Blair Collection > Critical dissertations on the origin, antiquities, language, government, manners, and religion, of the antient Caledonians, their posterity the Picts, and the British and Irish Scots

A Parallel hefujeen tbe^ &c. 13-7
DISSERTATION XII.
A Tradition prefeived by Bede confidered,
A Parallel between the Manners and
Cuftoms of the Caledonians and ancient
Germans. General Refleftions on the
Subjea.
IT was an eflablifhcd tradition a thoufand years
ago, that the Pitts were the original inhabi-
tants of the Northern divifion of Britain, Bede *
fays, in his ecclefiaftical hiftory, that they came
to Caledonia from Scythia^ the European part of
which, according to PHny t, comprehended Ger-
many. The authority of the venerable writer was
never queftioned on this head ; and a belief has
ever fmce obtained that the Pids were a different
race from the Gauls, who polfeifed the Southern
parts of Britain. Though the hypothecs of de-
ducing the origin of the Caledonians from the old
Germans is improbable, on account of the dillance
of the two countries from one another, and the
fmall progrefs that navigation mufl have made in
* Bede, Hift. Ecclef
\ Pliny, Nat. Hift. lib, ii, c 1 3.