AND THE DIALECTIC DIFFERENCES INDICATED BY IT. 217 



marked the number of times it occurs in each district of Scotland from the Index 

 of Retours. 



On examining this table it will be seen that there are five terms peculiar to 

 the districts occupied by the Picts. These are Auchter, Pit, Pitten, For, and Fin. 

 Now none of these five terms are to be found in Welsh topography at all, and For 

 and Fin are obviously Gaelic forms. 



It is necessary, however, in examining these terms, which may be called 

 Pictish, to ascertain their old form. Auchter appears to be the Gaelic Uachter, 

 upper ; and as such we have it in Ireland, and in the same form, as in Scotland 

 Ochtertire, in Ireland Uachtertire. It does not occur in Wales. 



The old form of Pit and Pitten, as appears from the Book of Deer, is Pette, 

 and it seems to mean a portion of land, as it is conjoined with proper names, as 

 Pette MacGarnait, Pette Malduib. But it also appears connected with Gaelic 

 specific terms, as Pette an Mulenn, the Pette of the Mill, and in a charter of 

 the Chartulary of St Andrews, of the church of Migvie, the terra ecclesise is 

 said to be vocatus Pettentaggart — "an tagart" being the Gaelic form of the ex- 

 pression " of the priest." 



The old forms of For and Fin are Fothuir and Fothen. The old form of 

 Forteviot is Fothuir-tabaicht, and of Finhaven is Fothen-evin. 



The first of these words, however, discloses a very remarkable dialectic 

 difference. Fothuir becomes For, as Fothuir-tabacht is Forteviot; Fothuir- 

 duin is Fordun, but Fothuir likewise passes into Fetter, as Fothuiresach becomes 

 Fetteresso ; and these two forms are found side by side, Fordun and Fetteresso 

 being adjacent parishes. The form of For extends from the Forth to the Moray 

 Firth — that of Fetter from the Esk, which separates Forfar and Kincardine, to the 

 Moray Firth. 



An examination of some other generic terms will disclose a perfectly analogous 

 process of change. The name for a river is Amhuin. The word is the same as the 

 Latin Amnis. The old Gaelic form is Amuin, and the m, by aspiration, becomes 

 mh, whence Amhuin, pronounced Avon. In the oldest forms of the language the 

 consonants are not aspirated, but we have these two forms, both the old un- 

 aspirated form and the more recent aspirated form, in our topography, lying side 

 by side in the two parallel rivers which bound Linlithgowshire — the Amond and 

 the Avon. There is also the Amond in Perthshire. We know from the Pictish 

 Chronicle that the old name was Aman, and the Avon, with its aspirated m, 

 is mentioned in the Saxon Chronicle. It is a further proof that Inver is as old 

 as Aber in the eastern districts, that we find Aman in its old form conjoined 

 with Inver in the Pictish Chronicle in the name Inveraman. 



In Dumbartonshire we find the names Lomond and Leven together. We have 

 Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond, with the river Leven flowing out of the loch 

 through Strathleven ; but we have the same names in connection in Fifeshire, 



