Iren. Before we enter into the treatie of their customes, it is first needfnll to consider from whence they first sprung; for from the sundry manners of the nations, from whence that people which now is called Irish, were derived, some of the customes which now remain amongst them, have heen first fetcht, and sithence there continued amongst them; for not of one nation was it peopled, as it is, but of sundry people of different conditions and manners. But the chiefest which have first possessed and inhabited it, I suppose to bee [o 1] Scythians.
Eudox. How commeth it then to passe, that the Irish doe derive themselves from Gathelus the Spaniard?
Iren. They doe indeed, but (I conceive) without any good ground. For if there were any such notable
- ↑ Scythians] This discourse, from the word Scythians, unto the words in p. 59. "of whom I earst spoke," is directed by Sir J. Ware wholly to be crossed out, as being then agreeable to the best MS. copy; which passage is also omitted in the Manuscript of this View belonging to the Marquis of Stafford; in which likewise is added after "to bee Scythians" the word which, thus connecting the words "at such time as &c." in p. 59. Todd.
Scythians.] Touching the Scythians [i 1] or Scotts arrivall in Ireland, see Nennius an ancient British author (who lived in the yeare of Christ 858.) where among other things we have the time of their arrivall. Brittonnes (saith he) venerunt in 3. retate mundi in Britanniam, Scythe autem in 4. obtinuerunt Hiberniam. Sir James Wake.
- ↑ A regione quadam quae dicitur Scythia: dicitur Scita, Sciticus, Scoticus, Scotus, Scotia. Tho. Walsingham, in Hypodigmate Neustriez, ad an. 1185
