Our Chronicles state that when Brute and his companions reached these shores, “at that time the name of the island was Albion”. According to tradition Alba, Albion, or Alban, whence the place-name Albion, was a fairy giant, but this, in the eyes of current scholarship, is a fallacy, and alba is merely an adjective meaning white, whence wherever met with it is so translated. But because there happens to be a relatively small tract of white cliffs in the neighbourhood of Dover, it is a barren stretch of imagination to suppose that all Britain thence derived its prehistoric title, and in any case the question—why did alba mean white?—would remain unanswered. The Highlanders of Scotland still speak of their country as Albany or Alban; the national cry of Scotland was evidently at one time “Albani,” and even as late as 1138, “the army of the Scots with one voice vociferated their native distinction, and the shout of Albani! Albani! ascended even to the heavens”.
Not only by the Romans but likewise by the Greeks, Britain was known as Albion, and one may therefore conjecture that the white-cliff theory is an unsound fancy.
Harold BAYLEY, Archaic England (1919).
