_The Dalriad Conquest may or may not have been real. Being real, it may or may not have given origin to the Gaelic population of Scotland._ This means that Beda's evidence, being exceptionable, may be wholly false--except so far as it is an inference from the existence of Gaels in both Ireland and the Western Highlands. Even if true as to the fact, its ethnological importance may be over-valued, since the investigation of the origin of the Scotch Gaels inquires, not whether any Irish Scots ever appropriated any part of Scotland, but whether such an appropriation were the one which accounts for the Gaelic population of North Britain. This is the difference between _a_ conquest and _the_ conquest--a difference too often overlooked. I should not like to say that the Picts were not Scandinavians, a point which will be treated more fully in the thirteenth chapter. Hence-- XI. _Scandinavian settlements may have taken place as early as the earliest notices of the Picts._ In this case the lines would be--Norway, North Scotland, the Hebrides, Ireland and Galloway. XII. _Germanic elements existed in Britain in the reign of Diocletian._ The notices of the Franks in Kent and Middlesex suggest this. (_See_ p. 96.) XIII. _The Littus Saxonicum must have been ravaged by Germans as early as the reign of Honorius._ This must be admitted even if we construe _Saxonicum_ as _ravaged by Saxons_, rather than _occupied by Saxons_--a construction which is so little natural, that I doubt whether it would ever have been resorted to if the language of Gildas had not been supposed to preclude the notion of any Saxon invasion anterior to A.D. 449. We have seen, however, how little that writer was in the position to make a negative statement, _i.e._, to state, not only that Hengist and Horsa came over in a given year, but that none of their countrymen ever did so in a previous one. XIV. _No distinction need be drawn between the Angles and the Saxons of Great Britain on the strength of the difference of name._ This, however, by no means implies that they are to be identified. It merely means that the name goes for but little; and that the difference of origin between the different portions of the Germanic population of Britain is to be determined by the facts of each particular case. FOOTNOTES: [23] Chapter vii. [24] Here is one out of the thousand-and-one inconveniences arising from our present philological nomenclature. I am _contrasting_ two languages with each other: yet their _names_ are as like as _Gallic_ and _Gaelic_. [25] _Sabine_--Sive quod hasta _quiris_ priscis est dicta Sabinis.--_Ovid._