VIII, ll. 866-8).]
CHAPTER I
RACIAL DISTRIBUTION AND FEUDAL RELATIONS
_c._ 500-1066 A.D.
Since the beginning of the eighteenth century, it has been customary to
speak of the Scottish Highlanders as "Celts". The name is singularly
inappropriate. The word "Celt" was used by Caesar to describe the peoples
of Middle Gaul, and it thence became almost synonymous with "Gallic".
The ancient inhabitants of Gaul were far from being closely akin to the
ancient inhabitants of Scotland, although they belong to the same
general family. The latter were Picts and Goidels; the former, Brythons
or Britons, of the same race as those who settled in England and were
driven by the Saxon conquerors into Wales, as their kinsmen were driven
into Brittany by successive conquests of Gaul. In the south of Scotland,
Goidels and Brythons must at one period have met; but the result of the
meeting was to drive the Goidels into the Highlands, where the Goidelic
or Gaelic form of speech still remains different from the Welsh of the
descendants of the Britons. Thus the only reason for calling the
Scottish Highlanders "Celts" is that Caesar used that name to describe a
race cognate with another race from which the Highlanders ought to be
carefully distinguished. In none of our ancient records is the term
"Celt" ever employed to describe the Highlanders of Scotland. They never
called themselves Celtic; their neighbours never gave them such a name;
nor would the term have possessed any significance, as applied to them,
before the eighteenth century.
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