Notes on British and other Coins. By Miss Russell. 383 



Selgovae at some time. Sel-wood in Somersetshire was Penselcoit, and Sel- 

 coth also should be a Cymric Sel-coed, wood of the Sils. I suspect the Eng- 

 lish " wood " to be more from the British coed and goed than from the Teu- 

 tonic wald , or perhaps about equally derived from both. 

 It may be remarked, that the Belgse, who inhabited great part of Eng- 

 land south of the Thames, are hardly more specialised by their name than 

 the Catti. It seems to be the same word that forms bag and box in Eng- 

 lish, with their manifold meanings, and bulk and bulge ; in fact it might 

 mean almost anything. Mr Campbell inclines to regard Bolgam Mor, the 

 name of one of his mythical warriors, as meaning "the great quivered 

 one," I see indications that begger is " bagger "; which word, indeed, is 

 used by the i^mericans in one sense. 



There is no stronger proof of the degree to which the old Celtic coins have 



been ignored, than the existence of rather a notable little book entitled " A 

 Neglected Fact in English History," in which the author, who must have 

 bestowed considerable labour on the subject, demonstrates that there is no 

 appearance of any sudden change in what may be called the minor 

 municipal arrangements of England, at any time ; and infers from this, that 

 the population subjugated bj^ the Romans must, over great part of the coun 

 try, have been already Teutonic, of the race of the Saxons and Franks. The 

 probable explanation of the facts has only become possible rather recently ; 

 the old Iribh laws, which have been printed by instalments within the last 

 ten years, are said by the authorities to be, in fact, the same as the old Ger- 

 man laws, only in a more primitive form than that in which the latter have 

 come down. 



It has nothing to do with the last question, which lies much deeper, but 



I do not know whether there is any evidence at all that the Catti, who were 

 known to the Romans in Germany, were not Celts. The name of their 

 adversaries, the Hermunduri, is just what the Celts might probatdy call the 

 Germans, Irinin-ur. or Wyr ; ur seems to have been the Pictish form of vir 

 &c. Whoever, or whatever Irmin was, it has probably something to do with 

 our name for the Deutsch. When the admirable Grimm assumes that thegod 

 to whom the Catti sacrificed was either Tyr or Woden, he may be just as right 

 and as wrong as Tacitus, who states that the gods worshipped in those parts 

 were Mars and Mercury. The name of Mannheim looks like a Celtic settle- 

 ment ; Marcomanni, for the ancient inhabitants of Bavaria, if Celtic, should 

 mean Picts who rode on horseback. Constanz is historically a Celtic settle- 

 ment, and both Mainau and Brigantium occur near it. The alleged worship 

 of Neptune on the lake there has a Celtic suggestion, for the Gaelic naomh 

 (neuve) as Mr Campbell points out in connection with Kneph, means 

 "heaven" and also "holy." 



Dr. Angus Smith has died since the above reference to him was written; 



he will be even a greater loss to British ethnology than to other departments 

 of science. He had made some very original observations of the types of 

 face and voice prevailin<< in dijfferent districts, which required a delicate ear 

 and retentive memory. 



Additional Note. — Tre and — Treu, which are certainly the Welsh Tuef, 

 township, are traceable in names in Hertfordshire, north of London, 



