That there were two distinct types of people in ancient Ireland—‘one a high-statured, golden-coloured or red-haired, fair-skinned, and blue or grey-blue-eyed race; the other a dark-haired, dark-eyed, pale-skinned, small or medium statured, little-limbed race,’[[202]]—is very certain, and the traditionary account of the characteristics of the Firbolg identifies them with the latter, and with the lowest type of the Irish people. They belong to the same class with the Silures, and may be held to represent the Iberian race which preceded the Celtic. Of the fair-skinned race the Tuatha De Danaan correspond in character with Tacitus’s large-limbed and red-haired Caledonians, and the brown-haired Milesians or Scots present a less Germanic type.[[203]]
In this legend of the sons of Miledh, too, we can recognise the appearance of the second form in which such traditions usually embody themselves—that of the ethnologic family. Miledh was descended from Gaedhel Glass, the ‘eponymus’ of the Gaedhelic race. He was son of Scota, who was also wife of Miledh, and represented Ireland under its name of Scotia. His three sons, Heber, Heremon, and Ir, along with Ith, son of Breogan, from whom the population of Ireland which succeeded the Tuatha De Danaan is brought, represent the different races of which it was composed. Bede distinguishes the Scots as divided into northern and southern Scots.[[204]] The former are represented by Heremon, the latter by Heber, who divided Ireland between them.[[205]] The descendants of Ir, to whom Ulster was assigned, are the Cruithnigh, who were its inhabitants till confined by the Scots to Dalaradia. The small tribes of Ith, son of Breogan, who inhabited a district in the south-west of Ireland, are the people whom Ptolemy calls Brigantes and places there. The sons of Miledh are said, in the Annals of the Four Masters, to have arrived in Ireland in the age of the world 3500, which, according to their computation, corresponds with the year 1694 before Christ; and in the following year Eremhon and Emher, or Heremon and Heber, are said to have assumed the joint sovereignty of Ireland and divided it into two parts between them. Then follows an artificially-constructed history, in which the name of each successive king, with the length of his reign, the son of Miledh from whom he was descended, and the battles he fought, are given with the same minuteness of detail throughout, until we find ourselves at length within what may be termed the historic period of Irish history.[[206]]
It would be out of place here to enter into a critical analysis of these annals, or to discuss further the ethnology of Ireland, except in so far as it may tend to throw light upon that of Scotland; but it may so far elucidate the legends which follow if we notice shortly what they tell us regarding the descendants of Ir, to whom Ulster was assigned in the distribution of the provinces of Ireland. About four centuries after the arrival of the sons of Miledh the Annals place seven kings of the race of Ir in succession upon the throne of Ireland. These are Ollamh Fodhla, who is said to have established the Feis Teamhrach, or great annual feast, at Tara, and to have appointed a Toshech over every cantred, and a Brughaidh, or farmer, over every townland. He was called Ollamh Fodhla because he had been first a learned Ollamh, or chief poet, and afterwards king of Fodhla, or Ireland. He was followed by his son Finachta, so named because snow (Snechta) fell with the taste of wine (Fiona); and he by another son, Slanoll; and he by a third son, Gede Ollgothach; and he by Fiacha, son of Finnachta; and Fiacha by Bearnghal, son of Gede Ollgothach; and Bearnghal by Olioll, son of Slanoll, when the government of Tara was wrested from the Ultu or race of Ir. The oldest of the annalists, Tighernac, commences his annals in the year 305 before Christ, with Cimbaoch, son of Fintain, of this race, who reigned at Eaman or Eamania eighteen years; and adds this significant sentence, ‘All records of the Scots before Cimbaoch are uncertain.’[[207]] From Cimbaoch, Tighernac gives a succession of Irian kings reigning at Eamania down to Fiacha Araidhe, who was slain in battle in the year 248 by the Heremonian kings of Tara and Leinster. His people are called by Tighernac Cruithniu, and from him Dalaraidhe, or Dalaradia, takes its name. In 254 he mentions that some of the Ultonians were driven by the king of Ireland to Manann;[[208]] and in 332 he records the battle of Achadh Leithdearg, in Fernmuigh, in which Fergus Foga, the last king of Eamania, was slain by the three Collas of the line of Heremon, who, says Tighernac, ‘afterwards destroyed Eamhian Macha or Eamania, and the Ultonians did not dwell in it from thenceforth, and they took from them their kingdom from Loch Neagh westward,’ which became known as Airgialla, now Oriel. The Irians were from this time confined to the district of Dalaradia, and now appear under the name of Cruithnigh.
An old form of the Irish legend contained in the Acts of Saint Cadroë, compiled in the eleventh century, corroborates this account to some extent. According to this legend, the Scots were Greeks from the town of Chorischon upon the river Pactolus, which separates Choria from Lydia. Having obtained ships, they went by Pathmos, Abidos, and the islands of the Hellespont, to Upper Thrace, and being joined by the people of Pergamus, and the Lacedæmonians, they are driven by the north wind past Ephesus, the island of Melos, and the Cyclades, to Crete, and thence by the African sea they enter the Illyrian gulf. Then by the Balearic Isles they pass Spain, and through the Columns of Hercules to remote Tyle, and finally land at Cruachan Feli in Ireland. On landing and exploring the country, they discover the nation of the Picts.[[209]] They then attack and defeat the inhabitants of Cloin, an ancient city on the Shannon. The Chorischii then, seeing the land flowing with milk and honey, attack the islanders, and take possession of Arlmacha, their metropolis, and the whole land between Loch Erne and Ethioch. This is clearly the same event as the taking of Eamania by the three Collas, and their precursors in the country are here called the nation of the Picts. They then take Kildare and Cork, a city of Munster, besiege and enter Bangor, a city of Ulster. After many years, passing over the sea, they occupy the Euean island, now called Iona, and crossing the contiguous sea enter the region of Rossia by the river Rosis, and take possession of the towns Rigmonath and Bellethor,[[210]] situated at a distance from it, and thus the whole country, called after their own name Chorischia, they now called Scotia[[211]] after the wife of a certain son of Æneas the Lacedæmonian,[[212]] called Nelus or Niulus, who was their chief, and obtained an Egyptian wife, Scota, and in her language, having lost their own mother-tongue, and in course of years became converted to Christianity by St. Patrick. This legend, in a great measure, appears to refer to ecclesiastical foundations.
Dalriadic legend.
The only legend which we can connect directly with the Scots who settled in Britain, and formed the small kingdom of Dalriada in the West Highlands, is that contained in the poem of the eleventh century, usually termed the Albanic Duan. It records the successive possessors of Alban, and states that the first who possessed it was Albanus, son of Isacon, and brother of Briutus, and that from him Alban of Ships has its name. He was banished by his brother across the Muir n-Icht, or Straits of Dover, and Briutus possessed it as far as the promontory of Fotudain. Long after Briutus the Clanna Neimhidh or Nemedians possessed it. The Cruithnigh then came from Ireland and possessed it. Seventy kings, from Cathluan, the first king, to Constantine, the last, possessed the Cruithnian plain. They were followed by the three sons of Erc, son of Eochaidh, the children of Conaire, the chosen of the strong Gael, three who obtained the blessing of St. Patrick, who took Alban after great wars. The rest of this poem belongs to history.
This legend combines the British with the Irish forms. We have Briutus and Albanus, sons of Isacon, as in the ethnologic family given by Nennius, the ‘eponymi’ of the Britanni and Albani, and the latter representing the first inhabitants of the north. The Nemedian colony is obviously that part of the Irish legend in which one body of the descendants of Nemedius settled in Dobhar and Iardobhar in North Alban, out of which the Tuatha De Danaan emerge. The colony of the Cruithnigh belongs also to the Irish form of the legend, and the settlement of the sons of Erc is historic, except perhaps in so far as in this poem Loarn is made to precede Fergus as the first king of Dalriadic Alban.[[213]] There is no appearance here of the Firbolg, but they are made in the Irish legend to precede the Picts in the Western Isles.[[214]]
Pictish Legends.
Of the Pictish legends there are still three forms to be noticed. One which may be called the national legend of the Picts, and belongs especially to the whole nation which possessed the country north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde; a second, which is the legend of the Irish Picts of Dalaradia in Ulster; and a third, connected with the Picts of Galloway.
For the first and most important legend we must look to the Pictish Chronicle, a work of the tenth century. There are two editions of it. One in Latin, but obviously translated from a Gaelic original, and the other in the Irish Nennius; and the first contains a preface, mainly taken from the work of Isidore of Seville, in the sixth century, a work which formed the basis of Nennius’s compilation also. In this preface we have additional facts told us: first, that the Scots, who are now corruptly called Hibernienses, were so called, either as Scythians because they came from Scythia and derive their origin from it, or from Scota, daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, who was, it is said, queen of the Scots. The second is that natives of Scythia were called from their fair hair Albani, and that from these Albani both Scots and Picts derive their origin.[[215]] It then proceeds to tell us that Cruidne, son of Cinge, was the father of the Picts inhabiting this island, and had seven sons—Fib, Fidach, Fodla, Fortrenn, Got, Ce, Circinn. The edition in the Irish Nennius adds to this, ‘And they divided the land into seven divisions as Columcille says,