The Highlanders of Scotland - Clan Strachan Society

CHAP. IV] OF SCOTLAND 55
affords distinct evidence that the Highlanders inhabited the
north of Scotland as far back as the middle of the tenth century,
for the line of the Maormors of Moray can be distinctly traced
as in possession of that district from the end of the eleventh
century up to that period. The Maormors of Atholl also can be
traced as far back, though not by such strong evidence as those
of Moray, and likewise those of Mar.
In the preceding chapter, it has been seen that there is
distinct evidence of the possession of the Highlands by the
northern Picts as late as the conquest of Thorstein, in the year
894 ; there is consequently a period of but fifty-six years between
the last notice of the northern Picts and the earliest period to
which the line of the particular Maormors can be traced, and any
revolution by which the Highlanders, if they were a foreign race,
could have obtained possession of the north of Scotland, must
have taken place during that short period of fifty-six years.
But we find mention made of the Maormors of Scotland at a
much earlier period than even this ; for the annals of Ulster
mention them as holding the rank next to the king in the year
917. It is quite impossible to suppose, that during the short
space of twenty-three years so very great a change could have
taken place in the population of the northern districts, and that
the northern Picts, who are found in almost independent posses-
sion of that part of Scotland, could have, during so short a time,
been driven out of their territories, and a new race have come in
their place ; or that such an event, if it could have happened,
would have escaped the notice of every historian. And this con-
clusion is also very strongly corroborated by the circumstance,
that the Norse Sagas and the Irish Annals, which at all times
mutually corroborate each other, and which together form the
only authentic history of Scotland from the conquest of
Thorstein in 894 down to the eleventh century, contain no
hint whatever of any change in the population of the
north of Scotland ; and a perusal of the Sagas, which commence
to narrate events in the north of Scotland in the very
year in which we find the last mention of the northern Picts,
\Vi11 be sufficient to shew that no event of so very formidable
a nature could have occurred without its having been mentioned
by them.