[169] Ib., p. 659.
[170] Ib., p. 544.
[171] Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, lib. i. cap. 15, p. 34 of Mr. Stevenson's edition. In some editions of Bede's History (as in Dr. Giles' Translation, for example) the name of Vitta is carelessly omitted, as a word apparently of no moment. Such a discussion as the present shows how wrong it is to tamper with the texts of such old authors.
[172] See these names in page 414 of Stevenson's edition of the Historia Ecclesiastica.
[173] Monumenta Historica Britt., preface, p. 82.
[174] "Ethelwerdi Chronicorum," lib. ii. c. 2, in Monumenta Historica, p. 505.
[175] Ibid. lib. i. p. 502 of Monumenta Historica.
[176] The historical personage and leader Woden is represented in all these genealogies as having lived four generations, or from 100 to 150 years earlier than the age of Hengist and Horsa.
[177] See p. 24 of Mr. Stevenson's edition of Nennii Historia Britonum, printed for the English Historical Society. In the Gaelic translation of the Historia Britonum, known as the Irish Nennius, the name Wetta or Guitta is spelled in various copies as "Guigte" and "Guite." The last form irresistibly suggests the Urbs Guidi of Bede, situated in the Firth of Forth. Might not he have thus written the Keltic or Pictish form of the name of a city or stronghold founded by Vitta or Vecta; and does this afford any clue to the fact, that the waters of the Forth are spoken of as the Sea of Guidi by Angus the Culdee, and as the Mare Fresicum by Nennius, while its shores are the Frisicum Litus of Joceline? In the text I have noted the transformation of the analogous Latin name of the Isle of Wight, "Vecta," into "Guith," by Nennius. The "urbs Guidi" of Bede is described by him as placed in the middle of the Firth of Forth, "in medio sui." Its most probable site is, as I have elsewhere (see Proceedings of Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. ii. pp. 254, 255) endeavoured to show, Inch Keith; and, phonetically, the term "Keith" is certainly not a great variation from "Guith" or "Guidi." At page 7 of Stevenson's edition of Nennius, the Isle of Wight, the old "Insula Vecta" of the Roman authors, is written "Inis Gueith"—a term too evidently analogous to "Inch Keith" to require any comment.
[178] See Irish Nennius, p. 77; Saxon Chronicle, under year 855, etc.