Chapter 17

THE PICTS.--LIST OF KINGS.--PENN FAHEL.--ABER AND INVER.--THE PICTS PROBABLY, BUT NOT CERTAINLY, BRITONS.

The Picts have never been considered Romans; but, with that exception, a relationship with every population of the British Isles has been claimed for them. As Germans on the strength of Tacitus' description of their physical conformation of the Caledonian, and as Germans on the strength of the supposed Germanic origin of the Belgæ, the Picts have been held the ancestors of the present Lowland Scotch. They have been considered Scandinavians also. On the other hand, they have been made Gaels, in which case it is the Highlanders who are their offspring. They have been considered Britons, and they have been considered a separate stock.

That they were Kelts rather than Germans is the commonest doctrine, and that they were Britons rather than Gaels is a common one; the arguments that prove the latter proving the first _a fortiori_.

We approach the subject with a notice of the Irish missionary St. Columbanus, whose native tongue was, of course, the Irish Gaelic. This was unintelligible to the Northern Picts, as is expressly stated on in Adammanus:--"Alio in tempore quo Sanctus Columba in Pictorum provincia per aliquot demorabatur dies, quidam cum tota plebeius familia, verbum _vitæ_ per interpretatorem, _Sancto prædicante viro_, audiens credidit, credensque baptizatus est."--_Adamn. ap. Colganum._ l. ii. c. 32.

This, however, only shews that the Pict was not exactly and absolutely Irish. It might have approached it. It might also be far more unlike than the Welsh was.

A document known as the Colbertine MS., from being published from the Colbertine Library, contains a list of Pictish kings. This has been analysed by Innes and Garnett; and the result is, that two names only are more Gaelic in their form than Welsh--viz., _Cineod_ or _Kenneth_, and _Domhnall_ or _Donnell_. The rest are either absolutely contrary to what they would be if they were Gaelic, or else British rather than aught else. Thus, the Welsh _Gurgust_ appears in the Irish Annal as _Fergus_, or _vice versâ_. Now the Pict form of this name is _Wrgwst_, with a final T, and without an initial F. _Elpin_, _Drust_, _Drostan_, _Wrad_, and _Necton_ are close and undoubted Pict equivalents to the Welsh names _Owen_, _Trwst_, _Trwstan_ (_Tristram_), _Gwriad_, and _Nwython_.

The readers of the Antiquary well know the prominence given to the only two common terms of the Pict language in existence _pen val_, or as it appears in the oldest MSS. of Beda _peann fahel_. This is the _head of the wall_, or _caput vall_, being the eastern extremity (there or thereabouts) of the Vallum of Antoninus. Now the present Welsh form for _head_ is _pen_; the Gaelic _cean_. Which way the likeness lies here, is evident. For the _fahel_ (or _val_) the case is less clear. The Gaelic form is _fhail_, the Welsh _gwall_; the Gaelic being the nearest.

But some collateral evidence on this subject more than meets the difficulty. "In the Durham MSS. of Nennius, apparently written in the twelfth century, there is an interpolated passage, stating that the spot in question was in the Scottish or Gaelic language called _Cenail_. Innes and others have remarked the resemblance between this appellation and the present Kinneil; but no one appears to have noticed that _Cenail_ accurately represents the _pronunciation_ of the Gaelic _cean fhail_, literally _head of wall_, _f_ being quiescent in construction. A remarkable instance of the same suppression occurs in _Athole_, as now written, compared with the _Ath-fothla_ of the Irish annalists. Supposing, then, that _Cenail_ was substituted for _peann fahel_ by the Gaelic conquerors of the district, it would follow that the older appellation was _not_ Gaelic, and the inference would be obvious."[7]

In thus making _pen val_ a Pict gloss, I by no means imagine that any of the three forms were originally Keltic at all; since _val_, _gwal_, _fhail_ all seem variations of the Roman _vallum_, at least, in respect to their immediate origin. Still, if out of three languages, adopting the same word, each gives a different form, the variation which results is as much a gloss of the tongue wherein it occurs, as if the word were indigenous. Hence, whether we say that _pen val_ are Pict glosses, or that _pen_ is a Pict _gloss_, and _val_ a Pict _form_ is a matter of practical indifference.

The _Vallum Antonini_ was a work of man's hands, and its name is of less value than those of natural objects, such as _mountains_, _rivers_, or _lakes_. Nevertheless, these latter have been examined: thus the _Ochel_ Hills in Perthshire are better explained by the Welsh form _uchel_ than by the Gaelic _nasal_. But the most important word of all is the first element of the words _Aber_-nethy, and _Inver_-nethy. Both mean the same, _i.e._, the _confluence of waters_, or something very much of the sort. Both enter freely into composition, and the compounds thus formed are found over the greater part of the British Isles as the names of the mouths of the larger and more important rivers. But it is only a few districts where the two names occur together. Just as we expect _a priori_ _aber_ occurs when _inver_ is not to be found, and _vice versâ_. Of the two extremes Ireland is the area where _aber_, Wales where _inver_ is the rarer of the two forms; indeed so rare are they that the one (_aber_) rarely, if ever, occurs in Ireland, the other (_inver_) rarely, if ever, in Wales. Now as Ireland is Gaelic, and Welsh British, the two words may fairly be considered to indicate, where they occur, the presence of these two different tongues respectively.

The distribution of the words in question has long been an instrument of criticism in determining both the ethnological position of the Pict nation, and its territorial extent; and the details are well given in the following table of Mr. Kemble's:

"If we now take a good map of England and Wales and Scotland, we shall find the following data:--

"In Wales:

"Aber-ayon, lat. 51° 37' N., long. 3° 46' W. Aber-afon, lat. 51° 37' N. Abergavenny, lat. 51° 49' N., long. 3° 0' W. Abergwilli, lat. 51° 51' N., long. 4° 16' W. Aberystwith, lat. 52° 24' N., long. 4° 6' W. Aberfraw, lat. 53° 12' N., long. 4° 30' W. Abergee, lat. 53° 17' N., long. 3° 17' W.

"In Scotland:

"Aberlady, lat. 56° 1' N., long. 2° 52' W. Aberdour, lat. 56° 4' N., long. 3° 16' W. Aberfoil, lat. 56° 11' N., long. 4° 24' W. Abernethy, lat. 56° 20' N., long. 3° 20' W. Aberbrothic, lat. 56° 33' N., long. 2° 35' W. Aberfeldy, lat. 56° 37' N., long. 3° 55' W. Abergeldie, lat. 57° 5' N., long. 3° 10' W. Aberchalder, lat. 57° 7' N., long. 4° 44' W. Aberdeen, lat. 57° 8' N., long. 2° 8' W. Aberchirdir, lat. 57° 35' N., long. 2° 34' W. Aberdour, lat. 57° 40' N., long. 2° 16' W. Inverkeithing, lat. 56° 2' N., long. 3° 36' W. Inverary, lat. 56° 15' N., long. 5° 5' W. Inverarity, lat. 56° 36' N., long. 2° 54' W. Inverbervie, lat. 56° 52' N., long. 2° 21' W. Invergeldie, lat. 57° 1' N., long. 3° 12' W. Invernahavan, lat. 57° 2' N., long. 4° 12' W. Invergelder, lat. 57° 4' N., long. 3° 15' W. Invermorison, lat. 57° 14' N., long. 4° 34' W. Inverness, lat. 57° 29' N., long. 4° 11' W. Invernetty, lat. 57° 29' N., long. 1° 51' W. Inveraslie, lat. 57° 59' N., long. 4° 40' W. Inver, lat. 58° 10' N., long. 5° 10' W.

"The line of separation then between the Welsh or Pictish, and the Scotch or Irish, Kelts, if measured by the occurrence of these names, would run obliquely from S.W. to N.E., straight up Loch Fyne, following nearly the boundary between Perthshire and Argyle, trending to the N.E. along the present boundary between Perth and Inverness, Aberdeen and Inverness, Banf and Elgin, till about the mouth of the river Spey. The boundary between the Picts and English may have been much less settled, but it probably ran from Dumbarton, along the upper edge of Renfrewshire, Lanark and Linlithgow till about Abercorn, that is along the line of the Clyde to the Frith of Forth."[8]

It cannot be denied that, in the present state of our knowledge, the inference from the preceding table is that, whether Pict or not, more than two-thirds of Scotland exhibit signs of _British_ rather than _Gaelic_ occupancy.

This is as much as can be said at present: for it must be added that all the previous criticism has proceeded upon the notion that PENN FAHEL, &c., are Pict words. What, however, if they be Pict only in the way that _man_, _woman_, &c., are Welsh; _i.e._, words used by a population within the Pict area, but not actually Pict? The refinement upon the opinion suggested by the present chapter, which arises out of the view, will be noticed after certain other questions have been dealt with.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Mr. Garnett, _Philological Transactions_, No. II.

[8] Saxons in England.--Vol. ii. pp. 4, 5.