The Testimony of Tradition
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Title: The Testimony of Tradition
Author: David MacRitchie
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TESTIMONY OF TRADITION ***
THE TESTIMONY OF TRADITION.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
ANCIENT AND MODERN BRITONS: a Retrospect.
2 vols., demy 8vo, 24s.
ACCOUNTS OF THE GYPSIES OF INDIA. Collected
and Edited. With Map and 2 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
London : Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., Ltd.
[Illustration: THE BRUGH OF THE BOYNE, NEW GRANGE, COUNTY MEATH.
(_From the South._)]
THE
TESTIMONY OF TRADITION
BY
DAVID MACRITCHIE
AUTHOR OF "ANCIENT AND MODERN BRITONS"
_WITH TWENTY ILLUSTRATIONS_
LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LIMITED
1890
LONDON:
PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER,
70 TO 76, LONG ACRE, W.C.
PREFACE.
A large portion of this work has already appeared in the form of a
series of articles contributed to the _Archæological Review_
(Aug.-Oct., 1889, and Jan., 1890), but these have here undergone
some alteration and have been supplemented to a considerable extent.
With regard to the correctness of the deductions drawn in the
following pages from the facts and traditions there stated, there
may easily be a difference of opinion. And indeed one writer, Mr.
Alfred Nutt, in the course of a very learned dissertation on the
Development of the Fenian or Ossianic Saga,[1] has expressed his
dissent from the theories advanced in the articles referred to. It
would be out of place to enter here into a consideration of the
grounds of Mr. Nutt's objections, even if that did not demand an
undue amount of space; but it may be pointed out that the articles
upon which his criticism is based only state very partially the case
which even the following more enlarged version is far from
presenting fully. But what is of much greater importance is, that
the theory which I have here endeavoured to set forth has the
peculiar advantage of possessing a tangible test of its worth. What
that test is will be readily seen by every reader. If the result of
future archæological excavations should be to confirm tradition (as
it is needless to say the writer of these pages believes will be the
case), the question then will be one, not of interpreting tradition
so that it may square with current beliefs, but of modifying or
altering these beliefs, where they are distinctly in disagreement
with tradition.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Appended to the collection of "Folk and Hero Tales from
Argyllshire" which forms the second volume of the series entitled
"Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition" (London, 1890; published by
the Folk-Lore Society).
CONTENTS.
PAGE
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I.
Shetland Finns--Orkney Finnmen--Finn Localities--Kayaks
and Kayak-men--An Orkney Kayak of 1696 1-11
CHAPTER II.
"Zee-Woners"--Piratical Mer-folk--Landsmen and Mermen--
Iberian Skin-boats--Boats made by Norway Finns--"Marine
People" of the Hebrides--Probable Finns in Galloway 12-25
CHAPTER III.
"Inhabitants of the Isles of this Kingdom"--The Isles in
the Seventeenth Century--"Barbarous Men" 26-32
CHAPTER IV.
Homes of the Finns--Norwegian Suzerainty 33-38
CHAPTER V.
Finnish Influence in Norway 39-42
CHAPTER VI.
The Feinne--The Battle of Gawra--The Feenic Confederacy 43-50
CHAPTER VII.
Feens or Cruithné--Fin in the Kingdom of the Big
Men--Dwarfish Tyrants 51-57
CHAPTER VIII.
Pechts or Dwarfs--Pechts' Houses--Earth-Houses in
Greenland--"Interlude of the Droichs" 58-65
CHAPTER IX.
How the Pechts Built--Pecht-lands--The Builders of
Corstorphine Church--"Unco wee bodies, but terrible
strang" 66-74
CHAPTER X.
Strongholds of the Feens--The _Broch_ and the
_Sith-Bhrog_ 75-79
CHAPTER XI.
Fians and Fairies--Tenth-Century Fairies--Continental
Fians and Fairies--Finn and his Dwarf in Sylt 80-88
CHAPTER XII.
Witchcraft of the Trollmen--The King of the Sidhtir of
Munster--The "Great-Beamed Deer" of the Feens--Reindeer in
Scotland in the Twelfth Century--Pechts and Fairies 89-100
CHAPTER XIII.
Hollow Hillocks--The Settler and the Mound-Dwellers--
"Hog-Boys"--Maes-How--Interior of the Chambered
Mound--A Dwarf's House in Sylt--The Little People in
Scotland--Fairy Mounds 101-118
CHAPTER XIV.
The Brugh of the Boyne--The Brugh as Described in
1724--Gaels _versus_ Dananns--Dananns, Fir Sidhe, or
Fairies--Cruithne=Feinne--Inmates of the Brugh--Plunder
of the Boyne Hillocks in 861--_Sith Eamhna_--Tales of
Adventures in "Weems"--The Dowth Mound 119-140
CHAPTER XV.
Goblin Halls--The Castle Hill of Clunie--Tomnahurich,
Inverness--The Palace of the King of the Pechts--Pecht
Localities--The Fairy Knowe of Aberfoyle--Chambered
Mounds 141-155
CHAPTER XVI.
Scott's "Rob Roy"--Shaggy Men--Red Fairies of Wales--
Brownies and Forest-Men--The Ainos--A Hairy Race--Modern
"Pechts"--Cave-Men--Dwarf-Tribes and Reindeer--_Pÿgmei
Vulgo Screlinger Dicti_ 156-175
CHAPTER XVII.
Platycnemic Men--_Ur-uisg_=_Mailleachan_ 176-180
Appendix A.--_The Brugh of the Boyne_ 181-189
Appendix B.--_The Skrælings_ 190-193
Index 195-205
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE BRUGH OF THE BOYNE, NEW GRANGE, COUNTY MEATH _Frontispiece._
KAYAKKER IN HIGH SEA _To face page_ 12
WIGWAMS OF THE JURA ISLANDERS IN 1772 " 24
MAES-HOW, ORKNEY " " 108
SECTIONAL VIEW AND GROUND PLAN OF MAES-HOW " 108
THE INTERIOR OF THE "HOW" " 109
SECTIONAL VIEW OF THE BRUGH OF THE BOYNE " " 120
DOORWAY OF THE BRUGH " 121
ENLARGED SECTIONAL VIEW OF PASSAGE AND CHAMBER,
BRUGH OF THE BOYNE " " 122
GROUND PLANS OF PASSAGE AND CHAMBER, BRUGH OF
THE BOYNE (From Drawings of 1724 and 1889) " " 124
EASTERN RECESS OF CENTRAL CHAMBER, BRUGH OF THE BOYNE " " 126
DOWTH (_Uaimh Feirt Bodan os Dubath_), COUNTY MEATH " " 136
PLAN OF DOWTH " 137
PLAN OF PASSAGE AND CHAMBER AT DOWTH " 138
BEE-HIVE CHAMBER, DOWTH " 139
KNOWTH (_Uaimh Cnoghbhai_), COUNTY MEATH " " 140
THE DWARFS OF GERMAN FOLK-LORE " " 164
AN AINO PATRIARCH " 168
AINO OF 1804 " 170
A "GOOD FAIRY" OF TRADITION " 173
THE
TESTIMONY OF TRADITION.
CHAPTER I.
In one of an interesting series of papers on "Scottish, Shetlandic,
and Germanic Water Tales,"[2] Dr. Karl Blind remarks as follows:--
It is in the Shetland Tales that we hear a great deal of
creatures partly more than human, partly less so, which
appear in the interchangeable shape of men and seals. They
are said to have often married ordinary mortals, so that
there are, even now, some alleged descendants of them, who
look upon themselves as superior to common people.
In Shetland, and elsewhere in the North, the sometimes
animal-shaped creatures of this myth, but who in reality
are human in a higher sense, are called _Finns_. Their
transfiguration into seals seems to be more a kind of
deception they practise. For the males are described as
most daring boatmen, with powerful sweep of the oar, who
chase foreign vessels on the sea. At the same time they are
held to be deeply versed in magic spells and in the healing
art, as well as in soothsaying. By means of a "skin" which
they possess, the men and the women among them are able to
change themselves into seals. But on shore, after having
taken off their wrappage, they are, and behave like, real
human beings. Anyone who gets hold of their protecting
garment has the Finns in his power. Only by means of the
skin can they go back to the water. Many a Finn woman has
got into the power of a Shetlander and borne children to
him; but if a Finn woman succeeded in reobtaining her
sea-skin, or seal-skin, she escaped across the water. Among
the older generation in the Northern isles persons are
still sometimes heard of who boast of hailing from Finns;
and they attribute to themselves a peculiar luckiness on
account of that higher descent.
* * * * *
Tales of the descent of certain families from water beings
of a magic character are very frequent in the ... North. In
Ireland such myths also occur sporadically. In Wales ...
the origin from mermen or mermaids is often charged as a
reproach upon unhappy people; and rows originate from such
assertions. In Shetland the reverse is, or was, the case.
There the descendants of Finns have been wont to boast of
their origin; regarding themselves as favourites of
Fortune....
* * * * *
But who are the Finns of the Shetlandic story? Are they
simply a poetical transfiguration of finny forms of the
flood? Or can the Ugrian race of the Finns, which dwells in
Finland, in the high north of Norway, and in parts of
Russia, have something to do with those tales in which a
Viking-like character is unmistakable?
* * * * *
Repeated investigations have gradually brought me to the
conviction that the Finn or Seal stories contain a
combination of the mermaid myth with a strong historical
element--that the Finns are nothing else than a fabulous
transmogrification of those Norse "sea-dogs," who from eld
have penetrated into the islands round Scotland, into
Scotland itself, as well as into Ireland. "Old sea-dog" is
even now a favourite expression for a weather-beaten,
storm-tossed skipper--a perfect seal among the wild waves.
The assertion of a "higher" origin of still living persons
from Finns ... would thus explain itself as a wildly
legendary remembrance of the descent from the blood of
Germanic conquerors. The "skin" wherewith the Finns change
themselves magically into sea-beings I hold to be their
armour, or coat of mail. Perhaps that coat itself was often
made of seal-skin, and then covered with metal rings, or
scales, as we see it in Norman pictures; for instance, on
the Bayeux tapestry. The designation of Norwegian and
Danish conquerors, in Old Irish history, as "scaly
monsters," certainly fits in with this hypothesis.
* * * * *
But however the Finn name may be explained etymologically,
at all events Norway appears in the Shetland tales, and in
the recollection of the people there, as the home of the
"Finns." And this home--as I see from an interesting bit of
folk-lore before me--is evidently in the south of
Norway....
"Before coming to this important point, I may mention a
Shetlandic spell-song ... [which] refers to the cure of the
toothache; the Finn appearing therein as a magic
medicine-man:--
A Finn came ow'r fa Norraway,
Fir ta pit töth-ache away--
Oot o' da flesh an' oot o' da bane;
Oot o' da sinew an' oot o' da skane;
Oot o' da skane an' into da stane;
An dare may do remain!
An dare may do remain!
An dare may do remain!
In this, though not strictly and correctly, alliterative
song, the Finn is not an animal-shaped creature of the
deep, but a man, a charm-working doctor from Norway....
Presently we will, however, see that the Finns of the
Shetlandic stories are martial pursuers of ships, to whom
ransom must be paid in order to get free from them. This
cannot apply ... to a mere marine animal or sea monster:
for what should such a creature do with ransom money?... As
to their animal form, Mr. George Sinclair writes:--
"Sea monsters are for most part called 'Finns' in Shetland.
They have the power to take any shape of any marine animal,
as also that of human beings. They were wont to _pursue
boats at sea_, and it was dangerous in the extreme to say
_anything against them_. I have heard that _silver money
was thrown overboard to them_ to prevent their doing any
damage to the boat. In the seal-form they came ashore every
ninth night to dance on the sands. They would then cast off
their skins, and act _just like men and women_. They could
not, however, return to the sea without their skins--they
were _simply human beings_, as an old song says:
"'I am a man upo' da land;
I am a selkie i' da sea.
An' whin I'm far fa every strand,
My dwelling is in Shöol Skerry.'"
* * * * *
There are many such folk-tales in the northern Thule. A
man, we learn, always gets possession of the Finn woman by
seizing the skin she has put off. One of these stories says
that the captured Finn woman would often leave her husband
to enjoy his slumber alone, and go down amongst the rocks
to converse with her Finn one: but the inquisitive people
who listened could not understand a single word of the
conversation. She would, it is said, return after such
interviews with briny and swollen eyes.
The human family of this Finn were human in all points
except in hands, which resembled web feet. Had the foolish
man who was her husband burnt or destroyed the skin, the
Finn woman could never have escaped. But the man had the
skin hidden, and it was found by one of the bairns, who
gave it to his mother. Thereupon she fled; and it is said
that she cried at parting with her family very bitterly.
The little ones were the only human beings she cared for.
When the father came home, he found the children in tears,
and on learning what had happened, bounded through the
standing corn to the shore, where he only arrived in time
to see, to his grief, his good wife shaking flippers and
embracing an ugly brute of a seal. She cried:--
"Blissins' be wi' de,
Baith de and da bairns!
Bit do kens, da first love
Is aye da best!"
whereupon she disappeared with her Finn husband and lover.
* * * * *
... I here give what Mr. Robert Sinclair says of the
capture of Finn brides by Shetlanders:
"Each district, almost, has its own version of a case where
a young Shetlander had married a female Finn. They were
generally caught at their toilet in the tide-mark, having
doffed the charmed covering, and being engaged in dressing
their flowing locks while the enamoured youth, by some
lucky stroke, secured the skin, rendering the owner a
captive victim of his passion. Thus it was that whole
families of a mongrel race sprang up, according to
tradition. The Finn women were said to _make good
housewives_. Yet there was generally a longing after some
previous attachment; if ever a chance occurred of
recovering the essential dress, no newly formed ties of
kindred could prevent escape and return to former
pleasures. This was assiduously guarded against on the one
side, and watched on the other; but, as the story goes,
female curiosity and cunning were always more than a match
for male care and caution; and the Finn woman always got
the slip. One or two of these female Finns were said to
have the power to conjure up from the deep a superior breed
of horned cattle; and these always throve well. I have seen
some pointed out to me as the offspring of these
'sea-kye.'"
In answer to my question, the Shetland friend lays great
stress on the fact of the Finn woman being wholly distinct
from the Mermaid....
* * * * *
Of the Finn man my informant says:--
"Stories of the Norway Finns were rife in my younger days.
These were said to be a race of creatures of _human origin_
no doubt, but possessed of some power of enchantment by
which they could, with the use of a charmed seal-skin,
become in every way, to all appearance, a veritable seal;
only _retaining their human intelligence_. It seems that
any seal-skin could not do; each _must have their specially
prepared skin_ before they could assume the aquatic life.
But then they could live for years in the sea. Yet they
were not reckoned as belonging to the natural class of
'amphibia.' As man or seal they were simply Finns, and
could play their part well in either element. Their feats
were marvellous. It was told me as sheer truth that they
could _pull across to Bergen_--nearly 300 miles--in a few
hours, and that, while ordinary mortals were asleep, they
could make the return voyage. Nine miles for every warp
(stroke of the oar) was the traditional speed...."
Here, then, the Finns are men of human origin; remaining
intelligent men in their sea-dog raiment; coming from
Norway; not swimming like marine animals, but rowing
between Shetland and Norway--namely, to the town of Bergen,
which lies in the southern ... part of Norway. As strong
men at sea, they row with magic quickness.... Each one of
them ... must have his specially prepared skin.... There is
nothing here of the swimming and dipping down of a seal.
We have followed Dr. Karl Blind so far. But, while recognizing the
value of his statements and comments up to this point, it is
necessary to give only a modified assent to some of his subsequent
deductions, and to flatly deny the correctness of others; because
his researches in "Shetlandic folk-lore" have clearly been too
limited in their extent, or rather, he has omitted to check those
traditions by any possible contemporary records. Some of those tales
were received from a Shetland woman "who strongly believed in the
Finns, and declared herself to be a descendant of them.... She was,
she said, the 'fifth from the Finns,' and she attributed great
luckiness to herself, although she was as poor as poor could be."
One of her stories is of her father's great-grandfather; and as this
ancestor of the woman's is not spoken of as a "Finn," it would seem
that she was "fifth from the Finns" through another branch of her
lineage. But, at any rate, this progenitor in the fourth degree
cannot have belonged to a much later period than the middle of the
eighteenth century. However, we shall see these Shetland Finns more
plainly described if we turn to the latter part of the seventeenth
century.
In "A Description of the Isles of Orkney," written by the Rev. James
Wallace, A.M., Minister of Kirkwall, about the year 1688, one reads
as follows:--
Sometime about this Country [Orkney] are seen these Men
which are called _Finnmen_; In the year 1682 one was seen
sometime sailing, sometime Rowing up and down in his little
Boat at the south end of the Isle of _Eda_, most of the
people of the Isle flocked to see him, and when they
adventured to put out a Boat with men to see if they could
apprehend him, he presently fled away most swiftly: And in
the Year 1684, another was seen from _Westra_, and for a
while after they got few or no Fishes, for they have this
Remark here, that these _Finnmen_ drive away the fishes
from the place to which they come.
Again, in Brand's "Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, etc."
(1701), it is stated:--
There are frequently _Fin-men_ seen here upon the Coasts,
as one about a year ago on _Stronsa_, and another within
these few Months on _Westra_, a gentleman with many others
in the Isle looking on him nigh to the shore, but when any
endeavour to apprehend them they flee away most swiftly;
Which is very strange, that one man sitting in his little
Boat, should come some hundred of Leagues, from their own
Coasts, as they reckon _Finland_ to be from _Orkney_; It
may be thought wonderfull how they live all that time, and
are able to keep the Sea so long. His Boat is made of
Seal-skins, or some kind of leather, he also hath a Coat of
Leather upon him, and he sitteth in the middle of his Boat,
with a little Oar in his hand, Fishing with his Lines: And
when in a storm he seeth the high surge of a wave
approaching, he hath a way of sinking his Boat, till the
wave pass over, lest thereby he should be overturned. The
Fishers here observe that these _Finmen_ or _Finland-men_,
by their coming drive away the Fishes from the Coasts. One
of their Boats is kept as a Rarity in the _Physicians Hall
at Edinburgh_.
This last fact was first stated by Wallace (1688; previously
quoted), who remarks:
One of their Boats sent from Orkney to Edinburgh is to be
seen in the Physitians hall with the Oar and the Dart he
makes use of for killing Fish, [and it is stated by Mr.
John Small, M.A., &c., in his edition[3] of this book that
the boat spoken of was "afterwards presented to the
University Museum, now incorporated with the Museum of
Science and Art, Edinburgh"; and a note appended to the
second edition also states that "there is another of their
boats in the Church of Burra in Orkney."]
Wallace's book has also a note ascribed to the author's son, to the
following effect:
I must acknowledge it seems a little unaccountable how
these _Finn-men_ should come on this coast, but they must
probably be driven by storms from home, and cannot tell,
when they are any way at sea, how to make their way home
again; they have this advantage, that be the Seas never so
boisterous, their boats being made of Fish Skins, are so
contrived that he can never sink, but is like a Sea-gull
swimming on the top of the watter. His shirt he has is so
fastned to the Boat, that no water can come into his Boat
to do him damage, except when he pleases to untye it....
There is, it will be seen, some difference of opinion as to the
place whence these Finn-men came. The Shetlandic folk-lore indicates
Bergen, on the south-western coast of Norway; Brand regards Finland
as their home; while Wallace takes a still wider range. This last
writer (who is the first in point of time) says this of
them:--"These _Finn-men_ seem to be some of these people that dwell
about the _Fretum Davis_ [Davis Straits], a full account of whom may
be seen in the natural and moral History of the _Antilles_, Chap.
18." At first sight, and according to modern nomenclature, the
connection between the Antilles and Davis Straits seems very remote.
But it must be remembered that the traditional country of "Antilla,"
or the "Antilles," probably included the modern Atlantic seaboard of
North America; and that, when that territory was invaded by the
Norsemen of the tenth century, it was found to contain a population
of exactly the same description as those "Finn" races--people of
dwarfish stature, who traversed their bays and seas in skin-covered
skiffs.[4] However, Wallace's theory is obviously untenable. It is
most improbable that any Eskimo of Davis Straits would attempt the
trans-Atlantic passage in his tiny _kayak_, supporting life on the
voyage by eating raw such fish as he might catch. Indeed, the feat
is almost an impossibility. Moreover, it is quite clear that those
Finn-men were voluntary and frequent visitors to the Orkneys, and
(more especially) to the Shetlands; and the "Fin-land" from which
they came is stated by the Shetlanders to have been no further off
than Bergen, on the Norwegian coast.[5]
It is quite evident that "the Finns of the Shetlandic story"
formed a branch of the "Ugrian race of the Finns"; and that some of
them "came ow'r fa Norraway"--whether as "wizards," or as fishermen,
or as pirates (for they figure in all these characters). The
description of their skin-covered canoes is of itself quite
sufficient to show that those "Finns" of Orkney and Shetland were of
the Eskimo races. So that those "sea-skins," without which the
captive Finn women could not make their escape, were simply their
canoes. And the exaggerated stories of the speed with which the
Finns could cross from Shetland to Bergen have their foundation in
the fact that those little skiffs can be propelled through the water
at such a rate that the hunted Finn was enabled to "flee away most
swiftly" from the clumsier boats of his pursuers. The speed of the
kayak is very clearly illustrated in an account of the doings of one
of "these people that dwell about the _Fretum Davis_," who was
brought to this country in 1816, and who, in that year, showed the
great superiority of his skiff in a contest with a six-oared
whale-boat at Leith. "He paddled his canoe from the inner harbour,"
says the _Scots Magazine_ of that year (p. 656), "round the Martello
Tower and back in sixteen minutes, against a whale-boat with six
stout rowers, and evidently shewed his ability to outsail his
opponents by the advantages he frequently gave them, and which he
redeemed as often as he chose." This, it will be seen, was simply a
repetition of the scenes described a hundred and twenty years
earlier, in the Orkney and Shetland groups; the chief difference
being that those earlier Eskimos had their home in Europe, and not
in any part of the western hemisphere. Of course, the Shetland
belief that the Finns could "pull across to Bergen in a few hours,"
and that "nine miles for every warp (stroke of the oar) was the
traditional speed," is obviously an exaggeration. But the distance
(which is nearer 200 than "300" miles) might almost be traversed in
the course of the long midsummer day of those northern latitudes--by
such seafarers, and in such craft.[6]
But, while the "seal-skin" of the traditional Finn was primarily his
skin kayak, it is likely enough that he is also remembered as the
wearer of a seal-skin garment; and that from this has arisen the
confusion of ideas regarding this magic "skin." "His boat is made of
seal-skins, or some kind of leather," says Brand, in describing the
Finn-man; but he adds that "_he_ also hath a coat of leather upon
him." And Dr. Wallace tells us that the Finns "have this advantage,
that be the seas never so boisterous, their boats being made of fish
skins, are so contrived that he can never sink, but is like a
sea-gull swimming on the top of the water." And he continues: "His
shirt he has is so fastened to the boat that no water can come into
his boat to do him damage, except when he pleases to untie it." Dr.
Rink, in referring to the kayaks of those "Finn-men" who inhabit the
regions surrounding the Fretum Davis, uses similar terms: "The deck
alone was not sufficient; the sea washing over it would soon fill
the kayak through the hole, in which its occupant is sitting, if his
clothing did not at the same time close the opening around him. This
adaptation of the clothing is tried by degrees in various ways
throughout the Eskimo countries, but it does not attain its
perfection except in Greenland, where it forms in connection with
the kayak itself a water-tight cover for the whole body excepting
the face."[7] But, in making this last statement, Dr. Rink is
speaking of the nineteenth-century representatives of this race; and
in ignorance of the fact that the "Eskimos" of the North Sea had
long ago realized the necessity for this waterproof covering.[8]
This waterproof "shirt" is also specially mentioned in connection
with the Finn kayak that the two Scotch writers of the seventeenth
century refer to. Wallace, it will be remembered, says of the Orkney
Finn-men that "one of their boats sent from Orkney to Edinburgh is
to be seen in the Physicians' Hall, with the oar and the dart he
makes use of for killing fish." At the time when Wallace wrote, in
or about the year 1688, there is no doubt that the boat was so
deposited. But, although the second writer, Brand, makes the same
statement, it is evident that he only did so on the authority of his
predecessor. Because, four or five years before Brand's book
appeared, the Finnman's kayak had been presented by the Royal
College of Physicians to the University of Edinburgh. The way in
which the Physicians' College had obtained the boat was through the
president of the college, Sir Andrew Balfour, eminent as a
physician, botanist and naturalist, and a great collector of all
sorts of curiosities. At his death in 1694, his collection passed to
the University of Edinburgh, by bequest. But, for one reason or
another, the Finnman's boat still remained in the Physicians'
College. This will be seen from the following extract from the
Minute Book of that College, which records the transfer of the boat
to the University of Edinburgh, two years after Sir Andrew Balfour's
death. The date of the Minute is 24th September, 1696.[9] "The qlk
[whilk] day y^e colledge considering y^t dr Balfour's curiositys are
all in y^e Colledge of Edr & amongst them y^e oars of y^e boat & y^e
Shirt of y^e barbarous man y^t was in y^e boat belonging to y^e
Colledge of physitians & y^t the same boat is likly to be lost they
having noe convenient place to keep it in doe give the s^d boat to
y^e colledge of Edr ther to be preserved & y^t it be insert there
y^t its gifted by y^e royall Colledge."
From this extract we gain the additional information that the
"Shirt" or "Coat of Leather" of the "barbarous man" himself had also
found its way to the University Museum of Edinburgh; presumably
through Sir Andrew Balfour also, or perhaps through his friend and
colleague, Sir Robert Sibbald (known as the author,[10] _inter
alia_, of a "Description" of the Orkney and Shetland Isles).[11]
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Contributed to _The Contemporary Review_ of 1881, and _The
Gentleman's Magazine_ of 1882.
[3] A reprint of 1883: William Brown, Edinburgh.
[4] _Antiquitates Americanæ._ _See_ Appendix B.
[5] It may be from them that an inlet at Bergen is called "_Fens_
Fiord." Bergen is so much associated with the "Finns" of Shetlandic
tradition that it is at least worthy of notice that a special caste,
known as _Strils_ (pronounced "Streels"), who are very primitive in
character, and who are regarded by the neighbouring Norwegians as of
a different stock from their own, still inhabit the numerous islands
that protect Bergen from the ocean. "They speak Norwegian after a
fashion of their own, but it is very difficult to understand them,
and there is reason to suppose that their idioms have a Samoyede
root." ("Bergen," by Lieut. G. T. Temple, R.N., in _Good Words_,
1880, p. 767 _et seq._)
[6] A recent visitor to the Greenland branch of that family states
that "a skilled Eskimo can, in his kayak, go even eighty miles in
one day." The length of the day is, of course, an important matter.
Dr. Nansen, the traveller referred to (who made the above statement
in his paper read before the Scottish Geographical Society at
Edinburgh on 1st July, 1889) gained his experience of kayaks during
winter, when the Greenland day is very short. If the eighty miles
were done _then_, the speed is marvellous. It is so, indeed, in any
case. When Dr. Nansen reached Godthaab in October, the nearest
Europe-bound ship was lying at a place 240 miles to the south, and a
"kayaker" was despatched thither to try and detain the vessel, which
was to sail in the middle of the month. Though unsuccessful in his
mission, he reached the vessel in plenty of time. The dates of his
journey are not given. But the mere fact of the man being thus sent
as an express messenger argues that a very high rate of speed was
relied upon.
[7] "The Eskimo Tribes," Copenhagen, 1887, p. 6.
[8] It may be mentioned that the variety worn by the Alaskan Eskimo
is not of seal-_skin_. It is described as a "peculiar waterproof
coat called a camalinkie, made from the entrails of the seal, and is
nearly as fine as tissue paper, almost every inch of it being
quilted, to strengthen it. The Aleut wears this curious garment when
seated in his canoe." ("Seal Hunting in Behring Sea"; contributed to
the _Scotsman_ of Sep. 20, 1889, by Edward C. Richards.)
[9] For this extract I am indebted to the courtesy of the President
and Council of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
[10] More correctly, the editor and publisher of a previous MS.
[11] It is an unfortunate circumstance that, owing to the lamentable
indifference of the custodiers of the Finnman's canoe subsequent to
the year 1696, it seems impossible to say whether or not that vessel
is still preserved. In 1865 the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art
became possessed of the collection of the University, and in that
collection were two kayaks, with regard to which nothing definite
was known at the time of transference. If the University "preserved"
the Finnman's kayak, as the College of Physicians expected, then it
must be one of these two, as these were the only kayaks in the
University Museum in 1865. (In the hope of obtaining a definite
solution of this question, I have given a description of that kayak
which appears to be the most likely to be the Finnman's, in a paper
read before the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland on 10th February,
1890.)
CHAPTER II.
Anyone familiar with the shape of the long, narrow, skin-covered
skiff of the Eskimo (which, as has just been pointed out, is
completely "decked," with the exception of the round aperture in the
middle, where the rower sits--his legs being thrust in front of him,
underneath the "deck,") will see that when the Finn had fastened his
seal-skin garment to the sides of the aperture, he and his boat were
one. Thus not only could "no water come into his Boat to do him
damage," but he appeared (to people unacquainted with his anatomy)
as some amphibious seal-man--"a selkie i' da sea," as the Shetland
rhyme goes. This resemblance is even further borne out by the
ability of the kayaker to overset himself and his kayak, and then to
re-appear on the surface of the water, without either himself or his
skiff suffering any injury, as both were impervious to water. This
feat is evidently a delight to the kayaker, and the Eskimo already
referred to as having displayed his skill at Leith in the year 1816,
performed this manoeuvre many times, to the great astonishment of
the onlookers. Thus the Finnman of the North Sea, who presumably
indulged in this amusement, like his representatives in Greenland
to-day, was thereby rendered still more like a creature of the deep,
"a perfect seal among the wild waves," as Dr. Karl Blind
remarks.[12]
[Illustration: KAYAKKER IN HIGH SEA.]
It is to the apparently amphibious nature of this peculiar people,
that one may trace much--if not all--that has been recorded of
mermen and mermaids; who, in other words, were seamen and seamaids.
The conventional mer-man is portrayed as visible above water from
the waist upward. And that the kayaker presents a similar appearance
may be seen from a description given of an Eskimo flotilla by one
who has had personal experience of the Hudson's Bay regions,[13]
wherein it is stated that, at some distance from the land, "the low
kayaks" of the Eskimos, being almost quite flush with the water, "it
seemed as if their occupants were actually seated on the water." The
accompanying spirited sketch by Mr. A. R. Carstensen of a modern
Eskimo, as he appears "when the waves come upon him with all their
fury," helps much to make one realize the appearance of the Orkney
Finnman, whether in storm or in calm.[14] It is easy to see how a
race of "_zee-woners_" such as these could gradually become
remembered as an actually amphibious people.
Those legendary mermaids who are described as using combs and
mirrors were plainly allied to these Finn-women. It is manifest that
no amphibious woman (the possibility of whose existence is not here
denied) would carry a mirror and a comb about with her; or that
she--whose chief element was the water--would be for ever engaged in
the mad task of arranging hair which every plunge in the sea would
disarrange most effectually. But those female Finns, whom the
amorous Shetlanders captured before they could regain their
skin-canoes are described as "engaged in dressing their flowing
locks" at the eventful moment: a most natural proceeding on the part
of any woman who has just landed from a sea-voyage (whether these
particular women had come all the way from Bergen, or which is
likely--from some outlying island of the Northern groups). The
_reality_ of those merwomen of Shetland is manifest throughout the
tales relating to them. They bear children to their Shetland lovers;
they "were said to make good housewives;" and their descendants in
the Shetland Islands to-day are, presumably, as "real" and human as
any of Her Majesty's subjects. That most of those unwillingly-wedded
Finn-women tried to regain their liberty at the first opportunity is
seen from the repeated statement that the Shetland husband was
always careful to hide the "sea-skin" of his Finn wife. But, in many
cases the Finn-woman appears to have decided to throw in her lot
with her Shetland husband and people.
Although Bergen was latterly the home of those Finns who came to
Shetland, it is most probable that many of the stories regarding
them related to a time when they still retained possession of
certain districts in the Shetland islands. When they were
"frequently" seen off the Orkney coast, quietly fishing, it is most
improbable that their homes were among the Fiords of Norway--more
than two hundred miles away. It seems clear that they retained their
hold upon Shetland longer than Orkney; but even in some parts of the
latter archipelago they were apparently pretty much at home in the
year 1700. This was the date of the Rev. Mr. Brand's tour, and a
remark of his leads one to such a conclusion. It must be remembered
that those Finns were regarded as wizards and witches by the more
ignorant classes: "the belief that witches and wizards came from the
coast of Norway disguised as seals was entertained by many of the
Shetland peasantry even so late as the beginning of the present
century." And they were regarded as, in some sense, supernatural
beings. Now Dr. Blind, in suggesting that the "skins" of the Finns
may have been (as in one aspect they actually were) their outward
garments, "made of seal-skins, and then covered with metal rings or
scales"--in assuming this, Dr. Blind is quite in agreement with a
statement made by Brand in 1700; which is to this effect, that
"supernatural" beings were, at the date of his visit, "frequently
seen in several of the Isles (the Orkneys) dancing and making merry
_and sometimes seen in Armour_." It ought not to be forgotten that
although the Finn fisherman "fled away most swiftly," when chased by
a considerable party of his foes, yet "it is worthy of note that the
supposed object of [the Finn invaders] ... was _plunder_;"[15] that
"they were wont to pursue boats at sea;" that "_silver money was
thrown to them_ to prevent their doing any damage to the boat;" and
that "it was dangerous in the extreme _to say anything against
them_."[16] Whether such attacks were made in their small
skin-canoes, or whether they used larger vessels, it is evident that
they were formidable marauders; and that, as Dr. Blind suggests, and
as the Rev. Mr. Brand records, those Finn pirates were "sometimes
seen in Armour."
But neither the belief in Mer-men, nor the existence of
traditionary pedigrees deduced from such people, forms a distinctive
characteristic of the Shetland Islands. Just as there are
Shetlanders who trace their lineage to one or more ancestors of Finn
blood, so are there similiar family traditions in many parts of the
British Islands. "It is believed that there are several old Welsh
families who are the descendants" of Mer-folk; and similar examples
are found "in the traditions of the O'Flaherty, O'Sullivan, and
Macnamara families."[17] "The inhabitants of the Isle of Man have a
number of such stories, which may be found in Waldron;"[18] and the
tale of Macphail of Colonsay and "The Mermaid of Corryvreckan" is
not the only Hebridean illustration of this feature. The references
that are made to mermaids in the prefatory remarks to Leyden's
version of the Corryvreckan story are quite in keeping with the
Shetland traditions. That is, there are certain attributes ascribed
to those mer-women which, on the surface, are incredible; but which
the knowledge that is given to us by Brand and Wallace renders quite
intelligible. The "train" or "tail" of the mermaid has only to be
translated "canoe" or "kayak," and what was formerly nonsense
becomes sense. For example, the statement that "the mermaid of
Corrivrekin possessed the power of occasionally resigning her scaly
train," is only a jumbled reminiscence of the fact referred to by
Dr. Wallace who, when speaking of the mer-men, says: "His
[seal-skin] shirt has been so fastened to the Boat, that no water
can come into his Boat to do him damage, except when he pleases to
untye it, which he does ... when he comes ashore." In the other
phraseology, he "possessed the power of occasionally resigning his
scaly train."
In the remarks prefacing Leyden's "Mermaid" (in The Minstrelsy) it
is stated that "mermaids were sometimes supposed to be possessed of
supernatural power." The Shetland peasantry, also, believe (or did
believe) that "_witches_ ... came from the coast of Norway disguised
as seals." And "Ranulph Higden says 'that the _witches_ in the Isle
of Man anciently sold winds to mariners, and delivered them in
knots, tied upon a thread, _exactly as the Laplanders did_.'"[19] At
one time--if not now, Lapland was regarded as a stronghold of
"magic." Butler in referring to one of the things "in which the
Lapland Magi deal" makes selection of this practice of "selling
winds" to sailors;[20] the "Magi" being (in this detail) feminine.
But the British Islanders have practised many "Lapp" mysteries: and
there is a distinct "Ugrian" element among the British people;
neither of which facts are at all at variance with the traditions
that derive the descent of many modern Britons from sea-faring
tribes of "Finns" and other Mer-folk.
One account[21] states, with regard to the mer-woman, that "the
sailors pretend to guess what chance they had of saving their lives
in the tempests, which always followed her appearance." Apparently,
this refers more particularly to Norway. In the Channel Islands a
similar belief exists regarding the mer-man, who is styled "the King
of the _Auxcriniers_." "_Il est le baladin lugubre de la tempête_,"
says M. Victor Hugo, in describing this mer-man of the Channel.[22]
The probable explanation of this belief is that, when a tempest was
threatening, those solitary rovers--knowing that their fragile
"sea-skins" could never outride a heavy storm--made hastily for the
nearest coast. Indeed, when one looks at those delicate little
vessels, wholly dependent upon the thoroughness of the stitching
that unites the various pieces of skin together, one can only wonder
at the daring of the people who ventured in them a hundred miles and
more from any land. "Nothing but a plank between one and Eternity"
is not so dangerous as it sounds; for planks can float one when the
worst happens. But what is to be made of half-a-dozen bits of
whalebone or wood, with one thin covering of seal-skin stretched
over them? The giving of a stitch, or the smallest fracture in the
skin--and both skiff and skiff-man are under the water.
To point out the various characteristics of the traditional mer-men
and mer-women, and to suggest an explanation of each, is more than
need be attempted here. But it is enough to remark that the mere
fact that marriages between "men" and the mer-folk were possible and
frequent, is quite sufficient to prove that there was no radical
difference between the two races. When one reads of mer-women
bearing children to land-men, and "making good house-wives" to them;
or, when one learns that the mer-men were given to "deceiving
women," then one may feel pretty certain of their humanity.
It has been noticed that one of their skin-boats, or kayaks, was
"kept as a Rarity" in the Museum at Edinburgh, and that another was
preserved "in the Church of Burra in Orkney."[23] There are many
British traditions of such boats in connection with such people;
although the names by which those skiffs are popularly remembered
are as unreasonable as the "scaly train" of the Finn-woman of
Corryvreckan. In Sutherland it is said that those people used to
cross the Dornoch Firth in "cockle-shells;"[24] while one man
records having seen them quitting the coasts of the Isle of Man "in
empty rum puncheons," in which vessels he "saw them scudding away as
far as the eye could reach."[25] It is very likely that those
traditional "witches" who went to sea in "sieves" were also
identical with those who came from the coast of Norway "disguised as
seals;" and that the _sieve_ was nothing else than the _kayak_.
That the Finns of Orkney and Shetland used the long, narrow _kayaks_
of the modern Esquimaux and Samoyeds is unmistakable: and the same
shape of skiff has probably been employed by British and other
European "mer-men" for an immemorial period. But other varieties of
this kind of boat have been used. For example, the natives of those
islands and promontories which form "the Rosses" of Donegal are
described (in the years 1753 and 1754) as using seal-skin boats; but
their shape does not seem to have been identical with that of the
kayak. "Their boats" (says a visitor to the "Rosses" at that
date[26]), "called curraghs, were oval baskets, covered with
seal-skins; and in such weak and tottering vessels they ventured so
far out as was necessary to get fish enough for their families."
These _curraghs_, it would seem, were nearer those still used in
Wales (and also by the Mandans of the Upper Missouri) than the long,
covered-in skiff of the Arctic tribes. Or, perhaps, they resemble
those _curraghs_ now used in Ireland, which differ chiefly from
ordinary "boats" in their frames being covered with skins in place
of planks. In his Gaelic dictionary, Armstrong states that "the
_curach_, or boat of leather and wicker," was "much in use in the
Western Isles (Hebrides), even long after the art of building boats
of wood was introduced." As he says that Islemen "fearlessly
committed themselves, in these slight pinnaces, to the mercy of the
most violent weather," it seems most likely that the "decked" kayak
is the kind of which he is speaking, and when he gives a diminutive
form of _curach_ (_curachan_), and defines it "a little skiff; a
canoe," it is almost certain that he has in view the "kayak" of the
Finn-man.
Whichever of these two terms may be assumed to indicate the kayak,
it is scarcely conceivable that the Hebrideans would "fearlessly
commit themselves to the mercy of the most violent weather," in an
_open_ skin-boat. But this is what the _kayakers_ do. "They do not
fear venturing out to sea in these boats in the greatest storms,"
says Hans Egede, referring to the Eskimos of the eighteenth century,
"because they can swim as light upon the largest waves as a bird can
fly; and when the waves come upon them with all their fury, they
only turn the side of the boat towards them to let them pass,
without the least danger of being sunk."[27] Referring to the same
usage of the Orkney Finnman, Brand says that he does this, "when _in
a storm_ he seeth the high surge of a wave approaching." And
Wallace's annotator has the same remark: "They [the Finnmen] have
this advantage, that _be the Seas never so boisterous_, their boats
being made of Fish Skins, are so contrived that he can never sink,
but is like a Sea-gull swimming on the top of the watter."
It appears impossible to ascertain a time when skin-boats were _not_
used in Europe. In speaking of the Oestrymnic Isles and their
inhabitants, Dr. Skene quotes the following account of their
vessels, as given by Rufus Festus Avienus, a writer of the fourth
century:--
"They know not to fit with pine
Their keels, nor with fir, as use is,
They shape their boats; but, strange to say,
They fit their vessels with united skins,
And often traverse the deep in a hide."
As Dr. Skene points out, these Oestrymnic Isles were identical with
the _Cassiterides_, (_i.e._, "Tin Islands,") and, under either name,
were famous for their tin mines. But, in identifying them with the
Scilly Isles, Dr. Skene is manifestly in error; as all evidence on
this point tends to show that the Oestrymnides, or Cassiterides,
formed a group of islands lying off the Spanish coast, which, at
some period during the Christian era, became submerged. The
fourth-century writer quoted "says that the northern promontory of
Spain was called Oestrymnis, and adds, 'Below the summit of this
promontory the Oestrymnic bay spreads out before the inhabitants, in
which the Oestrymnic Isles show themselves.'" The testimony of
Diodorus is to the same effect: "Above the country of the
Lusitanians, there are many mines of tin in the little islands
called Cassiterides from this circumstance, lying off Iberia, in the
ocean." So also Strabo, who states that "the Cassiterides are ten in
number, and lie near each other in the ocean, towards the north from
the haven of the Artabri."[28] All this is consistently borne out by
the map of Spain ("from the Latin Ptolemy, 1478") which Mr. Elton,
who calls Dr. Skene's deduction in question, appends to his "Origins
of English History."[29] In that map, it will be seen that,
according to Ptolemy, the Cassiterides--ten in number--lay off the
Spanish coast, north-west of Cape Finisterre, and that that portion
of the mainland was inhabited by the Artabri. Among all these
writers and geographers, therefore, there is entire agreement; and
none of their statements have any reference to the neighbourhood of
the English coast.[30] That these islanders did not know the art of
building vessels of wood, and were accustomed to cross the sea in
skin-boats, is regarded by Dr. Skene as corroborative of his belief
that they were British and not Iberian islanders. "But the Iberian
coracles were as well known as those of the Britons," says Mr.
Elton;[31] and of this we ought perhaps to see a survival in the
"_curo_, a small boat used on the Garonne," which Armstrong compares
with the Gaelic _curach_.
Of the presence of the skin-boat in British waters there is ample
evidence, and it would be superfluous to enlarge upon this. There
is, moreover, evidence that certain "trans-marine nations" came _to_
Britain in such craft, in early times. And, half-way between the
opening centuries of the Christian era and the period of the Orkney
Finnmen, there is a reference which suggests the skin-boat among the
Finns of Norway, although it does nothing more than suggest. In the
_Heimskringla_ (Saga xiv) it is stated that Sigurd Slembe and his
followers passed the winter of 1139 in a cave at Tialdasund, the
sound which separates the Lofoten Isles from the Norwegian mainland,
and that on that occasion the Finns (or Lapps, as they are
indifferently called) constructed two large boats for them. These
boats were of fir, but the peculiarity about them was that not a
nail was used in their construction. Like the framework of the
modern kayak, the various parts of these boats were fastened
together by _sinews_,[32] a method which, as the saga shows, was
certainly not that of Sigurd and his people, who remark upon the
absence of nails. Thus, although this incident shows that those
Finns of the twelfth century were able to build boats of wood, yet
their method of joining the timbers suggests the affinity which they
otherwise bear to the Eskimos. But, while their own boats may have
differed from those they built for their visitors, there is nothing
in the passage to support this assumption.[33]
That the round _curach_ or _coracle_, covered with skin, and
similar to that still seen in Wales, was in use in the north of
Scotland in the early part of the last century, is testified to by a
letter quoted in the _Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland_, 1880-81, p. 179-80, from which it will be seen that the
tradition already referred to--that the dwellers on the shores of
the Dornoch Firth used to employ "cockle-shells" as ferry-boats--is
nothing but a fanciful and imperfect resemblance of this particular
kind of _curach_. The _curachs_, however, in which the Western
Islanders "fearlessly committed themselves ... to the mercy of the
most violent weather" cannot have been of this shape. But either
variety of skin-boat was undoubtedly the property of the one race of
people. Among the Eskimos, also, there is considerable variety. We
are told, for example, in a description of the Aleutian Islanders
during last century, that "their vessels consist of two sorts," of
which one is the _kayak_, propelled by the double-bladed paddle,
while the other is large enough to hold thirty or forty people, and
has "oars on both sides." But both kinds are skin-covered. The
Eskimo tribes have also the smaller open skin-boat, capable of
holding eight or ten people. And this, like the similar skin-boat of
the British Isles, has sometimes sails. These facts are therefore
quite consistent with the belief that the European tribes using this
variety of Eskimo boat used also the slender, decked canoe or
"kayak."
Enough, then, has been said to indicate the presence of those
skiff-people in various parts of the British Islands, and in various
parts of Europe. It may be that the latest _authentic_ records of
British Esquimaux are those given by Brand and Wallace, in the end
of the seventeenth century.[34] True, the Shetlandic (and perhaps
other) traditions bring us down to later dates. But traditions are
necessarily uncertain. However, we do know that the waters
surrounding the Orcadian and Shetland groups were fished in by
Esquimaux tribes so recently as the year 1700[35]; and we also know
from tradition, that these same "Finns" or "Finn-men" "were wont to
pursue boats at sea," and to demand a money-tribute from the
fishermen whom they chased. (In turn, they themselves were pursued
by the islanders, when they made their appearance singly, near their
coasts.) That they were feared by the islanders is evident from the
Shetlandic legends; and it will be noticed that those Shetlanders
who are understood to have Finn blood in their veins "look upon
themselves as superior to common people." All this suggests that
those straggling "Finn-men" of the year 1700 were really the
representatives of a decayed caste of conquerors. The fact that they
are remembered as wearing armour places them before us as a
distinctly military race; and "the Darts they make use of for
killing Fish" were probably the least important of their weapons.
The non-Finnish Shetlanders who overheard the captive woman talking
with her friends "could not understand a single word of the
conversation." It is not necessary to assume that this denoted more
than a mere dialectic difference; accent being a wonderfully
important consideration in cases of this sort. That Finn settlements
were often conterminous with districts occupied by those who
regarded the Finns as enemies is suggested by the existence of a
"Finns' Town" in Orkney, and a "Finn Town" in Donegal.[36]
Of course, those Finns must have one or many historical names.
It is probable that they constituted a large proportion of
the population of the Outer Hebrides. One of the stories
relating to such people is of a mer-woman who "fell in love with
a young shepherd, who kept his flocks beside a creek _much
frequented by these marine people_"--the locality being somewhere
on the Manx coast. "She frequently caressed him" (the account
continues--somewhat superfluously), "and brought him presents of
coral, fine pearls, and every valuable production of the ocean."[37]
Now, this woman may easily have been one of those "marine people"
who inhabited various parts of the Hebrides, and who used the
skin-skiff of the Esquimaux "even long after the art of building
boats of wood was introduced." The coral and "fine pearls" which
this mer-woman brought to her Manx lover may have come from no
greater distance than the Island of Skye: since Martin tells us that
the people of that island used to adorn their garments with "fine
stones" and "pieces of red coral"--the latter article being found in
"great quantity" on the shores of the Lewis. At that time the
islanders of Jura dwelt in turf-covered wigwams identical with those
used by modern Lapps; as may be seen from the illustration here
copied from Pennant's second "Tour." And the people of Harris were
described in the following terms, in the early part of this
century[38]:--"In general the natives are of small stature,...
Scarcely any attain the height of 6 feet, and many of the males are
not higher than 5 feet 3 or 4 inches." "The Harrisian physiognomy"
is thus detailed: "The cheek bones are rather prominent, and the
nose is invariably short, the space between it and the chin being
disproportionately long. The complexion is of all tints. Many
individuals are as dark as mulattoes...." The population thus
described was greatly mingled at the period when these latter
observations were made; but there is nevertheless strong evidence of
the possession of Ugrian blood in the people thus portrayed. And
their boats and dwellings do nothing to contradict this theoretical
connection with the races we now know by such names as Lapp, Finn,
Samoyed, and Eskimo.
[Illustration: WIGWAMS OF THE JURA ISLANDERS IN 1772.
(_From Pennant's Second Tour._)]
The author of the "Gallovidian Encyclopædia" gives also a hint of
the existence of such a population in Galloway: when (under the name
"cutty glies") he refers to "a class of females," whom he describes
as "little" and "squat-made," and to whom he assigns (without
exception) the amorous nature of the Manx mer-woman just spoken of.
And, as the Gallovidian chronicler lived near the inlet known as
"the Manxman's Lake," it is not improbable that this also was "a
creek much frequented by these marine people"; and that, in short,
Mactaggart's "little, squat-made females" were of the same stock as
the Mer-women of the Isle of Man and the Hebrides, and the
Finn-women of the Northern Isles.
NOTE.--For additional information on the subject of
skin-boats, and the races connected with them, see pp. 174,
178-9, _post_, and Appendix B.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] This peculiar feat is mentioned by Drs. Rink and Nansen, as
well as in connection with the Greenlander of 1816. Another "kayak"
custom may here be noticed. Brand stated of the Orkney Finn-man,
that "when in a storm he seeth the high surge of a wave approaching,
he hath a way of sinking his Boat, till the wave pass over, least
thereby he should be overturned." This manifestly does not refer to
the deliberate overturning for amusement, in calm weather. But Hans
Egede, in describing the Eskimo kayakers of Greenland, during the
eighteenth century, is evidently speaking of the usage referred to
by Brand, when he says: "They do not fear venturing out to sea in
these boats in the greatest storms; because they can swim as light
upon the largest waves as a bird can fly: and when the waves come
upon them with all their fury, they only turn the side of the boat
towards them, to let them pass, without the least danger of being
sunk." (Quoted in the _Scots Magazine_ of 1816, p. 654.)
[13] Mr. R. M. Ballantyne; "Ungava," chap. xx.
[14] This illustration appears in Mr. Carstensen's "Two Summers in
Greenland." London, Chapman & Hall, 1890.
[15] _Gentleman's Magazine_, March 1, 1882.
[16] _Contemporary Review_, September, 1881.
[17] _Contemporary Review_, August, 1881. In the _Archæological
Review_ (June, 1889, pp. 219-220) Mr. G. L. Gomme gives various
references of this kind, Irish and Shetlandic. One instance
describes the "Merrow" ancestress as "half fish and half woman,"
which corresponds with the Shetlandic "sêlkie-wife," or seal-woman.
More extreme still is the tradition that the Irish clan of Coneely,
like the natives of Burra Firth, in Unst, are actually descended
from "seals."
[18] Preface to Leyden's "Mermaid," in "The Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border."
[19] "Letters from the Isle of Man." London 1847; p. 59.
[20] The allusion in "Hudibras" bears more specially on the custom
of selling the winds in bags or "bottled;" which is a variation of
the Manx practice.
[21] The preface to Leyden's "Mermaid."
[22] "Les Travailleurs de la Mer."
[23] This boat, and all memory of it, seems quite to have vanished
from Burra. (See "The Orkneys and Shetland," by J. R. Tudor, London,
1883, p. 341.)
[24] Mr. J. F. Campbell's "West Highland Tales," vol. ii. p. 64.
[25] "Letters from the Isle of Man." London, 1847, p. 63.
[26] Quoted in the "Annual Register" of 1788; "Manners of Nations"
pp. 77-80.
[27] See foot-note, pp. 12-13, _ante_. The expressions of Egede and
Armstrong, however, are obviously exaggerated, as no kayak could
weather a really violent gale.
[28] These citations from Avienus, Diodorus, and Strabo are taken
from Skene's _Celtic Scotland_, I., 165-168.
[29] London, 1882 (Plate I.)
[30] In assuming the Oestrymnides, or Cassiterides, to be the same
as the Hesperides, Dr. Skene again shows that the locality referred
to is the Iberian coast. For the writers of the second and sixth
century whom he quotes state that the Hesperides are inhabited by
Iberians, and are situated "near the sacred promontory where they
say is the end of Europe." Now, in Ptolemy's map, above referred to,
"the sacred promontory" (_Sacrum Prom[=o]tori[=u]_) is Cape St.
Vincent; which would place the Hesperides at even a greater distance
from England than the Oestrymnic Isles. The islands called
_Londobries_ and _Deorum Insulæ_ on Ptolemy's map may be those
referred to. Neither they nor the Oestrymnic Isles exist at the
present day; but in questions of ancient history the fact ought
never to be overlooked that the surface of the earth is constantly
undergoing changes,--at one place the sea encroaching upon the land,
at another retiring from it.
[31] _Op. cit._, p. 20, _note_.
[32] Dr. Rasmus B. Anderson says "deer sinews," while Dr. Joseph
Anderson states that the original word may either denote "sinew," or
"sen-grass."
[33] Misled in some measure by Mr. Laing's too free translation,
wherein the expression "skin-sewed Fin-boats" is used, I had
assumed that these two vessels were really large open skin-boats,
like those of the British Islanders and the Eskimos. But I am
indebted to Dr. Joseph Anderson for pointing out that the passage
distinctly states that the boats were of wood, and that the allusion
is to the "sewing" alone. As an article contributed by me to the
_Archæological Review_ (Vol. IV., Aug. 1889) contains this erroneous
assumption, I take this opportunity of stating that my inference is
contradicted by the original passage, with which I was not then
acquainted. Additional references, however, supporting the belief
that skin-boats were then and subsequently used in Norway, will be
found in Appendix B.
[34] I am informed by Professor Kaarle Krohn of Helsingfors that the
modern Lapps employ light skiffs, which they propel with a
double-bladed paddle. But this vessel, which is so light that one
man can carry it on his head, is made of wood, not _skin_, and is,
moreover, open--not decked, like the kayak.
[35] Brand.
[36] And perhaps by many other names of like nature--such as
_Finsbury_, _Findon_, _Finhaven_, _Fincastle_, etc.
[37] This is quoted from "Waldron's Works," p. 176.
[38] This description is given at p. 550 of Dawson's "Statistical
History of Scotland."
CHAPTER III.
It is clear that those popular traditions and records, as well as
the indisputable statements of Brand and Wallace, indicate two very
different kinds of people, who, sometimes fighting, sometimes
inter-marrying, occupied territories that were, in many cases,
conterminous. That they were often enemies is evident. The Finn-man,
when alone, was hunted from the non-Finnish islands by the natives:
and, on the other hand, he was "wont to pursue boats at sea," and to
demand tribute from the fishermen--when his superior arms, or the
number of his comrades, warranted him to do so.
Now, there is documentary evidence of this state of things during
the seventeenth century; though the localities therein referred to
are the Northern Hebrides, rather than the Orkney and Shetland
Isles. But the description corresponds, in everything else, with
that given by the Islesmen of the North-East. We are told[39] that,
in the year 1635, certain sections of the Hebridean Islanders "comes
in troupes and companeis out of the Yles where they dwell to the
Yles and Loches where the fishes ar tane and there violentlie
spoyles his Majesteis subjects of their fisches and sometimes of
their victualls and other furniture and persewes thame of their
lyffes, breakes the schooles of thair herring and comitts manie moe
insolenceis upoun thame to the great hinder and disappointing of the
fishing, hurt of his Majesteis subjects, to the contempt of his
Majesteis auctoritte and lawes," etc. This--even to the detail that
they "by their coming drive away the Fishes from the Coasts"--is an
exactly similar account to that given, in the same century, to Brand
and Wallace, and in the present century (but relating to about the
same period) to Dr. Karl Blind. In the one case, the scene is the
North-Western coasts of Scotland: in the other it is the
North-Eastern. But the kind of people described are pretty evidently
alike.
In either case, too, the Mer-folk or Finn-men are not spoken of as
subjects of the Modern-British kingdom. The Proclamation of 1635,
quoted above, does not regard "some of the inhabitants of the Yles
of this kingdome," as being "his Majesteis subjects." The phrase,
"Yles _of this kingdome_" does, indeed, imply something of a common
nationality; but, as a matter of fact, certain portions of
North-Western Scotland were not strictly under the rule of Charles
the First, at that period. That this was so may be seen (if nowhere
else) in the papers relating to those territories, of dates ranging
from 1574 to 1635, which are quoted in the _Collectanea de Rebus
Albanicis_ (pp. 100-121). One of these is a letter written by
Charles I. "to the Privy Council of Scotland directing an inquiry
into the exactions by the Heritors of the [Hebridean] Isles from
those engaged in the Fisheries; and the bringing in of Foreigners by
the Heritors." And this letter runs as follows: "Whereas it is not
unknown to you with what care we have intendit the good of the
Association of the Fischings within thess our Kingdomes _for the use
of our subjects_[40] and that we will be provident to protect _them_
from the exaction of the _heritours in the Yles_, who as we are
informed without warrant exact sundrie dewteis from them to their
great prejudice, bringing in strangers and loading the vessells with
fisches and other native commoditeis contrair to our lawis," etc.
The letter then commands the Scotch Privy Council to learn "upon
what warrant they ["the landislordis of the Yles wher the fisching
is"] tak thess dewteis." In the Report made, six months later, by
the Commissioners appointed by the Privy Council, regarding "the
duteis exacted be the Ylanders frome his Majesteis subjects of the
associatioun resorting in these parts," it is stated: "_that it was
the ancient custome_[2] ... to everie ane of thame in whose boundis
the herring fishing fell oute, _to exact of_[41] everie barke and
ship resorting thereto" such-and-such a tribute, in money and in
kind: "Being demandit by what warrand they uplift the saids
exactions and dewteis foresaids, they answer that they ar heretours
of the ground and so may lawfully take up satisfactioun for ground
leave and ankerage; it being ane ancient custome and in use to be
done past memorie of man."
Through all these documents of this period there runs a feeling (not
distinctly formulated) that "his Majesteis subjects"--"his Majesteis
frie liegis"--"the haill inhabitantis of The Burrowis of this
Realme"--were terms that did not strictly apply to "the heritours in
the Yles." And that these latter--though nominally the subjects of
the British monarch--still exercised a kind of semi-sovereignty in
their own territories; enforcing tribute from "his Majesty's free
lieges," and carrying on commercial relations with "foreigners,"
contrary to the wishes of Charles himself. That these independent
rights were to some extent recognized by Charles may be gathered
from his own expressions in the documents referred to. And the
existence of this antagonism to British law was quite distinctly
acknowledged by Charles' father (James) when, in the year 1608, he
issued his instructions to a Commission "appointed for the
Improvement of the Isles;" wherein he states his "desire to remove
all suche scandalous reproches aganis that state, in suffering a
pairt of it to be possessed with suche wild savageis voide of Godis
feare and our obedience."[42]
Nor was this independence confined to the mere exacting of a
tribute, according to "ancient custom," from those fishermen who,
themselves coming under the denomination of "his Majesty's
subjects," resorted occasionally to the coasts of the North-Western
Isles. The Report of 1634 showed that this tax was rigorously levied
by those Island kings when the alien fishermen arrived within the
"bounds" of certain islands. But they did not content themselves
with this. The Proclamation of the Scotch Privy Council of the
following year (1635) begins by stating that "the Lords of Privy
Council ar informed that of lait ther hes been manie great
insolenceis committit be some of the inhabitants of the Yles of this
kingdome not onlie upoun his Majesteis subjects hanting the trade of
fisching in the Yles but upon the Lords and others of the
Association[43] of the Royall Fishing of Great Britane and Ireland;
whiche Ylanders comes in troupes and companeis _out of the Yles
where they dwell_ to the Yles and Loches where the fishes ar tane
and there violentlie spoyles his Majesteis subjects of their fisches
and sometimes of their victualls and other furniture and persewes
thame of their lyffes," etc. This statement reveals quite plainly a
condition of enmity between "his Majesty's subjects," and certain
sections of the Hebridean population. And the traveller, Pennant,
furnishes additional proof of this state of things, in describing
the condition of society in the Island of Skye (or its vicinity) at
about the period under consideration. "Each chieftain (he tells
us--and the "chieftains" of whom he speaks were presumably "his
Majesty's subjects")--each chieftain had his armour-bearer, who
preceded his master in time of war, and, by my author's account in
time of peace; for they went armed even to church, in the manner the
North-Americans [the colonists] do at present in the frontier
settlement, and for the same reason, _the dread of savages_." Of
which "savages" there are many traditions still extant in the
legendary lore of the West Highlands.
Of more historical nature is the evidence of Buchanan, who, in
describing the Inner Hebrides, during the seventeenth century,
states that the island of Pabbay, close to the Skye coast, was
then "infamous for robberies, where the thieves, from their
lurking-places in the woods, with which it is covered, intercept the
unwary travellers." Of the island of Rona, lying a little to the
northward of Pabbay, and, at that time, "covered with wood and
heath," he says: "In a deep bay it has a harbour, dangerous for
voyagers, as it affords a covert for pirates, whence to surprise the
passengers." To the west of Skye, and in the Outer Hebrides, there
was the island of Uist, containing "numerous caves covered with
heath, the lurking-places of robbers." Off the mainland coast to the
north-east of Skye, lay "the island Eu, almost wholly covered with
wood, and of service only to the robbers, who lurk there to surprise
travellers;" while "more to the north lies Gruinort (says the same
writer), also darkened with wood, and infested with robbers." That
is to say, all of these districts _belonged_ to certain races who
waged war against other populations in that archipelago; and who, in
all probability, were the "savages" referred to by the traveller
Pennant.
It is not only this latter writer and James VI. of Scotland who
refer to certain North British populations in the seventeenth
century as "savages." Nor are such people only visible in the
Hebrides at that date. "In a curious old book called 'Northern
Memoirs; calculated for the Meridian of Scotland,' written in the
year 1658,"[44] the following short description occurs with
reference to the district of Strath Navar, in the north of the
county of Sutherland:--
"The next curiosity to entertain you with, is the county of
Southerland, which we enter by crossing a small arm of the
ocean from Tain to Dornoch. So from thence we travel into
Cathness and the county of Stranavar, where a rude sort of
inhabitants dwell (almost as barbarous as Cannibals), who,
when they kill a beast, boil him in his hide, make a
caldron of his skin, browis of his bowels, drink of his
blood, and bread and meat of his carcase. Since few or none
amongst them hitherto have as yet understood any better
rules or methods of eating."
Here, then, is a community of people, "almost as barbarous as
Cannibals," in the estimation of a civilized writer of 1658. But
none of the expressions of this kind, used by writers of the
seventeenth century, will strike modern men more strongly than that
applied to the Finn-men of Orkney in the Minute Book of the
Edinburgh College of Physicians. To the civilized Scotch of two
centuries ago those Finn-men were simply savages,--"barbarous men."
The term "savage" is always a relative one; and what one
civilization regards as savagery is really the fag-end of an earlier
civilization. Nevertheless, the seventeenth-century Finn-man
represented what must necessarily appear to us as a "savage" state
of society, if that word is to have any meaning at all. And the
predominant castes of Orkney and Shetland and the mainland of
Scotland were quite in unison upon this point. The Edinburgh
physicians, as a matter of course, regarded those kayakers as
"barbarous men," just as we regard their Arctic kindred to-day. The
same view was taken by the predominant castes in the Inner Hebrides,
at the same period, and apparently with regard to the same race of
people. At that period, therefore, the seventeenth century, we see
the higher castes of Scotland asserting themselves against an
"Eskimo" race that threatened the safety of the more civilized
populations all along the northern and western fringe of the
country.
Even last century, something that modern nomenclature calls "savage"
was visible in these north-western localities. On one occasion, when
Dr. Johnson and his irrepressible biographer were exploring those
north-western islands, the natives who rowed their boat seemed, to
Boswell, "so like wild Indians that a very little imagination was
necessary to give one an impression of being upon an American
river." One of them, he tells us, was "a robust, black-haired
fellow, half-naked, and bare-headed, something between a wild Indian
and an English tar" (of the eighteenth century). And some of the
McRaas of the mainland he describes as being "as black and wild in
their appearance as any American savages whatever."[45]
Other tokens of "savage" customs might easily be adduced. For
example, decaying specimens of the rude "dug-out," the most
primitive of all canoes--a mere hollowed log--are now and then found
in the depths of some Highland loch, or peat-bog; and are rashly
pronounced to be "pre-historic;" whereas these very canoes were in
common use in the north and west of Scotland less than two centuries
ago.[46] However, neither this species of canoe, nor the vague
references of Boswell, point unmistakably to the Ugrian or Mongoloid
castes whom we are here considering; although it is not unlikely
that these latter were one and the same as the "wild Indians" and
the owners of the "dug-outs."
What is certain is that, when, in the October of 1599, one of the
ships belonging to the Fifeshire colonists of the Lewis was about to
start on its homeward trip, it was surrounded by "a fleet of small
vessels peculiar to those islands," and the natives, swarming on
board, put to death all except the captain.[47] Now (although the
act was simply a legitimate incident in the warfare of the time and
locality), these islanders were the people whom King James spoke of
as "wild savages." And it is tolerably certain that their "small
vessels" were those "slight pinnaces" of skin that Armstrong says
were "much in use in the Western Isles"--in other words, the
_kayaks_ of the Eskimos or Finn-men. It is not unlikely that the
resemblance to the modern Eskimo was very close in many details. For
example, the West Highland traditions tell of "savages" who played
the game of chess; which fact in itself argues decidedly a form of
civilization. Now, although the art of carving chessmen is extinct
among modern Hebrideans, the traditional accounts were quite borne
out by the discovery, in this century, of the now famous Lewis
chessmen, "in all fifty-eight pieces, ingeniously and elaborately
carved from the walrus tooth."[48] Consequently, it would appear
that the Finn-man occasionally hunted the walrus, in which pursuit
he no doubt employed "the Dart he makes use of for killing Fish:"
exactly like a modern Eskimo.
FOOTNOTES:
[39] In a "Proclamation by the Privy Council of Scotland regarding
the Fishing in the Isles"; given at p. 111 of "Collectanea de Rebus
Albanicis."
[40] Not italicized in the original.
[41] In this instance the italics occur in the original.
[42] "Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis," p. 115.
[43] In a letter to the Privy Council of Scotland, of 15th July,
1632, Charles refers to this Association as "of new erected by us."
[44] See _Blackwood's Magazine_, 1818, p. 674, whence the above
paragraph is taken.
[45] Others of the same tribe were "as comely as Sappho;" and the
inference is that, ethnologically regarded, these were totally
different from the others. It must be remembered that the mere
surname, borne by all the members of a Highland clan, did not imply
kinship. The word "clan" was originally used to denote only the
blood-relations of the chief; but latterly it was applied to the
whole community. And that the commonalty was frequently composed of
men of a wholly different stock from their chiefs may be seen from
the fact that the former are specially distinguished as "the native
men" (_i.e._, aborigines) in several clan documents.
[46] See Armstrong's "Gaelic Dictionary," s.v. _Biorlinn_; also
"Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," 1880-81,
pp. 179-80.
[47] Anderson's "Scottish Nation," vol. iii. p. 49.
[48] Dr. Daniel Wilson's "Old Edinburgh," vol. i. p. 29.
CHAPTER IV.
But, admitting the existence, at so recent a date, of a visibly
"Eskimo" caste in some parts of the Hebrides, what evidence is there
that any of these people found their way to Shetland? One writer, we
have seen, brings the Shetland Finns all the way from Davis Straits,
another draws them from Finland, and the Shetlanders themselves say
that they "came ow'r fa Norraway," especially from the neighbourhood
of Bergen. The correctness of this last belief need not be
questioned, as regards some of that caste. But it has been suggested
in the foregoing pages that many of those "Finns" who persecuted the
Shetland fishermen were those kayak-using Hebrideans who avowed
their ancient right to despoil and to exact tribute from others, not
only when fishing among "the Isles where they dwell," but in other
waters.
We read[49] of raids made in the Orkneys and Shetland, during the
latter part of the fifteenth century, by "bands of Islemen" (_i.e._,
Hebrideans), "Irish, and Scots, from the woods"; which last term
strongly suggests the "robber" denizens of the thickly-wooded
islands spoken of by Buchanan two centuries later. The raiders were,
no doubt, heterogeneous. But the piratical kayak-men were surely
among them. There are many traditions extant in some parts of the
north-eastern archipelagos regarding these raids--in the island
of Westray, in Orkney, for instance, where, at a certain "Fitty
Hill," there was once a great fight between the Westray people
and the invading Lewismen, all of whom were slain. Now, this Fitty
Hill is associated strongly with the people recognizable as "Finns,"
or at least was so in the year 1701, according to a writer
previously quoted (Brand, p. 57), and both he and Wallace (who wrote
in 1688) mention the frequent visits of Finn-men to the Westray
fishing-grounds. Indeed, the _kayak_ preserved in Edinburgh seems,
according to the latter writer, to have been one of those secured by
the Orkneymen; who probably made sure that the Finn himself should
have no further use for it.
Thus, it is a simple historical fact that certain castes of the
Hebrideans, whose practice of despoiling and exacting tribute from
others was a thing beyond question, were very frequent visitors to
the Orkney and Shetland groups, whose natives they did their utmost
to overawe. And, as the skin skiffs of the Hebrideans were of such a
description that the skiffmen "fearlessly committed themselves in
these slight pinnaces to the mercy of the most violent weather,"
they were well qualified to sing the song of the Finn-man:
I am a man upo' da land,
I am a selkie i da sea.
Indeed, the concluding lines of that verse are peculiarly
appropriate to the Hebridean. For the "shöol skerry," which is the
rocky islet of _Sule_ or _Sula_, lying about forty miles N.N.E. of
Cape Wrath, formed a very convenient refuge for him when "far from
every strand," during his voyages between Shetland or Orkney and the
Hebrides.[50]
And it is in this aspect, as tyrannical sea-rovers, that the "Finns"
are often remembered in Shetlandic tradition. It was their custom to
pursue the boats of the Shetland fishermen, and to exact from them a
tribute in "silver money." So much were they dreaded that "it was
dangerous in the extreme to say anything against them." The original
feeling of respect must have been very strong, since it has survived
into the present century.
This, of course, relates to the Finns considered as men and as
fighters. The other side of the question shows us the Finn-women,
and also the Finn-men in peaceful guise. And here, too, it is
evident that those people were by no means regarded as an _inferior_
race by the non-Finnish section of the Shetlanders (whatever that
non-Finnish element may have been composed of), for those who claim
a "Finn descent" at the present day regard this line of their
ancestry as wholly superior to that which, for want of a better
word, may be called "Shetlandic."
The Finn-women, we are told, very frequently became the wives of the
islanders: and, consequently, they became the mothers of
"half-breed" families--that is, in those cases where the husband
himself was of a wholly different stock. In some instances, owing to
a Finn connection in the previous generation, such children may have
been more Finnish than anything else. Many of the Finn wives seem to
have cast in their lot altogether with their Shetland husbands, to
whom they brought dowries of cattle which--according to the peasant
tradition--they "conjured up from the deep," of which the probable
interpretation is that they caused them to be sent across from
Bergen. Peaceful memories of the Finn-men may also be traced in such
things as the rhyme of the medicine-man who "came ow'r fa Norraway"
to conjure the toothache out of some unhappy Shetlander.
But these references, and apparently all the more recent of the
Shetlandic traditions, point to Norway, and not to the Hebrides, as
the home of the Finns; and it seems quite clear that the Bergen
neighbourhood was a stronghold of this Mongoloid people within
recent times.
Mr. H. Howorth,[51] in discussing these Mongoloid, or Ugrian
people, remarks: "The Finns and Laps have been pushed back in
Scandinavia to a very small portion of their ancient holding. In
Livonia, in Esthonia, and in three-fourths of European Russia the
Ugrians were, even in the eleventh century, the preponderating
population"; that is, Esthonia and Livonia then formed a part of
"Finland," and the Gulf of Riga was a Finnish sea. We are not given
a date as to their "preponderance" in Scandinavia; but, if they were
so numerous in the east Baltic districts during the eleventh
century, it may be assumed that they were also of considerable
importance in the Scandinavian peninsula at the same time, and even
much later.
There is, at any rate, a very interesting reference to Finns of
Swedish nationality, made in connection with these Finns of Orkney.
A last-century reader of Wallace's "Description of Orkney" (whose
occasional comments upon that book are included in the reprint of
1883) gives, as his opinion, that the "Finnmen" of Orkney, in the
years 1682-4, belonged to "the Finns, or inhabitants of Finland,
part of the kingdom of Sweden." Whether this writer meant the Finns
of Esthonia and Livonia, or of Finland proper--for all these
provinces were under Swedish rule in the seventeenth century--it is
evident that he went too far afield for his "Finnmen." But what
really is important is the statement which he goes on to make,
incidentally, with regard to the Finns of Sweden. "They had," he
says, "a settlement in Pennsylvania, near the freshes of the river
Delaware, in the neighbourhood of the Dutch, who were the first
planters here" (and he gives as his authority "The British Empire in
America," vol. i. p. 309).
Now, this colony of Swedish _Finns_ is clearly that which is
otherwise spoken of as a colony of _Swedes_. When William Penn took
possession, in the year 1682, of the territory which has ever since
been associated with his memory, those "Swedes" were already settled
there. "'He was hailed there with acclamation by the Swedes and
Dutch,' says one authority, who informs us that the Swedes were
living in log cabins and clay huts. The men dressed in 'leather
breeches, jerkins, and match coats,' the women in 'skin jackets and
linsey petticoats.'"[52] Those _Swedes_, then, of 1682, are
identified by an eighteenth-century writer with the Swedish _Finns_
of that period, and at the same time with the contemporary Finns of
Orkney: who, also, according to Brand, wore "coats of leather." And
their "log cabins and clay huts" were probably very much like the
sod-covered dwellings of modern Lapps.
It is an interesting picture. Because this is plainly an infusion
of unadulterated "Eskimo" blood, among the Pennsylvanians of that
date, which is quite independent of the representatives of that
family at present occupying Greenland and the northern parts of
British North America. It is "Eskimo" blood that was "European" only
two or three centuries ago. And it is quite likely that many modern
Americans whose descent is drawn from those seventeenth-century
colonists of Pennsylvania, referred to as "Swedes," have some of
this blood in their veins. That they may have inherited a further
share of it through other channels--"British," and perhaps also
"Dutch"--is quite probable.
There is something very suggestive in the Shetland accounts that,
several generations ago, Shetland fishermen were frequently
terrorized into paying "silver money" as tribute to people who are
said to have come across from Bergen. Many portions of the
north-eastern corner of Scotland appear to have been within the
diocese of Bergen, and to have owned the authority of that province
up to very modern times. Of this there is ample evidence in
title-deeds and other documents. This, of course, was a survival of
the Scandinavian suzerainty over the extreme north and west of
Scotland, which in the fifteenth century was actual sovereignty, as
regards Orkney and Shetland; while, for the Hebrides, the Scottish
monarchs had to pay a yearly tribute known as "The Annual of
Norway." And at an earlier period still, the Sudereys, or South
Hebrides, and the Isle of Man, were included in this tributary
kingdom. It is certainly worth considering whether the withdrawal of
the legendary "marine people" from the Isle of Man, and their
gradual disappearance (as "marine people") from the whole western
and northern extremities of Scotland, which seems to coincide very
closely, in time, with the decay of Scandinavian authority in these
localities, ought not to be regarded as signifying that that
authority was rooted in Mongoloid supremacy.
However, our present purpose is not to guess at the name or names
by which these people must be known to history, but to emphasize
their existence as a Mongoloid race. That the present British people
show traces of such a line of ancestry is the opinion of many modern
ethnologists. In his "Origins of English History" Mr. Elton
recognizes a type "not unlike the modern Eskimo," as existent in
certain parts of England. Mr. J. F. Campbell, in his "Popular Tales
of the West Highlands," contends strongly for the past existence in
that locality of a race akin to modern Lapps. And the Iberian
theorists discern a similar type in "the small, swarthy Welshman,"
"the small, dark Highlander," and the "Black Celts to the west of
the Shannon." The question of complexion is, of course, but of minor
importance, since it is anatomical structure that determines
affinity. The modern Eskimo races themselves show this, for they
include all shades, from dark or olive to actual red and white;
although plainly of one general stock.
They exhibited an American-Eskimo chief, "as a Rarity," at some of
the eastern seaports of Scotland, a few years ago. But it is
probable that a considerable number of the spectators were looking
at a man who almost exactly resembled one or more of their own
ancestors, not many generations back; not only in the style of his
dress and in his general appearance, as he shot his slender kayak
across their waters, but also, to a very great extent, in his
physical features. And it is much the same with many millions of
Europeans (and their offshoots), who, chiefly through intermixture,
and partly on account of altered conditions of life, are no longer
recognizable, to a superficial observer, as in any degree connected
with this "Eskimo" stock.
FOOTNOTES:
[49] _See_ pp. 59, 378, and 485 of "The Orkneys and Shetland," by J.
R. Tudor; London, 1883.
[50] The ballad of "The Great Silkie [_i.e._, Seal] of Sule Skerry"
is given by the late Captain Thomas, on pp. 88-89 of the
"Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland," vol. i.
(First series). This "great seal" figures in the song as the father
of a Shetland woman's child. It may be added that this islet lies
about thirty-five miles in a northerly direction from the Strath
Navar referred to on a previous page.
[51] In the Ethnological Society's _Journal_, vol. ii. No. 4.
[52] This is taken from an article on the Founding of Philadelphia;
contributed by the Rev. Dr. Stoughton to _The Sunday at Home_, 1882.
CHAPTER V.
When the twelfth-century Norseman, Sigurd Slembe, with his twenty
followers, spent a whole winter with the Lapps or Finns, as stated
in the "Heimskringla" (Saga XIV), it is evident that the two sets of
men were in intimate association. Their life at that time is thus
described in Sigurd's song:
"In the Lapland tent
Brave days we spent,
Under the grey birch tree;
In bed or on bank
We knew no rank,
And a merry crew were we.
"Good ale went round
As we sat on the ground,
Under the grey birch tree;
And up with the smoke
Flew laugh and joke,
And a merry crew were we."
It was at that time, also, that the Lapps made for Sigurd those
"sinew-fastened boats," in which he and his party voyaged southward
in spring. In these accounts there is no mention made of the Lapp or
Finn women, but their presence there must certainly be taken for
granted. And there is no reason for supposing that they were less
friendly to their guests than the Finn men were. There are
evidences, indeed, that the Ugrians and the non-Ugrians of
Scandinavia, of either sex, were on a friendly footing two centuries
before Sigurd Slembe's day. When Eric, the son of Harald Haarfager,
was in Lapland on one occasion, he there found his future wife,
Gunhild, living in a hut with "two of the most knowing Laplanders in
all Finmark." She had come there, she said, "to learn Lapland-art,"
in which these two Lapps were deeply versed. The way in which she
entrapped her hosts, and went off with Eric, is described in the
Saga (Harald Haarfager's, chap. xxxiv), and it argues something for
Eric's magnanimity or indifference that he chose this lady to be his
bride. However, the point is that in Gunhild we have a presumably
non-Ugrian woman, living in the most friendly way with a couple of
Lapp "magicians."
Again, we find Harald Haarfager himself actually marrying a Finn
woman. We are told (chap. xxv of his _Saga_) how, one winter, when
Harald was moving about Upland "in guest-quarters," he was induced
by "the Fin Svase," who announced himself to the king's followers as
"the Fin[53] whose hut the King had promised to visit," to not only
fulfil the said promise, but then and there to marry Snaefrid, the
daughter of the Finn. Whether he took this step by reason of the
beauty of the Finn girl, or of the strength of the mead which she
poured out to him, or of the "magic" which she and her father
exercised upon him, is a matter of little moment. The fact remains
that she became his queen, and in course of time bore to him four
sons: Sigurd Hrise, Halfdan Haleg, Gudrod Liome, and Rognvald
Rettilbeine: who, consequently, were half-bred Finns--that is,
assuming that Harald himself was of pure non-Ugrian blood.
These four sons of Harald's Finn wife are subsequently to be met
with in this Saga; which tells how "they grew up to be very clever
men, very expert in all exercises." When Harald was fifty years of
age, he gave to three of them, as to his other sons, "the kingly
title and dignity," assigning to them, as their portion of his
kingdom, the territories of "Ringerike, Hadeland, Thoten, and the
lands thereto belonging." But one of the four, Halfdan, did not live
to attain this dignity. Several years before, he, like Harald's many
other sons, had resented his exclusion from place and dignity, and
the advancement of mere "earls" instead; "for they [Harald's sons]
thought earls were of inferior birth to them." Consequently, Halfdan
and his brother Gudrod "set off one spring with a great force, and
came suddenly upon Earl Rognvald, Earl of Möre, and surrounded the
house in which he was, and burnt him and sixty men in it." Then,
leaving his brother in temporary possession of that earldom,
"Halfdan took three long-ships, and fitted them out, and sailed into
the West Sea." The Earl of Orkney at that time was Einar ("Turf"
Einar), and on Halfdan's unexpected appearance he fled. For six
months the Finn woman's son ruled over Orkney. But in the autumn,
Einar returned, and "after a short battle," totally defeated and put
to flight Halfdan and his followers. "Einar and his men lay all
night without tents, and when it was light in the morning they
searched the whole island, and killed every man they could lay hold
of. Then Einar said: 'What is that I see upon the Isle of
Ronaldsha?[54] Is it a man or a bird? Sometimes it raises itself up,
and sometimes lies down again.' They went to it, and found it was
Halfdan Haaleg, and took him prisoner." Einar thereupon killed
Halfdan, and he and his men raised a mound of stones and gravel over
the corpse; which mound, if not yet opened, will no doubt disclose
to some modern craniologist the exact ethnological status of this
semi-Finn.[55]
With regard to another brother of Halfdan's, Rognvald Rettilbeine,
it is stated that he ruled over Hadeland, and became famous for his
skill in witchcraft, in which he was no doubt instructed by his Lapp
relatives. This, indeed, was the cause of his death. For, at the
instigation of their common father, his half-brother Eric
(Bloody-axe) "burned his brother Rognvald in a house along with
eighty other warlocks," on account of these same alleged
malpractices.
These are only a few recorded instances, which reveal the Finns
and the non-Finns as sometimes closely allied not only by
association, but by blood. But from them it may be inferred that
many other intermarriages between the two races took place, and that
the Finns, although eventually conquered as a distinct people, were
frequently men of rank and importance among the Scandinavians of
eight or nine centuries ago. As an instance of a Finn occupying
an official position (certainly much inferior to that of the
semi-Finnish kings of Ringerike, Hadeland, and Thoten), we have the
"Finn Sauda-Ulfsson," who appears as "engaged in drawing in King
Inge's rents and duties" at Viken, Norway, in the twelfth century
("Heimskringla," Saga XIV, chap. vii). And a certain notable Ketill
flat-nose,[56] or Ketill Finn, whose memory is doubtless embalmed in
Ketill's-sæter (now Kettlester), in the island of Yell, Shetland,
was clearly of Finn blood. When he, and such as he--the semi-Ugrian
sons of Harald, for example--held sway in Shetland and Orkney, and
when men and women of either race occasionally, perhaps frequently,
lived together, a state of things existed that closely resembled
that described in Mr. Karl Blind's Shetlandic traditions--when
"Finns came ow'r fa Norraway" and practised magic and witchcraft,
and domineered over the people of the northern islands.
Of course, it is impossible to say what proportion the Finn blood
bore to the other. Yet it is quite evident that the Finns, while
often at war with the race that overcame them, were also frequently
their allies, and that the two peoples became to some extent blended
in blood. Consequently, when one discovers among modern British
people physical traces of a race "not unlike the modern Eskimo," in
localities famed as the scene of many a Scandinavian raid, these
traces may reasonably be attributed to those very inroads.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] In the edition of 1844, the word "Laplander" is used instead of
"Fin" in these two instances, as also in the following chapter,
where "the cunning of the Fin woman" is referred to. But the
admirable edition of 1889 employs "Fin" in each case. Whatever may
have been the original distinction between "Fin" or "Finn" and
"Lapp," it is evident that these two terms have very often been used
indiscriminately, from an early period.
[54] It is stated of Einar that, although "he was ugly, and blind of
an eye," he was "yet very sharp-sighted withal."
[55] Mr. John R. Tudor, in his very interesting book on "The Orkneys
and Shetland" (London, 1883), indicates (p. 364) a certain district
in the island of North Ronaldshay as the scene of Halfdan's death;
and suggests that one of "three curious ridges, or mounds" is
probably that raised over Halfdan's body. The saga certainly says
that his death took place on that island. But, of course, there is
plenty of room for conjecture in the whole story.
[56] Mentioned, for example, in Skene's "Celtic Scotland," i,
311-312. It is not out of place to refer here to a Mongoloid race of
"Flat-noses" of whom Mr. Howorth speaks. These are the Nogais, who
are known as "Manguts"; the word _Mangut_, or _Mangutah_, being
"merely an appellative, meaning flat-nosed." "Dr. Clark says of
them: 'They are a very different people from the Tartars of the
Crimea, and may be instantly distinguished by their diminutive form,
and the dark copper colour of their complexion, sometimes almost
black. They have a remarkable resemblance to the Laplanders,
although their dress and manner has a more savage character.' Pallas
enlarges also upon their specially Mongolian features. Klaproth
says: 'Of all the Tartar tribes that I have seen, the Nogais bear by
far the strongest resemblance in features and figure to the
Mongols'" (Howorth's "History of the Mongols," part ii, p. 2, and
part iii, p. 71).
CHAPTER VI.
The references made in the two preceding chapters bear specially
upon those Finns who "came ow'r fa Norraway" to the islands of
Shetland and Orkney. But if the assumption be correct that many of
the Finns who landed in Shetland and fished in Shetlandic waters
came thither direct from the Hebrides, it is to be presumed that
Gaelic as well as English tradition has something to say regarding
them. And as there are several words in use in Shetland which are
also in use among West Highlanders,[57] it is not unlikely that
these people may be known in the West Highlands by the same name as
in Shetland.
It is quite clear that Highland tradition does bear testimony to
the former existence of a special race or caste of people known by a
name which resembles that of the Finns so closely that it may
reasonably be regarded as only a variant of "Finn." In a certain
charter of Alexander II. of Scotland (A.D. 1214-49), reference is
made to a well which is known in Gaelic as _Tuber na Feinn_,
_Feinne_ or _Feyne_; and an old gloss (date unknown) explains that
this term signifies "the Well of the grett or kempis men callit
Fenis."[58] Or, in more modern English, "The Well of the great men
or champions called _Feens_, _Fenns_, _Feenies_, or _Fennies_."[59]
Here, then, we have record of a certain race of "kempies" or
fighters, who were known in English as _Feens_, etc., and in Gaelic
as the _Feinne_. One does not require to know much of Gaelic
tradition--one need not know anything of it--to be well aware of the
fact that that legendary lore is fairly alive with stories of the
"Feinne," whatever may have been the ethnological position of the
caste thus named. And, just as in modern Shetland we have people
proclaiming with pride their descent from the _Finns_, so have we
West Highlanders and Hebrideans boasting that the _Feinne_ were
among their forefathers. Just as Mr. Karl Blind met with a modern
Shetland woman who asserted that she was "fifth from da Finns," so
did the late Mr. J. F. Campbell, in 1871, converse with a Skyeman,
"Donald MacDonald, styled Na Feinne"[60]--that is, "of the Feens."
If the "Feinne" of Gaelic story are really the same people as the
"Finns" of Shetlandic tradition, it will not be for lack of
statements made regarding them if we do not learn a great deal more
about these people through Gaelic channels.
Without either hastily accepting or condemning this hypothetical
identification, let us look a little further into the circumstances
of the Gaelic _Feinne_. And it may be as well first to decide upon
an English equivalent of this Gaelic plural. Mr. J. F. Campbell
states that the singular is _Fiann_; but, even when writing in
English, he prefers to adhere to the Gaelic form of the
plural--thus, "the Feinn" or "the Feinne." However, both Dr. Skene
and another writer (the late Rev. J. G. Campbell, Tiree), have
Englished this into "the Fians." This approaches so closely to the
marginal "Fenis" of the old charter of Alexander II., that we may
take "the Feens" as a good enough modern English equivalent for the
Gaelic plural. (For the vowels in _Fians_ and _Feinne_ receive the
old or Continental pronunciation, these words having the sound of
"Feeans" and "Fane," or "Fayny," according to modern English
spelling.) In order, therefore, to avoid the confusion that might
arise from Englishing "the Feinne" into "the Finns" (although we are
tacitly assuming, in the meantime, that the latter really expresses
the ethnological position of the former), let us refer to "the
Feinne" of Gaelic story as "the Feens."[61]
So lately as the latter part of the seventeenth century, certain
districts of Scotland were recognized as specially "the land of the
Feinne." Dr. Skene, on the page which tells us of the _Tobar na
Feinne_, or Well of the Feens, states that Kirke (the Rev. Robert
Kirke, minister of Balquhidder, in Perthshire), in his Psalter,
which was published in 1684, refers to the territory stretching from
Loch Linnhe north-west to, and inclusive of, the Outer Hebrides[62]
as "the generous land of the Feinne."
"The land of the Feens," therefore, according to this Scotch writer
of the seventeenth century, embraced the Outer Hebrides and a
certain portion of the opposite mainland, known in the Highlands as
"the rough bounds." It is thus evident at the outset that we do not
obviously make a false start in assuming that the _Feens_ of Gaelic
tradition ought to be regarded as forming a section of the _Finns_
who visited Shetland in the seventeenth century. In 1684 Kirke
regarded the Hebrides as the land of the Feens; in 1688 Wallace
records the occasional arrival of Finns or Finnmen on the coasts of
Orkney and Shetland. And we have already seen that skin kayaks, such
as those which bore the Finn visitors to the islands of the
north-east were employed at about the same period by inhabitants of
the Hebrides. Certain sections of the Hebrideans are recorded in
history as making warlike descents upon the fisheries of Orkney and
Shetland. And these Hebrideans dwelt in "the land of the Feens."
But the seventeenth century is much too recent a date for studying
the Gaelic accounts of the Feens. These accounts go back to the
period when Gaelic was peculiarly associated with what seems to have
been its earliest home in the British Islands--Ireland. That they
also relate to the more recent period of the Irish or Gaelic
settlements in Scotland is manifest. But they are substantially
Gaelic (_i.e._, Irish), and they deal with events which cannot be
limited to the time of the Irish invasions of Scotland; and they
relate to localities which are not merely British, but European.
"Who were the _Feens_ of tradition, and to what country and period
are they to be assigned?" is the question asked by one of the most
learned of the authorities from whom these statements are
obtained.[63] And his answer, after due consideration, is, that "we
may fairly infer that they were of the population who immediately
preceded the Scots [Gaels] in Erin [Ireland] and in Alban [Scotland,
north of the Forth and Clyde], and that they belong to that period
in the history of both countries before a political separation had
taken place between them, when they were viewed as parts of one
territory, though physically separated, and when a free and
unrestrained intercourse took place between them; when race, and not
territory, was the great bond of association, and the movements of
their respective populations from one country to the other were not
restrained by any feeling of national separation."[64]
Distinct and important as this announcement is, it requires still
further consideration. Our guide in this question has shown us that
in such modern times as the seventeenth century, the Feens of
Scotland were restricted to a small corner of the West Highlands and
to the Hebrides; which territory was so far associated with them
that an intelligent writer of that century spoke of it as the land
of the Feens. But Dr. Skene points also to a much earlier period,
when the Feens inhabited, if they did not possess and exclusively
occupy, the whole of Ireland and Irish-Scotland. And he indicates
further that they had dwelt in these districts before the advent of
the Milesians (or Gaels). More than that, he shows us that the lands
in which they lived included a portion of the continent of Europe.
In opposition to the theory manufactured by the Irish historians,
that the Feens were "a standing body of Milesian militia, having
peculiar privileges and strange customs," Dr. Skene holds the
conviction that, "when looked at a little more closely," they
"assume the features of a distinct race."[65] As a proof of this, he
quotes three verses from an old poem on the Battle of Gabhra (or
_Gawra_, as the more softened pronunciation has it). This battle of
Gawra is said to have been fought in Ireland, on the border of the
counties of Meath and Dublin, and it is placed by some in the third
century A.D. It appears to have been the outcome of the resolution
made by the High King of Ireland, Cormac Mac Art, to renounce for
ever the tributary position which he and other kings occupied
towards their over-lords, the Feens. The Irish monarch is said to
have aimed at the complete extermination of the race in one district
at least; to have "Great Alvin [apparently the modern Allen, near
Dublin] cleared of the Feens."[66] At any rate, whatever its
position in time and place, this battle clearly marks a crisis in
the history of that latter race. For to them the battle of Gawra was
a complete and crushing defeat; and thereafter their suzerainty was
ended. "The kings did all own our sway till the battle of Gaura was
fought," sings the bard of the Feens, "but since that horrid
slaughter no tribute nor tax we've raised." The chroniclers state
that the leader and an immense number of his warriors were killed,
and only two thousand of the Feens of Ireland were left alive when
the battle was over. And their bard sings thus:
"Fiercely and bravely we fought,
That fight, the fight of Gaura;
Then did fall our noble Feinn,
Sole to sole with Ireland's kings."[67]
But the Feenian army here engaged did not only consist of the Feens
of Ireland; and this, indeed, is the reason why attention is now
drawn to this battle. It is in regarding the battle of Gawra that we
recognize the force of Dr. Skene's contention, that however the
Feens may in later times have become restricted to this or that
locality, they at one time formed a very widely spread _race_, the
various divisions of which were ready to hasten to the aid of any
portion of this great confederacy in time of danger. Whether Dr.
Skene is precisely correct in stating that "race, and not territory,
was the great bond of association," is a mere question of words.
Because the Gaelic traditions emphatically show that although
Ireland and other neighbouring lands were occupied by people of
non-Feenic race, who were governed by their own kings, yet, as these
kings were _themselves_ subject to the Feens, who drew tribute from
them, the real owners of these various territories were the powerful
though scattered overlords, and not the races that were under their
sway.[68] Mr. J. F. Campbell also states that the Feenic king was
not distinguished by any _territorial_ title: "always 'Rìgh na Fînne
or F[=e]inne'" ("West Highland Tales," I, xiii). And in the pedigree
which he gives on page 34 of his "Leabhar na Feinne," and which was
compiled by a good archæologist, the title given to three successive
generations of the "royal family" of the Irish Feens is "General of
the Feens" of Ireland; not "King of Ireland" itself.
This battle of Gawra, then, which seems to mark the period when the
great Feenic confederacy was on the point of breaking up, was
brought about by the evident resolve of the non-Feenic population of
Ireland to throw off for ever this intolerable yoke. And the three
verses which Dr. Skene extracts from the poem descriptive of the
battle disclose to us that other sections of the Feenic confederacy
had come to the help of that division which was resident in Ireland.
The poem is supposed to be sung by a Feen of Ireland; and he states
that
"The bands of the Feens of Alban,
And the supreme King of Britain,
Belonging to the order of the Feens of Alban,
Joined us in that battle.
"The Feens of Lochlin were powerful,
From the chief to the leader of nine men,
They mustered along with us
To share in the struggle.
* * * * *
"Boinne, the son of Breacal exclaimed,
With quickness, fierceness, and valour,--
'I and the Feens of Britain
Will be with Oscar of Emhain.'"
"There was thus in this battle," says Dr. Skene, "besides Feens of
Ireland, Feens of Alban, Britain, and Lochlan."[69] Alban, he
explains, denoted the whole of Scotland lying to the north of the
Forth and Clyde. Britain, he states in this place, was South-Western
Scotland. But elsewhere[70] he tells us that "Britain" signified
"either Wales, or England and Wales together"; and again,[71] that
that term included "England, Scotland, and Wales." At the very
least, then, it denoted a part of Great Britain, then inhabited--not
necessarily to the exclusion of other races--by Feens.
These two names, "Alban" and "Britain," do not, however, take us
outside of the British Isles. But the third term, "Lochlan," does.
"Lochlan," says our guide, "was the north of Germany, extending from
the Rhine to the Elbe." And the Feens of that territory, the poem
tells us, "from the chief to the leader of nine men," "mustered
along with us [the Feens of Ireland] to share in the struggle," on
this fateful day of Gawra.
Why Dr. Skene should limit "Lochlan" to these dimensions is not
made quite clear. For Norway, Sweden, and Denmark constituted the
"Lochlan" chiefly known to Gaelic writers. However, he seems to be
of opinion that the term was "transferred" to Scandinavia in the
ninth century, and that previously (as, for example, when the battle
of Gawra was fought) it peculiarly denoted the more southern
territory. If he is right in this, we cannot assume the Lochlan
contingent as including the Feens of Norway. On the other hand,
there does not seem to be any strong reason for believing that, at
the date of Gawra, "Lochlan" did not take in the whole of
Scandinavia, as in the ninth century and afterwards. It is at least
noteworthy, in this connection, that in the pedigree previously
referred to,[72] the ruler of the Feens of Ireland, when the battle
of Gawra was fought, is stated to have been the grandson of a
_Finland_ woman. Quite apart from the assumed identity of _Feen_ and
_Finn_, this indicates a kinship that was not limited even by the
river Elbe.[73]
But really the identity of _Feen_ and _Finn_ seems tolerably clear.
Indeed, a contemporary writer,[74] who has studied ancient Ireland
and its "Feinne" from his own point of view, appears to regard this
identity as a thing perfectly manifest. And when, as tending to
confirm this opinion, he embellishes his pages with several
illustrations from scientific authorities in modern Finland, in
which the ancient forms of art and dress are seen, it is plain that
these designs are the same as those which are strongly associated
with those portions of Scotland which were once known as The Land of
the Feens.
Therefore, it appears probable that the "Feinne" of Lochlan, that
is, of the country lying between the Rhine and the Elbe, who
assisted their kindred in Ireland at the battle of Gawra, were
simply the Finns of that territory. And that, consequently, that
battle belongs to a period when the Mongoloid people, instead of
being cut up, as now, into small detachments here and there, or
amalgamated with other races, held a very distinct and important
position throughout a considerable area of Europe.
However, this identity of "Feen" with "Finn" may not appear to some
people as even a probability, without a fuller investigation into
the circumstances of the people known to Gaelic tradition as the
_Feinne_. It may therefore be desirable to continue to refer to the
"Finns" of Gaelic folk-lore by the name of "Feens."
FOOTNOTES:
[57] Such as _roo_ and _mûl_ (each used to denote a headland);
_skerry_, a reef; _couthe_, the "cuddy" or coal-fish, and _broch_;
all of which are found in Gaelic as _ru_ (_rudha_), _maol_, _sgeir_,
_cudan_, and _brog_.
[58] _See_ p. lxxx of Dr. Skene's Introduction to "The Dean of
Lismore's Book," Edinburgh, 1862.
[59] Perhaps the old Scotch termination "is" ought not to be
modernized into a separate syllable, as, whatever the force once
given to it, that termination represents the modern plural and
possessive "s." But if the "Fenis" of the gloss was dissyllabic, it
has an equivalent in Shetland in the alternative "Finny," sometimes
used instead of "Finn."
[60] _See_ "Leabhar na Feinne," London, 1872, p. iv.
[61] It may be added, that while Dr. Skene frequently speaks of "the
Fians," and at other times of "the Feinne," he occasionally refers
to "the Fenians." But, as this term has been recently usurped by a
quasi-political faction, and as it is, moreover, less accurate than
the other, we may at once reject it. The compound "Fingalian" has
also little to recommend it.
[62] "The Rough-bounds (_Garbhcrioch_) and the Western Isles" is the
expression used. The former term denoted that portion of the
mainland between Loch Linnhe and Glenelg. Whether the Island of Skye
ought to be included as one of the "Western Isles" is not quite
clear.
[63] Dr. Skene, p. lxiv of his Introduction to "The Dean of
Lismore's Book." (Here, as elsewhere, I take the liberty of
substituting _Feens_ for the Gaelic plural _Feinne_.)
[64] _Op. cit._, Introduction, p. lxxviii.
[65] _Op. cit._, Intro., pp. lxxiii-lxxiv.
[66] _Op. cit._, p. 36.
[67] For the above references, _see_ pp. 36, 37, and 40 of "The Dean
of Lismore's Book."
[68] Just as modern India is _British_ India, although it is almost
exclusively occupied by native races. (In this instance, of course,
the position of _native_ and _alien_ is precisely the reverse from
that which this "Feen" empire seems to denote.)
[69] "Dean of Lismore's Book," p. lxxv. The spelling is here
slightly modified.
[70] _Op. cit._, p. 8, note 1.
[71] _Op. cit._, p. 49, note.
[72] "Leabhar na Feinne," p. 34.
[73] The Gaelic traditions have a good deal to say regarding a race
of sea-rovers, styled _Fomorians_; which word is by some believed to
be a latinized form of a Gaelic term denoting a seafaring people. As
it is not improbable that this may be simply another name for the
people now under consideration, the following is worth citing here:
"That those adventurers whom our writers call Fomorians, have
arrived hither in multitudes from that country whence the Danes,
Swedes, and Norwegians came, is a circumstance that may be collected
from this account, that the father-in-law of Tuathal is said, in the
genealogy of the kings of Ireland, to have been king of the
Fomorians of Finland." (O'Flaherty's "Ogygia," Hely's translation,
Dublin, 1793, vol. i, p. 19.)
[74] Mr. Charles de Kay, in the course of several learned articles
on early life in Ireland, contributed to _The Century Magazine_
during the year 1889.
CHAPTER VII.
"The Feens, then, belonged to the pre-Milesian races, and were
connected, not only with Ireland, but likewise with Northern and
Central Scotland, England and Wales, and the territory lying between
the Rhine and the Elbe.[75] Now, there are just two people mentioned
in the Irish records who had settlements in Ireland, and who yet
were connected with Great Britain and the region between the Rhine
and the Elbe. These were the people termed the Tuatha De Danann, and
the Cruithné." So says the learned annotator of "The Dean of
Lismore's Book."[76]
These two last-named races, we are told, are both traditionally
brought from the Elbe and Rhine districts to Ireland and Scotland,
and both are eventually subdued by the later-arriving Milesian
Scots. The period given for the Milesian conquest of the Cruithné of
Scotland, is the ninth century of the Christian era.
Leaving the "Tuatha De Danann" out of the question in the meantime,
let us look at the contemporary and probably kindred "Cruithné." The
Cruithné, Cruithneach, or Cruithnigh, are unquestionably deserving
of study, for Dr. Skene has shown us[77] that this is merely another
name for those people whom history chiefly knows as "the Picts." The
traditional "Feens," therefore, are to be identified with the
historical "Picts."
Now, although these people are, as we have just seen, believed to
have come from the Continental country of "Lochlan" (Scandinavia, in
the largest acceptation of that term, or, in its most restricted
sense, the region lying between the Rhine and the Elbe), and
although there is every reason to believe that they spread
themselves all over the British Isles, yet they seem--regarded as
"Picts"--to be chiefly associated with North Britain. Their memory
is still preserved, topographically, by the name of _Pentland_
(formerly _Petland_ or _Pehtland_, and _Pictland_), which is borne
by the stormy firth separating the Orkneys from Caithness, and also
by the range of hills lying to the south of Edinburgh. Both of these
names are unquestionably derived from the time when there was a
"land of the Picts" in either of these neighbourhoods. But the
Picts, as such, are remembered all over Scotland, in history and in
tradition. It is chiefly in connection with Ireland that they are
spoken of as Cruithné.
If the "Feens" of tradition were _Cruithné_, or _Picts_, it is
evident that whatever is known with regard to the history, customs,
appearance, and language of the Picts will help us to decide as to
whether the _Feens_ were really one with the _Finns_ of history,
ethnology, and tradition. This, as already remarked, on general
grounds, seems very probable. But, when a very able historian
assures us that the historical Cruithné or Picts must certainly be
at least classed with the Feens of tradition, if these three terms
do not actually include one people, we are enabled, by proceeding
upon this assumption, to obtain further proofs in corroboration of
this belief.
Whether regarded as Feens or as Picts, these people, we are
informed, had settlements throughout the British Isles during the
earlier centuries of the Christian era, and the country of their
origin was Northern Germany (or, more vaguely, Scandinavia); in
which country large sections of their kindred continued to dwell,
and to maintain a system of confederacy with the Western or British
section long after the latter had settled in their new home. This,
at any rate, when viewed as Feens.
On the other hand, such a writer as Mr. H. Howorth demonstrates
that, during the same period, the Mongoloid races formed a most
important, and in some places a preponderating, portion of the
inhabitants of the countries of Northern Europe. But, during that
period, these Mongolian races have--he points out--been subjected to
an unceasing process of expulsion from their neighbours on the south
and south-east. If any race, therefore, arrived in the British
Islands from the neighbourhood of the Baltic in the centuries
immediately preceding or following the birth of Christ, the
probability is that that race belonged to one division or another of
these dispossessed Ugrian people.
If this were so--if the Cruithné or Picts, who came to Britain from
the Baltic lands, were one with, or closely akin to, the Finns and
Lapps--their characteristics must have been those of such people.
For example, their religious beliefs. Now, one cannot read Dr.
Skene's references to the heathen religion of the Cruithné without
seeing that it strongly resembles that of the Lapps and Finns.[78]
Without quoting these references in detail, it may be pointed out
that the power of bringing on a snowstorm and darkness, and
unfavourable winds, was among the mysteries of the Pictish priests.
And this gift of commanding the elements was peculiarly associated
with the Finns and Lapps, as it still is with the Eskimo "sorcerers"
of Greenland. "In the Middle Ages," says a writer on sorcery,[79]
"the name of _Finn_ was equivalent to sorcerer." And as the same
writer observes that "the old authors often confounded the Finns
with the Lapps, and when they speak of Finns, it is very difficult
to know which of these two peoples they refer to" (a confusion of
terms which we have already had occasion to remark), we may here use
the term _Finn_ to denote both divisions. Tentatively, at any rate.
The actual Lapps appear to have been the most powerful magicians of
all that caste. "It is proved by numerous documents," continues M.
Tuchmann, "that the Finns called the Lapps sorcerers, although they
themselves were reputed to be great magicians; but they regarded
themselves as inferior to their neighbours, for they habitually
said, when speaking of their most famous sorcerers: 'He is a
veritable Lapp.'"[80] However, since "Finn" has so frequently been
used to denote the whole group, and since the most recent examples
of these people in the British Isles, namely, the magic-working
Finns of Shetland, have borne that title, we may adhere to the
practice of referring to both divisions as "Finns."
The Picts or Cruithné, therefore, practised the magic of the Finns.
That is, the _Feens_ practised the magic of the _Finns_.[81]
Again, when we look at certain weapons used by the _Feens_, a
similar resemblance is visible. According to a tradition, taken down
from the recital of an old Hebridean, the spears or darts of the
Feens, which were known in Gaelic as "_tunnachan_," were of this
description: "They were sticks with sharp ends made on them, and
these ends burned and hardened in the fire. They [the Feens] used to
throw them from them, and they could aim exceedingly with them, and
they could drive them through a man. They used to have a bundle with
them on their shoulders, and a bundle in their oxters [under their
arm-pits]. I myself have seen one of them that was found in a moss,
that was as though it had been hardened in the fire."[82] "This,
then," justly remarks Mr. Campbell, "gives the popular notion of the
heroes [the Feens], and throws them back beyond the iron period."
While the fashion of referring to "periods" of iron, bronze, etc.,
is very apt to mislead (since contiguous peoples have been, and are,
in different "periods" of this nature, at the same moment of time),
it is at least clear from the above tradition that the most
primitive form of dart was associated with the Feens. But, although
this species of weapon is of great antiquity, it does not follow
that a tradition which relates to people who employed it, is
necessarily of great antiquity also. Or that those javelin-men were
at all "prehistoric." We have already seen that a race of people
employed darts in exactly the same way when fishing--or, perhaps,
more correctly, when seal-hunting--within British waters, only two
hundred years ago. And the people who in this respect resembled the
_Feens_ of Gaelic folk-lore are themselves remembered as _Finns_.
But perhaps the readiest and surest way of obtaining something like
a true conception of these legendary Feens, is to regard them from
the ethnological point of view, as well, that is, as our imperfect
information will allow. We shall therefore look at them in this
aspect, whether considered as _Picts_ or _Cruithné_ or as _Feens_.
The great hero of the Feenic legends, and the "King" or "General" of
the Feens of Ireland, was the famous "Finn" or "Fionn." If the
battle of Gawra was really fought in the third century, as is
alleged, and if this "Fionn" was a real man, and not the type or
"eponymus" of his race, then he ought to be assigned to the third
century. For he is said to have been present at that battle, where
his grandson was slain and the supremacy of his race destroyed. At
any rate, whether he lived at that date or not, and whether he was
an individual or merely a personification of his race, Fionn figures
throughout the tales of these people as a very Feen of the Feens.
Now, among the many stories told of him, there is one, entitled
"How Fin[83] went to the Kingdom of the Big Men." It is unnecessary
to give all the particulars of this tale. But Fin is pictured as
starting from Dublin Bay in his little coracle (_curachan_) on his
voyage to the country of the Big Men. Although he is described as
"hoisting the spotted, towering sails," they cannot have been very
large, or very many, for the coracle was so small that "Fin was
guide in her prow, helm in her stern, and tackle in her middle," and
when he landed on the coast of the Big Men's country, he drew his
tiny vessel, unaided, up into the dry grass, above the tide-mark. It
ought to be added, however, that this coracle was an open boat,
capable of holding at least four persons; as is shown on the return
voyage.
After landing, Fin encountered a "big wayfarer" (_tais-dealach
mòr_), who informed him that his king had long been in want of a
dwarf (_troich_), and that Fin would suit him capitally. "He took
with him Fin; but another big man (_fear mòr_) came, and was going
to take Fin from him. The two fought; but when they had torn each
other's clothes, they left it to Fin to judge. He chose the first
one. He took Fin with him to the palace of the king, whose worthies
and high nobles assembled to see the little man (_an duine bhig_").
And then and there Fin was installed as the royal dwarf.[84]
In this story, then, we have the tacit admission that, not far from
Fin's home at the hill of Allen, Kildare, there was a country whose
inhabitants were so much taller than the race of Fin, that the
latter were mere dwarfs beside them. Now, this is precisely _the
most striking_ characteristic of the kayak-using Finns of Shetlandic
tradition.
The _Finns_ of Shetland folk-lore are, says Mr. Karl Blind,
"reckoned among the _Trows_." The king of the _Feens_ was hailed in
the country of the big men as a _Troich_. And these are simply two
forms of the same word. _Troich_ or _droich_, among Gaelic-speaking
people, is softened into _trow_ or _drow_ among the English-speaking
Shetlanders.[85] In both cases it signifies "dwarf."
And, just as the Shetlanders have memories of a race of small men,
who, in spite of their mean stature, were a terror to the taller
people, whom they oppressed and took tribute from, so have the
Gaelic-speaking people a mass of legends which also tell of similar
dwarfish but dreaded tyrants. The former designate their dwarfs
"Finns": if the Gaelic traditions are not equally definite, they at
least suggest that a caste of "Feens," who levied a tax upon the
Gaelic-speaking people, were themselves dwarfs in stature. And the
Highland tales abound in stories of fierce and tyrannical dwarfs.
FOOTNOTES:
[75] It is to be remembered that "Lochlan," the term used to denote
the territory last named, was ultimately applied to the whole of
Scandinavia, and _may_ have been used in its widest sense at the
period here referred to.
[76] Introduction, p. lxxvi. In the above, I have again taken the
liberty of modifying the various designations.
[77] "Celtic Scotland," vol. i, p. 131; vol. iii, chap, iii, etc.
_See_ also his "Chronicles of the Picts and Scots."
[78] "Celtic Scotland," vol. ii, pp. 108-16.
[79] M. J. Tuchmann, in "Mélusine," t. iv, no. 16.
[80] Mr. Charles de Kay, in one of the valuable articles already
referred to, remarks ("Woman in Early Ireland," _Century Magazine_,
July 1889, p. 439): "Although in the Kalewala the tribes of Pohjola,
or the Lapps, are considered foul magicians, and ever the foe of the
heroes of Kaleva, or the Finns, yet it is from Pohjola that
Waïnamoïnen and his comrades always take their brides by force or by
purchase." This quotation not only confirms the above account of M.
Tuchmann, but it also illustrates the fact that even the most
antagonistic races do not refrain from mixing their blood. Thus it
may be seen how Lapps and Finns could eventually become almost
identified. And the "Heimskringla" shows us how, in turn, this
composite Finno-Lapp race could later on become blended with that of
the Haralds and Sigurds of the Sagas.
[81] This has already been propounded by the late Mr. J. F. Campbell
("West Highland Tales," iv, 29-30).
[82] "West Highland Tales," iii, 394-5.
[83] So spelt in the English translation given by the Rev. John G.
Campbell, minister of Tiree, in _The Scottish Celtic Review_,
Glasgow, 1885, pp. 184-90.
[84] Referring to the component parts of Fin's army on a certain
occasion, Mr. Charles de Kay remarks ("Early Heroes of Ireland,"
_Century Magazine_, June 1889, p, 200): "The battalion of
'middle-sized men' and that of 'small men' we may understand as
recruited from the true hunter and fisher tribes, who gave the name
Fenian to the army itself, and Fion to the folk-hero."
[85] _Trow_ is the favourite form among the Shetlanders; but other
forms are given by Edmondston in his "Glossary," such as _drow_,
_troll_, _troil_, _troilya_, and _trolld_. The Shetland terms are,
therefore, also variants of the Scandinavian _troll_, following a
common Scotch tendency, which modifies _boll_, _knoll_, _poll_,
_roll_, etc., into _bow_, _know_, _pow_, _row_, etc. (the vowel
sound being as in _now_). But whichever form may be the oldest, it
is manifest that _trow_ or _drow_, and _troich_ or _droich_, are
radically one.
CHAPTER VIII.
But, if the legendary "Feens" are identical with, or closely akin
to, the Picts of history, then the historical Picts must also belong
to this stunted Eskimo-like race. Let us look at the people called
"Picts."
And, first of all, since the word "Pict" is admittedly the result of
a pun or a misapprehension on the part of Latin-speaking people, it
may be as well to discard that special spelling. The forms which the
word appears to have most commonly taken in the mouths of the
country-people of Scotland are _Pik_, _Pech_, _Pecht_, and _Peht_
(the _ch_ being of course pronounced as in German). Doubtless, other
forms might be adduced; but perhaps the best compromise is _Pecht_.
What, then, are the accounts given with regard to the stature of the
Pechts?
The question is practically answered at once in considering the
nature of the dwellings that the traditions of Scotland unanimously
assign to these people.
"The only tradition which I heard current on the subject of the
former inhabitants of the country," says a writer on Shetland,[86]
"was, that the remains of old dwellings were Pechts' houses, and
that those who lived in them were little men." And, in reporting to
the Anthropological Society of London the result of an archæological
tour in Shetland, Dr. James Hunt[87] remarks of such "old
dwellings"--"These remains are called 'Pights' or Picts' houses.'
Mr. Umfray [a local archæologist] surmises that they were originally
'pights' or dwarfs' houses.' Dwarfs, in this locality, are still
called _pechts_."[88] And the present writer, when visiting a
"Pict's house" three or four miles north of the place just spoken
of, and which had also been inspected by Dr. Hunt, obtained similar
testimony. The place is known as Saffester, or Seffister, and its
antiquarian features consist of the remains of a chambered tumulus
and a separate subterranean gallery. The latter is referred to by
one writer as a "Pict's house," although it is only a passage. As,
however, local tradition alleges that it leads to the chambered
mound, the name may be correct enough. Now, this tumulus was opened
fifty or more years ago by the parish minister.[89] And an old man,
who was then a boy, informed the writer that the entrance was
effected by what he and his boy companions had always called "the
_trow's_ door." Another similar experience of the writer's yields a
like result. Near Hamna Voe, at the south end of the island of Yell,
there is a small loch and islet, with the remains of a "broch," the
loch being known as "the loch of Kettlester." The "broch" that once
stood there (for the ruins no longer retain their original shape)
was built by "the Pechts," said the intelligent lad (a native of the
district) who was the writer's guide, and these Pechts he described
as very small people.[90]
The popular Shetland notions regarding the Pechts are again
repeated by a lady writer, who has the advantage of being herself a
Shetlander[91]: "The first folks that ever were in our isles were
the Picts.... They had no ships, only small boats.... They were very
small [people]." Indeed, so much has their small stature been
impressed upon the popular memory, that, as we have seen, "dwarfs,
in this locality, are still called _pechts_." Nor is it only in
Shetland that this word has such a meaning. In Aberdeenshire _picht_
denotes a dwarfish person, and Dr. Jamieson, in recording the
fact,[92] suggests its connection with "the _pichts_ or _pechts_,
whom the vulgar view as a race of pigmies." In the south of Scotland
also, this signification appears to prevail; for the Ettrick
Shepherd, in the "Noctes Ambrosianæ," employs "pegh" as an everyday
synonym for "dwarf." In point of fact, although it has just been
stated that dwarfs "are still called _pechts_" in Shetland, because
of the small size of the race so known to history, it is really a
question whether the historical people did not so become
historically remembered _because_ a pre-existing word fitly
described their dwarfish stature. But this etymological point is of
little importance here.
Although Shetland has been chiefly considered in these recent
remarks, it will be seen that the popular belief regarding the
stature of the Pechts is apparently common to the whole of Scotland.
Dr. Jamieson evidently thought so when he referred to "the Pichts,
or Pechts, whom the vulgar view as a race of pigmies." And he does
not stand alone. "Throughout Scotland," says another writer, "the
vulgar account is 'that the _Pechs_ were unco wee bodies, but
terrible strang'; that is, that they were of very small stature, but
of prodigious strength."[93] "Long ago," quotes the late Robert
Chambers,[94] and his quotation also applies to the whole of
Scotland, "there were people in this country called the Pechs;
short, wee men they were,"--and so on.
Enough has been said to show that the ideas held by the "vulgar"
(whose traditions, once contemptuously rejected by scholars, are
nowadays being rated at their true value), throughout Scotland, with
respect to the Pechts, agree in describing those people as decidedly
dwarfish in stature. And this belief is most convincingly borne out
by the dwellings which the Pechts are believed to have inhabited;
the "Pechts' houses" which we glanced at a few paragraphs back, and
which speedily led us to consider the Pechts themselves. No man of
the average height of modern British people, who has personally
inspected these "Pechts' houses," can arrive at any other conclusion
than that they were built and inhabited by people of a stature very
much less than his own. This is a point so manifest that it need not
be emphasized to those who have stooped, squeezed, and crept among
the chambers and passages of a "Pictish broch." A few particulars of
measurement would quickly convince others; but such details need not
be entered into here. However, something may be said with regard to
the appearance of the dwelling which may best be regarded as the
typical "Pecht's house."
In a "Notice of the Brochs and the so-called Picts' Houses of
Orkney," submitted to the Anthropological Society of London,[95] Mr.
George Petrie points out that "the name Pict's house is applied
indiscriminately, in the northern counties of Scotland, to every
sort of ancient structure." And as there is certainly a great
difference, in degree, between the various structures referred to,
we may here accept Mr. Petrie's guidance as to what constitutes the
typical "Pict's house." "The class of buildings to which I have for
many years restricted the appellation of _Picts' house_ have been,"
says Mr. Petrie, "very different from the brochs,[96] both in
external appearance and general structure and arrangements. The
_Pict's house_ is generally of a conical form, and externally
closely resembles a large bowl-shaped barrow. It consists of a solid
mass of masonry, covered with a layer of turf, a foot or more in
thickness, and has a central chamber surrounded by several smaller
cells. The entrance to the central chamber from the outside is by a
long, low, narrow passage; while the cells are connected with the
chamber by short passages of similar dimensions to the long one. The
walls of the chambers and cells converge towards the top, where they
approach so closely that the aperture can be spanned by a stone a
couple of feet in length."
Another writer[97] describes a Pict's house--that on Wideford Hill,
near Kirkwall--in these terms: "All that meets the eye at first is a
green, conical mound, with an indescribable aspect of something
_eerie_ and weird about it, resting silently amid the moorland
solitude. On closer inspection we discover an entrance passage,
about eighteen inches high and two feet broad, leading from the
lower side into the interior of the prehistoric dwelling,"--and so
on.
The resemblance between this kind of dwelling, or its more modern
representative, the "bee-hive" hut of the Hebrides and Western
Ireland, to the dwellings of modern Eskimos has long been
recognized. But it may be permitted to quote here from the accounts
given by two Arctic voyagers of the early part of this century,
especially as these accounts, both relating to the most northern
tribes of Greenland, appear to describe with peculiar exactness the
"Pict's house" of Mr. Petrie.
Captain Scoresby, in the account of his explorations in the year
1822, thus describes the deserted dwellings of some of those
northern Eskimos:
"The roofs of all the huts had either been removed or had
fallen in; what remained, consisted of an excavation in the
ground at the brow of the bank, about 4 feet in depth, 15
in length, and 6 to 9 in width. The sides of each hut were
sustained by a wall of rough stones, and the bottom
appeared to be gravel, clay, and moss. The access to these
huts, after the manner of the Esquimaux, was a horizontal
tunnel perforating the ground, about 15 feet in length,
opening at one extremity on the side of the bank, into the
external air, and, at the other, communicating with the
interior of the hut. This tunnel was so low, that a person
must creep on his hands and knees to get into the dwelling:
it was roofed with slabs of stone and sods. This kind of
hut being deeply sunk in the earth, and being accessible
only by a subterranean passage, is generally considered as
formed altogether under ground. As, indeed, it rises very
little above the surface, and as the roof, when entire, is
generally covered with sods, and clothed with moss or
grass, it partakes so much of the appearance of the rest of
the ground, that it can scarcely be distinguished from it.
I was much struck by its admirable adaptation to the nature
of the climate and the circumstances of the inhabitants.
The uncivilized Esquimaux, using no fire in these
habitations, but only lamps, which serve both for light and
for warming their victuals, require, in the severities of
winter, to economise, with the greatest care, such
artificial warmth as they are able to produce in their
huts. For this purpose, an under-ground dwelling, defended
from the penetration of the frost by a roof of moss and
earth, with an additional coating of a bed of snow, and
preserved from the entrance of the piercing wind by a long
subterranean tunnel, without the possibility of being
annoyed by any draught of air, but what is voluntarily
admitted--forms one of the best contrivances which,
considering the limited resources, and the unenlightened
state of these people, could possibly have been
adopted."[98]
Scoresby's description fully corroborates that given by Captain Ross
a few years earlier, when relating his visit to the Eskimos living
about the north-eastern corner of Baffin's Bay. These people he
describes as "short in stature, seldom exceeding five feet," and he
mentions that their sorcerers alleged that it was in their power to
raise a storm or make a calm, and to drive off seals and birds."
With regard to their dwellings, he says:
"None of their houses were seen, but they described them as
built entirely of stone, the walls being sunk about three
feet into the earth, and raised about as much above it.
They have no windows, and the entrance is by a long, narrow
passage, nearly under ground. Several families live in one
house, and each has a lamp made of hollowed stone, hung
from the roof, in which they burn the blubber of the seal,
etc., using dried moss for a wick, which is kindled by
means of iron and stone. This lamp, which is never
extinguished, serves at once for light, warmth, and
cooking."[99]
It is not out of place to refer here also to an instructive article
on "The Archæology of Lighting Appliances," read before the Society
of Antiquaries of Scotland by Mr. J. Romilly Allen, F.S.A.Scot., in
the course of which he describes the stone lamps found in the
habitations known as "brochs" (and popularly assigned to the Picts),
with regard to which lamps he states that although not quite
identical in shape with those used by modern Eskimos, they are
substantially identical, and must have been used in precisely the
same way. Comparing this with Baron Nordenskiöld's accounts, Mr.
Romilly Allen observes: "The picture here given of the domestic life
of the Eskimos at the present time enables us to form a tolerably
correct idea of the way in which the inhabitants of the Scottish
brochs lighted their dwellings during the long winter nights two
thousand years ago." ("Proceedings of Soc. of Antiq. of Scot."
1887-88, p. 84.)
From all these remarks, then, it will be seen that the dwelling of
the dwarfish Eskimo and the "house" assigned by Scottish tradition
to the Pechts, or dwarfs, are substantially one. And a consideration
of the statements also demonstrates clearly that, whatever the age
of the word "pecht," none but a race of dwarfish stature would have
built such places of abode. Indeed, the stature of the dwellers in
the Pecht's house is doubly impressed upon the memory of the
Northern Islanders. When Mr. Gorrie describes its outward
appearance, he tells us (in similar terms to the Arctic voyagers),
that "all that meets the eye at first is a green, conical mound ...
resting silently amid the moorland solitude." But he really repeats
himself, although he is not aware of it, when he refers on another
page[100] to "the simple superstition (?) long prevalent among the
inhabitants of Orkney and Zetland, that the strange green mounds
rising by the sea-side and on solitary moors, were the abodes of
supernatural beings known by the name of Trows." Of the
"supernatural" attributes assigned to those people, or claimed by
them--in early Scotland, in Lapland, and in Greenland--much remains
to be said. But the people just referred to under two different, but
synonymous, names, are undoubtedly one and the same.
The Pechts of history, then, were a race of dwarfs. Thus, when Dr.
Skene identifies the Feens of Gaelic folk-lore with the historic
Pechts, he reveals them to us as a race of dwarfs. Therefore, the
traditional story of the Feen chiefs visit to the "country of the
big men," where he was regarded by that latter race as a "droich,"
is entirely in accordance with Dr. Skene's belief that the Feens
were of the same race as the historic Pechts. It is not at all
unlikely that this identity was taken for granted long before the
nineteenth century, and in Scotland. In Allan Ramsay's _Evergreen_,
a collection of Scottish poems written before the year 1600, there
is a certain "Interlude of the Droichs," also referred to as "The
Droichs' Part of a Play." Now, the spokesman of these droichs (or
trows, or dwarfs) announces himself as a grandson of Fin, the great
chief of the Feens of Ireland. And he makes a statement which is
identical with one contained in a Feenic poem on the battle of
Gawra. This statement need not be particularized here, but it tells
us unmistakably that these "droichs" were regarded as the
representatives of Fin and his Feens.[101] Therefore, it would
appear from this poem that Fin and his Feens were regarded by the
ruling class in Scotland, prior to 1600, as dwarfs. That is, as
_pechts_.
So far, then, all that has here been said tends to show that the
_Feinne_ of Gaelic folk-lore, and the Finns of Northern history and
tradition, ought to be regarded as one and the same people. And that
one section, at any rate, of such people ought to be identified with
the Pechts, or Picts, of history.
FOOTNOTES:
[86] Rev. J. Russell, "Three Years in Shetland." Paisley and London,
1887, pp. 135-6.
[87] _See_ the Society's "Memoirs," 1865-6, vol. ii, pp. 294-338.
[88] The spelling _pight_, which Dr. Hunt uses above, must clearly
represent the guttural and vowel sound of _licht_, _micht_, _dight_,
etc., in "broad Scotch." Without this caution, the reader would
naturally infer the sound of _pite_.
[89] Rev. J. Bryden: _see_ "Anthrop. Soc. Mem." _ut supra_.
[90] Close to Kettlester there is a noted haunt of the "trows,"
which bears the name of _Houlland_. With this may be compared
_Troil-Houlland_, which adjoins Seffister, of "trow" memory. This
very common Shetland termination "ster" or "setter" is the Icelandic
_setr_, a dwelling; and these two names resolve themselves
respectively into dwellings of _Kettle_ and _Seffi_. The former name
at once recalls the ninth century _Ketil Flat-nose_ of the Sagas,
and this "setr," still associated with dwarfs (otherwise _trows_ or
_pechts_), may have been one of his dwellings.
[91] Mrs. Saxby, in "Folk-lore from Unst, Shetland" (part v),
contributed to _The Leisure Hour_, 1880. (For another reference to
the boats of the Picts, _see_ pp. 178-9, _post_.)
[92] "Scottish Dictionary" (Supplement), _s. v._ "Picht."
[93] "The Topography of the Basin of the Tay," by James Knox,
Edinburgh, 1831, p. 108. This writer adds that "they are said to
have been about three or four feet in height"; and it may be
mentioned that when I asked my young guide at Kettlester the exact
height of the small Pechts he had just been speaking of, he said,
"About that height," indicating at the same time a stature of three
feet or so. Whatever their height really was, this young
Shetlander's ideas were in agreement with those held "throughout
Scotland."
[94] "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1870, p. 80.
[95] _See_ the Society's "Memoirs," 1865-6, vol. ii, pp. 216-225.
[96] The term "broch" has hitherto been used in a general sense in
these pages. This its etymology permits: for it is the same word as
_borough_, _burgh_, _burg_, _barrow_, etc. But the students of these
ancient structures have recently restricted "broch" to the more
elaborate and superior building of the round or "martello" tower
order. This definition is very convenient, and saves much confusion.
In spite, however, of the great difference that Mr. Petrie speaks of
as between the so-called "Pictish" broch and the humbler dwelling
that alone is recognized by him as a "Pict's house," it is yet
evident that the "broch" is to a very great extent evolved from the
more primitive and rudimentary "Pict's house."
[97] Mr. Daniel Gorrie, in "Summers and Winters in the Orkneys,"
London, 1869, p. 117.
[98] This extract is quoted from the review in the _Scots Magazine_
of 1823 (pp. 457-8) of Captain Scoresby's "Journal" (published
1823).
[99] From an extract contained in the review (_Scots Magazine_,
1819, vol. iv, pp. 332-3) of Capt. Ross's account (published by John
Murray, London, 1819).
[100] _Op. cit._, p. 119.
[101] The fact that the "Interlude" is allegorical does not at all
affect the question.
CHAPTER IX.
While the Picts, or Pechts, are remembered to a great extent as the
builders of the subterranean and half-subterranean dwellings with
which they are associated, these are far from being the only
structures which popular tradition has stamped as the work of their
hands. The architectural skill, of a kind, which they displayed in
the construction of their own "Pechts' houses" may be seen from such
a casual reference as this, gleaned from among certain specimens of
Clydesdale folk-lore: "Our milkhouse," says a Clydesdale peasant,
"whilk stude on the side of a dentie burn, and was ane o' thae auld
vowts [vaults] whilk the Pechs biggit langsyne, had wa's sae doons
strang that ane waud hae thocht it micht hae stude to the last day;
but its found had been onnerminit by the last Lammas-spait."[102] If
the "Pechts' houses" lacked, as they certainly did, evidences of
high culture in the designers, or outward beauty of design in
themselves, they were at least remarkable for their great strength
and durability; so that, were it not for such accidents as a
Lammas-flood, they might well have stood "to the last day." But the
great bodily strength of this race, and their turn for masonry, were
made use of in other ways than in the construction of the dwellings
referred to; that is, if there is any truth in the popular ideas
upon this subject.
The late Robert Chambers, in putting together the popular Scotch
beliefs regarding these people,[103] not only states that they were
"short, wee men," but he adds, still speaking as a Scottish peasant:
"The Pechs were great builders; they built a' the auld castles in
the kintry; and do ye ken the way they built them? I'll tell ye.
They stood all in a row from the quarry to the place where they were
building, and ilk ane handed forward the stanes to his neebor, till
the hale was biggit." A special example of one of the buildings so
reared is the Round Tower of Abernethy in Perthshire, well known as
one of the two towers of this class still to be found in Scotland.
"The story goes," says the Rev. Andrew Small, in his "Antiquities of
Fife,"[104] "that it was built by the Pechts,... and that, while the
work was going on, they stood in a row all the way from the Lomond
Hill to the building, handing the stones from one to another....
That it has been built of freestone from the Lomond Hill is clear to
a demonstration, as the grist or nature of the stone points out the
very spot where it has been taken from, namely, a little west, and
up from the ancient wood of Drumdriell, about a mile straight south
from Meralsford." That Abernethy was long a seat of Pictish power is
what no historian would deny, and the tower referred to is always
denominated "Pictish." Of the way in which it was built we have just
seen the local account.
Similar ideas are current in Northumberland. "The erection of
several of these old castles [_e.g._, Dunstanborough Castle] is, by
popular tradition, ascribed to the Picts.... The building of the
Roman wall, which is by country people commonly called the Picts'
wall, is also ascribed to them; and they are said to have formed the
Catrail on the Scottish border, which is frequently called the
Picts-work ditch. The Picts are described as men of low stature, but
of superhuman strength; and on the moors of Northumberland the heaps
of stone, which are supposed by antiquaries to mark the spot where
'bones of mighty chiefs lie hid,' are sometimes pointed out to the
inquiring stranger as places where a Pict's apron-string had broken
as he was carrying a load of stones to his work."[105]
Although the tower at Abernethy, and the "Pechts' houses" already
spoken of, may be classed together as having been built for the use
of the builders themselves, it is quite evident that if these people
actually reared the many other structures attributed to them, in
Scotland and in Northumberland, they did so in the character of
serfs, working for people of other races. If Dunstanborough Castle,
the Wall of Hadrian, and (perhaps also) the Catrail, not to speak of
"a' the auld castles in the kintry," were built by the Pechts, the
builders were evidently not working on their own behalf. This
clearly must have been the case in the instance of the "Roman Wall,"
which was raised for the very purpose of checking the southward
inroads of these fierce warriors. That it actually was a "Roman
wall" is of course beyond question. But that fact does not interfere
with the supposition that the drudgery was performed by captive
Pechts, whose immense strength, and intimate acquaintance with the
art of building such structures, would render them of the greatest
use to their conquerors. That they, and not the Romans, were the
actual _builders_ of the wall, as Northumbrian tradition asserts, is
therefore far from improbable. Indeed, there are one or two
indications that the more northern "Wall of Antoninus" may also have
been reared by kindred hands. And as with these early examples, so
may the later buildings referred to have actually been unwillingly
built by Pechts, at the command of other people.[106]
Not only walls and castles, or towers, but churches and cathedrals
are also said to have been reared by the same dwarfish but powerful
builders, as may be seen from the following instances.
One part of Scotland that continued to be a "reservation" of the
Pechts, after that people had ceased to hold sway, is the hilly
country lying to the south of Edinburgh, and known as "the
Pentlands." Like the "Pentland Firth" on the north-east of Scotland,
this district was so called because it was associated with the
Pechts. We need not here concern ourselves as to the causes which
made the name, in both instances, assume the modern form of
"Pentland." But, in each case, the name was formerly "Pehtland," and
it signified "the land of the Pehts, or Pechts." According to Dr.
Skene, the Angles of Northumbria had, as early as the seventh
century, established themselves pretty securely as the ruling caste
throughout the south-east of what is now Scotland, then a part of
"Northumbria." This territory seems to have reached as far on the
north-west as the modern county of Linlithgow, and one of the chief
Northumbrian strongholds in that neighbourhood has ever since been
known by the name of the Northumbrian king, Edwin. Edinburgh,
therefore, in the seventh century, appears as a seat of the Anglian
race, which ruled from the Forth to the Humber. Three or four
centuries later, the steadily growing power of "Scotia" annexed the
whole of Northumbria lying north of the Borders. But the population,
no doubt, remained little affected by this political change, and its
speech and traditions continued the same.[107]
But, although those Angles were the rulers of south-eastern
Scotland (in modern topography), there still remained a remnant of
the Pechts in at least one part of that northern Northumbria.[108]
And it was because of their residence there that the Angles spoke of
the hilly region lying to the south and south-west of Edinburgh as
"the Peht or Pecht land." How long the Pechts maintained some kind
of individuality in that neighbourhood it is impossible to say. It
is said that, after Kenneth's great victory over the Pechts at
Forteviot or at Scone, in the middle of the ninth century, many of
the fugitives sought refuge in England. And, as the Pentland Hills
were then in "England," it is likely that they found shelter among
their kindred there. In other parts of Scotland the Pechts are
historically visible long after the seventh and ninth centuries. At
the battle of the Standard, in 1138, the Galloway section formed one
division of the Scottish army.[109] A popular tradition, to be
presently referred to, also speaks of them as a distinct people in
the Clyde valley, during the same century. It is therefore quite
permissible to suppose that, once the people of the Midlothian
"Pecht-lands" had realized that they were a conquered remnant, with
no hope of ultimately recovering their lost power, they may have
continued to live, if merely as serfs, not only to the twelfth
century, but for several centuries longer.
That they did so is to be inferred from the following bit of
"folk-lore," which relates to a locality that, though not strictly
included in the district of the "Pecht-lands," is quite near enough
to agree with this hypothesis.
The hill of Corstorphine, situated a little to the west of
Edinburgh, is only about three miles north of the nearest point of
the "Pecht-lands." Now, the village church of Corstorphine is one of
the few churches in Scotland which are of interest to the antiquary.
"Ancient it most unquestionably is," says a modern writer in the
course of a description of the village and its church, and the
foundation of the latter is placed in the year 1429. The fifteenth
century is not very "ancient," as these things go, but perhaps the
site has been occupied by a church from a much earlier period. At
any rate, the writer just referred to, in visiting Corstorphine for
the purpose of inspecting both church and village, obtained this
piece of local tradition, believed to relate to the church of 1429.
"Of this [church], in November 1881, an intelligent native assured
the writer that it was 'wonderfully ancient, built by the
Hottentots, who stood in a row and handed the stones on one to
another from Ravelston quarry'"--on the adjacent hill of
Corstorphine.[110]
Now, if one compares this account with the traditional description
of the _modus operandi_ of the Pechts, already instanced in the case
of Abernethy, and generally accepted throughout Scotland, one hardly
requires the historical testimony of the "Pecht-lands" to recognize
in these "Hottentots" the Pechts of tradition. It is not necessary
to take the expression here used by the Corstorphine villager as
absolutely correct. His statement, it may be remarked, succeeded a
conversation in which our various wars in South Africa had been
discussed,[111] and it is not unlikely that this had suggested to
the speaker the term "Hottentot" as aptly enough describing a race
that to his ancestors, whose ideas he inherited, had seemed savage
and inferior. That he absolutely believed the labourers who reared
the walls of the church to be of a different race from his own is
unquestionably indicated by the whole tenor of his remarks.[112]
This Corstorphine tradition points to a body of Pechts still
surviving as a distinct type, in the Midlothian of 1429; and then
regarded by the general population as a caste of drudges. This, too,
is the position accorded to that race in one phase of Highland
tradition. "I am informed," says Dr. Jamieson,[113] "that in
Inverness-shire, the foundations of various houses have been
discovered, of a round form,... and that when the Highlanders are
asked to whom they belonged, they say that they were the houses of
the _Drinnich_ or _Trinnich_, _i.e._, of the _labourers_, a name
which they give to the Picts." They may be seen in the Clyde valley,
in the same position as those of Corstorphine, but three centuries
earlier, on the testimony of tradition. "Throughout Scotland," says
an antiquary previously quoted, "the vulgar account is, 'that the
_Pechs_ were unco wee bodies, but terrible strang'; that is, that
they were of very small stature, but of prodigious strength. It is
commonly added [he goes on] 'that the meal (oatmeal) was a penny the
peck when they built the _Hie_ Kirk [the Cathedral] of Glasgow;' for
the building of all the cathedrals, and in general everything very
ancient, is ascribed by the common people to the _Pechs_."[114] Now,
the present Cathedral of Glasgow is said to have been built in the
twelfth century, at which date the Pechts of Galloway formed a
distinct and separate population in south-western Scotland.
According to Reginald of Durham, as we have already seen, the town
of Kirkcudbright was situated in the "Pecht-lands" (_terra
Pictorum_), and the _sermo Pictorum_ was still spoken there. In the
same century the Galloway Pechts formed the van of the Scottish army
at the battle of the Standard; and the Pechts of this period are
remembered in the popular memory, assisted by a homely enough
detail, as having been employed in the building of the "High Church"
of Glasgow. Of course, the Clyde valley is not situated in Galloway;
but the presence of Pechts in twelfth-century Glasgow may easily be
explained by assuming that they belonged to another detachment of
the race, or that it was worth while sending to Galloway for such
famous builders. Belonging to a period less easily defined are the
Pecht masons of the famous Round Tower at Brechin. Regarding this
tower a local writer states: "Tradition, in Brechin, as well as at
Abernethy, ascribes the erection to the _Peghts_," and he adds, that
"it has stated they were only allowed a trifle for this work, and
were cheated out of part of this trifle."[115] In this instance,
also, the Pechts are remembered as working for people of another
race; which is somewhat remarkable, as the tower itself is one of
those which seem to have been built by the Pechts for _their own_
purposes.
Without going much out of the way, it may be as well to point out
that the popular idea of the Pechts being "men of low stature, _but
of superhuman strength_," "unco wee bodies, _but terrible strang_,"
is not only supported by tradition on every side, but it is borne
out by a consideration of the mementos they have left behind them.
Much could be said on this subject; but it will perhaps be enough
here to point to a hill-fortress in Forfarshire, which history and
tradition agree in ascribing to these people. This is the stronghold
known as the White Cater Thun, situated a few miles north-west of
Brechin (which possesses the Pictish round-tower just referred to,
and which was once a seat of Pictish monarchy). The fort crowns a
hill which rises about 300 feet above the general level of the great
valley of Strathmore, and is thus referred to:
"This is, perhaps, the strongest Pictish fortification
extant. It is surrounded by a double rampart of an
elliptical figure, being 436 feet long by about 200 broad,
and containing about two imperial acres.... But the most
wonderful thing that occurs in this Pictish fort is the
extraordinary dimensions of the ramparts, composed entirely
of large, loose stones, being 26 feet thick at the top, and
upwards of 100 at the bottom, reckoning quite to the ditch,
which, indeed, seems to be much filled up with the tumbling
down of the walls. The vast labour that it must have cost
to amass so enormous a quantity of large stones, and convey
them to such a height, is astonishing.... In conveying the
enormous quantity of large stones to the summit of White
Cater Thun, the natives must doubtless have expended great
labour, and much time. They seem, however, to have been
familiar with a method of removing immense masses from
considerable distances, and it is supposed they made use of
hurdles on such occasions; it is not improbable they might
have some kind of rude windlass for raising the larger
stones from the bottom to the top of the hill."[116]
Whatever the method employed by the builders of this stronghold,
the description just given will show the reader, what he cannot fail
to be impressed with on a study of the Pechts, that these people and
their buildings belonged to what is known as the "Cyclopean" type,
and that they--the people--represented a race now quite extinct, in
its purity, but which must undoubtedly have been remarkable for a
prodigious strength of body, a strength that may well be spoken of
as "superhuman," if it is to be compared with that of any existing
race of men. It is this point that must always be borne in mind when
one considers the traditions regarding the buildings of the Pechts,
and this it is that justifies the very parts of those traditions
which would otherwise appear utterly wild and incredible. Beyond
question, there is much that demands criticism and inquiry in the
traditional description of the way in which such edifices as
Abernethy Tower and Corstorphine Church were reared. But two
important points must not be overlooked. The one is that an immense
number of people may have been simultaneously at work; the other is
that the workers were of vast muscular strength.
FOOTNOTES:
[102] _Scots Magazine_, vol. iii. 1818, p. 503.
[103] "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1870, pp. 80-82.
[104] Edinburgh, 1823, pp. 152-3.
[105] "Rambles in Northumberland," by S. Oliver. London, 1835, p.
104.
[106] The earliest instance which has come under my notice of such
work performed in the British Islands by a subject people, who
correspond in many ways with the Pechts, is that given by Lady
Ferguson ("The Story of the Irish before the Conquest," London,
1868, p. 32), with reference to the rebuilding of the fort of
Cruachan, in Connaught.
[107] For Dr. Skene's accounts, on which these statements are based,
see "Celtic Scotland," vol. i. pp. 236-241; and p. cvii of his
Preface to the "Chronicles of the Picts and Scots."
[108] It is not meant to be implied that Angles and Pechts were
exclusively the inhabitants of this territory at that time. But it
seems clear that the former predominated, and gave to the district
the impression of speech and custom which it yet retains.
[109] "Celtic Scotland," vol. i. pp. 203 and 467. "Reginald of
Durham, writing in the last half of the twelfth century, mentions,
in 1164, Kirkcudbright as being in 'terra Pictorum,' and calls their
language 'sermo Pictorum.'" (_Op. cit._, p. 203, _note_.) Dr. Skene,
quoting various authorities, gives us an interesting description of
the Scottish army at the Battle of the Standard. It was composed, we
learn, of Normans, Germans, English, Northumbrians, Cumbrians, men
of Teviotdale and the Lothians, Picts (commonly called Galloways or
Galloway-men), and Scots. This is the statement made by Richard of
Hexham, a contemporary writer, and it seems to agree on the whole
with the other accounts. His "Cumbrians" are identified with the
"Welsh" of Strathclyde. No doubt his "Northumbrians" were those who,
living on the north of the Border, belonged to that part of
Northumbria which had then been Scottish for more than a century.
The Galloway Picts, it may be added, were in the front of the
battle, and "claimed to lead the van as their right."
[110] _See_ the _Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland_, Edinburgh, 1882,
vol. i. p. 287.
[111] This I am informed by the writer of the lines quoted.
[112] "The tradition that certain buildings were erected by men who
stood in a row and handed the stones from one to the other is quite
familiar to me with regard to buildings in Ireland," writes a
correspondent (the Rev. J. Ffrench, of Clonegal, Fellow of the Royal
Society of Antiquaries of Ireland); and he furnishes one
example:--"Brash, in his 'Ecclesiastical Architecture of Ireland,'
when describing the Round Tower of _Ardmore_, tells us: 'I have
before stated that the materials of which this tower was built were
brought from the Mountain of Slieve-Grian, some four or five miles
distant. The local legend is that the stones were brought to the
spot without "horse or wheel," and laid without the noise of a
hammer, the meaning of which is that the stones were all dressed in
the quarry, and a line of men being stationed along from the quarry
to the tower, the stones were handed from one to the other.'"
While this Irish tradition does not identify these builders with
any special race of men, it is noteworthy that their method of
building is that which Scottish tradition regards as peculiarly
characteristic of the Picts, or "Pechts." Moreover, the building
referred to by Brash is of precisely the same order as the Round
Tower of Abernethy, said to have been built after the same fashion.
And the builders of the Round Tower of Abernethy, as also the
builders of the Round Tower of Brechin, are alleged by local
tradition to have been "Pechts."
[113] In the "Dissertation on the Origin of the Scottish Language,"
prefixed to his Scottish Dictionary.
[114] Knox's "Topography of the Tay," Edinburgh, 1831, pp. 108-9.
[115] "History of Brechin," by David D. Black. Edinburgh and
Brechin, 1867, 2nd edition, p. 247.
[116] Knox's "Topography," pp. 92-94.
CHAPTER X.
In the immediately preceding pages we have been considering the
people known as "Pechts." But it is contended that the "Feens" of
Gaelic story ought to be identified with the "Pechts." When the
leader of the "Feens" landed in "the country of the big men," he was
at once seized upon as eminently fitted to be the court dwarf, into
which office he was duly installed; from which it was reasonably
inferred that he was a "pegh," or dwarf. Now, in one of the many
songs ascribed to the son of this "pegh," Oisin, who is ever
bemoaning the departed glories of his race, he laments the fact that
he finds himself in his old age "wearily dragging stones along to
the church on the hill of the priest." "Here, where he is a drudge,
he has seen the Feinne in their glory.... Were they alive,
shavelings would not hold this mound." Thus laments Oisin, the
representative of the old heathen Feens, bitter in his denunciations
of Patrick the priest, and the new order which he represents, and
ever bewailing the vanished "glory of the Feinn."
We find Oisin, therefore, accepted universally as the type of his
race, unwillingly occupied in "dragging stones for priests to build
churches," in his old age and after the downfall of his people. Nor
was it only as the serf of another race that he had so worked;
because, he explains to Patrick that this old age of drudgery had
been foretold to him by his leader, Fin, on a previous occasion,
before the coming of Patrick, and on that occasion not only Oisin,
but a great number of the Feens of Ireland, were engaged in a
similar task. The great difference was that then they were not
working as the drudges of another people, but for themselves, and at
the command of their leader. And it was not a church, but a
hill-fortress, that they were building, "on Cuailgne's bare and
rounded hill." Oisin speaks of it as Fin's "famous fort," and the
hill on which it was built is "said to be in the county of Armagh,"
or, as another writer states, in County Louth. According to Oisin,
two-thirds of the materials for the fort were brought thither by the
Feens of Connaught and the west of Ireland, and the remainder by the
Feens of Leinster and the east of Ulster, to which section both
Oisin and Fin belonged. Assuming these traditional accounts to be
correct, we thus see the Feens, in the day of their independence,
"dragging stones" to the top of a hill, in order to build a
fortress; and later on we see them, personified by Oisin, occupied
in a similar manner, but as the drudges of Christian priests and the
builders of Christian churches. The one account applies to Scotland
and the other to Ireland; but the Pechts of the White Cater Thun
have their counterparts in the Feens who reared the "famous fort"
"on Cuailgne's bare and rounded hill;" and the Pechts who built the
churches of Glasgow and Corstorphine are also duplicated in the
conquered Feens, "weary dragging stones for priests to build
churches," in Ireland. Consequently, the traditional fame of the
Pechts of Scotland, as a great race of builders, is not at all at
variance with the belief that they and the Feens were of one
nation.[117]
But, if Fin and his Feens were builders of the hill-forts of the
"Pechts," and were themselves veritable Pechts, it is evident that
the Feens built and inhabited the dwellings known as "Pechts'
houses." This is quite borne out when we regard that class of
building which, although an archæologist already quoted (Mr. Petrie)
does not hold it to be strictly entitled to the designation of
"Pecht's house," is nevertheless a variety of the same species, and
often receives the same title. The variety referred to differs from
what has been accepted as the true "Pecht's house," in that it has
no superimposed covering of earth or turf. But the two varieties
undoubtedly belong to the same general class. Now, with regard to
this second order of "Pecht's house," we have such a statement as
the following: "Glenlyon, in Perthshire, is remarkable for the great
number of remains of aboriginal works scattered through it, in the
shape of circular castles built entirely of dry stones. The common
people believe these structures to have belonged to their mythic
hero, Fion,... and have a verse to that effect:
'Bha da chaisteal dheug aig Fionn
Ann an Crom-ghleann-nan-clach.'
That is, _Fion had twelve castles in the Crooked Glen of Stones_
(such being an old name for Glenlyon)."[118] And a like belief
prevails in other Perthshire glens, such as Glenshee and Glenalmond,
beside the latter of which, as every reader of Wordsworth knows,
Oisin himself is said to be buried.
The true "Pecht's house," however, is not this dry-stone circular
"castle," open to air and sun. These "castles" are, indeed,
popularly included among "Pechts' houses," but such an archæologist
as the one recently referred to prefers to speak of them as
"brochs." This word "broch" (akin to _burgh_, etc.) has been adopted
by Dr. Joseph Anderson and other eminent students of such buildings,
to distinguish this special structure; and although, etymologically
regarded, the distinction is arbitrary, it is very convenient. But
the "broch," standing visibly exposed like any other ruin, its stone
walls uncovered to the sun, is by no means the same thing as the
"Pecht's house" described by Mr. Petrie and others. This, it may be
remembered, is almost or altogether identical with the dwellings of
the North-Greenland Eskimos, as portrayed by the explorers of
seventy years ago. It is approached through a long, dark tunnel,
entered from the face of a bank or brae, so low that one has to
crawl along it, its sides and roofs composed of large stone slabs,
and the roof itself flush with, or even underneath, the surface of
the ground. At the end of this long, dark, narrow passage one enters
the central chamber of the dwelling of the North-Greenlander and the
ancient Pecht. It, too, would be in darkness, were it not for the
rude stone lamp, fed with the oil of seal or whale, soaking through
moss or the pith of rushes, which hangs from the roof and is always
burning. Here and there at the side of this central chamber are
openings in the wall which lead into small cavities used as
sleeping-places. Briefly and imperfectly, that is the interior of
the Pecht's house.[119]
Viewed from the outside, what does it resemble? The underground
passage of approach is invisible. The "house" itself "is generally
of a conical form, and externally closely resembles a large
bowl-shaped barrow. It consists of a solid mass of masonry, covered
with a layer of turf a foot or more in thickness, and has a central
chamber surrounded by several smaller cells." Or, as another writer
describes it, "all that meets the eye at first is a green, conical
mound ... resting silently amid the moorland solitude." The entrance
to this seeming hillock, situated sometimes at its base, more
frequently, perhaps, at the extremity of a narrow, underground
tunnel, was never very conspicuous, since it was only about a couple
of feet high. In the days when the Pechts were actually inhabiting
these "green hillocks," it is likely they took the precaution to
conceal this outer orifice, small though it was, as well as
possible. Thus, the adventurer or colonist of another race, arriving
at a settlement of Pechts' houses, saw nothing but one or more
grassy, conical hillocks rising out of the surrounding moor.
Since the Gaelic term _broch_ (for it is Gaelic, though not
exclusively so) is used to denote the one variety of these "Pictish"
dwellings, let us employ, if only temporarily, the Gaelic term which
denotes the other. That kind of _broch_, then, which is covered over
with earth and turf so as to resemble a conical green mound, is
known in Gaelic by the name of _sith-bhrog_, or _sith-bhrugh_; that
is to say, the broch of the _sith_. Still more commonly, it is
styled a _sithean_, or _sith_-place. When rendered in our modern
English spelling, according to its pronunciation, this distinctive
_sith_ becomes spelt _shee_; as in the case of _Gleann-sith_, which
is written "Glenshee." And, similarly, _sithean_ becomes _sheean_.
It is the "sheean," then, and not the "broch" proper, that is
regarded by such archæologists as Mr. Petrie as peculiarly the
dwelling of the Pechts.
Now, if any Highlander were asked his opinion as to the former
inhabitants of the "sheeans," he would have but one answer to give.
And the nature of that answer is very clearly shown by those
Highlanders who have compiled the leading Scottish-Gaelic
dictionaries. _Brog_ (_i.e._, "broch") is itself defined as an
obsolete term for "a house"; but _bruth_ and other variants connect,
if they do not identify, the "broch" with the "sheean." The various
definitions are these: _Bruth_, "a house half under the surface,"
"the dwelling of fairies in a hill"; _sith-bruth_, _sith-bhrugh_, "a
fairy hill or mansion"; _sith-bhrog_, _sith-bhruach_, _sith-bhruth_,
"a fairy hill," "a fairy residence," "fairyland"; _sithean_, "a
little hill or knoll," "a fairy hill"; _sithain_, "a green knoll or
hillock, tenanted, according to superstitious belief, by
fairies."[120]
Thus, the houses of the Pechts or dwarfs were inhabited by the
people known as "fairies." As the fairies were "little people,"
there is here no contradiction in terms. We have, moreover, seen
that the same "conical, green mounds" are remembered in Orkney and
Shetland as the homes of the "trows." "Trow," however, is itself
equivalent to _droich_, or dwarf. Therefore, the belief that those
outward-seeming "green hillocks" were the abodes of Pechts is quite
in agreement with the traditions that refer to those mound-dwellers
as _trows_ and _fairies_ (otherwise "the little people"). Because
_pecht_ (or _pech_), _trow_, and _fairy_ are all synonyms for
"dwarf."
FOOTNOTES:
[117] For these references to Oisin and the Feens see Skene's "Book
of the Dean of Lismore," pp. 12-14 (English version), and 10-11
(Gaelic). Also Mr. J. F. Campbell's "Leabhar na Feinne," pp. xiii,
47 and 49.
[118] Chambers's "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," 1870, pp. 254-55.
[119] Although the Pechts made use of stone lamps similar to those
of the northern Eskimos, it is perhaps too much to assume that the
dwellings of the former admitted nothing of the light of day. Mr.
Petrie states that the walls of the Pechts' houses "converge towards
the top, where they approach so closely that the aperture can be
spanned by a stone a couple of feet in length." If this aperture
remained open during the day, which seems quite likely, then the
above reference as to the ever-burning lamp is only applicable to
the dwellings of the northern Greenlanders. For the sake of safety,
while their lands were over-run by hostile forces, it is probable
that the Pechts did cover the two-foot hole in the roof with a large
stone, which itself would need to be hidden by earth and turf. But
the fact that such an aperture was left in the building indicates
that it was frequently uncovered; perhaps always at night, and also,
during times of safety, in the day. In the latter case, the interior
of this underground dwelling would thus receive, through the hole
overhead, enough light to fill the central chamber with a sort of
twilight, although the smaller cells might have been quite in
darkness.
[120] See the dictionaries of Armstrong, McLeod and Dewar, and
McAlpine. McAlpine also defines the word _digh_ as a "conical
mound," "an abode of fairies"; and that more uncommon term is thus
employed in an Islay story of Mr. J. F. Campbell's (_West Highland
Tales_, ii, 48).
CHAPTER XI.
In a reference to the popular traditions of Northumberland, the
Picts are spoken of as "a race of people who are represented, in
such legends, as endowed with supernatural power, and holding, in
the scale of beings, an intermediate rank between men and
fairies."[121] Sir Walter Scott also corroborates this belief as
existent in Northumberland ("Rob Roy," ch. xxiii). And the writer
previously quoted, in describing the local tradition with regard to
the building of the tower at Abernethy by the Pechts, explains that
"the people always, when they speak of these Peghs, associate that
idea with a notion that they were a preternatural sort of beings,
such as fairies and brownies." Therefore, without entering into any
discussion as to what is or was meant by "supernatural power," we
have ascertained from these extracts that the Pechts were regarded,
in Northumberland and in Scotland, as a race of people possessing or
claiming "supernatural" attributes. And that they were akin to
"fairies and brownies," if they were not identical with them. This
also is the position of the "Feens" of Gaelic folk-lore, as the
following references will show.
When the celebrated Irish king, Brian Borumha, defeated the Danes
of Dublin and their allies, in the year 1000 A.D., it is stated that
he appropriated all the vast treasures that the Danes had gathered
together:--"gold and silver, and bronze, and precious stones, and
carbuncle-gems, and buffalo-horns, and beautiful goblets," as well
as "various vestures of all colours."[122] And the chronicler
explains that "never was there a fortress, or a fastness, or a
mound, or a church, or a sacred place, or a sanctuary," which the
Danes had not plundered when it fell to their arms. The first three
terms, which in the Gaelic are _dún_, _daingean_, and _diongna_, are
closely allied, and each designates something akin to the "hollow
mounds" of which we have been speaking.[123] But the succeeding
sentence is quite explicit: "Neither was there in concealment under
ground in Erinn, _nor in the various solitudes belonging to Fians or
to fairies_, anything that was not discovered by these foreign,
wonderful Denmarkians, through paganism and idol worship." With
regard to which last allusion, Dr. Todd says: "The meaning is, that
notwithstanding the potent spells employed by the Fians and fairies
of old for the concealment of their hidden treasures, the Danes, by
their pagan magic and the diabolical power of their idols, were
enabled to find them out."[124] (The Gaelic from which Dr. Todd
translates the above sentences is as follows:--"Ni raibh imorro
_dún_ no _daingean_, no _diongna_, no ceall, no cadhas, no neimedh
do gabhadh ris an ngláim nglifidhigh, nglonnmair, ngnuismhir do bhí
ag teaglaim, ocus ag teaccar na hédala sin, óir ni raibhe ifolach
_fo thalmain_ in Erinn ina fá dhiamhraibh díchealta ag _fianaibh_ no
ag _síthcuiraibh_ ní na fuaratar na Danmargaigh allmardha ingantacha
sin, tre geintlidhecht, ocus tre iodhaladhradh.")[125]
Like the Pechts in Northumbrian tradition, the Feens are here not
absolutely _identified_ with the fairies, although the two are so
closely associated that it is difficult to distinguish between the
one and the other. The traditions of the Feens themselves testify to
a distinction between the two. Thus, in the "Dan an Fhir Shicair,"
or Ballad of the Fairy Man,[126] Fin and his six nobles, while
walking out one evening, see a fairy-man coming towards them, who
announces that he comes from the neighbouring Golden Doon (_Dún an
oir_), and that his purpose is to cause those Feens to come, by
enchantment, to dine that day with him and his people in their
"hill." Here, then, we have the Feens associating, to some extent
(though not, as it appears, on a very friendly footing) with
fairies, and yet not themselves regarded as identical with that
people.
From the foregoing reference to the plunder of the Danes at Dublin,
in the year 1000, it is evident that "the Feens and Fairies" were
understood, in the traditional history of the Gaels, to be then
actually inhabiting those underground and half-underground
dwellings known as "Pechts' houses." There is another reference,
in the same history, that corroborates this belief. The date when
Brian Borumha became possessor of those "fairy-hoards," which the
Danes had previously obtained by their well-known process of
"how-breaking,"[127] was the close of the tenth century. Now, a son
of this same Brian, and also one of his father's chief warriors, are
both described as asserting (on a certain occasion, in the reign of
the same Brian)[128] that they had been tempted by the fairies to
forsake their ancestral cause. "Often," says Murchadh, "was I
offered, in hills and in fairy mansions [_i sithaib ocus i
sithbrugaib_], this world and these gifts; but I never abandoned for
one night my country nor my inheritance for them." As Murchadh's
response was evoked by a similar statement on the part of Dunlang,
it thus appears that, in rifling the abodes of the "how-folk," the
Danes were robbing a race _then alive_, and were not merely
appropriating unclaimed treasure. And, indeed, the Scandinavian
accounts of "how-breaking" distinctly point out that this pastime
involved a struggle of life and death with the armed inmate of the
"how."
The evidence of Murchadh and Dunlang, then, shows that intercourse
with "the fairies" was not a matter for wonder; and, moreover, that,
for one reason or another, the latter desired to seduce the
Gaelic-speaking people from their allegiance. That they were
eventually successful with Dunlang seems pointed out by the
statement, made elsewhere, that this Dunlang was himself a fairy
(_sioguidhe_).[129] And it is well known that "Fairies," as well as
"Feens," while possessing distinct innate attributes, were not
averse to obtaining adherents from other races, who thus became
"Feens" and "Fairies" by adoption.
In the instance of Murchadh and Dunlang, however, the _Feens_ are
not named; and it is a matter for conjecture whether they ought to
be included among the Fairies there spoken of. But, at any rate, the
incident shows that the Fairies (if not the Feens) formed an active,
existent caste or race, subsequent to the date of Brian's famous
victory over the Danes; and that the Danish inroads on their doons,
brochs, hows, etc., in the neighbourhood of Dublin had not by any
means annihilated them as a people.
Of this robbery of the "how-folk" by the Danes in the Dublin
district, something further may be said in passing. The date of
these raids is stated to have been 861 or 862 A.D., when the Danes
overran the whole district of the Boyne and Blackwater (co. Meath),
and broke into the "fairy hills" of that region; one of which, that
of New Grange, is probably the most interesting example of its class
that is at present known to archæologists.[130] Therefore, the booty
which the Danes thus obtained in 862 must have formed a portion of
that captured by King Brian, after his victory, in the year 1000.
And it is clear enough that it was this special treasure that the
chronicler referred to when he spoke of the hoards which the Danes
sought out and discovered "in concealment under ground" and "in the
various solitudes (or secret places) belonging to Feens or to
Fairies."
Ought "Fairies," then, to be identified with the "Feens" and
"Pechts" of history and tradition? We have already seen that, both
in Scotland and in Northumberland, the Pechts are classed with the
Fairies in the popular memory. And from the brief references just
made, one would be disposed at the first glance to say that the two
names applied to one people. But all the people who form the subject
of consideration in these pages belong, even in their most modern
and most modified phases, to the past; and in looking down that long
vista one is often deceived by the "foreshortening" effects of
distance, which seems to unite what is really distinct and separate.
Still, it is evident that "Fairies" have so many points in common
with "Feens" and "Pechts" that they must all, at least, be classed
together.
The Ayrshire term _Fane_, which, according to Dr. Jamieson,[131]
signifies "a fairy," offers itself as very probably a variant of the
Gaelic _Fian_ (pl. _Feinne_). But Brittany affords even a better
instance. There, we are told, the peasantry have memories of a race
of _Fions_, who were dwarfs in stature, and are described as "living
with the fairies."[132] And although we have endeavoured, as far as
possible, to restrict these remarks to the British Islands, and even
to a few special districts, yet the folk-lore of Brittany coincides
so closely with that of the districts just referred to, and is so
corroborative of the theories here stated, that it may be
permissible to quote a few of the Breton beliefs bearing upon this
subject.
Of those whom he states are called the _Christian_ fairies of
Brittany, M. Paul Sébillot gives several particulars.[133] These
so-called "Christian" fairies were, he says, "neither wholly
Christian nor wholly pagan," and in the traditions relating to them
he dimly recognizes their possible identification with the heathen
priestesses[134] of Brittany, at the time when they were gradually
becoming converted to Christianity. They are celebrated, like the
Pechts of Scotland, as the builders of churches. And just as local
tradition states that the Pechts who built the Round Tower of
Abernethy, in the manner already described, accomplished their work
in the course of a single night, so a certain chapel in the
Côtes-du-Nord is said to have been built in one night by the
"fairies." Moreover, in two of the instances referred to by M.
Sébillot, the top stone of the building is or was lacking, for the
reason that the daylight had surprised the builders at their
work.[135] Now, this is precisely what is stated of the Pictish
builders of the Round Tower at Abernethy, who are said to have been
much irritated because an early riser in the village discovered them
at work, and thus deprived the building and its builders of their
claim to a "supernatural" origin.[136] Further, these Breton
"fairies" are spoken of as carrying the stones in their aprons, like
the Picts of Northumberland, the castle-building "genii" of
Yorkshire, and the "witch" who helped to build the Forfarshire fort
of Cater Thun.[137] And, as in the two latter instances, as well as
in several of the others referred to, the stones were carried from
"a great distance" by the Breton fairies, on at least one occasion.
To this Breton comparison one is tempted to add that of the
Netherlands. In referring to the dwarfs who once inhabited the
neighbourhood of Tienen, M. Pol de Mont states that "they were
uncommonly small of stature, but of extraordinarily great
strength"[138]; a statement which is paralleled by "the vulgar
account" in Scotland, "that the Pechs were unco wee bodies, but
terrible strang." And, in the Journal of Folk-lore just quoted from,
the same kind of people are again suggested by the _Gypnissen_;
"queer little women," who lived in a "castle" which had been reared
in a single night, and who, like the Scotch "brownies" (with whom
the Pechts are classed by the Scotch), were content to perform such
everyday drudgery as washing the clothes of the taller race living
near them, for no higher remuneration than their daily food.[139]
The "castle" in which they dwelt is not spoken of as visible at the
present day, but the probability is that it was of the same nature
as the _Aschberg_, near Casterlé, which M. Pol de Mont states[140]
is declared by tradition to be a chambered mound, capable of housing
as many as fifty _bergmannetjes_, or mound-dwarfs (the Dutch term
being equivalent to the Scotch "how-folk" or the English
"hill-men").
Nor can one omit the following testimony from the island of Sylt,
off the Schleswig coast, supplied by Mr. William George Black.
Referring to a story of "Finn, the king of the dwarfs," Mr. Black
explains as follows:--"These were an odd, small, tricky, people whom
the Frisians found in Sylt when they took possession. They lived
underground, wore red caps, and lived on berries and mussels, fish
and birds, and wild eggs. They had stone axes and knives, and made
pots of clay. They sang and danced by moonlight on the mounds of the
plain which were their homes, worked little, were deceitful, and
loved to steal children and pretty women: the children they
exchanged for their own, the women they kept. Those who lived in the
bushes, and later in the Frieslanders' own houses, like our own
brownies, were called 'Pucks,' and a sandy dell near Braderup is
still known as the Pukthal.... They had a language of their own,
which lingers yet in proverbs and children's games. The story of
King Finn's subjects is evidently one of those valuable legends
which illuminate dark pages of history. It clearly bears testimony
to the same small race having inhabited Friesland in times which we
trace in the caves of the Neolithic age, and of which the Esquimaux
are the only survivors." Mr. Black has himself visited one of those
"green mounds" which are said to have been inhabited by this Sylt
"Finn," and he states that when it was first scientifically
examined, in 1868, it was found to contain "remains of a fireplace,
bones of a small man, some clay urns, and stone weapons."[141]
These Continental instances may be regarded as relating rather to
the "Feens of Lochlin" than to those of Ireland and Great Britain.
But one thing quite evident from the foregoing references is that
the "Fians and Fairies" of Ireland, the "Fions, or Feins, and
Fairies" of Brittany, and the similar people in the Netherlands and
in Friesland, were all nearly identical, if they were not quite
identical, with the "preternatural sort of beings" known to Scotch
folk-lore
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