[114]. See Fordun, Chron. vol. ii. p. 380, note.
[115]. ‘Post intervallum vero multorum annorum non minus octingentorum Picti venerunt et occupaverunt insulas quae vocantur Orcades, et postea ex insulis vastaverunt regiones multas, et occupaverunt eas in sinistrali plaga Britanniæ, et manent ibi usque in hodiernam diem, tertiam partem Britanniæ tenentes.’ The previous paragraph shows that he counted the 800 years from the traditionary settlement of the Britons, which he places in the time when Eli judged Israel, that is, in the twelfth century before Christ.
[116]. Ut perhibent.
[117]. Bede, Hist. Ec. i. § 7.
[118]. Prædicaturus verbum Dei provinciis septentrionalium Pictorum, hoc est, eis quæ arduis atque horrentibus montium jugis, ab australibus eorum sunt regionibus sequestratæ. Namque ipsi australes Picti, qui intra eosdem montes habent sedes, etc.—Bede, Hist. Ec. B. iii. c. 4.
[119]. These Cruithnigh are repeatedly mentioned by Adamnan in his Life of St. Columba, who wrote between the years 692 and 697. See ed. 1874, pp. 120, 146, 253. In the Life of St. Cadroë we find, ‘Igitur ad terram egressi, ut moris est, situm locorum, mores et habitum hominum explorare, gentem Pictaneorum reperiunt.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 108.
[120]. Chalmers, in his Caledonia (i. p. 358), states dogmatically that Galloway was colonised in the eighth century by Cruithne from Ireland, and that they were followed by ‘fresh swarms from the Irish hive during the ninth and tenth centuries,’ and this statement has been accepted and repeated by all subsequent writers as if there were no doubt about it. There is not a vestige of authority for it. Galloway belonged during these centuries to the Northumbrian kingdom, and was a part of Bernicia. Bede, in narrating the foundation of Candida Casa by St. Ninian (B. iii. c. iv.), says, ‘qui locus ad provinciam Berniciorum pertinens;’ and there is abundant evidence that Galloway was under the rule of the Northumbrian kings after his time. It is antecedently quite improbable that it could have been colonised from Ireland during this time without a hint of such an event being recorded either in the Irish or the English Annals.
The only authorities referred to by Chalmers consist of an entire misapplication of two passages from the Ulster Annals. He says, ‘In 682 A.D., Cathasao, the son of Maoledun, the Maormor of the Ulster Cruithne, sailed with his followers from Ireland, and landing on the Firth of Clyde, among the Britons, he was encountered and slain by them near Mauchlin, in Ayr, at a place to which the Irish gave the name of Rathmore, or great fort. In this stronghold Cathasao and his Cruithne had probably attacked the Britons, who certainly repulsed them with decisive success.—Ulster An. sub an. 682.’[682.’] In 702 the Ulster Cruithne made another attempt to obtain a settlement among the Britons on the Firth of Clyde, but they were again repulsed in the battle of Culin.—Ib. sub an. 702. The original text of these passages is as follows:—‘682. Bellum Rathamoire Muigeline contra Britones ubi ceciderunt Catusach mac Maelduin Ri Cruithne et Ultan filius Dicolla. 702. Bellum Campi Cuilinn in Airdo nepotum Necdaig inter Ultu et Britones ubi filius Radgaind cecidit [adversarius] Ecclesiarum Dei. Ulait victores erant.’ Now, both of these battles were fought in Ulster. Rathmore or great fort of Muigeline, which Chalmers supposes to be Mauchlin, in Ayr, was the chief seat of the Cruithnigh in Dalaraidhe, or Dalaradia, and is now called Moylinny.—See Reeves’s Antiquities of Down and Connor, p. 70. Airdo nepotum Necdaig, or Arduibh Eachach, was the Barony of Iveagh, also in Dalaradia, in Ulster (Ib. p. 348); and these events were attacks by the Britons upon the Cruithnigh of Ulster, where the battles were fought, and not attacks by the latter upon the British inhabitants of Ayrshire.
The natural inference from an examination of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History is that apparently he knew of no Picts south of the Firth of Forth. He certainly mentions none, and expressly says (B. iv. c. xxvi.), in describing the result of the defeat and death of Ecgfrid, king of Northumbria, by the Picts in 686, that Trumwine, with his Angles, fled from the monastery of Abercorn, ‘posito quidem in regione Anglorum, sed in vicinia freti quod Anglorum terras Pictorumque disterminat;’ but he is here talking of the territories belonging to each kingdom, and not of the distribution of the population; and as the territory of Galloway undoubtedly belonged to the Anglic kingdom, its population must have been either a subject British or Pictish population, as Bede elsewhere implies that twenty years later it was but partially occupied by Angles. In another work, however, Bede clearly implies that the population of Galloway was Pictish at that time. In his Life of St. Cuthbert (cap. xi.) he says, ‘Quodam etenim tempore pergens de suo monasterio pro necessitatis causa accidentis ad terram Pictorum, qui Niduari vocantur navigando pervenit.’ His monastery was Melrose. Mr. E. W. Robertson was inclined to think that St. Cuthbert had sailed from the mouth of the Tweed, and been driven northwards by contrary winds into the Firth of Tay, landing near Abernethy, on the coast of Fife, the inhabitants of the banks of the Nethy probably being the ‘Picti qui Niduari vocantur;’ and he refers in a note to a suggestion of the author’s that Cuthbert may have crossed the Firth of Forth and landed at Newburn, the old name of which was Nithbren (Scotland under her Early Kings, vol. ii. p. 383), but a more careful consideration has satisfied him that neither view is tenable. Bede says (B. i. c. xv.), ‘De Jutarum origine sunt Cantuari et Victuari, hoc est, ea gens quæ Vectam tenet insulam et ea quæ usque hodie in provincia Occidentalium Saxonum Jutarum natio nominatur, posita contra ipsam insulam Vectam.’ Now, the term Niduari is a word evidently formed in precisely the same way from the root Nid, as Cantuari and Vectuari are from the roots Cantia and Vecta, and certainly signifies the ‘gens’ on the Nid, which can only mean the river Nith, now forming the eastern boundary of Galloway, and which separated it in the lower part of its course from the Strathclyde kingdom. Ptolemy terms the river Nith ‘Novius;’ and from this in the same way was formed the name ‘Novantæ,’ a tribe which occupied the territory from the ‘Novius,’ which here separated them from the Selgovæ, to the Irish Sea. As the name Nith is the equivalent of Ptolemy’s ‘Novius,’ so Bede’s ‘Niduari’ is the exact equivalent of Ptolemy’s ‘Novantæ;’ and the author does not now doubt that they were the same people to whom the name of ‘Picti’ was likewise applied. In either view St. Cuthbert had to go some distance by land from Melrose to reach the sea. If he proceeded to the Solway Firth, he would pass from Teviotdale by Ewisdale, and his course is marked by the church being dedicated to him. The most prominent headland on the north side of the Solway is where the Dee enters into it, and here the parish of Kirkcudbright is also dedicated to him. He landed ‘sub ripa,’ where he and his companions passed three days between the highland and the shore, waiting for a fair wind. ‘The line of coast from Mullock bay on the east to Torr’s point extends about three miles. It is bold and rocky, except for a short space immediately below the farmhouse of Howell, and at a point east of that called “the Haen,” i.e. Haven, in Balmae.... In a precipice, on the Balmae shore, to the west, and not far from the mouth of the Dee, is a remarkable natural cavern called Torr’s Cove which extends sixty feet into the rock.... The door is said to have been originally built with stone, and to have had a lintel at the top, which is now buried in the ruins. The cave is thought to have been sometimes used as a hiding-place in former times.’—(N. S. A. vol. iv. Kirkcudbright, p. 6.) This may have been the scene of St. Cuthbert’s adventure.
[121]. See Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, Pref. pp. xviii-xxiii.