But a much more important objection exists against the conjecture of Mr. Lhwyd, in the fact that his memory had altogether misled him as to there having been "three" Pictish kings of the name of "Getus," or "divers kings of the Picts of the names of Geth or Gweth," to use the words employed in the Philosophical Transactions.
Lists, more or less complete, of the Pictish kings have been found in the Histories of Fordun and Winton, in the pages of the Scalacronica and Chronicles of Tighernach, in the Irish copy of Nennius, in the extracts published by Sir Robert Sibbald and Father Innes from the lost Register of St. Andrews, and in the old Chronicum Regum Pictorum, supposed to be written about A.D. 1020, and preserved in the Colbertine Library.
None of these lists include a Pictish king of the name of Getus, Geat, or Gweth. Some of the authorities—as the Register of St. Andrews, Fordun, and Winton—enter as the second king of the Picts Ghede or Gede, the Gilgidi of the Chronicum Regum Pictorum; and this latter chronicle contains in its more mythical and earlier part the appellations Got, Gedeol, Guidid, and Brude-Guith; but none of these surnames sufficiently correspond either to Mr. Lhwyd's statement or to the requirements of the inscription.
But whilst thus setting aside the conjectures as to the Cat-stane commemorating the name of a Scottish King Constantine, or of a Pictish King Geth, I would further remark that the surname in the inscription, namely—VETTA FILIUS VICTI—is one which appears to me to be capable of another and a more probable solution. With this view let us proceed then to inquire who was
Vetta, the son of Victus?
And first, I would beg to remark, that the word Vetta is still too distinct upon the Cat-stane to allow of any doubt as to the mere name of the person commemorated in the inscription upon it.
Secondly, The name of Vetta, or, to spell the word in its more common Saxon forms, Wetta or Witta, is a Teutonic surname. To speak more definitely, it pertains to the class of surnames which characterised these so-called Saxon or Anglo-Saxon invaders of our island, and allied Germanic tribes, who overran Britain upon the decline of the Roman dominion amongst us.
Bede speaks, as is well known, of our original Teutonic conquerors in the fifth century as coming from three powerful tribes of Germany; namely, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. "Advenerant autem de tribus Germaniæ populis fortioribus, id est, Saxonibus, Anglis, Jutis" (lib. i. c. 20).[161] Ubo Emmius, in his History of the Frisians, maintains that "more colonies from Friesland than Saxony, settled in Briton, whether under the names of Jutes, or of Angles, or later of the Saxons."[162] Procopius, who lived nearly two centuries before Bede, and had access to good means of information from being the secretary of the Emperor Belisarius, states that at the time of his writing (about A.D. 548) three numerous nations possessed Britain, the Angles and Frisians (Αγγελοι τε χαι φρισσονες), and those surnamed, from the Island, Brittones.[163] Modern Friesland seems to have yielded a considerable number of our Teutonic invaders and colonists; and it is in that isolated country that we find, at all events, the characteristics and language of our Teutonic forefathers best preserved. In his History of England during the Anglo-Saxon Period, the late Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, "The tribes by whom Britain was invaded, appear principally to have proceeded from the country now called Friesland. Of all the continental dialects (he adds), the ancient Frisick is the one which approaches most nearly to the Anglo-Saxon of our ancestors."[164] "The nearest approach," according to Dr. Latham, "to our genuine and typical German or Anglo-Saxon forefathers, is not to be found within the four seas of Britain, but in the present Frisian or Friesland."[165] At present, about one hundred thousand inhabitants of Friesland speak the ancient or Country-Friesic, a language unintelligible to the surrounding Dutch, but which remains still nearly allied to the old Anglo-Saxon of England. Some even of their modern surnames are repetitions of the most ancient Anglo-Saxon surnames in our island, and, among others, still include that of Vetta or Witta; thus showing its Teutonic origin. In discussing the great analogies between ancient Anglo-Saxon and modern Friesic, Dr. Bosworth, the learned Professor of Anglo-Saxon Literature at Oxford, incidentally remarks, "I cannot omit to mention that the leaders of the Anglo-Saxons bear names which are now in use by the Friesians, though by time a little altered or abbreviated. They have Horste, Hengst, Witte, Wiggele, etc., for the Anglo-Saxon Horsa, Hengist, Witta, Wightgil, etc."[166]
But Witta or Vetta was not a common name among our more leading Anglo-Saxon forefathers. Among the many historical surnames occurring in ancient Saxon annals and English chronicles, the name of Vetta, as far as I know, only occurs twice or thrice.
I. It is to be found in the ancient Saxon poem of The Scop, or Traveller's Tale, where, among a list of numerous kings and warriors, Vetta or Witta is mentioned as having ruled the Swaefs—