MYSTERIOUS RAGE

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 27

MYSTERIOUS RAGE

The Dark Origin of the Scots Why Is Scotland called Scotland, and where did the Scots come from originally? The following article is from Mr. G. A. Atkinson, the “Sunday Express” film critic. Though but a humble student of racial archaelogy, I think that I can throw some light on the dark origin of this mysterious race. The Scots first invaded Caledonia in force about the year 400 B.C. The main body came from Ireland, then called “Scotia” (not Hibernia), but there had been flitrations across a non-existent border for seven centuries beforehand, because there is strong evidence that the same race invaded England, on colonising lines, about the year 1100 B.C. " They probably came by way of Northern Spain, and they advanced in successive waves, which began at least a thousand years earlier. They were of Aryan-Hittite stock, monotheistic and monogamlc, and were undoubtedly a highly aristocratic, highly civilised, markedly clannish, and exclusive race.

Their ruling clan was known by a name which has undergone many mutations, but one form of it, “Cassi,” is relevant to this discussion, because it survives in “Eeossais,” by whch the Cassi were known in Gaul, Iberia, and England. The modem Spanish word for “Scots” is “Escoceces,” which, properly pronounced, has the sound of “th” on the second “C.” Sounds tend to harden as we travel north (witness “kirk” for “church”). The word "Scot,” in my opinion, is a hard, northern mutation of the word “Cassi,” where ■ it became "Catti,” among many oth,er variations, and survives in numerous Scottish place and proper names. The Cassi gave their royal name to the, early English kings, i.e., “Cassivelaunus” and “Cassi-belan” (who was Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline”). ; They also gave their name to tin, which, was known to the Greeks as “Kasslteros,” and Lyonesse and Western Cornwall were known as the “Cassiterides,” i.e., “the distant tin lands.”

There cannot be much doubt but that the dominant race ip Scotland is descended from the royal Cassi clan of the Hittites, but lest the Scots should feel undue elation about that it should be added that the Cassi strain is equally prominent in , England, particularly north bf the Trent, though its stronghold was once where London now stands.

The confusion between the word “Scot” and the Greek word for "darkness” probably springs from the fact that these colonising wanderers had a large settlement in Scythia, the Inhabitants of which were known to the Greeks by a word which must, have, sounded very like “Scot”

It is possible, but unlikely, that the word “Scot” is derived from this Scythian association, and it may be the relic of an ancient pun, the first joke against Scotland.

Caledonia, by the way, derives its name from the “Khaldis,” the hungermarching Picts, who lived in rivervalleys. Columba called them the “Culdees.”

There is—with all respect to Mr. Morton’s feelings—a princess in the story, but she was probably Greek, and therefore not so Interesting as Cleopatra’s compatriot.