The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

10 THE HIGHLANDERS [part i
Orosius styles them certain barbarians, "
qui quondam in f(2diis
recepti atque
in militiam allecti." From these notices it
is plain, that they inhabited some part of Britain, north of the
Firths of Forth and Clyde, and as there certainly existed in
Dio.'s time no other nation in North Britain than the Picts or
Caledonians, they must have settled there subsequent to his
time. The conjecture of Pinkerton is therefore probably correct^
that they had arrived from Ireland, and occupied that part of the
west coast which afterwards became Dalriada.
Scotti.
us
The onlv nation whose origin it now remains for
'
.
. .
•
, r , ,- ^ i
to is nivestigate, that oi the Scotti. As they
appear in hostility to the Romans after the date of the formation
of the province of Valentia, they could not have been a part of
the Britons ; the}' must then either have owed their origin, as
well as the Picts, to the Caledonians, or else they must have
been a foreign people engaged only in a temporary league with
them against their common enemy the Romans. The supposition
of their having a common origin with the Picts, is rendered
exceedingly improbable from the marked line of distinction
which is drawn between them by Gildas, Bede, and Nennius,
both in respect of their manners, their language, and their traditionary
origin. With regard to their manners, Gildas is perfectly
distinct, as he describes them to have been " moribus ex parte
dissidentes."! Their language appears also to have been in some
degree different. Bede in enumerating the various dialects into
which the gospel was translated, mentions the Pictish and
Scottish as different dialects,^ in which Nennius also concurs.
Now if the Picts and Scots were both branches of the Cale-
donians, who were certainly an undivided people in the third
centurv-, it is inconceivable that such a difference in language
and manners could have existed between them in the fifth. As
to the traditionary origin of the two nations, as contained in the
monkish writers, although in general we ought to place no
reliance whatever upon the accuracy of the origin assigned by
them to any nation, yet wherever they assigned the same origin
to different nations, we may safely infer that there existed
between them a resemblance in manners and language suffici-
1
Gildas, c. 15.
""
Bede, b. 1, c. 1.