Note 51 — INTRODUCTION.
Reading edition
Proc. of the Soc. of Antiq. of Scot., vol. iii. p. 141: also vol. vii. p. 191. This quotation is made by the late Captain Thomas, R.N., a sound archæologist; but I have to add that in the document of 1443, as given in Barry's Orkney (2nd ed., London, 1808, pp. 401-419), while I find the statement as to the two native races, I find nothing about the stature or habits of the Picts. Captain Thomas twice quotes his statement, and as at one place he refers, not to the Bishop of 1443, but (vol. iii. p. 141) to "the Earl of Orkney's chaplain, writing about 1460," it is possible he had two manuscripts of the fifteenth century in view.
[Supplementary Note.—The Bishop's words are as follows:—
"Istas insulas primitus Peti et Pape inhabitabant. Horum alteri scilicet Peti parvo superantes pigmeos statura in structuris urbium vespere et mane mira operantes, meredie vero cunctis viribus prorsus destituti in subterraneis domunculis pre timore latuerunt."—From his treatise De Orcadibus Insulis, reprinted in the "Bannatyne Miscellany," 1855, p. 33.]