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MYTHS & LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC RACE [Queen Maev]
Queen Maev
T. W. ROLLESTON
MYTHS & LEGENDS OF THE CELTIC RACE
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CONSTABLE LONDON
British edition published by Constable and Company Limited, London
First published 1911 by George G. Harrap & Co., London
PREFACE
The Past may be forgotten, but it never dies. The elements which in the
most remote times have entered into a nation's composition endure through
all its history, and help to mould that history, and to stamp the
character and genius of the people.
The examination, therefore, of these elements, and the recognition, as far
as possible, of the part they have actually contributed to the warp and
weft of a nation's life, must be a matter of no small interest and
importance to those who realise that the present is the child of the past,
and the future of the present; who will not regard themselves, their
kinsfolk, and their fellow citizens as mere transitory phantoms, hurrying
from darkness into darkness, but who know that, in them, a vast historic
stream of national life is passing from its distant and mysterious origin
towards a future which is largely conditioned by all the past wanderings
of that human stream, but which is also, in no small degree, what they, by
their courage, their patriotism, their knowledge, and their understanding,
choose to make it.
The part played by the Celtic race as a formative influence in the
history, the literature, and the art of the people inhabiting the British
Islands a people which from that centre has spread its dominions over so
vast an area of the earth's surface has been unduly obscured in popular
thought. For this the current use of the term "Anglo Saxon" applied to the
British people as a designation of race is largely responsible.
Historically the term is quite misleading. There is nothing to justify
this singling out of two Low German tribes when we wish to indicate the
race character of the British people. The use of it leads to such
absurdities as that which the writer noticed not long ago, when the
proposed elevation by the Pope of an Irish bishop to a cardinalate was
described in an English newspaper as being prompted by the desire of the
head of the Catholic Church to pay a compliment to "the Anglo Saxon race."
The true term for the population of these islands, and for the typical and
dominant part of the population of North America, is not Anglo Saxon, but
Anglo Celtic. It is precisely in this blend of Germanic and Celtic
elements that the British people are unique it is precisely this blend
which gives to this people the fire, the élan , and in literature and art
the sense of style, colour, drama, which are not common growths of German
soil, while at the same time it gives the deliberateness and depth, the
reverence for ancient law and custom, and the passion for personal
freedom, which are more or less strange to the Romance nations of the
South of Europe. May they never become strange to the British Islands! Nor
is the Celtic element in these islands to be regarded as contributed
wholly, or even very predominantly, by the populations of the so called
"Celtic Fringe." It is now well known to ethnologists that the Saxons did
not by any means exterminate the Celtic or Celticised populations whom
they found in possession of Great Britain. Mr. E.W.B. Nicholson, librarian
of the Bodleian, writes in his important work "Keltic Researches" (1904):
"Names which have not been purposely invented to describe race must never
be taken as proof of race, but only as proof of community of language, or
community of political organisation. We call a man who speaks English,
lives in England, and bears an obviously English name (such as Freeman or
Newton), an Englishman. Yet from the statistics of 'relative nigrescence'
there is good reason to believe that Lancashire, West Yorkshire,
Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Rutland,
Cambridgeshire, Wiltshire, Somerset, and part of Sussex are as Keltic as
Perthshire and North Munster; that Cheshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire,
Monmouthshire, Gloucestershire, Devon, Dorset, Northamptonshire,
Huntingdonshire, and Bedfordshire are more so and equal to North Wales and
Leinster; while Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire exceed even this degree,
and are on a level with South Wales and Ulster... Continue reading book >>
