Archaeological Essays Part 10

It is unnecessary to stop and comment on the unsoundness of this reasoning, and the improbability--both as to the initial and terminal letters--of the surname VETTA in this Latin inscription being similar to the Pictish surname Geth or GETUS, as Lhwyd himself gives and writes it in its Latin form. Among the lists of the Pictish kings, whilst we have several names beginning with G, we have some also commencing in the Latinised forms of the Chronicles with V, as Vist, Vere, Vipoignamet, etc.

But a much more important objection exists against the conjecture of Mr.

Lhwyd, in the fact that his memory had altogether misled him as to there having been "three" Pictish kings of the name of "Getus," or "divers kings of the Picts of the names of Geth or Gweth," to use the words employed in the _Philosophical Transactions_.

Lists, more or less complete, of the Pictish kings have been found in the Histories of Fordun and Winton, in the pages of the Scalacronica and Chronicles of Tighernach, in the Irish copy of Nennius, in the extracts published by Sir Robert Sibbald and Father Innes from the lost Register of St. Andrews, and in the old Chronic.u.m Regum Pictorum, supposed to be written about A.D. 1020, and preserved in the Colbertine Library.

None of these lists include a Pictish king of the name of Getus, Geat, or Gweth. Some of the authorities--as the Register of St. Andrews, Fordun, and Winton--enter as the second king of the Picts Ghede or Gede, the Gilgidi of the _Chronic.u.m Regum Pictorum_; and this latter chronicle contains in its more mythical and earlier part the appellations Got, Gedeol, Guidid, and Brude-Guith; but none of these surnames sufficiently correspond either to Mr. Lhwyd's statement or to the requirements of the inscription.

But whilst thus setting aside the conjectures as to the Cat-stane commemorating the name of a Scottish King Constantine, or of a Pictish King Geth, I would further remark that the surname in the inscription, namely--VETTA FILIUS VICTI--is one which appears to me to be capable of another and a more probable solution. With this view let us proceed then to inquire who was

VETTA, _the son_ of VICTUS?

And _first_, I would beg to remark, that the word Vetta is still too distinct upon the Cat-stane to allow of any doubt as to the mere name of the person commemorated in the inscription upon it.

_Secondly_, The name of Vetta, or, to spell the word in its more common Saxon forms, Wetta or Witta, is a Teutonic surname. To speak more definitely, it pertains to the cla.s.s of surnames which characterised these so-called Saxon or Anglo-Saxon invaders of our island, and allied Germanic tribes, who overran Britain upon the decline of the Roman dominion amongst us.

Bede speaks, as is well known, of our original Teutonic conquerors in the fifth century as coming from three powerful tribes of Germany; namely, the Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. "Advenerant autem de tribus Germaniae populis fortioribus, id est, Saxonibus, Anglis, Jutis" (lib. i.

c. 20).[161] Ubo Emmius, in his _History of the Frisians_, maintains that "more colonies from Friesland than Saxony, settled in Briton, whether under the names of Jutes, or of Angles, or later of the Saxons."[162] Procopius, who lived nearly two centuries before Bede, and had access to good means of information from being the secretary of the Emperor Belisarius, states that at the time of his writing (about A.D.

548) three numerous nations possessed Britain, the Angles and Frisians ([Greek: Angeloi te kai phrissones]), and those surnamed, from the Island, Brittones.[163] Modern Friesland seems to have yielded a considerable number of our Teutonic invaders and colonists; and it is in that isolated country that we find, at all events, the characteristics and language of our Teutonic forefathers best preserved. In his _History of England during the Anglo-Saxon Period_, the late Sir Francis Palgrave remarks, "The tribes by whom Britain was invaded, appear princ.i.p.ally to have proceeded from the country now called Friesland. Of all the continental dialects (he adds), the ancient Frisick is the one which approaches most nearly to the Anglo-Saxon of our ancestors."[164] "The nearest approach," according to Dr. Latham, "to our genuine and typical German or Anglo-Saxon forefathers, is not to be found within the four seas of Britain, but in the present Frisian or Friesland."[165] At present, about one hundred thousand inhabitants of Friesland speak the ancient or Country-Friesic, a language unintelligible to the surrounding Dutch, but which remains still nearly allied to the old Anglo-Saxon of England. Some even of their modern surnames are repet.i.tions of the most ancient Anglo-Saxon surnames in our island, and, among others, still include that of Vetta or Witta; thus showing its Teutonic origin. In discussing the great a.n.a.logies between ancient Anglo-Saxon and modern Friesic, Dr. Bosworth, the learned Professor of Anglo-Saxon Literature at Oxford, incidentally remarks, "I cannot omit to mention that the leaders of the Anglo-Saxons bear names which are now in use by the Friesians, though by time a little altered or abbreviated. They have Horste, Hengst, WITTE, Wiggele, etc., for the Anglo-Saxon Horsa, Hengist, WITTA, Wightgil, etc."[166]

But Witta or Vetta was not a common name among our more leading Anglo-Saxon forefathers. Among the many historical surnames occurring in ancient Saxon annals and English chronicles, the name of Vetta, as far as I know, only occurs twice or thrice.

I. It is to be found in the ancient Saxon poem of _The Scop_, or _Traveller's Tale_, where, among a list of numerous kings and warriors, Vetta or Witta is mentioned as having ruled the Swaefs--

"Witta weold Swaefum."[167]

The Swaefs or Suevi were originally, as we know from cla.s.sical writers, a German tribe, or confederacy of tribes, located eastward of the old Angles; and Ptolemy indeed includes these Angles as a branch of the Suevi. But possibly the Swaefs ruled by Wittan, and mentioned in _The Scop_ in the preceding line, and in others (see lines 89 and 123), were a colony from this tribe settled in England.

II. In the list of the ancient Anglo-Saxon Bishops of Lichfield, given by Florence of Worcester, the name "Huita" occurs as tenth on the roll.[168] Under the year 737, Simeon of Durham enters the consecration of this bishop, spelling his name as Hweicca and Hweitta.[169] In a note appended to Florence's Chronicle, under the year 775, his death is recorded, and his name given as Witta.[170]

III. The name Vetta occupies a constant and conspicuous place in the lineage of Hengist and Horsa, as given by Bede, Nennius, the Saxon Chronicle, etc. In the list of their pedigree, Vetta or Witta is always represented as the grandfather of the Teutonic brothers.

The inscription on the Cat-stane further affords, however, a most important _additional element_ or criterion for ascertaining the particular Vetta in memory of whom it was raised; for it records the name of his father, Victus or Victa. And in relation to the present inquiry, it is alike interesting and important to find that in the genealogy given by our ancient chronicles of the predecessors of Hengist and Horsa, whilst Vetta is recorded as their grandfather, Victi or Wecta is, with equal constancy, represented as their great-grandfather. The old lapidary writing on the Cat-stane describes the Vetta for whom that monument was raised as the son of Vecta; and the old parchment and paper writings of our earliest chroniclers invariably describe the same relationship between the Vetta and Victa of the forefathers of Hengist and Horsa. Thus Bede, when describing the invasion of England by the German tribes in the time of Vortigern, states that their "leaders were two brothers, Hengist and Horsa, who were the sons of Victgils, whose father was Vitta, whose father was Vecta, whose father was Woden, from whose stock the royal race of many provinces deduces its origin," "Erant autem filii Victgilsi, cujus pater Vitta, cujus pater Vecta, cujus pater Voden, de cujus stirpe multarum provinciarum regum genus originem duxit."[171] In accordance with a common peculiarity in his orthography of proper names, and owing also, perhaps, to the character of the Northumbrian dialect of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, Bede spells the preceding and other similar surnames with an initial V, while by most other Anglo-Saxon chroniclers, and in most other Anglo-Saxon dialects, the surnames are made to commence with a W. Thus, the Vilfrid, Valchstod, Venta, etc., of Bede,[172] form the Wilfrid, Walchstod, Wenta (Winchester), etc., of other Saxon writers. In this respect Bede adheres so far to the cla.s.sic Roman standard in the spelling of proper names.

Thus, for example, the Isle of Wight, which was written as Wecta by the Saxons, is the Vecta and Vectis of Ptolemy and Eutropius, and the Vecta also of Bede; and the name Venta, just now referred to as spelled so by Bede, is also the old Roman form of spelling that word, as seen in the _Itinerary_ of Antonine.

The _Saxon Chronicle_ gives the details of the first advent of the Saxons under Hengist and Horsa in so nearly the same words as the _Historia Ecclesiastica_, as to leave no doubt that this, like many other pa.s.sages in the earlier parts of the _Saxon Chronicle_, were mere translations of the statements of Bede. But most copies of the _Saxon Chronicle_ were written in the dialect of the West Saxons, and, consequently, under A.D. 449, they commence the surnames in the pedigree of our Saxon invaders with a W,--as Wightgils, Witta, Wecta, etc.; telling us that Hengist and Horsa, "waeron Wihtgilses suna, Wihtgils waes Witting, Witta Wecting, Wecta Wodning," etc.

Ethelwerd, an Anglo-Saxon n.o.bleman, who himself claimed to be a descendant of the royal stock of Woden, has left us a Latin history or Chronicle, "nearly the whole of which is an abridged translation of the _Saxon Chronicle_, with a few trivial alterations and additions."[173]

In retranslating back into Latin, the Anglo-Saxon names in the genealogy of Hengist and Horsa, he makes the Wecta of the _Saxon Chronicle_ end with an R,--a matter princ.i.p.ally of interest because, as we have already seen, some have supposed the corresponding name in the Cat-stane to terminate with an R. Speaking of Hengist as leader of the Angles[174]

Ethelwerd describes his pedigree thus:--"Cujus pater fuit Wihtgels avus Wicta; proavus WITHER, atavus Wothen," etc. In a previous page,[175] the same author tells us that "Hengest et Horsa filii Uuyrhtelsi, avus eorum Uuicta, et proavus eorum Uuithar, atavus eorum Uuothen, qui est rex mult.i.tudinis barbarorum."

In the preceding paragraphs we find the same authors, or at least the scribes who copied their writings, spelling the same names in very diverse ways. All know how very various, and sometimes almost endless, is the orthography of proper nouns and names among our ancient chroniclers, and among our mediaeval writers and clerks also. Thus Lord Lindsay, in his admirable _Lives of the Lindsays_, gives examples of above a hundred different ways in which he has found his own family name spelled. In the _Historia Britonum_, usually attributed to Nennius, the pedigree of the Saxon invaders of Kent is given at greater length than by Bede; for it is traced back four or five generations beyond Woden[176] up to Geat, and the spelling of the four races from Woden to Hengist and Horsa is varied according to the Celtic standard of orthography, as cited already from Edward Lhwyd--namely, the Latin and Saxon initials V and W are changed to the Cymric or British G, or GU. In the same way, the Isle of Wight, "Vecta" or "Wecta," is spelled in Nennius "Guith" and "Guied;" Venta (Winchester) is written Guincestra; Vortigernus, Guorthigernus; Wuffa, king of the east Angles, Guffa; etc.

etc. In only one, as far as I am aware, of the old ma.n.u.script copies of the _Historia Britonum_, is the pedigree of Hengist and Horsa spelled as it is by Bede and all the Saxon writers, with an initial V or W, as Wictgils, Witta, Wecta, and Woden. This copy belongs to the Royal Library in Paris, and the orthography alone sufficiently determines it to have been made by an Anglo-Saxon scribe or editor. Of some twenty-five or thirty other known ma.n.u.scripts of the same work, most, if not all, spell the ancestors of Hengist with the initial Keltic GU,--as "Guictgils, Guitta, Guechta"--one, among other arguments, for the belief that the original and most ancient part of this composite _Historia_ was penned, if not, as a.s.serted in many of the copies, by Gildas, a Strathclyde Briton, at least by a British or Cymric hand. The account given in the work of the arrival of the Saxons is as follows:--"Interea venerunt tres ciulae a Germania expulsae in exilio, in quibus erant Hors et Hengist, qui et ipsi fratres erant, filii Guictgils, filii Guitta, filii Guechta, filii Vuoden, filii Frealaf, filii Fredulf, filii Finn, filii Folcwald, filii Geta, qui fuit, aiunt filius Dei. Non ipse est Deus Deorum Amen, Deus exercitum, sed unus est ab idolis eorum quae ipsi colebant."[177] In this pedigree of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa, it is deserving of remark that Woden, from whom the various Anglo-Saxon kings of England, and other kings of the north-west of Europe generally claimed their royal descent, is entered as a historical personage, living (according to the usual reckoning applied to genealogies) about the beginning of the third century, and who could count his descent back to Geat; while the Irish and other authorities affect to trace his pedigree for some generations even beyond this last-named ancestor.[178]

According to Mallet, the true name of this great conqueror and ruler of the north-western tribes of Europe was "Sigge, son of Fridulph; but he a.s.sumed the name of Odin, who was the supreme G.o.d among the Teutonic nations, either to pa.s.s, among his followers, for a man inspired by the G.o.ds, or because he was chief priest, and presided over the worship paid to that deity."[179] In his conquering progress towards the north-west of Europe, he subdued, continues Mallet, "all the people he found in his pa.s.sage, giving them to one or other of his sons for subjects. Many sovereign families (he adds) of the north are said to be descended from those princes." And Hengist and Horsa were thus, as was many centuries ago observed by William of Malmesbury, "the great-great-grandsons of that Woden from whom the royal families of almost all the barbarous nations derive their lineage, and to whom the Angles have consecrated the fourth day of the week (Wodens-day), and the sixth unto his wife Frea (Frey-day), by a sacrilege which lasts even _to this time_."[180]

Henry of Huntingdon, in his _Historiae Anglorum_, gives the pedigree of Hengist and Horsa according to the list which he found in Nennius; but he changes back the spelling to the Saxon form. They were, he says, "Filii Widgils, filii Wecta, filii Vecta, filii Woden, filii Frealof, filii Fredulf, filii Fin, filii Flocwald, filii Ieta (Geta)." Florence of Worcester follows the shorter genealogy of Bede, giving in his text the names of the ancestors of Hengist and Horsa as Wictgils, Witta, and Wecta; and in his table of the pedigrees of the kings of Kent spelling these same names Wihtgils, Witta, and Wehta.[181]

In giving the ancient genealogy of Hengist and Horsa, we thus find our old chroniclers speaking of their grandfather under the various orthographic forms of Guitta, Uuicta, Witta, Vitta; and their great-grandfather as Guechta, Uuethar, Wither, Wechta, Wecta, and Vecta.

In the Cat-stane inscription the last--Vecta or Victa--is placed in the genitive, and construed as a noun of the second declension, whilst Vetta retains, as a nominative, its original Saxon form. The older chroniclers frequently alter the Saxon surnames in this way. Thus, Horsa is sometimes made, like Victa, a noun of the second declension, in conjunction with the use of Hengist, Vortimer, etc., as unaltered nominatives. Thus, Nennius tells us,[182] "Guortemor c.u.m Hengist et Horso ... pugnabat." (cap. xlvi.) According to Henry of Huntingdon, "Gortimer ... ex obliquo aciem Horsi desrupit," etc. (Lib. ii.)

The double and distinctive name of "Vetta filius Victa," occurring, as it thus does, in the lineage of Hengist and Horsa, as given both (1) in our oldest written chronicles and (2) in the old inscription carved upon the Cat-stane, is in itself a strong argument for the belief that the same personage is indicated in these two distinct varieties of ancient lettered doc.u.ments. This inference, however, becomes still stronger when we consider the rarity of the appellation Vetta, and the great improbability of there having ever existed two historic individuals of this name both of them the sons of two Victas. But still, it must be confessed, various arguments naturally spring up in the mind against the idea that in the Cat-stane we have a memorial of the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa. Let us look at some of these reasons, and consider their force and bearing.

_Some Objections considered._

Perhaps, as one of the first objections, I should notice the doubts which some writers have expressed as to such leaders as Hengist and Horsa having ever existed, and as to the correctness, therefore, of that genealogy of the Saxon kings of Kent in which Hengist and Horsa are included.[183]

The two most ancient lists of that lineage exist, as is well known, in the "Historia Britonum" of Gildas or Nennius, and in the "Historia Ecclesiastica" of Bede.

The former of these genealogical lists differs from the latter in being much longer, and in carrying the pedigree several generations beyond the great Teutonic leader Woden, backwards to his eastern forefather, Geat, whom Mr. Kemble and others hold to have been probably the hero Woden, whose semi-divine memory the northern tribes worshipped. Both genealogical lists agree in all their main particulars back to Woden--and so far corroborate the accuracy of each other. Whence the original author of the _Historia Britonum_ derived his list, is as unknown as the original authorship of the work itself. Some of Bede's sources of information are alluded to by himself. Albinus, Abbot of St.

Augustine's, Canterbury, and Nothhelm, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, "appear," observes Mr. Stevenson, "to have furnished Bede with chronicles in which he found accurate and full information upon the pedigrees, accessions, marriages, exploits, descendants, deaths and burials of the kings of Kent."[184] That the genealogical list itself is comparatively accurate, there are not wanting strong reasons for believing. The kings of the different seven or eight small Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England all claimed--as the very condition and charter of their regality--a direct descent from Woden, through one or other of his several sons. To be a king among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, it was necessary, and indeed indispensable, both to be a descendant of Woden, and to be able to prove this descent. The chronicles of most ancient people, as the Jews, Irish, Scots, etc., show us how carefully the pedigree of their royal and n.o.ble families was anciently kept and retained. And surely there is no great wonder in the Saxon kings of Kent keeping up faithfully a knowledge of their pedigree--say from Bede's time, backwards, through the nine or ten generations up to Hengist, or the additional four generations up to Woden. The wonder would perhaps have been much greater if they had omitted to keep up a knowledge, by tradition, poems, or chronicles, of a pedigree upon which they, and the other kings of the Saxon heptarchy, rested and founded--as descendants of Woden--their whole t.i.tle to royalty, and their claim and charter to their respective thrones.[185]

But a stronger objection against the idea of the Cat-stane being a monument to the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa rises up in the question,--Is there any proof or probability that an ancestor of Hengist and Horsa fought and fell in this northern part of the island, two generations before the arrival of these brothers in Kent?

It is now generally allowed, by our best historians, that before the arrival of Hengist and Horsa in Kent, Britain was well known at least to the Saxons and Frisians, and other allied Teutonic tribes.

Perhaps from a very early period the sh.o.r.es and comparative riches of our island were known to the Teutons or Germans inhabiting the opposite continental coast. "It seems hardly conceivable," observes Mr. Kemble, "that Frisians who occupied the coast (of modern Holland) as early as the time of Caesar, should not have found their way to Britain."[186] We know from an incident referred to by Tacitus, in his Life of Agricola, that at all events the pa.s.sage in the opposite direction from Britain to the north-west sh.o.r.es of the Continent was accidentally revealed--if not, indeed, known long before--during the first years of the Roman conquest of Scotland. For Tacitus tells us that in A.D. 83 a cohort of Usipians, raised in Germany, and belonging to Agricola's army, having seized some Roman vessels, sailed across the German Ocean, and were seized as pirates, first by the Suevi and afterwards by the Frisians (_Vita Agricolae_, xlv. 2, and xlvi. 2). In Agricola's Scottish army there were other Teutonic or German conscripts. According to Tacitus, at the battle of the Mons Grampius three cohorts of Batavians and two cohorts of Tungrians specially distinguished themselves in the defeat of the Caledonian army. Various inscriptions by these Tungrian cohorts have been dug up at Cramond, and at stations along the two Roman walls, as at Castlecary and Housesteads. At Manchester, a cohort of Frisians seems to have been located during nearly the whole era of the Roman dominion.[187] Another cohort of Frisian auxiliaries seems, according to Horsley, to have been stationed at Bowess in Richmondshire.[188]

Teutonic officers were occasionally attached to other Roman corps than those of their own countrymen. A Frisian citizen, for example, was in the list of officers of the Thracian cavalry at Cirencester.[189] The celebrated Carausius, himself a Menapian, and hence probably of Teutonic origin, was, before he a.s.sumed the emperorship of Britain, appointed by the Roman authorities admiral of the fleet which they had collected for the purpose of repressing the incursions of the Franks, Saxons, and other piratical tribes, who at that date (A.D. 287) ravaged the sh.o.r.es of Britain and Gaul.[190]

In the famous Roman doc.u.ment termed "Not.i.tia utriusque Imperii," the fact that there were Saxon settlers in England before the arrival of Hengist and Horsa seems settled, by the appointment of a "Comes Littoris Saxonici in Britannica."[191] The date of this official and imperial Roman doc.u.ment is fixed by Gibbon between A.D. 395 and 407. About forty years earlier we have--what is more to our present purpose--a notice by Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus of Saxons being leagued with the Picts and Scots, and invading the territories south of the Forth, which were held by the Romans and their conquered allies and dependants--the Britons.

To understand properly the remarks of Ammia.n.u.s, it is necessary to remember that the two great divisional military walls which the Romans erected in Britain, stretched, as is well known, entirely across the island--the most northerly from the Forth to the Clyde, and the second and stronger from the Tyne to the Solway. The large tract of country lying between these two military walls formed from time to time a region, the possession of which seems to have been debated between the Romans and the more northerly tribes; the Romans generally holding the country up to the northern wall or beyond it, and occasionally being apparently content with the southern wall as the boundary of their empire.

About the year A.D. 369, the Roman general Theodosius, the father of the future emperor of the same name, having collected a disciplined army in the south, marched northward from London, and after a time conquered, or rather reconquered, the debateable region between the two walls; erected it into a fifth British province, which he named "Valentia," in honour of Valens, the reigning emperor; and garrisoned and fortified the borders (_limites_ que vigiliis tuebatur et praetenturis).[192] The notices which the excellent contemporary historian, Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus, has left us of the state of this part of Britain during the ten years of active rebellion and war preceding this erection of the province of Valentia are certainly very brief, but yet very interesting.

Under the year 360, he states that "In Britain, the stipulated peace being broken, the incursions of the Scots and Picts, fierce nations, laid waste the grounds lying next to the boundaries (loca _limitibus_ vicina vastarent)." "These grounds were," says Pinkerton, "surely those of the future province of Valentia."[193] Four years subsequently, or in 364, Ammia.n.u.s again alludes to the Britons being vexed by continued attacks from the same tribes, namely the Picts and Scots, but he describes these last as now a.s.sisted by, or leagued with, the Attacots and with the _Saxons_--"Picti, SAXONESQUE, et Scotti, et Attacotti, Britannos aerumnis vexavere continuis." Again, under the year 368, he alludes to the Scots and Attacots still ravaging many parts; but now, instead of speaking of them as leagued with the Picts and Saxons, he describes them as combined with the Picts, divided into two nations, the Dicaledonae and Vecturiones:--"Eo tempore Picti in duas gentes divisi, Diacaledonae et Vecturiones, itidemque Attacotti, bellicosa hominum natio, et Scotti per diversa vagantes, multa populabuntur."

In both of these two last notices for the years 364 and 368, the invaders are described as consisting of four different tribes. The Scots and Attacots are mentioned under these appellations in both. But whilst, in the notice for 364, the two remaining a.s.sailants are spoken of as Picts and Saxons (Picti, Saxonesque), in the notice for 368 the remaining a.s.sailants are described as the "Picts, divided into the Dicaledonae and Vecturiones." Is it possible that the Saxon allies were now amalgamated with the Picts, and that they a.s.sumed the name of Vecturiones after their leader Vetta or Vecta? The idea, at all events, of naming nations patronymically from their leaders or founders was common in ancient times, though the correctness of some of the instances adduced is more than doubtful. Early Greek and Roman history is full of such alleged examples; as the Trojans from Tros; the Achaeans from Achaeus; the aeolians from aeolus; the Peloponnesians from Pelops; the Dorians from Dorus; the Romans from Romulus, etc. etc.; and so is our own. The Scots from Ireland are, observes Bede, named to this day Dalreudins (Dalriads), from their commander Reuda.[194] The Irish called (according to some ancient authorities) the Picts "Cruithne,"

after their alleged first king, Crudne or Cruthne. In a still more apocryphal spirit the word Britons was averred by some of the older chroniclers to be derived from a leader, Brito--"Britones Bruto dicti,"

to use the expression of Nennius(- 18); Scots from Scota "Scoti ex Scota," in the words of the (_Chronicon Rythmic.u.m_), etc.

The practice of eponymes was known also, and followed to some extent among the Teutonic tribes, both in regard to royal races and whole nations. The kings of Kent were known as Aescingas, from Aesc, the son of Hengist;[195] those of East Anglia were designated Wuffingas, after Wuffa ("Uffa, a quo reges Orientalium Anglorum Vuffingus appellant"[196]). In some one or other of his forms, Woden (observes Mr.

Kemble) "is the eponymus of tribes and races. Thus, as Geat, or through Geat, he was the founder of the Geatas; through Gewis, of the Gewissas; through Scyld, of the Scyldingas, the Norse Skjoldungar; through Brand, of the Brodingas; perhaps, through Baetwa, of the Batavians."[197] It could therefore scarcely be regarded as very exceptional at least, if Vetta, one of the grandsons of Woden, should have given, in the same way, his name to a combined tribe of Saxons and Picts, over whom he had been elected as leader.[198]

That a Saxon force, like that mentioned by Ammia.n.u.s as being joined to the Picts and Scots in A.D. 364, was led by an ancestor of Hengist and Horsa is quite in accordance with all that is known of Saxon laws and customs. As in some other nations, the leaders and kings were generally, if not always, selected from their royal stock. "Descent" (observes Mr.

Kemble) "from Heracles was to the Spartans what descent from Woden was to the Saxons--_the_ condition of royalty."[199] All the various Anglo-Saxon royal families that, during the time of the so-called Heptarchy, reigned in different parts of England certainly claimed this descent from Woden. Hengist and Horsa probably led the band of their countrymen who invaded Kent, as members of this royal lineage; and a royal pre-relative or ancestor would have a similar claim and chance of acting as chief of that Saxon force which joined the Picts and Scots in the preceding century.

If we thus allow, for the sake of argument, that Vetta, the son of Victus, the grandfather of Hengist and Horsa, is identical with Vetta the son of Victus commemorated in the Cat-stane inscription, and that he was the leader of those Saxons mentioned by Ammia.n.u.s that were allied with the Picts in A.D. 364, we shall find nothing incompatible in that conjecture with the era of the descent upon Kent of Hengist and Horsa.

Bede, confusing apparently the arrival of Hengist and Horsa with the date of the second instead of the first visit of St. Germa.n.u.s to Britain, has placed at too late a date the era of their first appearance in Kent, when he fixes it in the year 449. The facts mentioned in the earlier editions or copies of Nennius have led our very learned and accurate colleague Mr. Skene, and others, to transfer forwards twenty or more years the date at which Hengist and Horsa landed on our sh.o.r.es.[200] But whether Hengist and Horsa arrived in A.D. 449, or, as seems more probable, about A.D. 428, if we suppose them in either case to have been born about A.D. 400, we shall find no incongruity, but the reverse, in the idea that their grandfather Vetta was the leader of a Saxon force thirty-six years previously. Hengist was in all probability past the middle period of life when he came to the Court of Vortigern, as he is generally represented as having then a daughter, Rowena, already of a marriageable age.

On the cause or date of Vetta's death we have of course no historical information; but the position of his monument renders it next to a certainty that he fell in battle; for, as we have already seen, the Cat-stane stands, in the words of Lhwyd, "situate on a river side, remote enough from any church." The barrows and pillar stones placed for miles along that river prove how frequently it had served as a strategic point and boundary in ancient warfare.[201] The field in which the Cat-stane itself stands was, as we have already found Dr. Wilson stating, the site formerly of a large tumulus. In a field, on the opposite bank of the Almond, my friend, Mr. Hutchison of Caerlowrie, came lately, when prosecuting some draining operations on his estate, upon numerous stone-kists, which had mutual gables of stone, and were therefore, in all probability, the graves of those who had perished in battle. Whether the death of Vetta occurred during the war with Theodosius in A.D. 364, or, as possibly the appellation Vecturiones tends to indicate, at a later date, we have no ground to determine.

The vulgar name of the monument, the Cat-stane, seems, as I have already hinted, to be a name synonymous with Battle-stane, and hence, also, so far implies the fall of Vetta in open fight. Maitland is the first author, as far as I am aware, who suggests this view of the origin of the word Cat-stane. According to him, "Catstean is a Gaelic and English compound, the former part thereof (Cat) signifying a battle, and stean or stan a stone; so it is the battlestane, in commemoration probably of a battle being fought at or near this place, wherein Veta or Victi, interred here, was slain."[202] I have already quoted Mr. Pennant, as taking the same view of the origin and character of the name; and Mr.

George Chalmers, in his _Caledonia_, propounds the same explanation of the word:--"In the parish of Liberton, Edinburghshire, there were (he observes) several large cairns, wherein were found various stone chests, including urns, which contained ashes and weapons; some of these cairns which still remain are called the _Cat_-stanes or Battle-stanes.[203]

Single stones in various parts of North Britain are still known under the appropriate name of _Cat_-stanes. The name (he adds) is plainly derived from the British _Cad_, or the Scoto-Irish _Cath_, which signify a battle."[204] But the word under the form _Cat_ is Welsh or British, as well as Gaelic. Thus, in the _Annales Cambriae_, under the year 722, the battle of Pencon is entered as "Cat-Pencon."[205] In his edition of the old Welsh poem of the G.o.dodin, Williams (verse 38) prints the battle of Vannau (Manau) as "Cat-Vannau."

The combination of the Celtic word "Cat" with the Saxon word "stane" may appear at first as an objection against the preceding idea of the origin and signification of the term Cat-stane. But many of our local names show a similar compound origin in Celtic and Saxon. In the immediate neighbourhood, for example, of the Cat-stane,[206] we have instances of a similar Celtic and Saxon amalgamation in the words Gogar-burn, Lenny-bridge, Craigie-hill, etc. One of the oldest known specimens of this kind of verbal alloy, is alluded to above a thousand years ago by Bede,[207] in reference to a locality not above fourteen or fifteen miles west from the Cat-stane. For, in his famous sentence regarding the termination of the walls of Antoninus on the Forth, he states that the Picts called this eastern "head of the wall" Pean-fahel, but the Angles called it Pennel-_tun_. To a contracted variety of this Pictish word signifying head of the wall, or to its Welsh form Pengual, they added the Saxon word "town," probably to designate the "villa,"

which, according to an early addition to Nennius, was placed there.

"Pengaaul, quae villa Scottice Cenail [Kinneil], Anglice ver Peneltun dicitur."[208]