ox ETIIXOLOGY. 
305 
finally retired, together with tiie tribe from which it originated, to the most 
northern part of the countr)-, which, under tijc form Albain or Alban, itstill 
serves to designate: and the name Prydain itself, which since Jias resumed 
Its general signification, in the poems of the old Welsh bards generally de¬ 
signates the western parts of the Scotch lowlands, whither the Britons had 
retired after the arrival of the Belgians*. 
As the nations and tribes of this western migration are those to which the 
name of Celts and Gauls more particularly refere, bo to them Indong most 
of those characteristics and institutions of the Critic race—including the 
important one of 0ruidism—with which we are made acquainted by Osar 
and Strabo. The language of the western Celts is in iu most distinctive 
features represented by Uie British or Gallic branch of the modern Celtic. 
Of the nations and iribe.« of the aisiern miynttian, the most celebrated are tiie 
so-called Pieti auil Scoti, who, from the close of the thinl century of our era 
have for a long period held a leading place in the history of this island. The 
names Scoti ami both correspond with analogous words of mo¬ 
dern Gaelic, the one with the Irish scuite 7iotiwdes (coIL W, ysgttyd, E. to 
the other with the Gallic pic t-a, jK-ic^.a (Welsh, ^VA), fighting 
vtajh t^rom the Gmlie pic {bfh, br»c), ^Vclali.^VA, la xrre/im, to fight (cf. 
Anc.-G. viht-an\ V.at, pvgn-a). Much more charaetrristical however than 
the tw o names just mentioned are those by which the Pieti and Scoti are 
usually distinguished in the Welsh records, I mean the names Uack and fair 
{red, white) Gaels, black and fair Itorde—Gtdyddyl dwnt, llu du, ornies dii 
ami Gmjddyl gtci/n, each, gltts f —inasmuch as, according to the nnalogy of 
several Asiatic tribe* this appeliatioii seems to refer to a difference of blood, 
and to imply that the black Pieti exhibited in their physical appearance a less 
pure Cauciwian origm than the/otr Scoti. 'Hie name Faia itself, under which 
the Scot! in tlieir own records— the old Irish annals an<l poems—are almost 
uivanably mentioned, signifies the Jair omw, being the plural of Fiori fair, 
which won] IS HI tins form the name of the heros eponynius of the whole tribe, 
the celebrated Fion Mac Curaliail (the Fioti Gall oi' the Highlands). The 
Ignorance of the monkish chroniclers of In land, who did not understand the 
meaning of the word Feua, was without doubt the cause of tJie generally re¬ 
ceived wild opinion of the Phwmcian origin of the Irish,—jiut as the story of 
the celebrated hero Miksius, as a distinct person, arose from ignorance on 
the port of those chroniclers of the true, meaning of uiiepithet by which Fion 
(the heros epoiiyinusof theF<:na)i8 frequently descrihed by the old Irish bards, 
iiaiiiely, the epithet ^Milcdh warrior.' Aa far however aa regards the Irish 
tradition of the Fena having arrived from Spain and Africa, to deny it all 
fouimation in history would i>e inconsistent with what we ourselves have said 
ot the route oi the western Celts. I do not hcftitate to detect in this tradi¬ 
tion a reference citJier to that roigratioti or to one anterior, whicli seems to 
m r P-<?w*w.WLud(lyMBWT,ib.i. 75,b. (Tra 
4 . Ihitannia after the Romans, p. 10. 
t M.ryr, i. 67, a ; 131, i? 192. <j; Triad*. It. 8, 9; cf. Ur. Smith, Sean Dana, p. 6. The 
rwhest authon who mcniian the Gvffddyl duon under thia name are Amroianus Mar- 
(*vii. 8) anil Ibolcmcus (ii. 3); cf. Zo»lm. p. 440, since the form Da-CaMones 
ilh.Caledfmn) hy which they mefiiion them, cvidciitly conuids the Celtic word du or 
duhk, black, as the first term of thi* compound. 
, nation of the TarUn, for iiiaiancc, divided theiuselves formerly into twosreat 
fymhes. of wIhcIi tlw one, called the black, comprcliendtd the TarUra of Mommlic face; 
?a 7 ^ ^ Caucaiian. V. Riitcr's Urdkmide, ii. pp. 255, 433, 
437, 439. The division of ihe Uuav likewise into a black ami white horde refers to the same 
dufere ice. Vide Guiguc»,u.p. 235 . Humboldt’s Kosidos, ii. n. 220. 
184 - 7 . 
X 
