The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

66 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
Creones extended from the Linne Loch to Kintail, and the
present district of Wester Ross was possessed by the Carnones.
In 503 we know that the Dalriads obtained possession of
the territories of the Epidii, and it is equally certain that
Dalriada did not extend north of the Linne Loch. In 843
we know that the Dalriads left Dalriada and seized possession
of the extensive country of the southern Picts, but in the
eleventh century we find that the possessions of the Creones
still remained a distinct earldom, under the title of Garmoran,
while those of the Dalriads and the Carnones appear as forming
part of one great district, termed Ergadia or Oirirgael, while
individually they were known as Ergadia Borealis and Australis.
It is also worthy of notice that Lochaber formed a part of
this great district, and in some degree connected the two
detached portions.
The name of Argyll, it must be recollected, was not applied
to any district of Scotland previous to the Scottish conquest,
and consequently it must have arisen by the extension over
the whole district of some tribe who had previously inhabited
a part. That tribe could not have been the Dalriads, for
such an extension would be quite incompatible with their con-
quest of the southern Picts, and it is difficult to see how their
Highland conquest should have assumed such a form, or that
the name of Argyll would have been confined to that part
of their conquest only.
The Creones remained unaltered, and the only other people
who at any time possessed any part of this district are the
Carnones, who inhabited Wester Ross, and the Caledonians
proper, who must have possessed Lochaber. One or other
of these two tribes must, it is plain, have first dispossessed
the other, so as to become the sole inhabitants of the northern
part of Ergadia ; and on the departure of the Dalriads in 843,
they must have occupied the vacant territory, and thus extended
the name over the whole, for from the detached and arbitrary
nature of the districts which were included under the name
of Argyll, it is impossible in any other way
to account for
its application.
Now, it is certainly remarkable, that at the very period
when we have ascertained that the tribe of the Caledonii or