The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

i62 THE HIGHLANDERS [parti
In the Book of Ballymote, perhaps the better authority, we
find exactly the same list, with the exception that instead of
Fecir we have Feth, instead of Ru we have Ero, instead of lup
we have Uip, instead of Grid we have Grith, and instead of
Mund we have Muin.
Although Brude is here stated to have thirty sons, yet, on
giving their names, it appears to be a mistake for twenty-eight
which is the true number, as the Book of Ballymote has the
same. This number, however, is again reduced to fourteen, as
we find that every alternate name is merely the preceding one
repeated, with the syllable " Ur "
prefixed.
case to the former. It
This, then, is a strictly analogous
appears from Giraldus, that there were among the YicXs fourteen
persons styled "
reges et reguli," who, from the state of society
among them, must have been chiefs of tribes, and consequently
the nation was divided into fourteen tribes, while we find a
tradition, that a successor of the founder of the nation and king
of the Picts had fourteen sons.
The tribes of the Caledonians or Picts, as they existed
A.D. 121, are, however, preserved by Ptolemy. The exact num-
ber of these tribes cannot be ascertained from him, as he
nowhere marks the distinction between the tribes of the Cale-
donians and those of the other Britons. They appear, however,
to have been fourteen in number, for, north of the Firths of
Forth and Clyde, which in the second century was certainly
inhabited by the Caledonians or Picts alone, he places twelve
tribes ; the Damnonioi likewise belonged to them,
for that tribe
is placed by Ptolemy partly north and partly south of these
Firths, and the expression of Julius Capitolinus, in narrating
the building of the wall of Antonine in A.D. 138, " submotis
barbaris," implies that previous
to that ev^ent a considerable
number of the Caledonians dwelt south of the Firths ; amono-
these " submotis barbaris " we may probably likewise include
the Novantai, as Tacitus draws a decided distinction between
them and the neighbouring tribes, when he styles them, along
with the Damnonioi " novas gentes."
This just makes up the number of fourteen ; and it is a very
remarkable circumstance, that in the names of these' fourteen
tribes, as given by Ptolemy, we actually find, with but one