The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

392 THE HIGHLANDERS [excursus
early part of the first century of the Christian era. But the
Ulster Picts were evidently invaders from Scotland who settled
on the corner of Ireland nearest to their own land. By the sixth
century they were as Gaelic-speaking as the rest of the Irish.
And hence Skene finds another proof that Pictish was Gaelic.
He also misreads the history of Ulster, which he regards as
having been all populated by the Picts. Ulster had in early
Irish history two consecutive denotations : Ulster at first meant
the province of Ulster as it is now. But the old kingly heroes
of Ulster—the Clann Rudraid, descended of Ir, son of Miled—
was gradually extruded from its lands by scions of the royal line
of Ireland, until in the fifth century they had only Dal-araidhe
or Ulidia or Uladh, which was still called Ulster and its kings
still styled "
Kings of Ulster." They were, of course, also King
of the Picts of Dal-araidhe. Hence has arisen Skene's confusion,
in which he is followed by Prof. Rhys.
III.—The Pictish Language.
Not a line of either poetry or prose has been recorded in
Pictish ; the so-called Pictish inscriptions are yet unravelled.
Only two words are recorded by writers as
records that the east end of the Roman wall,
Pictish.
between
Bede
Forth
and Clyde, ended " in loco qui sermone Pictorum Pean-fahel,
lingua autem Anglorum Penneltun, appellatur." Here pean is
for penn, which is also the old Welsh for " head," old Gaelic,
cenn ; and faJiel is allied to Gaelic fal, Welsh givaivl, rampart.
Both Skene and Rhys regard pean as British, belonging to the
" Britons of Fortrenn," or if not so, borrowed from the British,
Cormac records the word cartit, a pin or brooch pin, to which
Stokes compares the old Welsh garthon, goad.
We have, however, ample means to judge the affinities of
the Pictish language in the numerous personal and place-names
recorded by classical and later writers, or still extant in old
Pictavia.
(i) Names in the classical writers.
Tacitus first mentions Caledonia, by which he means Scotland
north of the Firths, and Ptolemy writes it Kaledonios.
The long e between / and d is guaranteed by the old Welsh
Celydon, and Nennius's Celidon ; but all the same, it must be
regarded as a Roman mispronunciation of Caldon—Id being not