59
The loss of the Saxon authority thus incited the settlement of a new
colony from Ireland within those ample limits. At the end of the eighth
century the Cruithne of Erin emigrated to this ill-settled region. They
were followed by fresh swarms from the Irish hive during the ninth and
tenth centuries, while the Danish sea-Icings insulted and oppressed the sacred
isle; and the Cruithne were joined in their new settlements by the kindred
Scots of Kintyre, during the distractions of this appropriate cradle of the
Scoto-Irish kings. It is more than probable that the Irish Cruithne, who
thus colonized the ancient country of the Selgoæ and Novantes, com-
municated to the Irish colonists the name of Picts, as we see it in the
chronicles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They were thus deno-
minated Cruithne in their native isle; Cruithneach, in the Irish speech,
signifying Picts, or painted; and it was as natural for those Irish settlers
to call themselves, and to be called by others, by the translated name of
Picts, as it was easy for ignorant chroniclers to transfer to those Gaelic
colonists from Ireland and Kintyre, the well-known name of the genuine Picts
of Scotland (z).
It is curious to remark how much the names of places within the peninsula
correspond with the history of every people who ever colonized within
its ancient limits. In Dumfries, in Kirkcudbright, in Wigtown, and in Ayr,
the appellations of rivers and rivulets are chiefly British, the language of
the original settlers (a). The names of the mountains, headlands, and of
other places, are not unfrequently significant in the British (b). The paucity
of Anglo-Saxon names in Dumfriesshire, exclusive of the pure English
appellations of modern times, prove what has been already intimated, that
the Saxons never settled within Galloway in any numerous bodies for any
length of years, so as to impose their own names on their several settle-
ments (c). In the long effluxion of three centuries the Irish settlers com-
pletely occupied the ample extent of the peninsula, and mingling in every
place with the enfeebled Britons, whose speech they understood, and
amalgamating with the still fewer Saxons, whose language they rejected as
(z) See Caledonia, Bk. 1, iii., ch. v.
(a)  In Dumfries there are the Annan, the Nith, the Esk, the Ewis, the Evan, the Ae, the Eden, and
so of others.
(b)  In Dumfries there are of the British language, Cathur-hill, Pen-agual-hills, Pen-hill, Pen-law,
Pen-pont,Care-laverock, Keir, Aber-toc, and so of others.
(c)  In Dumfries, along the Solway, we may frequently find the old Saxon words, Holm, Cleugh,
Hope, By, Shaw, Shiel, Rig, Thwait, or Thet.    On the Locher water, which was formerly covered with
wood, may be traced the Saxon Walt or Wealt, a forest, in House-wald, Ruth-wald, Tin-wald, Tor-
ilioic-wald, and so of others.