THE LITERATURE OF THE CELTS
BY
MAGNUS MACLEAN
M.A., D.Sc., LL.D.
_NEW EDITION_
BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
50 OLD BAILEY, LONDON; GLASGOW, BOMBAY
1926
PREFACE
Celtic studies have grown apace within recent years. The old scorn, the
old apathy and neglect are visibly giving way to a lively wonder and
interest as the public gradually realise that scholars have lighted upon
a literary treasure hid for ages. This new enthusiasm, generated in
great part on the Continent—in Germany, France, and Italy, as well as in
Britain and Ireland, has already spread to the northern nations—to
Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and is now beginning to take root in
America.
A remarkable change it certainly presents from the days when Dr. Johnson
affirmed that there was not in all the world a Gaelic MS. one hundred
years old; and the documents were so derelict and forgotten, so little
known and studied, that though this prince of letters travelled in the
Highlands expressly to satisfy himself, Celtic knowledge of the existing
materials and Celtic studies were so deficient that they proved wholly
inadequate to the task of disproving his bold statement.
It was left to the scholarship of the nineteenth century to unearth the
ancient treasures and to show that Gaelic was a literary language long
before English literature came into existence, and that there are still
extant Celtic-Latin MSS. almost as old as the very oldest codexes of the
Bible.
There is undoubtedly a charm in the thought that all over the Continent
of Europe, in the libraries of many of its romantic cities and towns,
there are scores of MSS., some of them upwards of a thousand years old,
fugitives in the early times from these much harassed islands; and that
European scholars of the highest erudition, such as Zeuss, Ebel, Nigra,
Ascoli, Windisch, Zimmer, and Whitley Stokes, have been profoundly
interested in these literary relics, and have devoted much of their time
to the work of studying, translating, elucidating, and editing the
Gaelic texts or glosses found in them.
To-day the number of those engaged in similar research at home and
abroad is vastly on the increase, and augurs well for the future of this
department of knowledge.
Professor Kuno Meyer, Ph.D., himself a distinguished German Celticist,
in reviewing the present state of Celtic studies last year at Dublin,
made the following significant statement:—
“I cannot conclude without casting a glance into the future. I am
convinced that the present is but the beginning of an era of still
greater activity in all departments of Celtic studies. Everything points
to that.
“The more reliable text-books and hand-books will be published, the
greater will be the numbers of those taking up Celtic studies. As the
fields of other more ancient and more recognised studies become
exhausted, there will come a rush of students on to the fresh, and
often, almost virgin soil of Celtic research, to study the great Celtic
civilisation at its source, to collect the last lingering remnants of a
mighty tradition.
“Again and again it has happened during recent years that workers in
other subjects have in their researches finally been led on to the
Celtic soil, where lie the roots of much medieval lore, of many
institutions, of important phases of thought.
“And another thing, too, I will foretell. The re-discovery, as it were,
of ancient Celtic literature will not only arouse abroad a greater
interest in the Celtic nations, but it will lead to beneficial results
among those nations themselves.”
Mr. W. B. Yeats, in the _Treasury of Irish Poetry_, 1900, gives pen to
similar reflections and anticipations:—
“Modern poetry,” he writes, “grows weary of using over and over again
the personages and stories and metaphors that have come to us through
Greece and Rome, or from Wales and Brittany through the Middle Ages, and
has found new life in the Norse and German legends. The Irish legends in
popular tradition and in old Gaelic literature are more numerous and as
beautiful, and alone among great European legends have the beauty and
wonder of altogether new things. May one not say then, without saying
anything improbable, that they will have a predominant influence in the
coming century, and that their influence will pass through many
countries.”
The interest thus lately evolved in the literature of the Celts, who
were among the earliest inhabitants of the country, and whose blood
still courses in our British veins, has naturally awakened a desire in
many minds to know the nature and extent of the literary legacy they
have bequeathed—its substance and quality, and also to gain some
acquaintance with the opinions and results of recent scholarship on the
subject.
But, strange to say, notwithstanding the activity of Celticists, no book
has yet appeared which professes to give in short compass a general
survey of the whole field. There is thus, I venture to think, room for
such a volume as the present, which is intended to serve as a popular
introduction to the study of the literature. Containing, as it does, the
gist of two series of lectures which I delivered under the Maccallum
Bequest in the University of Glasgow during the sessions 1900–1 and
1901–2, it is now prepared and issued with a view to meeting the demands
not only of the general reader, but also of the private student in quest
of a guide to the original sources, the authorities, and books on the
subject.
In its preparation, in addition to the numerous published works
mentioned in the text, I have received valuable help from Professor
Mackinnon, Edinburgh University, and Dr. Alexander Macbain, Inverness,
both of whom supplied me not only with many of their printed papers
embodying the fruits of their own personal research, but also with other
useful information. To the former I am still further indebted for
interesting details regarding the life and work of several of the
scholars, and to Professor Rhys of Jesus College, Oxford, for kindly
reviewing in MS. form the chapter on Welsh Literature.
And, finally, I have to record my special indebtedness to the kind
assistance of my friend, Mr. David Mackeggie, M.A., whose knowledge of
Celtic history and literature is both extensive and accurate, and who,
besides giving me much suggestive aid in the preparation of the
lectures, read the proofs of this volume.
MAGNUS MACLEAN.
THE TECHNICAL COLLEGE,
GLASGOW, _May, 1902_.
This volume has already appealed to so wide a circle of readers that a
reprint is now called for; and it is very gratifying to the author to
find that his confidence in the growing demand for a book of this kind
has been amply justified.
MAGNUS MACLEAN.
_November, 1906._
In the present reissue no alteration of the reprint has been required.
MAGNUS MACLEAN
_June, 1926._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE ARRIVAL OF THE CELT IN HISTORY AND LITERATURE
PAGE
The Celts in primitive Europe—Advent in British Isles—Two
branches—Observations of Cæsar and Tacitus—Main facts of Celtic
progress on the Continent—A vast empire—Interview with Alexander
the Great—Colony in Galatia—Cup of conquest
full—Disintegration—The scattered remnants—Recent statistics—The
ancient Celts as seen through Greek and Roman eyes—Literary
awakening—Ogam writings—First men of letters—Earliest written
Gaelic now extant—Modern linguistic discovery—The place of
Celtic in the Aryan group 1