Chapter 36

1.In reference to the name“Freeman,”Mr. Nicholson adds:“No one was more intensely‘English’in his sympathies than the great historian of that name, and probably no one would have more strenuously resisted the suggestion that he might be of Welsh descent; yet I have met his close physical counterpart in a Welsh farmer (named Evans) living within a few minutes of Pwllheli.”2.He speaks of“Nyrax, a Celtic city,”and“Massalia [Marseilles], a city of Liguria in the land of the Celts”(“Fragmenta Hist. Græc.”).3.In his“Premiers Habitants de l'Europe,”vol. ii.4.“Cæesar's Conquest of Gaul,”pp. 251-327.5.The ancients were not very close observers of physical characteristics. They describe the Celts in almost exactly the same terms as those which they apply to the Germanic races. Dr. Rice Holmes is of opinion that the real difference, physically, lay in the fact that the fairness of the Germans was blond, and that of the Celts red. In an interesting passage of the work already quoted (p. 315) he observes that,“Making every allowance for the admixture of other blood, which must have considerably modified the type of the original Celtic or Gallic invaders of these islands, we are struck by the fact that among all our Celtic-speaking fellow subjects there are to be found numerous specimens of a type which also exists in those parts of Brittany which were colonised by British invaders, and in those parts of Gaul in which the Gallic invaders appear to have settled most thickly, as well as in Northern Italy, where the Celtic invaders were once dominant; and also by the fact that this type,even among the more blond representatives of it, is strikingly different, to the casual as well as to the scientific observer, from that of the purest representatives of the ancient Germans. The well-known picture of Sir David Wilkie,‘Reading of the Waterloo Gazette,’illustrates, as Daniel Wilson remarked, the difference between the two types. Put a Perthshire Highlander side by side with a Sussex farmer. Both will be fair; but the red hair and beard of the Scot will be in marked contrast with the fair hair of the Englishman, and their features will differ still more markedly. I remember teeing two gamekeepers in a railway carriage running from Inverness to Lairey. They were tall, athletic, fair men, evidently belonging to the Scandinavian type, which, as Dr. Beddoe says, is so common in the extreme north of Scotland; but both in colouring and in general aspect they were utterly different from the tall, fair Highlanders whom I had seen in Perthshire. There was not a trace of red in their hair, their long beards being absolutely yellow. The prevalence of red among the Celtic-speaking people is, it seems to me, a most striking characteristic. Not only do we find eleven men in every hundred whose hair is absolutely red, but underlying the blacks and the dark browns the lame tint is to be discovered.”6.See the map of comparative nigrescence given in Ripley's“Races of Europe,”p. 318. In France, however, the Bretons are not a dark race relatively to the rest of the population. They are composed partly of the ancient Gallic peoples and partly of settlers from Wales who were driven out by the Saxon invasion.7.See for these names Holder's“Altceltischer Sprachschatz.”8.Vergil might possibly mean“the very-bright”or illustrious one, a natural form for a proper name.Verin Gallic names (Vercingetorix, Vercassivellasimus, &c.) is often an intensive prefix, like the modern Irishfior. The name of the village where Vergil was born, Andes (now Pietola), is Celtic. His love of nature, his mysticism, and his strong feeling for a certain decorative quality in language and rhythm are markedly Celtic qualities. Tennyson's phrases for him,“landscape-lover, lord of language,”are suggestive in this connexion.9.Ptolemy, a friend, and probably, indeed, half-brother, of Alexander, was doubtless present when this incident took place. His work has not survived, but is quoted by Arrian and other historians.10.One is reminded of the folk-tale about Henny Penny, who went to tell the king that the sky was falling.11.The Book of Leinster is a manuscript of the twelfth century. The version of the“Táin”given in it probably dates from the eighth. See de Jubainville,“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 316.12.Dr. Douglas Hyde in his“Literary History of Ireland”(p. 7) gives a slightly different translation.13.It is also a testimony to the close accuracy of the narrative of Ptolemy.14.Roman history tells of various conflicts with the Celts during this period, but de Jubainville has shown that these narratives are almost entirely mythical. See“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 318-323.15.E.g.,Moymell (magh-meala), the Plain of Honey, a Gaelic name for Fairyland, and many place-names.16.For these and many other examples see de Jubainville's“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 255sqq.17.Quoted by Mr. Romilly Allen in“Celtic Art,”p. 136.18.“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 355, 356.19.Irish is probably an older form of Celtic speech than Welsh. This is shown by many philological peculiarities of the Irish language, of which one of the most interesting may here be briefly referred to. The Goidelic or Gaelic Celts, who, according to the usual theory, first colonised the British Islands, and who were forced by successive waves of invasion by their Continental kindred to the extreme west, had a peculiar dislike to the pronunciation of the letterp. Thus the Indo-European particlepare, represented by Greekπαρά, beside or close to, becomes in early Celticare, as in the nameAre-morici(the Armoricans, those who dwellar muir, by the sea);Are-dunum(Ardin, in France);Are-cluta, the place beside the Clota (Clyde), now Dumbarton;Are-taunon,in Germany (near the Taunus Mountains), &c. When this letter was not simply dropped it was usually changed intoc (k, g). But about the sixth century B.C. a remarkable change passed over the language of the Continental Celts. They gained in some unexplained way the faculty for pronouncingp, and even substituted it for existingcsounds; thus the originalCretanisbecamePretanis, Britain, the numeralqetuares(four) becamepetuares, and so forth. Celtic place-names in Spain show that this change must have taken place before the Celtic conquest of that country, 500 B.C. Now a comparison of many Irish and Welsh words shows distinctly this avoidance ofpon the Irish side and lack of any objection to it on the Welsh. The following are a few illustrations:IrishWelshEnglishcrannprenntreemacmaptoncennpenheadclumh (cluv)pluvfeathercúigpimpfiveThe conclusion that Irish must represent the older form of the language seems obvious. It is remarkable that even to a comparatively late date the Irish preserved their dislike top. Thus they turned the LatinPascha(Easter) toCasg; purpur, purple, tocorcair, pulsatio(through Frenchpouls) tocuisle. It must be noted, however, that Nicholson in his“Keltic Researches”endeavours to show that the so-called Indo-Europeanp—that is,pstanding alone and uncombined with another consonant—was pronounced by the Goidelic Celts at an early period. The subject can hardly be said to be cleared up yet.20.The Irish, says Edmund Spenser, in his“View of the Present State of Ireland,”“use commonyle to send up and down to know newes, and yf any meet with another, his second woorde is, What newes?”21.Compare Spenser:“I have heard some greate warriors say, that in all the services which they had seen abroad in forrayne countreys, they never saw a more comely horseman than the Irish man, nor that cometh on more bravely in his charge ... they are very valiante and hardye, for the most part great endurours of cold, labour, hunger and all hardiness, very active and stronge of hand, very swift of foote, very vigilaunte and circumspect in theyr enterprises, very present in perrils, very great scorners of death.”22.The scene of the surrender of Vercingetorix is not recounted by Cæsar, and rests mainly on the authority of Plutarch and of the historian Florus, but it is accepted by scholars (Mommsen, Long, &c.) as historic.23.These were a tribe who took their name from thegæsum, a kind of Celtic javelin, which was their principal weapon. The torque, or twisted collar of gold, is introduced as a typical ornament in the well-known statue of the dying Gaul, commonly called“The Dying Gladiator.”Many examples are preserved in the National Museum of Dublin.24.“Cæsar's Conquest of Gaul,”pp. 10, 11. Let it be added that the aristocratic Celts were, like the Teutons, dolichocephalic—that is to say, they had heads long in proportion to their breadth. This is proved by remains found in the basin of the Marne, which was thickly populated by them. In one case the skeleton of the tall Gallic warrior was found with his war-car, iron helmet, and sword, now in the Music de St.-Germain. The inhabitants of the British Islands are uniformly long-headed, the round-headed“Alpine”type occurring very rarely. Those of modern France are round-headed. The shape of the head, however, is now known to be by no means a constant racial character. It alters rapidly in a new environment, as is shown by measurements of the descendants of immigrants in America. See an article on this subject by Professor Haddon in“Nature,”Nov. 3, 1910.25.In the“Tain Bo Cuailgne,”for instance, the King of Ulster must not speak to a messenger until the Druid, Cathbad, has questioned him. One recalls the lines of Sir Samuel Ferguson in his Irish epic poem,“Congal”:“... For ever since the time When Cathbad smothered Usnach's sons in that foul sea of slime Raised by abominable spells at Creeveroe's bloody gate, Do ruin and dishonour still on priest-led kings await.”26.Celtice, Diarmuid mac Cearbhaill.27.It was the practice, known in India also, for a person who was wronged by a superior, or thought himself so, to sit before the doorstep of the denier of justice and fast until right was done him. In Ireland a magical power was attributed to the ceremony, the effect of which would be averted by the other person fasting as well.28.“Silva Gadelica,”by S.H. O'Grady, p. 73.29.The authority here quoted is a narrative contained in a fifteenth-century vellum manuscript found in Lismore Castle in 1814, and translated by S.H. O'Grady in his“Silva Gadelica.”The narrative is attributed to an officer of Dermot's court.30.From Greekmegas, great, andlithos, a stone.31.Seep. 78.32.See Borlase's“Dolmens of Ireland,”pp. 605, 606, for a discussion of this question.33.Professor Ridgeway (see Report of the Brit. Assoc. for 1908) has contended that the Megalithic People spoke an Aryan language; otherwise he thinks more traces of its influence must have survived in the Celtic which supplanted it. The weight of authority, as well as such direct evidence as we possess, seems to be against his view.34.See Holder,“Altceltischer Sprachschatz.”sulb voce“Hyperboreoi.”35.Thus the Greekpharmakon=medicine, poison, or charm; and I am informed that the Central African word for magic or charm ismankwala, which also means medicine.36.If Pliny meant that it was here first codified and organised he may be right, but the conceptions on which magic rest are practically universal, and of immemorial antiquity.37.Adopted 451 B.C. Livy entitles them“the fountain of all public and private right.”They stood in the Forum till the third century A.D., but have now perished, except for fragments preserved in various commentaries.38.See“Revue Archeologique,”t. xii., 1865,“Fouilles de René Galles.”39.Jade is not found in the native state in Europe, nor nearer than China.40.Small stones, crystals, and gems were, however, also venerated. The celebrated Black Stone of Pergamos was the subject of an embassy from Rome to that city in the time of the Second Punic War, the Sibylline Books having predicted victory to its possessors. It was brought to Rome with great rejoicings in the year 205. It is stated to have been about the size of a man's fist, and was probably a meteorite. Compare the myth in Hesiod which relates how Kronos devoured a stone in the belief that it was his offspring, Zeus. It was then possible to mistake a stone for a god.41.Replaced by a photograph in this edition.42.See Sir J. Simpson's“Archaic Sculpturings”1867.43.The fact is recorded in the“Annals of the Four Masters”Under the date 861, and in the“Annals of Ulster”under 862.44.See“Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,”vol. xxx. pt. i., 1892, and“New Grange,”by G. Coffey, 1912.45.It must be observed, however, that the decoration was, certainly, in some, and perhaps in all cases, carried out before the stones were placed in position. This is also the case at Gavr'inis.46.He has modified this view in his latest work,“New Grange,”1912.47.“Proc. Royal Irish Acad.,”vol. viii. 1863, p. 400, and G. Coffey,op. cit.p. 30.48.“Les Sculptures de Rochers de la Suède,”read at the Prehistoric Congress, Stockholm, 1874; and see G. Coffey,op. cit.p. 60.49.“Dolmens of Ireland,”pp. 701-704.50.“The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria.”51.A good example from Amaravati (after Fergusson) is given by Bertrand,“Rel. des G.,”p. 389.52.Sergi,“The Mediterranean Race,”p. 313.53.At Lökeberget, Bohuslän; see Monteiius,op. cit.54.See Lord Kingsborough's“Antiquities of Mexico,”passim, and the Humboldt fragment of Mexican painting (reproduced in Churchward's“Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man”).55.See Sergi,op. cit.p. 290, for theAnkhon a French dolmen.56.“Bulletin de la Soc. d'Anthropologie,”Paris, April 1893.57.“The Welsh People,”pp. 616-664, where the subject is fully discussed in an appendix by Professor J. Morris Jones.“The pre-Aryan idioms which still live in Welsh and Irish were derived from a language allied to Egyptian and the Berber tongues.”58.Flinders Petrie,“Egypt and Israel,”pp. 137, 899.59.I quote from Mr. H.B. Cotterill's beautiful hexameter version.60.Valerius Maximus (about A.D 30) and other classical writers mention this practice.61.Book V.62.De Jubainville,“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p.191sqq.63.The etymology of the word“Druid”is no longer an unsolved problem. It had been suggested that the latter part of the word might be connected with the Aryan root VID, which appears in“wisdom,”in the Latinvidere, &c., Thurneysen has now shown that this root in combination with the intensive particledruwould yield the worddru-vids, represented in Gaelic bydraoi, a Druid, just as another intensive,su, withvidsyields the Gaelicsaoi, a sage.64.See Rice Holmes,“Cæsar's Conquest,”p. 15, and pp. 532-536. Rhys, it may be observed, believes that Druidism was the religion of the aboriginal inhabitants of Western Europe“from the Baltic to Gibraltar”(“Celtic Britain,”p. 73). But we onlyknowof it where Celts and dolmen-builders combined. Cæsar remarks of the Germans that they had no Druids and cared little about sacrificial ceremonies.65.“Rel. des Gaulois,”leçon xx.66.Quoted by Bertrand,op. cit.p. 279.67.“The Irish Mythological Cycle,”by d'Arbois de Jubainville, p. 6l. The“Dinnsenchus”in question is an early Christian document. No trace of a being like Crom Cruach has been found as yet in the pagan literature of Ireland, nor in the writings of St. Patrick, and I think it is quite probable that even in the time of St. Patrick human sacrifices had become only a memory.68.A representation of human sacrifice has, however, lately been discovered in a Temple of the Sun in the ancient Ethiopian capital, Meroë.69.“You [Celts] who by cruel blood outpoured think to appease the pitiless Teutates, the horrid Æsus with his barbarous altars, and Taranus whose worship is no gentler than that of the Scythian Diana”, to whom captive were offered up. (Lucan,“Pharsalia”, i. 444.) An altar dedicated to Æsus has been discovered in Paris.70.Mont Mercure, Mercœur, Mercoirey, Montmartre (Mons Mercurii), &c.71.To this day in many parts of France the peasantry use terms likeannuit, o'né, anneue, &c., all meaning“to-night,”foraujourd'hui(Bertrand,“Rel. des G.,”p. 356).72.Thefili, or professional poets, it must be remembered, were a branch of the Druidic order.73.For instance, Pelagius in the fifth century; Columba, Columbanus, and St. Gall in the sixth; Fridolin, namedViator,“the Traveller,”and Fursa in the seventh; Virgilius (Feargal) of Salzburg, who had to answer at Rome for teaching the sphericity of the earth, in the eighth; Dicuil,“the Geographer,”and Johannes Scotus Erigena—the master mind of his epoch—in the ninth.74.Dealgnaid. I have been obliged here, as occasionally elsewhere, to modify the Irish names so as to make them pronounceable by English readers.75.Seep. 48,note1.76.I follow in this narrative R.I. Best's translation of the“Irish Mythological Cycle”of d'Arbois de Jubainville.77.De Jubainville,“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p. 75.78.Pronounced“Yeo´hee.”See Glossary for this and other words.79.The science of the Druids, as we have seen, was conveyed in verse, and the professional poets were a branch of the Druidic Order.80.Meyer and Nutt,“Voyage of Bran,”ii. 197.81.“Moytura”means“The Plain of the Towers”—i.e., sepulchral monuments.82.Shakespeare alludes to this in“As You Like It.”“I never was so be-rhymed,”says Rosalind,“since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat—which I can hardly remember.”83.Lyons, Leyden, Laon were all in ancient times known asLug-dunum,the Fortress of Lugh.Luguvallumwas the name of a town near Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain.84.It is given by him in a note to the“Four Masters,”vol. i. p. 18, and is also reproduced by de Jubainville.85.The other two were“The Fate of the Children of Lir”and“The Fate of the Sons of Usna.”The stories of the Quest of the Sons of Turenn and that of the Children of Lir have been told in full by the author in his“High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances,”and that of the“Sons of Usna”(the Deirdre Legend) by Miss Eleanor Hull in her“Cuchulain,”both published by Harrap and Co86.O'Curry's translation from the bardic tale,“The Battle of Moytura.”87.O'Curry,“Manners and Customs,”iii. 214.88.The ancient Irish division of the year contained only these three seasons, including autumn in summer (O'Curry,“Manners and Customs,”iii. 217).]89.S.H. O'Grady,“Silva Gadelica,”p. 191.90.Pp. 104sqq., andpassim.91.O'Grady,loc. cit.92.O'Grady,loc. cit.93.Seep. 112.94.Miss Hull has discussed this subject fully in the introduction to her invaluable work,“The Cuchullin Saga.”95.See the tale of“Etain and Midir,”in Chap. IV.96.The name Tara is derived from an oblique case of the nominativeTeamhair, meaning“the place of the wide prospect.”It is now a broad grassy hill, in Co. Meath, covered with earthworks representing the sites of the ancient royal buildings, which can all be clearly located from ancient descriptions.97.A.H. Leahy,“Heroic Romances,”i. 27.98.Seep. 114.99.I cannot agree with Mr. O'Grady's identification of this goddess with Dana, though the name appears to mean“The Great Queen.”100.Gerald, the fourth Earl of Desmond. He disappeared, it is said, in 1398, and the legend goes that he still lives beneath the waters of Loch Gur, and may be seen riding round its banks on his white steed once every seven years. He was surnamed“Gerald the Poet”from the“witty and ingenious”verses he composed in Gaelic. Wizardry, poetry, and science were all united in one conception in the mind of the ancient Irish.101.“Popular Tales of Ireland,”by D. Fitzgerald, in“Revue Celtique,”vol. iv.102.“The Voyage of Bran,”vol. ii. p. 219.103.In Irish,Sionnain.104.Translation by R.I. Best.105.The solar vessels found in dolmen carvings. See Chap. II. p. 71sqq. Note that the Celtic spirits, though invisible, are material and have weight; not so those in Vergil and Dante.106.De Jubainville,“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p. 136. Beltené is the modern Irish name for the month of May, and is derived from an ancient root preserved in the Old Irish compoundepelta,“dead.”107.“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p. 138.108.I follow again de Jubainville's translation; but in connexion with this and the previous poems see also Ossianic Society's“Transactions,”vol. v.109.Teltin; so named after the goddess Telta. Seep. 103.110.Pronounced“Shee.”It means literally the People of the [Fairy] Mounds.111.Pronounced“Eefa.”112.This name means“The Maid of the Fair Shoulder.”113.The story here summarised is given in full in the writer's“High Deeds of Finn”(Harrap and Co.).114.It may be mentioned that the syllable“Kill,”which enters into so many Irish place-names (Kilkenny, Killiney, Kilcooley, &c.), usually represents the Latincella, a monastic cell, shrine, or church.115.Cleena (Cliodhna) was a Danaan princess about whom a legend is told connected with the Bay of Glandore in Co. Cork. See p. 127.116.Seep. 85.117.“Omnia monumenta Scotorum ante Cimbaoth incerta erant.”Tierna, who died in 1088, was Abbot of Clonmacnois, a great monastic and educational centre in mediæval Ireland.118.Compare the fine poem of a modern Celtic writer (Sir Samuel Ferguson),“The Widow's Cloak”—i.e., the British Empire in the days of Queen Victoria.119.“Critical History of Ireland,”p. 180.120.Pronounced“El´yill.”121.The endingsterin three of the names of the Irish provinces is of Norse origin, and is a relic of the Viking conquests in Ireland. Connacht, where the Vikings did not penetrate, alone preserves its Irish name unmodified. Ulster (in IrishUlaidh) is supposed to derive its name from Ollav Fōla, Munster (Mumhan) from King Eocho Mumho, tenth in succession from Eremon, and Connacht was“the land of the children of Conn”—he who was called Conn of the Hundred Battles, and who died A.D. 157.122.The reader may, however, be referred to the tale of Etain and Midir as given in full by A.H. Leahy (“Heroic Romances of Ireland”), and by the writer in his“High Deeds of Finn,”and to the tale of Conary rendered by Sir S. Ferguson (“Poems,”1886), in what Dr. Whitley Stokes has described as the noblest poem ever written by an Irishman.123.Pronounced“Yeo´hee.”124.I quote Mr. A.H. Leahy's translation from a fifteenth-century Egerton manuscript (“Heroic Romances of Ireland,”vol. i. p. 12). The story is, however, found in much more ancient authorities.125.Ogham letters, which were composed of straight lines arranged in a certain order about the axis formed by the edge of a squared pillar-stone, were used for sepulchral inscription and writing generally before the introduction of the Roman alphabet in Ireland.126.The reference is to the magic swine of Mananan, which were killed and eaten afresh every day, and whose meat preserved the eternal youth of the People of Dana.127.Seep. 124.128.The meaning quoted will be found in the Dictionary under the alternative formgeas129.I quote from Whitley Stokes' translation,Revue Celtique, January 1901, and succeeding numbers.130.Bregia was the great plain lying eastwards of Tara between Boyne and Liffey131.“The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel.”132.Pronounced“Koohoo´lin.”133.Seep. 150.134.See pp. 121-123 for an account of this deity.135.It is noticeable that among the characters figuring in the Ultonian legendary cycle many names occur of which the wordCu(hound) forms a part. Thus we have Curoi, Cucorb, Beälcu, &c. The reference is no doubt to the Irish wolf-hound, a fine type of valour and beauty.136.Now Lusk, a village on the coast a few miles north of Dublin.137.Owing to the similarity of the name the supernatural country of Skatha,“the Shadowy,”was early identified with the islands of Skye, where the Cuchulain Peaks still bear witness to the legend.138.This, of course, was Cuchulain's father, Lugh.139.This means probably“the belly spear.”With this terrible weapon Cuchulain was fated in the end to slay his friend Ferdia.140.See genealogical table, p. 181.141.Miss Hull,“The Cuchullin Saga,”p. lxxii, where the solar theory of the Brown Bull is dealt with at length.142.Acumalwas the unit of value in Celtic Ireland. It is mentioned as such by St. Patrick. It meant the price of a woman-slave.143.The cune laid on them by Macha. Sec p. 180.144.Cuchulain, as the son of the god Lugh, was not subject to the curse of Macha which afflicted the other Ultonians.145.His reputed father, the mortal husband of Dectera146.In the Irish bardic literature, as in the Homeric epics, chastity formed no part of the masculine ideal either for gods or men.147.“The Ford of the Forked Pole.”148.I quote from Standish Hayes O'Grady's translation, in Miss Hull's“Cuchullin Saga.”149.Ath Fherdia, which is pronounced and now spelt“Ardee.”It is in Co. Louth, at the southern border of the Plain of Murthemney, which was Cuchulain's territory.150.Seep. 126.151.In ancient Ireland there were five provinces, Munster being counted as two, or, as some ancient authorities explain it, the High King's territory in Meath and Westmeath being reckoned a separate province.152.“Clan”in Gaelic means children or offspring. Clan Calatin=the sons of Calatin.153.Together with much that is wild and barbaric in this Irish epic of the“Tain”the reader will be struck by the ideals of courtesy and gentleness which not infrequently come to light in it. It must be remembered that, as Mr. A.H. Leahy points out in his“Heroic Romances of Ireland,”the legend of the Raid of Quelgny is, at the very latest, a century earlier than all other known romances of chivalry, Welsh or Continental. It is found in the“Book of Leinster,”a manuscript of the twelfth century, as well as in other sources, and was doubtless considerably older than the date of its transcription there.“The whole thing,”says Mr. Leahy,“stands at the very beginning of the literature of modern Europe.”154.Another instance of the survival of the oath formula recited by the Celtic envoys to Alexander the Great. Seep. 23.155.“Rising-out”is the vivid expression used by Irish writers for a clan or territory going on the war-path.“Hosting”is also used in a similar sense.156.Seep. 130.157.The sword of Fergus was a fairy weapon called theCaladcholg(hard dinter), a name of which Arthur's more famous“Excalibur”is a Latinised corruption.158.The reference is to Deirdre.159.Seep. 211.160.A.H. Leahy's translation,“Heroic Romances of Ireland,”vol. i.161.The cloak of Mananan (seep. 125) typifies the sea—here, in its dividing and estranging power.162.This Curoi appears in various tales of the Ultonian Cycle with attributes which show that he was no mortal king, but a local deity.163.This apparition of the Washer of the Ford is of frequent occurrence in Irish legend.164.Seep. 164for the reference togeis.“His namesake”refers, of course, to the story of the Hound of Cullan, pp.183,184.165.It was a point of honour to refuse nothing to a bard; one king is said to have given his eye when it was demanded of him.166.Craobh Ruadh—the Red Branch hostel.167.The story is told in full in the author's“High Deeds of Finn.”168.Pronounced“Bay-al-koo.”169.Inis Clothrann, now known as Quaker's Island. The pool no longer exists.170.“Youb´dan.”171.Dr. P. W. Joyce's“Irish Names of Places”is a storehouse of information on this subject.172.P. 211,note.173.The name is given both to the hill,ard, and to the ford,athabeneath it.174.Pronounced“mac Cool.”175.Pronounced“Usheen.”176.Subject, of course, to the possibility that the present revival of Gaelic as a spoken tongue may lead to the opening of a new chapter in that history.177.See“Ossian and Ossianic Literature,”by Alfred Nutt, p. 4.178.Now Castleknock, near Dublin.179.In the King's County.180.The hill still bears the name, Knockanar.181.Glanismole, near Dublin.182.Talkenn, or“Adze-head,”was a name given to St. Patrick by the Irish. Probably it referred to the shape of his tonsure.183.Pronounced“Sleeve-na-mon´”: accent on last syllable. It means the Mountain of the [Fairy] Women.184.Translation by S.H. O'Grady.185.Seep. 105.186.Examples of these have been published, with translations, in the“Transactions of the Ossianic Society.”187.Taken down from the recital of a peasant in Co. Galway and published at Rennes in Dr. Hyde's“An Sgeuluidhe Gaodhalach,”vol. ii. (no translation).188.Now Athlone (Atha Luain).189.How significant is this naïve indication that the making of forays on his neighbours was regarded in Celtic Ireland as the natural and laudable occupation of a country gentleman! Compare Spenser's account of the ideals fostered by the Irish bards of his time,“View of the Present State of Ireland,”p. 641 (Globe edition).190.Dr. John Todhunter, in his“Three Irish Bardic Tales,”has alone, I think, kept the antique ending of the tale of Deirdre.191.“Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition,”Argyllshire Series. The tale was taken down in verse, word for word, from the dictation of Roderick mac Fadyen in Tiree, 1868.192.Here we have evidently a reminiscence of Briccriu of the Poisoned Tongue, the mischief-maker of the Ultonians.193.The Arans are three islands at the entrance of Galway Bay. They are a perfect museum of mysterious ruins.194.Pronounced“Ghermawn”—the“G”hard.195.Horse-racing was a particular delight to the ancient Irish, and is mentioned in a ninth-century poem in praise of May as one of the attractions of that month. The name of the month of May given in an ancient Gaulish calendar means“the month of horse-racing.”196.The same phenomenon is recorded as being witnessed by Peredur in the Welsh tale of that name in the“Mabinogion.”197.Like the bridge to Skatha't dūn,p. 188.198.Probably we are to understand that he was an anchorite seeking for an islet on which to dwell in solitude and contemplation. The western islands of Ireland abound in the ruins of huts and oratories built by single monks or little communities.199.Tennyson has been particularly happy in his description of these undersea islands.200.Ps. ciii. 5.201.This disposes of the last of the foster-brothers, who should not have joined the party.202.Tory Island, off the Donegal coast. There was there a monastery and a church dedicated to St. Columba.203.“One day we shall delight in the remembrance of these things.”The quotation is from Vergil,“Æn.”i. 203“Sacred poet”is a translation of thevates sacerof Horace.204.This sage and poet has not been identified from any other record. Praise and thanks to him, whoever he may have been.205.“The Mabinogion,”pp.45and54.206.Pronounced“Annoon.”It was the word used in the early literature for Hades or Fairyland.207.“Barddas,”vol. i. pp. 224sqq.208.Strange as it may seem to us, the character of this object was by no means fixed from the beginning. In the poem of Wolfram von Eschenbach it is a stone endowed with magical properties. The word is derived by the early fabulists fromgréable, something pleasant to possess and enjoy, and out of which one could haveà son gré, whatever he chose of good things. The Grail legend will be dealt with later in connexion with the Welsh tale“Peredur.”209.Distinguished by these from the other great storehouse of poetic legend, theMatière de Bretagne—i.e., the Arthurian saga.210.Seep. 103.211.“Cultur der Gegenwart,”i. ix.212.A list of them is given in Lobineau's“Histoire de Bretagne.”213.See,e.g.,pp.243and218,note.214.Seep. 233, and a similar case in the author's“High Deeds of Finn,”p. 82.215.Seep. 232, and the tale of the recovery of the“Tain,”p. 234.216.“Pwyll King of Dyfed,”“Bran and Branwen,”“Math Sor of Māthonwy,”and“Manawyddan Son of Llyr.”217.Seep. 107.218.“Hibbert Lectures,”pp. 237-240.219.See pp.88,109, &c. Lugh, of course, = Lux, Light. The Celtic wordsLamhandLlawwere used indifferently for hand or arm.220.Mr. Squire, in his“Mythology of the British Islands,”1905, has brought together in a clear and attractive form the most recent results of studies on this subject.221.Finn and Gwyn are respectively the Gaelic and Cymric forms of the same name, meaning fair or white.222.“Mythology of the British Islands,”p. 225.223.The sense appears to be doubtful here, and is variously rendered.224.Lloegyr = Saxon Britain.225.Rhys,“Hibbert Lectures,”quoting from the ancient saga of Merlin published by the English Text Society, p. 693.226.“Mythology of the British Islands,”pp. 325, 326; and Rhys,“Hibbert Lectures,”p. 155sqq.227.In the“Iolo MSS.,”collected by Edward Williams.228.See,e.g., pp.111,272.229.We see here that we have got far from primitive Celtic legend. The heroes fight like mediaeval knights on horseback, tilting at each other with spears, not in chariots or on foot, and not with the strange weapons which figure in Gaelic battle-tales.230.Hēn,“the Ancient”; an epithet generally implying a hoary antiquity associated with mythological tradition.231.Pronounced“Pry-dair´y.”232.Evidently this was the triangular Norman shield, not the round or oval Celtic one. It has already been noticed that in these Welsh tales the knights when they fight tilt at each other with spears.233.The reader may pronounce this“Matholaw.”234.Compare the description of Mac Cecht in the tale of the Hostel of De Derga, p. 173.235.Where the Tower of London now stands.236.These stories, in Ireland and in Wales, always attach themselves to actual burial-places. In 1813 a funeral urn containing ashes and half-burnt bones was found in the spot traditionally supposed to be Branwen's sepulchre.237.Saxon Britain.238.This is a distorted reminiscence of the practice which seems to have obtained in the courts of Welsh princes, that a high officer should hold the king's feet in his lap while he sat at meat.239.“Hawthorn, King of the Giants.”240.The gods of the family of Dōn are thus conceived as servitors to Arthur, who in this story is evidently the god Artaius.241.“She of the White Track.”Compare the description of Etain, pp.157,158.242.There is no other mention of this Kenverchyn or of how Owain got his raven-army, also referred to in“The Dream of Rhonabwy.”We have here evidently a piece of antique mythology embedded in a more modern fabric.243.Like the Breton Tale of“Peronnik the Fool,”translated in“Le Foyer Bréton,”by Emile Souvestre. The syllablePerwhich occurs in all forms of the hero's name means in Welsh and Cornish a bowl or vessel (Irishcoire—seep. 35, note). No satisfactory derivation has in any case been found of the latter part of the name.244.“They are nourished by a stone of most noble nature ... it is calledlapsit exillîs; the stone is also called the Grail.”The termlapsit exillîsappears to be a corruption forlapis ex celis,“the stone from heaven.”245.The true derivation is from the Low Latincratella, a small vessel or chalice.246.A similar selective action is ascribed to the Grail by Wolfram. It can only be lifted by a pure maiden when carried into the hall, and a heathen cannot see it or be benefited by it. The same idea is also strongly marked in the story narrating the early history of the Grail by Robert de Borron, about 1210: the impure and sinful cannot benefit by it. Borron, however, does not touch upon the Perceval or“quest”portion of the story at all.247.Hades.248.Caer Vedwyd means the Castle of Revelry. I follow the version of this poem given by Squire in his“Mythology of the British Islands,”where it may be read in full.249.The combination of objects at the Grail Castle is very significant. They were a sword, a spear, and a vessel, or, in some versions, a stone. These are the magical treasures brought by the Danaans into Ireland—a sword, a spear, a cauldron, and a stone. See pp. 105, 106.250.The Round Table finds no mention in Cymric legend earlier than the fifteenth century.251.Vergil, in his mediæval character of magician.252.Taliesin.253.Alluding to the imaginary Trojan ancestry of the Britons.254.I have somewhat abridged this curious poem. The connexion with ideas of transmigration, as in the legend of Tuan mac Carell (see pp. 97-101), is obvious. Tuan's last stage, it may be recalled, was a fish, and Taliesin was taken in a salmon-weir.

In reference to the name“Freeman,”Mr. Nicholson adds:“No one was more intensely‘English’in his sympathies than the great historian of that name, and probably no one would have more strenuously resisted the suggestion that he might be of Welsh descent; yet I have met his close physical counterpart in a Welsh farmer (named Evans) living within a few minutes of Pwllheli.”

He speaks of“Nyrax, a Celtic city,”and“Massalia [Marseilles], a city of Liguria in the land of the Celts”(“Fragmenta Hist. Græc.”).

In his“Premiers Habitants de l'Europe,”vol. ii.

“Cæesar's Conquest of Gaul,”pp. 251-327.

The ancients were not very close observers of physical characteristics. They describe the Celts in almost exactly the same terms as those which they apply to the Germanic races. Dr. Rice Holmes is of opinion that the real difference, physically, lay in the fact that the fairness of the Germans was blond, and that of the Celts red. In an interesting passage of the work already quoted (p. 315) he observes that,“Making every allowance for the admixture of other blood, which must have considerably modified the type of the original Celtic or Gallic invaders of these islands, we are struck by the fact that among all our Celtic-speaking fellow subjects there are to be found numerous specimens of a type which also exists in those parts of Brittany which were colonised by British invaders, and in those parts of Gaul in which the Gallic invaders appear to have settled most thickly, as well as in Northern Italy, where the Celtic invaders were once dominant; and also by the fact that this type,even among the more blond representatives of it, is strikingly different, to the casual as well as to the scientific observer, from that of the purest representatives of the ancient Germans. The well-known picture of Sir David Wilkie,‘Reading of the Waterloo Gazette,’illustrates, as Daniel Wilson remarked, the difference between the two types. Put a Perthshire Highlander side by side with a Sussex farmer. Both will be fair; but the red hair and beard of the Scot will be in marked contrast with the fair hair of the Englishman, and their features will differ still more markedly. I remember teeing two gamekeepers in a railway carriage running from Inverness to Lairey. They were tall, athletic, fair men, evidently belonging to the Scandinavian type, which, as Dr. Beddoe says, is so common in the extreme north of Scotland; but both in colouring and in general aspect they were utterly different from the tall, fair Highlanders whom I had seen in Perthshire. There was not a trace of red in their hair, their long beards being absolutely yellow. The prevalence of red among the Celtic-speaking people is, it seems to me, a most striking characteristic. Not only do we find eleven men in every hundred whose hair is absolutely red, but underlying the blacks and the dark browns the lame tint is to be discovered.”

See the map of comparative nigrescence given in Ripley's“Races of Europe,”p. 318. In France, however, the Bretons are not a dark race relatively to the rest of the population. They are composed partly of the ancient Gallic peoples and partly of settlers from Wales who were driven out by the Saxon invasion.

See for these names Holder's“Altceltischer Sprachschatz.”

Vergil might possibly mean“the very-bright”or illustrious one, a natural form for a proper name.Verin Gallic names (Vercingetorix, Vercassivellasimus, &c.) is often an intensive prefix, like the modern Irishfior. The name of the village where Vergil was born, Andes (now Pietola), is Celtic. His love of nature, his mysticism, and his strong feeling for a certain decorative quality in language and rhythm are markedly Celtic qualities. Tennyson's phrases for him,“landscape-lover, lord of language,”are suggestive in this connexion.

Ptolemy, a friend, and probably, indeed, half-brother, of Alexander, was doubtless present when this incident took place. His work has not survived, but is quoted by Arrian and other historians.

One is reminded of the folk-tale about Henny Penny, who went to tell the king that the sky was falling.

The Book of Leinster is a manuscript of the twelfth century. The version of the“Táin”given in it probably dates from the eighth. See de Jubainville,“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 316.

Dr. Douglas Hyde in his“Literary History of Ireland”(p. 7) gives a slightly different translation.

It is also a testimony to the close accuracy of the narrative of Ptolemy.

Roman history tells of various conflicts with the Celts during this period, but de Jubainville has shown that these narratives are almost entirely mythical. See“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 318-323.

E.g.,Moymell (magh-meala), the Plain of Honey, a Gaelic name for Fairyland, and many place-names.

For these and many other examples see de Jubainville's“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 255sqq.

Quoted by Mr. Romilly Allen in“Celtic Art,”p. 136.

“Premiers Habitants,”ii. 355, 356.

Irish is probably an older form of Celtic speech than Welsh. This is shown by many philological peculiarities of the Irish language, of which one of the most interesting may here be briefly referred to. The Goidelic or Gaelic Celts, who, according to the usual theory, first colonised the British Islands, and who were forced by successive waves of invasion by their Continental kindred to the extreme west, had a peculiar dislike to the pronunciation of the letterp. Thus the Indo-European particlepare, represented by Greekπαρά, beside or close to, becomes in early Celticare, as in the nameAre-morici(the Armoricans, those who dwellar muir, by the sea);Are-dunum(Ardin, in France);Are-cluta, the place beside the Clota (Clyde), now Dumbarton;Are-taunon,in Germany (near the Taunus Mountains), &c. When this letter was not simply dropped it was usually changed intoc (k, g). But about the sixth century B.C. a remarkable change passed over the language of the Continental Celts. They gained in some unexplained way the faculty for pronouncingp, and even substituted it for existingcsounds; thus the originalCretanisbecamePretanis, Britain, the numeralqetuares(four) becamepetuares, and so forth. Celtic place-names in Spain show that this change must have taken place before the Celtic conquest of that country, 500 B.C. Now a comparison of many Irish and Welsh words shows distinctly this avoidance ofpon the Irish side and lack of any objection to it on the Welsh. The following are a few illustrations:

The conclusion that Irish must represent the older form of the language seems obvious. It is remarkable that even to a comparatively late date the Irish preserved their dislike top. Thus they turned the LatinPascha(Easter) toCasg; purpur, purple, tocorcair, pulsatio(through Frenchpouls) tocuisle. It must be noted, however, that Nicholson in his“Keltic Researches”endeavours to show that the so-called Indo-Europeanp—that is,pstanding alone and uncombined with another consonant—was pronounced by the Goidelic Celts at an early period. The subject can hardly be said to be cleared up yet.

The Irish, says Edmund Spenser, in his“View of the Present State of Ireland,”“use commonyle to send up and down to know newes, and yf any meet with another, his second woorde is, What newes?”

Compare Spenser:“I have heard some greate warriors say, that in all the services which they had seen abroad in forrayne countreys, they never saw a more comely horseman than the Irish man, nor that cometh on more bravely in his charge ... they are very valiante and hardye, for the most part great endurours of cold, labour, hunger and all hardiness, very active and stronge of hand, very swift of foote, very vigilaunte and circumspect in theyr enterprises, very present in perrils, very great scorners of death.”

The scene of the surrender of Vercingetorix is not recounted by Cæsar, and rests mainly on the authority of Plutarch and of the historian Florus, but it is accepted by scholars (Mommsen, Long, &c.) as historic.

These were a tribe who took their name from thegæsum, a kind of Celtic javelin, which was their principal weapon. The torque, or twisted collar of gold, is introduced as a typical ornament in the well-known statue of the dying Gaul, commonly called“The Dying Gladiator.”Many examples are preserved in the National Museum of Dublin.

“Cæsar's Conquest of Gaul,”pp. 10, 11. Let it be added that the aristocratic Celts were, like the Teutons, dolichocephalic—that is to say, they had heads long in proportion to their breadth. This is proved by remains found in the basin of the Marne, which was thickly populated by them. In one case the skeleton of the tall Gallic warrior was found with his war-car, iron helmet, and sword, now in the Music de St.-Germain. The inhabitants of the British Islands are uniformly long-headed, the round-headed“Alpine”type occurring very rarely. Those of modern France are round-headed. The shape of the head, however, is now known to be by no means a constant racial character. It alters rapidly in a new environment, as is shown by measurements of the descendants of immigrants in America. See an article on this subject by Professor Haddon in“Nature,”Nov. 3, 1910.

In the“Tain Bo Cuailgne,”for instance, the King of Ulster must not speak to a messenger until the Druid, Cathbad, has questioned him. One recalls the lines of Sir Samuel Ferguson in his Irish epic poem,“Congal”:

“... For ever since the time When Cathbad smothered Usnach's sons in that foul sea of slime Raised by abominable spells at Creeveroe's bloody gate, Do ruin and dishonour still on priest-led kings await.”

Celtice, Diarmuid mac Cearbhaill.

It was the practice, known in India also, for a person who was wronged by a superior, or thought himself so, to sit before the doorstep of the denier of justice and fast until right was done him. In Ireland a magical power was attributed to the ceremony, the effect of which would be averted by the other person fasting as well.

“Silva Gadelica,”by S.H. O'Grady, p. 73.

The authority here quoted is a narrative contained in a fifteenth-century vellum manuscript found in Lismore Castle in 1814, and translated by S.H. O'Grady in his“Silva Gadelica.”The narrative is attributed to an officer of Dermot's court.

From Greekmegas, great, andlithos, a stone.

Seep. 78.

See Borlase's“Dolmens of Ireland,”pp. 605, 606, for a discussion of this question.

Professor Ridgeway (see Report of the Brit. Assoc. for 1908) has contended that the Megalithic People spoke an Aryan language; otherwise he thinks more traces of its influence must have survived in the Celtic which supplanted it. The weight of authority, as well as such direct evidence as we possess, seems to be against his view.

See Holder,“Altceltischer Sprachschatz.”sulb voce“Hyperboreoi.”

Thus the Greekpharmakon=medicine, poison, or charm; and I am informed that the Central African word for magic or charm ismankwala, which also means medicine.

If Pliny meant that it was here first codified and organised he may be right, but the conceptions on which magic rest are practically universal, and of immemorial antiquity.

Adopted 451 B.C. Livy entitles them“the fountain of all public and private right.”They stood in the Forum till the third century A.D., but have now perished, except for fragments preserved in various commentaries.

See“Revue Archeologique,”t. xii., 1865,“Fouilles de René Galles.”

Jade is not found in the native state in Europe, nor nearer than China.

Small stones, crystals, and gems were, however, also venerated. The celebrated Black Stone of Pergamos was the subject of an embassy from Rome to that city in the time of the Second Punic War, the Sibylline Books having predicted victory to its possessors. It was brought to Rome with great rejoicings in the year 205. It is stated to have been about the size of a man's fist, and was probably a meteorite. Compare the myth in Hesiod which relates how Kronos devoured a stone in the belief that it was his offspring, Zeus. It was then possible to mistake a stone for a god.

Replaced by a photograph in this edition.

See Sir J. Simpson's“Archaic Sculpturings”1867.

The fact is recorded in the“Annals of the Four Masters”Under the date 861, and in the“Annals of Ulster”under 862.

See“Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy,”vol. xxx. pt. i., 1892, and“New Grange,”by G. Coffey, 1912.

It must be observed, however, that the decoration was, certainly, in some, and perhaps in all cases, carried out before the stones were placed in position. This is also the case at Gavr'inis.

He has modified this view in his latest work,“New Grange,”1912.

“Proc. Royal Irish Acad.,”vol. viii. 1863, p. 400, and G. Coffey,op. cit.p. 30.

“Les Sculptures de Rochers de la Suède,”read at the Prehistoric Congress, Stockholm, 1874; and see G. Coffey,op. cit.p. 60.

“Dolmens of Ireland,”pp. 701-704.

“The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria.”

A good example from Amaravati (after Fergusson) is given by Bertrand,“Rel. des G.,”p. 389.

Sergi,“The Mediterranean Race,”p. 313.

At Lökeberget, Bohuslän; see Monteiius,op. cit.

See Lord Kingsborough's“Antiquities of Mexico,”passim, and the Humboldt fragment of Mexican painting (reproduced in Churchward's“Signs and Symbols of Primordial Man”).

See Sergi,op. cit.p. 290, for theAnkhon a French dolmen.

“Bulletin de la Soc. d'Anthropologie,”Paris, April 1893.

“The Welsh People,”pp. 616-664, where the subject is fully discussed in an appendix by Professor J. Morris Jones.“The pre-Aryan idioms which still live in Welsh and Irish were derived from a language allied to Egyptian and the Berber tongues.”

Flinders Petrie,“Egypt and Israel,”pp. 137, 899.

I quote from Mr. H.B. Cotterill's beautiful hexameter version.

Valerius Maximus (about A.D 30) and other classical writers mention this practice.

Book V.

De Jubainville,“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p.191sqq.

The etymology of the word“Druid”is no longer an unsolved problem. It had been suggested that the latter part of the word might be connected with the Aryan root VID, which appears in“wisdom,”in the Latinvidere, &c., Thurneysen has now shown that this root in combination with the intensive particledruwould yield the worddru-vids, represented in Gaelic bydraoi, a Druid, just as another intensive,su, withvidsyields the Gaelicsaoi, a sage.

See Rice Holmes,“Cæsar's Conquest,”p. 15, and pp. 532-536. Rhys, it may be observed, believes that Druidism was the religion of the aboriginal inhabitants of Western Europe“from the Baltic to Gibraltar”(“Celtic Britain,”p. 73). But we onlyknowof it where Celts and dolmen-builders combined. Cæsar remarks of the Germans that they had no Druids and cared little about sacrificial ceremonies.

“Rel. des Gaulois,”leçon xx.

Quoted by Bertrand,op. cit.p. 279.

“The Irish Mythological Cycle,”by d'Arbois de Jubainville, p. 6l. The“Dinnsenchus”in question is an early Christian document. No trace of a being like Crom Cruach has been found as yet in the pagan literature of Ireland, nor in the writings of St. Patrick, and I think it is quite probable that even in the time of St. Patrick human sacrifices had become only a memory.

A representation of human sacrifice has, however, lately been discovered in a Temple of the Sun in the ancient Ethiopian capital, Meroë.

“You [Celts] who by cruel blood outpoured think to appease the pitiless Teutates, the horrid Æsus with his barbarous altars, and Taranus whose worship is no gentler than that of the Scythian Diana”, to whom captive were offered up. (Lucan,“Pharsalia”, i. 444.) An altar dedicated to Æsus has been discovered in Paris.

Mont Mercure, Mercœur, Mercoirey, Montmartre (Mons Mercurii), &c.

To this day in many parts of France the peasantry use terms likeannuit, o'né, anneue, &c., all meaning“to-night,”foraujourd'hui(Bertrand,“Rel. des G.,”p. 356).

Thefili, or professional poets, it must be remembered, were a branch of the Druidic order.

For instance, Pelagius in the fifth century; Columba, Columbanus, and St. Gall in the sixth; Fridolin, namedViator,“the Traveller,”and Fursa in the seventh; Virgilius (Feargal) of Salzburg, who had to answer at Rome for teaching the sphericity of the earth, in the eighth; Dicuil,“the Geographer,”and Johannes Scotus Erigena—the master mind of his epoch—in the ninth.

Dealgnaid. I have been obliged here, as occasionally elsewhere, to modify the Irish names so as to make them pronounceable by English readers.

Seep. 48,note1.

I follow in this narrative R.I. Best's translation of the“Irish Mythological Cycle”of d'Arbois de Jubainville.

De Jubainville,“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p. 75.

Pronounced“Yeo´hee.”See Glossary for this and other words.

The science of the Druids, as we have seen, was conveyed in verse, and the professional poets were a branch of the Druidic Order.

Meyer and Nutt,“Voyage of Bran,”ii. 197.

“Moytura”means“The Plain of the Towers”—i.e., sepulchral monuments.

Shakespeare alludes to this in“As You Like It.”“I never was so be-rhymed,”says Rosalind,“since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat—which I can hardly remember.”

Lyons, Leyden, Laon were all in ancient times known asLug-dunum,the Fortress of Lugh.Luguvallumwas the name of a town near Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain.

It is given by him in a note to the“Four Masters,”vol. i. p. 18, and is also reproduced by de Jubainville.

The other two were“The Fate of the Children of Lir”and“The Fate of the Sons of Usna.”The stories of the Quest of the Sons of Turenn and that of the Children of Lir have been told in full by the author in his“High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances,”and that of the“Sons of Usna”(the Deirdre Legend) by Miss Eleanor Hull in her“Cuchulain,”both published by Harrap and Co

O'Curry's translation from the bardic tale,“The Battle of Moytura.”

O'Curry,“Manners and Customs,”iii. 214.

The ancient Irish division of the year contained only these three seasons, including autumn in summer (O'Curry,“Manners and Customs,”iii. 217).]

S.H. O'Grady,“Silva Gadelica,”p. 191.

Pp. 104sqq., andpassim.

O'Grady,loc. cit.

Seep. 112.

Miss Hull has discussed this subject fully in the introduction to her invaluable work,“The Cuchullin Saga.”

See the tale of“Etain and Midir,”in Chap. IV.

The name Tara is derived from an oblique case of the nominativeTeamhair, meaning“the place of the wide prospect.”It is now a broad grassy hill, in Co. Meath, covered with earthworks representing the sites of the ancient royal buildings, which can all be clearly located from ancient descriptions.

A.H. Leahy,“Heroic Romances,”i. 27.

Seep. 114.

I cannot agree with Mr. O'Grady's identification of this goddess with Dana, though the name appears to mean“The Great Queen.”

Gerald, the fourth Earl of Desmond. He disappeared, it is said, in 1398, and the legend goes that he still lives beneath the waters of Loch Gur, and may be seen riding round its banks on his white steed once every seven years. He was surnamed“Gerald the Poet”from the“witty and ingenious”verses he composed in Gaelic. Wizardry, poetry, and science were all united in one conception in the mind of the ancient Irish.

“Popular Tales of Ireland,”by D. Fitzgerald, in“Revue Celtique,”vol. iv.

“The Voyage of Bran,”vol. ii. p. 219.

In Irish,Sionnain.

Translation by R.I. Best.

The solar vessels found in dolmen carvings. See Chap. II. p. 71sqq. Note that the Celtic spirits, though invisible, are material and have weight; not so those in Vergil and Dante.

De Jubainville,“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p. 136. Beltené is the modern Irish name for the month of May, and is derived from an ancient root preserved in the Old Irish compoundepelta,“dead.”

“Irish Mythological Cycle,”p. 138.

I follow again de Jubainville's translation; but in connexion with this and the previous poems see also Ossianic Society's“Transactions,”vol. v.

Teltin; so named after the goddess Telta. Seep. 103.

Pronounced“Shee.”It means literally the People of the [Fairy] Mounds.

Pronounced“Eefa.”

This name means“The Maid of the Fair Shoulder.”

The story here summarised is given in full in the writer's“High Deeds of Finn”(Harrap and Co.).

It may be mentioned that the syllable“Kill,”which enters into so many Irish place-names (Kilkenny, Killiney, Kilcooley, &c.), usually represents the Latincella, a monastic cell, shrine, or church.

Cleena (Cliodhna) was a Danaan princess about whom a legend is told connected with the Bay of Glandore in Co. Cork. See p. 127.

Seep. 85.

“Omnia monumenta Scotorum ante Cimbaoth incerta erant.”Tierna, who died in 1088, was Abbot of Clonmacnois, a great monastic and educational centre in mediæval Ireland.

Compare the fine poem of a modern Celtic writer (Sir Samuel Ferguson),“The Widow's Cloak”—i.e., the British Empire in the days of Queen Victoria.

“Critical History of Ireland,”p. 180.

Pronounced“El´yill.”

The endingsterin three of the names of the Irish provinces is of Norse origin, and is a relic of the Viking conquests in Ireland. Connacht, where the Vikings did not penetrate, alone preserves its Irish name unmodified. Ulster (in IrishUlaidh) is supposed to derive its name from Ollav Fōla, Munster (Mumhan) from King Eocho Mumho, tenth in succession from Eremon, and Connacht was“the land of the children of Conn”—he who was called Conn of the Hundred Battles, and who died A.D. 157.

The reader may, however, be referred to the tale of Etain and Midir as given in full by A.H. Leahy (“Heroic Romances of Ireland”), and by the writer in his“High Deeds of Finn,”and to the tale of Conary rendered by Sir S. Ferguson (“Poems,”1886), in what Dr. Whitley Stokes has described as the noblest poem ever written by an Irishman.

Pronounced“Yeo´hee.”

I quote Mr. A.H. Leahy's translation from a fifteenth-century Egerton manuscript (“Heroic Romances of Ireland,”vol. i. p. 12). The story is, however, found in much more ancient authorities.

Ogham letters, which were composed of straight lines arranged in a certain order about the axis formed by the edge of a squared pillar-stone, were used for sepulchral inscription and writing generally before the introduction of the Roman alphabet in Ireland.

The reference is to the magic swine of Mananan, which were killed and eaten afresh every day, and whose meat preserved the eternal youth of the People of Dana.

Seep. 124.

The meaning quoted will be found in the Dictionary under the alternative formgeas

I quote from Whitley Stokes' translation,Revue Celtique, January 1901, and succeeding numbers.

Bregia was the great plain lying eastwards of Tara between Boyne and Liffey

“The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel.”

Pronounced“Koohoo´lin.”

Seep. 150.

See pp. 121-123 for an account of this deity.

It is noticeable that among the characters figuring in the Ultonian legendary cycle many names occur of which the wordCu(hound) forms a part. Thus we have Curoi, Cucorb, Beälcu, &c. The reference is no doubt to the Irish wolf-hound, a fine type of valour and beauty.

Now Lusk, a village on the coast a few miles north of Dublin.

Owing to the similarity of the name the supernatural country of Skatha,“the Shadowy,”was early identified with the islands of Skye, where the Cuchulain Peaks still bear witness to the legend.

This, of course, was Cuchulain's father, Lugh.

This means probably“the belly spear.”With this terrible weapon Cuchulain was fated in the end to slay his friend Ferdia.

See genealogical table, p. 181.

Miss Hull,“The Cuchullin Saga,”p. lxxii, where the solar theory of the Brown Bull is dealt with at length.

Acumalwas the unit of value in Celtic Ireland. It is mentioned as such by St. Patrick. It meant the price of a woman-slave.

The cune laid on them by Macha. Sec p. 180.

Cuchulain, as the son of the god Lugh, was not subject to the curse of Macha which afflicted the other Ultonians.

His reputed father, the mortal husband of Dectera

In the Irish bardic literature, as in the Homeric epics, chastity formed no part of the masculine ideal either for gods or men.

“The Ford of the Forked Pole.”

I quote from Standish Hayes O'Grady's translation, in Miss Hull's“Cuchullin Saga.”

Ath Fherdia, which is pronounced and now spelt“Ardee.”It is in Co. Louth, at the southern border of the Plain of Murthemney, which was Cuchulain's territory.

Seep. 126.

In ancient Ireland there were five provinces, Munster being counted as two, or, as some ancient authorities explain it, the High King's territory in Meath and Westmeath being reckoned a separate province.

“Clan”in Gaelic means children or offspring. Clan Calatin=the sons of Calatin.

Together with much that is wild and barbaric in this Irish epic of the“Tain”the reader will be struck by the ideals of courtesy and gentleness which not infrequently come to light in it. It must be remembered that, as Mr. A.H. Leahy points out in his“Heroic Romances of Ireland,”the legend of the Raid of Quelgny is, at the very latest, a century earlier than all other known romances of chivalry, Welsh or Continental. It is found in the“Book of Leinster,”a manuscript of the twelfth century, as well as in other sources, and was doubtless considerably older than the date of its transcription there.“The whole thing,”says Mr. Leahy,“stands at the very beginning of the literature of modern Europe.”

Another instance of the survival of the oath formula recited by the Celtic envoys to Alexander the Great. Seep. 23.

“Rising-out”is the vivid expression used by Irish writers for a clan or territory going on the war-path.“Hosting”is also used in a similar sense.

Seep. 130.

The sword of Fergus was a fairy weapon called theCaladcholg(hard dinter), a name of which Arthur's more famous“Excalibur”is a Latinised corruption.

The reference is to Deirdre.

Seep. 211.

A.H. Leahy's translation,“Heroic Romances of Ireland,”vol. i.

The cloak of Mananan (seep. 125) typifies the sea—here, in its dividing and estranging power.

This Curoi appears in various tales of the Ultonian Cycle with attributes which show that he was no mortal king, but a local deity.

This apparition of the Washer of the Ford is of frequent occurrence in Irish legend.

Seep. 164for the reference togeis.“His namesake”refers, of course, to the story of the Hound of Cullan, pp.183,184.

It was a point of honour to refuse nothing to a bard; one king is said to have given his eye when it was demanded of him.

Craobh Ruadh—the Red Branch hostel.

The story is told in full in the author's“High Deeds of Finn.”

Pronounced“Bay-al-koo.”

Inis Clothrann, now known as Quaker's Island. The pool no longer exists.

“Youb´dan.”

Dr. P. W. Joyce's“Irish Names of Places”is a storehouse of information on this subject.

P. 211,note.

The name is given both to the hill,ard, and to the ford,athabeneath it.

Pronounced“mac Cool.”

Pronounced“Usheen.”

Subject, of course, to the possibility that the present revival of Gaelic as a spoken tongue may lead to the opening of a new chapter in that history.

See“Ossian and Ossianic Literature,”by Alfred Nutt, p. 4.

Now Castleknock, near Dublin.

In the King's County.

The hill still bears the name, Knockanar.

Glanismole, near Dublin.

Talkenn, or“Adze-head,”was a name given to St. Patrick by the Irish. Probably it referred to the shape of his tonsure.

Pronounced“Sleeve-na-mon´”: accent on last syllable. It means the Mountain of the [Fairy] Women.

Translation by S.H. O'Grady.

Seep. 105.

Examples of these have been published, with translations, in the“Transactions of the Ossianic Society.”

Taken down from the recital of a peasant in Co. Galway and published at Rennes in Dr. Hyde's“An Sgeuluidhe Gaodhalach,”vol. ii. (no translation).

Now Athlone (Atha Luain).

How significant is this naïve indication that the making of forays on his neighbours was regarded in Celtic Ireland as the natural and laudable occupation of a country gentleman! Compare Spenser's account of the ideals fostered by the Irish bards of his time,“View of the Present State of Ireland,”p. 641 (Globe edition).

Dr. John Todhunter, in his“Three Irish Bardic Tales,”has alone, I think, kept the antique ending of the tale of Deirdre.

“Waifs and Strays of Celtic Tradition,”Argyllshire Series. The tale was taken down in verse, word for word, from the dictation of Roderick mac Fadyen in Tiree, 1868.

Here we have evidently a reminiscence of Briccriu of the Poisoned Tongue, the mischief-maker of the Ultonians.

The Arans are three islands at the entrance of Galway Bay. They are a perfect museum of mysterious ruins.

Pronounced“Ghermawn”—the“G”hard.

Horse-racing was a particular delight to the ancient Irish, and is mentioned in a ninth-century poem in praise of May as one of the attractions of that month. The name of the month of May given in an ancient Gaulish calendar means“the month of horse-racing.”

The same phenomenon is recorded as being witnessed by Peredur in the Welsh tale of that name in the“Mabinogion.”

Like the bridge to Skatha't dūn,p. 188.

Probably we are to understand that he was an anchorite seeking for an islet on which to dwell in solitude and contemplation. The western islands of Ireland abound in the ruins of huts and oratories built by single monks or little communities.

Tennyson has been particularly happy in his description of these undersea islands.

Ps. ciii. 5.

This disposes of the last of the foster-brothers, who should not have joined the party.

Tory Island, off the Donegal coast. There was there a monastery and a church dedicated to St. Columba.

“One day we shall delight in the remembrance of these things.”The quotation is from Vergil,“Æn.”i. 203“Sacred poet”is a translation of thevates sacerof Horace.

This sage and poet has not been identified from any other record. Praise and thanks to him, whoever he may have been.

“The Mabinogion,”pp.45and54.

Pronounced“Annoon.”It was the word used in the early literature for Hades or Fairyland.

“Barddas,”vol. i. pp. 224sqq.

Strange as it may seem to us, the character of this object was by no means fixed from the beginning. In the poem of Wolfram von Eschenbach it is a stone endowed with magical properties. The word is derived by the early fabulists fromgréable, something pleasant to possess and enjoy, and out of which one could haveà son gré, whatever he chose of good things. The Grail legend will be dealt with later in connexion with the Welsh tale“Peredur.”

Distinguished by these from the other great storehouse of poetic legend, theMatière de Bretagne—i.e., the Arthurian saga.

Seep. 103.

“Cultur der Gegenwart,”i. ix.

A list of them is given in Lobineau's“Histoire de Bretagne.”

See,e.g.,pp.243and218,note.

Seep. 233, and a similar case in the author's“High Deeds of Finn,”p. 82.

Seep. 232, and the tale of the recovery of the“Tain,”p. 234.

“Pwyll King of Dyfed,”“Bran and Branwen,”“Math Sor of Māthonwy,”and“Manawyddan Son of Llyr.”

Seep. 107.

“Hibbert Lectures,”pp. 237-240.

See pp.88,109, &c. Lugh, of course, = Lux, Light. The Celtic wordsLamhandLlawwere used indifferently for hand or arm.

Mr. Squire, in his“Mythology of the British Islands,”1905, has brought together in a clear and attractive form the most recent results of studies on this subject.

Finn and Gwyn are respectively the Gaelic and Cymric forms of the same name, meaning fair or white.

“Mythology of the British Islands,”p. 225.

The sense appears to be doubtful here, and is variously rendered.

Lloegyr = Saxon Britain.

Rhys,“Hibbert Lectures,”quoting from the ancient saga of Merlin published by the English Text Society, p. 693.

“Mythology of the British Islands,”pp. 325, 326; and Rhys,“Hibbert Lectures,”p. 155sqq.

In the“Iolo MSS.,”collected by Edward Williams.

See,e.g., pp.111,272.

We see here that we have got far from primitive Celtic legend. The heroes fight like mediaeval knights on horseback, tilting at each other with spears, not in chariots or on foot, and not with the strange weapons which figure in Gaelic battle-tales.

Hēn,“the Ancient”; an epithet generally implying a hoary antiquity associated with mythological tradition.

Pronounced“Pry-dair´y.”

Evidently this was the triangular Norman shield, not the round or oval Celtic one. It has already been noticed that in these Welsh tales the knights when they fight tilt at each other with spears.

The reader may pronounce this“Matholaw.”

Compare the description of Mac Cecht in the tale of the Hostel of De Derga, p. 173.

Where the Tower of London now stands.

These stories, in Ireland and in Wales, always attach themselves to actual burial-places. In 1813 a funeral urn containing ashes and half-burnt bones was found in the spot traditionally supposed to be Branwen's sepulchre.

Saxon Britain.

This is a distorted reminiscence of the practice which seems to have obtained in the courts of Welsh princes, that a high officer should hold the king's feet in his lap while he sat at meat.

“Hawthorn, King of the Giants.”

The gods of the family of Dōn are thus conceived as servitors to Arthur, who in this story is evidently the god Artaius.

“She of the White Track.”Compare the description of Etain, pp.157,158.

There is no other mention of this Kenverchyn or of how Owain got his raven-army, also referred to in“The Dream of Rhonabwy.”We have here evidently a piece of antique mythology embedded in a more modern fabric.

Like the Breton Tale of“Peronnik the Fool,”translated in“Le Foyer Bréton,”by Emile Souvestre. The syllablePerwhich occurs in all forms of the hero's name means in Welsh and Cornish a bowl or vessel (Irishcoire—seep. 35, note). No satisfactory derivation has in any case been found of the latter part of the name.

“They are nourished by a stone of most noble nature ... it is calledlapsit exillîs; the stone is also called the Grail.”The termlapsit exillîsappears to be a corruption forlapis ex celis,“the stone from heaven.”

The true derivation is from the Low Latincratella, a small vessel or chalice.

A similar selective action is ascribed to the Grail by Wolfram. It can only be lifted by a pure maiden when carried into the hall, and a heathen cannot see it or be benefited by it. The same idea is also strongly marked in the story narrating the early history of the Grail by Robert de Borron, about 1210: the impure and sinful cannot benefit by it. Borron, however, does not touch upon the Perceval or“quest”portion of the story at all.

Hades.

Caer Vedwyd means the Castle of Revelry. I follow the version of this poem given by Squire in his“Mythology of the British Islands,”where it may be read in full.

The combination of objects at the Grail Castle is very significant. They were a sword, a spear, and a vessel, or, in some versions, a stone. These are the magical treasures brought by the Danaans into Ireland—a sword, a spear, a cauldron, and a stone. See pp. 105, 106.

The Round Table finds no mention in Cymric legend earlier than the fifteenth century.

Vergil, in his mediæval character of magician.

Taliesin.

Alluding to the imaginary Trojan ancestry of the Britons.

I have somewhat abridged this curious poem. The connexion with ideas of transmigration, as in the legend of Tuan mac Carell (see pp. 97-101), is obvious. Tuan's last stage, it may be recalled, was a fish, and Taliesin was taken in a salmon-weir.

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