The Phœnician origin of Britons, Scots & Anglo-Saxons : discovered by Phœnician & Sumerian inscriptions in Britain, by preroman Briton coins & a mass of new history : with over one hundred illustrations and maps

VANS, VENDS AND FINS IN ANCIENT BRITAIN 97

“ Went,’ was a title for the whole of Wales.!. And the “ Guenedota ” or “ Uenedota’”’ of Ptolemy appears to be Cumbria.

In North Britain also, in Roman times, were many stations at pre-Roman towns bearing the prefix Vinda or Vindo, of which two were at the Tyne end of Hadrian's Wall, which is sometimes called locally ‘‘ The Picts’ Dyke,” namely at Vindo-bala in the line of the wall, and Vindo-mora to its south and not far from the earth-works called ‘“ Early Briton settlements” in Northumbria. In Ptolemy’s map, which from its practical accuracy remained the old navigating map up till about the fifteenth century, are several important Ban, Vin or Fin towns and peoples which have since lost that title. Thus inland from the Solway, a chief town of the Selgove (who, we have seen, were the “‘ Siliks ” or “‘ Cilician Britons ’’) was named ‘‘ Bantorigon ” (with the prefix Kar, i.e. Caer=‘‘fort”’). In the Frith of Clyde, or ‘‘ Clota’’ of Ptolemy's map, Vindogara appears to have been the ancient name of Ayr or Ardrossan ; and Vanduara was the name of Paisley, where the old local name for the Cart River on which it stands was Wendur (or Gwyndwr).? Banatia was the chief town inland between the Clyde and Fife, and there are more than one Vinnovion. In modern times, besides the survival of several Ban-tons, Findon or Findhorn, several bays called Fintry, Loch Fin or Fyne, are the Pent-land Hills in the Lothians, centring at Pennicuick, and on the extreme north the“ Pent-land Frith.”’]

These latter facts suggest that the whole of North Britain, from at least the Lothians to Caithness, if not the whole of Britain, had formerly been known as “ The Land of the Pents, Venets, Bans, Fins or Vans.’’ Indeed, as we shall see later, the old name for Ancient Britain as “ Al-Ban ” means probably ‘‘ The Rocky Isle of the Van or Ban.”

The ‘‘ Finn-men”’ pygmies also, in their skin-boats, of Orkney and Shetland tradition and legend, who were the Peti (or “ Picts”’) dwarfs whom Harold Fair-hair is said to have exterminated in Shetland, and who, according to local tradition, were the ancestors of the small dark element in the Shetland population,* were obviously, I think, of this same prehistoric dwarf matriarchist race of Van or Fen, of whom Cesair in the later Stone Age led a horde from Alban into Bantry Bay and first peopled Ireland.

1 R.H.L. 499, where ‘‘ Nether Gwent "’ is used for South Wales, and pre-

supposes an ‘‘ Upper Gwent’ for North Wales. 2M.LS. 197, 326. =M.1S:, 140.