Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/269

 9* s.v. APRIL ?, 1900.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

261

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1900.

CONTENTS. No. 119.

NOTES : Picts and Scots, 261 Byroniana, 262 Regimental Nicknames, 263 Proposed Alteration in the Eussian Calendar, 265 First Edition of MoliSre Theatrical Anec- dote, 266' Character of Drunkennesse ' First Printed Dutch Bible, 267.

QUERIES : " Jury " in Nautical Terms Accum Robert Burdett John Challinor Leland Family Cockayne Family, 267 Tobacco Throwing Bonnet over the Wind- millsOld and New Style of Chronology Terms in Ancient Lease Blake's Iron Railway Parish Boundaries Children on Brasses, 268 "The Signs of the Fifteen Last Days of the World "French Prisoners Samuel Aske Ancient Dogs Old Clock " Rackstrow's old man " Faggots for burning Heretics Spanish Ambassador Viscount L'Isle Downman Portrait John Botoner Bohun Family Wire-strung Irish Harp, 269.

REPLIES -.Mail Shirts from the Soudan 'Dr. Syntax,' 270 Taxes on Knowledge O'More Family Benjamin Robert Haydon Coins in Foundation Stones "Gavel" and "Shieling," 271 'The Red, White, and Blue,' 272 The Blessing of the Throats" Step "Gothic " Spaurds " Dryden's Oaks in Scott Egyptian Chessmen, 273 Suffolk Name for Ladybird Removing Paint "Hurgin," 274 Dr. R. Uvedale Refrain of Poem Pickwickian Phrase "Figs in fruit " Inscriptions in Brightwell Church Old Wooden Chest Capt. Samuel Goodere, 275 Gipsies in England Eighteenth-Century ' History of England,' 276 " February Fill- Dyke " "An end " " Byre " " Wound " for " Winded," 277 Emmas Garway Family, 278.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Orsi's Modern Italy ' Jastrow's Religion of Babylonia and Assyria ' Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

PICTS AND SCOTS.

THE Scots, who were an Irish sept, crossed in the fourth century to Argyle, to which in the sixth century they were still restricted. Till nearly the close of the tenth century the term Scotia always denotes, not what we now call Scotland, but Ireland. Only after the twelfth century does it become the name of the whole of the modern kingdom. Kenneth mac Alpin absorbed the kingdom of the Picts in the ninth century, to which the Lothians, part of the kingdom of Strathclyde, and the Norwegian earldom of Caithness were afterwards added. The old Pictish kingdom incorporated by the Scots embraced the whole territory north of the Forth and east of the Grampians from Fife to Caithness, where the name Pentland Frith shows that when the Scandinavians arrived in the Orkneys, the mainland to the south (Caithness and Sutherland) still belonged to the Pictish kingdom. The name of the Pentland Hills, however, is from another source. The scanty remains of their lan- guage, their savagery, and their practice of tattooing themselves, all indicate that the Picts did not belong to the Aryan family of nations. If any doubt remained it would

be set at rest by their custom of inheritance through females, which is essentially non- Aryan, though found among the Etruscans, the Todas, and other non-Aryan races. It shows that paternity must have been un- certain, a manifest survival of polyandry, if not of a primitive tribal community of women. Any such custom was abhorrent to the Aryans, as is shown by the same name for father-in -law being found in every branch of Aryan speech,, and that for daughter-in- law being nearly as widely spread, con- clusive evidences that the institution of marriage and orderly family arrangements prevailed among the undivided Aryans. Such terms are unknown among savages.

Hence there is reason for the conjecture that Macbeth was not a usurper, but the lawful sovereign. He was a Pict, Mormaer of Moray, a purely Pictish realm. His mar- riage would give him a legitimate title to the throne, since his wife Gruoch was the granddaughter of Kenneth mac Dubh, King of Alban, and a descendant of Kenneth mac Alpin. Duncan, the usurper, was not murdered, but was slain in battle by the Picts, who were rightly struggling to be free. Macbeth had a tranquil and prosperous reign of seventeen years, showing that his claim was acknowledged by his Pictish sub- jects.

The question next arises, What do we know of the language of the Picts? In the 'Chro- nicles of the Picts and Scots ' and in the * Book of Deer ' we have lists of Pictish kings and many Pictish names. Besides this, there are sixteen inscriptions, all but one in Ogam. We have also some relics of the language which still survive. There are personal names, such as Ungust, which has become Angus, and Fergus, which is familiar to us in the surname Ferguson, and local names of the Pictish provinces, among them Fife, Athole, Buchan, and the first syllable of Caithness, to which we may add Albany, Caledonia, and Britain, names which are all difficult to ex- Dlain from Celtic sources. There are also in Fife and Perthshire two hundred names be- ginning with Pit or Pet, a Pictish word mean- ng " a portion of land," as Pitlochrie, Pit- Carrie, Pitglas, Pitfour, Pitsligo, and Pitcairn. When we find such forms as Pittencrief, Pittentaggart, Pittenweem, or Pittan-clerac, the second syllable is believed to be the suffixed article, a usage foreign to Aryan "anguages, except where it has been intro- duced from Illyrian or some non- Aryan /ongue. This is the opinion of Dr. Rhys as
 * o the affinities of Pictish. Dr. Stokes thought

t was a language of the Cymric class, and