512 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XII. No. 301. 



is probably to be rendered Vepogen's sister's 

 son. At any rate, the Irish word corre- 

 sponding etymologically to the Latin nejpos 

 has that sense in Irish ; but so far as I 

 know it has never been found meaning a 

 nephew in the sense of brother's son. 

 That may serve as an instance how the 

 ideas of another race penetrated the fabric 

 of Goidelic society ; for here we must sup- 

 pose a time to have come when there was 

 no longer any occasion for a word meaning 

 a brother's son, which, of course, there 

 never was in the non-Celtic society which 

 ranked men and women according to their 

 birth alone. 



ISTow this Caledonian Pict was not ex- 

 ceptional among his kinsmen, for they suc- 

 ceeded in observing a good deal of silence 

 concerning their fathers down, one may 

 say, to the 12th century. It is historical 

 that the king of the northern Picts was not 

 wont to be the son of the previous king. 

 In short, when the Celtic elements there 

 proved strong enough to ensure that the 

 son of a previous king should succeed, a 

 split usually took place, the purer Picts 

 being led by the rule of succession by birth 

 to set up a king of their own. The fact is 

 not so well known that the same succession 

 prevailed also some time or other at Tara 

 in Ireland ; it is proved by a singular piece 

 of indirect evidence, the existence of a tragic 

 story to explain why ' no son should ever 

 take the lordship of Tara after his father, 

 unless some one came between them. ' The 

 last clause is due, I should say, to some- 

 body who could not understand such a 

 prohibition based on the ancient rule that 

 a man's heir was his sister's son. This 

 would be, according to Irish legend, in the 

 lifetime of Conor mac Nessa. 



It is curious to notice how the stories 

 about the Pictish menage seem to have 

 puzzled ancient authors. I will only cite 

 one instance, to wit, from Golding's 16th 

 century translation of what then passed as 



the production of Solinus, and what may 

 pass now, even according to Mommsen, as 

 quite old enough for my present purpose. 

 It runs thus : " From the Promontorie of 

 Calydon to the Hand Thule is two dayes 

 sayling. N"ext come the lies called Hebudes, 

 five in number, the inhabiters whereof know 

 not what corne meaneth, but line onely by 

 fishe and milke. They are all vnder the 

 gouernment of one King. For as manie of 

 them as bee, they are seuered but with a 

 narrowe groope one from another. The 

 King hath nothing of hys own, but taketh 

 of euery mans. He is bounde to equitie 

 by certaine lawes : and least he may 

 start from right through couetousnesse, he 

 learneth Justice by pouertie, as who may 

 have nothing proper or peculiar to himselfe, 

 but is found at the charges of the Realme. 

 Hee is not suffered to haue anie woman to 

 himselfe, but whomsoeuer he hath minde 

 vnto, he borroweth her for a tyme, and so 

 others by turnes. Wherby it commeth to 

 passe that he hath neither desire nor hope 

 of issue." 



The man who wrote in that way pre- 

 sumably failed to see that the king was 

 not subject to any special hardship as com- 

 pared with the other men in his kingdom, 

 where none of them had any offspring that 

 he could individually call his own. This, 

 be it noticed, refers to the Hebrides, not, 

 as sometimes happens, to the more distant 

 island of Thule, where there was also a 

 king, as any reader of ' Faust ' will tell us. 



We now come to the Celts, and begin 

 with Pliny's version of Caisar's words about 

 the division of Gaul into three parts, as fol- 

 lows : Gallia omnis Comata uno nomine ap- 

 pellata in tria pojpulorum genera dividitur, 

 amnibus maxime distincta. A Scalde ad Se- 

 quanam Belgiea, ab eo ad Oarunnam Celtica 

 eademque Lugdicnensis, inde ad Pyrencei montis 

 excursum Aquitanica, Aremorica antea dicta. 

 We may for the present dismiss the third 

 or Aquitanic Gaul from our minds ; but 



