REESE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class ^90 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396 THE PEKTH INCIDENT OF 1396 FROM A FOLK-LORE POINT OF VIEW BY EGBERT CRAIG MACLAGAN, M.D. WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCM V All Rights reaen'ed S€JlS\ CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Names in tradition — Wyntoun's narrative — Fordun's narrative — Book of Pluscarden — Major's narrative — Buchanan's narra- tive — Historic style — The Highland "doublet" — Hays — Kays — " Pope's knights " — Shaw — Schea — Macbeth — For- trenn — Angus — M'Kintalyhurs .... 1 CHAPTER II. Clan Qwhewyl — Clan Clachinyha — Maclagan — " Mclagan " parish — Maclagan locality — Dull-Weem — "Weem — Dull — "Dull " = " hail"— Brugh— St Cuthbert—i\^a i/acA^an . . 36 CHAPTER III. Air aon nan — MacCallum — Fortrenn — Dalriada — Yew-tree— Fillan — Velaunus— Scone — Urion — Uranos — Unicorn — Octa — Cunedda— The " Gual"— Cumhal— Coyll— Cadwallane . 62 CHAPTER IV. Pictse — Carausius — Allectus — Early alphabets — St Fillan — Cle- land — Douglas — Dogs . . . . • .92 CHAPTER V. Boxers — Catti — Names of Ireland — Inches — Islands — Athole — Banff— Muicinis— Pig island— Names of Ireland— Scots . 105 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. The Fene — Veneti — Carausius — Finn — Gwion — Mungo — Fife — Caledonians — Verturiones — Maeatse — The talking stone — Birnam wood ....... 123 CHAPTER VII Attacots — Aitheach Tuatha — Cat-head — Milesians — Borumha — Tuathal — Inchcuthill — Losgunn — Loisgean . . . 145 CHAPTER VIII. Fir Bolg — Fir Domnann — Columba — Tuatha de Danann — Firths of Forth and Clyde — Daghdha — Oghma — Partholon — Lap- dog — Aengus — Bledhercus — Meath — Tara — Tailltin — Angus — Boan — Eochaidh — Liban — Three precious things — Tonsure — Roman shore = Galloway ..... 162 CHAPTER IX. Tuan = Juan (?) — Fer-fi — Eoghan — Little Cno — Zaccheus — Orion — Fire — Urieu of Reged — Palladius — Patrick — Germanus — Cian — Christopher — Cuthbert ..... 193 CHAPTER X. Fire — Isis — Sistrum — Isis' boat— Simon Magus tonsure . . 212 CHAPTER XL Lughaidh Mac Con — Lug — Cobblers — Mice — Pigs — Duben — Taloi'gan — " Mucoi " = shipmen — Eber — Gold bristles — Lugh — Lieu — Bran's cauldron — Brogan — The Regalia of the Tuatha De — Orkneys — Firth of Forth — York — Diarmait — Mimer — Midir — Ravens — Albanaich in Ireland — Mebh — Mucrom . 221 CHAPTER XII. Craithlint — Cleland — Crinna — Crinan — Feara Cul — Mac Cochlau — Ailbhe — Cuchulainn — Ferdiaidh — The " Gae Bulga "— Loeg the charioteer — Maclagan origin — Riangabar, father of Loeg 259 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER XIII. lona — Aedh — Early Chiistianity of Hii .... 283 CHAPTER XIV. Horns— Maen— Men— Chain . . . . .289 CHAPTER XV. Cairbre — Murrays — Hazel — Bruti — Somerled's sons — Somerled —Black Morrow— Hood— Cochull . . . .297 CHAPTER XVI. Greek — Ewin — Ddsea — Desi — Franks of Fodhla — St Molua— Molocus — Swiftness — Peddles ..... 312 CHAPTER XVII. Bruce's brooch — Sons of the doorkeeper — Bell-men — Folk ety- mology — Cave-dwellers — Real MacDougalls — Ewan Mac- Dougall—MacDougalls— Stones .... 329 CHAPTER XVIII. Mac-ille-mhaoil — Mulholland — Choice of surnames — Clan origins — Gaideli — St Wolf — Coracles — Roman seamen — Tacitus — Cothrom na feinne — Families — The " cryptic " in folk-story . 348 Books ........ 371 Index . . . . . . . .377 EKEATA. P. 68, 11. 8, 9, for " Fienne " read " Feinne." 157,1. 24, 163,1. 7, M 1. 12, 247, 1. 5, M 1. 17, 255, 1. 28, 335, 1. 26, " Galloway " " Keating " " Keating's " " Manawdyan " " Ebora-schrye " " goddes " " Patriae " " Galway." " Nennius. " I^ennius's." " Manawydan." " Ebora-schyre.' " goddess." " Patraic." THE PEKTH INCIDENT OF 1396. FROM A FOLK-LORE POINT OF VIEW. CHAPTER I. "History" of the uneducated is neither better nor worse than " Folk-lore." Education is a matter of comparison. There is a natural credulity in man which accepts anything stated "on authority," and this, in religion, is a part of the national life. If you want anything believed, speak as if you knew it was a fact. It may be repeated for so many years that it may take some courage to doubt, let alone deny. In the present case, proposing to study the origin of two clan names, much that will be said will be in very marked opposition to what is commonly believed, and will, no doubt, in many cases be treated as heretical, and even possibly as absurd. The writer is no philologist : he desires to be an interpreter of folk-lore, and believing that all folk-lore has some kernel of fact, and is not mere fancy, it is of this kernel he is in search. A 2 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Words must in their origin have had a specific meaning ; but the less widely experienced the users of these words, and the smaller the vocabulary available, so much the more must the specific meaning have been capable of extension. Words must be taken in reference to their context in almost every case ; but where there is no context to guide us, accuracy in determining the exact meaning of a word must be all the more difficult. Place - names have a certain context naturally. The East Neuk of Fife describes itself, though there might be more than one place which claimed to be the specific East Neuk. But we are going to deal with names of men, and these have no context, and yet all of them undoubtedly have a meaning. The longer the names are in use, the more variations there are of them ; and the more uncommon the name, the wider the variations. The writer is not unfrequently addressed as, e.g., Maclachlan, or Maclean ; and more than half his correspondents, with his signature before them, spell it differently therefrom. The philologist in considering a name tries to get its original meaning, and, having satisfied him- self, he takes no account of the fact that various interpretations may have been accepted of it, by various people, at various times. It may have been recorded in different dialects and have acquired two quite justifiable, but different, meanings. It is cer- tain that in Gaelic traditional tales and incidents NAMES IN TRADITION. 3 have been manufactured from a Welsh root — for instance, in the name Cian. Names undoubtedly were at one time descriptive, and it is natural to attempt to expound the informa- tion believed to be contained in them. To do this one must endeavour to consider themselves placed in the environment in which the bearer of the name lived ; but, even with very clear historical accounts remaining of the conditions of life at the date in question, such "history" is at the best based on circumstantial evidence. Such is most of our ancient pseudo- history, British and Irish. The old joke as to the small value of vowels and consonants has more truth in it than many are at all inclined to admit, and the analyst of our early historical writers who is not prepared to find a meaning which is very far from exact in detail when examined through a philological lens, must be content to miss his way. The spoor leads over very rocky ground. No doubt where the ground is soft the shape of the footmarks may be recognis- able to any tyro, but at other times a bent twig must be taken as an indication to be accepted and followed. "He is no poet (J^/^ = philosopher) who does not synchronise and harmonise all the stories," says the ' Book of Leinster.' ^ It is these " syn- chronisms " and " harmonies " so called which require analysis. Old story-makers were not wanting either in imagination or in traditions guiding their art, 1 O'Cnrry's Materials, 593. 4 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. and there need never be any doubt that they were as desirous of saying what was agreeable to their hearers as a party newspaper is to meet the pohtics of its readers. The Church was a " maker " Hke any bard ; the story of St Patrick is a fine example, and the Adamnan myths about St Columba (?) are of no more authority than a chapter of Boece or a Mabinogi. The most imaginative does not, however, create from nothing ; there is always a nucleus, a text to every sermon, but with the same text how varied may be the interpretation ! But further, if all were agreed on the interpretation of a name as first given, that merely means there is a general agreement as to the idea that was in the mind of its first recorder. What guarantee have we that the first writer of a name was more accurate than the last ? The man who wrote MacClachinyha five centuries ago probably depended on his ear as much as the modern "man in the street" who writes it down MacLaggan, or, in the case of MacQwhewyl, as the present-day writer of MacCul ; but when he writes it down MacDougal or MacDowl, he is consciously or unconsciously philologising, — nor are the first and last forms of a name the only ones, or the only ones which have been the grounds of speculation or have left results which may survive to mislead us. I earnestly deprecate any idea that what I write contains the suggestion of a sneer at philology in any of its branches. All I would like to express is NAMES IN TRADITION. 5 that, as in other philosophies, it does not comprehend everything in its dreams ; and when, having for- mulated rules, it ignores ignorance of a departure from them in historical inquiry, it becomes a dark lantern for the discovery of the ways of the romance- writer. Present - day pronunciation is a favourite final court of appeal with some. But it also is fallacious. ' ' Dunlop " in Ayrshire, for instance, is pronounced as if composed of the past participle of the verb do, done, and the imperative of the verb ?0j9 ; in the neighbourhood of Berwick-on-Tweed the accent is on the done, the lop being a short lup. Carr and Kerr are spellings and represent well the pronuncia- tion of the same name. Harry is often pronounced and spelt Hairy. Fer, a man, in Irish, is pro- nounced faar ; hen, a woman, hann (O'Curry) ; but these are only samples that vowels are graphically of small importance. But the old writers, some will say, knew the esoteric signification of the names when they wrote. Well, we may admit that sometimes they did — when they composed them themselves especially ; but the ' Dindshenchas,' a topographical essay on Irish forti- fications, gives us more than one explanation of the same name, and Cormac's Glossary does the same thing, and not a few of them would raise a smile or even the fist of any Highlander, as, for instance, his exposition of " Gaelic " as from guth-elg, meaning a " malicious voice," though he says elg was a name 6 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. for Ireland, and therefore it means an " Irish voice." When important literary efforts show such an absence of critical insight, the detached sources of information from which they were built up must also have been fallacious. There is a natural tendency to equate the un- known with the known. It is within the writer's knowledge that the Gaelic mun, muiyi, has in more than one instance appeared as the English wine. Truth and probability seem to be less burdensome to the minds of reciters than good manners. As what is considered unmentionable has been very much weeded out, shamefacedness has caused as much misapprehension as any other source of fallacy. No doubt this is complicated by original meta- phorical allusions in such matters. The Folk Tale has no perspective. A reciter dis- coursing on a matter beyond the recollection of " the oldest inhabitant " has reached a boundless synchronic tableland. Charley (of the '45) and Charlemagne are like to be considered pieces on the same draught-board. The battle on the Inch of Perth in the fourteenth century has been debated in many publications and by many men of repute and capacity. But there is no finality in science, and hope is entertained that what will be here written will advance us a step to a correct appreciation of the foundations of our national history. It is a free country in as many respects as most, and any one who has something to WYNTOUNS NARRATIVE. 7 say Is genei'ally conceded a fair hearing. Believing that there is something to say on this incident, and deductions to be drawn from the accounts we have of it which have escaped the attention of students, this essay has been composed. Desirous of considering the subject from a firm footing, it is advisable that the texts bearing on It should be laid before our readers In the order of their Importance. Androw of Wyntoun's Orygynale Cronykil of Scot- land. The text used is that of David Laing, Edin- burgh, 1879. Book IX., chap. xvii. " Qwhen thretty for thretty fauctt in barreris At Sanct johnstoun, on a day, bysyde the Blakfreris. A.D. A thousand and thre hundyr yere 1396. Nynty and sex to mak all clere, OS thre score wyld Scottis men Thretty agane thretty then In felny bolnyt of auld fed, As thare fore elderis ware slane to dede. Tha thre score ware Clannys twa, Clahynnhe Qwhewyl, and Clachinyha : Off thir twa kynnys ware tha men, Thretty agane thretty then. And thare thai had than chifftanys twa : Schir Ferqwharis sone wes ane of tha. The tother Cristy Johnesone. A selcouth thing be thai wes done : At Sanct johnestone besid the Freris All thai entrit in barreris Wyth bow and ax, knyff and swerd, To deil amang thaim thare last werd. Thare thai laid on that tyme sa fast ; Quha had the ware thare at the last, I will nocht say ; bot quha best had, He wes but dout bathe muth and mad. Fyffty or ma ware slane that day ; Sua few wyth lif than past away. 8 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 139G. Gyff this a skaith wes universale, Yeit ws fel the mare tynsale Off that daywerke, that wes dune, As ye before hard, at Gasklune." JoHANis FoKDUNi ScoTiCHKONicoN. Ed. Goodall, ii. 420. [Of the Fordun who wrote the first part of this, little is known. The date of the writing, however, is established by- internal evidence as between the years 1384 and 1387. The material left by Fordun was used by Walter Bower, Abbot of Inchcolm, who died in 1449, and to whom apparently we owe the text as we have it of this ' Chronica Gentis Scotorum.'] " In the year of our Lord 1391 occurred the battle of Glen- brereth, where was slain a noble man, Walter Ogilvy, sheriff of Angus, and his brother-uterine, Walter of Lichtone, by the Caterans, whose chief was Duncan Stewart, son of Sir Alexander, Earl of Buchan. With the said Sheriff there were overthrown sixty of his most valiant friends, who were slain while resisting the ravages made in Angus. " In the year of our Lord 1396 a great part of the north of Scotland, beyond the Alps, was disturbed by two wretched Caterans and their followers — viz., Scheabeg and his kins- men, who are known as the Clankay, and Cristi Jonson with his kin, who are called the Clanquhele. These could not be reconciled by any agreement or treaty, and by no skill of the king or governor could they be reduced to obedience. At length the noble and industrious Sir David of Lindesay of Crawford, and Sir Thomas, Earl of Moray, applied themselves with such diligence and effect that they brought the parties to this mutual agreement — that on a certain day they would appear before the King at Perth, and each party choosing thirty of their kindred, they would fight each other, armed only with swords and bows and arrows, and without doublets, or other armour save pole-axes ; by this means terminating FORDUN S NARRATIVE. » their contention and restoring peace to the country. Both parties were highly pleased with the arrangement, and upon the Monday immediately before the feast of St Michael they presented themselves before the king and governors and an innumerable assemblage upon the North Inch of Perth, and entered upon the sanguinary conflict, in which of the sixty combatants all were slain save one of the Clankay and eleven of the opposite party. The following incident also fell out : When all were standing in order, one of the combatants, look- ing for a way of escape, slipped from among them into the river, and crossed the water of Tay by swimming. He was pursued by thousands, but could nowhere be found. The parties stand amazed as if unable to proceed to battle on account of this one having escaped ; for the party, the num- ber of whose associates was entire, was unwilling to consent to one of their number being put aside, and the other party were unable, by the offer of any price, to supply the place of the fugitive. All therefore stood surprised and embarrassed, bewailing the loss of the runaway. When, however, it was thought that all that had been done would go for nothing, there rushed forward into the middle of the assemblage a common hired countryman, of medium stature but of savage mien, saying : ' Here am I. Will any one make terms with me to go on with these actors here in this stage play ? For half a mark I shall attempt the game, only asking this besides, that if I come out of the ring alive I shall receive your support in some way or other while I live, because, as it is said, " Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends," so such a reward should I receive who risk my life against the enemies of the Commonwealth and realm.' What he asked was granted by the king and several of the nobles. With this he bent his bow, and first shot an arrow into the opposing line and slew his man. Immediately the arrows flew from both sides ; they swing their axes ; they brandish their swords ; they fight one with the other, and as if they were butchers preparing oxen for 10 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the market as unconcernedly they slaughter each other in turn. Yet among so many there was not so much as one found who was as if mad or fearful, or, sheltering himself behind the back of his fellow, attempted to escape from such slaughter. Moreover, that raw recruit did valiantly, and in the end came forth scatheless. From this time and for a long season the North enjoyed peace, nor were any more incursions of the Caterans as before." ExTRACTA EX Cronicis Scocie, p. 203. Date doubtful. "Glenbroch fight was fought in the year of our Lord 1391, where were slain Sir Walter Ogilvy, Sheriff of Angus, and his brother-uterine, Walter of Lichtone, and sixty of their most valiant friends, by the Caterans, whose leader was Duncan Stewart and the bastard son of Lord (or) Sir Alexander, Earl of Buchan. " The Battle of Perth between thirty and thirty was thus brought about. There were two Caterans who kept troubling the northern part of Scotland, and one Sceauchbeg, called head of the Clancay, and the other Christie Johneson, called head of the Clanqwele, whom no device of either king or governor could subdue. However, by the efforts of Thomas, Earl of Moray, and David Lindesay, who was afterwards Earl of Craufurd, these parties were brought to consent to appear before the King on a certain day, thirty against thirty, unarmed and without doublets, and fight against each other with swords and battle-axes only, and by the event of this conflict to put an end to their contention. This was carried out upon the North Inch of Perth in presence of the King and the Governor and a great multitude of French- men and Scotchmen, and several other nationalities on the Monday before the feast of St Michael. Of these parties all were slain except one of the party of Clankay and eleven of the other party. Before the conflict, however, one of the combatants swam across the water of Thay, and though he was pursued (for a mile) (? by a thousand persons) BOOK OF PLUSCARDEN. 11 he could not be found. This stopped the battle until one rash fellow entered the field, and for half a merk consented to fight in his place." Eegistrum Episcopatus Moraviensis, p. 382. " It is to be remembered that in the year of our Lord 1396, upon the 28th of September, at Perth, in presence of Lord Kobert, King of Scotland, and the nobles of the realm met there for the purpose, inasmuch as a firm peace could not be secured between the two tribes of Clanhay and Clanwheole, but slaughters and depredations daily fell out between them, thirty of each side met by agreement without defensive armour of steel, but having bows, axes, swords, and knives, to the end that one side should entirely destroy and wipe out the other. The battle was fought and the whole party of the Clanhay fell and lay dead on the field save one, while of the other party ten remained alive." Liber Pluscardensis, Lib. X. cap. xi., ed. Skene, 1877, p. 330. [From internal evidence the original MS., which is no longer extant, was compiled in 1461 for Eichard Bothuele, Abbot of Dunfermline.] " In the year of our Lord 1390 King Kobert the Third having changed his name was crowned at Scone the said year, and the day after Lady Anabella Drummond was in the same place, and after the same manner, honoured with a royal diadem. But in the following year there fell out such a disturbance among the wild Scots that the whole country was troubled by their contendings, on account of which the King, not being able to reduce them to peace, after advising with the magnates of the kingdom, made the following arrangement : That two of their principal captains, each accompanied by thirty of his greatest and most valiant friends, unarmed save with swords, pole-axes, bows and but 12 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396, three arrows, after the manner of a duel in closed lists, fight in presence of the King at a certain time and place, viz., at the North Inch of Perth ; for throughout the entire earldom of Angus peace could not be had on account of their robberies, as also but a short time before these savages had ruthlessly slain the son of the Earl of Buchan, with many other nobles, as also the Sheriff of Angus, who were defending the goods of the country in the field. Accord- ingly by means of the Earl of Craufurd and other nobles of the land the arrangement foresaid was made and also carried into effect, so that in the end all of both parties were slain with the exception of seven, five of one party and two of the other escaping alive. Of these two of the losing party one was pursued to the river Tay, into which he leapt and saved himself by swimming ; the other was taken, and with the counsel of his adversaries, was pardoned, though some say that he was hanged. At the commence- ment of the fight one of the number of one side was missing, and though search was made for him he could not be found. However, there chanced to come one who was of their kindred, and had no love for the other party, and he, bribed by the promise of 40s., entered the field of battle, fought bravely, and came out of the conflict, not only with his life, but uninjured." John Major's 'A History of Gkeater Britain.' Published in 1521, Constable's Translation. Scot, History Soc. P. 333. [Major, speaking of the custom of single combat, which he declares sinful, quotes the battle of the Inch of Perth as an example of it.] " Just about this time, however, for the year was thirteen hundred and ninety-six, such a combat took place among sixty men of the Wild Scots. The Caterans, that is, the Wild Scots, men of a savage behaviour, were not able to MAJORS NARRATIVE. 13 keep the peace among themselves. Two factions, to wit Sceachbeg and his kinsmen, who were called Clan Kay, and Christy Jonson, and his followers, who were called Clan Quhele, had come to cherish a fierce hatred one for the other, and they could in no way be got to keep the peace. Seeing this, Sir David Lindesay, who afterwards became Earl of Crawford, and Thomas Dunbar, the Earl of Moray, gave this counsel to the chiefs of these factions : that a combat of sixty — that is, of either side thirty — should decide their cause in presence of the king. And to this counsel they willingly consented, and entered on the combat upon the northern island at Saint John. Thirty men, naked but for a doublet that hung from one side, made for the field of battle, armed with bow and double-axe, and these forthwith met the encounter of a like number, armed in the same fashion, and like bulls was their onset, headlong, unswerv- ing, — so they rushed and struck, thirty upon thirty. Now on the one side, that of the Clan Kay, every man save one was slain, and of the other side those that survived were eleven. But at the beginning of the combat there happened an in- cident which must not be omitted. One of the combatants made his escape from the fight, and the nine-and-twenty that were left were unwilling to wage battle against thirty, nor would those thirty consent to remove one of their own men. And there was not found any man who would take the place of the runaway ; and 'twas no marvel, since to fight for your life, naked but for a plaid, is no trifle. And when the king and the nobility had for a long time stood ex- pectant, there appeared in the midst a certain man of the common people, who called out : ' Who will give me a shield to guard my vitals, and I will bear my part in yonder spectacle, and if I come forth alive I will go in search of that beaten man my whole life long ? ' The man who thus bore his part in the combat was not tall in stature, but he was stoutly built, and his limbs well-knit and muscular, and he was one of the eleven that escaped with their lives, and 14 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. many upon that side might thank his sweat that they were living men at the end of the day. By this means then peace was procured in that region." From 'The History of Scotland,' by George Buchanan, 1506 to 1582. Bond's Translation. Bk. X., ed. 1722, p. 426. [Buchanan having given an account of the Eaid of Angus, finishes by saying that of these raiders some were slain and some taken and put to death. He then continues : — ] " Thus the Wickedness of these unquiet and turbulent set of Mortals being hindred from spreading over the Champion Countries, they fell out amongst themselves at their own homes ; and especially two Families of them exercised great Cruelties upon one another. They refused to end their Feuds by course of Law, or to refer them to indifferent Arbitrators. So that the King sent two Earls to suppress them, Thomas Earl of DuTibar, and James Lindsay, his Father being dead, now Earl of Crawford : These Commanders, considering they were to engage a fierce and resolute People, who valued not their Lives, nor the Pleasure of Life ; so that they were not likely to subdue them by Force, without great Slaughter of their own Men ; they therefore resolved to try what they could do by Policy. And accordingly they discoursed the Clans of both Families apart, and represented to them, wliat Danger would accrue to both by their mutual Slaughters of one another ; and if one Family should extirpate the other ; yet that was not likely to be effected, without great Damage, even of the conquering Side ; and if either Party should prevail, yet the Contest would not end so ; for then they were to engage the King's Forces (tho they were weakned before by their mutual Conflicts) of whose Anger against them both they might be justly sensible, because he had sent them with Forces to destroy them both, even before they had severely and irrecoverably engaged against one another. But in BUCHANANS NARRATIVE. 15 regard they were more desirous of their Preservation than their Euin, if they would hearken to them, they would shew them a Way, how they might be reconciled, with the King's good liking, and that on no dishonourable Terms neither; no, nor unrevenged one upon another. To this Motion they seemed inclinable, so that the Condition was proposed ; that 300 of each Side should try it out in Fight before the King, armed only with their Swords. They that were Conquered, should have an Amnesty for all past Offences, and the Con- querors should be honoured with the King's Favour, and the Nobles too. Both Sides were well pleased with the Terms ; so that a Day was fixed for the Combat, and at the time appointed the Heads of the Families, with their Parties, came to Court, and part of a Field on the North Side of the Town of Perth, which was severed from the rest by a deep Trench, was appointed for the place of Combat ; and Galleries built round for Spectators. Hereupon an huge Multitude was assembled together, and sate ready to see the Dispute ; but the Fight was delayed a while, because one of the 300 of one Party had hid himself for Fear, and their Fellows were not willing to engage without having just an equal number with their Adversaries ; neither was any one found to supply the Place of him who was absent ; and of the otlier Party, not a Man would be drawn out, or exempted from the Fight, lest he might seem less valued, and not so couragious as the rest. After a little Pause, an ordinary Tradesman comes forth, and offers to supply the Place of him that was absent, provided, that if his Side conquered, they would pay him half a Gold Dollar of France; and also provide for him afterward as long as he lived. Thus the Number being again equalled, the Fight began, and it was carried on with such great Conten- tion, both of Body and Mind, as old Grudges, inflamed by new Losses, could raise up in Men of such fierce Dispositions, as were accustomed to Blood and Cruelty ; especially, seeing Honour and Estate was propounded to the Conqueror; Death and Ignominy to the Conquered : The Spectators were 16 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. possessed with as much Horror, as the Combatants were with Fury, as detesting to behold the ngly and deformed Mutila- tions and Butcheries of one another's Bodies ; the Detrunca- tion of their Limbs ; and, in a Word, the Rage of wild Beasts under the Shapes of Men. But all took notice, that none carried himself more valiantly than that mercenary and supposititious Hireling, to whose Valour a great Part of the Victory was to be ascribed : Of that side that he was of there were ten left alive besides himself, but all of them deadly wounded : Of the contrary Faction, there remained only one, who was not wounded at all ; but as there was so much odds that he would be forced singly to encounter with so many, he threw himself into the Pdver Tay, which was near at hand ; and his Adversaries not being able to follow him, by reason of their Wounds, he escaped to the other side. By this means, the forwardest of both parties being slain, the promiscuous Multitude, being left without leaders, gave over their Trade of Sedition for many Years after, and betook themselves to their Husbandry again. This Fight or Combat happened in the Year 1396." 'The Histokie of Scotland.' By John Leslie, Bishop of Eosse. Trans, by Father James Dalrymple. Scottish Text Soc, 1884-85. Completed by Dalrymple, 1596, the date of the death of Bishop Leslie. Part III., p. 28. " The fyft zeir of his rygne, in Scotland was gret prouoca- tioun betuein tua hiland clanis Clankay and Clanquhattan, ilk persuet vthir sa cruellie wt sword and word that na requeist, or counsel, or command of ony ma^i culd freind thame. Quhen the Erie of ffif, now gouernour, saw this, he latis XXX on ilk syd discusse the mater betuein thame in a singular combat. The place is sett besyd Perth, the day appoynted, the parties meitis, ane of Clankay his cumpanie, strukne with feir, fleis in secret, the parties Junes nocht, hot HISTORIC STYLE. 17 sa lang absteinis as the iiu??iber was vnequal ; thay wait quhil ane of thair clan??, cum and supplie his place that fled ; tha sie nocht ane quha will put him selfe in perrell ; Jn the mean tyme a pore and simple man offiris him selfe for an halfe croun to take the conditiouu on hand ; quha this ma,n was, na maw knew tha?i present, bot he did sa duchtilie, that quhen the xxx of Clanquhatta?! al, til ane, was slane, he with x of clankay chaipet vnslane." On readintr over these notices in their consecu- o tive order, we may start with the statement that the first one must be considered as the capital source of information on which all the rest have drawn. It is possible that subsequent writers may have had conversation with some who professed knowledge, but even that is doubtful. Apparently, as they went on commenting, the writers evolved a certain amount from their own internal conscious- ness, Bower commencing the literary style, and Buchanan and his translator showing it at its best. Any one who has a little experience in gathering folk-tales by correspondence, if his experience is at all like that of the writer of this, will know how an attempt to write as it were for publication induces their correspondents to leave natural simplicity for what seems to them " good style." It is merely the endeavour of the natural human animal to appear at his best, and human nature requires a great deal of education to refine it, and however little alloy we should look for in history, but a small quantity of it is 24 carat. As it is written, " There is none righteous, no not one," and we can B 18 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. but do our best according to our light, and a great deal of light has been thrown on the proper way to treat history from the days of Buchanan, to say nothing of Hector Boece but half a century earlier. In his account of " this debait " he calls them " Irsmen," and names them Clankayis and Glen- quhattanis, according to Bellenden's translation. The passage has not been quoted at large, as it really contains no information except that the eleven survivors of Glenquhattanis were so hurt " that thay micht nocht hald thair swerdis in thair handis." Merely a sample that of literary style. In Bower's case, perhaps forming his style on Tacitus's account of Galgacus, he reports the speech of his hireling, provided with an appropriate Scrip- ture quotation, as if it had been taken down in shorthand. A good deal is made of the ferocity of these men fighting without armour, and one is free to confess that all the evidence is in favour of their having been, so to say, nativi, almost certainly without a sheepskin title among the lot, the prin- cipal evidence of aristocracy among themselves being doubtless the possession of larger or smaller herds of cattle. As to the question of clothing. Bower says, as we have given the translation, that they were to fight without doublets. The word he uses is de- plois. This word signifies^ "a double robe to be ' Lewis and Short, Latin Dictionary. THE HIGHLAND "DOUBLET." 19 wrapped round the body, a cloak, mantle." It is a Latin word introduced from the Greek with the inherent meaning- of being double. When we use the word doublet, however, our mind at once takes us to the jacket worn by men, of waistcoat length. It is, in fact, the name at present used to describe the full-dressed coat of our Scottish regiments, a garment provided with short flaps hanging below the waist. The original doublet, there can be little doubt, was a thickened jacket intended for defence. Bower used his word to describe some- thing quite different — viz., the Highlandman's cloak and blanket, or, as we say, his plaid. But why " doublet " ? The following explanation seems satis- factory in the case of the Highlanders, and was probably true of the Greek and Boman garment. The Highlander's plaid has been sometimes de- scribed as of very considerable length ; thus in Gough's additions to Camden's ' Britannia,' London, 1789, vol. iii. p. 390, and he is speaking of the Breadalbane district previous to the proscription of the Highland dress, he says, " The dress of the man is the hrechan or plaid, twelve or thirteen yards of narrow stuff wrapped round the middle, and reaching to the knee, often girt round the waist, . . . and fastened on the shoulders with a broche." With the modern kilt before them, the idea conveyed is that this never-ending quantity of cloth was puckered up and tied round the waist with an end hanging loose pinned to the shoulder. 20 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. But what were the facts ? Of all the old plaids examined, and the writer has some nice samples and has seen others, not one approaches this, for the purpose, enormous length. Twelve or thirteen feet is just about the truth, and its being double is evident at once to any one who handles them, for the narrow stuff is divided into two equal lengths and joined lengthways in the centre. The colours in women's plaids, from which our present clan tartans have been designed, were purposely woven so that the two sides when united in the centre make an oblong pattern. This girds nicely round the waist and hangs gracefully from a shoulder brooch, and in inclement weather is suffici- ently long to be thrown over the head, covering its wearer entirely from the knees upwards. Notice then, in the first place, that Wyntoun says nothing about clothing or defensive armour, and Bower, after all, just tells us that they dropped their plaids and fought in their shirts. Who can say whether this was a deduction from the known habits of those of whom he was speaking, or really special information got on inquiry about that special incident ? Probably not the latter. Major harks back to Bower's deplois, and the modern translator again uses the word doublet. " Naked but for a doublet that hung from one side," the Latin being "in nudis diploidibus ex una parte." Apparently the above translation has been influenced by a subsequent passage in which THE HIGHLAND "DOUBLET. 21 the historian, talking of the difficulties to find a man to take the place of the one who had run away, says, " 'Twas no marvel, since to fight for your life, naked but for a plaid, is no trifle," the Latin for which is " quia non erat qusestio de lana caprina in diploide ad mortem pugnare." And here we find the same word translated "doublet" and " plaid," the latter undoubtedly being much the more correct. Seeing that the older authority Bower says that they dispensed with their plaids, if Major was right in saying that their whole out- fit was a plaid, then they did not fight even in their shirts, but stark naked. One must not be too hard on writers making deductions from the materials before them when translating from one language to another. Major speaks of the fight described as being " no trifle," " quaestio de lana caprina," quoting from Horace. There was a Celtic garment, the name of which constantly recurs in the old Irish writers, the "laina, leana, lenn." This was a cloak, a plaid in fact ; and, curious to say, a wrecked captain in the Spanish Armada, whose adventures in Con- naught have come down to us, speaks of the sayos of the natives as being pelotes, implying that the material from which these plaids were made was of goat's hair. Is it possible that Captain Cuellar had read his ' Horace ' and retained in his memory the expression " lana caprina," and was so induced to think of the rough rugs of the Irish, as they 22 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. are elsewhere described, as having been made of goat's hair ? Camden's thirteen yards instead of feet is ex- plained by the simple fact that a Highland slat — wand, footrule, ell-wand — as the old cloth mer- chants had it, was not a yard measure, but has been so considered, as if it were the same as the standard of measurement in the Low Country. Having disposed of the question of dress, we proceed to consider how these clans were spoken of at the time, and the first complication that arises depends from the number of times that Wyntoun in his seventh and eighth lines uses the word clan. Bower, who immediately followed him, read the passage as if it were three times. There can be no doubt as to the first two, though the spelling slightly differs ; the dubiety comes with the word " clachinyha." Every Scot can appreciate the value to be placed upon the combination ch in clachin compared with clann and clahynn. The rhythm of the two lines divides them as follows : — " Tha three / score / ware / clannys / twa Clahynnhe / Qwhewyl / and / Clachin / yha." Unhesitatingly the opinion is now expressed that in modern style the lines would appear — " These three score were clans twa Clans Qwhewyl and Clachinyha : " names which, if at present they were used as patronymics, would appear, retaining Wyntoun's HAYS — KAYS. 23 spelling, as " Macqwhewyl and Macclachinyha." Bower, editing Wyntoun, makes the one Clan- quhele and the other Clankay. We believe this is an example of equating the unknown with the known. A more conscientious copyist of Wyntoun, — the alteration made shows that he was a copyist, — the writer of the ' Regis trum Episcopatus Moraviensis,' calls them " Clan/iay " and " Clanqwhwle." He accepts Bower's authority for changing ClacMn into the plain G\sJiyn, and makes them Hays, not Kays. In contradistinction to the two authors we have quoted, who followed him at some interval, let us recall the fact that Wyntoun, as a con- temporary, and within a day's good walk of Perth, might have gone up to see the show himself; and though any one who has taken part in public functions, knowing what mistakes occur even in the present day, will not insist on too accurate reporting by the Prior of St Serf's, yet all will give him credit for probably greater accuracy than those who drew on him for information. Indeed, rhyming though it be, the practical and brief notice he gives us is, of itself, good evidence of this. In Major's account of the fight, in the original published in Paris in 1521, Clankay is spelt Clau- kay. This is evidently a printer's error, which is repeated in the xiith chapter of book vi,, where Major speaks of the army of the Lord of the Isles in 1429. He says, "two of his tribes deserted 24 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Alexander," and the names of these he gives at first as Claukata(ri) and Claukauel, almost immedi- ately afterwards describing them as Clanbramero(n) and Claukatam. The edition of 1740 calls these Clancameron and Clankatan. Major further tells us that on Palm Sunday 1429 the tribe Clan Katam put to death every mother's son of Clan Brameron (Cameron).^ Supposing the two clans Katan and Cameron to be the same two mentioned as fighting on the Inch of Perth, we have the Clan Qwhewyl here identified with Clan Cameron, and Clan Kay, Hay of Bower and the ' Begistrum,' becoming Clankatan. We con- sider it unnecessary to follow this series of misspell- ings further, for a reason which will subsequently appear. Anyhow, we see here now the Clankay was claimed as a branch of the Clan Katan, and the Clan Quhele (Major's Clankauel) became a branch of the Clan Cameron. There is another source of mystification here. Wyntoun says that one of the chieftains was " Schir Ferqwharis' " son, who, if the chiefs are mentioned in the same order as the names of their clan, would in Wyntoun be the leader of Clan Qwhewyl, and the other, Cristy Johnson, the leader of what we here call Clan Clachinyha. Bower, however, tells us that the leader of Clan Kay was Scheabeg, and the leader of Clan Quhele was Cristi Johnson. Wyntoun's name is evidently a ^ Major's History. Scottish History Society ed., pp. 334, 359. "popes knights. 25 patronymic, " Sir Farquhar's son," and his name might quite well be Shea (Shaw), and if he was small (beg) we would write him nowadays, Little Shaw Farquharson. What, then, is the significa- tion of the word " sir " as a title ? Probably that he was a " Pope's knight." " Travail thou as a good knyghte of Christ Jesu," from an MS. version of the New Testament as the rendering of 2 Tim. ii. 3,^ shows the sense in which " priests " were first so dubbed, and that as early as Chaucer's time (1328-1400). " Sir William Sinclair of Ross- lyn, Justiciar of the Lothians, speaks of Bishop Landellis who crowned and anointed Robert II. (1370-71) as Sir William Landellis." Is it too much to suppose that Wyntoun had the same fashion known to him, and spoke of this Farquhar as " Sir," he filling a clerical ofiice, just as Sinclair in the early part of the fifteenth century so spoke of another parson of the same century as that in which Sir Farquhar's descendant flourished ? We know that Church benefices and the holders of them had long ere this got into the hands of laymen and warriors. All acquainted with clan history know that a portion of the Clan Chattan are called Macphersons, signifying " sons of the parson," the other ruling branch being Mackintosh, a name not so easy of specific translation, though it means "the son of the leader," a Gaelic name ^ Buke of the Law of Armys. Stevenson. Scottish Text Soc, Intro., p. XXV. 26 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 139G. applied to Thanes. More suggestive of a coniiec- tion with the Clan Chattan is Bower's name for Little Schea, as there is a portion of the Clan Chattan (Macphersons) who have the patronymic of Shaw. The reasoning is this : Shaw, the son of Farquhar, was a son of the parson, by courtesy at any rate, and so Wyntoun's Clachinyha becomes a part of Clan Chattan. The fact of Schea being a personal name in the instance under review, even if it meant, as it might possibly do, seeing it is a diminutive, " Joey," by no means hinders the branch of a clan or a family now descended from him being called Schea, or, as it is said to be spelled, Shaw. By the time of Boece and George Buchanan (1526 and 1565 respectively) this line of reasoning was accepted as proved. With Sir Walter Scott's still more recent assistance, this is now generally be- lieved, and the strengthening circumstance has appeared in the possession by Cluny Macpherson of the so-called black chanter of Clan Chattan, which is said to have been used on the occasion of the fififht. The name Schea seems to have been equated with sgeach, " a haw " ; "a bush, bramble, or brier " : O'Keilly puts the meaning " bush " first. Macbain has discussed this name, and says that the modern Gaelic is " Seagdh," and in the plural " Na Se'ich," the Shaws. He derives it from sithech, meaning "wolf"; and when we recall that the Shaws are a branch of the Macphersons, and SHAW — SCHEA. 27 that the Earl of Buchan, the illegitimate son of Kobert II., was called " Wolf of Baclenoch," the district of the Macphersons, — and we shall point out hereafter the close connection of St Fillan [faolany a wolf) with Schea Beg's locality, — there can be little doubt that the name was connected at one time with that animal. In his Etymo- logical Dictionary Macbain changes his view, and derives the name Shaw from segda, " strong, sen- sible one." Seeing the Wolf of Badenoch flourished in 1390, it would be a fair guess that the Shaws of that locality perpetuate a connection with him by their name. But there were other fighting parsons beyond the " Alps " than the progenitor of the Clan Chat- tan Macphersons. One of these was Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld and Dull, his jurisdiction apparently reaching to Argyll. He was a layman and a great chief, and, according to the Irish ' Annals of Tigh- ernnac,' slain along with " nine score heroes " in 1045. His opponent apparently was Macbeth, who in the Irish and Pictish editions to the ' Historia Britonum ' is called " Macbethad mac Fin mic Laig," who reigned in Cruithintuath (Pictland) sixteen years. ^ The name Macbeth itself, " son of life," was accepted as alluding to the religious "life." There can be no doubt it is a Pictish name. It seems to occur among the Gall-Gael of Galloway. In ^ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 30. 28 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. 1158, when Henry II. recovered Cumberland from Malcolm, he put Hubert de Vaux in possession of the barony of Gillesland, which had belonged to Gillius, son of Boet (also " Beuth "), from whom comes Bewcastle, Cumberland ; and the same name probably is to be found in Bochastle, between the rivers Leny and Teith, near Callander, where is a fort, and which Scott speaks of in * The Lady of the Lake ' : — " From Vennachar in silver breaks, Sweeps through the plain, and ceaseless mines On Bochastle the mouldering lines, "Where Rome, the Empress of the world, Of yore her eagle wings unfurl'd." — Canto v., par. xii. The Galloway names Gille and Boet occur in conjunction with " Wescubricht," Cuthbert's ser- vant " givas," son of Gilli Stephan, Stephan's lad,^ giving us a hint as to what people w^e owe the name of Dunstaifnage to, and also why the Corona- tion Stone is said at one time to have been kept there, Stephen's connection with stones being no- torious. Boece calls it Evonium, after Ewin, who built it,^ connecting it with the Eogannacht.^ We have pointed out the probability that at one time certainly the name Macbeth had a religious sig- nification, but seeing we are dealing with fighting men and Gall- Gael, attention may be called to the Saxon Bcedu, pugna, strages, and the verb hcedan, ^ The Scottish Antiquary, vol. xvii. p. 107. 2 II. c. 15. 3 Descript. Alb., c. 7. MACBETH. 29 " to drive out, to demand violently, to drive to- gether." " Gille, son of Boet," was the last Scotic chieftain to hold sway in England against the power of the Norman.^ No doubt this name is what is now spelled Boyd, pronounced hide, as in " abide," by the uneducated. In an Irish MS. of the fifteenth century, pre- served in the University of Leyden, dealing with Finn, he is said there to have foretold how " Fir Mac bethad ticfa and-so, dia mba Ian Eire. Gonad and asbert og tair(n)gire Ciarain." (Truly the son of life will come here of whom Ireland will be full, thereafter in those terms (Finn) announced by pro- phecy the coming of St Ciaran).^ Stern says in a note on this MS., "St Ciaran is called Machethad, ' son of life ' that is to say, of the religious life," here and in the ' Tripartite,' p. 84. The term simply designates a son of the Christian Church, as, for example, " Sochuidhi do Macuibh bethad etir apstala agus desciplu." (Many of the sons of life and of the apostles and of the disciples.) The name occurs in the Gaelic of the Book of Deir, in the case of " Donchad mac mec bead " (Duncan, son of Macbeth). We thus see that while his cousin Duncan, the son of Crinan, was connected with the Church in the person of his father, Macbeth himself bore what in his day was a distinctly "churchy" name. The Scottish Antiquary, vol. xvii. p. 111. Revue Celtique, vol. xiii. pp. 11, 22. 30 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. We pin our faith, then, to the account of the fight as it appears in Wyntoun. Wyntoun himself connects it with what is known as the Raid of Angus, in which the sheriff of Angus was slain, in the Stormont at Gasklune. Talking of the numbers slain, he says : — " Gyff this a skaith wes universale, Yeit ws fel the mare tynsale Off that daywerke, that wes dune, As yhe before hard, at Gaskhme." The subsequent authorities seem to unite in this idea of connection, and the most probable locality, therefore, in which to look for traces of the com- batants will be in Angus. And the very fact of the use of the personal names in so Lowland a form as Cristy and John, applied to the leaders of one of the parties, does not make the inference that they were Borderers liable to a certain amount of Saxon influence the less probable. What, then, were the boundaries of this province of Angus ? We are not likely to get any suggestion avail- able for the purpose by going back to the divisions of the country mentioned by the classical his- torians, so we confine our research to what we may call national historians. These mention from the earliest times the district of Fortrenn, and, as Skene points out, there can be no doubt whatever that at the dawn of national history its inhabitants were Picts.^ Fortrenn is mentioned in connection * Skene, Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. cxxxii. FORTRENN. 3 1 with a district called Maghcircin. The chief seat of Fortrenn was Dundurn, while that of the other province was Dunnottar. Dundurn is at the east end of Loch Earn, close to St Fillans. We learn from Bede that about the year 684 the Picts recovered their own lands, " which had been held by the Angles and Scots." Bede adds that Truni- wine, who in the year 678 Egfrid had made bishop, " in the province of the Picts, which at that time was subject to the Angles," withdrew with his people from the monastery of Abercurnig (Aber- corn), seated in the country of the Angles, but close by the arm of the sea which parts the lands of the English and the Scots. -^ Trumwine, then, had, on the authority of Egfrid, ecclesiastical charge north of the Forth. Fife, under the name of Fib, is an old name, but does not appear so frequently as the name of Fortrenn. It is contemporary with the names Angus and Mearns, to be identified with Fortrenn and Magh- circin. Fortrenn, in fact, seems to have represented to the western Gael the dominions of the Picts lying next them. In the Tripartite Life of St Patrick the saint is credited with a prophecy addressed to Fergus the son of Ere, that from him " the kings of this territory (Dalriada) shall for ever descend, and in Fortrenn." ^ This prophecy is said to have been fulfilled in the person of ^dan, who died in 607. 1 Bede's Ecclesiastical Histoiy, Bk. iv. c. 12, aud Bk. iv. c. 26. 2 Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 17. 32 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. But Fortrenn had a connection with the sea, according to Macfirbis, who tells us that in 734 Flaithbhertach, King of Erin, brought a fleet out of Fortrenn to assist him against the Cinel Eoghan, the greater part of which fleet was, however, drowned.^ It is interesting- to note that Macfirbis says that the fleet came " a Fortreannoibh " — that is, from the men of Fortrenn. The Pictish Chronicle mentions Fortrenn as a son of Cinge, " the father of the Picts," of what is now Scotland, and six other brothers, the names of whom, all but two, can be recognised in the modern Fife, Atholl, Caithness, and the ancient Fortrenn and Maghcircin. The reason for identification of Fortrenn with Angus becomes apparent from the fact that in the oldest description we have of the boundaries of Angus, — an MS. in the National Library, Paris, of the date of 1165, — Angus and Mearns are said to stretch between the river Tay and the Mound, Angus being the name of the oldest of seven brothers who reigned in Scotland, being sons of Cruithne, the eponymus of the Picts. The next oldest description, of date about 1296, says that Angus is beyond Fife, twenty leagues in breadth and more than thirty in length, containing two " castra," Dundee and Forfar.^ Subsequently to this we have Leslie's account of its boundaries in 1596: "Angus is induct with thrie riueris, first 1 Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 401. ^ Ibid., pp. 136, 214. ANGUS. 33 northerlie with the rluer of Esk, secundlie sutherhe with the sam riuer of Esk, thridHe with the best riuer of all the riueris in Scotland named Tai : of quhilkes, Tai, rinning throuch diuerse countries flowis out of a loch of the sam nam, xxiii myles lang, and twa myles braid ; at last rinnis into the main sey." ^ We thus see that Angus, long after the time of the battle of the Inch, extended as far as the east end of Loch Tay. And it is interesting to note that in the ' Fair Maid of Perth ' Sir Walter Scott locates at the end of Loch Tay one of the contending parties. Angus first takes the place of the name Fortrenn in the 'Chronicle of the Scots and Picts ' (1187), which tells that Kenneth mac Malcolm was slain by the grandson of the " comes " (Thane) of Angus. Kenneth was slain in 995. In the year 741, Angus, son of Fergus, King of the Picts, completely conquered the Scoto-Irish kingdom of Dalriada, and it is probably to this Angus that we owe the name, though Fortrenn was still used by the annalists, the reason most likely being that they had a claim of conquest of the more westerly portion of Fortrenn, the portion of Angus being what had remained in the hands of the Pictish ruler. From all this it is clear that the men in the neigh- bourhood of Tay had for centuries been inured to arms, having fought with Angles, Irishmen, and 1 Leslie's History of Scotland. Scot. Text Soc. ed., 1899-1900. Part i., p. 52. C 34 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Gentiles (Norse) ; and so much independence had the tribes composing them retained in spite of all they had come through that the " men of Fortrenn " have made their mark in Scottish history. Also, that those who represented them are to be sought for in Angus, the country of the clans of the battle on the Inch. According to Wyntoun, the quarrel of Gasklune — Gasklune Castle, two and a half miles north of Blair- gowrie, in Kinloch parish — was between Lyndesay, Lord of Glenesk, and the Highlandmen whose three chieftains he calls " Duncansons." Skene ^ shows the leaders from a brief issued by Robert III. at a general council held at Perth on the 20th of March 1390, directing the sheriff and bailiffs of Aberdeen to put to the horn certain persons guilty of the slaughter of Walter Ogilvy and others. The outlaws were Duncan and Robert Stewart, Patrick and Thomas Duncanson, Robert of Athale, Andrew and Angus Macnayr, Duncan Bryceson and John Ay son, junior ; and as taking part with them in the slaughter, Slurach and his brothers, with the whole Clanqwhevil, William Mowat, John and Donald de Cowts, Alexander and John M'Kintalyhur, Adam and John Rolson. As Skene points out, we have here the Duncan- sons with Robert of Athale ; the heads of the Clan Donnachie, Atholl men ; the Macnairs from Strath- tummel ; Aysons from Strathtay. The Mowats ^ Quoting the Acts of Parliament, vol. i. p. 579. M 'KINTAL YHURS. 35 and Cowtts he says belong to Buchan, but the Coutts spread from Fife northwards ; but he gives no hint as to the locahty of the M'Kintalyhurs.^ But in the Fine Book of the Macgregors their habitat in 1624 is made quite clear. They are found dwelling entirely in Perthshire — Glenbre- rochane at the head of Strathardle, Ardachy in Menteith, Tullybannochar immediately west of Comrie, Boro in Glenlyon, Batemoor on the bor- ders of the forest of Cluny, genuine Angus men all of them. 2 The meaning of the name is open to question. Leslie in his History, in the list of Scottish families which came from France in or about the time of Malcolm Canmore, mentions after the Betouns " Taileyefer." This was the name of a Norman follower of William the Conqueror, but whether or not the meaning of it had been forgotten, or the Mercers had derived their name from a mis- taken translation, both names are common in Perth- shire, and looked at, convey the meaning of what would be called in the south a merchant tailor. Adam and John Bolson have, we can scarcely doubt, their patronymic perpetuated in the titled family of Bollo of Duncrub, Perthshire. ^ Celtic Scotland, vol. iii. p. 309. 2 Register of the Privy Council, vol. xiv., Index s.v. 36 CHAPTER II. We thus account for the whole of the raiders as Angus men, or their very near neighbours, as in the case of the Mowats and Cowtts, leaving therefore the one family, and that the only one given as a clan, to be identified. There can be no reasonable doubt, however widespread a similar name could be, that these also were of Angus. The spelling is in the case of the combat at Glascune, " Clanqwhevil." The spellings of the name occurring in the combat of the Inch are — QwHEWYL (Wyntoun). QuHELE (Scotichronicon). Wheole (Kegistrum Moraviense). QwELE (Extracts e Variis Cronicis Scocie). In identifying these, and getting a hint as to their condition, we find mentioned in a Roll of Broken Clans (1594) the following: — Clandowill. | Clandonochie. | Clanchattane. | Clanchewill. Immediately following the four above mentioned comes the " Clanchamron " and " Clanronald in CLAN QWHEWYL. 37 Lochaber," which made the editor of the Collec- tanea, from which we quote, suppose that the Clanchewill came from Badenoch because it fol- lowed Clanchattane in the list, or from Lochaber because it was followed by Clanchamron.^ Another thing we would call attention to is the inclusion in the list of Clandowill and Clanchewill, evidently of course drawing a distinction between them. But this does not militate against their being connected, or having a common origin, as in the same list the Clanchattan and M'Inphersonis are mentioned as separate entities. Now, do we find elsewhere this patronymic in a form which unmistakably points to its identity with those under discussion? In 1662, in the Register of Interments in the Greyfriars' of Edin- burgh, a certain William M'Quell buried his child in the Greyfriars'. There was evidently a family of this name which continued for three genera- tions, and the name is variously spelled M'Quaill, M'Qweill, M'Qwell, M'Qwhal, Makquall, this latter spelling demonstrating, or at least going far to demonstrate, that the q was not a part of the preliminary Mak.^ In passing we may remark that the clerk has mixed up the name on two occasions with M'Ville and Maxwell. ^ Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis, p. 39. 2 Greyfriars' Burying-ground Register of Interments, 1658 to 1700, p. 424. 38 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Now for their locality a little more particularly. In 1603 King James VI. bestowed "of new" upon Alexander Meinzeis of that ilk, and on his descendants, the lands and barony of Weyme. Be- sides that of Meinzeis only two other names appear in the charter ; in the one case, referring to the 20s. lands of Nether Mewane, " formerly occupied by the late Donald McQueill," and in the second place, mention is made of the manse of the vicar of Dull, " occupied by Mr Duncan McGlagane." ^ The writer has to thank Dr George Henderson for the information that there is a small sept in Glenurchy of at least four or five families known locally as MacCuail. This is their Gaelic name ; in English they call themselves Macdonald. In 1630 they were called Macgregor.^ Here we see, there can be little doubt, the super- cession of the initial Q by the initial C, and so we may safely add to the list of names, equivalent to that in which we are in search, that of Duncan McGeclerych VcCouil Vantych (Duncan, son of the Clerk MacCouil, the Stammerer), who died in Lednach and was buried in the choir of Fortingall in 1576.3 In connection with the Glenurchy MacCuails, we find Donald McC. VcCoull fined in 1613 for resetting Macgregors, and James McQuhallie in Craigdarg ^ Register of the Great Seal, vol. vi. p. 502. 2 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, Second Series, vol. iv. p. 100. ^ Black Book of Taymouth, p. 141. CLAN QWHEWYL. 39 for the same. The name occurs in Galloway.^ In 1609 John McCoull in Overgarrell (Kirkmichael, north of Dumfries) is mentioned in connection with Douglas of Drumlanrig, his name being in one case spelt McOull.2 In 1621 John McQuhoull in Arbrak is summoned to appear as a witness in the complaint of McCulloch of Drummorrell against Braidfoote for damaging his plough.^ We have the name in the Isles, Angus M'Ronald V'Cwill having to remove at the instance of MacDonald of Slait/ and the Captain of Clanranald denounced as responsible in 1625 for a number of rebels, among whom is Johne Mclnnes VcCwill Roy.^ Now, we started with the statement that a dis- tinction was drawn in 1594 between the names Dowill and Chewill. John F. Campbell tells us that the pronunciation of the name Macdougal is repre- sented by the combination Macgooil. By the Dean of Lismore Macdougal is spelt " MacKowle," and in the Black Book of Taymouth it appears as " M'Cowle." There can be no doubt, on an ex- amination of the Privy Council Register,^ Macdougal is most frequently spelt McCoull, and so in Edin- burgh in 1628 we have the relict of John McCoull spoken of as Ewpame McDowgall, though this may be her maiden surname; but when in 1610 we see ^ Eegister of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. xiv. pp. 629, 633 ; vol. xii. p. 533. ^ Ibid., vol. viii. p. 701. 3 jbid., vol. x. p. 121. * Ibid., vol. xiii. p. 741. ^ ibj^^ p. ggS. " See vol. xi. p. 205. 40 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Duncan MacCoull of Lorn, a justice of peace for Argyleshire,^ there can be absolutely no further question of the mixture of the two names. That this is carried out to the present day we see in Dr De Bruce Trotter's ' Gallawa Gossip.' - The writer in four different columns gives what he says are the "real name," "pronounced," "familiar use," " genteel " :— Mac Dugald. McDoughal. MacDugald. McDhugal. McDoual. McDowall. MaCoull. Dole. Cole. Dowell. Coles, CouU. Lord Ochiltree, writing from Islay in 1608, calls the island of Coll " Coull," ^ showing two pronuncia- tions comparable with Dr Trotter's MaCoull and Cole. We started here with an acknowledged clan name, and have demonstrated, we think, that such a name, to all appearance the same, is to be found in use from Angus, through Glenurchy, to Lorn, and in Galloway. The name, applied to the other clan, has, as we have shown, been accepted from the first as if it were a compound term containing the word clan. One would suppose that commentators would have inquired whether an equivalent name was to ' Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 78. 2 P. 218. ^ Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. viii. p. 523. CLAN CLACHINYHA. 41 be found in the district affected by the quarrel. Unfortunately Bower did not connect it with Angus, but spoke in vague terms of the " greater part of the north of Scotland beyond the Alps." With confidence we may take this as sufficient evidence that he did not know the habitat of the "parentela." To make clear that such a name did exist to be put in exactly the same category as " Qwhewyl," we here give a list of the various spellings we have come across of the one we con- sider Clachinyha to represent. 1497. Claquin, Loys de (Scots man - at - arms in Italian wars). 1529. Makclaagan(Grantully man). 1537. McClauchane, Dun- canus, Angusianus ; matri- culated at St Andrews. 1566. Makclaggane (parson in Dull). 1578. Makclagony, Mcclag- ony. 1595. McClagane, Duncanus; matriculated St Andrews, grad. 1598. 1597. Maclagene (minister, Kirkmichael). 1602. McKlagane. 1602. McClagan. 1605. McClaggane (Mill of Cluny). 1613. McLagane (Bofrack). 1613. Mcllglegane. 1613. McGlagane. 1619. McLagan (Tailyeour, Dalshiane, 1620). 1624 McGilleglagane (fol- lows " Stewarts " in list of Macgregor's fines). 1649. McLogan (St Andrews Commissariat, p. 342). 1665. Maklachon. 1666. Maklachane. 1668. Maklachan. 1670. McClaggan. 1674. Mcclachen. 1674. Mcclathan. 1674. Maklachan. 1675. Mackclathan. 1679. Mackclathen. 1686. Makclan. 1692. Mack-Claquane. 1694. McLagine. 1699, Maclachan. 42 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. 1703. MackClachan. 1720. McKlagan. 1732. Mcclagen. 1733. Mclaggan. 1734 McClaggon. 1734. Mcclaggen. 1737. McGlageon. 1738. McKlagon. 1754. Mcaglan. 1768. Maclagan. Little Dun- keld tombstone ? 1772. MacClagan. 1773. McLagen. 1775. McGlagan. 1776. MacLaggan. 1887. MacGlagan (" The late Peter of Ledneskey, Gran- tully," in ' Scotsman ' of 14th January). To assist in appraising the value of a single spelling of such a name two and a half centuries ago, let alone anything older, attention is called to the various spellings used of one of this clan residing in the classic St Andrews, who was twice married and had a considerable family ; the Records of Births and Marriages gives us the following : — Johne Maklachon and Jenot Gouts contracted, October 5, 1665 (Maklachau). Maklachane, a son, May 3, 1666. MakLachen, a daughter, Sept. 17, 1671. McLachen, a daughter, Dec. 26, 1674. Mackclathan, a daughter, Nov. 7, 1675. Second marriage, Mackclathen and Helen Buckles, Nov. 21, 1679. Macclachlan, a daughter, Aug. 17, 1680. Mclachlane, a daughter, March 30, 1682. Makclachan. Makclan, a daughter, Jan. 14, 1686. MckClaquan, MackClaquane, July 23, 1692. Remark that this John first married a Gouts, one of the names in the Raid of Angus, and also that MACLAGAN. 43 the last entry shows, apart from the Mack, the exact spelHng of the name of the man-at-arms who heads the hst of Maclagans, but of whom, except what is there mentioned, no records exist. The spelhngs of the names of John's two wives are as various as his own, but as they are not pertinent to this inquiry, they have not been preserved. Loys de Claquin evidently used the French de as the equivalent of mac. Something may be made of the absence of the second C, as we see that so far back as 1597 the name appears as MacLagene. The tendency, however, to drop the c before I in the second part of a name is clear even in the case where the first member of it does not end with c. The Rev. Mr Shaw, minister of Elgin, gives the following in the Appendix to 'Pennant's Tour' (p. 276): " Murth- lack, now Mortlich, erected as a bishopric by King Malcolm II., a.d. 1010, when he had given a total defeat to the Danes in that valley : the diocese consisted only of three parishes, and after three bishops had served there it was translated to Aberdeen, a.d. 1142." Now in the year 1396, that of the combat on the Inch, the Earl of Orkney, bestowing his daughter on Sir John Drummond, gave as her dowry " al his landys of the Murtclauch." Mortlach church is close to Dufftown in Moray. Lag, " a den," " a hollow," is itself indubitably written lach sometimes. " Brocc-lach, a badger- 44 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. warren." Broth -lacli, a cooking -pit, such as butchers have at fairs for boiling their pots in. The genitive of this is hrothlaigi. Butelach .i. ubi fit magnus ignis, a fireplace ? hot, unde hodie dicitur buitelach.^ Even when a spelling had been carried down to the beginning of the nine- teenth century with the initial C of the second syllable written as a capital, the bearer of that name might, as happened in the case now to be quoted, for " simplicity's sake " drop it. Dr David Maclagan, who as a student of the Uni- versity of Edinburgh in 1798 matriculated as '* MacClaggan," subsequently spelt the name always " Maclagan." The change of the central cli of Clachinyha to g is proved in the list. Duncan McClauchane matriculated in St Andrews in 1537, and there can be little doubt that Duncan McClagane who graduated at St Andrews in 1598 was a descen- dant, and the matriculation record in the first instance is of considerable importance because the bearer's nation is 2:iven as Anofus. All the rest of our information of the clan fully corro- borates this. The Parish Kecords of Perthshire do not go very far back, commencing from the years 1641 to 1762. The result of an investigation of the number of families of Maclagans living in various parishes at ^ O'Davoran, Archiv. fiir Celtische Lexikograph. , vol. ii. pp. 265, 272, 294. " MCLAGAN PARISH. 45 the commencement of these registers is, on a fairly- careful analysis, 29 in Moulin, 27 in Logierait, 19 in Dull, 20 in Scone, 17 in Dunkelcl and Little Dunkeld, these being the more usual localities in which the name occurs. The name, however, we find applied itself to the parish of Dullweem. In the 'Register of the Privy Council of Scotland' in 1592 the Earl of Argyle was commissioned against the " Clan Gregour," and " divers uthiris brokin men of the Hielandis, their assisters and partakers," to order them to find surety for their submission to justice under pain of rebellion. Thereafter he was, as he might find necessary for pursuit of the rebels, " to convocate the lieges within the bounds of the shires of Bute, Tarbett, and as much of the shires of Dunbartane and Perth as lies with the parishes of Fothergill, Mclagan, Inchechaddin, Ardewinch, Killin, Straphillan." ^ The list of parishes is continued into Dumbartonshire. We have to identify what was here called Mclagan. The first parish mentioned, " Fothergill," is as now spelt " Fortingall," on the north side of the east end of Loch Tay. The third one, " Inchechaddin," is the modern " Kenmore," just at the east end of Loch Tay. " Mclagan " in the list stands second. Geographically between Fortingall and Kenmore are " Dull and Weem." Surely this identification is about as clear as it well can be. Continuing the consideration of the list, the next parish is 1 Kegister of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. v. p. 41. 46 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. " Ardewinch," the modern " Ardeonaig," at the centre of the south shore of Loch Tay ; then come "Kinin" and " Strathfillan." We must call attention to the fact that in 1592, when this commission was issued, there was a Duncan McGlagane then occupying the manse of Dull, which is described as follows : " The half of the hill of Craigdull and the lands of Auchtavie " (evidently the " Kirktown of Weem," now Weem village), " with teind sheaves of the whole included in the regality of St Andrews and the sheriffdom of Perth, formerly held of the Vicars of Dull, ex- cepting the manse of the Vicar of Dull, with the garden, tofts and crofts, occupied by Mr Duncan McGlagane with the house called McKiltishouse." The latter was in 1602 called " Makiltreshouse " ; in 1620 " McGillishouse." At the same date John Makclagene was minister of Inverchadden, having been transplanted from Strathardle. He subse- quently had charge of Moulin and Logierait. See- ing, then, that while Duncan had Dull, John had the next parish of Inverchadden, it is not to be supposed that the parish of Mclagan was called after its minister. The above is enough to identify the situation of the Maclagans ; but a few more facts to drive the nail home. In 1529 Donald Makclaagan was one of a jury of twenty-five of "the best and worthiast of the said shirefdome" (Perth), finding the lands of Pete- MACLAGAN LOCALITY. 47 quharne, Caltulyth, and Abirfeldy, pertinents of the lands of Grantully.^ In 1605 " McLaggane, alias Miller, and John McClaggane of the Mill of Cluny," assisted a brother of the Laird of Ballachan to abduct a Rachell Bonair. In 1613, during the hunt of the Macgregors, Duncan McLagane in Bofrack (1602 mentioned as McClagane in Bowraik), William M'Glagane, Donald M'Lagane, and John Mcllgle- gane were fined for harbouring the outlaws. In 1620 Tailyeour McLagan, in Dalshiane, was complained against by the King's Advocate as harbouring " Egiptianis." This is not a trade name with McLagan (see p. 35). Dalshiane has not been identified, but along with it are mentioned Kethic, south-west of Cupar Angus, Eschintullie, Arintully in the bend of Tay between Stanley and Caputh, Creachie, probably that north-west of Alyth, then Craig- toun, at the foot of Glenshee, then Dalrilyeane, within a mile of it, then Inver, then Maling, modern Moulin, and finally the " Bra of Tullymet." Dalshiane is mentioned after Eschintullie. In 1623 William McClagan in Glengowlanlie (Ordnance Survey, Glengoulandie in the barony of Weem, three miles as the crow flies north-east of Dull) was accused of having a fank of stolen sheep. He is described as " a poore fellow," evi- dently hinting that something better than sheep- 1 Eed Book of Grantully, vol. i. pp. 67-69. 48 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. stealing was to be expected of him. Anyhow, it took a commission of the lairds of Weme and Ballachane to try him. The oldest entries in this way show the name in connection with the Tay valley close to the east end of the loch. It has now perished out of the locality. Kecently it has been relatively strong near Tummel, and in connection with the Maclagans there, we find the only evidence of those of the name having to follow anybody for warlike purposes. This is as late as 1705, in which year in the Roll of the Duke of Atholl's fencible men in Moulin and Tullimet, eight Maclagans are mentioned as " armed " more or less completely. From the above it is apparent that the name, from the fourteenth century onwards, generally had the letter C as the initial of its second con- stituent — Mac - Clagan, not MacLagan, but the Black Book of Taymouth (pp. 200, 314) shows us an interesting deviation. On the 4th of June 1556 the Clan Maclntyre renewed their bond of manrent previously given to the first Sir Colin Campbell of Glenurquhay for " sythmant and recompens" of the slaughter of his foster-brother Johnne M'Gillenlag. This Sir Colin Campbell was born in or about the year 1400, four years after the combat on the Inch. He had four wives, the third being " ane woman off the Clandondoquhie." The slaughter is stated to have taken place during the minority of DULL-AVEEM. 49 James (I.), which fixes the date between 1406 and 1424. Sir Colin, who took the renewal, was born in 1499, succeeded in 1550, built Balloch, now Tay- mouth, about 1570, and died 1583. The acquaintance thus early formed and renewed was continued in 1621, when we find another Johnne, this time given as " M'Clagan," an hon- oured guest at Finlarig, the Campbell's castle at the west end of Loch Tay. Comparing the M'Gillenlag of the Black Book of 1556 with the other spellings compounded with "gille" or its equivalent, — 1497 de Claquin, 1613 Mcllglegane, 1624 McGilleglagane, — it is clear the etymology of the name was at that time doubtful, for there need be no dubiety that the bearers of it were all of one stock. So far as we have gone, whatever the meaning of the name, or of the names of the combatant clans, representatives of the first seem to have been spread over a very wide district, while the second we have run to earth at the east end of Loch Tay, its habitat being Dull-weem, on one occasion at least called " McLagan." Let us take a look at the ecclesiastical history of this locality. In the Eulogy of St Columba by Dalian, a com- position probably of the ninth century, according to Stokes, the following passage occurs : — " He [Columba] subdued to benediction the mouths of the fierce ones who dwelt with Tay's D \ 50 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. high king — i.e., he overcame, or he shut the mouths of the fierce ones who dwelt with the over - king of Tay ; for though it be malediction they intended, it is benediction which used to result from it, ut fuit halaam." From the Yellow Book of Lecan those fierce ones, we are told, were '* thrice nine Druids : whomsoever they blessed, he was blessed ; whom- soever they cursed, he was cursed." The river Tay alluded to is thus described : " Toi nomen fluminis for lar duine cuillind i Cruithintuaith alban. Tuatha toi desede na tuatha atat imon sruth sin. Tay is the name of a river in the middle of Dunkeld in the Pictish district of Scotland. Hence the tribes that are about the river (are called) the ' tribes of Tay.' " ^ The "fierce ones" is an allusion to the " Firu Fortrenn," the old name of the inhabitants of that part of the country, from whom subsequently it became spoken of as " Fortrenn." We find an example of the use of the word fortren in the Irish ' Battle of Allen ' (Almain), which says, " Ba fortren ba ferrda ro figed in gleo guineach " (Mighty and manly was the slaughterous combat).^ But before this was written — probably as early as the seventh century — there was a Christian abbacy at Dull, which early fell into the hands of merely 1 The Bodleian Amra Choluimb Chille. Whitley Stokes. Revue Celtique, vol. xx. p. 401. 2 Cath Almaine. Whitley Stokes. Revue Celtique, vol. xxiv. p. 50. WEEM. 51 titular clerics. In the reign of William the Lion, the Earl of Atholl of that date granted, " after decease of his own cleric, the church of Dull to the Priory of St Andrews, a grant confirmed by his son and by the Bishop and Chapter of Dunkeld. In the proceedings of a court, held at Dull by the Prior in 1264, mention is made of a "vicar and a cleric of Dull." " The names of William of Chester and John of Carham, canons, indicate a foreign infusion, and the name of a solitary clerauch witnesses for the Celtic element." ^ In 1296 Alexander de Meyners was put in pos- session of " Weme and Aberfeldy " ; this is appar- ently the first mention of Weem. The name " Wem " occurs early in English history. In Ethelwerd's Chronicle we learn that in the year 851 Ceorl, Duke of Devon, fought a battle against the pagans at " Wembury." ^ This is on the coast of Devonshire at Yealm Mouth. In Shropshire, about ten miles north of Shrewsbury, we have Wem, the "Weme" of Domesday Book, situated in a hollow where there is no cave. The name seems to be purely Teutonic, and to have been used as equivalent to the word derived from the Latin cavus, meaning " hollow," and is in fact the Scotch word tvame, weam. Anyhow, we learn from the Register of the Priory of St 1 W. F. Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. ii. p. 406, quoting Register of the Priory of St Andrews. " Ethelwerd's Chronicle, c. iii. ; Bohn's ed., p. 23. 52 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Andrews that before the name Weme appears in that district, there was a Chester man settled in the locaHty, Chester itself being but twenty -one miles from the Wem in Shropshire. As a matter of fact, there are plenty more Weems in Scotland — e.g., Pittenweem in Fife. It is fashionable to look upon the name as a mispronunciation, or Saxon adaptation of the Gaelic word uam, " a cave," the present parish of Weem being spoken of in Gaelic by the residenters there as " Uaimh," an oblique case of the word. Sir Walter Scott's " duinewassels " and Mrs Grant of Carron, who says of Koy's wife of Aldivalloch, " Weel could she dance the Highland walloch," are quoted as evidence of the change of the Gaelic u into w ; but in the first instance, in ' The Lady of the Lake,' Scott, using the word uamh, writes it correctly enough when he says of the pursued stag — " Then as the headmost foes appear 'd With one brave bound the copse he clear'd, And, stretching forward, free and far. Sought the -wild heaths of Uani-var." And in reference to this we understand that Uam-var does not apply to a cave. In the second case Mrs Grant (1740 to 1814) was a Highlander, born, bred, and married in Strathspey, and she certainly did not speak the word " walloch " (Gaelic uallach, " cheerful," "stately," "sportive") with Lowland lips. She was fully acquainted with the Lowland tongue, DULL. 53 possibly more so than with Gaelic. In Sir Walter Scott's case the Gaelic word which he used, " daoine - uasail " (gentleman), probably suggested the feudal vassal ; and Mrs Grant, with a taste for rhyme, had probably seen Semple of Beltrees' " Maggie Lauder," written before her day, who, on hearing Hob the Ranter's pipe, " up and wallop'd o'er the green," and her idea, probably, was of a dance more of the Maggie Lauder sort than one which might be called stately. Scott probably got his word in manuscript, and so took the double -u for a iv. We can at any rate quote an instance in point. In Father Dalrymple's Scottish translation of Leslie's History (1596) he writes the word university " wniuersitie." If the suggestion were made that the English Weem had been turned into Uam, there would, we think, be more in it, as in Gaelic, while there is no iv, there is u. William becomes Uilleam, and in the 'Annals of the Four Masters,' under the year 1085, we find Wurzburg written " Uairisburg." Had there been no cave, the word "weem" mipfht have been accepted as an English equivalent of the name Dull. In the Breton tongue we find " ddl, s.m., a low- lying fertile place." From this, says Father Gre- goire in his ' Franco - Breton Dictionary,' " may come the town name D61. Nowadays the word is little used."i 1 Legonidec Breton Die, s.v. 54 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Dr George Henderson suggested that the d of Dull might be a remnant of the old definite article, or an English spelling of the Gaelic t after n of the article, adding that from the evidence of the early form "Doilweme" the name of Dull had of old a dipthongal sound, oi, oiv. It is noticeable that in the local name written Grantully the pronunciation makes the t become d, Gran" dully." i The Gaelic word for a "hole" is toll, the gen. tuill ; thus Craig-dull might be in Gaelic Creag- an-tuill, the Kock of the Hole, Hollow. Now let us give a little reference to folk-lore. There is a Scottish game called "dully" — rounders. In Cowal the name used for the various posts is " dulls," the ball being struck out from what is called "moosh" (? Bret. " monster " = monasterium),^ marked by a hole.^ This is simply for the reason that the primitive marking of the stations to be run to was by making a hole in the ground. Let us quote the preparations for the Orkney game of "pellet":— " This is a ball game. Suppose eight are play- ing, four on each side. Four small holes are made in the ground, perhaps by a swirl with the heel of one's boot, or with the point of the bat. These holes are ten to twelve yards apart, ^ Cameron's Guide to Aberfeldy, p. 49. ■^ Revue Celtique, vol. xxiv. p. 106. 2 E.O.M.'s Untyped Papers, p. 7491. "dull" = "hail." 55 each being the corner of a square. They are called ' Hales.' " 1 The interesting point here is that the name of dull in the one case, and hail in the other, is applied to the same things, which were, we can have no doubt, originally holes in the ground. Games such as these must have been played in an open space, and the arrangement given would be the easiest to improvise. Where the game was played habitually, a post or a stone might mark the " hail " or the "dull." Development has proceeded, and the term *' hail " is nowadays applied to a line drawn between posts occupying what were originally holes. The line may be imaginary or marked ; in modern foot- ball it is a wooden bar between two posts. The word toll in combination with auchter as a local appellation is common in Scotland north of Forth. In Fife, about four miles north - west of Kirkcaldy, " Auchtertool " is situated on the edge of a remarkable depression contrasting with the surrounding high ground. In 1574 we find a " Couttis " of Auchtertoull, one of the landed men of the north, who subscribed a deed of faithfulness to Prince James (VI.). In 1605 the name of this northern locality is given " AuchtircouU," and in 1623 " AuchterfouU." 2 It is interesting to notice how well the Brythonic 1 E.C.M.'s Untyped Papers, p. 7501. " Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 401, vol. vii. p. 613, vol. xiii. p. 327. 56 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. D61 fits the situation. Nothing could suit better for the proper establishment of a religious family than a "low-lying fertile place." Let us now regard the uaimh, the weem. In a chapter annexed to the " Irish Life of St Cuthbert " — a Latin MS. of the fourteenth century — we get the following : — " Cuthbert came to a town called Dull and dwelt as a solitary, or hermit, in a steep and richly wooded hill at Doilweme, about a mile distant. Here he brought from the hard rock a well of water, erected a tall stone cross, built an oratory of rough wood, and constructed for himself, out of a single stone, a bath in which he used to immerse himself and spend the night in prayer to God. He remained here for some time until, being accused by the daughter of the king of that province of having seduced her, he prayed to God, and the earth opened and swallowed up the young woman at a place called Corruen. He would not continue to dwell longer there, but re- moved to other parts of the country." This is sup- posed to have taken place while Cuthbert was at Melrose, between 651 and 66 L^ The above information being an annex must not be considered as of the same value as if it formed an integral part of the Life of St Cuthbert. It makes the establishment of Dull precede the occupancy of the cave. 1 Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. ii. p. 206. Notes on Parish of "Weem. E. Grant, Dunbar. BRUGH. 57 The term " weem " is applied to those mysterious underground buildings called "earth houses," com- mon in many places in Scotland, some excellent examples of which are to be seen in Glenkindie (compare cundie, '' an apartment, more strictly a concealed hole").^ Now for those who object to the equating weem and womb. In Ireland the word hrugh is applied to a palace, a farmhouse, and apparently in old times to " a house of public hospitality." Bru is " the womb," the " belly," the spelling is a grammatical distinction. O'Curry in his ' Materials,' quoting from the Book of Lismore, says that Gael (Caoilte) on one occasion, being asked from whence he had come, answers, " As in brug braenach atuaid," which O'Curry, in what he chooses to call a " literal trans- lation," explains as " from the teeming brugh, from the north.'' ^ Why " teeming " ? The plain trans- lation is " stinking " : however, it is more compli- mentary to talk of such a thing as " teeming." Brugh -na-boinne is the "fairy dwelling" on the river Boyne. The word hru with a diminutive bruach Joyce explains as a " border, brink, margin," but it is commonly applied to the brink of a stream.^ We have tveems on both shores of the Firth of Forth and on the Firth of Clyde. Armstrong gives sith-hruth as a " fairy dwelling," and the writer has ^ Jam. Scot. Diet., s.v. - Materian's Anc. Irish Hist., ed. 1878, p. 597. 3 Irish Names of Places, Second Series, p. 205. 58 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. known an attractive little child habitually called the sithhhrach, a word spelt by Armstrong sith- hhrog, "a fairy." Now, in connection with this last word we would call attention to how popular myths have their inception. Armstrong's word would divide up into the two elements, sith = {B\rj, and brog = shoe. The Irish leiDvechaun is a fairy an inch or two high, and when seen is generally engaged in the manufacture of a tiny shoe. No idea is entertained of the dogmatical settling questions of grammar. For our purpose Dull and Weem are one, and from the traditions that have been handed down in connection with Dullweem, the neighbouring country, and its inhabitants, we hope to be able to point out other foundations of imaginative Scottish history, carrying us back before St Cuthbert. He has served his turn as a peg to hang fables on, though more certainly a historical personage than many of his saintly brethren. We cannot, however, get over the feel- ing that his presence in the cave of Weem has a connection with the Clan Coull, extending from Perthshire to Kirkcudbright, so called as the Church of St Cuthbert. There are not wanting etymological traditions connected with Dull. In the ' Guide to Aberfeldy and its Neighbourhood,' a local tradition is cited which makes Adamnan, the historian of Columba, on his deathbed order his body to be carried in a withe-loop suspended from a pole, to be buried ST CUTHBERT. 59 where the loop broke. This occurred at Dull. Did (O'Don. O'Rei., s.v.) is a "snare, a spring, a gin," which every poacher knows is composed of a loop hanging from a peg, if not a pole, Adamnan's funeral outfit. St Cuthbert while in residence was indulging in the tub we have mentioned. The devil also constructed a tub. Imitation was not with Cuthbert the sincerest flattery apparently ; " seizing a huge cudgel, like a fuller's pole," he rushed upon his imitator and drove him away. Duillen = SL javelin;^ dula, "a pin, a peg," in Irish. The origin of the story is clear enough when we allow for the necessary exaggeration. Seeing both were bathing, the fuller's pole is quite a realistic touch. St Cuthbert's Well is now called St David's Well, the supposition being that it has got this name from David de Menzies of the fifteenth century, who, divesting himself of his lairdship, adopted a religious life.^ A few words more as to the uses of the word toll In Welsh twU, " a hole," " a dimple " ; tivll mwn, " the shaft of a mine." In Brittany they use as an interjection " toull de doull " {" trou de ton trou "), and anatomically it appears in the slang phrase "toull an ibil kamm" (" le trou de la chiville courbe ").^ To stand upon the head, 1 Cormac's Glossary, s.v. 2 A few Notes on the Parish of Weem, Dunbar, p. 25. 2 Kruptadia, vol. ii. p. .318, and vol. vi. p. 64. 60 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the feet in the air, is called in Brittany " toull- bennik " {hemiik = little head). In connection with the cave of Weem, it is said to communicate with a loch two miles in the moor above, called Loch Glassie or Loch Lassie. One story about it is that it is so called from one little girl saved by slipping oif a water horse which, along with some com- panions, she was riding. The rest of the party were drowned.^ Similarity of tradition must occupy us, and we find a story which seems to confirm the presence in Ireland of the same idea as the " heels-over- head" expression of the Bretons. In the Book of the Dun Cow, the existence, on the river Lee in Boscommon, of the Cuil Sibrine, Sibrenn's corner (recess, locus ahditus), is thus explained : "Hi cuil Sibrinne . i. Loch Carcin agus o silind ingine Madchair roainmniged" (Sibrenn's cuil — i.e., Loch Carcin, and it is from the mun of Madchair's daughter that it was called).^ Car in Gaelic is "a twist," "a turn, a revolution"; cean, gen. cin7i, the " head." There is a cave in Dull as well as in Weem. On the present Bock of Dull there is a cave half- way up the cliff", and though no ancient traditions are connected with it, according to the ' New Sta- tistical Account,' a party of Macgregors are there said to have been surrounded and ultimately de- ^ The Highland News. Dargo Duncanson. 3rd. March 1900. 2 Kruptadia, vol. ii. p. 353. NA MAC ff LAG AN. 61 stroyed by a tree in which they had taken refuge being cut down and falling over the cliff. One cannot, however, attach much importance to this. Now for a suggestion as to the connection of the name Mclagan with the parishes Dullweem. In Scottish Gaelic machlag, s.f., gen. machlaig, plu. machlagan, the womb. We have shown the existence of two weems or two tolls, anyhow a Dull and a Weem. These might have been spoken of, therefore, as Na Machlagan, and the men of the place, following the style of the annalists, Feara Machlagan, the Men of the Weems. We do not, however, intend here to consider the meaning of the clan name merely to excuse, as it were, our annexation of the locality between Fortingall and Inchaddin. Attention has been called by others to a local habit in the Tay valley of speaking of places in the plural. Bolfrack is "the Bolfracks," "Lawers" seems the same con- struction; " TullicAmr' appears in an old spelling " Tullichc/ow^/s." 1 ^ Cameron's Guide, p. 56. 62 CHAPTER III. Let us consider the historic aspect of this inter- tribal trial by combat. It seems so singular a transaction that, unless the evidence had been very clear, as it is for the fact of the encounter, natural criticism might well consider it doubtful. There is, however, luckily really no ground for any such doubt. Reading Wyntoun's and Bower's notions about it would lead us to the conclusion that it was a happy thought of Lindesay of Crawford and of the Earl of Moray, but it seems to have been not an un- known thing in the annals of the very locality with which we identify the clans engaged. The event to which we allude occurs in the Annals of Tisfh- ernac, who himself died in the year 1088. In the year 1045 he says, "Battle between the Albanich araenrian in which Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, was there slain and many with him, nine score heroes." Crinan married Bethoc, daughter of Malcolm Mac- Kenneth ; his son by her, Duncan, reigned five years, and was slain by Macbeth in the year 1040. AIR AON RIAN. 63 We have given the quotation in Ent^lish, all but the important araenrian. Skene, making a pure guess, translates it "on both sides." Stokes admits a difficulty, and suggests " on one road," but thinks that it may be an idiom for the etarru fein of the Annals of Ulster, meaning " among themselves." ^ The words are apparently, in modern Gaelic, air aon rian. The Gaelic Society's Dictionary translates rian "mode or manner"; "order, arrangement"; " economy," rerum administratio. To step in with confidence in a matter of this sort, where Whitley Stokes goes gingerly, is apt to suggest the temerity ascribed to those not blessed with mature wisdom ; but calling attention to the historical parallel, we maintain that it means " by an arrangement," or some phrase equally applicable to the battle of the Inch. To have a second opinion Dr George Henderson was called into consultation, and the opinion expressed by the consultant was, that he would translate it "on one mode — i.e.^ by a similar arrangement (on either side)." If this is accepted, it proves that a combat of equal numbers, specially arranged, was no new thing in "^e history of the district. The old story dis- poses of three times as many combatants as the later one. We must also notice here another battle of sixty preserved in tradition. It is commemorated in the ^ Eevue Celtique, vol. xvii. p. .385. 64 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. following verse, which we owe to Mr Peter Mac- donald, New Selma House, Ledaig, Argyle : — " Cloinn mhic Calam nan smug Bho thobair na sgeig, Sliochd nan tri fichead buraidh Dhoirt am full aig Acha na' meann." Clan of MacCallum of the snot From the well of derision, The race of the three score fools Shed their blood at the field of kids. The above verse was attached to practically the same story as given in 'Records of Argyle.'^ The name of the meeting-place is there said to have been Sliabh-an-tuim in the Glenmore Moor, between two parties of Malcolms (MacCallums), one from Glen- etive and the other Kilmartin. The parties were closely related ; there Avere but two survivors, who, " overcome by the toils of the conflict, sat down to rest. Entering into conversation, they ascertained that they were relatives." Sliab-an-tuim is the hill called in the maps " Tom Soilleir," on the south side of Loch Melfort. Mr Macdonald's "Acha na'-meann" is described by Mr Hugh Clark, Balliemore, Strachur, as Auchmheadhon below Kilmartin, appearing in the maps as " Bala- meanoch. Middle Town, or Middle Field," according to Mr Clark. The cause of the quarrel is differently stated. The ' Records of Argyle ' say that neither party would ^ Lord Arch. Campbell, p. 304. MACCALLUM. 65 allow the other to pass on the right. Another version io, that it was a point of honour to keep the sunny (deas, south) side of the road. Here we see Stokes' suggestion of the battle at which Crinan fell being " on one road " has traditional sympathy. An account, popular in the district, is given by Mr Peter Macdonald : " The MacCallums were away in a strong body on a creach, and having acquired a lot of plunder, they had divided everything but a cul caise (a bottom of cheese) : each side desired it, while the hardness of the crust made it impossible of division. No one would give the cheese to the other, and to settle the dispute they began to fight, and the battle lasted till eighteen men were killed, when, remembering the trifling matter in dispute, they stopped fighting, and were ever afterwards called " the Race of the Three Score Fools." The story here finishes as if not three score but only one score had been killed. There can be little doubt the idea was to show there were but two survivors. For those to whom the above story is history, it is but fair to mention that by one step further in the ABC the title would read, " Sliochd nan tri fichead curaidh " (" the Race of the Three Score Heroes"), an appellation given on the authority of a MacCalman, a name virtually the same as Mac- Callum and Malcolm.^ 1 R. C. M.'s Notes from various Contributors, pp. 6, 123, "N. C," p. 69. E 66 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. The story of the heel of cheese appears in a sep- arate form, but connected with the same locaHty. The following was recited to Miss E. M. Kerr at Ardrishaig, as frequently told in the reciter's youth in that part of the country : — " A fearful battle was one time fought between two clans at Baile Meadhonach, and a constant feud was kept up ever after. The Bantighearna of one party invited the other to a feast, and arranged that a man of her own people was to sit next each man of the other. She would put before her on the table a ceapach-caise (a little block of cheese), and when she plunged her knife into the cheese, each clansman was to plunge his dirk into the heart of his neighbour. The arrangement was carried out, the feast commenced, but had not gone far when the Bantighearna pierced the cheese, and in a moment every one of her men had his dirk in the heart of the man at his side. Not one was left alive." The plan of this legend is so notorious that it might have remained without special notice had it not been for the "dunt" of cheese and the allusion to Baile Meadhonach. The introduction of the cul caise (kebbock) seems explicable by a form of the name Malcolm which we find in the Macgregor Fine Book, where, among a parcel of Grants mulcted, Donald Oig McConeill YcCoul- challome is amerced in fifty merks.^ 1 Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. xiv. p. 647. MACCALLUM. 67 It seems probable that the proper spelHng should be Mac-gille chalum ; but gille, servant, has become mixed with cill, a church, graveyard, and that with cuil, a recess, and cul, the back, the idea probably being that Malcolm meant the " son of Columcille." A stern philologist assures me "the difference in the sound of the final I and II would prevent any identification even from the popular-view point " (?). There is no use multiplying variants of this MacCallum story. We notice that they met "mid -way," and some of the versions distinctly say that they were going to visit each other, so that the meeting was " by arrangement." Authority has been quoted (p. 50) for Columba's influence over the " fierce ones" of Tay, and the MacCallums are by their name of the family of Columba. One must not make too much of the reckoning by twenties, as that is the natural Gaelic method, but the destruction of all but two suggests a common origin of tradition. It was Crinan who was slain in the eleventh century, and his name apparently has survived in connection with the immediate neighbourhood of this fight. Perchance the Mac- Callum story originates with the slaughter of Crinan, modified in details from an acquaintance by reciters with the Perth incident. The treacherous feast story is so glaringly different in spirit from the chivalrous meeting on the Inch that we must consider it to have originated with a different class of mind ; and even a stranger, 68 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. entirely unconnected with the locahty, will surely admit that the combatants, though described as savages, did their best to maintain the repute of those styled Feara Fortrenn. One would like to think that it was no imported doctrine which made them willing to give each other a fair chance, and we find in Gaelic this idea concisely expressed in the phrase for fair- play, " cothrom na Fienne," given by Armstrong, " cothrom, Fienne, equal com- bat." The expression seems to be peculiar to Alba — at least its use in Irish has not come in the way of the writer. Literally the phrase means " the equity of the Fian." Every student of Gaelic tradition knows that the Fein. Fian, were the followers of Finn mac Cumhail. The sound of mh " is somewhat like v in English, but more feeble and nasal. Sometimes it becomes a vocal sound like a nasal u, and sometimes the articula- tion becomes so feeble as not to be perceived." ^ So the name appears phonetically as " Macoul." Pennant in his ' Tour ' gives us the following in- formation : "A little farther, on a plain, is a small Roman camp, called by the Highlanders Fortingal, or the Fort of the Strangers : them- selves they style 7ia Fian, or descendants of FingaV^ (Finn).^ Fortingall is the next parish to Dullweem. Skene has considered very fully what is known ^ Stewart's Gaelic Grammar, p. 12. 2 Third ed., 1774, vol. i. p. 90. FORTRENN. 69 about " Fortrenn." From the ' Chronicles of the Picts and Scots ' we learn that the people of Fortrenn were spoken of as the Breatnu. Fortrein (Britons of Fortrenn). In the Pictish Chronicle Fortrenn is given as the name of one of the seven sons of the forefather of all Picts, Cruidne. In 683 Ecgfrid, the king of Northumbria, men- tioned by Bede, besieged Dunduirn, at the east end of Loch Earn, the principal stronghold, Skene thinks, of Fortrenn ; but two years afterwards Bredei (Brude) at the battle of Nechtan's Meer entirely defeated and dispersed his army, slaying Ecgfrid himself. After this Fortrenn was spoken of as equivalent to the kingdom of the Picts. We learn that before the battle Ecgfrid had burned Tula Aman, which is mentioned in con- nection with Duin Ollaig. The latter must be Dunolly, and Skene locates Tula " at the mouth of the river Almond where it falls into the Tay." It is hard to see what place Skene meant by this : the most likely identification is with Inchtuthill, the modern Delvin farther up the Tay, in the parish of Caputh. Boece tells us ^ that " the Pichtis, effrayit be cumming of Komanis sa far within thair landis, brint ane riche town, namit Inchecuthil, quilk stude apon the riveir of Tay." Hollinshead, following Boece, says that they burned the city of " Tuline." He adds that " Scotishmen in our time call the place Inchtuthill." We have ^ Fourth Book, chap. xiv. 70 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. at any rate a case in which this place is named without connection with the word inch, the island in the Tay on which it was placed ; and though there is an interval of nine hundred years, we believe Ecgfrid's Tula and Hollinshead's Tuline to be the same. Aman would thus be "of the river," and not " of the Almond." Later than Ecgfrid, between 836 and 839, the Gentiles (Danes) attacked Argyleshire and defeated the " Firu Fortrenn," which shows, says Skene, that at that date the people of Dalriada and the men of Fortrenn were the same. In 1184, during the time of Andrew, Bishop of Caithness, the people of Strathearn and Menteith were still called Men of Fortrenn.^ Their origin will receive further investigation subsequently. Here we may say they are said to be Thracians who joined the Milesians in Germany, married the daughters of Gaelic chieftains [oigtigearn), and " cleared their swordland yonder among the Britons — viz., Magh Fortrein in the first 'place, and Magh Girgin (Angus and Mearns) afterwards^ "^ This means that they were of Grecian extraction and came from Germany, and held part of the Low Country of Scotland by the sword, and subse- quently that low-ground {magh, a field, employed to denominate groups of habitations ^) called of the ^ Skene's Celtic Scotland and Chronicles of the Picts and Scots. ^ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 319. ^ De Joubainville, Les Celtes, pp. 96, 97. DAL-RIADA. 71 Human Dogs (Gwrgian of the Welsh Triads). As the names were in their origin descriptive of people, and not of places, it suffices to point out the general habitat, without seeking after accurate geographical boundaries. These men of Fortrenn were shipmen, and not merely the inland dwellers of central Scotland. The Irish historian Macfirbis gives the following fragment from Gillananaemh MacEgan : " 727. In this year Aengus, king of Fortrenn, gained three battles over Drust, king of Alban. 734. A battle was gained by Aedh Allan, son of Fergal, over Flaithbhertach, son of Loingsech, king of Erin, so that Flaithbhertach brought a fleet out of Fort- renn to assist him against the Cinel Eoghan. The greater part of that fleet was, however, drowned." ^ MacEgan does not here use the word " Fortrean- noibh " (Fortrenners) for the whole of Scotland, because immediately before he draws a distinction between their king Aengus and Drust, king of Alban. In the ' Annals of the Four Masters,' who never mention Fortrenn, this fleet is said to have been drawn from Dal-Kiada (Argyle), maintaining the position of the purely Irish origin of these Western Highlanders. The date they give for the occurrence is 728. Mention has been made of the presence of a saint in the centre of the country occupied by our two clans, Cuthbert at Dullweem. Whether he ever * Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 401. 72 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. was there or not is a matter of small moment for this inquiry. There is another saint connected with the district who will require much greater con- sideration. Dundurn, says Skene, was the principal stronghold of the Men of Fortrenn. The name of this locality now is St Fillans. This was Fillan, the "Stammerer," or "Leper," so called because the Gaelic epithet applied to him may be translated in either way. In the Festology of Angus he is men- tioned as " Foelan Avith that victory, that splendid mute." ^ The Irish account of him is that he was a disciple of Ailbe of Emly in Tipperary, who died in 541, and is said to have sent this Fillan, along with twenty-two others, to Tyle. There are three things we would call attention to in connection with this Tipperary man. " Mugna, a vast tree, the top whereof was as broad as the whole plain. Thrice a-year did it bear fruit, and it remained hidden from the time of the Deluge until the night on which Hundred-Battled Conn was born, and then it was made manifest. Thirty cubits was the girth of that tree, and its height three hundred cubits, Ninnine the poet, however, laid low that tree. As the poet said — ' The yew Mugna, great was the tree, Thirty cubits was its girth : Hidden for a time was it : Three hundred cubits in height.' " 'On the broad north plain' — i.e., on the broad ^ Felire of Oengus, Stokes, p. 95. YEW-TREE. 73 plain in the north — i.e., to the north of Mag n-Allain(?) or populous — i.e., a plain wherein are many peoples — i.e., the plain of Liffey — i.e., on the broad plain in the north — i.e., to the north of Mag n-Ailbe." 1 The first thing: to notice is that St Fillan's tutor and the name of this plain which was in the north are spelt the same. The Liffey is the centre of Ireland, and, looking for this north plain, we un- hesitatingly suggest that for Allan should be read Alban, and that the plain in the north in which this remarkable yew-tree was to be found was in the very locality we are interested in. The only yew-tree that we know will fit is described as follows : " The wonderful yew-tree in the church- yard of Fortingall excites the interest of the most incurious visitor. Pennant states in his ' Tour ' that in 1769 it was fifty- two feet in circumference. Since then it has undergone considerable change — partly through the influence of time, and partly through the injury it suffered from the boys of the village being unhappily allowed to kindle their Beltane fires at the root of it. At that date it showed no sign of the decay of age. . . . The two stems composing its trunk were so close to one another that a schoolboy could hardly press himself through between them. Now they are so far apart that ' a coach and four might pass between them.' Still, the larger stem, which is hollow, is over ' Felire of Oengus, Stokes, p. clxxxii. 74 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. thirty-two feet in circumference. The age of this venerable yew has been the subject of not a little speculation. It has been closely examined by savants in natural science, more especially in the physiology of trees, and more than one of them have come to the conclusion that it has seen from 2400 to 2500 years. ... It must have been six hundred years old when the ambassadors of Au- gustus were received by Metellanus in Dun Geal, and when Pontius Pilate was born. It must have been a goodly sapling when Nebuchadnezzar had his dwelling with the beasts of the field, and was eating grass as oxen, and was wet with the dew of heaven." ^ Dr Marshall scarcely reports Pennant correctly. Pennant says, " The middle part is now decayed to the ground, but within memory was united to the height of three feet ; Captain Camp- bell of Glen-lion having assured me that, when a boy, he has often climbed over, or rode on, the then connecting part." The other two things in connection with this invented "Ail be" is, that he is described as of Emly, "■Imleach denotes land bordering on a lake, and hence a marshy or swampy place ; the root appears to be imeal, a border or ledge. It is a term in pretty common use in names. . . . The most remarkable place whose name is derived from this word is the village of Emly in Tipperary, well known as the ancient see of Saint Ailbhe, one of ^ Historic Scenes in Perthshire, p. 431. FILLAN. 75 the primitive Irish saints. lu the Book of Lismore, and indeed in all the Irish authorities, it is called iTnleach-iubhair, the lake-marsh of the yew-tree." The lake has been drained, it seems. ^ Imleog, the navel; 2 lomlag, the navel.^ The latter transla- tion fits accurately with the central position of the Fortingall yew to Scotland ; or Giraldus's " navel of Ireland," the stone in Meath.^ The third thing we would call attention to is that Fillan was sent by his instructor with twenty- two companions to " Tyle," — " Thule," of course ; but why not Dull, the next parish to Fortingall ? and we have seen an imaginative Tula and Tuline already in the neighbourhood. Of course all this is coincidence ! Well, in addition there is a St Fillan in Strathfillan, twenty-four miles due west of Dundurn. He is said to be a different man from him of Katherran. His mother died in the Lennox ; he himself was connected with Kilmun in " Cowell." Strowan was dedicated to St Fillan, where was a bell of his, Strowan being the country of the Clan Donnachie, the Duncansons of the Haid. Aberdour on the Firth of Forth is also said to have been dedi- cated to St Fillan, and also a cave at Pittenweem. When Csesar invaded Britain there was a Cas- sivellaunus, a king of the Catuvellauni. On an inscription at Petriana on the South Wall we find ^ Joyce, Irish Place-Names, First Series, p. 465. 2 O'Don. O'Reil. 3 High. Soc. Diet. * P. 172. 76 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. this name written in the plural, Catuvellaunorum.^ Coinage is the world's record. We have British coins from about 35 B.C. to 43 a.d. The Mint seems to have been at Camulodunum, and the king who coined them in largest number, Cunobelinus.^ He reigned over the Belgse in Britain, and was undoubtedly much further advanced in civilised arts than the more northerly inhabitants. One of his sons appears on coins with the title " Dubno- vellaunos," which, says Poste, shows that he was the chief of the Dobuni, a tribe whose south- western angle just touched the estuary of the Severn.^ In Gaul we also find the " Vellavii," " Vellavum territorium." Exactly the same name appears in a British inscription erected by Tungrian soldiers, " pagus Vellavus." Gaidoz explains this by the Welsh and Breton gwell, Irish ferr, words which signify " better." " The name of Vellavi, therefore, signifies ' good ' — that is to say, ' power- ful.' From this name the same writer says is de- rived that of the Vellauni.^ These were a people of Provence. We have found them also in Southern Britain, and one of them inscribing himself on the South Wall. The name is also in its more original form found in Gueldres, " Yeluwe," in the middle asjes " Felaowa." ^ ^ Warburton's Roman Wall, p. 91. -' Poste's Gaulish and British Coins, pp. 24, 41. ^ Ibid., p. 33. ^ Revue Celtique, vol. vi. p. 117. ^ Ibid., p. 116. VELAUNUS. 77 W, introduced into Latin about the time of Hadrian, made its form, like its sound, a length- ened = 00, with which we may compare the sound given the name of the letter w = uu. In Welsh the sound of iv is as o in to, ivho. It will thus be seen that Cas-wallawn is Cas-oallaon, with which we can equate the aspirated f of Fillan, appearing phonetically in Gille-Fhillan as L'ellan in Mac- Lellan. Coming to purely British history, after the desertion of the island by regular Roman troops, the classical Cassivellaunos appears as Caswallawn, and Rhys remarks of Vellaunos that it means " something elevated." ^ If kings used this title, so also was it applied to gods. Mercury on an inscription is styled Magniacus Veilaunus,- so that the British Celtic Cossivelaunus would mean "servant of Velaunus," the high one. Caesar informs us that the principal god of the Gauls was Mercury. " They regard him as the inventor of all arts ; they consider him the guide of their journeys and marches, and believe him to have very great influence over the acquisition of gain and mercantile transactions."^ The manufacture of a Christian saint from a heathen divinity is recog- nised business. There is no tv or v in Gaelic, a single f in Welsh has the power of v, and we would expect in Gaelic to find Vellaunus beginning with ^ Hibbert Lectures, p. 7. 2 Kevue Celtique, vol. iv. p. 17. ^ (/ommentaries, vi. 17. 78 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396, /, Fellaunus. In the Irish Lebar Brecc there is a Gaelic edition of the history of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. In this, speaking of the Brahmins, we find the following given as a statement by one of themselves : " Ni chuingem edaige derscaigthe, acht ditin parrdusta do din ar fell" (We desire no splendid clothing, but only the paradisiacal covering for the protection of our feli). But what has Fillan to do with this feli ? In the Antiquarian Museum of Edinburgh is the bell of St Fillan carried off from Glendochart in 1798 and subsequently returned to Scotland. On the handle of it, of a dragonesque design, are, at either side, what are pointed out by the late Bishop Forbes of Brechin as distinct phalli. Now we have seen that the title Vellaunos means "good," "strong," " something elevated," and that St Fillan is very intimately connected with the Men of Fortrenn ; and here let us remark that on these early British coins above mentioned the letter F occurs, accepted as the initial of the word fir, " men," thus, " Cuno- belini Tasciovani F," as much as to say " the money of Cunobeline, the leader of the Fir = men." The crozier (bachul) of St Fillan remained in Glen- dochart under the charge of a family of Dewars, who took it to Canada, and it has also been re- turned to Edinburgh. Now in Langtoft's Chronicle, compiled about the year 1300, speaking of the invasion of Scotland by Edward under the year 1296, we learn : — SCONE. 79 " Thair kings Scet of Scone Es driven ovir doune To London i led. In town herd I telle The baghel and the Belle Ben filched and fled." These were the regaUa of Scone. The meaning of the name of that locality has never been satis- factorily explained. Cunobelinus is apparently compounded of the name Belinus and a title prefix Cuno, also meaning " something elevated." The stem, says Stokes, is cognate with Welsh civn {altitudo), cynu (surgere), and the old Celtic names " Ar^'^mia Ore," &c.-^ It is almost impossible to doubt that this word for altitudo is the important element in the name Sco7ie, the altitudo being possibly the Moot-hill. There was a place called Vellaunodunum, and believing as we do that the king's seat and St Fillan's bell and crosier are all one outfit, to use a slang phrase, the name would fit in well to the original Scone. Philologically, Fillan has been translated as faolan, the little wolf, — a meaning which, except on philological grounds, has little cogency. Curious to say, the term "night-wolf" is applied in Turkish to what ornaments the handle of the saint's bell. Feilio7in is a sea - gull, in Welsh gtvylan. Now in the ' Voyage of Maelc^uin,' a Christianised Maelf/un, an Irish romance of the twelfth century, one of the things the voyagers saw, nearly at the end ^ RevTie Celtique, vol. vi. p. 368. 80 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. of their adventures, was something in the shape of a white bird, which turns out to be a hermit on a rock, "clothed only with the white hair of his body." He had made himself rich as a church- man, but discovering the errors of his ways, he had lived as a solitary upon salmon, whey, and cakes. He it is who gave Maelduin the informa- tion to receive which was the object of his voyage. The romance- writer has taken Fellaun, as if con- nected with feilionn, a gull, as a text to weave into the story, giving it a flavour of reality by using some of the incidents in the life of a certain Magloczmus, believed to be otherwise called Mael- cun, a British king, son of a Caswallon, spoken of as " The Dragon of the Isles " by our first native historian, Gildas. The word Cmi, Cuno, is invari- ably added to the coins bearing the inscription Camulodunum.^ We shall have occasion to speak of the claim to a descent of the inhabitants of Scotland from Northern Greece, and the fact that the native British coinage is an imitation of the staters and tetradrachmes of Macedonia is not without interest. The phallic connection of Fillan is really import- ant, for it goes far to prove his descent from the Mercurius Veilaunus, who as Mercury had " very great influence over the acquisition of gain " ; and we must remember that though there was a coin- age in circulation, cows and female slaves were ^ Poste's Coins, p. 28. URION — URANOS. 81 Gaelic standards of exchange. A bond-maid was cumhcd, and was valued at a certain number of cows, — from three to six ; and in the Irish laws rent and fines were estimated in cumhals. The word is the same as the name of the father Finn, Fionn. It is very easy to see how repro- duction influenced the acquisition of gain. Notice what others have observed in this connection. Orion in Lithuanian story is a blind giant who proposes to drown out the world ; in Slavish he is called Urindus. Here, says Krause,^ " at one stroke we find explanation of all those unappetis- ing stories connecting the explanation of giant names with the product of the kidneys, and point- ing to such as he being a god of floods. For example, Isidor says, " Urion dictus ab urina, id est ab inundatione aquarum." This is not merely Brito-Irish or European ; we find the same myth- stufl" in the Hindu Yaruna, " whose name can be explained as the all-covering, also over-reigning, deity (from var, cover ; vari, water ; varsh, to rain). Uranos directly joins on to this from the Greek uron ; Lat. urina, which was originally the same in meaning as the Sanscrit vari, water. This we see in the name for the ' diver,' Urinator. So Uranos, primarily a water and fertile god, would be elevated to heavenly rank." ^ We find the same fancy connected with the Gaelic mun. We have seen Fillan a successor of Mund\is, ^ Tuisko-Land, p. 169. ^ Ibid., p. 133. F 82 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. of Kilmun, and we have given the story partly of the Eo Mugna {g is guttural, and the word has nothing of "mug," "jug" in it), the widespreading yew. Eo is also a pin, and traditionally is con- nected with " Emania " at Armagh, a certain Macha having founded Emania by marking out the site with her " neck-pin," eo muin.^ Eo is also a salmon, th^Jish of knowledge of the Irish; and the "pa- ternal yew" is still alluded to in "shinty" rhymes in the Scottish Highlands. Finally, a positive proof of the connection between Magna and mun appears in the following story told of Cearbhall, telling his wife of the incidents of the battle of Bealach Mugna. The lady was sitting at the end of the bed, and had the temerity to express pity for the mutilation carried out after the battle on the defeated king and Bishop Cormack. Cearbhall " in a sudden fit of rage struck her so rude a blow with his foot as threw her headlong on the floor, by which her clothes were thrown into disorder in the presence of all the ladies and attendants."- Bealach is "a pass," and no further explanation is needed of this incident in the history of Bealach Mugna. Fillan has even in historical times been considered of importance. Robert Bruce may probably have thought that, after his escape when he lost his brooch in Strathfillan, he owed something to the local patron. He granted the patronage of Killin, dedicated to St Fillan, to the convent of Inchaffray, 1 Materials, p. 71. ^ ibid., p. 133. UNICORN. 83 on condition of a provision for divine service in Strathfillan church.^ Bruce is also mentioned in connection with the Dewars of Fillan's crosier, their enjoyment of the privileges attaching to Its pos- session being — at an Inquest as to them in 1428 — dated from the time of Bruce. ^ In 1487 James III. confirmed these privileges, and in 1488 James IV. had Fillan's bell brought to his coronation, and con- firmed in 1498 Bruce's gift of the five-pound land of Wothtlrtlry (Auchtertyre) to St Fillan's chapel. A capable antiquary expressed the opinion to the writer that what Bishop Forbes described on the bell was not what he supposed, but that the lateral pro- tuberances were the two eyes of the dragonesque handle and the central one its crest. Now it was In the reign of this James IV. that the unicorn first appeared in the royal arms of Scotland in place of the rampant lions previously used. During the reiofn of James V. the unicorn was continued, but during the minority of Mary the lions reappear, thus accentuating the fact that the unicorn was considered appropriate for male royalty. The thistle is also a Scottish emblem. It was worked on a "covering" of purple in the times of James III., but appeared in the royal arms for the first time during the reign of James IV., who affected the bell of Fillan. In France, in the end of the seven- teenth century, " to know which of three or four persons loved one the best, a corresponding number 1 Pro. Soc. Antiq. Scot., 1877, p. 148. 2 ibid., p. 156. 84 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. of thistles should be taken, the buds cut off, and to each plant should be imputed the name of one of the persons concerning whom it was intended to inquire. The thistles were then to be placed under the head of the inquirer's bed, and the one representing the person who had most affec- tion would put forth new buds."^ In Perthshire Gaelic, on the authority of MacAlpine, the thistle is oighionnach. Oigh is a virgin, suggesting some correspondence in the superstitions of France and Perthshire. Skene thinks Cunedda, who is said to have re- tired from Manau Guotodin, the district of Slam- manan, with his eight sons, and to have driven the Scots with great slaughter out of North Wales, did so some years before 414, corresponding with the date of the occupation by the Picts of the territory between the walls on the retiring of the Romans in 409.^ But as it was Mailcun, fourth in descent from Cunedda, who first reigned in the conquered territory — Gwyned — and he was alive in 560 ap- parently, it is clear we have merely a vague traditional dating. Now Nennius tells us that Vortigern permitted Octa, the son of Hengist, about 450 to fight against the Scots, and to allow them to occupy " the countries in the north, near the wall called Gual." ^ " They [Octa's men] sailed round the country of the 1 Hartland, The Legend of Perseus, vol. ii. p. 26. 2 Four Anc. Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 48. ^ Nennius, para 38. OCTA CUNEDDA. 85 Picts, laid waste the Orkneys, and took possession of many regions, even to the Pictish confines," Now the same incident does duty, in a previous paragraph of Nennius (14), for an invasion of Ire- land, after its occupation by the Milesians from Spain. " Last of all came one Hoctor, who con- tinued there, and whose descendants remain there to this day." Octa was accompanied by Ebussa, and as in some MSS. Octa is ^lamhoctoY, this may be a misreading of Ebussa-Octa. Bede says Octa's father was Oisc, from whom were called the Oiscings of Kent ; Hengist was his grandfather. The claim made for their presence in Ireland was because Octa was to fight against the " Scots." Octa's followers were Britons because employed by Vortigern, the British " imperator." The name Cunedds^ is connected, doubtless, with the Cuno of Cunobelinus, and is a title like Vorti- gern, " great prince," both individuals being per- sonification of the commanding positions they occu- pied. A Welsh title with the same meaning is Guledig = imperator. Coming nearer reliable history, we find in Wales a ruler called Cadwallawn, a descendant of Maelcun. He ultimately joined Penda, king of Mercia, and died about 659. His name is another spelling for Catuvellaunus, " eminent in battle " ; but it appears in Nennius as Catguollaun, and Bede spells it Caec?italla. But Tighernac says — speaking of the battle in which Cadwallawn slew the Saxon Edwin 86 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. — that Edwin was slain " a chon rege Britonum et Panta Saxano." Tighernac was translating the wallaivn as if it were what the Manx spell qiialliaii, — the Gael cuilan, " a whelp," and so calls him " Chon," — an oblique case of cu, a dog.^ Bede seems to describe the defeat and death of Caedualla by Oswald at a place he calls Denis's Burn.^ Nennius calls the place Catscaul, probably meaning, as Skene says, cad ys guaul, the " battle at the wall." ^ The fact that the British king there killed is called by Nennius Catgublain, and by Tighernac Cathlon, seems to indicate how one name under various spellings may have seemed evidence of the existence of more than one individual. Com- pare the spelling Cathgublan for Cadwalla with the spelling in the Welsh Chronicle, Etguin for Edwin. If the derivation given for Catscaul is correct — and it can hardly be wrong — we find here the wall appearing as caul, suggesting a derivation of the Gallovidian name now written MacCall, and in Argyleshire MacColl. Vortigern ended his days at Carlisle, at the western end of the South Boman Wall ; while of Cunedda it is said, "pre-eminent is Cunedda before the furrow and the sod." * Nothing can be meant here but the vallum, and as he came from Manau, ^ Four Anc. Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 70. ■" Ecclesiastical History, Bk. III. c. i. 3 Four Anc. Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 71. ^ Ibid., vol. i. p. 257. THE "GUAL." 87 it is the north wall, called gual. Bede says in his day there were evident remains visible : the same may be said now, after an interval of nearly twelve hundred years. Bede says the gual began at a place called in the Pictish tongue " Peanfahel " ^ (wall - head), at present Kinneil. In fahel one seems to find the same root as in Vel of Vellaunus, and undoubtedly a wall is " something- elevated." But as we have Kinneil as a Gaelic-influenced sur- vival of the 2^ecin fahel, so do we also find the word gual for the wall as late as 1623. In that year the commissioners for visitation of the Water of Forth above the Queensferry reported to the Privy Coun- cil that " foiranentis " the " Quhaill Heavin," and Craiginour upon the north side of the channel, and within Craiginour, " thair is some ballast casain be shippis of grite birthe comeing thair for coillis." " Item. . . . that at the pairtis quhair coillis are taen in at Carribdin Brigneise . . . the ground is hurte by casting of ballast." ^ The locality is evi- dently the mouth of the Avon opposite the new naval station. "The Quhaill" as spelt would naturally nowadays be pronounced like the name of Wyntoun's first clan, but it is to be noted that qii in the Privy Council record stands for iv in " where." In the same year we hear of " Quail- sund " in Shetland,^ probably Whale Sound, as it is 1 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. c. xii. ^ Kegister of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. xiii. p. 263. 2 Ibid., vol. xiv. p. 267. 88 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. in the near neighbourhood of " Whalsey," but the interesting thing in the qu spellings is that we have the h in the wrone" word. So far we have drawn on this subject from more or less accepted authorities, Boece no one believes to be more than a folk-lorist, so let us look at it from his point of view. He makes " Coyll " " Coel," fundamental ancestor of the men of the north of non-Roman strain. Coel was descended of the ancient Britons, and in the time of Diocletian (a.d. 284-305) defeated Asclepio- dotus, the Boman prefect of the fleet of Const antius, who really in 296 defeated and slew Allectus, who had slain Carausius, the Menapian, admiral for the defence of Britain. Constantius conquers Coel, but to " mak him consolatioun," as he was " trubilit with gret infirmite cumin be surfet cauld and walking, in his weris aganis the Bomans," continued him in his authority and married his daughter Helene. She was the mother of Constantino, and by some authorities the daughter of an innkeeper. Here, then, we see the prompting of the composer of the song — " Old King Cole was a merry old soul, A merry old soul was he ; He called for his pot, he called for his pipe. He called for his fiddlers three." Ceol is music in Gaelic, and further verses disclose his having a full band. Anyhow, he was seated in the west between the two walls, and gives his name CUMHAL — COYLL. 89 to, or takes it from, Kyle, the central district of Ayrshire. Boece's spelling of the name Cumhal — i.e., Coy 11 — is exactly followed in Hanmer's 'Chronicle of Ireland.' The account of him there given makes him a Dane. He is called Coylle Negoe, son of Trenmore, and Coyle's son was Fin-Fa, alias Fin Mac Coylle. Briefly, the account of these Danes is, that they were hired by the native Irish as a body of mercenaries. The united Irish and Danish forces having destroyed at the battle of Fentra all the foreign enemies of Ireland, coming from Scotland, Cornwall, Normandy, Germany, Spain, and Den- mark, the Danes were placed in forty-two garrisons under the chief command of the son of Coylle. Becoming rich and oppressing the natives, a " set battle," as Hanmer translated the word Ardkath, was fought between the mercenaries and the Irish. The Irish were entirely successful. Fin Mac Coylle, however, was not present, being in Home at the time. In an account of an interview between Fin and the King of Denmark, it transpires that Keyn, Fin's son, slew Feagh, the King of Denmark's son. This incident is evidently the same one in which the Fer-Fi figures, Keyn being Cian. Fin's principal seat was at Baragh-llys in Ulster. In his absence it was destroyed by fire, with Fin's women and all his properties, by a certain Gorre, executed by his own son Hugh by Fin's orders. " The end of Fin Mac Coill," says Hanmer, " was that he died a 90 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. beggar and in great misery. So far out of the Book of Houth." ^ This Book of Houth, we see, connected Fin with Borne, and made him a pro- fessional mercenary soldier, with the entire control of the garrisons of the country, Ireland, because it is Irish history. Now for Fillan. It seems almost a rule of these old romance - writers that if they should wish to utilise a modern fact of which the exact history is wanting, they ascribe their idea of an origin for it to as remote a period as possible. In Boece's day there were Maclellans (Mac-gille-Fhelans) in Gal- loway and MacDougalls in Lorn. Galloway men were " brigantes " to Boece, so he invents a chief- tain of " brigandis," Cadall, who is "admiral" to the King of Scots, and after a successful raid in Ireland, loses more by storm on his return than he had made profit by his expedition, then dies as the chief of Epiak (near Morecamb Bay in Ptolemy), but which some seem to confuse with Epidium, Kintyre ; and when he dies, the king "rais ane huge stane, graven to the quik image of Cadall, upon ane hie mot ; and commandit the pejoill to offer him wine and sens." ^ Peul in Breton, pronounced also pal, j^^^ol, is a stake, pillar, column ; and from it is derived peulvan, a long stone raised perpendicularly like a pillar or stake, a rough column believed to have been an 1 Hanmer's Chronicle of Ireland, ed. 1633, pp. 24-32. 2 Bk. II. c. X. CADWALLANE. 9 1 object of worship in the time of the Druids.^ Wherever Boece got his information, this story of the stone image shows the w, or an equivalent letter, to have been dropped out of Cadall's name. Cadall is more ancient Cadwal, present Cadell, the fuller name of Cadwallane appearing as Cadal- lane, the name of a valiant man, a captain of " brigandis," sent with a " Dowall " of Lorn to assist Cassibilane (Cassivellaunus) against Julius Caesar^ some considerable time after the death of Cadall. Thus we see Cadall was also " something elevated " — a stone image, to whom was offered wine and incense, — a god in fact, Mercurius Vel- launus. To make the story quite clear, Cadallane's son was Caratak — Caractacus of the classical writers. Mercury, Mercurius Vellaunus, was, by his votaries as above quoted, considered " the guide of their journeys and marches." ^ Legonidec's Breton Die, s.v. - Bk. III. c. ii. 92 CHAPTER IV. In 296 Eumenius speaks of the Picts, and says they were, with the Hiberni, the only enemies of the Britons before JuHus Caesar.^ This is the first mention of them, and the name used, seeing Eumenius is speaking of what he can have known nothing about — pre-JuHan British enemies — merely expressed the, at his day, foes of the provincial Britons. Sixty-eight years later, 364, Picts, Scots, and Attacots were roaming over different parts of the country, and it was an excusable deduction to consider that the people mentioned alongside the Picts — in the one case Hiberni, in the other Scoti — were the same people. Five years after this, 369, the territory between the two walls was resettled and styled Valentia. The inhabitants would then be Boman citizens. About this very time, in the latter half of the fourth century, we have in Vegetius a solid fact referring us to the name Picts. He says the Britons had scout-boats, which 1 Guest, Origines Celticse, vol. ii. p. 29. PICT^. 93 they called " Pictae." " By these it is customary to make surprisals of the enemies' vessels and to intercept their supplies, and by a careful look-out to discover their approach and object. But lest these scout - boats should be betrayed by their white hue, the sails and ropes are dyed of an azure colour resembling the waves of the sea, and even the wax with which it is customary to be- smear the vessels is stained. The sailors also or soldiers wear blue clothes, so that not only by night, but also by day, they may the more easily escape notice when on the look-out." ^ Compare with Yegetius's statement the following, which Ammianus Marcellinus tells of Theodosius's arrangements for the pacification of Valenim,, and recall that the name for the boats, " Pictse," was a British name. *' The Areani, a class of men in- stituted in former times, and of whom we have already made some mention in recording the acts of Constans, had now gradually fallen into bad practices, for which Theodosius removed them from their stations. In fact, they had been undeniably convicted of yielding to the temptation of the great rewards which were given and promised them, so as to have continually betrayed to the barbarians what was done among us. For their business was to traverse vast districts and report to our generals the warlike movements of the 1 De re Mil., 4. 37. 94 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. neighbouring nations." ^ Peithio, Welsh, " to scout." Peeikear, Manx, "a spy," "a scout." What does this removal from their stations imply? These scouts were evidently in friendly relation to the enemy. They would almost cer- tainly be inclined to continue this relation ; and if their removal included expulsion, we can easily see how the Pictse were employed against, and had a quarrel with, the Roman authority. The name Areani suggests Ares, Mars. It has been suggested, however, as a transcriber's error. Giles reads the name " Areani," ^ meaning " secret agent." We here recall the fact that the first Irish -Gael credited with settling in Argyle were sons of Ere. Ere is undoubtedly used for Hercules in Irish history, and Ogmius, of whom we shall have to speak, was the Gaulish Hercules. Taliessin speaks of Picts as Piethwyr, scout-men. In Latin inscriptions we find these Areani calling themselves " explorers." Fourteen miles north of the south wall was found an inscription mention- ing " Duplares Numeri Exploratorum Bremenii," Duplares being apparently what would be called in military German "Ersatz" reserves, "of the band of scouts of Bremenium."^ These men were then stationed within the walls while the active portion of them would probably be nearer the 1 Amniianus Marcellinus, Bk. XXIII., c. iii. p. 8. 2 Hist. Anc. Brit., vol. i. p. 324. ^ Camden's Britannia, p. 802. C AR AUSIUS — A LLECTUS. 9 5 front. They must have been a selected force, with an intimate knowledge of the natives, and it is not improbable that they were to be classed as " tame Britons." Mention has been made (p. 88) of Boece's notice of Asclepiodotus, the Boman admiral who defeated Allectus the year before the name Pict first ap- peared in history. Carausius's command was a coast - g-uard one against the Saxons. Allectus quarelled with and slew him, to be in his turn defeated and slain by a Boman prefect of the fleet, showing: that we have to do with a sea- going force on both sides. Eumenius, describing the slain followers of Carausius and Allectus, says, " Those barbarians, ivhether really or cqoparently so, who once blazed with gay {cultu) garments and length of hair, were then defiled with blood and dust, and lay scattered in different directions as the anguish of their wounds had driven them." Eumenius was an orator : he knew they dyed their clothes, and he made the most of it. What has come down to us of the Picts from the classical authors, their commentators and copy- ists, seems explained by the existence of the "Pictse" and "Explorator" corps of the Boman frontier and their relations with the central authority. We learn from Vegetius that in his day, circa 385, the Boman soldiery were themselves tatooed as a sign that they were admitted members of 96 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. military bodies. Vegetius advises that recruits be not tatooed with the devices — "punctis signorum inscribendus est " — until proved to be strong enough for the service.^ In fact, they should not till approved by experience be "sealed" as soldiers. When the custom began must be a matter of surmise ; but Allectus's dying " Picts " were prob- ably "sealed" soldiers. The word signum used does not necessarily imply that it was something borne as a standard. It might be equally applied to the sign of a soldier of Mithra, a religious system widely spread and fully proved to have been common in Roman Britain. Mention has been made of Ogmios, the Gaulish Hercules. There is also an Oghmic alphabet, of which there are many remains in coast districts in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Any one with a knife could write it on wood, and it was equally easily inscribed on stones. Zeuss says : "The Celtic peoples had also a writing of their own before these letters (the Roman alphabet) were handed over from the Romans, the name of Ogmios, a god of the Gauls, seems to testify, who is called the one who presides over speech, even now preserved among the Irish, to whom Ogma ( = Ogmios) is the in- ventor of writing. Ogam (Ogham, Oghum) the proper kind of that old writing itself, and found both in the old inscriptions of stones, and known to the writers of our codices of the ninth century. 1 King, Gnostics and their Remains, p. 431. EARLY ALPHABETS. 97 Among the Welsh also old forms of letters circu- lated, like the Scandinavian runes, suitable for carv- ing on wood or stone, as the alphabet of Nemnivus, or what are called coelhren y heirdd, alphabet of the bards, to which are opposed coelhren y menach^ alphabet of the monks or Koman alphabet ; whence it may be gathered that figures for shrubs, or like the small branches of trees or shrubs, of which description are the Scandinavian runes, have been taken by the Irish bards, because they gave the names of shrubs or trees, to the individual figures of letters, from which the alphabet has been called heth (birch), luis (mountain-ash), nin (nion ash)." " Coelbrenn," says Zeuss, " is ' lignum memorise,' as coalfaen is ' lapis memorise ' — ' stick ' and ' stone ' of memorial. But is not this coelhren, also the name for the individual letters, equivalent to the word buchstah, the staff of a book — i.e., a letter ? " ^ The German use of twigs of a fruit-tree for the purpose of divination, as mentioned by Tacitus in the ' Man- ners,' has influenced this form of alphabet. Inscriptions in this alphabet are in considerable numbers, and we only propose to look at it from a folk-lore point of view. By drawing a furrow with a knife on any piece of wood, and by making notches across or to one side of this furrow, or, in stones especially, using an angle instead of the furrow or stem line, a short inscription could be at once made, easily legible, which would not be the ^ Zeuss, Gram. Celtica, pp. 1, 2. G 98 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. case If, under equally unprepared circumstances, the attempt were made to write the Roman alphabet. In O'Curry's ' Materials,' quoting from the Book of Leinster, he tells a story how, about the year 400, Core, son of Lughaidh, king of Munster, was forced to fly to Feradach, king of Scotland. By chance he there first met Gruibne, the king's poet, who, while examining his shield, detected an Ogham on it, which he told the prince was to the efiect that if it was by day he arrived at the court of Feradach, his head should be cut off before evening, and if at night, it should be cut off before morning.^ This tale is quoted not as history, but merely to give an idea of the use to which Ogham was supposed to be put. The existing Oghmic inscriptions are, by a vast majority, sepulchral. The Nemnivus, mentioned in the quotation from Zeuss, cannot have invented the alphabet attrib- uted to him in the ninth century.^ The interesting thing in this name is that it is evidently connected with the Nemed said to have settled in Ireland in the year of the world 2850, and to have defeated the Fomorians in 2859, while Neminoius appears as protecting Brittany from the Norse. Both names are connected with the word for a " grove," and the Fomorians (" under sea") were, like the Northmen, invaders by sea. There was, according to Tacitus, a nation of Nemetes inhabiting the bank of the 1 Materials, p. 469. - Rhys, Lectures on Welsh Philology, p. 359. ST FILLAN. 99 Rhine at Spires. The individual is an invention, personating possibly the inventors of this alphabet, called after the names of trees. The ^a^avian name reads hoat-msin to the Gael — hata, a boat : Bad, Welsh. The name from the Greek applied to, at any rate, a portion of them — Canninefates. Can- nenufates gives a suggestion of their connection with the use of plants for signs, and of the " cora- cles" so aifectionately introduced in history as the only boats of our Scoto-Pict ancestors : Kouva, kolvvt), a reed, or anything made from reeds ; dTL<;, a say- ing, an oracle ; and v(j>d(o, I weave. Broadly stated, our contention is that the subjec- tive ideas impersonated in Velaunus, carried north into what was latterly Valentia, have passed through the sayings and writings of the people to our own time under the guise of Fillan (Felan, Faolan, &c.), made by the church historians a saint, by story-makers a warrior of the Fian. Is there any asserted connection between either of our clans and Fillan ? In a collection of blazons preserved in the Lyon Office, made by Joseph Stacie, a Scottish herald who died in 1687, not, however, as part of the original MS., but as a later addition by a different hand, is the following entry : " M'lagan, a branch of the M'Cleland, or, two chevrons sahle within a bordure of the last. Crest, a morter-piece. Motto, Superha Frango." This is the oldest, so to say, historical statement 100 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. of a connection with any other clan. Though the spelhng of the name is "M'lagan," the punning crest shows the authority for this as having spelt his name with two c's or with a c and a k (Macklagan). Change the vowels, and you have Muckle-gun, the " morter - piece." The rather pretentious motto shows Jacobite predilections. David MacClagan, who died of old age in Edinburgh in 1766, and is said to have been engaged in the troubles of 1715, was the originator. His wife being a north of Eng- land Kerr, makes it almost certain that he was oi Borlum's command, and crossed with the Angus and other men at the mouth of the Forth, and so penetrated to England. His grandson, David Maclagan, M.D. — he changed the spelling — added three martlets to the arms from the coat of arms of the Smeatons, his mother's family, and made the bordure green. " The professors of astronomy and medicine wore green as a symbol of learning, and as being the colour of the clothing of nature." To show the orthodox derivation of the name M'Cleland, we cannot do better than quote Mac- bain's ' Gaelic Dictionary ' : " Maclellan, G. M'Gill- fhaolain, M. G. M'Gillelan (D. of L.), Gillafaelan (1467 MS.), St Fillan's slave, E. Ir. Faelan, O. Ir. Failan, from, fail, now faol, wolf Hence GilJiUan." Gille - fhaolain is the exact equivalent of Cas- wallan, and we find the name, as we should expect, though in its Gaelic guise, in the country of the Britons of Strathclyde, in the Clelands of Cleland. CLELAND — DOUGLAS. 101 Their location is the parish of Both well, " on a rock overhanging the South Calder, in which there is a remarkable cave." ^ The name is spelt also Kneland, Creland, &c. But that "Fillan" was a tradition in the Deanery of Butherglen, in which is Both well, is proved by the parish name of Kelenan, Kilhelan, Kylhelan, Kyllinan in Strathgryfe. An inscription on the bell of the old church, long in ruins, men- tioned the dedication to Fillan, not Finnan. Near the church was a large stone, called St Fillan's chair ; close to it his well, with curative virtues for sick children. A fair was held on St Fillan's day in January. ^ The writer being, on the spindle side, great-grand- son of William Cleland of Cleland, has some ac- quaintance with their traditions. They are credited with being hereditary foresters to the Earls of " Douglas," a name itself in Gaelic form, Cuglass — grey dog — showing a possible derivation from Faolan, taken as meaning wolf, a derivation sup- ported by the name " Sholto," which, used as a Christian name, commemorates the sagacity {scolt- achd) of the traditional ancestry. The book-plate of Cleland shows on the coat of arms a greyhound with a hunting-horn round its neck, the supporters being also greyhounds. The connection of our two clans with dogs must be subsequently considered in detail, but here we may mention that some Mac- lagans have assumed as a crest a running grey- ^ Origines Parochiales, vol. i. p. 55. - Ibid., vol. i. p. 81. 102 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. hound. The connection between Arthur and dogs, as preserved in tradition, appears in the story of " Arthur and Gorlagon," contained in a late fourteenth century MS., written in Latin, and translated by W. F. A. Milne in ' Folk -Lore,' vol. XV. p. 40, annotated by Alfred Nutt. Arthur's Queen sends him on a quest, the object of which was to fathom the nature and heart of woman. Such information as Arthur gets he receives from Gorlagon, who, by the treachery of his wife, had been turned into a wolf. In the tale Gorlagon appears as, in the first place, three kings of separate territories, Arthur being referred from one to the other as better able than the one he was addressing to give him the information he desired. The names applied to these three kings are Gargol, Torleil, and finally Gorlagon. If refer- ence is made to the list of Maclagan spellings, it will be seen that the name appears there, under the year 1738, as M.cKlagon — a small matter in itself, but, remembering that Arthur's informant had passed a considerable part of his life as wolf, in- terest awakens when we analyse the name. Gor, the first element in it, Nutt tells us in a note, is the Latin vir, in its Welsh form gtvr, " a man." Of this there can be little doubt, which makes it identical with the For of the i^ortrennibh. If the name were Gaelic, and here we differ from the other conclusions drawn in the note, it would seem to express phonetically in its second and third elements DOGS. 103 leth, a half; cu, gen. coin, a dog, — lethchoin, a half- dog. We have the same words in Welsh — lied, in part, partly, a half ; in composition lledryiv, mongrel ; ci, plu. mvn, a dog, dogs. We might expect this name to appear in Gaelic as Fearlethchoin, and a nominative form might have been made for it, Fearlethchu : we make no attempt to imitate archaic Gaelic spelling. The difficulty in Welsh is, that the last syllable of Gorlagon would cer- tainly appear to represent the plural of ci ; but does not this account for making Gorlagon more than one individual ? so that grammatically the first syllable of the name should stand, not for " man " but for " men," givyr. In a folk-tale a too anxious inquiring into grammatical forms was, probably, far from the habit of the reciter. The forms Gargol and Torleil — the latter should perhaps be Gorleil — may have been derivatives formed from the letters of the first two syllables of Gorlagon. Gargol is very clearly this. That the inquirer should be passed on through a trinity of instructors is no peculiarity of this story. We suggest, then, that Gorlagon was accepted as meaning "man-half-dog" and " men-half-dogs," the former accounting for the individual in chief, the latter including the three. No doubt when the word cu is applied to a wolf, it is generally qualified by the term " wild," cu-cdlaidh, a wolf; but we are entitled to assume, surely, that in a case such as this the word " wild " would be dropped. As to the spellings Gorlagon and Mac- 104 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. lagon — if we regard the names we find in the old Irish romances, there seems no reason at all why a man should not have been called " son of the half dog " : it is no more unlikely a name than that given to Lugaidh — viz., Mac-na-tri-con, Son of the three dogs ; and the father of Mac-leth-choin would neces- sarily be Man-half-dog. 105 CHAPTER V. Who were those who first inhabited what we miofht now define as Gaelic Scotland and Ireland? Before the Roman occupation of Britain certain names were applied to them which have been sub- jects of conjecture without much solid result. The term "conjecture" may be applied to much to be advanced of post-Roman history and tradition, but we propose to point out a chain of circumstance still further proving that the Roman occupants of North Britain have influenced the Gaelic-speaking tribes both in fact and in their traditions. The first Highland chieftain we know of was he called by Tacitus Galgacus. Colgach, Gael. = fierce, martial ; prickly, bearded (?). Boece calls him " Galdus." He applies his proper name to Galdus's opponent, Agricola. No doubt for his own purposes Tacitus puts into the mouth of Galgacus a stirring denunciation of the Roman invaders. The first thing we call attention to is, that he says these are " Gauls and Germans, and, I blush to say it, even Britons." These nationalities, then, 106 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. were those which, as Roman troops and occupiers of North Britain would, if they left descendants, influence the future local population. The state- ments that " the Komans have no wives to animate them," that " most of them have no home or a distant one," and " our wives and sisters are pol- luted under names of friendship and hospitality," leave no doubt that this was so, or at any rate that the statement was a possible one. It has already been pointed out how tradition confirms this as a probability in the case of those showing respect for Vellaunus, originally among the Belgae, — that is, Gauls, — and subsequently among the Britons. The specific Germans of the Boman army alluded to by Tacitus-Galgacus clearly appear in the account of the battle following the quoted oration, fought somewhere northward of Fife. Far the most probable suggestion for the identi- fication of this locality we owe to Mr Anscombe, who says : " Mons Graupius (with ra : : ar). This ancient crux in the ' Agricola ' of Tacitus appears to me to be simply Guparius — i.e., Cupar in Fife." The only question that occurs in connection with this is, whether it is not more likely to be Coupar- Angus, seven miles from which is Bamff, two miles north of Alyth, to both of which place-names atten- tion will subsequently be called.^ The fight had been a distant one when Agricola ^ Zeitschrift fur Celtische Philologie, vol. iv. p. 463. BOXERS. 107 " encouraged three Batavian and two Tungrian cohorts to fall in and come to close quarters, a method of fighting familiar to those veteran sol- diers. . . . When the Batavians, therefore, began to redouble their blows, to strike with the bosses of their shields, and mangle the faces of the enemy, and, bearing down all those who resisted them on the plain, were advancing their line up the ascent, the other cohorts, fired with ardour and emulation, joined in the charge, and overthrew all who came in their way." ^ When we recall the fact that in the ancient boxing contests the closed fist was not used naked, still less mitigated in its severity by a padded covering, but armed, so as to mangle where the blows with it were struck, Tacitus's account here refers us at once to the Greek word ttvktt;?, " a boxer." The hollow boss of the shield, a lighter shield than the four-foot board of the legionary, took the place of the ccestus, the ancient knuckle- duster. Whatever may be advanced against this on grammatical or other grounds, the name Pict in the signification of a boxer accurately fits with Tacitus's description of the method of fighting of the conquerors at Mons Grampius. In after-time those having connection by heredity with the in- vaders would naturally incline to claim a connec- tion with the oldest and most distinguished of them. First, then, let us look at what history tells us 1 Life of Agricola, cc. xxxii., xxxvi. 108 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. of the Batavi. " These were formerly a tribe of the Catti, who, on account of an intestine division, removed to their present settlements, in order to become a part of the Koman Empire." They were, of the German peoples, " the most famed for valour," " whose territories comprised but a small part of the banks of the Rhine, but consist chiefly of an island within it." ^ Before appearing in North Britain, these Batavians had made their mark in Roman history. They are said to have decided the battle of Pharsalia in favour of Julius Csesar, B.C. 48, by which he became virtually "Master of the Known World." This fact is important as giving them a high claim in the government of the world at large, and also a claim to a connection with Greece and with Thrace, as Ovid tells us in the Metamorphoses. "It is cer- tain this battle was fought at Philippi of Thrace " (xv. 823). Their importance was all the greater that they had the honour of forming the Praetorian guard. They had a knowledge of ships ; and we see this in the story of Ganascus, chief of the Chauci, himself of Batavian origin, who, deserting the Romans, became a pirate ; and of Civilis, the Batavian chief who, 68 a.d., with the Canninefates, who dwelt in the same islands at the mouth of the Rhine, and a deserting cohort of the Tungri, defeated the Romans on their bank of the Rhine. Hearing of his successes, veterans of the Batavians ^ Manners of the Germans, c. xxix. CATTI. 109 and Canninefates on their march to Italy mutinied, and returned to his assistance. So, reinforced after attacking the Roman forces and taking the oath to Vespasian, but finally casting off pretence of Roman allegiance, he had many successes against them, but was finally beaten by Cerealis in the year 70. On p. 95 we have mentioned that Allectus's men are specially stated to have long hair. We recog- nise by this their connection with Germany, but especially with the Catti and the Batavians. Taci- tus tells us : "A custom followed among the other German nations only by a few individuals, of more daring spirit than the rest, is adopted by general consent among the Catti. From the time they arrive at years of maturity they let their hair and beard grow, and do not divest themselves of this votive badge, the promise of valour, till they have slain an enemy. Over blood and spoils they un- veil the countenance, and proclaim that they have at length paid the debt of existence, and have proved themselves worthy of their country and parents. The cowardly and effeminate continue in their squalid disguise." ^ The statement here would lead us to suppose that with the death of the first foe the hitherto unshorn locks would be removed. When we learn, however, that Civilis only cut off his hair when he had per- formed his vow of enmity against the Romans, it is ^ Manners of the Germans, c. xxxi. 110 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. clear, looking at the character of the man, that it was not only the cowardly or the effeminate who would be seen as men of some age in this " squalid diso;uise." To consider the Tungri, the other specially dis- tinguished followers of Agricola in the battle of Mons Grampius. As we have already seen, their relations with the Batavians were close and of some standing. Their history in brief is this. Tacitus aives a few names of tribes called after the sons of Mannus, son of Tuisto, son of the Earth, from whom sprang the Germanic peoples. He then says : " The name Germania is recent and but lately given to the country, for those who first passed the Rhine and drove out the Galli, and are now called the Tungri, were then called Germani ; and the name by degrees prevailed as that of the people and not merely as that of the tribe, so that all were called by the newly invented name, which was used first by the conquering tribe on account of the terror it excited, and afterwards by the people themselves.^ They were Belgic Gauls from the neighbourhood of the modern Tongres in the Nether- lands, otherwise called Aduatuca Tungrorum, their Belgic name being " Eburones," from a Gaulish eburos, " the yew-tree," a word frequently appear- ing in composition, Ehuro - hriga, now Avrolles, Eburo-dunam, Yverdon, &c.^ The importance of ^ Guest, Origines Celticre, vol. i. p. 386. ^ De Joubainville, Les Celtes, p. 51. NAMES OF IRELAND. Ill this is evident in connection with that of the yew- tree in our traditions. Only eight years after their pacification by Cerealis was fought the battle of Mons Grampius. The Batavians, while well accus- tomed to the management of boats, were also horse- men. They " in their own country maintained a chosen body of cavalry, so remarkably expert in swimming, that in whole squadrons, with their arms and keeping hold of their horses, they could make good their way across the Rhine." ^ " Ubicunque vicit Romanus habitat." This saying is amply justified in the case of the Batavians and Tungrians. Inscriptions of the latter occur at Cramond, at Pol- mont, in the North, at Cambeck and Petriana and Borcovicus on the South Wall, and in the next station to this last, Carrawburgh, was stationed the first cohort of Batavians. Inscriptions make certain that both cohorts of Tungrians were granted Roman citizenship as a reward of meritorious service. Un- doubtedly they and the Batavians were distinguished inhabitants of the region within the walls. For the early names of Ireland we take Keating as our authority. He says : " The first name which was given to Ireland was ' Inis na bhfiodhbhadh ' [pronounce ' Fiova '] — that is to say, ' Island of the Woods ' ; and the person who called that name to it was a warrior of the people of Nin, son of Bel, who came from him to spy out Ireland, and on his comino: thither he found it to be all one forest- 1 Tacitus's History, Bk. IV. c. xii. 112 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. wood except Magh-n-ealta alone." The second Gaelic name is localised as Moynalty, between Dublin and Howth, and means "the plain of the herd." The warrior's name is taken from the Old Testament. The interesting thing is this, that on looking at the map of the British Islands from the Latin Ptolemy there is no indication of woodland in Ireland, while the centre of modern Scotland is occupied by the black mass of the Caledonia silva. No doubt there were woods in Ireland, but the Island of the Woods, on looking at probably this most ancient map, would be appropriate not to Ireland but to North Britain. Fibh, meaning Fife, is good enough as a derivation from a folk-story point of view. But within the walls themselves, are not Selkirk and Ettrick " the Forest " to the present day ? Keating's next name for it is " ' Crioch na bhfui- neadhach,' from its being at the limit or end of the three divisions of the world which had then been discovered ; ' fuin ' indeed, from the Latin word finis ^ being equivalent to 'end.'" If we examine the Latin Ptolemy, "Ibernia" is indeed in the farthest corner of the map of the world, and for what it is worth, the name " Finis Terrse " is as applicable to Ireland as to any island. Keating's third name is " Inis Ealga" — that is, "Noble Island"; "for 'inis' and 'oilean' are equivalent, and likewise ' ealga ' and ' uasal,' and it is during the time of the Firbolg it was usual to INCHES — ISLANDS. 113 have that name on it." The "nobility" was a dignity claimed for the Firbolg. " Inis " is connected with the Latin insula, and this seems specially the case in its modern Scottish equivalent " inch," as in Inch of Perth. Insula was not only an island, a portion of land surrounded with water, but it was also applied to enclosures within walls. Plautus speaks of the " fustitudinas ferricrepinas insulas," the " Inches fetter-clattering of the cudgelled," a penitentiary in fact.^ It was also applied to the various dwellings of a tenement house, and was the name of a portion of Syracuse reached by a bridge over a narrow intruding arm of the sea. It might therefore be, and in fact was, applied to that portion of Britain enclosed within the north and south walls. Britain makes first claim to the title of " the Island of the Mighty," Ynys y cedyrn. The district restricted name, Firu Fortrenn, is its equivalent. Keating, however, seems to be translating freely when he says, " ealga, noble ; ealadha is skill, science, handicraft." The fourth name for Ireland is " Eire." There can be no doubt that this is correct enough. Keat- ing makes various suggestions to explain this name, and one of them is that it was that of a queen of the Tuatha De Danann, a daughter of Dealbhaoth, who was wife of Mac Greine, called Ceathur — that is, daughter of " rude (foolish ?) representation," wife 1 Lewis and Short, s.v. Fustitudinus. H 114 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. of " Macgrelne 'c eathur," son of sun, son of boat. He was a kinof of Ireland when the sons of Mileadh (miles, soldier) came to it. The fifth name is also that of a queen of the Tuatha De, " Fodhla." She was the wife of Mac Cecht, who with the above Ceathur was one of three synchronous kings of Ireland, the third being called Mac Cuil. Ce, Greek = Gaelic domnan, the earth, the globe, and curiously we find in North Uist that " clach mhor a' che" is supposed to be a monument (big stone) dedicated to a pagan deity named Ce.^ Compare with this our translation of Dealbhaoth. Mac Cecht had a second name also, Teathur. In Scottish Gaelic te is applied to females, but this, according to O'Reilly, is not the case in Irish, so the name will be "he of the boat." To make this a little more diagrammatic — Eathar, boat. Ceathar, son of boat. Teathar, he of boat. Mac Cuil, Mac Greine, son of the sun (from the East ?). Mac Cecht, son of the world one. So much for the husbands ; but to return to Mac Cecht's wife, Fodhla. This term appears in the well-known Scottish name of Athole, "Ath Fodhla," the ford of Fodhla. But Fodhla is translatable. Faodhail, s.f., a hollow in the sand, formed by, and retaining water after, the egress of the tide.^ Ath 1 High. Soc. Diet., s.v. Ce. ^ Ibid-, s.v. ATHOLE — BANFF. 115 faodhaile, the ford through such a hollow. The name, of course, is applied to a district in Perth- shire ; but supposing any one acquainted with the situation of Antonine's Wall, between the indenta- tions of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, to have had imagination enough to suppose the sea to have receded at that situation, we have an ath fodhla, the passage of the hollow left by the egress of the tide. The sixth name was " Banbha," queen of the third of our synchronous Tuatha De kings. Banabh is in Gaelic a young pig, in Welsh hanw, a farrow pig ; but there is also the verb hatiu, to raise, erect ; hanon, s.f , lofty one, queen. There is an individual common to the history of all the Celtic inhabitants of the British Isles. In Welsh he is Hu Gadarn (Hugh the Mighty), evidently the same as Hu Mor (Hugh the Great), who, with his Firbolg, raised the cyclopean fortifications on the west of Ireland, The name is generally spelled in Scotland Aedh, from whom doubtless are called the Mackays of Strathnaver, in that part of Scotland inhabited by Catti, Caithness, afterwards called Sutherland. Aed is "fire," hu "pervading." The Welsh tell us that this Hu first brought the Cymry into Britain from the land of Hav (summer) called Defrobani, where Constantinople now stands, and they passed over the Mor Tawch, the " hazy sea," which was on the east of Britain, to Llydaw, *' water-side" : compare " Leith " on the Forth, 116 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. where they remained.^ Hu had two oxen, who drew a certain avanc, " beaver, crocodile, an animal living in water (foetus ?), from the lake." The peculiarity of these oxen, ychen, was that they were hanawg, " elevating." They are associated with music, and we hear of the cainc yr ychen hanawg, "the branch of the elevating (yoke of) oxen." ^ Compare what Burns says of his ploughman — - " I hae three ousen in my plough, Three better ne'er plough'd ground, Jo ; The foremost ox is lang and sma', The twa are plump and round, Jo." ^ We have no hesitation in saying that this branch is the same as the Ulster Craebh ruadh, " the red branch," the most celebrated knight of which was Conall Cearnach, in which name appears the con, cun, " elevated," already mentioned ; and Cearnach is the same word as kedyrn, gadarn, ceatharn, from Latin caterva, a troop of soldiers, " especially of the loose order of barbarous nations." De Joubainville identifies Conall Cearnach and Cuchulainn as Dios- curi under the Gaulish names of Cernunnos and Smertullos respectively, saying that Cernunnos, which means " he who has horns," is the counter- part of the Irish surname Cernach borne by the epic hero Conall Cernach.^ This doubtless is so in 1 Welsh Triads. Davies, Celtic Research, vol. i. p. 154. " Celtic Research, vol. ii. p. 129. 3 Merry Songs and Ballads, vol. i. p. 270. < Les Celtes, 1904, p. 60. MUICINIS — PIG ISLAND. 117 fact, but there can be almost no doubt that those who wrote the name in our Irish Hterature looked upon Cernach as the equivalent of ceatharnach , " soldier," " hero," and we see above what they made of the horn. The Irish " branch " was also associated with music. ^ " Banbha," said to be applied to Ireland, is at any rate a county in Pictish Scotland, Banff, and a place in Perthshire, and, so far as the writer knows, does not occur in Ireland. The connection of " pigs " with our subject will be considered later in detail ; suffice it here to say that the eighth name for Ireland, according to Keating, is "Muicinis." Keating explains that this name was given by the sons of Mileadh, because on arriving at a place now called Loch- garman the Tuatha De practised magic, so that the island was not visible to them but in the likeness of a pig, one translation of the name Muicinis being " pig island." The name of the loch is itself suggestive of a foreign landing and of the foreigners who landed. There was an Armoricain saint, Germain, sometime bishop of the Isle of Man, about 447. " He it is who is called in Irish texts Mo-Garman or Mo- gorman, by others Garmon or Gorman." His mother, curious to say, is called Liamain, and said to have been sister of St Patrick.^ ^ O'Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. iii. p. 380. * Eevue Celtique, vol. xxiv. p. 328. 118 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Muich-inis, Isle of Mist, has been suggested,^ so we may compare this story with the Welsh "misty sea " on the east of Britain. We do not claim any speciality in fog for either locality, but Tacitus informs his readers that the sky in Britain is " de- formed by clouds and frequent rains." ^ The original Gaedhil, from whom the people were called Gael, was son of Niul (oieul, a cloud). To return to the seventh name — viz., " Inis Fail." This is also a Tuatha De name, and called from a stone, the Lia Fail, and our historian quotes two lines from an old poet, Keneth O'Hartagan — " The stone which is under my two heels, from it is named Inisfail ; Between two shores of a mighty flood, the plain of Fal on all Ireland." O'Hartagan says that "fail" has to do with stone, and that it is between two shores of a mighty flood. Ireland is as accurately described if we say between four shores of a mighty flood ; but as we have pointed out in the case of Fodhla, in Scotland we have a locality much more accurately described as between tivo portions of the sea. And what does Bede say of this locality ? That there is there erected "a rampart of extraordinary breadth and height, there are evident remains to be seen at this day. It begins at about two miles' distance from the monastery of Abercurnig on the west [Abercorn ' Keating, David Corny n, History of Ireland, vol. i. p. 103. ^ Agricola, c. xii. NAMES OF IRELAND. 119 on the Forth], at a place called in the Pictish language, Fesm-fahel, but in the English tongue Penneltun, and, running to the westward, ends near the city Alcluith." Bede's fahel is evidently "wall"; Pean-fahel, '' Wall-head." ^ Nennius, speaking of the wall from Tyne to Sol- way, says of it, "It is called in the British language Gwal." ^ Inis Fail describes Lowland Scotland and Northumberland, let any one say as they like. Keating gives us a tenth name " Hibernia," as an eleventh name " luernia," as a twelfth name "Irin," and a thirteenth name " Irlanda." These are ad- mitted without dispute, nor, at this point, with consideration of the derivations advanced. As a fourteenth he claims for it the classical name "Ogygia": Ogygia moenia — i.e., the Walls of Thebes, the god of which city seems to have been Bacchus ; and we shall have something to say of the traces of festivity connected with the original Inis Fail. We have left to the end Keating's ninth name, " Scotia." He said it was given by the sons of Mileadh from their mother Scota, daughter of Pharaoh " Nectonibus." This name is interesting, as Nectan is a Royal Pictish name, not Scottish, and it was at Dun Nechtain (Dunnichen) that Brude in 686 defeated and slew Ecfrid, the Saxon king, who seemed almost to have settled himself, 1 Ecclesiastical History, Bk. I. c. xii. 2 History of the Britons, par. 23. 120 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. even north of Forth. There were three Egyptian kings called in Greek " Nectanabis," and a fabulous story of the last of the three, who, B.C. 360, success- fully fought Artaxerxes III. by his two Greek generals, makes out that he came to Macedonia, and was father of Alexander the Great, and a magician. In this story we see the origin of the clan name MacNaughton, and have a suggestion of the early period at which the name Scot was de- rived from Greek, and, like other Pictish names, was made that of a noble female, to accord with genealogy being counted through females. We learn from Hesychius, who died in 434, that Venus was worshipped in Egypt under the title of Scotia.^ Scota is, as it were, manufactured out of Scotia, which is not an Egyptian name, but a Greek word meaning " darkness "; so that when it is said Goidel Glass, " blue Gael," the forefather of all the Gael, was son of " Scotia," it is equivalent to saying he was the " son of darkness." ''^KOTio^,'' says Damm, "ad tenebras pertinens"; pertaining to darkness, furtive, occult. " %k6tiov Se eyeivaro iJirJT7)p — i.e., e/c \a0paLa<; /xt^ew?, ex furtivo concubitu" (but the mother brought forth an ille- gitimate son from furtive intercourse), which others call e^ aSaBovxOTou ydfJLCjv, " from illegitimate nup- tials " (from d, not ; 9(cu, to have ; Sat?, a torch — i.e., not to have a torch, ol cr/cdrtot those are therefore called whose parents have evidently not ^ Inman, Ancient Faiths, vol. ii. p. 382. SCOTS. 121 had connection for the sake of procreating children, but secretly and in darkness."^ The above informa- tion is not, however, complete, for the name Skotlol was, in Crete, applied to boys before the age of manhood, who were so called because to that time they, when at home, lived in the /xv^o?, or women's apartments. St Jerome puts the worst interpretation on this condition of matters among the Scots and Attacots when he tells us "the nation of the Scots have not wives peculiar to each [man], and, as if they had chosen the policy of Plato, and followed the example of Cato, there is no proper marriage-bond, but as if it were allowed for each [man] lasciviunt, after the manner of cattle." He further speaks sarcastically, and suggests that Christian catechu- mens " may have promiscuous wives and common children, after the Scottish and Attacotish rite, and after the Republic of Plato." But the name is not peculiar to the British Isles. It is met with as the designation of an individual in Belgic Gaul. Zeuss remarks that both forms, Scotti and Scoti (with long o), are used by Latin writers. " This double form is encountered also among Gaulish names, in which, among the names of potters coming from Bavai, French Flanders, we have the derivative Scotius, presupposing a primi- tive Scotus ; and another fragment of pottery found near Aldenkirchen, in the district of Cob- 1 Damm's Greek Lexicon, s.v. 122 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. lentz on the Rhine, has produced Scottiin — that is to say, Scotti m{anu)} manufactured by Scot." Both of these potters were manufacturing for Roman use, and one of them at any rate was using the Latin tongue. We may accept as cer- tain that they were not of Latin race, and surely it is equally probable that the name in their case, as in that of their namesakes of Britain, originated in the same way ; and moreover they make their appearance in a German and a Belgian locality, as we should expect if the Scot was a descendant of the Roman invaders of North Britain, or of their kith and kin. One of the most interesting facts, if our deduc- tions are to be accepted, is that the ascription of matriarchy, as if peculiar to the Pict, has been evolved in a subsequent period to the origin of the name. That Gaelic should come to be called Scotica lingua is simply to say that it was the mother tongue of those called Scots. 1 Gaidoz, Eevue Celtique, vol. ii. p. 257. 123 CHAPTER VI. Attention has been called to the settlement in Gwynedd, Venedotia, in North Wales, from the neighbourhood of the east end of the North Wall. This brings us to consider the claim advanced of the inhabitants in the neighbourhood of Fortingall to be what Pennant called " the descendants of Fingall," the Fene. How near Zeuss was to some conclusion such as here stated is clear from his note in the author's preface to the ' Grammatica.' He quotes from Patrick's hymn, referring to the third name, Feni, applied to the Gael, and the Scots, " Pridchais tri fichte bliadan croich crist dothuataib fene " (Patrick preached the Cross of Christ threescore years to the peoples of the Fenians). He then says, " Clan na Scot, clan na Fened (sons of the Scots, of the Veneti), names which at first in Ireland were applied to strangers. This form Fened, if it is right (otherwise Fene, Feme, so it is read ; but compare 0' Donovan, feinne, a hero : o sruit-linntih fola na h-Jeinniod, from the streams of the blood of the heroes),^ is ' Keatintr's History. 124 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. to be compared with the Welsh Gtvy^aedd, and Venedotia." The following statement by O'Kearney in the * Transactions of the Ossianic Society ' is worth repeating, as showing the duties of the Fene as they appeared to an Irishman who had studied this question : " The Fenian forces seem to have been hirelings in the beginning of their career, but subsequently became very powerful. . . . Almost all writers agree in making the Fenians a regular military force, possessed of vast privileges, and, in consequence, bound to defend the island from in- vasion." ^ It is not necessary here to follow out their Irish distribution, but we may say, knowing what we do of the organisation of a comparatively barbaric people, the idea in the third century of a native organised defensive militia in Ireland, with all its petty divisions, is ludicrous. On the other hand, over St George's Channel there was in the early Christian centuries a perfected organisation existing, such as never was again till a standing army was called into being many hundred years later. That Galloway should make a claim to contain Fened, we should expect. We give a very modern local account of them. '* There's the Fingauls, they'r a lot o' clever-looking fallas too ; maist verra lang and weel-made, wi' lang faces, strecht noses and blue een, an wunnerfu feet for size. They'r 1 Vol. i. p. 32. THE FENE. 125 maistly fair-hairt, or licht-broon, an the lassies Is verra boiinie whun they'r young, but after they'r twunty they get verra coorse-lookin'. They'r com- monest in Saterness, Co'en, Borgue, Whithern, and Kirkmaiden." ^ The name Fened, Venet, was common among seafaring people. The first of historical import- ance were the Yeneti, from the vicinity of the Loire, the name being continued in La Vendee, and Vannes in Brittany. Caesar speaks with appre- ciation of their iron-bolted ships and chain cables. The Veneti between the Adige and Piave, who founded Venice and its famed naval power, have shed most honour on the name. There were Veneti in the vicinity of Lyons con- nected with the Rhone. The Wends who in the fifth century were in Saxony, on the right bank of the Elbe, are styled Venedi. These last, in the time of Tacitus, called by him " Fenni," were a barbarous, poverty-stricken people, dependent on their bone - headed arrows for skin coverings to their nakedness, living without agriculture, and without constructed shelter other than that afforded by interlaced branches. The British Venedotia, Gwyned, seems to have been so called after Caesar's Veneti, because there is a district " Lloegria " spoken of in its vicinity, and generally considered as embracing England if not otherwise named, and its inhabitants Lloegrians 1 De Bruce Trotter, Galloway Gossip, p. 181. 126 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. (Lloegrwys), a descriptive title with the name of the Loire as its base. The explanation of the adoption or application of the name Veneti seems to be shown in the adjective venetus, sea - coloured, bluish. In the E-oman chariot -races, where, as in modern racing, the competitors were distinguished by various colours, we find a /actio veneta, the party clothed in blue : Venetus, one of the blue faction. Thus we see that the Venedotians were as blue as Goidel Glass himself, or as the blue boatmen of the Picti, and no doubt were boatmen themselves. Those from whom the Gaelic Fene stories have been developed were shipmen. There really can be no doubt that the historic Finn, if we can apply such a title to one whose name itself is an in- vention, was the British " Augustus," Carausius, slain in 293 by Allectus. The Annals of Inisfallen give the date of Finn's death 283.^ ' The Four Masters' date is 286; but the name of the "fisherman" who slew Finn really settles the date and the historical reference. The Inisfallen Annals call him " Athlach " (pronounce Ahlach), and 'The Four Masters' " Aichleach," which they considered, no doubt, an improvement on the simpler form, just as they give the name of Athlach's father as Duibhdreann for the Inisfallen form Dubhrenn. Duhhan, Manx dooan, a hook, in Gaelic, which accounts for the making of 1 Ossianic Soc. Trans., vol. iv. p. xxxi. VENETI. 127 Allectus a " fisherman." But whence come the hooks ? Caesar tells us that the ships of the Veneti were expressly constructed for use in shoal - water, as were the scout-boats called Pictse, — and we may remember that La Vendee is in Poitou, Pictavia of Gaul,— but were at the same time so high above the Roman vessels that the sailors of the latter could not efficiently cast their missiles on those of the former. But, says Caesar, " one thing provided by our men was of great service — sharp hooks inserted into and fastened upon poles, of a form not unlike the hooks used in attackinof town walls." •'^ Here, then, we have the history of the fishing - poles that slew Finn. These hooks also appear in the traditions of the attacks made by the Picts on the defenders on the North Wall, a story of course originated when the Pict was supposed to be a native as opposed to a Roman defender. There is an Oghmic inscription which, taken in connection with what is above said of Athlach, might lead one to suppose that Allectus himself is commemorated in that script. The inscription is, according to Stewart Macalister, " Luguni loc id maqi Alloto," the interpretation given being, " Of Lugunis the grave it ; of the son of Allot-". This inscription is from the near neighbourhood of Kenmare, in Kerry. The name Lugun occurs in 1 Gallic War, Bk. III., cc. iii., xiv. 128 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Meath and in Waterford, and Alloto, also Allato, is " recoofnised as a characteristic name of the dis- trict" (Kerry). For what the remark is worth, this name Lugun follows the track of the Deissi. In discussing the construction Macalister doubts the word "loc" being a loan from the Latin locus, because it is in a situation far removed from Latin influence. The same word occurs near Truro in Cornwall, where the same objection does not, it is said, hold g;ood.^ A consideration of the stories as they have come down to us points to a move- ment from the west of modern Lowland Scotland across to Ireland, with settlements in Meath, then in Waterford and Kerry, bringing us to Munster, the possession of Oilioll Oluim, and of Lugaidh and the combatants in the battle of Magh Mucruimhe, and some remains of Latin influence seem no way unlikely. In the St Clement's stone at Truro, the word Jlli takes the place of maqi on the Kenmare stone, which certainly goes to prove that there was more Latin in Cornwall than in Munster. We dare to think that Allectus, Alloto, and Athlach, the "fisherman" who slew Finn, are the same name. The name of Allectus's father has not been pre- served. In tradition, as we see, he is " son of hooks " ; and so we might find the defenders of the frontier made "sons of wall," ')nic gual. It must not be assumed that the inserted r in the 1 Stewart Macalister, Studies in Irish Epigraphy, vol. ii. p. 122 CARAUSIUS. 129 name of the supposititious father of Allectus is overlooked. Mac giial is the same " with a difference," as heralds would say, when spelt Cumhal ; so Duhhain is, in like case, when spelled Duhhrenn. Marketable history could not be manu- factured without attention to such detail. We have stated that Finn's name is an inven- tion. The name of the personality Finn seems formed from fened, much as if one called the king - fish which appears in Gaelic folk - lore Sal, because he was leader of the Salmonidae. A short account of Carausius is essential to understanding the position here taken up. Max- imianus, to repress the outrages of the pirate Franks who were devastating the coasts of Western Europe, equipped a naval force at Boulogne and gave the command of it to a man born in Menapia, probably the district of that name between the Scheldt and Meuse, — a Batavian, therefore. This man, Carausius, had been bred a pilot, and had distinguished himself as a soldier. Maximianus gave orders that he should be slain, because his increasing wealth laid him open to the suspicion of permitting the pirates to ravage the coasts, and when full of treasure Carausius ravaged them. But the admiral was beforehand with the superior authorities : he constructed new galleys, formed alliances with the barbarians, whom he carefully disciplined as sailors, and thus soon became master of the Western seas. Having gained over I 130 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the troops in Britain, he established himself there. He assumed the title of " Augustus," and in a coinage which he struck inscribed himself as the equal of the two other "Augusti" — Diocletian and Maximianus. From the year 287 for six years he maintained his authority, when Constantius, coming into power, seized Boulogne, and made preparation for a descent upon Britain. At this time Carausius was murdered by his chief officer, the Allectus mentioned above. For the history-makers to speak of Carausius by his own name would not have suited their purpose, but we find traces of it in story. In Welsh, carw is a " hart," a " stag " ; and we consider it probable that the wild fawn w^hich drew off the host for the assistance of Mac Erca to kill Luirig, and of which fawn Luirig had said, " I think more of the power of the pet wild fawn Cairnech has than of his own power, or the power of the Lord God whom he adores." ^ We admit the date of Mac Erca is put in the sixth century. The Welsh verb caru, to love, — caru amare, libidinose amare, caraim, I love, — in Gaelic has played a much more prominent part in fixing the characteristics of Finn. The outstand- ing peculiarity of this leader of the Fene was his possession of knowledge acquired by putting his finger in his mouth. We need hardly recall to any reader who is not afraid to use the critical sense the esoteric meaning of the Tree of Knowledge parable. ^ The Irish Nennius, Additions, p. 183. FINN — GWION. 131 Find is white, fessa find is white knowledge ; find is also an individual hair ; finda, hair, a fleece. Tacitus's Fermi had for only coverings the skins of animals. In Gaelic story Finn is a giant some- times, and here apparently the word caw7\ Welsh, a giant, has influenced the story ; while in Welsh story itself he appears as Avagddu, son of Ceridwen, who, because he was ugly, resolved " to boil a cauldron of inspiration and science for her son, that his reception might be honourable because of his knowledge of the mysteries of the future state of the world." She gives charge of the boiling of this cauldron to Gwion Bach, a dwarf, who happens to taste it first, and so gets the knowledge. The mother of Avagddu pursues Gwion, swallows him, and in due course brings him forth. She casts him into the sea on the last day of April, and on the first day of May he is found in a fishing weir. He had been confined in a leather bag, and his name Avagddu has undoubtedly connection with the avanc drawn out of a lake by the elevating oxen of Hu. Anyhow, this child becomes Talie- sin — i.e., " radiant brow " — chief of the bards of the West, and a prophet.^ The Welsh Taliesin seems to be in Irish Tigern- mas, Beautiful Lord. De Joubainville reads this as properly Tigern Bais, Lord of Death. ^ This, which seems probably correct, suggests the possibility of ' Guest, The Mabinogion, vol. iii. p. 356. " Le Cycle Mythologique Irlandais, p. Ill, 132 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the first part of the Welsh name having been deall, " understanding," and not tal, " the forehead " : "bright intellect" would at any rate accord fully better with the characteristics ascribed to the bard than a mere physical peculiarity. There can be little doubt of what Tigernmas, to retain the usual spelling, was an impersonation. He introduced the worship of Cromm Cruach, " Bent of the Hill." Cruach means "a heap," apparently something raised, as it is applied to a corn-stack, peat-stack, &c., but the name of course appears in the well- known large hill Ben Cruachan. Cru, gore, has led to the translation of this name as the " bent bloody," or perhaps "blood-coloured." The place of Crom's service was the Mag Slechta, the Plain of Stooping, Kneeling, accepted of course as adoration. This object of worship is more generally considered as connected with life than with death ; but it is quite in accordance with Biblical tradition that either name should be applicable, as death resulted in the Biblical narrative by the mutual acquisition of knowledge. His festival was Samhain, Hallow E'en, and if we refer to Burns we see the nature of that celebration. According to the Books of Lecan and Ballymote, dyed clothes were first intro- duced by Tigernmas, which, however, may be merely a statement to justify his name as having an eye to beauty. The " white knowledge," fessa find, or, as it might be translated, " knowledge of Finn," re- MUNGO. 133 ceives further elucidation in the story of Fear- char leigh, Farquhar the Leech. The root of this name is fear, " a inan." Being engaged cooking a white snake in a pot with hazel-sticks, scald- ing his finger with the steam, he puts it in his mouth, and so acquires special knowledge as a renovator of men. He is said to have been a Beaton, a name supposed to correspond with that of Macbeth, son of life. Why hazel-sticks to cook with ? It has been pointed out that Fillan was with Mundus at Kil- Tnun ; Fillan's mother's name was Kentigerna. There is another saint with an allied name, Mungo ; his other designation is Kentigern, Head Lord. Mungo's mother was Taneu, which is in Welsh, fires, or, fire with a female termination ; the Gaelic is teine, and so she is also called Thenew. She was daughter of Leudonus, Lothian. Set adrift in an open boat because pregnant, she landed in Fife, and was rescued by St Serf — cervus, a stag ; cariv, a stag (Carausius). Joceline tells us that each of Serf's disciples had in turn for a week to keep a fire constantly burning. Mungo's co-disciples, to play him a trick, extinguished all the fires, so that he could not get a light ; but by prayer fire was given him from heaven in a green " hazel " branch. In Welsh celli, celliivig is a hazel-grove ; in Brittany kelvez is a hazel branch ; kelen, instruction ; in Welsh celf is mystery, art, craft, while celff is a stock, a pillar ; celeffinio, to grow stiff, to dry up. 134 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. In Brittany, as in Wales/ when a woman refused an offer of marriage, she presented the rejected with a branch of " hazel." Thus we see the connection of hazel with knowledge, and also the sort of know- ledge. Mungo leaves Serf, who, following him, desiring him to remain, was persuading him to return, but this was prevented by a stream running between them. Mungo then goes to Glasgow, called Cathures, and thereafter to Wales. His further connection with Hu, U, Aed, fire, and his elevating oxen, is shown in the following passage from a bard of the twelfth century, who, however, calls him Bangu : — " The two oxen of Dewi, two of distinguished honour, Put their necks under the car of the lofty one ; The two oxen of Dewi, majestic were they, With equal pace they moved to the festival. When they hastened in conducting the sacred boon to Glascwn [the green valley], The three dignified ones were not sluggish. The amiable Bangu was left behind bearing his chain, And the two others with their huge bulk arrived in Brechinia." "^ Before stopping consideration of the accounts of Mungo, the locality in which he got fire from heaven in " a green hazel branch " has a peculiar signifi- cance. It was in the district subsequently called Fibh. This name is connected with the Gaelic Jlodh, meaning, according to O'Donovan O'Heilly, " a wood, a wilderness, a letter, a tree, s.f. the ^ Davies, Celtic Research, vol. i. p. 252. ^ Ibid., vol. ii. p. 141. FIFE. 135 rods of a sieve " ; reference being made to Jiohh apparently as an alternate spelling. Fiodh and Jiohh are not sounds interchangeable : the latter only resembles the name Fife, Fib. But we have found them combined in the name invented for Ireland, p. 111. That they were sufficiently close to form the groundwork of traditional history ap- pears in the following: "Labraid Liiath lam ar claideh,'' Swift Hand on Sword, also called " Moen," " Maen," and also " Labhraidh loingseach " ; Moen appearing as a smith, and as one who spoke in the first hours of his life, and Maen in Welsh meaning "a stone"; while Lahhraidh is connected with lahhair, Gaelic, " to speak," loingseach means " the sailor." He ascended the throne of Ireland a.m. 4659, according to ' The Four Masters.' This king got Cuchulainn to visit him, and to assist him against a people who "derived their origin from Britain," and were called the "Men of Fidga," On the other hand, the Book of Leinster spells this name " Fidba " — that is, as near as need be, Fife.-^ It appears from Keating that Labhraidh, though, of course, an Irishman by extraction, came to Ire- land from France with a force of 2200 men, who brought with them a kind of broad -headed lance called laighne, and from this Leinster got its name of Laighin, having been formerly called Gailian.^ Consider along with this the information given us 1 Ehys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 641, 342. 2 Annals of the Four Masters, vol. i. p. 76, note e. 13G THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. by Suetonius. Domitian " slew Sallustius Lucullus, prsefect of Britain, because he had allowed lanceas (spears) of a new form to be called Lucullian." ^ The names lanceas is supposed to be of Celtic origin, so perhaps some may think that Lucullus adopted a Leinster form of lance. Domitian reigned from 81 A.D. to 96. Fife was the country of Tacitus, Boresti, Horesti. Is this a Greek descriptive name ? It might be connected with jSopeas, ^operjq, ^oprj<;, the north wind, or from ^opio), to bear, to carry, the " carriers," " the habitual bearers," of something. To judge from their subsequent description, it was not clothes. In the year 206 we first hear of the people living in Serf's district, with whom Mungo was at the time as Matarat. Xiphiline locates them exactly. " The two most considerable bodies of the people of that island, and to which almost all the rest relate, are the Caledonians and the Maeata?. The latter dwell near the great wall that separates the island in two parts, the others live beyond them. Both of them dwell upon barren uncultivated mountains, or in desert marshy plains, where they have neither walls nor towns nor manured lands, but feed upon the milk of their flocks, what they get by hunting, and some wild fruits. They never eat fish, though they have great plenty of them. They have no houses, but tents, where they live naked." ^ They 1 Giles, History of Ancient Britons, vol. ii. p. 95. ^ Cayzer, Britannia, p. 75. CALEDONIANS. 137 had popular government, and fought in chariots, as did Agricola's opponents, which is a difficult statement to accept, looking to the nature of their country. We further learn " when they are in the woods they feed upon roots and leaves. They make a certain food that so admirably supports the spirits, that when they have taken the quantity of a bean, they feel no more hunger or thirst. This is the manner of livinof among: the inhabitants of Britain." ^ The wall here mentioned must be Hadrian's Wall, and the probabilities undoubtedly are in favour of the two names meaning respectively plains-men, from Gaelic magh, Welsh mai (pronounce moy), " a plain," and coeledd, " groves " ; Gaelic coille, "a wood," woodsmen. The Caledonians in this way would be those beyond Antonine's Wall, and therefore include the men of Fife. Herodian's account of them adds : " They adorn their necks and flanks with iron rings, to which, as an ornament, they attach as much value as other nations do to gold ; they puncture their bodies with figures of all sorts of animals, which is one reason why they have not adopted the use of clothing." ^ If we look back to the stories told by sailors and other travellers of foreign and bar- barous races a century or two ago, and notice how they accept uncritically all sorts of statements, we hesitate to accept the stories of early Britain with- out a large quantity of salt. ^ Cayzer, Biitannia, p. 76. 2 Giles's History of Ancient Britons, vol. i. p. 2.37. 138 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. From whom are these historians likely to have got their stories but from Batavians and Tungrians and suchlike ? Now, it is curious to notice that in the Walloon language inaie, the name of the month of May, is applied to a tree planted on the 1st of May, and more generally to a branch cut with its green leaves, and of which use is made to ornament the fronts of dwellings. Mdie, £, are the meshes of a net (rings of mail, the spots on a part- ridge's wing), and miaite is a ring put through a pig's nose. We have mentioned Mercury as chief god of the Gauls, not under that name, of course, and Mercury is associated in many monuments with the name of a goddess E,osmerta. "E-osmerta" should be the earth fecundated by the rays of the sun. The name Kosmerta is, as it were, " the well-beloved," whether in the sense of wife of the god or in the sense of mother of men ; in fact, this goddess bears in certain monuments another name — niaia, synonymous with mother y ^ This Gaulish llosmerta is, in fact, the equivalent of the Hertha, the Earth, the ancestress of Mannus and Tuisto, and of the Teutones and Cimbri. About half a century after the Maeatse the Picts make their appearance, and in 368 these were divided into Dicaledones and Vecturiones, and at this time also appears the Attacotti. A year after this was the settlement of Valentia to the north wall. Knowing that in Agricola's day, if 1 De Joubainville, Revue Celtique, vol. ii. p. 124. VERTURIONES — M ^ AT.t. 139 we are to accept the statement of Tacitus that the inhabitants had shown an inclination to adopt Roman civilisation, the view we would support is that the stories of naked men and utter savagery, if accurate, refer to the past, and we now are dealino- with a mixed race more or less influenced by Roman civilisation, but no doubt retaining native traditions. The second name of the Picts, Vec- turiones, seems to the folk-lorist to be a compound of velio, I carry, and turio, the young branch of a tree. Another reading of the name is Verturiones, but ver is " spring," " the productions of spring," " a special offering presented from the firstlings of spring" — say, the young branch of a tree. In the Irish and Pictish additions to ' The Historia Britonum ' we are told that the Picts, there called Cruithnigh, came from the land of Thrace, and that they were called Agathirsi ; that, going to Ireland (!), the king got them to drive out the Tuatha Fidhbha (pronounced Fiva). With this name Agathirsi we seem to come in contact with the ' AyaOoepyol of Sparta, "the oldest and most approved knights, who went on foreign missions for the State," a good deal like what we have been told were the functions of the Exploratores ; but the name may have been confounded with Ovpcro^, the Latin thyrsus, turio, already mentioned, the wand wreathed in ivy and carried by the devotees of Bacchus. The name Maeatse still survives in Adamnan's ' Life of Columba,' two of the Scotic king Aidan's 140 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. sons being slain by the Miathi, and the third in Saxonia. The names are probably mere fable, like the rest of the story, but introduced as local colour, and to give age to the narrative. In Wales, on the other hand, in one of the poems of the ' Book of Taliessin,' the Picts are styled " Y Cath Vreith." " The Cat Yreith of a strange language is troubled from the ford of Taradyr to Port Wygir in Mona." The ford of Tarrador is across the river Carron, near Falkirk. This is evi- dently the Cat - Bregion of the fiftieth section of Nennius. It is also spelt Cathbregyon and Cath- regonnum.^ Skene has identified " Brecheinawg " ( = Brecknock) as applied to a district about Edin- burgh, Eiddyn (but compare Csivriden, at the west end of Antonine's Wall) as the district of the Cat- bregion. Braich, pi. hreichiau, Welsh, is an arm, a branch, a verse, spelt in old MSS., according to Zeuss, hreich. Cath is a tribe, a battalion, in Gaelic, but as it is connected with the Latin caterva, a troop, it seems equally Welsh, and we consider Cat-bregion as a name for the " branch - bearers." They are spoken of in connection with Cadwallan, who ascended the throne of Venedotia, North Wales, in 617. But we find traces of the same traditions in South Wales called Dimetia, from which certain sons of Liethali, also called the sons of Bethoun, were driven out by Caswallan, who came, through his forefather, Cunedda, from Manand ^ Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. pp. 57, 106. THE TALKING STONE. 141 in Lothian. Bethoun is undoubtedly connected with heath, Hfe. The latter part of the name Liethali, there can scarcely be any doubt, is the Greek daWoq, " a young shoot," " an olive-shoot carried by sup- pliants"; the first part may be the word \aa?, "a stone (Xt^os), especially stones thrown by warriors," its secondary meaning " a rock, a crag." Aatat are the stones used to keep the threads of the warp straight in an upright loom, for which there is a false reading, Xea. This looks a little forced, but it is supported by what Giraldus Cambrensis tells us in his ' Conquest of Ireland,' and in his ' Itinerary ' ^ of the Lechlavar. He describes it as a beautiful piece of marble, ten feet in length, six in breadth, and one in thickness, serving as a bridge over the river Alun, dividing the cemetery from the north side of the church. He then tells us that when a corpse was being carried over it, it broke forth into speech, and by the effort cracked in the middle, adding that on account of this ancient superstition corpses are no more carried over it. This account is introduced because a woman, for a fancied slight by the king in not giving immediate attention to a petition presented, cried out in Welsh, " Kevenge us this day, Lechlavar ! " Of course the stone never spoke, but we may compare this story with the crying out ascribed to the Lia Fail when the legiti- mate king stood on it. Llecli is a flat stone in Welsh, and llafur, "tillage," "corn," in South ^ Conquest, c. xxxvii. ; Itinerary, vol. ii. c. i. 142 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Wales, so that we find in Dimetia traces of the same superstitious belief with which we have cred- ited the Mseatse. In Adamnan's ' Life of St Columba ' he in- forms us that when he visited the monastery of Clon (Clonmacnoise), all from the fields about the monastery set off with one consent to meet St Columba, as an angel of the Lord, " and with all reverence they kissed him, and raising their voices in hymns and praises, they conduct him with all honour to the church, and tying together a canopy of poles {de lignis pyramidem), they had it borne by four men walking in pairs around the saint as he walked." The historian tells us that this was to save him from being crowded. Dr Stokes, in ' Ire- land and the Celtic Church,' says of this that the monks, " forming in procession, carried him into the monastery under a canopy of branches." ^ Dr Stokes's explanation of the ceremony seems quite justified. The name of this monastery seems to be " the sequestered place of the sons of Nos," a word meaning "noble." Nos is said to have been a son of Fiadhach (pronounce Feeagh), a chief of the tribe of Dealbh-na-Eathra (figure of the boat). From Adamnan to Shakespeare is a jump, but in three lines we will meet the Son of Life (Macbeth), the son of the servant of Colum, Columba (Mal- colm), and a place called Dunsinane — 1 Second ed., p. 127. BIRNAM WOOD. 143 " Macbeth. Bring me no more reports ; let them fly all : Till Birnam wood remove to Dunsinane, I cannot taint with fear. What's the boy Malcolm ? "^ It is hard to say what dun, "heap," "hill," "fort- ress," Shakespeare had m view, but seu7i is "a charm," " prosperity," provincially written sian, which again is "a pile of grass," also "a storm." When Colmuba made his visit to Clonmacnoise, the name of the king was Aedh, to which we have frequently alluded as meaning "fire." In Scottish him is " to burn," so the Birnam Wood is connected with fire. Of course the " moving wood " is Mal- colm's army with boughs, the servants of Columba carrying their covering of boughs, as mentioned at Clonmacnoise. Let us for a moment go a good deal farther back in Gaelic history. " In the age of the world 2530. In this vear the first battle was foug'ht in Ireland — i.e., Cical Grigenchosach, son of Goll, son of Garbh, of the Fomorians, and his mother, came into Ire- land, eight hundred in number, so that a battle was fought between them and Parthalon's people at Sleamhnai-Maighe-Ithe, where the Fomorians were defeated by Parthalon, so that they were all slain. This is called the battle of Magh-Ithe."^ In the " Leabhar Gabhaala" and in Keating we find that the leader and his mother, Lot Luaimneach, had been in Ireland before Parthalon. Hhys informs us that this Cical was of the race of U the Great, ^ Macbeth, Act V. scene 3. - Annals of the Four Masters. 144 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. " and his followers have been described as not men, but demons and monsters with one hand and foot each." ^ The names are interesting. The mother's name, Lot, compare with Lothian and Leudonus, already given ; luaimneach is "leaping," "fickle," &c. Cisel, Cisal, is a Gaelic name applied to the devil,^ and Cical's connection with U ( = Aedh), fire, is easily explained if the names Cical and Cisel are the same. Boece seems to have availed himself of the same legend when he tells how E,ew- ther, king of Scots, with Gethus, king of Picts, who had been " doung out of Albion," invaded Britain 204 years before the Incarnation, and re- covered from Sysyll, Sisill, king of Britons, at Bethirdaill, " al the strenthis, landis, and townis pertening to the Scottis and Pichtis.^ Whatever the meaning of Cical, the rest of his name reads simply enough, — Grig, Greek ; en, one ; chosach, footed ; son of GoU, Gaul (?); son of Garhh, " rough"; but Goll, son of Garbh, was one of the Feen during the early age of Christianity. 1 Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 1886, p. 583. 2 Archiv. fiir Celtische Lexikographe, vol. ii. p. 375. 3 Boece, Bk. II. c. ix. 145 CHAPTER VII. Ammianus Marcellinus is the first to mention the Attacotti, and calls them " a very warlike nation," hellicosa natio. This was in 368. In Ceesar's ' Gallic War ' he mentions a people called Aduatuci, in some editions more preferably spelt Atuatici. This people retired to a town having on all sides high rocks and precipices, and aj)- proached only on one side by a gentle slope 200 feet wide, which they had fortified with a very lofty double wall, with sharpened stakes upon it. He says they were descended from the Cimbri and Teutones. Csesar besieged them, then granted them terms, which they broke, and, attempting to attack him by a surprise, he mentions their using wicker-work shields covered with skins. They were completely defeated, and the day after their defeat Csesar entered the town and sold the whole spoil of it. " The number of 53,000 persons was reported to him by those who had bought them." ^ On p. 110 we have shown how they were the original 1 Gallic War, vol. ii. cc. xxix.-xxxiii. K 146 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Germans, in subsequent history styled Tungri. Cerealis, who pacified them in Agricola's time, repeats their connection with the Cimbri and Teutones, and the deeds of these Tungrians and their occupation of the walls and the district be- tween them has been pointed out. It would seem at first a little peculiar that Ammianus should speak of the Attacots as a merely local people, when they had so distinguished a history behind them. We account for this by the Tungrian name having, from a historical point of view, intervened, but their origin was not forgot, or perhaps it was looked up and revived. Four hundred years from Caesar's day to the date of their appearance as given by Marcellinus is a big slice in a people's history. This has, no doubt, influence, and may still prove enough to convince that such an identi- fication classes the writer as one of" our charlatans, who, as I have seen more than once of late, repeat the absurd old notion which identifies the Atecotti with the Aitheach Tuatha." ^ The brief summary of the recorded traditional origin of the Tungri shows that they were descend- ants of Tuisto — i.e., Teutones — and of Mannus, son of the Earth. They were the original Germani, possibly meaning " one of the host," — heer, schaar, a host, army ; and ma7i, a man, one, — and the first to cross the Rhine and drive out the Gauls. Than this lineage, as given by Tacitus, none ^ Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, p. 594, note. ATTACOTS. 147 could well be older ; and when we find that, on good authority, Atecotti means perantiqui, " most ancient," ^ — a Celtic name from ate, de plus, and kottos (old Celtic), coth (Cornish), koz (Breton), "old," — the designation seems most ap- posite, and their warlike propensities are well attested. But there is another startling peculiarity of the Attacots with which we are brouo^ht face to face. Jerome, born about 333, and the authority for the very unmarried account of the Scots, tells us : " What shall I say concerning the other nations, when I myself as a young man have seen in Gaul the Attacots, a nation of Britain, eating human flesh ; and when they find through the woods herds of swine and cattle, they are accustomed to cut oft" the buttocks of the shepherds and breasts of the women, and that they consider these alone as delicacies of food." Jerome is undoubtedly re- tailing a traditional story, though one might fancy that he had seen them indulging in rump steak of " long pig." The origin of this is well explained in the ' Bevue Celtique,' in a paper by Fustel de Coulanges. Pliny, born a.d. 23, tells us that in the year of Bome 657, about a century B.C., a decree of the Boman Senate interdicted human sacrifices, and, dealing as he was with magic for purposes of cure, divination, and propitiation of ^ Revue Celtique, vol. vii. p. 452, and Chips from a German Work- shop, vol. iii. p. 352, note. 148 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the gods, it was in connection with these such sacrifices were made. He then says : " This magic had possession of the Gauls also, even to a period within our recollection, and it was only under the rule of Tiberias that a decree of the Senate abolished their Druids and all this sort of divina- tion and medicine. . . . Nowadays it is only the British Isles which make use of these magical practices ; people cannot estimate too highly what is owing to the Romans for abolishing a monstrous custom by which the offering up of a human life was an act of religion, and eating the flesh an efficacious remedy." Druidism of a sort existed 250 years later, and at Tongres, the home of the Tungri ; for Vopiscus tells us that Diocletian, born about 245, proclaimed emperor 284, "while still but a soldier, living at Tongres in a tavern kept by a Druidess, she predicted that he would be emperor. We know that after the abolition of human sacrifice the form was still permitted. Men were designated as victims, were led to the altar, went through the performance of being struck, and so long as life was not taken, it was per- missible by incision to draw a certain quantity of blood. ^ Recall the statement that the followers of Allectus, with their long hair and dyed garments, were, according to the historian, only apparently barbarians, so, having returned to some barbarous practices, they may also have had revived against 1 Revue Celtique, vol. iv. pp. 39-46. AITHEACH TUATHA. 149 them the story of this magical cult with human sacrifices. We have pointed out that these Tungri were Cimbri, on the authority both of Caesar and Cerealis. The well-known name the Welsh apply to themselves, " Cymru," is nowadays explained as the equivalent of Combrogenses — from com, with, and hro, country, i.e., natives, in contradis- tinction to Valltat or Zm7^?, "stranger," "slave." ^ In spite of charlatan accusation, we revert to the belief that the origin of this name is from a con- nection, or supposed connection, with the Cimbri. Let us now turn to Irish tradition. " The age of Christ 10. The first year of the reign of Cairbre Cinncait, after he had killed the nobility, except a few who had escaped from the massacre in which the nobles were murdered by the Aitheach Tua- tha." ^ The ' Masters ' give the names of the three nobles who escaped, and that " in their mother s wombs"; and these mothers were a daughter of the King of Alba, a daughter of the King of Britain, and a daughter of the King of Saxony, Pictish or Scottish descent, and not an Irish mother among them. Cairbre Caitcheann, Cairbre ( = the Ship- man) the Cat-headed, reigned only five years, and during that time there was a famine in Ireland of grain and fruit, and the cattle were milkless. It would not have been surprising, then, if Cairbre's ^ L'Emigration Bretonne en Arnaorique, p. 88 et seq. - Annals of the Four Masters. 150 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. followers, driven to extremity, had nourished them- selves on, let us say, butcher-meat, or reverted to magical practices, with human breasts, to cure their milkless cattle. Tacitus tells us that the Cherusci were conquered by the Catti, that the Cherusci " formerly bore the titles of just and upright, are now charged with cowardice and folly, and the good fortune of the Catti, who subdued them, has grown into wisdom." ^ In the same quarter of Germany dwelt the Cimbri. We learn from the " Leabhar-Gabhaala " that, when Cairbre died, the Aitheach Tuatha offered the sovereignty to Morann, his son. " He was a truly intelligent and learned man." ^ In Cormac's ' Adventures in the Land of Promise ' we learn that the men of Ireland, by fast- ing and praying, sought that Cairpre, though a wicked man, might have prosperous offspring by his wife. The prayer was successful ; but the child was born as if he were all hood from his shoulders upwards, and no mouth was seen on him. His father ordered him to be drowned, and his mother was told that the child must be taken to the sea and his head placed on the surface till nine waves came over him, and that he would be called Mor- ann, because he would be Mor, great, and Find, fair. This was done, and the membrane that sur- rounded his head separated and formed a collar on his two shoulders. This is glaringly priapic, and is 1 Manners of the Germans, c. xxxvi. - Annals of the Four Masters, vol. i. p. 94, note. CAT-HEAD. 151 a sort of gloss to the story of Taliesin above (p. 131). The membrane was covered with gold and silver, and thus it became the collar of Morann mac main, son of treachery; hence the treacherous rising of the servile clan of which he was a descendant. The ring had peculiarities : " If he round whose neck it were put were guilty, it would choke him. If, however, he were innocent, it would expand round him to the ground." He had other collars, one of which was an epistle from Paul the apostle, which he hung round his neck, and then he would never utter falsehood.^ To return to the name Cat-head. This is what Tacitus tells us of the Catti : " The bravest of them wore also an iron ring (a mark of ignominy in that nation) as a kind of chain till they have released themselves by the slaughter of a foe. Many of the Catti assume this distinction, and grow hoary under the mark, conspicuous both to foes and friends."^ As Tacitus tells us (c. xxv.) that slaves are punished with chains, we may conclude that the ignominy of ring-wearing was the suggestion of slavery. Aitheach is the same word as athach, which means a giant, and also waves. When Caesar was besieging the Atuatici, he raised a tower with which to attack their wall. The Atu- atici taunted the Romans with the following- speeches : " For what purpose was so vast a ^ Stokes and Windisch, Irische Texte, Third Series, vol. i. pp. 206, 207, 209. ^ Manners of the Germans, c. xxxi. 152 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. machine constructed at so great a distance ? " "With what hands" or "with what strength did they, especially (as they were) men of such very small stature (for our shortness of stature, in com- parison with the great size of their bodies, is gen- erally a subject of much contempt to the men of Gaul), trust to place against their walls a tower of such great weight." ^ The Atuatici, afterwards the Tungri, were therefore aitheach, " men of large stature," giants. As to their servility, we first recall the fact that Caesar, after sacking Aduatica of the Tungrians, sold its inhabitants into slavery. The position in Ireland of the Aitheach Tuatha is explained by the editor of the ' Ossianic Society's Publications' (vol. i. p. 115): "The Atha-tuaithe seemed to have been a race not entitled to all the civil privileges enjoyed by the Milesians, but to have been looked upon as strangers. They were not, however, slaves, as we learn from the following stanza taken from an old manuscript poem now in our hands : — ' Ni Mogha na buicnecta Ni Mogha clanda Aedha Noch daer an saer cinel mor Nil dersa for clanda Miladh,' " That is — " The herdsmen are not slaves. The clan Aedh are not slaves ; No great free race is subject to bondage. The clans of Milesius are not under slavery." ^ Gallic War, c. xxx. MILESIANS. 153 In this they are spoken of as the clan of Aedh, ah'eady alluded to as in the ancient Caithnesia, Caithness. They are sons of Milesius the (Roman) soldier ; but they are also called huicnecta, which the editor has translated ''herdsmen." If the theory is right that the Attacots and the Atuatici are those upon whom this Irish fable is founded, and they were herdsmen, when two parties of Attacots met it would have been interesting to know how they settled which party were to lose their buttocks. But it is a curious thing that Cormac gives us Buaignec . i . escra — that is, a cup, a chalice ; and we recall the fact that the Tuatha De brought with them from Scotland the cauldron of the Dagda, the never - dry cauldron, and that the wise Morann, the Great Man, was son of Maeii, a stone in Welsh, and the Tuatha De brought the stone of Fail to Ireland from Scotland. Buaignec, a cup, and coire, a kettle, are somewhat dissimilar ; but if the former word is as old as Cormac of Cashel, the Gaelic huicead, a bucket, in Irish may stand as a stepping-stone from one to the other. It will be evident, from the position taken up here, the contention is that Irish fable has divided the name Atuatici into A = atha, aitheach, the big men, and a qualifying word tuatha, s.m,, "a lordship." Tuaith, s.f., "a tract of land." Tuaitha, "rural." Tuaitheach, "a rustic," "a clown, in the sense of rustic." Tuaith, tuaithe, 154 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. s. tuaidh, tuaigli, " the left hand," " north," " northern." The former word has been adopted as the basis of the story of Cat -head and his plebeian followers. In the name Cruithintuath, the Irish equivalent for Pictland, we have the word used for a territory ; but it seems very possible that quite a common name, Tuathal (pronounce toohall), does not in its original meaning signify " a lordly man," though we have seen the masculine noun tuaith means " a lordship." In the age of Christ 56, according to ' The Four Masters,' a certain Fiacha Finnfholaidh, " Fiacha of the white cattle," the known homes of which are and were mostly between the two walls, according to Lynch, was slain by the instigation of the Aitheach-Tuatha. He left one son, who was in the womb of Eithne, daughter of the King of Alba. His name was Tuathal. Here, then, we find the first mention of this name in Irish tradition connects him with, as we suggest, the Atuatici ; makes him a son, by Scoto-Pictish descent, of a king of Alba. The name may therefore be the equivalent of "northerner." In 106 we find another Tuathal, called Teachtmhar, translated " the legitimate." Tuathal, on the authority of Flann, lived in the time of the Emperor Adrian ; and Tighernach says he reigned thirty years, and was slain in the last year of Antoninus (160), from whom the North Wall is called. This of itself marks a curious coincidence. He is said to have fought 133 battles against the BORUMHA. 155 Aitheach Tuatha ; that he celebrated the feast of Tara, where the chieftains of the kingdom (Ireland) swore by all the elements {did) that they would never contest the sovereignty with him or his race ; and finally, that he imposed a tax, called the Borumha (on Leinster), paid during the reigns of forty monarchs. He was slain by Mai where two rivers spring on a hill called Ceanngubha (Head of Grief).^ Mai, Gaelic, "a tax," seems to appear again as Tuathal's own son, as he might well be if he were the Borumha, now called Feidhlimidh Kechtmhar, meaning Phelim of the Laws — at any rate Reaclit is a law. We have the names of the two rivers at the heads of which was the hill where he was killed. They are Ollar and Ollarbha. ' The Four Masters ' admit that these names are now obsolete, and it is per- fectly clear that they are manufactured — the first name having a termination attached to it to make the second. We suggest that the name here is what we have already seen in Fodhla, said to be the name of Ireland, and preserved in Athole ; and the "Hill of Grief" is a perversion of the " Head of the Ford," or perhaps " of the Sons of the Ford," Ceann 'c atha (Ceann 'q ubha) ; and perhaps it is a mere coincidence, again, that ath is a " ford," and we are dealing with the head of the river Forth, and the German form of ford is furth. Feidhlimidh, who slew Mai, was Tuathal's 1 Annals of the Four Masters, p. 106, notes. 156 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. son ; Tuathal himself sleM^ Elim, son of Conrach. Here we seem to see the same grammatical trick between the names Felim and Elim as between Fola and 011a. The interesting thing is the meaning of this word Felim. " Fedelmid, he who can bear mead — that is to say, probably, he who can drink a quantity of it without intoxication." ^ Mead-drinking appears as a speciality of Caswallan's followers from Manand. Elim, before becoming king of Ireland by heading the league of provincial kings, was king of Ulster. His father is said to have been Conra, Conrach. Windisch gives us cunclrad, merx, " goods," " commodities," while it has a secondary meaning, "a thing" — in general, mala merx, " a bad bargain." Now, remembering that Cat - head is the fabulous leader of the Aitheach Tuatha by whose means Elim came to sovereignty ; when we find Ta.citus tells us of the Catti that their infantry, besides their arms, " are obliged to carry tools and provisions," we get a hint how the name of Elim's father was excogitated : but cunnrath is "a contract," as translated by Stokes in Cormac, and in modern Dictionaries " league,'' which accounts for the league of the provincial kings mentioned above. The Roman soldier carried his pack on his head ; we may suppose the Catti were credited with the same habit, which we suggest may have given rise to the Cat-head story. We find the name Tuathal surviving in Ireland as O'Toole, according to Keating, who criticises 1 De Joubainville, Cour de Litterature Celtique, vol. v. p. 220, note. TUATHAL. 157 Spencer for deriving it from tol, hilly, which he admits is a proper translation of the Irish word, but not a derivation of the name, which was that of a warrior, Tuathal or Tuathgal.^ In Ross - shire there is a scarce surname, Tu- athach, Tuath, Tuach. The story about them is that they were Mackenzies. A party of Mac- kenzies, being interrogated by a hostile clan, said that their name was Tuathach (pronounced Tuahach), meaning that they came from the North. This is quoted merely to show that the idea of "Northener" as a name exists in Gaelic. Larminie gives us from Achill Island, Mayo, Dul Dauna, Doll Daana, a son of Kian, " The man from far," which seems to be the same name as Tuathal. "There will be no champion in the world as good as he," said Mananaun, when his father handed Dul over to him. The Dauna part of his name is doubtless that which appears in the name of the Tuatha De Danann. This is proved by his being credited with putting a ring to his eye and seeing at a distance, a sample of the art he was proficient in. We quote this especially to show the possibility of the Galloway " Dul," or, for the matter of that, the Argyleshire " Dughall," having the same origin.- But we must bring the name a little nearer the home of the two clans with which we started. In 863 'The Four Masters' give the death of ^ Intro., pp. xxviii, xxix. 2 West Irish Folk-Tale«, pp. 8, 245. 158 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. " Tuathal, son of Ardghus, chief bishop of Fort- renn and abbot of Dun-Ceallain (Dunkeld)." The Annals of Ulster give his death as 865. He is regarded as historical. Curiously enough, popular tradition in the Tay valley speaks of Mac Tual, not of Tuathal himself. Mac Tual's name, says the author of ' Historic Scenes in Perthshire' (p. 412), "is of frequent occurrence in Gaelic legend and song ; but of his works, the only memorial of him that survives is this ruined fort." "On the north-east shoulder of Drummond Hill, in this parish [Dull-weem], are the remains of a large and strong fortress. It had been a parallelogram in form. Its walls are of prodigious thickness, and had been con- structed without lime or mortar ; but the stones had been regularly coursed and banded. The pre- cipitousness of the lofty rock on which it stood made it all but inacessible on the south and east sides ; and on the north and west sides it had been defended by trenches and other outworks, which may yet be traced." This fort stands about one thousand yards north of Taymouth Castle. But we have another fortress name in the same district which probably includes that of Tuathal. This is the fabulous Tula of Boece, and has been the sub- ject of investigation quite recently by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. It is situated in the near neighbourhood of Caputh, and is thus de- scribed by Pennant in his ' Tour,' a plan of the INCHCUTHILL. 159 fortifications beinof added : " Late at nioht reach Inchstuthel, the modern Delvin, the seat of* John Mackenzie, Esq., where I found a continuation of Highland hospitaUty. The situation of this house is of strange singularity ; on a flat of one hundred and fifty-four Scotch acres, regularly steep on every side, and in every part of equal height ; that is to say, about sixty feet above the great plain of Stor- mont, which it stands on," ^ Bellenden's spelling, already quoted, makes this name Inche Cuthill, which corresponds very closely with the name of the Clan Qwhewyl, though it must be confessed the antiquated spelling does a good deal to conceal it. With these two fortifications, the one popularly ascribed to a son of Tual, the other in its form " Cuthill " actually bearing his name apparently, what more likely than that people of the locality should appear as his " children," which, of course, is the meaning of the word " clan " ? Without dog- matising that it is so, Delvin's old name may be the " island of the northman," — a northman, how- ever, who seems to have been in the Koman service. Boece says that sundry marvels were seen in Scotland before the battle of Mount Grampius, and a curious one is connected with this locality. " Ane monstoure was borne in Inchecuthill, with doubill membris of men and wemen, with sa abhominabill figure, that it was distryit be the pepill." ^ Now, ^ Pennant's Tour in Scotland, vol. ii. p. 07. - Bellenden's Boece, Bk. IV. c. xvii. 160 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. this Is not a sheer invention, but has some founda- tion, and the only suggestion that occurs is that it is connected with the double figure on Fillan's bell. He mentions, among the other marvels, " ane schoure of stanis was in Athole." Compare this with the Clan Clachinyha ; but as he adds, " sic like, in Angus, ranit paddokis," we must identify them with the Hays in the sense of the Gaelic aedh, "fire," Losgann, also loisgeaiin, is "a frog" or "toad"; loisg is "to burn"; loisgean, "a plant called Burnet," the pimpernel : and this is not so unlikely, seeing that he says "ane gret part of the wod of Calidon apperit birnand all nicht ; how- beit na thing apperit thairof in the day." The suggestion is the less complimentary to the Hays in that the Highland Society's Dictionary gives as a secondary meaning to losgann, " a wretch." Boece's is not the only story, however, that con- nects frogs and the Clan Aedh. The story is told in Campbell's ' Tales ' how a daughter of Mackay of Kilmahumaig, near Crinan, had swallowed a toad called Lon craois {Ion, provision ; greos, g., greois ; distractio coxarum). The Mull doctor, Beathan, was sent for, and on nearing the girl's house he heard a sweet voice singing. " \S binn an guth cinn sin," said the lad, " 'S binn," said the doctor, " air uachdar Losguin." Sweet is the voice of that head. Sweet it is above a toad. Beathan {heath = life, Gaelic) withdrew the toad. LOSGUNN LOISGEAN. 161 and the girl was cured. The method of cure used is widely spread and has assumed many modifica- tions/ and itself required fire ; but the special point the romance-maker had in view was, that the voice of the daughter of the " son of fire," Mackay, was connected with losgunn — i.e., loisgean — in the sense of burning. It is impossible to put the above into plain language, — pudoris causa, — but it is right to give all possible assistance to a proper interpretation. The fancy of " feeding " in this connection appears in the plainest terms in a song " collected " by Burns for ' Merry Muses of Caledonia.' "^ Loisgrean, lusgraun, is used in Ireland for kiln-dried corn shaken out of the corn-stalk, and was applied at least in one case to the corn-kilns themselves.^ Compare Burns's " Halloween," verse 6 — " The lasses staw f rae 'mang them a', To pu' their stalks o' corn ; But Rab slips out, an' jinks about, Behint the muckle thorn : He grippet Nellie hard an' fast ; Loud skirl'd a' the lasses ; But her tap-pickle maist was lost, When kiutlin in the ' Fause-house ' Wi' him that night." ^ West Highland Tales, vol. ii. p. 366 ; Lenormant, Magie chez les Chaldeans, p. 187. ^ J. S. Farmer, National Ballad and Song ; Merry Songs, vol. i. p. 264. •' Brash, Ogam-inscribed Monuments, p. 148. 162 CHAPTEH VIII. Nemed has already been mentioned, but we must speak more particularly of his descendants, and the first information we have is that they were driven from Ireland into Spain by a people called Fomori. Tacitus in his ' Agricola,' after speaking of the Ger- man look of the Caledonians, says of the Silures, the inhabitants of South Wales, that their swarthy complexion and curled hair, " together with their situation opposite Spain, render it probable that a colony of the ancient Iberi possessed themselves of that territory." All students of Irish history have heard of Eiber Mac Mileadh, Heber, Eber, son of Milesius. The ninth Roman legion, which was commanded by Cerealis when defeated by the Iceni, was also under Agricola, and suffered a reverse on first passing the Forth, and this legion was distin- guished by the title " Hispanica," the Spanish. Now, this legion disappears from history after the last campaign of Agricola. Tiles have been found in Britain marked " Legio IX. Hispanica." Nennius gives us the following information re- FIR BOLG FIR DOMNANN. 163 garding the descendants of Nemed. They came to Ireland about 2000 years B.C. They consisted of " the Viri Bullorum — i.e., the Fir Bolg afterwards — and the Viri Armorum — i.e., the Fir Gaileoin — and the Viri Dominiorum — i.e., the Fir Domnann." First notice the use of the old term "men" as continued in the Men of Fortrenn. Next, that Keating makes the name Viri Bullorum — i.e., the Latin name — more ancient than the Celtic one Fir Bolg. Bulla in Latin is any object swelling up and becoming round, a boss, knob on a door, &c. ; hulga is a leathern knapsack ; but Keating's Latin means " the Men of the Bosses," and Fir Bolg may be generally accepted as meaning Belgae. The next party taking the Latin name first are " the Men of Shields," — arma, defensive armour, specifically a shield, but they were the Fir Gaileoin, evidently connected with gai, the Gaelic for a lance or spear. The third party are Viri Dominiorum — that is to say, " the Men of the paramount ownership, lordship." The Gaelic in this case, domnann, is from domun, doman, meaning " the world," as in the Gaelic flaith in domain, " the lords of the world." Comment upon these is surely unnecessary. All these, then, sons of " Nemed," were sons of the " Grove," or, in its more restricted Gaelic sense, sacellum, a sanctuary, the place consecrated to a divinity. We are told that ten of them 164 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. only remained in Ireland as slaves of the Fomori, meaning either " under the sea " or " towards the wall," whether we translate mor as equivalent to mur, the wall, or muir, the sea. The im- portant point is that all the subsequent invaders of Ireland, before Strongbow, consequently the ruling class, were of this same stock. In the story, in the shape it now takes, we find un- doubtedly Christian influences. The plot of the romance is worked out under three leaders : — Simeon, the name of " the rock " on which " I will build my Church," lobath, Jehovah (?); Briotan Maol, the shaven Briton. The last, with his follow- ing, are the forefathers of those "from whom are the Britons of the World," and they were displaced from Alba by Simeon and his party from Thrace. Simeon was styled Breac — that is, " spotted " — in Latin pictus. They had been reduced to slavery as cultivators of the ground, Aitheach Tuatha, Atu- atici, and their special duty was to carry earth in leather bags, biclga, to be laid on " stony crags," — to build the vallum, in fact ; what else can it be ? With their bags they construct boats to "return" to Ireland, and there they were the " Men of the World," and the bearers of the peculiar lances who were Gaileon and gave their name to Lcdghin, Leinster. There is still another possible explanation of the " bags " of the Firbolg. One would be slow to ofier it, were it not that this is no new name for the COLUMBA. 165 Germanic trousers. Aristophanes uses the word OvXaKOL, "sacks," for the leg-coverings of the Per- sians ; and O'Clery gives fearhhalga, " the sacks of a man," " trousers " ; and an old poem, speaking of the Firbolg, alludes to the same garment in the phrase^?" i mhalggaih, "men of the bags."^ What- ever the age of O'Clery 's word, and of the word mentioned by Meyer, the evidence here is confirm- atory rather than otherwise of these fabulous Fir- bolg having characteristics of a German origin. In their turn they were beaten by the second division and driven into the isles — Arran, Islay, and, though it is not mentioned, we may conclude Ireland also ; and we may identify them with the followers of Aedh, U, Y, fire, with which we con- nect the origin of the Hy (lona) cult. Nennius is still our historical authority, but before giving the story of the second party we must point out that Neimheadh himself is connected by this form of his name neamh, gen. neimh, heaven ; in Welsh, 7ief, Avhat is hollow, as navis, sl ship. On the authority of Adamnan, Columba's mother was Aethne, " know- ledge," of whom the father " can be called in Latin Mac Navis, but in the Scotic tongue Mac Nave." Translating this, " son of heaven," " son of boat," " son of the sacellum," he was, as all know, Colum cille, Calum of the cell. His father was one " who could consume much mead," Fedilmith ; the sanc- tity was not inherited from the father's side ; ^ Zeitschrift flir Celtische Philol., vol. iv. p. 583. 166 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Fedilmith's father was Fergus, "manliness." Neim- headh was a descendant of Magog, and came from Scythia, which, according to some authorities, makes him a Scot. His descendants, the Tuatha de Danaan, of whom the leader was lobath (we re- tain the Irish traditional form, so as to be as little offensive to Christian tradition as possible), having learned magical arts in Greece, the country of the tongue in which the New Testament was written, went to Tuaiscirt, " north " (of Europe, Norwsij), whence they came to Alba. Dan in Gaelic is a poem, a song, a verse, destiny ; but if we connect it with the Greek hijvea, it signi- fies plans, arts. Incantation is the essential feature of all magic, even in the "patter" of the modern conjuror. Tacitus tells us, in ' The Manners of the Germans,' "a peculiar kind of verses is also current among them, by the recital of which, termed ' bard- ing,' they stimulate their courage ; while the sound itself serves as an augury of the event of the im- pending combat" (c. iii.) The words " qitem bard- itum vocant " may or may not be an interpolation, but the "bard" is a prominent figure in all stories of the Celts of the United Kingdom. These followers of lobath have two names, one Latin, according to Nennius, Plebes Deorum, the other Tuatha De Danann. The first, of course, means " the Peoples of the Gods," among whom we may include lobath himself Wilson, in his ' Pre- historic Annals of Scotland,' gives an inscription TUATHA DE DANANN. 167 from Birrens on the South Wall, remarking that it "is in the highest preservation": " Deso Minervae, Cohortis Secundae Tungrorum, Militia Equestris Constantini Legionis, cui prsest Caius Lucius Auspex Prsefectus " (p. 397). This dedication to Minerva is of considerable importance, but the same authority quotes another inscription more apposite to the name immediately under consideration: "Dib. Deab. q. Omnb. Frumentius Mil. Col. ii Tungr.," which may be read, " Diis Deabusque Omnibus Frumentius Miles Cohortis Secundse Tungrorum, to all gods and goddesses, Frumentius, a soldier of the second cohort of Tungrians" (p. 398). Frumentius is equiv- alent to the name of the nephew of Eber and Eremon, the first Milesian invaders of Ireland, Ith — frumentum, Latin corn ; Gaelic ith, corn ; Welsh yd, corn. One might almost suspect that the originator of the name Plebes Deorum had read this altar inscription. The other name, Tuatha De Danann, is generally accepted as meaning " the People of the goddess Dana." The meaning of dan has been given above ; but though in Irish that word does not seem to signify art, it does so in Greek ; and thus we find another Irish name derived from the Greek. Who was this goddess Dana, Danann ? We have a list of the principal men of the tribe, and they are all made sons of Ealatha. Of this word Stokes says, " Elada, gen. Eladan, a stem in n signifying ' science ' " ; and further explains that Siegfried 168 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. explained the name of the first of her sons, the Dagda, as meaning doctus, learned, as among the most acceptable suggestions, though expressing his preference for the translation " cleverness." ^ Now, this is what we find of one of the goddesses of the second Tungrians — Minerva. She " was wor- shipped as the patroness of all the arts and trades, for at her festival she was particularly invoked by all those who desired to distinguish themselves in any art or craft such as painting, poetry, the art of teaching, medicine, d3^eing, weaving, and the like. She guided men in the dangers of war, and was the inventor of musical instruments. Her mysterious image was preserved in the most secret part of the temple of Vesta (fire), and regarded as one of the safeguards of the state." The name of this goddess " would seem to have been preserved, uncurtailed, as Menevia, to pass for the Latin name of St David's." ^ The poet-king of Israel's name has succeeded that of Minerva, and we recall the fact that Carausius was a Menevian. Putting aside personal names, the connection of these Tuatha De with the arts is shown in the list of their men of science. One was a smith, one was an artist [ceard, in modern language, a tinker ; but his name Creidhne, Credenus, connects him with criadh, clay, and he is called Jigidus, potter). Another was a physician, another a ^ Revue Celtique, vol. vi. p. 369. 2 Ehys, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 378, 380. FIRTHS OF FORTH AND CLYDE. 169 Wright (saor, a mechanic), another a poet {Jile). Dana herself was daughter of Dalbaoit, Dealbaith, for which a meaning has already been suggested. Beside Dana, Danann, because the latter is used as a nominative, another female chief is ascribed to them, " Beuchuill." This name is evidently connected with he, a wife, woman, and ceol, ciuil, music, melody ; it is, in fact, another name for, let us say, Minerva. According to Keating, these two female leaders were " Slain at Mana, over the great sea, By the hand of Lugh, son of Eithnann." ^ This brings us back to the places the Tuatha occu- pied in Alba. They are described as Dobhar and lardobhar. Dohhar, Gaelic water ; also dur, dobur, Cormac ; duvr, dwr, Welsh. This, therefore, means The Water, and more recently the Firth of Forth was known as "The Scot Water." "The Water" is contrasted with another water, defined as iar, west ; these, then, were " Water " and " Westwater " — evidently the Firths of Forth and Clyde, where the Mana (Manand) was, in which these two female leaders were slain. The other places in connection are Failias, from whence they brought the Lia Fail ; Murias, from which came the cauldron of the Dagda ; Gorias, from which came the sword of Lughaidh, called " Long - handed " ; Finias, from w^hich came his spear. ^ Keating, p. 215. 170 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. These names are imaginative, and it is more or less wasted time to identify them with existing collections of houses, though it is worthy of note that Skene identified Murias with Camelon im- mediately in front of the North Wall, which is called Cairmuirs. The roots of these words tell their tale sufficiently without minute local identi- fication. Fail is the " enclosure," whence the name Inis Fail, the enclosure between the two walls. Mur is muims, the wall itself, the South Wall by preference. Fin can scarce be anything else than the fidn of Keating's second name for Ireland — as he says, from the Latin Jinis ; and reasoning from the context here, the name should be applied to Scotland, and probably was so, on the strength of the statement made by Agricola in his address before the battle of Mons Grampius, when he said, " We have proceeded beyond the limits of former commanders and former armies, and are now be- come acquainted with the extremity of the island, not by uncertain rumour, but by actual possession with our arms and encampments."^ As Agricola's harangue mentions that their companionship was now in its " eighth year," during which time their valour and perseverance had been conquer- ing Britain, we have an explanation of the state- ment that " seven years " was the length of the stay of the Tuatha De in Dobhar and lardobhar. The third name, Gorias, from which came the ^ Tacitus, Agricola, c. xxxiii. DAGHDHA OGHMA. 171 "sword" of Lughaidh, has for its root the Welsh gwr, a man. The personal Lugh here is Lucullus of the lances. His "long-hand" is manufactured from the " ullus " of his name, as equivalent to the Gaelic uilleati, an elbow, explained by the Latin word for the same, ^dna, the elbow, arm ; as a measure of length, an ell, " as much as a man can clasp with both hands." To analyse all the names of the fabulous in- habitants of Ireland, even if one felt capable of it, would be a heavy undertaking. Of the five sons of Ealatha, the chief men of the Tuatha De, two especially require consideration, the Daghdha and Oghma. The former of these was their king, and as a son of Dealbaith (delb = representation, image ; bethad, of life), was the brother of the goddess Danann. His description is to be found in the ' Mesca Ulad ' (The Intoxication of the Ultonians). In this tract they are described as making a drunken in- vasion of the south-west of Ireland, starting from the near neighbourhood of Coleraine. The Queen of Connacht has set a watchman of the suggestive name of Crom-deroil (Little (weak) Bendy), and is represented as receiving his report of the appear- ance of the more prominent persons. " * Here in front of them, to the east, outside,' said Crom Deroil, ' I saw a large-eyed, large-thighed, shoulder- bladed, nobly-great, immensely-tall man, with a splendid gray garment round him ; with 172 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. seven short, black, equally-smooth cloaklets about him ; shorter was each ujoper one, longer each lower. At either side of him were nine men. In his hand was a terrible iron staff, on which were a rough end and a smooth end. His play and amusement consisted in laying the rough end on the heads of the nine, whom he would kill in the space of a moment. He would then lay the smooth end on them, so that he would animate them in the same time. " ' Wonderful is the description,' said Medh. "'Protean is the person whose description it is,' said Curui. " ' What, then ; who is he ? ' asked Ailill. " ' Not hard to tell,' said Curui. ' The great Dagda, son of Ethliu, the good god of the Tuatha De Danann. To magnify valour and conflict he wrought confusion upon the host in the morning this day ; and no one in the host sees him.' " ^ The Book of Leinster calls him " In Dagda drech ruaid," and also " Eocho ollathair." ^ The first description gives him a "red complexion," the second makes him the ' ' all-father," while the name has for its first element eo, "a peg," "pin," "a salmon," the Irish fish of knowledge. Being called All-father challenges comparison with Odin, and both of them are described as cloaked ; but to the Irishmen are given as many cloaks as there are 1 W. M. Hennessy, Mesca Ulad, p. 33. 2 Revue Celtique, vol. vii. p. 362. PARTHOLON. 173 heavens according to the Cabbala, the seventh heaven being the abode of God. The eo takes the form of an iron staff that gives life if it also kills. He is distinctly called a dag dia {deagh, deadh, excellent), the good god of the Tuatha De. There is, however, another Gaelic verb which, seeing it agrees with the vellaunos and cuno, elevated, has to be taken into consideration — tochaim, I lift, elevate ; and yet another, which may have supplied sug- gestions for his delineation — togain, I choose, I select. With the negative prefix do, Do-thoghta, the Non- elected, the one existing unchosen, the All-father. Anyhow, we find a story which ascribes to him presence in Ireland with the very first. Partholon was the first to enter Ireland. His original residence was not on the main island, but on " Inis Saimher, near to Eirne." Saimher means sweet, pleasant, — the Highland Society's Dictionary translates it " sensuality," — so that the name taken in full means the " pleasant island," perhaps the " sensual island." From the story, however, it appears that this was the name of a lap-dog which he possessed. Partholon's wife misconducted her- self with " her own attendant," Todhga. Partholon charged her with this, but she pleaded opportun- ity and desire as a complete justification. " After Partholon had heard that answer, his jealousy w^as so increased by it that he struck the dog to the ground till it was killed, so that from it the island is named. The first jealousy of Ireland 174 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. after the deluge that." So for it was recited this verse : — "The king strikes the hound {coin) of the woman With his hand — it was not sad that it was so ; The hound was dead fri seidhed seang ? That was the first jealousy of Ireland." ^ Partholon's wife's name was Dealgnait : dealg = eo = a pin, a brooch. The elucidation of this must de- pend upon the nature of the lap-dog. In the ' Annals of the Four Masters ' we find what is req- uisite under the year 732 : " The battle of Fochart in Magh-Muirtheimhne was fought by Aedh Allan and the Clanna-Neill of the North against the Uli- dians, where Aedh E-oin, king of Ulster, was slain." The cause of this battle was the profanation of Cill- Cunda by Ua Seghain, one of the people of Aedh Roin, of which Aedh Roin himself said, " I will not take its co7i7i from Tairr," for Ceall-Cunna and Ceall-Tairre are side by side. The successor of Patrick, to incite Aedh Allan to revenge, said, " Aedh Roin insulted me last night at Cill-Cunna of the sweet music." Another verse by an unnamed author is mentioned, in which, speaking of E-oin's defeat, he says that Allan, " for their coigny {coinniTThh, refection) at Cill-Cunna, he placed soles to necks." O'Donovan, the editor, admits this is a pun on the names of the churches, " but in what sense the witty king intended conn and tarr to be taken it is not easy to determine." There does not ^ Keating's Ireland, vol. i. p. 161. LAP-DOG. 175 seem to be any difficulty, — tarr, Gaelic, the lowest part of the belly. Perhaps O'Donovan knew no French ; he certainly knew Latin, and he seems deliberately to have shut his eyes when he says, " He might have intended, ' I will not separate the head from the body.' " Partholon's lap-dog is the " never-dry cauldron " of the Dagda, the " cauldron " of Ceridwen, the " pot " in which Beaton cooked the white snake. There is a curious entry in Cormac : " Garmann Mna In Daghda (the names of the Daghda's wife) . i. breg 7 meng 7 meabal ('lie, and guile, and disgrace ')." See a satire, unde dictum est — " Findach ni fir deimne denda flatha fian cian rofas garmannd mna daghdte do mac murchadas." Stokes says of these four lines, " Something seems wanting in each of the first two lines." The last two mean, "Long since the names of the Daghda's wife grew to Murchadh's son" — i.e., It is long since he was called " Lie," &c. " Garmand " is a curious word for "names"; no doubt there must be good reasons for saying so {gairm, call, invite, Gaelic ?), but the two lines seem to read to a student, if not a scholar, " Long since Garman, wife of the Dagda, grew to Murchad's sou," which would make it a proper name — Garman, Germanus ? A lap-dog, of course, can be of both genders. In the following verse, from the Book of Leinster, 176 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. it is applied inferentially to a male. In it Ailbhe, daughter of Corniac mac Airt, apostrophises " mere- enjoyment " as if it were a personage, Luim-laine — " A Luimlaine nachamluaid Nacliamthaidled measclioin muaid Manibetis lee luigdech lis Eoin bic baile rotbetis." This means — " bare pleasure, urge me not onwards, That I be not touched by a jealous man's lap-dog. Were it not for the flags of Lewy's fort. Little Baile's chickens would be in existence." These birds of Baile are explained as "bet ocus mebul, no poc ocus pudhair" (sin and shame, or a kiss and sorrow) in an MS. in the British Museum. In the poem itself they are glossed as " a kiss and a strumpet," the flag-stones being glossed as "blushes and disgrace." The interpretation is clear. The woman Ailbhe says — " mere enjoyment, urge me not onwards. That I be not touched by a jealous man's lap-dog. Were it not for blushes and disgrace, Sin and shame would be in existence." We have used the g-loss mven for muaid in the above translation.^ Besides the translations of the Daghda's name mentioned, others have been given. Khys says it " appears to stand for an earlier Dago Devos, the ^ O'Curry, Materials, p. 476. AENGUS — BLEDHERCUS. 177 Good God." ^ Abercromby suggests that it is con- nected with In-dighti, " having been burnt." The Daghda had a son called Aengus (Angus). This name appears in Angus in Scotland, and is the name of the very considerable fortification on the island of Aran in the Bay of Gal way. The Aengus in the latter instance was the son of U Mor, a name we suggest identical with Aedh, " fire." U's son was a Fir Bolg, whose people came from Scotland, settled in Meath, and, being driven out of that, escaped to the west. Though the Tuatha De were especially endowed with the arts, there were many other learned men in Ireland even before them. Partholon had an ollamh — that is, a learned man. This, the first teacher of Ireland, was called Bacorbladhra.^ The second part of this professor's name, bladhra, there can be no doubt, is the same as the authority mentioned by Gerald of Wales in his ' Description ' : " that famous dealer in fables, Bledhercus, who lived a little before our time." It is perhaps unnecessary to make further suggestions as to meanings which may be connected with the name of this primitive professor. Seeing that the name Eochaidh is supposed to have a connection with each, "a horse" = horseman, we may give the fable with which Bledhercus is specially credited : ^ " There is amongst us a people who, when they 1 Hibbert Lectures, p. 154. 2 Materials, p. 217. 3 Giraldus, Description of Wales, vol. i. c. xvii. M 178 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. go out in search of prey, carry their horses on their backs to the place of plunder ; in order to catch their prey, they leap upon their horses, and when it is taken, carry their horses home again upon their shoulders." The next ollamh of the king of " Ireland " was Ollamh Fodhla, and as we have located Fodhla elsewhere than in Ireland, note that it was he who made the first feast of Tara " which was the great convocation of the men of ' Erinn.' " His name too was, at first, till he became distinguished for his learning, Eochaidh.^ The nominative of the place of meeting is Teamhuir, the genitive Teamhrach, pronounced very nearly Tara. It is in Meath, a few miles to the west of Dublin. It was originally called Druim Cain, translated by O'Curry " beautiful eminence," but cain is also " tribute." Giraldus's account says that the de- scendants of Nemedius, finding Ireland uninhabited, divided the country into five equal parts, their bounds meeting in Meath at a stone called the "navel of Ireland," because it stands in the middle of the country ; hence the name " Media," Meath. It was the richest part of the country, very fertile in corn, and all of the divisions contain their pro- portion of it. Slanius {slan, Gaelic entire, whole, complete), the first sole king of Ireland, formed the five portions of the provinces in the centre of the country into a separate province, and then appro- 1 O'Curry, Materials, p. 218. MEATH — TARA. 179 priated the whole of Meath to the royal table.^ The Irish name for Meath, Midhe, signifies also " a neck," and thus we find that there was fixed on the neck of Ireland a continuous tribute for the support of its ruler. One of the stories of the "sounding-stone" of Fal says : "It was in Temair, of the land of Fal, it was set up. In the land of Tailltin it shall abide for ever."^ One would like to connect this name Tara with the crann - tar a, the " beam of gathering, the half- burnt piece of wood said to have been used to call the clans together in Scot- land." 0'R,eilly gives tara, "a multitude." The whole history of Tara in Ireland is tradi- tional. A certain saint, Ruadhan of Lothra, in the sixth century made the circuit of Tara, when he cursed that ancient residence, ringing his bell the while, after which it was deserted.^ It has always, however, been connected with Tailltin from the days of King Dathi, who invaded Scotland and routed the Scottish forces, comprising Britons, French, and Scandinavians, which may be taken as representing the three nations Galgacus mentions as forming the Roman armies, at the Plain of the Pillar-stone in the Woody Glen, the king of Scot- land himself having his brains dashed out against this Pillar-stone by Conall Gulban, the ancestor of Colum Cille.^ Dathi continues his expedition ^ Topography of Ireland, vol. iii. c. v. 2 Materials, p. 620. 3 ii^id.^ p_ 337, 4 ibij.^ p, 288. 180 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. into France, and is killed by lightning at the foot of the Alps. Before this expedition, as a duty to the gods, "the fires of Tailltin were lighted, and the sports, games, and ceremonies were conducted with unusual magnificence." Dail means " part," " to divide drink," and we find mentioned dail runde, esca mystica, " mystic cup " ; ten is " fire," and Windisch gives us a word, dail tenid, which he leaves untranslated. The traditional origin of this name derives it from Tailte [te = woman), a daughter of the King of Spain, wife of another Eochaidh, who was called son of Ere, the last of the Fir Bolg kings, killed in the first battle of Magh Tuireadh, " The plain of Towers." This plain, Magh, of course is in Ireland, — not, as one would expect it, in the centre of Ireland, but in the extreme north, and there are no towers on it. We learn from Tacitus that in the fourth year of Agricola's campaign in Scotland he defended " the narrow neck of land " between the Forth and Clyde " by a chain of forts." ^ Here we find, then, a plain country with a neck, midhe (Meath), with a line of forts, which subse- quently became the North Wall. There was a second battle of Magh Tuireadh, there being an interval of about fifty miles between the two localities, though the names are the same. The second battle was fought by an invading force composed entirely of Fomorians, who were defeated ^ Agricola, par. 23, TAILLTIN. 181 by the Tuatha De. It took place on the last day of October, and the first battle on mid-summer day, so that whatever the real origin of the story, and whatever the locality, it refers us to religious observances ; and Tailltin is notorious as a supposed place of origin of the Lughnasa, — that is, the Lammas ceremonies instituted by Lugh, — which, taking place between mid -summer's day and Halloween makes it an intermediate dail (portion) of the Magh Tuireadh (the plain of Towers), an " Inis Fail." We have spoken of the objects of worship to Tungrians in Scotland as recorded on their altar- stones. The stones were found at a Roman station identified as Blatum Bulgium. Whether this is right or not, it is in the parish of Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire, and its present name, " The Birrens," suggests it as a Scottish equivalent to the Dail tened, "the portion of fire," if that is a proper translation of Tailltin. Birrens is " rich in the remains of Roman and British arts," ^ among them being a notable proportion of horse furniture. It is close to Middlebie, which marks its central situation, a name fairly apposite to its geographical position between the Roman walls. Birrenswark Hill is in the near neighbourhood of a place called Tunder- garth, which suggests the query, " Is this the hill, the alp, at the foot of which Dathi was killed by lightning ? " ^ Prehistoric Scotland, p. 458. 182 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. It was in a battle of Tailltin that the Tuatha De were finally defeated by the Milesians. The former are again represented as three nations, being under the " three joint kings of Tara," and the Milesian leader was Eber, called " Finn the White." Joyce informs us that at Tailltin, as well as games, marriages were a special feature of the Lughnassa, and that they were celebrated in " one particular hollow, which is still called Lag - an- aenaigh, which he translates " the hollow of the fair." ^ Aenach, a " fair," seems to mean really "unification," — from aen, aon, Latin unus, one, — and the unification of Tailltin included that which makes of twain one flesh. Now, to return to Angus, the son of the Dagda. This name seems to take the following forms, — modern Aonghas, and the " son of Angus," has become Mac-Innis ; older forms, taken principally from the ' Chronicles of the Picts and Scots,' are Unuist, Oinuist, Uidnuist, Oengus, Oneguss ; the founder of St Andrews (Kilriemont) is called Hungus (compare Hengist and Horsa, Hungus and Eochaid), and when the name is written in French it appears as Teuegus. The name is accepted as compounded of the numeral " one," as given above ; and, looking at all the spellings and the traditions, it seems to be a form of the Latin unicus, one and no more, only, sole. If so, the original Aongas Mac an Dagda would be equivalent to "the only 1 Place-Names, First Series, p. 202. ANGUS — BOAN. 183 son of the good god," as translated on p. 173. He is called Angus Oge, also in mac oc, mac indoc, m^ac an og, probably variations of what might originally have been macan og, the young lad. In the north of England there are three inscriptions to Apollo Maponus, called in one " Deus Maponus," — ma2^on, mahon, " a boy, a male child," in Welsh ; and Rhys calls attention to the Dacian inscriptions to the Bonus Puer, called " Posphorus," " the good boy," " the light - bearer " (?), and the Dacians were cognate with the Thracians, whose connection with our story has received attention. In the ' Mabin- ogion ' he appears as Mabon, son of " Modron," which Phys makes equivalent to the Latin matrona, the being short, and from this word he derives the river name Marne. Boann, the river Boyne, was the mother of Angus, son of the Dagda. As wife of Nechtan mac Labraid she went to " a mysterious well in the rearward appurtenances of sidh Nechtain. Of all who should visit it, not an individual, unless it were Nechtan himself and his three cup-bearers, ever came away without having their two eyes bursten." " Once on a time Boann said that there existed no occult power able to deform her beauty, and so visited the spring ; thrice she walked left- handed round it, whereupon out of it three volumes of water spout forth over her and despoil her of a thigh, an arm, and one eye ; then to hide her disgrace she turned away and fled seaward, the water following her to the estuary of the Boyne." 184 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. She was a daughter of Delbaeth ah^eady mentioned.^ Thus we see that the Irish Mac an Og was " son of a river," and the Welsh Mabon w^as "son of Modron," which is also equivalent to a river named Marne. This story connects the Irish Boyne with the Welsh hun, " a woman," " fair one " ; hunnywen, " a goddess," " nymph " : Bun being given in the Triads as one of the " unchaste matrons of Britain." One sees here the Mac Og's connection with the hrugh (hru) of the Boyne. Angus is called " prodigious," " wondrous," also ilchlesach, " of the many accomplishments, tricks." He was one of the best for giving raiment and meat ; he was a teacher, and is represented as in rath mongaig, " the fort of strong hair," " a horse's mane," where he had Avith him " the king's sons of Ireland and Scotland acquiring the art and craft of missile weapons." ^ His connection with wells appears in another story, that of the two sons, Eochaid and Ribh, of a king of Munster, the latter eloping with his father's wife. Bibh went westward. Midir, another son of the Daghda, who had previously killed their horses, came leading by the halter one that bore a pack-saddle. On it they loaded all their stuff till they came to the place where is Loch Ree. " At this point the garran lay down with them, then stood up again, and in that spot burst forth a spring, which in the event overwhelmed and ^ O'Grady, Silva Gadelica, translation, p. 520. 2 Ibid., pp. 167, 171, 300. EOCH AIDH — LIBAN. 185 drowned them all : the same is Loch Ree." Eochaid went eastward. A tall man came to them and would have turned them out of the country, but they went not for him : that night he killed their horses. He returned on the morrow, and threat- ened that unless they left the land where they stood, he would slay all Eochaid's people ; but Eochaid pointed out that, having killed all their horses, they could not depart if they would. The Mac Og gave them a great horse, on which they put all their gear, warning them to allow of no halt. They set out on a Sunday in mid-harvest month, and at liathmuine, " grey bramble-bush," ^ the animal stood with them as they all removed their baggage, and here too was a spring well. Eochaid makes a flap to cover the well, puts a woman to attend it, who, forgetting one time to shut it, linn muine rose and covered the country, and Eochaid was drowned with all his children except Liban. Liban, (?) liath hean, " grey woman " (compare the colour of the bramble -bush above), ranged the sea for three hundred years with her lap-dog. She was in salmon form, the lap-dog as an otter, dohhar-cu, — the dog of Dobhar (and lar- Dobhair ?), At the end of this period Beoan mac Innle, who had brought back canonical order and rule to Bangor, converts her to Christianity on ^ At the time of year at which Eochaidh is said to have started, mid-September, modern folk-lore says the devil poisons brambles by "spitting" on them, or otherwise. UJV/vrRs/TY ] 186 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. condition that she was buried in his monastery, tech Dahheoc, and Comgall baptises her Muirghein, "sea-birth": thus she became a miracle-working saint. ^ This story is apparently to account for the name of the monastery Dabheoc, da hheathach, "two animals," — thus two horses, with the two wells that spring from them, Liban and her otter, and two stags which bore her chariot to the house of the two animals, Dabheoc, or was it to St David's ? The principal interest in this story is that it bridges over the Mabon, son of Modron of heathen times, the Mac Og, son of the Boyne, to the Christian Beoan by means of this " grey woman." We find the same incident as a part of the hunt of the Twrch Trwyth, This boar (twrch) is hunted by Arthur from Ireland southwards, in order to gain three precious things — a comb, razor, and scissors — which he carried "between his ears." Arthur determines that the twrch shall not go into Cornwall and to force him into the Severn, " and Mabon, the son of Modron, came up with him at the Severn." In the Severn " on the one side, Mabon, son of Modron, spurred his steed and snatched his razor from him, and Kyledyr Wyllt came up with him on the other side, upon another steed, in the Severn, and took from him the scissors," The boar, however, carries the comb ^ O'Grady, translation, Silva Gadelica, p. 265. THREE PRECIOUS THINGS. 187 into Cornwall ; but of the two who had snatched the other precious things, " if they had had trouble in getting the jewels from him, much more had they in seeking to save the two men from being drowned." ^ This is a record of the tonsure quarrel, Mabon's companion being the " Wild Caledonian," and St David's, as we all know, is at the mouth of the Severn. St David is said to have been an uncle of Arthur's, and the church of St David's was founded " in honour of the apostle St Andrew." Compare " Angus," the " Hungus " who founded the Scottish St Andrews. At St David's was the " talking stone" already mentioned.^ It must not be supposed that the identification of these three " precious things " is merely a de- duction from the traditions we have considered. Their significance is made clear in the ' History ' of Nennius, where he tells us of St Germanus and the advent of the Saxons to Britain. Vortigern, the British king, marries, in the first place, the daughter of Hengist the Saxon ; subsequently, his own daughter. Germanus and all the British clergy come to reprove him for this incest, and at a general consultation Vortigern orders his daughter to declare before the assembled clergy that the father of her child was Germanus. Taking the child, Germanus said : " I will be a father to you, my son ; nor will I dismiss you till a razor, scissors, ^ Guest, Mabinogion, vol. ii. pp. 314, 315. 2 Giraldus, Itinerary, Bk. II. c. i. 188 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. and comb are given to me, and it is allowed you to give them to your carnal father." The child goes to Vortigern and addresses him, " Thou art my father, — shave and cut the hair of my head." On this the king flees from the saint's presence, execrated and condemned by the whole synod. The child is called by Nennius "Faustus" ("pros- perous," "lucky"). He built a monastery on the Rhine, called after him, which remained at the date of the writing of the history. This fable makes clear to us the reason why those very common domestic adjuncts are called precious, as they were necessary to the making of a Christian saint. Vortigern dies, Germanus then returns to his own country, and Arthur, who hunts for the three precious things, succeeds to the kingdom. There is a name applied to Patrick, " Tal-cend," apparently meaning adze-head. Tal is an adze : Windisch gives the quotation, " Fo thai ocus beuil," by tal and axe. Patrick's name would seem more significant of a shaven front of the head than of the coronal tonsure of Pome. There is also a Mac Tail, " son of the adze," from whom are called Brian Boroimhe's tribe, the Dalcassians of Munster. To derive Brian's name from ho, " a cow," and Roimh, Pome, and say that this celebrated tribute takes its origin from a fund equivalent to Peter's Pence, is a sin against authority. Compare, however, from a folk- lore point of view, the components of the word Dalcass. It is clear that while tal may mean an TONSURE. 189 adze, it was connected with head - shaving : case, casg, says O'Reilly, is " a boat," " ship," or other vessel : compare cash, Eng. a barrel, helmet. Caisg is Easter. Every one who has studied the intro- duction of Roman Christianity among the Gael knows quite well that the diflS.culty of doing so was in getting them to adopt the coronal tonsure and the fixing of Easter according to Roman methods. When Munster, then, about 822, conformed to Rome, and we may suppose paid her share of tribute, there was sufficient authority for getting up some story including these ideas ; for when we speak of Peter's Pence, we must remember that cows were then the medium of exchange. We are also informed that in the year 938 the Goill (foreigners) deserted Dublin, " by the help of God and Mac Tail." In ' The Wars of the Gael and the Gall,' the Dal Cais Borumha are described as the descendants of Lughaid, son of Oengus Tirech, Angus the Wand- erer. They paid no tribute, and were only bound to supply forces to maintain the freedom of the capital of Munster, Caisel, against Conn's half of Ireland, the northern half This expression shows that the more ancient Connaught had had Ulster carved out of it.^ The genealogy of the Wanderer makes him son of the Chariotman (Fercorb), son of the Servant of the Chariot (Moghcorb), son of Easter ? (Cais), son of 1 Wars of Gael and Gall, pp. 53, 55. 190 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Ailill (see page 196, m7 = speech, duty, guide, O'Davoran), Bare-ear, son of Servant of Eenovation (Mogh Nuadhat : 7ioudh . i . athnughudh, renova- tion).^ Brian Borumha's own name has a churchy- sign ificat ion, — hri = accais, malediction, cursing,^ — a description, in brief, of one armed with the most formidable weapon of the Church.^ The same authority tells us that these Dalcassians and the Eoghanacht sustained the rule of Ireland from the time of Eremon (German ? Germanus ?), son of Miledh, and Ebher {aper, O.Ger. e6«r, Anglo- Sax, har, a boar), Eremon's brother. We hold that these tales are not founded upon one interpretation of a name, and also that per- sonalities have been created and given names to, to suit localities and to form genealogies in accordance with what was believed to be historic sequence. From between a.d. 432 and 459 a letter has come to us, said to have been written by Patrick to the Dux, Ceretic, Coroticus, described as Rex Aloo, king of Ail — that is, ail (rock) of Clyde, now Dum- barton.^ Ceretic's people are described as of British and Roman descent, his allies are Scots and Picts, and the latter are twice called apostates. We here again see the population of Scotland comprising three separate people, such as Galgacus mentioned, formed the Boman armies ; and a Boman descent 1 Windisch. 2 Cormac. 3 Wai's of Gael and Gall, p. 59. * Zimmer, Early Celtic Chui'ch, p. 54, quoting Stokes. ROMAN SHORE = GALLOWAY. 191 being claimed, shows that we are entitled to look for a source of origin among these invaders. In Adamnan's Life, he is said about 686 to have proceeded from Ireland to the shores of the Solway Firth, then held by Saxons, to recover from them captives taken in Ireland. The locality is clearly described, and the name applied to it is " Tracht- Romra." Tracht, also trag, is evidently " shore," and so that part of Scotland was, if 686 is a reliable date, then called the " Roman shore." ^ When we find Ailian given as the name of Solomon's caisel (stone fort) builder,^ there can be no doubt that ail in this case means "a stone"; and when Brian, king of Caisel, is in the Book of Armagh spoken of as " issuing orders to all kings of Macerise," clay-walled enclosures, we merely see a sample of the greater, the king of a stone fort, imposing him- self upon the kings whose fortifications were of earth.3 " By Patrick's Bock ! " " By Patrick's Flag-stone ! " both referring to the Bock of Cashel, is a common oath,'* and so this rock may have given significance to the name of the king of Munster, Ailill Aoulom. Keating expressly tells us that the meaning of Cashel in connection with its Bock is "tribute."^ Cashel being the Christian centre of Munster, that province's name being explained as meaning "greater {mo, motlia, = gvesiteY ; Mumha., ^ Reeves, Life of Saint Columba, Intro., p. cli. 2 Materials, App., p. 577. ^ Ibid., p. 654. 4 Ibid., p. 623. ^ Keating, p. 129. 192 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Munster) than any other province of Ireland," sug- gests that the tribute was one paid to a church, which is further borne out by the considerations previously laid before the reader. Angus seems to have provided a name for the most primeval professor invented for Ireland. A certain Fenius Farsaid went to the Tower of Nimrod to learn poetry, which we may conclude here means the proper use of language ; and he set up schools to teach tongues, including Gaelic, in the plains of Seanar, the Biblical Shinar, in a city to which there is no recognisable name -parallel, " Eothona " — ton, f., "the breech." The initials F are put to make what we may call a folk-lore " difference." Arsaid, " ancient," dropping the F of Fenius, also leaves Enius, Enius arsaid, " the ancient only one," who confounded the language at the Tower of Babel. 193 CHAPTER IX. We have already had occasion to speak of dwarfs (p. 131), especially the white dwarf that boiled the cauldron of Ceridwen and made many mutations before becoming Taliesin. We have shown how Liban formed a connection between some early form of worship and a later church, and it would seem as if the allusion was to the interpretation of tradition by bards and by churchmen. Indeed this is clearly shown in Keating, who says : "I do not say that there was not a very aged and wise man before the coming of Patrick to Ireland, and that he lived many hundred years, and that he related to Patrick everything which he remembered, and moreover every tradition which he had got from the ancestors concerning the times which had elapsed before him ; and I think that there was his like of an elder, who was called Tuan mac Cairill, and, according to others, Koanus — i.e., Caoilte, son of Ponan, who lived more than three hundred years, and who made known to Patrick much of antiquity." ^ Sub- ^ Keating, History of Ireland, p. 151. N 194 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. sequently Keating says, talking of Tuan and Caoilte and a certain Fionntain, that they are all one. Now, what Tuan did was to bring down the stories of Ceasair, Partholon, &c., and related them himself as an eyewitness. The Book of Lecan says he was a man when Ceasair landed in " Ireland," then three hundred years a deer, three hundred years a wild boar, three hundred a bird, and the last three hundred a salmon, which, being caught by a fisherman and presented to the Queen of Ireland, she immediately conceived on tasting it and brought forth this Tuan.^ Tuan is duan, " a poem"; the son of Coireall, ^ore (Kopr)); Persephone, the daugher of Demeter, "mother Earth"; a maiden, maid. Tuan's transformations are meann, "a fawn" ; second, a wild boar, tore, tivrch ; third, a bird, eun ; fourth, a salmon, eo. Keating says that appertaining to Danann and Beuchuill (p. 169) and Brighid the poetess were "two royal insti- tutes," Fe and Meann. Fe seems generally spelt Fi; Cormac translates it "bad" — " f e ab eo quod est ve " . i . vae ; ^ with which Zeuss connects jiach, also spelt feich, " a raven," " a bird of woe." Meann, Macbain suggests as connected with min, "small"; and as Fe and Meann, the "royal insti- tutes," are connected with something small, so fi would apply to a dwarf. Whether this has any- thing directly to do with the story or not is not quite clear ; but a sea-goat, with the head, horns, ^ Ossianic Society, vol. i. p. 27. ^ Cormac, p. 21. TUAN = JUAN (?). 195 and forefeet of a goat, and body and tail of a fish, was the symbol of the second legion long stationed in Caerleon, and the boar that of the twentieth legion stationed at Chester, as shown on coins struck by Carausius. Tuan's third transformation, a bird, — we have seen it in the plural eoi/t immediately above, — was un- doubtedly connected with the name John, probably John the Baptist in this case. This play on the name is shown in a story told by Giraldus of one Melerius of the City of Legions, a soothsayer who had become mad but was restored to his senses through the merits of the saints at St David's. He still, however, retained "an extraordinary famili- arity with unclean spirits." " If the evil spirits oppressed him too much, the Gospel of St John was placed on his bosom, when, like birds, they imme- diately vanished ; but when that book was removed and the ' History of the Britons,' by Geoffrey Arthur, was substituted in its place, they instantly reappeared in greater numbers, and remained a longer time than usual on his body and on the book." ^ The salmon, the last of Tuan's transform- ations, would thus naturally be the early Christian symbol of the fish, applied to Christ. Caoilte, whom Keating calls Boanus, which means the "red," also called "son of Bonan," seems to be caol, ''small," "slender," "the smaller part "; ronan, " a little seal," " a seal-calf," possibly (?) cor- ' The Itinei'ary, Bk. I. c. v. 196 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. responding with the Capricorn symbol of the second legion already mentioned. Fionntain, the third personage identical with Tuan, may mean the "white" or the "hairy." There is a story of Fer Fi, who is a dwarf in the Book of Leinster. Oilioll, king of Munster in the year 186, according to 'The Four Masters,' was called " Olum," Bare Ear, because his ear was bitten off by Aine when he attempted to force her. Eo, the word we have had so frequently, has the meaning of ear ; lorn, is " bare" ; oil, to rear, " edu- cate," as in oil-thigh, "a school" or "seminary" — oil-iol Eo-lom. It is, therefore, possible the name may mean " the Educator, bare ear," tonsured as at first in Britain, from ear to ear. The person who bit off his ear, Aine, Zeuss tells us, is explained as " Thais," the celebrated hetsera of Alexander the Great, afterwards attached to Ptolemy Lagus. Aine, according to O'Beilly, means "truth"; accord- ing to the Highland Society's Dictionary, " experi- ence," "skill." Thus Oilioll's attempt on " Truth " resulted in his becoming tonsured. One of Oilioll's sons, Eoghan, and Lugaidh mac Con, pay Art a visit to get some horses. Passing over the river Maigh they hear music in a yew-tree over the cataract at Caher-Ass, which seems to mean "the city of cataracts," eas, and, curious to say, Inchtuthill on Tay has been translated " the Island of Floods." They took the player, who was FER-FI — EOGHAN. 197 a little man, from the tree, and, disputing who should have him, they carried him to Oilioll to settle the dispute. Fer-Fi had three strings to his timpan, a small stringed instrument in Irish story, though it can undoubtedly only be derived from either the Greek or Latin for a timbrel or drum. When asked his name, he said Fer-fi, son of Eogabhal, — eo-gahlial, gohlial, " a fork," the tailor's "fork." The little man is a good timpanist, and demonstrates his knowledge by playing tunes which cause crying, laughing, and sleeping. He returns to his own place, leaving a bad feeling between Eoghan and Lugaidh. The dispute was not so much for the possession of the little man himself as for the wonderful yew-tree in which he was found ; and his reason for causing the ill-feeling was that Oilioll had slain his father Eogabhal and his aunt Aine, and it was to have venge- ance for this that the little man " raised up the phantom yew-tree at the falls of Caher-Ass." The tree was awarded to Eoghan, Eugene, the "well-born," and then it disappeared. The result of this quarrel was three battles, Ceann - abrat, Magh-mucruimhe, and Crinna.^ Ahra is an "eye- lash," plu. ahrait ; ceann ahrat, eyelash head, as if all the hair left were the eyebrows and eye- lashes. The battle of Magh-mucruimhe resulted in the death of Art and of the seven sons of Oilioll by 1 O'Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. iii. p. 259. 198 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the hands of Lugaidh, son of Mac Con, and his "foreigners," Beinne Bret — that is, Beinne the Briton — assisting Lugaidh. The third battle, Crinna, is undoubtedly connected with crinaim, " I disappear," as the yew-tree did, — crion in Scottish Gaelic means "little"; halach crion, "a little boy." The battle of Ceann-abrat is also called C-yeabrat, which introduces the de- scriptive element of the little man's name before the word for an " eyelash." The Art slain at Magh- Mucruimhe was called "Aenfhir," the "Lonely." Now we have a certain ^e?ibecan in Scotland, who goes back to the very origin of the Picts. Cruthne took possession of the island of Britain, and his seven sons divided the land into seven divisions, and " Onbecan, the son of Caith, the son of Cruthne, took the sovereignty of the seven divisions." The seven sons gave their names to the divisions, one of which was Cait — that is, Caithness — a name we un- hesitatingly suggest is connected with the Batavian origin from the Germanic Catti.^ Aenbecan = the Little One. This little man appears again as belonging to Fionn. Blathnaid, the mother of the three Cus (dogs), Curoi, Cuchulainn, Conall, is said never to have been betrothed to man, — " Except to little Cnu alone ; Patrick, sweet was her mouth." ^ Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 23, &c. LITTLE CNO — ZACCHEUS. 199 Little Cno was " The small dwarf that belonged to Fionn, ^VTaen he chanted tunes and songs Ho put us into deep slumbers." Cnu or Cno is a "nut" [glans), and he came from a fairy mound near Magh Feimhean, near Sliabh- na-m-ban. Feimean certainly means "feminine," while the other locality is the Mountain of Women. Though so skilled a musician, Cnu was scarcely tall enough to reach the strings of the harp.^ Of course we are dealing with Irish history, and all the places are identified with Irish localities. The age of the tradition of the little man in the tree is no doubt considerable. The name of the Tuatha Fidhbha is also spelt " Figda." Zaccheus, Greek form of Zaccai = pure (see Ezra ii. 9), who was called by Christ out of a fig-tree, — our version says a sycamore, — was a little man, a tax-gatherer, who gave half his goods to the poor and restored fourfold to him whom he had falsely accused. It may be a question whether this has influenced the story before us, but it is at any rate the only tradition of a little man of whom it was said, " This day is salvation come to thy house," and he was Fer-fi {Jige), Gaelic, " a fig, a fig-tree " ; fig, " split." " In Hebrew the word expressive of the fig - tree is the same as that used for coitus. It was of the leaves of this tree that aprons were made to cover our first parents. The fruit of the ^ Ossianic Society, vol. iv. p. 5. 200 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. tree resembles in shape the virgin uterus ; with its stem attached it symbolises the sistrum of Isis." 1 The Pictish invasion, according to the Irish Nennius, came through France from Koman terri- tory, the first five landing in Ireland after the death of the sixth brother, said also to have been the oldest, and his name, Leithinn, connects him with LetsiVm, of which name we believe there is a survival in Leith. They were promised terri- tory on condition of driving out the Tuatha Fidhbha (pronounce Fihva). These latter used poisoned weapons, but the Picts, by lying down in a " pit full of milk," recovered from the effects. Dr Todd, commenting on this, mentions that no such colony can be traced in Ireland, but says there was an old "British" colony in the Barony of " Forth." ^ The resemblance in the name of the Welsh Ui^ien of " Beged in the north" with Orion is striking. Let us look, then, at the Orion legend. Orion clears the island of Chios of wild animals, and wishes to lay his booty at the feet of the daughter of King Oenopion (oinos, wine). With the help of the power of wine he is thrown into a deep slumber, his eyes put out, and he is cast out on the shore. Being told by an oracle that if he exposed his face to the morning sun he would regain his sight, Orion reached Lemnos by hearing 1 Inman, Aucient F;titlis, vol. i. p. 527. 2 Irish Nennius, p. 123. ORION — FIRE. 201 the hammering of the Cyclops. Vulcan gives him as his guide Kedalion, a name signifying " fire- brand." This little fire - demon the giant carried through the sea, and, having received his sight, re- turned to Chios to punish the wine-king, but found him not, as he had been hidden under ground. In the Meleager story Oenopion, who instituted the boar-hunt in Chios, is called Oeneus, and is King of Calydon, a name curiously resembling the older spellings of Angus of the Caledonian part of Britain. Oeneus, also meaning "wine," had neglected to sacrifice to the Moon goddess, who caused his territories to be ravaged by the Cale- donian boar. His son Meleager kills the animal, but his death is caused by a quarrel about its hide, which he wished to lay at the feet of Atalanta. All we would say is, the Diarmait legend and the above are of a common stock. We do not venture on a translation of the name Meleager ; but a guinea-fowl, with its white- spotted plumage, is called meleagris, and the parti- coloured badger, which we will also find playing a part in our legends, is meles. Can it be that a Caledonian legend, by locality connected with what were believed to be spotted, particoloured (Picts) men, has purposely drawn upon this Greek myth ? (See also p. 230, " magpie.") From the same stock comes the Christopher legend. We are informed that he was a German and a giant, and his original name Offerus, the 202 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Bearer. Desirous of serving only the man who knew no fear, in his search OfFerus took service with the Roman Emperor ; but finding that he made the sign of the cross when mention was made of the devil, he took service with the devil. He then discovered that his new master would rather take a roundabout road than pass a crucifix, showing that he was afraid of Christ. Therefore our "bearer" took service with Christ. The service required was to carry pilgrims for a year and a day over a ford. Having completed his time, he heard himself hailed from the far side of the river by a little child asking " dear tall Offer " to carry him over. He went across, lifted the child like a featherweight on his shoulder, but by the time he reached mid-stream the weight had become so great he could go no farther. Trembling, he turned his head, " How heavy thou art, dear child ! I feel as if I had all the world on my shoulders." The child answered, " Not the world alone do you carry, but the Creator of heaven and earth." Three times he pushed his head under water, and christened him " Christopher," because he had borne " the Saviour of the World." ^ This is a Christian conversion leo^end of a Ger- manic " bearer," and what he carried was aenhecan, the " little one " — no doubt a " little one " of mighty import. Odin, Woutan, Vada, all Teutonic divini- 1 Krause, Tuisko-Land, p. 170. URIEN OF REGED. 203 ties, are credited with a like carrying experience, which may account for the Christopher legend being localised as the act of a Teuton ; but the fountain-head for the story may possibly be the Orion of the Odyssey and Iliad. Orion as depicted in the constellation drives before him the Pleiades as a flock of pigeons, just as Cuchulainn and Cailte do the Irish bird-flocks. On Orion's shoulder is a star of the first magnitude, which star, though it did not originate the story of the Kedalion- carrying giant, doubtless influenced it.^ As Orion is depicted with uplifted club, while " at his upraised left foot is the constellation Eri- danus, the river Po," we can see how fighting at a ford would be a characteristic in stories formed about him.^ Following him is the dog Sirius, " which men call the dog of Orion " ; and in the Welsh story of Urien he is spoken of as with the hounds in the covert of Reged, apparently the northern sky.^ Fire is what is borne by the demi-gods of heathen times, while it is light, " the Light of the World," that is on the shoulder of the Christopher, and, having little doubt that the older was fitted into the later story, we think we can show very evident traces left by them in the locality in which we have found the two clans with whose quarrel we started. 1 Tuisko-Land, p. 167. - Ibid., p. 159. 3 Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 358. 204 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. In the Irish Calendar of Oengus, a Culdee, said to have lived 703 to 817, at the 28th of April, we find " Cristifer, &c. — i.e., a dog-head was he, and under Decius he suffered." He is called a "pious dog-head," so we may suppose there were others not to be so described.^ In Egypt Anubis, the dog-headed, carried the infant Horus through the Nile ; and in some of the oldest Christian pictures, as in the convent of Sinai and other Grecian con- vents, the son of Osiris, with the shining corona, had evidently been taken for the Christian Saviour, as a dog-headed Christ-bearer was there repre- sented.^ Though our Picts claim a Grecian origin, their connection with Italy is undoubtedly greater ; and in Italy we find the trace necessary to show a connection between Oengus and a dog-headed per- sonage, and that personage Aeneas. In 1760 there was found at Gragnano, Pompeii, a fresco, pre- served in the Museum of Naples, representing the flight of the Trojan hero. On his shoulder he carries Anchises, a much smaller figure than him- self, while he drags along by the hand Ascanius. All three have dog's heads and tails and prominent phalli, while in the hand of Anchises is a small casket, aixa, which may be supposed to contain the Palladium, for Aeneas is said to have carried one to Italy. The first information we have of ' Stokes, Calendar of Oengus, p. Ixxvi. 2 Tuisko-Land, p. 171. PALLADIUS — PATRICK. 205 Romanising Christianity in Britain is on the author- ity of Prosper of Marseilles, who, having been in Kome in 431, tells us that Celestine, the Pope, sent Palladius to the Scots believing in Christ. Of course if the view here advocated is correct, to transpose "Irish" for "Scots" is a mistaken narrowing of the term. For what it is worth, let us notice that Celestine's name, connected with ccelwni, the Latin "heaven," comes very near to Keating's Neimheadh, from neawJi, " heaven," as mentioned on p. 165. Celestine's ambassador's name connects him with Pallas, the Greek Athene, the Latin Minerva, and at Fordun in the Mearns was a shrine of Palladius. Zimmer gives very good reason for calling this Palladius the historical Patrick ; ^ and as the whole Patrick legend has grown from so small a " cutting " as Prosper's state- ment, we can easily see how other sainted names can have sprung from small beginnings, and indeed we believe the mass of Scotic saints are figments of the Church created to further its material inter- ests, among them Columba, the great converter of the Picts. Aeneas with bis Palladium and the district of Angus and its shrine of Palladius might be coincidences, were it not for the name of the Mearns already mentioned, " Magh Circinn." On p. 71, utilising the Welsh bardic " Gwrgi," man- dog, treating it as a plural, we have translated it "plain of the human dogs," but it may be cii air ^ The Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland, p. 35. 206 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. mm, "dog on head." That the name Circinn is not spelt with Cii cannot be considered a serious difficulty. Ci is the Welsh form of the Gaelic cu. In the " Healing of CiaiiS Leg," as told in the ' Silva Gadelica,' the name of the subject of the tale is clearly understood as meaning " little dog." Cian is a great personage, and one of his depend- ents, O'Cronagan, has a mistress with whom Brian the king, Brian's son Morrough, and Cian himself fall in love. Cian attempts to seduce the woman, and to escape him she is turned into a brood mare ; but he tries to hold her by one hind-leg, and she kicks him with the other and breaks his leg. The trick here ascribed to Cian is just what one would see in the case of a dog. We may mention that this Cian was the son of Mael Muaidh, " the ser- vant of the jealous man." Further we cannot go into the concealed suggestion in the expression " a broken leg." ^ While the folk-lorist, or we may call him his- torian, saw in Cian's name the meaning " little dog," ordinarily it means "at a distance," " far," " long," so that Cian as a noun means " him from a distance." It is an interesting coincidence, see- ing that we suggest a Germanic origin for the forefathers of the Scots, that in Bede we find a story of Germanus having broken his leg. Bede tells us that he refused to be carried from the house in which he was lying when a fire broke 1 Silva Gadelica, translation, p. 332. GERMANUS. 207 out, and all the surrounding huts were destroyed, while his was not. The leg was ultimately cured by an angelic visitor. Sheer folk -story, adapted for Farmer and Henley. On a second visit to Britain, after preaching in Germany, he was met by a certain Elafius, a chief of that region — i.e., Britain — whom "all the people followed." His son, in the flower of his youth, had a leg so contracted that it was useless. By passing his healing hand over the limb the saint was enabled to deliver the youth whole to his father, and this miracle firmly planted the Catholic faith in the minds of all. In his previous visit the people of Britain had been baptised in crowds. With these Germanus opposed the Saxons and Picts. The saint himself acted as general, and instructed his men " all in a loud voice to repeat his words." When the enemy closed on them, " The priests three times cried Hallelujah ! A universal shout of the same word followed, and the hills resounding the echo on all sides, the enemy was struck with dread, . . . and such was their terror that their feet were not swift enough to deliver them from it." ^ The following is what Tacitus tells us of the Ger- mans, when speaking of their barding, or, as it has been written, not harditum, but haritum. " Accord- ing to the nature of the cry proceeding from the line, 1 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Bk. I. cc. xix.-xxi. See 'Garmand,' p. 175, ante. 208 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. terror is inspired or felt ; nor does it seem so much an articulate song as the wild chorus of valour. A harsh piercing note, and a broken roar, are the favourite tones, which they render more full and sonorous by- applying their mouths to their shields." ^ Isidor in his 'Origines' calls the elephant harms " unde et vox e jus barritus dicitur." ^ All the people on his second visit follow a certain Elafius, while on his previous visit they had by a barritus, the trumpet- ing of an elephant, conquered the Saxons and Picts. " Elafius " seems to be a mishandled elephas, elephant, this also being an invented incident. Before leaving^ consideration of the first visit of Germanus, note that his companion was St Lupus, which might be translated St Faolan, both meaning " wolf " ; and he and Germanus " filled the island of Britain with the fame of their preaching and virtues," says Bede. Zimmer points out the relation between the names recorded of St Patrick. He says Succat seems to have been his British name, meaning "ready for battle," "warlike"; Palladius is a Bomanised translation of his British name, Cothrige (Cathrige), "battle king," its Gaelic equivalent.^ We know there was a Celtic god Sucellus, a hammer- bearing god, but there is no record of a female to correspond to Pallas. Pallas as a guide in war 1 Manners of the Germans, c. iii. - Origines, quoted Lewis and Short, harms. ^ Celtic Church in Britain and Ireland, p. 37. CIAN — CHRISTOPHER. 209 might well form the root of a name meaning " war- like " ; Palladius is, however, more a parallel name to, rather than a translation of, Succat or Cathrige. That we are entitled to bring Cian from Scotland appears distinctly in the " Colloquy." Donn mac Midir, telling Finn who were the leaders of the Tuatha De, who came to fight the Fenians yearly, mentions " Cian and Coban and Conn, three sons of the king of Sidh Monaidh, over from Scotland " ; and Ossian, detailing the division of Ireland by Tuathal and Fiacha, mentions Lugh as the son of " Cian mac Cainte (satirist) from beyond {anall, ' over to this side '), which expression would apply to Ireland from Scotland."^ From the name of the district Magh Circinn has been deduced a name for one of the seven sons of Cruithne, the first of the Picts, Cirig, like Fib from Fife, Cat from Caithness, &c. It is interesting to find the name Christopher an important one in that very district. If we turn back to the extract from Wyntoun, it will be seen that the name of one of the leaders of the com- batants was Cristy Johnesone — i.e., Christopher, the son of John. All know that Perth is called St John's Town. It is surely clear that these legends connected with the locality of the Fortrennibh have as strong a flavour of heathenism about them as of Christianity ; and though it would be hard perhaps to prove, yet there is much that suggests a Chris- 1 Silva Gadelica, translation, pp. 165, 225. O 210 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. tianity older than any of the records, and Boece's date for the taking of the faith by the Scots — viz., 203 — may not be so far out. That it was any- thing Hke modern Christianity cannot be said. King in his ' Gnostics ' figures and describes a gem in his own possession, which, when looked at at first, is an exact representation of " the Good Shepherd " with the lamb upon his shoulders, but which from certain particulars is seen to be the Egyptian Anubis. This identification of the char- acteristics of Christ in Anubis explains another sketch found, roughly scratched, on the plaster of a house buried in ancient times under the buildings of the Palatine of Rome. It represents a jackal-headed man with his hands outstretched, in front of him a Latin cross, beside him a man in a simple tunic with the inscription " Alexamenos worships God." ^ King quotes Tertullian : " Like many others, you have dreamt that an Ass's Head is our god. But a new version of our god has lately been made public at Kome, ever since a certain hireling convict of a bull - fighter put forth a picture with some such inscription as this, ' The god of the Christians, Onokoihthe.' " He was depicted thus : " With the ears of an ass and with one of his feet hoofed, holding in his hand a book, and clothed in the toga." King goes on to show that the Christians themselves transferred this accusation to the Gnostics, for at the close of 1 Gnostics and their Eemains, title-page and p. 279. CUTHBERT. 211 the fourth century Epiphanius asserted " that the Gnostic Sabaoth has, according to some, the face of an ass, according to others that of a hog. Sabaoth was held by the Gnostics as the national god of the Jews."i Bede tells us about Bishop Cuthbert, " faithfully copied from what I found written of him by the brethren of the Church of Lindisfarne." In his ' Ecclesiastical History ' we find much the same story as we have seen already narrated of Cuthbert in Perthshire, how he dug a pit in the floor of his dwelling where there was no hope of water, but next day it was full, and affords plenty to this day. This was while he was a hermit in the island of Fame. Cuthbert, of course, is a Northumbrian saint, but we have him as well among the southern Picts as among the northern, as shown in the name Kirk- cudbright. Cuddy is colloquial for Cuthbert, and it also means " an ass." Jamieson gives us as Scottish cud, " a strong staff," a cuddy -rung for *' a cudgel " ; and we found the saint in Perthshire flourishing one to some purpose. It is suggested that " cudgel," English, and cuigeal, " a distaff," are the same word, connected with cuaill, " a pole," Gaelic ; but it seems hard to believe that this dog-headed or ass- headed divinity has come down to us in the name of this Northumbrian saint with a name probably meaning " war-shield," gutJibord. ^ Gnostics and their Remains, p. 230. 212 CHAPTER X. Frequent allusion has been made to fire and the name Aedh, U, Hugh, which, reaching through the whole of British Celtdom, shows that fire held and retained a prominent position in the sacred mys- teries. No simile is more common than to speak of " the fire of passion," " the flame of love," similes quite as old as the Roman occupation of Britain. We would connect with this idea the derivation of the branch-carrying of which we have already spoken. U Mor, the great Hugh, was the leader of the Fir Bolg who reached the west coast of Ireland. A good deal has been said of the knights of the Red Branch of Ulster : O' Curry makes it the Royal Branch. Of this order the most prominent were called Cu, "dog." In speaking of Lugh Long-hand, there has been shown some reason for connecting the " long-hand " of this great Irishman with the latter part of the Roman name Lucullus, as if it were from uileann, the Gaelic "elbow," connected with the Latin ulna, " the arm," ell measure, say a yard. The Gaelic for Ulster is UJadh, and O'Reilly FIRE. 213 gives the same word for " a pack-saddle, a straddle " — that is to say, something with an angle in it, like uileann, which also signifies "an angle." In this connection it is notable that the other half of the north of Ireland, and the great opponent of Uladh, was (7o?macht. According to the account given in the ' Gentle- man's Magazine' in 1795, it is clear that as lately as 1782 the summer solstice, 21st June, was in some districts of Ireland, at all events, almost uni- versally distinguished by the lighting of material fires. The date shows this to have been of a non- Christian origin ; but the same may be said to be as clearly shown in the Christmas-day celebrations of the birth of Christ, to which even Scottish Presbyterianism has to a certain extent returned. Very few but admit that Christianity develops like all other science, and among so mixed a population as that of Lowland Scotland during the Koman occupation, we may conclude that " the Scots believ- ing in Christ" would have difficulty in clearing themselves, to say nothing of their neighbours, of previous beliefs. Is it not perfectly clear that the groundwork of the Irish story of the Fomorian, Balor Birugderc, of the second battle of Moytura, Balor of the Piercing Eye (Evil Eye), influences the beliefs of many good Christians in Scotland at this very moment ? We have only to look into the New Testament to see sufficient reason for looking upon fire as a symbol of Christ. John the Baptist, who 214 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. baptised with water, said that Jesus " shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire " (Luke iii. 16); and in the same Gospel Jesus Himself says, " I am come to send fire on the earth ; and what will I, if it be already kindled ? " (xii. 49.) If that statement was metaphorical, we see in the Acts of the Apostles that it became a physical fact. On the day of Pentecost, now Whitsuntide, apparently all Christians at that date were gathered in one place — " Suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them tongues distributing themselves (or parting asunder), like as of fire ; and it sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance " (Acts ii. 1-4). Not only the Son but the Father also was represented as fire : " And the Angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush : and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not con- sumed." Moses turns aside to see this " great sight," and it is no longer an angel but God Him- self who " called unto him out of the midst of the bush " (Exod. iii. 2-4). When the children of Israel started through the wilderness, " the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way ; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light" (Exod. ISIS. 215 xiii. 21). This is quite a different fire from that described in Ezekiel : " And I will send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles ; and they shall know that I am the Lord " (xxxix. 6). The first was an instructing fire, a leading fire ; the second, more that described in Deuteronomy (iv. 24) : " The Lord thy God is a consuming fire, even a jealous God." Horeb, the locality of the burning bush, is a mountainous name meaning "he is high, or firm " ; but seeing Moses at the time of this incident was in Egypt, a con- nection has been shown between the name of the mountain and that of the Egyptian Horus carried over the Nile by the dog-headed Anubis. Horus has been identified as Cupid. Isis, his mother, was the goddess of the Earth, and the inventor of the cultivation of wheat and barley. In Greece she was worshipped as Pelagia, " the ruler of the sea," and her worship is known as having been practised in Rome fifty- eight years before Christ. Apuleius, in what he calls his "Milesian Narration," meaning of course " facetious," after the Ionian people so- called, proves that her worship was in full swing there in his time, the second century, though from its first introduction it had suffered considerable persecution, and only gave way on the introduction of Christianity. Those initiated in her mysteries, in the public processions wore masks representing the heads of dogs. Her worshippers carried the sistrum, that jingling branch of such lascivious 216 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. import that its Greek name, crelarpov, was used to signify " a brothel." Plutarch tells us, further : " On the summit of the concavity of the sistrum they carved a cat having a human face ; and on the under part, below the rattling rods, they placed on one side the face of Isis and on the other that of Nephthys, obscurely signifying by these faces generation and death : for these are the mutations and motions of the elements. But by the cat they indicated the Moon, on account of the diversity of colours, operation by night, and fecundity of this animal. For it is said that she brings forth one, afterwards two, three, four, and so adds till she has brought forth seven ; so that she brings forth twenty-eight in all, which is the number of the illuminations of the Moon."i Isis' son, Horus, is often represented with her as a fine naked boy, holding the forefinger on his mouth. That the representations of the Virgin and Child may be said to be the direct successors pictorially of Isis and Horus there can be no manner of doubt. Tacitus informs us that the Germans worshipped Isis ; but this is doubtless another case of using a name with a signification comprehensible to the Latins rather than the barbarian one, Hertha. Fer- Fi's timpan had three strings, and this was the ^ Metamorphosis, or Golden Ass of Apuleius, Taylor's translation, p. 262. SISTRUM — ISIS' BOAT. 217 number of rods that rattled in the sistrum ; and Cnu Deroil, Finn's dwarf harper, had an instrument only " three hands' breadth in height, and it was called ' Crann Ciuil/ the musical tree or branch." ^ We identify these instruments with Isis' sistrum. It will be remembered that the Aitheach Tuatha had for their chief a cat -headed man, Cairbre Cinn- Cait, explained by the human - faced cat on the summit of the concavity of the sistrum. Now, Cairbre was a son of the king of Lochlann, what was subsequently called a Viking, and his name means either the " chariot-man " or the " boat-man." In the description of the rites of Isis at Corinth, Apulieus describes the launching of a ship, " most artificially fabricated," adorned, purified by lire, filled with copious gifts, and allowed to drift out of sight. ^ Is it not possible that the small gold boat recently the subject of dispute between the British Museum and the Irish — now returned to Ireland, where it was found — is a representation of this ship of Isis, and a representation of the euhemerised Arc, Ere, the forefather of all the Gael supposed to have invaded Argyleshire from Ireland ? The worship of Isis had for its basis the " mutations and motions of the elements " : and when the servile Aitheach Tuatha swore allegiance, as long as the sea sur- rounded Ireland, to the Irish nobles, we are told ^ O'Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. iii. p. 324. -' The Golden Ass, p. 274. 218 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. they swore by all the elements, heaven and earth, sun and moon.^ To point out the influence of the worship of Isis upon the " productions " of the Celtic Church in our British Islands, we cannot apparently do better than quote the following from King : " Her [Isis] devotees carried into the new priesthood the ancient badges of their profession — ' the obligation to celibacy,' the tonsure, the bell, and the surplice — omitting, unfortunately, the frequent and com- plete ablutions enjoined by the older ritual. The holy image still moves in procession as when Juvenal laughed at it [vi. 530], ' escorted by the tonsured, surpliced train.' Even her proper title ' Domina,' exact translation of the Sanscrit Isi, survives with slight change in the modern ' Madonna ' (Mater- Domina). By a singular permutation of meaning, the flower borne in the hand of each, the lotus, former symbol of perfection (because in leaf, flower, fruit it gave the figure of the Circle, as Jamblichus explains it), and therefore of fecundity, is now in- terpreted as signifying the opposite to the last — virginity itself The tinkling sistrum, so well pleasing to Egyptian ears, has unluckily found a substitute in that most hideous of all noise-makers, the clangorous bell. But this latter instrument came directly from the Buddhistic ritual, in which it forms as essential a part of the religion as it did in Celtic Christianity, where the Holy Bell was the Annals of the Four Masters, a.d. 106, note. SIMON MAGUS TONSURE. 219 actual object of worship to the new converts. The bell in its present form was unknown to the Greeks and Romans ; its normal shape is Indian, and the first true bell-founders were the Buddhist Chinese. Again relic-ivorship became, after the third century, the chief form of Christianity throughout the world, which finds its parallel in the fact that a fragment of a bone of a Buddha (that is, holy man in whom the deity had dwelt during his life) is actually indispensable for the consecration of a dagohah, or temple of that religion, equally as a similar particle of saintliness is a sine qua noii for the setting-up of a Boman Catholic altar," ^ The ear-to-ear tonsure was objected to as that of Simon Magus, as Bishop Ceolfrid informed Naitan, king of Picts, a.d. 710;^ and on the authority of Hippolytus (died 230), we learn Simon maintained Jire to be the "principle" of all things, quoting Moses, who speaks of God as a burning and con- suming " fire." Simon demonstrated this in the case of generation by arguing that "to be set on fire " is the term used to designate the desire of the act of generation and propagation. Now this " fire " which is one, is changed into two. " For in the male the blood, which is hot and red, like fire in a visible shape, is converted into seed ; in the female this same blood is converted into milk." This doc- trine resulted in the followers of Simon asserting ^ King, Gnostics and their Remains, pp. 173, 174. 2 Bede's Ecclesiastical History, Bk. V. c. xxi. 220 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. " that it is right to have intercourse with all women promiscuously, for they say ' all land is land, and it matters not where one sows his seed so long as he does sow it.' Nay, more, they pride themselves upon this promiscuous intercourse, affirming that this is the ' perfect love,' and quote the text, ' The Holy of holies shall be made holy.' For they hold that they are bound by no obligation as regards anything usually accounted wicked, inasmuch as they have been redeemed." ^ ^ Gnostics and their Remains, pp. 59, 66, 69. 221 CHAPTER XL We have had to speak of Arthur's hunt of the Twrch Trwyth, and have connected its peculiarities with a worship in which shaving the head between the ears was customary with some at least of its devotees. If it is to be considered as evidence that we are entirely wrong in our speculation, if we can- not trace all our traditions to one simple source, we must fail to convince any reader in this particular branch of our subject. In Cormac's Glossary we learn, s.v., " Ore Treith " — i.e., the name for a king's son, for Triath is a name applied to a king ; whence the poet said, " Oinach n-uirc treith," "fair of a king's son." Cormac's treith seems to be the Welsh traeth, " the shore," the Gaelic tragh, which may account for what seems an error. Having to handle a tradi- tional name, Cormac, so to say, was at sea. Trivyth, the Twrch's Welsh epithet, is lye, urine, — the usual lye in old days, and still used as a purificant. Ore has many meanings. In the Highland Society's Dictionary it is "a little hunting-dog," 222 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. and Windisch gives '' orce, a lap-dog; orcnee" also. O'Reilly gives as its meaning "a salmon," "a pig," "a whale" (in Gaelic called "a sea-pig"), "a prince." Zeuss tells that orcun is "slaughter," "murder"; oircnid, "slaughterer," "murderer." Armstrong does not translate it dog or pig, but says orchan, "an incantation." In Irish orrtha, "a prayer" or " charm," is pronounced arrtha. To describe a man as a pig was not uncomplimentary. Cormac ex- plains this, for he says, " cumlachtaig " — i.e., name for a young pig, when he seeks his dam to suck her teats — " quasi cum lacte ambulans, unde dicitur cumlachtach," — the man munificent, who gives something to every one, as a sow dispenses her milk to those who seek it ; a princely man, in fact. We suggest, then, that Cormac's ore treith is best translated "shore pig," or "shore boar" perhaps. If we consider the history of the Vikings, it will be seen how they would give some reason to ascribe to them the name Ore. If the leader was munifi- cent, he was ore, a prince ; if he was an invading enemy, he carried on oreun, slaughter, murder. The sea was his habitation, like the whale's, or, for the matter of that, salmon. There is another meaning for area, " the calf of the leg." 1 On page 197, in speaking of the dispute between Eoghan, son of Bare-Ear, and Lugaidh about Fer-fi, mention was made of three battles fought in the Windisch, Irische Texte, i. (Worterbuch, s.v.). LUGHAIDH MAC CON. 223 time of Bare-Ear — Ceann-abrat, Magh-Mucruimhe, and Crinna. In the second of these Lughaidh mac Con, with his foreigners and Beinne Bret, kill the seven sons of Bare-Ear. O'Flaherty says that a Carbre wounded Lughaidh on the leg, from which he was ever after lame.^ 'Curry tells us that Mac Con's shield was always fastened to his leg, and the 7iasc, band, was gold, and there were seven chains of red bronze attached to the band, and there was a champion at the end of each chain whose support and obedience were commanded by him when going to battle. When each of them entered on his com- bat, this band and the seven chains out of it were used to prevent any one of them taking the place of the other, because (in such a case) they were immediately drawn back. This 7iasc could not be taken in pledge.^ The nasc is evidently the im- portant thing in this story. Now, Lughaidh it was who instituted the 'Lngnassad in honour of Tailltiu, Taillte, daughter of Great Plain, king of Spain, who was wife of Horseman, son of Ark, the last king of the Fir Bolg, and subsequently wife of the Bough Horseman, chief of the Tuatha De, he himself being son of Ethne, Ethlenn, according to Cormac. Ith is "corn," itlilann is a "granary," also spelt iodh- lann. The old genitive of ith is etho, etha ; ^ and here remark the first Lughaidh in L^ish history was ^ Ogygia, vol. iii. c. Ixv. 2 Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 331, note. ^ Windisch, Irische Texte, s.v. 224 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. mac Ith, " who with a crew of one hundred and fifty men was sent to explore Ireland previous to the Milesian invasion." ^ He composed an elegy on his wife Fail (enclosure, pig-sty), who died on account of seeing her husband naked. Fail was daughter of Milesius.^ In the ' Rennes Dindsen- chas,' the Lughnasad were instituted to commem- orate Lugh's two wives, Nas and Boi, daughters of Ruadri (Red King), son of Caite, king of Britain.-^ Cat was one of the sons of Cruithneach (wheat). The word nassad is shown to be connected with the Latin nexus, a tying or binding together, a legal obligation.^ Lugh's other wife, Boi, we may con- clude, is hoid, a vow, an oath. The Lughnasad is the same as the Norse Hlafmaesse, the Bread Mass of the Gule of August.^ This Scandinavian connec- tion takes us north to the Orcades, and so back to the orca, " the calf of the leg." In connection with the name Cian, we have shown what the leg may mean. A shielded leg, however, was customary among the Roman soldiery, and the protection was, in Latin, called ocrea, worn by the heavy-armed Romans on the right leg, the Latin word being derived from the Greek o/cptg, a prominence. In Greek, the leg between the knee and the ankle is Kvrjfxe, KvqjjiU is "a greave," and Kvrjjxoq, "the pro- jecting limb " of a mountain ; and as ttou?, " foot," is 1 Ossiaiiic Society Transactions, vol. v. p. 266, note. 2 Ibid., p. 238. ^ Revue Celtique, vol. xv. p. 318. * Hibbert Lectures, p. 415. ^ Ibid., p. 413. LU(4 — COBBLERS. 225 used for the lower part of a mountain, so *' the pro- jecting limb" — leg — was properly applied to the parts above. ^ Lug was more important on the Continent than in Ireland, to judge from the cities to which he gave his name ; and at Lugduna on the Rhone, Lyons, as Rhys has pointed out, the festival held on the 1st of August in honour of the deified Augustus simply superseded an older feast held that day in honour of Luof.- Lug-'s connection with lesr-cover- ings is also not peculiar to Irish story. A certain Urcico built a temple at Uxama, now Osma, in Spain, for the Lugoves, and made a present of it to a colleofe of cobblers.^ In Wales the three gfolden cobblers of the isle of Britain were Caswallon, son of Beli, Manawydan, son of Llyr, and Lieu (Lug) respectively. In Whitley Stokes's translation of the second battle of Moytura (the Plain of Towers), he gives us the following information in the Index of Names : '^ " Lug (Luce, Luch, Lugh, Luog), son of Clan little dog, ore, lap-dog [Mass dog ?), gen. Logo (corruptly), Logai. . . . Invented Fidhchell [Fer Fidh f chess generally) and ball-play and horseman- ship." A gloss in Harl. 5280, f 69b, on the word lethsuanach, which Rhys ingeniously corrects into lethsianach, states that a " red colour used to be on him from sunset to morning." Another evidence of ^ See Liddel and Scott's Greek Lexicon. " Hibbert Lectures, p. 42L ^ Ibid., p. 424. "* Revue Celtique, vol. xii. p. 127. P 226 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the importance of Lug's legs is given in the account of the battle of Cenn-febrat, where he was wounded on the calf. Lug had a Fool. "Alike in shape and figure was the Fool (Druth) to Mac-con. The Fool, with Lug's diadem and raiment on, to save Lug, because if he fell his army would be routed, gave as his reason for assuming his dress that Lug's opponent ' will be seeking thee throughout the battle, and if he see thy shin, thou wilt surely be slain.' That is done. The Fool is killed, but Eogan knew that it was not Lugaid whom he had slain. Thereafter he turns to seek him. ' The battle was broken!' says every one. 'Lugaid has fallen.' 'That is true ; Lugfaid is routed,' Then Eogfan beheld through the host Lugaid's two shins like the snow of one night, because of the brightness of his two shins." The bright object with two projecting limbs is the moon, and we have seen that another of the golden cobblers of Britain was Manawyddan, son of Llyr, Moon, son of the Sea.^ To show the play upon names, after the injury to his limb Lug flies to Scotland with a small party. Though hospitably entertained by the king and fed on swine's flesh, Lug, desiring to conceal himself, ordered his men to act as if all were equal. To discover the chief the Scotsman hits on the device of offering them each a red raw mouse with its hair on to eat. Under threat 1 Eevue Celtique, vol. xiii. p. 441. MICE— PIGS. 227 of being killed they valiantly attack their mice ; but there was " one unhappy man who would vomit when putting the tail of the mouse to his lips." " A sword across thy throat ! " says Lugaid. " The eating of a mouse includes its tail." Then the man swallows the tail of the mouse. Though he had himself swallowed his mouse, tail and all, his having exerted his authority showed who he was.^ Luchaidh is in Gaelic " mice." The seven champions chained on Lug's " legal obligation " (p. 224) were doubtless the seven sons of Cruithne, who, according to the additions to the ' Historia Britonum,' ^ divided the north of Britain among them — Cait, Ce, Cirig, Fib, Fidach, Fotla, Fortrenn, — and Onbeccan, son of Cait, took the sovereignty over all. Stokes, commenting on O'Davoran's " 07^c . i . nwc, a pig," says probably ore has lost an initial j^, and is the equivalent of Latin porous. If the word was used as jporc in British, we might expect it to appear in Gaelic as core. Even if the specula- tions of the writer are incorrect, letters, like its Church, must have passed to Ireland from Roman Britain. In Ogmic character the Welsh mah, map, " a son," is written with a final q — maq, " a son." Grammatically the only relationship between q (Jcoppa) and p is in their shape, the former being a guttural, the latter a labial. One wonders how ^ Revue (.'eltique, vol. xiii. p. 447. - Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 23. 228 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the Gael changed map into maq, and Latin quid into cid. Their first grammarians eliminated p from the alphabet, but adopted the Latin q. When the knowledge of letters had been introduced, and in words not Gaelic where a j9 occurred, is it impossible that the sound of the known q was accepted for the unknown p, and pore would be- come core, as quid, "what," was cidf Such a sequence of reasoning would be purely literary, and must have been excogitated before the name (P)atrick was recognised in Ireland. Strange to say, however, we do find his name beginning with C, " Cathrig," otherwise traditional " Cothridge," possibly a purely literary invention of a name supposed to be derived from cath, " battle," rig, " king." In the case of the name of a person or of a species, the p in British, the c in Gaelic, when initial, might be dropped, for the following reason. Map becomes ap, as a prefix P — Price, Pritchard ; and in Gaelic inac, gen. mic, becomes ic, as a prefix G, K, Q — Cermode, son of Dermot ; Kegeen, son of Aedhagain ; Quayle, son of Phaill, as we write it in Scottish. On this system ore might, for the story-teller's purpose, become the simple noun p-ore, c-ore, the young of ojx, "a pig"; hanhh (p. 115). We have mentioned a tale of Lug being in Scotland to get assistance. A parallel story is told of a Core, the son of Lug, which we take to DUBEN — TALORGAN. 229 show that the names are the same — that is to say, that both have a common connection, the C being responsible for Core appearing as "son" of Lug.^ The name Core is found once in an Ogmic inscrip- tion as Cure ; both forms appear in literature. Every one knows that a portion of Munster is called Cork ; and in conformity with Fortrenn being called after the men who inhabited it, Magh Circinn after its inhabitants, so Cork, meaning " mic Ore," abbreviated to Core, meaning " sons of pigs," seems to give us the derivation of the name ; and Corkaguiney would be " sons of the pigs of Duben" — the same as " mucoi Dovinia." Having no desire to speak disrespectfully of our Munster kindred, we would point out that the Pictish name Talorgan, Talergan, Talargan, if to be divided Tal-org-an, may represent the Gaelic taile, " strong," " stout " ; ^ ore, " a pig " ; an, " de- scendant," as in Gaulish names, and probably as in Fill-a?i, &c., and so would mean a "descendant of the stout pig." To come down to the present, let us consider a riddle current in the West Highlands. " Tri muic dhubh dhubh. Te dol thun an iar, agus te dol thun an deas. Bi'n oidhche ann mus tomhais thu e." Answer: "Tri soithichean." (Three black, black pigs. One going towards the west, one going towards the south. It will be night before you guess it. Answer : Three vessels.) The pigs * Macaliater, Irish Epigraphy, Pt. I. p. 72. ^ Windisch. 230 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. are female, and the Gaelic word used in the answer, like its English translation, does not only mean "ships." Orca is Latin for a species of whale, and is also applied to a big-bellied vessel. We see thus that the idea of comparing capacious vessels and large animals is at least as old as the Koman occupation of Britain. Orcades, the Orkneys, may thus quite well mean the Whale Islands : one of the Shetlands is Whalsey, Whale Island, now. We have seen how in tradition the Picts are in their origin connected with the Orkneys. Orcus is the Latin hell ; in Gaelic the devil is called " An Riabhach," the brindled, streaked one. All know that the word " pig " means in Scotland, in Gaelic as well as Lowland dialect, " an earthen- ware vessel." O'Keilly gives ^'pighead" both for a magpie and an earthen pitcher. In Scottish Gaelic piocaid is "a pickaxe," ^^0(7/la^o? is "a mag- pie," Latin pica. Using a pickaxe on a millstone is called bj^eacadh, " spotting," making a Pict of it — or making it " freckly," for the matter of that. The Latin pica itself, apparently, comes from pingo, " I paint," " I tatoo," as in the case of the Agathyrsi.^ "Pig" is applied to another defensive receptacle other than a ship. In Scott's ' Tales of a Grand- father ' (vol. i. p. 107), he describes it as a shed rolled upon wheels, " with a roof of peculiar strength, which, from resembling a ridge of a hog's back, ^ Lewis and Short, s.v. Pingo. " MUCOI " == SHIPMEN. 231 occasioned the machine to be called a sow." The Earl of Salisbury, attacking the Countess of March in the Castle of Dunbar, having advanced such a machine against the walls of the castle, Black Agnes shouted out — " Beware, Montagow, for far- row shall thy sow." She dropped a rock on the machine, and spoke of the men who hastened out of it as its " pigs." This was really the Roman vinea, which Caesar tells us he used against the Atuatici, supported by a specially large " tower," for use in the same way.^ The Irish core has itself the meaning of a vessel, being translated " cauldron." In Ogmic inscriptions the most common word next to maqi, son of, is mucoi. Macalister reasons that muco had a honorific meaning, and suggests it as "tribal representative," "head of the clan"; and after pointing out how syntax is inverted, he says, " The whole subject of the syntax of the inscriptions on the early Goidelic monuments is probably the most elusive branch of their study." '^ He also in several places calls attention to a cer- tain amount of " agglutinism," and supposes it to be caused by those using it having a hereditary tendency thereto owing to a pre-Goidelic ancestry. We suggest that mucoi means " shipmen." At p. 20 Macalister reasons from the fact that the " mucoi Dovinia " inscribed stones in Corkaguine 1 Gallic War, Bk. II. o. xxx. 2 Irish Epigraphy, Pt. II. p. 30. 232 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. having their eponymous names uninterfered with, may be accounted for by the tribe here being strong in their own territory and able to protect their tribesmen's tombstones, while in other dis- tricts a stone bearing- the word raucoi was more liable to injury than others without it. The tribe here are those who appear as Fir Domhnann, the Viri Dominiorum of Nennius. The idea seems to be that Dovinia above mentioned is a genitive of the name of a goddess Duben. We have tried to show here that the name of the district " Corka- guiney," and of those whose Ogmic tombstones retain " mucoi Dovinia," both point to some tradi- tional connection with what M^ere called " pigs." There are other "Corca" besides those of Duben in Munster. In the south-west of Clare were the Corca Baskin, a name now obsolete. In south-west Cork the O'Driscolls were called the Corca Laighdhe, Laoighdhe, Loeghdhe. The latter as the Corca Lughaidh, and the others as Ua Baiscne, have some- thing in common ; while we accept Lug as meaning light, so Baiscne is connected with haoisg, hoillisg, "to blaze," "shine brightly." "Baois" is lihido carnis, so that Finn was from this point of view a descendant of concupiscence, a Scot. Ederscel, from whom descend the O'Driscolls, was a grand- son of Oilliol Olom.^ Baiscne has been translated Vasconides, Basques. The question arises. What had boars to do with 1 Annals of the Four Masters, a.d. 770, note. EBER — GOLD BRISTLES. 233 "light"? The Swedish Freyr, the Danish Fro, called Fricco by Adam of Bremen, was, according to him, the giver of peace and pleasure — paeon voluptatemquc — to mortals, and was represented by an i7igens priapus ; to him oxen were sacrificed. He had a boar, eher gullinhursti, boar golden bristles, who lighted the night like day and drew the car of the god with the rapidity of a horse. Tacitus tells us that figures of boars were carried by the Aestii, the inhabitants of Esthonia, on the Gulf of Finland, of which Revel is now the capital, as a protection, of whom he says their " dress and customs are the same with those of the Suevi, but their language more resembles the British." He further tells us that they cultivated corn and other fruit of the earth with more industry than German indolence commonly exerts.^ Whether we can consider it as an evidence of a Finnish dialect having been used in early days in Britain or not, the Esthonian peasantry now speak Finnish. From Anglo - Saxon jDoetry, we are in- formed by Grimm, we hear most about this " sign of the boar," "gold pig." We may be sure that comparison with it was considered complimentary when we find in the Arthurian romances a knight address his lady-love, " Ic heb u liever dan en ever- sivin, al waert iKin Jinen goude ghewracht." (Thou art dearer to me than an eber-pig that was worked of fine gold.) This " charm " would appear to have been ^ Manners of the Germans, c. xlv. 23-i THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. known in Britain in the time of Constantine, son of the British Helena, wife of Constantius, the avenger of Carausius on Allectus. Constantine, governor of Britain and Roman Emperor, is described as dream- ing " eofor cumble betheaht," covered with the boar sign {cumble = symhol-um ?) ; he is said to have worn it also on his helmet. On his coinage is " Sol In- victus," the unconquered sun. Its sacred character survived in England in the form of the " oath on a boar's head " and in its introduction at banquets, a habit still customary in Oxford on Christmas-day. -"^ Eofor is eber in another form, and cumble reminds us at once of Finn's father Cumhal, who again was son of Baoisgne, " brilliance." Finn, find, means " white." The vaQtol findruine, of frequent mention in the Irish romances, and translated "white bronze," seems to mean "made white" — that is, polished, brightened : if this guess is right, then finn itself means " bright." But a boar's head is not white. If we go back to the Iliad and the Odyssey, the mention of the "white tooth" of the boar shows how its head was notorious for something comparatively bright ; and whatever the origin of the Latin ebur, " ivory," where there was a knowledge both of Latin and German it required no great strain on the imagin- ative faculty to refer the brilliance of the ebur of the tusk to the head of eher, the boar. The tusk of the boar's head probably suggested Finn's " tooth of knowledge," and we must connect it with what 1 Grimm, German Mythology, vol. i. pp. 175-178. LUGH — LLEU. 235 we have already mentioned represented Froh, the husband of Frigg, in Upsala. The ' Prose Edda ' says that in the twentieth generation from Thor Yodin, " whom we call Odin," married Frigida, "whom we call Frigg." This Frigida seems the source both of the Norse and of the Scotic Brigid, called the Irish Mary, the Latin form disclosing the reason of the ascription of chastity to the daughter of the Dagda — otherwise the daughter of Dubtach — "the black" madonna (?). Reproduction is a necessity for the continuance of all life, animal and vegetable, and so " the wild sow is in the corn," meaning the wind is blowing over and waving the ripe ears, probably lets us see whence arose the con- ception of the " golden bristles."^ All this goes to prove a connection between Lug, meaning " light," and those who could be considered as holding boars in veneration ; but in Wales we actually have had Lugh run to ground in connection with " Gold Bristles." Lieu and Llew, " light," " lion," have been confounded, so that what was light appears in story as a wild beast, and, to quote E-hys, " that is the only form with which he is invested by the folk- lore of modern Snowdonia." On the road from Caernarvon to Beddgelert is Llyn y Gadair, the lake of the seat of Aurwyrchyn, "gold bristle." In form like an ox, when the sun shone on his golden bristles no one could look at him. He was pursued by dogs and caught at Bala Deulyn in Nant-Llef, 1 Grimm, German Mythology, vol. iii. p. 76. 236 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the Valley of Lieu, proved by the fact that, in this valley, we are told in the ' Mabinogion ' that Gwydion the " expounder "(?)^ discovered his son Lieu in the form of an eagle. ^ If we look at the colour of the lion, it is not so difficult to comprehend why the yellow-bristled animal was taken for a lion. The Anglo-Saxon curable appears frequently on Danish and Swedish E,unic stones in the plural. In Icelandic writers it is rare, but appears in the singular, kuml, kubl, kumbl. The primary meaning attached to it is that given above — " a badge," "sign"; but in Scandinavia it has a secondary application to a "monument," "cairn," "a how," and so a monumental stone becomes a kuml : " Thurmundr niout kubls," Thormunder, enjoy thy kuml — i.e., rest in peace. In Icelandic this term for a symbolic stone was applied to a cairn, what in Irish appears as a brugh ; and the expression blaetr kumbla, a worshipper of cairns, a wizard, was a term of abuse apparently even in heathen times. In provincial Icelandic a low hay - rick is called kuml. There was such a thing as a kuml-bui, " a cairn-dweller." ^ In the ' Landnamabok,' a cer- tain Leif warred in Ireland and found there a great earth-house. " He went in, and it was dark till he saw the glitter of the weapon the earth - dweller held. Leif killed the man." He was called Hjor- ^ See Hibbert Lectures, p. 276, note. ^ Ibid., p. 404. ^ Cleasby and Vigfusson, Icelandic Dictionary, s.v. Kuml. bran's cauldron. 237 Leif or Sword Leif. Hjor poetically means " a head," as in the expression " Hjorr Heimdala," the sword of Heimdal. Cave-dwellers, then, existed in Ireland in Viking times. The Tuatha De brought four things with them to Ireland — the sword and spear of Lugh, the cauldron of the Daghdha, and the Lia Fail. There can be no question of Lug's connection with two of these, and the other two, though only the cauldron is ascribed to him, should be of the Daghdha. Now there was a certain Bran connected both with Welsh and Irish story, otherwise called Uthr Ben, the wonderful head, who also had a cauldron. In Wales he is styled " the Blessed," because he introduced Chris- tianity, as they say, but this may be a later idea of what was " real knowledge " ; and we have seen that Lieu was the " son of the expounder." Bran, the son of Llyr — that is, of the sea — was exalted from London, crowned King of Britain. Now the history of his cauldron was shortly this : A huge yellow- haired man had been in Ireland, but had made him- self obnoxious while in the service of its king by outrages, molesting the nobles and ladies, but could not be got to leave the country either by force or of his own free will. He had a wife like himself To get rid of them the Irish made them drunk in a specially prepared chamber of iron, which they sur- rounded with coals and heated red-hot. When the heat became unendurable the man forced his way through the plates and made his appearance to 238 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Bran, carrying a cauldron on his shoulders.^ The iron furnace business can only represent the manu- facture of the cauldron, which, when he had oppor- tunity, Bran presented to Matholwch, the good man of Ulster. Now the Dag-hdha's cauldron was in company with the Stone of Fail, and Khys remarks that the Daghdha's character " lent itself to comic treatment, as, for instance, in a description of his making a heavy meal of porridge, of which he was over- fond." ^ Porridge was an eminently Scottish dish. We have the authority of St Jerome, a.d. 400, for this, as well as for the " promiscuity" of the Scots and Attacots, already quoted. When treating of the Pelagian heresy, he attacks an unnamed critic of his commentary on Ephesians, " Nor does this dullard, loaded with Scotch porridge, remember that we have said in that work : I do not condemn double marriages." To judge from the word used, and translated " porridge," puis, which is explained as the early food of the Romans before they made bread, " Scotch " porridge must have had some special characteristic, as is the case with " Athole" brose. A hand-quern is in Gaelic, according to O'Reilly, brain, Scotch Gaelic bra, brathainn, Welsh breuan, which also is the name for a carrion - crow, and, Cormac tells us, "Bran — i.e., 'a raven.'" Here, ^ Mabinogi of Branwen, daughter of Llyi\ - Hibbert Lectures, p. 644. BROGAN. 239 then, we see how Bran and the Daghdha's porridge- preparing apparatus included a stone, or stones, as well as a cauldron. The old Gaelic for a hand-mill is given in Windisch h^o, gen. hroon ; and we find that the father of Ith (corn), the leader of the Spanish Gael, cousin of Milesius, was Brogan {hrochann, "porridge"), son of Bratha (a quern). Brogan saw Ireland from Braganza, in Portugal. His descendants, the Clanna Breogan, peopled the district, which gave its name to the great plain of Bregia, reaching from the Suir to the Boyne.^ There can be no doubt that the principal thing about Bran was his head, and this, we are told, was a concentration of all musical talent,^ which rather suggests the same idea as that which would be ex- pressed by saying the finest music is that of the dinner-bell. We must also remember that the Lia Fail was given to shrieking under the proper king of Ireland. In Welsh clock is " a bell," clog is " a stone " ; in Gaelic clock is " a stone," clog " a bell," " a head." The word brawn is itself associated with swine's flesh. The name is applied especially to the head and belly piece of a pig cooked in a particular manner. It seems to mean literally " a rough lump of flesh," a meaning which appears in the Italian hrano, " a piece of flesh violently pulled away from the whole," suggestive of the action of the raven or carrion-crow feeding. In Spanish, curiously, * Brash's Oghams, p. 27. •^ See Hibbert Lectures, p. 269. 240 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. h7'an, also hr/a, is the same as salvado, " freed from danger," having attained salvation, as we may suppose Bran the Blessed had done. This rather suggests that the name Bran, as we find it in the Welsh legend, is of Romance orimn. o That " brawn " as described above is the key to the description of Bran in the Mabinogi of " Bran wen, daughter of Llyr," is certain. The " swine-herds " of the good man of Ulster report to him that " a wood have we seen upon the sea, in a place we never yet saw a single tree." " This is indeed a marvel," said he ; " saw you aught else ? " " We saw, lord," said they, " a vast mountain beside the wood, which moved, and there was a lofty ridge on the top of the mountain, and a lake on each side of the ridge, and the wood, and the mountain, and all these things moved." Matholwch refers to his wife Bran wen, Bran's sister, to explain what his swine-herds had seen upon the sea. She explains that the wood is " the yards and the masts of ships " ; the mountain, " blessed Bran, my brother, coming to shoal water, there is no ship that can contain him in it " ; " on looking towards this island [Ireland] he is wroth, and his two eyes, on each side of his nose, are the two lakes on each side of the ridge." ^ Bran then was, as here de- scribed, the boar's-head sign which protected these invaders of Ulster (?), and being common to the ^ Mabinogion, vol. iii. p. 117. THE REGALIA OF THE TUATHA DE. 241 whole fleet, no sint^le ship could contain him on coming to shoal water. In the case of Twrch Trwyth, it has been pointed out that the hair - dressing appliances which he possessed point to those represented being tonsured, and presumably Christian, from the reference made in the story of Germanus and Yortigern. The Twrch was, however, not the original proprietor of the razor ; he got it from an individual bearing the name of Yskithyrwyn Benbeadd, which, on the face of it, bears the meaning White-tusk Boar-head. The tusk and the razor are the same thing, and the whole is Bran, — the Eberswin, the Boar-sign, the protector of the Germanic Aestii, a name which, looked at from this boar's-head story, suggests a connection with the Latin cestiio, "to be in agita- tion," a derivative of which is cestuarium, " a creek," from the ebb and flow of the tide in it ; a vie, bay ; viking, baysman ; a shore-pig, in the case of the ore treith. Here we may point out, what Nutt has already made clear,^ the connection between the stone, cauldron, spear, and sword of the Tuatha De and the Graal, described as a food-vessel, a stone, and an accompanying lance. Nutt considers (p. 21) " that the Christian legendary statements about the Grail talismans are really secondary, and intended to explain the importance attached to them in the story of their quest." Let us note 1 Popular Studies, No. 14, The Legend of the Holy Grail. Q 242 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. here some correspondences between the views above advanced and the account given in the * Grand Saint Graal.' When it is brought to Britain it passes into the hands of Cehdoine — change first vowel, Caledonian (?) — who was the son of Nasciens — change first vowel, nesciens, " ignorant," — after whom it is said to have been called. Its keepers hand it over to Alain, " the rich fisher," a boatman evidently. One of those closely connected with it is Petrus, the stone, " on which the Church is built " (?), who converts and marries a heathen princess, from whom descends Lot of Orcanie, the same as Lug. The lance in this story is a bleeding one, as we should expect, looking at the account of the Crucifixion, and lot, Gaelic, is " a wound." Lot is father of Gawain, smith, the pre-eminent hero in the earliest stages of the Arthurian cycle, and second only to Percival as hero of the Quest story (p. 71). Ultimately "the result is to 23ut the hero, directly or indirectly, in possession of a fertile land " (p. 51), with which we may compare Bregia of the Clanna Brogan, or the country called after Lot himself, Lothian. How the King of Lothian comes to be made ruler of Orkney is sufiiciently clear. In Tacitus's ' Agricola ' he tells us that under this leader, then stationed on the confines of the Horesti — that is, operating from the Firth of Forth — the Boman fleet "sailed round the island" (c. xxxviii.), "discovering and subduing the Orcades, islands tiU then un- ORKNEYS. 243 known" (c. x.). In the Vortigern story Octa and Ebusa sailed round " the country of the Picts, laid waste the Orkneys, and took possession of many regions, even to the Pictish confines." This ex- pedition is dated about a.d. 450. The additions to the ' Historia Britonum ' tell us that the children of Gleoin, son of Ercol, took possession of the island of Orcc, were dispersed again from that island, and took possession of the north of the island of Britain.^ The Irish story brings these sons of Gleoin through France to Ireland, says that they tatooed, that they cut down woods and the host of Fea Febach, that Eremon drove them out of Ireland, and then they conquered Alba from Cat to Forchu (Great Dog — Magh Circinn ?). The Welsh say in the " Bruts " that they were refused wives by the Britons, married Irish women, and from them have the Scots descended.^ All this is merely copying one from the other, and the last version of the story is to be seen in Bichard of Cirencester, who wrote in the latter half of the fourteenth century. He says the Orkneys were five in number to the north of Hibernia, and quotes Solinus as saying they were under one chief " The chief possessed no peculiar property, but was main- tained by general contribution ; he was bound by certain laws, and, lest avarice should seduce him from equity, he learned justice from poverty, having no house or property, and being maintained at the 1 Chrouicles of the Picts and Scots, p. 23. ^ Ibid., p. 122. 244 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. public expense. He had no wife, but took by turns any woman for whom he felt an inclination, and hence had neither a wish nor a hope for children." All this, of course, is merely a version of the story of the matriarchy of the Plots. ^ Boece tells us the same stories, but curiously enough says that Tacitus in the 'Agricola' " namys the Scott is cuming of Spanyeartis, and the Pichtis, of Almanis." ^ If Boece is the first British historian who mentions Tacitus, he must have seen an edited text. Nennius also starts the Picts, so far as Britain is concerned, from Orkney. He says they first settled in the islands " quse vocantur Orcades, et postea ex insulis vastaverunt regiones multas, et occupav- erunt eas in sinistrali plaga Bri tannine. " The north coast of Scotland of the early geographers was in reality the west coast. Speaking of a later period, in his list of the twelve battles of Arthur, Nennius, in the name of the tenth of them, has a fairly clear reference to an estuary such as that in which the Twrch lost his " precious things." The battle was " on the banks of the river Trat Treuroit." The ' Irish Nennius ' calls the place shortly Bob- ruid. Trath, traeth is an cestiiarium as defined on p. 241 ; tre't, trev is " a homestead." So much is clear ; but as Dr Todd, in a note in the ' Irish Nennius,' says, "It is difficult to meet the analogies of the ancient Welsh spelling preserved in roitj 1 Eichard of Cirencester, Bk. I. c. viii. pars. 18, 19. - History of Scotland, Bk. I. c. iv. riKTH OF FORTH. 1245 riiit." He suggests the meaning " unenclosed." Looking at the Irish name, ro prefixed to sub- stantives is intensive; hrnth is "rage," "glow," "a glowing mass," such as would be the house of the intoxicated yellow-haired giant who brought the cauldron to Bran. But this does not help much with the Welsh, unless 7'mt is connected with rhudd, " ruddy," " crimson." Arthur's next battle, the eleventh, was with the Picts called Cath Bregion, generally accepted as iDeing in Lothian and connected with Edinburg-h. The twelfth was at Mons Badonicus, which Gildas says " prope Sabrinum ostium habetur." ^ Li spite of this distinct statement, Skene identified the locality as Bouden Hill, between Linlithgow and Torphichen. The character of the neighbouring estuary, the Forth, would fully justify a meaning for ruit as rhivyth, ooze — the shore in that neighbourhood being remarkably shallow and slimy for a long distance at ebb-tide. Hitherto the boar sign has not been shown to be connected with the Koman troops, but it was so very markedly in the case of those who constructed the Vallum. As a fact, it was open to any one who saw the memorial stones on the line of Antoninus' Wall to see that boars were in some way connected with it — not by interpreting the inscriptions, but by lifelike representations of the animal itself, these sculptures existing at the 1 Historia Gildfe, par. 26. 246 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. present day ; and in more than one instance, con- joined with the figure of the boar is a tree, suggestive of the eburo, the yew - tree of the Eburones = Tungri. The three legions which completed the Vallum were the second, sixth, and twentieth. The second and twentieth came to Britain in 43. In 70 the twentieth was at Chester, and is believed to have been withdrawn from this country about the end of the fourth century to take part in the Getic war. The second and sixth were the last two Roman legions in Britain. After 395 the second was at Rutupae, Bichborough, north of Sandwich, in Kent, and the sixth was still at York, which had been its headquarters nearly all the time it was in Britain. These legions, having been the centres of military authority for three and a half centuries in one island, having left their names in inscrip- tions, and not in single instances by any means, and having constructed the most advanced defence against the independent tribes, could scarcely avoid being sources of myths among the subsequent in- habitants. In almost all the twentieth legion in- scriptions there appears the figure of the boar ; those of the second bear the Capricornus, sea-goat, already alluded to ; those of the sixth are marked by the pelta, the Thracian shield in the form of a half-moon. All of these are to be found " con- jointly and severally " on the sculptured stones of Antoninus' Wall. It would be difficult to find YORK. 247 anywhere better pabulum for a myth of a military character dealing with a boar, a brother of the moon, both children of the sea, as represented by the Capricornus — namely, that of Bran and Manawdyan, sons of Llyr. If we note in addition that when a warrior is represented he is frequently mounted, we see whence would come the traditional Eochaidh, horseman ; and mounted men are even more frequently represented in the sculptures of later date, early Christian times, in the territory accepted as having been Pictish. Judging from the story already mentioned of Constantine's connection with the boar sign, it seems to have been accepted as of general appli- cation. The Latin name of York, Eboracum, seems to show this ; and the Saxon spelling, Epproc- Ebora-schrye becoming Euerpic-Schyre, Yorkshire, seems to introduce the Latin 'p of apcr, " a boar," into the name, bar being the Saxon for a boar — e.g., Berkshire. Whether Eboracum is directly derived from the Latin ehur, " ivory," or not, we have little doubt that the White Mount in which Bran's head was to be buried, and so long as it remained there the island of Britain was to be safe from in- vasion, is an allusion to York having been the last-occupied station in the heart of the country by a regular Boman force. The Welsh story puts the White Mount near London ; but we do not consider, from a folk-lore point of view, that the 248 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. distance between them takes away from the ap- poslteness of our deduction. The shield, emblem of the legion garrisoning York, was sufficiently suggestive of the island never wanting a defence while the legion remained. Tacitus informs us of the Germans that "their line of battle is disposed in wedges." ^ Yegetius explains this as a body of infantry, narrow in front and widening towards the rear, by which disposition they were enabled to break the enemies' ranks, as all their weapons were directed to one spot. The soldiers called it "a boar's head." This tactical formation may have been used by the army in Britain. Welsh tradition, as has been mentioned, calls Bran " Blessed," and says he introduced Christ- ianity into Britain. When Hadrian built ^lia Capitolina, his New Jerusalem, dedicated in 136, on the gate which led to Bethlehem was sculptured a boar.^ During the long years of the Roman occupation of Britain its legions must have been recruited some- where. Believing the story of Vortigern, and the invitation of the Saxons, Hengist and Horsa (stal- lion and mare), and Yortigern's love affairs with the daughter of Hengist to be history of the Boece type — that is to say, a tradition localised and intro- 1 Manners of Germans, c. vi. 2 Macalister, Palestine Exploration Fund, Quarterly Statement. Jan. 1903. DIARMAIT. 249 duced at a time which seemed to fit it — Yortigern may represent the Boman authority, say the em- peror himself, and the invitation to the Saxons the recruiting of the Koman troops from German sources. These having established themselves, sending for their kindred, as Geoffrey puts it, " Hengist in the meantime continued to invite over more and more ships, and to augment his numbers daily." ^ In the case of Rowena, Vortigern was a Christian, and Christianity undoubtedly was well established at Rome long before the relinquishment of Britain, and the fault lay in that he married a heathen, and had a family already. We can scarcely leave this branch of the subject without alluding to the well-known story of Diar- mait and his death by a boar. This boar was a son of Diarmait's mother by the steward of Aengus of the Brugh, Diarmait's half-brother therefore. After biS transformation into an animal he was the boar of Ben Gulban — that is, the boar of the Hill of the Beak. We wish to avoid as much as possible phallic allusions, so we do not go into this story in detail. The boar sign, however, received acceptance because it jDortended "good luck." The name of Diarmait seems undoubtedly to be connected with the word euermat, given by Toland as auspicium, a sign or token of success ; and Legonidec gives the Breton eurvad, from eur, " luck," " fortune," and mad, "good." Compounded with dia or do, the 1 Bk. VI. c. xiii. 250 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. name seems to mean, " with" or " to " "good luck." Now Diarmait was the son of Finn, the Fair One, who was the son of Cumhal, which we have com- pared with the eofor cumble, the boar sign of good luck. There is a family in Scotland who call themselves traditionally the children of Diarmait O'Duibhne, according to the spelling of J. F. Camp- bell. This family use as a crest a boar's head, and their name is colloquially pronounced Cawmil ; it is spelt Campbell, and has been variously derived from such words as cam, " bent," heul, " mouth," " wry mouth," and campobello, " fair field," the latter having fixed the modern spelling. Bran's father was called Llyr Llediaith, Llyr of corrupt speech, and it is not impossible that the idea of the " wry mouth" and of the "corrupt speech" influenced the family tradition which resulted in the adoption of the name. O'Duibhne is much more likely to have as its origin the Dovinia, Duben of pp. 232, 255, than do7in, brown. Bran is the Cornish for a crow, and Cormac tells us that it is a raven. The Book of Lecan copy of Cormac connects bran with brand, " a firebrand," because both are black. Evidently this idea is not original with Cormac or with his commentator.^ Butfon tells us that in time of storm the raven is said to fly so high and fast that electricity is developed at the point of its beak ; a much older ^ Cormac's Glossary, Stokes's translation, s.v. Bran. MIMER — MIDIR. 251 authority, the Zend Avesta, says it " shines with light." ^ The connection of the raven with Lug appears in what Rhys quotes from the pseudo- Plutarch as to the founding of Lugdunum. While the foundations were being dug, there appeared ravens fluttering about and occupying the neigh- bouring trees. From this circumstance the founder named the city, because, says Plutarch, " in their idiom they call a raven Xovyo^;." - Given the idea which connects bran, a crow, with hrand, a burned stick, which, black as a crow, shines at the end with light, the connection between Lug meaning "light" and ravens is fairly clear. According to the ' Mabinogion,' Bran's head when cut off continued to be as good a companion and as communicative as before. The same is related of the Scandinavian Mimer — Midir, foster-father of the Macan og(?). Mimer was, according to the Norse mythology, the keeper of the fountain of wisdom, his control over which was unlimited. Mimer's fountain contained the purest mead, the liquid of inspiration, poetry, and wisdom : he drank of it daily, while Odin had to pawn his eye for one draught of it. The situation of this fountain was in the Great-Ground, Jormungrund, which was in- visible from Hlithskjalf, Light (?) shelf, the celestial position of Odin, In order that the sun-god should know what was going on in that portion of creation, his messengers, the two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, ^ Lajard, Mithra, p. 356. ' Hibbert Lectures, p. 428, 252 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. names containing the idea of "thought" and " mind," flew over these subterranean places daily. In connection with this we find that Finn had two dogs, one called Bran, the other Sceoluing, the latter name being apparently a derivative of sgo.il, " a narration, information," and we do not hesitate to bracket them with Odin's ravens. We thus per- ceive that two ravens were the medium of com- munication between Mimer (memor ?) and Odin. Another story, however, says that the Vans cut off Mimer's head and sent it to Odin, who, after chant- ing spells over it, preserved it, and it " told him all hidden things." Mimer's head, and the two ravens, fulfilled the same office for Odin, the office fulfilled by the head of Bran, and Odin, as we have said, like Lug, represents "light" of the sun. In Greek mythology, the raven was an attribute of the sun- god Apollo, who, like Bran, was a musician, and the raven is frequently represented sitting on his lyre.^ In the Mithraic religious system, of Persian origin, Mithra was compared to a "wild boar" and to a " raven." ^ Mithra undoubtedly represented the sun, and one class of his priests, the conductors of initiates, were styled " ravens." Lucien tells us that the Scythians termed Pylades and Orestes coraces, ravens, because these birds, generally seen in pairs, were the tutelary genii of friendship. The object of the religious system of Mithra being to inculcate the most friendly feelings among all 1 Gnostics and their Remains, p. 129. - Ibid., p. 1.35. RAVENS. 253 classes, the official " raven " was as a brother to the new member.^ The ascription to a raven of the duty of a messenger and reporter is not without justifica- tion, when we remember that of all birds, with the exception of the parrot, it is the most capable of acquiring human speech. Others to whom ravens have been ascribed are Cuchullain, accepted as an impersonation of the sun, his name being interpreted " the dog of the smith Culan," and the son of Lug. Mimer, we must remember, was the "most excellent smith in the world." - Urien of Re^ed — as we believe, Orion in the northern sky — had also an army of ravens, according to Welsh story, probably repre- senting the glowing points shown by the stars in the blackness of night. The wide sweep of the net for incidents in such stories as make up our book of Scotic Genesis is fairly exposed in the account of Bran crossing the river Linon, after reaching Ireland on his way to Matholwch, The nobles of Ireland determined to keep the river between them and the invader, because there was a loadstone at the bottom that neither ship nor vessel could pass over. Bran and his chiefs consult as to crossing, and they ask his counsel as to a bridge. " There is none," said he, " except that he who will be chief let him be a bridge : I will be so." He lay down, ' Lajard, Mithra, p. 361. - Hibbert Lectures, p. 429. 254 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. hurdles were placed on him, and the crosshig was effected.^ The idea of the loadstone was that it attracted to itself the bolts fastening a ship's planks, well illustrated in the curious old " Ortus Sanitatis," where a ship was depicted approach- ing a rock, evidently the loadstone, preceded by a shower of bolts from its own hull. The parallel story to the bridge statement is found in the first chapter of Gerald's ' Itinerary through Wales.' The King of England, seeing from Haverford the mountains of Ireland in the distance, said, " I will summon hither all the ships of my realm, and with them make a bridge to attack that country." This version being told by an ecclesiastic of a Christian kins', and not of a boar invader, a brother of the Moon's, necessarily has a Christian application. The Prince of Leinster, hearing of the boastful speech, asking if the king ignored all higher power but his own, — in fact, made himself chief like Bran, — said he had nothing to fear from one who neglected the Deity. But why should these stories have been con- nected ? We believe it is owing to the fact that it was William " Kufus," the " Bed -topped," who is credited with the story, and so had some resem- blance to the glowing brand. Neither story is historical fact. We must now return to the battle of Magh Mucrimhe already mentioned. This tale, as told in the Book of Leinster, has been published by ^ Mabinogion, vol. Hi. p. 118. ALBANAICH IN IRELAND. 255 Whitley Stokes,^ and seems to offer support to the views here advanced. It is credited with having taken place in the year 195, and ended in the death of an Art (Arthur), head king of Ireland, and the seven sons of Bare-Ear, slain by Lugaidh mac Con, who " took the land of Banba and reigned there thirty years." The seven sons correspond in number at any rate with the seven sons of Cruithne, from whom were called the seven divisions of Scot- land, and we have already pointed out the probable identity of Banba with North Britain. It is said to have been fought between the Albanaich, as we would say Scotsmen nowadays, and the Gael — that name representing the Irishman, because Scot is believed, say in 195, to have meant Irishman. The details of Lugaidh's tactics show that he had both Picts and Scots, whom he did his best to "roll into one," as Canning described "Will Waddle," by chaining by the leg each Gael (? Scot) to each Albanach (? Pict). We are further told that he had two Britons to each Gael. Lugaidh thus commanded a British force, and his opponents were Munster men of the Corcolaid, of which, however, Lugaidh was himself one, and the word core we have suggested as an Irish |;o7t. That district is the one in which the Ogmic " Mucoi " seemed to be in highest honour, and is said to have been the territory of the goddes Duben (? Blackhead). Another tactical disposition, accord- ' Revue Celtique, vol. xiii. p. 426. 25 G THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. iiig to our authority quoted, was the making by Lugaidh of holes in the ground, each containing a soldier with his spear broken in half, with which to thrust through the hurdles and sods by which the hole was concealed. This is an im- possible arrangement, and looks like a modification, whether purposely or by misconception, of the use of the lilium, the spiked holes of Caesar at Alesia. There could be no stronger support of the theory here advanced than the fact, which has come to the knowledge of the writer since it was formulated, that at Rough Castle, on Antonine's Wall, a series of these pits have been discovered nine feet long, three wide, and four deep. These may have been still exposed at the date of the writing of the Book of Leinster. These pits are well shown in ' The Illus- trated London News' of the 14th November 1903. Now for the explanation as given of the name " Mucrima." " Magh Mucrime, now pigs of magic, came out of the cave of Cruachain, and that is Ire- land's gate of hell." Cruachan means a conical hill, a mountain- top ; the haunch, coxa. After men- tioning some triple-headed and red birds of a de- structive sort that came out of it, the tale goes on : " Out of it, moreover, came these swine. Round whatever thing they used to go, till the end of seven years neither corn nor grass nor leaf would grow through it. Where they were being counted they would not stay, but they would go into another territory if any one tried to reckon them. They MEBH MUCROM. 257 were never numbered completely. ' There are three there,' says the one man. ' More ; there are seven,' says another. ' There are nine there,' says another. ' Eleven swine ! ' ' Thirteen swine ! ' In that way it was impossible to count them. They could not be killed, for if they were shot at they used to disappear." " Once upon a time, then, (Queen) Maive of Cruachan and Ailill went to count them, into Magh Mucrime, to wit. They were counted by them afterwards. Maive was in her chariot. One of the swine leaped over the chariot. ' That swine is one too many, O Maive,' says every one. ' Not this one,' says Maive, seizing the swine's leg ; where- upon its skin broke on its forehead, and it left the skin in her hand along with the leg, and from that hour nobody knew whither they went. Hence is Magh Muc-rime (so-called)." ^ The spelling of the name of the place is Mucrima, Mucroma, Mucrama ; O'Flaherty in the ' Ogygia ' spells it Mucroimhe, all genitives ; the nominative is Mucrom. Let the locality be in Galway, Gaelic Gaillimh, " the foreigners' country," the name itself means " pig of Rome." If reference is made to p. 175, it will be seen that one of the names of the Dagda's wife was ''Meahal," translated disofrace. O'Davoran's Gloss- ary sheds clear light on the meaning of the allied name of Connacht's Queen. " Mem, a kiss, that is 1 Revue Celtique, vol. xiii. pp. 449, 551. 258 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. disgracing her, veste elevata." ^^3fehul," j)udendum muliebre. It is evident that the name " Mebh," written above in English " Maive," is a product of the imagination, from the roots mem, meh.^ Lugaidh's death is peculiar. He is said to have been bitten by a poisoned tooth of Bare-Ear's, the result of which was that half of his head melted away. In this condition, leaning against a pillar- stone, Ferchess struck him with his spear on the forehead, " so that the pillar-stone at the back of him answered, and he became dry and lifeless." The avenger of his death seven years after was Find hua Baiscni, " white, descendant of effulg- ence," Finn mac Cumhail, who is said to have been Lugaidh's champion. The story contains much phallic imagery, and, we think, traces of differences of religious systems, pos- sibly of about the date 195, just seven years before the taking of Christianity into Scotland, according to Boece ; and with this we may consider what O'Flaherty says as to the inhabitants of Corcolaid being the first to embrace Christianity before the com- ing of Patrick. Among these was Liedania, mother of Kieran of Saighir, of whom she was delivered in the year 352 "in an island of the sea." The island he identifies with Cape Clear, but the name Liedania and the " island " are suggestive of Laudonia, called from Loth, who was superior of Orkney. ^ Archiv. Celt. Lexic. O'Davoran's Glossary, Whitley Stokes, pp. 413- 474. 259 CHAPTER XII. We have seen that dogs, both as men and animals, have played a considerable part in the early tradi- tions with which we are dealing. British dogs are frequently alluded to as of great excellence by classical authors. Claudian speaks of them as " capable of overcoming bulls." Nemesian, who flourished at Home about 283, four years before Carausius was Augustus in Britain, says, speaking of their export for purposes of hunting — " Sed non Spartanos tantuni, tantumve molossos Pascendum catulos ; divisa Britannia mittit Veloces, nostrique orbis venatibus aptos." ^ Now let us look how this is used in tradition. Till the time of Diocletian the Scots and Picts reigned together in peace, but "it so happened that, on a day appointed, some nobles of both nations met on the confines of their respective countries, as they were wont, for the purpose of hunting ; and when they had been coursing about hither and thither nearly a whole day, with their 1 Celt, Roman, and Saxon, pp. 257, 258. 260 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. dogs uncoupled, in pursuit of game, a certain hound, which was accustomed to follow the blood-stained tracks of the quarry, was stolen away by the Picts, and incontinently found among them. The Scots asked to get it back, but they would not restore it ; so they fell out, and the Scots strove to wrest it from them by force. . . . This, then, was the occasion and beginning of the first dissension be- tween them, who, for five hundred years, had lived harmoniously in a united peace, with their united powers resisting all other nations whatever." ^ John Major (in 1521) repeats this story, saying that it was in the year 288, and that it was a " Molossian " of a wonderful swiftness. In the year 821 he makes Kenneth mac Alpin, the first of the Scots to reign at Scone, allude to the inci- dent before the final annihilation of the Picts. Kenneth gives five reasons for the justice of the Scottish cause, the first being " on account of the theft and the detention of that Molossian hound." ^ Campion speaks of its musical excellence by men- tioning its " sweetness of opening." ^ Boece gives us further particulars, putting the date of the incident at 262. He says that the Pictish dogs were of less reputation than those of the Scots, " baith in bewte, swiftness, lang renk, and hardi- ment." The Picts ask for dogs of this specially good ^ Bowei', Foidun's Chronicle, Bk. II. c. xxxvii. 2 Major's Greater Britain, ed. Scottish Historical Soc, pp. 61, 104. 3 Campion's History of England, p. 33. CRAITHLINT — CLELAND. 261 stock in order to breed them among themselves, a request which was compHed with ; but not contented with what they got gratuitously, they stole certain others, among which was a ivhite hound more speedy than any other, a special favourite of the Scottish king. The name of this king is interesting. It is " Craithlint," and if reference is made to p. 101 it is clear that this is manufactured from the local pronun- ciation of the name Cleland — Creland. Craithlint's " master of the hounds " tried to recover the white dog ; the Picts slew him, and, says Boece, " the skry arrais efter this slauchter," and a series of fights followed "but capitaine, baner, or ordour of chevelry." To show that there can be no doubt of this identification, Craithlint's uncle (!), Car- ausius, lands in Westmoreland, and joining Craith- lint at the Wall of Hadrian, and uniting with the Picts, they invade England, destroy the Roman power, and Carausius hands over to his allies the lands lying between York and Hadrian's Wall.i The above is not the only instance of interest in dogs shown by kings of Scotland, on the author- ity of Boece. He mentions a king, to whom he gives the name Dorvidilla, who took special interest in hunting-dogs, and made laws afiecting them in particular, and hunting in general. If reference is made to p. 174, reading between the lines will demonstrate to what this story alludes. '' Dei-h- 1 Bellenden's Boece, Bks. V. and VI., p. 210. 262 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. forgail, the law term for a false charge of impro- priety made by a husband against his wife, a defamation of character. The woman thus charged was sometimes called Derhforgaill, so that this legal term has been sometimes mistaken for a true proper name of a woman, and indeed appears to have been so used in later time." ^ The name as we have it traditionally is corrupt. It appears as Dervorgille in the instance of the wife of John Baliol, daughter of Alan, Lord of Galloway, married in 1228. Pennant writes it Devorgilla, and Sir Walter Scott De'vorgoil. Boece's edition of it seems to be connected with the name of a " broch " which, situated in Glenelg, by a charter found in Edinburgh in 1282, was at that date in possession of the King of Man.^ It may have been taken to mean the Tower of the Gwyddil — that is, the Tower of the Wild Man, — a Welsh word now ap- plied to the Irish, and anciently to the Picts — the Gwyddil Fichti. We are entitled to look to Welsh in this case for a translation, because Dorvidilla's father, whom " he " succeeded, is called Maynus, a religious character, who first ordered the erection of stone circles " namit be the pepill, the anciant tempillis of goddis."^ Maen in Welsh, "a stone." King Maynus of the Scots had as his contem- porary, as king of the Picts, Crynus. This name ^ O'Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. iii. p. 569. - Origines Parochiales, vol. ii. p. 207. ^ Boece, History of Scotland, Bk. II. cc. iii. and iv. CRINNA — CRINAN. 263 has evidently been connected with the battle of Crinna, immediately following that of Magh Muc- roimhe, and with Crinan of Dull, who fell with his " nine score heroes." The abbot's name is spelt variously, Kryn, Cran, Crin, Trim, Crenan, and, by Tighernach, Crinan ; the genitive is Crini, Trini. The initial T seems a clerical error. In Welsh jprin, the equivalent of a Gaelic crin, means "scant," "spare"; Gaelic crion, "little, mean." In the ' Pictish Chronicle ' the succession of kings commences with thirty - one individuals called " Bruide." All of them have qualifying names, and the twenty - ninth and thirtieth appear as "Bruigi Crin" and " Bruigi Urcrin," Brude the Mean and Brude the Very Mean. We must not forget that the conqueror of Ecgfrid was Brud, the son of Bile, 685. This translation of the meaning of the names of these two Brudes is not the only one possible. Cormac gives us crinda as meaning " wise," mentioning the caill c7'inmon, the hazels of scientific composition, which produced the nuts swallowed by the " salmons of knowledge," the eating of which imparted the highest mental powers to those who first partook of any part of them. All tradition makes this name a Pictish one, and Dr de Bruce Trotter says that of the Galloway people " there's the Kreenies or Gossoks too " ; and his account of them is, " Some folk says they wur yince Morroughs (mer-men), an' that's hoe the women haes beards ; and some says they'r 264 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the descendants of the Eerlsh Picts," ^ Keating calls the locality of the battle of Crinna " Crionna- Chinn Chumair," — cuma?' is in Irish " a valley," " the bed of a river," " a place where streams meet," — and that it was at Brugh-mic-an-Oig ! ^ We have seen Cleland and Craithlint "masters of hounds," and it is interesting to find a clan tra- dition from Athole, and from a locality dedicated to St Fillan, where the same claim is made. A quarter of a century ago the writer received the following note from Mr Duncan Campbell, Keighley : " Clan tradition says that of the Kobertsons of Struan ' Bodach nan conn,' the ' Master of the hounds,' who married the daughter of King Malcolm, was in his time the chief of their kindred, and that his son by another marriage was first Earl of Athole." Bodach nan con was Crinan of Dull. This tradition, whatever its age, is supported by or founded on a historical incident. In the Orkneyinga Saga, Crinan, who fought with Sigurd, the Earl of Orkney, is called the " Hundi Jarl," the Dog Earl, and Duncan, King of Scotland, Crinan's son, is called " Hundason." ^ Supposing the descendants of the defenders of the Wall (either Wall) to have been known as Feara Gual, they would otherwise be " na Guailean," sufficiently suggestive of "Cuilean" whelps — dogs ^ Gallawa Gossip, p. 182. 2 Annals of the Four Masters, a.d. 226, note. 2 Skene, Celtic Scotland, vol. i. p. 400. FEARA CUL. 265 of any age. With this compare the suggestion on p. 86. We hear of Feara Cul in Meath, and are told, in connection with these men, that one of the prohibitions of the monarch of " Ireland" was, that he should not traverse the plain of Cuillen after sunset, Cuillen being the locality inhabited by the Feara Cul. This traditional prohibition can only point to some protected district under martial law. The history of these Cul men is quite traditional. B.C. 110 : because the palace of Freamhainn (in West Meath) was built on their territory by the men of Ireland, divided into seven parties, one of which was a contingent of the Feara Cul, forty of them, in chariots, slew King Eochaidh, who had ordered the erection. To escape retribution they fled to Conn- acht, and are said 300 years later to have formed the bodyguard of Cormac mac Airt (charioteer son of Art), who gave them territory in Bregia, East Meath. In Galloway, called after the Gall-Gael, a name which really means " foreign Scots," there is a well- known family name MacCullach. The meaning of this word, as it is given in Cormac's Glossary, may assist our comprehension of the supposed existence of the " Scottish and Attacotish " marriage rite. " Cullach (' a boar') . i . colach (' incestuous ') . i . ar met a chuil . i . bi la mathair agus la siair ; from the greatness of his col — ' incest,' i.e., he cohabits with mother and sister."^ The family accept the ^ Cormac's Glossary, Stokes's translation, s.v. 266 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. meaning' as " son of the boar." Echcullach is a stallion. " Fir Cuile" was the term applied to broken and homeless men in the Highlands in the middle of the seventeenth century.^ Diarmait, killed by the boar of Ben Gulban, had a favourite dog, Mac an Chuill : this seems to mean " son of the hazel," the wand of knowledge, as many a Scottish schoolboy knew even if he had never heard of the " nuts of science." Thougfh called " son," Rhys points out that as the pronoun used with it is female, it was probably female.^ In the ' West Highland Tales ' we have described Diarmait's relations with the daughter of the king, Under- Waves, described as with hair to her heels. Diarmait has to leave her, and she has to ask him who will look after the " arrow greyhound" and her three pups. Finn, Oisean, and an unnamed indi- vidual managed > to carry off the three pups. Diar- mait returns, leaves the woman in anger, finds the bitch, swings her on his back by the tail, falls asleep, and ultimately finds himself " under the waves," where he meets the woman in human form. He has then to pass to the Plain of Wonder for a drink for her from the cup of its king. To reach it he is carried over on the palm of the hand of a red- haired man. He gets the cup, gives the drink to the woman, curing her of her ailments, and ap- ^ Trans. Gael. Soc. Inv., vol. xix. p. 104. ■^ Hibbert Lectures, p. 320, note. MAC COCHLAN. 267 parently ceases thereafter to have relations with her.^ The story seems a Httle mixed, but the red- haired man carrying "good-luck" with the king's cup from the Plain of Wonder suggests the Christian Christopher. According to a legend of Clare, Bran, Finn's dog, was snow-white.^ Seeing Bran is a river-name, this might not be inappropriate to a much broken stream. In the Black Book of Carmarthen a poem speaks of " Dormach," the dog of Maelgwn, and of " Fan- duith " and the "furthest Tay." Fanduith (Findowie) is in Strath Bran, close to, if not in fact in, the locality of the Maclagans. Maelgwn is the Maglo- cunus of Gildas, but philology demonstrates that Maglocunus and the Latin Welsh Maglagnus have no connection with such a name as Maclagan. Maelgwn's dog is "ruddy nosed." ^ The modern name for Inchecuthill is Delvin. There was a Delvin in West Meath, the original seat of the Feara Cul. The superior of this was Mac Cochlan. Michael O'Clery in 1630 gives his genealogy, and he takes it back to Oilioll Oluim. In three of the generations consecutively he gives the names Donnghos, son of Clothcon, son of Comh- ghall the Great. Now, this is a curious coinci- dence when compared with the Duncansons of the raid of Angus, the Mac Clachins and the clan Mac ^ Campbell's West Highland Tales, vol. iii. p. 403. ^ Ossianic Society, vol. iii. p. 63. ' Four Ancient Books of Wales, vol. i. p. 294. 268 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Qwhwle in Angus. Wyntoun's spelling, Clachm(2/^a), allies itself most naturally with clach, " a stone," and Kuno Meyer gives cloclian, a causeway, — " Clochan na bh-Fomorach," the Giant's Causew^ay. The Vallum, and the road, an integral part of such a defensive work, now proved to have existed as a stone-laid way in connection with the North Wall, may have equally influenced tradition. Compare with the name of the chief of Delvin, O'Cochlan, caochlan, " a swift rill." ^ Of the post - Roman leaders from between the Walls, many of them are spoken of in connection with dogs. Of Cunedda, who was pre - eminent before the " furrow and the sod," it is said — " His dogs raised their backs at his presence, They protected, and helieved in his kindness." Kydderch Hael, king of Strathclyde, a champion of the faith, is spoken of in connection with dogs. We have mentioned Maelgwn and Urien's dogs ; Cenon and Aneurin are the two war-dogs who alone escaped from the battle of Catraeth. In the Dean of Lismore we find a statement : — " Constant in the hunt together Are Macgregor and his fierce men ; 'No oftener did the blood-red hounds Enter the fort of Clan Boisgne." The word translated "fort" is longphort, "ship station." In this connection we recall the fact that 1 O'Reilly. AILBHE. 269 at Donolly is a large boulder, on the sea-shore, to which it is said were attached the dogs of Finn. It is a purpose-like stone, to which a galley might be moored, and the writer remembers such a stone on Loch Etive, considerably smaller no doubt, called Clach mun asaid, "the anchoring stone" for boats. The story of a serious battle about a dog is not peculiar to the Picts and Scots. We find a like story in Ireland. Mesreda, otherwise called Mac Datho, bred a dog called Ailbhe, whose fame spread over Ireland. Ailbhe, it will be remembered, was the master of St Fillan. Mesreda, whose other name has been already suggested as meaning " son of two nuts," is here connected with meas, " fruit," particularly acorns,^ Welsh mes, " acorns." Mes- reda was brother of Mesgedhra, misgeoir, " a drunk- ard." They were both kings of Leinster. Ulster and Connaught desired the dog, met in Leinster to arrange to whom it was to belong, quarrelled over the division of a pig. The dog joined the Ulster men, and, springing on the chariot of Ailill and Meabh, king and queen of Connaught, had its head cut off and carried away in the chariot, leav- ing the body. This dog Ailbhe seems to be Mes- reda's brother Mesgedhra, for the latter's head plays a part in Irish story. He was slain, and his brain preserved by a process which made it a stone. It came into the possession of Get mac Maghach, the 1 O'Reilly. 270 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. "son of the Plainman," who, from a "place among the women in the middle," slang it into Conchobhar's head. Conchobhar had to remain sitting thereafter for seven years till the day of Christ's crucifixion, when, accepting Christianity and excited by the news of the murder, the stone dropped from his head and he died. Ail, " a stone " (Windisch) ; " a prickle " (O'Reilly). There is another Irish dog of whom we must speak, Cuchulainn. De Joubainville points out that this is a name manufactured in Ireland, because if it had been old Gaelic it would have taken the form Culann-chu, as in the case of dohar-chu, literally water-dog — i.e., otter — the same construction hold- ing good in Breton in Tan-ki, fire-dog, a proper name, also in Cormac, corh-mac, chariot-lad, Gaelic. Cuchulainn = Culann's dog, is so-called, according to tradition, because he took the duties of the dos" of a certain smith called Culann, the story being a defor- mation of the Homeric legend of Hercules and the dog of Aides (Pluto). ^ Culan in Gaelic is said to be the faggot used by smiths ; but smiths did not use a faggot, but charcoal prepared by burning dry wood in a pot or hole in the ground, with a limited supply of air, a cover being put upon the receptacle. We may accept it that the smith's name is an inven- tion, and if the meaning of the name of the " most powerful hero of the Scots" was not self-evident to the inventor of the legend, it may have sug- 1 Eevue Celtique, vol. xix. p. 245. CUCHULAINN. 271 gested Dog of Fillan, Cu-'c- aollaiu, Cu mhic Fhaol- lain. Cuchulainn was not an Irishman. He came from the East, as shown by his original name Setanta, derived from that of a harbour of the west of Britain opposite Ireland. He was an Ulster man, and Irish tradition itself tells that he was educated in Scotland in the modern meaning of that word. The idea of his connection with smiths leads us to the belief that he has been equated with Orion, — a suggestion that, if correct, w^ould identify Orion and the Gaulish Esus.^ Orion drives before him a flock of birds ; and the story of the birth of Cuchulainn commences with a flight of birds from Emania, the capital of Ulster, the birds being fifty maidens of Ulster under the leading of Dechtire, sister of King Conchobhar and mother of Cuchu- lainn. Orion is represented as swinging a cluh, and, as O' Curry tells us, there is no man whose name is so much connected with the use of the sling as Cuchulainn. Samples of his skill are, when he han- selled his arms by driving " the measure of his sling- shot " of " Foill's " brain out through the back of his head. This Foill was son of Nechtan Sceine, and the feat was performed at the junction of the rivers Mattock and Boyne. As at Orion's feet was the river Eridanus, so most of Cuchulainn's combats are at fords. If there was a ford at the place, it would be quite in harmony with traditional stories to call the place of this incident Ath Foill : compare ^ Revue Celtique, vol. xix. p. 246. 272 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. Ath Fodla ; Foill was son of Nechtan, a Pictish name ; Sceine, (?) of Scone. When, in another story, on the shore of Loch Cuan, going to meet Dervorgil and her handmaiden, he saw two birds, and put a stone in his sling, he struck one of the birds, which turned out to be Dervorgil. He sucked the stone out and then told her, " I cannot marry you now, because I have drunk blood." Evidently marrying was an ordinary occupation of the hero. His final connection with birds is when dying, " then came the birds and settled on his shoulders." ^ It will be remembered that Angus had with him in his Rath Mongaig the kings' sons of Ireland and Scotland acquiring the art and craft of missile weapons (see p. 184). Angus, therefore, was famed for this art. To show that, a consistent explanation is only possible by allowing for imagin- ative interpretations by reciters of what they had in their own mind, though we see Cuchulainn on the one hand was a miraculous slinger, on the other hand we find in the ' Duil Laithne ' that he is called " Goll," blind, and it goes on to say, " Every woman who loved Cuchulainn her eye was after- wards blinded." ^ We have said that he was educated in Scotland. His companion there was Ferdiaidh, (?) the pious man. Now this Ferdiaidh " was as accomplished as himself in the use of all military weapons and feats 1 Hull, The Chuchullin Saga, pp. 104, 260. - Stokes, Goidelica, p. 82. FERDIAIDH. 273 of championship, as well as in all the advantages of manly vigour, strength and courage," with one ex- ception — namely, that of the gae bulga (belly dart). The former companions had to fight to the death — of course at a ford. They fought for three days ; the fourth was to settle the matter, Ferdiaidh had held his own, but looking forward to the peculiar weapon of his opponent, he is described as putting on an apron of brown leather, and over that " ties a great huge flagstone as large as a millstone. He put his firm deep apron of double melted iron over the great flagstone." The warriors meet. " What feat shall we decide upon, Ferdiaidh ? " said Cuchulainn. To thee belonofs the choice of weapons till night," said Ferdiaidh. " Let us come to the game of the ford, then," said Cuchulainn. "Let us indeed," said Ferdiaidh. Although Fer- diaidh said this, he w^as sorely grieved to go there, because he knew it was at that p-ame Cuchulainn o had destroyed every champion and every warrior who fought with him — i.e., at the "Game of the Ford." The battle goes on, and Ferdiaidh throws Cuchulainn into the middle of the ford. " It was then, indeed, that Cuchulaiun's fury first arose ; he became inflated and swollen like a blown bladder, so that he became a terrible, awful, many- coloured, won- derful rainbow, so that the great brave champion stood the height of a Fomorian over the head of Ferdiaidh in his proper height." Such was the closeness of the fight between them, that their s 274 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. heads met above, and their legs below, and their arms in the middle, over the borders and bosses of their shields. The battle goes on, and Cuchulainn has to take to his last resource — the gae hulga. " This was the character of that dart : it was upon a stream it should be set, and it was from between his toes he should cast it. It made but the wound of one dart in entering the body, but it presented thirty inverted points against coming back ; so that it could not be drawn from a person's body without opening it. And so, when Ferdiaidh heard the gae hulga called for, he suddenly dashed his shield down to protect the lower part of his body." Cuchulainn causes him to throw up his shield. "In the mean- time the charioteer had set the gae hulga to the stream ; and Cuchulainn caught it between his toes, and he darted it at Ferdiaidh with such unerring aim and force that it passed through the deep firm iron apron, broke the great hard flag which was as large as a millstone in three parts, and passed through the lower part of his body into his belly, so that every part of him was filled with its inverted points. ' Enough,' said Ferdiaidh, and he fell dead in the ford." Attention has been frequently called to the fact that in Gaelic tradition Cuchulainn unwittingly slays his own son Conlaech. We have shown previously the meaning of the first syllable of the latter name: laech is "a soldier," "hero," and it was with the same weapon employed against THE "GAE BULGA." 275 Ferdiaidh that he killed Conlaech} The father and son are identical. The fabulous origin of the weapon brings it from the East, where a certain Coinchenn, Doghead, the name applied to Christopher, who forded the river carrying our Saviour, slew Curruid, whose name has been translated " Dog of the Field " (of battle),^ and whom Rhys has identified with Carausius. Curruid is called mac Daire : daire is the Gaelic for "rut." A certain Bolg mac Buain found the head of this Curoi mac Daire, which seems to us to mean " E/unning dog, son of rut," and made this " wild spear" "from the bones of the kingly monster." The spear was given to Mac lubhar, Son of the Yew. lubhar is another name for Cuchulainn's charioteer, otherwise called Loeg. Mac lubhar gave it to Lena, who gave it to Dermeil, who gave it to Scathach, who was Cuchulainn's Scottish (in modern sense) instructress : thus this weapon came from Britain.^ We have other testimony than that of romances that dog -headed figures were known in North Britain. Stewart's ' Sculptured Stones of Scotland,' Plate C, xxxviii., portrays a figure in a long dress with a dog's head carrying a double-crossed stafil Cuchulainn's charioteer is generally called Loeg, Laeg, who was son of Biangabra, who with his wife 1 West Highland Tales, vol. iii. p. 184. 2 De .Joubainville, Cours de Litterature Celtique, vol. v. p. 326. 3 O'Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. ii. pp. 302, 308, 310, and vol. iii.. Appendix, p. 413. 276 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. lived in an island northwards, in the neighbour- hood of Ulster. Cuchulainn is represented as sleeping with her, a common incident at all his stopping -places where a woman is present, telling her his story, and then starting off and going to Ulster. 1 Loeg has two brothers, Id and Sedlang. Ith, Idh is " corn," a chain ; sed, set is a " standard of value," "a cow"; lann, "an enclosure," — thus, ithlann is "a stackyard." Laogh, the modern Gaelic for " a calf," in the phonetic spelling of Manx Iheiy, though this hardly gives much idea of the sound, appears in Middle Gaelic as loeg. Let us examine Loeg's dress as given in Lebor na H'Uidri. His "wild charioteering dress" was a "graceful frock of skins, which was light and airy, spotted and striped, made of clear skins, close fitting, so as not to interfere with the action of his arms out- side." ^ So much for the calf in him. He then puts on " outside this frock, his raven black cloak, which Simon Magus had made for the king of the Romans." He adds a quadrangular helmet shining in various colours, with its curtain falling over his shoulders behind, which added to his grace, but was no encumbrance. With his hand he set on his fore- head the red-yellow band, like a blade of red gold, in token of his charioteership, to distinguish him from his master. He then covers his horses from ^ Stokes and Windisch, Irische Texte, Second Series, Pt. I., pp. 184- 207. 2 O'Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 299. LOEG THE CHARIOTEER. 277 head to foot with an iron lorica, and we need not be surprised now that he casts a spell of invisi- bility over the whole equipage.^ He is described as having another dress, a " winged little cochal," — with "openings on its sleeve" or "buttoning at his two elbows" are O'Curry's translations for conaurslocud.'^ His personal description is "lank, tall, stooped, freckle - faced, with curling reddish hair." Let us look at the token of his " charioteership." The word used for this is gihne, distinctly explained as intended " to keep the hair down on the fore- head." ^ O'Reilly translates it " a thread," " a cup- ping horn," " a greyhound." In the Highland Society's Dictionary we find gibeach, "rough," " hairy," " having the hair in bunches " ; gibean, " a bunch on the back." Loeg's gibne was the same as the maiden snood worn by unmarried women quite recently in the Lewis ; and we may compare the Gaelic gibeach, " neat," with the Low Country snod, also " neat." No doubt the gibne and the snood were originally made of plaited hair, horse or cow's, but the snood had a significance none dared to disregard. It was only worn by maidens, not merely as a dis- tinction between married and unmarried, but in the most strict understanding of the word, and where the wearer was known not to be reckoned among ^ O'Curry, Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 300. 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. cccxc ; vol. iii. p. 187. Ibid., vol. iii. p. 187. 278 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. the category of the perfect, the snood would have been torn from her head. The writer has been assured of this as true in Lewis within the memory of man. It would appear from the story of Loeg that the " thread," O'Reilly's translation of the word gihne, was anciently worn by both sexes to keep the hair neat. Leag, it may be noticed, was Cuchulainn's messenger to Magh Mell, Paradise, which was on an island.^ Leag is a precious stone," leug in Scottish Gaelic ; leac is " a flagstone," in Welsh llech, also lia. This word appears in Oghmic inscriptions. Stewart Macalister gives us in Ireland " maqi Liag, maqi Erca," and also in the Isle of Man "maq-Leog." In reference to the spelling, he points out that the vowels, being represented by points, of which there are six in either case, the latter may be a mis- spacing for the former, or vice versd.^ This name looks like leac, " a stone," the more so when taken in connection with the name Ere, of which Mac- alister says that it is in Oghmic "one of the most frequent names : the feminine Erc(ias) often occurs in Ogham inscriptions, though the masculine only once is found elsewhere than at Ballyeightragh — namely, at Coumeenoole. It is a base for num- erous compounds — Ercagni, &c." The name will fall to be considered later. ^ Manners and Customs, vol. ii. p. 197. 2 Irish Epigraphy, vol. i. p. 47 ; vol. ii. p. 135. M ACL AG AN ORIGIN. 279 The name Maq-Leog Is common in the MSS., and was borne by the bard of Brian Borama. We have seen Cuchulalnn's charioteer going as his spy to Magh Mell, and we have found him hooded : it is called a helmet, but he was invisible. Here is the description of a man going as a spy, and the preparations he makes : " Give me now a calf's blood and dough of rye, that they be smeared on me ; be there a capacious hood too furnished me, and a wallet." ^ Now let us look at the stories attached to the name Maclagan, which we identify with that of the Clan Clachinyha. Dr Maclagan Wedderburn gives the following, on the authority of his aunt : " The only other tradition I remember as to the origin of the name was from the river Lagan, in the north of Ireland. On some cattle-lifting expedition a man swam across the river when in flood to recover a calf, and swam back with it ; in remembrance of which feat his companions dubbed him the Son of the Lagan. This man had nothing to do with our family, who were really Macdougalls, and only adopted the name." When we analyse this story, the name of the river as possibly connected with the name of the clan might strike any one, but it is clearly the in- vention of a Gaelic speaker, who connected it with the Gaelic for a calf, and, as it were, doubled his explanation. In the extract from O'Grady's ' Ga- delica,' the words "calf's blood" Sive fuil laig. ^ CGrady, Silva Gadelica, p. 378 ; translation, p. 415. 280 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. The celebrated bull of Cualgne is connected with this word laig. In the ' Adventures of Nera/ Fergus says to Ailill, king of Connaught — " I like not the calf Bellowing in the plain of Cruachan, The son of the black bull of Cualgne, which approaches, The young son of the bull from Loch Laig." ^ In this verse we have loeg for " calf," its diminutive loegan, and the name of the loch is Laig. It must be remembered that the g at the end of words, and in the middle of some, is silent, so that loegan and lagan of Maclagan, as now pronounced, would be strikingly different to a hearer ; but that is, as we have seen, a comparatively small matter when a meaning is being hunted up. One can hear the self-sufficient critic saying, this " is too fan- ciful to carry any conviction." To those who are acquainted with what is called "kennings" — i.e., a metaphor, a periphrasis by metaphor — it will not be difficult to understand how such double mean- ings might be used knowingly. A capacity for the understanding and originating of such "kennings" was a Bardic test of knowledge of the apprentice rhymer, common to Scottish and Norse poets. As an example, we have had something to do with the name Aedh, the modern Aoidh, as we have it in Mackay. Now, there are things called " the gravel of Glen Ai," meaning hen's eggs. Some little ^ Meyer, Revue Celtique, vol. x. p. 225. RIANGABAR, FATHER OF LOEG. 281 imagination is necessary to explain the genealogical sequence of this Mac-Ai.^ Loeg's father's name, " Riangabar," seems to mean " King of the horses," the word gahhar, now only used for "goat," being used for "horse" in Middle Irish, There is a gctothao', which means "greyhound" literally, " wind -one," used in the Sean Dana, strange to say the exact equivalent of the German ivind-Jiund. Were goats unknown to the Irish romance writers ? The last great battle of the Feen was the battle of Gabhra (? is this Gabhra Goivrie, in Perthshire), — the same word as the distinctive part of the name of Laeg's father. Riangabhar taken as one word is feminine in its declension, though we have seen his wife mentioned as Cuchulainn's temporary affinity. If the Feen story has, as we believe, originated with the mer- cenary Roman troops of the Walls, the Cap^'icornus of the second legion may be the kernel of the battle of Gabhra ; if so, it would represent, we should suppose, its defeat or dispersion. Goats are not exactly a liquid asset for the military story-teller ; and looking at the prominence and early mention of the j&ocAaidhs [each, "horse"), regarding the mounted "retinue of the Wall" of the Welsh poets, and the fully vouched cavalry of the Roman oc- cupation, the conclusion we arrive at is that the 1 See Eevue Celtique, vol. xiii. p. 220, and Antiquary, vol. xxxvi. p. 226. 282 THE PERTH INCIDENT OF 1396. story of Cuchulainn's charioteer carries us back for its origin to Koman Britain. If, judging from the Oghmic inscriptions, the name used there meant " stone," Maq-Leog is equivalent to Mac Gual and Mac Clachan, — Son of Slab, Son of Wall, Son of Little Stone. Finally, " Caper " was the name of the star in the left shoulder of the constellation " Auriga," the Charioteer, who has always been represented as carrying a kid, say a fawn, laeg. Thus we have raised these heroes of the Irish to even a more elevated position than they claim for them, and, recalling that their epic fame rests principally upon their having to do with the cattle spoil of Cualgne and its wonderful black bull, if an inquirer will cast an eye on a diagram of the con- stellations he will see that the constellation of " Taurus," the Bull, is represented as charging the Charioteer. 283 CHAPTER XIIL To return to the name "Ere," of which we have seen that the Oghmic Mac Liag was son. epKo