The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

398 THE HIGHLAxNDERS [excursus
The above list, as handed down by the Pictish Chronicles,
the age of which is unknown, is decidedly British in phonetics,
and the names Brude, Gartnait, Talorgan, Drostan, and Alpin,
are foreign to old Gaelic ; but, at the same time, they are ex-
plicable from British sources. There is nothing non-Celtic in
the list. It tells, therefore, both against Skene and Rhys.
(3) The so-called Pictish Inscriptions.
Pictland shares with the south of Ireland, Cornwall, and
South Wales the peculiarity of possessing inscriptions in Ogam
character. Ogam writing is an Irish invention, coincident pro-
into southern Ireland
bably with the introduction of Christianity
in the fourth century. By the south Irish missionaries this style
of inscription was introduced into Cornwall and South Wales ;
and naturally we must look to the same people as its propagators
in Pictland. The south Irish conformed to Rome in Easter
and other matters in 633 or thereabout. It is likely that they
came to Pictland in the Roman interest some time after, and
may have been mainly instrumental in converting King Nectan
in 710 to adopt the Roman Calendar. The Irish Annals say
that he expelled the Columban monks in 716 over his conversion
to Rome.
We should naturally expect these inscriptions to be either in
Irish or Pictish, but Prof Rhys has jumped to the conclusion
that they are purely Pictish, and, as his Pictish is non-Aryan, so
is the language of these inscriptions. Unfortunately they are
difficult to decipher ; the results as yet are a mere conglomeration
of letters, mostly //, v, and n. One at Lunasting in the
Orkneys is punctuated, and according to Rhys runs thus :
Ttocuhetts : ahehhttmnnn :
hccvvew
:
nehhtonn.
In opposition to those who hold that Pictish was a Brittonic
tongue. Prof Rhys cites the above, and declares that if it be
Welsh he will confess he has not understood a word of his
mother-tongue! It is neither Welsh nor any other language
under the moon. Mr. Lang quotes the inscription and says—
"This appears to be not only non-Aryan, but non-human! or
not correctly deciphered. Some people seems to have dropped
all its aspirates in one place at Lunasting." A word here and
there is in a general way recognisable in these decipherments
(as above the last word looks like Nechtan), but as yet these