Gents Mag 1858 part 1 p.425
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Gentleman's Magazine 1858 part 1 p.425
The invasion of the Belgae our author considers to have been inconsiderable, and to have produced but little impression. He traces the settlements of these Fir Bolg, principally in the West of England and Wales, by a peculiar prefix of the word caer, car, (cathair, city) to the celtic names of places they found in the land. Strabo states that these Belgae were not Celts:- "The origin of the Scots is involved in some obscurity, but various traditions confirm a belief that they came into Ireland from Spain. They land in the south and south-east, and, some time during the Roman occupation of Britain, passed over from the north into Caledonia. thus they traversed the entire island, Connaught apparently excepted, and made so deep an impression on their new country as to give it the name that it bore for some centuries, Scotia. Their invasion of Caledonia finally transferred the name to that country. It is very probable that they were Celtiberians, as their migration from Spain would lead us to suppose; and it is certain that the Scottish Highlanders and the Basques strikingly correspond in many important characteristics."This was Burke's opinion, and we remember a conversation said to have taken place between him and a Highlander in confirmation of it, - of too coarse a character, however, for insertion in these pages. This correspondence was pointed out as early as the twelfth century by Giraldus Cambrensis. the cloth bonnet or berret of the modern Basques closely resembles that on the coin of James V. of Scotland called the bonnet-piece. The music of the two countries has a strongly marked similarity and originality; the cornamusa, or bagpipe, (corn being Celtic for horn,) is common to both; and they alike use the sword-dance, put the stone, (French, ruer la barre,) and toss the caber. the game of golf is but a modification of the Basue Jeu de paume, a game that creates intense interest, and draws strangers to visit it from distant provinces. The superstitions respecting sneezing, sitting down thirteen to a table, spilling the salt, and commencing a journey on Friday, are similar; but the most striking identity is found in the funeral customs. In the basque provinces, as in Ireland, a woman is hired to sing the andecha, the funeral lament - the coronach of the Highlanders, and the caoine of the Irish. The friends present at a Basque funeral strike the widow, with loud cries and lamentations, as the Irish strike the coffin; and the Irish refrain has a decided Basque character. the well-known Irish refrain Lilli-burlero may be compared with the Lelo il leloaof the Basques, meaning voici, with the addition of the well-known word bolero, a Spanish dance. That the Basques came in Contact with the Celts is evident. Their word for river, gave, may be compared with our Avon, with the Ave of Portugal, and with the Tave of Devonshire, (the t being inserted for the sake of euphony,) and their border river, the Adour, is the same as our river Adur in Sussex, and the Dour in Ireland, Celtic dwr, water. Many names of places compounded with Llan are found near the Basque Province, several cols and pens, as the Pen d'hyeris and Pen d'escot, also a Lugdunum Convenarum, Celtic lug, a marsh. The Basques are excessively indignant at being compared by Doctors Latham and Trench with the Finns and Lapps. They have scarcely one element in common, and M. Michel, (Sur le Pays Basque) after a careful resume of the numerous works that have been written on the subject, declares that their language differs substantially from all other known languages, notwithstanding it has some radicals in common with the Finnish, and with other languages of southern and middle Asia, especially the Turkish, a proof of its primitive character, and of the common parentage of all tongues. Mr. Sullivan refers the Mendip Hills to the Basque mendia, a hill, and considers the i in Iceni, and the bi in Bibroci, to be Iberian prefixes. Eden, formerly ituna, he claims as Celtiberian. It is evdient, however, that since the Basque immigration some succeeding tribes have swept over Ireland, amongst others the Brigantes and Silures. We have endeavoured to give a sketch of our author's views, without accepting all his conclusions, for want of further data. We have not space to follow him in his narrative of the successive invasions of the Saxons, Angles, and Danes, whose settlements in Cumberland and Westmorland he traces with considerable precision. He gives at least due prominence to Hiberno-Celtic derivations of names of places, but we know not whether that of the famed Watling-street from widhe leana, the road of the marsh, he remarks, was Wadling, preserved in Wadling Tarn. The question deserves ventialtion, as the phrase is. The Anglo-Saxon Deoraby (Saxon Chronicle) was the nearest approximation to the Celtic name for the town of Derby that the language offered; there are many towns to be found in the charters compounded with the Anglo-Saxon word deor, the modern Schleswig word deert, animals. The Angle word worth is merely a piece of ground raised up above the surface of the water. (See Census Daniae in Langebek, vol.vii.) There are several such on the Danube. Scale, shaw, bos and wath are not necessarily Danish; they may be An- |
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