The Religion of the Ancient Celts

oad-headed Bretons, various types of Irishmen. Men with Norse names and Norse aspect "have the Gaelic." But all alike have the same character and temperam

lded different social elements into a common type, found often where no Celtic tongue is now spoken. It emerges where we least e

of Celtic origins

t?," among the Auvergnats, the Bretons, and in Lozère and Jura. Representatives of the type have been found in Belgian and French Neolithic graves.6 Professor Sergi calls this the "Eurasiatic race," and, contrary to general opinion, identifies it with the Aryans, a savage people, inferior to the dolichocephalic M

ologists. The Belg? were tall and fair, and overran Gaul, except Aquitaine, mixing generally with the Celt?, who in C?sar's time had thus an infusion of Belgic blood.9 But before this conquest, the Celt? had already mingled

uggested by Strabo's words, Celt? and Belg? "differ a little" in language.13 No classical writer describes the Celts as short and dark, but the reverse. Short, dark people would have been called Iberians, without respect to skulls. Classical observers were not craniologists. The short, brachycephalic type is now prominent in France, because it has always been so, eliminating the tall, fair Celtic type. Conquering Celts, fewer in number than the broad and narrow-headed aborigines, intermarried or made less lasting alliances with them. In course of time the type of the more numerous race was bound to prevail. Even in C?sar's day the

e fair hair of this people has made many suppose that they were akin to the Teutons. But fairness is relative, and the dark Romans may have called brown hair fair, while they occasionally distinguished between the "fair" Gauls and fairer Germans. Their institutions and their religions (pace Professor Rh[^y]s) differed, and though they were so long in contact the names of their gods and priests are unlike.17 Their languages, again, though of "Aryan" stock, differ more fr

l must agree with him that the skulls are too few to generalise from. Celtic iron-age skulls in Britain are dolichocephalic, perhaps a recrudescence of the aboriginal type. Broca's "Kymric" skulls are mesocephalic; this he

narrow-skulled Belg? on the whole reinforced the meso- or brachycephalic round barrow folk in Britain. Dr. Thurnam identifies the latter with the Belg? (Broca's Kymri), and thinks that Gaulish skulls were round, with beetling brows.21 Professors Ripley and Sergi, d

ichocephalic, to judge by their skulls, others were brachycephalic, while their fairness was a relative term. Classical observers probably generalised from the higher classes, of a purer type; they tell us nothing of the people. But the higher classes may have had varying skulls, as well as stature and colour of hair,24 and Irish texts tell of a tall, fair, blue-eyed stock, and a short, dark, dark-eyed stock, in Ireland. Even in those distant ages we m

ocephalic Iberians and Ligurians, and brachycephalic swarthy folk (Broca's Celts). Thus even the first Celtic arrivals in Britain, the Goidels, were a people of mixed race, though probably relatively purer than the late coming Brythons, the latest of whom had probably mingled with the Teutons. Hence among Celtic-speaking folk or their descendants-short, dark, broad-beaded Bretons, tall, fair or rufous Highlanders, tall chestnut-haired Welshmen or Irishmen, Highlanders of Norse descent, short, dark, narrow-headed Highlanders, Irishmen, and Welshmen-there is a common Celtic facies, the result of old Celtic characteristics powerful enough so to impress themselves on such

occurred before 1000 B.C. But after the separation of the Goidelic group a further change took place. Goidels preserved the sound represented by qu, or more simply by c or ch, but this was changed into p by the remaining continental Celts, who carried with them into Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Britain (the Brythons) words in which q became p. The British Epidii is from Gaulish epos, "horse," which is in Old Irish ech (Lat. equus). The Parisii take their name from Qarisii, the Pictones or Pictavi of Poictiers from Pictos (which in the plural Pidi gives us "Picts"), derived from quicto. This change took place after the Goidelic invasion of Britain in the tenth century B.C. On the other hand, some continental Celts may later have regained the power of pronouncing q. In Gaul the q of Sequa

re the Picts? According to Professor Rh[^y]s they were pre-Aryans,29 but they must have been under the influence of Brythonic Celts. Dr. Skene regarded them as Goidels speaking a Goidelic dialect with Brythonic forms.30 Mr. Nicholson thinks they were Goidels who had preserved the Indo-European p.31

ls from the Continent. Prominent Goidelic place-names would become Brythonic, but insignificant places would retain their Goidelic form, and to these we must look for decisive evidence.35 A Goidelic occupation by the ninth century B.C. is suggested by the name "Cassiterides" (a word of the q group) applied to Britain. If the Goidels occupied Britain first, they may have called their land Qretanis or Qritanis, which Pictish invaders would change

he Pictish chronicle, and Pictish names like "Peanfahel,"38 have Brythonic affinities. If the Picts spoke a Brythonic dialect, S. Columba's need of an interpreter when preaching to them would be explained.39 Later the Picts were conquered by Irish Goidels, the Scotti. The Picts, however, must already have mingled with aboriginal peoples and with Goidels, if these were already in Britain, and they may have adopted their supposed non-Aryan customs from the aborigines. On the other hand, the matriarchate seems at one time to have been Celtic, and it may have been no more than a conservative survival in the Pictish royal house, as it was elsewhere.40 Britons, as well as Caledonii, had wive

knowledge of Pictish religion is too scanty for the interpretation of Celtic religion to be affected by it.

e third century B.C.44 The name generally applied by the Romans to the Celts was "Galli" a term finally confined by them to the people of Gaul.45 Successive bands of Celts went forth from this comparatively restricted territory, until the Celtic "empire" for some centuries before 300 B.C. included the British Isles, parts of the Iberian peninsula, Gaul, North Italy, Belgium, Holland, great part of Germany, and Austria. When the German tribes revolted, Celtic bands appeared in Asia Minor, and remained there as the Galatian Celts. Arch?ological discoverie

efs, for Livy says that the sovereign power rested with the Bituriges who appointed the king of Celticum, viz. Ambicatus. Some such unity is necessary to explain Celtic power in the ancient world, and it was made possible by unity of race or at least of the congeries of Celticised peoples, by religious solidarity, and probably by regular gatherings of all the kings or chiefs. If the Druids were a Celtic priesthood at this time, or already formed a corporation as they did later in Gaul, they must have endeavoured to form and preserve such a unity. And if it was never so compact as Livy's words suggest, i

all Gaul" was an obnoxious watch-word, endeavoured to suppress them.51 But the Celts were too widely scattered ever to form a compact empire.52 The Roman empire extended itself gradually in the consciousness of its power; the cohesion of the Celts in an empire or under one king was made impossible by their migrations and diffusion. Their unity, such as it was, was broken by the revolt of the

Wilser, L'Anthropologie, xiv. 494; Collignon,

rgi, The Mediterranean

ane, Man, Past and Pre

Gauls learned Celtic from the dark round-heads. But Galatian and British Celts, who had neve

1; Collignon, Mem. Soc. d'Ant

:(return) C

:(return) C

rn) C?sar, i. 1;

Holmes, 295; Beddoe, Sc

turn) D'Arbois,

1. 2. Germans are taller and fairer than Gauls;

e p. 105. Celtic Taranis has been compared to Donar, but there is no connection, and Taranis was not ce

return) D'Arb

l, fair, and highly brachycephalic types are still found

; L'Anthrop., v. 63; Taylor, 81;

. Rev. xvi. 328; Mem. of

pley, 309; Sergi, 243;

(return) Tay

) The Walloons are

eturn) D'Arboi

? and Galli," Proc. Brit. Acad. ii. D'Arbois points out th

(return) See

:(return) C

29:(retur

urn) Skene, i. c

rn) ZCP iii. 308;

rachen," Ersch-Gruber's Encylop?die; Sto

eturn) THSC 18

:(return) C

places alone, Norse derivatives are to Gaelic as 3 to 2, they are as 1 to 5 w

(return) Rh[

turn) D'Arbois,

turn) Bede, Ecc

eturn) Adamnan

0:(return)

io Cass. lxxvi. 12; C?

. ix. 2, 103; Rh[^y]s, CB 242-243; C

return) Tacit

hemselves "the men," par excellence. Rh[^y]s derives it from qel, "to slay," and gives it the sense of "warr

ed with "Galat?," but D'Arbois denies this.

Livy, v. 31 f.; D'Arb

iv. 10. 3; C?sar, i. 31, vii.

:(return) C

return) Strab

(return) Pol

(return) C?s

of Celtic unity see Jullian, "Du p