The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

4o8 THE HIGHLANDERS [excursus
improvement took —when place the kilt or philabeg was invented— is not
known to a hundred years. It was during the Lowland wars of the 17th and
18th centuries. Some have even asserted the improvement was made in the
early iSth century at the instigation of the Iron Companies that then bought
the Highland woods.
Page 157. The Seven Provinces of Scotland. Dr. Skene makes too
much of these seven earldoms. It is possible that in or about 800 a.d. the
Pictish Kingdom was divided into the seven provinces mentioned. The sons
of Cruithne are named in the best MSS. as follows ;—
Cait, Ce, Cirig [Circinn], a warlike clan,
Fib, Pidach, Fotla, Fdrtrenn,
Cait is Caithness ; Circin is Magh-Chircinn or Mearns ; Fib is Fife ; Fothla
is Athole ; Fortrenn is Menteith. But what are Ce and Fidach ? Evidently
Mar and Moray. Ce may appear in Keith.
Page 158, note. Gouerin is surely Cowrie. Skene's Garmoran is a
continual nuisance.
Page 163, the lists. The attempt to explain the 30 Brudes m this way is
more than obsolete.
Page 176, line 21. The Northern Picts in the 9th and loth centuries
were overrun by Scots and Norse-men, and made less Pictish than any part
of Scotland. The Norse-men had the Province of Cat ; the Scots had the
West Coast, and were masters of the Mormaership of Moray. He allows the
conquest of the Southern Picts by the Scots. Consequently, the chiefs of the
older Highland clans can well claim to be either Scots or Norse.
Page 177, line 11 from bottom. "Barbarous Scottish hordes"! Why,
the Scots were the most learned people of Western Europe then !
were the barbarians.
The Picts
Page 176, line 12. The 14150 MS. Dr. Skene has made much use of this
MS.— overmuch use. As far as the Macdonald genealogies go, the MS.
reproduces the Book of Ballimote, and otherwise depends on that work.
Where it stands alone, as in the case of clans Chattan, Cameron, Mackenzie,
Ross, Matheson, Macfee, Macgregor, Maclaren, Mackay (of Perthshire), and
Maclagans, it has to be used with caution, even as late as 1400. The
genealogies end from 1400 to 1450. The IMS. is now undecipherable, owing
to the employment of chemicals by its first editors.
Page 181, line 5. The MS. here alluded to is the famous Dean of
Lismore's Book, published in 1S62.
Pages 184, 185. John Elder's views. This rascally turncoat tells Henry
VIII. that the Redshanks were Picts, and that they were racially the old
stock descended from the mythical Brutus, and hence naturally belonged to
Ikitain and England. The story of descent from Scota, or from the Scots,
he repudiates. In fact he takes up Edward I.'s position in his letter to the
Pope about his claims on Scotland ; the Scots, with Bruce at their head,
claimed independence as being from Ireland, descended of Scota. Dr.
Skene favours the English view I The two stories aie myths ; they are not
even traditions.
Page 186, line 16. The extraordinary statement made here that we first
hear of the Scota descent in 1320 in the letter to the Pope is contradicted by