236 The Picts. 



they seem to have regarded as different nations. . . . With 

 regard to the first of them, namely, the Peti, there is no difficulty 

 whatever; for they are plainly no other than the Peihts, Picts, or 

 Piks, whom, on probable evidence, we have already considered as 

 the Aborigines, or first inhabitants of this place. And what puts 

 the matter beyond all doubt, the Scandinavian writers generally 

 call the Piks Peti, or Pets : one of them uses the term Petia, in- 

 stead of Pictland ; and besides, the Frith that divides Orkney from 

 Caithness, is usually denominated Petland Fiard, in the Icelandic 

 Sagas or histories. 



" With regard to the Papae, it is more difficult to ascertain who 

 they were. Some have thought they were a people that had, in 

 some former age, Come from Norway; and in support of this opi- 

 nion, mention a place of the name of Papa sound, in that country. 



" An opinion much more probable has been adopted by others ; 

 at the head of whom is an ingenious author Pinkerton 1 , whose 

 labours have thrown much light on the ancient state of Europe. 

 He supposes they were the Irish Papas or Priests, who had long been 

 the only clergy in the Pictish dominions; 2 and as they spoke another 

 language, and were also different in their appearance and manners, 

 they might readily have been taken by these strangers for a dis- 

 tinct race, instead of a separate profession. To give still more 

 probability to this opinion, it may be observed, that in Iceland 

 there was a place of the name of Papay, which was perhaps the 

 residence of these priests ; for such priests seem evidently to have 

 been there, though expelled in some commotion of the people; as 

 the Norwegians, on their arrival, found some of their books, and 

 other articles, which they had left behind them. 



" It may also be remarked, that there are many people of the 

 name of Papay or Papley here (in the Orkneys) still, as there were 

 formerly, at least in Iceland ; and both of them may have sprung 

 from the same origin, namely the Hibernian Priests, whose zeal 

 carried them into distant lands, to diffuse the principles of their 

 religion. 



1 Introd. Hist. Scotland. 

 2 The Irish were of Phoenician or Celtic origin, whose clergy were Druids. 

 Cresar says the Germans had no Priests. 



