Celtic Mythology & The Religion of the Ancient Celts. John Arnott MacCulloch
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type. Broca's "Kymric" skulls are mesocephalic; this he attributes to crossing with the short round-heads. The evidence is too scanty for generalisation, while the Walloons, perhaps descendants of the Belgæ, have a high index, and some Gauls of classical art are broad-headed.19
Skulls of the British round barrows (early Celtic Bronze Age) are mainly broad, the best specimens showing affinity to Neolithic brachycephalic skulls from Grenelle (though their owners were 5 inches shorter), Selaigneaux, and Borreby.20 Dr. Beddoe thinks that the narrow-skulled Belgæ on the whole reinforced the meso- or brachycephalic round barrow folk in Britain. Dr. Thurnam identifies the latter with the Belgæ (Broca's Kymri), and thinks that Gaulish skulls were round, with beetling brows.21 Professors Ripley and Sergi, disregarding their difference in stature and higher cephalic index, identify them with the short Alpine race (Broca's Celts). This is negatived by Mr. Keane.22 Might not both, however, have originally sprung from a common stock and reached Europe at different times?23
But do a few hundred skulls justify these far-reaching conclusions regarding races enduring for thousands of years? At some very remote period there may have been a Celtic type, as at some further period there may have been an Aryan type. But the Celts, as we know them, must have mingled with the aborigines of Europe and become a mixed race, though preserving and endowing others with their racial and mental characteristics. Some Gauls or Belgæ were dolichocephalic, to judge by their skulls, others were brachycephalic, while their fairness was a relative term. Classical observers probably generalised from the higher classes, of a purer type; they tell us nothing of the people. But the higher classes may have had varying skulls, as well as stature and colour of hair,24 and Irish texts tell of a tall, fair, blue-eyed stock, and a short, dark, dark-eyed stock, in Ireland. Even in those distant ages we must consider the people on whom the Celts impressed their characteristics, as well as the Celts themselves. What happened on the Eurasian steppe, the hypothetical cradle of the "Aryans," whence the Celts came "stepping westwards," seems clear to some, but in truth is a book sealed with seven seals. The men whose Aryan speech was to dominate far and wide may already have possessed different types of skull, and that age was far from "the very beginning."
Thus the Celts before setting out on their Wanderjahre may already have been a mixed race, even if their leaders were of purer stock. But they had the bond of common speech, institutions, and religion, and they formed a common Celtic type in Central and Western Europe. Intermarriage with the already mixed Neolithic folk of Central Europe produced further removal from the unmixed Celtic racial type; but though both reacted on each other as far as language, custom, and belief were concerned, on the whole the Celtic elements predominated in these respects. The Celtic migration into Gaul produced further racial mingling with descendants of the old palæolithic stock, dolichocephalic Iberians and Ligurians, and brachycephalic swarthy folk (Broca's Celts). Thus even the first Celtic arrivals in Britain, the Goidels, were a people of mixed race, though probably relatively purer than the late coming Brythons, the latest of whom had probably mingled with the Teutons. Hence among Celtic-speaking folk or their descendants—short, dark, broad-beaded Bretons, tall, fair or rufous Highlanders, tall chestnut-haired Welshmen or Irishmen, Highlanders of Norse descent, short, dark, narrow-headed Highlanders, Irishmen, and Welshmen—there is a common Celtic facies, the result of old Celtic characteristics powerful enough so to impress themselves on such varied peoples in spite of what they gave to the Celtic incomers. These peoples became Celtic, and Celtic in speech and character they have remained, even where ancestral physical types are reasserting themselves. The folk of a Celtic type, whether pre-Celtic, Celtic, or Norse, have all spoken a Celtic language and exhibit the same old Celtic characteristics—vanity, loquacity, excitability, fickleness, imagination, love of the romantic, fidelity, attachment to family ties, sentimental love of their country, religiosity passing over easily to superstition, and a comparatively high degree of sexual morality. Some of these traits were already noted by classical observers.
Celtic speech had early lost the initial p of old Indo-European speech, except in words beginning with pt and, perhaps, ps. Celtic pare (Lat. præ) became are, met with in Aremorici, "the dwellers by the sea," Arecluta, "by the Clyde," the region watered by the Clyde. Irish athair, Manx ayr, and Irish iasg, represent respectively Latin pater and piscis. P occurring between vowels was also lost, e.g. Irish caora, "sheep," is from kaperax; for, "upon" (Lat. super), from uper. This change took place before the Goidelic Celts broke away and invaded Britain in the tenth century B.C., but while Celts and Teutons were still in contact, since Teutons borrowed words with initial p, e.g. Gothic fairguni, "mountain," from Celtic percunion, later Ercunio, the Hercynian forest. The loss must have occurred before 1000 B.C. But after the separation of the Goidelic group a further change took place. Goidels preserved the sound represented by qu, or more simply by c or ch, but this was changed into p by the remaining continental Celts, who carried with them into Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Britain (the Brythons) words in which q became p. The British Epidii is from Gaulish epos, "horse," which is in Old Irish ech (Lat. equus). The Parisii take their name from Qarisii, the Pictones or Pictavi of Poictiers from Pictos (which in the plural Pidi gives us "Picts"), derived from quicto. This change took place after the Goidelic invasion of Britain in the tenth century B.C. On the other hand, some continental Celts may later have regained the power of pronouncing q. In Gaul the q of Sequana (Seine) was not changed to p, and a tribe dwelling on its banks was called the Sequani. This assumes that Sequana was a pre-Celtic word, possibly Ligurian.25 Professor Rh^ys thinks, however, that Goidelic tribes, identified by him with Cæsar's Celtæ, existed in Gaul and Spain before the coming of the Galli, and had preserved q in their speech. To them we owe Sequana, as well as certain names with q in Spain.26 This at least is certain, that Goidelic Celts of the q group occupied Gaul and Spain before reaching Britain and Ireland. Irish tradition and archæological data confirm this.27 But whether their descendants were represented by Cæsar's "Celtæ" must be uncertain. Celtæ and Galli, according to Cæsar, were one and the same,28 and must have had the same general form of speech.
The dialects of Goidelic speech—Irish, Manx, Gaelic, and that of the continental Goidels—preserved the q sound; those of Gallo-Brythonic speech—Gaulish, Breton, Welsh, Cornish—changed q into p. The speech of the Picts, perhaps connected with the Pictones of Gaul, also had this p sound. Who, then, were the Picts? According to Professor Rh^ys they were pre-Aryans,29 but they must have been under the influence of Brythonic Celts. Dr. Skene regarded them as Goidels speaking a Goidelic dialect with Brythonic forms.30 Mr. Nicholson thinks they were Goidels who had preserved the Indo-European p.31 But might they not be descendants of a Brythonic group, arriving early in Britain and driven northwards by newcomers? Professor Windisch and Dr. Stokes regard them as Celts, allied to the Brythons rather than to the Goidels, the phonetics of their speech resembling those of Welsh rather than Irish.32
The theory of an early Goidelic occupation of Britain has been contested by Professor Meyer,33 who holds that the first Goidels reached Britain from Ireland in the second century, while Dr. MacBain34 was of the opinion that England, apart from Wales and Cornwall, knew no Goidels, the place-names being Brythonic. But unless all Goidels reached Ireland from Gaul or Spain, as some did, Britain was more easily reached than Ireland by migrating Goidels from the Continent. Prominent Goidelic place-names would become Brythonic, but insignificant places would retain their Goidelic form, and to these we must look for decisive evidence.35 A Goidelic occupation by the ninth century B.C. is suggested by the name "Cassiterides" (a word of the q group) applied to Britain. If the Goidels occupied Britain first, they may have called their land Qretanis or Qritanis, which Pictish invaders would change to Pretanis, found in Welsh "Ynys Pridain," Pridain's Isle, or Isle of the Picts, "pointing to the original underlying the Greek (Pretanikai Nêsoi) or Pictish Isles,"36 though the change may be due to continental p Celts trading with q Celts in Britain. With the Pictish occupation would agree the fact that Irish Goidels called the Picts who came to Ireland Cruithne=Qritani=Pre-tani.