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myths and legends of the celtic race
Chapter 1
Earliest References
IN the chronicles of the classical nations for about five hundred
years previous to the Christian era there are frequent references to
a people associated with these nations, sometimes in peace,
sometimes in war, and evidently occupying a position of great
strength and influence in the Terra Incognita of Mid-Europe. This
people is called by the Greeks the Hyperboreans or Celts, the latter
term being first found in the geographer Hecataeus, about 500 B.C.
[He speaks of "Nyrax, a Celtic city," and "Massalia (Marseilles), a
city of Liguria in the land of the Celts" (Fragmenta Hist.
Graec.")].
Herodotus, about half a century later, speaks of the Celts as
dwelling "beyond the pillars of Hercules " - i.e., in Spain -
and also of the Danube as rising in their Country.
Aristotle knew that they dwelt "beyond Spain," that they had
captured Rome, and that they set great store by warlike power.
References other than geographical are occasionally met with even in
early writers. Hellanicus of Lesbos, an historian of the fifth
century B.C., describes the Celts as practising justice and
righteousness. Ephorus, about 350 B.C., has three lines of verse
about the Celts in which they are described as using" the same
customs as the Greeks " - whatever that may mean - and being on the
friendliest terms with that people, who established guest
friend-ships among them. Plato, however, in the "Laws," classes the
Celts among the races who are drunken and combative, and much
barbarity is attributed to them on the occasion of their irruption
into Greece and the
[17]
sacking of Delphi in the year 273 B.C. Their attack on Rome and
the sacking of that city by them about a century earlier is one of
the landmarks of ancient history.
The history of this people during the time when they were the
dominant power in Mid-Europe has to be divined or reconstructed from
scattered references, and from accounts of episodes in their
dealings with Greece and Rome, very much as the figure of a primeval
monster is reconstructed by the zoologist from a few fossilised
bones. No chronicles of their own have come down to us, no
architectural remains have survived; a few coins, and a few
ornaments and weapons in bronze decorated with enamel or with subtle
and beautiful designs in chased or repoussé work - these, and the
names which often cling in strangely altered forms to the places
where they dwelt, from the Euxine to the British Islands, are
well-nigh all the visible traces which this once mighty power has
left us of its civilisation and dominion. Yet from these, and from
the accounts of classical writers, much can be deduced with
certainty, and much more can be conjectured with a very fair measure
of probability. The great Celtic scholar whose loss we have recently
had to deplore, M. d'Arbois de Jubainville, has, on the available
data, drawn a convincing outline of Celtic history for the period
prior to their emergence into full historical light with the
conquests of Caesar, [in his 'Premiers Habitants de l'Europe,' vol.
Ii] and it is this outline of which the main features are reproduced
here.
The True Celtic Race
To begin with, we must dismiss the idea that Celtica was ever
inhabited by a single pure and homogeneous race. The true Celts, if
we accept on this point the carefully studied and elaborately argued
conclusion of
[18]
Dr. T. Rice Holmes, ['Caesar's Conquest of Gaul,' pp. 251 - 327]
supported by the unanimous voice of antiquity, were a tall air race,
warlike and masterful, [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 ol 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 heard 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 seeing
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. Beddoc 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 Perth-shire. 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. No. only do we find eleven men
in every hundred whose hair is absolutely red, but underlying the
blacks and the dark browns the same tint is to he discovered."]
whose place of origin (as far as we can trace them) was somewhere
about the sources of the Danube, and who spread their dominion both
by conquest and by peaceful
[19]
infiltration over Mid-Europe, Gaul, Spain, and the British
Islands. They did not exterminate the original prehistoric
inhabitants of these regions - Palaeolithic and Neolithic races,
dolmen-builders and workers in bronze - but they imposed on them
their language, their arts, and their traditions, taking, no doubt,
a good deal from them in return, especially, as we shall see, in the
important matter of religion. Among these races the true Celts
formed an aristocratic and ruling caste. In that capacity they
stood, alike in Gaul, in Spain, in Britain, and in Ireland, in the
forefront of armed opposition to foreign invasion. They bore the
worst brunt of war, of confiscations, and of banishment They never
lacked valour, but they were not strong enough or united enough to
prevail, and they perished in far greater proportion than the
earlier populations whom they had themselves subjugated. But they
disappeared also by mingling their blood with these inhabitants,
whom they impregnated with many of their own noble and virile
qualities. Hence it comes that the characteristics of the peoples
called Celtic in the present day, and who carry on the Celtic
tradition and language, are in some respects so different from those
of the Celts of classical history and the Celts who produced the
literature and art of ancient Ireland, and in others so strikingly
similar. To take a physical characteristic alone, the more Celtic
districts of the British Islands are at present marked by darkness
of complexion, hair, &c. They are not very dark, but they are
darker than the rest of the kingdom. [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 reit 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] But the
[20]
true Celts were certainly fair. Even the Irish Celts of the
twelfth century are described by Giraldus Cambrensis as a fair
race.
Golden Age of the Celts
But we are anticipating, and must return to the period of the
origins of Celtic history. As astronomers have discerned the
existence of an unknown planet by the perturbations which it has
caused in the courses of those already under direct observation, so
we can discern in the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ the
presence of a great power and of mighty movements going on behind a
veil which will never be lifted now. This was the Golden Age of
Celtdom in Continental Europe. During this period the Celts waged
three great and successful wars, which had no little influence on
the course of South European history. About 500 B.C. they conquered
Spain from the Carthaginians. A century later we find them engaged
in the conquest of Northern Italy from the Etruscans. They settled
in large numbers in the territory afterwards known as Cisalpine
Gaul, where many names, such as Mediolanum (Milan), Addua
(Adda), Viro-dunum (Verduno), and perhaps Cremona
(creamh, garlic) [See for these names Holder's " Altceltischer
Sprachschattz."] testify still to their occupation. They left a
greater memorial in the chief of Latin poets, whose name, Vergil,
appears to bear evidence of his Celtic ancestry. [Vergil might
possibly mean " the very-bright '' or illustrious one, a natural
form for a proper name. Ver in Gallic names (Vercingetorix,
Vercsssivellasimus, &c.) is often an intensive prefix, like the
modern Irish fior. The name of the village where
Vergil was horn, 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.] Towards the end of the fourth
[21]
century they overran Pannonia, conquering the Illyrians.
Alliances with the Greeks
All these wars were undertaken in alliance with the Greeks, with
whom the Celts were at this period on the friendliest terms. By the
war with the Carthaginians the monopoly held by that people of the
trade in tin with Britain and in silver with the miners of Spain was
broken down, and the overland route across France to Britain, for
the sake of which the Phoenicians had in 600 B.C. created the port
of Marseilles, was definitely secured to Greek trade. Greeks and
Celts were at this period allied against Phoenicians and Persians.
The defeat of Hamilcar by Gelon at Himera, in Sicily, took place in
the same year as that of Xerxes at Salamis. The Carthaginian army in
that expedition was made up of mercenaries from half a dozen
different nations, but not a Celt is found in the Carthaginian
ranks, and Celtic hostility must have counted for much in preventing
the Carthaginians from lending help to the Persians for the
overthrow ot their common enemy. These facts show that Celtica
played no small part in preserving the Greek type of civilisation
from being overwhelmed by the despotisms of the East, and thus in
keeping alive in Europe the priceless seed of freedom and humane
culture.
Alexander the Great
When the counter-movement of Hellas against the East began under
Alexander the Great we find the Celts again appearing as a factor of
importance.
[22]
In the fourth century Macedon was attacked and almost obliterated
by Thracian and Illyrian hordes. King Amyntas II. was defeated and
driven into exile. His son Perdiccas II. was killed in battle. When
Philip, a younger brother of Perdiccas, came to the obscure and
tottering throne which hc and his successors were to make the seat
of a great empire he was powerfully aided in making head against the
Illyrians by the conquests of the Celts in the valleys of the Danube
and the Po. The alliance was continued, and rendered, perhaps, more
formal in the days of Alexander. When about to undertake his
conquest of Asia (334 B.C.) Alexander first made a compact with the
Celts "who dwelt by the lonian Gulf" in order to secure his Greek
dominions from attack during his absence. The episode is related by
Ptolemy Soter in his history of the wars of Alexander. [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.] It has a
vividness which stamps it as a bit of authentic history, and another
singular testimony to the truth of the narrative has been brought to
light by de Jubainville. As the Celtic envoys, who are described as
men of haughty bearing and great stature, their mission concluded)
were drinking with the king, he asked them, it is said, what was the
thing they, the Celts, most feared. The envoys replied : "We fear no
man : there is but one thing that we fear, namely, that the sky
should fall on us; but we regard nothing so much as the friendship
of a man such as thou." Alexander bade them farewell, and, turning
to his nobles, whispered: "What a vainglorious people are these
Celts !" Yet the answer, for all its Celtic bravura and
flourish,
[23]
was not without both dignity and courtesy. The reference to the
falling of the sky seems to give a glimpse of some primitive belief
or myth of which it is no longer possible to discover the meaning.
[One is reminded of the folk-tale about Henny Penny, who went to
tell the king that the sky was falIing] The national oath by which
the Celts bound themselves to the observance of their covenant with
Alexander is remarkable. If we observe not this engagement," they
said, "may the sky fall on us and crush us, may the earth gape and
swallow us up, may the sea burst out and overwhelm us." De
Jubainville draws attention most appositely to a passage from the
"Táin Bo Cuailgne," in the Book of Leinster, [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.] where the Ulster heroes declare to
their king, who wished to leave them in battle in order to meet an
attack in another part of the field "Heaven is above us, and earth
beneath us, and the sea is round about us. Unless the sky shall fall
with its showers of stars on the ground where we are camped, or
unless the earth shall be rent by an earthquake) or unless the waves
of the blue sea come over the forests of the living world, we shall
not give ground." [Dr. Douglas Hyde in his "Literary History of
Ireland " (p.7) gises a slightly different translation] This
survival of a peculiar oath-formula or more than a thousand years,
and its reappearance, after being first heard of among the Celts of
Mid-Europe, in a mythical romance of Ireland, is certainly most
curious, and, with other facts which we shall note hereafter, speaks
strongly for the community and persistence of Celtic culture.[It is
also a testimony to the close accuracy of the narrative of
Ptolemy.]
[24]
The Sack of Rome
We have mentioned two of the great wars of the Continental Celts;
we come now to the third, that with the Etruscans, which ultimately
brought them into conflict with the greatest power of pagan Europe,
and led to their proudest feat of arms, the sack of Rome. About the
year 400 B.C. the Celtic Empire seems to have reached the height of
its power. Under a king named by Livy Ambicatus, who was probably
the head of a dominant tribe in a military confederacy, like the
German Emperor in the present day, the Celts seem to have been
welded into a considerable degree of political unity, and to have
followed a consistent policy. Attracted by the rich land of Northern
Italy, they poured down through the passes of the Alps, and after
hard fighting with the Etruscan inhabitants they maintained their
ground there. At this time the Romans were pressing on the Etruscans
from below, and Roman and Celt were acting in definite concert and
alliance. But the Romans, despising perhaps the Northern barbarian
warriors, had the rashness to play them false at the siege of
Clusium, 391 B.C., a place which the Romans regarded as one of the
bulwarks of Latium against the North. The Celts recognised Romans
who had come to them in the sacred character of ambassadors fighting
in the ranks of the enemy. The events which followed are, as they
have come down to us, much mingled with legend, but there are
certain touches of dramatic vividness in which the true character of
the Celts appears distinctly recognisable. They applied, we arc
told, to Rome for satisfaction for the treachery of the envoys, who
were three sons of Fabius Ambustus, the chief pontiff. The Romans
refused to listen to the claim, and elected the Fabii military
tribunes for the
[25]
ensuing year. Then the Celts abandoned the siege of Clusium and
marched straight on Rome. The army showed perfect discipline. There
was no indiscriminate plundering and devastation, no city or
fortress was assailed. "We are bound for Rome" was their cry to the
guards upon the walls of the provincial towns, who watched the host
in wonder and fear as it rolled steadily to the south. At last they
reached the river Allia, a few miles from Rome, where the whole
available force of the city was ranged to meet them. The battle took
place on July 18, 390, that ill-omened dies Alliensis which
long perpetuated in the Roman calendar the memory of the deepest
shame the republic had ever known. The Celts turned the flank of the
Roman army, and annihilated it in one tremendous charge. Three days
later they were in Rome, and for nearly a year they remained masters
of the city, or of its ruins, till a great fine had been exacted and
full vengeance taken for the perfidy at Clusium. For nearly a
century after the treaty thus concluded there was peace between the
Celts and the Romans, and the breaking of that peace when certain
Celtic tribes allied themselves with their old enemy, the Etruscans,
in the third Samnite war was coincident with the breaking up of the
Celtic Empire. [Roman history tells of various confiicts with the
Celts during thia period, but de Jubainville has shown that these
narratives are almost entirely mythical. See "Premiers Habitant;"
ii. 318-323.]
Two questions must now be considered before we can leave the
historical part of this Introduction. First of all, what are the
evidences for the wide-spread diffusion of Celtic power in
Mid-Europe during this period? Secondly, where were the Germanic
peoples, and what was their position in regard to the Celts ?
[26]
Celtic Place-names in Europe
To answer these questions fully would take us (for the purposes
of this volume) too deeply into philological discussions, which only
the Celtic scholar can fully appreciate. The evidence will be found
fully set forth in de Jubainville's work, already frequently
referred to. The study of European place-names forms the basis of
the argument. Take the Celtic name Noviomagus, composed of
two Celtic words, the adjective meaning new, and magos (Irish
magh) a field or plain.[e.g., Moymell (magh-meala),
the Plain of Honey a Gaelic name for Fairyland and many
place-names] There were nine places of this name known in
antiquity. Six were in France, among them the places now called
Noyon, in Oise, Nijon, in Vosges, Nyons, in Drôme. Three outside of
France were Nimègue, in Belgium, Neumagen, in the Rhineland, and one
at Speyer, in the Palatinate.
The word dunum, so often traceable in Gaelic place names
in the present day (Dundalk, Dunrobin, &c.), and meaning
fortress or castle, is another typically Celtic element in European
place-names. It occurred very frequently in France - e.g.,
Lug-dunum (Lyons), Viro-dunum (Verdun). It is also
found in Switzerland - e.g., Minno-dunum (Moudon),
Eburo-dunum (Yverdon) - and in the Netherlands, where the
famous city of Leyden goes back to a Celtic Lug-dunum. In
Great Britain the Celtic term was often changed by simple
translation into castra; thus Camulo-dunum became
Colchester, Bran-dunum Brancaster. In Spain and Portugal
eight names terminating in dunum are mentioned by classical
writers. In Germany the modern names Kempton, Karnberg, Liegnitz, go
back respectively to the Celtic forms Cambo-dunum, Carro-
[27]
aunum, Lugi-dunum, and we find a Singi-dunum, now
Belgrade, in Servia, a Novi-dunum, now Isaktscha, in
Roumania, a Carro-dunum in South Russia, near the Dniester,
and another in Croatia, now Pitsmeza. Sego-dunum, now Rodez,
in France, turns up also in Bavaria (Wurzburg), and in England
(Sege-dunum, now Wallsend, in Northumberland), and the first
term, sego, is traceable in Segorbe (Sego-briga), in
Spain. Briga is a Celtic word, the origin of the German
burg, and equivalent in meaning to dunum.
One more example: the word magos, a plain, which is very
frequent as an element of Irish place-names, is found abundantly in
France, and outside of France, in countries no longer Celtic, it
appears in Switzerland (Uro-magus, now Promasens), in the
Rhineland (Broco-magus, Brumath), in the Netherlands, as
already noted (Nimègue), in Lombardy several times, and in
Austria.
The examples given are by no means exhaustive, but they serve to
indicate the wide diffusion of the Celts in Europe and their
identity of language over their vast territory. [For these and many
other examples see de Jubainyille's "Premiers Habitants" ii, 255
seq.]
Early Celtic Art
The relics of ancient Celtic art-work tell the same story. In the
year 1846 a great pre-Roman necropolis was discovered at Hallstatt,
near Salzburg, in Austria. It contains relics believed by Dr. Arthur
Evans to date from about 750 to 400 B.C. These relics betoken in
some cases a high standard of civilisation and considerable
commerce. Amber from the Baltic is there, Phoenician glass, and
gold-leaf of Oriental workmanship. Iron swords are found whose hilts
and sheaths are richly decorated with gold, ivory, and amber.
[28]
The Celtic culture illustrated by the remains at Hallstatt
developed later into what is called the La Tène culture. La Tène was
a settlement at the north-eastern end of the Lake of Neuchâtel, and
many objects of great interest have been found there since the site
was first explored in 1858. These antiquities represent, according
to Dr. Evans, the culminating period of Gaulish civilisation, and
date from round about the third century B.C. The type of art here
found must be judged in the light of an observation recently made by
Mr. Romilly Allen in his "Celtic Art" (p.13)
"The great difficulty in understanding the evolution of Celtic
art lies in the fact that although the Celts never seem to have
invented any new ideas, they professed [sic; ? possessed] an
extraordinary aptitude for picking up ideas from the different
peoples with whom war or commerce brought them into contact. And
once the Celt had borrowed an idea from his neighbours he was able
to give it such a strong Celtic tinge that it soon became something
so different from what it was originally as to be almost
unrecognisable."
Now what the Celt borrowed in the art-culture which on the
Continent culminated in the La Tène relics were certain originally
naturalistic motives for Greek ornaments, notably the pal mette and
the meander motives. But it was characteristic of the Celt that he
avoided in his art all imitation of, or even approximation to, the
natural forms of the plant and animal world. He reduced everything
to pure decoration. What he enjoyed in decoration was the
alternation of long sweeping curves and undulations with the
concentrated energy of close-set spirals or bosses, and with these
simple elements and with the suggestion of a few motives derived
from Greek art he elaborated a most
[29]
beautiful, subtle, and varied system of decoration, applied to
weapons, ornaments, and to toilet and household appliances of all
kinds, in gold, bronze, wood, and stone, and possibly, if we had the
means of judging, to textile fabrics also. One beautiful feature in
the decoration of metal-work seems to have entirely originated in
Celtica. Enamelling was unknown to the classical nations till they
learned from the Celts. So late as the third century A.D. it was
still strange to the classical world, as we learn from the reference
of Philostratus:
"They say that the barbarians who live in the ocean [Britons]
pour these colours upon heated brass, and that they adhere, become
hard as stone, and preserve the designs that are made upon
them."
Dr. J. Anderson writes in the "Proceedings of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland" :
"The Gauls as well as the Britons - of the same Celtic stock -
practised enamel-working before the Roman conquest. The enamel
workshops of Bibracte, with their furnaces, crucibles, moulds,
polishing-stones, and with the crude enamels in their various stages
of preparation, have been recently excavated from the ruins of the
city destroyed by Caesar and his legions. But the Bibracte enamels
are the work of mere dabblers in the art, compared with the British
examples. The home of the art was Britain, and the style of the
pattern, as well as the association in which the objects decorated
with it were found, demonstrated with certainty that it had reached
its highest stage of indigenous development before it came in
contact with the Roman culture."
[Quoted by Mr. Romilly Allen in
"Celtic Art," p.136]
The National Museum in Dublin contains many superb examples of
Irish decorative art in gold, bronze,
[30]
and enamels, and the "strong Celtic tinge " of which Mr. Romilly
Allen speaks is as clearly observable there as in the relics of
Hallstatt or La Tène.
Everything, then, speaks of a community of culture, an identity
of race-character, existing over the vast territory known to the
ancient world as "Celtica."
Celts and Germans
But, as we have said before, this territory was by no means
inhabited by the Celt alone. In particular we have to ask, who and
where were the Germans, the Teuto-Gothic tribes, who eventually took
the place of the Celts as the great Northern menace to classical
civilisation ?
They are mentioned by Pytheas, the eminent Greek traveller and
geographer, about 300 B.C., but they play no part in history till,
under the name of Cimbri and Teutones, they descended on Italy to be
vanquished by Marius at the close of the second century. The ancient
Greek geographers prior to Pytheas know nothing of them, and assign
all the territories now known as Germanic to various Celtic
tribes.
The explanation given by de Jubainville, and based by him on
various philological considerations, is that the Germans were a
subject people, comparable to those "un-free tribes " who existed in
Gaul and in ancient Ireland. They lived under the Celtic dominion,
and had no independent political existence. De Jubainville finds
that all the words connected with law and government and war which
are common both to the Celtic and Teutonic languages were borrowed
by the latter from the former. Chief among them are the words
represented by the modern German Reich, empire, Amt,
office, and the Gothic reiks, a king, all of which are of
unquestioned Celtic origin. De Jubainville also numbers among loan
words from Celtic
[31]
the words Bann, an order ; Frei, free;
Geisel a hostage; Erbe, an inheritance ; Werth, value;
Weih, sacred; Magus, a slave (Gothic) ; Wini, a
wife (Old High German); Skalks, Schalk. A slave (Gothic);
Hathu, battle (Old German); Helith, Held, a hero, from
the same root as the word Celt; Heer, an army (Celtic
choris) ; Sieg, victory; Beute, booty ; Burg, a
castle; and many others.
The etymological history of some of these words is interesting.
Amt, for instance, that word of so much significance in
modern German administration, goes back to an ancient Celtic
ambhactos, which is compounded of the words ambi,
about, and actos, a past participle derived from the
Celtic root AG, meaning to act. Now ambi descends from
the primitive Indo-European mbhi, where the initial m
is a kind of vowel, afterwards represented in Sanscrit by a.
This m vowel became n in those Germanic words which
derive directly from the primitive Indo-European tongue. But the
word which is now represented by amt appears in its earliest
Germanic form as ambaht, thus making plain its descent from
the Celtic ambhactos.
Again, the word frei is found in its earliest Germanic
form as frijol-s, which comes from the primitive
Indo-European prijo-s. The word here does not, however, mean
free; it means beloved (Sanscrit priya-s). In the Celtic
language, however, we find prijos dropping its initial
p - a difficulty in pronouncing this letter was a marked
feature in ancient Celtic; it changed], according to a regular rule,
into dd, and appears in modern Welsh as rhydd = free.
The Indo-European meaning persists in the Germanic languages in
the name of the love-goddess, Freja, and in the word
Freund, friend, Friede, peace. The sense borne by the
word in the sphere of civil right is traceable to a Celtic
origin,
[32]
and in thar sense appears to nave been a loan from Celtic.
The German Beute, booty, plunder, has had an instructive
history. There was a Gaulish word bodi found in compounds
such as the place-name Segobodium (Seveux), and various personal and
tribal names, including Boudicca, better known to us as the "British
warrior queen," Boadicea. This word meant anciently "victory." But
the fruits of victory are spoil, and in this material sense the word
was adopted in German, in French (butin), in Norse (byte),
and the Welsh (budd). On the other hand, the word
preserved its elevated significance in Irish. In the Irish
translation of Chronicles xxix. II, where the Vulgate original has
"Tua est, Domine, magnificentia et potentia et gloria et Victoria,"
the word victoria is rendered by the Irish buaidh,
and, as de Jubainville remarks, "ce n'est pas de butin qu'il
s'agit." He goes on to say "Buaidh has preserved in Irish,
thanks to a vigorous and persistent literary culture, the high
meaning which it bore in the tongue of the Gaulish aristocracy. The
material sense of the word was alone perceived by the lower classes
of the population, and it is the tradition of this lower class which
has been preserved in the German, the French, and the Cymric
languages," ["Premier' Habitantas" ii, 355, 356].
Two things, however, the Celts either could not or would not
impose on the subjugated German tribes - their language and their
religion. In these two great factors of race-unity and pride lay the
seeds of the ultimate German uprising and overthrow of the Celtic
supremacy. The names of the German are different from those of the
Celtic deities, their funeral customs, with which are associated the
deepest religious conceptions of primitive races, are different. The
Celts, or
[33]
at least the dominant section of them, buried their dead,
regarding the use of fire as a humiliation, to be inflicted on
criminals, or upon slaves or prisoners in those terrible human
sacrifices which are the greatest stain on their native Culture. The
Germans, on the other hand, burned their illustrious dead on pyres,
like the early Greeks - if a pyre could not be afforded for the
whole body, the noblest parts, such as the head and arms, were
burned and the rest buried.
Downfall of the Celtic Empire
What exactly took place at the time of the German revolt we shall
never know ; certain it is, however, that from about the year 300
B.C. onward the Celts appear to have lost whatever political
cohesion and common purpose they had possessed. Rent asunder, as it
were, by the upthrust of some mighty subterranean force, their
tribes rolled down like lava-streams to the south, east, and west of
their original home. Some found their way into Northern Greece,
where they committed the outrage which so scandalised their former
friends and allies in the sack of the shrine of Delphi (273 B.C.).
Others renewed, with worse fortune, the old struggle with Rome, and
perished in vast numbers at Sentinum (295 B.C.) and Lake Vadimo (283
B.C.). One detachment penetrated into Asia Minor, and founded the
Celtic State of Galatia, where, as St. Jerome attests, a Celtic
dialect was still spoken in the fourth century A.D. Others enlisted
as mercenary troops with Carthage. A tumultuous war of Celts against
scattered German tribes, or against other Celts who represented
earlier waves of emigration and Conquest, went on all over
Mid-Europe, Gaul, and Britain. When this settled down Gaul and the
British Islands remained practically the sole relics of the
Celtic
[34]
empire, the only countries still under Celtic law and leadership.
By the commencement of the Christian era Gaul and Britain had fallen
under the yoke of Rome, and their complete Romanisation was only a
question of time.
Unique Historical Position of Ireland
Ireland alone was never even visited, much less subjugated, by
the Roman legionaries, and maintained its independence against all
comers nominally until the close of the twelfth century, but for all
practical purposes a good three hundred years longer.
Ireland has therefore this unique feature of interest, that it
carried an indigenous Celtic civilisation, Celtic institutions, art,
and literature, and the oldest surviving form of the Celtic language
[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
letter p. Thus the Indo-European particle pare,
represented by Greek παρά beside or close to, becomes in
early Celtic are, as in the name Are-morici the
Armoricans, those who dwell ar 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 into c (k, g). But
about the sixth century B.C. remarkable change passed over the
language of the Continental Celts. They gained in some unexplained
way the faculty for pronouncing p, and even substituted it
for existing c sounds ; thus the original Cretanus
became Pretanis, Britain, the numeral qetuares
(four) became petuares, 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 of p
on the Irish side and lack of any objection to it on the Welsh. The
following are a few illustrations: [not included]
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 to
p. Thus, they turned the Latin Pascha (Easter) to
Casg; purpur, purple, to corcair, pulsatio (through
French pouls) to cuisle. It must be noted, however,
that Nicholson in his "Keltic Researches" endeavours to show that
the so-called Indo-European p - that is, p standing
alone and uncombined with another consonant -n was pronounced by the
Goidelic Celts at an early period. The subject can hardly be said to
be cleared up yet.] ight across the chasm which separates the
antique from the modern world,
[35]
the pagan from the Christian world, and on into the fll light of
modern history and observation.
The Celtic Character
The moral no less than the physical characteristics attributed by
classical writers to the Celtic peoples show a remarkable
distinctness and consistency. Much of what is said about them might,
as we should expect, be said of any primitive and unlettered people,
but there remains so much to differentiate them among the races of
mankind that if these ancient references to the Celts could be read
aloud, without mentioning the name of the race to whom they
referred, to any person acquainted with it through modern history
alone, he would, I think, without hesitation, name the Celtic
peoples as the subject of the description which he had heard.
Some of these references have already been quoted, and we need
not repeat the evidence derived from Plato, Ephorus, or Arrian. But
an observation of
[36]
M. Porcius Cato on the Gauls may be adduced. "There are
two things," he says, "to which the Gauls are devoted - the art of
war and subtlety of speech" ("rem militarem et argute loqtui").
Caesars Account
Caesar has given us a careful and critical account of them as he
knew them in Gaul. They were, he says, eager for battle, but easily
dashed by reverses. They were extremely superstitious, submitting to
their Druids in all public and private affairs, and regarding it as
the worst of punishments to be excommunicated and forbidden to
approach the ceremonies of religion:
"They who are thus interdicted [for refusing to obey a Druidical
sentence] are reckoned in the number of the vile and wicked; all
persons avoid and fly their company and discourse, lest they should
receive any infection by contagion; they are not permitted to
commence a suit; neither is any post entrusted to them. . . . The
Druids are generally freed from military service, nor do they pay
taxes with the rest. . . . Encouraged by such rewards, many of their
own accord come to their schools, and are sent by their friends and
relations. They are said there to get by heart a great number of
verses; some continue twenty years in their education; neither is it
held lawful to commit these things [the Druidic doctrines] to
writing, though in almost all public transactions and private
accounts they use the Greek characters."
The Gauls were eager for news, besieging merchants and travellers
for gossip [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 ?"] easily influenced, sanguine,
[37]
credulous, fond of change, and wavering in their counsels. They
were at the same time remarkably acute and intelligent, very quick
to seize upon and to imitate any contrivance they found useful.
Their ingenuity in baffling the novel siege apparatus of the Roman
armies is specially noticed by Caesar. Of their courage he speaks
with great respect, attributing their scorn of death, in some degree
at least, to their firm faith in the immortality of the soul,
[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."] A people who in earlier days had again and again
annihilated Roman armies, had sacked Rome, and who had more than
once placed Caesar himself in positions of the utmost anxiety and
peril, were evidently no weaklings, whatever their religious beliefs
or practices. Caesar is not given to sentimental admiration of his
foes, but one episode at the siege of Avaricum moves him to
immortalise the valour of the defence, A wooden structure or
agger had been raised by the Romans to overtop the walls,
which had proved impregnable to the assaults of the battering-ram.
The Gauls contrived to set this on fire. It was of the utmost moment
to prevent the besiegers from extinguishing the flames, and a Gaul
mounted a portion of the wall above the agger, throwing down
upon it balls of tallow and pitch, which were handed up to him from
within. He was soon struck down by a missile from a Roman catapult.
Immediately another stepped over him as he lay, and continued his
comrade's task. He too fell,
[38]
but a third instantly took his place, and a fourth ; nor was this
post ever deserted until the legionaries at last extinguished the
flames and forced the defenders back into the town, which was
finally captured on the following day.
Strabo on the Celts
The geographer and traveller Strabo, who died 24 A.D., and was
therefore a little later than Caesar, has much to tell us about the
Celts. He notices that their country (in this case Gaul) is thickly
inhabited and well tilled - there is no waste of natural resources.
The women are prolific, and notably good mothers. He describes the
men as warlike, passionate, disputatious, easily provoked, but
generous and unsuspicious, and easily vanquished by stratagem. They
showed themselves eager for culture, and Greek letters and science
had spread rapidly among them from Massilia; public education was
established in their towns. They fought better on horseback than on
foot, and in Strabo's time formed the flower of the Roman cavalry.
They dwelt in great houses made of arched timbers with walls of
wickerwork - no doubt plastered with clay and lime, as in Ireland -
and thickly thatched. Towns of much importance were found in Gaul,
and Caesar notes the strength of their walls, built of stone and
timber. Both Caesar and Strabo agree that there was a very sharp
division between the nobles and priestly or educated class on the
one hand and the common people on the other, the latter being kept
in strict subjection. The social division corresponds roughly, no
doubt, to the race distinction between the true Celts and the
aboriginal populations subdued by them. While Caesar tells us that
the Druids taught the immortality of the soul, Strabo adds that they
believed in
[39]
the indestructibility, which implies in some sense the divinity,
of the material universe.
The Celtic warrior loved display. Everything that gave brilliance
and the sense of drama to life appealed to him. His weapons were
richly ornamented, his horse-trappings were wrought in bronze and
enamel, of design as exquisite as any relic of Mycenaean or Cretan
art, his raiment was embroidered with gold. The scene of the
surrender of Vercingetorix, when his heroic struggle with Rome had
come to an end on the fall of Alesia, is worth recording as a
typically Celtic blend of chivalry and of what appeared to the
sober-minded Romans childish ostentation. [The scene of the
surrender of Vercingetorix is not recounted by Caesar, and rests
mainly on the authority of Plutarch and of the hIstorian Florus, but
it is accepted by scholars (Mommsen. Long, &c.) as historic]
When he saw that the cause was lost he summoned a tribal council,
and told the assembled chiefs, whom he had led through a glorious
though unsuccessful war, that he was ready to sacrifice himself for
his still faithful followers - they might send his head to Caesar if
they liked, or he would voluntarily surrender himself for the sake
of getting easier terms for his countrymen. The latter alternative
was chosen. Vercingetorix then armed himself with his most splendid
weapons, decked his horse with its richest trappings, and, after
riding thrice round the Roman camp, went before Caesar and laid at
his feet the sword which was the sole remaining defence of Gallic
independence. Caesar sent him to Rome, where he lay in prison for
six years, and was finally put to death when Caesar celebrated his
triumph.
But the Celtic love of splendour and of art were mixed with much
barbarism. Strabo tells us how the warriors rode home from victory
with the heads of fallen
[40]
foemen dangling from their horses' necks, just as in the Irish
saga the Ulster hero, Cuchulain, is represented as driving back to
Emania from a foray into Connacht with the heads of his enemies
hanging from tiis chariot-rim. Their domestic arrangements were
rude; they lay on the ground to sleep, sat on couches of straw, and
their women worked in the fields.
PoIybius
A characteristic scene from the battle of Clastidium (222 B.C.)
is recorded by Polybius. The Gaesati, [These were a tribe who took
their name from the gaesum, 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.] he tells us, who were
in the forefront of the Celtic army, stripped naked for the fight,
and the sight of these warriors, with their great stature and their
fair skins, on which glittered the collars and bracelets of gold so
loved as an adornment by all the Celts, filled the Roman legionaries
with awe. Yet when the day was over those golden ornaments went in
cartloads to deck the Capitol of Rome; and the final comment of
Polybius on the character of the Celts is that they, "I say not
usually, but always, in everything they attempt, are driven headlong
by their passions, and never submit to the laws of reason." As might
be expected, the chastity for which the Germans were noted was
never, until recent times, a Celtic characteristic.
Diodorus
Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Augustus,
who had travelled in Gaul, confirms in the main the accounts of
Caesar and Strabo, but adds some
[41]
interesting details. He notes in particular the Gallic love of
gold. Even cuirasses were made of it. This is also a very notable
trait in Celtic Ireland, where an astonishing number of prehistoric
gold relics have been found, while many more, now lost, are known to
have existed. The temples and sacred places, say Posidonius and
Diodorus, were full of unguarded offerings of gold, which no one
ever touched. He mentions the great reverence paid to the bards,
and, like Cato, notices something peculiar about the kind of speech
which the educated Gauls cultivated: "they are not a talkative
people, and are fond of expressing themselves in enigmas, so that
the hearer has to divine the most part of what they would say." This
exactly answers to the literary language of ancient Ireland, which
is curt and allusive to a degree. The Druid was regarded as the
prescribed intermediary between God and man-no one could perform a
religious act without his assistance.
Ammianus Marcellinus
Ammianus Marcellinus, who wrote much later, in the latter half of
the fourth century A.D., had also visited Gaul, which was then, of
course, much Romanised. He tells us, however, like former writers,
of the great stature, fairness, and arrogant bearing of the Gallic
warrior. He adds that the people, especially in Aquitaine, were
singularly clean and proper in their persons - no one was to be seen
in rags. The Gallic woman he describes as very tall, blue-eyed, and
singularly beautiful; but a certain amount of awe is mingled with
his evident admiration, for he tells us that while it was dangerous
enough to get into a fight with a Gallic man, your case was indeed
desperate if his wife with her "huge snowy arms," which could strike
like catapults, came to his assistance. One is irresistibly
[42]
reminded of the gallery of vigorous, independent, fiery-hearted
women, like Maeve, Grania, Findabair, Deirdre, and the historic
Boadicea, who figure in the myths and in the history of the British
Islands.
Rice Holmes on the Gauls
The following passage from Dr. Rice Holmes' "Caesar's Conquest of
Gaul" may be taken as an admirable summary of the social physiognomy
of that part of Celtica a little before the time of the Christian
era, and it corresponds closely to all that is known of the native
Irish civilisation
"The Gallic peoples had risen far above the condition of savages
; and the Celticans of the interior, many of whom had already fallen
under Roman influence, had attained a certain degree of
civilisation, and even of luxury. Their trousers, from which the
province took its name of Gallia Bracata, and their many-coloured
tartan skirts and cloaks excited the astonishment of their
conquerors. The chiefs wore rings and bracelets and necklaces of
gold ; and when these tall, fair-haired warriors rode forth to
battle, with their helmets wrought in the shape of some fierce
beast's head, and surmounted by nodding plumes, their chain armour,
their long bucklers and their huge clanking swords, they made a
splendid show. Walled towns or large villages, the strongholds of
the various tribes, were conspicuous on numerous hills. The plains
were dotted by scores of open hamlets. The houses, built of timber
and wickerwork, were large and well thatched. The fields in summer
were yellow with corn. Roads ran from town to town. Rude bridges
spanned the rivers; and barges laden with merchandise floated along
them. Ships clumsy indeed
[43]
but larger than any that were seen on the Mediterranean, braved
the storms of the Bay of Biscay and carried cargoes between the
ports of Brittany and the coast of Britain. Tolls were exacted on
the goods which were transported on the great waterways; and it was
from the farming of these dues that the nobles derived a large part
of their wealth. Every tribe had its coinage; and the knowledge of
writing in Greek and Roman characters was not confined to the
priests. The Aeduans were familiar with the plating of copper and of
tin. The miners of Aquitaine, of Auvergne, and of the Berri were
celebrated for their skill. Indeed, in all that belonged to outward
prosperity the peoples of Gaul had made great strides since their
kinsmen first came into contact with Rome." [' "Caesar's Conquest of
Gaul," pp. I0, II. Let it he 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 Musée de St.-Germain.
The inhabitants of the British Islands arc 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 he 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 in "Nature," Nov. 3, 1910. ]
Weakness of the Celtic Policy
Yet this native Celtic civilisation, in many respects so
attractive and so promising, had evidently some defect or disability
which prevented the Celtic peoples from holding their own either
against the ancient civilisation of the Graeco-Roman world, or
against the rude young vigour of the Teutonic races. Let us consider
what this was.
[44]
The Classical State
At the root of the success of classical nations lay the
conception of the civic community, the πολις the res publica, as
a kind of divine entity, the foundation of blessing to men,
venerable for its age, yet renewed in youth with every generation; a
power which a man might joyfully serve, knowing that even if not
remembered in its records his faithful service would outlive his own
petty life and go to exalt the life of his motherland or city for
all future time. In this spirit Socrates, when urged to evade his
death sentence by taking the means of escape from prison which his
friends offered him, rebuked them for inciting him to an impious
violation of his country's laws. For a man's country, he says, is
more holy and venerable than father or mother, and he must quietly
obey the laws, to which he has assented by living under them all his
life, or incur the just wrath of their great Brethren, the Laws of
the Underworld, before whom, in the end, he must answer for his
conduct on earth. In a greater or less degree this exalted
conception of the State formed the practical religion of every man
among the classical nations of antiquity, and gave to the State its
cohesive power, its capability of endurance and of progress.
Teutonic Loyalty
With the Teuton the cohesive force was supplied by another
motive, one which was destined to mingle with the civic motive and
to form, in union with it - and often in predominance over it - the
main political factor in the development of the European nations.
This was the sentiment of what the Germans called Treue, the
personal fidelity to a chief, which in very
[45]
early times extended itself to a royal dynasty, a sentiment
rooted profoundly in the Teutonic nature, and one which has never
been surpassed by any other human impulse as the source of heroic
self-sacrifice.
Celtic Religion
No human influences are ever found pure and unmixed. The
sentiment of personal fidelity was not unknown to the classical
nations. The sentiment of civic patriotism, though of slow growth
among the Teutonic races, did eventually establish itself there.
Neither sentiment was unknown to the Celt, but there was another
force which, in his case, overshadowed and dwarfed them, and
supplied what it could of the political inspiration and unifying
power which the classical nations got from patriotism and the
Teutons from loyalty. This was Religion; or perhaps it would be more
accurate to say Sacerdotalism - religion codified in dogma and
administered by a priestly caste. The Druids, as we have seen from
Caesar, whose observations are entirely confirmed by Strabo and by
references in Irish legends, [In the "Táin Bo Cuajlgne," 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."]
were the really sovran power in Celtica. All affairs, public and
private, were subject to their authority, and the penalties which
they could inflict for any assertion of lay independence, though
resting for their efficacy, like the medieval interdicts of the
Catholic Church, on popular superstition
[46]
alone, were enough to quell the proudest spirit. Here lay the
real weakness of the Celtic polity. There is perhaps no law written
more conspicuously in the teachings of history than that nations who
are ruled by priests drawing their authority from supernatural
sanctions are, just in the measure that they are so ruled, incapable
of true national progress. The free, healthy current of secular life
and thought is, in the very nature of things, incompatible with
priestly rule. Be the creed what it may, Druidism, Islam, Judaism,
Christianity, or fetichism, a priestly caste claiming authority in
temporal affairs by virtue of extra-temporal sanctions is inevitably
the enemy of that spirit of criticism, of that influx of new ideas,
of that growth of secular thought, of human and rational authority,
which are the elementary conditions of national development.
The Cursing of Tara
A singular and very cogent illustration of this truth can be
drawn from the history of the early Celtic world. In the sixth
century A. D., a little over a hundred years after the preaching of
Christianity by St. Patrick, a king named Dermot MacKerval
[Celtice, Diarmuid mac Cearbhaill] ruled in Ireland. He was
the Ard Righ, or High King, of that country, whose seat of
government was at Tara, in Meath, and whose office, with its nominal
and legal superiority to the five provincial kings, represented the
impulse which was moving the Irish people towards a true national
unity. The first condition of such a unity was evidently the
establishment of an effective central authority. Such an authority,
as we have said, the High King, in theory, represented. Now it
happened that one of his officers was murdered in the discharge of
his duty by a chief named Hugh Guairy. Guairy
[47]
was the brother of a bishop who was related by fosterage to St.
Ruadan of Lorrha, and when King Dermot sent to arrest the murderer
these clergy found him a hiding-place. Dermot, however, caused a
search to be made, haled him forth from under the roof of St.
Ruadan, and brought him to Tara for trial. Immediately the
ecclesiastics of Ireland made common cause against the lay ruler who
had dared to execute justice on a criminal under clerical
protection. They assembled at Tara, fasted against the king, [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.] and laid
their solemn malediction upon him and the seat of his government.
Then the chronicler tells us that Dermot's wife had a prophetic
dream:
"Upon Tara's green was a vast and wide-foliaged tree, and eleven
slaves hewing at it ; but every chip that they knocked from it would
return into its place again and there adhere instantly, till at last
there came one man that dealt the tree but a stroke, and with that
single cut laid it low."
["Silva Gadelica," by S. H. O'Grady, p. 73]
The fair tree was the Irish monarchy, the twelve hewers were the
twelve Saints or Apostles of Ireland, and the one who laid it low
was St. Ruadan. The plea of the king for his country, whose fate he
saw to be hanging in the balance, is recorded with moving force and
insight by the Irish chronicler :[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.]
[48]
" 'Alas,' he said, 'for the iniquitous contest that ye have
waged against me; seeing that it is Ireland's good that I pursue,
and to preserve her discipline and royal right; but 'tis Ireland's
unpeace and murderousness that ye endeavour after.' "!
But Ruadan said, "Desolate be Tara for ever and ever" ; and the
popular awe of the ecclesiastical malediction prevailed. The
criminal was surrendered, Tara was abandoned, and, except for a
brief space when a strong usurper, Bran Boru, fought his way to
power, Ireland knew no effective secular government till it was
imposed upon her by a conqueror. The last words of the historical
tract from which we quote are Dermot's cry of despair:
"Woe to him that with the clergy of the churches battle
joins."
This remarkable incident has been described at some length
because it is typical of a factor whose profound influence in
moulding the history of the Celtic peoples we can trace through a
succession of critical events from the time of Julius Caesar to the
present day. How and whence it arose we shall consider later; here
it is enough to call attention to it. It is a factor which forbade
the national development of the Celts, in the sense in which we can
speak of that of the classical or the Teutonic peoples.
What Europe Owes to the Celt
Yet to suppose that on this account the Celt was not a force of
any real consequence in Europe would be altogether a mistake. His
contribution to the culture of the Western world was a very notable
one. For some four centuries - about A.D. 500 to 900 - Ireland
was
[49]
the refuge of learning and the source of literary and philosophic
culture for half Europe. The verse-forms of Celtic poetry have
probably played the main part in determining the structure of all
modern verse. The myths and legends of the Gaelic and Cymric peoples
kindled the imagination of a host of Continental poets. True, the
Celt did not himself create any great architectural work of
literature, just as he did not create a stable or imposing national
polity. His thinking and feeling were essentially lyrical and
concrete. Each object or aspect of life impressed him vividly and
stirred him profoundly; he was sensitive, impression able to the
last degree, but did not see things in their larger and more
far-reaching relations. He had little girt for the establishment of
institutions, for the service of principles; but he was, and is) an
indispensable and never-failing assertor of humanity as against the
tyranny of principles, the coldness and barrenness of institutions.
The institutions of royalty and of civic patriotism are both very
capable of being fossilised into barren formula, and thus of
fettering instead of inspiring the soul. But the Celt has always
been a rebel against anything that has not in it the breath of life,
against any un-spiritual and purely external form of domination. It
is too true that he has been over-eager to enjoy the fine fruits of
life without the long and patient preparation for the harvest, but
he has done and will still do infinite service to the modern world
in insisting that the true fruit of life is a spiritual reality,
never without pain and loss to be obscured or forgotten amid the
vast mechanism of a material civilisation.
[50]
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