890 REPORT— 1900. 



tlie ancient peoples of tbe British Isles to -whose influence we are to ascribe the 

 hou-Aryan features of Xeo-Celtic. In the first place one cannot avoid fixing on the 

 Plots, who were so called because of their habit of tattooing themselves. For as 

 to that fact there seems to be no room for doubt, and Mr. Nicholson justly lays 

 stress on the testimony of the Greek historian Herodian, who lived in the time of 

 Severus, and wrote about the latter's expedition against the natives of North 

 Britain a long time before the term Picti appears in literature. For Herodian, 

 after saying that they went naked, writes about them to the following 

 effect : ' They puncture their bodies with coloured designs and the figures of ani- 

 mals of all kinds, and it is for this reason that tbey do not wear clothes, lest one 

 should not behold the designs on their bodies.' This is borne out by the names by 

 which the Picts have been known to the Celts. That of Fict is itself in point, 

 and I shall have something to say of it presently ; but one of the other names was 

 in Irish Cruithni, and in Welsh we have its etymological equivalent in Prydyn or 

 Prydain. These vocables are derived respectively from Irish a-utJi and Welsh 

 l^ryd, both meaning shape, form, or figure, and it is an old surmise that the Picts 

 were called by those names in allusion to the animal forms pricked on their bodies, 

 as described by Herodian and others. The earlier attested of these two names 

 may be said to be Prydyn or Prydain, which the Welsh used to give in the Middle 

 Ages to the Picts and the Pictland of the North, while the term Ynys Prydain was 

 retained for Great Britain as a whole, the literal meaning being the Island of the 

 Picts : that is the only name which we have in Welsh to this day for this island 

 in which we live — Ynys Prydain, ' The Picts' Island.' Now one detects this word 

 Prydain in effect in the Greek npfrawKol N^aot given collectively to all the British 

 Isfes by ancient authors. It may be rendered the Pictish Islands, but a confusion 

 seems to have set in pretty early with the name of the Brittanni or Brittones of 

 South Britain: that is to say, Prftem'c, ' Pictish,' became ^/•j7f«?iHtf or British; 

 and this is, historically speaking, the only knowQ justification we have for includ- 

 ing Ireland in the comprehensive term ' The British Isles,' to which Irishmen are 

 sometimes found jocularly to object. 



In the next place may be mentioned the Tuatha De Danann of Irish legend, 

 who cannot always be distinguished from the Picts, as pointed out by Mr. 

 MacRitchie. The tradition about them is, that, when they were overcome in war 

 by Mil and his Milesians, they gave up their life above ground and retired into 

 the hills like the fairies, a story of little more value than that ol' the extermination 

 of the Picts of Scotland. In both countries doubtless the more ancient race 

 survived to amalgamate with its conquerors. There was probably some amount 

 of amalgamation between the Tuatha Do Danann or the Picts and the Little 

 Moundsmen ; but it is neces.>ary not to confound them. The Tuatha shared 

 with the Little People a great reputation for magic ; but they differed from 

 them in not being dwarfs or of a swarthy complexion : they are usually represented 

 as fair. In the case of Mider, the fairy king, who comes in some respects near the 

 description of the heroes of the Tuatha D6 Danann, it is to be noticed that he was 

 a wizard, not a warrior. 



Guided by the kinship of the name of the Tuatha D^ Danann on the Irish side 

 of the sea and that of the Sons of Don on this side, I may mention that the 

 Mabinogion place the Sons of Don on the seaboard of North Wales, in what is 

 now Carnarvonshire: more precisely their country was the region extending from 

 the mountains to the sea, especially opposite Anglesey. In that district we have 

 at least three great prehistoric sites all on the coast. First comes the great 

 stronghold on the top of Penmaen Mawr ; then we have the huge mound of Dinas 

 Dinlle, eaten into at present by the sea south-west ol the western mouth of the 

 Menai Straits ; and lastly there is the extensive fortification of Tre'r Ceiri, over- 

 looking Dinlle from the heights of the Eifi. By its position Tre'r Ceiri belonged 

 to the Sons of Don, and by its name it seems to me to belong to the Picts, which 

 comes, I believe, to the same thing. Now the name Tre'r Ceiri means the town 

 of the Keiri, and the Welsh word ceiri is used in the district in the sense of 

 persons who are boastful and ostentatious, especially in the matter of personal 

 appearance and fine clothing. It is sometimes also confounded with cewri^ 



