518 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS .—H. 
The Celts must be the product of amalgamation between the Veneto- 
Illyrians and the Tumulus people, which may be called Proto-Celts. Since 
the Aryan invaders of Italy, whose language is most closely related to that of 
the Celts, seem to have come from the same region, the Tumulus people 
may be identified with the primitive Italo-Celts who had remained in their 
old home after the Italic peoples had left for the south. 
The speaker has been able to show for the first time the close relation 
between the Veneto-Illyrian and Celtic languages, and has discovered many 
linguistic traces of the Veneto-IIlyrian occupation in Celtic territory. The 
Aryan elements in the language of the so-called Ligurians are probably 
due to an Illyrian invasion as well. 
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS by Rt. Hon, Lord RaGLaNn on What is Tradition ? 
(11.30). (See p. 145.) 
Mrs. H. Wrace E.tcee.—The Earth Mother cult in N.E. Yorkshire 
(12.30). 
The Earth Mother is found as the Old Wife in our Moorland area, this 
name being attached to sacred stones, old trackways and burial sites. The 
Old Wife is the name given to the last sheaf of corn cut at harvest, in our 
area known as the mell-doll. Another name for the Old Wife is Carlin, 
of Scandinavian origin. As a spring goddess she is preserved to-day in 
Carlin Sunday. She was worshipped as Freya and Nanna in the ninth and 
tenth centuries. We have ample evidence that she was guardian of the dead 
throughout the Bronze Age, and a double-axe cult derived from Crete 
pervaded the district. Not only the axe, but shells, necklaces and cup- 
stones are all sacred symbols of the Earth Mother. She was also wor- 
shipped in the Bronze Age as a sky goddess. A hitherto unrecognised type 
of megalithic monument, groups of three standing stones, represent her in 
her threefold aspect. We find many traces of her cult to-day, as, for 
instance, in our inn signs and bee customs. 
AFTERNOON. 
Mr. W. Keay.—The Raw Dykes, Leicester : a Roman aqueduct (2.15). 
On the south side of Leicester, within a mile of the centre of the City, 
is a grass-grown earthwork known as ‘ The Raw Dykes,’ the use of which 
has puzzled many generations. 
It is constructed on side-long ground, on the ‘ give and take’ principle, 
the excavation on the east side being deposited as an embankment on the 
west side. ‘The channel thus made is 340 ft. long, 20 ft. wide at the bottom, 
72, ft. at the top, and averages 10 ft. deep. ‘There is evidence to show that 
the raat (within recent years) extended towards the city for nearly 
a mile. 
Former writers have ascribed its use as ‘ the bounds of a Roman Cursus 
or Racecourse,’ others to ‘ Some defence to the Roman Camp.’ 
The author contends that it is the remains of a Roman. aqueduct 
tapping the river on the upstream side, for the water supply of Leicester 
(Ratz), and discharging it on the downstream side. 
Mr. A. T. J. Dottar.—Prehistoric and some historic communities of 
Lundy, Bristol Channel (2.45). 
The presence on Lundy of undoubted microliths, well-finished round 
scrapers of Bronze Age type and many manipulated blades of beach-flint 
