326 
Ireland. Where did this gold come from? There is no evidence 
of any trade at so early a period between the natives of Ireland and 
any gold-producing clime. Geology assures us that there are no auri- 
ferous streams or veins in Ireland capable of supplying so very large 
amass of gold. It follows, then, that some tribe or colony, who 
migrated into this country, must have carried these ornaments on 
their persons. Does ancient history speak of any such tribe of 
emigrants, remarkable for this class of ornaments? To answer 
this question, we are compelled to search the Greek and Latin 
classics: and we learn from Plutarch, from Cesar, Livy, Tacitus, 
Pliny, and many other authorities, that the so-called barbarians, 
known as Tadatae and Galli, were powerful warriors, whose bo- 
dies were covered with rings or armille, and torques, and plates 
of gold; that on more than one occasion the sight of such masses 
of the precious metal on the naked bodies of these rude invaders 
excited the cupidity of the Roman legions, and added vigour to 
the impetuosity of their charge. Now the Gauls, it is admitted, 
were a portion, at least, of that great stream of emigrants, one 
branch of which found rest in Ireland, and who are known by 
the name of Celts, or Kelts, as the word is now very generally 
and more correctly pronounced. But where did the Kelts or Gauls 
get their gold? This question is not so easily answered; and 
here there is need of further research among the obscurer sources 
of history. Irish tradition brings them from Egypt to Hindoos- 
tan; then by the passes of Caucasus to Scythia, to Greece, and 
along the coasts of the Mediterranean to Spain.* One Irish au- 
thority, a writer of the eleventh century,f fixes upon the river 
Pactolus as the exact site of the tribe that had the particular 
name of Scoti; and even though we should reject this tradi- 
tion as a fiction, it shows, at least, the necessity that was then 
felt of bringing the aborigines of Ireland from a region known 
to be auriferous. But it is not by any means impossible, that 
* See Keating; and the Duan Eireannach (Irish Version of Nennius, 
p. 221, sq.) 
+ The author of the Life of S. Cadroc, ap. Colgan, Acta Sanctorum, 
p. 494. 
