178 CRANIA BRITANNICA. [CHAP. TI.
distinct *. The Pictisli kingdom was a subsequent foundation, and is considered to have lasted
from the middle of the 5th century—probably even much earUer—to the middle of the 9th, when,
weakened by the invasion of the Norwegian Vikingr, it feU under the dominion of Kenneth
Mac Alpin, the king of the Scots. In the cranium from Kinaldie (Plate 25) we most likely
have a true representation of a Pict.
The union of the Piots and Scots for the invasion and desolation of their southern neighbours
commenced in the reign of the second Constantius. This special inroad was defeated
by the rout of the barbarians by Theodosins, the father of the emperor Theodosius the Great.
A succession of usm-pers of the purple sprang up in Britaia, and many fi-esh invasions by the
un-Romanized Britons, the Piots and Soots, marked this period of decline of the imperial power,
untn, at length, when the Romans flnaUy retired from the island, the Romanized Britons were
left a prey to the unci\-ilized tribes of the north as weU as to the Saxons from the Continent.
The earliest of the immigrant races which set foot in Britain dm-ing this period was
the Soots, a people derived from the northern coasts of Hibernia, who had obtaiaed a preeminence
in that country before the conclusion of the third century, and had even impressed
theii- owTa name on the whole of that island before the year 400. Camden pointed out that
Porphyry, who flourished under Diocletian, at the end of the third century, was the first to
mention the Soots t- At the middle of the thii-d century a separate rule was established by
conquest in the north-eastern corner of Hibernia, over the extensive district denominated
Dah'iada. Although predatory rovers set out from the western island long before, it was not
tm the opening of the sixth century that a colony of these Dalriadic Scots transported themselves
to the western shores of North Britain, where they founded a state of the same name t-
But long before this, as we have observed, the Scots were associated with the Picts in
inroads upon the southern Britons. These were often repeated dm-iug the fourth and fifth
centuries; and although the bold barbarians were generaUy overcome, sometimes with and
sometimes without Roman aid, they desolated the country, and must have deprived it of a large
part of its population, especially as plagues and famines were the usual sequences of their raids.
Ultimately the Britons were induced to apply to the Saxons, and to invite them into the island,
to render aid in resisting the terrible Picts and Scots.
The first landing of the Dalriadic Scots imder Pergus, Loarn, and Angus, the sons of Ere,
for permanent settlement, was in the Epidian peninsula, to which they gave the name of Ceantir,
a name that it stUl retains§. These three leaders are said to have estabUshed three principaHties:
Pergus in Cantn-e; Loai-n in the district to the north, or Lorn; and Angus in Isla ; to which
was°added in after times the rest of Ai-gyle, and, by fresh migrations from Hibernia and inroads
from the head-quarters on the mainland, the whole of the interior range of the Hebrides.
Besides strifes among the princes and mutual animosities, they carried on different wars against
the Picts; in support of the Cumbrian or Strath-Clyde Britons, of the former Valentia, against
the Saxons; against the Northumbrians; and against the Cruithne, their family connexions of
indigenous in Ireland, so was probably their name. And, from
their own language, they acquired the appellation of Sceite,
which signifies, in the Irish, dispersed and scattered."
X The Saxon Chronicle, copying Beda, relates the conquest
under Reoda to be that of the British Dalriada. Chalmers,
on the contrary, regards this as the acquisition of the parent
Dalriada in Ulster. Fide antea, pp. 151-2.
* Philol. Essays, p. 198. The diversity might arise from
the mixture of Latin in the language of the South Britons.
Am. Thierry supposes the language of the Picts to haTe been
a mixture of Gaelic and Cymraeg.—Hist, des Gaulois, i. 94.
t Britannia, I. cxlviii. Caledonia, i. 193, 269, 271. For
Aurelian, Chalmers very properly substitutes Diocletian. In
this latter work, Camden's demonstration that ancient Scotia
was no other than Hibernia is quoted. " As the Scots were § Cean, Gaelic, a head, and Tir, land.
CHAP. VI.] ETHNOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF SUCCESSIVE POPULATIONS. 179
Ulster. At one period the reguli of Kintii'e did homage for the British Dabiada to the Dalriadic
princes of Ireland, fr'om which Aidan obtained a relinquishment in A.D. 590, when he appeared
at a council in Ulster, attended by the famous monk Columba *. This zealous man was a Scot
of Donegal, and was of a family of rank. He came to Cantire, a Christian country from its
foundation (for the Scots had embraced Christianity long before they effected this settlement),
and was received by his relative Conal, the Scottish king. It was, however, the Pictish king
who conferred upon him the island of Hy, or lona, for the establishment of his monastery t.
Prom this spot, as a centre, the conversion of the northern Picts emanated in the latter half of
the sixth century. The southern Picts had been converted above 150 years before, by Ninian.
I t is stated that Columba, when preaching to the northern Picts, needed an interpreter; which
shows that the Gaelic or Scotic and the Caledonian or Pictish, believed to be a Cymric dialect,
differed considerably. It is also related that his monks were clothed in the skins of beasts,
although they had woollen and linen from abroad t, and that the Dalriadic Scots crossed the
Irish Channel in currachs, or coracles, made of wicker and covered with skins, and lived in
houses made of wattles. One of their kings was named Eocha'-bui, which is Eocha the
yeUow-hau'ed, and his son Donald-breac, or the fr-eckled — evidences that the xanthous
constitution was no more unknown among the Scots, and even in the royal family, then
than it is at the present day, yet probably also of its rarity. The last of the Scotic princes
of Dalriada, Kenneth Mac Alpin, extended his territory beyond Drumalban, or the Dorsimi
Britcmnim, the mountain-chain which separates Argyleshire from the county of Perth, and
united the descendants of the ancient Picts, or Caledonians, with his own subjects, under one
sovereignty, in A.B. 843 §. Ancient chroniclers relate the utter destruction and extermination
of the Picts by Kenneth; but this irrational, if not impossible, statement is not supported
by the testimony of other authorities, and is very properly rejected ||. It would be difficult to
define the strict northern limit of the Scots at this period. Chalmers affirms that they " possessed
the whole western coast fe-om the Clyde to Loch-Toridon, with the adjacent isles " 1". Their permanent
predominance in the western Highlands is rendered probable by the prevalence of the
Gaelic language, which continues there stiU. Prom the southern Picts, the occupants of Perthshire,
the Scots were separated by a wide tract of moorland and mountains, viz, the Drumalban
region. Under the union of the Scotic and Pictish thrones, which dates from Kenneth's reign,
and was carried on and consolidated in those of his successors, these two peoples were intimately
mingled, and they remain to the present time probably undistinguishable in this district **.
• Caledonia, i. 283.
t Chalmers attributes this gift to Conal (i. 265) ; but Beda
says it was derived from the Picts (H. E. iv.), in whose territory
it is believed to have been situated.
% The subject of dress during the primeval period is fully
illustrated (p. 76) by Dr. Thurnam, who considers the works
of the loom to have been native. See also the splendid " Costume
of the Clans," by J . S. Stolberg andC. E. Stuart, 1845,
p. 26. Dresses of skins, sewn with "gut " or sinews, were
worn in remote districts to much later times. Still in an ancient
Gaelic poem, the period of which is referred to the third
century, the importation of the products of the loom seems to
be declared.
" Chither i, Mhalmhina,
Acli cba n-nnn mar nigluanibh nam beann
Tha 'trusgan o Bhuthaieh nan Baimh"
" There is she seen, Malrina,
But not like the maidens of the hill;
Her garment is from the stranger^ s land"—lb. 24.
There are allusions to the favourite cerulean dye of the Caledonians,
described by Claudian (xxii. 247), in the poems of
Ossian, where he describes the banner of Flngal.
§ Of Drumalban see Skene's " Highlanders of Scotland,"
1837, i. 26, where he declares the western boundary of the
Picts "at all times" to have been this hilly district. At all
times after the Dalriadic settlement, not before.
II Caledonia, i. 333. ^ Ibid. 336.
** That Gaelic was extensively employed at an early period
is seen from the following relation. At an ecclesiatical council,
convened in 1074, for correcting certain so-called novelties in
the Church, the Scotic clergy could only speak Gaelic, the
language generally in use Margaret the queen, and daughter