| appears for the first time in 297 in Eumenius' Panegyric. It is a translation of the Breton Breizad "Breton" (from brezel "war", thus "the warriers") and confused with brez "variegated" ð3.2.33.; this confusion prompted Isidore of Seville to say that their name arose from their being tattooed (which was just a supposition). Thus Pict was simply a name for a Celtic people (Breton or Welsh) and not the mysterious people often referred to. Guiter (Bull. Soc. vascongada, 1968) shows convincingly that the inscriptions found in the British Isles do not differ any more from Basque than a dialect. This is no proof that the Picts were Basques, but simply that the Basques, a people of navigators, had left their traces in this country (as they have in America). Pict is without any relation to "Pictones" the ancient name of the inhabitants of Poitou, France. |