The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

AND note;s] of SCOTLAND 403
calls him. For an outrage on his son he invaded Dalriada and captured
Dungal, King of Lorn, and possibly of Dalriada also, in 735, and in 740 he
gave Dalriada a "smiting." In the same year a battle was fought in Ireland
between the Cruithnig and Dalriads of that country. Skene transfers this
fight to Galloway somehow, and manages to kill in it Alpin, the Dalriad
King that appears then in the Albanic Duan. (A late Chronicle has it that
the real Alpin fell in Galloway.) With the death of the king, the kingdom
of Dalriada falls under Angus's sway, and it remains evermore Pictish— so
Skene. The real truth is different. Angus's invasions were of no more
moment than his invasions of the Britons, who in 749 inflicted heavy
slaughter on the Picts, and the significant remark is made by the annalist—
" Wane of "— Angus's kingdom a remark which Dr. Skene never saw. It
occurs in Hennessy's new edition of the Annals of Ulster. Skene makes
Angus a great king and conquering hero to the end (760). While he dies as
"
King of the Picts," his successor (his brother) dies as " King of Fortrenn."
This dynasty had shrunk to its original measure of power ; and with it also
tumble the theories built on it by Pinkerton and Skene. Later writers
while accepting Skene's views that there was no Scottish Conquest, have
usually refused to follow him in his suppression of Dalriada and its kings
in 740. King Aed Finn fought with the Pictish King in Fortrenn in 767,
a fact which Skene finds it hard to explain away. Aed's death is also
recorded in the Annals— 777 ; his brother's in 780. In the Latin list given
o" P- 2)7)1 the first two names should be deleted, and for Eogan should be
read Eochaidb, who was father of Alpin, who was father of Kenneth the
Conqueror. The conquest of the Picts cannot be clearly explained from our
present materials. There was constant dynastic war for the last generation
of kings — attempts mostly to break the Pictish rule of succession ; and it
is notable how Scottic names are very prominent. The Danes harassed the
Picts north and east. The Scots, pressed out of the Isles by the Norse,
pressed eastward in their turn. The Scots also had the Church and the
culture very much their own ; lona was undoubtedly the religious centre
till the Norse caused a change to be made. Both in Pictland and in
Strathclyde Gaelic ultimately and completely wiped out the original Pictish
and British. The west coast from the Clyde to the Solway was, in the nth
century, " as Gaelic as the Peat." See further the Editor's paper on
"Skene,'' in Inverness Gaelic Soc. Trans., vol. xxi.
Page 36, line 6 from bottom. The Pictish prince of Kintyre ! What
inversion of facts is here !
an
Page 41, line 2. Cruithen tuath meant the Pictish nation (Pictavia), not
the Northern Picts. There was no distinction whatever between northern
and southern Picts ; it is all a delusion, founded on Bede's reference to
the Grampians as a physical division of Pictavia.
Page 45, line 7 from bottom. Welsh G^oyddyl FJichti proves nothing ;
the authority is too late, the word Gwyddyl being phonetically very un-
satisfactory.
Page 46, line 3 from end. The word dobur is common to Welsh and old
Gaelic. It proves nothing either way.
Page 50, line 20. The quotation about Aed Finn's laws, promulgated by