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    Archaic, dialect and variant spellings (including quoted proper
    nouns) remain as printed, except where noted. Minor typographical
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         THE
      ETHNOLOGY
          OF
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS.




                               THE
                            ETHNOLOGY
                                OF
                       THE BRITISH ISLANDS.

                                BY
                   R. G. LATHAM, M.D., F.R.S.,
 CORRESPONDING MEMBER TO THE ETHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY, NEW YORK, ETC.

                             [Device]

                             LONDON:
                JOHN VAN VOORST, PATERNOSTER ROW.

                            MDCCCLII.




                 LONDON:
 PRINTED BY T. E. METCALF, 63, SNOW HILL.




CONTENTS.


                             CHAPTER I.
                                                                    PAGE
 Preliminary Remarks.--Present Populations of the British Isles.--
 Romans, &c.--Pre-historic Period.--The Irish Elk.--How far
 Contemporaneous with Man.--Stone Period.--Modes of Sepulture.--
 The Physical Condition of the Soil.--Its Fauna.--Skulls of the
 Stone Period.--The Bronze Period.--Gold Ornaments.--Alloys and
 Castings.--How far Native or Foreign.--Effect of the Introduction
 of Metals.--Dwellings.                                                1


                             CHAPTER II.

 Authorities for the Earliest Historical Period.--Herodotus.--
 Aristotle.--Polybius.--Onomacritus.--Diodorus Siculus.--Strabo.--
 Festus Avienus.--Ultimate sources.--Damnonii.--Ph[oe]nician
 Trade.--The Orgies.--South-Eastern Britons of Caesar.--The Details
 of his Attacks.--The Caledonians of Galgacus.                        38


                             CHAPTER III.

 Origin of the Britons.--Kelts of Gaul.--The Belgae.--Whether
 Keltic or German.--Evidence of Caesar.--Attrebates, Belgae, Remi,
 Durotriges and Morini, Chauci and Menapii.                           58


                             CHAPTER IV.

 The Picts.--List of Kings.--Penn Fahel.--Aber and Inver.--The
 Picts probably, but not certainly, Britons.                          76


                             CHAPTER V.

 Origin of the Gaels.--Difficulties of its Investigation.--Not
 Elucidated by any Records, nor yet by Traditions.--Arguments from
 the Difference between the British and Gaelic Languages.--The
 British Language spoken in Gaul.--The Gaelic not known to be
 spoken in any part of the Continent.--Lhuyd's Doctrine.--The
 Hibernian Hypothesis.--The Caledonian Hypothesis.--Postulates.       83


                             CHAPTER VI.

 Roman Influences.--Agricola.--The Walls and Ramparts of Adrian,
 Antoninus, and Severus.--Bonosus.--Carausius.--The Constantian
 Family.--Franks and Alemanni in Britain.--Foreign Elements in the
 Roman Legions.                                                       90


                             CHAPTER VII.

 Value of the Early British Records.--True and Genuine Traditions
 Rare.--Gildas.--Beda.--Nennius.--Annales Cambrenses.--Difference
 between Chronicles and Registers.--Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.--Irish
 Annals.--Value of the Accounts of the Fifth and Sixth
 Centuries.--Questions to which they apply.                          104


                             CHAPTER VIII.

 The Angles of Germany: their comparative obscurity.--Notice of
 Tacitus.--Extract from Ptolemy.--Conditions of the Angle Area.--
 The Varini.--The Reudigni and other Populations of Tacitus.--The
 Sabalingii, &c., of Ptolemy.--The Suevi Angili.--Engle and
 Ongle.--Original Angle Area.                                        142


                             CHAPTER IX.

 The Saxons--of Upper Saxony--of Lower, or Old Saxony.--
 Nordalbingians.--Saxons of Ptolemy.--Present and Ancient
 Populations of Sleswick-Holstein.--North-Frisians.--Probable
 Origin of the name Saxon.--The Littus Saxonicum.--Saxones
 Bajocassini.                                                        165


                             CHAPTER X.

 The Angles of Germany--Imperfect Reconstruction of their
 History--Their Heroic Age.--Beowulf.--Conquest of Anglen.--
 Anecdote from Procopius.--Their Reduction under the Carlovingian
 Dynasty.--The Angles of Thuringia.                                  200


                             CHAPTER XI.

 Recapitulations and Illustrations.--Propositions respecting the
 Keltic Character of the Original Occupants of Britain, &c.--The
 Relations between the Ancient Britons and the Ancient Gauls,
 &c.--The Scotch Gaels.--The Picts.--The Date of the Germanic
 Invasions.--The names Angle and Saxon.                              219


                             CHAPTER XII.

 Analysis of the Germanic Populations of England.--The Jute
 Element Questionable.--Frisian Elements Probable.--Other German
 Elements, how far Probable.--Forms in -ing.                         232


                             CHAPTER XIII.

 The Scandinavians.--Forms in -by: their Import and
 Distribution.--Danes of Lincolnshire, &c.; of East Anglia; of
 Scotland; of the Isle of Man; of Lancashire and Cheshire; of
 Pembrokeshire.--Norwegians of Northumberland, Scotland, and
 Ireland, and Isle of Man.--Frisian forms in Yorkshire.--Bogy.--
 Old Scratch.--The Picts possibly Scandinavian.--The Normans.        244




      ETHNOLOGY
         OF
 THE BRITISH ISLANDS.




CHAPTER I.

    PRELIMINARY REMARKS.--PRESENT POPULATIONS OF THE BRITISH
    ISLES.--ROMANS, ETC.--PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.--THE IRISH ELK.--HOW FAR
    CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH MAN.--STONE PERIOD.--MODES OF SEPULTURE.--THE
    PHYSICAL CONDITION OF THE SOIL--ITS FAUNA.--SKULLS OF THE STONE
    PERIOD.--THE BRONZE PERIOD.--GOLD ORNAMENTS.--ALLOYS AND
    CASTINGS.--HOW FAR NATIVE OR FOREIGN.--EFFECT OF THE INTRODUCTION OF
    METALS.--DWELLINGS.


The ethnologist, who passes from the history of the varieties of the
human species of the world at large, to the details of some special
family, tribe, or nation, is in the position of the naturalist who rises
from such a work as the _Systema Naturae_, or the _Regne Animal_, to
concentrate his attention on some special section or subsection of the
sciences of Zoology and Botany. If having done this he should betake
himself to some ponderous folio, bulkier than the one which he read
last, but devoted to a subject so specific and limited as to have
scarcely found a place in the general history of organized beings, the
comparison is all the closer. The subject, in its main characteristics,
is the same in both cases; but the difference of the details is
considerable. A topographical map on the scale of a chart of the world,
a manipulation for the microscope as compared with the preparation of a
wax model, are but types and illustrations of the contrast. A small
field requires working after a fashion impossible for a wide farm; often
with different implements, and often with different objects. A
dissertation upon the <DW64>s of Africa, and a dissertation upon the
Britons of the Welsh Principality, though both ethnological, have but
few questions in common, at least in the present state of our knowledge;
and out of a hundred pages devoted to each, scarcely ten would embody
the same sort of facts. With the <DW64>, we should search amongst old
travellers and modern missionaries for such exact statements as we might
be fortunate enough to find respecting his geographical position, the
texture of his hair, the shade of his skin, the peculiarities of his
creed, the structure of his language; and well satisfied should we be if
anything at once new and true fell in our way. But in the case of the
Briton all this is already known to the inquirer, and can be conveyed in
a few sentences to the reader. What then remains? A fresh series of
researches, which our very superiority of knowledge has developed;
inquiries which, with an imperfectly known population, would be
impossible. Who speculates to any extent upon such questions as the
degrees of intermixture between the Moors and the true <DW64>s of Nubia?
Who grapples with such a problem as the date of the occupation of New
Guinea? Such and such-like points are avoided; simply because the _data_
for working them are wanting. Yet with an area like the British Isles,
they are both possible and pertinent. More than this. In such countries
there must either be no ethnology at all, or it must be of the minute
kind, since the primary and fundamental questions, which constitute
nine-tenths of our inquiries elsewhere, are already answered.

Minute ethnology must be more or less speculative--the less the better.
It must be so, however, to some extent, because it attempts new
problems. Critical too it must be--the more the better. It often works
with unfamiliar instruments, whose manipulation must be explained, and
whose power tested. Again, although the field in which it works be wide,
the tract in which it moves may be beaten. An outlying question may have
been treated by many investigators, and the results may be extremely
different. In British ethnology, the history of opinions only, if given
with the due amount of criticism, would fill more than one volume larger
than the present.

The above has been written to shew that any work upon such a subject as
the present must partake, to a great degree, of the nature of a
disquisition: perhaps indeed, the term _controversy_ would not be too
strong. The undeniable and recognized results of previous investigators
are truisms. That the Britons and Gaels are Kelts, and that the English
are Germans is known wherever Welsh dissent, Irish poverty, or English
misgovernment are the subjects of notice. What such Kelticism or
Germanism may have to do with these same characteristics is neither so
well ascertained, nor yet so easy to discover. On the contrary, there is
much upon these points which may be well _un_-learnt. Kelts, perchance,
may not be so very Keltic, or Germans so very German as is believed; for
it may be that a very slight preponderance of the Keltic elements over
the German, or of the German over the Keltic may have determined the use
of the terms. Such a point as this is surely worth raising; yet it
cannot be answered off-hand. At present, however, it is mentioned as a
sample of minute ethnology, and as a warning of the disquisitional
character which the forthcoming pages, in strict pursuance to the nature
of the subject, must be expected to exhibit.

The extent, then, to which the two stocks that occupy the British Isles
are pure or mixed; the characteristics of each stock in its purest form;
and the effects of intermixture where it has taken place, are some of
our problems; and if they could each and all be satisfactorily answered,
we should have a Natural History of our Civilization. But the answers
are not satisfactory; at any rate they are not conclusive. Nevertheless,
a partial solution can be obtained; a partial solution which is
certainly worth some efforts on the part of both the reader and the
writer. Other questions, too, curious rather than of practical value,
constitute the department of minute ethnology; especially when the area
under notice is an island. The _date_ of its occupancy, although
impossible as an absolute epoch, can still be brought within certain
limits. Whether, however, such limits would not be too wide for any one
but a geologist, is another question.

Now, if I have succeeded in shewing that criticism and disquisition must
necessarily form a large part of such an ethnology as the one before us,
I have given a reason for what may, perhaps, seem an apparent
irregularity in the arrangement of the different parts of the subject.
With the civil historian, the earliest events come first; for, in
following causes to their consequences, he begins with the oldest. The
ethnologist, on the other hand, whenever--as is rarely the case--he can
lay before the reader the whole process and all the steps of his
investigations, reverses this method, and begins with the times in which
he lives; so that by a long series of inferences from effect to cause,
he concludes--so to say--at the beginning; inasmuch as it is his special
business to argue backwards or upwards. Yet the facts of the present
volume will follow neither of these arrangements exactly; though, of
course, the order of them will be, in the main, chronological. They will
be taken, in many cases, as they are wanted for the purposes of the
argument; so that if a fact of the tenth century be necessary for the
full understanding of one of the fifth, it will be taken out of its due
order. Occasional transpositions of this kind are to be found in all
works wherein the investigation of doubtful points preponderates over
the illustration of admitted facts, or in all works where discussion
outweighs exposition.

The period when the British Isles were occupied by Kelts only (or, at
least, supposed to have been so) will form the subject of the earlier
chapters. The facts will, of course, be given as I have been able to
find them; but it may be not unnecessary to state beforehand the nature
of the principal questions upon which they will bear.

The date of the first occupancy of the British Isles by man is one of
them. It can (as already stated) only be brought within certain
wide--very wide--limits; and that hypothetically, or subject to the
accuracy of several preliminary facts.

The division of mankind to which the earliest occupants belonged is the
next; and it is closely connected with the first. If the Kelts were the
earliest occupants of Britain, we can tell within a few thousand years
when they arrived. But what if there were an occupation of Britain
anterior to theirs?

The civilization of the earliest occupants is a question inextricably
interwoven with the other two; since the rate at which it advanced--if
it advanced at all--must depend upon the duration of the occupancy, and
the extent to which it was the occupancy of one, or more than one,
section of mankind. But foreign intercourse may have accelerated this
rate, or a foreign civilization may have altogether replaced that of the
_indigenae_. The evidence of this is a fourth question.

So interwoven with each other are all these questions, that, although
the facts of the first three chapters will be arranged with the special
view to their elucidation, no statement of the results will be given
until the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons, or the introduction of the great
Germanic elements of the British nation, leads us from the field of
early Keltic to that of early Teutonic research; and that will not be
until the details of the Britons as opposed to the Gaels, of the Gaels
as opposed to the Britons, and of the Picts (as far as they can be made
out) have been disposed of.

One of the populations of the British Isles, at the present moment,
speaks a language belonging to the Keltic, the other one belonging to
the Teutonic class of tongues. However, it is by no means certain that
the blood, pedigree, race, descent, or extraction coincides with the
form of speech: indeed it is certain that it does so but partially.
Though few individuals of Teutonic extraction speak any of the Keltic
dialects as their mother-tongue, the converse is exceedingly common; and
numerous Kelts know no other language but the English. Speech, then, is
only _prima facie_ evidence of descent; nevertheless, it is the most
convenient criterion we have.

The Keltic class falls into divisions and subdivisions. The oldest and
purest portion of the Gaelic Kelts is to be found in Ireland, especially
on the western coast. Situated as Connaught is on the Atlantic, it lies
beyond the influx of any new blood, except from the east and north; yet
from the east and north the introduction of fresh populations has been
but slight. Here, then, we find the Irish Gael in his most typical form.

Scotland, like Ireland, is _Gaelic_ in respect to its Keltic
population, but the stock is less pure. However slight may be the
admixture of English blood in the Highlands and the Western Isles, the
infusion of Scandinavian is very considerable. Caithness has numerous
geographical terms whose meaning is to be found in the Danish, Swedish,
Norwegian, and Icelandic. _Sutherland_ shews its political relations by
its name. It is the _Southern Land_; an impossible name if the county be
considered English (for it lies in the very _north_ of the island), but
a natural name if we refer it to Norway, of which Sutherland was, at one
time, a southern dependency, or (if not a dependency), a robbing-ground.
Orkney and Shetland were once as thoroughly Norse as the Faroe Isles or
Iceland.

The third variety of the present British population is in the Isle of
Man, where a language sufficiently like the Gaelic of Ireland and
Scotland to be placed in the same division, is still spoken. Yet the
blood is mixed. The Norsemen preponderated in Man; and the constitution
of the island is in many parts Scandinavian, though the language be
Keltic.

In Wales the language and population are still Keltic, though
sufficiently different from the Scotch, Irish, and Manx, to be
considered as a separate branch of that stock. It is conveniently called
_British_, _Cambrian_, and _Cambro-Briton_. It is quite unintelligible
to any Gael. Neither can any Gael, talking Gaelic, make himself
understood by a Briton. On the other hand, however, a Scotch and an
Irish Gael understand each other; whilst, with some effort, they
understand a Manxman, and _vice versa_. So that the number of mutually
unintelligible languages of the Keltic stock is two; in other words, the
Keltic dialects of the British Isles are referable to two branches--the
British