!^CA Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 9240795891 68 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 1997 BOrGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Hcnrg m. Sage 1891 SCOTTISH MYTHS. SCOTTISH MYTHS NOTES ON SCOTTISH HISTORY AND TRADITION BY EOBEET CEAK; MACLAGAN, M.D. ■'I-; Tu fliijinn n >li<'ii^,is EDINBURGH: MACLACHLAX AND STEWART, 6-t SOUTH BRIDGE. 1882. [All riqhts rcstrcaJ.] 5 SCOTTISH MYTHS. It is somewhat remarkable that of the parentage claimed for Welsh, Irish, or Scot, there is none from our Roman invadere, though, as Camden says, " meet it is we should believe, that the Britons and Romans in so many ages, by a blessed and joyfuU mutual engraffing, as it were, have grown into one stock and nation, seeing that the Ubii in Germany, within twenty-eight years after a colony was planted, where now Colein is, made answer to their countrymen as touching the Roman inhabitants there, in this \\ise : — This is the natural country as well to those that being conveyed hither in time past, are conjoined ivith us by marriages, as to their off- spring. Neither can we think you so unreasonable as to wish us for to kill our parents, brethren, and children."^ The Roman legionary troops employed in the conquest of Britain were not, even a majority of them, Italians. The auxiharies were of aU nations. PetUius Cerealis, addressing the Trevii-i, said, when explaining their relations wdth the Romans : " To maintain the tranquillity of nations amis are necessary, soldiers must be kept in pay, and, without a tribute, supplies 1 Camden, p. 88. A -i SCOTTISH MYTHS. cannot be raised, all other things are placed on a footing of equality" (between them and the Romans); "our legions are often commanded by you ; you are governors of yom" own provinces, and even of others ; nothing is reserved to ourselves, no exclusiveness exercised." Tacitus says : " There is no strength in the Roman armies, but it is of foreign strangers;"' and to go back a century before his time, we are told of Pompey's legions in Spain : " T\vo were natives (Spaniards), one was formed out of the Roman colonies in those parts, and a fourth, belonging to Afi-anius, he had brought %vith him from Africa. The rest were for the most part made up of fugitives and deserters."" This may not be a fair example, but it is eAadent that a Roman soldier was not necessarily a Roman. The long occupation of modern Wales by the Romans has uia- doubtedly coloured Welsh traditions, but the Welsh call themselves " Cymri," as the Irisli and Scotch Highlanders call themselves ' ■' Gael." I wish at present to devote attention specially to two tribes who did good service to the Romans in AYales and Scotland, if not also in Ireland. The first of these, the Batavians, Tacitus tells us, were a tribe of the great nation of the Catti, who in- habited part of the Hercynian forest, and had latterly settled chiefly on an island in the Rhine, washed on the north extremity by the ocean, and at the back and both sides by the river. They furnished men and arms for the empire, and afterwards (he speaks before Agricola's invasion of Wales) " added to their fame by their service in Britain, whither cohorts of them were conveyed under the coumiand of the most dis- tinguished chiefs of their country, in conformity -^vith ' Tacitus, History, B. iv. c. 74. ^ Commentaries on Spanish War, u. 7. SCOTTISH MYTHS. -i llieii- long established practice." Long before this, the early and high esteem in which tliey were held by the Romans was evinced by their being called friends and brothers of the Roman people. They are said to have decided the battle of Pharsalia (b.c. 48) in Caesar's favour, and to have had the honour of forming the Prjetorian guard. A portion of the same people were called Canninefates, and one of them, Ganascus, deserted the Romans, became a desperate pirate, and in alliance with the mass of his country- men under Julius or Claudius Civilis, and assisted by the Frisii, — a nation wliich seems subsequently to some extent to have settled in North Britain, — and a cohort of Tungri, attacked the Roman fleet nomin- ally as partisans of Vespasian against Vitellius. Those having been joined by cohorts of Bata^vians and Canninefates raised for the Roman service, a war began which was at last brought to a conclusion by PetiUus Cerealis, and it was subsequently to the con- clusion of peace that we find them in Britain under Agricola. The other tribe was the Tungri, of whose origin we have the following account in Tacitus's Manners of the Germans, c. 2 : — " The name of Germany they (the Germans) assert to be a modern addition, for that the people who first crossed the R.hiue and expelled the Gauls and are now called Tungri, were then named Gennans, which appellation of a particular tribe, not of a whole people, gradually prevailed, so that the title of Germans, first assumed by the victors in order to excite terror, was aftei-wards adopted by the nation in general." When Csesar defeated the Nervii, the Aduatici who were on the point of joining them, heai'ing of their disaster, left theii* other towns and retired to a SCOTTISH MYTHS. town eminently fortified by nature. This town was surrounded By precipices on all sides but one, which side ascending with a gradual slope, and about 200 feet broad, was fortified with a vei-y lofty double wall. This was called Aduatica Tiuigrormn. They sur- rendered to Csesar. But, they treacherously attacking his men, be delivered their town over to plunder, and sold the inhabitants, amounting, as be says liimself, to 53,000 persons. This town, the modern Tongres, a tOTSTi of Liege on the Jaar, ^vas situated in the centre of the Ebuxones, a German people, the names of whose chiefs, however, have a Celtic sound. These Aduatici, according to Caesar, " were de- scended from the Cinibri and Teutones, who, when they were marching into our province and Italy, having deposited on this side of the Pthine such of their bag- gage trains as they could not drive or take with them, left 6000 of their men as a guard for them. These, ha^T.ng after the destruction of their countrymen been harassed for many years by their neighbours, while one time they waged war offensively, at another resisted it when waged against them, concluded a peace with the consent of all, and chose this place as their settle- ment." ^ When the Bata^■ians, on the death of VitelHus, declared themselves independent, they were attacked by Claudius Labeo, a Batavian by birth, with a force of Betasians, Tungrians, and Nervians ; but during the battle, Civilis, appealing to the Tungrians, they went over to the side of the other Belgae, and, says Tacitus, " at that monient Campanus and Juvenalis, the leading chieftains of the Tungrians, sun-endered the whole nation to Civilis." Cerealis designates as Cimbri and Teutones the Batavians and Tungrians '■ Cssar's Gallic War, B. ii. c. 29. SCOTTISH MYTHS. » thus united, while warning the Treviri against their alliance. We thus see the continuance of the claim of these Tungri to be considered Cimbri, and its general acceptance by those who were the prime agents in con- quering the west and north of Britain under the command of Agricola who went to Britain in a.d. 78, but nine years after the above-mentioned event. Agricola's first campaign was against the Ordo- vices of North Wales, and leading in person an advance party -with the vexillarii (or veterans em- bodied to render assistance to the legions if necessary, guard the frontier, and garrison recently conquered provinces), and a small body of auxiliaries almost completely extirpated them. He then resolved to make an attempt on Mona = Anglesea ; but, being unprovided mth transport, he attacked it in the following manner. " A select body of auxiliaries, disencumbered of theii" baggage, who were well acquainted with the fords, and accustomed, after the manner of their country, to dii-ect their horses and manage then' arms while smmming, were ordered suddenly to plunge into the channel." Tacitus in his History tells us that the Batavians ■' in their own country also maintained a chosen body of cavalry, so remarkably expert in swimming, that in whole squadrons, with their arms and keejiing hold of theu- horses, they could make good their way across tlie Bhine."" These two passages seem to point to the Bata- vians as the cavalry alluded to in the fir-st. Mona surrendered. In his next winter Agricola provided a liberal education for the sons of the British chiefs, and both the language and di'ess of the Romans began to be used. In his third year he penetrated to the Tay, ' Agricola, c. IS. - Tacitus, History, B. iv. c. 12. V 6 SCOTTIfill MYTHS. we are told, and built fortifications ; but as it was not till the summer which began his sixth year that " he extended his views to the countries beyond Bodotria," i.e. the Forth, it seems possible that his fleet had .dsited the Firth of Tay while he advanced up the west coast, and passed thence across to the east for the first time in this sixth year. That this was so is borne out by the fact that in his fifth campaign, " Agricola, crossing over in the first ship, subdued, by frequent and successful engagements, several nations till then unknown, and stationed troops in that pai't of Britain opposite to Ireland, rather with a view to future advantage than from any apprehension of danger from that quarter." Tacitus"s description of Ireland is so well known that it is unnecessary to repeat it here ; and it is cer- tainly not corroborative evidence of the account the Irish writers give of things at that, or even at an anterior, period. In the summer of his seventh year Agricola advanced to the Grampians. Here he met and overcame Galgacus, in whose speech, as reported, with reference to the remainder of a Roman progenies in Scotland, we find the following among the causes Galgacus gave for resistance, that the Roman army, composed of Gauls. Germans, and Britons, without wives to animate them, parents to upbraid their flight, without home, or only a distant one, polluted their wives and sisters under the guise of friendship and hospitality. Agricola having also addressed his troops, and the time for action having arrived, dismissed his horse, and took his station on foot befoi'e the standards. Tacitus, in his not ver}- clear account of the action, says : — " Agricola then encouraged three Batavian and two Tungriait cohorts to fall in and come to close SCOTTISH MYTHS. ^ quarters, a method of fighting familiar to those veteran soldiers, but embarrassing to the enemy from the nature of their arms, for the enormous British swords, bkmt at the point, are unfit for close grapphng and engaging m a confined space. When the Batavians then began to redouble their blows, to strike with the bosses of then- shields, and mangle the faces of the enemy, and bearing dowTi all those who resisted them on the plain, were advancing their line up the ascent, the other cohorts, fired with ai-dour and emulation, joined in the charge, and overthrew all who came in their way."' Indeed, there can be no doubt as to the important part played here by these Belgae, who were partly at least Cimbri by descent, nor as to their leader being well fitted to become a legendary hero. Observe the similarity in the meaning of the name. Agricola = a hus- bandman or ploughman. Arddwr (dd = th) = a plough- man, Welsh, — the Arthur of Cimbro-British legend. • In the lists of Ptolemy, the Greek geographer, who wrote about forty years (a.d. 120) after this, we see how rapid had been the growth of towns in Britain ; and in the line of Agiicola's advance north of the Brigantes along the west coast, across to the south of Pei'thshne, and up to the Spey, including some on the east coast, we find no fewer than twenty enumerated. These towns, indicating a settled state of civilisa- tion, can scarcely have been inhabited by the natives, who in the war of Caractacus were so far behind in the arts as to have had no armour or helmets (a.d. 50)," and are described in the following terms by Herodian so late as the time of Severus (a.d. 208) : — " They by habit swim across the marshes without ' Tacitus, A^icola, c. 30. - Tacitus, Annals, B. xii. u. 35. 8 SCOTTISH MYTHS. difficulty, or Avade tlirough them, wetting them- selves up to their loins, for they are almost totally naked, and take no care for the mud. They are unacquainted with the use of clothes, aird adorn their necks and flanks with iron rings, to which, as an orna- ment, they attach as much value as other nations do to gold. Th.e\ puncture their bodies with figures of all sorts of animals, which is one reason why they have not adopted the use of clothing, that the figvires mav not be concealed. They are a warlike and courageous race of men, and are armed with a small shield and spear, and a sword suspended from their naked bodies. They are unacquainted with the use of a breastplate or helmet, which they think would be an encumbrance in passing the marshes."' During: the interval between Aa:ricola and Severus we find that Lolhus Urbicus had (a.d. 138) built a wall from Forth to Clyde, and driven the barbarians beyond it. But in 161 they broke through the wall, and again, in 180, after w4iich Ulpius Marcellus, being- sent against them, cruelly w^orsted them, but without leaving traces of lus having made any settlement north of the Forth. In A.D. 201 we have the first appearance of the Maeatae, who, when on the point of making an alliance with the Caledonii, -were persuaded by the Roman crovernor to resile from this. Severus is said to have pushed his way to the north shore of the island, but immediately retiring southwards, refortified the wall from Forth to Clyde (a.d. 210)." So lightly, however, did imperial Rome lie on the shoulders of the inhabitants of the north that that very year they were in arms against her. In 287 Carausius, a Menapian, most likely a Batavian, 1 Giles, p. ^lil. - Skene, Ctllk Scotland, i. 89. t> .SCOTTISH MYTHS. •' (Meuapia being in Belgium, south of the lihine, though the title Menapian might apply also to an inhabitant of South Wales, or to the Irish country round Dublin), from being Admiral of the Roman fleet, became acknow- ledged nder of Britain, and is said to have been in the district near the Forth, — but for this we have no suSicient authority. From that time till a.d. 360 all modern Scotland seems to have been really indepen- dent of Rome, and had become sufficiently powerful to harass South Britain beyond the power of effective retaliation, until the incursions of the Picts and Scots called for the active interference of the Roman power. I would now call attention to the meanings applic- able to the names of these North British tribes. Skene, quoting Xiphiline, says : — " The nation of the Maeatae consisted of those tribes which were situated next the wall bet\\'een the Forth and Clyde on the north ; the Caledonii lay beyond them. The former inhabited the more le\'el districts, or, as the historian describes them, the plains and mai-shes, from which, indeed, they probably derived their name, Magh, a plain." In accordance with this derivation the Saxon mead, a meadow, comes nearer the signification and sound, but other circumstances tempt me to hazard the fol- lowing as the derivation. In XiphiUne the name is Matarat, and in the Walloon language we find " Maie,'' the name of the month of May, is also applied " to a tree planted on the first of May" (Beltaln, the greatest of Gaelic holydays), and " more generally to a branch cut with its green leaves, and of which use is made to ornament the fronts of dwellings." Mdie, masc, is a marble for playing with, hille in French, evidently allied to the Gaelic hall, a ball globe. 10 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Maie — fern. — are the meshes of a net (rings of mail, the spots on a partridge's wing), and Maiete is a ring put through a pig's nose to prevent it from arrubbinor- If I am right in taking the root as we have it in the Walloon, as most likely the nearest to the Greek Mala, the Goddess of May, the proper significance of the name is connected with a religious ceremony, and is, in fact, allied to the Gaelic maoth, tender, soft; laaothan, a twig, bud. Doubtless the Maeatae, within a centruy here- after (in 296 A.D.), are called Picts, which is generally accepted as meaning " spotted ; " and we see the word maie seemingly applicable to nature's tattooing on the partridge's wing. The word maiete, apphed to the nose ornament of the domestic animal, the herding of which was the occupation of Irish saints and princes, might lead one to connect the Maeats with the iron- ring-wearing savages who caused the loss of 50,000 of his soldiers to Se^'el'^^s, and who, esteemmg iron as others gold, might have ornamented themselves as the Walloon peasant now does his pigs. Of the three derivations, the first points to a certain culture, and I hope shortly hereafter to show that the name was accepted as bearing tliis signifi- cation in connection with the Picts. The name of their neighbours, the Caledonians, evidently bears a relation to the A\''elsh cocledd, groves, Gaelic, coille, a Avood ; and i-ather suggests that they were the more worthy representatives of native barbiu'ism, the cus- toms of the others being, I have little doubt, modified by their connection with the more civihsed invaders. I think it is most probable that Maeatae inhabited the Lowlands of Scotland, as well as the low country east of the Dorsum Britanniae. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 11 The Picts, first mentioned by Eumenlus, the panegyrist (a.d. 29G), become prominent in history in the year 3 GO. One of the incidents of the Batavian revolt was tlie seizure of the E,oman ships by the Canninefates, and Tacitus informs us that, desiring to use them, and not leaving sails, the Batavians put to sea with them, sup- plied "with mantles of various colours, which made no unbe(;oming appearance. " Now Carausius,the Batavian before mentioned, was slain by his companion Allectus, who, in his turn, in a.d. 295, was defeated by Ascle- piodotus, Constantius's prefect of the fleet, and he and many of his followers, doubtless also having been followers of Carausius, were slain. (Jf their appear- ance Eumenius says : " Those barbarians, whether really or cqjpcirenthj so, ^^'ho once Ijlazed with gay icidtu) garments and length of hair, were then defiled with blood and dust, and lay scattered in difterent directions as the anguish of their wounds had driven them." This connects coloured garments with the Batavians, and has led to giving to Carausius a local habitation in Pictland. I would notice here that the only Gaelic word for what we call tartan is hreacan, common to the Welsh, Cymri, as to the Gael (brychan — brecan, a striped coverlet (Spurrell)), and owes its signification to a root hreac, signifpng a spot, com- mon, as far as I can see, to all Celtic dialects. In the Breton tongue it takes the fomr h)iz, though, in the dialect of the district of Vannes, it is brech, where a petticoat is called hivch, though hroz elsewhere, which is neai-er the Gaelic brat, hrot, a veil, covering. The reason for calling the Picts "spotted" is evi- dent in the account previously given of the tattooing of themselves by the noi-thei-n barbarians, a practice which, there is reason to believe, was not peculiar to the 12 SCOTTISH MYTHS. country now called Scotland ; indeed, Brittones is nothing else than Picti, says Zeuss, p. 105 ; and, conse- quently, that name would in no way distinguish the northern from the other nations of Britain. This tattooing, where it existed, was probably connected with a rehgious rite. There is a derivation from the Greek which is very applicable to the soldiers of Agricola, who, we are told, struck the Caledonians Avith the bosses of their shields, and of the conquerors at Pharsalia, ttu/cttj? pi. TrvKToa, a boxer, a pugilist ; and, as I am going to suggest and maintain a Greek interpretation for the names Scot and Attacot, as well as Maeat, I think it not improbable that this signifi- cation was of weight \nt\\ those who coined the name. And I believe that the following is fui'ther proof of this supposition. I noticed akeady the similarity of meaning be- tween the names Agricola and Arthur, and the proba- bility that the chosen cavalry who attacked jMona luider the Ptoman general were Batavians, and that these were noted in history for the somewhat peculiar use of their shields in fiofht. In the romances of Arthur, the "Knights of the Round Table" were his chosen companions, and the word for a table in Welsh and Gaelic now is hard. Xow, in the ancient Saxon song of Beowulf a shield is called hilde-bord, and these were round and small, with hollow metal bosses of the size of a small basin, tapering to a point or ending in a knob. Hilde-bord, if the first half of the word is connected with the German Held = a hero (helde = to tilt, in Danish), might mean a hero's or tilting board, or table (bord = table, Danish), and it is easy to see where confusion might arise. That the word bord has got into Gaelic in the meaning of ' Wright's Cell, Rumau, and Saxon, page 475. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 1 '"^ shield is, I think, proved by the following from a curious and very mstructive historic tale in C!am})- bell's collection, vol. i. page 303. A wandering champion, desirous of escaping from the castle of 0'Domhni.iIl, presumably Tara in Ireland, is hindered by the chief's " Galloglach Mor," his chief (foreign) mercenary, who threatens him, " leis a bhord- urchair so a' m' laimh" = " with the shot-board here m my hand." This instrument the narrator makes him throw at his adversary, with the unfortunate residt of killing twenty- fom: of his own people, \vithout injury to him at whom it was aimed. This was a board surely not to throw but to ward off things tln:own, and can only mean a shield. This round board seems another connecting link between Agricola and the Arthurian myths. Now, of the Batavians and Tungrians, so far as I have been able to discover, the latter have left the more copious traces of their localisation in the Low- lands of Scotland and north of England. An in- scribed stone mentions the fii^st cohort of Tungidans at Cramond and also at Polmont. Camden gives in- scriptions commemorative of them at Cambeck fort on the south wall, the Petriana of the Notitia, about nine miles east of Carlisle, and the Notitia say that they were stationed at Borcovicus, nearly at the centre of the wall. The next station on the wall, Procolitia, now Carrawbm-gh, was held by the first cohort of Batavians ; and it is noteworthy that, on the inscribed stones found at these stations, the com- manders of the cohorts are always called praefectus, a title apparently generally apphed to cavalry, as that of trihunus was to commanders of infantiy cohorts. We thus find the Cimbric element apparently the more numerous of the two Belgic tribes who continued H SCUTTLSH MYTHS. ill service under Rome, and the monumental stones further show, as Wright has pointed out, that they were not in teniporaiy quai-ters, but had remained at their stations for long periods; and the term "h&ei'es" on some of them marks a hereditary interest in the localities.* These, however, ajjpear in history as Romans, but we have indications that, whatever denomination they may claim en masse, individually they, and certainly their childi-en, come under tA\'o categories. The grants of citizenship, which really conferred the coveted name of Roman, were at first sparingly granted as a reward for meritorious service. This honour, when conferred, seems to have been inscribed on a metal tablet, and sent to the place where those who were so honoured i-esided. The remains of some of these tablets have been found in Cheshire, Kent, and Yorkshire." On the one found at Malpas, Cheshire, from Trajan, dating the 20th January, A.D. 103, to those who had serA'ed twenty-five years, and who were mentioned by name, were granted " to themselves, their children, and pos- terity, the rights of citizenship and marriage (ci^'itas et connubium, civil rights dependent on legitimate marriage), with their wives whom they might then have, when citizenship was given to them, or if any of them were unmarried, with those whom they might afterwards take, that is to sa}', provided they have only one each." In the list of cohorts to which those who received those rights belonged, is the 1st cohort of Tungrians. The veiy terms of the gi-ant show that these in- vaders were bringing up families reputed illegitimate, without any clami on the government of the father — a sure result of the regulations in force, the men 1 Wright's Celt, Roman, and Saxon, page 308. - Jbid. p. 4CS. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 1 «'' not being likely to wait for the completion of t^^'enty- iive years' service before such would be the case. The intercoui-se would be with the natives, and it is curious to find in Bede that a powerful and formidable portion of the inhabitants of North Britain, viz., the Picts, founded their hereditary claims on their maternal ancestry. " The Picts sailing over mto Britain (from Ire- land) began to inhabit the northern parts thereof, for the Britons were possessed of the southern. Now, the Picts had no wives" {vide Galgacus supra citat.) "and asked them of the Scots, who would not consent to grant them upon any other terms than that when any difficulty should arise, they should choose a king rather from the female royal race than from the male, which custom, as is well known, has been observed among the Picts to this day. In process of time, Britain, besides the Britons and the Picts, received a third nation, the Scots, who, migrating from Ireland under their- leader Pteuda, either by fair means or by force of arms, secured to themselves those settlements among the Picts w^hich they still possess." Bede writes between 673 and 734. The Scots were tem- porarily driven out of Alba in 741. Now, still another straw to show how the wind blows as to the purity of descent of the Picts. Spurrell gives us two words from the root hrith, speckled. The one is hrithicr, a " Pict," compounded of givr, a man; the other is hritJigi, a mongrel, compounded of ci, a dog. If a spotted dog was regarded as a mongrel, it was no great straining of words to apply the same term to a cross-bred man. Now, Ammianus Marcellinus, who gives us our information about the incursions of the Picts and Scots in A.D. 360, and of the Picts, Scots, Saxons, and Ill SCOTTISH MYTHS. Attacots in a.d. 364, says that in 368 "the Picts, who were divided into two nations, the Dicaledones and Vecturiones, and Ukewise the Attacotti, a very warlike people, and the Scots, were all roving over different parts (of the country) and committing great ravages."' Skene, in his introduction to the Four Ancient Books of Wales," derives the name Scot from Scuite = wan- derers, because here they are described as " per diversa vagantes," and says, " Cath, war, seems to enter into the name Atticotti, and they are ' bellicosa natio';" and further supposes that the Vecturiones included the Saxons as making part of their nation, because they are mentioned in 364, and not in 368, when the Vecturiones seem to take their place. The ^laeatae, the Greek form of whose designation conies dii-ectly from Maia, the Greek goddess of May, as above noticed, I have shown, on the faith of a Walloon root, to have their name capable of interpretation as wor- shippers, or at least actors in rites which had to do with young branches of trees. Now veho, I carry, and turio, the young bi-anch of a ti-ee, conjoined, pretty completely make up Vecturiones, the carriers of young boughs, the Latin equivalent of the name ^Maeatae. The Di of i)icaledones comes from the Greek prefix St, Sta = through, against, in opposition, apart; and signified, I conclude, either the Picts dwelling among, or over against, the Caledonians. Now, is there any authority but Cormac's Glossary, as quoted by Skene, for the ancient or proper form of the name Scot being spelt Scuit ? I know of none ; and, if it is a word of Celtic origin, there seems no reason for the complete acceptance of the o sound in contradistinction to the u. Cormac may have been 1 Ammiauus Marcellinus, B. xxvii. c. S. "^ Vol. i. p. 107. SCOTTISH MYTIJS. 1" have been right, but it certainly was no mere muta- tion of sound which caused the classical ^'VTiters to call them Scoti, nor was the meaning that that name con- veyed to them " wanderers." There is a Scotch GaeUc word, allaban, cdlahanach, signifying " wandering," which is little different m sound from " Albannach," the Gaelic for an inhabitant of Scotland. In the battle of the Standard, A.D. 1138, the Galwegians are said to have engaged the Enghsh in the old Teutonic wedge-formation (the cuneus or boar's head of the Roman soldiery), and, on the autho- rity of Hoveden, shouting as their war-ciy " Albanich, Albanich." ' The namie Albion was apphed to Britain, and Alba to Scotland, from the earliest times in which either are mentioned as entities, and of course any dweller in Scotland was an Albanach, i.e. an inhabitant of Alba. If there ever was any connection between Allaba- nach and Albannach, the designation is not applied to Cormac's Scidt, but to those who were considered Picts ; and therefore Scot, signifying " wanderer," would convey no meaning distinctive of race to the Pict calling himself Albannach. One thing seems clear, that Allabanach, in the signification of a wanderer, is even more nearly the equivalent to Albannach, a Scot, than Scuit, a wanderer, is to Scot, a Scotsman. The word ala, another, the second, alter in Latin, as aZabruigh, another land (O'Reilly), all, other (Breton), seems the root of allabanach ; but while this is apparently a Scotch Gaelic word, the word "other" is eile, both in Ireland and Scotland. At the conTmencement of the fifth centuiy we have two vsrriters who speak specially of the Scots. Claudius Claudianus, in his panegyric on Stilicho, 1 History of Oalloway, 1841, p. IGo. B 18 SCOTTISH JIYTIIS. says/ that "Icy Ireland wept heaps of Scots" de- stroyed by that general. And again — " Me (Britain) perishing from foreign nations Stilicho protected When the Scot stirred up the whole of Ireland, And the sea foamed with hostile seamen." also — " A legion came spread among the extreme Britons '\'\Tiich bridled the cruel Scot, and gazed on the figures marked with iron Bloodless from the dying Pict." and — " He (Stilicho) draws into one the scattered powers of the empire, and reviews the marshalled battalions, what legion is a guard for the Sarmatic Banks, Avhat is opi^osed to the fierce Getae, what legion bridles the Saxon and the Scot, how great cohorts surrounded the ocean, mth how great a soldiery the Rhine is subdued." The authority here is as good for the icy character of Ireland as for that country being the only habitat of the Scot, who, however, seems to have been as attentive to it as to Britain itself, while the last extract would almost entitle us to believe that they were a continental people. Claudian, in the same panegyric, has another name for the Picts — " He (Stdicho) conquered the swift Moors not falsely named Picts, And following the Scot with the wandering sword, He cleft the Hyperborean wa^es with adventurous oar." The words translated " SAvift Moors" are in the original leves Mauros, and though Libya is spoken of in the line immediately preceding, a reference to Thule intervenes, and the Moors, called Picts, and the Scots seem to have had an indubitable connec- tion -with Thule and the Hyperborean ocean. It might be supposed if the Picts were indigenes that they still stained themselves with woad, and for 1 Giles, vol. ii. p. 170. .SCOTTISH MYTHS. 19 tliis reason, by a poetical licence, were called Maun, Pliny telling us the British women " imitated the colour of the Ethiopians " when they used the woad. In the Foiu- Ancient Books of Wales, the wall from Forth to Clyde is called "mur," from the Latin murus, and the word is used in connection vnth. the " Gos- gordd mur," or retmue of the wall, the moimted troops who defended it. This wall, Skene says,^ remained the proper boundary of the province from the date of its erection by LoUius Urbicus, a.d. 139, till the Romans left the island. The word mur is preserved in Carmuirs, the name of the ancient Camelon, just in front of the eeist end of the wall." It seems not improbable that those hving in the neighbourhood of the wall might receive a name from that circumstance, say Murii. Mahirez, in the Wal- loon tongue, signifies walls, enclosures, and is properly applied to a wall built %vithout mortar. There is a Gaelic word " maor," which O'Reilly translates a steward, an officer, a bad iff, a catchpole, a sergeant, formerly a baron among the Scots. Skene tells us that, in the eleventh century, the Mor7?2aer was the head of the aggregate of tribes forming a province.^ The word is common to the Gaelic, the Welsh, and the Manx, and is as old in the Breton as the ninth century, though Legonidec doubts its being of Breton origin. The office of maor was co-ordinate with that of coroner in the Isle of Man, but in no country has it been applied to higher offices than in Scotland. That the spelling of mauri for the word maor is possible is proved by the grant of sergeantry of the district of Craignish in the Craignish charters, 1 Celtic Scotland, voL i. p. 77. ' Four Ancient Books of Wales, voL ii. p. 411. •* Historians of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 446. 20 SCOTTISH MYTHS. mention being therein made of the "officium Sergean- diae seu Mam-i tenandriae sen baUiatus de Craignish."' Is it an unlikely thing that the guardians of the wall, on either side, should not receive a Celtic name, or that a name so appropriate as maor should not be latinised by the poet in the same form as it was sub- sequently ? In a poem in the Ked Book of Hergest which contains allusions connecting it with Dalmeny on the Firth of Forth,^ are the following Imes — " Let the chief builders be Against the fierce Ffichti, The Morini Brython." There can be no question as to Morini here having the same significance as maim above mentioned. It is curious that Lollius Urbicus, the builder of the Forth and Clyde waU, was called Africanus, fi-om having conquered the Moors. The other writer is St. Jerome, who, writing at this date, gives us, on the veracity of one who was a Chris- tian and a prose-writer, details both of Scots and Attacots : — " The nation of the Scots have not wives peculiar to each (man), and, as if tliey had chosen the policy of Plato, and followed the example of Cato, there is no proper marriage bond, but as if it were allowed for each, lasciviunt after the manner of cattle." And he alludes to the same practice m what seems rather ambiguous language : " Let the Gentiles hear of the harvests of the chm'ch, with which our storehouses are daily being filled, let the catechumens who are candidates for the faith hear, that they may not marry wives before baptism, nor join honourable marriages, but they may have promiscuous wives and common children, after the Scotch and Attacotish rite, and after the republic of Plato." 1 Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. ii. p. 458. ^ Ibid. voL ii. p. 452. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 21 So much for the general question ; but let us notice how he handles individuals of the same nation in his dispute as to the Pelagian heresy. " Lately an un- learned calumniator [this is believed to be Coelestius, the colleague of Pelagius] broke forth, vs^ho thinks my commentaries on the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians to be found fault with, nor does he under- stand, snorting with so much senselessness, the laws of commentators. Nor does this dullard, loaded with Scotch porridge, remember that we have said in that very work : I do not condemn double marriages ! " Again he says, alluding to Pelagius : " Here he is silent, there he finds fault, he sends biblical epistles to the whole world, formerly bringing gold, now a curse, and our growing patience concerning the humi- lity of Christ is interpreted as a sign of an evil conscience. He himself, though mute, barks through the Alpine dog [Coelestius], who can rage better with his heels than with his teeth. For he has an offspring of the Scotch nation from the neighbourhood of the Britons, who, after the stories of the poets, in the like- ness of Cerberus, should be struck down with a spiiitual club, that he may be silent in the eternal shades with his own master Pluto." The Scotch porridge-eater is an Alpine dog from the neighbour- hood of the Britons, and though this does not exclude Ireland, it is rather more applicable to Scotland. The word translated porridge in the original is pultihus, wliich Ainsworth derives from the Greek •n-oXro?, and tliis again from the Celtic pouh (a word which I have not been able to find anywhere but in Ainsworth), and says it was a kind of meat used by the ancients, made of meal, water, honey, or cheese and eggs sodden tocrether. It was used at sacrifices. Pulse is a term appHed to leguminous seeds, siich as the pea and bean ; 22 SCOTTISH MYTHS. and it is curious that the word scocha is the Walloon for a sort of pea, and Scoche is the equivalent for Scotch. There can be no doubt, from the above remarks, as to the pecuharities of the Scots, founded, as Jerome tells us, on a religious rite ; and the Greek supplies us with a word which describes those who practise such things. " SkoVios," says Damm, "ad tenebras pertinens ;" pertaining to darkness, furtive, occult. " 'Zkotlov Se e yeivaTO fjurj-rqp, i.e. e/c \a6pa.la<; /xtfew?, ex furtivo con- cubitu " (but the mother brought forth an illegitimate son from furtive intercourse), " which others caU e^ aZahovxqroiv yd[j.o}v, "from illegitimate nuptials" (from a, not ; ex^ca, to have ; Sai?, a torch, i.e. not to have a torch, ol (TKOTLOL those are therefore called, whose parents have evidently not had connection for the sake of procreating children, but secretly and in dark- ness." ^ It is quite certain that neither the Highlanders nor the Irish have ever called themselves Scots, though writers have claimed the title for either people. Their name for themselves, as usuaUy Aviit- ten, is " Gael ;" theii- language they call the " Gaelic." On the modern pronunciation of this latter word, Ave find the following note in M'Leod and Dewar's Diction- ary. " There appears no good reason why this word should not be written Gflilig, a spelling more agree- able to the pronunciation than any other, as also to the rules of spelling and the general structure of the language." O'E-eilly in his Dictionary spells Gael Gax)idheal, and gives as its signification, " a hero, a man who by force or art gets above all laws ; " while Cormac, as there quoted, says, if I ti-anslate his Gaelic aright, that it means " a hero who came with theft ' Damm's Greek Lexicon. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 23 through every territory." The word "theft," gaoth, also means " wind," and Zeuss ^ translates it, marking it with a query, impetus, violence, and proposes to call the name Gael " iaquieti, impetuosi," restless, violent, deriving it from the older form, " gdid, gd,ith," which words may be translated either as meaning wind or theft. Curiously enough, Cormac derives the name of the language of the Gael from "guth — elg" ( = olc?), a vile voice or sound} In the old Irish writings the d is always introduced. Gael is written gaedal in the story of the death of the three sons of Uisneach. In O'Connor's edition of the Annals of Inisf alien it is written goedelu, gaedelu, and Zeuss concludes that the older form of the name was " gdidal or goidal." Gerald of Wales, who wrote about 1176,'^ distinctly tells us that the Irish were called " Gaideli and also Scots ; " and I conclude that, at that date, the d was sounded. The Welsh call Ireland Iwerddon, signifying a green place ; the Irish they call Gwyddyl, Gwyddelod, the adjective meaning of which is Irish, savage, sylvan — this last giving Gwyddyl very much the same significance as the term Caledonii. The Bretons caU the Irish Iverdoniz, Iver- donidi. There is, however, in Aremoric a word much nearer to Zeuss's Gaidal, " Gadal, plural Gadaled," an immodest, lewd, lascivious person ; the feminine being Gadelez, or Gadalez. Now, if we may conclude that the above Breton word retains its form as used at the time the term "Scot" was introduced, there could scarcely be a more significant name applied to the half- bred children of a people who called themselves Graidal (feminine plural, Gaidala X), at all events, more signifi- cant to a Belgic Gaul, seeing what impression such a 1 Orammatica Celtica, p. S, note. - O'Reilly's Irish Diet, roc. Goidhealg. 3 Topography of Ireland, c 7. 24 SCOTTISH >[YTHS. Celtic word would give to his mind, or to the mind of one familiar with his language. No wonder that from the time of Strabo (44 B.C.), who mentions reports of promiscuous intercourse and cannibalism among them, the Irish had a bad name. In reality, however, the evidence is in favour of theii" being synonyms derived from the peculiarities of those whom they describe, and the fact that Ptolemy gives various names to the tribes inliabitiug Ireland is in favour of the assump- tion that the generic term " Gaidal " or " Scot" came into use at a period posterior to that writer. Further, the real significance of Gael mvist always remain a subject of conjectru-e ; I only desii'e to point out a probable meaning attached to it by others than those to whom it was appHed. Cormac gives as its equivalent " gafal," a hero ; and in this one seems to find the Breton words gowr, a man, and avel, ^^'ind. The Scots were surely seamen, and, consequently, were dependent largely on wind for their powers of locomotion. Jerome, howevei', further tells us about the Atta- cots particulars that are not less interesting than those as to the Scots, and, as he saw those people himself, trustworthy, one might suppose. " What shall I say concerning the other nations, when I my- self, as a young man, have seen in Gaul the Attacots, a nation of Britain, eating human flesh ; and when they find through the woods herds of swine and cattle, they are accustomed to cut off the buttocks of the shepherds and breasts of the women, and that they consider those alone as delicacies of food." Jerome, of course, did not see them eating human flesh ; the phrase " eating human flesh " no doubt means " who eat human flesh," so after all it was only hearsay evidence. SCOTTISH MYTHS. -i!> A bun is a cake eaten at Easter, a name derived from Ostara, a goddess worshipped with priapic rites. Bun, the Welsh for a maid, was also, says Davies, the British Proserpine to whom the mystic branch was sacred {Celtic Research, ii. 327). In the triads ap- pears " Bun," one of the three unchaste matrons of Britain, the daughters of Cul Vanawyd Prydain, the 'person occupying the narrow sjjot in the uxtters of Britain. She was the wife of the flame-bearer, and is the equivalent of Kopv, Proserpine.^ Paho, one of the supports {post) of Britain in the Welsh triads, Davies translates as signifying producer of life, and Jamieson, in his Scottish Dictionary {voce Beltain), tells us that the cakes made and eaten at Beltain were covered with prominences representing nipples. Bonn is the base, or bottom, of a thing; bonnach a cake of oatmeal. Bonnmhais the buttock — mas = buttock — or adjectively, handsome, round, heaped. Bunv^ is an infant in Kilkenny (O'Reilly). The word used by Jerome for breast is " papilla," and in lowland Scotch we have a name for a bannock, haj}, which is suggestive enough. Doubtless this presupposes that bannocks and baps were in use in the end of the fourth century, which does not seem mipossible ; and in reference to the Scocha before mentioned, a " pease bannock " is not an imknown form of diet at the pi-esent day in Scotland. I do not think it too much stretching a point to dismiss the cannibaHsm of our ancestors, and find them addicted to less startling diet. Havino- called on the Greek in so many instances before for a derivation, I think we find sufficient evidence in the customs of the Picts and Scots, as ' Davies, Cfllic Research. ■2C, SCOTTISTI MYTHS. reported to us, to make it not unlikely that the Atta- cots were of somewhat the same stock. If the Scots were illegitimate, and the Picts claimed their mother's position in society, the Attacots, carrying their feel- ings to a natural conclusion, disliked their fathers, and were called after the two words arra, a father, and k6to<;, animosity, and there can be no simpler or more direct derivation of the name Attacot than that. I presume, of course, that this opinion as to their feelings can only have been formed by some such habit as that ascribed by Bede to the Picts. To recapitulate : what I have here attempted to prove is — I. That the traditions of those islands connect some of their inhabitants claiming to be Celts with thePtoman soldiery of Agricola specially ; but possibly also with that of other generals. II. That the leaders, at least, of the inhabitants of the British Isles who, during the latter part of the Roman occupation, most harassed the Romans and the so-called Britons, were of a mixed race. III. That they practised the rites of a religion which gave occasion to the names imposed on them. IV. That the names so imposed are of Latin and Greek origin. That Greek should bulk so largely in these names is not wonderful, if for no other reason than because, as we know from Juvenal, who wrote during the latter part of the first century, that " eveiything was Greek " at Ptome, even to the blandishments of the ladies {Satire vi. line 186). But Greek found its way into the mysteries of the Scots themselves, as is clearly proved by the name of their secret writing, the so- called Ogmic. This character (as is well known) is composed of a series of short lines, representing the SCOTTISH MYTHS. 27 separate letters, placed at an angle to a long straight line either marked or understood. In Greek, o-yfios is a furrow ; a straight series of things planted ; that row which a reaper follows in reaping ; oyiMevo), I trace a furrow ; oy/i.09, the straight hne kept by reapers. Thus the ordered rows of short hnes are called Og(h)ams, because they are a straight series of lines planted in a furrow ; and this is quite comprehensible without the intervention either of Ogmius, the Galhc Hercules, or of the sunlike Ogmus of the Irish, both whose names are the offspring of the same root. In the allusions to Arthur, I do not say that the Iristory of Agricola is the foundation of the Arthurian legends, merely that Agricola forms one of the consti- tuents which (on analysis) are found in them. As a further indication of this connection, Skene ^ shows that the most likely localities of Arthur's battles ai-e to be found first in the south-west of Scotland, then in the Lennox, then in the districts between Clyde and Forth, after which is fought the battle of the wood of Celyddon, which, however, Skene thinks was to the southward, on Gala side, not northwards, like Mons Grampius. Thereafter, if Arthur and Agricola are the same, Arthur makes himself master of the three fortresses of Dmnbarton, Stirling, and Edinburgh, and fights the battle at Bouden Hill, LinHthgowshhe. Tacitus gives no indications of these last four, subsequent to the battle with the Caledonians, but they may be considered as the settlement of the conquered terri- tory in either case ; but in the old Welsh poem, the Spoils of Annion, accepted as old by all commenta- tors, the second last exploit of " Arthm- of anxious memory" there mentioned, was at a place called ' Four Ancient Boohs of Wales, vol. i. p. 58. 28 SCOTTISH MYTHS. " Caer (fort) Vandwy." Skene says the localities in the poem distinctly point to the district between the firths on the Ime of the Roman wall, and says Vandwy was possibly Cramond on the Forth. The same Vandwy is mentioned in another poem in connection with the further Tawy, that is, the river Tay. Is it not more likely that the place is somewhere in the district of the thanage of Fandufiiith, which Skene himself, in his notes to Fordun,^ says was at Logierait on the Tay, where, on the summit of a hill called Torr (a conical hill), thei'e are remains of an intrenched position ?' Davies in his Celtic Researches,'^ translates "Vandwy" as meaning " resting on the height," a vague enough name so far as its translation goes. The Roman camp at Fortin- gall certifies to these invaders having reached so far. The district assigned to the exploits of both com- manders corresponds closely. We all know that Agricola was not a king, and it is noteworthy that Arthur was in the oldest accounts styled only " Dux bellorum," Guledig as the Welsh call it ; and lastly, Nennius, to whom we owe the account of Arthur's tAvelve battles, never mentions Agricola in his history, nor was Taeitus's account of him kno^^Ti by historians till the time of Hector Boece. So far the j^eriod under consideration has been that of the Roman occupation of Britain, and the authorities quoted have almost been confined to those who are historic %^Titers. But when we enter upon the story of the times immediately subsequent to the relinquish- ing of our country by the Romans, we find ourselves face to face with Hterature altogether diSerent, much of it being evident fable, and almost all of it deeply 1 Historians of Scotland, vol. iv. p. 417. - Marshall, Historic Scenes in Perthshire. ^ Vol. ii. p. 51G. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 2 9 dyed with what may be called Chi-istian superstition, and the writers highest in repute not being without suspicion. The Romans finally quitted Britain A.D. 410, and the date fixed as that when Gildas our eldest author wrote was 560 a.d. This date, a century and a half after the nation's independence, is fixed by a calcula- tion as to the date of a battle at Badon Hill, which is said to have taken place in 516, and Gildas's own observations bring out the date above quoted as the period at which he wrote. The Irish Annals record his death in a.d. 570. The oldest copy of his history is of the thirteenth centuiy. He wrote a discourse con- sisting of a chain of quotations from the Scriptures appended to a short vilification of four British kings, Constantine, Conan, Cuneglas, and Maglocunus, the characteristics of whom, collectively taken, were their lascivious habits, and the fact that the syllables "con" or " cun" appear in each of their names. He also wrote a short history of Britain, more oratorical than histori- cal. In this latter he notices the Picts and Scots, who, he tells us, were seamen using boats (latinising the Gaelic word curach), and further that they wore more hair on their faces than clothes on their bodies. The best proof of there having existed an early writer called Gildas is that Bede, who, we have said, wrote between the years 673 and 734, quotes him, but not at length, so as to enable the absolute con- clusion to be arrived at that what we now have as Gildas's History is the same as the book known to Bede. Nennius, the next author, must have compiled his work shortly after A.D. 738,^ and he drew largely on the Origines of Isidorus of Seville, who died in 636. 1 Four Andent Boohs of Wales, vol. i. p. 137. 30 SCOTTISH JIYTHS. From the Romans, then, to Bede and Nennius two centuries and a half had elapsed, and it is easy to fancy how much fable must have grown up in that time, and into how many mistakes and misconceptions these writers were likely to fall, even if they had been severely critical, which indeed they were not. These, then, are the only ancient native authors whose writings may be supposed to have come down to us in then- original form ; but, to get a general idea of the value of our further sources of information, I will glance at dates affixed by critics to the other writings, Welsh, Irish, and Scotch. And first, let us consider the Welsh bards. Their names were Tahessin, Aneui-in, Lly^varch Hen, and Merddm, and they are said to have lived in the sixth century. The oldest transcript of their works is the Black Book of Caermarthen, a MS. of the twelfth centuiy, and the poems are confessedly neither in the verbal form nor in the orthography of the date at which they are said to have been composed. Skene is of opinion^ that the metre of Llyw^arch Hen's poems is as old as the ninth century, and one of Taliessm's as old as the tenth. Judging from the date he has fixed for the existence of the " Guledig" Cunedda ; from the few allusions to Ai-thur, who is only noticed, and that not in detail, in five poems, and to their evident connection A\ith the Roman wall ; and from their allusions to the Picts, who are called Pictish Gael ; and, especially, from an allusion to the death of a certain Dyfnwal Breac,^ which occurred A.D. 642, Skene thinks some of them may have been written shortly after this date, whUe others contain references which prove them to be subsequent to Nennius and even to the date of the commencement ' Four Aiic' g i-^ .^ to c3 =1 O — m M e d :s 2 = ^ S -IS o o := g rf ;:i-^ C^ > to W ■. ' S 5J M "3 S a g &.0 -« B >H^ e CI ^ b„ O Oh I3i 8 ■- « ? = ^ S " ^- -.2 = bC-^ ■ !-, a '^ O C- t^ i3 ^ o tc ^ 3 ^ ^ e z: X PhS- ,i3 -S <; 7^ s O ^ 5. dn: 5 ?*2 g'gj-^ :3-'S-^ „ M 3 _5 &3 H S, 3 5 o a o o^ ^K CO -k^ > a- c3 r^ o nj © MH CUD^ .^ ^^ ^ ^ SCOTTISH MVTH.S. 3^ If these Peksgio Etruscan cliaructers were used by Orpheus, it is easy to see hoAv they came to be claimed as Bardic, the more especially as it is clear that a priapic worship was common, both to the Orpheans and those whom this Essay more especially concerns, viz., the Picts, Scots, and Cymri. In table A it will be seen that the Bardic characters given by Davies are referable to twenty root letters. Let us compare these and the Ogham. P, which is called soft B in GaeHc, is not an Ogham character, nor is F, the Ogham using F. W of the Bardic seems the equivalent of the Ogmic Q. Gw in Welsh, which, in composition, drops the g, is equal to F, as Gwyr (Welsh), Fir (Gaelic), men ; Gwion = Fion, etc. The great use of the q in Ogham is m the word maqqi, of a son, — which apparently occurs once in Wales and once or twice in Ireland, as affi,^ closely connected with the Welsh ap, mab, a son. The name of the character too is spelt quith, the homologue of the modern giryth. We have thus reduced the number of simple Bardic letters from twenty to eighteen. In the eclipsis of the Irish, which, for the sake of euphony, drops out certain consonants after the lettei' ;/, replacing them by the sound of another consonant, (J is not eclipsed but coalesces with the n, and thus has a claim for a separate sign. There is a character for ng in the Bardic, and it also receives one in the Ogmic, the so-called "ngedal" or broom, seed.' In Scotch Gaelic this eclipsis occurs in the case of ' Brash's Oghiim Monuments, ji. .^47. - SpecimeQ of eclipsis : or Ij.iile, our town, is written ar m-baile, pro- nounced ir-maile. 38 SCOTTISH MYTHS. nouns beginning with s, followed by a vowel or a liquid, which, after the article ending in 7i, have a t inserted, the s becoming quiescent.^ In the ordinary writing of eclipsed letters, the elided one follows the one taking its place, but, although there are no words in GaeHc beginning with " Ts," this combination has received a character in Ogham which is called " Straif," the blackthorn. Further evidence of this being the origin of these two charactei-s is found in their follow- ing each other in the Ogham stave (see table B). Evidence of the artificial chai-acter of the Ogham, and of the acquaintance of its author with the rules of grammar, is very clear, in the fact that the broad vowels a, o, u, follow each other, being delineated by one, two, and three short strokes or dots respectively, while the small vowels e and i follow them \vith four and five marks. The name of the letter n is the same both in the Ogmic and Bardic ; and O'Curry informs us " tliat Nm signifies not only the letter n specifically, but any letter. The alphabet is called Beth Luis NijQ, that is, the hircJi ash letters. It has been re- marked that, leaving out the vowels, B L N forms the name Belen, another Celtic title of Hercules or Ogmius. The Ogmic is found principally in the south-west of Ireland, one hundred and eighty-two of a total of one hundi'ed and ninety-three inscriptions, described by Brash, being in the counties of Kilkenny, Cork, Waterford, and Kerry, and along the sea estuaries of the Bandon, Lee, Blackwater, Suh, and Nore. It is common m Diraefcia, or South Wales, in the counties of Cardigan, Pembroke, and Glamorgan, and is found ' An slat, the rod, written aii-t-alat, pronounced ai>-t!fit. ' ihUeriaU, p. 471, quotes Uraiceirt. SCOTTISH MYTHS. -3 "J in Devon and Cornwall in England, and one inscription at York. In Scotland there are several such inscriptions : two in Fife, one in Forfarshire, three in Aberdeen- shire, one in Sutherland, and six in Orkney and Shetland. There are thus twice as many inscriptions in the Orkneys as there are in any county in Scot- land, and these islands are the traditional locality of the Picts, and of the people known in Ireland as the Firbolg. We have found them in Ireland ahnost always near the water, either sea-shore or estuary ; and the same being the case in Scotland, we may infer that these inscriptions were wiitten by a sea- faring people. The Scottish Oghams are much ruder than the Welsh and Irish, but they occur in some cases on stones highly carved. The vowels also are marked by cross lines, ^^dth difficulty distinguishable from the cross line consonants, and this difficulty is increased by there being often no stem line. It is against probabUity that those who learned to mark a stem line and the vowels by dots should omit the former and take the trouble to cut the confusing cross lines in place of the more simple and intelligible dot, on stone at least, if not on a stick ; and, for these reasons, one forms the opinion that the Welsh and Irish Oghams are more recent than the Scottish. In Wales the inscriptions are often bilingual, Latin and Gaehc, and, in one case, there was found at Lougher, Carmarthen Bay, a Roman altar with an Ogham inscription. In Ireland, at Elilleen Cormac, there is also a Latin and Ogham inscription, and I shall have occasion to draw attention to a tradition connected with this locality subsequently. We have seen that the Bardic alphabet consisted 40 SCOTTISH MYTHS. of twenty simple sounds, and when we look at the Ogham stave (B), we notice at once the simple division of it into four groups of five letters each, each letter being represented by five strokes, and this is an ingenious cipher, very easily marked with a knife on a stick, for all the sounds included in the Bardic alphabet, the sound st, which is introduced, making up the necessary twenty. Starting \vith a single score across a stick for a, and then grouping the five vowels together, adding a notch for each succeeding one, the next five scores easiest to make are on the side of the stick opposite the holder's left side, — then turning the stick a little, he makes other five notches, and then, slanting his knife a little, five more. Thus marked, it reads from below upwards, and from left to right, as it does on the Ogmic stones. Now, the name of each Ogmic letter is that of a tree or shrub ; but when we look at the names of the Bardic letters, which Zeuss has translated, we find that they are of diiferent signifi- cations, and of such significations that they could certainly be applied to what we might call " fortune- telling," and if so, from the allusions to sea, and shore, and boats in them, they were most likely used by seafaring people. In Wales these characters are called lots, and I now would draw attention to what Tacitus tells us of the use of lots by the people from whom sprang the Cimbri and Batavians, viz., the Germans :^ — " No people are more addicted to divination by omens and lots. The latter is performed in the fol- lowing simple way. They cut a twig from a fruit tree and divide it into small pieces, which, distinguished by certain marks, are thrown promiscuously on a white ' On the Manners of the Gernuiiis, ch. x. OGHUM STAVE. NATURAL ORDER. Oghum Names. rnis stra.i'f R TS 1 1 M ngedal NG ^ ^ ^ gort G ^ 5^ c muin M ^ >uu cu-queirt Q = \/ coU c = < tinne T — ^ duir D — >[> huath H u nin N = v^ w sail S = K fearn F ^ f^ liiis L — k beth B / idad I = , I eadad E = ' : A UI U - " I \| onn I /' ; o a,ilTn A - A SCOTTISH MYTHS. 4 1 garment. Then the priest of the canton, if the occa- sion be pubhc, — if private, the master of the family, — after an invocation of the gods, with his eyes lifted up to heaven, thrice takes out each piece ; and as they come up interprets their significations, according to the naarks fixed on them." Tacitus further informs us that confirmation of these prognostications was taken from the flight of birds, and from the neighing and snorting of horses. Any one who has read the Mabin- ogion and the Ossianic Society's works will remember instances of the occurrence of flights of black birds ; and in Ulster there was a steed which delivered oracles at Halloween.^ That the very word bard was used by the Germans, we have on the authority of Tacitus, who tells us they stimulated then- courage by reciting verses, " quern bardituni vocant " {tvhich they call hardlng). It cannot be denied that, if they did these things in ancient Germany, they may also, though we ha^-e no account thereof, have done the same in Great Britain and Ireland. However, seeing that the Etruscan Alphabet is most likely in some way connected with the Ogmic, that the Picts claim to be descendants of Hercides, that the writers of Ogmic were acquainted with and used Latin, and had very considerable knowledge of gi-ammar, I am of opinion that Ogmic was introduced into these islands by a people more civilised than we have any evidence to show existed in our island as natives at the time of its first invasion ; and, further, that these Ogmic characters were, not improbably, the outcome of an acquaintance with the Etruscan or Pelasgic alphabet. Whether of any significance or not, the first letters of the three groups of consonants, ^ Onsiaiilc Scoftanii, vol, ii. i>p. 40, 41. 4 2 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Beth, life, Uw, the introducer of agriculture among the Cymiy, and Muin, a gift, the two latter remind- Lag us of Tuisto and Mannus of Tacitus, seem to hint at a GeiTQan starting-point. Brash tells us " that the trees of Ireland are called after the letters, not the letters after the trees," an argument advanced by Mr. O'Daly in the Ulster Journal of ArcJiceology } If so, is the Ogmic Cu Queirt (the apple-tree) — the name in Ogmic for Q — not connected vnth the Gothic QueortJi, which he quotes on p. 62 ? I would argue from the above that the Ogmic characters owe theii" origin to the markiag of the lots on sticks, say of apple-tree ; which system of marking subsequently was ingeniously applied to a secret char- acter, possibly by such men as the Arcani. O'Curry - tells us, in connection with the ever- recurring name " Lughaidh," how Lughaidh's son. Core, having been forced to flee to Scotland from Munster, was informed by Gruibne, the king's bard, that he had on his shield an Ogham advising his bemg put to death at once on anival at the Albanic court. This is a significant hint as to the use of Ogham ; for we see that, used for a secret purpose, it required to be interpreted, and tiiat by a hard, before the Irish prince understood its signification. If there is any truth in my conjecture as to the origin of Ogham, what are we to make of the Welsh- man NemnivTis, who, on the spur of the moment, pro- vided liis countrymen with an alphabet ? The ^^Titer3 of Irish history have no aboriginal tribes in the island. Their accounts commence with invasions ; and the first of these was by a lady of the transparent name of Cesare. She was a gi'anddaughter ' Ogham-inscribed MoiiuincnI-i, p. 03. ' Materiais, p. 409. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 4 J of Noah. Next after her, according to the Four Masters, came Partholan, and then a person of the name of Nemedh, or Nemedius. Now there can be httle ques- tion that this name is derived from the word nemet = silva, a grove. Nemnivus, also spelt Nemenoius, also Nomenoie/ comes from nom, a Memphitic temple (priapic), and is the equivalent of nemet, a grove or temple. And thus we have a very clear connection between the name of the inventor of lots and the sacred grove, and if Caesar gave his name to the fii'st fabulous Irish colonist, it seems not at aU a wild conjecture to believe that the originals of subsequent ones are to be looked for after his date. Now the descendants of Nemhidh (pronounced Nevhi) are said, after his death, to have been driven out by a people called Fomorians. We are informed " that they left in thi'ee bands, one of those, under the leadership of Simon Breac ( = spotted), going to Thrace ; another, under lobath, going to the north of Europe, and the third, under Brlotan Maol ( = the bald Briton ?), going to Alban. The next to invade Ireland were a people called the Furbolg, who were the descendants of Simon Breac's Thracian party ; and immediately after them came the people called Tuatha de Domaans, which, without any refined criti- cism, gives us, translated by the resemblance of sound to a modern name, as its meaning. Tribe of the Danes ; and we know that the Chersonesus Cimbrica, the modern Danema,Yk, was the country from which the CuTibri are supposed to have started when we find them fighting against Rome about a century B.C. Now these Tuatha de Danaans were the descend- ants of lobath and his party who had gone to Lochlyn, ' Z.11S3, pp. S7, 101. - CtUic Scotland, vol. i. p. 173. 44 .SCOTTISH SIYTHS. tliat is, to the north of Europe ; and we are told, moreover, that they had, on the way back from Loch- lyn to Ireland, spent seven years (seven the usual term implying a considerable quantity of anything) at Dobhar and lardobhar, in Alban, where Briotan Maol's party had settled, and which Skene, wdth all proba- bility, says was Caldover, or, as it is now called, Calder, East, ]\Iid, and West Calder, in the Lothians. We thus start with the statement that these two peoples were of the same stock, and it seems too clear for doubt that we have to do here -wdth the Batavi and Tungri, who were descendants of the Cimbri. The Irish writers make them go from Ireland to the places from which then* history commences, simply, I take it, because, as they were to be Irish, they must spring from Ireland. Now they were, moreover, cliildren of the grove ; and in sacred groves, Tacitus teUs us, the Gemians like others — Maiatae, etc. — performed their sacred rites, deeming it " unworthy the grandeur of celestial beings to confine theu' deities \^'ithin walls." ' The Fomorians, who drove out the Firbolg, are not one of the principal stocks of Ireland. They were sea-i'overs, say the fabulists. In fact, according to the derivation, they hved under tlic sea ; fo, under, 'inuir, gen. mara, the sea, — a rather strained deriva- tion of a doubtful name. Now, about the period of the defeat of the Picts and the Scots by Theodosius, and his establishment of the province of Valentia up to the wall between Forth and Clyde in the year 371, Valentinian had made the Bucenobantes, a tribe of the AUemanni, residing in the country opposite Mayence, elect a certam Frao- mai-lus as their king. Ammianus Marcellinus further informs us' that " shortly afterwards, when a fresh ' Manners of Hie Oertnan^. c. 9. ' Ammianus Marcellmus, B. 29, c. 4. SCOTTISH iMYTHS. 'i'' invasion had entirely desolated that canton, he (Valen- tinian) removed him to Britain, where he gave him the authority of a tribune and placed a number of the Allemanni under his command, forming for him a division strong both in its numbers and the excel- lence of its appointments." To this Fraomarius I would trace the story of the Fomorians, and I con- clude that the expulsion of the sons of Nemedh took place from the country on the south of Forth, and that the term, sons of Nemedh, is piuely another foiTn of the name Maiatai and Vecturiones. Skene has pointed out the probability that the Saxons were on the east coast of Scotland in 374 a.d.,^ from which they pushed past the Orkneys, the Picts and Saxons appearing in close union in 429, as appears from Constantius's Life of St. Germanu.'i. Claudian tells us, in the pan- egyric already alluded to, "that the Oread es were moist with the scattered (slain) Saxons." It seems not un- likely that, having acquired settlements, the followers of Fraomai'ius, or others of their kindred, in the universal scramble, had been acquiring by the strong arm Avhat they required from their less powerful neighbours. The signification of the term Fii'bolg has been a question to all treating of Irish history. The majority are in favour of their haAing been Belgae, an opinion with which I agree ; but I am not of the belief that the word " bolg" is merely a wrong spelhng for "belg." Keating^ says these " Firbolg" deiived their name from the leathern sacks they fiUed with soil as miners, and that the Firdomnan, another division of the same people, were so called from the pits dug in searching for tin, while the Firgailhan, the other division, were ' Ji'our Ancient Books of Wales, vol. L p. 107. - Quoted, Annals of tlie Four Masters, A. M. 3266. 46 SCOTTISH MYTHS. SO styled from the . 95. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 49 US examine the other names in this connection. The district was called Dalaraidhe; and Tighernach suppHes us with a king, Fiacha Araidhe, from whom it is named. ^ In Welsh, however, we find Talaeth signifies a province, and Rhain lances. Is not this a more satis- factory etymology for " Dalaraidhe " than the name of a king, who, I am bold to maintain, is a discoveiy of an etymologist in search of a meaning for the name of the district, and does it not strangely agree with the story of the spears of Lucullus's soldiery ? The name of the family who possessed the country, Magenis, is equivalent to " Islesmen," and this fact would, I beheve, be evidence in favour of a much later occupation. It is, however, a tradition in Ireland that CuchulUn received his military education in the island of Skye. The Ulster Picts were, however, called by another name — " Cruithne." This name is used in the Life of Columba, beheved to have been written by Adamnan, his successor as Abbot of lona. Adamnan became Abbot at the age of fifty-five, in the year 679, and died in 703. Adamnan in this work calls the Irish Picts " Cru- thinii," while he apphes the more familiar term to Albanic Picts exclusively ; and one of the most signi- ficant expressions he makes use of regarding them seems to me to be when, speaking of Artbranan, he describes him as a chief, not of a clan, however, but of the " Geona cohort." This seems to speak volumes for the organisation of this people. Artbranan is not expressly called a Pict, but all that is told of him, his requiring an interpreter, (was his dialect more Welsh than GlaeHc ?), and the counti-y ' Quoted, Reeves's Adamnan's St. Columba, p. 253. •"iO SCOTTISH MVTHS. where the interview took place, are in favour of this view of his nationaUty taken by the commentators. The other Pictish names lie mentions are logenan and Tarain, the former hving in Leinster, the latter in Islay. He also expressly mentions a fountain held sacred by the Picts. The district of the Cruithne is shown when, in speaking of St. Comgal of Bangor, Columba draws a distinction between his own kindred of the clan called Hv Niall, and St. Comgal's "of the race of the Cruithni " coiisequently inhabiting the neighbourhood of Bangor. In the oldest extant chronicle of the Picts ^ Cruidiie is given as the first of the Picts, and they, as well as the Scots, are said to be sprung from a nation called Albani, who were Scythians, and so named from then- light-colom'ed hair. It explains that the term Pict came from a " painted body." This seems pi.u-e, etymological history, undefiled by any corrobo- rative evidence. In the Irish and Pictish additions to the Historia Britonuin we seem to have a much more reliable guide, so far as tradition can guide us.' Cruithne is here son of Cinge, son of Luctai, son of Partalan. Partholan, accordmg to the Annals of the Four Masters, came to Ireland a few centuries after the flood, and they inform us that seven lakes bui'st out in Ireland diuing his age. The Ossianic Society ^ gives authority for his havmg been a Fomo- rian leader "under the sea;" and hence, when he emerged himself, it was concluded, I take it, that he brought a certain quantity of his native element with him. Parth, the name of the letter p in the bardic ^ Chronicles of the Picts an:l Scots, p. 3. 2 Ibid. p. 25. 3 Vol. ii. p. 22. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 51 lots, is translated by Zeuss as signifying a coast, dis- trict, region. This shows that the name Partholan has some connection with the sea- shore. Skene expresses an opinion, from the resemblance of the names of two of the leaders of Partholan's colony with those of two of the Firbolg, that these were the same.^ Campion tells us that Partholan " plained " a great part of Ireland then overgrown with wood,^ while there is a curious tradition^ that "jealousy" was brought into Ireland by Partholanus. This primeval coloniser not long after his arrival in the island detected his wife, the beautiful Dealgnait, in an intrigue with one of his domestics, and summoning them to his presence, wreaked his vengeance, not on the lady or her paramour, but on Dealgnait's favourite greyhound, which he seized and dashed to pieces on the ground. This we are told was the first case of jealousy that ever occurred in Ireland. Partholan was a cultivator, and was the introducer of a certain measure of moral reform in the loose manners of the Irish. The additions to the Historia are partly verse, partly prose. In the latter we are told that the Cruithnigh were the children of Gleoin ; that they came from the land of Thrace ; that they were called Agathirsi ; that going to Ireland, the king got them to drive out the Ttiatha Pidhbha {pronounce Fiva) for him, and these they slew ; that then, getting wives from Heremon, they with Gub and his son Cathluan, this last being their first king in Alban, were driven out of Ireland into Alban. To the Cruithnigh are here ascribed the magical powers with which the Tuatha de Danaans are usually credited. 1 Celtic Scotland, vol. i. p. 179. ^ History of Ireland, p. 22. 2 Quoted in Bohn's translation of Giraldus Cambre-nsis, p. 140. 52 SCOTTISH MYTHS. In the verse we have the following : " How were they named before they came To attain their sovereignty 1 From their o^\ti weapons. What was the name of their countrj^ 1 Thracia was the name of their country, Till they spread their sails, After they had resolved to emigrate, In the east of Europe. Agathyrsi was their name In the portion of Erchbi. From their tattooing their fair skins Were they called Picti." In this portion Gleoin's name is spelt Geleoin, and of Cathluan it is said that — " Cathluan gained battles Without flinching or cowardice ; His onsets were not without fierceness, Until he had slain the Britons. Thus did they conquer Alban." These people lived in the part of Ireland next to Alban, and, before consideruag m detail those extracts from the additions to Kennius, we may remark that the fact of the Plots and Scots, as the oldest Pictish chronicle tells us, beuig both of the nation of the Al- bani, seems much more suggestive of the neighbouring Alban, than of the continuous snows which bleached theii- hair in their native Scythia. That they took their name of Picts ''in their own language," as it says, from a painted body, is equivalent to saying that they spoke Latin, as the word is not Celtic, but is simply, in its signification, pici;ws = painted (Latin). The name of the king Cruithne is in all the accounts. From the earliest times the Gemians and noi-thern nations brewed both beer and mead, and while Cruidne is made a descendant of Partholan, Brecan SCOTTfSH IMVTIIS. 5,3 (spotted), of the celebrated Coire or kettle where he was drowned (whence Korry-vreckan), is in the Dinn- senchus also said to have been Partholan's son/ In Germany the great original of beer-brewing is a certain Gambrinus, whose name seems a latinised Camber, the descendant of Brutus, after whom, according to the romances of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cambria or Wales was called. In the Triads, which are, appreciated at their high- est value, only to be taken as a form of tradition, we are told that wheat and barley were introduced into Britain by a certain Col Frewi, where before there had been only oats and rye.^ Chwilfriwio is to grind, shatter, break to pieces (Welsh), c/j^otY^ whirl- ing. The hand-mill or quern is by some supposed to have been introduced into Britain by the Romans, and its frequent presence in then- dwellings testifies to its use by them ; or it may have been introduced by the Belgae who, Caesar tells us, immigrated to Britain, and took the place of a pastoral people. Pliny tells us that the Gauls prepared ale with a certain grain called in Celtic brace, and in Latin san- dalum, which is probably what is called in French Speautre, barley, or a bearded wheat, -v^ith which the Walloons principally make their beer now.^ This Bra, J)rag = malt of the Walloon, braich in Gaelic, is the origin of Brecan's caldron. The Picts were in Scot- land credited with the brewing of heather ale, while the poems of the four Welsh bards are full of allusions to beer and mead-drinking. In Greek KplOrj is bailey, KoWldo), 1 eat barley, fatten ^vith barley ; Kpl6lvo<;, made of barley. Has this any connection with 1 O'Curry, Materials, p. 587. - Davies, Celtic Re^eardi, voL i. p. 15S. 3 Dictionnaire Wallone, wee Bra. 54 SCOTTISH MYTHS. " Cruithne" ? In Gaelic, again, Cruithe is a dart — valiant; ancient Pictland = Cruithin-teath, which would make it correspond with Dalaraidhe and the Lucullean conjecture. Cruith is a harp, a violin, whence the word croioder, a musician. Let us consider the statements in the Irish and Pictish additions. The Cruithnigh are said to have been the children of Gleoin, or Geleoin. The Fir- bolg, we have seen, were called Fir Galeoin (Reeves's Adamnan). Gleoin was son of ErcoL Ercol is simply Hercules. Tacitus tells us that the Germans asserted that the name of " Germany " was a modern addi- tion to their names, " for that the people who first crossed the Rhine and expelled the Gauls, and are now called Tungri, were then named Germans, which appellation of a particular tribe, not of a whole people, gradually prevailed, so that the title of Ger- mans, first assumed by the victors in order to excite terror, was afterwards adopted by the nation in general They likewise have the tradition of a Hercules of their country, whose praises they sing before those of all other heroes, as they advance to battle."' Gleoin, Geleoin, Galeoin I should conclude, are the same name. It has been mentioned that the Tuatha de Danaans fought and conquered the Fir- bolg on ]\Iidsummer Day, or St. John's Eve. Gille Eoin is the servant of John ; Ian Gen Eoin is also a bird, and a vessel — blade of a sword (O'Reilly). The Tuatha de Danaans brought the caldron of the Dagfhda with them, which was a vessel connected with divination, these people being celebrated magicians. I propose that Gille Eoin be considered as signifying servant of the vessel, or caldron. We are then told " Thracia was the name of theb country, till they ■ Manners of the Germans, <;. 2. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 55 spread their sails, after they had resolved to emigrate. " Now, the Batavians commenced their historical exist- ence, as already mentioned, at the battle of Pharsalia, of which Ovid says, in his Metamorphoses,^ " it is cer- tain this battle was fought at Philippi of Thrace," and curiously enough we find, on the authority of Livy, that a nation called Maedi, not unhke Maeatae, lived in Thrace, on the borders of Macedonia. " And their (the Cruithnighi's) name was Agathirsi" (ayw, I lead, conduct, bring, celebrate ; ayo)v, an assemblage, circus, contest ; dvpao';, the stafi" of Bac- chus, surmounted by a pine cone, and entwined with ivy and vine leaves). Orpheus, the Thracian bard, was the great expositor of the Dionysian or Bacchic worship, and on the stafi" of Bacchus the vine and ivy tendrils were symbohc of the reproductive power of nature. Agathirsi, the bearers of the thyrsus, is another name for Maeatae and Vectiuriones. It is no great wonder if some of the celebrators of the rites of Bacchus found destruction in the maltster's caldron — Coire Bhraichan. The Orphica and Dionysica were introduced from Greece into Etrui'ia, where we found the dolmens, and from whence came the bardic alpha- bet, and from thence to Home. These rites were notoriously licentious, and the worshippers carried thyrsi and crowned themselves with garlands of ivy, vine, and fir. These Orphic festivals were also called ajfiocf^dyLa, either, as was supposed, because human victims were ofiered to the god, or because the priests imitated the eating of raw fiesh.^ In this story we most likely see the origin of the breast and buttock- devouring fancy of the Attacots. The original source of all these genealogies is Herodotus, from whose translation by Gary, pub- 1 XV. 823. ^ Lempriere's Classical Dictionary, voce DioDj'sica. 56 SCOTTISH MYTHS. lished in Bohn's Classical Libraiy, I take the following extracts. Herodotus wrote B.C. 484 to 408. c. 5. " As the Scythians say, theirs is the most recent of aU nations, and it arose in the following manner ; — The first man that appeared in this country, which was a wilderness, was named Targitaus. They say that the parents of this Targitaus, — in my opinion relating what is incredible, — they say, however, that they were Jupiter and a daughter of the river Bory- sthenes [the Dnieper], that such was the origin of Targitaus ; and that he had three sons, who went by the names of Lipoxais, Arpoxais, and the youngest Colaxais ; that during then- reign a plough, a yoke, an axe, and a bowl of golden workmanship, dropping down from heaven, fell on the Scythian territory ; that the eldest, seeing them first, approached, intend- ing to take them up, but as he came near, the gold beo-an to burn : when he had retired, the second went up, and it did the same again ; accordingly, the burn- ing gold repulsed these ; but when the youngest went up, the third, it became extinguished, and he carried the things home with him ; and that the elder brothers, in consequence of this, giving way, surrendered the whole authority to the youngest. 6. From Lipoxais are descended those Scythians who are called Auchatae ; from the second, Arpoxais, those who are called Catiari and Traspies ; and from the youngest of them, the royal race, who are called Paralatae. But all have the name of Scoloti from the surname of their king, but the Grecians call them Scythians."^ Here we have, in the Scythian account of them- selves, four precious things, like the four precious things of the Tuatha de Danaans, the principal of ' Herodotus, B. iv. {itelpomene), cc. 5 and 6. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 57 whicli is a cup or bowl in either case, the possession of which conferred the right of sovereignty. c. 7. " This sacred gold the kings watch with the greatest care, and annually approach it with magnifi- cent sacrifices to render it propitious. If he who has the sacred gold happens to fall asleep in the open air on the festival, the Scythians say he cannot survive the year, and on this account they give him as much land as he can ride round on horseback in one day." " Such," says Herodotus, c. 8, " is the account the Scythians give of themselves ; but the Greeks who inhabit Pontus give the following account : — they say that Hex'cules, as he was driving away the herds of Geiyon, arrived in this new country that was then a desert, and which the Scythians now inhabit ; that Geryon, fixing his abode outside the Pontus, inhabited the island which the Greeks call Erytheia, situate near Gades, beyond the columns of Hercules in the ocean." This Erytheia seems possibly the Eridhu of the Babylonians, and may possibly be the " portion of Erchbi " of the Irish and Pictish additions. "The ocean, they say, beginning from the sunrise, flows round the whole earth, but they do not prove it in fact ; that Hercules thence came to the country now called Scythia, and as a storm and fi-ost overtook him, he drew his lion's skin over him and went to sleep ; and in the meanwhile his mares, which were feeding apart from his chariot, vanished by some divine chance. 9. They add, that when Hercules awoke he sought for them, and that, having gone over the whole country, he at length came to the land called Hylaea. There he found a monster having two natures, half virgin, half viper, of which the upper parts from the buttocks resembled a woman, and the lower parts a serpent. When he saw he was asto- 58 SCOTTISH MYTHS. nished, but asked her if she had anywhere seen his strayed mares. She said that she herself had them, and would not restore them to him till he had lam with her. Hercules accordingly lay with her on these terms. She however delayed giving back the mares, out of a desire to enjoy the company of Hercules as long as she could ; he however was desirous of recover- ing them and departing. At last, as she restored the mares, she said : ' These mai-es that strayed hither I preserved for you, and you have paid me salvage, for I have three sons by you ; tell me therefore what must I do with them when they are grown up ; whether shall I establish them here — for I possess the rule over this country — or shall I send them to you V She asked the question, but he repHed, they say, ' When you see the children arrived at the age of men, you cannot err if you do this : whichever of them you see able to bend this bow, and thus girding himself with this girdle, make him an inhabitant of this country ; and whichever fails in these tasks which I enjoin, send out of the country. If you do this you will please yom-self and perform my injunc- tions.' 10. Then having drawn out one of his bows — for Hercules carried two at that time — and having shown her the belt, he gave her both the bow and the belt, which had a golden cup at the extremity of the clasp, and having given them he departed. But she, when the sons who were born to her attained to the age of men, in the first place gave them names ; to the first Agathyrsus, to the second Gelonus, and to the youngest Scythes ; and in the next place, remem- bering the orders, she did what had been enjoined ; and two of her sons, Agathyrsus and Gelonus, being- unable to come up to the proposed task, left the country, being expelled by their mother, but the SCOTTISH MYTHS. 59 youngest of them, Scythes, having accomplished it, remained there. From this Scythes, son of Hercules, are descended those who have been kings of the Scy- thians, and from the cup the Scythians, even to this day, -wear cups from their belts." In the Zend Avesta* Mithra is armed vv^ith a gold club, a bow, quiver, and arrows — the arms of Her- cules ; he also carried an axe, and an axe was one of the four sacred things of the Scythians, as above men- tioned. The initiated assumed a special girdle, called the "kosti," and on the engraved stones we find figures wearing this girdle carrying cups or chalices in their hands.'"* There is in this, I think, evidence of a worship allied in character to the Mithraic among the Scythians at this early period, while the tradition points to its having been peculiar to them from the time of the separation of the Agathyrsi and Geloni from them. Now see what Herodotus says of the Agathyrsi : — " 104. The Agathyrsi are a most luxu- rious people, and wear a profusion of gold. They have promiscuous intercourse with women, to the end that they may be brethren one of another, and being all of one family, may not entertain hatred towards each other. In other respects they approach the usages of the Thracians." In Book V Herodotus gives us the customs of these, of whom he says : — " 3. The nation of the Thracians is the greatest of any among men, except at least the Indians." Having described the peculiar points connected with the Getae, and Trausi, he tells us, c. 6 : " There is, moreover, this custom, among the rest of the Thracians, — they sell their children for ex- portation. They keep no watch over their unmarried daughters, but suffer them to have intercourse with 1 Lajard's Mithra, p. IS.^i. 2 jjyij, p_ jgg^ 60 SCOTTISH MYTHS. what men they choose. But they keep a strict watch over their wives, and purchase them from their parents at high prices. To be marked with punctures is accounted a sign of noble birth ; to be Avithout punctures, ignoble. To be idle is most honovu-able ; but to be a tiller of the soil, most dishonourable ; to live by war and rapine is most glorious. These are the most remarkable of their customs." The place of the Agathyrsi is pretty carefully described, though the geography of Herodotus has not the accuracy of a modern manual. " From the Ister (Danube) at the parts above, stretching to the interior, Scythia is cut off first by the Agathyrsi," and "the river Maris flowing from the Agathyrsi, mingles with the Ister." ^ This river is, I conclude, the Morava, flow- ing north through modern Servia, possibly the origin of the '■ ]\Ioravia" from which our Scottish district Moray is said to have been called. The Agathyrsi then were Thracians, the older branch, according to Greek tradition, of the Scythians ; their nobility punctui'ed themselves, and hence were Picti, domg this, as I have supposed, as a visible evidence of their rank in their mysterious cultus. Of the Geloni we have the follo^^dug account ■} — " The Budini, who are a great and populous nation, paint theh whole bodies with a deep blue and red. There is m their country a city built of wood; its name is Gelonus ; each side of the walls is thirty stades in length, it is lofty, and made entirely of wood. Then- houses also and their temples are of wood, for there are these temples of the Grecian gods, adorned, after the Grecian manner, with images, altars, and shrines of wood. They celebrate the triennial festivals of Bacchus, and perform the Bacchanalian ceremonies, for 1 Herodotus, B. iv. (Melpomene), c. 100, c. 49. 2 /jj,/. ^ 103 SCOTTISH MYTHS. CI the Geloni were originally Grecians, but, being expelled from the trading ports, settled among the Budini ; and they use a language partly Scythian and partly Grecian. 109. The Budini, however, do not use the same language as the Geloni, nor the same mode of living ; for the Budini, being indigenous, are nomades, and are the only people of these parts who eat vermin, whereas the Geloni are tillers of the soil, feed upon corn, cultivate gardens, and are not at all like the Budini in form or complexion. By the Greeks how- ever the Budini are called Geloni, though erroneously so called. Their country is thickly covered with trees of all kinds ; and in the thickest woods is a spacious and large lake, and a morass and reeds around it : in this otters are taken, and beavers, and other square- faced anim,als ; their skins are sewed as borders to cloaks, and their testicles are useful for the cure of diseases of the womb." The historian is here speaking of the invasion of Scythia by Darius, and the Agathyrsi, Geloni, Budini, and other Thracians are included among the Scythians; and in paragraph 136 we find Hero- dotus telling how the Geloni, Budini, and Sauromatae pursued the Persians towards the Ister, after they had crossed to the north side of it. It seems to me scarcely probable that the so-called Pictish Chronicles could have derived their informa- tion from any other source than directly from Herodotus himself; and it may, I think, be taken as a fiirther evidence of the Greek being the language in which we may natui-ally look for the derivation of our names. That there were Thracians in Britain we know from the Notitia, in which the second cohort of Thra- cians is mentioned as occupying Gabrosentum, possibly at the west end of the south wall ; ^ and if it is admiss- 1 Warburton's Wall, p. 134. G2 SCOTTISH MYTHS. ible to believe that these might have left their tradi- tions, it would support the pi'oposition that in the Roman auxiliaries we find all the origins of our tradi- tions. However, the completeness of the narrative seems positive evidence that the writer of the Pictish additions drew direct from Herodotus, but the grounds on which he thought himself entitled to do this seem not likely ever to be made clear. In fact, we can never know whether he adopted this Thracian origin for the Picts, because that of these Thracians the larger proportion were Agathyrsi or Geloni, or because of a tradition connecting some other of the Ptoman troops with a sojourn in Thrace ; or whether, indeed, it is not altogether founded on the name Picti, and the statement of Herodotus that the Thracian nobUity marked themselves with punctures. There is another curious coincidence, however, which certainly should not pass Avithout notice. It has been pointed out that it is probable that the cavalry of the auxiliaries of Pome played a pi'ominent part in subsequent story ; and Ave have seen how the older soldiers, after long service, had special privileges of citizenship granted them. Now Herodotus ^ applies the name Agathoergi {' Ayadoepyoi) to Spartans " who were discharged from the cavah-y, such as were senior, five in a year ; " and it was " their duty during the year in which they are discharged from the cavalry not to remain inactive, but to go to different places, where they are sent by the Spartan Commonwealth." Might not some such name have been appropriated by the cavalry of the Romans stationed in Britain, and so connect them with the Arcani and Pelthwyr 1 When these Agathirsi or Picta went to Ireland, 1 Clio, B. i. c. 67. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 63 they got land on condition that they should drive out the Tuatha Fidhbha. If we spell the name of this people phonetically with the " dh " quiescent, as doubtless it should be, as it is in faic/A, a prophet, and the " bh " as v or/, it becomes Fifa. Now, these same people are elsewhere described as the Tuatha Fidga, and are called a British tribe. The first battles of Agricola in the campaign which ended in Mons Grampius were fought in what is now called the county, often jestingly the kingdom, of Fife. This division of Scotland is said, however, to have been called after one of the seven sons of Cruithne,^ " the name of each man being given to his territoiy, as Fib, Ce, Gait, and the rest." " Gait" is here credited with givmg his name to Caithnesia or Caithness. The Tuatha Fidhbha were never in Ireland as such, to be there slain by the GiTiithne. The story seems to have arisen from the tradition of Agricola's conquest of what is now called Fife. "From them (the Cruith- nigh) are every spell and every charm, and every sreod, and voices of birds, and every omen." ^ These magical powers are common to them with the Thracians and Etx'uscans. Thrasea is the name of a classical sooth- sayer, and the Romans got much of the knowledge of augury from the Etruscans. " Cathluan " is the name of the first king that ruled over the Gruithnigh in Alban. Cath is battle, lu, luth, swifl, active ; Gathluan = the one active in fight. Cathluan is said to have been chosen king before the Gruithnigh went to Alba. The revolt of the Batavii, in which the Tungri joined, was, as previously naiTated, suppressed by PetiUus Cerealis, whose latter name, Gerealis, is itself synonymous with Cruithne, or nearly so, Cruithneachd being wheat in Gaelic, and under him 1 Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 25. - Ibid. p. 31. 64 SCOTTISH MYTHS. when propraetor in Britain Agricola served. Cerealis's character is quite in concord Math the ILaes akeady quoted, speaking of Cathluan. When a subaltern of Suetonius Paulinus, his rash valour led to the destruc- tion of the 9th Legion, then under his command, at the time of the revolt of the Iceni. He next appears as a cavalry commander under Vespasian against Vitel- lius, when he suffered a check, "having advanced incautiously and with precipitation." ^ We are told by the same authority that when he and Civilis, the Batavian, were opposed to each other, neither commander was an advocate of slow movements, and that Cerealis was "more to be admired for the contempt in which he held the enemy, than for the prudence of his measures, he kindled the spirit of his soldiers by the bold tone of his language, intimating that he would engage the enemy on the first oppor- tunity of getting at him." It is a curious fact that the 9 th Legion of which Cereahs was commander when defeated by the Iceni was the same Legion which, under Agricola, suffered the reverse in Fife after the first crossing the Forth, and that this legion was distinguished by the title " the Spanish." Tiles, marked " Legio ix. Hispanica," have been found in Britain beside coins of the time of Vespasian and Domitian who reigned between the years 69 and 96, and it was in Domitian's reign that Lucidlus of the Lucullean spears was put to death. Wriofht remarks " that this lecfion, after the last cam- paign of Agricola, suddenly disappears from history, and is no more heard of Tliis Spanish Legion is presumably, I beheve, the sole ground of the story of the colonisation of Ireland from Spain by Milesius. ' Tai;itus, History, B. iii. c. 61. ^ Celt, Rommi, and Saxon, p. 123. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 65 To continue, however, the extracts from the Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, we are told — " How were they (the Cruithne) named before they came To attain their sovereignty ? From their own weapons." There is no question of paint or powder here. They were named after the weapons peculiar to them- selves, which they used before they came to reign in Alban. K this is hteraUy correct, it makes us fall back on the large bossed shields {bolg, a boss), and would be evidence in favour of the Trvicroi theory, and lead us to believe that we had to do with the Germans again. But as the Chronicles speak of Cruithnigh, and distinctly say that they were called Picts from tattooing their fair skins — it is likely that the weapon alluded to as peculiar to them was the Cruithe or dart. The special word used for spear in the notice of Sallustius Lucullus is la.ncea, which Ainsworth says is either a Spanish or Gaulish word, and denotes a broad-headed javelin. The sequence in the Chronicle would make the name Cruithnii older than Picti. Whether this throws any doubt on the accuracy of my surmises must be a matter of opinion. In the Irish Chronicles the Cruithnigh are said to have descended Hke the Scots from Milesius through his son Ir. Colgan ^ considers them the same as the Tuatha de Danaans, and in the legend of the Picts of Dalaraidhe, written before 1373,^ they are said to have first settled in Magh Fortrenn, the district be- tween Forth and Tay, and then in Magh Girgia or Kincardineshire. In the description given by O'Ciury of the meeting of Sreng and Breas, the first Firbolg and Tuatha de 1 Quoted ia Celtic Scotland, voL L p. 182. 2 Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 318. E 66 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Danaan that encountered each other in Ireland, on Magh Rein (the field of darts ?) immediately before the battle of Magh Tuireadh, the only difference between them, speaking as they did the same language, was that the Firbolg was armed with " two heavy, thick, pointless, but sharply-rounded spears," while the Tuatha de Danaan man carried two " beautifully shaped, thin, slender, long, sharp-pointed spears." ^ Evidently their spears had much to do with the traditions. Many things connect the Picts and Tuatha de Danaans. Among others, in the Ossianic Society, voL iii. p. 115, is a hst of names of men of the latter, and these contain such as Ilbhveac = spotted lad, Abhortach lol-dathaig, Abhortach many-coloured, and Mananan mac Lir was said to wear coloured clothes. There is another name appUed to a people of Low- land Scotland who are identified with the Picts. Nennius, § 50, says the eleventh battle of Arthur was in the mountain " Breguoin, which we call Cat- Bregion." This name is also spelled Cathbregyon and Cathregonnum.^ In one of the poems of the book of Taliessm, the Picts are styled " Y Cath Vreith," and it says " the Cat Vreith of a strange language is troubled from the ford of Taradyr to Port Wygu- in Mona." The ford is the ford of Tarrador across the river Carron, near Falkirk. The poem is one alluding to Cadwallan who ascended the throne of Venedotia or North Wales, 617 A.D., who died in 659, after defeating the Northumbrians with the assistance of Penda, and occupymg their country for some time. Skene de- rives the name from 6?'?/c/i = macula, a spot, breac in. ^ O'Curry's Materials, p. 24.5. - Four Ancient Books of iVales, voL i. pp. 57, 106. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 67 Gaelic.^ Now, in all the spellings but the poetic one, the th of Vreith is represented by a g, and Skene teUs us that Brec/ieinawg (the same word as Brecknock in South Wales) is applied to the district about Eiddyn (Edinburgh), which was inhabited by the Cat-bregion. Now braich, plural hreichiau, in Welsh, is an arm, a branch, a verse, spelt in old mss., according to Zeuss, breich. In Aremoric it is bregh, brech, in GraeHc brae, and in composition is found in the Welsh name Karadawc vreichnr&s, Caractacus stout arm. Davies tells us that the branch was a badge of the bardic office, and we have already noticed the connection with bards and branches. The word cat signifies a cat, but also in its modem aspirated form cath a tribe, a battalion, says 0'B,eiUy, of 3000 men. Connected with it is the Latin caterva, a troop, and most probably ceatharn, Scotch Gaelic, a troop, and ceatharnach, a stout, robust man, a soldier, a cater an. Curiously the Aremoric brech — brachium, has a synonymous term, or at least a word translated humerus, the shoiilder. Scoth or scoacc, in modern Breton skoe, skoaz — also signifying a vine branch, of which the modern form is shod.^ Is this the real origin of the term Scot ? The Cath-bregion were Scothi, as weU as Picts {tt-uktol 1). Shto is the name of a Breton family, and signifies the elder-tree. Sho is an obsolete word for a blow, a stroke.^ The letter t is mutable in Aremoric into z.* Bnz signifies both a combat, meMe, and " marked with various colours." Brechin signifies sprigs, shps of wood. 1 Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 84. - Zeuss, Gram. Celtic, pp. 97, 98. ' A scud on tte lug (?), * Legonidec, p. 13. C8 SCOTTISH MYTHS. We are told that Cormac Ulfada in the third century drove the Picts of Ulster to Manann con- nected with Cruithentuaith, i.e. to the district in which are Slamannan and Clackmannan in Scotland.^ Cormac means a brewer, {tnax) coire, son of the kettle ?) and he was most likely a Pict himself There are fully three hundred years between the date of the poem speaking of the Cath-vreith and the date of this "driver afar" of the Ulidians [Uladh, and fada, far, Ulfada). But it is curious that the Cath vi-eich were of a " strange language :" was this Gaelic as opposed to Welsh or Aremoric ? I confess I do not feel in- clined to accept as historic this derivation of the name Ulfada. The etymology of the name is certainly forced, and I am inclined to suggest gul fada (far crying) as the proper derivation, the reasons for which will appear more clearly hereafter. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote about the year 1152, at the time of the Rebellion of Malcolm Mac Eth, and the people of Ergadia or the north-west of Scotland, Galway, and Moravia or jNIoray, the district north of Spey to Caithness, against David i. These seem to have been all of Pictish descent. Geoffrey then, may, it is not unlikely, have known what was the current tradition as to their origin at that time, and he distinctly tells us ' that the Moravienses came from Scythia in the time of Vespasian. He makes them marry Irish wives and settle in Caithness, and so give rise to the Pictish nation ; and then he tells us that the Picts, mariying still among the Irish, gave rise to the Scots. This account seems to be wonderfully near the truth so far as these main facts are concerned. ' Four Ancient Boohs of Wales, voL i. p. 8-t. - Book iv. c. 7. SCOTTISH MYTHS. fi!) Claudian, in 397, as already quoted, says Stilicho, " cleft the hyperborean waves with dashing oar " in pursuit of the Scots, and, in the sixth century, we find the name of Scotia applied to Ireland. A list of the earliest notices of this application of the name is given by Skene in Celtic Scotland} The oldest account of the settlement of the Scots there is con- tained in the Book of Leinster, written, according to O'Curry, before 1160. It is ascribed to Maelmurra of Othain, who died A.D. 884.^ He calls them Greeks, descended from Fenius, who built the tower of Nem- broth, and founded a school for languages ! This Fenius Farsaid had a son, Nel, who went to Egypt and married Forann's (Pharaoh) daughter, Scota, whose son was Gaedhel Glass. From Gaedhel, his followers were called Grael ; Feni, from Fenius ; Scoti, from Scota. Passing iuto Spain, from thence Ith, son of Breogan, discovered Ireland, but being killed, Luguid, his son, and the six sons of Miledh, came over to avenge his death. They there allied them- selves Avith the Firbolof, Tuatha de Danaans, and the children of Nemedh. Then Eireamon took the north of Ireland, Eber the south, while Luguid had certain districts assigned to him. They then took wives of the Tuatha de Danaans, having been deprived of their Avives by the Cruithnigh. In another version the wives are granted to the Cruithne as a favour, on condition that the regal succession should be by the mother's side. Now, if the oldest native authorities claim Greece as the original habitat of the Scots, there is good ground for maintaining that their name should have a Greek meaning, — a claim possibly also founded on the Homeric name of the Greeks, AavaoL, since the » Vol. i. p. 3. 2 CdtU Scotland, voL L p. 175. 70 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Tuatha de Danaans were the early Irish. Of course I have not the slightest belief in the people having a Greek name because they came from Greece, but, on the contrary, that they were said to have come from Greece because they had a Greek name. Pharaoh, as Forann, if the tradition were worthy of serious con- sideration, is to me much more likely to be derived from the Breton Ferd, fierce, savage, than to have any connection with the king of Egypt, and to point to a union between the invaders and the barbarian natives ; in either case the descendants, whether of a Greek and an Egyptian, or of a legionary of the Legio IX. Hispanica, and a Gwyddel, were a mixed race. Nel, the name of Fenius's son, has a resem- blance to that of Nial Naoi ghiallach, of whose race was Saint Columba, and who carried off St. Patrick from Aremorica according to the editor of the Aniials of the Four Masters} Naiv, Welsh; Gaelic naoi, nine; gwial, pi. giviail, rods (Welsh). He is called generally Nial " of the nine hostages." " Pharaoh " appears in the name Dinas in Wales, the burial-place of the red and white dragons, drowned in a mead caldron,^ and, in the Gwarclutn of Maelderv, by Taliessin, where we are told the "Victor gazed towards the fair one, Of bright and prominent upHfted front, On the ruddy dragon, the palladium of Pharaon, AVhich will in the aii- accompany the people." Here the allusion is generally supposed to be to Arthur's standard, and justly, I beUeve, to a signum, but not a flag, which belonged, as the poem tells us, " to the retinue of the great Wall." * In the Senchus ' Annale of the Four Masters, vol. i. p. 128, note. - Mabinogion, vol iii. p. 310. ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 415. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 71 Mo7' ^ we have the story of Fenius being sent for to Pharaoh's court, " Cai " being the messenger, and when he came, " Nel," or " Niul," his son, recsived in reward Pharaoh's daughter. "Cai," the messenger's name, is the same word as hay, a mist, fog ; Gaehc, ceo ; while niwl in Welsh is fog also ; there is certainly a connection between the names. " Fenius " possibly arises from the root which is found in Veneti, Venedotia, Yannes, i.e. Vanadis, iden- tified with the Thracian moon-goddess Bendis,^ Venus or Freia; but Fenius Farsaid appears in another legend as Aeneas, a Lacedemonian.^ This allows us to drop the F from his surname also, which leaves us arsaid, from ai'sa, arsach, old, ancient, aged ; arsingheachd, ancient deeds. And from this I would deduce the story of Geofirey of Monmouth as to the descent of the Britons fi-om Brutus, Aeneas's great-grandson.* It is curious that Fordun, when teUing of the army with which WiJliam the Lion invaded England, mentions the Highland Scots whom they called hriiti, and Bower says of them, "Qui Cater vani seu Caterarii vocantur, quos etiam quidam Brutos vocant." * One scarcely Ukes to think that this is simply equivalent to calhng them brutes. There were people in Italy called Brutii, who lost their freedom from joining Hannibal® The son, then, of Nel or Niul was Gaedhel Glas. Glas is a term denoting colour, and is probably connected with the Gaulish word " Glastuva." apphed to the dye woad by Pliny the younger (a.d. 23 to 79),' who tells us that " their whole bodies smeared with 1 Senchus Mor, toL L p. 21. 2 Grimm's Mythology, vol. iii. p. ll.i. ^ Celtic Scotland, voL i \). 18.S. ■• Geoffrey of Monmouth, Book i. c. 3. * Fordun, vol. ii, notes, p. 431. ^ Ainsworth voce Brutiani, servile officers of the magistrates. ^ Book xxii. 2. Quoted, Giles, vol. ii. p. 50. 72 SCOTTISH MYTHS. which, and naked, the wives and ' nurus ' (young married women) of the Britons retire to certain sacred rites." The Scots, then, were descended of the woad- coloured Gadal, and the meaning possibly apphcable to this term has been mentioned above, — Glaz, woad, Breton. MUedh, in Latin ]\Iilesius, can surely be claimed as the oflfepring of miles, a soldier, while Ith, the son of Brogan, who was conjoined with his sons, finds the origin of his name, in Welsh, in ith, corn, and bro, an inhabited land, — Broig, pleasant, as a vale. Ith landed in Ulster, and he was the first of the Scots who visited Ireland according to some accounts,^ while Nennius tells \is the Scots passed from Spain to Dalrieta in the north of Ulster.^ Is it not most probably something more than a coincidence that their landing-place should, whUe so far from Spain, be so near the country in which we last find the " Spanish " legion. Bede^ speaks of the northern province of the Scots, and immediately thereafter of the Scots which dwelt in the south ; so that in the seventh century they were not confined to one district. From Lugaidh, son of Ith, are descended, according to tradition, the Dal- cassians of Munster who settled in the west of the present county of Cork, and who are connected by EmerLughaidh's cousin with the Uhdians, from whom they are said to have sprrmg. Now, of the descend- ants of Emer mac Ir, the O'DriscoUs are the principal family.^ If this story is correct, the locahty of the family is a much more likely landing-place from Spain ; but we are told that they were driven out of Ulster by the clan Deaghaid. The name O'Driscoll is a curious ' Ossiauic Society, vol. v. p. 255. '■' Para. 15. 2 Book iii. chap. 3. * O'Curry, Materials, p. 207. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 73 one. Connal Ceatharnach, the Cruithnean, foster- father of Cuchullin, is called in one of the poems in the Dean of Lismore's Book, Mac Bddirschol. The name is also spelled Eidersgel, Eidirsceol, and in Welsh, to all appearance, as Adrasdil. Is not this the great ash, the world-tree of Norse mythology, YgdrasU, and old as that of Babylonia, where it was said to be situated in the province of Eridhu, " into the heart whereof man hath not penetrated."^ Gildas's statement that the Scots came from the north-west is quite in harmony with the view that their locality was in that part of Ireland next Alban. In the Irish legends we find that the provincial kings of Britain and of Cornwall are credited with an Irish parentage. In the Irish additions to Nennius the following account is given :^ " Sarran after this" (that is, after the decline of the Roman power in Britain, and in the time of St. Martin of Tours, A.D. 371) " assumed the sovereignty of Britain, and established his power over the Saxons and Cruith- neach, and he took to wife the daughter of the king of Alban." That is to say, one daughter of the king of Alban, whom he proposed to marry, eloped with Muredach of the house of Nial to Erin, and bore him four sons, Murcertach mac Erca, and Feradach and Tighemach, and Maian. Sarran married another daughter and had issue, Luirig, Cairneach, Dalian, and Caemhlach. Cairnech, who becomes a Bishop, incites Murcertach mac Erca to kill Cairnech's brother Luirig, who had succeeded his father as king of Alban, which Miu"certach does, and then marries his wife, by whom he had issue, Constantine and Gaedel Ficht, from whom descend the provincial kings of Britain * Saycc's Babylonian Literature, p. 37. ^ Chronicles of the Pictsand Scots, p. 52, from Book of Ballt/mole. 74 SCOTTISH MYTHS. and of Cornwall. Subsequently Mac Erca kills the pro- vincial kings of Ireland and assumes the sovereignty, and Cairnech becomes the first Bishop of clan Neil, and of Tara. This is a church legend, and the cause of Cair- nech's ill-will to Luirig is said to have been because Luirig said he cared more for the power of the pet wild fawn of the Bishop than for his own power, or that of the God he worshipped. Then a miracle occruTed — a wild fawn drew all Luirig's host after it save King Luirig alone ; and Mac Erca, taking the opportunity, murdered him, and carried his head to his brother, who kept it, telling Murcertach that he might eat the flesh, while he retained the bone. " Luirigh '' is an armed man (O'lleiUy), son of Sarran, from sdr, oppression, violence. Sar Sara = a hero (M'Leod and Dewar), and we have the first notice of a pursuit of what is here called a fawn, to which the Albanic king ascribed more power than to the Christian God, and which came into the hands of the church ; and I am inclined to the belief that Luirig's head, Carnech's fawn, and the fawn that drew the host of Alban after it, are all allusions to the same thing. We undoubtedly here find a claim made that Constantine, by whom may most likely be meant Constantine the Great, who was son of Constantius, the conqueror of the party who followed Allectus and Garausius {cario, a hart, a stag, Welsh), by Helena, the offspring, as Eutropius, who wrote A.D. 360, says, of a low marriage, while Orosius, who wrote A.D. 417, calls her the concubine of Constantius. The other son of Murcertach mac Erca, Gaedel Ficht, is simply a Pict or Gaehc Pict, as the Welsh writers call what seem to me to have been Picts and Scots, the Gwyd- del (Gaedal) being pure Irish, and he is the son of an SCOTTISH MYTHS. 75 Irish and Albanic cross-bred man witli an Albanic woman. And this Albanic Irishman, though the son of Muiredach, is called son of Erca or Hercules like a Pict. Now, dismissing for the present Brutus, and the Picts who eight hundred years after the time of EH the High Priest occupied the Orkneys, Partholomus the first, Nimech the second, and a Spanish soldier the third, invader of Ireland, and others from Spain, who " possessed themselves of various parts of Britain," let us examine the names of Nennius's final invaxiers : ^ " Last of all ca,me one Damhoctor (various readings are Hoctor, Clamhoctor, and Elamhoctor) who con- tinueth there, and whose descendants remain there to this day. Istoreth, the son of Istorinus, with his followers held Dalrieta ; Builc had the island Eubonia, and other adjacent places. The sons ot Liethali ob- tained the country of the Dimetae, where is a city caUed Menavia, and the province Guiher and Cet- gueli, which they held till they were expelled from every part of Britain by Cunedda and his sons." This passage Skene says is corrupt, and has been so frora an early period, because the Irish translation of the eleventh century bears evident marks of being an attempt to explain what was obscure to the writer.^ The account here alluded to is as follows : ^ — " After- wards came damh achtor {i.e. a company of eight) with a fleet, and dwelt in Erin, and took possession of a great portion of it. The Firbolg, moreover, took possession of Manand and certain islands in like manner, Ara and Ila and Recca. The children of Gleoin, son of Ercol, took possession of the islands of Orcc, that is Historend, son of Historrim, son of A gam, son of Agathu-si, and were dispersed again from the 1 Nennius, para. 14. ^ Celtic Scotland, vol. L p. 138. 2 Chronicles of tJie Picts and Scots, p. 23. 76 SCOTTISH MYTHS. islands of Orcc ; that is, Cruithne, son of Cinge, son of Luctai, son of Parthai, son of Historech, went and took possession of the north of the island of Britain, and his seven sons divided the land into seven divisions ; and Onbecan (the little one), son of Caith, son of Ci'uithne, took the sovereignty of the seven divisions." Generally we notice here that Nennius settles this " company of eight " in Britain ; and his iintranslatable name Damhoctor goes to prove that his authority for his statement was a Gaelic one. The Irish version of Nennius sets them down in Ireland — Cruithne and his seven sons take possession of the north of Scotland ; Milesius, Luguid, and the six sons of Milesius are another company of eight ; Cunedda's sons who drove out the sons of Liethali were eight in number ; ^ and we will find a certain Ked mac Maghach who had seven brothers, and who is connected with Connaught Ulster and North Wales, also one of a company of eight. Nennius tells us that the descendants of Dam- hoctor remained in Britain. If so, it could scarcely be a settlement in North Wales from whence they were driven out by Maelgwn, the descendant of Cunetha, as Skene supposes. But who is Istoreth or Historeth of the Irish, the father of Parthai, Avhom I take to be Partholanus, and who is here an undoubted Pict, from his descent from Agathirsi, of which we may remember the signification advocated was to the eflfect that it connected the word with the Orpheic or Bacchic worship. v(rTepa = the womb, from vaTepo'? -a -ov, lower, i.e. the lower part of the belly. In Damm's Dictionary, p. 481, we find Kctir/atos = aper, a wild boar, a boar, the same as KaTrpo?. Ka-rrpav, to rut like a sow, is equal to 1 Stevenson's Nennius, para. 62. SCOTTISH MYTHS. / < a.ai\yai.vf.iv, to behave lasciviously, immodestly, and ywT) KaiTpmara, a woman rutting like a sow = 17 acreXyTj?, a wanton or lascivious woman. Hence a male sow used to be sacrificed to Venus, especially among the Argives, with whom there was eoprf] ^AfjtpoStrrjs, a festival of Venus, to. va-TTjpui or •^ vcn-qpia ; us, uos, boar, sow, hog. In Powell's Llhuyd's Cambria, Historinus is called Yscroeth from scroih, Welsh, the womb. This is simply another allusion to the worship of the generative principle, as was the Orphic. Now Nennius says Historeth held Dalrieta, and this is the name of the part of Ireland next Dalaraidhe from which came the first Scottish colony to inhabit that part of Argyllshire Hkewise called Dalrieta. Builc in Eubonia (the Isle of Man), and the Fir- bolg in Manand, Islay, and Arran, are evidently in- tended for the same people. Builc is called Morcant, and in Scotland there is a clan Morgand, that is, the Mac Kays ; and the little son of Caith, we saw, took the sovereignty over all the seven divisions of the settlement in the north of Alban, from the Orkneys, and he was a descendant of Historech. The Firbolg were driven out of Ireland by Cormac Ullfata, a translation of whose name is Comiac long hand, and we have the authority of Orosius who wrote in the fifth century^ for the island of Man being inhabited by the Scotic nation, (it is curious that Manx is to this day a nearer dialect to Scottish than Irish Gaelic is) ; and we will find that the principal driver-out of Scots from Dunetia, one of the sons of Cunedda, was a Qaswallan long hand who drove out the sons of Liethali, also called the sons of Bethoun, from Dunetia, these sons of Cunedda com- ing from Manand in Lothian. ' Quoted, Four Ancienl Booka of Wales, voL L p. 84. 78 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Does it not bear on tlie face of it that all these imaginary persons are merely the remains of a common tradition, and that, so far as they represent a people, it is a people sprung from a common stock ? What is the account we have of Cunedda 1 He and his sons came from Manau Guotodin in the north' — which Skene defines for us as follows.^ It was bounded on the west by a line drawn from Slamannan Moor to the Pentland Hills, including the great moor formerly called Caldover Moor (hence the Dobhar and laxdohhar from whence came the Tuatha de Danaans), consisting of the modern west, mid, and east Calder, and the paiishes of Linhthgow, Bathgate, and Whit- burn in Linlithgowshire. It probably also included that part of the range of the Pentlands called Old Pentland Moor, till it came down on the North Esk, which foiTued its eastern boundary to the sea. At the point called Queensferry it approaches within a short distance of the opposite coast, and the name of Clackmannan on the northern shore indicates that that district also belonged to it. This district was then the country from which came the Tuatha de Danaans and also the Cat vreith. The name Manau is also apphed to the Isle of Man, being in fact the Welsh name for Man. Cunedda, Cuneda, Skene says, retired behind the southern wall in A.D. 410 from Manaud, the date being calculated from what Nennius tells us of him ; and Skene adds that the term "his sons" is used loosely to signify his descendants. In the Welsh genealogies his descent is from a certain Brithguein, mongrel or spotted, which makes him a Pict, who was descended of Beli Mawr/ in the genealogies annexed ' Nennius, para. 62. - Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 91. ^ Ibid. vol. i. p. 8-1. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 79 to the Harleian MS. of Nennius, wiitten a.d. 977/ lie is said to liave been son of Patern, son of Tacit, son of Cein. Ausonius, A.D. 380, thus addresses a Professor of Literature at Burdigala (Bordeaux) : — " Thou Bagocassis (bag, a little vessel, a boat, qwaz, servant, Aremoric, = Cas, Cos, in Cospatrick), sprung from the stock of the Druids, if the report does not deceive truth, that the race was consecrated from the temple of the leader Belenus, and thence your names to thee of Patera ; thus the mystic ApoUinares name their servants." " Nor shall I say nothing of the old man named Phcebitius (Phoebus, Apollo), who, as warden of Belenus, brought thence no assistance but as it pleased (him ?), sprung from the stock of the Druids of the Aremoric race."^ A patera is a drinking vessel, saucer-shaped, with or without a handle. Cuneda was thus supposed to be connected with a religious rite ; and Beh Mawr is most probably Belenus the god, from whose fane assistance was brought, at the will, apparently, of the attendant priest. In Breton we find hellennik or pellennik is a sprig, a straw, a fetu, of which the expression, " tirer au court fetu," which means to draw cuts or lots, we have a hint as to the assistance the priest brought from Belenus. Beli, in Aremoric, is power, authority, sovereignty. The name Patarus, connected with the Thracians, appears in Eustathius, who, alluding to an irruption of the Cimmerii into Asia, according to Herodotus about a century after the Trojan war, tells us "that not only the Migri and Phryges, but also the Thracians, went out of Europe ' Four Ancifnt BooTcs of Wales, voL i. p. 129. 2 Ausonius, Prof. 4, 10, quoted by Davies, vol. i. p. 218. 80 SCOTTISH MYTHS. into Asia, with Patarus, their leader, when the Cim- merii overran Asia.^ Tacit needs but the Latin termination, I should think, to speak for itself as connected with the " Sgal Balbh" or "mute bard," " E.i Cruithentuaith acus Manaind," king of Albanic Pictland, and Manand,^ of the Booh of Ballymote. Cein may possibly have to do with the root of the Welsh word ceinidA, a singer, chanter, or ceincio, to branch out or ramify. In the Four Ancient Books of Wales, Cunedda appears as "to be admired in the tumult with 900 horse," " pre-eminent before the furrow and the sod," and "there was trembling from fear of Cunedda the burner, in Caer Weir and Caer LHwelydd." These cities are Durham and Carhsle, behind either end of the south wall. The writer evidently did not consider Cunedda's retirement behind the wall as an unmixed blessing, else why the trerabhng for fear of him in these towns ? whUe the numbers of his cavalry point to his heading a force of Roman auxdiaiies, as pointed out by Skene. The name Tacit suggests Tacitus, Avhich again suggests Agricola, whose first name, Cnaeus, re- quires little ingenuity to make it Cunaethus, and the priestly connection reminds us that " the pontificate was added to his (Agi-icola's) other dignities," on his appointment to the governorship of Britain. I certainly agi-ee in the belief of the occupation of the country below the south wall by the so-called sons of Cunedda, and I would connect these people with the Tungrians, of whom we have an altar found at Polmont, dedicated to Hercules,' and another at ' Davies, Celtic Research, vol. L p. 144. ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales, rol. L j). 79. ■' Wright, Cdi, Roman, and Saxon, p. 325. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 81 Cramond, in tte very centre of Manaud, dedicated to the mothers of Alatei-va and of the fields ; ^ but I believe they possessed themselves of the southern country, being descendants of Roman soldiers cer- tainly, but appearing in Roman history as Picts. The principal of his descendants we have to deal with are, however, not his eight sons who divided .Wales into eight provinces, but Mailcun and Cas- wallan, respectively kings, apparently, of North and South Wales. It is in connection with Mailcun that Nennius gives the particulars by which the date of Cunedda is fixed. ^ " The great king Mailcun reigned among the Britons in the district of Guenedota, because his atavus Cunedda had come with his sons, eight in number, from the left-hand part, i.e. from the country that is called Manau Guotodin, one hundred and forty-six years before Mailcun reigned, and expelled the Scots with much slaughter from these countries." The reign of Mailcun was during the time of five bards, mentioned by name, including Aneurin and Tahessin. Now, as atavus represents not only a great-great- grandfather, which it does specifically, but also in general a remote ancestor, I suggest that Nennius may, not improbably, have fixed a date for himself by computation from a source unknown to us, and that, whatever part the eight sons and Cunedda themselves have played, it is as likely to have been as primary leaders long before the period Nennius fixes ; and, in fact, it may simply represent the same events as some parts of the Arthurian legend. In the Life of St. Kentigem, written by Joceline of Fm-ness in the twelfth century — a life of a saint ' Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 347. ' Xennius, para. G2. F i'S SCOTTISH MYTHS. who, I believe, never existed iu flesh and blood, — we find a Caswallan as king of Dimetia, from whom Kentigern received the right of building the church of Llan Elwy, while Mailcun, who also gets the credit of the gift, is represented as coming in fierce anger, and ordering the stoppage of the work. The Caswallan here mentioned is Caswallan Lawhir or " long hand," who drove the Scots out of Wales, as Cormac Ulfada, long arm, drove the Firbolg out of Ulster. The name Caswallaun is undoubtedly the same as the Cassivellaunus of Caesar. The latter must have been of Belgic descent. The Velauni were a tribe in Gaul, while Dion Cassius tells us of the KaroveXXavoL in Britain, the spelling oveXkavoc being in the same relation to Velauni as the Greek ovarfjs to the Latin Vates. Nennius tells us that the sons of Lietliali obtained the country of the Dimetae, and the mean- ing of Liethali is of interest. Hesychius' informs us that a sacrifice was offered to Aphrodite (Venus), designated by the significant name of Kapiroats = en- joyment, advantage, from KapTToa, I form fruit {Kapvos), possess, enjoy, render fruitful, and that a festival in her honour was called 6v\Xa. @vXXa simifies branches or leafage, says Lajard, and for this reason it should perhaps be read cf)vXXa ; 6aXXo<;, -ov, branch, sprout, leaves ; 66\os, -eo?, a sprout, a branch, descendant ; Gram. Celt. ji. 7. 90 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Welsh, and in Aremoric, Legonidec gives us Mael as an obsolete word for a soldier. Llaelgwn = the soldier or servant of the bowl. And it is ciuious that the principal story, in the apocryphal life of Gildas, is his taking a wonderful bell which he had brought from Ireland to Rome, but which the Holy Father made him take back to Britain, which he did the more readily, we may believe, as it was speechless till put into the hands of the Bishop of Nant«irvan, the place originally granted by Caswallan and Maelgwn to St. Kentigern for his monastery, according to Joceline. Nant, a dingle, carfen, a cup, bowl (Spurrell). Malgo, which I suppose to be the same name, seems subsequently to have become common in Wales, but in the times of which we speak it occurs in other places more nearly in the form in which it occurs in Nennius. Nennius himself tells us that A.u. 447, a hundred years before Mailcun, " ra these days St. Patrick was a captive among the Scots, and his master's name was IMUcho, to whom he was a swine- herd seven years." ^ Mailcon, says Skene, is the geni- tive form of Mailcu, and is the same name as Milchu. Miolcu, Irish Milgi, is a greyhound, and such is, I believe, the accepted meaning of the name. When Columba went to Scotland, in the year 565, about the time ascribed to the reign of Maelgwn, Bede tells us it was in the '"' ninth year of Bridius, who was the son of Mailochon, and the powerful king of the Pictish nation." Ulster was the district in which the Scottish King Hved who was Patrick's master, and I think there can be little doubt as to all the bearers of the name Maelgwn, Meilochon, Miolchu having been probably of Pictish origin. The significance of the upright stones found so ' Nennius, para. 50. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 91 plentifully in this and other countries has been a sub- ject of much discussion, and it is evident that they have been erected for very various purposes. There can however be no doubt that a cone has long been a priapic symbol, in fact, from the earliest times of which we have any record, in the most ancient civilisa- tions. Tacitus tells us ^ of the Paphian Venus that " the statue bears no resemblance to the human form ; it is round throughout, broad at one end, and gradu- ally tapering to a narrow span at the other, hke a goal." It was a stone pinnacle. Like this, a conical stone represented Artemis, Diana, and others ; ^ and the cone of Astarte, the Phoenician Venus, was repre- sented as crowned.^ The cone in the systems of Venus and Mithra was the emblem of the active principle of generation, that of Venus Mylitta being sprinkled with stars.* Gregory of Tours, writing in the end of the sixth century, testifies to there being worshippers of Venus in Gaul at that time, and most probably also in- Britain. There is undoubted evidence of the worship of Mithra in Britain, as in most of the other places to which the Romans carried their arms. To him, de- scribed as " deus est petra natus," ' were dedicated caves, grottoes, and springs, the grotto being " the image of the world as created by hiin " — being thus like the Round Table which was made by Merlin, "in token of the roundness of the world." ^ The mysteries of his worship were to be taught " by the ear alone," and washings, baptism, sacrifices, and communion formed a great part of the worship. The initiated votary was called a soldier of Mithra, and it is a 1 Hlftort/, B. ii. t. 3. - Lajard's Venug, p. 48. ^ Ibid. p. 64. ' Lajard's Venus, p. 69. ' Lajard's Mithra, pp. 9S, 507. ^ Cox and Jones' Popular Bomances, p. 77. 92 SCOTTISH MYTHS. remarkable coincidence that in the earliest Christian Brito-Celtic stories, notably Adamnan's St. Columba, the favourite title of the Scotic priest was " Christi miles," a soldier of Christ. In many of the Mithraic sculptures a patera, or water vessel, saucer, represents a spring, or the humid principle, the passive power of generation, placed in the grotto, the symbol of the created world. Of these grottoes, there was one in the Capitol at Rome, one has been found at Housesteads on the south wall, there seems to have been one at Leicester, said to have been called after Lear, who has a son of note in Welsh, IiTsh, and Scottish tradition called Mananan, or Mana^yddan. The date of the introduction of this cult us into the Roman Empii-e was at the time of Pompey's expedi- tion against the Cicihan pirates, about 70 years B.C., shortly before the battle of Pharsalia. However much or little cause there may have been for the accusation of obscene practices in this cultus, there can be no doubt as to the principles it originally inculcated being of a moral and elevating character, specially teaching the observance of a strict chastity. Mithra, in the Roman cultus, was called " Deus invictiis solis." Mile- sius, which I have already mentioned as a derivative of the Latin miles, a soldier, appears also as GoUamh, — the onh has somewhat the sound of a nasal u ; and \\-liile the one name reminds us of the title of " soldier," used to denote what Freemasons call a degree in the Mithraic scale, Goulou, older Goulaou, signifying light in the Aremoric, seems to suggest a meaning for the other name of the Irish invader, connected with the unconquered sun-god. The Lugaid and Lug, of which we have already seen instances connected with the MUeaians, and specially with the Tuatha de Danaans, SCOTTISH MYTHS. 93 if we go to the Greek, may be connected with bright light, as XvKTjyevri^, hght-producing ; or simply with the Latin lux, light ; while it signifies swift in Gaelic, inythdra in Welsh, signifying also swiftness I There is another curious fact which one may be allowed to beUeve shows a connection between things so remote from one another as the possible beliefs of our fore- fathers and the Parsee sun-worship. These distin- guish between several heavens in which souls are put according to the relative merit of their conduct during life. That of the sun called Korschid-pae is the highest. In Welsh, a supreme seat, a throne, a court of justice is called Gorsedd, and Mithra was the power wliich judged the actions of souls, and rewarded them according to their merits ; and again, afrin, which is, I understand, the Parsee word for an act of worship, closely resembles the Gaelic word aifrinn signifying the Mass. I must leave it to scholars to settle whether or not these are mere coincidences ; as to the fact of a Mithraic worshij) having been common to both people there can be no doubt. Now it is quite certain that, though Simon Breac, the Nemidean, gets the credit of having caught the celebrated Lia Fail on the fluke of his anchor, and the anchor is the symbol of hfe, it was the Tuatha de Danaans who took it with them to Ireland, and that must have been from Manand, as already stated. The most detailed notice of the Lia Fad occurs in the BaUe an Scad, and is quoted at length in O'Curry's Mate- o-ials} Shortly, it is this : — Conn, an Irish king, is walking with his Druids and poets when he puts his foot on a stone which sounded, " screamed," under his foot. Conn asks of his Druids the name of the stone, what ' p. G17. 94 SCOTTISH JtYTHS. its screaming meant, and where it came from. After fiftyr-three days, the Druids tell him that Fed is the name of the stone, that it came from the island of Foal, that it was in Temair {i.e. Tara) of the Island of •Fal it was set up, and that in the land of Tailtin it shall abide for ever ; and, among other things, that the number of screams was the number of kings of Conn's race that should succeed him. " As they Avere there after this they saw a great mist all round, so that they knew not where they went, from the greatness of the darkness wliich had come, and they heard the noise of a horseman approaching them." " It would be a great grief to us," said Conn, " if we should be carried into an unknown country." After this, the horseman let fly three throws (of a spear) at them, and the last throw came with greater velocity than the first throw. " It is the wounding of a king indeed," said the Druid, " who ever shoots at Conn in Temah." The horseman then desisted from the throAving, and came to them, and bade welcome to Conn, and he took them with hun to his house. They went forward then tUl they entered a beautifid plain. " And they saw a kingly rath, and a golden tree at its door ; and they saw a splendid house in it, under a roof-tree of Fiadruine ; thirty feet was its length. They then went into the house, and they saw a young woman in the house with a golden diadem upon her head ; a silver kieA'e with hoops of gold by her, and it fuU of red ale, a golden can on its edge, a golden cup at its mouth. They saw the Seal (poet) himself in the house before them in his king's seat. There was never found in Temaii- a man of his great size, nor of his comehness, for the beauty of his form, the wonderfulness of his face. He spoke to them, and said to them, ' I am not a Seal indeed, and I reveal to thee part of my mystery and my SCOTTISH MYTHS. 95 renown. It is after death I have come, and I am of the race of Adam. Lug, son of Edlenn, son of Tighern- mas, is my name.' " They then proceed to toast his successors, the first of whom was Art, " a man of three shouts." Conn is, I consider, simply the gion of the Welsh, and it seems to appear in the Irish word escon, a water-bucket, given in O'lleilly as the equivalent of the word escra, the Graehc of what is translated can, the golden can of the above legend. Conn then stood on a stone, and sounds were emitted prophesying as to the kings who should come after him in Ireland. In Welsh, clock is a bell, represented by clog in Irish. In Welsh, clog is a stone, represented by clock in Irish. In the Breton, kloc'k seems almost as if it re- presented an intermediate sound. The confounding of the different words most likely assisted in forming the belief that a stone made sounds. In Welsh, as in Aremoric, maen is the usual word for a stone, appar- ently the only one in the latter dialect, and it may be that the misconception has arisen in introducing the word signifying a bell, which I would fancy is a German word, into the Gaelic. This, however, is merely a guess. Beyond this point we have no further account of a stone in the story, unless indirectly in the allusions to the seat of the Seal, that is, of the bard who was not a bard, as he states himself, or to the golden-crowned young woman, who may have been a Paphian Venus. It is, I think, probable that the Island of Foal is the Island of Man, some of the reasons for which I give subsequently (p. 96). O'Curry tells us^ that Falga > Mata-iahs, p. 588. 96 SCOTTISH MYTHS. was, he believes, an old name for the Isle of Man, and its siege, of which there is an ancient account extant, was by the men of Ulster with Cuchulain as their leader. If we might accept the word /baZ as Manx, it would translate literally at this day, the " Island of the wall," Innys voal. We find an island with a wall of fire in Highland story ^ connected with a " Knight of the Sword," and a " Knight of the Cairn," assisted by a " Son of Spring," whose father is a porter who carries his son over a river and sets him down in the chair that was at the king's shoulder. The " ring of fire " is well known in Manx tra- dition, and we even find some existing evidence of what may have caused it to be said that the Isle of Man was so defended, if we may accept the statement that there are fortlets or beacon stations^ similar to the strengths of the first peoples in Scotland and Ireland, so situated as to complete a chain from north to south. We know that water was one of the symbols of generation, and was so employed both in Phallic and in Mithraic worship. The Phallus is often surrounded by a hollow containing water or a ring representing the female organ of generation ; thus the expression " Island of FaP' might represent a Phallic emblem so situated. We are also told that bathing, in Mithraic as well as some obscene forms of A^'orship, was a. part of the ceremonial, and thus pouring water over the Lin- gum has been, and is, a symbohc act of worship. The word for bathing in Gaelic, ya/'cadh, curiously enough seems to have a reference to this, and it is a part of the tradition of St. Fillan that he spent the first year of his life in a pool of water. Fonts and hollow basins ' Campbell, Tales, vol. ii. p. 441. 2 Train, Isle of Man, vol. i. y. 274. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 97 of a larger size than those to wliich the name font is usually applied, are common, especially in Ire- land ; we find them cut in stone on Innismurry off the coast of Sligo, and also in Senach's Island,^ the latter is accompanied by a small incised cross ; these may have been Christian, but there are others of a size more adapted for bathing to be found in localities certainly not Christian. In each of the three chambers in the interior of the mound at New Grange, in Ireland, Fergusson^ tells us, stands a shallow stone basin of oval form, three feet three by three feet six or seven inches across, and six to nine inches deep. In the great tumulus on the Boyne is a basin much larger, being five feet by three ; and in the Carn he calls " Cau-n L " at Lough Crew, is also one of which he gives a drawing. These monuments are ascribed to the Tuatha de Danaans. The common name for the old fonts is hallan, and we find in Scot- land an instance of a connection between an ancient bell and such a ballan. In the church at Inch, Kin- gussie, Inverness-shire, is an old bell, ascribed to St. Adamnan, and of the same make as St. Fillan's, and in the window sill on which the bell stands is cut a " ballan." ^ In Gaelic " the beU of the tub " might be written clog bhallain. The hh is equivalent in sound to the letter v. and this would make it vallain, clog vallain phonetically. There is no v in Gaelic, f taking its place ; the name then would thus become clog fallain. Bal signifies, in Aremoric, a bucket, and is evidently connected with hoi in Welsh, signifying also a paunch, but giving us in composition such words as prenvol, — theca lignea, says Zeuss ; prenfol, a wooden box, says Spurrell. 1 Lord Dunraven, voL i. pp. 39, 47. 2 liude Stone Monuments, pp. 204, 208, 216. 3 Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1879-SO, p. 108. G 98 SCOTTISH MYTHS. If oue could apply the term "ballan" to such a thing as the bell of St. Fillan, it is noteworthy that in the Arthurian Romance, the Knight Balin, who has a brother Balan, who dies on the same day as himself, is caUed the " Knidit of the Two Swords." ^ If the O sword of the Scythian sword-worship of Herodotus was only one of the forms of worship assumed by the Hindu Linga,' so here the swords m.ay be identical with the serpents of the handle of the sword of Arthur. Bal in Welsh is a peak or prominence. Eiry y _/(?.? = the snow of the peak. Now we saw that Lug was the name of the Knight of the Lia Fail. Louher is old Welsh for lleufer, splendour, from Jou, light, which is Hi, colour — splen- dor in the Wurzburg Codex.^ Lii y fdl, then, might signify the splendour of the ijlnnacle. Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia, a Greek writer of the latter part of the fourth century, applies the term Avy^ = splen- dour, to the supreme god of the Persians, i.e. Mithra,* and therefore I conclude that the idea of swiftness which appears as imphed in the name Lug is a mean- ing secondary in this case to " brightness." Lhiaght is used for a cave in the Manx Bible,^ while Ihiach is their form of lia. a large stone, also signifying a " mass of metal." Fad is also translated a ^vi-eath in Irish, for which the Manx use the term ballan, and the connection of these terms with a priapic worehip is made clear by what St. Augustine tells us, while declaiming against the open obscenities of the Roman festival of the Liber- . aha, at which an enormous phallus was carried on a ' Popular liomanceif of the ithldle. Ages, p. 9. - Artian Alytliolcji/. vol. ii. p. 311. 2 OrammiUica Ci-llica, p. 21. * Lajard's Venus, p. 94. ' G-euesis xxv. 9. " Payne Knight, ]<. 129. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 99 magnificent chariot into the middle of the pubUc place of the town, where the most respectable matron ad- vanced and hung a tvreath of flowers on the obscene figure. We have seen that it was in Temar (Tara) this wonderful stone was set up, and the place called " Island of Fail " is identified with Ireland, the land of " TaQtin " being the locaHty of those festivities instituted by the leader of the Tuatha de Danaans, called Lztghsiid, in honour of the queen of the last of the Firbolg, the Lughnasa or Lammas festivals. But, to return to Conn and the Knight of the Lia Fail, whom we saw surrounded by mist. We have seen that the Mithraic grotto represented the world made by Mithra. In GraeUc ce is the world, ceide a hillock, cai a house, cae an enclosure ; kay in Manx is mist, ceo in Gaelic. In the raths, or enclosed circular forts, as they are beheved to have been, as well as in the raised tumuli, we generally find undergro^^nd chambers a frequent locality for Oghum inscriptions, having a great iden- tity with the Etruscan souterrains, according to Brash. " These crypts are excavated within the area enclosed by the interior rampart, and consist of one or more chambers, sometimes circular or oval in plan, some- times square or rectangular, connected together by low galleries."^ The Irish peasantry refer these to pagan times, and beheve them to be the residences of fames, sidhecm. The darkness in which the Druids and Conn found themselves was one of those mistexiovis chambers. They hear a horseman approaching. If it be a fatal objection to my theories, it is nevertheless true that those chambers ai-e not capable of containing a horse- ^ Brash's Ogham Monuriiejits, p. 103. 100 SCOTTISH MYTHS. man as a rule ; but the symbolic character of this part of the lecrend that alludes to a horseman will be sub- sequently considered. Now, the remark which Conn makes is somewhat strange. He does not say that he was in fear of his life, but that he should be " carried away to a strange land " by a single horseman, and several Druids and poets with him. • We will see after- wards that he was supposed to have led rather a rest- less life, as his name, " Conn of a hundred fights," would indicate, though, with so much military experi- ence, he might have been more sceptical of the powers of one man. The horseman makes three throws at him, and O'Curry, to explain this, interpolates " of a spear." The word urchair signifies a throw, a fling, a cast, it might be of a spear, an arrow, a stone ; but in connection with the number three, we are told sub- sequently that Art, that is the same name as Arthur, the first king of Conn's line, was " a man of three shouts." The horseman "threw his tongue," and is thus supposed to have saluted Conn. They now enter the rath, it says, at the door of which was a golden tree. Is this what Lajard describes as on an Asiatic cylinder, " a bush of a conventional form, and of nine branches, called the horn, qualified as the tree of Life in the Zend Avesta,^ and which has been mistaken '■'for rows of phalU"?^ and the illustration certainly gives ample ground for the sujjposition. In the Ossianic Society's Publications, vol. iii. p. 213, we have a tale how Cormac, the son of Art, got " a glittering fairy branch with nine apples of red gold on it," in exchange for his wife, his son, and his daughter, from Mananan ; and apples and the tree of Life have a connection otherwise which needs no recalling by quotation. ' Laj.irii'a M'Ukra, p. 2C2. ^ Lajard's Veniis, j). 67. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 101 In this enclosure they find a house with a roof- tree {carfan, a ridge, beam ; carfen, a bowl, — Welsh ; vide cariv, infra) of "bright" vaetal, Jindruine {fin, bright, do rinneadh, made ?), and here were the bowls and ale for a banquet ; cae, a feast, and the golden-crowned woman, and the Seal who i-evealed "part of his mystery." Now the Seal's name was Lug = lugh, swift; mythdra (Welsh), swiftness; the son of Edlend ; ead, knowledge (O'Pteilly) ; Ian, full ; in composition, perfection. The name Edlend is often written Ceithlenn [kelen, instruction, Aremoric) son of Tighermas, the beautiful Lord. Lug says he is " of the race of Adam." Among ancient sects the Adamiani or Adamites proscribed marriage, and held that the most perfect innocence was consistent only with the community of women. They assembled naked in caverns for their conventicles.^ The story closes by informing us that the drinking vessels remained with Conn. Clearly so, as he was the vessel himself To the best of my behef, this is simply a vague account of the initiation into mysteries either purely Mithraic, or partaking of a mixture of the Bacchic. O'Reilly gives, as one of the names of Teamhar, Connailt = Conn's house. On the sculptui-ed stones of Scotland a favoui'ite subject is astag-himt. The wor- shippers of Mithra, on whom chastity and continence were inculcated as virtues, seem to have allegorised all their tenets, and so the stag was said to be an animal to be hunted down, as it was of a salacious nature, while the lion, as having but one mate, was an example of continence. Thus on IMithraic sculptinres a stag is represented as being torn by a lion — carw, a stag in Welsh ; earn, to love ; cane amare, hbidinose amare. 1 Payne Kniglit, r- 172. 102 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Ill the Mabinogion.,^ in tlie tale of tlie " Lady oi the Fountain," Kynon describes having met a black man, who, with an iron club, sti-uck a stag a great blow, so that it brayed vehemently, and divers sorts of animals in great multitudes, including serpents, drao-ons, and others, came and bowed their heads to him, and did obeisance to hmi, as vassaLs to their lord. The black striker was, I suppose, a " Maurus, not falsely called a Pict," and the stag was the equivalent of a Lia Fail. The Welsh word for hray is dyrnawt, and this is the same name (Diwrnach) as is applied in another Mabinogi to the keeper of the caldron, and steward, maor, of Odgar, son of Aed, king of Ireland. It is also, in all probability, the same as Diarmiid, who ran away with Graiime [grain, loathing, reproach), the wife of Finn mac Cuil (bright son of the private place ; cuil, a closet, a private place). The close resemblance of the Fingalian Diarmid to the bell of St. Fillan is very clear from the following ;- — There was a thing that they used to call sugh seirc, in the face of the man, and there was a helmet which lie must not lift, because there was no woman that saw the sugh seirc that would not fall in love with him, and Diarmid knew that he had these powers. One day he was staying at home, expecting that no one would see him, he gave a hft to his helmet, and Graidne, the daughter of the king of the province of Ulster, saw Diarmid. She could not have the warm soul in her, but she would go ^vith Diarmid. This mark, here called sugh scire, is called commonly hall scirc.^ Sugh means juice — it is also applied to juicy fruit, brambles ; hall is a spot or mark — a limb, the mem- brum virile — seirc, is of love — that is, lascivious love. ' ^"oI. i. p. 47. " Campbell's Hifjliland Tales, vol. iiL p. 7S. ^ Ibid. vol. iii. p. 39. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 103 Grainne was daughter of Cormac, son of Art, son of Coim of the hundred fights. In this case, we see the phalHc head was kept covered. In Cymric tradition, the instructor of Arthur is called Uthyr Pendragon. He appears in the Four Ancient Books of Wales. "Madawq son of Uthyr, the joy of the wall,"^ connects him with the wall in a marked manner. In his death-song, in which he is styled "Uthyr Pen," a poem which Skene beheves to be only an imitation of Taliessin, he is called Gorlassar, translated " excessively azure." Davies has given us a translation of this in his Celtic Research, and I have taken his translation in preference to Skene's in the Four Ancient Books of Wales, because it seems to me generally more intelligible, and more in accordance with the deductions I had drawn from other Celtic ti-aditions.* The text given in both cases does not, as far as I can see, differ essentially. The poem says of Uthyr — . " Am not I a ' protecting prince ' in darkness, to him who presents my form at both ends of the basket 1" After recounting the instances of his warlike prowess, it says : " Did not I give to Henpen (the ancient chief) the tremendous sword of the enchanter ? Did I not perform the rites of purification when Hearndor (iron door) moved with toil to the top of the hiE ? " The world had no existence were it not for my progeny." " My voice has recited the death-song, wliere the mound representing the world is constructed of stonework." Titer in Latin signifies a bladder, a bottle or bag of leather — uterus, the womb. Bolg-mergach, in the Wiirzburg Codex = iite?' rvgatus, a wi-inkled leathern bottle. ' Four Ancient Boots of Woks, vol. i. p. 226. ^ CeUk Kei>tarch, voL ii. p 559 ; Four Ancienl Boots of Wales, vol. i. ]i. 297. 10-t SCOTTISH MYTHS. Ovdap, in Greek — a teat, breast, fertility. Lajard, quoting Pausanias, tells lis that the young priestess of the rites of Aphrodite, who served for one year, was called " loutrophore," after tlie cup given by that goddess to Dionysos, so important was the part it played in the secret worship of Venus at Sicyone, in the Peloponnesus. Aovrqp, Avashiag-ewer, bath ; Xvdpov, pollution ; XovcD, I wash the whole body. The priests of Cocytto were called Baptae, because they considered washing as a complete purification after all their lascivious rites, i^a^cadh, bathing. £al is a bucket in Aremoric, bed, a peak in Welsh, balok, a bucket in Aremoric ; hcdog, a protection pinnacle, in Welsh. The word Davies translates "protecting prince," is more coiTectly leader, guide, "Tywysog;" ijju'i/srf is a procession, and though at best the meaning is very obscure, "the thing that presents his form at both ends,'' that is something representing fertility, alludes to what is clearly of the same appearance as FUlan's Bell. The word katceJl, translated basket, is I believe a false reading, and represents possibly a word obsolete now from ca/ael, to grasp, to hold. If this is so, I think Uthyr's identity is nearly certainly established. The Greek word ekeva, a basket, said by grammarians to have been written with a digamma, the Latin F is Fekeva, closely resembling the Scottish St. Fillan's name. Who can say that it is, or is not, from some Greek or Greek- tinctured source, the myth we are considering came ? These baskets were used to cany the sacred utensils at the feast of the Brauronian Artemis — worshipped with human sacrifices — and a phalhc goddess from her name Orthia. By 'EXem) (Helen) Paris is said to have had a son SCOTTISH MYTHS. 105 Bunicus or Bunochus, a name like the word bun — bunnock before ixientioned. Following the extracts from Davies, Henpen is, I suppose, Arthur who suc- ceeded to the kingdom, Geoffrey of Monmouth tells us, by right of drawing a sword from a stone ; Ian, a vessel, cup ; also a sword-blade. Hearndor is here the sun. Euan, Haul, is the sun in Welsh, while the introducer of agriculture, and their first patriarch, according to the Triads, is Hu — the Hu mor, I have no doubt, of the Firbolg. In the worship of Mylitta and Mithra, the two " doors " for the ascent and descent of souls were the sun and moon. Heulog in Welsh is sunny ; Heulor, half a door ; Heulorsaf, the solstice. Sidus is a star in Latin, plural sidera. 'ZiSrjpo'; is iron in Greek ; and I take it there is some confusion between the ii-on door, and the door of the stars. It is certain that Iron-door climbing to the top of the hill alludes to the summer solstice. Mid- summer's day — the feast of St. John — Ian, John. The allusion to "progeny" I take to be phallic; but that allusion to his voice reciting " the death- song in the stone-constructed mound representing the world " is purely Mithraic, and seems a very hkely allusion to a vessel capable of producing sound. So much for his appearance in poetry, and we will fiind that Geoffrey of Monmouth's prose romance to a considerable extent supports the propositions above advanced. Here Uthyr is called Pendragon — the dragon- headed. He is brother to the King, and his first undertaking is to bring over from Ireland the stones of Stonehenge, possessed of magic virtues, available to those who, washing these stones with water, washed themselves in the water so used. These were defended by Gillomanius (gille a servant, lad, maen a stone). 106 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Him Uthyr defeats, and with the assistance of Merlin , the bard and enchanter, removes his prize to England. He afterwards becomes King, and sails round the Scots, which, in Geoffrey's day, meant Alban, and he dies from drinking the water of a favourite spring, which, to give probability to the story, Geoffrey says was poisoned by the Saxons. We have seen that if Uthyr was Conn before he was Uthyr, he had been accustomed to stronger potations than spring-water. It was on Uthyr 's death that Arthur drew the sword from the stone. In this account we see how tradition retained in memory the bathmg of the stones in water, and in the poetry we were told that these lustrations Uthyr himself performed. Draig, Owen says, is a generative principle or pro- creation — a fiery serpent.^ It is without doubt that serpents, and water animals, and the fabulous griffin, have represented for unknown ages the active principle of generation. Payne Knight gives an illustration from a sculptured monument found at Nimes, of a griffin winged and footed, of which the body is a large phallus, while round the neck of this griffin are sus- pended two bells. This is not by any means the only phallus which takes this form, as it is exceedingly common, but it is the most striking evidence of what was the significance of this fabulous animal ; and there can be little doubt that the expression used regarding the Mithraic ceremony at which "ostenderunt gryphos," and which took place in April, a month dedicated to Venus and Mithra, and during which initiation into the mysteries was most common,^ meant the exhibition of those extraordinary symbols. Hence, I believe, the name Pendragon. It was for Uther that Merlin con- ' Davies, Cel/ic Research, vol. ii. p. 437. ' Lajard's Mithra, p. 396. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 107 structed the " Round Table," at which a vacant place was left for the Sangreal.^ Now Gildas calls Maglo- cunus the "Dragon of the island," and it is curious to find that, while he came from the Lothians, Manand, by descent, if we accept him and Mailcun as the same person, we find traditional evidence of a possible con- nection with the Isle of Man. This evidence almost entirely depends upon traditions of an unsatisfactory description, but can scarcely be passed over unnoticed. In the Ossianic Society, vol. ii. page 39, we have a Latin interlinear note from the old tale " Ochtar Gaedhal " the eight Gael, which I quote in fuU. " Gulinus was indeed Neptune, for Lir is the Irish or Phoenician name of Neptune, and the same as the sea ; so Gullinus was the other name for Lir, the god of the sea, just as Tiobal was the goddess of the sea. For she appeared to Conchobar Mac Nessa, afterwards King of Ulster, in the form of a very beautifid woman, when by the decree of the oracle, whose name was clochuir, i.e. the stone of the sun, which at that time was very celebrated in these parts, he was going to Man, to a certain Gullinus, in order that he miglit give him di-uidical huadha for his shield and arms. Gullinus fashioned the image of Tiobal on his shield, and it had many huadha, according to the old Irish authors." Conn, or, as he is here called, Conchobar, warned by an oracle, which is most likely clog oir, the yellow or golden beU, connected with the stone of the sun, gets from Man a shield, a protection, on which was fashioned this " Tiobal," which may be composed of Dia god, and bal the prominence, Veniis ; or ball, not imlikely the membrum virile. This possessed many magic powers, " buadha." ' Popular Romances of Middle Ages, p. 121. 108 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Gulinus's name is evidently of the same significa- tion with the first part of the name of the priapic Freyi-'s "Golden-bristled" boar Gulinbursti, whQe with the name Tiobal may be compared the Scotch word theivil, a stirring stick for porridge, etc. Train ^ quotes a tradition how one Melinus or Mac Lea was a magician in the island in the time of St. Patrick, and, aspiring to the reputation of a god, did fly in the au% but came fluttering to the groimd at St. Patrick's feet. He tells us further, that on the Pollock (Balog ?) rock, a small island at the mouth of Douglas hai'bour, was a "Pictish" (?) tower, delineated in Blaeu's map of the island published in 1658. In this island tradition said that the son of Boadicea was concealed after her death, when pursued by the Romans. "There is certainly a very strong secret apartment under ground in it, having no passage to it but by a hole covered by a large stone, and is called to this day the Great Man's Chamber." ^ Was this a Mithraicum ? ^Yliether the name Boadicea has anything to do with huadha of Conn's shield I shall not venture to say. There is, however, a custom, at least it was in the island till very lately, which connects the Dragon with Tiobal. DreacUiain, Brcathan, is a wren in Scottish Gaelic, "n^hich Nicolson, in his lately published Proverbs, spells dreaglian, while dreagan is a dragon. In the Isle of Man on St. Stephen's day (Steain Stephen who was stoned), they had a habit of hunting the Avi"en, drean in Manx, which was supposed to represent a female fairy, possibly Tiobal. When killed, the unfortunate little sinner is carried round by the hunters, who sing the curious rhyme follow- ing :— 1 Ide of Man, ]i. 321. ' Ibid. p. 277. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 109 We hunted the -wren for Robbin the Bobbin, We hunted the wren for Jack of the Can, We hunted the wren for Robbin the Bobbin, We hunted the wren for every one. Boban is a name applied to a bell, thus tbe Boban or Bell of St. Caeimbgbin (Kevin), was a principal relic of Ireland.^ This hunting the wren was also done in the south of Ireland, and in a town called Ciotal in the neigh- bourhood of Marseilles.^ The allusion to " Jack of the Can " is very remark- able. In Aremoric the word drean, the Manx wren, is a thorn, prickle, the hammer of a gun. This word is draen in Welsh. It is said that Mananan protected the island by a magic mist, kay, mist, and the governing body of the Isle, which should and does assemble on the Tinwald Mounds, is called the House of Keys, anciently " Chor na faid,"* cor, a chcle, (?) Welsh. Faid, a prophet, Gaelic. In Irish tradition, Diarmid (see under) tells Grainne that when Finn was in Tara he had the keys,* i.e. he was doorkeeper, thus alluding to Avhat is a prominent characteristic of Mithra himself I beUeve the island of which Maglocunus was the Dragon was, at least for a time, the Isle of Man. We have here in the hunting of the wven touched on what seems connected with the stag-hunt also alluded to, and this recalls the great Cymro -Aremoric myth of the quest of the St. Greal. To which I think 1 Cambrensis Eversus, toI. ii. p. 575. 2 Train's IsU of Man, vol. iL p. 124. 3 Ibid, vol ii. p. 195. * Ossianic Society, voL iiL p. 59. 1 1 SCOTTISH MYTHS. we have gi'ounds for allying the story of the pursuit of DIarmid and Grainne. The iise of cups as divining vessels is very ancient, and is still a custom in some parts of the world. The evidences of the probabiUty that besides the general question of the lots, some species of rehgious cere- monial partaking of divination was expi'essed by the three throws of the Seal, the three shouts of which Art was " the man," the drawing of the sword from the stone of Arthur, and generally by the screaming of the Lia Fail, is clear. This, however, comes out in a rather remarkable way in the story of Diarmid. - Eurmat, says Toland, = auspicium, that is a consult- ing of the auspices, a sign or token of success ; and Legonidec gives eurvacl from cur, luck, fortune, and mad, good. In the FingaHan and Cymric legends the playing of chess is a frequent occurrence. In the Ossianic Society's pubhcation we have an account of Fingal and Ossian, the wai'rior and the bard of the Toyth., playing a game under a tree in which Diarmid and Grciinne Avere concealed. When Diarmid threw down a berry to Ossian he ^^'ould win the game.^ This is clearly the " good luck " going with larmad's protege. FithicIioII is a chess-board m Gaehc, which has been derived from fath, skill, and ciall, sense (O'PteUly). The name is spelt fithcliell m Cormac. Fichella, in Aremoric, is to stir the fii-e, to mo^-e the wood with the poker, and " to iiunmage about so as to put sense or judgment topsy-tmwy," /!"c7u<, the root word, being to stir, to change position frequently. The Roman military method of castuig lots ui a helmet is men- tioned by Caesar and others. The Gaehc for a hehnet is clogad, and though it looks as if one were punning, ^ Ossianic Soniety, vol. iii. p. 145. SCOTTISH MYTHS. Ill it must be confessed that it has all the appearance of being composed of the words clog a bell, or cloch a stone, and ad a hat. Lots were cast by the chief magistrate, and it seems, according to the evidence, that Diarmad was in fact a vessel used for the casting of lots. In the Ossianic Society's publication, vol. iii. p. 175, DiaiTnid's dog is called Mac an ChuiLl, trans- lated by the editors, " son of the hazel." In Rome was a college of priests, apparently twenty in number, who presided over all the ceremonies connected with the ratification of peace, or the formal declaration of war. These carried vdth them certain sacred herbs called Verbenae or Sagmina, considered indispensable in their rites, and their own ilints for striking their victims. Their name was Fetiales, of which name, says Eamsay, the orthography and etymology are alike luicertain. Is it not possibly connected with Ficha ? The other spelling Ramsay gives is Feciales} Their chief was called Pater Patratus, a name also applied to the chief dignity among the Roman wor- shippers of JMithra.^ Is there any e\T.dence, in the appearance of St. Fillan's bell, that it was used for any such purposes as lot-castuag or as a drinking-vessel ? One dare scarcely expect that in the bell itself such could be looked for ; and it certainly is an unmanageable cup, as it can only stand mouth doTiTiwards, which, we may remember, was the position of the escra of the Seal, which was " on its edge." But there is evi- dence against its primary use as a bell in the complete absence of an an-angement for holdmg a clapper, as originally made. There is at present a piece of iron, bent at right angles, and fastened into two holes drilled in the brass of the top of the bell ; but this 1 Ramsay, Roman Antiquities, p. 331. ^ Lajard's Milhra, p. 500, 112 SCOTTISH MYTHS. shows no appearance of continuovis usage, nor indeed would the character of the fastening permit of it. This bent iron must, I conclude, have been inserted in the bell while in the keeping of an English cateran, who forcibly annexed it at one time, but to the good feeling of whose heirs we owe its restoration to Scot- land. We thus see how it was necessary for the black giant to whack his stag with a stick to make it bray ; and this is also the reason why Finn mac Cud, before making known the results of his cogita- tions, had to put liis finger in his mouth. One more tribe of the invaders of Britain according to Welsh traditions demand attention. These are called Coranied, and they came from the land of Pwyl, (pwll ? a pool of water) in the time of Llud. Coryn, a crowned head, says SpurreU. Ptolemy gives KopCviov as the name of a city of the Boduni, or, as he calls them, Ao^ovpol} On the southern wall at Corbridge an inscription mentions a body of Roman horse called " Corio- nototarum,"' — Kopivaios, illegitimately born. It seems little wonder that a name should have been coined, having so many original words to choose from akin to some of the speculations already advo- cated. The fact of there beinor a to"\vn of the name Kop'ivLov among the Boduni is certainly suggestive. But the tradition itself shows plainly enough the root word that was in the mind of its narrators. The Coranied could hear every whisper, so that no steps could be agreed on for then- expulsion ; they caused a shriek over the countiy on May eve from which divers disastrous results to women and animals resulted ; and they disposed of all provisions even gathered into the king's court that were not eaten on 1 Quoted, Giles, vol. ii. p. 101. - Warbnrton, p. 155. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 113 the first night.^ Llud, doubtless our Irish Lug, by the advice of Llevelys (Lia fal ?) constructs a brass horn to speak through, to prevent them hearing ; but this is taken possession of by a demon, who, however, is washed out of the horn by putting wine in it. Further Llevelys gives Llud certain insects to bruise in water, and instructs him to call his o\\'n people and the Coraniaid together, and sprinkle them all with the water, which would poison the Coraniaid but not his own people. Cor is a spider in Welsh ; hence the baptismal water with the insects in it. Corn is a horn or anjrthing projecting ; hence the particular form of the brass implement of sound. The period of activity of the Coraniaid, iMay Eve, corresponds with the time at which the Tuatha de Danaans defeated the Firbolg. Corran, a reaping-hook in Gaelic, is an mstrument which sometimes on Mithraic sculptures takes the place of the axe usually designed, which Lajard calls "I'oreille de cuivre,'' the copj^er ear; being shaped like a human ear. This seems to have some connection with the orally imparted instruction and the Coranian's power of hearing. Cor is a dwarf in Welsh ; hence they are said to have been pigmies. Coryn is the crown of the head, and coron is a crown. I incline to the belief that it is another expression for the bright apex which becomes the coire or kettle of the Irish. In the Triads the Coraniaid are mentioned as invading Britain before the Gwyddyl Fichti.^ The exact significance of the injunction to impart all knowledge by the ear seems to be something beyond the mere desii-e of preventing written records falling into wrong hands, and so betraying the mys- ' Mabinogion, voL iii. p. 308. 2 Four Ancient Books of Wales, toL i. p. 102. H 114 SCOTTISH MYTHS. teries ; especially when this injunction is connected with the worship of the generative powers. The word Priapus itself seems derived from ySpiaTTuos/ clamorous, loud, and was applied to Mars as in ancient battles they engaged with loud noise. The name Ogmius of the Gaulish Hercules is derived from the verb olyoi, the preterite passive of which is wy^at, which is derived from ot with which one exclaims oiye, in order that a gate may be opened to him. For the earth cries out olyeraL to the ploughman in making a furrow. Hence Ceres has the name 17 iTTLoyixios.^ Ogmius chained his followers by their ears to his tongue. His words were his arrows, fiekr] (Belenus ? the Beli Maur of the Welsh legends). Further, he was dv9po)TTo<; vrj<; signifies twofold, and so are the phalli on the bell handle. Now we are told that a Saint Dewi had removed the archiepiscopal seat from Caerleon to Mynyw, i.e. Menevia, which was afterwards called from him Tv Dewi, or David's house.* This David, like Maelg^vn, was a descendant of Cunetha. As kouu means dogs (Aremoric), and aot or aod, the shore, the descendants of Cunetha might mean the shore dogs ; and it was on the sea-shore Maelgwn came to his sovereignty. ^ Davies, vol. ii. p. 417. 2 MS. Record in Caatle Rusben. Quoted, Train's Isle of Man, toI. i. p. 39. ' Quoted, Four Ancient Bools of Walts, yo\. l ji. Go. ' I7rfe Bolm's Giraldus Camhrciisis, p. 415. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 121 St. Patrick is said to have served a certain Cutraighe ; cu a dog, traighe the shore; — the Scotch family name, Guthrie(?). And it seems there " were many cothraighi to whom he served four of a village "^ during- his years of slavery. Now Geoffi-ey of Monmouth tells us that St. Patrick was the founder of St. David's ; and in the Mabinogion we are informed^ that when Arthur carried off the caldron of Diwmach Wyddel (Diarmait the Gael), it was landed at port Kerddin in Dyfed — Cardigan, I suppose, at the mouth of the Teifi. Now, what further information have we about the personage who, by his " waxed wings," made Maelgwn remain where the tide flowed ? Traigh, in Scottish Gaelic, is to empty, pour out. Under the title of Lord of Penardd {pen, head, ardd, ploughed land, epiogmios ?) he appears as giving a judgment on a question of precedence among the Cymri after Mael- gwn's death ;^ and Skene thinks he was an ecclesiastic. The whole story has to me entirely the appearance of a question of the casting of lots, and the use of the Avax to make the winning lot "remain" is evident enough. Mael is a tonsured servant of a rehgious order, etc. ; dof, a utensil, a useful thing (Welsh). In the Saint Dewi — to whom the church legends have given some of the attributes of Hu,* the tradi- tional introducer of agricultiu-e, and whose name is OAadently part of the word laid, mystery, huan the sun, — his name is not different from the word Tew, to keep silence, which was certainly an attribute of the Seal balbh, king of Pictland and Manand, men- tioned in the Booh of Ballymote, and already alluded ^ Zeuss, p. 20, quoting Hymn of St. Patrick. ' Vol. ii. p. 307. 3 Four Ancient Book^ of Walef, toI. i. p. 174. * Davies, vol. iu p. 141. 122 SCOTTISH MYTHS. to. This name, David, is not unlike Dabhach, a tub, vat, in Gaelic. In fact, the pronunciation Davoch is a pet name for DaAad in Lowland Scotch, a connection alluded to subsequently. Hu with whom he is associated is said to have draA\Ti "the avanc" from the lake. The question what this avanc is has never had yet a reasonable solution. It is siipposed to have meant " a beaver," and is appai^ently the same word as is applied in Scotch GaeHc to a terrier, abliag, abhac/i in O'Reilly. Now a terrier in Welsh is called tir-ysgnf, ysgraf= what scratches off ; in fact, an earth-scratcher ; and in France the term griffon is appHed not only to the traditional griffin — which is the idea generally enter- tained as to the animal drawn from the waters by Hu, — but also to a terrier. It is clear then that originally Hu, the sun, the agriculturist, who caused by his earth-scratching, .and under the influence of water, fertilisation and increase, is delineated, and that in the mystic representation of this, some such phallic griffin as before alluded to was used, and that in course of time the symbol, and what it was supposed to symboHse, have been con- founded. Kow we remember that St. Fillan also was taken from a pool of water, and I think that if Hu's " avanc" has a remaining representative, we may find it in Fillan's bell, which I have tried to prove was most likely used as a vessel for the casting of lots. We have seen that it was in Dyfed that Diwrnach's caldron landed when brought to Britain from Ire- land, and we find a trace of Dewi in Ireland. In a note by Michael O'Clery, the chief of the Four Masters, \s^-itten in the Martyrology of Donegall,^ he 1 O'Curry, MaieriaU, p. 593. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 123 mentions " the town of the ford of the cast in C'mel Fiachaidh, where is temple David, where the brain of Mesgedhra was struck upon Conchobhar, king of Ulster." This other Conn, as his name is usually spelt, was the son of Nessa, a lady left a widow in the prime of her youth and beauty, who agreed to many Fergus, king of Ulster, on condition that Conn, her son by the first marriage, should have the kingdom for a year. At the end of the year, so pleased were the Ultonians, it was finally agreed that Conn should retain the kingdom, and Fergus the lady. Of course, to call a man after his mother may sound as if it were quite correct in Pictish, but so far as our records go, instances of such a thing are almost unknown. Macnas is wantonness, sport ; macnasach — a title not at all suitable for a kmg — signifies libidinous, merry, and it was this Conn who originated the order of the Knights of the Red Branch, which O'Ctury says should be royal, against all evidence. In his time the king of Naas, the locality of the Lughnassa, the games instituted in remembiance of the king of Spain's daughter — otherwise said to be daughter of E,ory [ruodh ri, red king) king of Britain, and wafe of Lughaidh, son of the Seal Balbh^ — by Lug, the Tuatha de Dauaan, was called Mesgedkra,^ sounded nearly as written by the Ossianic Society, Mesgera (ineas, mias, a dish, misgeoir, a, drunkai'd). The king of Ulster had a poet called Aithirne (our father ?), who seeing that the pasturage for his sheep was better on Mesgedhra's side of the Liffey than on his own side, sent them over to graze on it. The Leinster king stood up for his own rights, and in vindication thereof slew an Ultonian champion sent by Conn to assist his poet in his depredations. 1 Ossianic Society, vol. v. p. 167. - O'Curry, Materials, p. 26S. 124 SCOTTISH MYTHS. But in Ireland, in those ancient days, as we are gravely told by authorities such as Professor O'Curry, poetry and poets were so highly honoured that no king could refuse to grant to a bard any gratification he might ask for a poem recited, even though, as some that have been preserved show, it were despicable rubbish ; and thus we have stories of poets asking for the most impossible gifts which it was the king's duty to provide. Now, after this, the poet Aithirne visited all the Irish kings, and among them IMesgedhra, from whom in return for his poem he got, among other things, 700 white cows ■with red ears, and 150 noble women of Leinster to be slaves to the Ultonians. But this demand was, as one may well suppose, beyond endur- ance, and though the poet's body was sacred while on his own territoiy, Mesgedhra pursued him with the intention of killing him on his getting into Ulster, but was hunself slain by Conall Cearnach, sent by Conn for Aithirne's protection. We are next in- formed that when a warrior slew an antagonist of note, he took out his brains and made them into a stone with lime, to retain them as a trophy. When lime is mixed " \\-ith brains," it certainly does m many cases resemble a stone, but the addition of lime to the corporeal contents of a man's skull aa^U not make a stone, or anything like a stone. Now it seems, setting aside the chemical difficulty, that when the Ulster-men "were in contention or at trophies,"^ they sent for the heads of their enemies, and that when they had them in their hands they became satisfied. The fact of the matter, however, is, that they settled their disputes by lot, and the whole manufac- ture of bi-ain-stones is to account for this conn or gtni 1 0"Currj', Materials, i<. 639. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 125 having had a stone in it, because Conn had become a man, and not a vessel. The name Conchobhai* is composed of con, and cohhair, aid, help, support ; cobhartach, a helper, a prey or booty ; and so this vessel was used as a help in the distribution of tlie trophies or booty. Now there was a certain Get, son of Maghach, mdgh, a plain, mdghach, the Lowlander, mag, a paw, mdghach, of or belonging to the hand (O'ReUly), who was the greatest pest in Ireland,^ went into Ulster on an adventure, and found two fools playing on the green at Emania ^vith Mesgedhra's stonified brain which Conall Cearnach had prepared according to the I'ules of science, and which was looked upon as a most precious trophy at all " contentions." Knowing that the late King of Naas had prophesied that he would avenge himself on the Ulster-men, Ket took their plaything from the fools, and carried it about with him ready for use. He then lifted a prey of cows from South Ulster, and being pursued took an opportunity to slins: the stone at Conn. It struck him, and two- thirds of it sank into his head. And this happened, as we saw, at the place where the temple of David was in subsequent times, because the story is told as if it happened before, or rather at the very beginning of our era, and in a place called, at that time, the wood Da Bheath^ (of the two animals). Now the phallus was an emblem of Hfe ; heatha, a snake, is called heather, from heath and Mr, long ; and we know it was the serpent that tempted Eve — David Defi ; Ak^vtj?, twofold. There can, I think, be little doubt that the evidence is in favour of the view that Da Veth (as Da Bheath is pronounced) and David represent the same thing ; 1 O'Curry, Materialu, p C40. 2 jf^fj p 077. 126 SCOTTISH MYTHS. and so St. David is connected with the children of Bethoun or Vethan who had Dimetia, i.e. Dyfed. As to the Gaehc Dai for David, we will consider further on. When Conn fell, he offered his sovereignty to any one who would carry him home. Cennberraidhe, his servant, lifted him, and took him on his back, but the exertion was so great that on their arrival the servant's heart burst, and he died. Therefore, says the veracious and critical historian, it was said that Cennberraidhe's sovereignty lasted as long as he had Conn on his back. The servant's name means simply " shaven head," and he was thus maol, bald, a tonsured servant, Comi of Conn, or the bowl, Maolchon = Maelgwn in Welsh. And so we understand how much depended on the possession of this precious relic. Conn's physician, Fingen, informed him that he could cure him ; but there would be a blemish, as one can well beheve, since the stone had to remain in his head, because he would die if it were taken out. He tlien stitched up the wound with gold thread, because Conn's hair was yellow. His physician further laid down a series of rules for his guidance, not unhke such as might have been advocated as a rule of life for a priest in a rude age, and which kept Conn evidently veiy much in one place. Time passes on, when, one day, a miraculous dark- ness astonished the world, and Conn inquired of his druid the cause and significance of it. The druid explained that Christ was at that moment being crucified, and explaining who he was. Conn was con- ^-erted, and believed. We are then told that he and Moran, whose name is the same as that of the great man, Boadicea's son, who was concealed in the chamber in the Pollock rock, and whose name is possibly con- SCOTTISH MYTHS. 127 nected with mur, tlie wall, and maor, an officer, were the two first Christians in Ireland. Thus far on the authority of the Book of Leinster ; but Keating gives further particulars. I quote from 0' Curry : Conn was seized with furious rage at being unable to assist Hs suffering Saviour, and rushing out in madness, began hacking down the trees in a wood with his sword, doing to them as he would have done, had he been able, to the Jews. But the stone falling from his head. Conn, as it had been foretold by his phy- sician, died. The name of the grove cut down was Lamhraighe, which, derived from lainh, a hand, and raighe, frenzy, makes it receive a name after its destruction; while lahhraidh, speaking, connects it with the leac labJiar, and the oracular nomination of Art, and the descendants of Conn of the hundred fights. This of coiurse is a Christian legend, and the death of Conn, on the coming of Christ, by his separation from the stone, seems to convey by parable the change of use of the bowl or bell from a Pagan to a Christian rite ; while its having been the head of the "drunkard" of Naas would signify that it was a Bacchic or Orphic ceremonial in which it had been at fii'st used ; and the Ltighnasa were probably ]\Iithraic, and correspond to the Leontica {Ueiv, a Hon, Welsh), which were cele- brated dm-ing the period w4ien the sun, passing through the sign of the zodiac Leo, shed liis greatest heat, that is, in the end of July and commencement of August, — Lughnasa in fact signifying August in Gaehc. There is in this an evidence that the worship of Mithra, if I am right in my hj'pothesis, was not derived directly jfrom Rome, because, as Lajard informs us,^ the Romans celebrated their Leontica in March or April. 1 Mithra, p. 57-t. 128 SCOTTISH MYTHS. In this stoiy we have seen a certain Ked or Get, son of Maghach, make his appearance as carrying off Mesgedhra's head from Ulster, and this Get is the name of the first inscriber of Ogam memorials in Ireland under the name of Get cuimnigh,^ cuimhne, protection, remembrance (O'Reilly). Get mac Ma- ghach was also the forefather of Goll mac Moma, the great enemy and ally of Finn mac Guil. He was head of the Fenians of Gonnacht, and his name imphes stranger, son of the tuall ? Get was son of Gairbre, red head. This will not admit of a more minute explanation. (See " Gairpre," p. 119.) Now Ked appears also at a much later date on the other side of St. George's Ghannel. Bishop Forbes, in his Live.'i of Saints Ninian and Kentigern, quotes from the Archaeologia Carnhrensis, a document of the twelfth centiuy, wliich tells how a certain Kedicus Di"aws seu de Ludis, having struck Malgon, King of Dyganwy's son, on the head with a drinking-horn, fled to Kentigern for refuge. This is certaial}^ the same story as the last, but it is placed five and a half centuries later than the Irish one. Malgon sends a body of horse after him, but their chargers being struck by blindness they return. Then Malgon himself goes, but being struck blind is led into the presence of the saint. Kentigern restores his sip'ht, and the kino; finds himself face to face with Ked. The offender clauns the protection of sanctuary, which Malgon apparently allows, and further, in gratitude for his restoration to sight, presents the monastery with many grants, including one place called Dolivy7ian, the field (?) of the fountain, one of the bounds of this field being Pen isaf geU Esgob, the lowest head of the dun (coloured) bishop. Gompare * O'Curry, quoted by Brash, Ogham ifonuments, p. 45. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 129 Wynan, the fountain, with Fingen, the name of Conn's physician, and the connection apparently alluding to baptism is evident. In Aremoric Kedez or Keded is the equinox, Kedez meurs, the equinox of March, Kedez gwengolo, the equinox of September. To Venus and Mithra a particular place was assigned at the vernal and autumnal equinox, a time reported favourable for the descent and ascension of souls. Kedicus is called Drws or de Ludis. The de Ludis (of the games) is direct evidence of his con- nection with such festivals as the Lughnasa. Brivs is a door, recalling the lamdor of the solstice. Now the souls were said to descend to earth by the sign of Cancer, and to return to the heavens by the sign of Capricorn. These were called respectively the gate of the moon or the gate of men, and the gate of the sun or the gate of gods. Mithi-a was the judge, as already said, of the actions of men, and according to his judgment was the entrance opened to them of the particular abode of bliss to which their conduct entitled them. Now in the to^vn of Vienne in the department of Isfere, in France, was found a Leonto-cephalic Mithra, holding a key in each hand,^ while at Chesters on the south wall, anciently called Cilurnum, was found a stone, on the one side of which was a lion standing over a hiunan figure, and sculptured on the other a male figm-e holding a key.^ These attributes of the key and the door were peculiar, says Lajard, to the Roman Mithraic cultus ;^ aild it is clear enough where the Christian fabulist got his Kedicus Drws. 1 Lajard, MUhra, p. 5S9. 2 Warburton's Roinxin Wall, p. 49. ^ Mithra, pp. 459, 4C0, 462. I 130 SCOTTISH MYTHS. Ked's connection with mysteries appears in a song of the bard Cuhelyn who speaks of " the awful enjoy- ment of the society of Ked,"^ and wth a stone, where in the Triads one of the mighty labours of the Island of Britain is said to have been the erecting of the stone of Ketti.^ His connection with " Lludd the great" appears in the following exti-act from the song of Lludd as given by Davies :^ — " Let the truth be ascribed to j\Ien-s\7'd, the dragon chief of the world, he formed the curvatures of Kyd, which passed the dale of grievous waters, having the forepart stored with corn, and mounted aloft with the connected serpents." The " cibno ked," according to Davies, is the same as the " pair Ceridwen," the bucket of the muse (Ceres, the woman Ceres, from Ceres and hecm, a woman ?). dried, beneficence, maen, a stone, men, certwyn, a wagon, and if Maen Ketti is the Stone of Beneficence,^ it is surely the same as the Llecli Labhar of Dyfed. Cecl is favour, gift, relief, cefog, a satchel or bag, ccten, or, as Davies spells it, kettcn, a small chest or cabinet. Cyd is junction, coupling ; hence the "con- nected serpents." Now, who is " jMenwyd the dragon chief?" Memo in Welsh is intellect, mind, and as JMen^vyd had something to do with Jxtten, a small chest, we find that menestr is a cup-bearer (Welsh), while in Gaehc menstir was the box for the consecrated bread.^ But Memv — Mengw, was the mstructor in magic of Uthyr Pendragon,* who was the son of " three loud calls ;" and we found that Art also, son of Conn, was ^ Davies, Celtic Research, vol. ii. p. S. - [b'ul. vol. i. p. lf)0. 2 Ibid. vol. iu p. 5GS. * Ibid. vol. ii. p. 403. ^ Booh of Armagh, quoted in Notes to Adamnan's Columbu, }), '238i * Mabinogion, vol. ii. p. 3.'5"2. Celtic Jiesearch, vol. i. p. 161. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 131 the man of three shouts ; and we have seen Kedicus or Get taking refuge with a Christian saint from Mailgwn, the servant of the bowl, the name of the saint being Kentigern, or, as it was called more vulgarly, Mungo. Let us see who this Mungo was and whence he came. The earliest records extant of this saint are con- tained in Bishop Forbes's book, St. Ninian and St. Keritigern. The older of the two is a fragment written before 1164; the other is complete, and is the work of Joceline, a monk of Fumess, written most probably about twenty five years later. In the first we are told that Leudiomxs, whence Leudonia, the country over which he ruled in northern Britain, a half pagan, had a daughter named Thauey (Joceline calls her Taneu), who had a lover Ewen " of a most noble stock of the Britains," and also, according to the " Gestes of the Histories " son of the king of Ulien. UUen is Ulster, Leudonia is Lothian. The king Leudonius (Ludd, Lew, Lug, etc.) ordered his daughter Tanau to many Ewen or become a swine- herd. Tan, Tanau, — Welsh "i ^ ^ „ . . \ fire, fires, ian, I anion, — Aremonc J Tanao in Aremoric also signifies slim and bright, taiKC in Gaelic, and this I believe to be the proper derivation of the word. Now this swine-herdino- o undoubtedly arises from a confusion between the words imigus, a priest, inug, a servant, and muc, a pig ; and it seems certain that the alternative supposed to have been offered the girl, — I say " supposed," because I do not beheve there ever existed such individuals — was marriage or a religious life. Taneu prefers ser^ace with the swineherd, who treated her chastely and 132 SCOTTISH MYTHS. kindly ; a circumstance explained in the legend by saying he was secretly a Christian. Ewen, however, taking opportunity, forced the girl, and she was to be hurled from a rock, in fact actually was so (according to the other versions she was to be stoned), but was mu-aculously sustained ; and was finally exposed in an open boat, which, driven by -wind and tide, stranded on the coast of Fife, where she was delivered, and the child adopted by St. Servanus. This Servanus or Serf, or Sair {cervus, a stag), had a festival observed in his honour, on the 1st of July, at Cuh^oss. His miracles include restoring a man's pig to life, changing water to wine, defeating the devil in a cave at Dysart, and slaying a dragon in a cave at Dunning in Perth- shire. He is said to have been a disciple of Palladius, who, Nennius tells us, was sent during St. Pati'ick's captivity in Ireland to convert the Scots. " But tempests and signs from God prevented liis landing, for no one can arrive in an^^ country' except it he allowed from above ; altering, therefore, his course from Ireland, he came to Britain and died in the land of tlie Picts." ^ Bede gives us the same information. IlaXXaStoi^, the statue of Minerva, came to imply a charm for security or protection, and Palladius is, I opine, but the same word with a mascuUne termination, and is in fact another term for what appears as St. Servanus. The traditions about both are very fully given by Forbes in his Calen- dars of Scottish Saints. The meaning of Mungo's names has evidently been a difficulty, as we are told by Joceline that he was called Munghu, meanino- " karissimus Amicus," Kyentyem, which is by in- terpretation the capital Lord, and that Servanus exclaimed at his birth "Mochoche," which means "Care ' Nennius, para. 50. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 133 mi." The expression " Dear me," whatever its exact derivation, does not seem worthy of so careful a record, and needed no attention were it not that moch in Welsh is ready, swift, equivalent to the Irish lugh, moch also signifying swine. Ken, in Aremoric, in composition, is beautiful ; tiern is a lord ; kentiern the beautiful lord. Now Edlen, father of Lug of the Lia Fail, was son of Tighernmas, compounded of tighern, a lord, and onais, sparkling, brilUancy (O'Reilly), maise, beauty, Tighernmais, the beautiful lord. We have some particulars of Tighernmas. He was the first who introduced the worship of idols^ into Ireland, and he Avorshipped the Crom Cruach {bent bloody one) at Magh Sleacht, the field of obeisance, in Brefne, on Samhuin, i.e. Hallow E'en, a priapic festival to this day (see Burns's Poems). The Books of Leacan and Ballymote tell us it was in his reign that clothes were first dyed purple, blue and green, and that at that time the number of coloui-s to be worn by the different lunks of the people was first pre- scribed.^ Tighernmas had the same fancy for coloured clothes as the Canninefates, and the followers of Carausius and Allectus, and the Picts ; and Kentigern certainly hails from Pictish ground. Xow Munghu — the other name of Kentigern — may mean " dearest friend," or it may be derivable from micyn, mild, and gu or cu, dear, but it is the same name as Mengw, the instructor of Uthyr Pendragon ; and as Mengw was son of Teirgwaedd [tair, three, as in teirddslenog, three leaved, and gwaedd, a shout), so was our Mungo son of Ewen, lewan, a scream. Of course Kentigern may mean simply the " head of the lord," as the " summit or cliief of BeHnus" is the translation of the name Cunobehnus ; and indeed we find that the setting up 1 Ossiauic Society, vol. iv. p. 65. '^ Jbld. vol. v. p. 207. 134 SCOTTI.SII iMYTHS. of heads of great men was considered a protection to various districts of Britain in which they were set up. Thus Eogiian i?e/'shead, being turned towards Ulster Avhen buried, gave the Connacht men victory over the Ulster men till they found out the reason and disin- terring him buried him face down.' Bran's head was ordered to be buried in the White Mount near London, and as long as it remained there no invasion of Britain happened.' A brief glance at the " Gestes " of Mungo as given by Jocehne will, I think, tend strongly to confirm my proposition that Mungo, as Christian saint and bishop, is entirely fabidous. Sel•^•anus made it the task of his disciples, each in turn for a week, to attend to the lights, and keep a fire burning constantly. During IMvingo's turn of duty, to spite him, his co-disciples extinguished all the fires so that he could not get a light. Thus we see the maintenance of a continual fire was a duty in the worsliip of Servanus. Muno-(3's mother's name means, as Ave ha,ve seen, fires. By prayer, however, fire was given him from heaven in a green hazel branch. Collen is hazel, in Welsh ; Kc/eii is instruction, doctrme, in the allied Aremoric. He got his instiTiction in a branch of a fruit-tree. Lug mac Ceithlen, sounded ceilen, was the knight of the Lia Fail. In Brittany, when a yoiuig woman refused a man in mamage, she presented hina with a branch of hazel — Kelicz. Mungo's next miracle is the restoring of its head to a 7'(?(:Z-breast, which his fellow-disciples had torn off in then' play. ' Annals of Ihe Four Masters, A.D. 53S. ^ Mahinojion, vol. iii. pp. 124, 128. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 135 He next resuscitates Servanus's dead cook. Caldrons play a great part in these stories, and are often connected with cooking. Fionn, Fingal, got his wisdom, according to some accounts, by accidentally putting his finger into his mouth, having burnt it with the steam issuing from a caldron in which he was cooking a salmon. In the Hemes Talieain of the Mo.hinogion,^ Gwion bach (Little Fion), robs Ceridwen of the caldron, of the knowledge she was going to impart to Avagddu, her ugly son, by the same inadvertent licking of his finger while watching the cooking of the magic-pot, a few drops from the steam having scalded it. In the Reay country, that of the Mac Kays, — the same story is told of Feai-char Leigh," Farquhar the Leech, who being engaged to cook a white snake in a pot with hazel-sticks (see the Aremoric connection between hazel-sticks and maniage and instruction), scalding his finger with the steam, acquired by the act of cooling it in his mouth, miraculous knowledge as a physician. There is another curious tale connecting another branch of the Clan Kay with a miraculous cure, performed in this case by a Bethoun of Mull, as the story goes, — the name being the same as that of the children of Bethoun, A^ethan, and Liethah, in South Wales. ]\liss Z^Iackay of Kilmahumaig, Knap- dale, being Ul, the great Midi doctor was sent for ; arriving at the residence of his patient with the mes- senger, the followmg conversation took place between them : — " S' binn an gutli cinn sin " ars 'n gilleadh " S' binn " ars' an t' olladh " air uachdar Losguin." 1 Skene thinks this story was invented about the year 1590. — Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. ji. 193. If so, it is clearly a rechavffe of other tales of iviiich we have many traces as above. - Campbell's West Hijhland Tales, vol. ii. \). 363. 13G SCOTTISH MYTHS. " Sweet is that head's voice," said the lad ; " Sweet," said the doctor, " above a toad." This is clearly a sort of proverbial saying, which has had the story attached to it for explanation. For losguin, a frog, read leacan a slab. The battle of the Clans on the Inch of Perth was fought on the one side by the Clan Kay, to whom Wyntoun, in his Chronicle, gives the name of " Clachinyhe " {clach, a stone), though by the Clan Avho possibly bear the name, it is in aU cases pronounced as if clagan, a skull, a bell.i The lady had swallowed a toad called Lon Craois (store, provision of the mouth), which was tempted to jump out of her mouth by the doctor roasting a sheep beside her.^ This cooking has, I conclude, to do with the offerings of corn to the divinity who presided over growth and reproduction. Thus we have Cai in the AVelsh romances appearing as Arthur's " pantler," while Bed^\^r was his butler. I quote here a passage from Da vies, giving his translation of their appellations as they appear in the Triads : — " The three diademed chiefs of the Island of Britain, the first was Huail vicegerent of Hu, the son of CaAV (the enclosure), also called Gwau- (renovation), the son of Gwestyl (the great tempest). The second was Cai {association?), the son of Cynyn Gov (the origin of memorial), surnamed Cainvarvog ("with the ■splendid beard), and the third was Trystan, son of Tallwch. " And Bedwyr, the son of Pedrog (Phallus, the son of the quadrangle), wore liis diadem as presiding over the three." ' This is tlie name which commentators have called the "Clan Yha." ^ Campbell's West Highlaiid Talts, vol. ii. p. 3GC. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 137 Cai was here the son of memorial, and presided over by this bod — givr, a man. Servanus's cook, as the above clearly indicates, was an altar of offerings of wheat, etc. Mungo next leaves his master against the will of Servanus, who followed, and tried to get him to return ; but this was prevented by a stream running between them, and Mungo succeeds as bishop, apparently a certain Fregus, whose funeral he conducted, placing his body on a wain [men, a wain, maen, a stone), drawn by two oxen which stopped at Cathures, now Glasgu, Glasgow. Fregus is Fergus, and is evidently the same Fergus whom Conn mac Nessa succeeded, the Fergus of the Bod Fergus at Tara. Now as regards the use of oxen, let us compare a passage from the Givynvardd Brecheiniog, who, Davies tells us, ^^Tote in the twelfth century ■} — The two oxen of Dewi, two of distinguished honour, Put their necks under the car of the lofty one ; The two oxen of Dewi majestic were they. With equal pace they moved to the festival. When the}- hastened in conducting the sacred boon to Glascwm (the green valley), The three dignified ones were not sluggish. The amiable Bangu was left behind bearing his chain, And the two others witli their huge bulk arrived in Brechinia. We shall see immediately that Mungo goes on to Dewi after a stay at Glasgow. Is the progress of the car here described at all dissimilar from that of the German goddess described by Tacitus in his Manners of the Germans, c. 40 1 After mentioning the Langobardi (is this Cain- varvog " of the splendid beard " of the Triads ?) and ^ CeUic Research, vol. ii. p. 141. 138 SCOTTISH MYTILS. other German nations, Tacitus savs : " They unite in the worship of Hertha, or Mother Earth ; and suppose her to interfere in the affairs of men, and to visit the different nations. In an island of the ocean stands a sacred and unviolated grove, in which is a consecrated chariot, covered with a veil, which the priest alone is permitted to touch. He becomes conscious of the enti-ance of the goddess into this secret recess ; and witli jorofound veneration attends the vehicle which is drawn by yoked cows. At this season all is joy, and every place which the goddess deigns to visit is a scene of festivity. No wars are undertaken ; arms are untouched, and eveiy hostile weapon is shut up. Peace abroad and at home are then only known ; then only loved : till at length the same priest reconducts the goddess, satiated with mortal intercourse, to her temple." The chariot with its cui-tain, and if we may believe it, the goddess herself, then undergo ablution in a secret lake. " This office is performed by slaves, \\'hom the same lake instantly swallows up. Hence proceeds a mysterious horror ; and a holy ignorance of what that can be, which is beheld only by those about to perish. This part of the Suevian nation extends to the most remote recesses of Germany." The chariot covered with the veil may be the men, wain, hence ?nacn, the stone; cuddlcu is a veil in Welsh, [cudd, obscurity, lloi a veil) ; compare Ceithlen, the father of Lug (dd = th). The gi:iddess who entered the chariot, whatever she may have been, was not a statue, it being conceived uuAvorthy of the grandeur of celestial bemgs to represent their deities under a human similitude ;^ and Tacitus further tells us that " they affix names of divinity to that secret power, which they behold Avith the eye of adoration alone," ' Tacitus, Manners of tlie Gernwns, c. 9. SCOTTISU MYTHS. 139 while they carried " with tliem to battle certain hnages and standards taken from the sacred groves."' There is nothing at all against such a vessel as St. Fillan's bell having been used in such a progression, and while the oxen of Dewi moved to the festival, it was also a time of festivity while the German goddess made her progress. Has not the mysterious "avanc" drawn from the lake something to do with the chariot being taken from its ablutions, and it was the oxen of Hu that drew it 1 Oixr historian next gives us particulars as to Mungo's habits. He wore a goat-skin coat. He abstained from flesh and blood, and wine except on special occasions. He lay on a stone, and fighting that dragon, " that accord- ing to the prophet lieth in the midst of his rivers," he stripped himself naked and plunged into the rapid and cold water, and emerging from the water whiter than snow, he sat himself do-\vn on a hUl called Gulath (Gwylledd, darkness, in Welsh.) Did he retire under his veil ? He used to ■\\dthdraw himself from men and dAA^elt in ca.verns, when he lived on roots of herbs, returning for a long time before ]\Iaundy Thiu-sday, {i.e. the day before Good Friday), and after that on the Saturday before Palm Sunday [i.e. the Sunday before Easter), M-hen he would wash the feet of lepers. This seems to point to a ceremonial at the heathen Ostara festival, and the change of .period from the day before Friday to Saturday has possibly some relation to the stoiy which I fail to perceive, unless it be a change of ceremonial. Ostara was a goddess of Light,^ and in her honour were lighted the Osterfeuern, the Easter fires. The connection with Mungo's mother, Tanau = fires, is striking. 1 Tacitus, Manner:! of the Gn-jitans, c. 7. '^ Grimm's Deulsche Mytholo'jie, vol. iii. p. 91. 140 SCOTTJSI£ MYTHS. Mungo was beautiful to look upon, whicli agrees with the derivation of Kentigern above given. He miraculously used stags for ploughing, and caused corn to grow. He transferred King Morken's barns full of corn to his own dwelling, a flood floating tliem over for hini, reminding one of the song of Lludd the Great, when " Kyd passed the dale of grievous waters, having the forepart stored with corn." As was natural after such an appropriation, the king Avas not very friendly with IMungo, and one day, incited thereto by a warrior called Cathen, kicks the saint. Morken dies of a disease of his feet which became hereditary in his family. Now this disease of the feet occurs in the West Highland Tales of the Ceatharnach. In this the Bodach, old fellow (note the hod ; ach is a termination of adjectives, riabhac/i, striped, maiseacA, beautiful, hodach is a common word for a black bottle), ic Ceochd, the son of misty (Ceo, viist, kay, mist, Manx), other- wise called Rob, any animal ichic/i roots iLp the earth ■with its snout (O'Reilly),^ Mac Sheoic, the son of •lock, ic a Lagaizi, son of the den, Lagan {Lagcn, Aremoric, a loch), claguin, of a jiagon, the Jock of the Can already mentioned, is cured of a disease of his feet by Gille an Leigh, the servant of the Leech, or it may be of Lea the stone, and became as swift as he was before, which connects him with Lugli, swift, of the Lia Fail. In consequence of the annoyance of his enemies, ^ /?aidomantia in Greek is tlie divination by rods, which were marked as were apparently the German and Welsh lot.^^ a term possibly rendered by the name of the se.ifaring portion of the Batavii, called Canninefates, from Kavva, a reed, and aTts, saying, an oracle, from (prj/xi, I speak. It is, how- ever, apparent that the form Oanueniifates given by Ainsworth seems best explained by Karnj, ace. Kavmjv, a reed, pipe, canoe, and iic^tiw, texo, I weave, secondarily, make, build, i.e. boat-builders of reeds or wauds. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 141 Mungo had to leave Glasgow, and goes to Dewi, the holy bishop, where he makes acquaintance with Cas- - wallan, and gets the grant of Nantcharvan, in the neighbourhood of wlaich he founds his monastery, and there receives Kedicus Drws and Maelgwn. But that he may not be without a connection with pigs, we are told he was guided to the proper spot for his monastery by a white boar, which turned up the place with his snout. This boar's name possibly was Rob. It is curious that the " boar " was the badge of the xx*'' Legion long stationed at Deva, now Chester. The monastery floiu'ishing greatly, he, being sent for by Ridderch Hael now ruling in Cumbria, who had him- self been baptized by St. Patrick, left Llanelwy under the care of St. Asa23h (acra^:^?, obscure, uncertain), and returned to Glasgow, where the king made him in his office of Bishop supreme over himself. Now the Queen of Piiderch Hael {ri, king, derg, red, hael, liberal), falling in love with a young soldier, gave him a rmg, fal, with a precious gem, Liag, leac, in it, which had been specially intrusted to her by the king. He, seeing this ring on the soldier's hand one day, removed it while he slept, threw it into the Clyde, and, awaking the sleeper, ordered him home, the inci- dent occurring during a hunting excursion. Riderch, returning himself, demands the ring from the queen, who sends to the soldier for it, who answei's that it is lost, and then escapes and leaves the queen to be cast into prison to await punishment. In her sore sti-aits she sends to Kentigern, and tells him the whole stoiy. He instructs the queen's messenger to cast a hook into the river, by which catching a salmon he recovers the ring, the fish having swallowed it. The precious jewel being given back to the king, peace was restored. 14-2 SCOTTISH MYTHS. the queen, and even the soldier, being again receiveu. into favour. Thus we see the Lia Fail itself commemorated in the ring and salmon of the coat of arms of the city of Glasgow, We have seen already how a salmon in a curious way gave his knowledge to Fionn ; we here see the Lia Fail in a salmon, and in the Mabinogi called Hanes Taliesin, i.e. the story of Taliesin, whose name being interpreted means " radiant front," we are told that when a child the great poet was found wrapt in a leather bag {holg) in the sea, caught in a salmon weir. In the Isle of jNIan, the parish name of the district off the coast of which is the Pollock (bolg ?) rock in which Boadicea's son was concealed, is called Kirk Braddan, and hraddan is the Gaelic for a salmon. In Kirkbraddan there are an ancient tlnnvaal, as Kelly {voce Baaltinn) in his ^lanx Dictionary speUs Tynwald, a Kile Abban, which he makes Ammon, and other remains of a pagan cultus. It is, however, clear that the Pollock rock was the locality where Taliesin was found ; and of course, if this stor}- — the Hanes Taliesin — is an invention of the end of the 16th century, the writer of it had a very intimate acquaintance with ancient legend, for it clearlv points to his identification of Taliesin with the son of Boadicea, thotio-h he ctu'iously enough does not mention the connection. And further, Maeigwn, the Dragon of the Island, is doubtless Taliesin of the Pollock Piock, and IMungo of Glasgow to boot. To this the Glassfow arms themselves bear -witness in conjunction wdth the next passage in Mungo's life. Riderch is visited by an Irish bard, who, as was SCOTTISH MYTHS. 143 theix' custom, asking an impossibility, desires a dish of mulberries, it being then after Christmas. (Mopia, mulberries, in Welsh miuyar, mair, recalling the word incwr, Irish maor, an officer, or inur, the wall). Kenti- gern, however, procures these miraculously, and the bard, renouncing his former life, gives himself up to the service of God. Now in Irish mul is a bell, and, to show its con- nection with an elevated point, mull is a promontory (the Mull of Can tyre), etc., and the Gaelic name for the Gallovidian clan of the Bells is Mac gille'm Mhuil, the son of the servant of the Bell. This 7nu/-berry we identify with the bell in the tree of the Glasgow arms, which is not otherwise mentioned in the legend, and with the hard who left his previous evil \^'ays and became a servant of God. We next hear of an interview between Mungo and Columba, where Columba is said to have described Kentigern as crowned with " a fiery pillar, m fashion like a golden crown." During Columba's visit two of his followers steal a ram of Kentigern's, and cut off its head. The ram rushes back bleating to the flock, but the head, turning into a stone, stuck to the hands of the marauders. Has this ram's head anything to do with Kill Ammon in Knkbraddan ? We may hazard the conjecture that Columba's mai-auding on-hangers were somewhat in the position of Edward Longshanks, when he marched off to England Wiih. the precious Imnp of red sandstone on which om Sovereigns have been so carefully crowned, and which is seriously beheved by some to be the stone Jacob rested on, and to have been brought to Britain by Jeremiah or one of the prophets. Joceline tells us the ram's head " remains to this day," and as Edward's invasion was a century later, unless some 144 SCOTTISH JIYTHS. other claimant appears, I think the Westminster stone is the ram's head turned into stone. As regards the sticking of theii* hands to this stonified head, we find in the story of the Ceatharnach ah^eady quoted, a similar incident ; he also causes certain people to stick to things not only %vith theii- hands, but with the breech. Llafr is breech in Welsh, Llafren, a large- buttocked woman ; hence Llech Llafr, the stone of the breech, and thus it became a chaii' and a royal throne. Pinally, Kentigern perceiving that " from many cracks in it, the ruin of his earthly house was imminent," had his mouth tied up with a linen band- age ; and in Uke fashion we saw Conn mac Nessa before his death with his head sewed up, though in his case gold thread was used. There is a very long and remarkable crack in St. Fillan's bell, which local tradition said was caused by a soldier firing at it as it was flying over his head. This was Ked mac Maghach, I suppose, having changed liLs sling for a more modern weapon. Whether there ever existed a Christian instructor of the Cumbrians or not, called Mungo, the biography of St. i\Iungo is merely an attempt to mould into form traditions having their origin in pagan observances of our ancestors, so as to be useful for the purposes of magnifying the Church ; or it may be that, age having obscured their origin, these traditions were embodied into a consistent narrative by conscientious believers in their authenticity as connected ^^■ith an early Christian teacher. And the same may be said of those parts of the story of St. Patrick which, in connection %vith the above, point to the conclusion that some of the incidents in his life, still accepted as historical, are not SCOTTISH MYTHS. Ho incidents in the life of a man, but traditions having their origin in quite different circumstances, used, according to the method of the early Roman Chiu'ch, to retain for itself places and names already held in reverence, while the absurd vs'ish to pose as of as great age as possible further increased their desire to give circumstantial support to their claims by adopting ancient local ti-aditions as the basis of their narratives. I have no doubt that St. Patrick's sla^•ery with Milchu, which is raost probably the same name as Maelgwn and Meilochon, and his occupation during that time as a swine-herd, clearly betray his connec- tion with the Lia Fail and the so-called Tuatha de Danaans, while this is supported by an entry in the Book of Ballymote, which talks of the " grave of Esclani britheman of the Dagda, which is called Patrick's grave at this day." ^ Here Patrick appears as the judge or brehon, as I believe, fi-om the use of sortilege in setthng disputes, of the Tagta (chosen one ?) ; clamh is a leper according to O'Peilly, and if such a word were used in the Welsh or Aremoric, Ys clamh would be " the leper." Now Patrick is said to have gone to Ireland on a flat stone ; or, other^^dse, that going to Ireland he gave a passage to a leper desirous of going to that countrv, by throwing him a flat stone on which the leper sailed across, and, we are told, landed at the same time as Patrick hunself. This story is absolutely too absurd not to have had some origin m history othenvise than in the incidents of a man's life ; and accordingly we find that this stone and Patrick and Finn mac Cuil are con- nected with each other, showing clearly the identity of origin of these two so very dissimilar charactei's. ' Petrie's Round Towers, p. 102. K 14G SCOTTISH JIYTHS. In a vellum manuscript in Trinity College, Dublin, headed,^ " Finn the grandson of Baiscne composed (this), foretelling of Patrick, when he slipped off the flag on which he afterwards came to Ireland," is a poem, the commencement of which is as follows : — " It is not through a path of crime inj- foot has come, For of strength I am not bereft. But it is the stone of a Fenian King which tlie stone rejects, (says the gloss of the original, -which is " But a stone rejects a Fenian King ' ), A flag -which represents a chaste man -with the dignities of tlie H0I3' Spirit. It -will not bear God-grieving fleshj' Fenian bodies,'' etc. The poem is, as translated, sufhciently confused, and the old glosses written to explain it do not elucidate it much. The locality mentioned is " Core's city," Cathair Cuircc, and Patrick is called "Cotraighe" (see Cothraighe, p. 120). O'Curry says of this in a note : " It is quite clear there are two stones, " or rather a stone and a rock, referred to in this cmious ancient piece, that is, if we believe the heading to be correct, either in its form, or with my presumed cor- rection." O'Currv proposes to correct it thus : " Finn the grandson of Baiscne composed {this), foretelling of Patrick when he (Finn) slipped off the flagstone upon which (the leper) came afterwards to Ireland.'"' Let us continue with the note : "' One of these was an altar stone, that upon which either Patrick or the leper came to Ireland, and the other the celebrated rock of Cashel, which to this day is called Carrauj Phatraic or Patrick's Bock, but which was also anciently called Leac Phatraic, or Patrick's flag-stone. It is alluded to in a poi^ular oath under that name." Core, the name of the city, means a brewing-pan, 1 O'Cui-ry's MaterlaU, p. 622. = Ilihl p. 393. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 147 a knife, a whistle (O'JReilly), and we thus find our- selves again face to face with a caldron, a blade, and an instrument of sound ; therefore, though of course catliair Cuircc may mean the seat of Core, a man's name, it may mean the seat of any of these instruments. O'Curry is quite contented to believe that either Patrick or a leper was floated over to Ireland on a stone, and to such as can believe this, it is quite unnecessary to address the argument of probabihties ; but to others I suggest that the mistake here is not between two stones, but between clach and dag, a stone and a bell ; and the rejection of the Fenian king is either a true incident, which is impossible, or an expression of the change from its original piu'pose of the thing here called Cotraighe, said to be Patrick, but quite as certainly Finn mac Cuil, and, as I beheve, the Palladirxm of the Scots. I may mention that the Core who founded the city, supposed to be Cashel, was mac Lug?ia,ch, the son of Lugh, with another adverbial termination. As far as I know, no one has ever before reduced Mungo or Patrick to the humble position of a bell or a brewing-pan ; but the immense importance of the former instrument to Patrick has long been acknow- ledged, even in the days of Ossian : — " Is tliere (sai/s Oisin) among the Clerics of Patrick Any who can inform me What are the religious powers By which ye expelled the demons. Segadius (Pairiek), the Bishop who was not weak. Said, I will tell thee how it came to pass, The bell by which we were freed from bondage Had effect by the powers conceded to Patrick." i That is to say, the bell was the instrument that freed them from the bondage to devils, and secured 1 Ossianio Society, vol. i. p. 101. 14S SrOTTISH MYTHS. for Patrick his powers. Are they not at least co- ordinate ? This bell was sent to Patrick from heaven, falling at his feet on the Reek of Croagh Patrick, and Patrick is said, having difficulty in converting these evil spirits, to have driven them into the sea, and to have pitched his bell after them.^ As Connacht was the jjlace from which the Firbolg were driven out of Ireland, and as this drowning of the demons, and the thi'owing of the bell after them happened in Connacht also, I conclude these are accounts of the same occurrences. This bell was not like ordinary bells, but was a sort of gong which was struck by a mallet or some such instrument, and the first stroke on it caused the growth of cereals.' Thus we find it had to do with reproduction, and the growth o{ crultlmeach, wheat, or should it be Cruithneich, Picts ? Now Patrick, though blessed with bells from heaven, had a manuficturer of croziers, crosses, shi-ines, and bells, one of his most favourite companions, who attended him on his death-bed, and is thus commem- orated in the Festology of Angus, a composition supposed to date from the eighth century : — " The kingly Bishop Tassach Who administeieJ on his arrival The body of Christ — the truly powerful king — And the communion to St. I'.itrick."-' The "communion" and " the body of Christ the tiiily powerful king " are of course the same thing, and the word translated " truly powerful," jir-hailc is not nnWke Jirhuilc, which might be the genitive oi Jirbolg, and the word for communion is not unlike a word signifying a dish, though it must be admitted the ' Fergusson's Rude /itotie Monuments, p. 227. - Ossianic Society, vol. i. p. 104. ^ 0'Currj''s Materials, p. 36S. SCOTTISH MYTHS. H9 using of these words would not make sense in trans- lating the stanza. But who is Tassach ? Tascia and Tascio is a fre- quent inscription on the earliest British coins, being an abbreviation for Tasciovanus. He is by some believed to have been the father of Cunobelinus (cun gwn ? Bellinus, the Belgic divinity Beli), who with Tascio- vanus divides the claim for priority in coining money in Britain, many samples of coins so inscribed being extant. On the reverse of some of Tasciovanus's coins is the word Sego, probably representing Segontum the Gaer Seiont of the Welsh, near Carnarvon, where is Caer Seint on the river of that name. Tasach is Tascio- vanus, and that Segadius, one of the names of Patrick, is from Sego, Segodius, there can be little doubt. Is the Avord " tassie," a cup, used by Burns, a possible remanent of this name ? " Cw?iobelinus " also savours of the bowl. Finally, St. Patrick in his invocation specially prays to be delivered from "the spells of women, smiths and Druids."^ Why ? Is it because he was of a material likely to be destroyed if he got into the hands of the smiths, and because his pig-driving davs had been spent Avith the Druids ? St. Patrick's day is close to the March equinox, the connection with which and Mithraic worship has been already pointed out. In St. Place's hymn, we are told that cold did not keep Patrick from "spending nights in pools;" "he slept on a bare stone, and a wet robe about him : a pillar-stone was his pillow."'^ The word translated robe — cmlcJie — is not unlike cuil, a private place, ce, night, darkness 1 and it is quite clear that this must have been nearer the truth, for no mere man could 1 Goldelka, p. 152. ' Ibid. Stokes, pp. ]27, 131. 150 SCOTTISH MYTHS. have slept hahituallj "packed," as the hydropaths call it, in a wet garment, and lived to preach for sixty years to the " pagans of the Fein." I think those coincidences do not increase the likelihood of St. Patrick being at all historical. Nennius tells us that Patrick before he was baptized was called Maun. Has not this a suggestion east. This being found to be the case with the knife in Cjuestion, the monks artfully melted it do^^^:l, and coated therewith various utensils, which had the eti'cct of rendering them innocuous. This is not a use which could have been made of iron, and the well-known bronze-covered iron bells of the Gael are, I should suppose, in this case alluded to.^ The Mithraic attribute of a door-keeper is illus- trated by making Columba open the doors of the roj^al fort of Brude, son of Bile, the Pictish king,' and these doors ai'e described as folding-doors, having thus the more resemblance to the Jieulor, half-door, of the heulorsaf or solstice. Brude's name seems simply to be the Aremoric Brud, a noise which spreads, traditions, traditional ' AdaiQnan's Coluniba, B. ii. c. 33. ^ Jhid. B. ii. u. 36. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 161 annals, and he was son of Bile, that is, Beli, sovereignty, a drinking-vessel, etc. Columba, also, when the keys were misplaced, opened by his word a church door.^ He curiously cures Broichan (Aremoric Brochen, plural Brechen, a twig, a small shp of wood, the lots ?) of a blow received from an angel who broke the glass cup that was in the Druid's hand, by a white stone which he blessed, and which was kept as a treasure by the king. It had the power of healing diseases, but if the issue were to be fatal, the stone disappeared. This is the story of Conn mac Nessa, the victim of the stone, again, I suppose, in a different form. It is needless to go further in detail into these stories ; but we may notice that Columba had a bare flag-stone for his couch, that he performed a journey in a car, mu-aculously not falling, though the linch- pins had been neglected, the incident put in to account for the story or from some allusion which I do not follow ; he made a progress under a wooden canopy supported on four sides by men, and his voice could be heard a mile off, each syllable he uttered being audible. He had an enemy called Joan of the race of Gabran, and he, as we know, converted the chief of the Geona cohort, called Artbran, and lona is the name of his island, though it is called loua in the Life; and it is interesting that St. Eonan's bell at Inch, above mentioned, is the bell nearest resembling St. FiQan's extant ; the handle of it, however, is plain. His death was followed by a stonn of wind, which prevented any one being present at the funeral but the priests ; and his near decease was announced by a white horse used to carry the nnlk-pails. Tacitus informs us that the Germans, not only the commonalty but the princes and priests, paid great attention to ' Adamnan's Columba, B. ii. c. 37. L 162 SCOTTISH MYTHS. the oracular snortings of milk-ivldte horses, and Columba's " gearran " is represented as weeping in his breast. Let us examine Aidan, King of Dahiada in Columba's time. Julius Firmicus Maternus, a Chris- tian, tells us that the Persians worshipped a man, a slayer of oxen (Mithra) in hidden grottos, and they connect this worship with the power of fire, and that the seat of Mithra was on the Gorotman or Behescht, the " mountain of light," " the eternal dwelling of pure souls." ^ Aodh, says O'Reilly, is fire; Greek, dicj. It is also the Irish for Hugh, the Hu of the Welsh myths, and the U mor of the Firbolg. This name is as frequently spelt Aedh, and Aidan bears the same relation to this as the Welsh Huan, the sun, does to Hu. Hvd is an illusion, mystery. In Aremoric we find Huel means sublime, elevated ; and here we get a glimpse of the significance of the mistletoe, which is in that language Huel var, — Huel compounded with hai', a branch — top. Aoi in Gaelic, is instruction, disciphne, another signification of the Welsh iuid, while it also signifies a swan (compare the Knight of the Swan, supra). Adan is a species of bird in Are- moric, and the Adan vor, Legonidec teUs us, is a species of nightingale with a white mark on the top of its head. This Adan is the Welsh edyn, a ^\'inged one, a bii-d (Dun-edyn ? Edinburgh), while edyrn signifies sovereignty, and cdrin, n, murmuring noise, possibly applicable to the song of the nightingale. Columba's King, Aidan, is, I think, easily referable to a sun-worship ; and Edern, who is called " the supremacy of terrors," the opponent of Cunedda,^ is described as the son of Padarn (Patera, the title of the ' Lajard's jl/i7Ara, pp. 110, 133. - Taliessin, Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 25S. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 163 priest of Belinus)/ while in the Mahinogion he is the son of Nudd {mist — hay), and the leader of the black troop of the men of Denmark (the Tuatha de Danaans ?); and in this Mabinogi Kay is described as the finest horseman of the host, all turning towards him when he made his appearance. Dr. Skene tells us that at the period of these early Christian Celts in the latter half of the sixth century, the new faith was established at the battle of Arthuret, thus mentioned, about the year 573, in the Annates Cambriae. " Bellum Armterid inter filios Elifer (called Gosgordvawi-, son of Arthur, of the race of Coel Hen,^ and Gwendoleu filium Keidiau, also a son of Arthur;)' in quo bello Gwendoleu cecidit." Gwendoleu was Nudd's brother, and his opponents were Maelgwn Gwynedd, the nominee of Maeldaf; Ridderch, the nominee of Mungo ; and Aedan, the nominee of Columba ; and the battle was fought at the Knows of Arthuret, about nine miles north of Carlisle, near a place with enormous earthen ramparts, called the Moat of Liddel.^ Who is this Gwendoleu, and is he more than his opponents, " sm-rounded with every type and symbol of a pagan cult," as Skene says ? Davies says Gwendoleu had " two dusky birds, which giiarded his treasure, wearing a yoke of gold, and which were in the daily habit of consuming two persons for their dinner, and the like mmiber for their supper ;"^ and he explains his name as "the master of the fair bow," and also as "of the luminous obhque courses,"^ on what groimds I am unable to say. He is said, in the Black Book of Caermarthen, to have been ' Powell's Llhoyd^ Cambria, Introd., p. 27. Mahinogion, B. ii. p. 404. ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. L p. 168. ^ Ibid, vol ii. p. 455. * Ibid. vol. i. p. 66. ' Celtic Researches, vol. ii. p. 463. ' Ibid. vol. i p. 195. 164 SCOTTISH MYTHS. the Pillar of Songs,'' and the Avallenau says,^ the last honourer of Merlin ; while in the Gododin we are told,^ " he was a tall man of gi-eat worth before he was covered." He was son of Ceidio, preservation ; son of Axthwys, the encloser ; son of Mor, the sea; son of Ceneu, u'help ; which reminds us of the whelp, the cause of quarrel between the Picts and Scots, while Geneu is a pass, a mouth, and if we were to take the locahsation as correct, it would indicate the pass dominated by the Moat of Liddel, which we are told was the principal pass leading from the Roman wall into Scotland, and Ceneu was the son of Coel Hen. Coel is an omen, belief, trust, in Welsh ; coe/bren, a letter, ballot-stick, lot, alphabet ; coel/ae?"(, an omen stone, stone of testimony, coel being compounded with macn, a stone ; and it is at least a singular coincidence that " Cuilmenn," about which we have so romantic a story in O'Curry, as the most ancient Irish book on record, has a name as if compounded of the same words. And further, it appears that the Tain Bo Chuailgne was contauied in this Cuilmenn, and was narrated to Mui'gen, the poet, at the grave-stone of Fergus during a mist which lasted three days.* Here we have Fer- gus's stone again. Cuil in those Avords is alHed %vith coel, an omen. Without doubt, Finn mac Cuil owes his parentage not only to the obscurity of his residence but also to his powers of prognostication, and this most likely primarily. Coel's grave is shown at Coilsfield, Ayrshire ; and Coel Hen is undoubtedly Old King Cole of festive memory, who, " merry old soul," " called for his pot, and called for his pipe, and called for his fiddlers three." ' Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 29-t. ^ Ibid. p. 3TI. 3yjy p 416. ' O'Curry, Materials, p. 30. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 165 This master of a triad of professors of all the various musical implements has a name in itself implying a predisposition to sound. koIXos, hollow, mistakenly derived from /ceXw — I warn by crying (Heb. kelo, hol- low) ; coelcerth, a signal of alann— Welsh. Damm says, while kcXw impHes a distinct sound, it is in the way of exhortation rather than comniani Lies ap Coel is said to have been the first Christian king of Britain (llesio, I sound) ; he is the Lucius of Bede,^ and of Nennius, some copies of which state that he was called "Lever maur," i.e. "the great Luminary." What can this be but the sun-worship disguised under a Christian garb ? Now gwen, fair, and dulio, to bang, beat, knock, recalls the stag -thwacking ; in Aremoric Gwenn means white, while gold, as already said, is light ; Giuener is Venus, the Vanora of Arthur — Guiniver ; and Grwengolo is September, the month of the autumn equinox — the kedez gwengolo. The hamlet and stream falling into the Esk called Carwinelow,^ near the Knows of Arthuret, at the moat of Liddel, may be explained by the word gericinol (Welsh), rough, making it the equivalent of such names as Garry. Of course, if the stream is not a rough one, this derivation fails. There is reason for believmg that the earliest Roman year began at the vernal equinox, and, conse- quently, half the year was ended at the autumnal. This arrangement of time may have been Etruscan. As this was the period of the greatest power of the sun, I take tlie defeat of Gwendolen to be nothing else than the termination of his power for the half of the year, and so he was a " man of great worth before he was covered," we may suppose, by the mists of winter. It was a pecuharity of the Romans to celebrate the ' Bede, B. i. c. 4. - Glennie's AHliurian Localilkf, p. 69. 166 SCOTTISH 5IYTHS. great Mithraic festival of the Leontica at the com- mencement of April, or in the month of March, the former consecrated both to Venus and Mythra, the second as well as the first marking the vernal equinox — the time of renewing of life upon earth, the equi- noxes in the East being considered as favourable for the descent of souls into the ways of generation. The descent and ascension of souls was the basis of Chal- dean doctrine ; the body was the grave of the soul, and during hfe the soul's elevation was the road towards the entrance of the abodes of the blest. Thus some of the Greek philosophers used a phrase expres- sive of the Zoroastrian idea of the fall of souls, when they said that they " sont tombees dans la g^n^ration," i.e. they had fallen into (the ways of) generation, viz., carnal pleasure.^ The autumnal equinox was favour- able to the development of life in the seeds confided to the earth, ^ and it was characterised by the apple- tree, hence the allusion in the Aixdlenau to Gwendolen. The word kedes Legonidec derives from keit, Breton for equal, and dies, a day. Does not this spelling give a hint towards localising, in the island of the Firth of Forth, a sanctuary of the worship in which St. Fillan's equal-headed, double-phallic handled bell was a symbol, viz., Iuch/;e!7h. Islands, as in Inniskea in Ireland, the Isle of Man, and lona, were always pre- ferred for a site ; though, so far as Inchkeith is con- cerned, we have i)«7keith, the plain of Keith, on the adjacent southern shore, the " Campus Gai," I sup- pose, the site of the battle between Oswy and the Britons in the Begio Loidis of Bede.^ It is noteworthy that Kai is the Marischal of Arthur in the mediaeval romances, and that the Earls Marischal of Scotland are ' Lajard's Milhra, pp. 574, 96, 133. ^ Lajard's Venus, p. 213. ^ Chronicles of the PicU and Scots, Pref., p. cxvi. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 167 called Keith, and are traditionally connected with the Clan Chattan. Gwendolen's two golden-yoked hirds are again an apparent allusion to the same relic, and their meal on two bodies is not difficult of explanation. In the Avallenau, where Gwendolen is described as Merddin's patron, the poet addresses " Parchellan," a " Uttle pig.' But par is a pair in Welsh, as in Aremoric, and celan {the collan of the Gaehc) is a dead body. A pig was the sacrifice to Freya, the German Yenus, and, as a not uncommon piiapic offering, it has been already alluded to. Probably it may have had some connec- tion with Aremoric bar, a branch, and kelen, know- ledge, docti'ine ; and is thus a mystic juggling with words, possibly misunderstood by the writers to whom we owe the Avallenau in its present form. This eating of bodies, however, is very suggestive of the Orphic o)fioondage. The Clans of Milesius are not under slaverj-." In the first place, notice that the clan Aedh are here called children [danda) of Milesius, and identified Avith the Attacots ; and if we look narrowly into the possible meanmgs of the words in the stanza, we find indications of the foundation on which the histoiy of the Irish Attacots rests. Buicnecta, here translated herdsmen, makes us think, if tliis is correct, that it contains the Teutonic knecht, a servant, as the original of its latter part. Buicead, we find, is a bucket in Irish, but whether a GaeHc word is questionable. Buac, however, is mist, a cap of mist on a hiU; buacain, I O'Curry, Materials, p. 263. ^ VoL i. p. 115 SCOTTISH MYTHS. 203 the conical top of a hill, thus giving this clan Aedh a connection both with the Manx hay (mist) and the Irish caidh (a rock, summit). Why they should be a servile race, the Welsh and Breton give us the clue : caeth is a bondsman, a slave (in the Breton, kaez) ; hence the interesting episode of the servile insurrec- tion which put Cairbre, cat's head ! ! (or rather Cai's head) on the tlnrone of Ireland, and brought over Tuathal (Northman) subsequently from Scotland, to which, however, the story says he had fled, having of course been the son of a previous Irish monarch. One is also inclined to think that what we are told in Caesar of the fate of the Aduatici (has this been transmogrified into Aitheach Tuatha ? — it is some- times spelt Atuatici, and, in the search for a Gaelic derivation, A-ti-tua-ci will give a combination of the letters of Caesar's name sufiicient for the purpose of extension in Aitheach Tuatha) is a part of the foun- dation of this story. These, we know, were Tungri, and were descended from the Cimbri, and were, on the capture of their to-\\Ti, sold by Caesar into bondage, to the number oi ffty-tliree thousand persons.'^ So much for a connection between Clan Clachinnyha and Clan Kay. We may now consider the other spell- ing of this latter name, as it appears in the Registrinn Moraviense. It has been pointed out that the genitive form of masculine nouns is aspirated, and so the name Cai, if applied to a man, would, in the genitive, be- come Chai. The sound of this is guttural, and like the Greek x- I^^ jManx this sound is represented by an h simply. Thus in the Scottish we have the word chaidh, signifying "went," which in Manx is written /; ;V. Thus, the son of Cay might, as akeady explained, be best expressed phonetically as Macqhay, and so the name ^ Caesai's Gallic IVar, book ii. chap. 33. 204 SCOTTISH JIYTHS. of tlie patronymic becomes Haj ; or it might be Heth. Now, if we wish to find a historic ancestor of the Clan Aedh who was remarkable for his swiftness of foot, we find hun in Aed or Heth, surnamed Alipes, that is, mng-footed, of whom St. Berchan says : " He dies Avithout bell, without communion, in the evening, in a dangerous pass." ^ Nor are Ave Avanting in an his- torical connection betAveen the founder of the kingdom of the Isles, Somerled, and the name Heth. In the reign of Malcolm, the gi-andson of the Normanising DaAdd I., Somerled supported the claims of a certain person styhng himself Malcolm M'Heth, Avho claimed to be the chief of the nation of the Moravienses or men of IMurray. These, gathering their forces from the Isles, were defeated near the Cree, in WigtoAA-n, haAdng been supported by tlie Galwegians, Avhom Ave know to liaA-e been Galgael and Picts, and also hj the so- called MoiTiAdenses themselves, against whom, accord- ing to Fordun,' Malcolm headed an expedition, and scattered them throughout the different districts of Scotland. If this Malcolm M'Heth Avas, as seems not impossible, an impostor, it is the more clear that he Avould adopt the patronymic Avhich Avould most clearly express a connection A\'ith the men of J\Iurray. The name Hay itself, generally accepted as a Low country name, sIioaa-s a connection Avith this same traditional story in the account of the origin of that family giA-en by Hector Boece. In this AveU-knoAA'n fiction Ave are told that, in a battle with the Danes, localised by our A'eracious his- torian at Luncarty, — " This day had been the uter exterminion of Scottis, were not ane landwart man, namit Hay, Avith ^ Fordun, Book iv. cliap. 16, and Celtic Scotland, vol. i. p. 328. ^ Fordun, Book v. chaps. 3 and -L SCOTTISH MYTHS. 205 his two sonnes, of Strang and rude Bodies," " come hais- telie in support of Kenneth and his nobilis." " This Hay, havand na wapinnis hot the yok of ane pleuch, traishting na thing sa gud as to stop the fleing of the Scottis, abaid in a strait passage with his two sons, and slew baith Danis and Scottis, whom he fand fleand, with his yok."^ First, then, we see that Hay was a land- wart man, an allodial serf (Caeth). We next notice that he was the " stay of battle " of king Kenneth ; while the place in which he plied his " yok " was a narrow passage, cadha, phonetically connected with the words cattan and cadgun ; and we have already seen that Heth of the winged foot, that is, the swift Heth, was killed in a similar locaUty. Hay of Lun- carty's " yok " recalls the yokes of the birds of Gwen- dolen, who was son of Ceidio (see p. 163). We may remark here that the accepted form of the word cattan as a patronymic is in combination with the word gille, a servant ; thus " GUle Chattan Mor," the forefather of the Macphersons. This ought to signify the sei-vant of a saint, and so a saint of the name has found his way into the Gaelic hagiology. There is one other spelling of the name of the Clan Qwhewyl, namely, Quhele, that given by Bower. This name must have been different from Wyntoun's, and would seem to be in sound similar to the queeyl, a wheel, of the ]\Ianx ; or to< the ISIanx word quaiyl, a court of law ; and most likely appears, or, at least, has had the credit of appearing, in the word Tynwald, the name applied to the mount in the Isle of Man at which the meetings for legislative and other purposes are held {quail, a meeting, Manx) ; while the legislative assembly itself is called " The House of Keys," a false derivation, most likely, as much as Kay, mist, which 1 Bellenden, B. xi. c. 8. 20G SCOTTISH MYTHS. protected the island in the foggy days of Mannanan Mac y Lir. That the soimd of the word for this con- vention was hke that expressing " a wheel " the fol- lowing story shows. Some fishermen, long ago, arrived on the shore of an island which they had never seen or heard of, because it was always enveloped in a magic cloud. They landed, and presently there came rolling on the mist something like a wheel of fire, with legs for spokes. The result, as was to be expected, was that the fishermen did not remain longer than they cordd help in the locality.^ This wheel of fire, most likely originally the emblem of fire called " Swas- tika," still appears in the arms of the Isle of Man. And let us notice while Aed or Aodh is in Gaehc accepted as signifying fire, and is said to be the name of the Vesta of the ancient Irish,^ Aile is fire in jNIanx ; thus the name Quayle, the equivalent of Mac- phail, does not, in all Hkelihood, really mean the son of Paul as a name introduced subsequently to Christi- anity, but possibly, originally, the son of fire. In Irish the word ail, as already noticed, signifies a stone, a sting, a prickle. The first part of the name of the " Tjmwald ]\Iounts " might come from the word Cheenneii,i\\e Scotch Gaehc teine,Jire, a-nd quml = co-aU, a meeting, whence arise the stories of the distribution by the Druids of sacred fire at fixed periods. Phaal in Manx signifies a pen,*a. sheep -pen; while the same word written ya{/ (Scotch) signifies a sty, in Irish, an enclosure, a fence, a den ; thus ha'ving much the same signification as call, thus fail-chon, a dog kenneL Faill in JManx is also a ring, as fail m Scotch Gaelic, and in Irish, having in the latter a special apphcation to a rim round a pot. 1 Campbell's Tales, vol. iv. p. 386. - O'Donovaa O'Reilly's Dictionary, voce Aodh. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 207 Quail miglit mean " son of the ring," a meaning wliich seems a likely one for his companion, Quinney, along with whom and a " measure of law and rule,'' Quail was introduced into the Isle of Man. FaiTvey is a ring in Manx, being a mascuhne noun ; in the geni- tive they is eclipsed, thus, ynfer, the man; genitive, yn er, of the man ; so, yn fainey, the ring ; yn ainey, of the ring ; making qu-ainey, the son of the ring, as qu-aill might be also. We have already considered Carausius the Roman admiral and independent ruler of Britain, and his lieutenant, murderer, and successor, Allectus, and it has been regarded as curious that while there has never been discovered any engraved stone of the Roman period which alludes to either, they, or at least Carausius, have left a record of their power and wealth in a very copious coinage. On one of these coins, which has come down to us in first-rate preser- vation, and which is figured in Wright's Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 141, is, on the one side, a very carefully executed head of the admiral, on the other, a female figure holding out a ring to a serpent, emblem of Hfe and reproduction, issuing from an altar. Carausius was a Belgic Gaul, a Menapian. His name was Caius, suggestive of the caie of the Walloon, while Allectus's name seems evidently to point to his being the Alloit of Gaelic tradition ; whence Mannanan mac Alloit, wliich name may have been connected with the Gaelic al, a rock ; they commanded men remarked on for their long hair and splendid garments, and expressly mentioned as " barbarians, whether really or apparently so ;" and were the first in history who defeated and kept in check the Saxon, a name still unsavoury in the nostrils of a Gael, and were only themselves defeated by the centi-al Roman power the 208 SCOTTISH MYTHS. very year before we first find the name of Pict appear- ing in history. Could we have a better nucleus round which to weave tradition, or is it not, indeed, possible that the bell so-called of St. Fillan is another sample of the skill in metal- working of the makers of the coin above noticed, and who may have found the Isle of Man a fitting resort ? Tradition however says it was a King Gorree who introduced Quinney and Quayle ; Gorree, who first landed in the island at Laane (a fold, enclosure, circle), who is said to have declared that the road to his country was the " Milky Way," the Great Road of Gorree, as it is locally called ; and the reputed founder of the House of Keys {kee, the extreme top of a hill). The name seems to survive in MacGoarie, Macquharie, or ]\Iacwharrie ; also as Curry and O'Curry, and in this latter form very nearly approaches the Latin curia, a court, place of assembly of the senate ; in modern Manx, Qiioil. Gorree's connection with the " Milky Way " seems best explained by comparison \dt\\ the Aremoric word gorrd for goroi, to milk cattle, bringing us back, not to a Gaehc, still less to a Scandinavian, origin for his name ; and, accordingly, we find gouere in that lan- guage is the name for July, pointing to a connection ■^uth the primitive word gor, signifying bright, mcande- scence, a white heat. Gorree's connection with July identifies liim with Mananan, worshipped on Midsum- mer's Da}-, while his name, miplying brilliancy, con- nects him with the Welsh Tahessin, " radiant front," who was found, as we have seen, in a fish wear, for wliich the Welsh, like the Aremoric, is gored. Gorree was the introducer of \\T.iting among the Manx, as Ogma of the " sun-like face " was its introducer among SCOTTISH MYTHS. 209 the Irish. Gorree was a Belgic Gaul, if he must be locahsed, though, Hke the Picts, he came from the Orkneys, having occupied them before the Isle of Man. The significance of the " ring" in connection with this Manx tradition is a matter of considerable doubt. All know its common use as an evidence of the married state. In early times, on the banks of the Rhine at least, it was a badge of slavery, as we learn from what Tacitus tells us of the Catti, a nation bordering on that river. He says :' — " The bravest of them wear also an iron ring, a mark of ignominy in that nation, as a kind of chain, till they have released themselves by the slaughter of a foe. Many of the Catti assume this distinction, and grow hoary under the mark, con- spicuous both to foes and friends. By these in every engagement the attack is begun." " They have no house, land, or domestic cares ; they are maintained by whomsoever they visit." The mode of life thus pointed out is exactly that claimed for the followers of Finn, the so-called Feinne of Fail. In Manx the name for a female servant, applied to Hagar the bondmaid in the Manx Bible, is inney-veayl, or veyl. Words be- ginning with ph drop the ph after ??, as in the following- instance, e (ted, his pen or ring ; nyn vaal, our pen or ring. The word meaning a bondmaid seems to be composed of inney or inneen, a daughter, a girl, and 2:>haal, a ring. Against this derivation, however, is the finding of a small vowel in veayl or veyl ; it there- fore seems possible that it does not come dii'ect from this word signifying a ring, but possibly from some such word as the Irish GaeUc 7na,el, a servant, geni- tive mhael, pronounced vhel—& word which in the Breton has the signification of a soldier. The GaeHc mael is supposed to mean the tonsured servant, con- ' Tacitus's Manners of the Germans, para. 3 1 . O 210 SCOTTISH MYTHS. nected with nuiol, signifying bald. Does it not seem possible that the circular tonsui-e was a way of marking this ring of servitvide ? The tonsure in Breton is called kern, in this form a well-known name for an Irish " fighting man," a name spelled in Irish Cearn, and meaning a man ; and, curiously enough, it is in the tale of the Cearnach that we find Rob M'Sheoic, previously referred to, mentioned. This all points to a widespread custom among the Celts ; and we may notice here that Carausius was a man of low birth, and though histoiy tells tis his followers wore their hair long, his portrait on the coin referred to does not show him to have worn his own specially long. In talking of the tonsure, it must not be foi-gotten that the original Scottish tonsure was from ear to ear across the head. As an indication of the connection of such words as quhele, j^hail, and the Mackays, in the Holl of the broken clans of 1594, we find a name Cheiljjhale,^ and to this the editor appends a note saying, that they were a sept of IMackays descended from one Paul M'Neill IMackay. If such an individual was head of the sept, he must, we may suppose, have got his names from some previous tradition. One other curious coincidence, in connection ^vith a name some- what like the C-aeawjr of the Gododin, the ma.n of the enclosure {Cai, GaeUc, a house, a way), occurs on an engraved stone near- the southern extremity of Sweden. This stone is called "Ke^vik's" tomb, and is generally assumed to be connected with a battle 1 1 fought there by Ragnar Lothbrok in the year ■j ^ 750. On this tomb there is a figure repre- A J^ sented holding up a vessel, closely presenting the appearance of such a bell as St. Fdlan's, and ' Collectanea de Sebus Albanicis, p. 39. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 211 evidently held by a handle placed as the handle of the latter is/ While thus considering pretty closely the names grouped round a particular historical incident, and showing a possible traditional connection between them, it would be a mistake to suppose that these were the only Highland Scottic names referable to the same traditions ; for the clan, which Skene says was the special clan which fought on the Inch, the M'Gillonies, owe their name to the same source. Finn, hke Columba, had the gift of prophecy — a gift which the former exercised when he chewed his thumb. The prophet, then, of whom the M'Gillonies were servants, may have been what appears in tradition as Finn mac Cumhail. The diflSculty of finally setthng an etymology, or deducing history from popular tra- ditions, is not inaptly illustrated in the very name Hay. In speaking of the death of Minos of Crete, Cox, in his Aryan Mythology,^ says that the name of his slayer, " Kokalos," is akin to the word Caecus, and possibly with Kaikias, the word which seems to have suggested the myth of Cacus. The name Kokalos " is made up of the particle denotmg separation, ha and the root oc which we find in the Latin oeulus, the German auge, the English eye. The same formation has given us the words Judt, half." Cacus was a son of Vulcan, and a keeper of cattle, and is linked with the Cyclops. Cecht was the patronymic of one of St. Patrick's smiths, the maker of the Finn Faidheach. Caoch signifies blind, to shut the one eye (Gaelic) ; and in passing, we may note that the expression denoting the want of a hand or foot, thus expressing one who is halt, is in Gaelic ^ Proceedings Soc. Antl'i. Scotland, voL xii. Part II. 1878, p. 665. 2 Mythokigy of Aryan Nations, voL u. p. 88, editioQ 1878. 212 SCOTTISH MYTHS. expressed by the word meaning half (leth), thus a man ■with half a foot, is a man halt from the loss of a foot. But Kokalos, as Cox remarks, recalls the name of Coccles, '•■ the Captain of the Gate," the brave defender of the narrow bridge over the Tiber, thus performing the same function as Hay of Luncarty — the latter's name having apparently the exact form of the par- ticle signifying " separation," with which the " narrow pass" in which he wielded his "yoke" is du'ectly related. The Eth, as in Eth Ahpes, is directly in accord with a connection with a bell; as in Welsh, Aecld signifies noise, clamour ; and to bring tliis down to a liistoric fact, and to a locaHsation in accordance -with the view that the clan Clagane may have been M'Ath or Kay bv a varying etymology, we find that in 1232 a certain Gillemychel M'Ath, "excambs" a davoch of land in Strathardel, in the close proximity of the country of the clans Donnachie and Clachynnha.' We have tried to make use of the traditions handed down to us as they appear in Bede, Xemrius, Gildas, and the Irish so-called liistorians, do^vn to O'Curry ; and though Scotch written Gaelic records are not plentiful, it is curious to find in one of the oldest of them a manuscript" genealogy of the Highland clans,' written about the year 1450, and preserved in the Advocates' Library here, the statement gravely made that the kings of Scotland were descended from a cei-tain " Cruitenithe mac Fmnfeiche," which is capable of no other interpretation than " Pict, the son of Finn Faidheach." This latter gentleman was, as we have already shown, the bell of St. Patrick, the bell of St. Mac- 1 Celtic Scotland, vol. iii. p. 344. '■^ Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis, p. 50. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 213 Creich, and of Ailbe, the instructor of St. Fillan, all already considered. This gives strong confirmation of the theory, which all before written tends to prove, and which the great veneration for bells in the Celtic l^ortions of Britain further supports, that the real Palladium of Scotland was not a stone, but a bell. The stone in Westminster Abbey may be considered a " stumbhng-block and rock of offence " to this proposi- tion ; but it seems clear that it was with Edward the First, as it was with Columba's marauding attendants when the sheep's head turned to a stone in their hands. Nor do we want proof that this piece of sand- stone, behoved by Mr. Geikie to be of a sort common in the locality from which it was taken, namely. Scone, was a relic without companions. In Langtoft's Chronicle, compiled about the year 1300, speaking of the conquest of Scotland by Edward, under the year 1296, says: — " Thair kings Scet of Scone Es driven ovir doune To London i led. In town herd I telle The Baghel and the Belle, Ben filched and fled."i The bachal or crosier of St. Fillan is, along with his bell, at present in the Musemn of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland ; and the possession of this crosier gave to its keepers, a family of the name of Dewar, certain rights and privileges as bailiffs, or as sheriff-officers, rights which we know were shared by the Earls of Athol and the Abbots of Glendochart, as set forth in the law of William the Lion (1165-1214), called Claremathane. The Dewars hved in Glen- dochart, and the Maclagans Hved in the close neigh- 1 Quoted from Wright's Political Songs, Camdea Society, 1839, p. 307, in Dean Stanley's MemoriaU of Westminster. 214 SCOTTISH MYTHS. bom-hood of Logy Mached {Logic, of the sons of Aedd), of which the Rath was the head of the county and of the Thanedom of Dulmonych, and of the Thanedom of Fandufuith, a name already mentioned in connection with the Four Ancient Books of Wales ; and this place, now called Logierait, on the authority of the New Statistical Account, was called " Bal no maoir," that is, the town of the thief-takers. Another branch of the Maclagans was located at Scone, and we have seen that the special doctrine in the latter days of the Bell of Mo-Aedd-an, in its character as Bell of Scone, was to preach against theft. The Bachul of St. Fillan is twofold, neither being of the same material as the bell, the more ancient crosier, of bronze, the bell being apparently of brass, having come down to us preserved inside of a beautifully-ornamented, comparatively modern, crosier-head, which was known under the designation of the " Coigreach." This simply means The Stranger, a name pecuHarly in accord in its signi- fication with the name of the Dewars, as spelt at the time when Robert Bruce granted them the custody of the crosier, when they are called Jove, ex'idently the same word as the Manx Joarrcc, signi- fying a stranger. There can be little doubt that the Palladium of Scotland Avas a bell, and that it is the bell which has come down to us as that of St. Fillan, a saint as mythical as Saint Palladius, -with Avhora, I have no doubt, he is to be identified. Further, while we know that Robert the Bruce had at the battle of Bannock- bum a relic of St. FUlan, and thus evidently had this peculiar saint in high veneration, we find that connect- ing him with the coronation of our Scottish kings, as the stone was connected with him in its character as Lech Lafar for him to sit upon, so the bell of St. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 215 Fillan was, in 1488, brought to the coronation of James iv. If this bell were used at the ceremony- further than being merely present, there is no record ; but from its history in latter days as in accordance with the traditions sought to be proved as connected with it from the earliest times, it fell to have been used as a head-piece. This is proved by the practices connected with it within the last two centuries, when, as a cmrative agent in the treatment of the insane, the unfortunate patient was pulled through a small pond, and tied to a seat, wet as he was, to pass the night with the bell on his head. WhUe the compHcated nature of the inquiry, as to what facts are to be found in our myths, justifies the appellation only of notes as a description of what is contained in the previous jDages, some further slight attempts to arrive at conclusions may be made. While the acceptance of an explanation, founded on the Greek, of the names Maeatae, Picts, Scots, and Attacots seems to ha\-e long been current, and to deserve quite as much credit as any others, there is no doubt strong presumptive evidence that the Maeatae and the Scots were one. We have shown how Maiatai, Vecturiones, Cath- vreich and Liethali agree in mea-ning, while we have seen that the latter were driven out of Dimetia — a name almost certainly allied to the term Maeatae, and which also, we may conclude, occurs in the name Miathi, the name of the people in war with whom fell two of the sons of St. Columba's Aedan. Now Nennius also calls the Liethali Scots, and if these various readings are synonyms, then the identifi- cation is certain, and Scot comes from the Breton for a branch. Now when we consider what we find in Ptolemy (a.u. 120), as to the people of Dimetia, 216 SCOTTISH MYTHS. we find the Dobuni next them. But this name we believe to have been properly Boduni, which at once connects them with the " Children of Bethoun " of Nennius. Now these Boduni were part of, or subject to, the Cativellauni, who thus, most likely, inliabited Dimetia ; and we thus identify the Scots and the Cativellauni, or at least we may say there is such ground as our traditions give us for this identification. And thus we run to ground the connection of the Scots with this curious saint — FUlan. Now it is also very significant that these Cativel- launi were the nation of Cunobelinus and Tasciovanus, the first British coiners. On their coins we find a head of corn (criutneach) with the words Tascie ; a figure with a lyre marked Cunobe ; on another a curious horse-like figure composed of knobbed headed things of the same appearance as the branches of the " hom " previously mentioned, and inscribed on the reverse, Boduo, which is sufiiciently suggestive ; on another occurs the word " Orceti," suggesting a connection with Cet. Now what the pecuhar ceremonies Avere which characterised this people it is not easy to say, but it is curious to find among the natives of North America, as figured by Lafitau in his Mceurs des Sauvages Ameriquai/ts, pubUshed in 1724, a dance Avhich seems perhaps to point to A\'hat may ha-ve taken place among our ancestors. I annex a rough copy of the plate. Here we have a barbarous people dancing what might be a " reel," in a circle peculiarly hke our stone circles. The total number of performers is eight couple and an odd man. This makes it, possibly a sheer coincidence, much like an " eightsome " reel, and, as in this latter, there is what is called a SCOTTISH MYTHS. 217 " prisoner," so here we have the centre occupied by three of the performers, who may be performing what is allied to the "jig," a dance of three performers. The green branches which they carry, and with which one at least is dressed (?), make them Vecturiones, while, if the behef that the bladder-shaped, crescent- ornamented things carried by some of the performers are inflated bladders or skins, used perhaps for causing sound, the bearers might be called Firbolg. The Americans figui-ed may have been less advanced in the arts than the Cativellauni ; but if the dance is a "reel," and was such as the Maiatai danced, it still survives after seventeen centuries. Is it not also possible that the sprigs carried as clan badges may hint at another survival, while its effect on tradition is clear in the story in which Mac Beth is described as defeated by the foUowers of Malcolm (the servant of the dove) when they carried green boughs of the " Brynnane " wood to " Dun- synane," the hill of chamis or enchantment {seunan, Gaelic).^ From the same connection then spring the stories of Beli Mawr, the " Crocea Mors " that slew Cassi- belaunus, the smith Tassach that made bells for St. Patrick, etc. ; and it even makes it possible that the men who coined the money which still is to be found in our museums may also have made the beU of St. FiHan. We know that there were Cativellauni in the service of Rome, stationed on the wall, and it seems exceedingly probable that they formed part of Agricola's army, for the 9 th Legion was the one defeated at Camelodunum, the capital of Cimobelinus, while hastening to its relief, and which had sub- ' WyutouQS Chronicle, Book ri. 218 SCOTTISH MYTHS. sequently to be recruited from auxiliaries. Tlie conjec- tures as to this Legion being the source of the Spanish story of the origm of the Scots in Ireland has been already considered ; and the name of Patrick's cap- tor, Nial, who was also a forefather of Columba, suggests that the nine hostages, or rods, or what- ever they were, from which he was called, owe their number either to the mne of the ninth Legion or to the number of the branches of the "hom," — the tree of Life, appearing also as the nine golden apples on the fairy branch given by Mananan to Cormac mac Ai-t.^ Nor is the name Nial itself at all opposed to the theory of a religious observance. The Gaehc for a religious festival is feil, a fair, aufh'id = t]xe fair, pro- nounced an eil, wliich requh^es but a different distri- bution of the letters to make it a Neil, and this trans- mogrification seems to have clearly occurred at a place called Neale, in Mayo. This then would make the Nial naoi ghiaJlach, the Festival of the Nine Branches. This invasion by the ninth Legion of course is long before the name either of Pict or Scot appears in history. Now the strong points of resemblance between Arthur and Agricola and some of the later traditions have been pointed out ; and from the Batavians and Tungrians of the latter commander we have suggested the origin of the Picts, and have dra^\Tl attention to the curious coiiicidence of the name of one of the leaders of the Tungrians, Campanus, and with these Picts we incline to identify the Tuatha de Danaans. As in the time of Ptolemy, nearly half a century after Agiicola, we find Dimetia and the Boduni in South Wales, so at the same date do we find Menapii, ' Ossianic Society, vol. iii. p. 213. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 219 a people of the same name as those living in the country of the Tungri, settled near the modern Dublin, the district forming the centre of Irish tra- dition, from which we first hear of the Lia Fail, where, according to our already expressed belief, were first instituted in Ireland the Mithraic " Leontica," under the title of Lughnasa. In the country of Dimetia was stationed, at Caer- leon on Usk, the 2d Legion. Its badge was a goat, and it does not seem impossible that the sons of " Uisneach " and the Scottish sons of Gabhran (gabhar, a goat ; gahharan, a Httle goat) issued from here. Nor does it seem impossible that the stories of the Twrch Ti-^vyth and the boar that killed Diarmuid may not have arisen from the badge of the 20th Legion, stationed at Chester. The former was stationed in what became Menevia and the country of Caswallan Lawhir, the latter in what became Venedotia, and was the country of Maelgwn or Maglocunus, while it had been commanded by Agricola himself under Vettius Bolanus, and would thus, if Cneaus is the origin of Cunaethus, in future times have a claim to be called " of the sons of Cunetha." Now we know that at Borcovicus on the southern wall, now Housesteads, held by a Tungrian cohort, there is positive evidence of a Mithraic worship in the discoveiy there of a Mithraicura , the sculptured stones from which are preserved at Newcastle-on-Tyne.^ These Tungri were from the same neighbourhood as the Menapii, of whom we have found a division in Ptolemy's time in the eastern central part of the Irish coast. In this same neighbourhood the Lughnasa were, as the fable says, instituted in commemoration of the last Queen of the Fhbolg. Now the whole ' Wright's CeU, Roman, and Saxon, 328. 220 SCOTTISH MYTHS. connection of the Tuatha de Danaans and Firbolg, and their battle on Midsummer's Day, seem, as abeady stated, to be but a myth connected with a form of worship, and one of these apparently Mithraic. Now the frequent Raths, or enclosed spaces, in which are so often found subterranean chambers, and in which chambers are found the greater number of the Ogmic inscribed memorial stones, taken in con- junction with the Glastum-stained, secret rites of the British women, suggest a Venus cultus, which we know was, like the Mithraic, common in Cilicia and Phoenicia at the time of the first appearance of the Batavians in Roman history, as noted previously, about the date of the expedition against the Cilician pu-ates. This apparent connection comes out in the fact that the Greeks called Venus in some cases Melanis or Meloenis, the black. And as we have seen the Welsh Demetia become Mene'V'ia or Menapia, we also find in this same district by far the greater number of the British Ogmic inscriptions. Now Lucian, the Greek satirist, born about a.d. 120, narrates how, in Marseilles, the GauHsh Hercules, Ogmios, was described to hiiir as an old man, almost bald, wrinkled, and of a swarthy colour, like men long exposed to the sea, and as the god of eloquence, drawmg a large number of people after him by slender chains of gold and amber, stretched from his tongue to the ears of his hearers. Lucian does not say that these chains were intelligible markings, but there can be no reasonable doubt that we have here the clue to the origin of Ogmic writing. The late stu-vival of Venus worship has been noticed, page 91. Now Lajard informs us that the oracles of Venus MyUita, a word signifying in Semitic, according to Lajard, a mixture of light and darkness, were delivered SCOTTISH SIYTHS. 221 by the chirping of golden birds, mechanically gifted with speech.^ The Gaelic name for a bell is, as already mentioned, clog or dag, and it seems to have had its origin in the same root as the Icelandic Jddh, Danish klukken, the chirping of birds ; hence also the German glocke, the Danish kloJcke, the Swedish klodca, the Dutch klok. Now, as Catlia?;, the battle one, comes from Cath, war, so Eiman, the bird one, the Gaelic name for om- fictitious Adamnan, comes fi-om Ian or Eun, a bird, a vessel, which became the St. John of Midsummer Day, and which seems recog- nisable in lanus, the E-oman sun-god himself. And here we may note that, while Adamnan's bell may be the Cathan of the Clan Gille Chattan, it is curious to find the name of the M'Intoshes occuri-ing in the Welsh Ogmic inscriptions in the genitive of the Latin form Tovisaci. We thus find how oracular sayings got from bells might be said to be the chirping of bkds. In Gaelic manadh is an omen, a sign, incantation ; and the leaders of the Tuatha de Danaans were Mananan, called IManawyddan in Welsh, the son of the sea (Mac Lir), Ogma, the sun-faced, and the Taghta, their priest, while over all was Lug of the Lughnasa. This priest's name signifies chosen or selected, and to him belonged the mysterious vessel which, trans- lating Ms name as " hfted up," connects it with the palladium of Pliai-aon (of Phaland ?), which was of " bright and uplifted fi'ont ; " or, as meaning " brewed or distilled," discloses to us how it became a caldron (vide toghta, 0'B.eilly). If he also had to do with the mysterious Taghairm (page 47), — tog, raise, gairm, pro- clamation, — it had no more connection vrith "cats" than that it was done with the Cathan, whose " thi-ee ' Lajard's Venus, page 92. 222 SCOTTISH MYTHS. shouts" we have spoken of so frequently, and to which style of proclamation even the historical (?) Somerled owes his name. Samuel becomes Somarle, a Latin termination makes it SomarlecZus, and so we have another name of a man of three calls introduced into our traditions. His father was Gilledomnan, i.e. the servant of Eunan, and he was the son of the servant of the Veil of the cave, all descendants of the " Bowl the hundred fighter," " Conn ceud cathach." Now, among early Greek writers, Callimachus, in liis Hymn to Delos, an island like Man, lona, Inniskea, Inchkeith, etc., talks of the Pelasgi as "servants of the vase that is never silent." Who, then, better represents a Pelasglc stock than Maelgwn, the servant of the bowl, otherwise Maglocunus, the servant of the bell ? The origin of this never- silent bowl comes out in Gaelic itself, where we find the heavens called Naemh, pronounced inaev, identical in sound with what is written naehh, a saint, a sliip. Compare %\'ith this the Neev-ou-Gee, the saint (see page 152) Geidh of Inniskea (page 153), the boat, the phallic stone, also the boat of Bagocassis, of Taney, of the chief priest of Mithra, and of Helias Grail, and finally \v\t\\ the name of the Macnabs and Macnairs (page 187), the latter being e-vidently Mac an Eather, the son of the boat, '\\'hich Eather occui-s as the name of a Tuatha de Danaan ; King Ethur, othermse called, apparently, Mac Cuill, who reigned in Ireland at the time of the landing of the Milesians, while Mac Nave was the name of Columba's mother's father. Now this stone here called Neev-ou-^'ee, recalls how a stone has been, in Ireland and Scotland, con- sidered the special palladium of the Scots. Gaia, or Ge, the earth, was invoked by persons taking oaths SCOTTISH MYTHS. 223 in the time of Homer, and Hesiod makes Ge deceive Cronus hy giving him a stone to swallow instead of Zeus. As the heavens surround the world, and, as was believed, the sea the earth, so have we this symbolised by the Yoni-surrounded Lingum, the German Hertha in her sacred lake, and St. Fillan in his pool. AU things may be said to have sprung from these symbols of the earth ; hence Mithra born of a stone ; hence St. Cai of Menapia ; hence Patrick {i.e. Peter), and Columba, the column or pillar stone ; and so Cai = Gaia = Kai of Kaiomorts (page 169), as the "producer" becomes Arthur's "pantler" ! Now the Romans swore by Jupiter Lapis, that is, Jupiter symbolised by the flint, the stone from which fire is produced when stinjck, used as an emblem of lightning, and this, seeing the use of flint imple- ments was so widely spread, seems much more likely to have been the stone used as a symbol than any other. In the story of the San Greal we are distinctly told that the stone from which the holy vessel was made was " the most brilliant in the crown of Lucifer," the "light-bearer." This might well be the flint, but we are further informed that the name of the stone was "exillis." This betrays the fact that when this was written the stone was mythical. Exilis in Latin is thin, slender, shrill, the exact equivalent of the name of Fionn's companion Caoilte mac Ronan, son of the spear, with which spear we may compare that of Diarmid, called the Gath Buidhe, the yellow dart, or^ possibly, Cath buidhe, the yellow Catha?i, or "for- tunate in battle ; " the word htiidhe, yellow, also ex- pressing grateful, fortunate. Fuii^her, we find that Wolfram of Eschenbach, to whose dictation the story of the Greal in the oldest form in which we have it 224 SCOTTISH MYTHS. was first taken down, tells us that lie got it from a certain Kyot, an inhabitant of Anjou, whose near con- nection with Brittany evidently points to the original habitat of the story, who again had got it from an Arabian writer called Flegetanis. Kyot is most pi-obably an invented name, being certainly, Ave may suppose, the Breton keo, a cave, a grotto, the cul of Finn, the ceo, the magical mist of the Tuatha de Danaans/ And further, Bergman in- forms us that Flegetanis is not Arabic, but presumably a Latinised form of a Persian word, Fclehe-Ddneh, signifying an astrologer. Is this the real origin of the name of the Tuatha de Danatms, and does it account for Mananan Mac Lir's being the best navigator of his day that frequented Erin, and how " he tised to know through science, by observing the sky, the pei'iod that the calm or the storm should continue "? " Now the shrill character of the stone shows that the subject of the San Greal story emitted sound, and we may conclude that it was of metal, and the work of the smith. Patrick, the saiiit, was called, in what Irish writei's claim as among their oldest historical docu- ments, the Tailcenn, or Tailgenn, or Talchenn f and it is noteworthy that, in close proximity to the passage in Callmiachus about the ne\-er-silent vase, we find the Telchines mentioned, who were magicians, and worked in brass and iron. We have already pointed out Patrick's connection with the coiners of the Cativel- launi, and we will now point out that, in addition to the Cunobelinus and Tasciovanus on their coins, the very name of this tribe connects them with the most notorious smith of our Western mythology, i.e. with ' Bergman's The San Greal, p. 6. ^ Four Ancient Books of Walen, vol. i. p. 78. 3 O'Curry's Materials, pp. G17, 618. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 225 liim called Valant, which name assumes the forms Faland, Phaland, Foland — unmistakeable surely for anything else but our Fillan. This is the Wayland Smith of Kcnihvorth. Volant is the cheat, the seducer, and, under the female form of Valandinne, becomes St. Valentine, who presides over our lovei^s' festival. Now in this connection we note that the brothers of the king of the Tuatha de Danaans, " Mac Cuill," mentioned above, were M'Ceacht and j\Iac Greine (the son of the sun), and that then- father's name is Cermna Mil- bheoil, the first name being the equivalent of Valant, as seen in cearmnas, which signifies a lie, falsehood, a trick. Milhlieoil is " sweet mouth." His other son, "Mac Ceacht," has the same name — " Mac Cecht" — as another smith of St. Patrick, and the maker of the Finn Faidheach, already mentioned, and appear- ing as the Pictish ancestor of oiu- Scottish kings (p. 213). St. Patrick was the instructor of St. David. St. David was a descendant, of Cunetha, and Giraldus tells us that it was he who moved the episcopal see of Wales from Caerleon (the " Joyeuse Garde" of the French romances, from the Breton A'er laouen, the joyous city, the seat of Tristram the " proclaimer ") to Mynyw (compare Mungo), afterwai'ds called Ty Deici, David's house, or St. David's. Maelgwn, whose name we have said was Pictish, and thus more alhed to the Tuatha de Danaans, is especially identified as of the line of Dyfed by Skene ; and he is Maglocunus, the dragon of the Isles. St. Patrick, it has been pointed out, appears in tradition in the Isle of Man, as encountering a magician called the son of the stone (?) Mac Lea, who (p. 108) "did fly ui the air," but came fluttering to the grotmd at St. Patrick's feet. P 2 20 SCOTTISH JIYTHS. This incident at once shows the connection, as Folan is a buttei-fly in Manx, and the fluttering fall of Mac Lea is unmistakeable. From Man was got the magic shield of Conn ]\Iac Nessa, at the prompting of the Clochuir. Man- anan Mac Lir plays an important part in the island's traditions as a sun-god, being worshipped on Mid- summer's Day ; and we connect hun with the " Bobbin a Bobbin " of the wren hunt, the Bobbin being, as sho^v^l at p. 109, evidently a bell, as the " Boban" of Caemhin was a principal relic of Ireland. The well-known story of the " children of Lir," the father of Mananan, tells us how they were changed into swans, and are said to have spent 300 years in Loch Darvra (in West Meath), 300 in the sea of Moyle (the sea between Erin and Alban), and 300 at Irros Domnann (Erris, county Mayo) and Innis Gluair, a smaU island west of BelmuUet,^ and how they were freed fi'om their enchantment on hearing the bell of St. Caemhoc or Mochoemhoc. In old Irish the h, or rather a dot representing the letter h over the letter to be modified, was omitted, and this, in modern writers, is often intro- duced where there is not suflBcient evidence of its jDropriety. Caeimhghin of p. 109, is then, except for the varying termination, the same name as Caemhoc, the deliverer of the children of Lir, and "Kevik" of the Swedish tomb (p. 210) ; and there is reason to beheve that the in should remain unasphated, and therefore should not be pronounced as v in Kevin, but as in in Kemoc. Aoi is a swan in Gaelic, and in Knapdale, the seat of the Mackays (Mac Aoi), mentioned p. 135, we find a place called KUmahumaig, their residence. This is 1 Joyce's Old Celtic Romances, p. 30. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 227 Gill mo Chaemoc (pronounced Haemoc), and there- fore the cell of the saint, the freer of the children of Lir from enchantment at Inis Gluair. Now Kilma- humaig is at Crinan, and Crinan is the name of the Abbot whom fabulists make the forefather of the Macnabs, as sons of the abbot, and who married the daughter of Malcolm (the servant of the dove), the son of Kenneth (the sounding head, the head of Eth), king of Scotland, and was the father of Duncan, murdered by Macbeth. Skene suggests that Crinan " occupied some important position " in connection with the Western Isles. ^ Crinan is surely Grianan, translated a royal seat, a bower, derived from the root grian, the sun. These swans spoke Gaelic, but wliile under the protection of the saint were chained two and two by silver chains, and only regained their human form when taken from the altar to be presented to Deoch ( = drink), the wife of the king of Connacht. That this story is the same as The Ceatharnach is clear, the name of the saint and the warrior being equally derivatives from the same word, as appears in the clan name of the IMac Kays, and because the Ceatharnach finishes his adventvues in Connacht by a quarrel about his drink, which was " divided," as the children of Lir were separated, against his will, at the place where he encountered the " Bodach Mac Ceochd." The chains round the swans' necks are also, in the tradition of HeUas Grail, those who become swans being born with chains round their necks, and one of these chains was used to make a goblet for their cruel grandmother, Matabrune ; and it was this swan which, being unable to resume its human form, from the ^ Celtic Scotland, vol. i. p. 392. note. •228 SCOTTESH >[YTHS. destruction of its chain, led Helias Grail on his adventures.^ But the children of Lir were four in number, and St. Patrick served four of a village (p. 121), and this corresponds with the number of the precious things brought to Ireland by the Tuatha de Danaans, of which we have considered two, rejecting as untenable that the Lia Fail was a stone, and holding it to be of the same description as the so-called Caldi-on of the Dagda. The other two precious things were a spear and a sword. Both of these are expressed by the word J ami in Gaelic, meaning a blade. Now, there was also a spear connected with the Grail, and this was undoubt- edly a phallus, as was the " sword " of the Scythian worship. Laii'ii is also an enclosure, a house, a veil. There is every reason to believe, as akeady pointed out at pp. 106 and 166, that at the Leontica the ceremony of the exliibition of the " griffins " was the disclosure to the initiated of the equivalent of the Scythian sword. As the children of Lir were in couples, and taken from Caemoc's altar chained together, to be separated, and immediately resolved into their pristine elements, so I conclude each of the Lia Fail and the caldron of the Daghda was associated with a phallus ; or, seeing one of Lir's children ^\'as a woman, one of them A\ath a ijoKi, with which word we may connect the cake c;dled a »:-one. Whether these Avere really chained one with the other or not may be a question. There can be no doubt the various meanings of the word laun supply, with the above explanations, all the materials for the utensils of the Seal of the Lia Fail and his companion when visited by Conn. Have we not in tliis also the ' Curious Myths of Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 319. SCOTTISH JIYTHS. 229 origin of the Crom Cruach, the bloody Fillan (p. 177), for the spear of the Grail was " bloody," and the Crom, we are told, was crowned with gold ? This suggests what in reahty should be represented by the staff of St. Fillan, and it must at least be granted as a very curious coincidence that both the staff itself and its hereditary keeper should be called by a name signifying the stranger (p. 214). Lajard, however, informs us that the crooked staff' was carried by novices in the Mithraic mysteries. In reference to the arrangement of these utensils, I have given a sketch of a bell picked up in Rome, the copy of one in the Vatican, which exemplifies exactly what all this suggests. Here you have displayed on a surface, marked on the original with nine concentric circles, that is, the same number as the branches of the " horn " and the apples of Cormac's branch, a dove (Columba), with expanded wings, which is concealed from view, as in a house or enclosure, or veiled by a bell. The rounded form of the bell in this case accords with the form of the dove, as would the quadrangular form of St. Fillan's bell with what it concealed. Nor does the resemblance end here, for, as St. Fillan's bell has for a handle the rough representation of a sea- monster, so the handle of this bell is composed of dolphins, while St. Fillan's phalli are represented by what are usually called Cupids. The Pajjal tiara which surmounts all, we must re- member, is a Persian head-di'ess, and the three cmcles on it, one over the other, are as much in accord with Mithraic as with Christian theogony. We may con- clude that the Roman bell is undoubtedly Christian ; but we may as certainly conclude that the ideas expressed by it were pre-Christian, and most hkely 230 SCOTTISH :>IYTHS. Mithraic, a form of worship from which Christianity has not hesitated to borrow. Finally, in regard to St. Patrick, we find in the quadrangular form of the Scottish bell the sufficient and, we may conclude, true etymology of his name. Pedwar Welsh, Pevar Breton, in the masculine the cardinal number " four ; " feminine, Pedair, Welsh ; Peder, Breton. Pedrog, as pointed out at p. 136, four-sided, quadrangular, the special form taken by Patrich. Pottraicc in Irish Gaelic is a vessel for con- taining fluids. — (O'Pteilly.) Morgan, the clan name of the Mac Kays, and the name of the traditional slayer of Arthur, is another link joining the idea of " brightness " with the sea (Lir), as Stokes^ informs us that it is in old Celtic moricantus, i.e. sea-bright. Does Arthur's being slain by his nephew ]\Iorgand signify the time when the symbol became the object of interest for itself, and not as representing the "Ardouisom-" (p. 167), the -watery element of production 1 Since writing the above my attention has been drawn to the following, ^^•hicll I extract from a httle book called Franve, published by Sampson Low and Co., 1881. At page 129 we find :— " Tradition says that Brittany was evangehsed by a British monk, named Samson, who, with six other ecclesiastics, crossed the Channel in a coi-acle, ' sing- ing mournful psalms.' This little company is known as the seven saints of Brittany, and to them is attri- buted the introduction of the apple-tree ; just as in Gloucestershke it is said to have been brought by the monks. Another of these saints was St. Pol de Ldon, patron saint and founder of the cathedral in the town of that name. Of course he has his special legend. ' Qoiddicn, p. 119. SCOTTISH MYTHS. 231 The Isle of Ratz being infested by a dragon, the saint, accompanied by a single soldier, entered the cave where it housed, tied his stole round its neck, and bade his companion lead it forth. Beating it Avith his stafiP, St. Pol walked beside it to the sea-shore, where he commanded it to throw itself into the sea. He is always represented with the dragon of Eatz by his side. A httle bell is rung at the pardons of St. Pol de Leon, over the heads of those who have earache or headache, and marvellous ciures are said to be wrought. St. Pol had always wished for this bell, which be- longed to the king. It was refused him ; but soon after a fish was caught and taken to the saint, and in its mouth was the bell ! It is evidently very ancient — a square pyramid in shape, about nine inches high, and made of a mixture of copper and silver." Legonidec gives under p(???Z, a stake, pillar, peg, column, as other pronunciations, pal and j'^ciol, aUied to our fed ; whUe peulvan [=fcdan) is a long stone erected perpendicularly — a rough pUlar, supposed to be an object of worship by the Draids. Paol, the same word as the first, called p)6l like the Leon saint outside of the province of Leon, is the " tiller of a helm." Compare Cairpre Muse, page 119. Looking at this legend we have no difilculty in seeing its close connection with our Scotic traditions. The subject is certainly not Christian. We have the introduction by the seven saints of the phallic apple. Whether Samson has aught to do -with samm (Aremoric)y a bundle = holg, a bag or sac, is not clear, but St. Pol is unmistakable. He attacks his di-agon, not only in a cave, but in a cave on an island, attended by a single neophyte [mael, a soldier, page 92). On the neophyte (!) he puts not the girdle of initiation, the kosti (hence the Gaelic goistidh, a gossip, god- 232 SCOTTISH MYTHS. father, the father of a child to whom one is godfather), but the Christian stole, round his neck, and leads him to the water of purification, baptism, while with his staff (?) he beats upon the bell, that is, the dragon. But the bell is the king's bell, and was evidently of great value to liim, as was doubtless St. Fillan's to the king who possessed it. Like St. Mungo's ring, this bell was given to the saint after it had passed from the king's possession by a fish ; while, like St. Fillan's bell again, and like the " coppeen olain," it had and has power of curing affections of the head. Finally, its quadrangular form is characteristic. To look for histoiy in myths is like searching for solid ground while pursuing Will-o'-the-wisp. One may stumble here and there on a fii-m footing, but swamjjs, and fogs, and darkness are what are met mth for the most part. I however venture the opinion that the early in- vaders of Britain, and its occupiers for the Romans, supply the bulk of the groundwork of our early tradi- tions ; that the Firbolg mostly represent the Cative- launi, the Maeatae and Scots, and the Tuatha de Danaans represent the Batavi, Tungri, Picts, and Cimbri ; that the principal difierence between them was in their cultus, and that to this cultus we owe the gi'eater part of the foundations of our early historic Avritings, our clan names, our popular stories, our most vaunted early saints, and two specially interesting relics, two, as seems likely, of the children of Lir, i.e. the bells of St. FUlan, otherwise Palladius, and St. Eunan, otherwise Columba, and that Picts and Scots roughly represent the followers of two forms of cultus, causing the story to arise that the first difference between them was a quarrel about a dog, for this SCOTTISH MYTHS. 233 reason, among others, viz., the resemblance between quallian, a puppy, a whelp ; and Falan, lihaland, the saint, the smith, the seducer. In saying that the principal difference between them was their cultus, we must be understood, to mean, so far as they appear in tradition. While these invaders of Britain and Ireland were of various nationahties — Belgian Gauls, Germans, Thracians, etc., their descend- ants came to use the language spoken by their Celtic mothers in Alba and in Erin ; while much of their tradition was derived from their foreign forefathers. Thus, while their language was Celtic, their traditions were drawn from the most distant places. INDEX. Adam, 95. Adamiani, 101. Adamnan, 49, 97, 221. Aduatiea, 4. Aduatici, 3. Aedd, 176, 212. Aedh, 202, 204. Aeneas, 71. Aethne, 151, 152. Afrin, 9.3. Agathirsi, 51, 52, 55, 59, GO, G2, 75, 76 ; Agathyrsus, 58. Agathoergi, 62. Agricola, 5, 6, 7, S, 27, 28, 48, 64, 218, 219. Aidau, 156, 162. Ailbe, 84, 213. Aithime, 123, 124. Alaterva, 81. Albani, 50, 52. Albaunach, 17. Alipes, 212. AUectus, 11, 207. Allemauui, 44. AUoit, 207. Aneurin, 30, 81. Anvil, 172. Aran island, 4G. ArdoAisour, 167, 230. Areani or Arcani, 33, 42, 62. Arphoxais, 56. Art, 95, 130. Artbraunan, 49, 170. Arthur, 7, 27, 30, 06, 98, 163, 1G8, 230. Arthwj's, 164, 167, 168. Arx-anguli-adnlterii, 193, 194. Asaph, 141. Atha-tuaithe, 202. Attacots, 16, 24, 26, 55, 194, 202, 215. Auohatae, 56. Avagddu, 135. Avanc, 122, 139. Aysons, 187. Bacchu.s, 60, S9. Bachal, 155. Baghel of Stone of Scone, 213. of St. Fillau, 21.3, 214. Bagocassis, 79. Baile an Scail, 93. Baiscne, 146. Bal, 98. Bal no maoir, 214. BaUan, 97, 98. Balmhaodan, 174. Bandachlach, Finn's courier, 168. Bangu, 137. Banuockbum, 215. Baptae, 104. B.ardic alphabet, 37, 40, 42. Barding, 41. Bason, 97. Batav-i, 2, 230. Batavians, 2, 4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 40, 44, 55, 63, 197, 218. Bede, 29. Bedwyr, i:_^6, 159. Beleu, 38, 79, 114. Beleunik, 79. Belgae, 4, 7, 45, 53. Beli Mawr, 78, 79, 114, 217. Bells, ill, 114, 115, 117, 139, 14,3. 147, 148, 160j 166, 172, 187, 190 196, 215, 221 ; Gildas's, 90 Gaelic for, 95; of Modan, 174 of Scone, 175; of Patrick, 178 of Stone of Scoue, 213 ; at Coro- nation, 215 ; of Vatican, 219 ; of St. Pol, 231. Bendis, 71. Beowulf, 12. Bethan, 85, 135. Bethoun, 77, 216. BHe, 160. Birds, chirping of, 221. Bleatr Kumbla, 191. Boadicea, 108, 126. Boar, 219. Boat, 222. 2.36 INDEX. Bobaii, 100, 22G. Bod Fergus, 8.5, 137. Bod.-icli, 140, 15!), 2-27. Nan Conn, 190. Bofluni, S,">, 112, 210, 219. Boduo, 210. Borcoviciis, 219. Bowl, 119. Brag, Braich, 53. Bran, 1.34, 137. Breacan, 53, oo. Breas, 0."). Brechin, 67. Breogan, 09, 72. Briotan Maol, 43. Brithguein, 7S. Bro yr Hild, 120. Broiclian, ICl. Brude, 160. Brugh na Boinne, 30. Bruti, 71. Brutus, 71. Brynnane wood, 217. Bucenobantes, 44. Biidini Thracians, 60. Bnilc, 77. Bull, 160, 169, 170. Butterfly; 220. C.iCL's, 211. Cadguu, 192, 205. Caeimhgliiu, Caeinliin, 109,220. Caemhoc, 220. Caerleon, 219, 22.j. Caer "Weir, .SO. Lliwrly.lJ. so. Caeawg, 21(1. i: 7. 166, lOS, Cay, 190. 160, Cai, 71, KiO, 197, 19S, 2 Cairneeli. 73. Cairpre, 119, 12S, 203, 231. Cait, 63. Cai til, 76, 77. Calder, 44. (.'aklover, 78. Caldron. See Kettle. -of Ulster, 4S ; of Daghda, 54, 228; of Diarmid, 102. Caledonii, 8, 9, 10. Callimaclius, 222. Cambeck, 13. Caraelodunum, 218. Canielon, 47. Cameron, Clan, ISl. Campanus, 4, 117, 219. Cauninefates, 3, 11. Canan, Clan, 179. Caoilte, 223. Carausius, 8, 11, 74, 207, 210. Carrawburgh, 1 3. Cassibelaunus, 217. Casswallan, 77, 81,82, 85, 119, 141, 179, 219. Cat. 07. Cat(h) Bregion, Vreitb, 06, 68, 7S, 215. Cativellauni, 82, 83, 216, 217, 225, 232. Catbacli, 192. Cathan, 139, 140, 221, 224. Cathluan, 51, 52, 63. Catiari, 56. Catti, 2, 197, 209. Cave, Gillebrede of the, 191. Cearn, 210. Ceathariiacb, 07, 140, 227. Ceidio, 164. Cein, 80. Ceitlilenn, 101. Cennberraidhe, 120. Ceochd, 140, 227. Cerberus, 21, 119. Cerealis, Petiliu.^, 1, 3, C3, 04. Ceridwen, 1 19. Cermna, 225. Vvt. Sef Ked. Chains, 22S. Cbattati, Clan, 181, 192, 195, 205. Cheilphale, 210. Chester, 2 1 9. Cilicia, 92, lOS, 220. Pirate.5, 92. Cimbrica (Jliorsonesus, 43. Cinge, 50, 70. Civriis, .J. or C , 3, 4, 64. Civitas et connubium, 14. Clachinyha, Clan, 136, 180, 1S3, KS9, 194, 212. Clag Bnidheaiiii. 190. Clavidiauus, Claudius, 17. Ch.chuir, 107, 220. Cbigber, Clochar, 193. Cuaeus, SO. C^'ooles, 212. Coel Hen, 117, 163. Lies ap, 165. Coelbrenn y Beirdd, 34, 35. Coelestins, 21. Cnelu, 117. C^ingreacb, 214. Col Frewi, 53. IXDEX. 237 Colaxais, 5G. Cole, King, 1G4. Colein, 1. Colga, 155, l.")'.!. Colmal^ 154, 15S, 197. Colum, 154. Cohimba, 50, UG, 150, 154, 176, 223. Column, 115. Comgal, 50. Comiston, 197. Conan, 29. Concliobar Mac Xessa, 107, 123, 125. Condiis, 173. Conn, 93, 95, 101, 125, 12G, 22-J. Oonnailt, 101. Connal Ceathai-Qach, 48, 124, 125. Cunstantine, 29, 73, 74. Constantius, 11. Coppeen Olan, 84. Coranied, 112. Core, 14G. Cormac, GS, 159, 2 IS. Cramond, 13, 81. Crew, Loch, 3G. Crinan, 227. Crocea Mors, 17S, 217. Crom Chonnil, 178. Cruacli, 133, 177, 178, 22'.i. Cruimther, 17C. Cruitenitlie mac Finnfeiche, 213. Cruitbeutuaith, 68, SO. C'ruidne, Cruithne, King, 50, 52, G3. Cruithne, 49, aO ; sons of Gleoin, 51 ; maltsters, 54, 55 ; magicians. C3. Cuailgne, 184. CuchuUin, 48, 96. 170. Cuil cinn. ITS. :Meun, 1G4. Cul, HI, 112, 193. 194 (Vanawyd I'rydain, 2.'i). Cunedda, 30, 75, 76, 77, 79, SO, 81, 120, 219, 225. Caneglas, 20. Ciinobelinus, 216, 149, 218, 225. Cup, 54, 57, 5S, 59, 110, 111, 128, 151. Curoi mac Darie, 48. Cutraighe, 121, 146, 147. Cymri, 2, 4, 7, 13, 40, 79, 203. Da Bheath, 125. Daghda, 47, 54, 145, 221, 228. Dai, 126. Dalaraidhe, Dalaradia, 48,49, 65,77. Dalian, 73. I'anilioctor, 75, 76, 117. Danaaris, Tuatlia de, 43, 47, 51, 65, 69, 92, 93, 99, 232 ; precious j things, 50. Aai/aoi, 69. David, St.. 116, 121, 196, 225; Psalms of, 195 ; Michael, 19C. Day, Clan, 196. Dealguait, 51. Oewar, 214. ' Dewi = David, 120, 137. I Diarmid, 102, 110, 121, loG, 175. 1 Dicaledones, 16. : Dimetia, 38, 82, 21.5, 216, 219. , Diwrnach, 102, 121, 122. Dobhair, 44. 1 Dobhar, 78. Dobuni, 216. I Dog, 171 ; of Picts and Scots, 119; j of Mithra, 170. , Domhnach, 193. I Dounachie, Clan, 187, ISS, 189, j 192. i Door, 105, 129, ICO, 161. ; Doorkeeper, 109, 160. ', Dorsum Cete, 158. I Dragon, 70, 106, 108, 231. Dnbliu, 219. ' Dun Aeugus, 46. Dun-Chuile-Sibhrinne, 193. : Duncan sonnys, 179, 187. Dunedin, 160, 162. Dunstaffnage, 173. , Dunsj'uane, 217. Dvfed, 120. Eae, copper, 113, 114. ! Easter, 1 15. I Edd or Eth, sons of, 188. ; E Emer, 72. Equinox, 129, 149, 165. Erca, 73, 75. Erchbi, 52. Ercol, 54. Eridha, 57, 73. Erytheia, 57. Etii, 212. See Edd. Ethur, 222. Etruscans, 63. Eunan, 221, 232. 238 INDEX. Eurmat, 110. E«'en, 131, 1.S2. E.xillis, 223. F.iD Felen, its. Fail, 98, 206. Failinis — a dog, 171. Falga, 95. Fawii, CarnecVs, 74. Fearoliar, 135. FedJmitb, 151, 152. Fein, 1S5. Feleke-D neh, 224. Fenians, 185. Fenius, 09, 71 . Fergus, 137, 151, 153, 164. Fetiales, 111. Ftichti, 20. Fidhbha, 51, 63. Fife, 03, 64. Fillau, Faolan, Fallan, etc., 83, 84, 96, 104, 115, 144, 155, 177, 187, 190, 200. 208, 214, 215, 216, 217, 226, 229, 231. Findruine, 94, 101. Fimi Faidheaeh, 178, 213, 225. Fionn, Finn, 13.5, 145, 146, 147, 164, 168, 171, 184, 187. Firbol^f, 39, 43. 45, 46, 47, 65, 69, 77, 82, 99, 217, 232. Firdomuan, 45, 46. Fire, l.ll, 134, 143, 154, 156, 162, 16.'!, 200. Firgailliau, 45. Fish wear, 2(IS. Fithiclioll, 110. Flecretanis, 224. FO.-U, 95. Fomorians, 43, 44, 45, 50. Fountain, sacred, 50. Fraecli, 177. Fraoinaring, 44, 45, 47. Frevr, 17 7. Fro, 177. Oabiiran, 219. Gadal, 23. Gaedal Ficht. Sc GwyddiL Gaedhel glass, 69, 71. Gaia, 223. (Jaiomard, 169. Galar Buidhe, 178. Galgacus, 6, 15. Gambrinus, 53. Gaoidheal, 22. Gath Buidhe, 223. Gauls, 6. Gedhe, St., 153 ; King, 201. Geloni, 60 ; Gelonus, 58. Sec Gleoin. Geona cohort, 49. Germans, 0, 40. Geryon, 57. Getae, 18, 59. Gildas, 29, 90. Gilledomnan, 222. Gillomanius, 105. Glass, book of, 157 ; cup, 161. GIastum = woad, 71, 220. Gleoin, Geleoin, 51, 52, 54, 61, 62. Gollamh, gonlou, etc., 92. Gorree, 208. Grainne, 85 ; Graidne, 102. Greal. See Sangreal. Griffin, 106, 228. Gub, 51. Guenedota, 81. Gulath, 139. Guledig, 28, 30, 173. Guliubursti, 108, 177. Gulinus, 107. Gwendolen, 163, 167. Gwengolo, 129, 165. Gwion, 135. Gwyddil Fichti, 30, 73, 74, 113. H-A.LF, 211, 212. Hallowe'en, 133. Hammer, Thor's, 172. Hay, Clan, 181, 204, 212. Hazel, 134. Hearndor, 103. Heol, 110. Hercules, 41, 54, 57, 59, 75. Heremon, 51. Herodotus, 55. Hertha, 138, 223. Hetb, 204. Historeeh, 76. Historend, 75. Hodain, 171. Hom, 100, 218, 229. Horse, 161 167, 168. Hu, 105, 121, 122; U, 201. Hud, 120. Huel, 1 62. Hwan, 105. Hylaea, 57. INDEX. 239 Ianus, 151, 221. lardobhar, 44. larndor, 105, 129. Iceni, 64. lewan, 119. Iltutus, 89. Inniskea, 153. Innismuny, 85, 97. Inverkeithing, 115. lobath, 43. logenan, 50, 157. loua, 150. Ir, G5, 72. Isidore of Seville, 29. Istoreth, 75, 76. Ith, 69, 70, 72. Jack of the Can, 109, 140. Janita, 151. Jerome, St., 20, 24. Jig (a dance), 217. Joan, 101. John, 140, 151 ; St., 54, 105 ; St. John's Day, 47. Jore, 214. Julius Csesar, 179. Kai. See Cai. Kaiomorts, 169. Kay, Clan, ISO, 189. Ked, 1-25, 12S, 130, 144. Kedicus Draws, 128, 129, 158. Keith, ICG. Keutigern, 81, 83, 132, 144. Kernyw, 200. Ketti, Stone of, 130. Kettle, 172 ; of Brecan, 53 ; of Cim- brian Women, 118, 119. Kevik, 210, 226. Kevil, ISO, 183. Keys, 109, 129 ; House of, 109, 205, 208. Killeen Cormac, 39. Kilmahumaig, 227. KtiSo);', 17.3. Kokalos, 211. Korschid, pae, 93. Kosti, 59, 231. Kowle, 183. Kuml or Kumble, 191. Kyd, 130, 140. Kynon, 102. Kyot, 224. Lafitau, 216. Lagan, 140. Laijdog, 119, 169, 170, Latin and Ogham, 39. Leac labhair, 82, 84 ; L. Llafir, 144, 215. Legion, 9th, 64, 70, 218 ; 2d, 219 ; 20th, 219. Leith, 160. Leontica, 127, 166, 219, 228. Leper, 83 ; Lepers, 139, 145, 146. Letha, 160. Lethan, 159. Leudonus, 131. LiaFail, 47, 93, 94, 98, 110, 113, 140, 142, 145, 159. Liethali, 75, 76, 77, 82, 119, 215, 216, Light. Si^e Fire. Lii, 98. Lingmn, 223. Llanelwy, 82, 141. LIew=alion, 127, 129. Lloegyr, 120. Llud. 112, 113. Lludd, 130, 140. Lochlyn, 43. Logierait, 188. Logj-mached, 214. Lots, 40, 110, 156, 157, 161. Loutrojihore, 104. Lucian, 220. Luct.ii, 50, 76. Lucidli.iu, 48. Lucullus, Salustius, 48, 64, Co. Lujr. 47, 92, 9.\ 08, 101, 123, 147, 154, 1.3S. 175, 221. Lughaidh, 42, 72, 99, 123. Lughnas.a, 47, 99, 123, 127, 129, 219, 220. Lnguid, GO, 7C, 92. Luiric, 73, 74. Mac, pronunciation of, 183. Mac an Chuill, 111, 171. Mac Ath, 212. Mac Beth, 217, 227. Mac Carthainn, 193. Mac Cecht, 225. Mac Ceochd, 227. Mac Clothcon, 188, 189. Mac Cochlain, ISS. Mac Creiche, 178, 213. Mac Cuil, 112, 222, 225. 240 INDEX. M.1C DougaL 1S4. Mac clowle, 191. M.10 Kithl^n, 47. Mac Kth, tj>. Mac Gillonies, or Clan Maclanfhaigh, •211. Mac Grcine. i'lo. Mac Heth, -Jdi. Mac Intosh. iCl. Mac Kays, 135, 130, 201. Maclagan, ISS, 19S, 214. Mac Lea, U.'S, 220. Mac Luliich. 175. M.icn.ilKS, 1^7, 222, 227. Macuaiis, l->7, 222. Mac Nave. 1.7.1, 152, 153,222. .Mac QiibarU. 20S. Macatae, S. 9, 10, 45, 55, 157, 215, 217, 23u. Maefli, 55. Maelanfhakh, 181. See Mac Gil- Ion ics. Maeklaf, 12n. 121. M.icl'4\\ii, Mailcun, Malgon,etc., 7fi, SI," SG, ><', 107, 120, 120, 128, 131, U.-.. 195, 219, 222, 225. Magenises, 4S. Magh FortivnE, G5. Gii'gin. 65. Rein, r.O. Sleachi. 133. 'ruirc.i.ih, 00. .Maglocuuu=. 29, 86, 107, 109, 219, .>.-».! •22.3 Mair.i, 171. M,alcolm, 217. Mauadh {an "men}, 221. Manaii. 7S. ■?1. Manaiian,47. 00, 150, 200, 2()S, 218, 221, 224 : or Maiiawydilau, 92. Manand, Sii. 1 14. Mamis, 150. Ma. .dan, 174. 170,, 214. Maor, 19, 127. Mar.:ellus, L^j.iiis, 8. M.ami, 150. :Maun, 18, 19; Maurus, 102. Melauis, 220. Meliuus, 108- Menapia, Meoai.ii, 8, 197, 219, 220. Menavia, 82, 219. Menw, Mengw. 130, 133, 157, 227. Meuwyd, 130. Jleiddinn 30 ; Merlin, 91, 106, 164. Meschia, 170. Mesgedhra, 123, 124, 125. Miathi, 215, 157. Midsummer's Day, 47, 220. Milir, 152. Milclio, 90. Jlilcliu, 145. Milesiiis, 04, C5, 09, 72, 70, 92 ; MiUdh, 201. Mistletoe, 162. Mithra, 59, 91, 101, 152, 167, 223. Mitbraicum, 219. Moira, 172. Moiia, 5. Moois, 18. M..r, 104. Moran, 120. M.irava, 00; Moravia, 08. lilorcant, 77. M..rgan, Clan, 179, 230. M..iken, 140. jNlorini, 20. JIuirbheach Mil, 46. Mnl, 143. Miingo, 116, 131, 132, 139, 140, 232. :Mur, the wall, 19, 127. ^liucertach mac Erca, 73. Miirias, 47. ilythdra, 9.i, 129. K.vNTCHAr.v-^N', 90, 141. Kcevou^ee, 153, 222, 223. Xel, 09,''71. Jv'euiedius, 43, 45, 09, 75. Xeinniviis, 35, 42, 43. Xennius, 29, Xial, 70. 7;i, 218. .Sc lloni. Xiall, Hv., 50. >'ick, Oi.l, 197. OcT.ivnx, 117. O'Driseolls, 72. 0;.rin.i. 47. 208, 221. Ogmic, 20, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 220. Ogmios, 35, 114, 220. Oisin, Ossian, 194. Onbecan, 70. Orec, 75. 70. Orceti, 216. Orcus, 119. Ordovices, 5. Orplieus, 36, 37 ; Orphic festival, 55. Ostara, 25, 115, 139. INDEX. 241 Paparx, 1G2. Palladium, 70, 147, 213, 214, 221. Palladius, 132, 214, 232. Paralatae, 5G. Parchellan, 1G7. Pass, 1G4. Patera, 79 ; Patarus, 80. Partholan, Partalan, Partliai, etc., 50, 75, 76 ; jealousy of, 51 ; his son Breacau, 53. Patem, 79. Pedrog, 136, 230. Pegasus, 167. Peithwyr, 33, 34, 62. Peithynen, 34. Pelasgian letters, 36. Peuda, CG. Pharaoh, 69, 70, 221. Pharsalia, 55, 92. Phcebitius, 79. Plots, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 29, 33, 39, 48, 49, 52, 75, 148, 215, 218, 230. Pigs. Ste Swine. Pillar of Songs, 164. Pol, St., 230. Pollock Rock, 108, 120, 142. Polmont, 13. Priapus, 114, 115, 153. Pup, 110, 1G4, 169, 171. Quail, 207. Queen of Firljolg, 47 Quinney, 208. Quoal, 184. Qwhevil, 179. Qwhewyl, 180. ISO. RabdO-Maxti.a, 140. Eagnar Lotlibrok, 210. Ram's hea<:l, 143. Paths, m. 220. Reaping Hook, 113. Red Branch Knights, 123. Reel (a dance), 217. Ridderch Hael, 141. Ring, 206, 207, 209. Ronan, 223. Rob, 140, 189, 210. Robartaig, 194. Robbin the Bobbin, 109, 220. Robertsons, 187, 194. Round Table, 107. Rowan Tree, 193. Salmon, 135, 141, 142. Samhuin, 133. Samson, St., 230. Sangreal, 107, 100, 116, 118, 195, 223, 224, 229. Sarran, 73, 74. Saxons, 45, 73. Seal Balbh, 80, 94, 95, 123, 229. Scoloti, 56. Scone, 213. Scone (a cake), 228. Scota, 69. Scoth, 67. Scotia, 69. Scots, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23,29, 117, 215, 216,232. Scuit, 16. Scythians, 56, 57. Segadius, 147. Sego, 149. Servanus, 132. Se%'erus, 8. Sheoic, 140. Shony, 197. Shouts, 157. Sidhe (fairies), 99. Simon Breac, 43, 93. 2k6tioj, 22. Slamannan, 78. Slurach, 179. Smith, Wayland, 225. Soldier, 92. Solstice, 105, ICO. Somerled, 184, 191, 222. Spanish Legion, 64. fire Legion. Spear, 22S, 229. Sreng, 65. Staff, 229. Stag, 74, 89, 101, 109, 112, 132, 140, 171, 178. Stone, 145, 147, 149, 153, IGl, 17.3, 174, 188, 194, 213, 222, 223; Mithra, son of, 91 ; of Destiny, 119; Cay, 196, 197. Sun, the, 92, 185. Swan, 116, 117, 1G2. Swine, 10, 131, 132, 141, 145, 167. Taoit, 79, 80. Tacitus, 2, 3, 6, 28, 40, 41. Tadhg, 47. Taghairm, 47, 222. Taghta. See Daghda. Tailcenn, 224. Tailtin, 94, 99, 154. •24-; INDEX. Talicssin, 30, 81, Hi, 20s. Tarain, 50. Tasciovanus, 149, 21(3, 225. Tasgitaus, 5G. Tassacl), 148. Tay, G. TcWnevrul, 170. Telchines, 224. Temair, 94. Terrier, 122, 135. Thaney, 131. Theodosius, 44. Thorketyll, 172. Thracians, 30, 43, 51, .j2, 59, CI, 79. Tighernmas, 95, 101, loo. Tiobal, 107. Tonsure, 209. Tovisaci, 221. Traspies, 5C. Trausi, 59. Trystan, Tristram, 13l), 171, 225. Tuatha de Danaans. •Set Dauaans. Fidhbha. .y.;e Fidhbha. Tiiisto, 150. Tuntrriaus, 3, 4, 6, 13, 14, 44, 54, SO, IIG, 117, 173, 197. 203, 218, 219, 232. Twelve battles, Arthur's, 27, ICS. Ul.^XE.A.(.lI, 219. Uladh, 48 ; Ulster, ill) ; Ulien, 131. Uli.id.i, 68, 77. Ulidian Hemus, 4S. Ultmiians, I'll.-iig. 48. Urbicus LoUius, S, 20. Urehair, 13, 100. Uthyr Pendragon, 103, 105, lOG, 130. \'.VLA.ST, 225. Valentia, 44. Valentine, St., 225. ^*anadis, 71. Vandwy, 28. \',-mnes, 11, 71- Vecturiones, IG, 45, S3, 215, 217 Veil, 120, 138. Velauni, 82, 85. Venedotia, 3G, GG, 71, 219. Veneti, 3G, 71. Venus, 71, 91, 95, 107, 220, 221. Viradestbi, 173. Virgnous, 154. Vreicburas, 07. \\'all, the, 70. Weir, fish, 20S. AVhale, 158. Wheel of fire, 20G. Whelp. See Pup. Wuad, 71, 220. Vx'reath, 99. Wren, 108, 109. Ygdra.'sil, 73. Yuacb, 117. Yoke, of Gwendolen's birds, 16'- 107 ; of Hay, 205. Yoni, 197, 228. cnjinfjurglj CHnifarrsitn Press ; TIli'M.\.< .AND .ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE, rRINTEr.S TO HER MAJESTY. DIRECTIONS TO BIXDEE. THE OGMIC AKD BARDIC ALPHABETS, 1o face page 36 THE OGMIC SCALE, NATURAL ORDER, „ 40 ST. FILLAN'S BELL, ,, 84 NORTH AMERICAN DANCE. , -216 ROMAN BELL, ., 22!.l