History of the Britons
by Nennius
The History
12 to 16
12. After an interval of not less than eight hundred
years, came the Picts, and occupied the Orkney Islands:
whence they laid waste many regions, and seized those on the
left hand side of Britain, where they still remain, keeping
possession of a third part of Britain to this
day.1
13. Long after this, the Scots arrived in Ireland from
Spain. The first that came was Partholomus,2 with
a thousand men and women; these increased to four thousand;
but a mortality coming suddenly upon them, they all perished
in one week. The second was Nimech, the son
of...,3 who, according to report, after having
been at sea a year and a half, and having his ships shat-
tered, arrived at a port in Ireland, and continuing there
several years, returned at length with his followers to
Spain. After these came three sons of a Spanish soldier with
thirty ships, each of which contained thirty wives; and
having remained there during the space of a year, there
appeared to them, in the middle of the sea, a tower of
glass, the summit of which seemed covered with men, to whom
they often spoke, but received no answer. At length they
determined to besiege the tower; and after a year's
preparation, advanced towards it, with the whole number of
their ships, and all the women, one ship only excepted,
which had been wrecked, and in which were thirty men, and as
many women; but when all had disem- barked on the shore
which surrounded the tower, the sea opened and swallowed
them up. Ireland, however, was peopled, to the present
period, from the family remaining in the vessel which was
wrecked. Afterwards, other came from Spain, and possessed
themselves of various parts of Britain.
14. Last of all came one Hoctor,4 who
continued there, and whose descendants remain there to this
day. Istoreth, the son of Istorinus, with his followers,
held Dalrieta; Buile had the island Eubonia, and other
adjacent places. The sons of Liethali5 obtained
the country of the dimetae, where is a city called
Menavia,6 and the province Guiher and
Cetgueli,7 which they held till they were
expelled from every part of Britain, by Cunedda and his
sons.
15. According to the most learned among the Scots, if any
one desires to learn what I am now going to state, Ireland
was a desert, and uninhabited, when the children of Israel
crossed the Red Sea, in which, as we read in the Book of the
Law, the Egyptians who followed them were drowned. At that
period, there lived among this people, with a numerous
family, a Scythian of noble birth, who had been banished
from his country and did not go to pursue the people of God.
The Egyptians who were left, seeing the destruction of the
great men of their nation, and fearing lest he should
possess himself of their territory, took counsel together,
and expelled him. Thus reduced, he wandered forty-two years
in Africa, and arrived, with his family, at the altars of
the Philis- tines, by the Lake of Osiers. Then passing
between Rusicada and the hilly country of Syria, they
travelled by the river Malva through Mauritania as far as
the Pillars of Hercules; and crossing the Tyrrhene Sea,
landed in Spain, where they continued many years, having
greatly increased and multiplied. Thence, a thousand and two
years after the Egyptians were lost in the Red Sea, they
passed into Ireland, and the district of
Dalrieta.8 At that period, Brutus, who first
exercised the consular office, reigned over the Romans; and
the state, which before was governed by regal power, was
afterwards ruled, during four hundred and forty-seven years,
by consuls, tribunes of the people, and dictators.
The Britons came to Britain in the third age of the
world; and in the fourth, the Scots took possession of
Ireland.
The Britons who, suspecting no hostilities, were
unprovided with the means of defence, were unanimously and
incessantly attacked, both by the Scots from the west, and
by the Picts from the north. A long interval after this, the
Romans obtained the empire of the world.
16. From the first arrival of the Saxons into Britain, to
the fourth year of king Mermenus, are computed four hundred
and twenty eight years; from the nativity of our Lord to the
coming of St. Patrick among the Scots, four hundred and five
years; from the death of St. Patrick to that of St. Bridget,
forty years; and from the birth of Columeille9 to
the death of St Bridget four years.10
Notes
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1
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See Bede's Eccles.
Hist.
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2
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V.R. Partholomaeus, or
Bartholomaeus
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3
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A blank is here in the MS.
Agnomen is found in some of the others.
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4
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V.R. Damhoctor, Clamhoctor, and
Elamhoctor.
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5
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V.R. Liethan, Bethan,
Vethan.
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6
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St. David's.
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7
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Guiher, probably the Welsh
district Gower. Cetgueli is Caer Kidwelly, in
Carmarthenshire.
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8
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North-western part of Antrim in
Ulster.
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9
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V.R. Columba.
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10
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Some MSS. add, the beginning of
the calculation is 23 cycles of 19 years from the
incarnation of our Lord to the arrival of St.
Patrick in Ireland, and they make 438 years. And
from the arrival of St. Patrick to the cycle of 19
years in which we live are 22 cycles, which make
421 years.
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History of the Britons
by Nennius
The History, 10 to
11 <<< Contents
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History, 17 to 18
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