THE PECHS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1952, 23 July 1891, Page 36

THE PECHS.

Every child in Scotland has heard of the Pechs, a race of small, red-haired men, who are said to have lived long ago, and built all the huge castles and bridges in this country. The Picts, whom antiquaries suppose to have been the same as what are called the .Pechs, are understood 'to have been the people who lived in the country north of the Forth, about a thousand years ago. They had a king of their own for many ages; but at length a race of Irish adventurers, who came in upon Scotland by the west, got the better of their monarch, or else succeeded to his crown by marriage, so that there was never any more heard of them as a separate nation. This .event is said to have taken place in the year 843. Tacitus describes these Picks as a tall and fair race; but tradition now speaks differently of the Picts. Both in the Border counties, and in those which the Picts once occupied, they are represented by the common people, and in all nursery stories, as a squat and robust race of men, with red hair and arms of such length that they could tie the latchets of their shoes without stooping. The Scottish peasant ascribes all old public works of which he does not know the origin to the Pechs, and their plan of working, according to his creed, was to stand in a row, between the quarry and the building, handing forward stones to one another. When a person has either red hair, long arms, or a very sturdy body, it is common to say to him, tauntingly, "Ye maun be come o' the Pechs." Yet there is also a very prevalent understanding that they, are now entirely extirpated, at least as a nation ; and there are some popular tales which even speak of the death of the last individual of the race. The inhabitants of Lammermoor, a lonely mountain region between East Lothian and Berwickshire, have a tradition that the last battle fought by the Pechs against the Scots, by whom they were oppressed, took place near a hill called Manslaughter Law. So dreadfully were they cub up that only two persons of the Pictish nation survived the fight— a father and a son. These were brought before the Scottish king, and promised life on condition that they would disclose the secret, peculiar to their nation, of the art of distilling ale from heather. But this was a secret upon which the Pechs prided themselves very much, so that they never would divulge it except to their own kindred. Both refused to purchase their lives on this condition, and they were about to be put to a painful and torturing death when the father seemed to relent, and proposed to yield up the secret, provided that the Scots would first kill his son. The victors, though horrified at the unnatural

selfishness of the old man, complied with his request, and then asked its reward. "Now," said the ancient Pech, "you may kill me too, for you shall never know my secret. Your threats might have influenced my son, but they are lost on me." The King of Scots could not help admiring this firmness of principle, even in so small a matter as small ale, and he condemned the veteran savage to life. It is farther related by the tradition of Teviotdale that his existence, as a punishment from heaven for his crime, was prolonged far beyond the ordinary term of mortal life. When some ages had passed and the last of the Pechs was blind and bed-rid he overheard some young men vaunting of their feats or strength. Ha desired to feel the wrist of one of them, in order to compare the strength of modern men with those of the Wrly times, which was now only talked of as a fable. They reached him a bar of iron instead of a wrist, that they might enjoy the expression of indignation which they thought he would be sure to utter. But he seized the huge bar, and snapping it through like a reed, only remarked, very coolly : " It's a bit gey grissle, but naething to the shackle-banes o' my young days." The feelings of the young men may be imagined. Into such forms as these do historical facts become transmuted after a long series of ages; and such is the popular remembrance of a nation which once occupied the greater part of this country, but the very existence of which is now a matter of historical uncertainty.