While we’re on the subject of Scottish origins, there is a section of the Declaration of Abroath from 1320 AD that is interesting, since they give a brief description of their own understanding of their origins, at that time:
“Most Holy Father and Lord, we know and from the chronicles and books of the ancients we find that among other famous nations our own, the Scots, has been graced with widespread renown. They journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Pillars of Hercules, and dwelt for a long course of time in Spain among the most savage tribes, but nowhere could they be subdued by any race, however barbarous. Thence they came, twelve hundred years after the people of Israel crossed the Red Sea, to their home in the west where they still live today. The Britons they first drove out, the Picts they utterly destroyed, and, even though very often assailed by the Norwegians, the Danes and the English, they took possession of that home with many victories and untold efforts; and, as the historians of old time bear witness, they have held it free of all bondage ever since. In their kingdom there have reigned one hundred and thirteen kings of their own royal stock, the line unbroken a single foreigner.”
A most interesting tracery of the many kinds of people who came to be Scots, a national identity apparent to them even in the 14th century that transcended ethnicity. Surely the Declaration of Independence owes a debt to the Declaration of Abroath:
...as long as but a hundred of us remain alive, never will we on any conditions be brought under English rule. It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom – for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself...
An interesting article call “Our Scythian Ancestors” at http://www.ensignmessage.com/archives/scythian.html might be interesting to you.
If you go to the site, be careful, as it a British Israelism site, and believe in replacement theology. I only use it to glean some information about possible links to Israel we Europeans may have. I definitely do not believe in replacement theology or British Israelism. The houses of Judah and Israel will come together as one Nation. Jews are God’s chosen people, but I do think that The House of Israel (different than the House of Judah, which is the southern kingdom, the House of Israel being the northern kingdom, after Israel split into two kingdoms) has been dispersed. The House of Israel basically has disappeared from the view of history, being dispersed throughout the whole world, God knowing who are of Abraham’s seed, even when they don’t.