THE preceding chapter has
been occupied almost entirely with an account of the transactions of the
Romans in the north of Scotland, and it is now our duty to go back and
narrate what is known of the internal history of the Highlands during the
time of the Romans. In doing so we are brought face to face with certain
much agitated questions which have for centuries engaged the attention of
antiquaries, and in the discussion of which many bulky tomes have been
written and incredible acrimony displayed. To enter with anything like
minuteness into this discussion would occupy more space than can be
devoted to the entire history, and, moreover, would be out of place in a
popular work like the present, and distasteful to most of its readers. The
following are some of the much-discussed questions referred to :—Who
were the original inhabitants of Caledonia? To what race did they belong—were
they Gothic or Celtic? and if Celtic, were they Cymric or Gaelic? When did
they enter Scotland, and whence did they come—from the opposite
continent, or from the south of Britain? Was the whole of Scotland, in the
time of Agricola, occupied by one people, or by a mixed race, or by
various races? Were the Picts and Caledonians the same people? What is the
meaning and origin of Pict, and was Caledonia a native appellation? What
were the localities of the Northern and Southern Picts? Who were the
Scots? What was the nature of the union of the Scots and Picts under
Kenneth MacAlpin?
The notices of the early
inhabitants of the Highlands in the contemporary Roman historians are so
few, the information given so meagre and indefinite, and the
ecclesiastical historians of a later time are so full of miracle, myth,
and hearsay, and so little to be depended on, that it appears to us almost
impossible, with the materials at present within the historian’s reach,
to arrive at anything like a satisfactory answer to the above questions.
The impression left after reading much that has been written on various
sides, is one of dissatisfaction and bewilderment,—dissatisfaction with
the farfetched and irrelevant arguments frequently adduced, and the
unreliable authorities quoted, and bewilderment amid the dust-cloud of
words with which any one who enters this debatable land is sure to be
enveloped. "It is scarcely necessary to observe, that there are few
points of ethnology on which historians and antiquaries have been more at
variance with each other, than respecting the real race of those
inhabitants of a portion of Caledonia popularly known by the designation
of Picts. The difficulty arising from this discrepancy of opinion is
increased by the scanty and unsatisfactory nature of the materials now
available to those who wish to form an independent judgment. No connected
specimen of the Pictish language has been preserved; nor has any ancient
author who knew them from personal observation, stated in direct terms
that they approximated to one adjoining tribe more than another. They are
indeed associated with the Scots or Irish as joint plunderers of the
colonial Britons; and the expression of Gildas that they differed in some
degree from the Scots in their customs, might seem to imply that they did
bear an analogy to that nation in certain respects. Of course, where
there is such a lack of direct evidence, there is more scope for
conjecture; and the Picts are pronounced by different investigators of
their history to have been Germans, Scandinavians, Welsh, Gael, or
something distinct from all the four. The advocates of the German
hypothesis rest chiefly on Tacitus’s description of their physical
conformation. Dr. Jamieson, assuming that the present Lowland Scotch
dialect was derived from them, sets them down as Scandinavians; Bishop
Lloyd and Camden conceive them to have been of Celtic race, probably
related to the Britons; Chalmers, the author of ‘Caledonia,’ regards
them as nothing more than a tribe of Cambrians or Welsh; while Skene, one
of the latest authors on the subject, thinks he has proved that they were
the ancestors of the present race of Scottish Highlanders."
The earliest known name
applied to Britain is found in a treatise on the World ascribed to
Aristotle, in which the larger island is called Albinn, and Ireland
referred to as Ierne; and it is worthy of notice that at the
present day the former is the name applied to Scotland by the Highlanders,
who call themselves the Gael Albinnich. The first author, however,
who gives us any information about the early inhabitants of the north part
of Scotland is Tacitus, who, in his Life of Agricola, devotes a few
lines, in a parenthetical way, to characterising each of the great
divisions of the people who, in the time of that general, inhabited
Britain. Tacitus tells us that in his time the inhabitants of Britain
differed in the habit and make of their bodies, and from the ruddy locks
and large limbs of the Caledonians he inferred that they were of German
origin. This glimpse is clear enough, but tantalizing in its meagreness
and generality. What does Tacitus mean by German—does he use it in the
same sense as we do at the present day? Does he mean by Caledonia the
whole of the country north of the Forth and Clyde, or does it apply only
to that district—Fife, Forfar, the east of Perth, &c.—with the
inhabitants of which his father-in-law came in contact? We find Ptolemy
the geographer, who flourished about the middle of the 2d century A. D.,
mentioning the Caledonians as one of the many tribes which in his time
inhabited the north of Scotland. The term Caledonians is supposed by some
authorities to have been derived from a native word signifying "men
of the woods," or the inhabitants of the woody country; this,
however, is mere conjecture.
The next writer who gives
any definite information as to the inhabitants of Caledonia is Dion
Cassius, who flourished in the early part of the 3d century, and who wrote
a history of Rome which has come down to us in a very imperfect state. Of
the latter part, containing an account of Britain, we possess only an
epitome made by Xiphilinus, an ecclesiastic of the 11th century, and which
of course is very meagre in its details. The following are the particulars
given by this writer concerning the early inhabitants of north Britain.
"Of the Britons the two most ample nations are the Caledonians and
the Maeatae; for the names of the rest refer for the most part to these.
The Maeatae inhabit very near the wall which divides the island into two
parts; the Caledonians are after these. Each of them inhabit mountains,
very rugged and wanting water, and also desert fields, full of marshes:
they have neither castles nor cities, nor dwell in any: they live on milk
and by hunting, and maintain themselves by the fruits of the trees: for
fishes, of which there is a very great and numberless quantity, they never
taste: they dwell naked in tents and without shoes: they use wives in
common, and whatever is born to them they bring up. In the popular state
they are governed, as for the most part: they rob on the highway most
willingly: they war in chariots: horses they have, small and fleet; their
infantry, also, are as well most swift at running, as most brave in
pitched battle. Their arms are a shield and a short spear, in the upper
part whereof is an apple of brass, that, while it is shaken, it may
terrify the enemies with the sound: they have likewise daggers. They are
able to bear hunger, cold, and all afflictions; for they merge themselves
in marshes, and there remain many days, having only their head out of
water: and in woods are nourished by the bark and roots of trees. But a
certain kind of food they prepare for all occasions, of which if they take
as much as 'the size’ of a single bean, they are in nowise ever wont to
hunger or thirst."
From this we learn that in
the 3d century there were two divisions of the inhabitants of the
Highlands, known to the Romans as the Caledonians and Maeats or Maeatae,
the latter very probably inhabiting the southern part of that territory,
next to the wall of Antonine, and the former the district to the north of
this. As to whether these were Latinized forms of native names, or names
imposed by the Romans themselves, we have no means of judging. The best
writers on this subject think that the Caledonians and Maeats were two
divisions of the same people, both living to the north of the Forth and
Clyde, although Innes, and one or two minor writers, are of opinion that
the Maeats were provincial Britons who inhabited the country between the
wall of Hadrian and that of Antonine, known as the province of Valentia.
However, with Skene, Mr. Joseph Robertson, and other able authorities, we
are inclined to think that the evidence is in favour of their being the
inhabitants of the southern portion of Caledonia proper.
Herodian, who
wrote about A. D. 240, tells us that the Caledonians were in the habit of
marking or painting their bodies with figures of animals, and that they
wore no clothes in order that these figures might be preserved and
exhibited.
The next reference made by
a Roman writer to the inhabitants of Caledonia we find in a panegyric
pronounced in his presence on the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, by
Euinenius, a professor of rhetoric at Augustodunum (Autun) in Gaul,
in the year 296 or 297, who speaks of the Britons, in the time of Caesar,
having been attacked by the half-naked Picts and Irish. To what
people the orator meant to apply the term Picts, around which there
has clustered so much acrimonious disputation, we learn from another
oration pronounced by him on the same emperor, before his son Constantine,
in the year 309, in which, recording the actions of Constantius, he speaks
of the woods and marshes of the
Caledonians and other Picts.
After this no further
mention is made of the Caledonians by any Roman writer, but towards the
end of the 4th century Ammianus Marcellinus, in his account of the Roman
transactions in Britain, speaks of the Picts in conjunction with the
Saxons, Scots, and Attacots harassing the provincial Britons about the
year 364. Further on he informs us that at this time the Picts were
divided into two tribes or nations, the Dicaledones and Vecturiones,
remarking, at the same time, that "the Attacots were a warlike race
of men, and the Scots a people much given to wandering, and in the habit
of ravaging or laying waste the districts into which they came."
Claudian the poet, writing,
about 397, in praise of Honorius, mentions, among other actions of
Theodosius, the grandfather of that emperor, his having subdued the Picts,
who were fitly so named, and makes various other references to
this people and the Scots, which show that these two in combination were
troubling the Roman provincials not a little.
Such are most of the scanty
details given by the only contemporary historians who take any notice of
the inhabitants of North Britain; and the unprejudiced reader will see
that the foundation thus afforded upon which to construct any elaborate
theory is so narrow that every such theory must resemble a pyramid
standing on its apex, liable at the slightest touch to topple over and be
shattered to pieces. It appears to us that all the conclusions which it is
safe to draw from the few facts stated by the contemporary Roman
historians are, that at the commencement of the Christian era Caledonia
proper, or the Highlands, was inhabited by a people or peoples apparently
considerable in number, and who in all probability had been settled there
for a considerable time, part of whom at least were known to the Romans by
the name of Caledonians. That these Caledonians, those of them at any rate
with whom Agricola came in contact in the first century, were red or fair
haired and large limbed, from which Tacitus inferred that they were of
German extraction. In the beginning of the third century there were at
least two divisions of the inhabitants of Caledonia,—the Caledonians and
Maeats,—the former inhabiting the country to the north of the Grampians,
and the latter, in all probability, that to the south and southeast of
these mountains. They appear to have been in many respects in a condition
little removed from that of savages, although they must have made
wonderful attainments in the manufacture of implements of war.
In the latter part of the
third century we found the Highlanders spoken of under a new name, Picti,
which the Roman historians at least, undoubtedly understood to be the
Latin word meaning ‘painted', and which all the best modern
writers believe to have been imposed by the Romans themselves, from the
fact that the indomitable Caledonians had retained the custom of
self-painting after all the Romanized Britons had given it up. There is
the strongest probability that the Caledonians spoken of as Picts by
Eumenius were the same as the Caledonians of Tacitus, or that the
Caledonians and Picts were the same people under different names. The
immediate cause for this change of name we have no means of ascertaining.
It is in every way improbable that the Picts were a new people, who had
come in upon the Caledonians, and supplanted them some time after Agricola’s
invasion. The Romans were constantly coming into contact with the
Caledonians from the time of Agricola till they abandoned Britain
entirely, and had such a supplantation taken place, it certainly could not
have been done quietly, and without the cognizance of the Romans. But we
find no mention in any contemporary historian of any such commotion, and
we know that the inhabitants of the Highlands never ceased to harass the
British provincials, showing that they were not much taken up with any
internal disturbance. Indeed, writers who adopt the most diverse opinions
on other points in connection with the Pictish question are all agreed as
to this, that the Caledonians and Picts were the same people.
We learn further from our
authorities, that towards the end of the fourth century the inhabitants of
Caledonia were known to the Romans under the names of Dicaledones and
Vecturiones, it being conjectured that these correspond to the Caledonians
and Maeats of Dio, and the Northern and Southern Picts of a later period.
The connection of the latter part of the word Di-caledones with Caledonii
is evident, although the significance of the first syllable is
doubtful,—some authorities conjecturing that it is the Gaelic word du,
meaning "genuine." It appears at all events to be
established that during the early history of the Highlands, whatever other
divisions may have existed among the inhabitants, those dwelling to the
north and those dwelling to the south of the Grampians were two separate
confederacies, and were known by distinct names.
Another not unimportant
fact to be learned from the Roman historians in relation to the Picts or
Caledonians is, that about the middle of the 4th century they were
assisted by the Attacots, Saxons, and Scots. As to who the Attacots were
it is now impossible to conjecture with anything like certainty, there
being no sufficient reason for believing that they were allied to the
Irish Scots. It is well enough known who the Saxons were, but how they
came at this early period to be acting in concert with the Picts it is
difficult to say. It is possible that numbers of them may have effected a
settlement, even at this early period, in North Britain, although it is
more likely that they were roving adventurers, who had left their homes,
from choice or on compulsion, to try their fortune in Britain. They were
probably the first droppings of the abundant shower that overwhelmed South
Britain a century later. The Romans at this period had an officer with the
title of "Comes litoris Saxonici per Britanniam ;" and Claudian,
in his praises of Stilicho, introduces Britain, saying:-
"Illus effectum curis,
ne bella timerem
Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem, ne littore toto
Prospicerem dubiis venturum Saxona ventis."
It is interesting to notice
that this is the first mention made of the Scots in connection with what is
now Scotland; but whether there were settlements of them at this time among
the Picts, or whether they had come over from Ireland for the purpose of
assisting the latter to harass the Romans, it is difficult to say. Probably,
as was the case with the Saxons, these were the harbingers of the great
migration that reached its culmination about a century and a half later.
They appear, from what Ammianus says, to have been at this time a set of
destructive vagabonds. We shall have more to say about them further on.
From the general tone of
these contemporary Roman historians we learn that, whether Celtic or Gothic,
these Picts or Caledonians were a hardy, indomitable, determined race, with
a strong love of liberty and of the country in which they dwelt, and a
resolution never to be subject to the greedy Roman. Comparatively few and
barbarous as they were, they caused the Romans far more trouble than all the
rest of Britain together; to conquer the latter and Romanize it appears to
have been comparatively smooth work, but the Italians acknowledged the
Highlanders invincible by building walls and other fortifications, and
maintaining extra garrisons to protect the provincials from their fierce and
wasting inroads. Whether the present Highlanders are the descendants of
these or not, they certainly possess many of their qualities.
It will have been seen that
the Roman historians give us almost no clue to what we now deem of most
interest and importance, the place of the early inhabitants among the
families of men, the time and manner of their arrival, the language they
spoke, and their internal history generally. Of course the records of
contemporaries stand in the first place of importance as evidences, and
although we have other sources, historical, linguistic, and antiquarian,
which shed a little light upon the subject, these, for various reasons, must
be used with great caution. The only statement approaching to anything like
a hint as to the origin of the Caledonians is that of Tacitus, referring to
their ruddy locks and large limbs as an evidence of their German origin.
There is no reason to doubt that those with whom Agricola came in contact
were of this make and complexion, which, at the present day, are generally
held to be indicative of a Teutonic origin; whereas the true Celt is
popularly believed to be of a small make and dark complexion. It may have
been, that in Agricola’s time the part of the country into which he
penetrated was occupied by considerable numbers of Teutons, who had effected
a settlement either by force, or by favour of the prior in habitants. The
statement of Tacitus, however, those who uphold the Celtic theory endeavour
to explain away.
We may safely say then, that
with regard to all the most important points that have excited the curiosity
of modern enquirers, the only contemporary historians to whom we can appeal,
leave us almost entirely in the dark.
The writers, next in order of
importance to whom an appeal is made as witnesses in this perplexing case,
are the ecclesiastical chroniclers, the chief of whom are Gildas, Adanman,
Bede, Nennius. "Much of the error into which former writers have been
led, has arisen from an improper use of these authors; they should be
consulted exclusively as contemporary historians—whatever they assert as
existing or occurring in their own time, or shortly before it, we may
receive as true; but when we consider the perverted learning of that period,
and the little information which they appear to have possessed of the
traditions of the people around them, we ought to reject their fables or
fanciful origins as altogether undeserving of credit." Though this
dictum may perhaps be too sweeping, still any one who examines the authors
referred to for himself, must admit that it is in the main just. It is well
known that these writers exercise little or no discrimination in the
composition of their narratives, that tradition, miracle, and observed fact
are placed side by side, as all equally worthy of belief. Even Bode, the
most reliable and cautious of these early chroniclers, lived as long after
some of the events of which he professes to give an account, as we of the
present day do after the time of the Crusades; almost his sole authority
being tradition or hearsay. Moreover, the knowledge which these writers had
of the distinction between the various races of mankind was so very hazy,
the terms they use are to us so comparatively unintelligible, and the
information they do contain on the points in dispute so brief, vague, and
parenthetical, that their value as authorities is reduced almost to a
minimum.
Whoever was the author of the
work De Excidio Britannioe, one of the latest and most acute writers
on ethnology has shown that he is almost totally unworthy of credit,
the sources of his information being exceedingly suspicious, and his
statements proved to be false by comparison with trustworthy contemporary
Roman historians. There is every reason to believe that the so-called Gildas—for
by Mr. Wright he has been reduced to a nominis umbra— lived and
wrote about the middle of the 6th century A.D., so that, had he used
ordinary diligence and discrimination, he might have been of considerable
assistance in enabling us to solve the perplexing mystery of the Pictish
question. But indeed we have no right to look for much history in the work
of Gildas, as it professes to he merely a complaint "on the general
destruction of every thing that is good, and the general growth of evil
throughout the land ;" it is his purpose, he says, "to relate the
deeds of an indolent and slothful race, rather than the exploits of those
who have been valiant in the field." So far as the origin and early
history of the Picts is concerned, Gildas is of almost no value whatever,
the only time he mentions the Picts being incidentally to notice an invasion
they had made into the Roman provinces. If we can trust him, the Picts and
their allies, the Scots, must have been very fierce enemies to deal with.
They went about, he tells us, almost entirely destitute of clothes, having
their faces covered with bushy hair, and were in the habit of dragging the
poor enervated Britons from the top of their protecting wall with hooked
weapons, slaughtering them without mercy. Some writers infer from this
narrative that, during the Roman occupation, no permanent settlement of
Scots had been effected in present Scotland, but that the Scots who assisted
the Picts came over from their native Scotland (Ireland) for that purpose;
he tells us that the Scots came from the north-west, and the Picts from the
north. "North-west" here, however, would apply quite as well to
Argyle as to Ireland.
The writer next in
chronological order from whom we derive any information of consequence
concerning the Picts is Adamnan, a member of the early Irish Church, who was
born in the county of Donegal about the year 625, elected abbot of Iona in
679, and who died in the year 704. Adamnan wrote a life of his great
predecessor St. Columba, in which is contained much information concerning
that great missionary’s labours among the Northern Picts; and although he
narrates many stories which are palpably incredible, still the book contains
much which may with confidence be accepted as fact. In connection with the
questions under consideration, we learn that, in the time of Columba and
Adamnan, there were—as formerly, in the time of the Roman writers—two
divisions of the Picts, known in the 7th century and afterwards as the
Northern and Southern Picts. Adamnan informs us that Columba’s mission was
to the Northern Picts alone,—the southern division having been converted
by St. Ninian in the 5th century. There has been much disputation as to the
precise district inhabited by each of these two divisions of the Picts,—some
maintaining that the southern division occupied the country to the south of
the Forth and Clyde, while the Northern Picts occupied the whole district to
the north of these estuaries. The best authorities, however, are of opinion
that both divisions dwelt to the north of Antonine’s wall, and were
divided from each other by the Grampians.
What more immediately
concerns our present purpose is a passage in Adamnan’s work in which he
speaks of Columba preaching to the Picts through an interpreter. Now Columba
was an Irish Scot, whose native tongue was Gaelic, and it is from this
argued that the Picts to whom he preached must have spoken a different
language, or at least dialect, and belonged to a different race or tribe
from the saint himself. Mr. Skene, who ably advocates the Gaelic origin of
the Picts, perceiving this difficulty, endeavours to explain away the force
of the passage by making it mean that Columba "interpreted or explained
the word of God, that is, the Bible, which, being written in Latin, would
doubtless require to be interpreted to them." The passage as quoted by
Skene is, "Verbo Dei per interpretorem recepto." Garnett, however,
one of the most competent and candid writers on this question in its
philological aspect, and who maintains, with the greatest clearness and
ability, the Cymric origin of the Picts, looks at the passage in a different
light. The entire passage, he says, as it stands in Colganus, is as follows:—"
Alio in tempore quo sanctus Columba in Pictorum provincia per aliquot
demorabatur dies, quidam cum tota plebeius familia, verbum vitce per
interpretorem, Sancto prcedicante viro, audiens credidit, credensque
baptizatus est." "Here it will be observed," continues
Garnett, "Adamnan does not say, ‘verbum Dei,’ which might have been
construed to mean the Scripture, but ‘verbum vitoe, Sancto proedicante
viro,’ which can hardly mean anything but ‘the word of life, as it
was preached by the Saint."’ Certainly, we think, the unprejudiced
reader must admit that, so far as this point is concerned, Mr. Garnett has
the best of it. Although at that time the Gaelic and Cymric dialects may
have had much more in common than they have at the present day, nevertheless
it appears to be beyond a doubt that the difference between the two was so
great that a Gad would be unintelligible to a speaker of Cymric. [On the
subject in question the recently published Book of Deer cannot be
said to afford us any information. It gives a short account of the landing
of Columba and a companion at Aberdour in the north of Aberdeenshire, and
the founding of a monastery at Deer. But although the entries are in Gaelic,
they do not tell us what language Coluniba spoke, nor whether 'Bede the Pict,’
the mormaer of Buchan, understood him without an interpreter. The name of
the saint —Drostan—whom Columba left behind him to prosecute the work,
is Pictish, at any rate not Irish, so that nothing can be inferred from
this. Since much of the first part of this book was written, Mr. Skene has
advanced the theory, founded partly on four new Pictish words he has managed
to discover, that the language of the Picts was neither pure Gaelic nor
Cymric, ‘but a sort of low Gaelic dialect partaking largely of Welsh
forms.’ This theory is not new, but was distinctly put forth by Dr.
Maclauchlan some years ago in his able and learned work, The Early
Scottish Church, p. 29: if true, it would certainly satisfy a great many
of the demands which any hypothesis on the subject must do].
The next and most important
authority of this class on this quoestio vexata is the Venerable Bede,
who, considering the age in which he lived, exercised so much caution and
discrimination, that he deserves to be listened to with respect. Bede was
born about 673. He was educated in the Monastery of Wearmouth, whence he
removed to Jarrow, where he was ordained deacon in his nineteenth year, and
priest in his thirtieth, and where he spent the rest of his days, dying in
735. He wrote many works, but the most important is the Historia
Ecclesiastiea Gentis Anglorum, the materials for which he obtained
chiefly from native chronicles and biographies, records and public
documents, and oral and written communications from contemporaries.
We shall transcribe most of
the passage in which Bede speaks of the ancient inhabitants of Britain; so
that our readers may be able to judge for themselves of the nature and value
of the testimony borne by this venerable author. It must, however, be kept
in mind that Bede does not pretend to give any but the ecclesiastical
history of the English nation, everything else being subsidiary to this.
"This island at present,
following the number of the books in which the Divine law was written,
contains five nations, the English, Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins, each
in its own peculiar dialect cultivating the sublime study of Divine truth.
The Latin tongue is, by the study of the Scriptures, become common to all
the rest. At first this island had no other inhabitants but the Britons,
from whom it derived its name, and who coming over into Britain, as is
reported, from Armories, possessed themselves of the southern parts thereof.
When they, beginning at the south, had made themselves master of the
greatest part of the island, it happened, that the nation of the Picts
coming into the ocean from Scythia, as is reported, in a few tall ships,
were driven by the winds beyond the shores of Britain and arrived off
Ireland. on the northern coasts, where, finding the nation of the Scots,
they requested to be allowed to settle among them, but could not succeed in
obtaining their request. The Scots answered, that the island could not
contain them both; but ‘we can give you good advice,’ said they, ‘what
to do; we know there is another island, not far from ours, to the eastward,
which we often see at a distance, when the days are clear. If you will
repair thither, you may be able to obtain settlements; or if they should
oppose you, you may make use of us as auxiliaries.’ The Picts accordingly
sailing over into Britain, began to inhabit the northern parts thereof, for
the Britons were possessed of the southern. Now the Picts having no wives,
and asking them of the Scots, they would not consent to grant them upon any
other terms, than that when any difficulty should arise, they should rather
choose themselves a king from the female royal race than from the male;
which custom, as is well known, has been observed among the Picts to this
day. In process of time, Britain, besides the Britons and the Picts,
received a third nation, the Scots, who, departing out of Ireland under
their leader Reuda, either by fair means, or by force of arms, secured to
themselves those settlements among the Picts which they still possess. From
the name of their commander, they are to this day called Dalreudins; for in
their language Dal signifies a part. It is properly the country of
the Scots, who, migrating from thence, as has been said, added a third
nation in Britain to the Britons and the Picts. There is a very large gulf
of the sea, which formerly divided the nation of the Picts from the Britons;
which gulf runs from the west very far into the land, where, to this day,
stands the strong city of the Britons, called Alcluith. The Scots arriving
on the north side of this bay, settled themselves there."
Here then Bede informs us
that in his time the common report was that the Picts came into Scotland
from Scythia, which, like the Germania of Tacitus, may be taken to mean the
northern countries of Europe generally. This is substantially the same
statement as that of the author of the Historia Britonum, commonly
called Xennius, who lived in the 9th century, and who informs us that the
Theta coming to Scotland about 300 B.C., occupied the Orkney Islands, whence
issuing, they laid waste many regions, and seized those on the left-hand
side, i. e. the north of Britain, where they still remained in the
writer’s time, keeping possession of a third part of Britain.
Supposing that Bede’s
report was quite in accordance with truth, still it gives us but small help
in coming to a conclusion as to the place of these Picts among the families
of men. It is certain that by far the greater part of Europe had at one time
a Celtic population who preceded, but ultimately gave way to another wave of
emigrants from the east. Now, if we knew the date at which this so-called
migration of the Picts took place it might be of considerable assistance to
us; but as we cannot now find out whether these emigrants proceeded from a
Celtic or a Teutonic stock, the statement of Bede, even if reliable, helps
us not at all towards a solution of the question as to the race of the Picts.
Innes remarks very justly on this point—" Now, supposing that there
were any good ground for the opinion of these two writers, which they
themselves give only as a conjecture or hearsay, and that we had any
certainty of the Caledonians, or Picts, having had their origin from the
more northern parts of the European continent, it were an useless, as well
as an endless discussion, to examine in particular from which of all the
northern nations of the continent the first colony came to Caledonia;
because that these nations of the north were almost in perpetual motion, and
changing habitations, as Strabo remarks; and he assigns for it two reasons:
the one, because of the barrenness of the soil, they tilled not the ground,
and built habitations only for a day; the other, because being often
overpowered by their neighbours, they were forced to remove. Another reason
why it is impossible to know from which of those nations the northern parts
of Britain, (supposing they came from thence) were at first peopled, is
because we have but very lame accounts of these northern nations from the
Greek or Roman writers, (from whom alone we can look for any thing certain
in those early times) especially of those of Scandia, to the north of the
Baltic sea, as the same Strabo observes. Besides, it appears that Caledonia
was peopled long before the inhabitants of these northern parts of the
continent were mentioned, or even known by the most ancient writers we have;
and perhaps before the first nations mentioned by them were settled in those
parts."
There is, however, another
statement made by Bede in the passage quoted, upon which, as it refers to his
own time, much more reliance can be placed; it is, that in his time Britain
contained five nations, each having its own peculiar dialect, viz., the
English, Britons, Scots, Picts, and Latins. We know that the English spoke in
the main Saxon; the Britons, i.e., the inhabitants of Wales, Cumbria,
&c., Welsh; the Scots, Gaelic; the Latins, we suppose, being the Romanized
Britons and ecclesiastics. What language then did the Picts speak? As we know
that Bede never travelled, he must have got his information from an informant
or by hearsay, which circumstance rather detracts from its value. But
supposing we take the passage literally as it stands, we learn that in Bede’s
time there were five distinct peoples or nations, whose names he gives,
sharing among them the island. He does not say there were five distinct
tongues, which would have been quite a different statement; he speaks of them
not so much in respect of their language as in respect of their being the
separate items which composed the inhabitants of Britain. In his time they
were all quite distinct, in a measure independent of and at enmity with each
other. He does not classify them in respect of the race to which they
belonged, but with reference to the particular districts which they inhabited,
and perhaps with regard to the time and means of their conversion to
Christianity, each having been converted at a different time and by a
different saint; The substance then of what he says appears to be, that there
were in his time five distinct tribes or congregations of people in Britain,
each converted to Christianity, and each having the gospel preached in its own
tongue. Supposing that the Picts and Scots, or Picts and Britons, or Picts and
English did speak exactly the same tongue, it is not at all likely that Bode,
in the present case, would have classed them together as both being one
nation. Moreover, suppose we allow that Bede did mean that each of these
nations spoke a language quite distinct from all the others, then his
statement cuts equally at the Gothic and Celtic theory. The conclusion we are
forced to is, that from this passage nothing can be gained to help us out of
our difficulty.
There is a statement at the end
of the passage quoted to which we would draw the reader’s attention, as
being Bede’s way, and no doubt the universal way in his time, of accounting
for a peculiar law which appears to have regulated the succession to the
Pictish throne, and which ultimately, according to some, was the means of
placing on that throne a Scottish monarch; thus accounting to some extent for
the sudden disappearance and an parent destruction of the Pictish people and
language.
We shall here refer to one
other passage in the same historian, which has perhaps given rise to greater
and more acrimonious contention than any other point in connection with this
wordy discussion. The only word that has come down to us, which, with the
exception of the names of the Pictish kings, we can be sure is a remnant of
the Pictish language, is the name said by Bede to have been given to the
eastern termination of the wall of Antonine. Bede, in speaking of the turf
wall built by the Britons of Valentia in the beginning of the 5th century,
says, "it begins at about two miles distance from the monastery of
Abercorn on the west, at a place called in the Pictish language Peanfahel, but
in the English tongue Penneltmn." This statement of Bede’s is
straightforward and clear enough, and has never been disputed by any writer on
any one of the three sides of the question. Nevertheless it has been used by
the advocates respectively of the Gothic, Gaelic, and Cymric origin of the
Picts, as an undoubted proof of the correctness of each of these theories.
Pinkerton, whose dishonesty and acrimoniousness are well known, and must
detract considerably from the force of his arguments, claims it as being
entirely Gothic or Teutonic. "The Pictish word," he says, "is
broad Gothic; Paena ‘to extend,’ Ihre; and Vahel, a broad
sound of veal, the Gothic for ‘wall,’ or of the Latin valium, contracted
vai; hence it means ‘the extent or end of the wall’" This
statement of Pinkerton’s may be dismissed as too far-fetched and awkward to
merit much consideration, and we may safely regard the word as capable of
satisfactory explanation only in Celtic. Innes, who upholds the British, i.
e. the Cymric, origin of the Picts, says, "we nowhere find a clearer
proof of the Pictish language being the same as the British [Welsh], than in
Bede, where he tells us that Penuahel in Pictish signifies the head of
the wall, which is just the signification that the same two words Pen and
Uahel have in the British." In this opinion Chalmers and other
advocates of the Cymric theory coincide. Mr. Garnett, who essentially agrees
with Tunes and Chalmers as to the Cymric origin of the Picts, lays little
stress upon this word as furnishing an argument in support of his theory.
"Almost the only Pictish word given us by an ancient writer is the
well-known Pen val (or as it appears in the oldest MSS. of Bede (Peann
fahel), the name given by the Picts to the Wail’s End, or eastern
termination of the Valium of Antoninus. It is scarcely necessary to say the
first part of the word is decidedly Cymric; pen, head, being contrary
to all Gaelic analogy. The latter half might be plausibly claimed as the
Gaelic fal; gwall being the more common termination in Welsh for a wall
or rampart. Fai, however, does occur in Welsh in the sense of inclosure,
a signification not very remote."
The two most recent and able supporters of the
Gaelic theory are of much the same mind as Garnett, and appear to regard this
tantalizing word as affording no support to either side. Burton cannot
admit that anything has been made out of this leading to a historical
conclusion.
We may safely conclude, then,
that this so-called Pictish word, or, indeed, any information which we find in
Bede, affords us no key to the perplexing question of the origin and race of
the Picts.
We learn, however, one fact
from Bede which is so far satisfactory, viz., that in his time there were two
divisions of the Picts, known as the Northern and Southern Picts, which were
separated from each other by steep and rugged mountains. On reading the
passage in Bede, one very naturally supposes that the steep and rugged
mountains must be the Grampians, to which the expression applies more aptly
than to any other mountain-chain in Scotland. Even this, however, has been
made matter of dispute, it being contended by some that the locality of the
Southern Picts was in the south-west and south of Scotland, where some writers
set up a powerful Pictish kingdom. Mr. Grub, however, has clearly shown that
the locality of the Southern Picts was to the north of the Forth and Clyde,
and to the south of the Grampians. "The mistake formerly so common in
regard to the country of the Southern Picts converted by St. Ninian, was in
part owing to the situation of Candida Casa. It was supposed that his see must
have been in the country of those whom he converted." He clearly proves
that it was not so in reality, and that there was nothing so unusual in the
situation as to justify the conclusion which was drawn from it. "It was,
no doubt, the case that the teachers by whom the chief Celtic and Teutonic
nations were converted generally fixed their seat among those whom they
instructed in the faith. But there was no necessity for this, especially when
the residence of the teacher was in the neighbourhood of his converts. St.
Columba was primate of all the churches of the Northern Picts, but he did not
permanently reside among that nation. St. Ninian had ready access to his
Pictish converts, and could govern them as easily from his White Church on the
Solway, as Columba could instruct and rule the Northern Picts from his
monastery in Iona."
Other authorities appealed to
by the upholders of each of the Celtic theories are the Welsh traditions, the
Irish Annals, the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, and various legendary
documents of more or less value and authenticity. As these are of no greater
authority than the writers with whom we have been dealing, and as the
partisans of each theory claim the various passages as either continuing, or,
at any rate, not contradicting their views, we shall not further trouble the
reader with specimens of the manner in which they are dealt with. There is one
passage, however, in the Welsh Triads, which the advocates of the Gaelic
hypothesis claim as strongly confirmatory of their theory. After referring to
the coming in of the Cymry, the Britons, etc., the Triads go on to say,
"Three tribes came, under protection, into the Island of Britain, and by
the consent and permission of the nation of the Cymry, without weapon, without
assault. The first was the tribe of the Caledonians in the north. The second
was the Gwyddelian Race, which are now in Alban (Scotland). The third were the
men of Galedin, who came into the Isle of Wight. Three usurping tribes came
into the Island of Britain and never departed out of it. The first were the Coranied,
who came from the land of Pwyl The second were the Gwyddelian Ffichti, who
came into Alban over the sea of Llychlyn (Denmark). The third were the
Saxons." "The Triads," says Skene in connection with this,
"appear distinctly to have been written previous to the Scottish conquest
in the ninth century, and they mention among the three usurping tribes of
Britain the ‘Cwy’ddyl Ffichti,’ and add immediately afterwards,
‘and these Gwyddyl Ffichti are in Alban, along the shore of the sea of Llychlyn.’
In another place, among the treacherous tribes of Britain, the same Triads
mention the ‘Gwyddyl coch o’r Werddon a ddaethant in Alban,’ that is ‘the
Red Gwyddyl from Ireland, who came into Alban,’ plainly alluding to the
Dalriads, who were an Irish colony, and who have been acknowledged by all to
have been a Gaelic race. It will be observed from these passages that the
Welsh Triads, certainly the oldest and most unexceptionable authority on the
subject, apply the same term of Gwyddyl to the Picts and to the Dalriads, and
consequently they must have been of the same race, and the Picts a Gaelic
people. Farther, the Welsh word ‘Gwyddyl,’ by which they distinguish that
race, has been declared by all the best authorities to be exactly synonymous
with the word Gael, the name by which the Highlanders have at all times been
distinguished, and the Welsh words ‘Gwyddyl Ffichti’ cannot be interpreted
to mean any thing else than ‘The Gaelic Picts,’ or ‘ Pictish
Gael.’"
The following is the substance
of the information given by the Irish writers as to the origin, race, and
early history of the Picts. The greater part of it is, of course, mere
tradition, accumulating as it grew older, and heightened by the imagination of
the writers themselves. The Picts were called by the Irish writers Cruithnidh,
which O’Brien considers to be the same as Britneigh, or Britons ; but
according to others the name was derived from Cruthen, who founded the
kingdom of the Picts in North Britain, in the first century; others derive the
name from Cruit, a harp, hence Cruitneach, the Irish for Pict, also
signifies a harper, as they are said to have been celebrated harpers. The
ancient Britons are mentioned by Cusar, and other Roman writers, to have
painted their bodies of a blue colour, with the juice of a plant called woad,
hence the painted Britons were called by the Romans Picti. The Picts or
Cruthneans, according to the Psalter of Cashel, and other ancient annals, came
from Thrace, in the reign of the Milesian monarch Heremon, nearly a thousand
years before the Christian era, and landed at Inver Slainge, now the Bay of
Wexford, under two chief commanders named Gud and Cathluan, but not being
permitted to settle in Ireland, they sailed to Albain, or that part of North
Britain, now Scotland, their chiefs having been kindly supplied with wives of
Irish birth. The Cruthneans became possessed of North Britain, and founded
there the kingdom of the Picts. A colony of the Cruthneans, or Picts, from
North Britain, settled in Ulster in early times, and are often mentioned from
the first to the ninth century; they resided chiefly in Dalaradia and Tir
Eogain, or parts of Down, Antrim, and Derry, and became mixed by
intermarriages with the old Irish of the Irian race, and were ruled over by
their own princes and chiefs; and some of those Picts, also settled in
Connaught, in the county of Roscommon. According to the Irish writers, the
Picts, in their first progress to Ireland from Thrace, settled a colony in
Gaul, and the tribes called Pictones and Pictavi, in that country, were
descended from them, and they gave name to Pictavia, or the city of Poictiers,
and the province of Poitou; and from these Picts were descended the Vendeans
of France. The Caledonians, or first inhabitants of Scotland, are
considered to have been the same as the Picts, and mixed with Cimbrians or
Britons, and some of the Milesian Scots from Ireland.
The advocates of the various
theories, apparently aware of how little can be made of the meagre and
suspicious information afforded by these early histories and chronicles, have
latterly made language the principal battle-ground on which to fight out this
endless and profitless strife. Most of them take for granted that if the
language spoken by any people can be found out, a sure indication is afforded
of the race to which that people belonged; and that the topography of a
country must necessarily have been imposed by the earliest inhabitants of whom
we have record; and that, if so, the limits of their territory must have been
co-extensive with the limits of such topography. This, however, is going too
far. All the length to which we are permitted in fairness to go, when we find
in any district or country an abundance of names of natural objects, as rivers
and mountains, which can with certainty be traced to any particular language,
is, that at one time or other, a race of people speaking this language must
have passed over and dwelt for some time in that particular district or
country. We find Celtic names of rivers and mountains scattered all over
Europe, in the midst of peoples who are admitted on all hands to have little
or none of the Celtic element in them. So that an unprejudiced judge must
admit that the fact of Cymric and Gaelic words being found in certain
districts of the north of Scotland argues only that at one time people
speaking these dialects must have dwelt in these districts. It affords no
proof by itself that the people whom we first meet with in these districts are
the people who spoke these dialects, and who imposed these names; nor indeed,
if we could be sure that the people whom we first meet with as inhabitants
also spoke the dialect to which such names belong, does it prove that they
were the imposers of these names, that the dialect was their native and
original tongue, and that they had not acquired it either as conquerors or
conquered. Nor can it be adduced as a proof of sameness of race, that the
present inhabitants of any particular district speak the same language as
those who inhabited that district 1800 years ago or less. "He who trusts
to language, and especially to written language, alone, as an index to race,
must be prepared to maintain that the Gallic nation emigrated from the seven
hills of Rome, and that the Franks came with them; that the Romans extirpated
the Celts and Iberians of Spain, and that the Goths and Moors spoke nearly the
same language as the Romans; that the Negroes of the United States and Jamaica
were exported from England when in their infancy. So would Philology, if left
to herself, interpret phenomena, of which we know, from other sources of
information, that the causes are totally different." "The clearest
proof that a mountain or river has a Celtic name, only shows that at some time
or other Celts had been there; it does not tell us when they were there.
Names, as the experience of the world amply shows, live after the people who
bestowed them have long disappeared, and that through successive races of
occupants."
The materials which have been
wrought up into a linguistic argument by the upholders of each of the three
Pictish theories, Gothic, Gaelic, and Cymric, are chiefly a list of Pictish
kings which, we believe, may be depended on as authentic, and the topography
of the country to the east and south-east of the Grampians, together with the
single so-called Pictish word Peanfahel, which we have already
considered. The theorists differ as much in their interpretation of the
significance of what remains of the Pictish language, as we have seen they do
in their interpretation of any references to the subject in dispute in ancient
chronicles. The names of the kings, and the names of places have been traced
by the disputants to Gothic, Gaelic and Cymric roots.
It is, however, generally
admitted at the present day, that so far as language is concerned, the Gothic
theory has not the remotest chance; that names of places and of kings are most
satisfactorily and straightforwardly explained by Cymric roots. As the Gothic
or Teutonic theory cannot stand the test of modern criticism, we shall content
ourselves with giving specimens of the manner in which the linguistic, or,
more strictly, topographical argument is used by the advocates of the Cymric
and Gaelic hypotheses respectively.
The Cymric argument is clearly,
ably, and succinctly stated by Mr. Garnett in his essay on "The Relation
of the Pict and Gael;" he, however, it must be remembered, looked at the
whole question mainly in its philological aspect. In stating the argument we
shall use chiefly his own words. "That the Picts were actually Colts, and
not of Teutonic race, is proved to a demonstration by the names of their
kings; of whom a list, undoubtedly genuine from the fifth century downwards,
was published by Innes, from a manuscript in the Colbertine library. Some of
those appellations are, as far as we know at present, confined to the Pictish
sovereigns; but others are well-known Welsh and Gaelic names. They differ,
however, slightly in their forms, from their Cymric equivalents; and more
decidedly so from the Gaelic ones; and, as far as they go, lead to the
supposition that those who bore them spoke a language bearing a remote analogy
to the Irish with its cognates, but a pretty close one to the Welsh.
"In the list furnished by
Innes the names Maeleon, Elpin, Taran (i.e. thunder), Uven (Owen),
Bargoit, are those of personages well known in British history or
tradition. Wrgust, which appears as Fergus in the Irish annals, is the
Welsh Gwrgust. Talorg, Talorgan, evidently contain the British word Tal,
forehead, a common element in proper names; ex. gr. Talhaiarn, Iron
Forehead; Taliesin, splendid forehead, &c. Taleurgain would
signify in Welsh golden or splendid front. Three kings are represented as sons
of Wid, in the Irish annals of Foit or Foith. In Welsh
orthography it would be Gwydd, wild; a common name in Brittany at the
present day, under the form of Gwez. The names Drust, Drostan, Wrad,
Neeton (in Bede Naitan), closely resemble the Welsh Trwst,
Trwstan, Gwriad, Nwython. It will be sufficient to compare the entire list
with the Irish or Highland genealogies, to be convinced that there must have
been a material distinction between the two branches. Most of the Pictish
names are totally unknown in Irish or Highland history, and the few that are
equivalent, such as Angus and Fergus, generally differ in form. The Irish
annalists have rather obscured the matter, by transforming those names
according to their national system of orthography; but it is remarkable that a
list in the ‘Book of Ballymote,’ partly given by Lynch in his ‘Cambrensis
Eversus,’ agrees closely with Innes, even preserving the initial w or
u where the Gaelic would require f. The philological inferences
to be deduced from this document may be thus briefly summed up : 1. The names
of the Pictish kings are not Gaelic, the majority of them being totally
unknown both in the Irish and Highland dialects, while the few which have
Gaelic equivalents decidedly differ from them in form. Cineod (Kenneth) and
Domhnall or Donnel, appear to be the only exceptions. 2. Some of them cannot
be identified as Welsh; but the greater number are either identical with or
resemble known Cymric names; or approach more nearly to Welsh in structure and
orthography than to any other known language. 3. There appears nevertheless to
have been a distinction, amounting, at all events, to a difference in dialect.
The Pictish names beginning with w would in Welsh have gw, as Gwrgust
for Wrgust, and so of the rest. There may have been other
differences sufficient to justify Bede’s statement that the Pictish language
was distinct from the British, which it might very well be without any
impeachment of its claim to be reckoned as closely cognate."
We have already referred to the
use made of the Pictish word Peannfahel, preserved by Bede, and to the
phrase in Adamnan concerning Columba’s preaching by means of an interpreter.
It is contended by the upholders of the Cymric theory that the ancient
topographical appellations of the Pictish territory can in general only be
explained by the Cymric dialects, one strong point being the number of local
names beginning with the Welsh prefix aber, which, according to
Chalmers, was in several instances subsequently changed by the Gael into inver.
Skene, who felt the force of this argument, tried to get rid of it by
contending that aber is essentially a Gaelic word, being compounded of ath,
ford, and bior, water. Garnett thinks this explanation utterly
gratuitous, and observes that the term may be much more satisfactorily
accounted for by a different process. "There are," he observes,
"three words in Welsh denoting a meeting of waters —aber, cynver, and
ynver,—respectively compounded of the particles a, denoting
juxtaposition, cyn (Lat. con), and yn, with the root ber,
flowing, preserved in the Breton verb beri, to flow, and all
virtually equivalent to our word confluence. Inver is the only term
known in any Gaelic dialect, either as an appellative or in proper names; and
not a single local appellation with the prefix aber occurs either in
Ireland or the Hebrides, or on the west coast of Scotland. Indeed, the fact
that inver was substituted for it after the Gaelic occupation of the
Pictish territories, is decisive evidence on the point; for, if aber was
a term familiar to the Gael, why should they change it I"
"In Scotland," says
Isaac Taylor, who upholds the Cymric hypothesis, "the myers and abers
are distributed in a curious and instructive manner. If we draw a line
across the map from a point a little south of Inverary, to one a little north
of Aberdeen, we shall find that (with very few exceptions) the myers lie
to the north west of the line, and the abers to the south-east 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
Scots. Hence we may conclude that the Picts, a people belonging to the Cymric
branch of the Celtic stock, and whose language has now ceased to be anywhere
vernacular, occupied the central and eastern districts of Scotland, as far as
the Grampians; while the Gadhelic Scots have retained their language, and have
given their name to the whole country. The local names prove, moreover, that
in Scotland the Cymry did not encroach on the Gael, but the Gael on the Cymry.
The intrusive names are myers, which invaded the land of the abers. Thus
on the shore of eth Frith of Forth we find a few invers among the abers.
The Welsh word uchel, high, may also be adduced to prove the Cymric
affinities of the Picts. This word does not exist in either the Erse or the
Gaelic languages, and yet it appears in the name of the OCHIL HILLS, in
Perth-shire. Again, the Erse bally, a town, occurs in 2,000 names in
Ireland; and, on the other hand, is entirely absent in Wales and Brittany. In
Scotland this most characteristic test-word is found frequently in the inver
district, while it never appears among the abers. The evidence of
these names makes it impossible to deny that the Celts of the Scottish
Lowlands must have belonged to the Cymric branch of the Celtic stock."
We infer from what Mr. Taylor
says, that he is of opinion that at one time the language of the whole of the
north of’ Scotland was Cymric, but that the district in which the Scots
obtained a settlement afterwards underwent a change of topography. But it is
admitted on all hands that the Scottish Dalriada comprehended no more than the
modern Argyleshire, extending no farther north than Loch Leven and Loch Linnhe;
and that the Irish Scots had little influence on the people or their language
to the north-west of the Grampians. Indeed, Skene maintains that this
district, in which he places the Northern Picts, was never subjected to the
Scots, and that it was only the Southern Picts who latterly came under their
sway. Yet we find that the abers here are few and far between, or,
indeed, any indications of Cymric possession such as we find in the southern
district. Is it possible that the Northern and Southern Picts were
representatives of the two great divisions of the Celts,—the former claiming
a Gaelic origin, and the latter a Cymric? Perhaps after all the Welsh Triads
may in course of time be of some help in the solution of this dark problem,
as, according to them, there was more than one Celtic settlement in Scotland
before the migration of the Scots. The passages above quoted are, to all
appearance, much more favourable to the Gaelic than to the Cymric hypothesis,
and have been made much of by Skene and other supporters of that side of the
question.
The Cymric origin of the
Picts, besides Garnett and Taylor, is
supported by such names as Innes, Chalmers, Ritson, Whittaker, Grub, and
others.
Pinkerton, it is well known, is
the great and unscrupulous upholder of the Gothic origin of the Picts; while
the Gaelic theory has for its supporters such writers, of undoubted ability
and acuteness, as Skene, E. W. Robertson, Forbes-Leslie, &c. Burton is
of opinion that the Highlanders of the present day are the true
representatives of the Dalriadic Scots of the West.
We shall, as we have done in
the case of the other side, allow the upholders of the Gaelic hypothesis to
state for themselves the Gaelic topographical argument. We shall use the words
of Colonel Forbes-Leslie, who, in his invaluable work on the "Early Races
of Scotland," says, "The Celtic words Inver and Aber
have nearly the same meaning; and the relative position in which they occur in
names of places has been employed as if it were a sufficient argument for
defining the presence or preponderance of the British or Gaelic Celts in
certain districts. In this way Aber, prefixed to names of places, has been
urged as adequate proof that the Picts of Caledonia were Celts of the
British branch. The value of these and some other words requires examination.
Inver is to he found in names of places in Wales. It may possibly be a British
word. It certainly is a Gaelic one. Aber, although undoubtedly British, is
also Gaelic—compounded of the two words Ath and Bior—and signifying the
same as Inver, viz., the confluence of two streams, or the entrance to a
river. If the word Aber had been unknown to the Gaelic scholars of modern
days, its former existence in that language might have been presumed from the
ancient names of places in the districts of Caledonia, where it occurs most
frequently, being generally Gaelic and not British.
"Beyond the limits of
Caledonia on the south of the Forth and Clyde, but within the boundary of
modem Scotland, the word Inver, generally pronounced Inner, is of common
occurrence, and bears witness to a Gaelic nomenclature. Thus, Inner or
Inverkip, in the county of Renfrew; Innerwell, in the county of Wigton;
Innerwick, in the county of Haddington; Innerleithen, in the county of
Peebles; Inverleith and Inveresk, in the county of Edinburgh, derive their
names from their situation in regard to the rivers Kip, Leithen, Esk, &c.
&c.
"From the Moray Frith to
the Forth, in the eastern counties of Caledonia, the prefix Inver or Aber is
used indiscriminately in contiguous places. At the confluence of lesser
streams with the river Dee, in Aberdeenshire, we find Inverey, Abergeldie,
Invercauld, Invercanny, Aberdeen. Yet in those counties— viz., Aberdeen,
Kincardline, Forfar, Perth, and Fife, in which were situated the capitals, and
which were the richest provinces of the southern Picts—the number of names
of places beginning with Inver is three times as numerous as those commencing
with Aber; there being, in a list taken from land-registers, which do not go
farther back than the middle of the sixteenth century, seventy-eight with
Inver to twenty-four with Aber. It may, however, be admitted that, although
Aber is Gaelic, its use is far more general by Celts of the British tribes;
and that the predominance of Inver in the districts north of the Spey, and the
intermixture of places the names of which commence with Inver or Aber, not
unfrequently used in records of nearly the same date for the same place in the
country lying between the Moray and the Solway Friths, is, to a certain
extent, evidence of a British element of population extending into Caledonia.
The Britons, in earlier times, may have been pressing on to the north by
gradual intrusion, and were probably afterwards increased by bodies of exiles
escaping from the severity of Roman bondage and the punishment of unsuccessful
revolt.
"That names of places
containing the words Hal, from Bail, a place or residence, and Ard, a height
or rising ground, are so common in Ireland, and comparatively rare, so it is
alleged, in Caledonia, has also been used as an argument to prove that the
language of the Picts and other Caledonians of the southern and eastern
districts was British, not Gaelic. But the foundation of the argument has been
assumed, and is easily disproved. It is true that of large towns and places
that appear in gazetteers, names commencing with Bal and Ard are not numerous.
But in fact such names are extremely common. In the lowlands of Aberdoenshire—that
is, in the portion of one county, and in the part of Caledonia farthest
removed from the settlements of the intrusive Gaels, viz., the Scots from
Ireland—registers of land show upwards of fifty places the names of which
cornmence with Bal, and forty which commence with Ard. In the Pictish
territory, from the Moray Frith to the Forth, I soon collected upwards of four
hundred names of places beginning with Bal, and upwards of one hundred with
Ard; and the number might easily be doubled"
Mr. E. W. Robertson, one of the
latest and ablest upholders of this theory, thinks there is scarcely
sufficient evidence to justify any very decided conclusion as to the
pre-existence of a Cymric population; and that, whilst it would be
unquestionably erroneous to ascribe a Cyrnric origin to the Picts, the
existence of a Celtic element akin to the Cymri, amongst the population of
Alban before the arrival of the Gwyddel Fftchti, must remain to a
certain extent an open question.
Of all a priori theories
that have hitherto been advanced as to how Scotland was likely to have been at
first peopled, that of Father Inca, the first writer who investigated the
subject thoroughly and critically, appears to us to be the most plausible and
natural, although even it is beset with many difficulties. It appears to him
more natural and probable that the Caledonian Britons, or Picts, were of the
same origin as the Britons of the south; that as these came in originally from
the nearest coast of Gaul, as they multiplied in the island, they advanced to
the north and settled there, carrying with them the customs and language of
the South Britons.
We have thus endeavoured to lay
before the reader, as fully as space permits, and as clearly and
unprejudicedly as possible, the materials at present existing by means of
which to form an opinion on the Pictish question, and the arguments pro and
con, mainly in their own words, urged by the partisans of the different
theories. It appears to us that the data within reach are far too scanty to
justify any one in coming to a settled conclusion, and that we must wait
for more light before we can he justified in finally making up our minds on
this perplexing subject.
[We have already referred to
the Gaelo-Cymric theory broached by Dr. Maclanchlan in his Early Scottish
Church, and recently adopted by Dr. Skene. Speaking of the
distribution of the topographical nomenclature in the Highlands, Dr.
Maclauchlan says it indicates one of two things; "either that the one
race overpowered the other in the east, and superinduced a new nomenclature
over the old throughout the country,—that we have in fact two successive
strata of Celtic names, the Gaelic underlying the British, which is by no
means impossible; or, what is more likely, that the Pictish people were a
people lying midway between the Gael and the Cymri—more Gaelic than the
Cymri, and more Cymric than the Gael. This is precisely the character of the
old Pictish topography; it is a mixture of Gaelic and Cymric; and if the
language of the people was like their topography, it too was a language
neither Gaelic nor Cymric, but occupying a middle space between them,
indicating the identity of the races at some distant period, although they
afterwards became rivals for the possession of the land." This we think
on the whole the most satisfactory theory yet propounded].
At the present day we find that
nearly the whole of the territory said to have been originally occupied by the
Picts, is inhabited, and has been for centuries, by a population which in
appearance is far more Teutonic than Celtic, and which undoubtedly speaks a
broad Teutonic dialect. [We would infer from the recently published Book of
Deer, that down at least to the time of David II., the inhabitants were
still a Gaelic speaking population; all the entries in that book as to land
are in that language]. And even in the district where the Gaelic language has
been triumphant for ages, it is acknowledged even by the most devoted
partisans of the Gaelic theory, that among the population there is a very
considerable intermixture of the Teutonic element. Burton thinks, from a
general view of the whole question, that the proportion of the Teutonic race
that came into the use of the Gaelic, was much greater than the proportion of
the Gaelic that came into the use of the Teutonic or Saxon, and that this may
account for the contrasts of physical appearance to be seen in the Highlands.
We certainly have not exhausted
the statement of the question, have not stated fully and cornpletely all the
points in dispute; nor do we pretend to have given with fulness all the
arguments pro and con on the various sides. We have, however,
given as much as will enable any ordinary reader to form for himself a fair
idea of the present state of the Pictish question, and indicated the sources
whence more information may be derived, should any one wish to pursue the
subject farther. In the words of the latest and greatest Scottish historian
"this brief survey of the great Pictish controversy leaves nothing but a
melancholy record of wasted labour and defeated ambition. It has been more
fruitless than a polemical or a political dispute, for these leave behind
them, either for good or evil, their marks upon the conduct and character of
the populations among whom they have raged, while here a vast outlay of
learning, ingenuity, enthusiasm, and, it must be added, temper, have left no
visible monument but a pile of forbidding volumes, in which should any one who
has not studied the matter fundamentally expect to find instructive
information, he will assuredly be led into a tangled maze of unintelligible
pedantry, from which he will come forth with no impression but a nightmare
feeling of hopeless struggle with difficulties."
As we have already said, the
materia]s for the internal history of the Highlands during the Roman
occupation are of the scantiest, nearly all that can be recorded being the
struggles of the northern tribes with the Roman invaders, and the incursions
of the former and their allies into the territories of the Romanizerl Britons.
Doubtless many events as worthy of record as these, an account of which has
been preserved, were during this period being transacted in the northern part
of Scotland, and we have seen that many additions, from various quarters, must
have been made to the population. However, there are no records extant which
enable us to form any distinct notion of the nature of these events, and
history cannot be manufactured.
After the departure of the
Romans, the provincial Britons of the south of Scotland were completely at the
mercy of the Picts as well as the Saxons, who had been invited over by the
South Britons to assist them against the northern barbarians. These Saxons, we
know, very soon entered into alliance with those whom they came to repel, and
between them the Britons south of the friths were eventually driven into the
West, where for centuries they appear to have maintained an independent
kingdom under the name of Strathclyde, until ultimately they were incorporated
with the Scots’
Although both the external and
internal history of the Highlands during this period is much better known than
in the case of the Roman period, still the materials are exceedingly scanty.
Scottish historians, from Fordun and Boece downwards, made it their business
to fill up from their own imaginations what is wanting, so that, until the
simple-minded but acute Innes put it in its true light, the early history of
Scotland was a mass of fable.
Undoubtedly the two most
momentous events of this period are the firm settlement in Argyle of a colony
of Scots from Ireland and some of the neighbouring isles in 503, and the
conversion of the Northern Picts to Christianity by Columba about 563.
At the time of the Roman
abandonment of Britain the Picts were under the sway of a king or chieftain
named Drust, son of Erp, concerning whom the only record remaining is, that he
lived a hundred years and fought a hundred battles. In fact, little is known
with certainty of the Pictish history for upwards of one hundred years after
the departure of the Romans, although some ancient chronicles afford us lists
of Pictish kings or princes, a chronological table of whom, from Drust
downwards, will be found at the end of this chapter. The Pictish chronicle
contains the names of thirty-six others who are said to have reigned before
Drust, but these are generally regarded as almost entirely spurious.
Before proceeding farther with
the Pictish history, it may be proper to give a brief account of the
settlement of the Irish Sects or Dalriads, as they are frequently called, in
the Pictish territory.
The time of the settlement of
the Scots in present Scotland was for long a subject of disputation, the early
Scottish historians, from a false and unscrupulous patriotism, having pushed
it back for many centuries before its actual occurrence. This dispute is now,
however, fairly set at rest, there being no foundation for believing that the
Scots found their way from Ireland to Scotland earlier than a century or two
before the birth of Christ. As we have already seen, we find the first mention
of the Scots in Ammianus Marcellinus about the year 360 AD. ; and their name
occurs in the same connection frequently afterwards, during the Roman
occupation of Scotland. Burton is of opinion that the migration did not take
place at any particular time or under any particular leader, but that it was
gradual, that the Sects "oozed" out of Ireland upon the western
coast of Scotland.
It belongs to the history of
Ireland to trace the origin and fix the race of the Scots, to settle the time
of their coming into Ireland, and discover whence they came. Some suppose that
they migrated originally from Britain to Ireland, while Innes and others bring
them either from Scandinavia or Spain, and connect them with the Scyths,
asserting that Scot is a mere corruption of Scyth, and dating the settlement
at about the commencement of the Christian era. The Irish traditions connect
them with a certain Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, and date their coming to
Ireland upwards of 1,000 years B.C. E. W. Robertson and others consider them
to have been Irish Picts or Cruithne.
Wherever the Scots came from
and to whatever race they belong, whether Teutonic or Celtic, they certainly
appear not to have been the first settlers in Ireland, and at the time at
which they first appear in authentic history occupied a district in Ireland
corresponding to Connaught, Leinster, and part of Munster. They were also one
of the most powerful of the Irish tribes, seeing that for many centuries
Ireland was, after them, called Scotia or Scotland. It is usually said that a
particular corner in the north-east of Ireland, about 30 miles in extent,
corresponding to the modern county of Antrim, was the kingdom of the
particular band of Scots who migrated to Scotland; and that it received its
name, Dal-Riada (‘the portion of Riada’), from Carbre-Riada, a leader of
the Scots who conquered this particular part, previously inhabited by Cruithne
or Irish Picts. Robertson, however, considers all this fable and the kingdom
of Dalriada as mythical, Tighernach and the early Irish annalists never
applying the name to any other locality than British Dalriada. At all events,
this particular district was spoken of by the later chroniclers under the name
of Dalriada, there being thus a Dalriada both in Scotland and Ireland. At the
time of the migration of the Scots from Ireland to Scotland, they were to all
intents and purposes a Celtic race, speaking Irish Gaelic, and had already
been converted to Christianity.
The account of the Scottish
migration usually given is, that in the year 503 A.D., a new colony of
Dalriads or Dalriadic Scots, under the leadership of Fergus son of Erc, a
descendant of Carbre-Riada, along with his brothers Lorn and Angus, left
Ireland and settled on the western coast of Argyle and the adjacent islands.
"The territories which constituted the petty kingdoms of Dalriada can be
pretty well defined. They were bounded on the south by the Frith of Clyde, and
they were separated on the east from the Pictish kingdom by the ridge of the
great mountain chain called Drumalban. They consisted of four tribes,—the
genus or Cinel Lorn, descended from Lorn, the elder of the three brothers; the
Cinel Gabran and Cinel Comgall, descended from two sons of Domangart, son of
Fergus, the second of the brothers; and the Cinel Angus, descended from the
third brother, Angus. The Cinel Comgall inhabited the district formerly called
Comgall, now corrupted into Cowall. The Cinel Gabran inhabited what was called
the Airgiallas, or the district of Argyle proper, and Kintyre. The Cinel Angus
inhabited the islands of Islay and Jura, and the Cinel Lorn, the district of
Lorn. Beyond this, on the north, the districts between Lorn and the promontory
of Ardnamurchan, i.e., the island of Mull, the district of Morven,
Ardgower, and probably part of Lochaber, seem to have formed a sort of
debatable ground the population of which was Pictish, while the Scots had
settlements among them. In the centre of the possessions of the Cinel Gabran,
at the head of the well-sheltered loch of Crinan, lies the great Moss of
Crinan, with the river Add flowing through it. In the centre of the moss, and
on the side of the river, rises an isolated rocky hill called Dunadd, the top
of which is strongly fortified. This was the capital of Dalriada, and many a
stone obelisk in the moss around it bears silent testimony to the contests of
which it was the centre. The picturesque position of Dunolly Castle, on a rock
at the entrance of the equally sheltered bay of Oban, afforded another
fortified summit, which was the chief stronghold of the tribe of Lorn. Of
Dunstaffnage, as a royal seat, history knows nothing."
It would appear that Lorn and
Fergus at first reigned jointly, the latter becoming sole monarch on the
decease of the former. The succession appears not to have been confined to any
particular line, and a disputed succession not infrequently involved the Scots
in civil war.
There is no portion of history
so obscure or so perplexing as that of the Scoto-Irish kings, and their
tribes, from their first settlement, in the year 503, to their accession to
the Pictish throne in 843. Unfortunately no contemporaneous written records
appear ever to have existed of that dark period of our annals, and the efforts
which the Scotch and Irish antiquaries have made to extricate the truth from
the mass of contradictions in which it lies buried, have rather been displays
of national prejudice than calm researches by reasonable inquirers. The
annals, however, of Tigernach, and of Ulster, along with the brief chronicles
and historical documents first brought to light by the industrious Innes, in
his Critical Essay, have thrown some glimpses of light on a subject which had
long remained in almost total darkness.
The next authentic event of
importance that falls to be recorded in connection with the history of the
Highlands, is the conversion of the Northern Picts to Christianity, about the
year 563. The Southern Picts, i. e. those living to the south and east of the
Grampians, were converted by St. Ninian (360—432) about the beginning of the
5th century; but the Northern Picts, until the date above-mentioned, continued
Pagans. That there were no Christians among them till that time appears very
improbable, considering their close neighbourhood and constant intercourse
with the Southern Picts and the Scots of Dalriada; but there can be no doubt
that the court and the great bulk of the people adhered to their ancient
superstitions.
Egypt and Scythia
Described by Herodotus (1866) (pdf) |