The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

44^
The Highland Monthly.
copy of the famous Gaelic epic of " Tarn Bo Chualgne" was pre-
served. Skene classified and catalogued the MSS., and did
everything to preserve them from neglect. Thanks to him they
are now among the most treasured of the Advocates' Library
possessions.
Professor Mackinnon in the course of a correspondence on
Dr Skene s services and views in regard to Scoto-Celtic matters^
sums up neatly the position of theories in regard to the Picts.
The racial and linguistic relationship of the " Picts have always
been a subject of controversy among Celtic scholars Some,
among them Sir Walter Scott, used to hold that the Picts were of
Gothic or Teutonic stock. Professor Phys considers them largely
non-Aryan, pre-Celtic in blood. The general drift of opinion at
the present day is that these Picts were mainly Celtic in blood
and that their language, in so far as Celtic, was Brythoric rather
Goedelic. We have, perhaps, not heard the last words on the
matter ;
but at the time of his death there was probably no Celtic
scholar of Dr Skene's reputation who held the view which that
distinguished man expounded at great length and with great
ability and learning in Vol. I. of Celtic Scotland—that the old
Picts, the ancestors of the Northern Highlanders, were not merely
Celtic in blood but Gaelic in speech."
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