Another writer[97] describes a Pict's house—that on Wideford Hill, near Kirkwall—in these terms: "All that meets the eye at first is a green, conical mound, with an indescribable aspect of something eerie and weird about it, resting silently amid the moorland solitude. On closer inspection we discover an entrance passage, about eighteen inches high and two feet broad, leading from the lower side into the interior of the prehistoric dwelling,"—and so on.
The resemblance between this kind of dwelling, or its more modern representative, the "bee-hive" hut of the Hebrides and Western Ireland, to the dwellings of modern Eskimos has long been recognized. But it may be permitted to quote here from the accounts given by two Arctic voyagers of the early part of this century, especially as these accounts, both relating to the most northern tribes of Greenland, appear to describe with peculiar exactness the "Pict's house" of Mr. Petrie.
Captain Scoresby, in the account of his explorations in the year 1822, thus describes the deserted dwellings of some of those northern Eskimos:
"The roofs of all the huts had either been removed or had fallen in; what remained, consisted of an excavation in the ground at the brow of the bank, about 4 feet in depth, 15 in length, and 6 to 9 in width. The sides of each hut were sustained by a wall of rough stones, and the bottom appeared to be gravel, clay, and moss. The access to these huts, after the manner of the Esquimaux, was a horizontal tunnel perforating the ground, about 15 feet in length, opening at one extremity on the side of the bank, into the external air, and, at the other, communicating with the interior of the hut. This tunnel was so low, that a person must creep on his hands and knees to get into the dwelling: it was roofed with slabs of stone and sods. This kind of hut being deeply sunk in the earth, and being accessible only by a subterranean passage, is generally considered as formed altogether under ground. As, indeed, it rises very little above the surface, and as the roof, when entire, is generally covered with sods, and clothed with moss or grass, it partakes so much of the appearance of the rest of the ground, that it can scarcely be distinguished from it. I was much struck by its admirable adaptation to the nature of the climate and the circumstances of the inhabitants. The uncivilized Esquimaux, using no fire in these habitations, but only lamps, which serve both for light and for warming their victuals, require, in the severities of winter, to economise, with the greatest care, such artificial warmth as they are able to produce in their huts. For this purpose, an under-ground dwelling, defended from the penetration of the frost by a roof of moss and earth, with an additional coating of a bed of snow, and preserved from the entrance of the piercing wind by a long subterranean tunnel, without the possibility of being annoyed by any draught of air, but what is voluntarily admitted—forms one of the best contrivances which, considering the limited resources, and the unenlightened state of these people, could possibly have been adopted."[98]
Scoresby's description fully corroborates that given by Captain Ross a few years earlier, when relating his visit to the Eskimos living about the north-eastern corner of Baffin's Bay. These people he describes as "short in stature, seldom exceeding five feet," and he mentions that their sorcerers alleged that it was in their power to raise a storm or make a calm, and to drive off seals and birds."
With regard to their dwellings, he says:
"None of their houses were seen, but they described them as built entirely of stone, the walls being sunk about three feet into the earth, and raised about as much above it. They have no windows, and the entrance is by a long, narrow passage, nearly under ground. Several families live in one house, and each has a lamp made of hollowed stone, hung from the roof, in which they burn the blubber of the seal, etc., using dried moss for a wick, which is kindled by means of iron and stone. This lamp, which is never extinguished, serves at once for light, warmth, and cooking."[99]
It is not out of place to refer here also to an instructive article on "The Archæology of Lighting Appliances," read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland by Mr. J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A.Scot., in the course of which he describes the stone lamps found in the habitations known as "brochs" (and popularly assigned to the Picts), with regard to which lamps he states that although not quite identical in shape with those used by modern Eskimos, they are substantially identical, and must have been used in precisely the same way. Comparing this with Baron Nordenskiöld's accounts, Mr. Romilly Allen observes: "The picture here given of the domestic life of the Eskimos at the present time enables us to form a tolerably correct idea of the way in which the inhabitants of the Scottish brochs lighted their dwellings during the long winter nights two thousand years ago." ("Proceedings of Soc. of Antiq. of Scot." 1887-88, p. 84.)
From all these remarks, then, it will be seen that the dwelling of the dwarfish Eskimo and the "house" assigned by Scottish tradition to the Pechts, or dwarfs, are substantially one. And a consideration of the statements also demonstrates clearly that, whatever the age of the word "pecht," none but a race of dwarfish stature would have built such places of abode. Indeed, the stature of the dwellers in the Pecht's house is doubly impressed upon the memory of the Northern Islanders. When Mr. Gorrie describes its outward appearance, he tells us (in similar terms to the Arctic voyagers), that "all that meets the eye at first is a green, conical mound ... resting silently amid the moorland solitude." But he really repeats himself, although he is not aware of it, when he refers on another page[100] to "the simple superstition (?) long prevalent among the inhabitants of Orkney and Zetland, that the strange green mounds rising by the sea-side and on solitary moors, were the abodes of supernatural beings known by the name of Trows." Of the "supernatural" attributes assigned to those people, or claimed by them—in early Scotland, in Lapland, and in Greenland—much remains to be said. But the people just referred to under two different, but synonymous, names, are undoubtedly one and the same.
The Pechts of history, then, were a race of dwarfs. Thus, when Dr. Skene identifies the Feens of Gaelic folk-lore with the historic Pechts, he reveals them to us as a race of dwarfs. Therefore, the traditional story of the Feen chiefs visit to the "country of the big men," where he was regarded by that latter race as a "droich," is entirely in accordance with Dr. Skene's belief that the Feens were of the same race as the historic Pechts. It is not at all unlikely that this identity was taken for granted long before the nineteenth century, and in Scotland. In Allan Ramsay's Evergreen, a collection of Scottish poems written before the year 1600, there is a certain "Interlude of the Droichs," also referred to as "The Droichs' Part of a Play." Now, the spokesman of these droichs (or trows, or dwarfs) announces himself as a grandson of Fin, the great chief of the Feens of Ireland. And he makes a statement which is identical with one contained in a Feenic poem on the battle of Gawra. This statement need not be particularized here, but it tells us unmistakably that these "droichs" were regarded as the representatives of Fin and his Feens.[101] Therefore, it would appear from this poem that Fin and his Feens were regarded by the ruling class in Scotland, prior to 1600, as dwarfs. That is, as pechts.