The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

46 THE HIGHLANDERS [part r
colony, and who have been acknowledged by all to have been
a Gaelic race. It will be observed from these passages that the
Welsh Triads, certainly the oldest and most unexceptionable
authority on the subject, apply the same term of Gwyddyl to
the Picts and to the Dalriads, and consequently they must have
been of the same race, and the Picts a Gaelic people. Farther,
the Welsh word " Gwyddyl," by which they distinguish that
race, has been declared by all the best authorities to be exactly
synonymous with the word Gael, the name by which the Highlanders
have at all times been distinguished, and the Welsh
words "
Gwyddyl Efichti " cannot be interpreted to mean anything
else than " TlIE GAELIC PiCTS," or " PiCTlSH Gael."i
Besides the passage above quoted, the Triads frequently
mention the Picts, and at all times with the word "
Gwyddyl "
prefixed. Caradoc of Nantgarvan, a Welsh writer of the twelfth
century, also frequently mentions the Picts by this title of
"
Gwyddyl Ffichti," or Gaelic Picts.
But the Welsh writers are not the only authorities who prove
the Picts to have spoken Gaelic, for a native writer of the
seventh century, and one who from his residence in the north
of Scotland must have been well acquainted with their language,
furnishes the most incontrovertible evidence that that language
Adoiiman.
was a dialect
known, wrote
of the Gaelic. Adomnan, it
•
i t t r r- /-< i i
the Eiie oi Samt Lolumba
is well
•
i m the
seventh century, at a time when the Picts were at the height
of their power. On one occasion he mentions that when
Columba was in Skye, a Gentile old man, as he always terms
the Picts, came to him, and having been converted, was baptized
in that island. He then adds this : passage
"
qui hodieque in
ora cernitur maritima fluviusque ejusdem loci in quo idem
baptisma acceperat ex noiiii7ie ejus DOBUR Artbranani usque
in hodiernum nominatus diem ab accolis vocitatus." ^
It so
happens, however, that " Dobur " in Gaelic means " a well,"
and that it is a word altogether peculiar to that language, and
not to be found in any other. It has been fully proved in a
'
It may be mentioned tliat these able work the Welsh Archteologj'.
passages are taken from tlie originals
in Welch, as published in that invalu-
"
Adomnan, b. 1, c. 33.