CELTIC PEOPLES. A general designation applied to an ensemble of ethnic groups consti tuting the predominant element in central and western Europe before the rise of the Roman power and the influx of the German tribes, and speaking a language known to its as Celtic. See CELTIC LANGUAGES.
By various early writers the users of Celtic dialects or languages were treated as a distinct ethnic stock or rave, known as the Colts or belts; but this view is now generally abandoned. Thus, Keane (1899) observes that the languages are spoken by peonies of so many types that the word Celt "has ceased to have any ethnical significance:" Ripley (1399) says of the tern, that "a very grave objection to its use pertains:" and Deniker (1900) declares "there is no 'Celtic' type or race." The Celtie-speaking peoples: occupied in an tiquity a very wide territory. Radiating from central Europe, which is their earliest ascertain able seat. they spread far into the west, the south. and even the southeast. The date of their settlement in (:;tut is doubtful, being variously estimated from n.c. 1200 to 700. They invaded Italy in the Fourth Century n.c., and in the Third Century made their way into Greece and as far as Asia Minor. It is inferred from a statement of Saint Jerome that a Celtic lan guage continued to be spoken in Galatia until the Fourth Century of our era. The height of the power of the Celtic peoples was probably about n.c. 400. Before that time they had begun to feel the pressure of the Germanic tribes to the north and east of them, and in the cen turies that followed the Roman Empire succeed ed in subjugating a large part. of the Celtic ter ritory. in the British Isles they continued for centuries to maintain their independence.
Beyond these few general facts, our knowledge of the history of the Celtic-speaking peoples is obscure. as is indicated by the diverse views con cerning their relations to other Eurasian groups. Their embraced earth gods and vari ous sylvan genii, together with s1111 or tire deities, and was peculiarly rich in elfin demons and tutelaries. which still pervade the lore of peo ples of Celtic ancestry. There were traces also of zoic tutelaries, or beast gods, though this phase of mythologic development appears to have been practically past before the records began: and, as aiming other branches of the Aryan stock, tradition ran back into the haze of half-deified culture heroes. The social mechanism was dom inated by fiducial or ecclesiastical factors, as illustrated by the hierarehie power of the Dmids (q.v.). an order of priests or shamans who per formed sylvan rites and practiced magical cere monies surviving long in the form of ()Meal and autmry, exorcism and obsession; and the clan system was so deep-rooted as still to survive with vestiges of maternal organization clearly traceable. not only in the avuneular descent of
authority in the Highland clans, but in the witch craft so vividly depicted by Shakespeare. The germ of literature appeared in the Ogliams and lighamic inscriptions of Ireland—i.e. in semi arbitrary characters incised in stone or wood or used in other WiLTS in simple records of men and events. Aecording to Logan (The Scottish oto•l. 1355) and others, there was a definite Gaelic alphabet of eighteen letters, each sync.
holizing a tree or shrub, and in still earlier times there was a widespread symbolic system embracing the cross, the fylfot or swastika, the trefoil or trivet, and other figures; while in some degree the symbolism ran into colors and weaves. as illustrated by the highland tartan:. In most of the Celtic groups the musical and poetic elements essential to literary- and dra matic development were fostered by classes of popular entertainers—bards, pipers, minstrels— who chanted tribal traditions or played and sang patriotic airs, and at a later period sang folk ballads or recited folk-tales, and thus prepared the way for that dramatic and oratorival tahmt for which the Celtic peoples and their descend ants arc still distinguished. As summarized by Brinton, "The Irish possessed a sparse litera ture, going back to the Eighth Century, and the Welsh to the Twelfth, while the oldest Scotch or Breton songs date at the farthest from the Fourteenth Century" ( Races and Peoples, 1890, page 155).
Briefly, then, the Celtic tongues flourished be fore the beginning of written history, and con tributed in important measure to the character and vigor of the Aryan tongues, as the vernacular of several of the most distinctive and diverse of the vigorous peoples of central and western Eu rope, up to a time well within the historical period. They give a stamp to early and even mod ern literature written in the English. Some of them survive as oral rather than literary lan guages, but all of them are gradually disappear ing.
Of the voluminous literature relating to the Celtic-speaking peoples. the following may he noted as representative and useful: Brinton, Race:: and Peoples (New York, 1390) ; Rhys and Jones, The Welsh People (London, 1900) : The baud. The Irish Rae( (Philadelphia, 1873) : Bed doe, The Ruffs of Britain (London, 1885) : Logan. The Scottish Gad (London, 1855) ; Prichard, The Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, edited by Latham (London, 1357i ; Roemer, Origins of the English People (New York, 1837) ; Keane, Man, Past anti Present (Cambridge. Eng., 1899) ; Rip ley, Paces of Europe (New York, 1399) Deniker, The Races of ( London. 1900),