Pictish. 54 LECTURE III. THE LANGUAGES OF SCOTTISH PLACE-NAMES. PICTISH SPEECH-CONFLICT OF AUTHORITIES-PLACE-NAMES IN PICTLAND-MYTHICAL DESCENT OF THE PICTS-COLUMBA'S IN the first two lectures of this course we have considered the evidence of a pre - Celtic, presumably non- Aryan, speech, and examined the character istics of Celtic, in its two branches of Gaelic and Welsh, and we have now to encounter the problem presented by the language of the Picts. When the Dalriadic colony of Irish-Scots settled in Cowal, Lorn, Kintyre, Isla, and Jura at the close of the fifth century, the greater part of Alban or Caledonia was in possession of a people known as Cruithni or Picts, and it need hardly be said how much difference of opinion prevails at this day as to the ethnographic affinity of the Picts. Mr Whitley Stokes has given the latest summary of the situation in regard to this people as follows: As to the linguistic and ethnological affinities of the Picts, four irreconcilable hypotheses have been formed. The first, due to Pinkerton, is that the Picts were Teutons, and spoke a Gothic dialect. No one now believes in this. The second, started by Professor Rhys, is that the Picts were non-Aryans, whose language was overlaid by loans from Welsh and Irish; the third, the property of Mr Skene, is that they were Celts, but Gaelic Celts rather than Cymric; the fourth, and, in my judgment, the true hypothesis, favoured by Professor Windisch and Mr A. Macbain, is that they were Celts, but more nearly allied to the Cymry than to the Gael.1 This problem concerns our present purpose in so far, that part of that purpose is to classify Scottish place-names under the languages of the various races which at one time or other dwelt in our land. We must start upon the inquiry into the Pictish nomenclature without any preconceived idea-without any leaning to the theory of Mr Skene that the Picts were Gaelic Celts, or to that of Mr Whitley Stokes that they were Welsh Celts, or to that of Professor Rhys that they were not Celts at all, but Iverians or Firbolg, whose language became infused with Gaelic and Welsh vocables. We have neither living speech nor, practically, any Pictish literature to guide us. Of the Pictish Chronicle there are two editions, one in Latin, sup 1 Beiträge zur kunde der indogermanischen sprachen, 1892. Placenames in Pictland. posed to be a translation of the Gaelic or Pictish original; the other in Gaelic of the Irish Nennius, which Mr Skene held to have been compiled by the monks of Brechin in the tenth century. The marginal entries in the Book of Deer' are in the Aberdeenshire vernacular of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and are the Gaelic of Alban,-the Latin text of the Gospels themselves being, probably, a couple of hundred years older. These two are positively the only manuscripts which we can identify as having been produced in Pictland, or, for the matter of that, in the whole of Alban, and they are in ordinary Alban Gaelic. There remains, therefore, to us as our only resource the expedient of closely examining the place-names in those districts forming the ancient Cruithentuath, or land of the Picts, and noting such peculiarities as distinguish them from those in other parts of Scotland. It is well known that by Pictish law succession was reckoned, not through the father but through the mother. Hence in the ninth century Kenneth, the son of Alpin, king of the Dalriadic Scots by a Pictish mother, succeeded his father as king of the Scots, and through his mother inherited the throne of the Picts. The united kingdom became known as Scotia or Scotland, and henceforward the old name of the northern half of this island, Alba, was heard no more until the dukedom of Albany-that is, Albannach, the people of Alban-was conferred, in a solemn council held at Scone, on 28th April 1398, upon Robert, third son of Robert II. It is strange to reflect that perhaps the best-known locality which now bears this ancient place-name is a street running into Piccadilly, though the Highlanders still talk of the natives of Scotland as Albannach, to distinguish them from Saisneach, or EnglishThe name Alban is really the genitive case of Alba, the old name of Pictland, just as Erin is the genitive of Eire, the land of the Ernai. men. descent of The Picts who were thus superseded by the Scots Mythical in the monarchy and the name of their land are the Picts. stated in the Pictish Chronicle to be descended, like the Scots, from the Scythians, who were called Albani, from their fair hair. Obviously this is only a strained attempt to account for the name, but I wish to draw your attention to the hint at ethnography here. If the Picts, as Professor Rhys would have us believe, were non-Aryan-that is, in no way akin to the Celts-it is not probable that the Pictish chronicler would claim for them a common origin with the Dalriadic Gael. It is necessary to allude here to a celebrated quatrain occurring in Nennius' edition of the Pictish Chronicle, because great, and, as it seems to me, undue stress has been laid upon it by ethnologists and philologers. The Chronicle states that Cruidne, the son of Cinge, was the father of the Picts or Cruidne in this island. The lines then run :— "Seven sons there were to Cruidne, Seven parts they made of Alban; Cait, Ce, Cerig, warlike men, Fib, Fidach, Fotla, Fortrenn." Now, five of these names are still attached to districts in old Pictland. Caithness is Cait, with the suffix of the Norse nes, a promontory. Cirig is pretty well hidden in Mearns, but easily traced in the original form Maghgirginn, or the plain of Cirig. Fib has become Fife. Fotla has become Athole, formerly Ath foitle or Ath fotla. And Fortrenn is the district, including Strathearn, between Forth and Tay. Professor Rhys hazards the identity o Fidach with Glen Fiddich in Banff, and elsewhere he traces a resemblance to it in Galweidia, Gallovidia, Galloway; but in both instances, I submit, he has nothing to go on but pure conjecture, and in the latter sets aside the easy and pretty obvious explanation given by Mr Skene. This would leave Moray and Ross to be placed under the second son, Ce. Now, I am bound to say I regard this explanation of these names with the utmost suspicion. It is so like an instance of the inveterate habit of Celtic |