And first of the Saxons. It is somewhat remark- able that when Ammianus Marcellinus narrates the first great outburst of the barbarian, w ex-provineial tribes^ against the Romans in 360, he enumerates tfaem as consisting of the ''gentes Scotorum Pictorumque.'' In the second invasion, in 364, they were joined by two other nations, and consisted of the " Picti Saxon- esquCy et Scotti et Attacotti; " and in the third invasion^ in 368, of the ** Picti in duas gentes divisi Dicaledonee et Yecturiones, itidemque Atticotti beUicosa hominum natio, et Scotti per diversa vagantes.'' It is hardly poe- Bible to avoid the suspicion that the epithets applied here to each people point to characteristics connected withi their name. In Cormac's glossary the old form of the name Scot is given as " Scuit" " Scuite " signifies wan- derers; and the epithet ^ vagantcs'' is attached to the Scots. *^ Cath '' (war) seems to enter into the name Atti- cotti, and they are " bellicosa natio." So the peculiarity of the Picti was, that they were '' in duas gentes divisL* This seems to imply that the ^ duae gentes " were of dif- ferent race. Now it is remarkable that while the Picti and the Saxones are connected together in the second in- vasion, the Saxones are omitted fix)m the third; and the Picti then, for the first time, appear as composed of two ** gentes;'* while Claudian, in writing of tibie same 108 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND invasioii, expressly mentions the Saxones along with the Picts as forming part of the ravagers^ and names the Orkneys as their seat ** Madaemnt Saxone fuso Orcades, incalait Pietorum sanguine Thule Sootonun comulos flerit gladalis leme."
I have elsewhere shown* that the tradition given by NenninSy that Octa and ^bnssa, the son and nephew of Hengist, led a body of Saxons past the Orkneys, and took possession of a part of Scotland, ** usque ad eonfinia Pictorum,^ indicated a real settle- ment of Saxons on the east coast of Scotland as early as the year 374; and it is not impossible that they may have allied with the Picts proper so closely as to form one of the two gentes, and that the Yecturiones included tikem, a conjecture perhaps strengthened by the appearance of the Picts and Saxons in close union in 429 in Constantius* Life of St. Oerman, by the fjEict that the ancestor of the Jutes, who were Octa's people, was Vecta, the son of Odin, and that another part of the same people were termed by Bede, Vec- tuaiiL Be this as it may, there seem undoubtedly to ' have been settlements of Saxons at a very early period along the east coast of Scotland among that part of the Picts.
But if there were Saxon settlements among the Picts on the east coasts the Scots made a settlement in their western district, in part of Argyllshire, which they called Dalriada. Bede gives the best indica- * The Earlj Friuan SettlemenU in SooUand.
PLACE OF THE PICT8 AMONG THEM. 109 tion of the nature of this settlement He says of the Firth of Clyde that it was a ''sinus maris per* maximuSi qui antiquitus gentem Brittonum a Pictia secemebaty* that ''Britannia post Brittones et Pio- tos tertiam Scottorum nationem in parte Pictorwn recepit/' and that they settled "ad cujus videlicet sinus partem septentrionalem." We know that this mythic colony of the Scots represented an actual settlement of them in Dalriada, which took place in the year 503, if not earlier, and that they too settled among the Picts.
On their southern frontier they seem to have become mixed with the Britons. The indication afforded by the Albanic Duan of an early encroachment of the tribes represented by the name Britus upon those represented by Albanus, as far as Fifeness, has already been noticed. In several of the old poems contained iu the Book of Taliessin^ allusion is made to a com- bination between the Brython and the Gwyddyl, and the name of Brithwyr, which means mixed men as well as painted men, seems to have been applied to this mixed part of the Pictish nation. Higden, in his Polychronicon, in giving the fable of Carausius settling a body of Picts in Albania, adds, " ubi per^ mixti cum Britonibus per subsequens ssvum pre- manserunt,^ which implies that such a mixture of the two people had been known as a fact, and one of the Pictish legends preserved in the Irish Kenniua indicates this also. One version of it beais that Cruthnechan mac Inge, the eponymus of the 110. THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND vas sent from Ireland " to assist the Britons of For- trenn to war against the Saxons, and they made their children and their swordland — i.e. Cruthentuaith — subject to them.* Another versions bears, " And when they (the Picts) had cleared their swordland yonder among the Britons — ^viz. Magh Fortreinn primo^ and Magh Girgin|)a5^ea."* Now Fortren or Magh Fortren was the district lying between the river Forth and the river Tay, and is here said to have been peopled by Britons, but afterwards obtained by the Picts who dwelt among them; and Magh Girgin is a district on the east coast, now called Meams, which the Picts won when warring against the Saxons, and where they subjected their children. The presence, therefore, both of Britons and Saxons as part of the population, of the districts which, under the name of Cruthentuaith, was the territory of the Pictish kingdom, is here indicated.
So far as race is concerned, therefore, the Pictish nation presents itself to us in the following aspect. The main body and centre of the nation, pure Albanic or old Gwyddyl, with the outlying parts mixed with other races — Saxons on the east coast, Scots in Argyll, and Britons south of the Tay — each having occasionally seen a long of their own race on the throne, and the Scots succeeding in converting the accession of one of their race to the throne, in right of his Pictish blood through his female descent, into their permanent supremacy over the Pictish population of the country — people and * CSbtm. Pica and Scoii^ pp. 319, 389.
PLACE OF THE PICT8 AMOKO THEM. Ill language gradually merging and disappearing under the general term of Scottish.
In endeavouring to determine the etiological' position of any people who, like the Picts^ once. existed as a distinctive element in the population ci. the country, but who have left no living representar tive to bear witness to their characteristics, ' there are other sources of information to which we mky, resort besides the evidence of writers contempo-. raneous with their existence as a known and distinct people, as to the particular race among the inhabit- ants of the country to which they belonged, or as to the existence among them of a living tradition of their origin. There is the evidence afforded by an. analysis of such remains of their language as may have come down to us, indicating its philological relation to the languages spoken by the other races in the country; and there* is likewise the inference to be derived from the topography of the districts which they are known to have occupied.
The evidence afforded by these three sources of in- formation does not always correspond; and it is necessary carefully to discriminate between them in their bearing upon each other, and upon the problem, to be solved.
Where a people remains unmixed in race, and has retained the spoken language originally peculiar to. them, immodified by foreign influences, and where that people has always formed the sole inhabitants of the districts occupied by them, the evidence afforded ^.
112 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND hy each of these sources of information may be ex- pected exactly to reflect the conclusions of the others. The traditions of the people, and the statements of contemporary writercf, will refer them to a race speak- ing a language similar to their own; and the vocables which enter into the topography of the districts occu- pied by them will manifestly belong to the same original language. But where such a people forms merely one element in the population of a country made up of different races, and is not protected from foreign influences by any peculiar combination of physical, social, and political obstacles, this is rarely found to be the case, and the original harmony of race, language, and topography, soon ceases to be pre- Beryed in its integrity. Amid the clash of contending races, and the struggle for supremacy on the one hand, or for existence on the other, this condition Buffers great modification. The race may remain pure and unmixed, and yet the language may suffer great modification from the influence of others. A part of the people may retain the old language; another part may have adopted the language of a people who have subjugated them; and the language of a third part may have become mixed with, or assimilated to, that of a neighbouring people speaking a kindred though not an identic dialect^ through con- tact with them, or from the gradual spread of the one race into the territories of the other.
On the other hand, the people may have ceased to be a homogeneous race, from other races being inter- ' PLACE OF THE PIOTS AHOKO THEM. 113 mingled with them; or a common name may have been applied to a combination of tribes originally dis- tinct, but politically connected; and yet the language of one of these tribes may have spread over the whole nation, or a form of the spoken language may have been adopted as the medium of official intercourse, or selected for the purpose of conveying the knowledge of Christianity, and become the vehicle of instructioii and civilisation; and the remains of the language which have come down to us, and with which we have to deal, may represent this form, or the written speech, only.
The topography, too, of the districts occupied by them may have retained unmixed the vocables of the language spoken by its earliest inhabitants; or it may have received the impress of foreign invading or immi- grating races who may have, from time to time, occu- pied a part of the coimtry, or have permanently suc- ceeded the race in question; or it may have retained names which belong to the language of a still older and more primitive people who may have pre- ceded them.
It is necessary, therefore, in endeavouring to ascertain the ethnological position of a people long since passed away, to look separately at these three sources of information, and to weigh well their bear- ing upon each other, and upon the race to which the people belonged. The Picts unquestionably existed as a known people, and as an independent nation pos- sessing a political organisation and a known language, VOL. L I.
114 THE RA€8S OF BRITAIN AXD till tlie middle of die nindi oentiuy. From that date till the twefUi oentoiy the name of the PictB is known as the denomination of one element in a population fmned of two different racea^ bat combined into one monarchy, and had no independent existence. After the twelfth oentoiy the name disappears as applied to, or borne by, any portion of the population of Scotland. Bede, who wrote prior to the ninth century, and dur- ing the first period, has the following passage: — ''Haec (tie. Britannia) in pnescnti juxta numerum lifarorom quibus lex divina scripta est quinque gentium linguis unam eandemque sumnue veritatis et vene sublimitatis scientiam scrutatur et confitetur Anglorum, videlicet^ Brittonum, Scottorum, Pictorum, et Latin- orum quffi meditatione Scripturarum cceteris omnibus est facta communis.'' In another place he says of Oswald, king of Northumbria: — " Denique omnes nationes et provincias Britannise quro in quatuor linguas, id est, Brittonum, Pictorum, Scottorum, et Anglorum di visas sunt, in ditione accepit;" and after- wards, in narrating the letter written by Ceolfrid, abbot of Jarrow in Northumberland, to Naiton: — ** Rex Pictorum qui septentrionales BritannisB plagas inhabitant* in the year 710, that is, during his own lifetime; he says, ** Haec epistola cum praesente rcge Naitono multisque viris doctoribus esset lecta ac diUgenter ab his qui intelligere poterant in linguam ejus propriam interpretata.'' Henry of Huntingdon, who wrote about 1135, and therefore in the second period, repeats the statement of Bede: — " Quiuquo PLACE OF THE PICTB AMONG THEM. 115 autem linguis utitur Britannia, Brittonum, videlicet^ Anglorum, Scottoruniy Pictorum, et Latinoram qu83 doctrina Scripturarum ceeteris omnibus est fiicta com* munis,'' but adds this qualification: — ** quamvis Picti jam videantur deleti et lingua eorum ita onmino de- structa ut jam fabula videatur quod in veterum scriptis eorum mentio invenitur."
Bede, therefore, knew of the Picts as an exifrtang people, and of a language termed the Pictish, and, in his own day, tells of a letter translated into it as tiie language of the kingdom of Naiton or Nectan; and when Henry of Huntingdon wrote, the people and their language had apparently so entirdy passed away that it appeared like a fable that any kingdom of the Picts, and any such language, had ever existed.
It seems strange that Henry of Huntingdon should have made this statement almost in the very year in which the Picts, as a body, formed an entire division of the Scottish army at the Battle of the Standard, and when Reginald of Durham, in the same century, refers to their language as then spoken at Kirkcudbright in Galloway; but the truth is, that, notwithstanding the language of Henry of Huntingdon, neither tiie people nor their language may, in point of fact, have ceased to exist in Scotland, the one as an element in the con- glomerate of different races which composed the popu- lation of the monarchy, and the other as the patoia of a district; nor does it follow, from the language of Bede, that the Picts must of necessity have been a different race, and their language a different language 116 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND from any of the other peoples and languages enume* rated in the same passage.
What^ then, did Bede and Henry of Huntingdon mean when the former enumerated the Pictish as a separate and distinct language, and the latter said that this people and language were destroyed, while it is evident that large bodies of the people remained, and that a language called the Pictish was still spoken by some portion of the inhabitants of the country.
K the language referred to by Bede was the spoken language of a people of unmixed race, possessing but one common form of speech, then these statements cer- tainly imply that it was something distinct as a lan- guage from that of the Angles, Scots, or Britains, and that in Henry's time the people called the Picts had been either entirely extirpated, or so completely sub- jugated that all distinctive character had been lost, and that they now spoke the language of their con- querors. If, however, the Picts were a pijople consist- ing of various tribes, politically combined into one nation, and the language referred to was that form of language adopted as the medium through which they had been instructed in knowledge, and in which aU public affairs were carried on, then this by no means follows. Such a language might have perished when the kingdom was destroyed. It may have been merely a different form of a language analogous either to that of the Angles or Scots or Britains, and the spoken language of the Pictish tribes, or of some of them, may have remained as the vernacular dialect of those who PLACE OF THE PIGTS AHOKO THEIL IT Borvived the revolution which destroyed their indc pendence.
The language, referred to by Bede and Henry o Huntingdon, was a cultivated or literary language which had been brought under the trammels of writtei forms. It was a language in which the word of Gra was studied, and we know how the dialect selected fo the teaching of the Christian Church becomes devata above the spoken dialects into a fixed standard for th whole nation. It was a language into which Ceolfrid' letter was translated by the ** Viri doctores'' of th court, and it was this same language which is statei to have ceased to exist in Henry's time. Its position in this respect, is analogous to the German literor language, technically called New High German. Lik the Celtic, the German spoken dialects fall into tw classes, which are usually called High Grcrman an< Low German. The differences between them are nc so broad or so vital as those between the two type of the Celtic, the Gaelic, and the Cjonric dialects and they are more of a geographical than of a philc logical character. Grimm remarks this when he say that language is susceptible of a physical as we] as an intellectual influence, and, though its principa elements remain the same, is, by long residence h mountains, woods, plains, or sea-coast, differentiy toned so as to form separate subordinate dialects. '' All ex perience shows,* says he, '^ that the mountain-air make the sounds sharp and rough; the plain, soft and smootli On the Alps the tendency is to diphthongs and ospi 118 THE RACES OF BRITAIN AND rates; on the plain to narrow and thin vowels, and to media and tenues among the consonants/' The former represents the High German dialects; the latter the Low. The written language, however, or the literary German, is not identic with any one spoken dialect; it approaches more nearly to the High than to the Low Grerman, but it is, in fact, an independent form of the language, the creation, in a sense, of Martin Luther, who, with the view of making his translation of the Bible adapted to all Germany, adopted as his medium a form of the language based upon the Upper Saxon and the official language of the Grerman Empire, and this form of the language, stamped with the impress of his vigorous intellect, and popularised through the first Protestant version of the Bible, was adopted as the language of the literature of Germany, and, subjected to the cultivation it necessarily produced, became the language of the educated classes. The language of Holland or the Dutch is a Low German dialect, and is more nearly allied to the Low German than the latter is to the High German; but it is an independent language, and has its own cultivation and literature, and its own translation of the Bible.
Now, a historian might well say that the word of God was studied in the five languages of the Eng- lish, the French, the Dutch, the Grerman, and the Latin, and yet one of them — the Dutch — ^would be closely allied to one form of the German. Again, if we could suppose Germany conquered by the Dutch, the German written and cultivated language would be PLAGE OF THE PIGT8 AMONG THEM. 119 supeiBeded by the Dutch equally written and culti- vated language; the Low German dialects would be as closely assimilated to the literary Dutch as the High German dialects now are to the literary German, and the latter would occupy the same position in which the Low German now is. In such a case we could well understand a writer, three centuries after the events saying that the Germans had disappeared, and the German language was so completely destroyed that the mention of it and its literature in former writers appeared like fables. And yet the people and the spoken dialects of Germany would have remained un- changed and been there just as they always had been. Substitute Scot for Dutch and Pict for German, and this is exactly the state of matters producing the phenomena noted by Bede and Henry of Huntingdon, and it is perfectly possible that the Picts may have. been very nearly allied, both in race and language, with cither the Britons or the Scots, who conquered them; and that they may have remained as an element in the population, and their language as the patois of a district, long after the days of Henry of Huntingdon, in a country in which both Scot and Briton entered so largely into its population. I have thought it neces* saiy to enter at some length into the consideraticm of the meaning and import of these passages of Bede and Henry of Huntingdon, as a right understanding of them has a most material bearing upon the questicm* 120 THE CELTIC DIALECTS.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CELTIC DLALECTS AND THE PROBABLE CHARACTER OF THE PICnSH LANGUAGE.
There is a fallacy which lurks in many of the argu- ments regarding the ethnological character of the old Celtic nations, based upon the modem languages. In arguing firom the modem languages, it is always assumed that the language of each branch of the old Celtic race must be represented by one or other of the modem Celtic dialects. This fallacy pervades the writings of almost all of our ethnological writers, who argue as if, when a classical writer states that a difference existed between the language of two divisions of the old Celtic people, and when there is reason to suppose that the language of the one resembled the Welsh, then it must of necessity follow that the language of the other was the Gaelic But this by no means follows; nor is it at all self-evident that these modem Celtic languages represent all the ancient dialects. On the contraiy, analogy and experience would lead us to a different condusioiL The rader a language is, the more multi- plied are its dialects; and the great medium for reducing their number is its cultivatioiL Before the introduction of writing, the means of such cultivation were to a great extent wanting. The Christian church was the great PROBABLE CHARACTER OF PICTISH LANQUAOS. 121 civiliser; and it was through its agency that theso dia- lects received their cultivation, and one of their foims raised to the position of a written language. In the ante-Christian period of the Celtic language, the diver- sity of dialects must have been very greats and there may be many which have no direct repreeentativB among the modem languages. There may be many lost dialects on the Continent; and one such certainly existed, as we have seen in our own island, which has long ago disappeared — ^viz. the Pictish.
There run, however, through the whole of the modem Celtic languages two great distinctive dialectic diffei^ ences, which lie deep in the very groundwork <^ the language, and must have existed before their entrance into Great Britain, if not before their entrance into Europe. These differences separate these languages into two classes, each consisting of three of the spoken tongues. The one class, which we shall call the Cjrmric, consists of the Breton, the Wckh, and the Cornish; the other, which we shall call the Gaelic, consists of the Irish, the Manx, and the Scotch Gaelic The three Gaelic dialects are much more closely allied to each other than the three Cymric dialects; but each of the dialects composing the one class possesses in conmion those great distinctive differences which separate them from the three dialects composing the other class.
But while this great diversity exists, there are alao analogies so close, vital, and fundamental, as to leave no doubt that they are all children of one conmion parent. Their vocabulary is, to a great extent, doeely c v^ 122 THE CELTIC DIALECTS.
allied* A distinguished Welsh scholar of the present day estimates that two-thirds of the vocabulary of the six dialects are substantially the same; and I beUevc this conclusion to be correct A number of the primi- fdve adjectives expressing the simplest conceptions arc the same. It is a peculiarity of both classes that the iiregular forms bear a smaller proportion to the regular forms than is usual; but these irregular forms, which are, in fact, the deposit of an older stage of the language, bear a veiy remarkable analogy to each other.
The great and leading peculiarity in both classes of the Celtic languages, however, is the mutation of initial consonants; and while these initial mutations exist in each class, and are governed by the same laws, and thus afford additional evidence of their common origin, they at the same time present us with a means of discrimi- nating between the different dialects, and distinguish- ing their mutual position as such, quite as effectual as Grimm's law has been among the Grerman dialects. The consonants most readily affected by initial muta- tion are the mute consonants; and the following tables will show what the initial mutations in Welsh and Irish are: — TABLE L— INmAL MUTATION OF lOTTE CONSONANTS.
WKLSB.
IRIBH.
BMllod. Medtol. Anplrato.
NftML ItodleaL leliptli. AtplmU.
Ubial. P B PH MH P B PH Gattunl. C a CH NGH c G CH BenUl. T D TH NH T D TH Ulnal. B F M B M BH GoUanl. Q — NO G NG GH Dmtd. D DD N D F •N BH DH FH PKOBABLE CHARACTER OF PICTI8H LANOUAOK 123 But while these consonants thus undergo a change according to fixed laws within the limits of the lan- guage itself^ there is also a similar interchange of sounds between the different spoken languages; and it is obvious that if the changes which the same words undergo in different dialects follow regular lawB^ the phonetic laws of these languages are of the utmost importance in discriminating their dialectic differences. The phonetic law which governs the relations of Welsh and Gaelic^ so far as regards the mute consonants^ is this: — ^Each mute consonant in Welsh has two changes in Gaelic, either into its own middle sounds or into another consonant of the same character, but of a dif- ferent organ. Thus the labial p passes into its middle sound 6, as in Penn, a summit Beann, a hiU.
Prydydh BreoffKa, pretty.
Pincen Bean^an, tk vpiig.
uttural c, as in Penn Ceanfif ahead.
Prtn Crann, a tree.
Plant Clanfif children.
Pwy Cia, who.
This latter change is deeply rooted in Welsh and Gaelic, and enters into the very life of the language, of which we have two very remarkable instances. The word Pascha, for Easter, can only have entered these lan- guages after the establishment of the Christian church, when the languages, under the influence of its teach* ing, were passing into the fixed form of a written and cultivated speech; but while in Welsh it becomes 124 THB CELTIC DIALECTS.
pasg^ in Gaelic, onder the operation of this law, it be- comes casg. On the other hand, St Ciaran, an Irish saint^ and the founder of Clonmacnois, passed over, in the sixth century, into Cornwall, and had no sooner put his foot on Cymric groimd than he became St Pieran.
In the next class of the mutes the converse takes place, for the Welsh guttural g either disappears or passes into the dental c^ as in Otl Daoilf a leech.
Oloin Dealan, coaL Gwneyd Dttmadh^ to do.
(hbaith Ikbhchais, hope.
There is here, however, a slight deviation from the general rule: g in Welsh is usually combined with w, and is m this combination the Welsh digamma; but instead of passing into w, according to the law, it becomes in Gaelic/; that is, the guttural in Welsh passes into an aspirated labial in Gaelic, as in Gw^ Fum, wine.
Owyr Fior, true.
Owr Fear, a man.
Gwynn Fionn^ white.
This is sufficient to illustrate the law of this double change; but it is rather remarkable that while the one change is into a different character of the same letter, and in strict accordance with the phonetic change with- in the language itself, the other change is firom a letter of one organ to that of another, as firom labial to guttural, and guttural to dental The operating cause PROBABLE CHABACTER OF PICmSR LANQUAGK 125 of this rather startling change is to be found with- in the laws which govern the sounds of the whole languages of this class, aiid in consequence of which the same phenomenon presents itself in other membeis of the Indo-European family.
There are two influences at work in all languageSy antagonistic and mutually destructive of each other — the etymologic and the phonetic The one governs the formation of a language, the other aids in its dis- organisation. The etymologic influence has reference to meaning only, and brings together sounds which do not harmonise. These are immediately assailed by the phonetic influence, and modified till they are brought to a more simple and harmonious sound. History knows nothing of the formation of languages, and the phonetic influence is at work, and language in a process of decay, before the people which speak it have entered the historic period; but when these phonetic laws have become known, we are able to trace back the sounds, however impaired, to their original constituent ele- ments. These contrasts, then, of labial and guttural, and guttural and dental, draw us back to a time when there were complex sounds which the human ear could not long tolerate, and which, by the modification of one or other element, passed over into the more simple sound, and in their divorce from each other present this great contrast There was probably a complex sound composed of a guttural and labial; k, or hard e, and V or p. By one member of the fiEunily the o will be softened to 8, and then disappear; while the t^ 126 THE CELTIC DIALECTS.
be hardened to p, and remain alone. In another, the Laid c will remain, and the v be softened to u, and then disappear, leaving the c alone. An instance of this is the word for a ''horse," which runs through most of the languages of the Indo-European fSunily. The original term must have been acvas; in Sanscrit it becomes asvas; in Zend, aspas; in Greek, ippos; and in Gaulish or old Celtic, epo. In Latin the hard c is retained, and v modified, and it becomes equus; and in Gaelic, ech. The same process would seem to have been gone through within the Celtic languages, as the old inscriptions indicate that the old Celtic word for a '' son ** was maqvas. By one branch of the race the hard c was softened, and then dropped; while the V was hardened to p, producing the Welsh map (a son). By the other, the hard c was retained, but the V softened to u, in which form we have it as fnaqui, and finally dropped, leaving the Gaelic mac The digamma, too, was originally a complex sound, which in Welsh is gw, and in Latin v, and in Gaelic y! The consonantal changes between Welsh and Gaelic ai6, then, as follow: — TABLE IL— PHONETIC LAWS BETWEEN WELSH AND OAELia BintoQ R into 8 or F E into EX The vowel-changes from Welsh to Gaelic are £rom u^ to and ytoe, which are likewise the. masculine and feminine forms in Welsh, PBOBABUfi CHABACrrER OF PICTISH LAKOUAQS. 127 OABua Tfomf Tnm Cromt Crom Beekanf Began Brteki Brmo Trwm m Crwm m Bychan m Brych m The vowel e becomes ea> as in pen (a head), ceann, and bednn, G.
Such being the relations between Gaelic and Welsh, it must be obvious that they aie of a nature to enable us to fix, firom the form of the words, the relative position of almost any Celtic dialect to these two great types of the twofold division of the lan- guage; and the question at once arises, whether they may not enable us to determine the position of that one Celtic dialect in Great Britain of which we have no direct living representative — viz, the PictisL Of this language only five words have been handed directly down to us; but still, if these words are of such a kind as to exhibit some of the phonetic laws of the language, we are not without the means of deter- mining this question. These five words are — 1. Peanfahel. — Bede, who wrote in the eighth century, says that the Boman Wall commenced about two miles west of the monastery of Abercom, "in loco qui sermone Pictorum Peanfahel, lingua autem Anglorum Penneltun appellatur;'' and Nennius adds that the wall was called ** Britannico sermone Guaul,'' and extended " a Penguaul quao villa Scotice Cenail, Anglice vero Peneltun dicitur." This gives us P«n- guaul as the British form, Peanfahel as the Pictiah, and Cenatl as the Scottish.
128 THE CELTIC DIALECTS.
2. Ur. — One of the Pictish legends which had been added to the Historia Britonum, and has been preserved in the Irish Nennius, h expressly stated to have been taken firom the books of the Picts^ and has so important a bearing on this question that I insert it here entire: — ** Of the origin of the Cruithneach here. Cmithne, son of Cing, son of Lactai, son of Partalan, son of Agnoin, son of Buain, •on of Mais, son of Fathecht, son of lafeth, son of Noe. He was the father of the Cniiclineach, and reigned a hundred years. These are the seven sons of Cniithne — viz. Hb, Fidach, Fodla, Foitrendf warlike, Cait, Ce, Cirig — and they divided the land into seven divinons^ as Columcille says: — ** Seven children of Cniithne Divided Alban into seven divisions: Cait, Ce, Cirig, a warlike clan, Fib, Fidach, Fotla, Fortrenn.