[635] The rise of the Cumbrian kingdoms presents a difficulty which historians do not seem to me to have sufficiently realised. During the fourth and fifth centuries the northern parts of the province were repeatedly menaced and ravaged by Pictish invaders. Yet after the fifth century we hear practically nothing more of Picts in the south of Scotland (except in Galloway). On the other hand it was in this region that the Britons offered the most determined resistance to the English. In the latter part of the sixth century Urien is said (Hist. Br., § 63) to have besieged them on one occasion in Lindisfarne (Metcaud); and in Strathclyde the Britons maintained their independence, except for one or two brief intervals, until long after the disappearance of the Northumbrian kingdom. It is often assumed, though on somewhat slender grounds, that the Britons held only the south-west of Scotland and that the south-east (Lothian, etc.) was Pictish before the English conquest. But this hypothesis does not get rid of the difficulties; for it is from Manau Guotodin, a district always regarded as Pictish, that Cunedda is said to have come (ib., § 62). I suspect that the distinction between Picts and Britons was not so rigid as is commonly supposed. Unfortunately Celtic scholars have not yet been able to come to any agreement as to the character of the Pictish language. Some hold that it was British (Brythonic), others Gaelic (Goidelic), others again non-Celtic. Possibly all these views may contain a certain amount of truth. At all events it seems to me quite incredible that Gaelic was not introduced into Scotland before the sixth century. All indications appear to me to favour the view that this language belonged to a wave of Celtic invasion earlier than the British. Yet I see no objection to supposing that in pre-Roman times the true (Gaelic) Picts—who probably included a non-Celtic substratum—may have been overlaid in part by a British element. If so, it is far from improbable that the south of Scotland in its turn received a 'Pictish' element, when that district was abandoned by the Romans. A mixed population of this kind would readily enough coalesce with the native (British) inhabitants.
[636] So also in the Heroic Ages of non-European peoples. Important parallels are certainly furnished by Sanskrit epic poetry.
CHAPTER XIX
THE CAUSES AND ANTECEDENT CONDITIONS OF THE HEROIC AGE
In the course of the last three chapters we have observed many remarkable resemblances between the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages—in social organisation, in the forms of government and in religious conceptions. Further we have seen that in the former case the testimony of the poems is fully substantiated by contemporary historical authorities. In the latter case we possess no evidence which affords us ground for doubting that the poems give an equally faithful reflection of conditions and ideas which prevailed in real life. Our next and final object is to enquire into the nature of the causes to which the common characteristics of the two Heroic Ages are due.
I do not think that any one will seriously suggest the possibility of a historical connection between the two Heroic Ages, separated as they are from one another by an interval of some fourteen or fifteen centuries. It is perhaps conceivable that one or other of the common elements which we have noted may have originated in Greece and worked its way round until it appears after so long a lapse of time in the north of Europe[637]. But for the phenomena as a whole any such explanation is incredible.
Another explanation is suggested by the fact that the Greek and Teutonic peoples are ultimately related, at least linguistically—both being members of the Indo-European family. It is only reasonable therefore to expect that they may have inherited common characteristics. But this explanation does not in itself account for the fact that the Heroic Age begins in one case some fourteen or fifteen centuries after the other. Moreover the Heroic Age of the Southern Slavs begins about a thousand years later than that of the Teutonic peoples, while we have no evidence that the Lithuanians ever had a Heroic Age. Yet both of these equally belong to the Indo-European linguistic family.
Again it may be suggested that the causes responsible for the Heroic Age are to be found not so much in ethnical affinity as in the possession of a similar stage of culture. The term 'Early Iron Age' is customarily applied to both the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages. But this common application of the term is misleading. In the Greek Heroic Age the use of iron, at all events for weapons, seems to have been only beginning, whereas the Teutonic peoples had been using iron weapons for at least seven or eight centuries before their Heroic Age. Moreover both the Lithuanians and the Southern Slavs have passed through similar stages of culture—in the latter case many centuries before the first Servian Heroic Age.