They then, as
we know from the localities which bear their place-names, cleared out
the Pict from most of his brochs and from the best land in Cat, shown
on the map by dark green colour, that is, from all cultivated land
below the 500 feet level save the upper parts of the valleys; or they
slew or enslaved the Pict who remained. Lastly, on settling, they
would seize his women-kind and wed them; for the women of their own
race were not allowed on Viking ships, and were probably less amenable
and less charming to boot. But the Pictish women thus seized had their
revenge. The darker race prevailed, and, the supply of fathers of
pure Norse blood being renewed only at intervals, the children of
such unions soon came to be mainly of Celtic strain, and their mothers
doubtless taught them to speak the Gaelic, which had then for at least
a century superseded the Pictish tongue. The result was a mixed race
of Gall-gaels or Gaelic strangers, far more Celtic than Norse, who
soon spoke chiefly Gaelic, save in north-east Ness. Their Gaelic, too,
like the English of Shetland at the present time, would not only be
full of old Norse words, especially for things relating to the sea,
but be spoken with a slight foreign accent.
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