ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS SCOTTISH LANGUAGE. AN INQUIRY PRELIMINARY TO THE PROPER UNDERSTANDING OF SCOTTISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE, BY JAMES PATERSON, Editor of " Kay's Edinburgh Portraits;" Author of "The Contemporaries of Burns; " History of the County and Families of Ayr; " "Memoir of James Fillans, Sculptor," &c. &c. " If there is any branch [of antiquarian research] that has pretensions to interest and dignity, it is certainly that which relates to the origin and destinies of nations, the filiation of distant races, and the affinities of remote establishments." Edinburgh Re- rietf, 1803. EDINBURGH : JOHN MENZIES, 61 PRINCES STREET. GLASGOW: THOS. MURRAY & SON, 49 BUCHANAN STREET; J. PATERSON, 94 GLASSFORD STREET. PAISLEY: R. STEWART, CROSS. MDCCCLV. CONTENTS I'age PREFACE, 7 INTRODUCTION, 25 FIRST INHABITANTS, 29 THE PICTS, 30 THE SCOTS, 42 THE TEUTONIC ADVENT, 76 OF THE NORTHMEN, 89 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTTISH LANGUAGE, .... 106 PREFACE, THE following pages make no pretension to novelty in matters of fact. The many learned and able disputants who from time to time have entered the lists, arid brought the full array of their laborious gleanings from ancient authorities to bear upon the question at issue, preclude the hope of any additional information capable of throw- ing light on the subject. The Author, at the same time, is convinced that the existing diversity of opinion pro- ceeds more from the one-sided manner in which these facts have been produced, and the pre-determination of the contending parties to support particular views, than from the contradictory or unsatisfactory nature of the facts themselves. In a matter of such remote antiquity, and in the face of so many plausible and conflicting theories, it would be presumption to affirm that he has even approached a settlement of the question ; yet he is egotist enough to think that he has at least suggested Vlll PREFACE. views capable of reconciling or explaining the leading data adduced by the more distinguished controversialists, and brought the whole within the grasp of the general reader, whose leisure and inclination may not have ena- bled him to grapple with the various authorities. He has endeavoured to do this by avoiding unnecessary de- tail, laying hold only of the more prominent landmarks, which in reality command all the rest, and bringing to bear upon them the weight of self-evident conclusions, or the conviction arising from the testimony of circum- stances. The Author was led into this self-imposed undertaking, not with a view to publication, but for his own satisfaction. While engaged in writing the ' History of the County and Families of Ayrshire,' some years ago, he had occa- sion to inquire into the origin of the inhabitants of that district ; and in doing so, felt much perplexed by the opposing theories and contradictory statements put forth by the respective writers whom he found it desirable to consult. When more leisure offered, he resumed the inquiry, upon a more extended basis, and the following pages are the result of his labours. Believing it to be of essential interest historically as well as nationally, that a people should know from what division of the world or PREFACE. IX from -what branch of the human family they are derived, he has thus ventured to claim public attention, and trusts that the digest of the great antiquarian question of ages which he offers may not be without its use in at least pre- paring the reader for deeper study, should it fail to carry conviction to the understanding. In reference to the origin of the Scottish language, the Author beh'eves that a similar vagueness prevails amongst the generality of readers. That it arose some- how, they find to be an existent fact ; but from whence derived, or what are its constituent parts, very few can tell, or have been at the trouble to ascertain. With the exception of Dr Jamieson's Introduction to his Scottish Dictionary, he is not aware that any formal attempt has been made to trace it to its source, however much the learned may be of one mind on the subject. Jamie- son's is no doubt an able essay; but he had peculiar views to support, and a thorough and impartial eluci- dation of the question was scarcely to be expected from his pen. Unacquainted probably with the British and Gaelic, it was apparently his aim to derive the Scottish chiefly from the Scandinavian. For example, he passes over the very expressive and euphonious word croon ' Whiles croonin oure some auld Scots sonnet,' X PREFACE. so intimately associated with our national lyrics, without any attempt to trace its root : which he might at once have found in the Gaelic cronan, a low murmuring sound, a dirge. It is indeed rather strange that, although we have numerous writers on the early ballad literature of Scotland, few of them have ventured to account for the singularly felicitous language in which they are composed. Sir Walter Scott, in his preface to the Romance of Sir Tristram, makes a vigorous dash at the root of the matter. Though differing with us in some points, as the reader will perceive on perusing the following pages, he is nevertheless right in the main facts. * The Saxon king- dom of Bernicia,' he observes, ' was not limited by the Tweed, but extended, at least occasionally, as far north- ward as the Frith of Forth. The fertile plains of Ber- wickshire and the Lothians were inhabited by a race of Anglo-Saxons, whose language resembled that of the Belgic tribes whom they had conquered, and this blended speech contained as it were the original materials of the English tongue.* Beyond the Friths of Forth and of Tay, was the principal seat of the Picts, a Gothic tribe, * We do not understand this passage. The Anglo-Saxons conquered the Ottadeni and Gadeni of Lothian, but they were British, not Belgic tribes. PREFACE. xi if we can trust the best authorities, who spoke a dialect of the Teutonic differing from the Anglo-Saxon, and ap- parently more allied to the Belgic. This people falling under the dominion of the kings of Scots, the united forces of these nations wrenched from the Saxons, first the province of the Lothians, finally that of Berwick- shire, and even part of Northumberland itself. But as the victors spoke a language similar to that of the van- quished,* it is probable that no great alteration took place in that particular, the natives of the southern border continuing to use the Anglo-Saxon, qualified by the Pictish dialect, and to bear the name of Angles.' Sir Walter was of opinion that the English language, as he calls it, made greater progress in Scotland than in England. Ellis, in his specimens of early English poetry, makes a similar remark, and contends for the indepen- dence of the Scottish language. Allan Cunningham, in his introduction to the ' Songs of Scotland,' glances at the subject in his usual poetical style : * The period when the Scottish language began to be heard above the barbarous discordance of the conquering and the conquered, cannot be accurately known ; and it * Part of the Pictish portion of the Scottish forces only did so. Xll PEEFACE. is equally vain to seek to be informed at what time it flowed in a stream pure and plentiful enough for the uses of the muse. There must have been a large interval of years, while the Celtic language was step by step retiring to the northern hills, and the present language was secretly moulding itself on the Saxon (?), the Danish, and the Norman, in which our poetry appeared of many colours, and caught a strip and a star from every fresh infusion from the west or the south. That our earliest poets spoke a kind of Babylonish dialect, fit to confound the wisdom of many colleges, I am not prepared to say ; but it is much easier to prove that the peculiar poetry of the various tribes or nations who turned Scotland and England into a prize-fighter's stage, gave a tinge or an impulse which is yet visible in the popular poetry of the land. If we can indulge in the pleasing belief that Fingal lived and that Osian sang; and if we are to judge of the aspirations of the Celtic muse by the wild, and pathetic, and chivalrous strains which were so long and so wondrously preserved for Macpherson to find, we may conclude that the Lowland muse owes less to her Celtic sister than to the wild legions of the Norwegians and Danes. The Scottish and the Scandinavian ballads or songs have a close and a vivid resemblance : the same PREFACE. Xlll spirit seems to have conceived, and the same spirit executed them. They abound in the same wild and sin- gular superstitions; the same thirst for the marvellous by sea, and the incredible by land. They present an image of a rude, a martial, and original people; might is their source of right ; personal beauty and personal bra- very are their only visible perfections; their ships are their homes, the field of battle their delight; plunder their reward ; and the chief judge and arbitrator in all dubious matters is the sword. Blood flows, through their romantic as well as their martial strains; and if they draw images of female loveliness and beauty, it is but to throw them into the arms of the savage hero of the tale, or upon the sword-point of some fiercer rival. But, steeped as they are in superstition and in blood, they have many redeeming graces of graphic power, rude chivalry, and fervent pathos. They exhibit that sharp and fresh presentment of incident and scene which will ever be found in the songs of those who seek to see nature for themselves. They have the fire-edge of first thought strong upon them, with that minuteness and particularity which make fiction speak with the tongue of truth. In much of this energy of character, the Celtic poetry shares ; but its manners are more refined, its sentiments XIV PEEFACE. more generous, its superstitions more sublime, and its chivalry rivals the brightest era of European knight- hood.' Had Cunningham attended to historical facts, he would have found that there must have been properly two eras in the formation of the Scottish language. The first during the Pictish period, prior to the middle of the ninth century ; and the second after the accession of the Scottish line of kings to the Pictish throne. So far from ( the Celtic retiring step by step to the northern hills,' the Scottish dialect, mixed and confused as it may have been, and moulded not on the Saxon but on the Nor- wegian, was in the first instance pushed by the Gaelic from the north southwards. So long as the Picts and Danes held the north-east of Scotland, the language of the Norsemen, or mixed Pictish, must have extensively prevailed, for the Gael were strictly circumscribed to their original Dalriada, now Argyleshire. On the down- fal of the Danish reguli in the north of Scotland, they so overspread the Pictish provinces that in the days of Buchanan, and at a still later period, Gaelic was the universal language even in Sutherlandshire and Caith- ness. The germ of the Scottish tongue, as well as the mixed race of people by whom it was spoken, and with PREFACE. XV whom it originated, tenaciously continued to hold their place in the wide and fertile district of Moray and Aber- deenshire. The progress of the Scottish dialect in the first era was thus from north to south ; during the second, from causes which must be obvious, and which we need not here repeat, the process was reversed. The alleged superior refinement of the Celtic is a fiction. "NVhen it shall have been established that Macpherson's Osian is a genuine production, then the premises may be admitted ; but not till then. Our ballad literature and melody, contrary to Cun- ningham's opinion, are greatly indebted to the Celtic. The plaintive, so expressively deep in its tone, may be said to be wholly derived from it. In short, the supe- riority of the Lowland Scots seems to consist in this, that it combines the peculiar excellencies of both the Scandinavian and the Celtic lyre. J. P. GLASGOW, July, 1855. ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. INTRODUCTION. No question has puzzled antiquaries more than the Origin of the Scottish People and Language. The fabulous derivations in which our early historians indulged not even exclusive of the classic Buchanan opened a wide field for speculation ; and the few authorities, prior to the existence of indubitable national records, whose state- ments can at all be relied upon, have had their facts twisted into all manner of meanings, or been wholly set aside, according to the peculiar views of the respective combatants. Without a knowledge of the origin of a people, it is clear that we can form no very distinct or accurate idea of their language. Until the appearance of Pinkerton's 'Essay on the Origin of Scottish Poetry,' published in 1786, it seemed to be a settled notion that the Scottish, or Lowland language, was simply a dialect, or corrup- tion of the English. That writer contended for a more immediate derivation from the Gothic root, through the B 26 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. medium of Scandinavia. His theory was, that the ancient Caledonians, or Picts, were Scythians from Norway, and had peopled Caledonia ages before the invasion of the Romans hence the vernacular of the great body of the kingdom ; while to the Scots, a later people, we owe the Gaelic of the Highlands. Upon a similar hypothesis, the late Dr Jamieson brought out his invaluable Scottish Dictionary, which abundantly established the close affinity of the Icelandic and Scottish tongue. Plausible, however, as Pinkerton's system was, it wanted the necessary cohesion in certain vulnerable points; and in his 'Inquiry into the History of Scot- land preceding 1056/ wherein the same theory was more elaborately produced, his arguments and authorities were thrown so meretriciously together, as to weaken rather than strengthen his position. His language, too, is invariably boldest where his proof is most deficient. His 'Inquiry,' nevertheless, made considerable impres- sion. To it we no doubt owe the great topographical and historical work of George Chalmers, the first volume of which appeared in 1807. This is perhaps one of the most systematic and logical works of the kind on record. Though most of his propositions were suggested by pre- vious writers, yet he so arranged and illustrated them as to make them virtually his own. His object was to show that the Caledonians and Picts were the same people, but of Celtic, not of Scandinavian origin ; that INTRODUCTION. 27 the Scots were a later colony from Ireland, also of Celtic descent ; and that the Scottish dialect was derived from the Saxon by colonization from England. Chalmers' opposition to Pinkerton, however, carried him occasionally too far; and, in not a few instances, he is not only inconsistent, but casts aside probability and even direct testimony, where these do not coincide with the general scope of his views. Pinkerton was no doubt right in his opinion that the dialect of the Lowlands is a more direct offshoot from the Gothic than the An^lo- O Saxon as spoken in England ; but he was as clearly wrong in the historical data by which he endeavoured to account for the fact. So also, we opine, Chalmers was in error when he attributed the introduction of the Anglo-Saxon into Scotland wholly to colonization from England. The erroneous deductions of both were the necessary consequence of a false assumption in the out- start, to reconcile and illustrate which will be the chief object of the following pages. We may premise that both writers were fully con- versant with all the Roman and other authorities on the subject ; and before them lay the critical investigations of Camden, Usher, Lines, Clerk, Sibbald, the Macphersons, Whitaker, etc. ; but it is remarkable how prone even the more impartial writers on disputed points of antiquity, are to a one-sided selection of authorities. It is a great pity that Chalmers did not live to finish his truly national 28 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. work. The fourth volume which is awanting would have brought him more directly into contact with the two grand divisions of ancient Caledonia north of the Forth, and with many of those remains of antiquity, which the ingenuity of our most laborious antiquaries have hitherto failed to explain. Since the time of Chalmers and Pinkerton, several writers such as Logan, Grant, Skene, etc. have grappled with the same subject ; but their views are either a reiteration of theories formerly propounded, or so fanciful and unsupported as to be unworthy of par- ticular notice. These again have been followed by a swarm of miscellaneous writers, who, in every depart- ment of literature, throw out their ill-digested conjectures in the most arbitrary manner; so that, at this moment, the origin of the Scots and Picts, and the language in which Barbour, Wyntoun, Douglas, D unbar, Ramsay, and Burns gave poetical expression to their sentiments, is, to the majority of readers, as great a mystery as ever. No one can believe with Pinkerton and his followers that the original Picts were a Gothic people, who made good their footing in the Hebrides three hundred years before Christ, and on the mainland a hundred years afterwards, all evidence, historical and topographical, being against him ; and as little can we agree with Chalmers in his opinion that the Scottish vernacular FIRST INHABITANTS. 29 was introduced by colonization from England subsequent to 1093, when we find the language of the former more refined than that of the latter, not much beyond a century subsequent to the alleged era of change. We must endeavour to find the truth between the two ex- tremes. FIRST INHABITANTS. With Chalmers we can have no reasonable doubt that Great Britain and Ireland were originally peopled by one and the same race of Celts from Gaul. This is de- monstrated by the stone monuments, and other remains of antiquity, which are to be found in all parts of the three kingdoms, as well as topographically by the maps of Ptolemy * and Richard, f wherein it is apparent that the names of rivers and places are similar, and, in not a few instances, of the tribes themselves. For example, the tribe of the Damnii are to be found in each of the three divisions of the kingdom. In Ireland there were, * Ptolemy, the Egyptian geographer, lived in the second century ; and with the exception of a mistake in the longitude and latitude, his maps of the British isles are considered amazingly accurate. A transcript of Ptolemy's map, with Richard's variations indicated, was published some years ago by the Society for Promoting Useful Knowledge. f PJchard of Cirencester, in England, existed in the thirteenth century. He was an excellent geographer, and seetns to have had good authority for his statements. Nevertheless, doubts have been thrown upon the genuine- ness of the maps ascribed to him 30 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. besides, the Voluntii, and in Britain the Voluntii or Vblantii; in Ireland the Vennicnii, and in Britain tlie Vennicontes, etc. The nearest point of land to Ireland, in South Britain, is called Ganganorum, in Caernarvon- shire, in the maps of Ptolemy and Richard, hence it is inferable that the tribe of the Cangani, in Ireland, emi- grated from the Welsh coast. Of the similarity of names of places in Britain and Ireland, Chalmers fur- nishes numerous and convincing illustrations. At the same time, however, there seems to be good reason for believing that the Welsh, or Cymbric branch of the Celts, were a later colony, before whom the ear- lier tribes gradually retired northward and westward, to Scotland and Ireland. This opinion was first sug- gested by Lloyd, an eminent Welsh scholar and anti- quary, who found that the more ancient names of places in Wales were Erse or Gaelic, not Welsh. This hypo- thesis, of which Chalmers takes no notice, relieves the inquirer of one great difficulty, viz., the difference be- tween the Welsh and Gaelic languages, if the people had been colonies of the same age and tribe. THE PICTS. At the era of Agricola's invasion (78), it is apparent that the three kingdoms were chiefly occupied by a Celtic people. We say chiefly, because, in opposition to Chal- THE PICTS. 31 mers, it must not be forgotten that Julius Caesar, who invaded South Britain a hundred and thirty-three years previously, is somewhat positive in his statement to the contrary. He says that, on landing in England, he found the inhabitants on the coast to be of Belgic descent, differing from those of the interior, whom he designates Britanni, both in language and institutions ; nay, in three obvious particulars lingua, institutis, mori- bus. He farther states that the tradition among the Belgae themselves was that they were not Celts, but Germans. Chalmers repudiates the positive statement of Julius Caesar, on the ground that the term JBelgce itself is Celtic, signifying men of war, or warlike ; that, taking the context, Csesar afterwards modifies his state- ment by saying, ' the Belgae were chiefly descended from the Germans; and passing the Rhine, in ancient times, seized the nearest country of the Gauls ;' and that, as Germany was occupied by Celts as late as 112 years B.C., and partially by them during the next century, the Belgse necessarily were Celtic. It is to be inferred, he also urges, from Livy and Strabo, Pliny and Lucan, that Cassar meant dialect in place of language. The positive statement of Caesar is thus somewhat neutralised. But whatever may have been the difference between the Belgae and Britons in Caesar's time, Tacitus con- cluded, after a deliberate consideration of the origin of the various tribes of which Britain was composed in the 32 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. following century, that they were veritable Gauls.* On a general survey, ( he says it appears probable that the Gauls originally took possession of the neighbouring coast. The sacred rites and superstitions of those people are discernible among the Britons. The languages of the two nations (the Gauls and Britons) do not greatly differ.' There is reason to believe, at the same time, that con- siderable trading intercourse had existed between the Britons and Continentals long prior to the era of the Romans ; and Kemble, in his ' Saxons in England,' has followed up the idea of Pinkerton, by showing that there were Saxons in South Britain centuries before the land- ing of Hengist and Horsa in 449. The Coritani,^ ac- cording to Welsh tradition, were Germans; and the Roman classics affirm the fact, that a legion of Alamanni, a German tribe, served under the Roman standard in * There seems much dubiety as to the term Gauli in the Roman classics, whether it applied to the Celtic or German tribes ; and it is probable that a considerable intermixture of races latterly ensued. This may account for the difference traced by particular authors as to the physical appearance of the inhabitants of Britain. Tacitus, in describing the battle of the Gram- pians, particularly mentions the Covinarii, a German tribe, as opposed to the Romans. But although a mixture of race, to some extent, may thus be admitted, there can be little doubt that the great mass of the Caledonian people were Celtic, and that they spoke the Celtic language. The opinion of the Edinburgh Review (1803), that the inhabitants of Britain, in the time of Cajsar, were German Gauls, and spoke a dialect of the Teutonic language, is absurd in the extreme. t The Coritani occupied the centre of England. THE PICTS. 33 Britain. Kemble, besides, quotes from the Notitia of the Eomans a document of the close of the fourth cen- tury to prove that a Saxon community then existed in England. The Comes Liitoris Saxonici of the Notitia was an officer whose authority over the Saxons extended from Portsmouth to Wells, in Norfolk. If the Saxons, thus specially recognised by the Romans in the fourth century, were the Belgae of Julius Caesar, as some have supposed, it is evident that their presence had not pro- duced much effect in changing either the language or usages of the Britons. The latter retired westward as the tide of Saxon colonization rolled in from the east ; and whether the Belgse, if Celts, retreated with their countrymen to the mountains of Wales; or, being Saxons, amalgamated with the Teutonic flood, is likely to remain for ever a secret. At all events, it is plain that the Anglo-Saxons of history spoke the Saxon language, and maintained it in considerable purity down to the twelfth century: which could hardly have been the case had the Belgae been a body of German settlers, mixing with the Romans and native Britons for so many ages. No inter- mediate language, or dialect, between the Welsh and Saxon, can be traced either in the literature or topo- graphy of ancient England. The Belga3 disappear to history after the first century ; and, in the absence of all tangible recognition of them, have been converted into Scots, Picts, Irish, or Welsh, according to the arbitrary 34 ORIGIN OP THE SCOTS. will and pleasure of the multitudinous inquirers who have written on the subject. For example, the editor of the Athenaeum, in reviewing Skene's 'Highlanders of Scotland,' in 1837, records his firm belief in this Belgic transmutation : 'Without condescending for a moment,' he says, l to admit the strange hypothesis of Mr Skene, that they (the Belgse) are the progenitors of the modern Welsh, we have a strong opinion that they amalgamated with the Britons of Caledonia, and that this junction gave rise to the name of Picts /' Elsewhere, as if determined to leave the Celts a very small share in our ancestral honours, the editor finds the hypothesis that the Scots were of l Teutonic origin,' (thus following Pinkerton so far) ' greatly confirmed by the remarkable affinity now subsisting between the language of the Gael and that of the German (!) As we ascend the stream of time,' he continues, ' as we compare the oldest extant monuments of the Erse with those of the dialects confessedly Teu- tonic, we are powerfully struck with the resemblance. This fact alone, independent of all authority, we hold to be decisive of tl^e question that the Scots were Germans, whether derived immediately from the country usually ' understood by that name, or from Scandinavia, is of no consequence !' If writers in the position of the editor of the Athencevm are found giving utterance to such unsubstantiated dicta as this, we need not wonder that the popular mind THE PICTS. 35 should be submerged in a flood of ignorance on the subject.* In Scotland, at the advent of Agricola, there were twenty-one clans the Caledonii^ occupying * the whole of the interior country, from the ridge of mountains which separates Inverness and Perth, on the south, to the range of hills that forms the forest of Balnagown, in Ross, on the north ; comprehending all the middle parts of Inverness and of Ross.'l Fife, Perth, Aberdeenshire, etc., afterwards the chief country of the Picts, were in- habited by the Horestii, Venricones, Taixali, etc. In the map of Ptolemy, the Picti are not mentioned, but they occur in that of Richard, while the names of the Horestii) etc., disappear. The Romans seem to have used the designation in the belief that it was derived from the practice of painting their bodies ; but as this * There is an affinity, less or more, between almost all languages, to be traced in numerous radical words ; but the German assuredly belongs to the Gothic, not the Celtic branch. At the same time, as Gaul was anciently inhabited by Germans and Celts, it is not wonderful that there should be words, in the language of each, common to both a fact which has given rise to much confusion in the topographical argument of the question. We are aware that some gentlemen, who Have given attention to the Celtic language and literature, are of opinion that the various Gothic languages of Europe are but so many deviations from or corruptions of the Gaelic ; as, for example, the Gothic wick is just another mode of spelling and pronouncing the Celtic tiig a nook, or retired solitary hollow. It would require a great many such instances, however, to prove that the similarity arose from other than the causes already assigned. t So called from their occupying the woody district. J Chalmers' Caledonia. 36 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. custom was, and still is, general amongst rude tribes, it is not easy to see how the term could apply to any one portion of the inhabitants of Britain more than to another. Pinkerton contends that ornamenting the C5 body in this manner was a Gothic, not a Celtic custom ; and he derives the name from the Norwegian vik and vikar, a corruption, he says, of the ancient Peukini, as Suitod or Sweden. Chalmers seeks a more direct ety- mology, which he finds in the word Peitliw* signifying the open country, in contradistinction to Celyddon, the wooded district. Thus the central portion of the coun- try, north of the Forth, appears to have been distin- guished as Celyddon, and the open country, along the eastern coast, as PeitJiw, which terms were Latinized by the Romans as Caledonia and Pictavia, occupied in all by thirteen clans. * ' Peithi and Peith-icyr? says Chalmers, ' are the usual terms for the Pictish people in the oldest Welsh poets. On the confines of Wales those Britons who threw off their allegiance to their native princes, and set up a regulus of their own, or adhered to the Saxons, were called Peithi or Picti. Thus a Welsh poet of the seventh century, celebrating " mic (myg) Din- bich," " the renown of Denbigh," says, " addowyn gaer ysydd ar glas Phicti," a fair town stands on the confines of the Picti. In fact, the Welsh, to distinguish the northern from the southern Picti, called the Cale- donian Picts by the appellation of Gwyddyl Pichti. The ancient Welsh, by applying the terms Brython and Brythonig to the Picts, show that they con- sidered them as Britons. From this application of Brython to the Picts, we may infer that the earliest of the classic writers, in calling the Picts by the name of Britons, merely adopted the British appellation [without know- ing its import.] We may here, perhaps, discover the real origin of the term Britons, as applied to the most ancient colonists of our island, and not from the name of the country, as often is supposed.' THE PICTS. 37 It must not be forgotten, however, that, though the etymology adopted by Chalmers may be the right one, the Britanni of South Britain were also occasionally 'called Caledonii and Picti; and that there was a Sylva Caledonia in the vicinity of the Thames.' Martial, who lived about the year 94, says, in one of his epigrams : ' Barbara de Pictis veni bascauda Britannis ; Sed me jam mavult dicere Roma suam.'* While, in another addressed to Q. Ovidius, going to Britain, he speaks of them as the Picti Britanni : ' Quincte, Caledonios Ovidi visure Britannos.' f Florus, his contemporary, in writing of Csesar's second invasion, says : ' eosdem rursus Britannos sequtus in Caledonias Sylvas.' While Lucan, who wrote before the island was explored by the Romans to the north of the Brigantes, calls the Southern Britanni Caledonii: ' Ant vaga cum Thetys, Rutupinaque littora fervent, Unda Caledonios fallit turbata Britannos.' J Pinkerton does not refer to these authorities, no doubt, because they did not accord with his theory. * M. Val. Martialis Ep. lib. xiv. ; Ep. xcix, Bascauda. t M. Val. Martialis Ep. lib. x. ; Ep. xliv. t M. Annaci Lucani Pharsalia, lib. vi. [From a paper in the Transactions of tbe Scottish Society of Antiquaries, entitled, ' An Inquiry into the Original Inhabitants of Britain,' by Sir James Foulis of Colinton, Bart., written before the works of Pinkerton or Chalmers were published.] 38 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. Tacitus, the first Roman classic who describes Scot- land, speaks of the Caledonians as the only inhabitants of Scotland except the Britanni, the latter of whom were located south of the Forth and the Clyde. Dio Cassius is the first to mention the Maetae, a word evidently Latinized from the Gaelic Magh, a level field, and signi- fying inhabitants of the low country. The Maetae seem to have occupied the district afterwards given by Ptolemy to the Horestii, Vennicones, etc. Writers subsequent to Tacitus and Ptolemy puzzle by the introduction of new names Picti, Scoti, Attacoti, etc. while those of the Maetae, Horestii, etc., wholly disappear. With regard to the Picts, most writers are agreed as to their being one and the same people with the Caledonians. Chalmers, as we have seen, considers Picti but another name for Caledonii. So does Pinkerton, but the latter brings both the Caledonians and Picts from Scandinavia, some centuries before the Christian era, while Chalmers believes them to be the aboriginal inhabitants.* Eumenius, the orator, is the first of the Roman authors who speaks of the Picts as a people. In a panegyric on Constantius Chlorus, delivered in 296, after his victory over Allectus, Eumenius not only alludes to the Picts as * Pinkerton adduces no proof, and the fact that no satisfactory trace of a Teutonic people is to be found in the map of Ptolemy, together with the cir- cumstance of no movement having taken place among the Goths on the Enxine at so early a period, seem conclusive against him. THE PICTS. ' 39 then existing, but retrospectively carries them back prior to the time of Caesar, whose victories he depreciates in comparison with those of Constantius, because the Britons whom he attacked were then rude, and accustomed ( only to the Picts and Irish as enemies :' * ' Solis Pictis et Hib- crnis hostibus olim adsuet fuerint.' No doubt Eumenius was substantially correct, though the Picts were not then known by that appellation. In another oration, delivered in 310, the panegyrist is still more significant as to the identity of the Caledonians and Picts : ( Non dico Cale- donum, aliorumque Pictorum, silvas, et paludes.' Eu- menius, however, was a rhetorician, and not the best authority for historical facts. All that can be safely adduced from Eumenius is, that the Caledonians and Picts were then the leading tribes in Scotland. Ammianus Marcellinus repeatedly mentions the Cale- donians and Picts. In 360 he speaks of the invasion of the Eoman provinces by those wild nations the Scots and Picts : ' Scotorum Pictorurnque, gentium ferarum ; ' and again of the Picti, ' Saxouesque,f et Scoti, et Atta- coti,' as harassing the Britanni with incessant attacks. * Pinkerton had some trouble in rendering this passage properly, which he only accomplished by the aid of the Nuremberg edition of the Panegyrists in 1779. t If Kemble, in his ' Saxons in England,' is correct, that the Saxons were in England long before the time of Hengist and Horsa, the opinion of a writer in the Penny Cyclopcedla, ' that the Scotti or Scottii, mentioned in these two passages, were, in all probability, not yet inhabitants of any part of Britain 'any more than were the Saxons,' falls to the ground. 40 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. In his annals of the year 368, where he relates the actions of the Emperor Constans (A.D. 337-350) he says he had described, as well as he could, the situation of Britain,* and that it was now only necessary to observe, that at that tfaie the Picts were divided into two nations, the Dicaledonce and Vecturiones : ( Illud tamen sufficiet, quod es tempore Picti in duas gentes divisi, Dicaledones et Vecturiones, itidemque Attacoti, bellicosa hominum natio, et Scoti per diversa vagantes, multa populabantur.' 1 Let this suffice to be said, that at this time the Picts, divided into two nations, the Dicaledonse and Vectur iones, as also the Attacots, a warlike nation, and the Scots, wandering diverse ways, ravaged many parts.'f That the Picts were thus known to historians, as com- posed of two divisions or nations, is beyond question; and it seems equally positive, from the few glimpses of their language that remain, that they were, originally at least, Celtic, but of the British or later colony, though there may have been a considerable intermixture with the original Gael towards the interior and westerly, so * This passage is unfortunately lost. f The Dicaledones occur in no other work save that of Marcellinus. The Vecturiones, however, are mentioned by Richard of Cirencester. The Picts were known to the Saxon chroniclers as the Northern and Southern Picts. According to Grant, in his ' Scottish Gael,' Duchaoilldaoin, in the Gaelic, sig- nifies the real or genuine inhabitants of the woods ; and Vecturiones, pro- nounced Uachtarich, the inhabitants of the cleared country. Druim-Uachtar is the name of the ridge of hills from whence the country descends to the level plains. Pinkerton derives Vecturione from Yickverior, the Icelandic for Pehtar or Ficts. THE PICTS. ' 41 that a shade of difference may have existed between the Dicaledones and Vecturiones from an early period, which subsequent circumstances and events may have considerably augmented. Bede, one of the earliest of our historians, brings the Picts from Scythia. His story of their arriving in Ireland first, where they found the Scots, who directed them to Scotland, is fabulous in the extreme ; but there can be little doubt that Bede wrote from tradition, and however absurd tradition may be in detail, there is universally some foundation for its aver- ments. And so in this case. If it is a correct suppo- sition and it is supported by topography as well as the Welsh Triads, (some of which are confessedly older than Bede's history) that Britain and Ireland were peopled by successive tribes, all of the Cumraic race, at different intervals, it is quite possible that Bede may be right in the main fact. The Picts might belong to the second or third nation of the Cimbri who gained the British shore, or possibly to a still later. History sufficiently attests the migratory and warlike spirit of the Cimerians, and of their being gradually expelled or circumscribed by the Goths and their descendants. According to Greek authority, a greatly diminished body of the Cimbri were in the peninsula of Holstein, or Scythia, early in the first century of the Christian era. Hence Bede may be right. ' If the Welsh, who have always called them- selves Cimbri, are the Cimbri of the ancient Cimbri 42 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. Chersonese, now Jutland, this lineage would account for the Scandinavian or northern origin assigned to the Picts by the uniform testimony of the Saxon, the Irish, and the Icelandic annalists.' * Pinkerton', in his hypothesis, brings the Picts from Scythia, or Scandinavia from Piteafi an ancient pro- vince of Sweden ; but while he affirms that they were Goths, he produces no satisfactory evidence that they spoke anything else than a dialect of the Celtic. It is at the same time probable that there was amongst them a sufficient number of Scandinavian auxiliaries to justify the opinion of Tacitus that the Caledonians, from their large limbs and fair complexion, were Germans. THE SCOTS. Chalmers successfully demonstrates that the Scots were not a foreign colony, as asserted by our fabulous historians, and by Pinkerton, who avers that they were the Belgae-Gothic adventurers, who lost their Teutonic language while* sojourning in Ireland, but preserved their lineage from Celtic contagion ! J He differs in opinion, however, from Chalmers, as to their first settle- * Athenamm. f From Pitea he derives Plot or Peh. J The Belgse or Firbolg, the Tuath de Danan, the Damnii tribes of the latter of whom were to be found in all the three kingdoms and the Cruithne, independent of the Scotl, formed the leading nations in Ireland. THE SCOTS. ' 43 ment in Scotland, agreeing with Bede, and other con- current authorities, that the Attacoti whom he believes to have been Scots * were in Scotland about 258 ; and that the second took place in 503-4, the era assigned by Chalmers and others for the first. Though the latter is now the prevailing and almost settled opinion, yet we do not see that it is at all conclusive or satisfactory ; and in a question where there are conflicting statements, and evident misconceptions, the whole circumstances, and the palpable signification of events, ought to be taken into consideration. The Scots were not aborigines of Ireland, for they do not appear in the map of Ptolemy, though they are noticed in later times by Richard of Cirencester,| as occupying a corner of the north of Ireland. Yet Ire- land, and the 'gens Hibernorum,' were well known to the ancient world, long before the Scoti appeared in history4 The Hibernians, properly so called, were a distinct nation from the * gens Scotorum ' of subsequent writers. In the year 81, immediately after the battle of the Grampians, the fleet of Agricola sailed round the * From the British ad, to or near; but the derivation is somewhat fanciful. t Richard is considered spurious by some. He at least adapts his topo- graphical details retrospectively to history, and is therefore of much less authority than Ptolemy, who represented matters as they existed in his own time. J Festus Avienus, about 400 years B C., states that Britain was visited by Carthagenian voyagers, and that the Albiones occupied the larger island, and the gens Hibernorum the smaller. 44 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. north of Scotland, and satisfied that accomplished gene- ral that Britain was not a continent. That the Roman chief was well acquainted with Ireland and the Irish^ appears from Tacitus, who, writing of his father-in-law,* says, t Saepe ex eo audivi, Legione una et modicis auxiliis debellari obtinerique Hiberniam posse; which is to this purpose, that he had heard Agricola often say, that with one single legion, and a few auxiliaries, the whole country of Ireland might be conquered and kept.' Now, as Gordon f further observes, from remains dug up in connection with the wall of Antoninus, it appears that it required not less than five or six legions, besides auxiliaries, to drive back the Caledonians from the Romanized portions of Scotland. The Scoti, who after- wards, in conjunction with the Picts, gave so much trouble to the Roman armies sometimes defeating them must have been a very different people from the native inhabitants of Ireland. We do not repeat the argument of Gordon here for the purpose of disparaging the national courage of the Irish, believing that the dis- tinction drawn by the Roman general referred to their want of unity more than to any deficiency in warlike skill or prowess. Although Tacitus had pretty authentic information regarding Britain and its affairs, considerable ignorance * Agricola. f Gordon's ' Itinerarium Septentrionale.' THE SCOTS. 45 on the subject seeins to have prevailed amongst Roman writers at a later period. The historians of the cam- paign of Severus, undertaken in the year 200, for example, 'mistakingly suppose that the victorious ruler of the Roman world came into Britain without any pre- vious knowledge of its domestic affairs, or its geographical state. They wrote like annalists who knew nothing of the commencement of the British story ; either of what had certainly passed before, or what was to follow after the Emperor's exertions. They did not know that the coast of Britain had been explored by the Roman fleet under Agricola ; that he had traversed the territories of the Ottadini, Gadeni, Selgovae, Novantes, and Damnii, who, as they resided within the Friths, submitted wholly to his power : neither did the classic writers advert to the fact, that Lollius Urbicus had built the wall of Antonine seventy years before ; and had carried roads and estab- lished stations from the wall to the Varas, both which remained during thirty years, the envied memorials of his skill, and the certain monuments of the Roman authority. They probably intended to raise the fame of Severus, by supposing him ignorant of what undoubtedly he must have known.'* Such is the severe but just comment of Chalmers himself; and yet it is chiefly on the geographical intimations of these ignorant or inten- * Chalmers' Caledonia. 46 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. tionally disingenuous historians, that he and others found their conviction, that Ireland was the first and sole Scotia of the Scots. Eumenius, who notices the Picts in 297, mentions the Hibernii without allusion to the Scots. Porphyry, his contemporary, however, *a scholar and a geographer,' as Chalmers observes, speaks of them as the Scotia; gentes' the Scottish nation of the Britannic world thus showing that the Scots were as early known as the Picts. None of the earlier writers amongst the classics say one word of the Scots. It is thus evident that they were unknown, by the name of Scoti, until the close of the third century. Indeed, 'all the old writers of Ireland, from St Patrick to the twelfth century, justify the infer- ence that these Scots were a comparatively recent tribe. They seem to have been the dominant, because the con- quering caste. The Saint himself, in his Confessio a piece indisputably authentic everywhere draws a dis- tinction between them and the Hiberionaces, or the old inhabitants. In t\\e fifth century they had not given their name to the whole island, but only to the regions in which they were settled.' * So says the Editor of the A thenceitm ; and yet this people, who had not given their name to their adopted country in the fifth century, are so re- peatedly mentioned, in conjunction with the Picts, by * Athenseum, ]S37. THE SCOTS. 47 the Roman authors, from the close of the third century downwards, that it would appear as if they were one people waging war against the spoilers of their common country ; while it is admitted by the most sceptic that they had finally settled in Scotland, at the latest, in 503-4 ! With tlfe Roman annalists the term Caledonii came to be almost wholly superseded by those of Scoti and Picti. Ammianus, in 360, speaks of them as forming one army ; nay, as of one country. His words are, as given and translated by Pinkerton : l In Britanniis cum Scotorum Pictorumque, gentium ferarum, excursus, Vupta quieta, condicta loca limitibus vicina vastarent : In Britain, when the excursions of the Scots and Picts, fierce nations, having broken the peace, ravaged the appointed grounds, next to the boundaries,' etc. Now, these f appointed grounds,' as Pinkerton observes, l were surely those of the future province of Valentia,' beyond the boundary wall of Antonine, between the Clyde and Forth ; and if so, the Scots and Picts must have made their attack from the north by land, in a thoroughly united manner, as friends and allies. This is the first mention of the Scots by any Roman author, and they are spoken of as ( im- mediate and present' in Britain not retrospective, 410 years previously, as the Hibernii are by Eumenius. Yet Chalmers disregards the historian's implied meaning, while he leans upon the very questionable authority of 48 ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS. the poet Claudian, from one of whose panegyrics he quotes a few ambiguous lines in support of the theory, that Ireland, and not Scotland, was the proper home of the Scots : * ' Totum cum Scotus Hibernem movit ; Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Jerne.' Which he renders thus : ' When the Scots all Ireland raov'd ; O'er heaps of Scots, whom icy Ireland wept. 1 Strange to say, Chalmers has been guilty of an inter- polation accidental or intentional of the poet's text, which perhaps conveys a more marked intimation of the locality of the Scots than he desiderated. The passage is from UXX. 102 UNION' STKKET. Just Published, in One Volume, post Svo, price 5s, ORIGIN OF THE SCOTS AND THE SCOTTISH LANGUAGE. AN INQUIRY PRELIMINARY TO THE PROPER UNDERSTANDING OF SCOTTISH HISTORY AND LITERATURE. BY JAMES PATERSON, Editor of " Kay's Edinburgh Portraits;" Author of "The Contemporaries of Burns ;" History of the County and Families of Ayr ;" " Memoir of James Fillans, Sculptor," ic.