There is one phase of the history of those early centuries, which he who runs may read now, and in which the Highland people are naturally very much interested. It has come distinctly into view as the result of able discussions during the last ten years. The Celtic period of our national history used to receive very scant attention indeed at the hands of the recognised writers on such subjects. Our latest historians have shown a spirit of greater fairness. The first volume of Burton’s “History of Scotland” may be said to be devoted to the Celtic period; and, with the exception of the writer’s evident anxiety to find the paternity of the higher influences of civilisation in Teutonic fields, may be regarded as a fair representation of the events of the centuries described. Even the publication of such a work as Skene’s “Celtic Scotland,” bearing so suggestive a title, is a fact of much significance. A learned if not always discriminating volume, “Celtic Ireland,” by Dr Sophie Bryant, has also just been published. In the fifth and sixth centuries we are confronted with a group of races in north Britain which have formed the subject of bitter and exhaustive controversies. The terms “Pict” and “Scot” are the chief monuments of this fierce warfare. No one can pretend to say now who the races are of whom these terms are the exponents. They were bestowed on the people by outsiders, and are quite unknown in the native literature of the country. It is highly probable that they indicate personal characteristics such as dress rather than race. The clans or tribes to whom they were applied have been found all over north Britain and the north of Ireland at different times. To translate them into native terms will only make the confusion already existing more hopeless. To render _Pict_ by “Cruthnec” would be as inaccurate as to render _Scot_ by “Gàidheal.” The most helpful way in which we can arrive at a fairly satisfactory conclusion at present is to take a brief survey of the various races from a Gaelic standpoint; keeping the main results of ethnological inquiry before our minds. From this position the use of the terms “Pict” and “Scot” must be altogether discarded. Let us examine the terms which the Gaelic language supplies:—