The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

2 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
„ first class consists of the Roman authors, who wrote
'
Roman anthore.
while the Romans retained possession of the greater
part of Britain ; these excellent historians, from their antiquity,
the attention and accuracy with which they were accustomed to
examine the history and manners of their barbaric foes, and
the fidelity of their representations, ought to be ranked as first
in importance, and it is exclusively from them that the great
to be
leading facts in the early history of the taken.
country ought
Monkish
^" ^^^^ second class w^e may place the early
writers. monkish writers, as Bede, Gildas, Nennius, Adomnan,
&c. Much of the error into which former writers have
been led, has arisen from an improper use of these authors ;
they should be consulted exclusively as contemporary historians,
•—whatever they assert as existing or occurring in their own
time, or shortly before it, we may receive as true ; but when we
consider the perverted learning of that period, and the little
information which they appear to have possessed of the tradi-
tions of the people around them, we ought to reject their fables
and fanciful origins, as altogether undeserving of credit.
A 1^ 1^ O 1 1 O^ Q
The last class consists of what may be termed the
Annalists. These are partly native writers of Scot-
land, partly the Irish and Welsh annalists, and are of the greatest
use for the more detailed history of the country. The native
Annals consist of those generally termed the Latin Lists, viz.,
the Pictish Chronicle, Chronicles of St. Andrew's, Melrose,
Sanctae-crucis, and others, and also of the Albanic Duan, a
Gaelic historical poem of the eleventh century. The Irish
annals are those of Tighernac, also of the eleventh centur}', and
by far the best and most authentic chronicle we have. The
annals of Innisfallen, Buellan, and Ulster, works of the thir-
teenth and fourteenth centuries.^ The Welsh annals are prin-
'
Tliroughout this work reference is of John Pinkerton. Those parts of
made only to the accurate versions of the Annals which relate to Scotland
the Albanic Duan and the Irish An- have been printed by me, with a
nals published by Dr. Charles O'Con- literal translation, in the Collectanea
nor, little credit being due to the de Rebus Albanicis, edited by the
inaccurate transcript of Johnston, lona Club,
and still less to the dishonest version