The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. II] OFSCOTLAND 21
the time of St. Columba to the year 731, when he finishes his
history. He mentions that Oswald, the King of the Angh of
Northumberland, wishing to Christianize his the Scots requesting them to
subjects, sent to
supply him with a Monk for that
purpose ; and that in consequence of this request, Aidan, a
monk of the monastery of Hy or lona, left that island and went
to him. After which, he adds the following passage— "
Qu^e
videlicet insula ad jus quidem Britannise pertinet non magno
ab ea freto discreta, sed donatione Pictorum qui illas Bi'itannice
plagas incolunt jamdudum Monachis Scotorum tradita, eo quod
iliis predicantibus fidem Christi perceperunt." ^ Thus shewing
not only that lona was in the Pictish territories in the days of
St. Columba, but that they actually possessed and inhabited the
neighbouring districts of Britain in his own time, that is, in the
eighth century. A testimony so direct and positive as this to
the existence of a fact in his own lifetime, and at the very time
he is writing, it is impossible by any reasoning or criticism
to overcome. But Bede is not the only one who asserts this
fact ; Walafred Strabo, in his life of St. Blaithmac, asserts the
same, although at a period some years later. He opens his
poem with these words :—
"
Insula Pictorum quitdam monstratur in oris
Fluctivago suspensa salo cognomine Eo.^^
But if the Picts thus possessed the districts extending to the
western sea opposite lona, and since we have distinct evidence
of their inhabiting the northern shore of Scotland, it would seem
incredible to suppose that they did not also possess the inter-
vening districts. We can hardly imagine that the Scottish
nation were thus as it were divided into two by the Pictish
tribes, or that a small portion of them could exist unmolested
in the very heart of their powerful enemies, and completely cut
off from the rest of the Scots in Britain, as well as from the
Irish. We must therefore conclude, that the Picts inhabited the
whole of the districts lying to the north of the Linne Loch,
a circumstance corroborated by the language of Bede, who
mentions the Picts in general terms as inhabiting the "
Septcn-
trionalcs plagas Britannicer
I
Bede, b. 3, c. 3.