GAELIC THE ORIGINAL LANGUAGE.

59

the Welsh, the Cornish, which is but lately lost, and the Manx, all variations of the Celtic, spoken in the British islands, we can readily admit the observation of Bede, that the language of the Picts differed from that of the Britons of Wales, and the Scots of Ireland, without giving up our belief in their national identity. Camden shows that the British and Pictish tongues were alike,* and the different languages of Bede could only have been dialects, a conclusion to which Buchannan came, for this reason chiefly, that none of these nations appeared to have required an interpreter.

It is asserted that the original Celts were expelled from the low country of Scotland upwards of 2000 years ago, by a people who spoke a different language, and who are said to have been of Cumraeg extract;† if so, there ought to be some remains of their speech; but the local names in the east and south of Scotland are not Welsh, but Scotish Gaelic, and are "far too numerous to be the relics of a language, which has been expelled from those parts of the country for 2000 years.”

It has been attempted to prove that the Picts were Goths from Scandinavia, by whom the Saxon language was introduced, and fixed along the south and east coasts, and to support this system the public have been favored with etymologies "altogether imaginary and ill founded." Those who maintain the opinion and cite the languages of Bede, ought not to forget that he expressly says the Pictish was different from the Saxon; but the whole argument founded on the Saxon language of the low country, I apprehend, is overthrown by the fact, that in Galloway, the last sovereignty of the Picts, the native tongue which continued to be spoken in the time of Queen Mary, was Gaelic, for which Buchannan, being conversant with that language, is an unexceptionable authority.§ Pinkerton himself acknowledges that it was spoken until lately in Carrick.

The dreary forests, the sterile and forbidding wastes of Scandinavia, so far from having been the officina gentium, whence nations were sent forth to overspread and people Europe, and from which fecund storehouse is said to have issued, that Gothic colony from which the Picts were descended, must have remained desert and unoccupied by mankind until comparatively recent times.

Adam of Bremen, who wrote in the eleventh century, says, that even in his time, the shores only of Denmark were inhabited, the interior being an impenetrable forest; and Gibbon asserts that Scandinavia, twenty centuries ago, must in all the low parts have been covered by the sea: the high lands only rising above the water, like islands.¶

That Scotland, in the time of the Romans, and long after, was inhabited by Caledonians and Picts, as it has been since by Highlanders and Lowlanders, is perfectly clear; that both were of Celtic origin seems absolutely certain. Differences existed between the inhabitants of certain

Dr. Murray's remarks on the history and language of the Pehts in Trans. of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ii. part 1.

§ Lib. i. 11.

Diss. on the Scyths, p. 23.

1 c. ix.

districts, either arising from local position and peculiar circumstances, or produced by the intermixture of colonies subsequently arriving. The parts possessed by the Picts were better adapted for agriculture and commerce than the rugged wilds of Caledonia; and it is from their settled lives and attention to manufactures, that the Highland traditions represent them as an ingenious, rather than a warlike people. An early change, therefore, took place among the inhabitants of the low country, for those pursuits invariably lead to mutations in language and manners; and the observation of a learned gentleman respecting the Gaëlic is perfectly just," Rocks, seas, and deserts, ignorance, sterility, and want of commerce, are its best preservatives."**

It has been shown that the language of the eastern Celts on the continent, became first corrupted by the Gothic, which was itself derived from the primitive Celtic.† "The most ancient remains of the German or Teutonic approach very near to the Mosa Gothic," and the Anglo Saxon was immediately derived from the old Saxon of Germany.§

The Gothic was long established among the Northern nations, and in England, before it was introduced into Scotland or Ireland; and in those early ages, it was so pure that the people of remote countries found no difficulty in understanding each other. In the time of Ethelred, 979, an Englishman could converse with a Scandinavian, and could not, from his tongue, know him to be a foreigner.||

The inhabitants of the south and east of Scotland, advancing into a state of civilisation, in consequence of an intercourse with England and other parts, were prepared, and, as it were, forced, gradually, to admit the Saxon language; but the vernacular tongue of the Picts continued to predominate. In the reign of Malcolm-Cean-more, towards the end of the eleventh century, none of the clergy could understand the Saxon without an interpreter.

Improvements in commerce and agriculture induced the settlement of strangers; the progress of refinement occasioned the introduction of many new terms, and paved the way for fixing, in the lowlands, the Saxon language, to which several circumstances greatly conduced.

In 547, Ida, king of Northumberland, with an army of Anglo Saxons, took possession of the lower part of Roxburgh, and seized Lothian, a term which there is reason to believe was then applied to the south as well as north side of the Tweed. This invasion is, however, not likely to have made that alteration in the language¶ which is supposed, even although the invaders had settled in the conquered provinces, for they must, as it is admitted the colonies from Germany and Scandinavia did, have eventually merged in the Celtic tribes. Oswy, King of the Nordanhymbri, or people of Northumberland, about 650, reduced the * "Next to valuable books and permanent records."-Dr. M'Pherson.

+ See p. 25.

Jamieson's observations on Dr. Murray's remarks, ut sup.

§ De Murr's Conspectus Biblioth. Glot. Univers. ap. Jamieson, ut sup. Gunlaug saga. Heimskringla, ap. Jamieson.

Border Antiquities.

ITS LATE RECEPTION IN SOME PARTS.

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Scots and Picts, who lived between the Tweed and Forth, and exacted tribute from them until 685, when the Picts recovered their possessions. During this period, the Saxon language, it is believed, first began to be used in the south; but on the Norman invasion, the Royal family of England, the principal nobility, with their attendants and others, who would not submit to the conquerors, took refuge in Scotland; and Malcolm married the princess Margaret, sister to Edgar Atheling, and harrassed the borders with fire and sword. So many refugees on this occasion accepted the protection of the Scotish King, that Simeon of Durham tells us the kingdom was "stocked with English men and maid servants, so that, to this day, there is not a farm house, or even a cottage, where they are not to be found."* On the death of the Conqueror, and defeat of the rebellion against his successors, many Normans also retired to Scotland, and Malcolm, with much policy, settled them chiefly on the borders of his kingdom, and in the towns on the east coast that were exposed to the frequent invasions of the Danes. "The towns and boroughs of Scotland," says William of Newburgh,

are known to

be inhabited by the English;" but when an opportunity offered, he adds, "the Scots, from an innate hatred towards them, which they dissembled from a fear of offending the king, destroyed all whom they found." The Celts were averse to live in towns and submit to sedentary occupations, or apply themselves to commercial pursuits; hence the Saxons, Normans, Flemings, and others, were generally the inhabitants of the Boroughs, and advantageously pursued those trades which the natives had little inclination to acquire.† Through their means, chiefly, the Saxon was propagated, for it had become the language most generally understood in Europe. It was, as it were, the court language during the reign of Malcolm, and the influence, which this must have had even in those days, is easily conceived. Besides, all our kings, from Malcolm-Cean-more to Alexander II., lived some time in England, learned the language and married English princesses.

To those who maintain that the Gothic was the language of the Picts, or who assert that the limits of the two languages have always continued the same, or nearly so, it is to be mentioned that, so late as the reign of Queen Mary, the Gaëlic was spoken in the Gariach, Aberdeenshire, where it is now entirely unknown, and was even taught in the schools of Aberdeen. In Ireland, the nobility and gentry continued to use this language until the time of Elizabeth, or James the First. The Saxon has continued to gain ground in both countries, and must inevitably, at no very distant period, wholly supplant the Gaëlic.

It is not the Saxon language alone that has excited the investigation of antiquaries; the Dalriads are said to have brought over their native tongue, which, according to some writers, they disseminated all over * Lib. ii. c. 34.

+ See all ancient Charters, and other documents. Highland Society's ed. of Ossian. About 1619, the use of the Irish language, in deeds, was discontinued. Trans. of Ir. Acad.

The Caledonians and Picts were, therefore, from all that is related by the ancients, from the investigations of modern writers, and from the undeniable identity of language, two divisions of one and the same Celtic people; and I see no objection to our believing, with Innes, that the Picts were "the first known people of the North," although it is not so apparent that they were, as he says, "the second in order of time."

* Caledonia.

THE Western side of Britain is mountainous, the east and south parts are champaign. These different characters are striking, and have long marked the territories of the ancient inhabitants and those who are mingled with later colonists. The same, in some degree, is the case with Ireland.

It will not be here attempted to account for the alluvial discoveries made throughout these islands, or hazard an explanation of various remarkable appearances. Whether the flood of Noah, or any other deluge or convulsion, has produced the difference between the former and present face of the earth, is not easy to be ascertained, but a singular change has certainly taken place.* Traditions, indeed, do exist, that the Scillies, and many other islands, were formerly connected with the mainland; but the fact appears as unsusceptible of positive proof, as the shock that is presumed to have rent Britain from the continent.

Throughout the Western Isles, the Orkneys, and even in Shetland, the discovery of large trees that are dug from the mosses or bogs, has led to an opinion, that the woods must have existed at a time when these islands were dissevered from Britain, either by the workings of the ocean, or a sudden disruption; and without some such hypothesis, "it is not easy to comprehend, how trees could grow on these spots, of which the extent is so small, and under circumstances in which heath will scarcely now attain its full growth."+ Remains of woods have often been per

* See Brogniart's Works, &c.

+ M'Culloch's Description of the Western Islands, ii. p. 268.