Rock Masses, Celtic

ROCK MASSES, CELTIC

"THE Celts, or Keλτοί, or Keλταί were a people of the origin of which nothing positive is known. They occupied a great part of Western Europe perhaps in times antecedent to the invasion of Indo-Germanic nations.

"The very name Celt is of uncertain etymology. Ammian derives it from the king, Kelta, or Celta; Leibnitz, from the German gelt, or geld, money; Mezerai, from the British gall, or gault, a forest; Pellontier, from the Tudesk wallen, to wander; Latour d'Auvergne, from gael, or gall, yellow, alluding to the light hair of the Galli, whom Bochart identtfies with Dodanim (for Rhodanim) of Gen. x. [a[

"But the name of Cell may probably come, as Camden says, from gwalth, a head of hair; coma, and gwalthay, comatus; from whence Keλταί. Γαλταί, or Γαλτοί, Galli or Gauls, the Gaedil, Caedil, or Keile, and in pl. Keilt, or Keiltiet, or Gaels, Gaedels, or Guidhelod, as the Irish call themselves and their tongue.

"The language called Celtic is divided into two principal branches--viz., 1. The Irish or Hibernian, from which the present Irish, or Erse, and the Gaelic of Scotland are derived. 2. The British, to which the primitive Gaellic or Gallic are allied, and from which are derived the Welsh, the Cornish, and the Armoric, or language of Brittany." [b]

"The Welsh, which is the relic of the language of the inland Britons, or Caesar's aborigines, is most probably akin to the dialect of Gallia Celtica, and the Cornish to the idiom of the Belgae, who overran the southern district of England, and probably sought refuge in the west when the Saxons were extending themselves from the eastern part of the island." [c]

But surely there are indications of a people inhabiting Cornwall long before the Saxons gained a foot of ground in England?

[a] "And the sons of Javan: Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim " (Gen. x. 4

[b] "A History of the Sacred Scriptures in every Language and Dialect into which Translations have been made." Bagster & Sons, 1860

[c] "Researches into the Physical History of Mankind." By James Cowles Prichard, M.D., F.A.S., vol. iii.