96 



On Supposed early Celtic 



[No. 33, 



Now Gard or rather Gardhr, the name of a scald and warrior, is 

 indeed but a faint indication, but it is the root of the word Gardha- 

 hhina and, if the name indicate the race, the ancestors of the 

 Danes had something to do with India, for Hildekin was otherwise 

 Harald, a King of Denmark. The third verse is more definite. 



Odin and Frey 

 And the Ascr race 

 Destroy— destroy 

 Our enemies. 



The Aser race would seem pretty evidently to be the same with 

 the Asuras of Hindtt fable. I am aware that the combats of the 

 Surs and Asurs have been supposed to have taken place in some 

 super-terrestrial region. But I cannot think so.f I believe they 

 were flesh and blood mortals, like ourselves. 



The quotation which I next make bears more immediately on the 

 leading subject of the present paper. It is as follows : 



" The Scandinavian antiquities, whether belonging to the ancient 

 heathen period, or the earliest Christian times, bear so great are- 

 semblance to those of Britain and Ireland that, when accurately ex- 

 amined and described, they mutually explain, and elucidate each 

 other. This is especially the case with the Pagan stone circles, 

 stone altars (cromlechs?) barrows (topes? or kist-vaens,) &c. The most 

 ancient of such British erections are generally ascribed to the Druids ; 

 but it is very possible that these sages of the olden time, had more 

 in common with the DruttsX or Droits of the North, than a mere si- 

 milarity of name, or than the rearing of such monuments. The 

 stone erections in the Scottish, Orkney, and Shetland Isles, show 

 themselves to be purely Northern, or reared by people of decidedly 

 Northern extraction." — Report of Roy. Sac* of Northern Antiqui- 

 ties. Introd. p^ 9 — 10. 



Though I have been more verbose than I purposed to be, yet the 

 subject, I am persuaded, is not exhausted. Good drawings or 

 descriptions of old remains, and the same classified, as to kind, and 

 apparent antiquity, are wanted on the one hand ; and if through the 



* The Gaudari were a Scythic people ; precise agreement in orthography, from differ- 

 ent hands, cannot be expected. 



t In the Cyropaedeia of Xenophon we find the 7iames plain enough Kareff' 

 rpt-il/aro le "Zupovg, Acjcrvpiovg k. t. X. Book I. Introduction. 



X Query— if the classic Druidac be not a corruption of this term? 



