150 OKANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. V.
a British word signifying a confluence of water or a port; but not to the west and north, where
names compovinded of i n v e r , an Irish word with the same meaning, are met with *. As the
Gaelic language spread over Scotland, some of these places lost their British, and for a time
acquired the Irish prefix; as Inverin, previously Aberin, Invernethy, previously Abernethy i".
Names of moimtains are seldom changed by an intrusive population; and in the Gaelic parts of
North Britain they are not usually known as s l i a h h , the name of mountains in Ireland, but as hen,
which is British as well as Irish, and equivalent to the W e l s h J . The name of the Ochil
hiUs, Perthshu-e { u c l i e l , high), is one of many in this district, more readily explained from the
British than the Gaelic.
In reference to the first inhabitants of Ireland, it is important to bear in mind its proximity
to Britain, about the mulls of Galloway and Cantire, ivhere the two islands are separated by
straits little more than half the width of those of Dover §. Both were regarded by the ancients as
Bretannic, and Diodorus speaks of the inhabitants of Ireland as Britons 1|. So far as known to the
Romans, their disposition and manners were believed to be very similar to those of the Britons 1".
The name, leme, Hibernia, appears to signify the western island **. Ptolemy's enumeration of
the tribes shows a majority of names more or less Celtic in form, though a few are referable to
the Iberian f t - Among the most remarkable of the tribe-names is that of the Brigantes, a name
common to Spain, Gaul, and Britain, and which appears descriptive of their mountainous abodesj t
That of another tribe, the Manapii, is identical with one in Belgic Gaul (Menapii), now admitted
to be of Celtic derivation §§. Other names pre-eminently Celtic are those of the town Dunimi,
and the rivers Senus and Dour. The name of the Cauci is also that of a German tribe, and
is often thought to imply a Germanic colonization. The continental Chauci, however, were
placed between the Cimbri and Batavi; and the name may be of Celtic origin.
The oldest literary remains and the modern dialects of Ireland are aU Gaelic 1| |1 ; so that if
originaUy peopled from Britain, it must have been by a people whose language resembled Gaelic
* Kemble, Saxona in England, Tol. ii. p. 4. See a more OrpHc Argonautica (I. 1186, ed. Gesn.), supposed by many to
complete list of Abera, Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot, vol, i. p. 188. be the work of Onomacritus (500 B.C.), the island is called
The Abers and Invers meet and mingle in Inverness-shire. The
only Aber Mr. Eliind meets with to the north of the hne indicated,
is Aberscors in Strathfleet, Sutherland. Another instance
is Applecross, Ross-shire, in the 8th century Apnrcrossan
; which, as Dr. Reeves observes, implies a Pictish occupation
of this district; A^ur or Afor being the old form of Aber.
Froc. Soc. Ant. Scot. 1851, vol. iii. p. 272.
t As in a charter of David I., "Inverin qui fuit Aberin,"
quoted by Chalmers, "Caledonia," 1807, vol. i. p. 480.
X Reeves, "St . Columba," notes, pp. 241, 424.
§ "Ireland was peopled mainly, if not exclusively, from
Britain in the times before history." (Irish Nenn. p. xlix;
also pp. X, xcix.) Herbert allows that the original emigrations
were fed from time to time by other adventurers or refugees,
among whom he places the FirhoUj from Belgic Britain, about
the beginning of our era; and the Tuatha De (people of the
gods), whom he believes to be the Druids who fled from South
Britain about 50 A.D. The two classes of immigrants he
thinks bore sway for about two centuries, when the quasiindigenous
Hiberni or Gaoidhil resumed their superiority, the
population being changed and improved by the infusion of
these more advanced races.
II Ante, p. 64. Diod. Sic. lib. v. c. 32. In the pseudolerniau
(vijaoy 'IfpyiSa).
f Tac. Vit. Agric. c. xxiv.
** Zeuss, Gram. Celt. p. 67. Pictet's etymology from the
Sanscrit arj/a, Arian, well-born, worthy, Irish er, honourable,
heroic, is hardly tenable. See " Origin of Name of Ireland,"
Ulster Journal, vol. v. p. 52. " Origines Indo-Europeennes
ou les Aryas primitifs," p. 67. Stokes, "Irish Glosses,"
pp. 66, 159.
t t Ante, p. 58, note ||. To the tribes Gangani, Ellebri,
and Luceni, there enumerated, De Belloguet adds the Coriondi,
the town Laberus, and the river Ovoca. Types Gaul. p. 285.
J t Gram. Celt. p. 101. "Brigantes pop. Britann., colUum
habitatores." De Belloguet, Gloss. Gaul. p. 214. Types
Gaul. p. 301. Brigant, Welsh, =highlander. Adjoining to
the Irish Brigantes was the tribe of Coriondi, just as adjoining
the British Brigantes were the Coritavi—men of the lowlands.
Zeuss, Gram. Celt. p. 757 ; De Belloguet, Types Gaul,
p. 285 ; Latham, Smith's Diet. Geog. s. v. lerne. Zeuss hesitates
to admit that the Irish Cauci were German. (Die
Deutschen, &c., p. 199.)
nil "The ancient Irish called themselves Gacdhil (Gael),
and their language Gaedhhc;" and this is " the true name of
the entire race." O'Curry, MS. Materials, p. 3.
C i i A r . v . ] HISTORICAL ETHNOLOGY OE BRITAIN. 151
rather than British, or otherwise early enough for the two forms of Celtic, the Irish and British,
to have diverged from the type of a common mother tongue. Neither view is inconsistent with the
hypothesis that in Ireland, as in Britain, the Celts found a pre-Oeltic population, possibly Einno-
I b e r i a n , on whom they imposed their language*. There seems no reason to doubt that in the time
of Ptolemy, and to a later period, the entire population of Britain spoke in Cymric, and that of
Ireland in Gaelic, dialects. There is, however, in the north of Britain a consideralde Gaelicspeaking
population—that of the Scottish Highlanders, whose origin has been variously explained.
The names of Scot and Scotland are found only in the later classical historians. Ammianus
is the first who names the Scots as ravaging Roman Britain, at the close of the reign of Constantius
II. (A.D. 360) and during that of Valentinian I., at the same time as the Picts t . They
were a race of pirates from Ireland, as appears from Claudian's repeated mention of them J. By
writers of the fifth and succeeding centuries, the inhabitants of Ireland are called Scots, and their
country Scotia §. There being no solid ground for the conjectm-e that the island had received
any fresh population, the name only can be regarded as new. It may express the piratical habits
of these marauders, and, like Viking or Buccaneer, have been no proper national appellation,
though it afterwards became one ||. Gildas and Bede both say that the Scots came from the
north-west of Britain, and that their country was Ireland 1". Before the departure of the Romans,
it appears they had seized upon various parts of Wales. Their occupation of these districts
was terminated by the Otadin cliief, Cunedda, and his sons; and they and theii- prince Sirigi
were expelled from the adjoining Mona, by Cunedda's descendant, Caswallawn Lawhir, about the
close of the fifth century**. In North Britain they succeeded in permanently establishing
themselves. Bede says that " after the Britons and Picts, a third nation, the Scots, migrated to
Britain under their chief Reuda, and by fan- means or the sword acquired those settlements
among the Picts which they stiU retain : after their leader, they are called Dalreudins, as in
their language daai signifies a part t t " . The Reuda of Bede is the Cairbre Righfada or Riada
§ Orosius, lib. i. c. 2. "Hibernia * * * etiamMevania insula,
seqne a Scotornm gentibus colitur." Anon. Rav. lib. i.
c. 3. " Scotorum insula quse et Hibernia conscribitur." Id.
* Ante, p. 54. Since our former pages were printed, it
has been elaborately argued that the pre-Celtic population of
Gaul and Britani may have been Ligurian or north .Wriean.
According to M. de Belloguet (Types Gaul. p. 308), the Celts
were blonde, of high stature, and had dolichocephalic heads ;
while the pre-Celtic people had brown or black hair and eyes,
were of less stature than the Celts, and had heads of a round
or brachycephahc form. He holds that the Celts were the
minority, and absorbed by the pre-Celtic population ; to whom,
however, as the more civilized, they communicated their language.
Much of this appears very hypothetical.
t Amm. Marc. lib. xx. c. 1 ; xxvi. c. 4; xxrii. c. 8,
" Scotti per diversa vagantes;" lib. xxviii. c. 3.
J " Scotumque vago mucroue secutus
Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas."
( i n . Cons. Honor, v. 55.)
" Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis lerne."
(IV. Cons. Honor, v. 33.)
" totam quum Scotus lernen
Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Tethys."
(Laud. Stilich. ii. v. 251.)
Gildas (c. 15) says the Scots and Picts came in coracles;
" trans Tithecam vallem vecti." (Comp. " Tythicam vallem,"
Nenn. c. 37.) Gildas must mean the Irish Channel by this poetical
phrase, derived, it may be, from the above hne of Clandian.
lib. i. c. 32. Isidor. lib. xiv. c. 6. § 6.
II Isidor. lib. ix. c. 2. § 103. " Scoti propria hngua nomen
habent." In what follows Isidore confuses the Scots with the
Picts. An etymon has been sought in the Irish scelte, dispersed
; salite, a wanderer ; and si/oi/i, a boat. Chalmers.
Caledonia, vol. i. p. 271. Irish Nenn. pp. x, xcv.
^ "Gentibus transmarinis vehementer ssevis Scotorum a
circione, Pictorum ab aquilone." Gild. Hist. c. xi. " Scoti
ab occidente, et Pioti ab aquilone." Nenn. c. xix. " Revertuntur
ergo impudentes grassatores Hyberni domum." Gildc.
xix. Bede, Hist. lib. i. c. 14. " Hibernia autem proprie
patria Scottorum est." Id. lib. i. c. 1. Comp. hb. ii. c. 4.
** Cunedda appears to have been driven fi'om intramural
Britain by the ravages of the Picts, and to have headed a considerable
migration to North Wales, towards the end of the
fourth century. Nenn. c.viii. eiffi^iiii., M. H. B. p. 75. Irish
Nenn. p. 190, cxiv. "Britannia after Romans," p. 34. Reeves,
St. Columb. p. 371. This Irish occupation of Mona is commemorated
by the Cerrig y Gviyddyl, or Irishmen's Stones.
W. Basil Jones, "Vestiges of Gael in Gwynedd," 1851.
f t Bede (lib. i. c. 1) perhaps gives a condensed account
of the events of two or three centuries. It has been ob-
X 2