land-expeditions, sea-expeditions, banquets, elopements, loves, lake-irruptions, colonisations, visions.  Of what a treasure-house of resources for the history of Celtic life and the Celtic genius does that bare list, even by itself, call up the image!  The Annals of the Four Masters give ’the years of foundations and destructions of churches and castles, the obituaries of remarkable persons, the inaugurations of kings, the battles of chiefs, the contests of clans, the ages of bards, abbots, bishops, &c.’ {25} Through other divisions of this mass of materials,—­the books of pedigrees and genealogies, the martyrologies and festologies, such as the Felire of Angus the Culdee, the topographical tracts, such as the Dinnsenchas,—­we touch ’the most ancient traditions of the Irish, traditions which were committed to writing at a period when the ancient customs of the people were unbroken.’  We touch ’the early history of Ireland, civil and ecclesiastical.’  We get ’the origin and history of the countless monuments of Ireland, of the ruined church and tower, the sculptured cross, the holy well, and the commemorative name of almost every townland and parish in the whole island.’  We get, in short, ’the most detailed information upon almost every part of ancient Gaelic life, a vast quantity of valuable details of life and manners.’ {26}

And then, besides, to our knowledge of the Celtic genius, Mr. Norris has brought us from Cornwall, M. de la Villemarque from Brittany, contributions, insignificant indeed in quantity, if one compares them with the mass of the Irish materials extant, but far from insignificant in value.

We want to know what all this mass of documents really tells us about the Celt.  But the mode of dealing with these documents, and with the whole question of Celtic antiquity, has hitherto been most unsatisfactory.  Those who have dealt with them, have gone to work, in general, either as warm Celt-lovers or as warm Celt-haters, and not as disinterested students of an important matter of science.  One party seems to set out with the determination to find everything in Celtism and its remains; the other, with the determination to find nothing in them.  A simple seeker for truth has a hard time between the two.  An illustration or so will make clear what I mean.  First let us take the Celt-lovers, who, though they engage one’s sympathies more than the Celt-haters, yet, inasmuch as assertion is more dangerous than denial, show their weaknesses in a more signal way.  A very learned man, the Rev. Edward Davies, published in the early part of this century two important books on Celtic antiquity.  The second of these books, The Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, contains, with much other interesting matter, the charming story of Taliesin.  Bryant’s book on mythology was then in vogue, and Bryant, in the fantastical manner so common in those days, found in Greek mythology what he called an arkite idolatry, pointing to Noah’s deluge and the ark.  Davies, wishing to give dignity to his Celtic mythology, determines to find the arkite idolatry there too, and the style in which he proceeds to do this affords a good specimen of the extravagance which has caused Celtic antiquity to be looked upon with so much suspicion.  The story of Taliesin begins thus:-