The Picts have never been considered Romans; but, with that exception, a relationship with every population of the British Isles has been claimed for them. As Germans on the strength of Tacitus' description of their physical conformation of the Caledonian, and as Germans on the strength of the supposed Germanic origin of the BelgÆ, the Picts have been held the ancestors of the present Lowland Scotch. They have been considered Scandinavians also. On the other hand, they have been made Gaels, in which case it is the Highlanders who are their offspring. They have been considered Britons, and they have been considered a separate stock.

That they were Kelts rather than Germans is the commonest doctrine, and that they were Britons rather than Gaels is a common one; the arguments that prove the latter proving the first a fortiori.

We approach the subject with a notice of the Irish missionary St. Columbanus, whose native tongue was, of course, the Irish Gaelic. This was[77] unintelligible to the Northern Picts, as is expressly stated on in Adammanus:—"Alio in tempore quo Sanctus Columba in Pictorum provincia per aliquot demorabatur dies, quidam cum tota plebeius familia, verbum vitÆ per interpretatorem, Sancto prÆdicante viro, audiens credidit, credensque baptizatus est."—Adamn. ap. Colganum. l. ii. c. 32.

This, however, only shews that the Pict was not exactly and absolutely Irish. It might have approached it. It might also be far more unlike than the Welsh was.

A document known as the Colbertine MS., from being published from the Colbertine Library, contains a list of Pictish kings. This has been analysed by Innes and Garnett; and the result is, that two names only are more Gaelic in their form than Welsh—viz., Cineod or Kenneth, and Domhnall or Donnell. The rest are either absolutely contrary to what they would be if they were Gaelic, or else British rather than aught else. Thus, the Welsh Gurgust appears in the Irish Annal as Fergus, or vice versÂ. Now the Pict form of this name is Wrgwst, with a final T, and without an initial F. Elpin, Drust, Drostan, Wrad, and Necton are close and undoubted Pict equivalents to the Welsh names Owen, Trwst, Trwstan (Tristram), Gwriad, and Nwython.[78]

The readers of the Antiquary well know the prominence given to the only two common terms of the Pict language in existence pen val, or as it appears in the oldest MSS. of Beda peann fahel. This is the head of the wall, or caput vall, being the eastern extremity (there or thereabouts) of the Vallum of Antoninus. Now the present Welsh form for head is pen; the Gaelic cean. Which way the likeness lies here, is evident. For the fahel (or val) the case is less clear. The Gaelic form is fhail, the Welsh gwall; the Gaelic being the nearest.

But some collateral evidence on this subject more than meets the difficulty. "In the Durham MSS. of Nennius, apparently written in the twelfth century, there is an interpolated passage, stating that the spot in question was in the Scottish or Gaelic language called Cenail. Innes and others have remarked the resemblance between this appellation and the present Kinneil; but no one appears to have noticed that Cenail accurately represents the pronunciation of the Gaelic cean fhail, literally head of wall, f being quiescent in construction. A remarkable instance of the same suppression occurs in Athole, as now written, compared with the Ath-fothla of the Irish annalists. Supposing, then, that Cenail was substituted for peann fahel by the Gaelic conquerors of the district, it would follow that the older appellation[79] was not Gaelic, and the inference would be obvious."[7]

In thus making pen val a Pict gloss, I by no means imagine that any of the three forms were originally Keltic at all; since val, gwal, fhail all seem variations of the Roman vallum, at least, in respect to their immediate origin. Still, if out of three languages, adopting the same word, each gives a different form, the variation which results is as much a gloss of the tongue wherein it occurs, as if the word were indigenous. Hence, whether we say that pen val are Pict glosses, or that pen is a Pict gloss, and val a Pict form is a matter of practical indifference.

The Vallum Antonini was a work of man's hands, and its name is of less value than those of natural objects, such as mountains, rivers, or lakes. Nevertheless, these latter have been examined: thus the Ochel Hills in Perthshire are better explained by the Welsh form uchel than by the Gaelic nasal. But the most important word of all is the first element of the words Aber-nethy, and Inver-nethy. Both mean the same, i.e., the confluence of waters, or something very much of the sort. Both enter freely into composition, and the compounds thus formed are found over the greater part of the British Isles as the names of the mouths of the larger and more important[80] rivers. But it is only a few districts where the two names occur together. Just as we expect a priori aber occurs when inver is not to be found, and vice versÂ. Of the two extremes Ireland is the area where aber, Wales where inver is the rarer of the two forms; indeed so rare are they that the one (aber) rarely, if ever, occurs in Ireland, the other (inver) rarely, if ever, in Wales. Now as Ireland is Gaelic, and Welsh British, the two words may fairly be considered to indicate, where they occur, the presence of these two different tongues respectively.

The distribution of the words in question has long been an instrument of criticism in determining both the ethnological position of the Pict nation, and its territorial extent; and the details are well given in the following table of Mr. Kemble's:

It cannot be denied that, in the present state of our knowledge, the inference from the preceding[82] table is that, whether Pict or not, more than two-thirds of Scotland exhibit signs of British rather than Gaelic occupancy.

This is as much as can be said at present: for it must be added that all the previous criticism has proceeded upon the notion that PENN FAHEL, &c., are Pict words. What, however, if they be Pict only in the way that man, woman, &c., are Welsh; i.e., words used by a population within the Pict area, but not actually Pict? The refinement upon the opinion suggested by the present chapter, which arises out of the view, will be noticed after certain other questions have been dealt with.

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