In those times, the ordinary Latin name for the people of Ireland was Scotti, Scots. It is the name used for them by Orosius, and also by St. Patrick, and it was accepted by all the early Irish writers who wrote in Latin. But this name Scotti does not appear in Latin before the fourth century and gave no direct clue to trace the origin of the Gaels. In the historical and geographical Latin writings to hand, the people's name that most nearly resembled Scotti was Scythi, Scythians. Accordingly, we are told that the Gaelic people were of Scythian origin. There was an independent and evidently earlier effort to account for their origin in a precisely similar way. The man of learning who undertook this effort fastened his attention not on the name Scotti but on the older Latin name Hiberni, and searched his Latin authorities for a corresponding name of some ancient people. He found that there was an ancient people in the region of the Caucasus mountains who bore the name Iberi, and we have the result in an old tract quoted in the Book of Lecan: "Question: what is the true origin of the Sons of Mil [_i.e._ the Gaels]? Answer: A race there is in the mountains of Armenia, Hiberi they are named. They had a famous king, Mil, son of Bile, son of Nem. He was contesting the kingship with his father's brother, Refellair son of Nem, and he went into exile with the manning of four barks, and twelve married couples to each bark, and a soldier over and above without wife...." And so the story goes on until the descendants of these Iberi come to Ireland. It is not unlikely that this account was known to Saint Columbanus of Bobbio. In letters written about the year 600, he speaks of his own people not as Scotti or Hiberni, but as Iberi. The two accounts appear to have been blended together by making the Scythians, before they reached Ireland, sojourn for a time in Spain, the country of the western Iberi. This gave a satisfactory explanation of both names, Hiberni and Scotti.