Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/111

 PEEFACE. ciii invariably connected. To this it may be added that the children of foreign parents by Pictish mothers bearing exclusively Pictish names show that they were adopted into the tribe of their mothers ; and if it was a social law of the Picts that the women could alone marry either strangers or men of a different tribe, while the language of the people was akin to that spoken by the Gwyddyl or Gael, it may not unnaturally have given rise to the legend that the Picts were a stranger people, who had married wives of the race of the Gwyddyl on condition that their succession should take place through females only. Turning now to the legend which is expressly said to have been taken from the books of the Picts, and therefore applies more peculiarly to their kingdom in Scotland, we find it there stated that Cruithne, the eponymus of the race, had seven sons, Fib, Fidach, Fodla, Fortren, Cait, Ce, Ciric, and that they divided the country into seven portions. This means simply that the territory occupied by the Cruithne in Scotland consisted of seven provinces bearing these names. Five of these can be identified. Fib is obviously Fife, Fortren can be identified with the western parts of the county of Perth, including the vale of Strathearn ; Fodla appears in the name Atfodla, the old form of the word now corrupted into Athole ; Ciric or Circin, as he appears in the "Pictish Chronicle," is found in the name Maghcircin, now corrupted