Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 5.djvu/428

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [0* s. v. MAY s, 1900.

Shetland Isles, as I pointed out in my small work on 'Orkney: Past and Present,' the case is different. Here the Gaelic language has never penetrated. There are no traces, either in the language or in antiquarian remains, of Celtic occupation. The Scandi- navian races must have immediately suc- ceeded the Pictish. The language commonly spoken, until the last century, was Scandi- navian. The relics that are not prehistoric are Scandinavian also. To this I must make one exception. I have in my possession three photographs of a wooden box carved on three of its sides. This was pronounced by the Scottish Society of Antiquaries, and by Mr. Evans, to whom I showed it at the Society of Antiquaries in London, to be undoubtedly Celtic. This is so rare as to be worth record- ing. The specimen is a very good one. What became of the Pictish language who can tell? Was it swallowed up in the Scandinavian 1 On the mainland it may have become amal- gamated with the Gaelic. I have referred to the peculiarities of the Aberdeen dialect, but had not before heard them attributed to Pictish influence ; in fact, in spite of all the recent efforts to unearth it, the time- honoured joke of Sir W. Scott in ' The Anti- quary ' anent the Pictish language is almost as true as ever.

With regard to the anatomical characters of the Picts, the dark, curling hair and dolichocephalic skull are, if we identify them with the Neolithic races, well established ; but I cannot agree with CANON TAYLOR in regarding lobeless ears as a Pictish cha- racteristic ; this I consider a distinctive mark of the pure Scandinavian type. It is ex- tremely prevalent in Orkney (without the dolichocephaly), and is to be attributed, not to Pictish, but to Scandinavian influence. It is still seen, too, in Denmark, but less fre- quently, owing to German admixture. The Picts, on the other hand, would correspond with the type marked A by the Committee of the British Association, in which the skull is described as dolichocephalic, the hair very dark, crisp, and curling, but the ears as rounded and lobed, and the nose straight and long.* The Neolithic race was a very short one, the average height being only sixty- three inches. The Scandinavians, on the other hand, were tall, brachycephalic, with arched brows and prominent noses, and bore many points of resemblance to the Celtic races.

Why, too, is Duncan called a usurper? It

It is often found in Orkney.
 * This is the type found in the long barrows.

was only a question of Pictish or Scottish supremacy. Duncan was descended from the Scottish king Kenneth Mac Alpin, as Mac- beth was from the Pictish king Nechtan. Who can decide now between two such ancient claims ? It is true that Macbeth had also a claim on the Scottish side from his wife, but it is doubtful whether Gruoch had any better claim than Duncan, as the direct male line of Kenneth Mac Alpin was extinct, and both claimed through the female.

J. FOSTER PALMER. 8, Royal Avenue, S.W.

CANON TAYLOR mentions the origin of Pentland Firth, but says Pentland Hills has a different derivation. Would it be too mud* to ask what it is ? Pinkerton, in his ' History of Scotland before 1056,' gives the originals of the Pechtland, Pikland, or Pentland Firth, but does not mention any difference in the word Pentland when applied to the hills, as far as I can see. Pinkerton uses his critical cudgel in the virile manner of the P. I. Scotorum, and would have greedily seized on any chance to have a thump at an error in the derivation of the name of the hills. A writer in a Scotch antiquarian paper recently set down the name of the hills as synony- mous with that of the fiord. There is un- doubtedly a good deal of old Pict blood from the Pentlands down to the Tweed. One does not require to go to the land of the McKenzies or Rosses for the Picts ; they are as common in the streets of Edinburgh as the Goth or the Kelt. The Aberdeen twang, if not Pictish, is difficult to account for. If we had mate- rials to judge by we should probably find that the north Scotch Gaelic was as much " infected by Pictish phonology " as Aberdeen- shire Saxon. But this is only natural. The old invaders brought with them compara- tively few, and sometimes no, women. The children would learn their father's language with the mother's accent. In Ulster the Scotch without exception have an Irish accent, even though they continue to use the Saxon dialect of their fathers. P. F. H.

Perth.

It is a drawback that CANON TAYLOR has omitted the Cruithne from his purview, for they are also termed "Gwyddel ffichti," or Irish Picts. This constitutes a valid dis- tinction from the earlier Cymric Picts of Dumbarton ; and surely, if these Britons " painted " so late as Caesar tells us, they belong to the primitive natives rather than to some antediluvian dwellers in weams and ogos, who have left no linguistic remains.

A study of the feud between Chalmers and