October 5, 1900.] 



SCIENCE. 



513 



Belgic and Celtican Gaul may be taken as 

 representing the two sets of Celts of our 

 own islands. The Belgic Gauls began last 

 to come to this country, and their advent 

 seems to fall between the visits of Pytheas 

 and Julius Ctesar — that is, roughly speak- 

 ing, between the middle of the fourth century 

 and that of the first century B.C. In this 

 country they came to be known collectively 

 as Brittanni or Brittones, the linguistic 

 ancestors of the peoples who have spoken 

 Brythonic or the Lingua Brittannica, such as 

 the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Strathclyde 

 Britons. As to the other Celts, it is much 

 harder to say when or whence exactly they 

 came — I mean the linguistic ancestors of 

 the Gaels of Ireland, Man, and Scotland — 

 that is to say, the peoples whose language 

 has been Goidelic. Some scholars are of 

 opinion that there were no Goidelic-speak- 

 ing peoples in Britain till some such came 

 here from Ireland on sundry occasions, be- 

 ginning with the second century, in the 

 time of the Eoman occupation, but how the 

 Goidels would be supposed by them to have 

 reached Ireland I do not exactly know. 

 My own notion is that the bulk of them 

 reached that country by way of Britain, 

 and that they arrived in Britain, like the 

 Belgic Gauls later, from the nearest parts 

 of the Continent ; for this would be previous 

 to the appearance of the Belgic Gauls on 

 the western seaboard of Europe ; that is to 

 say, at a time when Celtica extended not 

 merely to the Seine, but to the Scheldt or 

 to the Ehine, if not even further. Then as 

 to the time of the coming of the ancestors 

 of the Goidels, it has been supposed coinci- 

 dent with a period of great movements 

 among the Celts of the Continent, in par- 

 ticular the movements which resulted, 

 among other things, in some of them 

 reaching the shores of the Mediterranean 

 and penetrating to the heart of the Iberic 

 peninsula. Perhaps one would not be far 

 wrong in fixing on the seventh and the sixth 



centuries b.c. as covering the time of the 

 coming of the earlier Celts to our shores. 



In Britain I should suppose these earlier 

 hordes of Celts to have conquered most of 

 the southern half of the island ; and the 

 Brythonic Celts, when they arrived, may 

 have overrun much the same area, pushing 

 the Goidelic Celts more and more towards 

 the west. Under that pressure it is natural 

 to suppose that some of the latter made 

 their way to Ireland, but it is quite pos- 

 sible that their emigi-ation thither had 

 begun before. Some time or other pre- 

 vious to the Roman occupation the Bry- 

 thonic people of the Ordovices seem to have 

 penetrated to the sea between the rivers 

 Dovey and Mawddach, displacing probably 

 some Goidels, who may have gone to 

 the opposite coasts of Ireland ; but more 

 traces in Irish story appear of invasions on 

 the part of the Dumnonii, who possessed 

 the coast between Galloway and Argyle. 

 These were so situated as to be able to 

 assail Ireland both in front and from be- 

 hind, and this is countenanced to some ex- 

 tent by Irish topography, not to mention 

 the long legends extant as to great wars in 

 the west of Ireland between the Tuatha 

 De Danann and invaders including the 

 Fir Domnann. I suspect also that it was 

 the country of these northern Dumnonians 

 which was originally meant by Lochlinn, a 

 name interpreted later to mean Norway. 



Such are some of the faint traces of the 

 Goidelic invasions of Ireland from Britain, 

 but it is possible — perhaps probable — that 

 Ireland received settlers on its southern 

 coast from the northwest of Gaul at a 

 comparatively late period, at the time, let 

 us say, when Csesar was engaged in crush- 

 ing the Veneti and the Aremoric League. 

 This has been suggested to me by the name 

 of the Usdise, which probably survives in 

 the first syllable of Ossory, denoting a tract 

 of country now, roughly speaking, covered 

 by the county of Kilkenny, but which may 



