Setantii

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The Setantii (also Segantii or Sistuntii) were a pre-Roman Celtic tribe who apparently lived in southern Lancashire and Merseyside in England.

Their name is known from a single source only, the 2nd century Geographia of Claudius Ptolemaeus. Recorded there is the placename Portus Setantiorum or 'Port of the Setantii'. This place has probably long since been inundated by the sea, but, because of the pattern of Roman roads in the area, is widely believed to have been located near the modern port of Fleetwood. The tribe may also be remembered in the hydronym of Seteia, also recorded by Ptolemy and assumed by its position in his text to refer to the River Mersey.

The name of the tribe has been interpreted as meaning 'dwellers in the water country' and may be associated with the Irish hero Cúchulainn, whose birthname, Sétanta, bears clear similarities to it. Perhaps they originated from the area around his chief residence at Tara and the Ulster coast. Sir John Rhys also suggested an association between these two and Seithennin, a Welsh character known from the Black Book of Carmarthen.^[1]

It is likely the tribe were a sept or sub-tribe of the Brigantes, who, at the time of the Roman invasion, dominated much of what is now northern England. The extent of the Setantii territory is unknown, but it has been suggested that the southernmost boundary was the Seteia (River Mersey) itself, with the northern reaches perhaps stretching as far as Borrow Beck, just south of Tebay, in Westmorland (now southern Cumbria).