Arbroath is a corruption of Aberbrothok, Gretna of Gretenhow, and Meiklam of M'Ilquham: but probably one of the most remarkable transformations in Scotland is to be found in the name of a small village, a few miles to the south of Edinburgh, where Burdiehouse has usurped the place of Bordeaux.
E. N.
The Term "Milesian" (Vol. iv., p. 175.).
—I beg to direct your attention to the accompanying extract, which furnishes a reply to MR. FRASER'S Query:—
"Whoever is acquainted with Irish history, or whoever has had opportunities of mixing with the natives of that country, cannot be ignorant that they claim a descent from a long race of Milesian kings, who reigned over them for thirteen centuries before the Christian æra. The stock from which this long line of monarchs emanated is traced to a pretended Milesian colony, supposed to have emigrated from Spain into Ireland under the conduct of Heremon and Heber. The most rational inquirers, however, into the subject consider it as nothing more than a tissue of imaginary events, originating in the fertile fancies of their bards. A very brief and general abstract of this contested part of Irish history shall be given in the words of Mr. Plowden:
"'About 140 years after the Deluge, Ireland was discovered by one Adhua, who had been sent from Asia to explore new countries by a grandson of Belus: he plucked some of the luxuriant grass as a specimen of the fertility of the soil, and returned to his master. After that the island remained unoccupied for 140 years; and about 300 years after the Flood, one Partholan, originally a Scythian, and a descendant from Japhet in the sixth generation, sailed from Greece with his family and 1000 soldiers, and took possession of the island. They all died off, and left the island desolate of human beings for the space of thirty years. Afterwards different sets of emigrant adventurers occupied and peopled the island at different periods. About 1080 years after the Deluge, and 1300 B.C., Niul (the son of Phenius, a wise Scythian prince), who had married a daughter of Pharaoh, inhabited with his people a district given to him by his father-in-law on the Red Sea, when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt. The descendants of that Phenius (called more generally Feniusa Farsa) were afterwards expelled by Pharaoh's successors on account of their ancestors having favoured the escape of the Israelites through the Red Sea. They then emigrated and settled in Spain, whence, under the command of Milesius, a colony of them sailed from Brigantia in Galicia to Ireland, gained the ascendancy over the inhabitants, and gave laws and a race of monarchs to the island. The Milesian dynasty continued to govern Ireland without interruption till about the year 1168, when it ceased in the person of Roger O'Connor, and the sovereignty was assumed by our Henry II. Of this race of kings the first 110 were Pagan, the rest Christian.'"
Barlow's Hist. of Ireland, vol. i. pp. 22-4.
GEORGE RICHARDS, M.A.
Queen's Coll., Birmingham.