Sse” SS 
SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—H. 357 
Costume for this purpose is especially instructive. This is examined under 
four headings—ordinary, festive, special, and ritual—and is preceded by 
a brief sketch of the islands and their inhabitants. Ordinary attire is a 
guide to the character of individuals and a gauge to the environmental 
conditions of the group. Special occasions have special costume. In 
secular festivities the esthetic sense of the individual finds expression, and 
on ritual occasions that of the society as a whole. Costume is intimately 
connected with marriage and widowhood. Ritual costume contributes 
profoundly to religious sentiment and has useful sociological functions. 
Mr. K. H. Jacxson.—The Gaelic Shanachies and some of their lore (12.0). 
The seanachai, anglicised ‘ shanachy,’ is the centre of folk-culture, the 
village entertainer, preserver of local traditions and beliefs and teller of 
folk-tales, in the Gaelic districts of Ireland and Scotland ; he has a large 
repertoire of folk-tales of all kinds, many of which have been distributed 
throughout Gaeldom bytravelling people and handed down bythe shanachies. 
Beliefs in the supernatural preserved by the shanachies : the malevolent 
hag (cailleach), not a witch; the evil spirit (sprid); the enchanted seals 
which speak ; the mermaid, piast, Ion craots, leprechaun, etc. 
Fairy beliefs: an early type is the sidhe-people or Tvatha Dé Danann, 
living apart in burial-mounds but engaging in love affairs with mortals ; 
a modern tale of this kind. They are now mostly prophetic visitants, 
whence the modern ‘ banshee.’ The early belief in Tir na nOg, ‘ the Land 
of the Young,’ and the theme of the wonder-voyage thither; modern 
survivals. The daoine maithe, fairies of the ordinary European type. 
Suggested explanation: Tir na nOg is the celtic otherworld, and the daoine 
maithe and sidhe-people are perhaps pre-celtic ancestor-spirits, the second 
evolved from the first. But the sédhe-people seem to include certain celtic 
gods. How far all these beings are really believed in by the folk. 
AFTERNOON. 
Prof. V. GorpDoN CHILpE.—The arrival of the Celts in Scotland (2.0). 
At Old Keig (Aberdeenshire), Covesea (Morayshire) and Jarlshof (Shet- 
land) flat-rimmed pottery resembling English Hallstatt wares has been 
found associated with Late Bronze Age objects of Britannico-Hibernian 
type. In Shetland an earth-house was connected with this complex. It 
is due to new settlers, though these were undoubtedly mixed with the 
older native populations. ‘These Late Bronze Age invaders are the only 
people to whom the Celtic name of Orkney can be attributed as early as the 
fifth century B.c. Their pottery is allied in a general way to that of 
All Cannings Cross in Wiltshire and Scarborough in Yorkshire, and recurs 
in the Western Isles and in NorthIreland. The precise origin of the invaders 
cannot be determined. But if there were Picts in Ireland speaking a Celtic 
language, this culture common to the Far North, Aberdeenshire and North 
Ireland has a good claim to be called Pictish. ‘To it may belong, besides 
the earth-house, also stone cups with handles, which have a different 
distribution to the broch relics. 
A contingent of cognate people mixed with other elements from York- 
shire may have reinforced the Bronze Age population of the Lowlands and 
been responsible for the first settlements on Traprain Law and other hill-top 
towns. Their pottery is rather more closely allied to that from Heathery 
Burn Cave, Co. Durham, and Eston Nab, near Middlesbrough, than to the 
pure Scarborough Hallstatt, but such Hallstatt elements may be admitted. 
