Page:Chronicles of the Picts, chronicles of the Scots, and other early memorials of Scottish history.djvu/105

PREFACE. xcvii is Ciiithnechan who is sent by the sons of Milesius from Ireland to assist the Britons of Fortren against the Saxons, and wrests from the latter the district of Mashcircin, or the Mearns, which he retains as his sword-land (No. v., e.) In another form, they are eighteen soldiers of Thrace, who encounter the Mile- sians in Germany, on their wanderings from Egypt, and accompany them to Ireland, where they are put in possession of Cruithintuaith or Pictavia, in Scotland ; and in one form of this tradition, the Cruithne of Ulster are likewise identified Avith them (Nos. XLii., XLiii.) In all of these traditions it is obvious that they are taken in their wanderings to every part of Europe where the name of Picti or Pictones could be found, and connected with every people who re- sembled them either in name, or of whom the custom of painting the body, by puncturing the skin, which was their peculiar characteristic, is recorded. Of these traditions, some are probably of British origin, some are the traditions of the Picts themselves, and some connected with the Irish fables. It is undoubted that a gTcat part of the population of Ulster, though latterly confined within narrow limits, consisted of a people termed likewise Cruithne, and that there was also a settlement of them in Meath ; and there can be little doubt that they were, in point of fact, the same people. There is even reason to conclude that, down to the beginning of the seventh century, they were so closely connected as to form but one nation. At a time when the