Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/112

 civ PREFACE. into Mearns ; Cait is Catlianesia or Caithness ; and the only two names unidentified, are Fidach and Ce. In one of the legends, the Picts are said to have extended from Cait to Forcu. The former is Caithness, the latter obviously the word Forch or Froch, the name given to the Forth, in which it is still preserved ; and this whole territory, which was divided into these seven provinces, was called Cruithintuaith. This legend proceeds to say that Oenbecan, the son of Cait, was king over the whole seven provinces, and that Finechta was king over Erin, that is, over the Cruithne of Ireland ; and it is added that he took hostaoes of the Cruithne. This O little fact stated, affords a clue to the date of the foundation of the great kingdom of the Picts ; for the same legend states that thh-ty kings of the Picts ruled over Albau and Erin for 150 years ; and another form of the Irish legend states that there were thirty kings of the Cruithne oyer Erin and Alban, viz., of the Cruithne of Alban, and of the Cruithne of Erin, from OUamhan to Fiachna Mac Baedain, who fettered the hostages of Erin and Alban. Finechta is there given as the son and successor of Ollamhan, and if he took hostages of the Cruithne, and Fiachna Mac Baedan fettered the hostages of Erin and Alban, we seem to have a termmus a quo and a terminus ad quern for the union of the Cruithne of the two countries under the same supreme sovereignty. Fiachna Mac Baedan reigned over Dalnaraidhe, or the Irish Picts, from