Picts, so the dwellings ascribed to the Fians in one locality, are in
another said to have been made and inhabited by the Picts.

Fians, then, are associated or identified with Fairies, and also with
Picts. To complete my equilateral triangle, the Picts ought also to be
regarded as Fairies, or as akin to them.

This undoubtedly is a popular belief. The earliest alleged reference of
this kind is placed by one writer in the middle of the fifteenth
century, before the Orkney Islands had passed from the crown of Denmark
to the crown of Scotland. A manuscript of the then Bishop of Orkney,
dated Kirkwall 1443, states that when Harald Haarfagr conquered the
Orkneys in the ninth century, the inhabitants were the two "nations" of
the _Papæ_ and the _Peti_, both of whom were exterminated. By the former
name is understood the Irish missionaries: the _Peti_ were certainly the
Picts, or Pehts.[50] Now, of these Picts of Orkney it is said, that they
"were only a little exceeding pigmies in stature, and worked wonderfully
in the construction of their cities, evening and morning, but in
mid-day, being quite destitute of strength, they hid themselves through
fear in little houses under ground."[51]

The exact date of this statement is at present doubtful, but it is quite
in accordance with the widespread ideas held throughout Scotland and
Northumberland with regard to the Picts: that they were great as
builders, but were of very low stature, and closely akin to Fairies.[52]
Moreover, they are famous for doing their work during the night.
Whatever be the explanation of the above curious statement that at
mid-day they lost their strength and withdrew to their underground
houses, it is at any rate interesting to compare with it the remark made
by the traveller Pennant as he was passing along Glenorchy in 1772. This