The origin of the Britons has been a question of no great difficulty. They could not well have come from the west, because Britain lies almost on the extremity of the ancient world; so we look towards the continent of Europe, and find, exactly opposite to the Britons, the Gauls, speaking a mutually intelligible language. On this we rest, just pausing for a short time to dispose of one or two refinements on the natural inference.

But if no such language as that of the ancient Gauls, a language closely akin to the British, had been discovered, the ethnologist would have been put to straits; indeed, he would have had to be satisfied with saying that Gaul was the likeliest part of Europe for the Britons to have come from. No more. A strong presumption is all he would have obtained. The similarity, however, of the languages has helped him.

Now the difficulty which has just been noticed[84] as a possible one in the investigation of the origin of the Britons, is a real one in the case of the Gaels. The exact parallel to the Gaelic language cannot be found on any part of the continent. Hence, whilst the British branch of the Keltic is found in both England and Gaul,—on the continent as well as in the Islands,—the Gaelic is limited to the British Isles exclusively. Neither in Gaul itself, nor the parts either north or south of Gaul can any member of the Gaelic branch be found.

Even within the British Islands the Gaelic is limited in its distribution. There is no British in Ireland, and no Gaelic in South Britain. In Scotland both the tongues occur, the Gaelic being spoken north of the British. Now this position of the Gaelic to the west and north of the British increases the difficulty—since it is cut off from all connexion with the continent, and unrepresented by any continental tongue.

The history, then, of the Gaels is that of an isolated branch of the Keltic stock; and it is this isolation which creates the difficulties of their ethnology. No historical records throw any light upon their origin—a statement which the most sanguine investigator must admit. But tradition, perhaps, is less uncommunicative. Many investigators believe this. For my own part I should only be glad to be able to do so. As[85] it is, however, the arguments of the present chapter will proceed as if the whole legendary history of Ireland and Scotland, so far as it relates to the migrations by which the islands were originally peopled by the Gaels, were a blank—the reasons for the scepticism being withheld for the present. But only for the present. In the seventh chapter they will be given as fully as space allows.

The present arguments rest wholly upon a fact of which the importance has more than once been foreshadowed already, and which the reader anticipates. Let us say, for the sake of illustration, that the British and Gaelic differ from each other as the Latin and Greek. The parallel is a rough one, but it will suffice as the basis of some criticism.

Languages thus related cannot be in the relation of mother and daughter, i.e., the one cannot be derived from the other, as the English is from the Anglo-Saxon, or the Italian from the Latin. The true connexion is different. It is that of brother and sister, rather than of parent and child. The actual source is some common mother-tongue; a mother-tongue which may become extinct after the evolution of its progeny. Hence, in the particular case before us, the Gaelic and British must have developed themselves, each independently of the other, out of some common[86] form of speech. And the development must have taken place within the British Islands; the doctrine being that out of a language which at some remote period was neither British nor Gaelic, but which contained the germs of both, the western form of speech took one form, the southern another—the results being in the one case the British, in the other the Gaelic, tongue.

But that common mother-tongue at the remote period in question, the period of the earliest occupancy of Britain, must have been spoken on both sides of the Channel—in Gaul as well as the British Islands. And here (i.e., in Gaul) it may have done one of two things. It may have remained unaltered; or, it may have undergone change. Now in either case it would be different from both the Gaelic and the British. In the former alternative it would have been stereotyped as it were, and so have preserved its original characters, whilst the Gaelic and British had adopted new ones. In the latter it would have altered itself after its own peculiar fashion; and those very peculiarities would have made it other than British as well as other than Gaelic. Yet what is the fact? The ancient language of Gaul, though as unlike the Gaelic as a separate and independent development was likely to make it, was not unlike the British. On the contrary,[87] it was sufficiently like it to be intelligible to a Briton. Now I hold this similarity to be conclusive against the doctrine that the British and Gaelic languages were developed out of some common mother-tongue within the British Islands. Had they been so the dialects of Gaul would have been far more unlike the British than they were.

The British then, at least, did not acquire its British character in Britain, but on the continent; and it was introduced into England as a language previously formed in Gaul.

For the Gaelic there is no such necessity for a continental origin; indeed at the first view, the probabilities are in favour of its having originated in Britain. It cannot be found on the continent; and, such being the case, its continental origin is hypothetical. One thing, however, is certain, viz., that if the Gaelic were once the only language of the British Isles, the conquests and encroachments of the Britons who displaced it, must have been enormous. In the whole of South Britain it must certainly have been superseded, and in half Scotland as well: whilst, if, before its introduction into Great Britain, it were spoken on any part of the continent, the displacement must have been greater still.

Now, the hypothesis as to the origin of the Gaels may take numerous forms. I indicate the following three.[88]—

1. The first may be called Lhuyd's doctrine, since Humphrey Lhuyd, one of the best of our earlier archÆologists, suggested it. Mr. Garnett has spoken of it with respect; but he evidently hesitates to admit it. And it is only with respect that it should be mentioned; for, it is highly probable. It makes the original population of all the British Isles—England as well as Scotland and Ireland—to have been Gaelic, Gaelic to the exclusion of any Britons whatever. It makes a considerable part of the continent Gaelic as well. In consequence of this, the Britons are a later and intrusive population, a population which effected a great and complete displacement of the earlier Gaels over the whole of South Britain, and the southern part of Scotland. Except that they were a branch of the same stock as the Gaels, their relation to the aborigines was that of the Anglo-Saxons to themselves at a later period. The Gaels first; then the Britons; lastly the Angles. Such is the sequence. The general distribution of these two branches of the Keltic stock leads to Lhuyd's hypothesis; in other words, the presumptions are in its favour. But this is not all. There are certainly some words—the names, of course, of geographical objects—to be found in both England and Gaul, which are better explained by the Gaelic than the British language. The most[89] notable of these is the names of such rivers as the Exe, Axe, and (perhaps) Ouse, which is better illustrated by the Irish term uisge (whiskey, water), than by any Welsh or Armorican one.

2. The second doctrine may be called the Hibernian hypothesis. It allows to the Britons of England, and South Scotland any amount of antiquity, making them aboriginal to Great Britain. The Gaels of the Scottish Highlands it derives from Ireland; a view supported by a passage in Beda.[9] Ireland is thus the earliest insular occupancy of the Gael. But whence came they to Ireland? From some part south and west of the oldest known south-western limits of the Keltic area, from Spain, perhaps; in which case a subsequent displacement of the original Kelts of the continent by the Iberians—the oldest known stock of the Peninsula—must be assumed. But as there must be some assumptions somewhere, the only question is as to its legitimacy.

3. The third hypothesis—the Caledonian—reverses the second, and deduces the Irish Gaels from Scotland, and the Scotch Gaels from some part north of the oldest known Keltic boundary and in the direction of Scandinavia. Like both the others, this involves a subsequent displacement of the mother-stock.

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