MYSTERIOUS RACE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3241, 11 December 1930, Page 6

MYSTERIOUS RACE

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 flirtations across a non-existent border for seven centuries beforehand, bcause 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 Noi'thern Spain, and they advanced in successive waves, which began at least a thousand" years earlier. They were of Aryan-Hittite stock, monotheistic and monogamic, and weer 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 “Ecossais” by which the Cassi were known in Gaul, Iberia, and England. The modern 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 other 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 tothe Greeks as “Kassiteros,” 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 in 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 strains is equally prominent in England, particularly north of the Trent, though its stronghold was once where England now stands.

The confusion between the word “Scot” and the Greek word for “darkness” probably springs fropi 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 hun-ger-marching Piets, who lived in river valleys. Columbia 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.