Chapter CXLI: Section I: Scottish Colonists

The strange and wild beliefs that prevailed regarding the original settlement of ancient Ireland, have left strong traces on the names still borne by the population, both there and in Scotland.

We need not go back quite to Adam’s great-grandson, and the wicked race that sprang from him, and all perished, except one giant, who took up his abode in a cave, and there lived till he was baptized by St. Patrick; nor to Fintan, who was changed into a salmon during the time that the flood prevailed, and afterwards gave rise to the proverb, “I could tell you many things were I as old as Fintan.” A bard, so called, was said to have existed, and a poem is attributed to him, which gives a very queer account of the first settlers, though he does not there claim quite such a startling experience.

Fomorians, Fir Bolg, men dwelling in caves, or, more probably, ravaging men, and Tuath De Danan, _i.e._ chiefs, priests, and bards, are all conducted in turn to Erin by tradition and poetry; but none equal in fame or interest the tribe called Milesian, from whom the purest Irish blood is supposed to descend.

The favourite legends start this famous colony from the East, where Phenius, the head of the family, was supposed to have taught the Phœnicians letters, and left them his name! His son, Niul, not to be behindhand with him, named the Nile, having been sent on an embassy to Egypt, where he married Pharaoh’s daughter! Whether her name was Scota or not, authorities are not agreed; but all declare that it was her father who was drowned in the Red Sea, and that a subsequent dispute with the Egyptians caused either Niul or his son to migrate to Spain.

It is this Niul, or Niale, to whom the whole legion of Niales are to be referred. The name, from _niadh_, means a champion, and was probably carried backwards to the ancestor from the various Neills, who thought they might as well claim the Nile as their namesake.

Neill of the Nine Hostages, was one of the greatest of the ancient heroes; he was the last but one of the pagan kings of Ireland, and himself most unconsciously imported the seed of the Gospel, for it was his men who, in a piratical descent on the Roman colony of Valentia, carried off the boy who, in after days, was to become the Apostle of Ireland,—one of the many slaves by whom the Gospel has been extended. Neill of the Nine Hostages was killed by an assassin about the year 405; but his family, the Hy Neill, or children of Neill, became one of the leading septs in the North of Ireland. Of them the story is told, that on going to settle on the Ulster coast, one of them resolved to take seisin of the new country by touching the shore before any one else, and finding his boat outstripped, he tore out his dagger, cut off his right hand at the wist, and threw it on the beach, so that his fingers were the first laid on the domain. Such, at least, is the tale that accounts for the O'Neill’s war-cry, _Lamhdearg Aboo_ (Red hand set on), and for the red hand on the shield of the O'Neills and of Ulster, afterwards given by James I. to the knights baronets, whom he created as ‘undertakers’ of the new colony of English, which he wished to found in Ulster.

Ireland thus frequently used Neill, or Niall, and Scotland Niel, as it is there spelt, but it is far more surprising to meet with it among the Scandinavian races. It is evidence that there must have been some considerable intercourse between Ireland and the North before the days of the piracies of the historical ages. The old Irish legends constantly speak of Norway as Lochlinn, or the land of lakes, and show visits taking place between the inhabitants; and there are names to be found in both countries, borrowed from one another, too far back to be ascribed to the Norse invasions.

In the _Landnama Bok_, the Domesday Book of Iceland, no less than three Njals appear, and the Njalssaga, the history of the noble-spirited yet peaceful Icelander, who, even in the tenth century, had never shed blood, and preferred rather to die with his sons than to live to avenge them, is one of the finest histories that have come down to us from any age. Njal’s likeness to the contraction Nils, has caused many to suppose that it also is a form of Nicolas, but the existence of Nial both in Ireland and Iceland before the conversion of either country contradicts this. Nielsen is a frequent Northern patronymic, and our renowned name of Nelson probably came to us through Danish settlers.

The Northmen apparently took their Njal to France with them, and it there was called Nesle or Nêle. Chroniclers Latinized it as Nigellus, supposing it to mean black; and in Domesday book, twelve landholders called Nigellus appear, both before and after the Conquest, so that they may be supposed to be Danish Niels, left undisturbed in their possessions.

Nigel de Albini, brother to him who married the widow of Henry I., must have been a genuine Norman Niel; and through the numerous Anglo-Norman nobles who were adopted into the Scottish peerage, this form was adopted in addition to the old Gaelic Nial, or as a translation of it, for the young brother of Robert Bruce is called by both names, Nigel and Nial. At present this Latinized Normanism of the old Keltic word is considered as peculiarly Scottish, chiefly because it has been kept up in that form in old Scotch families.

Fergus, Loarn, and Aonghus are said to have been the three brothers who led the migration from Erin to Caledonia, and transferred the name of Scotland from one isle to the other in 503, and Loarn and Angus gave their names to two districts in Scotland.

Anguss was indeed a popular name both in Scotland and Ireland. It comes from the numeral _aon_, one; it also conveys the sense of pre-eminence, means excellent strength, and it is generally pronounced Haoonish in Gaelic. Irish genealogists make Aongus Turimheach king two hundred and thirty-three years before the Christian era; and we are afterwards told of another Aongas, king of Munster, who had a family of forty-eight sons and daughters, of whom he gave half to St. Patrick to be monks and nuns. In Hanmer’s _Chronicle_, King Arthur visits Ireland and converses with King Anguish, which painful title is precisely that which Henry VIII., in his correspondence, gives his brother-in-law, the Earl of Angus.

Angus is specially at home in Scotland, but there it has been called Hungus and Ungus, likewise Enos, and is now generally translated into Æneas, the christened name of many a Scot who ought to be Angus; and the Irish are too apt to change it in the same way.[97]

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Footnote 97:

Hanmer, _Chronicle_; _Ossianic Society’s Transactions_; Taylor, _Hist.
of Ireland_; Dasent, _Nialsaga_; _Highland Society’s Dictionary_;
Ellis, _Domesday Book_.