Angles.—See Surtees ed., pp. 20,
65, 68. C has probably been read by the scribe for T.
Footnote 274:
The old form of the name Atholl is Athfhotla; and in the Prophecy of
St. Berchan, one of the kings, who represents Kenneth M‘Alpin, is said
to have died _for bruinnibh Eirenn_, on the banks of Erin. He died at
Forteviot, on the river Earn.
Footnote 275:
_Words and Places_, by the Rev. Isaac Taylor, p. 258. This argument
appears to have been first used by Mr. Kemble in his _Saxons in
England_, vol. ii. p. 4, but his line of demarcation is quite
different from Mr. Taylor’s. He says—‘The distinctive names of water
in the two principal languages appear to be Aber and Inver.’ He then
gives a list of seven Abers in Wales, and in Scotland eleven Abers on
the south-east side of his line, and twelve Invers on the north-west;
but the contrast is produced by simply omitting the Invers which are
on the same side with the Abers, and the Abers which are to be found
among the Invers. Mr. Taylor adds—‘The process of change is shown by
an old charter, in which king David grants to the monks of May
“Inverin qui fuit Aberin.” So Abernethy became Invernethy, although
the old name is now restored.’ This is quoted without acknowledgment
from George Chalmers, with the usual result of second-hand quotation,
that of perpetuating error. The true reading in the charter is
‘Petnaweem et Inverin que fuit Averin;’ and it means in the ordinary
charter Latin that these places formerly belonged to a person called
Averin. Abernethy never became Invernethy. The two places are distinct
from each other: Invernethy at the junction of the Nethy with the
Earn, and Abernethy a mile farther up the river.
Footnote 276:
Diefenbach, in his _Celtica_, vol. i. p. 23, is of this opinion. He
says, ‘Aber gehört völlig beiden Sprachaesten an.’
Footnote 277:
Mr. Bannister, in his _Glossary of Cornish Names_, has no Abers, but
an Appledor.
Footnote 278:
Taylor, _Words and Places_, p. 232. With what success he attempts to
make this out his list of Pens will show. Leaving out those in
Dumfriesshire, Ayrshire, and Haddington, where there was originally a
Welsh-speaking people, ‘we find,’ he says, ‘the Cymric form of the
word in the Gram_pians_,’ which is utter nonsense, ‘the Pentland
Hills,’ which is a corruption of Petland Hills, as the Pentland Firth
is of the Petland Firth, ‘the Pennguaul Hills,’ which have no
existence, and ‘Pendrich in Perth,’ which is a corruption of
Pittindriech. The whole of this part of Mr. Taylor’s work is tainted
with phonetic etymology; _e.g._, he says, ‘From _llevn_, smooth, or
from _linn_, a deep still pool, we obtain the names of Loch Leven, and
three rivers called Leven in Scotland.’ The old form of this name
Leven is ‘Leamhan,’ which means in Irish an elm-tree. The Welsh
equivalent is Llwyfan.
Footnote 279:
Perhaps Pennan, the modern name of a headland at the Moray Firth, may
be an exception, but we have not its old form.
Footnote 280:
Pette is the form of this word in the Book of Deer, and it appears to
mean a portion of land, as it is conjoined with proper names, as Pette
MacGarnait, Pette Malduib. It also appears connected with Gaelic
specific terms, as Pette _an Muilenn_, ‘of the mill.’ With the article
it forms Petten, or Pitten, as in Petten-taggart, termed in a charter
of the church of Migvie (St. Andrews Chartulary, preface, p. 21)
‘terra ecclesiæ.’ It is Pettan t-saguirt, the priest’s land. In the
same Chartulary (114) the ‘villula quæ dicitur Pettemokane’ is
afterwards apparently called ‘domus cujusdam viri nomine Mochan.’ It
is synonymous with Both, a dwelling, as we find Bothgouanan, near
Elgin, has become Pitgownie, and Badfodullis, near Aberdeen,
Pitfoddles. Dr. Stuart points out, in his introduction to the Book of
Deer, p. lxxxiv., that Pit and Bal are frequently used
indiscriminately.
Footnote 281:
As in Fothuirtabhaicht now Forteviot, Fothurdun now Fordun, Fothenaven
now Finhaven.
Footnote 282:
These laws are taken from _The Four Ancient Books of Wales_, where the
subject of the race and language of the Picts is fully discussed in
Chapters VII., VIII., and IX. This has, of course, led to some
repetition, and in one respect the author has been led to modify the
views there stated. An examination of the old forms of the Cornish
names in the Manumissions in the Bodmin Gospels, printed in the _Revue
Celtique_, vol. i. p. 332, has led him to see that there is a British
element in the proper names in the list of Pictish kings, and that
that element is not Welsh, but Cornish.