SCOTTISH FORESTS IN EARLY TIMES. 93 



F,"1 E T?" ^ 90) .! he W ° 0d iS mark£d aS Stretchi "g from Longus 

 Fl. to Itis Fl. and inland from Creones on the west coast Its 



southern limits seem to have been about the heads of Loch 

 Long and Loch Lomond, thence it spread eastwards by the 

 toe of the Forth to Stirling, and extending northwards of 

 this line, crossed Strathearn, and reached as far as Dunkeld 

 Birch and hazel are said to have been the predominating 

 trees. The people whom Agricola took hostages from after 

 his victory at Mons Graupius, bore the forest-like name Boresti - 

 the Brythomc equivalent of our word forest (dwellers in the 

 forest), a suggestive piece of evidence. Early native writers have 

 references to this Forest, but not in any way descriptive or topo- 

 graphical. Thus Nennius about the beginning of the 6th century 

 records twelve battles fought under the native leader Arthur the 

 seventh was in the Caledonian Forest-" Coit Celidon»'(in 

 Brythomc); and the Welsh Triads (time of Rebellion of Owen 

 Glendower who died x 4 i 5 ) contain "allusions to the Caledonian 

 forest Later and modern writers have not been so reticent 

 and they have widened the district covered by this name to an 

 extent and m a manner which may be called unhistorical, and so 

 far as the mere name is concerned inaccurate. This is apparently 

 m anxiety to prove the wooded nature of early Scotland, regarding 

 which, however, this name is but poor evidence. The name 

 Caledonia was probably a word like Britannia, made by the 

 Romans and was of limited application, and did not designate the 

 whol of our Scotland. In Rhys's map (Celtic Britain)** tribe 



from J h ; ia T G f el - Ivernian P eo P le )-—ked as extending 

 from the head of Loch Long to Loch Ness. The native name 

 was probably Calido, which word contains the root (Gaelic) coilh 

 = a wood a further evidence that the Caledonii were the woodland 

 people. Dunkeld, said to be at the northern end of the great 

 wood, is in an old form, Duncalden or Duincaillen = fort of the 

 wood Caledonia has long been used to designate the whole of 

 Scotland, and in a similar manner and with something of the noetic 

 glamour that surrounds the name, the Caledonian Forest (of old) 

 has broken its bounds, and rolled over the whole country 



1 Skene's Celtic Scotland, I., p. 86. 



2 Rhys's Celtic Britain, p. 281. 



3 Ibid., p. 283. 



