RELICS OF THB CORNISH LANGUAGE. 275 



There are some four existing lines of evidence about the 

 languages of the ancient Britons : — 



1. — The Welsh, which probably is derived from the lan- 

 guages of the tribes of Britain north of the Thames. 



2. — The Breton, which is the language of the British 

 emigrants from this island to Armorica. 



3. — The Cornish, or Cornu-British, the ancient language of 

 Cornwall, Devon, and probably Somerset, and possibly not unlike 

 the tribal dialects in use among the Britons south of the Thames. 



4. — The Manx, perhaps of least real value, seeing that it is 

 really not Cymric but Gradhelic. 



To these some might be inclined to add the Cumbrian, but 

 of that really little can be ascertained, and there is reason to 

 believe it was little more than a dialect of Welsh, which Cornish 

 was not. 



Having thus seen the importance of the Cornish, let us see 

 what relics of this ancient Cymrian tongue, allied to the Welsh 

 and Breton, there still exist. These relics may be divided 

 roughly into three groups : — 



1. — The ancient literary remains, whether printed and pub- 

 lished (in modern times), or still remaining in manuscript. 



2. — The names of places and persons, i.e., the 



"Tre, Pol, Pen, 



By which you know the Cornishmen ;" 



or the vast collection of quaint non-English names of our 



Cornish hills, woods, fields, moors, and estates. 



3. — The few surviving relics of Celtic words in our Cornish 

 dialect. 



As to our literature, this was much larger than many 

 folk suppose. The Cornish were not indeed a literary people, 

 but in the middle ages the Cornish clergy thought it well to 

 teach their people by the eye and ear in religious dramas, 

 mostly founded on the Bible story, but some, as we now find, 

 relating to the religious history of Cornwall, and to old Britain. 

 Of these a few are still extant, and have been printed and 

 translated into English. It is true modern critics say that these 

 di'amas have little literary merit, but in some points (as readers 

 of the Church in Cornwall magazine may have noticed) I beg to 



