Chapter II (2)

“In the list furnished by Innes the names _Maelcon_, _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_, _Necton_ (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,[68] 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,[69] “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?”

“In Scotland,” says Isaac Taylor,[70] who upholds the Cymric hypothesis, “the _invers_ 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 _invers_ 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 _invers_, which invaded the land of the _abers_. Thus on the shore of the 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 Perthshire. 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 Argyllshire, 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[71] 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[72] 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,”[73] 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 be 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 modern 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, Kincardine, 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 Bal, 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 gazeteers, names commencing with Bal and Ard are not numerous. But in fact such names are extremely common. In the lowlands of Aberdeenshire--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 commence 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[74] 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 Cymric 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 Ffichti_, 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 Innes, 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.[75]

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 be justified in finally making up our minds on this perplexing subject.[76]

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.[77] 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 completely 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.”[78]

FOOTNOTES:

[24] Garnett’s _Philological Essays_, p. 196.

[25] Agricola xi.

[26] The wall of Antonine.

[27] Dio L. 76, c. 12, as quoted in Ritson’s _Annals_, p. 11.

[28] Critical Essay, ch. ii.

[29] _Highlanders._

[30] Book iii.

[31] “Scotti per diversa vagantes, multa populabantur.” Am. Mar. xxvii. 8.

[32] “---- Nec falso nomine Pictos
Edomuit.”

[33] “Venit et extremis legio prætenta Britannis
Quæ Scoto dat fræna truci, ferroque notatas
Perlegit exangues Scoto moriente figuras.”--
_De bello Getico_, v. 416.

Thus rendered by Ritson:--

The legion came, o’er distant Britains placed,
Which bridles the fierce Scot, and bloodless figures
With iron marked, views in the dying Pict.

[34] The name given by the Irish Annalists to the Picts is _Cruithne_, said by some to mean “variegated.”

[35] The only important exception is Ritson, whose arguments, like those of his opponent Pinkerton, consist mostly of virulent language and vehement assertion.

[36] In Amm. Mar.

[37] It is a curious fact that these latter are, among the peasantry of Scotland, the distinctive characteristics of the Picts or Pechts, who, however, it is not unlikely, may be popularly confounded with the Brownies, especially as, in Perthshire at any rate, they are said always to have done their work while others were asleep.

[38] Skene’s _Highlanders_, vol. i. p. 2.

[39] L. O. Pike, _The English and their Origin_, ch. i.

[40] _Biographia Britannica Literaria_, vol. i.

[41] Gildas, 1.

[42] Id., 19.

[43] Gildas, 14.

[44] _Highlanders_, vol. i. p. 72.

[45] Garnett’s _Philological Essays_, p. 199.

[46] Adam. _ap. Colganum_, 1. ii. c. 32.

[47] 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 Columba 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.

[48] Bede’s _Eccles. Hist._, Book 1. c. i.

[49] Nennius 12, Vatican MS.

[50] _Critical Essay on Scotland_, vol. i. p. 68.

[51] Book i., c. 12.

[52] _Inquiry into the Hist. of Scot._, vol. i. p. 357, ed. 1814.

[53] _Crit. Essay_, vol. i. p. 75.

[54] Garnett’s _Phil. Essays_, p. 198.

[55] Robertson’s _Scotland under her Early Kings_, vol. ii. p. 380. Forbes-Leslie’s _Early Races of Scotland_, vol. i. p 35.

[56] _Hist. of Scot._, vol. i. p. 187.

[57] Book iii. ch. 4.

[58] _Eccl. Hist. of Scot._, vol. i. p. 15, &c.

[59] _Eccl. Hist. of Scot._, vol. i. p. 17.

[60] Davies’ _Celtic Researches_, p. 155.

[61] _Highlanders of Scotland_, vol. i. p. 69.

[62] We are indebted for most of the following account to Connellan’s _Annals of the Four Masters_, p. 367 (note).

[63] See Taylor’s _Words and Places_, ch. ix.

[64] Pike’s _English and their Origin_, ch. ii., which contains some shrewd and valuable remarks on the subject of language.

[65] Burton, vol. i. p. 192.

[66]
| Chalmers for | Pinkerton for | Jamieson,
| Celtic, | Gothic, | “Teutonic Etymons.”
------+---------------------+------------------+--------------------
Drust | Probably the British| Drust, a common | Su. Goth. _troest_,
| name Trwst, which | Pikish name, is | _dristig_. Germ.,
| signifies din. | also Persian, and| _dreist_. Alem.
| | signifies _sinc- | _gidrost_, daring.
| | erus_.... The |
| | Persians were the|
| | old Sythæ or |
| | Goths, from whom |
| | the rest sprung. |
| | |
Brudi | Brudw, which is | Brudi is the real| Island., Briddi
or | pronounced Bridw or | Gothic name; | _eminebat_. vercl:
Bridei| Bradw, is in the | Bout is the | breida, to extend;
| British treacherous | wounded (Bott | and Sueo-Goth, _e_,
| | _ictus_ Wachter).| law; 2. one who
| | | extends the law,
| | | who publishes it.
------+---------------------+------------------+--------------------

For other instances see Burton’s _Scotland_, i. p. 196.

[67] Garnett’s _Phil. Essays_, pp. 197, 198.

[68] _Highlanders._

[69] _Phil. Essays_, p. 200.

[70] _Words and Places_, p. 246.

[71] Highlanders.

[72] _Scotland_, vol i. p. 207.

[73] Vol. i. p. 26.

[74] Vol. ii. p. 377.

[75] _Essay on Scotland_, vol. i. p. 70.

[76] We have already (p. 22) referred to the Gaelo-Cymric theory broached by Dr. Maclauchlan 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.

[77] 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.

[78] Burton, vol. i. p. 200.