UISCE NIGHEAN

THE ORIGIN OF MCNAUGHTON

In order to understand the origins of the name McNaughton we must go back to the most ancient evidence. That would be the ogham. Of all the oghams known to exist one name is the most numerous beyond all others, and that is Nechtan. The oghams, carved in stone, are said by most scholars to have been made between 600AD and 900AD, though it may fairly be added that there are also some who think they may be much older. It’s not possible to carbon date a scratch in a rock. Fixing the date of the scratch is a difficult task. Some oghams were carved on stones with crosses, in cemeteries of churches making the estimation of 600AD to 900AD possible. But other oghams have no cross or other marking, like the one at Lunnasting, and these could possibly be two thousand years old or more. The language of the Ogham is unreadable today. The words do not make sense in any known language, leading some scientists to suggest these words were non-Indo-European in origin, an ancient lost language perhaps related to Basque, or Etruscan, or Estonian, or Magyar, for these languages are non-Indo-European, -- much older than the PIE languages that make up Europe and Asia. For the Ogham to be non-Indo-European would mean the priests who wrote the ogham had what is called a “priest-language” they spoke among themselves, a language that was lost to the common person of that day but still retained by the priests, in ancient oral genealogies, and prayers and songs, passed down from father to son and mother to daughter, from a very ancient time, among the priest families. Let’s look at some of these Oghams.

On the island of Lunnasting in the Shetlands a stone is carved with this ogham: ETTECUHETTS AHEHHTTANNN HCCVVEVV NEHHTONS. Only the last part is understood, meaning either Nechtan or the people of Nechtan.

In Keiss Bay Scotland a stone is carved with NEHTETRI.  Nechtan.

In Aboyne Scotland a stone is carved with NEHHTVROBBACCENNEVV MAQQOTALLUORRH. The first part is believed to be “Nechtan”, the last part seems to say “son of Talorc”.

In Bressay : CRROSCC NAHHTVVDDADDS DATTR ANN BENNISES MEQDDROANN – Something about Nechtan and at the end Son of Droann

In Latheron : DUV NODNNATMAQQNAHHTO-- son of Nechtan

These are only a few of the examples. There are about thirty more Nechtan Oghams.

McNaughton scholars V.V.McNitt,  Angus Macnaghten, and others have written they believe the surname Nechtan derives from the ancient root “Nig”, which means “to wash” or to be clean or pure. Further, they say this refers to the concept of a pure hostage or pledge, which could be left with a king in promise of a payment or duty. I am sure this is part of the truth, but not all of it. Neither of these scholars, nor any other I know of, considered the oghams. At least they never mentioned it in their writings. And the oghams are the OLDEST example in writing we have of the name.

The oghams give us a whole new insight. Nearly all of the oghams have a letter “t” in the middle of the name. NEHHTONS.  NEHTETRI. MAQQNAHHTO. Etc. And this is from back in the ancient timeperiod when one would expect the root “nig” would apply. I don’t rule out nig as part of the root concept. However I see the root NEHT, which has very ancient meanings: knit, knitting, and net to be equally important.

The net is one of the original fundamental pictograph symbols of the human race, with rock carving examples dating back more than seven thousand years. In the earliest days of existence the human race learned to twist together long fibers of mammoth wool and make thread and cordage. They tied arrowheads and axe heads to shafts. They knotted fibers together and made nets. The mammoth wool lay in clumps everywhere in the early world. Still today in the northern frozen tundra it is possible to find ancient clumps of mammoth wool undisturbed where it fell for tens of thousands of years. Our ancestors would wrap themselves in this wool to approach mammoths. Once they were close enough to the creature they could slit open his soft underbelly with their sharp obsidian blades. This mammoth wool was the first clothing of the human race. It was tied and knotted together. By the time the human race began carving picture symbols into stone and clay the net was already untold thousands of years old. The science of net making was thousands of years old. The science of knotting and weaving fibers together. Net and knit. Same root.

The last great ice age ended about ten thousand years ago. The last of the mammoths disappeared from Europe and Asia shortly thereafter, probably hunted to extinction, though experts are quick to point out that it has not been proven that humans hunted mammoths. Still, it seems unlikely that they didn’t. They had the weapons to do it well, and the skill. They were brave enough to face the huge cavebear in the dark caves and brought them to extinction. Facing mammoths could not have been worse than facing a ten foot tall cavebear in the dark. With no mammoth herds to follow anymore parts of the human race decided they didn’t need to be on the move all the time anymore. The lands and river valleys west of the Black Sea were the first areas where humans became sedentary, and then Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent. They preferred to live where natural salt existed on the surface of the earth, because salted meat gave them the ability to stay in one area year round without following the wild herds. The first stone walls were built to store the salt, which was more valuable than gold, and had to be guarded from thieves. These stone walls expanded and became the first human cities, Catal Huyuk and Jerecho. More cities sprang up then and the human race learned how to farm grains, which they could not have done in their ancient migratory days. And then came Egypt.

The oldest Goddess of Egypt was Neith. She was considered the mother of the Sun God Ra. She was the darkness that the Sun came out of. She was the huntress with crossed arrows as her symbol. She came to be known as the goddess of weaving and knitting. The ancient Egyptian word “netet” means to knit or weave. Unlike other goddesses Neith does not have a husband. She has lovers, but no one man has power over her. The ancient Egyptian word root NNT is the same for weaving and being.

The Ancient Sanscrit word nahyati means binds, ties. Also nah. So we begin to see there exists an ancient rootword in primordial languages that is associated with weaving, knitting, tying, knotting.

In the Proto-Germanic language we find the word natjan, which means net and the word knutt which means knot.

In Old Norse we find knutr, meaning knot, and net meaning net.

Old English we find cnotta , meaning knotting ropes and cords, cnyttan meaning to tie with a knot, or bind. and net means mesh.

And in Early Irish we find snaidm and naidm meaning bond or nexus and snaidey which means to knit, and in Gaelic we find cniot�il, meaning knit and nittal meaning knitting.

All things considered I believe the ancient roots for knit and net are more likely candidates for the root of  NEHHTON than nig.  But I also think nig, meaning washed, pure, has a place in the ancient root. Because the consonants g and ch and cht and t are so closely related in the ancient guttural pronunciation. It isn’t really possible to spell correctly the ancient sounds of that consonant. And it ends up being spelled in several different ways, especially by the first Christian monks who were trying to translate the ancient pronunciation into Roman letters.

So now we get to the old ways of saying the name. Neachain and Neachdain were two. And a bit earlier, in the most ancient land of the Picts we have the people called the Sons of Uisneachan. Also called the Sons of Uisneach. They were the royal Pict family. In the story of the princess Dierdre, she is raised with the three sons of Uisnech. The historian W.H.Murray contends this happened on Loch Etive. Dierdre especially loved the Uisnech brother named Naoise. It is said that Loch Ness gets its name from him. The ancient Fort of the Sons of Uisnech is located on the shores of Loch Etive. It is the largest of all the mysterious vitrified forts. Some historians say this is the ancient Beregonium, the primordial capitol of the Picts about 2000 years ago.

There were three Pict Kings named Nechtan. They were all related to each other. Because the royal Pict women chose who the king would be. It was a matrilinear society. There is a lot of confusion today. Part of it was caused by the great historian William Skene. He wrote some excellent history, but he also included some spurious genealogies in his books. He traces the Nechtan family back to the Nechtan kings and from there back to the Dalriadan genealogies. But Skene, brilliant as he was, could not always put things together very well. He didn’t take Bede into account for instance. Bede was contemporary of the last King Nechtan and probably knew him personally. I say this because Bede spent his life in a Northumbrian monastery near the southern borders of Pictland. These monasteries were the hotels of their day, especially for royalty when they traveled. The Pict King Nechtan had a great deal of business to do with the nation of Northumbria and the Roman Catholic church there, because King Nechtan asked them to come to Pictland and build stone churches in their style and teach the Roman method of Christianity. So Pict envoys would be staying regularly in Bede’s home. Perhaps even King Nechtan himself. Bede wrote quite a bit about King Nechtan and the Picts. Scholars have always considered Bede one of the greatest authorities. And Bede assures us that the Royal Pict women chose the kings. That is directly contrary to the Dalriadan society. The Picts were matrilinear. Genealogy was figured by tracing the mother’s line back, not the father’s. But Skene’s McNaughton/Nechtan genealogy is entirely father to son. And that totally disregards Bede, and what Pict historians tell us about Pict Royalty. 

So where did Skene’s version of ancient McNaughton genealogy come from? It's well known that traveling poets made their living by going from wealthy man to wealthy man and composing songs of praise about him. And composing fictitious genealogies tracing his lineage all the way back to Noah. For this they got sumptuous lodging and fine food and probably pretty women to sleep with. Not a bad job. Many of their fictitious genealogies were passed down as legitamate. I believe every evidence points to this happening in the case of Skene's McNaughton genealogy. Parts of Skene’s McNaughton genealogy may be true though. Because when King Nechtan invited the Northumbrian Roman church into Pictland to teach its traditions it would have established patriarchal lineage and matrilinear ways would have ended. But the generations before King Nechtan, ho died about 732AD, would have been matrilinear, and they would not have led to Dalriada, they would have led to the Sons of Uisnech. So who were the sons of Uisnech?

Well, the Uisnech were a people of the sea who probably lived in both places, Ireland and Scotland. They were different from the other Irish though. They had different origins and a different language and a different religion.

In the ancient days the holy ollahm of Ireland had certain ancient holy trees. All trees were sacred to them. But there were certain ancient trees that were the centers of worship. Five Sacred Trees. The way I see it these were great old trees that were located in various parts of Ireland. Each tree had it's group of holy people who lived around that tree and functioned there, performing ceremonies, teaching, etc. These 5 Sacred trees are connected to the lore of the ancient Yggdrasil, the World Tree. Probably has to do with the roots and the sky and how human generations reach from the nether beginnings and stretch forth up into the future. There were 5 sacred trees in Ireland. Five sacred locations.   Each had it's own culture. the Tree of Ross, the mighty Tree of Mugna, and the red-sided Tree of Tortu, The Tree of Dathi and the Tree of Uisnech. Supposedly, three of these were Ash trees and two were Yew. These trees were so sacred that they must never fall into the hands of the enemy. And in those days, Christians were the enemy. If the defenders were ever to lose their battles and the Christians were sure to take the land where the Sacred tree was located it was the duty of the priests to cut down the sacred tree. The Tree of Uisnech, an Ash,  is said to have been huge. There is the ancient trunk of of an Ash tree in England that is 18 feet in diameter. Ash trees produced long strait poles. These poles could serve as staffs. And also the ollahm wrote on these staffs and set them in the ground, marking boundaries and warnings and prayers and other things. Histories and genealogies. So it was a writing tree. A tree of the word.

There was also a sacred hill of Uisnech, supposedly the center of Ireland. The sacred fire was kept alive there, from which all the fires of Ireland were kindled once a year. The Priests of Uisnech lived here. Nearby, at the source of the Boyne was the Well of Nechtan. The root "nech" is significant in Uisnech and Nechtan. Nechtan was the God of Wisdom. He lived at the sacred pool. There was a chestnut tree there that dropped nuts into the water and the Salmon ate them. This King Nechtan then was the high priest of the Uisnech druids. The Boyne valley has the ancient megalithic ruins which date back to 3000BC. The cult of Nechtan and Uisnech surely extend at least that anciently.

There was apparently a great war, where the many of the sons of Uisnech were slain by Cuchlain and others were driven out of Ireland. There are records on the Island of Mann of them passing from Ireland to Scotland. And too, there is the legend of Nechtan's wife Bonn. History indicates that may have been the source of the story of the wisdom flowing out of the land, inasmuch as the Nechtan druids held the ancient oghams and libraries. They came to Scotland and settled in Loch Etive. Probably between 300 BC and 500 BC.

You see, that is what all the brocks and vitrified forts were all about. Fortifications to protect people from an enemy. It was about metal really. The Carthaginians were the great metal traders of the Mediterranean. They knew all the sea routes and mapped out routes no one had ever yet explored. They went out the Straits of Gibraltar and sailed south down the coast of Africa. The Carthaginian Himilco sailed out the strait of Gibraltar and north to the British Isles. He was the only Carthaginian who left records, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. There had to be others. Britain is visible from the Spanish coast. Why wouldn’t they sail to Britain. The Carthaginians were in Spain. They had to have seen the fine Bronze that came from Britain. Bronze was the specialty of the Carthaginians. They made it of copper and tin and sold it in slabs to people who melted it down and made weapons and implements with it. Tin was scarce. Carthaginians had to search extensively for tin to make their bronze. There is no proof that they mined tin in Cornwall. There is some Iberian evidence there, but nothing of Carthage. But the Carthaginians had to have been there. They would have found all the tin they needed in SW Britain. There certainly must have been some competition for the tin because the people of Britain were already known to make the best bronze in the world. The Carthaginians were not the only Mediterranean people to travel to Britain. The Etrurians surely came, for they were allies of the Carthaginians, just as good seamen, and the best iron makers in the world. Smelting iron required very high temperatures and the Etrurians knew all the secrets. The ancient legends say at least one Egyptian also came to Britain. Scotta, daughter of the Pharoah. There may be some truth to that. The Greek Pytheus circumnavigated Britain around 325 BC and then sailed up to the Northern sea. He was surely the tip of the Greek iceberg. We knew about these only because they wrote about their travels. Most probably did not.

The vitrified forts and brocks stand out to me as similar to constructions found on Sardinia and elsewhere in the Mediterranean. They don’t look like British home-grown inventions. The fact that they exist mostly in Scotland is significant. And the largest of the vitrified forts is on Loch Etive, the fort of the Sons of Uisnech.

And that brings us around to the last bit of root analysis. Uisnech. What does it mean? We know it is two pieces. Uis and Nech. I have long contended that the Uisnech were the royal female Pict line. And the kings were the Sons of Uisnech. But let us analyze the two pieces.

We will start with Nech. It is close enough to Nehht to be one and the same. And the various g sounds, hard and soft, have been used to try to spell that difficult consonant. So, Nig is also the same. So, we are back to where we started, to Nig, as V.V.McNitt and Angus Macnaghten have said. But wait. There is another possibility. The word Nig means wash, or pure – but the word nighean means a daughter. So…. NEHHTON could be nighean, daughter.

Gaelic speakers used the prefix “Mhic” to denote “son of”, shortened in modern usage to “Mc” as in McNaughton. The most ancient examples in existence being the ogham Maqq: MAQQNAHHTO. The most ancient development of the surname in Scotland may be traced to the Maqq oghams, the son of a king. Ancient Gaelic speakers used the prefix “Nhic” to denote “daughter of”, shortened to “Nc” as in NcNaughton. Nhic comes from nighean, for daughter. So, Nhic and Nech have always been the same. It’s just that no one really realized it. Nech means daughters…

What about Uis? In Old Irish uisce means water.

So, we could translate Uisnech as something like Water Daughters. Sons of Uisnech. Sons of the Water Daughters. Does that make sense? It will in a minute.

You see, it is all about pools and springs and all flowing water in general, which in ancient days were thought to be the sacred places where Goddesses lived, where people left strips of cloth fluttering in the winds from the trees near the water, for she was goddess not only of sacred waters but of weaving, for it is the women who weave the universe.

King Nechtan was the God of Wisdom. He lived beside the sacred pool that was the source of the River Boyne and his wife was Bonn. The Uisnech were the royal Pict women. The Sons of Uisnech were the kings and nobles of the Picts. You would think their name would say something about that. It does. The Uisnech were the Goddesses of the wells and pools and rushing streams and the weaving of life. The Uisnech were the Uisce Nighean. The Royal Pict female clan. The women who chose the Pict Kings. The Goddess of Sovereignty.

Thomas Holme

Copyright � Thomas Ross Holme October 25, 2005

I place this article on the internet for people to read. I would appreciate it if you quote my article you say it is mine. And I am especially upset about people who take my writings off the internet and put them into their own websites as if they wrote them. That is a pretty low thing to do. The concept that the Uisneachan = Uisce Nighean is something I realized while doing my research. Up until this time no one, no scholar from any University anywhere, no Scottish historian whatsoever, has realized it and written about it. So I will be perturbed if I discover a month from now or a year from now that someone has taken this as their own idea. Thanks. Thomas Holme. Oct 25, 2005.