CHAPTER I.—HISTORICAL DATA.

By whatever course the earlier colonists of the British Isles reached our shores and diffused the first influences of the presence of man, as well as those succeeding evidences of his progress, the traces of which have been reviewed in the preceding sections, it is unquestionable that that latest and most important of all sources of change, the introduction of Christianity, took place by a very different route from that of the Straits of Dover. All the affinities indicated by the later and well-defined relics of native art point to a more intimate intercourse and community of customs and arts between the natives of Scotland and Ireland than between those of the northern and southern parts of the island of Great Britain, taking as its natural intermediate boundary the Highlands of Northumberland and Cumberland. South of this the tribes partook of the characteristics of those of the neighbouring continent. They shared in the civilisation of the north of Europe, held by its mythology, and were involved in its enslavement by the aggressive expansion of the overgrown Roman empire; while the nations both of northern Albany and of the Irish isle were left to the unmitigated influences, for good or evil, of their wild independence. The geographical position of the British and Irish coasts sufficiently accounts for frequent intercourse between the natives of Scotland and Ireland from the earliest periods. While the narrowest part of St. George's Channel has a breadth of about sixty-five miles, the opposite coasts of the Mull of Cantyre and of Fair Head in the county of Antrim, are only fourteen miles apart. The remarkable ancient historical Gaelic poem, generally termed the ALBANIC DUAN, written in its present form in the reign of Malcolm Canmore about the middle of the eleventh century, thus refers to the first peopling of Scotland and the Irish origin of the northern Picts:—

"Ye learned of all Albin,
Ye wise, yellow-haired race,
Learn who was the first
To acquire the districts of Albin.

"Albanus acquired them with his race,
The illustrious son of Isiscon,
Brother to Britus, without treachery:
From him Albin of ships takes its name.
* * * * * * *
"The Cruithne acquired the western region,
After they had come from the plains of Erin:
Seventy noble kings of them
Acquired the Cruithen plains."[510]

Of the history of the neighbouring island during the first centuries of the Christian era our knowledge is necessarily extremely imperfect and uncertain; nor have the over-zealous exertions of Irish antiquaries to clear up this period of their national annals greatly added to our information. Without, however, entering upon the controverted ground of primitive Irish history, it is sufficient for our present purpose to know that at the period of the introduction of Christianity into Ireland it was occupied by the Hiberni, an ancient if not aboriginal Celtic race, by the Cruithne, as the inhabitants of Ulster are called by the native annalists, and also by the Scoti, a race who had then apparently established themselves in Ireland, and secured a complete supremacy over the elder native population, at no very distant date. Whencesoever this latter race was derived, we have evidence that they were considerably advanced in civilisation, though their superiority appears to have been less in arts than in arms, the traces of early artistic skill being generally ascribed on satisfactory grounds to the older races who acknowledged their supremacy. So effectual was their superiority in arms, however, in effacing every trace of the independence and nationality of the more ancient tribes, that towards the close of the third century at the latest, the name of Scotia appears to have been generally applied to Ireland, and for nearly seven centuries continued to indicate the Hibernia of Latin writers.

Christianity had already gained some partial footing in Ireland prior to the apostolic mission of St. Patrick, who was consecrated for that purpose by Pope Celestine, A.D. 433. Both the parentage and country of the Irish apostle have been made the subject of recent controversy, but, according to the most commonly accepted history, the little village of Kilpatrick, on the north bank of the Clyde, between Glasgow and Dumbarton, claims the honour of having given birth to the patron saint of Ireland; in return for which the Scottish apostle, St. Columba, is acknowledged as of Irish origin. Though Ireland was not unknown to the Romans no attempt appears to have been made to subject it to their grasping sway, and it was accordingly left to reap by indirect means the advantages of southern civilisation. This the introduction of the new religion most effectually promoted. Greek and Roman literature received the attention of the clergy in a way that produced far more direct and beneficial results than any which flowed from the intrusion of Roman civilisation and supremacy into the neighbouring island. A native literature was developed and fostered, native arts sprung up, and architecture assumed a peculiar national character. From the middle of the fifth till nearly the close of the eighth century, Ireland was among the most civilized and prosperous of the nations of Europe, and wanted only a native Alfred or a Canmore to give the same unity to its independent tribes which St. Patrick had conferred on its ecclesiastical state.

It was during this prosperous era, in the very beginning of the sixth century,[511] that a small colony of these Irish Scoti effected a settlement in the district of Scotland now known as the county of Argyle, and conferred on it the name of Dalriada, according to spurious monkish traditions, in honour of their leader, Cairbre Riada, a celebrated Scottic warrior whose epoch is assigned by older Irish annalists to the third century. This, however, was certainly not the first interchange of races between Scotland and Ireland, nor did it exercise any immediate influence on Scottish history. The earliest authentic records succeeding the era of Roman invasion exhibit Scotland divided into the kingdoms of the Cruithne, or Northern Picts, and the Piccardach, or Southern Picts. The Irish Cruithneans were doubtless a Celtic colony originally from Scotland. Early writers agree in recognising both by the same name of Picts, though few subjects have excited more fruitless controversy than the attempts to assign historic consistency to the half-fabulous race of Scottish Picti, or even to agree on the derivation or meaning of their name. The nec falso nomine Picti of Claudian was long assumed as decisive of their being mere naked savages, who decorated their bodies with paint. But this error is now generally abandoned. A more consistent derivation may be sought in the Welsh peith, to scream, to fight, whence pic-t-a, fighting man. In accordance with such a derivation it appears to have been common to more than one native tribe or kingdom, and to have been rarely or never used unaccompanied by some distinctive epithet, such as the Gwyddyl Ffichti, or Gaelic Picts of the Welsh Triads.

Into the long disputed question of the origin of the Pictish race, it is happily no longer needful to enter at large. Much learning and acrimony have been expended on it, not altogether without reason; for its proper understanding involves the consistent resolution of that period, of no slight importance in Scottish history, intervening between the year 296 of our present era, when the first mention of the Scottish Picti occurs,[512] and the intrusion of the Saxon race in the eleventh century into the kingdom of the Southern Picts. To the critical researches of one or two recent writers, and especially to the consistent narrative of Skene in his able work on the Highlanders of Scotland, we owe the rescue of this portion of Scottish history from the confusion and mystery to which monkish legends and modern controversy had consigned it. During this important era which intervenes between the final retreat of the Romans and the accession of Malcolm Canmore, we find North Britain divided into the three kingdoms of the Northern and Southern Picts and the Dalriads. The Irish derivation of the latter being undoubted, further research into their origin has been left to Hibernian antiquaries, while our native writers long sought in vain to discover any clue either to the intrusion or extrusion of the Pictish race, which if distinct from the old Celtic population, must have appeared and disappeared like the winter's snow. By some they have been supposed to have been utterly eradicated by successive invaders, or to have gradually disappeared as a distinct race by marriage and intermingling with their supplanters. Others have maintained that the Northern and Southern Picts were two distinct races, of which the latter alone were exterminated or driven from the soil by the successive invasions of the Lowlands, while the former maintained their ground, which is still possessed by their descendants the Scottish Highlanders. The weight of evidence, however, and the manifest coincidence between the ancient topographical nomenclature throughout the whole of Scotland, leave no room to doubt that both the Northern and Southern Picts, who have long formed a mythic and half-fabulous race in the popular traditions of Scotland, were none other than the original Celtæ, who so resolutely withstood the Roman invaders. Ptolemy gives the names of thirteen Caledonian tribes; in some editions of the Old Geographer the number is extended to seventeen; and to these the questionable authority of Richard of Cirencester adds at least four more. In all probability the greater number of these existed as independent and frequently rival tribes, up to the period of Roman invasion, and were for the first time united under one leader or chief when Galgacus led them against the legions of Agricola. The immense host, however, which he brought into the field, shews that Scotland was then no longer a savage and thinly-peopled country, while their war-chariots, their shields, huge iron swords, and other effective accoutrements, have already been referred to in evidence of the progress which they had then made in the useful arts. This union against a common enemy, maintained as we have good reason for believing it was, throughout the whole period of the Roman occupation of Scotland, was perhaps the most important of all the fruits which Scotland reaped from the intrusion of the civilized Romans; and to it we may with much probability ascribe the permanent coalition of the numerous independent tribes, and the consequent establishment of the two Pictish kingdoms, the limits of which were to a great extent determined by the natural features of the country. Both spoke dialects of the same Celtic language, to which the philologist still turns for explanation of the more ancient name of Lowland as well as Highland localities, and which still exists as a living tongue among the Scottish Gael. In the Welsh Triads, which are believed to be fully as old as the sixth century, the Picts are uniformly designated, without distinction, as the Gwyddyl Ffichti, that is the Gaelic or Celtic Picts; and Bede, in enumerating the different languages in which the gospel was taught in Britain, speaks of the lingua Pictorum as one tongue, though it is apparent elsewhere that he was familiar with the distinction between Northern and Southern Picts. Even Ritson, while fiercely opposing the idea of any community of origin between the Caledonian Britons and the Picts, admits that the language of the latter was a Celtic idiom.[513] They were in fact the descendants of the only primitive Scottish race of which we possess any authentic historical evidence: the Albiones of Festus Avienus; the race of Albanus of the "Albanic Duan;" the Albanich of Welsh and native writers; and the most numerous and powerful representatives of a people which we have reason to believe continued exclusively to occupy the British Islands from a period the commencement of which we must seek in those dim unchronicled centuries we have already attempted to explore, down to the fifth or perhaps the fourth century B.C. Then began what we should call the Teutonic Invasion, and the long quiescent Celtæ once more renewed their old nomadic life. Yet the lapse of so many centuries has not sufficed to efface the ancient characteristics by which we still recognise as one race the Cornish, Welsh, Gaelic, and Irish Celtæ.

Of six modern Celtic dialects still recognised in Europe, four belong to the British Isles. A fifth, the Cornish, now extinct, also pertained to the same insular home of the Κέλται, while the only remaining one, the Armorican, or dialect of Brittany, belongs to a country intimately associated in the history of its early colonization with Britain. The table of the modern Celtic dialects of Europe, as modified by Dr. Charles Meyer, and adopted by Dr. Latham,[514] from that given by Dr. Prichard in his "Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations," is as follows—divided primarily into two great dialects, each composed of three separate idioms:—

But a new race of strangers acquired a footing in Scotland, who were destined to bear no unimportant part in its history. The colony of Irish Scoti, or Dalriadic Scots, having effected a settlement in the district of Argyle, continued to occupy this limited locality for upwards of three hundred years, without seeking to extend their possessions beyond the natural boundaries which inclose the Western Highlands. To this period we may with little hesitation assign many of the traces of ancient population, civilized arts, and extensive cultivation, which have been described in a former chapter.[515] A close intercourse appears to have been always maintained between the Scottish Dalriads and their Irish progenitors, and the history of the Dalriadic kingdom is still chiefly derivable from Irish annalists. From these we are led to conclude that the number and influence of the Dalriadic Scots had gradually increased, while the attention of the Northern and Southern Picts was chiefly engrossed by their own rival jealousies; but their position was frequently precarious, and for nearly three centuries they owed their safety fully as much to the natural isolation of their little kingdom, as to the dissensions of the Picts and the fidelity with which the Irish Scoti adhered to this colonial offshoot from the parent stock. The cooperation and alliance of the Dalriads at length became objects of consideration to these neighbouring rivals, and we learn of a union between the Scots and the Northern Picts, entered upon in the year 731, for the purpose of supplanting Angus MacFergus, a Southern Pict, who then occupied the throne.

At first the Cruithne and their allies were completely worsted, and for upwards of eighty years the larger portion of the kingdom of Dalriada appears to have been subjected to the rule of the Southern Picts. There is abundant evidence, however, that the Irish Scoti continued to maintain a close intercourse with their Dalriadic descendants, and made common cause with them against the Piccardach. The Irish annals occasionally afford the only evidence we now possess of the wars then waged between Scots and Picts, by recording the death of their native kings and chiefs, slain in Albany when fighting with their Dalriadic kindred. But for this powerful aid, it is difficult to conceive how the Dalriads could have held their ground within the small territory which they occupied, in opposition to a powerful kingdom united under one sovereign, even with all the skilful tact with which they availed themselves of the jealousies and rivalry existing between the northern and southern tribes. The struggle between the Dalriads and Picts assumed latterly in some degree the character of a war of succession. There is reason to believe, from several of the names of the Dalriadic kings, that they had not failed to strengthen their alliances with the Northern Picts by intermarriage, so that it is not improbable, owing to the peculiar Celtic ideas of succession by the female line, that the Dalriads may have acquired a claim to the Pictish throne. There appears, however, not only to have existed lines of hereditary sovereigns, succeeding according to the peculiar Pictish laws of succession to the supreme rule, but also a hereditary nobile genus, or patrician class, holding as tenaciously by the purity of their blood and lineage, as under the most stringent rule of the lyon kings-at-arms of a later age.[516] Much obscurity still rests on this period of our national history. Partially and at intervals we discover glimpses of the struggle then going on, amid which, however, increasing evidences suffice to shew that fortune favoured the Dalriadic Scots, until in the year 843 the whole of Scotland is found united under the sceptre of Kenneth MacAlpin, originally sovereign of the little kingdom of Dalriada.

This is that remarkable epoch in our national history known by the name of the Scottish Conquest. It has naturally formed the subject of much investigation and of still more debate. Our earlier historians, assuming the results to have corresponded with the term Conquest, attribute to Kenneth the total extermination of the Piccardach or Southern Picts; the consequence of which has been, that later and more accurate writers, seeking in vain for any evidence of so complete a revolution, have been inclined to pronounce the whole a fable. But it still remains for us to inquire if no other elements of friendly alliance and permanent union existed between the Picts and Scots than those which sprung from cooperation against a common foe. A tradition of a Spanish origin appears to have been ascribed to the Irish Scoti from the earliest period. It is interwoven into all the fables and monkish legends of our earlier chroniclers, and has already been alluded to in reference to the Lia Fail. It is now perhaps vain to attempt to analyze this obscure and doubtful tradition, though we are not without evidence of its probability.[517] The period of their arrival in Ireland is necessarily very partially ascertained, though our information is perhaps sufficiently authentic and minute if we assume, from the notice of Avienus, already referred to, that they were unknown in Ireland in the fourth century before Christ, while we have good evidence of their presence there at the period of Julius Cæsar's British invasion. During this interval history furnishes very satisfactory means of accounting for such a migration. In the year B.C. 218, the second and fiercest struggle between the rival republics of Carthage and Rome was commenced by Hannibal taking Saguntum, a town on the eastern coast of Spain. The Peninsula thereafter became the theatre of a war afterwards carried by Hannibal into Italy, which was not concluded till B.C. 202, when Spain was added to the growing empire of the Italian Republic. But the natives of Spain did not willingly bow to the yoke. One of the bloodiest of all the Roman wars commenced in Spain B.C. 153, and did not finally terminate for twenty years, during which cities were razed to the ground, multitudes massacred and made slaves, and the triumphant arms of Rome borne to the Atlantic shores. Here therefore is an epoch in the history of the Spanish peninsula which seems completely to coincide with the ancient traditions of the Scoti, and the knowledge we possess of the period of their arrival in Ireland.

Such coincidences are not of course to be accepted as absolute proof; but in the absence of more direct evidence they are well worthy of attention, as guiding us to some knowledge of that race which had acquired a footing in Ireland, and partially displaced the aboriginal Hiberni shortly before the Roman invasion of England. But we have still the evidence of philology, the prevailing topographical nomenclature of Ireland, and the dialects of its earliest native literature, all adding confirmation to the conclusion that the Scoti were only another branch of the great Celtic family, which, after enjoying the advantages of commercial intercourse with Phœnicia and Carthage, and sharing in the civilisation of the distinguished nations then bordering on the Mediterranean, had at length been driven forth from their settlements on the western shores of Spain by the encroachments of the Roman Republic. The brief and very partial presence of a Scandinavian race in Scotland is still traceable in its dialects and topographical nomenclature; but no such indications within the limits of the ancient Dalriada, or in the Erse as contrasted with the British dialects of the Celtic language, betray indications of the Irish Scoti having interfused any elements of a foreign tongue into the ancient language of the Scottish Gael. Assuming, therefore, their Celtic origin we can readily understand how a race speaking a cognate dialect, and seeking the shores of Ireland, not as invaders, but as refugees, might rapidly acquire the supremacy over the older Celtic races inferior to them in the arts of war. Such a superior Celtic race were no less fitted to become the colonists and chiefs of Caledonia; and to this consanguinity between the Irish Scoti and the Scottish Picts, which rests more on philological evidence than on any theory of the direct origin of the former, we must look for one of the most important elements in that remarkable revolution of the ninth century known as the Scottish Conquest. The subdivisions of the great Celtic family are of much more importance in relation to the early history of the British islands, and especially of Scotland, than the later Teutonic migrations. There are, first, two great subdivisions, arising apparently from the different routes by which the Celtæ migrated from Asia to the north-west of Europe; and secondly, there are the minor subdivisions,—of greater importance in their bearing on the present inquiry,—resulting from successive arrivals in this country of offshoots from both the great streams of migration, modified by previous sojourn in different countries of Europe, and probably also by some intermingling with foreign races. Thus, the Cruithne and Piccardach, or Northern and Southern Picts of Scotland, are frequently distinguished by the Welsh chroniclers as the Gwyddyl duon and the Gwyddyl gwyn, or black and fair Gaels. Perhaps the term Du-Caledones (Di-Caledones), by which the Romans distinguished the Northern from the Vecturiones or Southern Picts, is only a combination of the Celtic du or dubh, black, with the generic name adopted by them. The Scoti appear also to have been of the fair race, which may, perhaps, be assumed as the indication of a purer Caucasian origin than the Cruithne or Gwyddyl duon of the north. They are termed in the Welsh Triads the Gwyddyl coch or Red Gaels; while the name of Scot, which has adhered to them and to the later country of their adoption, is none other than that of Nomade, Scuta, wanderer, first applied to the refugees—as we conceive from Spain—who in the second century B.C. sought a new home amid the Irish Celtæ.[518] It is to be noted, however, in reference to the former appellations, that both the Scots and Irish were wont to distinguish the Scandinavian invaders by the name of Dubh-Ghaill, the black strangers,—a term derived not from their complexion but their costume.

The presence of a Pictish race—the Cruithne—in Ireland, contemporary with the Scottish Piccardach and Cruithne, and the very great correspondence between many of the gold and bronze relics, as well as the older architectural and monumental antiquities of Scotland and Ireland, all point to a very close intercourse maintained between the two countries at an early period, while the remarkable historical poem, the Albanic Duan, already quoted, assigns to the Cruithne of Scotland an Irish origin. Under such circumstances the occupation of Dalriada by a Scotic colony speaking a dialect of the same language as the Caledonian Picts would be too unimportant a change to excite any notice beyond the limits of the Western Highlands. The native tribes whose borders were encroached upon would settle their disputes according to the summary diplomacy of primitive courts; and that done, intercourse, alliances, and intermarriages would follow as naturally between Scots and Picts as between Piccardach and Cruithne. So, in like manner, when the Scots in alliance with the Cruithne or Northern Picts conquered the Piccardach or Southern Picts, it was merely transferring the supremacy to a more powerful branch of the same great Celtic family. There existed few of the causes for lasting or deadly feud which occur in the struggle for power between rival races, such as the Moors and Goths of Spain, or the English and Irish. The struggle in England between the Normans and Saxons owed its chief elements of bitterness to other causes, as is proved by the readiness with which the two races intermingled when they met on common ground and on an equal footing in the Scottish Lowlands, under Malcolm Canmore. Aided by the very summary processes adopted in rude periods for getting quit of the elements of a disputed regal succession, the lapse of a single generation would suffice to obliterate the animosities between Scot and Pict, and to establish the former in undisputed possession of such supremacy as the Normans had to compel and to maintain for several generations in England, at the point of the sword. Perhaps it formed another element of interfusion among the various Celtic races that the supremacy of the Scoti was solely as warriors. The old native race are always referred to by the Irish bards as superior to them in the knowledge of the arts; a fact perhaps sufficiently accounted for on the presumption of their arrival in Ireland as refugees, after a protracted strife extending over more than one generation, during which the refined arts and luxuries of civilisation would disappear in the struggle for existence. This also may in some degree account for the fact that the Scoti allied themselves with the inferior and most dissimilar race in Scotland, compelled thereto obviously by the superiority of the Piccardach or Fair Picts. But the superior race finally triumphed. The Scoti, indeed, with the aid of the Cruithne, gained the ascendency; but on the extinction of the Scotic line of princes descended from Kenneth MacAlpin, or on the transference of the crown to a collateral branch, according to ancient Pictish law, it seems to have returned to the fair race of the Piccardach. The ultimate ground of dispute between the two, which proved the chief stumblingblock, and prevented a complete union of the southern and northern kingdoms during the reign of the Scottish dynasty, was this Celtic idea of succession through brothers, in opposition to the hereditary succession aimed at by the Dalriadic race, and which was not so effectually forced on the Northern Picts even by the Saxon Conquest as to prevent its revival by Donald Bain, on the death of Malcolm Canmore in 1093. The concluding stanzas of the Albanic Duan, written in the early part of Malcolm's reign, are peculiarly characteristic of the revived claims of the Gwyddyl duon,—

"Malcolm is now the king,
Son of Duncan of the yellow countenance,
His duration no one knoweth
But the knowing one who alone is knowing.

Two kings and fifty,—listen,—
To the son of Duncan of the ruddy countenance,
Of the race of Erc high, clear in gold,
Possessed Alban,—ye learned."

But though a variety of evidence seems to refer to the Scoti as inferior in arts to the native Irish, it is still probable that Ireland owes to them the introduction from the southern seats of European civilisation of some of the useful and ornamental arts, the traces of which are so abundant throughout the island. It is, however, chiefly to their undoubted superiority in arms over the kindred races that previously were in possession of the ancient kingdoms both of Hibernia and of Albany, that we must ascribe the singular and almost unparalleled occurrence of the conquerors transferring their own name to the whole race and country subject to their rule.

Such is a hasty glance at the most important events pertaining to the civil history of Scotland during the first centuries of the Christian era, with an attempt to account for some of the changes that have heretofore seemed most difficult to reconcile with ascertained facts. But other and no less remarkable changes were, meanwhile, being wrought on the native tribes of Caledonia. The legionaries of Rome had in vain attempted to penetrate into their fastnesses; but other Roman missionaries of civilisation followed with more abundant success. Towards the latter end of the fourth century, ere yet the little kingdom of Dalriada had a being, a youth, the son of a British Prince of Cumberland, visited Rome during the Pontificate of Damasus, elected Bishop of Rome, A.D. 366. Young Nynias, or Ninian, remained there till the succession of Siricius to the Popedom, A.D. 384, who, according to Bede, finding the young Briton trained in the faith and mysteries of the truth, ordained him, and sent him as a Christian missionary to preach the faith to the heathen tribes of North Britain. This is the celebrated British Bishop St. Ninian, or St. Ringan, as he is more frequently styled in Scotland, where numerous churches, chapels, holy wells, as also caves and other noted localities, still bear his name. Arriving in Britain towards the close of the fourth century, he tarried not among his native mountains of Cumberland, but crossing the Solway, established the chief seat of his mission at Whithern, in Wigtonshire, a prominent headland of the old province of Galloway, where he erected the celebrated Candida Casa, according to Bede, "a church of stone, built in a manner unusual among the Britons."[519] The fact is of great value, as disproving the assumption of both Scottish and Irish antiquaries, prior to Dr. Petrie, that the earliest British churches were constructed of wattles. The remains of Roman buildings in Scotland suffice to shew that the Britons of the fourth century had not then to learn, for the first time, the art of masonry, though the facilities offered by a thickly wooded country frequently led the first Christian missionaries to employ its oak and plaited reeds in the construction of their chapels and cells. We are told by Bede that the first church of Lindisfarne was built by St. Finan, more Scotorum, non de lapide, sed de robore secto et arundine.

The brethren of Iona, too, as Adomnan incidentally mentions, were challenged by the proprietor, from whose lands they had gathered stakes and wands for the repair of their dwellings. Yet notable as the cathedral church of Whithern doubtless was, we can have little hesitation in picturing it to our own minds as a sufficiently humble and primitive structure, though distinguished among contemporary edifices, and dear to us in no ordinary degree, as the first British temple consecrated to the rites of the true faith. The Candida Casa, or white-walled cathedral of Whithern, though dedicated originally to St. Martin,[520] became the shrine of the Scottish apostle St. Ninian, and the resort of many a royal and noble pilgrimage, down even to the Reformation; but it would be vain now to look for any relics of this most interesting primitive structure on the bold headland of Galloway, though the fragments of a later ruined chancel still mark the site of St. Ringan's famous shrine.

The death of the primitive Scottish Bishop St. Ninian took place A.D. 432. According to the accepted biography of St. Patrick it was in the following year that Pope Celestine consecrated him a Bishop, and sent him on his mission to Ireland. But the labours of the Scottish missionary had not been in vain. "The brethren of St. Ninian at Whithern" became the centre of an important movement, influencing a large and rapidly increasing sphere, and from their labours there is reason to believe that both England and Ireland received the first impressions towards that great movement which ultimately included the British Isles within the ecclesiastical unity of papal Christendom. It furnishes no inconclusive evidence of the progress of the new faith in the British Isles, that St. Palladius was sent from Rome to the Christian Scots, towards the middle of the fifth century, for the purpose of uprooting the Pelagian heresy. His chief mission was to Ireland, where the Scots were then settled, but he also cared for the converts of the neighbouring isle, then connected with Ireland both by frequent intercourse and by affinity of races. He personally visited the Christian Picts of North Britain, and despatched his disciple St. Servanus, or St. Serf, as he is more usually styled, to the Northern Islands, for the purpose of preaching the true faith to the natives of Orkney and Shetland. That he also was successful many local names and traditions, and even some ecclesiological relics, hereafter referred to, suffice to prove, and thus we arrive at the important fact, that Christianity had already established a firm footing, both in the Scottish mainland and the isles, long before we have any evidence of the presence of the Scandinavians, even as roving marauders, on our coasts. The value of this will be at once apparent, as shewing the necessity which authentic history imposes upon us of referring to a period long anterior to the intrusion of the earliest Scandinavian colonists into Scotland, the erection of the monolithic structures, memorial cairns, and other primitive monuments, which fanciful theorists have assigned, without evidence, to such foreign origin. It is uncertain how long St. Palladius was in Scotland, but his last days were spent there, and he died among his Cruithnean converts at Fordun, in Mag-girgin, or the Mearns. We find good evidence that the influence of his preaching was not evanescent. Before the end of the fifth century churches had been founded, and brotherhoods of priests established, both in the islands and on the mainland; and Bede relates that, in the beginning of the eighth century, while yet the Dalriadic Scots remained within the narrow limits of their first possessions in the Western Highlands, the Pictish king sent to his own monastery of Jarrow, craving that builders might be commissioned to construct for him a church of stone after the Roman manner. From this we are led to infer that the "mos Scotorum" referred to by Bede, of building both houses and churches of timber and wattles, was also the "mos Pictorum" of the same period; but Dr. Petrie has already conclusively established the fact that this custom prevailed only to a very limited extent in Ireland, and contemporarily with the erection of religious structures of so substantial a nature that characteristic examples of them still remain in sufficient preservation to shew perfectly what they had been in their original state. It is indeed from Adomnan's Life of St. Columba that Dr. Petrie produces the earliest historical authority which satisfactorily proves the erection of a round tower in the sixth century.[521] We search in vain for such primitive ecclesiastical structures in Scotland, or even for the stone churches which Boniface and other Italian builders, sent at King Nectan's desire, are said to have built at Invergowrie, Tealing, and Restennet in Angus, at Rosemarky in Ross, as well as in other parts of the kingdom of the Northern Picts. Yet it will be hereafter seen that we are not without some evidence of the character of primitive Scottish churches "built after the Roman manner."

Besides the primitive Christian missionaries referred to as bringing tidings of the new faith to Scotland, St. Rule, St. Adrian, St. Woloc, St. Kieran, and St. Kentigern, must each be noted as sharing in the good work. But the religious establishment which St. Columba founded at Iona, in the middle of the sixth century, is justly regarded as the true centre of all the most sacred and heart-stirring associations connected with the establishment of Christianity in Scotland. "That illustrious island, which was once the luminary of the Caledonian regions," still awakens feelings in the mind of every thoughtful visitor, such as no other Scottish locality can give birth to, unless a Scotsman may be pardoned if he associate with it, not "the plain of Marathon," but the field of Bannockburn. We look in vain for any natural features in this remarkable island to account for its selection as the centre of primitive Christian missions in Britain. It is only about two and a half miles in length, and one in breadth. The waves of the Atlantic dash, with almost unceasing roar, against the rugged granite cliffs which guard its southern and western coasts; and but for the memory of its sacred historical associations, and of its ancient magnificence which has utterly passed away, there is nothing about the little island, placed far amid the melancholy main, that could now tempt the most curious traveller to approach its shores. St. Kieran, the favourite Celtic saint, was the precursor of St. Columba, and even it is said his instructor in the faith. He came from Ireland in 503, with the sons of Ere, thus celebrated in the Albanic Duan as converts of St. Patrick,—

"The sons of Erc, son of Eathach the prosperous,
The three who obtained the blessing of Saint Patrick."

The cave of St. Kieran is still shewn in Kintyre, where the first Christian teacher of the Western Highlands is believed to have made his abode. If the dates of this remote era may be relied on, it was not till upwards of half a century after the arrival of St. Kieran, that the great Apostle of Scotland landed on its shores. The record of Bede is equally simple and precise,—"Anno DLXV. Columba presbyter de Scotia venit Brittaniam ad docendos Pictos, et in insula Hii monasterium fecit." The isolation of that little island might perhaps be thought to have proved an attraction to Colum M'Felim M'Fergus, when he abandoned Ireland in his rude currach, or boat of hides, and sought an asylum among the Scottish Picts. But the old Celtic traditions seem rather to indicate, that in the true missionary spirit he bearded the ancient faith in its stronghold, and reared the primitive Christian fane of Iona, where of old the Pagan circle had stood. The name of Hii, or I, by which the sacred isle is most generally known, signifies emphatically The Island. It is also familiar to us as Ii-Cholum Chille, or the Island of Columba's Cell; but the Highlanders, to the present day, frequently apply to it the name of Innis nan Druidheanach, or the Island of the Druids, or magicians. The first structure reared by St. Columba and his followers on Iona, was doubtless as humble as the little currach by which they had reached its shores. One curious passage, already referred to, speaks of the Abbot as sending forth his monks to gather bundles of twigs with which to build their Hospice. The little chapel of St. Oran, the first follower of St. Columba who found a grave in the sacred soil, still exists, and has been frequently described as a work of the sixth century, but the experienced ecclesiologist will feel little hesitation in dating it full six centuries later. It is not indeed at such spots as Whithern or Iona that we are to look for the existence of primitive structures. The veneration which made these the favourite resorts of pilgrims for many centuries, was little likely to permit the first homely fane to continue, at a period when the re-edifying of churches and monasteries, on a larger and more magnificent scale, was one of the readiest exponents of the piety or contrition which the Church inculcated on its disciples. If any of the primitive Scottish churches still exist, they must be looked for in localities less favoured by the fidelity of medieval piety or superstition.

Christianity we thus perceive was established in Scotland at a very early period, altogether apart from any contemporary intercourse which England may have maintained more directly with the converts of the neighbouring continent. Several important centres were fixed at various points, including the extreme south-west of Scotland, the remote northern, and the western Isles. From these the faith rapidly radiated to the whole surrounding regions, and was even carried by the youthful zeal of the new converts to distant shores. The Icelandic Sagas furnish abundant proof of the conversion of the natives of North Britain and Ireland long prior to Scandinavia, and of the direct influence which they exercised in the Christianizing of the north. When Norsemen first visited Iceland in the latter half of the ninth century, it was uninhabited, but they discovered traces of the former presence of Irish monks, and found their books, crosiers, and bells. This account, derived from the Sagas, receives independent confirmation from the narrative of Dicuil, an Irish monk of the ninth century, who states that monks from Ireland had resided in Iceland for six months, and also visited the Færo Islands, and found them uninhabited.[522] There also existed in ancient times a church in Iceland dedicated to St. Columba, and a native Icelander is described as having been educated by an abbot named Patrick, in the Western Isles of Scotland or Ireland. We likewise find in the names of several of the northern Scottish Islands, and in the traces of the dedications of their earliest churches, ample confirmation of their inhabitants having been Christianized prior to any Scandinavian settlement. The islands of North and South Ronaldshay are now distinguished by their relative positions, but their ancient names are Rinansey and Rögnvalsey. Professor P. A. Munch, of Christiania, adds in a letter referring to this subject,—"I have no doubt that the name of the island, before the Scandinavian settlement, was St. Ninian's Island, Ringan's Island, Ronan's Island, which involves the Christianity of the ancient Celtic population before the Norwegian settlement." It is not, however, with Scandinavian antiquaries that we have to contend in clearing up these points of national history, but with British writers, who vainly seek the sources of native arts and civilisation in those of nations younger than our own. Mr. Worsaae acknowledges that Ireland was Christianized several centuries before Scandinavia, and largely contributed towards the conversion of the latter to the new faith. Interesting traces still remain in the names of many Scottish localities of the primitive Christian colonies, and of the collegiate establishments founded, like that of Iona, in many of the northern and western Isles, several of which are mentioned by Adomnan in his Life of St. Columba. In the curious diploma addressed to Eric, king of Norway, respecting the genealogy of William Saint Clair, Earl of Orkney, drawn up by Thomas Tulloch, bishop of Orkney, about 1443,—wherein, for the sake of brevity, he lets pass many "notable operationis and gestis, and referrs ws till auld cronikis and genealogiis, autentik and approbat," the following notice occurs: "Sua we find that in the tyme of Harald Comate, first king of Norwege, this land, or contre insulare of Orchadie, was inhabitat and mainerit be twa nations callit Peti and Pape, quhilk twa nations, indeid, war all wterlie and clenlie destroyit be Norwegens, of the clan or tribe of the maist stowt Prince Rognald."[523] These were undoubtedly the native Celtic population, or Picts—of the total extermination of whom a document of the fifteenth century cannot be regarded as very conclusive evidence—and the Papæ or ecclesiastical fraternities sent forth from Iona. In the Life of St. Columba it is stated, that the Saint chancing to meet a prince of the Orkneys at the palace of King Brude, commended to his care some monks who had lately sailed to the Northern Seas, and the missionaries afterwards owed their life to his intercession.[524] The Landnáma states, that wherever the Norwegian settlers found monks, or remains of their establishments, they called the places by some name beginning with Pap, from pfaff, Papa, πάππας, a priest,—as Papey, the Priest's Island; Papuli, the Priest's district. In Orkney there are two Papeys; the larger Papa Westray, the smaller Papa Stronsay. In the mainland also there is Paplay, (Papuli); another Paplay in South Ronaldshay; in Shetland two Papeys, Papa Stour and Papa Little; and a Papill (Papilia) in Unst. In the Hebrides also there are two Pabbys, (Papey,) and a Pappadill in Rum. Adomnan mentions, besides his own monastery, those of Achaluing, Himba, Elanna-oma, and Kilduin; the three last supposed to be Oransay, Colonsay, and Loch Awe. Eig, Islay, Urquhart, Inchcolm in the Frith of Forth, Govan on the Clyde, and many other religious sites, are also ascribed, on more or less trustworthy authority, to the missionary zeal of St. Columba, and his immediate followers; while a still earlier origin is assigned, not without some evidence, to various of the ancient Culdee Houses reformed by David I., or merged by him in the magnificent monastic establishments which he founded. Great as was the influence of the Northmen in retarding the fruits of early missionary zeal, it is obvious that they rarely so effectually despoiled the Christian establishments as to permanently eradicate them, or break the traditional sanctity which has consecrated their sites to the service of religion even to our own day. Iona, burned in 802, was rebuilt in 806. Sixty-eight of the brethren perished by the hands of the Pagan Northmen the same year: yet in 814, we again find them founding and building. It is impossible, therefore, to avoid the conclusion that Christianity was very extensively diffused throughout North Britain, and that numerous ecclesiastical fraternities had been established on the mainland and surrounding islands long before the natives learned to watch the horizon for the plundering fleets of the Norse rovers.

It is not till the ninth century that we find authentic traces of the Scandinavian Vikings on the Scottish shores. While, however, we regard the Pagan Northmen in the light of lawless spoilers, preying on weaker or defenceless neighbours, we must beware of the error of supposing that they were no more than a barbarian race of pirates. On the contrary, they speedily substituted conquest for spoliation both in Scotland and Ireland, colonized the possessions they acquired, and established trade and commerce in lieu of robbery. They bore, indeed, no slight resemblance to the bold adventurers of a more civilized age, who followed Drake and Raleigh in their reprisals against Spanish America, and won reputation, still honoured in our naval annals, by means as inconsistent with the modern law of nations as the plundering expeditions of these old Scandinavian Vikings. The war-songs of the Northmen shew that such expeditions were the paths to honour as well as to wealth; nor was it till the milder tenets of Christianity had superseded the warrior-creed of Thor, that their plundering voyages came to an end. But unlike the British and Irish, the Scandinavians have a Pagan literature, contemporary with those scenes of adventure and bold deeds of arms: and so much the more valuable that it preserves a picture of the period uninfluenced by that corporate spirit which detracts so much from the contemporary monkish annals of our own and other countries. They had their sagaman, and their bard or skjalde, like the minstrel or troubadour of medieval Europe, whose chief business it was to rehearse the Sagas, and to compose songs and odes in commemoration of their victories and individual prowess. We must not, therefore, rob the old Pagan Norseman of the wild virtues of his age and creed, by bringing them to the standard of modern ideas and principles; but rather accept the characteristic picture of his Sagas as furnishing no unlikely portraiture of the hardy Caledonian warrior of an earlier age.

We know little that is definite regarding the Scandinavian expeditions to our shores till Harold Harfager, king of Norway, in the latter part of the ninth century, conquered first the Zetlands and then the Orkney Islands and Hebrides, and made himself master of the Isle of Man. The change from having the Norsemen as plunderers to that of having them as masters, was probably altogether beneficial, though not unaccompanied with much violence and suffering. Previously to this period, their ravages appear to have been incessant, and very frequently successful, both on the Scottish and Irish coasts. They repeatedly assailed and plundered the Christian community of Iona; and the annals of Ulster record that the Gentiles, as they are usually termed, completely spoiled the establishment in the year 802, and expelled the family of Iona from the sacred Isle. They seem to have treated in a like manner the various religious communities settled on the different islands above referred to, and still commemorated in the old Scandinavian names which they conferred on them; though, as has been shewn, the followers of St. Columba, and no doubt other fraternities, speedily rebuilt their establishments. Even at that early period, some amount of wealth would be accumulated in the muniment chests of the monasteries, and doubtless the poorest of them would endeavour to provide the chalice, paten, and other indispensable furniture of the church and altar, of the precious metals. These must have supplied a fresh incentive to the plundering Vikings, and thus the early incursions of the Northmen largely contributed to retard the diffusion of the faith among the native Britons, while their own divisions and internal struggles furnished frequent opportunities for the unchecked descent of the spoilers on their coasts. Nor was it plunder alone that the fierce Northmen bore away from our shores. Both the Irish annals and the Icelandic Sagas testify to the fact, that they frequently loaded their vessels with captives, both male and female, who were sold elsewhere for slaves. There even appear to have been regular markets in Norway and Sweden where the captive Scots and Picts were disposed of, and some of the names still in use in Iceland are believed to be derived from such foreign captives: the female slave having occasionally won the favour of her master, and been wedded even to leaders and kings. While, however, the Norse marauders were making descents with increased frequency on our shores, a revolution was taking place in Norway, somewhat akin to that which placed the Dalriadic chief on the Pictish throne. Harold Harfager, after a protracted struggle, established himself as absolute king of Norway; and such of the Vikings as had been active in opposing his ambitious projects could no longer winter in safety within the viks or inlets of their indented coast, from whence they derive their name. Many of these, therefore, who had before paid occasional visits to our shores, now established their head-quarters in the Scottish Hebrides, the numerous bays and inlets of which afforded the shelter and protection for their long-oared galleys formerly sought in their native fiords. From this point d'appui they made incessant incursions on the newly-established kingdom of Norway, while they failed not also to harass and spoil the neighbouring Scottish coasts. Thus deprived of any settled home, and without an acknowledged leader, the Vikings assumed more than ever a piratical character, and became the terror of the whole north of Europe. King Harold failed not to offer effectual resistance to these rebellious Norsemen. Every summer the Norwegian fleet scoured the Scottish Seas, and compelled them to abandon their Hebridean settlements; but the hardy Vikings had little to fear from assailants who only drove them to the open sea, from whence, after a successful descent on some unguarded coast, and not unfrequently on that of their assailant, they returned in winter to the shelter of their old retreat.

After repeated expeditions of the same fruitless character against the rebellious Vikings, King Harold determined to put an end to their predatory incursions by making himself master of the islands which afforded them shelter. Accordingly, in the year 875, he collected a powerful fleet, which he commanded in person, and setting sail from Norway, he bore down on the Shetland and Orkney Isles and the Hebrides, slaying or driving out the piratical Vikings, spoiling their settlements, and taking possession of the islands. He then proceeded to the Isle of Man, which he found entirely deserted of its inhabitants, who had fled to the Scottish mainland on the approach of the fleet. Harold failed not to enrich his followers with the spoils of the Scottish coasts as they returned from this successful expedition, so that the unhappy natives were exposed to equal dangers from the Vikings and their Norwegian conquerors. They were not, however, reduced to abject fear by such repeated assaults. Harold bestowed the possession of the Northern Isles on Sigurd, the brother of Rognwald, a distinguished Norwegian chief, who accordingly became first Jarl of the Orkneys; and the fleet returned to Norway, leaving a force deemed sufficient to secure the newly conquered possessions. But the native chiefs of the islands and neighbouring coasts who had been spoiled and driven from their possessions by the Vikings, took advantage of their dispersion, and so soon as the Norwegian fleet had left the Scottish seas, they seized possession of the Hebrides, expelled or put to the sword the whole of the Norwegians left by Harold to hold them in his right, and resumed the occupation of their ancient possessions. A second Norwegian expedition followed under the guidance of Ketil, a distinguished chief, on whom Harold bestowed by anticipation the title of Jarl; and it is curious that in the "Islands Landnamabok," the natives who had recovered possession of the islands are termed Scottish and Irish Vikings, (Vikinger Skotar ok Irar,) sufficiently shewing the sense in which that term was understood by the Northmen in the beginning of the twelfth century. The Islesmen were unable to resist the overwhelming force, and appear to have been taken entirely by surprise. The Hebridean Jarl entered quietly into possession of his new dominions, and then took the first favourable opportunity of renouncing his allegiance to Harold and declaring himself independent King of the Hebrides.

It is not necessary to do more than glance at the subsequent history of the Scoto-Norwegian kingdoms. In 894, Thorstein the Red, the grandson of Ketil, formed a close alliance with Sigurd, then jarl of Orkney, and with their united forces they made themselves masters of the northern districts of Scotland, including Caithness, Sutherland, Ross, and Moray. Sigurd lost his life in this expedition in a remarkable manner. Having, according to the narration of the Ynglinga Saga,[525] slain Melbrigda Tönn, or Maolbride the Bucktoothed, one of the Scottish maormors or chiefs who derived his appellation from a peculiarly prominent tooth, he cut off the Maormor's head and hung it at his bridle. But from the violent motion as he galloped over the field, the tooth inflicted a wound on his leg, which inflamed, and ultimately caused his death. The record of this incident in contemporary sagas may suffice as an illustration of the barbarous warfare of the period. Sigurd was succeeded by his son Guttorm, as Jarl of Orkney, while Thorstein the Red assumed the title of king of the newly acquired possessions on the mainland; and thus within half a century after the Dalriadic king Kenneth had obtained possession of the throne of the Southern Picts by the aid of the Cruithne or Northern Picts, a large portion of the possessions of the latter were wrested from them and erected into a new kingdom under their foreign conqueror. The sovereignty of Thorstein, however, was of brief duration. He had scarcely held his newly acquired territories for six years when he had to take the field to oppose a force collected by the chiefs of the conquered possessions, under the command of Duncan, the maormor of Caithness. A fierce battle ensued, in which Thorstein was slain, his followers completely routed, and the Norwegians expelled from the Scottish mainland. This took place A.D. 900, and for nearly a century no farther aggression was attempted by the Norwegians, with the exception of the annexation of a part of Caithness to the Orkney jarldom, the result, as is believed, of an alliance between Thorfinn, the Orkney jarl, and the daughter of Duncan, maormor of Caithness. In A.D. 986 Sigurd, jarl of Orkney, once more conquered the north of Scotland, after having defeated Finlay, son of Ruari, maormor of Moray, in an attempt to recover Caithness from its Norwegian possessors. Frequent battles followed. The Norwegians were repeatedly defeated and driven from the mainland: but they returned with increased force and re-established their ground. Meanwhile, by the defeat and death of Kenneth M'Duff, Malcolm, maormor of Moray, became king of Scotland A.D. 1004, and soon after effected a reconciliation with Sigurd, jarl of Orkney, and gave him his daughter in marriage. Thus a mixture of Norwegian and Scottish blood took place, the fruit of which is still discernible in the striking contrast between the population of the northern islands and Scottish mainland and the Celtic races of the neighbouring Highlands.

Alternate friendly alliances and open warfare followed till A.D. 1034, when the Norwegians once more triumphed and obtained effectual possession of the greater part of the north of Scotland, where they established a kingdom under the powerful and talented Jarl Thorfinn, the son of Sigurd and of his wife, the daughter of the Scottish king Malcolm, who thereby ultimately acquired a hereditary right to the Scottish crown, similar to that which is believed to have paved the way to the previous accession of the first Dalriadic king of Scotland. We have thus reached a period of Scottish history over which modern literature has thrown a fictitious but singularly romantic interest. The lineal race of Kenneth MacAlpin, the Dalriadic king, having become extinct, the succession reverted to Duncan the son of Crinan, a powerful chief who had married the daughter of the last king of the Scottish race. But the old Celtic ideas of succession proved irreconcilable with his assumption of the crown, and the personal character of Duncan was little fitted to cope with the difficulties of his situation. His unambitious spirit indeed prevented his forcing himself into collision with the Norwegians, or disputing with Thorfinn his newly acquired dominions; and had he been able to communicate the same disposition to his subjects, his reign might have terminated in peace. But after enjoying his throne for about six years, his people took advantage of the absence of Thorfinn on an expedition to England, and putting him at their head, forced their way into the district of Moray with little opposition. But the Pictish natives of the north refused to recognise the right of Duncan to the crown, or to accept him as a deliverer from the Norwegian yoke, and headed by Macbeth, the maormor of Moray, they attacked him in the neighbourhood of Elgin, routed his army and put him to the sword. Macbeth pursued his success, made himself master of the whole kingdom, and with the sanction of the Norwegian jarl assumed the title of King of Scotland. Thus strangely were the questions of regal legitimacy and national independence at variance. It appears to have been solely as a tributary to Thorfinn that Macbeth reigned over the southern half of Scotland. Repeated unsuccessful attempts were made by the adherents of Duncan's party to recover possession of the throne for his son. In one of these, A.D. 1045, Crinan the father of Duncan was slain, who is styled in the Annals of Ulster "Abbot of Dunkeld,"—lay impropriation and the marriage of the clergy having both been common in Scotland prior to the reform of its church by the Saxon princess who became the wife of Duncan's son. The expedition of Duncan had been undertaken while Thorfinn and the chief Norwegian forces were engaged in assailing the Saxon possessions in England. The sons of Duncan accordingly sought refuge at the English court; and when Malcolm Canmore, Duncan's eldest son, returned to avenge his father's wrongs, he was accompanied by a Saxon army under the command of his uncle, Siward Earl of Northumberland. In securing by such means the possession of the Lothians, which was all that Malcolm was able at that time to wrest from Macbeth, he paved the way for that second and most important change, known in Scottish annals as the Saxon Conquest. Four years afterwards Macbeth was defeated and slain in the battle of Lumphanan, and on the death of Thorfinn, in 1064, Malcolm Canmore obtained final possession of the entire Scottish mainland, though the Norwegian jarls continued to retain undisputed hold of the Northern and Western Isles.

Such is a slight sketch of that important era in Scottish history; from the intrusion of the Scottish race into the Western Highlands, to the final ejectment of the Norwegians from the Scottish mainland, and the restoration of the crown to a Celtic prince at the head of a Saxon army. It is impossible to conceive of the presence of Norwegian settlers for so long a period on the mainland of Scotland without their greatly affecting the character of the native population. From A.D. 895, when the first Norwegian kingdom was established in the north of Scotland, to A.D. 1064, when that of Thorfinn came to an end at his death, a very large portion of the north of Scotland had been repeatedly held possession of for a considerable period by the Norwegians. Long periods of peace and friendly alliance afforded abundant opportunities for intermarriage; and we see in the marriage of the Orkney jarl with the daughter of the Scottish maormor, a clear proof that no prejudices interfered to prevent such unions. This was still less likely to be the case during the reign of Macbeth, which lasted for eighteen years, as the closest alliance and community of interests then subsisted between the Northern Celtic and Norwegian races, and to this period therefore we probably owe the chief changes on the aboriginal Scottish race which still distinguish their descendants from the purer Celtic races of the south and west of Ireland. The genealogies of many of the old Highland chiefs, and the history of the clans, furnish evidence of this intermixture of the races; and the physical characteristics of the natives of several northern districts of the Scottish Highlands abundantly confirm the same fact. Yet it is surprising how very partial the influence of the Northmen must have been. We have proofs of the introduction of Runic literature, and also of the use of Runic characters by the natives; yet if we except the Isle of Man, a dependency of Scotland both before and after its occupation by the Northmen, we have only the merest fragments of inscriptions in the northern runes found in Scotland. On the mainland some few local names are traceable to a Scandinavian origin. In the Scottish Lowland dialect a considerable number of words and many peculiarities of pronunciation are manifestly derived from the same source; while in the Orkney and Shetland Isles, customs, superstitions, language, and even legal formulas, all clearly point to their long occupation as an independent Norse jarldom, or as a dependency of the Danish crown. In the Western Isles, however, it has proved otherwise. There the language and race are still purely Celtic, and the ancient topographical nomenclature has been but slightly affected from their occupation by the Vikings and their Scandinavian successors. This is probably to be accounted for to a great extent by the fact, that the Hebrideans, like the natives of Man, fled on the occupation of their islands by the pirate Norsemen, and only very partially returned after the establishment of law and order under Ketil, the independent Norwegian jarl; so that these islands have been to a great extent colonized anew from the neighbouring mainland. Still extensive and durable traces remain to commemorate the intrusion of this race of northern warriors on the older colonists of Scotland, nor can we hesitate to ascribe somewhat of our peculiar national character and physical conformation to that intimate intercourse which prevailed more or less extensively for nearly two centuries, and indeed in the Orkney and Shetland Islands for a much longer period, between the Norwegian and Celtic races. On Scotland, as a whole, the influence of this Scandinavian colonization and conquest has been much more direct and effective than any results of the Roman Invasion. But both of these historic changes suffice to account for only a very few of the national peculiarities, or of the distinctive features of our earlier arts, and still require us to look to native sources for the larger number of archæological relics, and for the most characteristic classes of monumental remains.