year 699, — ^''In this year the Picts slew Beorht, the alderman.'' He was probably their Saxon governor. In 711, Tighemac also records "the slaughter of the 90 MANAU GODODIN AND THE PICTS.
PictB on the plain of Manann (in campo Manand) hy the Saxons, where Findgaine, the son of Deleroith^ perished by immature death;" and the Saxon Chron- icle thus records the same event in 710, — " In the same year the alderman Beorhtfirith fought against the Picts between Haefe and Caere." Florence of Worcester says that ^ Berhfrid, the prefect of King Osrcd, fought against and overcame the Picts.^ Here again, Beorht- frith appeals as the Saxon Governor under the king of Northumberland, and the name of the leader of the Picts is also given as Findgaine, son of Deleroith. In the year 716, Osred, king of Northumberland, was slain; and in recording this event, the Annals of Ulster add that Gamat, son of Deleroith, obviously of the same Pictish family of Manann, died. In 729 a great battle was fought between the army of Angus, king of the Picts, and the host of Nechtain; and the annalist addsi, that the '* exactatores'' of Nechtain fell — viz. Biceot son of Moneit, and his son, and Finguine son of Drostan, Ferot son of Finguine, and many others. This word " exactatores,** or rather " exactores," was a word expressive of a Saxon officer, and was the Latin equivalent of ^ Gerefa," and the names show the con- nection of these leaders with the Picts of Manann, with whom the name of Finguine was especially connected. We have no further notice of Manann. It owes its separate existence, and its loose connection with the Anglic kingdom, to its inhabitants possessing a community of race with the powerful kingdom of the Picts north of the Forth; and after the termination of that kingdom, when the name of Pict was mei^ed in MANAU GODODIN AND THE P10T8. 91 that of Scot; it too disappears as possessing any separate position £rom the other inhabitants of Lothian.
It has been necessary to be thus minute in giving these notices of Manau or Manann as its history as a separate region in North Britain has, in fact; to be reconstructed, and it will enable us now better to determine its precise situation and extent When the notices of the slaughter of the Picts in L 710 by the Irish annalists and the Saxon historians are compared, they give us the situation of the ^Campus Manann " — a battle fought on it was ** between Haefe and Caere/' It is impossible here to mistake the riven Avon and Carron, which flow within some miles of each other; and the Avon rises in a moor called now Slamannan, and of old Slamannan Moor. This name is, in fact^ Sliahhrnannan^ the moor or plain of Manann. Mynyd Agned, or Edinburgh, was in it, where the population of the region about it was called CcUbre^ gion. The Dovar and lardovar of the Irish legends formed the whole or part of it Bede tells us that of the two firths of the sea, one of which runs in far and broad into the land of Britain from the Eastern Ocean and the other from the Western, though they do not reach so as to touch one another, the Eastern has in the midst of it the city Giudi (orientalis habet in medio sui urbem Giudi), the Western has on it, that is, on the right hand thereof, the city Alcluith, which in their language signifies the *' rock Cluith,'' for it is close by the river of that name. Bede's city of Oiudi is the same as Nennius' urbs ludeu, the G falling away in Welsh in combination, and in an old tract in the Book 92 MAKAU OODODIK AND THE PICTS.
of Lccan ascribed to Angus the Culdcc, who lived in the ninth centuiy, Cuilennros or Culroes is said to be between the Sliabhnochel, or range of the Ochils^ and Muir-firOitidan, or the Sea of Giudan (Reeves' Culdees, p. 124), and we learn from Simeon of Dur- ham that the see of Lindisfame, which marks the actual possessions of the Angles, extended to the river Bsk, beyond which they only possessed settlements.
Manau or Manann, therefore, in its widest sense included Slamannan, and the western frontier pro- ceeded in a line from thence to the Pentland Hills, so 9^ to take in the great moor formerly called Celdover Hoot, consisting of what is now the three parishes of yfeet, Mid, and East Calder, and thus included that mountainous region forming the west part of Linlith- gowshire, embracing the parishes of Torphichen, Bath- gate, and Whitburn. It probably also included that part of the range of the Pentland Hills called of old Pentland Uoor, till it came down upon the North Esk, which formed its eastern boundary to the sea. On the north- west there lay between it and the Carron the district of Calatria or Calathros, containing on the coast the parishes of Einnell and Carriden, while from Carriden to the Esk the coast would belong to Manann. At the point now called the Queensferry, it approaches ^thin a short distance of the opposite coasts and the name of Clackmannan on the northern shore indicates that that district Ukewise belonged to it. On some one of the islands in the Firth which Ue between the mouth of the Esk and Carriden was the city of Giudi or ludeu, which may have been foimded by HAKAU QODODIN AND THE PICT8. 93 the people Bede terms the Jutes, while the fortified rock of Mynyd Agned or Dunedin was the great stronghold of its Pictish inhabitants.
Lying as this region did in the intermediate part of the country where the kingdoms of the Picts in the north, the Angles in the east, and the Cymry in the west, approached each other, and the Pictish, Anglic, and Cymric populations met, it could not but have had a mixed population. We see that an early colony of Saxons had obtained settlements in this part of the country. Arthur fought several of his battles against them within its limits; and the king of Ulster cleared Manand of OaUs. Here also dwelt the Picts of Lothian, known under the names of Brithwyr and of Cathregion. The former name comes from Brith, which in its primary sense means speckled or spotted; but in its secondary sense mixed, and may indicate a mixed people. Bregion comes from Brych or Breac, and this word crops up here and there over the district Falkirk was in Gaelic, Eglais Breac^ and in Saxon, Fahkirk, the spotted or brindled church; Mynyd Agned, the Painted Mount; while Caldovar Moss is bounded on the west by the river BrycL When Medrawd, the son of Llew, rebelled against Arthur, it was with a mixed army of Picts, Saxons, and Britons.
From this region Cunedda went with his sons, and gave a royal house to the throne of Wales in the per* son of Maelgwn and his descendants. When this house failed in the person of Cynan Tyndathwy, there is every reason to believe that the same region gave a 94 HAKAU GODODIN AND THE PICTS.
second royal house to Wales, in the person of Mervyii Frychf and that he came from the region of Manan, and not £rom the island. His epithet of Brych points to this. He was the son of Gwriad, who married Nest, daughter of Cadell Deymllug, Prince of Powys, and Gwriad is the same name as the Pictish Ferat. His pedigree is deduced from Dwjrwc, a son of Ll3rwarch Hen, and Ll3rwarch Hen was one of the Men of the North, and his mother was a daughter of Brychan. Mervyn is said in the Cyvoesi to be o dir Manau^ £rom the region of Manau, and not o ynys Manau, £rom the island of Manau. This derivation of the kings of the house of Mervyn Frych explains a passage in a tract contained in the text of the Irish Nennius, preserved in the Book of Ballemote, but which is not to be found elsewhere. After stating the first departure of the Romans, this text proceeds to say that Sarran then assumed the sovereignty of Britain, and estab- lished his power over the Saxons and Picts. That his eldest son was Luirig, and that Mucertach mac Erca having taken his wife, she bore him four sons, two of whom were Constantine and Gaidel Ficht, from whom descended the provincial kings of Britain and the kings of ComwalL* This legend seems to apply to Manann, and if the house of Mervyn Frych sprang £rom its mixed population, we can imderstand in what sense the kings of Wales and Cornwall were said to be descended £rom Gaidel Ficht Mervyn Frych married Essyllt, the daughter of C3man, the last king of the house of Maelgwn Gwynedd, and inherited Powys * CAroH. Ptets and SeoUy p. 54.
MANAU GODODIN AND THE PICI8. 95 through his mother^ and acquired Gwynedd through his wife. His death is recorded in 844, so that he died in the very year that the kingdom of the Scots superseded that of the Picts, when all the old land- marks of the North British districts were changed, and the memory of Manau Gododin, as a region in the north distinct from the island of Manau, passed away for ever. Mervyn Frych was succeeded by his son Rodri Mawr, who acquired South Wales through his wife, and thus became king of all Wales. He divided Wales into three petty kingdoms among his three sons — ^Anaxaut, Cadell, and Mervyn — the eldest^ Anaraut^ obtaining Gwynedd, with Aberfraw in Anglesea as his capital; Cadell, South Wales, with Dynevor for his capital; and Mervyn, Powis, with Mathraval for his capital; and the king of Gwynedd was to be supreme over the other two. He was succeeded by his eldest son Anarawd, who died in 913, and he by his son Edwal foel, after which Howel dda, son of Cadell, king of South Wales, obtained the dominion of the whole of Wales, from 940 to his death in 948. After his death a struggle commenced between the descendants of Edwal foel and of Howel dda for supremacy in Wales till the year 1000, when the sovereignty was usurped by Aeddan ap Blegwred, and a period of confusion ensued both in North and South Wales^ during which Cynan, the rightful heir of North Wales, took refuge in Ireland, and Shys, the rightful heir of South Wales, in Armorica, and which was only terminated when Rhys ap Tewdwr succeeded in estab- lishing himself in South Wales, in the year 1077, 96 MAKAU OODODIN AND THE PICTS.
and Groffudhy the son of Cynan, in North Wales, in The kingdom of South Wales soon came to an end, in consequence of Jestin, the Lord of Glamorgan, having called in the assistance of Robert Fitzhamon, a Norman knight Bhys ap Tewdwr was defeated in battle and slain by him in 1090, and, according to the Brut y Tywysogion, ** then fell the kingdom of the Britons/ and Robert Fitzhamon, with his Norman knights^ took possession of Glamorgan, and *^ the French came into Dyned and Ceredigion, which they have still retained, and fortified the castles, and seized upon all the land of the Britons.'' This was true of South Wales only, as in North Wales the native princes still ruled till the year 1282, when the death of Llywelyn, the last prince of North Wales, was fol- lowed by the subjugation of all Wales by King Edward the First Rhys ap Tewdwr had an only daughter, Nest, who had a son by King Henry the First, Robert, Earl of Gloucester. By marriage with the daughter of Robert Fitzhamon, he succeeded to all his possessions in South Wales; and, as the son of Nest, the only daughter of Rhys, was regarded by the Welsh as xepreaenting in some degree the princes of South WaleA. He died in the year 1147.
RACES OF BRITAIN. 97 CHAPTER VIL THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND THE PLACE OF THE PICTS AMONG THEM.
Such being the aspect in which the leading features of the history of the Celtic population of Britain is presented to ucf, on a careful analysis of the authori- ties, it remains to inquire what they tell us of the mutual relation of the races of which it was com- posed, and of the true place of the Picts among them. In human beings the recollections of infancy are the most vivid and tenacious, and eveiy change of circum- stance or of place in early years impresses itself with an indelible mark on the memory, so that, while the recollections of middle life become faint and dim with advancing years, those of the nursery still stand out in the background with a clear, and distinct light, and can be produced in all their original vividness. In like manner with races of men in an early stage ot their social condition, the events of the infancy of the race, its migrations and settlements, seem to be in- delibly impressed on the national memory, are the subject of songs and ballads, and become interwoven into such oral literature as they possess, while their history, after they become a settled people, may be- come to them a dreary blank, till the progress of dvil- TOU L H 98 THE. RACES OP BRITAIN AND isation and society creates something like national annals among them.
Such ethnological traditions^ however, in time lose the form of simple narrative, and assume a mythic and symbolic shape, which, though bearing the out- ward semblance of fable, still preserve the recollection of real ethnological fact. This mythic and sjnnbolic form of the early ethnological traditions of the various tribes which form the population of the country, usually presents itself in two different aspects, according as the one idea or the other prevailed. According to Jhe one, these tribes were a series of colonies arriving in the country at different times, and succeeding each other as occupants of the land, and their migrations fix>m some distant land, in which some fancied re- semblance in name or customs had fixed their origin, are minutely detailed. According to the other, each race is represented by an ^nynms, or supposed common ancestor, bearing a name derived from that of the people, and the several eponymi representing the population of the country are connected in an ethnological genealogy, in which they appear as fathers^ brothers, or cousins, according to their sup- posed relation to each other. We have a classical instance of this in the Greek traditions, where Hellen, the eponymus of the Hellenes, is father of ^^lus, Dorus^ and Xuthus, and the latter of Achseus and lonusy while the ^^lians and Dorians appear in other traditions as successively overrunning the country. In Britain we have the same twofold myth; Brutus, PLACE OF THE PICTS AMONG THEM. 99 the eponymus of the Britons, being, in the Brats, father of Camber Locrinus and Albanactus, while, in the Triads, the Kymri, the Lloegrii, and the Biython, are successive colonies which entered the country firom different lands. It does not follow that, in the one case, the relationship was other than a g^graphical one, or, in the other, that the tribes were really of different origin, or inhabited the country at different times. These are but the adventitious, mythic, or sym- bolic forms, in which real ethnological relations had clothed themselves, under the operation of definite laws.
The earliest record of such ethnological traditions connected with the British Isles is probably to be found in the Historia Britonum. In it the ethnological tradi- tions are given in both shapes. In that in which they were symbolised by a genealogy, and which is certainly part of the original tract, the author states as his source " veteres libri veterum nostrorum," and concludes the chapter by stating, " Hanc peritiam inveni ex tra- ditione veterum, qui incolse in primo fiierunt Bri- tanniae." In this genealogy he says, ** Hessitio autem habuit fiUos quatuor, hi sunt, Francucf, Bomanus, Britto, A Wanus...Ab Hesitione autem ortse sunt qua- tuor gentes, Franci, Latini, A Ibani, et BrittiT In the Albanic Duan, which seems to have belonged to some collection of additions to Nennius, and which contains the oldest record of the ethnological traditions of Scotland, the brothers Brittus and Albanus appear as the epontfm of the two Celtic races inhabiting spectively Britain and Alban, or Scotland. Thus — 100 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND * 0, all ye learned of Alban, Ye wellHskilled host of yellow hair, What was the first invasion 1 Is it known to you 1 Which took the land of Alban 1 Albanus possessed it; numerous his hosts. He was the illustrious son of Isacon. He and Briuius were brothers without deceit From him Alban of ships has its name. Briutns banished his active brother Across the stormy sea of Icht. Briutns possessed the noble Alban As far as the conspicuous promontory of Fothudain."* Here the two brothers^ Brittus and Albanus, appear, and the latter is the cponymus of the inhabit- antB of Alban or Scotland, while the tradition of the retreat of tlie race of the one before that of the other seems to be preserved.
What races, then, were typified hy the brothers Brittus and Albanus? A passage in one of the old poems preserved in the Book of Taliessin indicates this very clearly. The Historia had given us three of the sons of Hessitio— Romanus, Brittus, and Albanus; the brotherhood in such a genealogy implying no more tiian their mutual presence in the same country; and in the poem referred to there is an obvious reference to the same tradition — ^ Three races, wrathful, of right qualities: Gwyddyl and Biython and Romani, Create war and tumult** * CAtm. PiVCi and 8eot$^ p. 67w— The Iricth /is the di^amma placed befoie an initial Towel; and the word /bthadain seems to express Ptolemj*s Ottadeniy who extended to the riyer Eden in Fife. The pro- OMNiloiy of Fife, called Hfeness, is probably the promontory meant PLACE OF THE PICTS AMONG THEM. 101 Here the Ramani and Biython represent RomanuB and Brittus^ and Gwyddyl comes in place of Albanus.
This term Gwyddyl^ though latterly used by the Welsh as synonymous with Irish, was formerly applied to the whole Gaelic race as distinguished from the Cymric This is apparent from another poem in the Book of Taliessin, where the Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles are thus enumerated: — ** Let us make great rejoicing after exhanrtion. And the reconciliation of the Cymiy and men of DaMiny The Gwyddyl of Iwerdon« Mon, and Piydyn, The Cornishmen and the Clydemen."
Here the Cymry of Wales and the Britons of Cornwall and Strathclyde are contrasted with the Gwyddyl of Ireland, Anglesea, and Scotland; in shorty the Gkeiic race in its full extension at that period, including Prydyn, or North Britain, and Mona, or Anglesea^ as well as Ireland. To which of these two races then did the Picts belong, and was their language identical either With the Cymric or the Gaelic, or, if it was a different dialect, to which did it approach nearest?
Among the additions made to the ffistoria Brir tonum, some Pictish traditions seem to have been attached to it as early as the year 796; and these are preserved partly in the Irish translation of Nennius, and partiy in the first part of the old chronicle in the Colbert- ine MS. usually called the Pictish Chronicle, and which bears evident marks of having been formed from such additions to the ffistoria. This chronicle con- tains a very important addition to the statement in the 102 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND Historia. The Hiatoria had said that Brittus and AlbanuB were brothers, and sons of Hessitio, and that from them proceeded the nations of the Britti and the AlbanL The Pictish Chronicle adds, after quoting a passage from Iddorm giving the etymology of the name Albani, ** de quxbus originem duxerunt Scoti et Picti;''^ that is, that both Scots and Picts belonged to the race of which Albanus was the eponymus.
Now the testimony of the entire literature of Wales is to the fact that the Picts belonged to the race of the Gwyddyl, and not to the Cymric race. To take, firsts the perhaps doubtful authority of the Triads^ in which the ethnology of the inhabitants of Britain is conveyed under the form of successive colonies^ or invasions, they are thus represented: ^ Three social tribes of the Isle of Britain — the nation {cenedl) of the Kymry, the race {at) of the Lloegrwys and the Brython — and these are said to be descended from the original nation of the Cymry, and to be of the same language and speech. Three refiige-seeking tribes that came to the Isle of Britain — the tribe of Celyddon yn y Gogled, the race (at) of the Gwyddyl that are in Alban, and the men of Galedin. Three invading tribes that came to the Isle of Britain — ^the Coraniaid, the Gwyddyl Ffichti who came to Alban by the sea of Llychlyn, and the Saeson;'' and it is added that the Gwyddyl Ffichti '' are in Alban, on the shore of the sea of Llyddjm.'' "Three treacherous invasions of the Isle of Britain — the Gwyddyl Coch PLACE OF THE PICTS AMONG THEM. 103 oV Iwerddon, who came into Alban; the men of Llychlyn, and the Saesons.^ Here it will be observed that three tribes only are brought to Alban, and all three are said to have remained in it^ and all are said to be Gwyddyl or Gael. These are, Jirtt, the race of the Gwyddyl generally; secotuUy, the red Gwyddyl fix)m Ireland; and thirdly, the Ffichti GwyddyL The red Gwyddyl are obviously the Gaelic Scots, who came from Ireland in the year 503, and settled in Dalriada or Argyll. The Gwyddyl Ffichti have been usually translated the Irish Ficts^ firom the word Gwyddyl having been latterly used as synonymous with Irishman; and a very disingenuous use of this has been made by Mr. Herbert in his noteir to the Irish Nennius; but the translation is ^roneous^ for the word Gwyddyl was at that time a name of race, and not a geographical term, and was applied to the whole Gaelic raccT; and, moreover, it is not an adjec- tive, but a substantive; Gwyddyl Ffichti meaning the Ffichti or Pictish Gwyddyl, just as Gwyddyl Coch means the red Gwyddyl. That by these Ffichti Gwyddyl, the Picts of the Pictish kingdom in Scotland are meant^ and not Irish Picts (in the sense of Picts dwelling in or emigrating from Ireland), is plain; for in the Triad they are said to have crossed the sea of liychlyn, or German Ocean, to Alban or Scotland, and to dwell in Alban along the shore of the Grerman Ocean. That it was applied to the Picts forming the great Pictiflk kingdom of Scotland, is also clear from the Bruis compared with each other and with the Irish annalist 104 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND Tighemac In the year 750 a great battle was fought betwe^i the Britons of Strathclyde and the Picts of Scotland, at a place called by the Welsh chronicles Hagedauc or Maesedauc, now Mngdoch, in Dnm- bartonshiiey the ancient seat of the Earls of Lennox^ which is thus described by Tighemac: " A battle betwe^i the Ketones and the Britones — viz, Talorgan, the son of Fergus, and his brother, and the slaughter of the Piccardach with him." In the BnU y Tywyso- ffion it is thus given: — " The action of Mygedawc, in which the Britons conquered the Gwydyl Ffichti after a bloody battle.'' Talorgan, who commanded them, was brother of Angus Mac Fergus, king of Fortren, or the Picts of Scotland, and they are here termed Gwyddyl FfichtL Although the authority of the Triads is not unexceptionable, it is confirmed by the more authentic Triads of Arthur and his warriors, where ^ three tribes came into this island and did not again go out of it,'' and the second is '^the tribe of the Gwyddyl FfichtL" The statement here given of that form of the tradi- tion which represents the ethnology of the inhabitants of North Britain under the form of successive colonies, 80 exactly accords with what we find in other state- ments of it as to leave little doubt that it is a faithful representation of this form of the tradition; and its harmony with the older statement of the other form of it in the Histaria Britonum is apparent In the one we have Albanus, the q[>onymus of the Gwyddyl, called the brother of Brittus, and progenitor of the Albani PLACE OF THE P1CT8 AMONG THEIL 105 from whom the Picti and Scoti took their origin. In the other we have the race of the Gwyddyl in Albon, and the succesfiive colonies in Alban after them, the Gwyddyl Ffichti firom Uychlyn, and the Gwyddyl Coch from Iwerdon or Ireland; the former being, as shown by the Brut y Tytvysogum^ the Pida of Soot- land, and the latter the Scots of Dalriada.
The legend of the origin of the Picts^ as contained in tho Bruts, is that they came from Scythia and settled in Alban; that they asked wives of the Britons and were refused, and then married wives of the GwyddyL The text of the Brut in the Bed Book of Hergest adds, ^' And their children and offspring increased, and the people multiplied. This people are the Gwyddyl Ffichti^ and it is thus they came and were first continued in this island, and to this day have remained without going from it" Another text in one of the Hengwrt MSS. adds, '' And thus arose this people; and this people were called Owyddyl FJichtieit, and this is the reason that they were called Gwyddyl Ffichtieit; and they are still a tribe among the Britons."* The tale that they were refused wives of the Britons and married wives of the Gwyddyl certainly implies that the Welsh considered that they did not speak a Cymric but a Gaelic dialect, for the legend is based upon the idea that tiiie spoken Ian* guage of a people was derived from their mothers, and is conveyed in the popular expression, the mother* tongue; and it is so understood in Layamon's Brul^--^ 106 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND ^ Through the same woman, Who there long dwelt, The folk 'gan to speak Ireland's speech."
And in one of the poems in the Book of Taliessin, where tike Picts are symbolised by the expression, ** y Cath Vreith,'' there is this line: " The Cat Vreith of a strange language (angh}^eithon) is troubled from the ford of Taradyr to Port Wygjrr in Mona.** There is no doubt that the allusion here is to the Pictsl The name of Gwyddyl Ffichti, as applied to the PictSy thus rests on better authority than that of the 'Triads. In the old poems^ though the Picts are usually termed the Brithwyr, yet this name of Gwyd- dyl Ffichti is also applied to them, as in a curious old poem in the Book of Taliessin: *^ Five chiefs there shall be of the Gwyddyl FfichtL" The Picts are thus clearly assigned by the Welsh authorities to the race of the Gwyddyl; and if they were really, according to the prevailing modem theory, a Cymric people speaking a Cjrmric dialect, it is hardly conceivable that the Cjnoiri themselves should have thus so invari- ably classed them with the Gwyddyl, and attached that word to their name.
The whole testimony of the Britons themselves, and the inferences to be drawn from tradition, thus clearly range the Picts as a people with the Gwyddyl, or Gaelic division of the great Celtic race, and not with the Cymric or British, and point to their race and language both being Gaelic; but though this may PLACE OF THE PICTS AMONG THEM. 107 be true of the core or central l)od7 of the people/ there are yet indications that the more outlying or firontier portions were extensively mixed with other people, and especially with the three races of tibie Saxons^ the Scots of Ireland, and the Britons.