dlutha agus ag dealughadh na da fhearan sin." Which means in English—" Cæsar came with some entire legions of the ruthless youths of Italy into the rough land of Gaul, and the wide and long country of Lochlin. For these two are one and the same country, but for the interposition of the clear current of the Rhine, which divides and sunders the two lands.”—(H.S. Report on Ossian's Poems, p. 309.)

The Irish made a distinction between the Danes and Norwegians. The Danes, from their fair hair and complexion, they called Fionghaill, and the Norwegians, from their dark hair and complexion, they termed Dubhghaill.

The commencement of the confusion about the appearance of the Danes and Norwegians can be traced to the Irish seanachies of the seventeenth century. The editor of the "Annals of the Four Masters" says: "A distinction was made by the Irish between the Danes and Norwegians from the colour of their hair and complexion-the Danes, according to Duald MacFirbis and others, being denominated Dubh-Lochlainaigh, signifying Black-lake-landers, being chiefly dark haired; and the Norwegians Fionn-Lochlannaigh or White-lake-landers, being mostly of a fair complexion, with fair or reddish hair."-(F.M. 460, f.n.) MacFirbis, shortly before his death (he was killed in 1670), had been employed by Sir James Ware in collecting and translating Irish MSS. This accounts for Sir James propagating this mistake. On this point he says "Some divide the men of the North and East into Normans and Ostmen, Dubhgalls and Fionngalls. The Dubhgalls, or black foreigners, means Danes, and the Fionngalls, or white foreigners, the Norwegians."—(Ware's Antiq. of Ireland, CVI., p. 19.)

The Seanachies' mistakes have been perpetuated by Skene in his "History of the Highlanders," and by Brown in his "Highland Clans." Pinkerton, on the other hand, reverses the idea, but accounts for the distinction in a new way. He says-" In

the old Irish writers, as 'Tighernac' and the Annals of Ulster,' &c., Fingal, or white strangers, is a name uniformly given to the Danes, as Dugal, or black stranger, is the peculiar name of the Norwegians." He gives the cause of distinction by saying "Mr. Thorkelin, a learned native of Iceland, informs me that the old dress of the Norwegians, and especially of the pirates and mariners, was black, as the Icelander's is at this day, and has always been.”—(Enq., Vol. II., p. 74.) The new idea about the black dress has been adopted by Donald Gregory in his "Western Highlands and Islands," and by Robertson in his "Scotland under her Early Kings." It is surprising it did not occur to Pinkerton and his followers that the doings of the Dugals and the Fingals were a matter of history in Ireland many years before Iceland had been inhabited. We learn that Iceland had only been discovered about the year 860, and colonised in the year 874.-(M'Kenzie's Travels in Iceland, Edin., 1811.) These fanciful opinions are never at an end. In referring to this, John Hill Burton says: "We find in the Celtic Annals that these unwelcome visitors are first called White Strangers (Fingalls), and afterwards Black Strangers (Dugalls). former term, no doubt, applied to the fairness of their complexion and hair. This was conspicuous wherever they went. Its possession in this purity was indeed a mark of proper caste. The other term (Black Strangers) must have had a casual origin. These dreaded visitors stood under scandal with the polished Celt and Saxons of being careless in their ablutions and apt to carry with them a tarry atmosphere. The trowsers besmeared with tar were among the reproaches thrown on the great Regnar Lodbroic himself and his refined captives. Perhaps, however, the attribute of black may have had a more dignified origin. The Norsemen were the earliest people in modern Europe to encase the body in iron armour. At how early a period they may have done so is not known. Its form was chain-linked or ring-mail,

The

and such a covering would always be dark; even were the wearers as zealous for appearance as their descendants of crusading times, they could not burnish their chain armour."-(Hist. of Scot., Vol. I., pp. 345–6.)

The Norsemen or Norwegians mentioned in the Irish Annals from 793 till about 850 are invariably termed Galls and Genntib, but from the arrival of the Danes or Finngalls, about the latter date, till about 920, the two nations are distinguished by the terms Dubhghalls or Norwegians, Fionngalls or Danes. This distinction seems to have been given up about the latter date, as the term Gall is simply used, and in later times Dugal and Fingal were adopted as proper names.

If we descend to our own times it is patent to all who have visited Norway, that the genuine natives of that country along the sea coast, from the Nase to Lapland, and also of the island of Iceland, are as swarthy and dark haired as the natives of the West of Scotland; but on the other hand, along the shores of Denmark and Sweden the inhabitants invariably have fair or reddish hair, with sallow or florid complexion. This distinction does not arise from a difference of race, as many foolishly imagine, but from natural causes, which can be easily accounted for, viz.: From soil, climate, and the effects of the gulf stream. It is a well-known fact that the great body of tepid water called the Gulf Stream flows from the tropics northwards, past the west of Britain and Ireland, and along the coast of Norway, keeping all the lochs and fiords free of ice during winter. The warm vapours arising out of it are either attracted by the mountains, or driven towards them by the south or west winds which prevail during the greater part of the year. The air on the land being much colder than on the sea, particularly during the fall of the year, causes the vapours to descend in superabundance of rain, so as to darken the air and charge the soil like a soaked sponge. The late Dr. Livingstone observes that

warm moisture darkens the colour of Africans.

He says: "Heat alone does not cause blackness, but heat and moisture combined do materially darken the colour. Where we find people who have lived for ages in a humid district, they are deep black." (Travels in Africa, ch. xviii. p. 338: London, 1857.)

On the other hand, the effect of the Gulf Stream is not felt in Denmark. It never enters the German Ocean nor the Baltic Sea. During winter the Baltic Sea is frozen up, and also the bays and rivers south of it on the coast of Denmark. The rainfall in summer is much less there than on the coast of Norway, and what does fall is instantly absorbed by the sandy soil which prevails everywhere.

We thus see that the Norwegians or Dubhghalls dwell in an exceedingly damp climate, and that the Danes or Finngalls are situated in one the reverse of that. The soil of Denmark being sandy imparts its sallow tinge to the complexion of its inhabitants, and the bleaching effects of the sun on the human hair is well known. We often see in this country the hair of children, and even of adults, who go about bareheaded in summer getting like half-bleached flax and remaining so until the duskiness of winter restores it to its wonted colour. But the bleaching process of the hair goes on all the year round in Denmark. The dry summers and frosty winters of that country do not effect a corresponding change on the hair and complexion, as on the west coast, which is subject to the Gulf Stream. The same remarks are applicable to the distinction of Tacitus, which has been retailed threadbare, viz., "That the fair or red hair of the Caledonians betokened a German extraction, while the dark hair and complexion of the Silures indicated a Spanish origin." The same natural causes, to a certain extent, operated on the appearance of the Caledonians and Silures which they did on the Finngalls and Dubhgalls. The Silures who inhabited the mountains of South Wales were subject to the darkening effects of the Gulf

Stream, whereas the Caledonians, with whom Agricola came in contact, were situated along the German Ocean, where the Gulf Stream is not felt. The climate there being comparatively dry, and the soil being generally sandy or of red clay, gave its tinge of colour to the hair and complexion of the inhabitants.

In a word, there is no proof whatever that the Germans found a footing on the East of Scotland, where Tacitus says there is a resemblance between them and the Caledonians. But on the other hand, we have positive proof that the Hebrides were occupied and ruled by the Norwegians for upwards of four hundred years (793-1263), where they have left many traces of their history and language. If the Norwegians were the fairhaired, light-complexioned people alleged, there would be more traces of their appearance and deeds in the Western Islands than anywhere else in Scotland; but strange to say our would-be philosophers find there only the last wave of the Celtic racethe degenerate, swarthy, black-haired Gael, pure and simple.

What an amount of sheer nonsense and vicious deductions have resulted from the writings on Races by such men as Pinkerton and M'Culloch-idle speculations which were recently adopted as ascertained facts by Johnston in his Physical Geography. With this necessary digression on the names, possessions and distinctive appearances of the Danes and Norwegians, I shall now resume the subject by dividing the narrative into three sections.

Section First traces the movements of these nations from their first appearance on the Western Coast in 793 till their invasion of Cowal in 918.

Section Second discusses the place of battle, the era in which it occurred, and the mistake of putting persons for places.

Section Third submits local evidence-both the local tradition and landmarks of these engagements-which corroborates the Irish Annals.