essential to tribal or national progress. For the historian there exists no pure
and unmixed race, and even the conception of one becomes self-oontradictory.
To him a race is a group of people, presumably related in some way by blood,
who appear to transmit from generation to generation a common heritage of
culture and like physical and spiritual traits. He observes that the transmitted
characteristics of such a group may weaken or disiipatf before foreign influence,
and much more as the group scatters among other peopk; or again he sees its
distinguishing traits becoming clearer as the members draw to a closer national
unity under the action of a common physical environment,,common instituttont,
and a common speech. The historian will not accept as conclusive any single
kind of evidence regarding face. He may attach wdght to complexion, stature,
and shape of skull, and yet find their interpretation quite perplexing when
compared with other evidence, historical or linguistic He will consider customs
and implements, and yet remember that customs may be borrowed, and imple-
ments are often of foreign pattern. Language affords him the most entidng
criterion, but one of the most deceptive. It is a matter of observation that when
two peoples of different tongues meet together, they may mingle their bkx)d
through marriage, combine their customs, and adopt each other's utensib and
ornaments; but the two languages will not structurally unite: one will supplant
the other. The language may thus be more single in source than the people
speaking it; though, conversely, people of the same race, by reason of spedal
drcumstancea, may not speak the same tongue. Hence linguistic unity is not
conclusive evidence of unity of race.

124



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CHAP, vn CELTIC STRAINS 125

time of receiving Latin culture, they were intermediaries
between the classic sources and the Teutons, who also were
to drink of these magic draughts, but not so deeply as to
be transformed to Latin peoples. The rdle of the Teutons
in the mediaeval evolution was to accept Christianity and ^
learn something of the pagan antique, and then to react
upon what they had received and change it in their natures.

Central Europe seems to have been the early home alike
of Celts and Teutons. Thence successive migratory groups
appear to have passed westwardly and southerly. Both
races spoke Aryan tongues, and according to the earliest
notices of classic writers resembled each other physically —
large, blue-eyed, with yeUow or tawny hair. The more
penetrating accoimts of Caesar and Tadtus disclose their
distinctive racial traits, which contrast still more clearly in
the remains of the early Celtic (Irish) and Teutonic litera-
tures. Whatever were the ethnological affinities between
Celt and Teuton, and however imperceptibly these races may
have shaded into each other, for example, in northern France
and Belgium, their characters were different, and their
opposing racial traits have never ceased to display themselves
in the literature as well as in the political and social history v
of western Europe.

The time and manner of the Celtic occupation of Gaul
and Spain remain obscure.^ It took place long before the
turmoils of the second century B.C., when the Teutonic
tribes began to assert themselves, probably in the north of
the present Germany, and to press south-westwardly upon
Celtic neighbours on both sides of the Rhine. Some of
them pushed on towards lands held by the Belgae, and then
passed southward toward Aquitania, drawing Belgic and
Celtic peoples with them. Afterwards turning eastwardly
they invaded the Roman Provincia in southern Gaul, and
through their victories threatened the great Republic. This

'As to the Celts in Gaul and elsewhere, and the early non-Celtic population
of Gaul, see A. Bertrand, La Giude avant les Gaulois (Paris, 1891) ; La Rdigion
des GauMs (Paris, 1897); Les Cdtts dans Us vallies du Pd ei du Danube (in con-
junction with S. Reinach); D'Arbois de Jubainville, Les Premiers ^abUaH^s de
VEmape (second edition, Paris, 1894); Fustel de Coulanges, InstiMions poUHques
de roHdenne France (Puis, 1891); Karl Miillenhoff, Deutsche AUertumskunde,
Bde. L and U.; Zopitza, "Kelten und Gallier,''Ze»to<;AK// /i^ keUische Philologie
190s*



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126 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

was the perU of the Cimbri and Teutones, which Manus
quelled by the waters of the Durance and then among the
hills of Piedmont. The invasion did not change the ethno-
logy of Gaul, which, however, was not altogether Celtic in
Caesar's time. The opening sentences of his Commentaries
indicate anything but racial imity. The Roman province
was mainly Ligurian in blood. West of the province,
between the Pyrenees and the Garonne, were the " Aquitani,"
chiefly of Iberian stock. The Celtae, whose western boundary
was the ocean, reached from the Garonne as far north as the
Seine, and eastwardly across the centre of Gaul to the head
waters of the Rhine. North of them were the Belgae, extend-
ing from the Seine and the British Channel to the lower
Rhine. These Belgae also apparently were Celts, and yet,
as their lands touched those of the Germans on the Rhine,
they naturaUy show Teutonic affinities, and some of their
tribes contained strains of Teuton blood. But it is not
blood alone that makes the race; and Gaul, with its
dominant Celtic element, was making Gauls out of all these
peoples. At all events a conmion likeness may be discerned
in the picture of Gallic traits which Caesar gives. ^

Gallic civilization had then advanced as far as the native
political incapacity of the Gauls would permit. Quick-
witted and intelligent, they were to gain from Rome the
discipline they needed, (^ce accustomed to the enforce-
ment of a stable order, their finer qualities responded by a
ready acceptance of the benefits of civilization and a rapid
appropriation of Latin culture. Not a sentence of the Gallic
literature survives. But that this people were endowed
with eloquence and possessed of a sense of form, was to be
shown by works in their adopted tongue.* Romanized and
Latinized they were converted to Christianity and then
renewed with fresh Teutonic blood. So they enter upon the

1 See anU, Chapter n.

'The Latin literature produced by their descendants in the fourth century is
usuaDy good in form, whatever other qualities it lack. This statement applies
to the works of the nominally Christian, but really pagan, rhetorician and poet,
Ausonius, bom in 3 to, at Bordeaux, of mingled Aquitanian and Aeduan blood;
likewise to the poems of Paulinus of Nola, bom at the same town, in 353, and
to the prose of Sulpidus Severus, also bom in Aquitaine a little after. In the
fifth century, Avitus, an Auvemian, Bishop of Vienne, and ApoUinaris Sidonius
continued the Gallo-Latin strain in literature.



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CHAP, vn CELTIC STRAINS 127

mediaeval period ; and when, after the millennial year, the
voices of the Middle Ages cease simply to utter the barbaric
or echo the antique, it becomes clear that nowhere is th ere
a happi er balance q1 ittteUectual faculty and emotional
(opacity thM in these peoples of mingled stock who long
had dwelt in the coimtry which we know as France.

Since the Celts of Gaul have left no witness of themselves
in Gallic institutions or literature, it is necessary to turn to
Ireland for clearer evidence of Celtic qualities. There one
may see what might come of a predominantly Celtic people
who lacked the lesson of Roman conquest and the discipline
of Roman order. The early history of the Irish, their
presentation of themselves in imaginative literature, their
attainment in learning and accomplishment in art, are not
unlike what might have been expected from Caesar's Gauls
under similar conditions of comparative isolation. Irish
history displays the social turmoil and barbarism resulting
from insular aggravation of the Celtic weaknesses noticeable
in Caesar's sketch; and the same are carried to burlesque
excess in the old Irish literature. On the other hand, Irish
qualities of temperament and mind bear such fair fruit in
literature and art as might be imagined springing from the j/^
Gallic stem but for the Roman graft.^

No trustworthy story can be put together from the myth,
tradition, and conscious fiction which record the unpro-

' Without hazarding a discussion of the origin of the Irish, of their proportion
of Celtic blood, or their exact relation to the Celts of the Continent, it may in a
general way be said, that Ireland and Great Britain were inhabited by a pre-
historic and pre-Celtic people. The Celts came from the Continent, conquered
them, and probably intermarried with them. The Celtic inflow may have begun
in the sixth century before Christ, and perhaps continued imtil shortly before
Caesar's time. Evidences of language point to a dual Celtic stock, Goidelic and
Brytbonic. It may be surmised that the former was the first to arrive. The
Celtic dialect spoken by them is now represented by the Gaelic of Ireland, Man,
and Scotland. The Brjrthonic is still represented by the speech of Wales and
the Armoric dialects of Brittany. This was the language of the Britons who
fought with Caesar, and were subdued by later Roman generals. After the
Roman time they were either pressed back into Wales and Cornwall by Angles,
Jutes, and Saxons, or were absorbed among these conquering Teutons. Probably
Caesar was correct in asserting the close affinity of the Britons with the Belgic
tribes of the Continent. See the opening chapters of Rhys and Brjrnmor-Jones's
Wdsk People; also Rhys's Early Britain (London, 1882); Zupitza, "Relten und
GtUier," Zeiisckrift fUr kelUsche Phil., 1902; T. H. Huxley, "On some Fixed
Points in British Ethnology','' Contemporary Review for 187 1, reprinted in Essays
(Appleton's, 1894) ; Ripley, Races of Europe, chap. xii. (New York, 1899).



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128 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

gressive turbulence of pre-Christian Ireland. But the Irish
character and capacities are clearly mirrored in this enormous
Gaelic literature. Truculence and vanity pervade Jt^^and a
passion for hyperbole. A weak sense of fact and a lack of
steady rational ^purpose are also conspicuous. It is as
ferocious as may be. Yet, withal, it keeps the charm of the
Irish temperament. Its pathos is moving, even lovely.
Some of the poetry has a mjrstic sensuousness ; the Unes
fall on the ear like the lapping of ripples on an unseen shore ;
the imagery has a fantastic and romantic beauty, and the
reader is wafted along on waves of temperament and feeling.^

Whatever themes sprang from the pagan age, probably
nothing was written down before the Christian time, when
Christian matter might be foisted into the pagan story.
The sagas belonging to the so-called Ulster Cycle afford the
best illustration of early Irish traits.* They reflect a society

'The Irish art of illumination presents analogies to the literature. The
finesse of design and execution in the Book of Kdls (seventh century) is astonishing.
Equally marvellous was the work of Irish goldsmiths. Both arts-doubtless made
use of designs common upon the Continent, and may even have dra?m suggestions
from Byzantine or late Roman patterns. Nevertheless, illumination and the
goldsmith's art in Ireland are characteristically Irish and the very dlmaz of
barbaric fashions. Their forms pointed to nothing further. These astounding
spirals, meanders, and interlacings, combined with utterly fantastic and impossible
drawings of the human form, required essential modification before they were
suited to form part of that organic development of mediaeval art which followed
its earlier imitative periods.

Irish illumination was carried by Columba to lona, and spread thence through
many monasteries in the northern part of Britain. It was imitated in the Anglo-
Saxon monasteries of Northumbria, and from them passed with Alcuin to the
Court of Charlemagne. Through these transplantings the Irish art was changed,
under the hands of men conversant with Byzantine and later Roman art. The
influence of the art also worked outward from Irish monasteries upon the
Continent, St. Gall, for example. The Irish goldsmith's art likewise poued into
Saxon England, into Carolingian France, and into Scandinavia. See J. H.
Middleton, Illuminated Manuscripts (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1892), and the
different view as to the sources of Irish illuminating art in Muntz, khides
iconograpkiques (Paris, 1887); also Rraus, Geschichte der ckrisUichen Kunst^ L
607-6x9; Margaret Stokes, Early Christian Art in Ireland (South Kensington
Museum Art Hand-Books, 1894), vol. i. p. $2 sqq., and vol.il. pp. 73, 78; Sophus
Mtiller, Nordische Altertumskunde, vol. iL chap. xiv. (Strassburg, 1898).

*The classification of andent Irish literature b largely the work of O'Curry,
Lectures on the Manuscript Materials of Ancient Irish History (Dublin, 1861,
2nd ed., 1878). See also D. Hyde, A Literary History of Ireland, chaps, xxi.-xziz.
(London, 1899); D'Arix>is de Jubainville, Introduction d Vitmde de la Httirakure
ceUique, chap. pr6iiminaire (Paris, 1883). The tales of the Ulster Cyde, in the
main, antedate the coming of the Norsemen in the eighth century; but the later
redactions seem to reflect Norse customs; see Pflugk-Hartung. in Revue cdtique.
l^jan, (1892), p. ifo sqq.



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CHAP, vn CELTIC STRAINS 129

apparently at the '' Homeric" stage of development, though
the Irish heroes suffer in comparison with the Greek by
reason of the immeasurable inferiority of these Gaelic Sagas
to the Iliad and Odyssey. There is the same custom of
fighting from chariots, the same tried charioteer, the hero's
closest friend, and the same unstable relationsll^> between
the chieftains and the king.^

The Achilles of the Ulster Cycle is Cuchulain. The Tain
Bo Cuailgne (Englished rather impr<^)erly as the '^ Cattle-
raid of Cooley") is the long and famous Saga that brings
hi^ glory to its height.^ Other Sagas teU of his mysterious
birth, his youthful deeds, his wooing, his various feats, and
then the moving, fateful story of his death. Loved by
many women, cherished by heroes, beautiful in face and
form, possessed of strength, agility, and skill in arms beyond
belief, imcontroUed, chivalric, his battle-ardour imquench-
able, he is a brilliant epic hero. But his story is weakened
by hyperbole. Even to-day we know how sword-strokes
and spear-thrust kUl. So do great narrators, who likewise
realize the literary power of truth. Through the Iliad
there is no combat between heroes where spear and sword
do not pierce and kill as they do in fact. So in the Sagas
of the Norse, the man falls before the mortal blow. But
in the Ulster Cycle, day after day, two heroes may mangle
each other in every impossible and fantastic way, beyond
the bounds of the faintest shadow of verisimilitude.' In



iThb oompaiisoD with Homeric society mi^t be extended ao as to include
the Celts of Britain and GauL Close affinities appear between the Gauls
and the personages of the Ulster Cycle. Several al its Sagas have to do
with the "hero's portion," awarded to the bravest warrior at the feast, a
source of much pleasant trouble. Posidonius, writing in the time of Cicero,
mentions the same custom among the Celts of Gaul (Didot-MiUler, Pragmenta
Inst. Graec. t. ill p. 260^ coL i; D*Arbois de Jubainville, Intr&ductum, etc
pp. 297. 298).

s Probably first written down in the seventh century. Some of the Cuchulain
Sagas are rendered by D'Arbois dc Jubainville, J^popSe cdtique; they are given
popularly in E. Hull's Cuchulain Saga (D. Nutt, London, 1898). Also to some
caitent in Hyde's IM. Hist,, etc.

•See the famous battle of the Ford between Cuchulain and Ferdiad (Hyde,
UL Hist, oj Irelatfd, pp. 328-334). A more burlesque hyperbole is that of the
three caldrons of cold water prepared for Cuchulain to cool his battle-heat ; when
be was plunged in -the first, it boiled; plunged into the second, no one could hold
hb hand in it; but in the third, the water became tepid (D'Arbois de Jubain-
â–¼tlle, ^popie cJtique, p. 204.)

VOL. I K



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130 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

this weakness of hyperbole the Irish Sagas are outdone only
^y by the monstrous doings of the epics of India.

Besides hyperbole, Irish tales display another weakness,
which is not unpleasing, although an element of failure both
in the people and their literature. This is the quality of
non-arrival. Some old tales evince it in the imsteadfast
purpose of the narrative, the hero quite forgetting the initial
motive of his action. In the Voyage of MaelduUy for instance,
a son sets out upon the ocean to seek his father's murderers,
a motive which is lost sight of amid the marvels of the
voyage.^ As may be imagined, qualities of vanity, trucu-
lence, irrationality, hyperbole, and non-arrival or lack of
sequence, frequently impart an air of bouffe to the Irish
Sagas, making them humorous beyond the intention of their
composers.*

Yet true heroic notes are to be heard.* And however
rare the tales which have not the makings of a brawl on
every page, these truculent Sagas sometimes speak with
power and pathos, and sweetly present the loveliness of
nature or the charms of women; all in a manner happily
indicative of the impres^onable jnsh temperament.
Examples are the moving tales of The CHUirm^of Usnach
and the Pursuit of LHarmuid and Grainne.^ They bring to

' Certain interpolated Christian chapters at the end tell how Maeldun is led
to forgive the murderers — an idea certainly foreign to the original pagan story,
which may perhaps have had its own ending. The tale is translated in P. W.
Joyce, Old Celtic Romances (London, 1894), and by F. Lot in D'Arbois de Jubainville's
kpopU celHque, pp. 449-500.

'Perhaps no one of the Ulster Sagas exhibits these qualities more amusingly
than The Feast of Bricriu, a tale in which contention for the ''hero*s portion'* is
the leading motive. Its personae are the men and women who constantly appear
and reappear throughout this cycle. In this Saga they act and speak admirably
in character, and some of the descriptions bring the very man before our eyes.
It is translated by George Henderson, Vol. II. Irish Texts Society (London,
1899), and also by D'Arbois de Jubainville in his kpopie celtique (Paris, X892).

*For example, in a historical Saga the great Ring Brian speaks, fighting
against the Norsemen: "O God . . . retreat becomes us not, and I myself
know I shall not leave this place alive; and what would it profit me if I did?
For Aibhell of Grey Crag came to me last night, and told me that I should be killed
this day."

<"Deirdre, or the Fate of the Sons of Usnach," is rendered in E. Hull's
Cuchulain Saga; Hyde, Lit. Hist., chap, xxv., and D'Arbob de Jubainville,
Jkpopie celtique, pp. 217-319. The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne was edited
by O'Duffy for the Society for the Preservation of the Irish Language (Dublin,
Gill and ^n, 1895), and less completely in Joyce's Old Celtic Romances (London,
1894).



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CHAP, vn CELTIC STRAINS 131

mind the Tristram story, which grew up among a kindred
people. The first of them only belongs to the Ulster Cycle.
Both are stories of a beautiful and headstrong maiden
betrothed to an old king. Each maid rebels against imion
with an old man ; each falls in love with a young hero, and,
imabashed, asks him to flee with her. In the former tale
the heroine's charms win the hero, while in the latter he is
overcome by the violent insistence of a woman not to be
gainsaid. In both stories love brings the hero to his death.

The Irish genius also showed an aptitude for lyric ex-
pression, and at an early period develop)ed elaborate modes ^
of rhymed and alliterative verse.* Pecxiliarly beautiful
are the poems descriptive of nature* and those reflectitig
the Gaelic belief in. a_ future Jife. A charming description
of Elysium is offered by The Voyage of Bran, a Saga of the
Otherworld, dating from the seventh century. Its verse
portions preponderate, the prose serving as their frame.'
But it opens in prose, teUing how one day, walking near his
stronghold. Bran heard sweet music behind him, and as
often as he turned the music was still behind him. He fell
asleep at last from the sweetness of the strains. When he
awoke, he found by him a branch silvery with white blossoms.
He took it to his home, where was seen a woman who sang :

"A branch of the apple-tree from Emain I bring ;
Twigs of white silver are on it.
Crystal boughs with blossoms.
There is a distant isle,
Around which sea-horses (waves) glisten :"

And the woman sings on, pictiuing ''Mag Mell of many
flowers," and of the host ever rowing thither from across
the sea; till at last Bran and his people set forth in their
boat and row on and on, till they are welcomed by sweet
women with music and wine in island-fields of flowers and
bird-song. There is no sad strain in the music from this
Gaelic land beyond the grave.

^ Cf. Hyde, ox., chaps, zzi., xzxvi.

* For examples see Kuno Meyer, SdecUons from AncittU Irish Poetry (CoDstable,
1911).

* The Voyage of Bran, edited and translated by Kuno Meyer, with essays on
the CeUic Otherworld, by Alfred Nutt (a vols., DaWd Nutt, London, 1895). A
Saga usually is prose interspersed with lyric verses at critical points of the story.



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132 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book i

Irish traits observed in poem and Saga are reflected in
accounts of not improbable events, and exemplified in
Christian saints; for the Irish did not change their spots
upon conversion. How Christianitjr failed to affect the
manners of the andent Irish, is illustrated in the story of the
Cursing of Tara, where tradition says the high-kings of
Ireland held sway. The accoimt is scarcely historical; yet
Tara existed, and fell to decay in the sixth century.^ Its
cursing was on this wise. ELing Dermot was high-king of
Ireland. His laws were obeyed throughout the land, and
over its length and breadth marched his spear-bearer assert-
ing the royal authority, and holding the king's spear across
his body before him. Every town and castle must open
wide enough to let this spear pass, carried crosswise. The
spear-bearer comes to the strong house of Aedh. He finds
the outer palisade breached to let the spear through, but not
the inner house. The bearer demands that it be torn open.
"Order it so as to please thyself," quoth Aedh, as he smote
off his head.

King Dermot sent his men to lay waste Aedh's land
and seize his person. Aedh flees, and at last takes refuge
with St. Ruadhan. The king again sends messengers, but
they are foiled, till he comes himself, seizes the outlaw, and
carries him off to hang him at Tara. Thereupon St. Ruadhan
seeks St. Brendan of Birr and others. They proceed to
Tara and demand the prisoner. The king answers that
the Church cannot protect lawbreakers. So all the clergy
rang their beUs and chanted psalms against the king before
Tara, and fasted on him (in order that their imprecations
might be more potent), and he fasted on them. King and
clergy fasted on each other, till one night the clergy made
a show of eating in sight of the town, but passed the meat
and ale beneath their cowls. So the king was tricked into
taking meat ; and an evil dream came to him, by which he
knew the clergy would succeed in destroying his kingdom.

In the morning the king went and said to the clergy:
"111 have ye done to imdo my kingdom, because I main-

1 On Tara, see Index in O'Curry'i Manners and Customs of Ike Anciemi Irish;
also Hyde, LUerary History, pp, 126-130. For this story, see O'Gradyt SUva Goedeiica,
pp. 77-^ (London, 189a) ; B^de, pp. 226-253.



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CHAP, vn CELTIC STRAINS 133

tained the righteous cause. Be thy diocese, Ruadhan, the
first one ruined, and may thy monks desert thee.''

Said the saint : '' May thy kingdom droop speedily.''

Said the king : ''Thy see shall be empty, and swine shall
root up thy churchyards."

Said the saint : ''Tara shall be desolate, and therein shall
no dwelling be for ever."

It was the custom of ancient bards to utter an impreca-
tion or ''satire" against those offending them.^ The irate
fasting and cursing by the Irish clergy was a thinly Christian-
ized continuation of the same Irish habit, inspired by the
same Irish temper. There was no chasm between the pagan
bards and the Christian clergy, who loved the Sagas and
preserved them. They had also their predecessors in the