INTRODUCTION. xxxv 



tradition tends to confirm the belief that the Hebrides 

 were overrun by Scandinavian pirates at a period long 

 anterior to the eighth century. Pinkerton, who wrote his 

 history of Scotland a hundred years ago, and who was 

 the great champion of the Teutonic origin of the Picts, 

 believed that the latter came from Norway about 300 B.C. 

 and established a monarchy in the Hebrides ; that the 

 Pictish kings down to 400 A.D. were merely princes of 

 the Hebrides, Drust being probably the first Sovereign 

 of all the Picts ; and that the Hebrides were left almost 

 desert when the Pictish inhabitants moved into the more 

 fertile parts of the mainland. Without accepting altogether 

 Pinkerton's arguments as to the origin of the Picts, and 

 making due allowance for his pro-Gothic and anti-Celtic 

 prejudices, there is reason to think that his conclusions 

 as to the scanty nature of the Pictish population, at the 

 time of the Norse occupation, are in the main correct. 



The foregoing considerations, which are strengthened 

 by the geographical situation of the Outer Hebrides,, 

 appear to offer a satisfactory explanation of the remark- 

 able preponderance, and the no less remarkable incidence, 

 of Scandinavian place-names in those islands. If the 

 arguments which have been stated are accepted, it will 

 not be difficult to believe (ist) that the Norsemen found 

 the Long Island inhabited by a Pictish people, few in 

 number, whom they speedily reduced to a state of 

 thraldom ; and (2nd) that the Scottic influx, carrying 

 with it the Gaelic language, which subsists in many of 

 the place-names, and in the common tongue of the 

 majority of the inhabitants of the present day, came 

 perhaps partly during, but chiefly subsequent to, the 

 Norse occupation. That the language of the Picts was 

 not Gaelic is suggested by the fact that St. Columbus 

 was compelled to employ the services of an interpreter 

 when seeking to convert the aged Pictish chieftain 

 Artbranan in the Island of Skye, as well as from other 

 facts that might be adduced. The few place-names in 

 the Long Island which are neither Scandinavian, Gaelic,, 



