The Irish standard., 1894-09-15
AN ANCIENT RACE,
Keltic Footprints, as Drawn From
History's Pages by Rev.
DIR. Shahan.
SCHOOLS OF THE DRUIDs.
Irish Freely Spoken in Asia Minor
in the Time of st.
Jerome.

49, SA0 4A4O Va Jbe
Jerome.
What was the literature OF the heroic
period of the Keltic race? Weignore it.
ut was time of vast and mysterious
shadows, Like the clouds heaped around
the sun rising from the sea-" says Rev.
ID. Shahan, in Providence Visitor. In the
Irish annals, besides poems and prophe-
cies Of vague, unintelligible import, and
in the historic tales, there are strange
stories OF the origin OF fPartholonians and
Fomorians, Firbolgs, Tuatha de Danaans
and Milesians, in which Egypt, Greece,
Norway and other lands play great
part. These are legendary-mythic, il
you will-yet there is tinge OF the
truthful about them, the perfumed
breath Of the Orient, the salt air of the
sea, the souvenirs Of long wanderings,
the echoes Of red battle and hotly. dis
pated invasion. 1t were as vain to try to
reduce these wild, incoherent tales with
in the lines OF history as to lmprison the
sweet zephyrs that come up from the
fowery south or chain the vague fancies
OF dreamland.
"Theseus: l never may believe
These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.
Hippolyta: But all the story of the night told
over
And all their minds transfgured so together,
More witnesseth than fancy's images,
And grows to something of great constancy,
But, howsoever, strange and admirable.
-Midsummer Nights Dream, Act ", Sc. /.
No doubt there was large popular
literature of battle-songs, the, raw ma
terial of some glorious future epic, splen-
did tales and chants of rude but grand
sublimity, chapters of history in which
fact and legend were inter-twined, like
the rugged headlands and their en-.
shrouding mlsts on the wintry coasts OF
Kerry,-just such a rudis indigestaque
moles of literature as a warlike, ardent,
sensitive and poetic race produces amid
the scenes Of untutored nature and dur
ing the hard training of war and wander.
ing. The want of an alphabet and a
fixed political regime has. prevented all
this from reaching us. Strange tales
there surely were of the long journeys
across the border lands OF Asia and Eu-
rope; Of old Aryan fatherland; of battles,
feuds and forays; Of love and death and
stirring adventure; Of the sack of Rome,
and the forcing Of Thermopylss; of the
overthrow OF the kings Of Pergamos and
the descendants Of Alexander. What
would We not give for some undeniable
echoes OF that tender, flexible, lyric
tongue of the Kelts, while there was yet
a vast though loose political unity among
them, when they went wildly conquering
on the Danube and the Ebro, in the hap.
py climes of Spain or Italy, or on the
classical soil of Greece and the islands Of
the midland seas, perhaps with great
Carthage herself, who was wont to hire
their bands as mercenary soldiers? If
we have no literature or domestic art OF
theirs out of this period. we have some
of the noblest Greek sculpture which
owes its origin to the struggles Of the
HELENE to save himself from Keltic rule.
The Dying Gladiator is Keltic warrior,
the noblest trophy OF the cultured Greek,
the highest revenge Of the Rhodian sculp-
tor. The Apollo Belvidere Of the Vatican
is replica Of famous statue ordered
by the king Of Pargamos, very probably
to commemorate the victory of 278 B. G.
over the Kelts, by which they were pre-
vented from seizing on all the Greek
colonies Of Asia Minor, and driven to
found separate state on the high plat
eau of the interior. All else has perished
unless some future philologian can un-
earth the ancient language of the Gal
atians from the Turkish patois Of the
highest table land of Asia Minor, where
good enough Irish was spoken until the
time Of st. jerome.
The Druids of Gaul who had come out
Of Ireland, Man and Britain, we're, it is
true. learned corporation, with notions
concerning Immortality and the future
Life that greatly impressed the Greek and
Roman men Of letters. They had schools
on hilltops, in remote valleys and IN the
depths of forests in which thousands OF
the noblest youths studied. They had 8
knowledge of astronomy, mathematics
physics, medicine and geometry. They
were the theologians, the sacrifcers, the
keepers OF the magic and angural sciences
the counsellors of the nobility, the Grim.
inal judges, excommunicators, and the
grand electors. They were monothies.
tic priesthood, close religious, corpora.
ton, which needed to have It's vast sci.