Reeves’s _Adamnan_, ed. 1874, p. 12. The author cannot identify the battle of Leithrig, but Adamnan tells us that Artur and Eochoid Find, two of Aidan’s sons, were killed in the battle of the Miathi, which identifies it with the battle of Chirchind, fought in 596. This was the last year of St. Columba’s life. It is difficult to fix the locality of this battle. Circinn was a name applied to the district of which Maghgirginn or Mearns, now Kincardineshire, was a part, but Aidan could hardly have penetrated so far east. Dr. Reeves thinks it may have been at the place now called Kirkintulloch. The term ‘Barbari’ is applied by Adamnan both to Picts and Saxons, but the name Miathi seems to belong to the Picts. The same war may have embraced Saxons also, as Domangart, slain the same year, perished, according to Adamnan, in battle ‘in Saxonia.’ Footnote 183: Bede, _Hist. Ecc._ B. i. c. xxxiv. Tighernac has, in 600, ‘Cath Saxonum la h-Aedain ubi cecidit Eanfraith frater Etalfraich la Maeluma me Baedain in quo victor erat.’ The Irish annalist ignores Aidan’s defeat, and fixes upon Maeluma’s success in cutting off Theobald with his troops. By some it has been supposed that Dalstone in Cumberland was the scene of this battle; but while the word Degsastane passes naturally into Dawstone, it never could have formed Dalstone. CHAPTER IV. ETHNOLOGY OF BRITAIN. [Sidenote: Inquiry into Ethnology of Britain proper at this stage.] Having thus given the traditionary history of that dark interval which intervened between the departure of the Romans from the island of Britain in the beginning of the fifth century, and the period when we become once more acquainted with its history in the latter part of the sixth century, and find the barbarian tribes who had assailed the Roman province now settled in the form of kingdoms with definite limits; and having endeavoured to extricate from it a chronological narrative of events based on historic truth, we may pause here to make some inquiry into the ethnology of the races composing these kingdoms. The traditionary writers describe the whole of these four nations—the Britons, Picts, Scots, and Saxons—as having been colonies of foreign races who came into Britain at different periods; and, in a sense, this is true of all of them, though the immigration of the first two took place at a very remote period, and long before we have any historical record connected with the inhabitants of the island. Archæology, however, enables us to trace the previous existence of a people of a different race, indications of which are to be found to a limited extent in the earlier notices of Britain and in its topography. [Sidenote: An Iberian or Basque people preceded the Celtic race in Britain and Ireland.]