RECAPITULATIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS.--PROPOSITIONS RESPECTING THE
KELTIC CHARACTER OF THE ORIGINAL OCCUPANTS OF BRITAIN, ETC.--THE
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE ANCIENT BRITONS AND THE ANCIENT GAULS,
ETC.--THE SCOTCH GAELS.--THE PICTS.--THE DATE OF THE GERMANIC
INVASIONS.--THE NAMES ANGLE AND SAXON.
Of the British Isles at the time of the Angle invasion we have effected
a sketch, rather than a picture; a sketch indistinct in outline, and
with several of its details almost invisible. Nevertheless, it is a
sketch in which some of the points are pretty clear. Germans of one or
more varieties, Kelts either Gaelic or British, Picts who may be
anything, Romans and Roman Legionaries are the chief elements. These we
have had to distribute in Time and Space as we best could. We have also
had, as we best could, to investigate their relations to each other.
Let us look back upon what has been attempted in this respect.
And first in respect to our _data_. The statements of the early authors,
and the value which is due to them, have formed the subject of a
separate chapter;[23] and it is hoped, that, without any undue
disparagement, they have been shewn to be valid only when they are
opposed to a very small amount of either conflicting facts or _a priori_
improbabilities. I also lay but little stress upon them when they assert
a negative, and equally little when their apparent testimony may be
reduced to an inference. Their absolute testimony, however, must be
taken as we find it.
Partly for the sake of recapitulation, and partly with the view to give
a further investigation to certain questions which could not well be
considered until certain preliminary facts had been laid before the
reader, the more important inferences are put in form of the following
propositions, to some of which a commentary is attached.
I.
_The British Isles were peopled from the Keltic portion of the continent
originally and exclusively._
This implies an objection to the doctrine of any _pre_-Keltic
population, and to the inferences deduced from certain real or supposed
peculiarities in the shape of the skulls from the tumuli of the Stone
period. (_See_ pp. 26-27.)
II.
_The Gaels cannot be derived from the Britons, nor the Britons from the
Gaels; on the contrary, each branch must have been developed from some
common stock._
This rests upon the differences between the British and Gaelic
languages. (_See_ Chapter V.)
III.
_Of this common stock the British branch, at least, must have been
developed on the continent._ (_See_ Chapter VI.)
This, of course, assumes that the Galli of Gaul were not derived from
Britain; a view which has never been adopted, and which probably has so
little to recommend it as to make its investigation superfluous.
The British language of Britain and the Gaelic of Gaul would not have
been so much alike as they were had they developed themselves
separately, each after their own fashion.
This last proposition depends, however, to a great extent, upon the
following, viz., that--
IV.
_The similarity between the ancient language of Gaul and the ancient
language of Britain is measured by that between the present Welsh and
the Armorican of Brittany._
The arguments of pp. 86-87, resting as they do upon the close
relationship between the ancient language of Gaul[24] and the
British--would be materially impaired by any thing which subtracted from
the evidence in favour of that relationship.
Now the present Welsh and the present Armorican of Brittany are
languages that are very nearly mutually intelligible.
And as the Armorican represents the ancient Gallic, and the Welsh the
ancient British, the affinity between the two old tongues must have
been, at least, equal to that between the two new ones.
But what if the Armorican do not represent the ancient Gallic, but be
merely so much Welsh or Cornish transferred to Brittany in the fifth
century? In such a case the argument is materially weakened.
Now there is a certain amount of statements to this very effect, viz.,
to the Welsh origin of the Armorican. Let them be examined.
Gildas, who mentions the rebellion of Maximus, says nothing of any
British migration to Brittany.
Nennius gives us an account beset with inaccuracies, being to the effect
that Maximus the seventh _imperator_ in Britain, left the island with
all the British soldiers it contained, killed Gratian King of Rome, and
held rule over all Europe; that he would not dismiss the soldiers who
went with him, but gave them lands in Armorica or the country _over-sea_
(_Ar-mor_-); that, then and there, these soldiers of Maximus slaughtered
all the males, married the females, and cut out their tongues lest the
children should learn the language of their parents instead of that of
their conquerors. For this reason we call them _Letewicion_, or,
_half-silent_ (_semi-tacentes_). Thus was Brittany peopled, and Britain
emptied; so that strangers took possession of it.
Beda's account is equally unsatisfactory. The Britons were the first who
came into the island, and they came _from_ Armorica. It was _from_
Armorica that they came, it was in the south of England that they
landed, and it was they who gave the name to the island.
Now there is an error somewhere--if not in Beda, in Nennius; if not in
Nennius, in Beda.
Traditions are uniform, inferences vary; and when Nennius brings his
Armoricans from Cornwall, and Beda his Cornishmen from Armorica, we have
a presumption against a _tradition_ being the basis of their statements.
The real basis was the existence of the British language on both sides
of the Channel, a fact which being differently interpreted by the
different writers gave us two separate and contradictory
inferences--each legitimate, and each (for want of further _data_)
wrong.
The present similarity, then, between the Welsh and Armorican remains
unaffected by the statements of Beda and Nennius; and the commonsense
inference as to the latter language representing the ancient Gallic
takes its course.
V.
_The Belgæ were Kelts of the British branch._
This implies an objection to all the arguments in favour of a Germanic
population occupant of Britain anterior to the Christian era, which are
based on the name _Belgæ_. (_See_ pp. 61-75.)
VI.
_The Gaelic branch of the Keltic stock may have been developed in either
the British Isles or on the continent._--(Chapter V.)
The following list of words in Professor Newman's _Regal Rome_, shewing
that a remarkable class of words in Latin were Keltic rather than native
and Gaelic rather than Welsh, and which was unpublished when the fifth
chapter was written, favours the doctrine of the Gaels having been
continental as well as insular to an extent for which I was previously
unprepared:--
ENGLISH. LATIN. GAELIC.
_Arms_ arma arm.
_Weapon_ telum tailm.
_Helmet_ galea galia.
_Shield_ scutum sgiath.
_Arrow_ sagitta saighead.
_Coat of Mail_ lorica liureach.
_Spoils_ spolia spuill.
_Necklace_ monile fail-muineil.
_Point_ cuspis cusp.
_Spear_ quiris[25] coir.
It also favours Lhuyd's hypothesis rather than the Hibernian. (_See_ pp.
88-89.)
VII.
_The earliest ethnology of Scotland was that the earliest Britons,
_i.e._, either British as opposed to Gaelic, or Gaelic which,
subsequently, became as British as South Britain itself._
This means that the present Gaels were not aboriginal to the Scotch
Highlands, except in the sense that they were aboriginal to Kent or
Wales. (_See_ pp. 88-89.)
VIII.
_The present Scotch Gaels are of Irish origin._
These two propositions go together; involving an objection to the
so-called "Caledonian hypothesis" (p. 89), with which they are
incompatible. Nevertheless, anything confirmatory of that hypothesis
would, _pro tanto_, invalidate the present.
The chief facts upon which this doctrine rest are--
1st. The absence of the term _sliabh_, the current Gaelic form for
_mountain_, throughout Scotland--even in the Gaelic parts of it.
2nd. The great extent to which the forms in _aber_ are found northwards
(see p. 81). These occur so far beyond the Pict area, that, although so
good a writer as Mr. Kemble has allowed himself to make it commensurate
with the British, and although his list of compounds of _aber_ has been
placed in the present writer's chapter on the Picts, as an illustration
of a certain line of criticism, the inference that they were Britons in
North-Briton _other than Pict_ is highly probable. Hence in the northern
parts, at least, the word _aber_ was used not because the country was
Pict, but because it was British.
It is well known that the doctrine is, in respect to its results, the
current one; from which it differs in resting on ethnological inference,
rather than on a piece of history.
The historical account is to the effect, that the _Scots_ of Scotland
were originally Irish, so that _Ire_land was the true and proper
_Scot_land. It was Ireland where the Scots dwelt when the Picts came
from Scythia, Ireland whence the Picts took their Scottish wives; and,
finally, Ireland that gave its present Gaelic population to North
Britain. Under a leader named _Reuda_ the Scots of Ireland sailed across
the Irish Sea, penetrated far into the Firth of Clyde, settled
themselves to the north of the Picts, drove that nation southwards,
multiplied their kind in the Highlands, and called themselves _Dalriads_
(_Dalreudini_), since _Reuda_ was the name of their chief, and _daal_
meant _part_. The point where the Scots landed was just where
the British and Pict areas joined, the parts about Alcluith or
Dumbarton--"procedente autem tempore, Britannia post Brittones et
Pictos, tertiam Scottorum nationem in Pictorum parte recepit, qui duce
Reuda de Hibernia progressi vel amicitia vel ferro sibimet inter eos
sedes quas hactenus habent, vindicarunt; a quo videlicet duce usque
hodie _dalreudini_ vocantur, nam eorum lingua 'daal' _partem_
significat."--Hist. Eccl. i. 1.
To agree with Beda in making the Gaels of Scotland intrusive, but to
demur to his evidence, is, apparently, to substitute a bad reason for a
good one without affecting the conclusion, _i.e._, gratuitously. We
shall soon see how far this is the case.
At present, I remark that all Scotland may have been British without
having been wholly Pict; and that--
The parts of Scotland which were not Gaelic at the beginning of the
Historical period and have not been so since, never were.[26]
IX.
_The Picts may or may not have been the British Kelts of Scotland: this
depending upon the extent to which the gloss _penn fahel_ is a word
belonging to the Pict tongue, or only a word belonging to a language
spoken within the Pict territory._
Why should it not be Pict? Why disturb the inference by suggesting that
they may be Pict only as _man_ or _woman_ are Welsh, _i.e._, words other
than Pict, but words used in a Pict area just as English is spoken in
the Welsh town of Swansea? I admit that, if we look only to the plain
and straight-forward meaning of Beda, this refinement is unnecessary.
There are, however, certain complications.
_Daal_=_part_, is suspiciously like the German _theil_, the English
_deal_, the Anglo-Saxon _dæl_, the Norse _del_, _dal_; indeed, it is a
wonder that Beda took it for a foreign word. Hence, gloss for gloss, it
is _nearly_ as good evidence for the Picts being German or Norse as
_penn fahel_ is for their being Briton. I say _nearly_, because it is
expressly stated to have been _Scotch_. But this it is not. What, then,
is our next best explanation? To suppose it to have been a word used by
a population other than Scotch, but on the Scotch frontier. Now this
population was Pict.
X.
_The Dalriad Conquest may or may not have been real. Being real, it may
or may not have given origin to the Gaelic population of Scotland._
This means that Beda's evidence, being exceptionable, may be wholly
false--except so far as it is an inference from the existence of Gaels
in both Ireland and the Western Highlands.
Even if true as to the fact, its ethnological importance may be
over-valued, since the investigation of the origin of the Scotch Gaels
inquires, not whether any Irish Scots ever appropriated any part of
Scotland, but whether such an appropriation were the one which accounts
for the Gaelic population of North Britain. This is the difference
between _a_ conquest and _the_ conquest--a difference too often
overlooked.
I should not like to say that the Picts were not Scandinavians, a point
which will be treated more fully in the thirteenth chapter. Hence--
XI.
_Scandinavian settlements may have taken place as early as the earliest
notices of the Picts._
In this case the lines would be--Norway, North Scotland, the Hebrides,
Ireland and Galloway.
XII.
_Germanic elements existed in Britain in the reign of Diocletian._
The notices of the Franks in Kent and Middlesex suggest this. (_See_ p.
96.)
XIII.
_The Littus Saxonicum must have been ravaged by Germans as early as the
reign of Honorius._
This must be admitted even if we construe _Saxonicum_ as _ravaged by
Saxons_, rather than _occupied by Saxons_--a construction which is so
little natural, that I doubt whether it would ever have been resorted to
if the language of Gildas had not been supposed to preclude the notion
of any Saxon invasion anterior to A.D. 449. We have seen, however, how
little that writer was in the position to make a negative statement,
_i.e._, to state, not only that Hengist and Horsa came over in a given
year, but that none of their countrymen ever did so in a previous one.
XIV.
_No distinction need be drawn between the Angles and the Saxons of Great
Britain on the strength of the difference of name._
This, however, by no means implies that they are to be identified. It
merely means that the name goes for but little; and that the difference
of origin between the different portions of the Germanic population of
Britain is to be determined by the facts of each particular case.
FOOTNOTES:
[23] Chapter vii.
[24] Here is one out of the thousand-and-one inconveniences arising from
our present philological nomenclature. I am _contrasting_ two languages
with each other: yet their _names_ are as like as _Gallic_ and _Gaelic_.
[25] _Sabine_--Sive quod hasta _quiris_ priscis est dicta
Sabinis.--_Ovid._
[26] This contravenes an opinion to which I have elsewhere committed
myself (_Man and his Migrations_, pp. 161-162). Acting upon the doctrine
that Ireland must be considered to have been peopled from the nearest
part of the nearest land of a more continental character than itself,
unless reason could be shewn to the contrary, I ignored the statement of
Beda altogether, and peopled Ireland from the parts about the Mull of
Cantyre. The present change of opinion has arisen out of no change in
the valuation of Beda's statement. The extent to which the forms in
_aber_ are found in Scotland, and the extent to which the name _sliabh_
(with a few others) is wanting, are the real reasons.