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

114 PHGINICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

this people, the name “ Pict’’ has tended to become mythical ; and the Picts are described in medieval and later folklore as malicious fairy dwarf folk, pigmies, pixies, fauns and elves; and significantiy they are associated with the Irish fairies, the Fians, or Bans.

We are thus confronted by the questions: ‘‘ Where did the Picts come from so suddenly ? ”’ and ‘‘ Whither did they disappear just as suddenly? ’’ Their sudden mysterious appearance and disappearance under the circumstances above noted suggested to me that both events were probably owing to a mere change in their tribal name as aborigines. And so it seems to prove.

“ Pict’ is an epithet, presumably a contemptuous nickname, applied to these people by outsiders, and never seems to have been used by these people themselves. It thus appears to be analogous to the terms ““ Greek’ and “‘ German” applied by the Romans to those two nations who never called themselves by these names. The term “ Pict ’’ appears to have been consciously used by the Romans (who are found to be the first users of it) in the sense of “ painted ’’ (fictits) with reference to the custom of these people to stain their skin blue with woad dye. In Scottish these people are called Peft,1 in Anglo-Saxon Pihta, Pehta or Peohta,* and in Norse Pett:* and the Welsh bard Taliessin calls them Peith. These Norse and other forms, it will be noticed, contain no c, and are perhaps cognate with our English “ petty,” Welsh pitiw, and French fetit, “ small,” to designate these people as dwarfish. And significantly it is seen from the map on p. 19 that the numerous Pictish villages in the neighbourhood of the Newton Stone and in the Don Valley, as similarly many towns over Britain generally, bear the prefix “ Pit” or “ Pet,” presumably in the sense of Pict or the Anglo-Saxon ‘‘ Pihta”’ or Scottish “ Peht,” to distinguish these native villages from the settlements of the Aryan rulers in the neighbourhood called ‘‘ Cattie,”’ ‘* Cot-town,”’ “Seati-ton,” “ Bourtie,” &c. (See map).

1 J.S.D., 389, where also Pechty, Peaght and Pegh.

? B.A.S., 182. ‘ Peohta ”’ is form used by King Alfred in his translation

of Bede’s ** Picti.”’ * See below.