Note 117 — Chapter III · LEGENDARY ORIGINS.

The modern Welsh antiquaries in general regard the Picts as belonging to the Cymric race and speaking a Welsh dialect, but in this they run counter to their own early traditions, for both in their old poems and in prose documents there is a consensus as to their being a foreign race to the Cymry, and belonging to the people termed by them Gwyddyl.

In the poems they are usually termed Brithwyr and Peithwyr, but also Gwyddyl Ffichti; thus the early Pictish inhabitants of Bernicia are thus alluded to—

Five chiefs then will he

Of the Gwyddyl Ffichti,

Of a sinner’s disposition,

Of the race of the knife.

Four Ancient Books of Wales,

vol. i. p. 432.

And in one poem the epithet of Anghyfiaeth, that is, speaking a language different from the Cymric, is clearly applied to them (ib. p. 433 and note). Thus in the Triads of Arthur, which are genuine, they are included in the three foreign races called ‘Three oppressions came into this island, and did not go out of it.’ The second is ‘the oppression of the Gwyddyl Ffichti, and they did not again go out of it.’ The third was the oppression of the Saxons (ib., vol. ii. p. 465). In order to avoid the force of this, the term Gwyddyl Ffichti is usually translated Irish Picts, and supposed to refer to those in Ireland only; but the epithet Gwyddyl was certainly used in the larger sense of the race wherever found, and it is clear from all the passages that the same people are referred to who are known as the Picts of Britain. If they had been termed Cymry Ffichti, would this school of Welsh antiquarians have tolerated an assertion that they were not of the Cymric race?