Scottish Dirk from Anne

[Jeff D]

Originally Posted by Jim McDougall

The upper one looks like a Scottish shashka!!

Jim

I don't know why Jim, but every time you post you fire up a memory that keeps me up until I follow it through??? Must be that free association thing.

Your observation above may not be as far fetched as you think! Rev J. A. Wylie in his History of the Scottish Nation London 1886 devotes chapter 20 in Volume I to "The Cradle of the Scots in Scythia". As you know it is the descendants of the Scythians that are the shashkaophiles (if that is a word).
A few quotes of Wylie's such as "Almost all ancient testimony points to Scythia as the original cradle of the Scottish race." He goes on to explain that both the names Scots and Scyths signify the the same thing namely an archer or bowman.
Further... "King Alfred, in his translation of Bede, and other writers of that time, use Scytisk for Scottish, so that Scyt and Scot were synonymous. Several of the classic writers do the same thing, making use of Scythia and Scotia and Scyth and Scot alternatively. The Irish writers uniformly say that the Scots were Scythians... "
I have absolutely no idea if his theorys still hold water, and I doubt that this is usefull in any way, but, At least now I can go to bed

All the Best
Jeff

[kronckew]

the celts, of which the scots (and maybe scythians) were members, had a broad range from the steppes thru to ireland and on south to iberia, galetia in southern poland, 'gaul' in france and galetia in northern spain were all celtic. in some respects more advanced than their roman neighbors who feared them. they were not 'civilised' in the original meaning , they did not live in cities, 'civis', but had a village and tribal based confederation. the romans proceeded to demolish that, and the results were written down by the romans, not the celts, so our knowledge of them is reduced.

my maternal grandmother was an austrian galetian from somewhere between cracow and vienna. that area is one of the most fought over areas of the world, and the term 'ethnic cleansing' should have originated there. the scythians were likely celts, one of the recent 'king arthur' films used scythian archers as auxilliary troops stationed at hadrians wall as the arthurian knights and woad painted celts as their allies against the saxon (sax meaning 'sword', the 'angles' were spearmen - they eventually mingled into the anglo-saxons) invaders as rome pulled back the legions. might be closer to tha mark than we think (i'm looking forward to the latest 'last legion' flick when i can get to see it.)