182 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 280. 



left the country when the Northmen, who were 

 Pagans, settled there. Pritchard, in the account 

 of the Esquimaux given in his Researches in the 

 Physical History of Mankind^ vol. v. p. 369., nar- 

 rates that, according to some Icelandic sagas, 

 Iceland when discovered was found inhabited by 

 a barbarous race, which was exterminated by the 

 invaders. This earlier people was conjectured by 

 the American ethnologist, Mr. Gallatin, to have 

 been a tribe of Esquimaux ; but supposed, with 

 more probability, by Mr. Pritchard to have been 

 the descendants of some early refugees from Ire- 

 land or Britain, who might have left the vestiges 

 of Christianity in Iceland, — and he refers to Bost's 

 Histoire de Christiatdsme, vol. iii. p. 385, The 

 account given in the Landnamabok is corroborated 

 by the narrative of Dicuil, an Irish priest of the 

 ninth century ; who states in his geographical 

 treatise, De Mensura Orbis Terrce, discovered at 

 Paris, and published there in 1807 and 1814, that 

 monks from Ireland had resided in Iceland for 

 six months, and also visited the Faroe Islands 

 and found them uninhabited. The accounts of 

 the successive discovery of Iceland by Nadod, 

 Gardar, and Floki, agree in representing it as 

 uninhabited. The valleys were covered with thick 

 woods, and there reigned the unbroken silence of 

 undisturbed solitude. The Norwegian colonists 

 afterwards found the traces of a Christian people. 



In Orkney there are two islands. Papa Westray 

 and Papa Stronsay. Two places of the name of 

 Paplay — in South Ronaldshay and the Mainland, 

 with the surname of Paplay ; and a valley adjoin- 

 ing Kirkwall, named Papdale. In Zetland are 

 two small islands Papeys and the name Papilio in 

 Unst. The name is given to a people in the 

 diploma drawn up by Thomas Tulloch, Bishop of 

 Orkney, in 1443, addressed to Erick, king of 

 Norway, tracing the genealogy of William Saint 

 Clair, Earl of Orkney ; and received as an authen- 

 tic record. It tells us that when the Norwegians 

 conquered Orkney (a little later than the dis- 

 covery of Iceland), they found two nations called 

 the Peti and Pape : 



" Swa we find," says Dean Gule's racy Scottish trans- 

 lation, " that in the time of Harold Comate, first king of 

 Xorwege, this land or contre insulare of Orchadie, was 

 inhabitat and raainerit be twa nations callit Fed and 

 Fapi, quhilk twa nations indeed war all uterlie and clenlie 

 destroyit be Norwegiens of the clan or tribe of the maist 

 stowt Prince Kognald ; quhilks Norwegiens swa passit on 

 the said nations of Peti and Fape, that the posteritie of 

 thame after remainit nocht." 



And so it may have happened with the Pagan 

 Northmen and Christian Papce in Iceland. The 

 Peti of the diploma are evidently the Pets, Pihts, 

 or Picts ; and the name is preserved in the Pet- 

 land (Pentland) Firth, and the subterraneous 

 buildings called Picts or Pihts houses. To the 

 Papce, and an earlier date than the Norwegian 

 conquest and colonisation, are ascribed the old 



kirk of Egilshay in Orkney and some chapels in 

 Zetland, from a similarity in their architecture 

 with what is found in the old Irish churches of 

 the sixth and seventh centuries. In 1852 there 

 was found in the island of Bressay, in Zetland, a 

 sculptured inscribed stone, the inscription on 

 which, having been said to be written in the Irish 

 tongue, and in the Irish Ogham character, and 

 the sculptures apparently belonging to Chris- 

 tianity, would tend to afford proof of the presence 

 of the Papm or Irish priests. They have also left 

 their names in the Western Isles of Scotland, 

 where there are two Papeys and the name of 

 Papodill in Rum. I think it would be desirable 

 to ascertain if the name is to be found in the 

 Mainland of Scotland, and other countries of 

 North Europe. Dr. Barry had heard of a Papay 

 Sound in Norway ; and I have been told of a 

 place in the parish of Wick in Caithness, called in 

 an old charter Papigo, which looks like the Guo 

 or Voe of the Papce. The word derived from the 

 Greek 7r«ir7ras, a priest, or Latin papa, the Pope, 

 in the confusion of a long tradition, and among 

 a barbarous unlettered people, may in Orkney 

 have been extended from a foreign priesthood to 

 a separate nation. This is however only suppo- 

 sition ; and what would be very much to be de- 

 sired, is to ascertain if the Papaj, or tca-KiTas, or 

 papa, were to be found in the old Irish writings 

 as the name of these priests and the priesthood. 

 Nay, what name the Irish and Highlanders give 

 the Roman Catholic priests at this moment in 

 their Celtic dialects. In Orkney and Zetland, 

 the names of places are all Norse, as much so as 

 in Iceland ; where the Icelandic, another name 

 for it, is still the language of the country. I do 

 not know anything farther that can be traced to 

 the Papa: or to the Picts than what I have men- 

 tioned. The race of the Picts, and the circles of 

 standing stones, I do not touch on. The Papa; 

 and Culdees have been identified as the same by 

 a learned antiquary. W. H. F. 



Kirkwall. 



CHETHAM FAMILT. 



In Baines' History of Lancashire, 1836, there is 

 a pedigree of this family, which, if the Harl. MSS. 

 be good authorities, has been, I venture to say, 

 seldom equalled in the mass of blunders it con- 

 tains, besides omissions. It is a great pity more 

 care was not bestowed on it ; years ago I took 

 copies of the pedigree as given in Harl. MSS. 

 155. 1103. 1177. 1437. 1449. 1468. 1476. 1549. 

 1560. 6159. These embrace Visitations of Suf- 

 folk and Lancashire in 1561, 1567, 1613, 1664, 

 1672. I have given the numbers of the MSS., 

 lest I may be mistaken in the dates of the visit- 

 ations. Besides the omission of many names 



