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

116 PHGENICIAN ORIGIN OF BRITONS & SCOTS

“tattoo” ?). Yet curiously he is made to call the blue dye used for this purpose “ Vitro,’ a word which is interpreted as “Woad"’ by classic scholars solely in translating this passage, though elsewhere in Latin it invariably means “slass.”"1 This suggests that there is some corruption in the copies of Czesar’s manuscript here; and that “‘ Vitro” of the text may perhaps have been intended by Cesar for the Gothic “ Vitr’”’ title for the “ Blue-legged ” dwarfs or the “ Picts.”

Another early form of this nickname of “ Pict’ for the aborigines of Alban appears to me to be found in the title of “TIctis,’? applied by the early Ionian navigator Pytheas to the tin-port of Britain, a name identified also by some with the Isle of Wight. This tradition is confirmed by the name given to the Channel in the Pict Chronicles in describing the arrival in Alban of the Britons under Brutus, where the English Channel is called “ The Sea of Icht.’’* This presumes that South Britain was possibly then named after its aborigines of those days, the Vichts, Ichts or Picts ; just as at the other extremity we have the “ Pentland Firth,’ which was earlier known to the Norse as the “ Pett-land Fiord’’: or “ Firth of the Petts (or Picts),”’ from its bounding ‘‘ The Land of the Picts.’ Indeed, the Danish writer of the twelfth century, Saxo Grammaticus, calls Scotland ‘‘ Petia’’ or ‘‘ Land of the Picts.” This would now explain the statement of the Roman historian that a nation of the Picts in Britain was called “‘ The Vect-uriones.”’®

The proper name for the “ Picts,” as used presumably by themselves in early times, was, I think, from a review of all the new available evidence, the title “‘ Khal-dis’’ or Khal-tis,

1 Moreover, the scientific name of the Woad plant is “ Jsatis tinctoria.” and not Vitrum.

2“ Tktis’”? is the form of the name preserved by Diodorus Siculus (Bibl. Hist. v., 22) ; and it has been identified with the ‘‘ Vectis ’’ of Pliny, who, however, places it between South Britain and Ireland, whilst he confounds ‘‘ Ictis’’ as ‘‘ Mictis’’ apparently with Thule. For discussion on Ictis v. Vectis and ‘“ Mictis,’”’ see H.A.B., 499, etc. The initial V often tends to be lost or become merged with its following vowel in Greek, see later, so that ‘ Iectis’’ may represent an earlier Vectis.

1'SiGuD) 57- ‘See Edda V-P., 2, 082.>

’ Ammianus Marcellinus, 27, viil., 5.