Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race Part 51

VIVIONN (BEBHIONN). A young giantess, daughter of Treon, from the Land of Maidens, 287; slain by da, and buried in the place called the Ridge of the Dead, 288

VOYAGE OF MAELDUN. See Maeldun

W

WACE. Author of Li Romans de Brut, 338

WALES. Arthurian saga in, 343, 344; prophecy of Taliesin about, 385

WAVE OF CLEENA. See Tonn Cliodhna

WEE FOLK, THE. Fergus mac Leda and, 246-249; Iubdan, King of, 246

WELL OF KESAIR. Mac Cecht visits, 175

WELL OF KNOWLEDGE. Equivalent, Connlas Well.

Sinends fatal visit to, 129

WELSH FAIRIES. See Tylwyth Teg

WELSH LITERATURE. The Arthur in the Arthurian saga wholly different from the Arthur in, 336; compared with Irish, 344; tales of Arthur in, 386

WELSH MS. SOCIETY. Llewellyn Sions Barddas edited by J.A. Williams ap Ithel for, 332

WELSH ROMANCE. The character of, 395, 396

WESTON, MISS JESSIE L. Reference to her studies on the Arthurian saga, 341

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR. Reference to, in connexion with Arthurian saga, 343

WOLFRAM VON ESCHENBACH. His story of the Grail, 407

Y

YELLOW BOOK OF LECAN. Tale of Cuchulain and Connla in, 192

YOUTH. The maiden who gave the Love Spot to Dermot, 292

YSPADDADEN PENKAWR (is-pa-dhaden). Father of Olwen, 387; the tasks he set Kilhwch, 390-392; slain by Goreu son of Custennin, 392

Z

ZIMMER, DR. HEINRICH. On the source of the Arthurian saga, 343

ZOROASTER. Religion of magic invented by, 61

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 Ma.s.salia [Ma.r.s.eilles], a city of Liguria in the land of the Celts (Fragmenta Hist. Grc.).

3 In his Premiers Habitants de lEurope, vol. ii.

4 Cesars 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 pa.s.sage 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, ill.u.s.trates, as Daniel Wilson remarked, the difference between the two types. Put a Perthshire Highlander side by side with a Suss.e.x 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 Ripleys 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 Holders Altceltischer Sprachschatz.

8 Vergil might possibly mean the very-bright or ill.u.s.trious one, a natural form for a proper name. _Ver_ in Gallic names (Vercingetorix, Verca.s.sivellasimus, &c.) is often an intensive prefix, like the modern Irish _fior_. 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.

Tennysons 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 ma.n.u.script of the twelfth century. The version of the Tin 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 Jubainvilles Premiers Habitants, ii. 255 _sqq._

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 p.r.o.nunciation of the letter _p_. Thus the Indo-European particle _pare_, represented by Greek _pa??_, 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. a remarkable change pa.s.sed over the language of the Continental Celts. They gained in some unexplained way the faculty for p.r.o.nouncing _p_, and even subst.i.tuted it for existing _c_ sounds; thus the original _Cretanis_ 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 ill.u.s.trations:

_Irish_ _Welsh_ _English_ crann prenn tree mac map ton cenn pen head clumh (cluv) pluv feather cig pimp five

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 consonantwas p.r.o.nounced by the Goidelic Celts at an early period. The subject can hardly be said to be cleared up yet.