[225]. Mannert, Geographie, iii. 330.
[226]. Zeuss inclines to the latter view; see Nachbarstamme, p. 938.
[227]. Thus Angrivarii appear also under the form of Angrii, and in the Notitia as Anglevarii. They were probably the same people with the Angli.
[228]. Bede, Vit. Sanct. Ab. Mon. im Uyramutha, c. 14.
[229]. Adam of Bremen (i. 3) says that the Saxons first had their habitations on the Rhine, and thence passed over to Britain.
[230]. Hæc in praesenti, juxta numerum librorum quibus Lex Divina scripta est, quinque gentium linguis, unam eamdemque summæ veritatis et veræ sublimitatis scientiam scrutatur et confitetur, Anglorum, videlicet, Brettonum, Scottorum, Pictorum, et Latinorum, quæ meditatione Scripturarum cæteris omnibus est facta communis.—Bede, H. E. B. i. c. i.
[231]. Henry of Huntingdon, in repeating Bede’s statement as to the five languages, adds, ‘Quamvis Picti jam videantur deleti, et lingua eorum ita omnino destructa, ut jam fabula videatur, quod in veterum scriptis eorum mentio invenitur.’ This is true of the language if it was different from the others, but not if it resembled one of them so closely that one of the spoken languages might equally represent it; neither is it true of the people, as almost in the very year he makes this statement he mentions the Picts as forming an entire division in David the First’s army at the Battle of the Standard.
[232]. Pinkerton first urged the argument for the Picts being a Teutonic people, and, with the knowledge then possessed, with much force. Chalmers is equally clear that they spoke Welsh; but the philological arguments of both have little value, as the science of comparative philology was not then known or understood. Mr. Burton has discussed this question in the first volume of his History of Scotland, p. 183, but in a very unsatisfactory way. He has dealt with it as if the whole materials for deciding the question were contained in the discussion between Pinkerton and Chalmers, and writers of that period, and as if nothing remained for him to do but to estimate the value of their respective arguments. He contributes nothing additional to the solution of the question.
[233]. The author does not here adduce the superabundant evidence furnished by the old Welsh poems, which will be found in The Four Ancient Books of Wales. Neither does he refer to the so-called Historic Triads, because he considers them spurious; but among the genuine ‘Triads of Arthur and his Warriors’ (ib. vol. ii. p. 457) there is one to this effect:—‘Three oppressions came to this island, and did not go out of it. The nation of the Coranyeit, who came in the time of Llud, son of Beli, and did not go out of it; and the oppression of the Gwyddyl Ffichti, and they did not again go out of it. The third, the oppression of the Saxons, and they did not again go out of it.’ Here the term Gwyddyl Ffichti is clearly applied to the whole Pictish nation who settled in Britain. The same designation is given to them by one edition of the Chronicle called the Brut of Tywysogion, which records, in A.D. 750, ‘the action of Mygedawc, in which the Britons (Britanyat) conquered the Gwyddyl Ffichti, after a bloody battle’ (Myv. Ar. vol. ii. p. 472). This is the same battle which Tighernac thus gives: ‘A battle between the Pictones and the Britones, viz., Talorgan, the son of Fergus, and his brother, and the slaughter of the Piccardach with him.’—Chron. Picts and Scots, p. 76.
[234]. The Irish Archæological Society have published (in 1842) the ancient Historical Tale called the Battle of Magh Rath. This was a battle fought in 637 between Congal Claen, king of Uladh, the head of the Cruithnigh of Ulster, with the assistance of the Scotch Dalriads and other allies from Britain, against the king of Ireland; but throughout this tale there is not the slightest hint of any diversity of language between the Cruithnigh and the Scots.