The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. IV] O F S C O T L A N D 45
be unnecessary,
for it is evident that if I am successful in
establishing this great fact, the reputed origin of the Highlanders
from the Scots, whether of Dalriada or of Ireland, as
well as all the other systems which have been maintained,
must be equally false.
The descent of the Highlanders of the eleventh
Descentof
the High-
j^j-jj twelfth ceuturies from the northern Picts of the
from the ninth, may be proved in two ways :— First, by shew-
Picu"" ing that the northern Picts spoke the same language
and bore the same national appellation as the Highlanders,
and when we add to this the fact, that they inhabited
the same territories at no very great distance of time, the
presumption will be very strong that they must have been the
same people. Secondly, by tracing the Highlanders up to the
northern Picts, and by shewing such a connexion between these
two nations as to render it impossible that any foreign people
could have settled in the Highlands between these periods.
hi the first place, they spoke the same language,
language' of and werc known among themselves by the same
national name. It is well known that the language
of Scotland is a dialect of that
spoken by the Highlanders
great branch of the Celtic languages termed the " Gaelic," and
that the people using that language have always termed themselves
Gael, while the Highlanders as belonging to that branch
of the Celtic race designate themselves sometimes as Gael and
sometimes Albanaich or Gael Albanaich. These facts are
admitted by every one.
The first proof which I shall bring that the Picts
TriadT.^'^^ ^vere a Gaelic race, and spoke a dialect of the Gaelic
language,
appear distinctly to have been written previous to the Scottish
conquest in the ninth century, and they mention among the
three usurping tribes of Britain the " Gwyddyl Ffichti" and add
immediately afterwards, "and these Gwyddyl Ffichti are in
Alban, along the shore of the sea of Llychlyn." In another
is from the Welsh Triads. The Triads
place, among the treacherous tribes of Britain, the same Triads
mention the "
Alban," that
Gwyddyl coch o'r Werddon a ddaethant in
is " the Red Gwyddyl from Ireland, who came
into Alban," plainly alluding to the Dalriads, who were an Irish