Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time; or, The Jarls and The FreskynsGray, James
History
Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time; or, The Jarls and The Freskyns
Gray, James
Caithness (Scotland) -- History; Freskin family; Sutherland (Scotland) -- History
After long continued raids, the Vikings no doubt saw that much of the
land along the shore was fair and fertile compared with their own, and
finally they came not merely to plunder and depart, but to settle and
stay. When they did so, they came in large numbers and with organised
forces[13] and carefully prepared plans of campaign, and with great
reserves of weapons on board their ships; and having the ocean as
their highway, they could select their points of attack. They then, as
we know from the localities which bear their place-names, cleared out
the Pict from most of his brochs and from the best land in Cat, shown
on the map by dark green colour, that is, from all cultivated land
below the 500 feet level save the upper parts of the valleys; or they
slew or enslaved the Pict who remained. Lastly, on settling, they
would seize his women-kind and wed them; for the women of their own
race were not allowed on Viking ships, and were probably less amenable
and less charming to boot. But the Pictish women thus seized had their
revenge. The darker race prevailed, and, the supply of fathers of
pure Norse blood being renewed only at intervals, the children of
such unions soon came to be mainly of Celtic strain, and their mothers
doubtless taught them to speak the Gaelic, which had then for at least
a century superseded the Pictish tongue. The result was a mixed race
of Gall-gaels or Gaelic strangers, far more Celtic than Norse, who
soon spoke chiefly Gaelic, save in north-east Ness. Their Gaelic, too,
like the English of Shetland at the present time, would not only be
full of old Norse words, especially for things relating to the sea,
but be spoken with a slight foreign accent. How numerous those foreign
words still are in Sutherland Gaelic, the late Mr. George Henderson
has ably and elaborately proved in his scholarly book on "Norse
Influence on Celtic Scotland." We find traces of Norse words and the
Norse accent and inflexions also on the Moray seaboard, on which
the Norse gained a hold. The same would be true of the people on the
western lands and islands of the Hebrides.
As time went on, the Gaelic strain predominated more and more,
especially on the mainland of Scotland, over the Gall, or foreign,
strain, which was not maintained. Mr. A.W. Johnston, in his "_Orkney
and Shetland Folk--850 to 1350_,"[14] has worked out the quarterings
of the Norse jarls, of whom only the first three were pure Norsemen,
and he has thus shown conclusively how very Celtic they had become
long before their male line failed. The same process was at work,
probably to a greater extent, among those of lower rank, who could
not find or import Norse wives, if they would, as the jarls frequently
did.
One or two other introductory points remain to be noted and borne in
mind throughout.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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