CELTIC PLACE-NAMES n 



of the changes in the topography, may still be 

 recovered. 



Now in researches of this kind the liability to 

 blunder is so great, and many able writers have 

 blundered so egregiously, that the inquiry ought not 

 to be entered upon without due preparation, and 

 should not be continued without constant exercise of 

 the most scrupulous caution. The great danger 

 of being betrayed into error by the plausibilities of 

 phonetic etymology should never for a moment be 

 lost sight of. Where possible, the earliest form of 

 the name should be recovered, for in the course 

 of time local names are apt to be so corrupted as to 

 lose all obvious trace of their original orthography. 



The Celtic place-names 1 are as a whole singularly 

 descriptive. The Celtic tribes, indeed, have manifested, 

 in that respect, a keener appreciation of landscape and 

 a more poetical eye for nature than their Saxon suc- 

 cessors. Who that has ever stood beneath the sombre 

 shadow of the cloud that so often rests on the shoulder 

 of the Grampians will fail to recognise the peculiar 

 fitness of the Gaelic name for the highest summit of 

 the chain — Ben-na-muig-dubh, ' the mountain of dark 

 gloom ' ? Or who has ever watched the Atlantic 

 billows bursting into white foam against the cliffs of 

 Ardnamurchan and did not acknowledge that only a 

 poetic race could have named the place ' the headland 

 of the great ocean.' The colours of mountain and 

 river have been seized upon by these people as de- 

 scriptive characters that have suggested local names. 



1 Dr. Joyce's excellent Irish Names of Places is the best authority on 

 this subject. 



