166 CRANIA BBITANNIOA. [CHAP. V I .
•'i'i?
which it would be futile to attempt definitely to solve; stiU, it appears to us, the weight of
evidence and probability are whoUy on one side *.
I t appears to be generaUy agreed that, at a former era, the British Islands had a terra-firma
connexion with the Continent. As for the argument for such connexion derived from the
identity of species of some terrestrial animals, which is foimded u p o n a problematical assumption,
it does not seem to be of great value. Attempts have been made to refer the separation to a
post-human period; and it has been considered that it took place " after the deposition of the
dUuvial rolled pebbles, and before that of the ancient alluvium." It is in a deposit of the
former that the worked flints found at Amiens, AbbeviUe, Hoxne, &c. are met with f . The
evidence of the presence of man at vastly remote periods, only to be measured by the geological
standard, from the discovery of worked flints in deep strata of undisturbed diluvian gravel, sand,
and clay, and accompanied with the bones of extinct animals, goes a little way towards solving
the problem of the date of man's advent in the British Islands. As these deposits themselves
bear unequivocal marks both of agitation and of transport, they cannot be taken as final proofs
of the contemporaneity of man with the animals whose bones are found in conjimction with his
fliat weapons. StiH the great accumulation of facts brought to light by researches in ossiferous
caves, as well as those aHuded to and others, is almost, if not quite, conclusive on this point even,
and cleariy goes to prove a much older antiquity for the human race than has been claimed by any
valid history, or than it has been usual to admit. An attentive consideration of ethnological data
alone had long before rendered it obvious that man, in aH his diversity, is a very autiquitous
denizen of the earth J. That he has been the contemporary of some extinct mammals, such as
the Gigantic Irish Deer {Megaceros JSibernicus, Owen) and others, can scarcely be doubted.
And the curious observations of M. Lartet and others on some fossil bones of the Aurochs, the
BUmceros ticliorhmus, the Cervus Somonensis, including the Gigantic Irish Deer, which they
consider to present marks of having been sawn with flint instruments, are quite confirmatory of
this view §, which is receiving constant strength by the additional researches of geologists and
antiquaries II. These inquiries show that rude tribes occupied the British shores at times long
* Speaking of the Brigantes of Yorkshire, Mr. John Phillips
asserts, " Nor can we separate this people as known to
the Romans from any earlier and more strictly aboriginal
race."—Hivers, &c., of Yorkshire, p. 199.
t Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, 1860, xvi.
474. Proc. ofthe Koy. Soc. May 26, 1859. L'Abberillois,
July 7, 1859. Report of 29th Meeting of the Brit. Assoc.
1860, p. 93. Actes du Muséum d'Hist. Nat. de Rouen, 1860.
Excursion aux Carrières de Saint-Acheul, par Georges Pouchet,
p. 33.
J The ingenious and persevering investigations of Mr. Leonard
Horner, the President of the Geological Society, in the
valley of the Nile show this ; although we should admit some
weight to Mr. Samuel Sharpe's objection, that the accumulation
of deposit at the foot of the statue of Ramesses II., the Sesostris
of the Greeks, at Memphis, from which Mr. Horner obtains
his datum, has been more rapid and has been produced since the
embankments of the river were destroyed, and smce Memphis
was shorn of the major part of her glory. Phil. Trans. 1855,
p. 105; and 1858, p. 53. The Athenaium, March 19, 1859.
§ There is now a considerable amount of evidence for man's
having hunted and slain the Gigantic Irish Deer. Hart's
"Description of the Fossil Deer of Ireland," 2nd edit. 1830,
pi. 2. figs. 2 aud 3. Proc. of the Geol. and Polytech. Soc. of
the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1855. " On the claims of the
Gigantic Irish Deer to be considered as contemporary with
Man," by H. Denny, p. 400. Quart. Joum. of Geol. Soc.,
1860. "On the co-existence of Man with certain Extinct
Quadrupeds, proved by Fossil Bones bearing incisions made
by sharp instruments," by M. E. Lartet, p. 471.
II These consist of extended and careful obervations, all of
which support the genuineness of the facts, and a critical investigation
of the objects themselves, which appears to favour
a reference of their manipulation to special tribes, if not to a
particular race. The implements themselves present new
forms, of a kind quite distinct from those we have been accustomed
to find in the barrows. They have already been met
with in different places in the drift of this island, and everywhere
bear the closest resemblance to the drift-flints of the Continent.
Both which circumstances confirm the above view. See
" De l'Homme Antédiluvien et de ses OEuvres," par M. Boucher
de Perthes, 1860; "ArtefactaAntiquissima,"byII.Duckworth,
1860 ; and the elaborate and excellent Memoirs entitled " On
the occurrence of Flint-implements, associated with the Re-
CHAP. VI.] ETHNOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OE SUCCESSIVE POPULATIONS. 167
antecedent to Roman or other invasion; that they used the objects nature presented to them,
modiiied by the simplest art, as weapons and implements to satisfy the first wants of man for
food and shelter: and they also cast a deep shadow of improbability on all speculations as to
migrations and importations of extraneous races.
Of the earliest inhabitants of Ireland the native Annals give accounts of different colonies
which penetrated to that remote island, and apparently replaced each other in succession. The
first of these, composed of Parthalon and his people, were soon followed by the Fomorians and
their leader, who were all slain by the former *. Next appear on the shadowy scene Neimhidh
and his followers, who are fabled to have come from Greece t- And it was only after these that
the more renowned Eirbolgs, from the same famed region, made their appearance. The latter,
the Viri BuUorum, or Viri Bolgi, have been with jingling facility converted into Viri Belgse, and
imagined by sedate men of learning to realize a settlement of Belgse in lerne at this primeval
period J. In the Book of Mac Eirbis it is said that " every one who is black, loquacious, lying,
tale-teUing, or of low and grovelling mind, is of the Eirbolg descent." Next in the chain of
mystic sequences come the famous Taatha-De-Dananns, " most notable magicians, who would
work wonderful thinges by magick and other diabolicall arts, wherein they were exceedingly well
skilled, and in these days accompted the chiefest in the world in that profession" §. Lastly, we
come to the sons of MUidh (Miletus or Milesius), the celebrated MUesians, who are regarded by
many as the GaedhU, Gael, or Scots—in other words, the true Irish ||. There is a remarkable
circumstance about aU these fabled people which we must not omit to notice again. It is that,
notwithstanding their being deduced from various distant countries, and that each was exterminated
by the race which followed, they are all said to have spoken but one tongue, and that the
Gaelic This evidently reduces such fictitious migrations to their proper level, and, whilst it
aborigines." M. Am. Thierry alludes to the Firbolg conquerors
of the Irish traditions, from the mouths of the Rhine,
in a different acceptation. In a hypothesis for the Belgic origin
of the Volcse Arecomici and Volcse Tectosages on the two
sides of the Cevennes, which has for its chief basis the transmutation
of names, VolcaB, Volke, Voigce, Bolffce, Belffce, he
deduces the Firbolgs of Ireland from the Belgic people of the
Gaulish continent. Philologists generally agree in attributing
the Cymric language to the Belgse. The Hibernian tribes
have always spoken the Gaelic. This is a difficulty in the hypothesis,
although, perhaps, not an irreconcilable one. Hist,
des Ganlois, 5e ¿d. 1858, i. 40.
§ However expert this mythic people may have been in
works of sleight of hand, according to ancient Irish writers
they constructed vastly more substantial and enduring ones.
To the Tuatha-De-Danann are ascribed the megalithic and
other primeval monuments which give such just fame to the
comity of Meath and the " darling" Boyne, at Drogheda,
Dowth, Knowth, and Newgrange. Annals, 123.
II The dh in Gaedhil is suppressed in the pronunciation of
their name by the Irish and Highlanders. One legend deduces
Gaodhal from Egypt, and the name Scot from his greatgrandson
Eibhear Scot. "Wood's " Primitive Inhabitants,"
p. 34,—an author who, in a subsequent page, attempts to derive
it from the Scythians, 81.
^ Prichard's "Researches," iii. 144, 146, 149, who appreciates
in a very just manner the whole series of absurd
legends.
z 2
mains of Animals of Extinct Species, in Beds of a late Geological
Period," by Joa.Prestwich, F.R.S.,F.G.S., Phil. Trans.
Part II. 1860. "Flint Implements in tlie Drift," by John
Evans, F.S.A., F.G.S., Archseologia, 1861, vol. xxsviii. Do.,
being an account of Further Discoveries by the same, lb.
1862, vol. xxxix. The great absence of human bones in the
deposits hitherto examined has been regarded as a serious difficulty.
Might not the carnivora of those ages, especially the
hyaenas, which live on bones, have disposed of them ? Tumuli
aud cremation were probably invented to counteract those of
later times, chiefly wolves.
* O'Donovan's " Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland, by the
Four Masters," 2nd ed. 1856, vol. i. p. 5.
t lb. p. 9.
X lb. p. 13. One Irish scholar derives the name Firbolgs
from two Erse words, Fir, meaning men, and Bolff, a leather
bag, without any allusion to a Greek etymology. Another
suggests that Bullum at one time meant Baculum jiastoris, and
supposes that this derivation gives an increased air of probability
to the legend. Wilde's " Beauties of the Boyne," 2nd
ed. 1850, p. 219. Dr. Latham adduces another argument
against the syllable Bolg, in this word, being a true proper
name—therefore agaiust the probability of its appertaining to
the Belgce. Smith's Diet, of Gr. and Rom. Geog. art. Belg®.
These Firbolgs have been called by Mr. "Wilde, in his charming
little volume just referred to, the aborigines of Ireland ; but
this is scarcely dealing even-handed justice to the Annals,
which assuredly afford us two precedent peoples before such