stirling-1963-vol-1/05_039

Transcription

INTRODUCTION : GENERAL

2. THE PEOPLE

Of the origins and early tribal history of the people inhabiting this region little is known
though something may be inferred - on the one hand from the remains of their monuments
and on the other from linguistic survivals, particularly place-names. The testimony, such
as it is, of the monuments themselves will be dealt with in Part II below, but the linguistic
material is assessed in the following note which has been kindly contributed by Professor
K. H. Jackson, M.A., D.Litt., F.B.A.

Note by Professor Jackson
"The isthmus between the head-waters of the firths of Forth and Clyde, consisting of a
narrow neck largely blocked by ranges of high hills (apparently called Bannoc, 'peaky' in
Cumbric, whence Bannockburn) and by marshes, was made by nature to be a no-man's land
by the Damnonii and Votadini, peoples who were certainly British (Brittonic) and speakers
of P-Celtic, ancestors of the Cumbrians or 'Welsh' of southern Scotland, that is, of Strathclyde
and the Gododdin (Guotodin) country of Lothian and the Merse, as we know them in the
Dark Ages. In the post-Roman period Gododdin seems to have extended round the head of
the Firth, in the form of a small border province called Manau; the name survives in Clack-
mannan, and in Slamannan south-west of Falkirk.
"To the north, there are tribes in Ptolemv's map which were undoubtedly Pictish,
including notably the Caledonians; the Maeatae, whose name and probably whose central
stronghold survives in Dumyat at the west end of the Ochils, are mentioned by Dio Cassius.
Very little is known of the inhabitants of Scotland to the north-west of the 'Bannoc' hills in
the Roman period, but to the north-east these peoples appear in the Dark Ages as the Picts,
evidently speakers of P-Celtic of a kind perhaps somewhat different from that of the Britons
to the south. There is some reason to believe that remnants of an older, pre-Celtic, people
survived in Pictland, even into the Dark Ages, and that their non-Celtic language continued to
be spoken until perhaps the 9th century, analogous to the survival of Basque in Spain and
France. Traces of Pictish place-names are still to be found, including the numerous ones in
Pit- 'estate', like Pittenweem, or (in Stirlingshire) Petendreich, now Pendreich, north of
Bridge of Allan.
"This British-Pictish duality divided by the 'Bannoc' hills was radically altered in the
5th-6th centuries by the immigrations of two groups of foreign settlers. During the latter part
of the 5th century a colony of Gaelic-speaking Irishmen from north-east Ulster established
itself in Argyll; the supposed evidence sometimes quoted that such colonies had been entering
Scotland for centuries before rests on very slight foundations, and is probably worthless. This
new kingdom of Dál Riada grew rapidly in power, and was in constant conflict with its
neighbours. It extended itself eastward, beginning already in the late 6th-7th centuries, into
Pictland through Perthshire and across the low country to the north of the 'Bannoc' hills, until
the Gaelic Scots under Kenneth MacAlpine conquered and absorbed Pictland during the

-- 5