ERIU, ALBA, AND LETHA: When was a Language Ancestral to Gaelic First Spoken In Ireland?

by John T. Koch

Department of Celtic Languages and Uteratures. Harvard University

ABSTRACT

In earlier papers (1986b, 1990b), I concluded /hallhe Goidelic language and tradition have survil'l~d in Ireland since the Ltcer Bronze Age. A more thoroughgoing explanation is 311empted here, synthesising linguistic. archaeological, and early lilerary evidence. The emergence of a sword-bearing aristocracy in the LaiC Bronze Age (c. 1300 - c. 600 H.C.) is identified with the forma(iOIl of it Proto-CeI,ie British Isles and Armorica under Hallsc3U A-C eenlral.European inspiration. We may think of Ihe powerful stimulus of the prestigious me/al exchange ne/work re-ordering social relationships which had preViously been directed IOwards indigenous theocratic hierarchies, such as Ihal of the Wessex CullUre. During the course of the Bronze Age, the long-standing unity of priestly and kingly fun ctions frogmented, the chieftaincy passing to the warrior aristocracy and religious funcrionsfOthe peripatetic 'persons of skill'. In the

Introduction: The Two Great Ages By any reckoning, the Celticisation of the British Isles was one of the great events of Insular prehistory. It is thus only natural that scholars have tended to see the coming o f the Celts as one of the turning points of the 'G reat Ages' - the Neolithic from the fifth millennium, the Bronze Age from the mid third (more accurately a Copper Age at its outset), or the First Iron from about the seventh century B. C So, for example, to name just a few current hypotheses, Renfrew (1987) has identified the ethno-linguistic forebears of the Irish with the first farmers, Harbison (1975, following Chadwick and Dillon [1967]) with the 'Beaker Folk' of the Chalcolithic; and Mac Eoin (1986) with the Hallstatt-C-de rived swords which herald the Irish Bronze­Iron Transit ion . However, from the poim of view of philolo­gists, and perhaps now archaeologists as well , these great ages no longer look so great. There is first of all no inherent theoretical neceSsity for the transition from stone to bronze technology or from bronze \0 iron 10 have been accompanied by a change of language . And, when the actual archaeological record and the increasingly sophisticated modes of analysing it are conSidered, the cases for epochal intrusions at these junc­tures have steadily grown weaker, as have even the cases for abrupt social change. The transition from huming-gatheringto a full agriculture of ultimate Near-Eastern origin is a differem matter, as [believe Renfrew (1987) has convincingly demon­strated. But the proposition that the first farmer in Ireland was a Proto-Gael of Anatolian ancestry cannot be accepted until all s.ubsequent horizons are eliminated and formidable linguistiC

LBA, ProlO-Ceilic cultural unity was affected by (1) a shared ideology and alliance and competilh'l' exchanges, (2) long­distance a1Jiana and comperieil'e exchanges, (3) a shared chthonic religion and ICOl\ln disseminated by an extralribal professional class. The ensuing 'Dark Age' of the Irish Bronze­Iron Transilion (c. 600 - c. 200 B.C) and continued marginal status of the incomplete Irish La Tene phenomenon (c: 200 B.C. -A.D. c. 100) is seen as the contexl of the separation of a re/alil'eiyconserv:Jlive Primitive irish from ils innovalingGallo­Britlonic neighbours. The previous Copper Age and Early Bronze Age warriorclasscscan be ruled OUI as /hedireci cultural forebears or the historical Insular Celts. However, /here are /races or what might be termed a 'deflected cOn/inuily ', particularly in Ireland. across a revolutionary divide from NeolithidEBA society.

obstacles overcome. Where I think the traditional great ages fail usas we grapple

with a question o f language is in being based upon the lowest levels of archaeological inference (as per Hawkes hierarchy of 1954) which have the least bearing on the realm of philology. These are the levels of technology and subsistence economy. Our knowledge of Insular prehistory and the theory of social archaeology have progressed to the point that we may now approach the higher levels - social organisation and spiritual lire or ideology. Here we come close to our study of texts and their cultural background .

As a preliminary to writing an Insular prehistory incorpo­rating philology, I propose a new twofold framework based upon social change and ideology. I First is an Age of Megaliths, comprising the Middle Neoli thic to the Early Bronze Age inclUSively, about 4000 down to about 1600 B.C., attempting rough calendar years_ This era could be further subdi\lided , perhaps into an earlier era of collective tombs and a later period characterised by stone circles, henges, and single burials. Throughout this period, the visible social activi ties were di­rected towards ceremonial centres with complex burialsandlor stone alignments. For the non-specialist , Stonehenge with its precinct and the necropolis of the Boyne Valley will suffice as representative examples among many hundred . The continen­tal analogues to these monuments are not soclose as to preclude a continuum of essentially local development . The powerful central authorities in this age may be regarded as theocratiC, that is to say that there was an equivalence o f chieftainly and

PA.GE 18

priestly functions. Their religion had a celestial orientation. This is of course a genera lisat ion and does not apply uniformally to all regions of the British Isles. For example, over much of Ireland's southe rn half the only megaliths are the wedge tombs, which may begin as late as the EBA, and Ihe stone circles arc restricted to Munster and central Ulster. Nonetheless, for present purposes, toe elementsof unilyare paramount and will serve to distinguish this first age negatively from whal follows.

My second division is a great Age of ~positions . compris­ingthe Lale Bronze Age and the Iron Age, from c. 1300 B.C (the British Penard ., Irish Bishopsland) down to the Roman Inva­sion of Britain, and perhaps as late as the Patrician conversion of Ireland . Early in this era, the ce remonial centres were abandoned . Complex burials ceased. Agriculture intensified. Society became more aristocratic and warlike. Wealth and labour were conspicuously expended upon ornaments, fine metal weaponry, and hilltop fortifications. The entire cuhural complex ran closely parallel to that on the Continent, the dominant area being at first UrnfieldlHal lstau Central Europe , later La Tene Gaul. The chief evidence for ritual shows a redirection (from the older burials) to depositions of rich metalwork in pitS, more often in rivers, pools, bogs, and other watery seuings (see Burgess and Needoam 1980). The orien­tation of the religIOn was chtoonic. The kingly office entailed the role of battle-leader and aimed for domination of the landscape for cultivation and stock-rearing. The priestly func ­tion now closely shadowed the activi ties of artisans dealing in fine work in bronze and gold.

It is my contention that the Age of DepoSitions - which embraces Celtic prolo-hiStory in its later centuries - is in all respects recognisably Celtic and that the Age of~·legaliths is nOI . Of course, from the proposit ions set forth thus far, it remains at this point conceivable that a linguistically stable population in the British Isles simply underwent a social and cultural re­ordering in the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600- c. 1300 B.C.). In ot her words, we ha\'e yet to rule out Cehicisation at the Beaker Copper Age (from c. 2500) or First Neolithic (from c. 4500). However, these higher horizons, Ilhink, can be shown to be unlikely when two facts are considered together. First, where the MBA transition can be observed closely in southern Eng­land, we do not see a megalithic Wessex theocracy evolving into a depositional LBA. Rather, Wessex slowly dies in a strangu­lated, tradition-bound poverty, overtaken by a rival innovating nobility on the Thamesand in East Anglia (Bradley 1980, 1984, 91-95). This rising~lite consigned numerous bronze rapiers of newly-adopted continental type to the indwelling genii of rivers. Second , the post-megalithic stage saw Britain and Ireland incorporated into an expansionist prestige economy of a wider Transalpine Zone (Rowlands 1980). When fragmen­tary lingUistic data from this vast region first appears from roughly the middle of the first millennium B.C., we find lill le­differentiated Old Celtic languages spoken in a cominuousarc. A single example will help to iIluSlrate this point . The Old Irish for 'the women' in the nominalive and accusative cases is inna mn.1. Had this phrase been attested a few centuries before, in the Primitive Irish period of the ogam insc riptions. the pre­dicted foml would have been ·/NDAs A-INAS, meaning 'these women'. This \"Cry phrase has recently been found in an inscription of c. 100 A.D. in the Celtic language of Gallia Narbonnensis, some thousand miles yonder, and the form there is precisely indas mnils. This far-flung linguistic unit}' wi\1 make sense as the immediate consequence of Proto-Celtic having been the common language of that LBA Transalpine exchange network , but not of some horizon IWO-to-rour millen­nia before our oldest Cehic forms.

tRJU. A.LBA., AND LETHA.

It is moot as to whether the theocrats of the megali ths spoke an Indo-European dialect closely related to Celtic o r some language or languages altogether unrelated. The key point is that the language thaI had direcled the labours at Stonehenge and Newgrange was a social dead end and that Ihe language with which the riverine sword-bearing class spoke to their Continental exchange partners and to their cosmopolitan smiths, bards, and druids belonged to the future , which soon enough appears \0 us Celtic-speaking.

I should also eliminate a lower altermll ive. Within Ihis Transalpine Proto-Celtic world , could not some late r move­ment have superimposed the Gaels OntO earlier pre-GOidelic CeltS in Ireland? This aft er all was the gist of O'Rahilly"s ( 1947) influential theory of late 'Goidels' coming in from Ihe Alps about 100 B.C. and overcoming earlie r p-Celtic h ·crnT . ·Laginians' , and so on. For three reasons, anyone of which would be sufficient proof by itself, nOlhing like O'Rahil!}"s theory is possible. First. the dialect pOSition of Goidelic is conservative and marginal and implies a formal ion o\'Cr se\"Cral centuries in a relatively isolated cultural backwater. Such a sening is provided by the Irish 'Dark Age· of the Bronze-lron­Transition (c. 600- c. 200 B.C.) and the subsequent incomplete La nne phenomenon of the northern half (c. 200 B.C- c. 100 AD); il would not be provided by an)' morecentral locale ofl ron Age incubation . Second, the earliest piece of linguislic data from Ireland is the ethnonym I,'cmi(giving MIT. Erainn). It LS as old as the founh and probably the sixth centul)' B.C Conlral)' \0 whal O'Rahilly thought, laler linguistic and lilcral)' survivals of forms of this name strongly suggest that the II"I.'mf were Ihe direct ethnolinguistic ancestors of the Gaels. Third, the intrusive material occurring in Iron Age Ireland is of La Tene and Romano-Celtic origin , moslly from Brilain and to a lesser extent from Gaul. At the time the languages of Britain and Gaul were the more innovative p-Cc1tic Gallo- Brittonic and, laler on, also Lat in. Gaelic is of course derived from neither of these.

The Social Basis of Ctlticisation In my model, the consolidation of Proto-Celtic is seen in the prestige economy of the LBA (c. 1300 - c. 600 B.C) in wh ich an Atlantic Zone with centres in Armorica, South-east England, South Wales, Ireland, and later on, Iberia, was in a continuous close contact with, and generally followed the cultural lead of. UrnfielcV Hal1statt C West-central Europe. A crescendo of wealth, geographical extent, and intensity occurred in Hallstatt B 3, corresponding broadly to the Irish Dowris A of c. 900 - c. 650 B.C (Eogan 1964; Cunliffe 1978,329-331). The chief evidence for our long-term and long-range aristocratic network is found in metalwork, often in subterranean hoards, but also ritual aqueous depositions. Ornaments of gold and bronze are relevanl, bronze weaponry more so, and the sword most of all. looking back 10 the distribution of the rapier in the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600 - c. 1300 B.C ),

With the rise of iron working during Hallstatt C (Downs B), this extensive arid fragile Atlantic bronze economy collapsed, leading to a break up into poorer regionalised cultures. In Britain and Armorica, reincorporation into an Early La Tene world began by the later 5th century S.c. In Ireland, on Ihe ot her hand, the Dark Ages of the Bronze-Iron Transiuon lasted from the late 7th century into the 2nd , a time of relath'e poverty and isolation (ScOIl 1974a, -b; Warner 1974). The Ilrst iron objects which it is agreed were manufactured in Ireland are the peculiarly short Middle La Tene swords from Lisnacrogher, Co. Antrim. usually daled to Ihe 2nd centul)'. Irish La Tene has the general character of a lale , thin adstratum, secondhand from Britain , and confined 10 the northern half ofthe island . Follow-

.

£MANIA 9, J99J

ing Renfrew's (989) model of trade networks and language , the intensity of foreign contacts with LBA Ireland suggest a direct ional trade in which Ireland was a terminus for long­distance routes to as far away as Iberia and Germany. By contrast, 'La nne' Ulster received only'down-the-line' spillover exchange from nearby Britain.

I identify the stage of an archaic Goidelic's isolation from the other Proto-Celtic daughter communities with the Bronze­Iron Transition and the subsequent stunted Irish La nne. InCidentally, after the collapse of the Transalpine Bronze Age. Iberia also failed to be integrated into the La nne sphere with its relatively innovative p-Cebic Gallo-BriHonic linguistiC cor­relate, and lheria, like Ireland. was home to a relatively conse rvative q-Celtic language in Roman times.

That in the latter phase (c. 650 B.C.- c. A.D. 100) a period of isolation should lead to the emergence of a distinct marginal dialect is a historical linguistiC commonplace and requires no special explanat ion. What will require more treatment is how in the earlier phase a series of related prestige metalwork assemblages betokens the consolidation of a relatively uniform proto-language. In earlier theOries, one or more LBA invasion have been suggested. So, for example, Mac Eoin (1986) thought that the c. fifty Hallstatt C swords of Ireland might represent actual intruders and mark the beginning of Celtic speech. Burgess ( 1974), without any linguistic concomitant, saw the teaf-shaped swords of the 11th century, in the spread from the Continent, to the lower Thames. to South Wales. to Ireland, as marking the path of Umfield trailblazers. Two general pointS must be noted here . First, Cehicisation. as an instance of language shift, is not an event but a process. Generations, more probably centuries, of bilingualism and acculturation were necessary, and a suitable processual con­text. rather than a cataclysmic Adven/Us 5cottorum, is to be sought in the archaeological record. Second, as will be dis­cussed presently , Insular prehistorians have soured mightilyon invasions over the past quarter century.

In 1980, Rowlandsconvincinglyexplained the Significance of the LBA prestige metalwork in a SOCial-anthropological model that is built upon here. The regional elites of the Transalpine Zone were joined in an intricate network of alli­ance, exogamous virilacal marriage, and status competition. The last category had a pronouncedly warlike dimension, centred on heroic raiding, though sufficiently circumscribed SOCially that it did not disrupt the web of mutual obligations. When we see the later Ewart Park and Hallstall C swords advancing along the same axis as the first swords and rapiers, this does not imply waves of intruders pursuing the same improbable Lower Thames to Ireland landtaking, but ratherthe transmission of culture change within an established dynamic system keyed to trade routes and mineral resources. The weaponry also reflects an institution of purely ritual competi­tion, an ostentatious 'potlatch' in which status items -were thrown in great quantities into bodies of water, therebyenhanc­ing the rank of the donors and drawing the gods into the pattern of alliances. Though the internat ional bronze trade is the most obvious mechanism of this system, it would be anachronistic for us to detach the social and ideological facets from the economic. We should think instead of a gift economy in which tribal nobilities shared a notion of ranking and principles for enhancing and displaying status. The prestige items seen in the remains, with their limited and specialised social contexts. were the insignia of titles. Swords, like their owners. had rightful lineages and fame. Rowlands deSignates this reputation by Homeric IC).iOl; 'what is heard'. but Proto-Celtic· k/uton(>Olr. cloth, Early Welsh c/oll from the plural· klutj/) , from the same

PA.GE J9

Indo-European root and with precisely the same sense, will do beller. The exchange partners in different areas, by sharing the same code of personal honour and conventions for its display, shared identities across an expansionist matrix.

Though Rowlands took his case no further, when we start speaking of shared systems of meanings, equations of titles and regalia, social identities, and a code of personal honour, we are obViously on the threshold oflanguage . It would be reckless to say that such an expanding sphere of elite exchange must always be accompanied by a Similarly expanding lingua franca or ICOIV~. though on the levels of the pure mechanics of international trade and diplomacy this is probably true. I am not concerned with the universalities of such systems here, but in our particular corner of the world, it is hard to imagine how the LBA elites of the British Isles and Armorica spoke to their dominant partners nearer the Alps, unless in some form of Old Celtic. The continuity within this network from c. 1200 - c. 650 s.c. also makes it seem improbable that the dominant Umfield!Hallstatt centre had its own hierarchy replaced by, or transformed into, another ethnolin'guistic group during the LBMIA.

Adopting Rowlands' pracessuaVsocietal approach and ac­cepting his Homeric analogy as useful, one should also consider the lauer's linguistic implications. Is seeing the first Insular Celts as 7th-century Hallstau C intruders, heralding the col­lapse of the LBA economy, likely to be wrong for the same reason that seeing the arrival of the Greeks in the Dorian Dark Ages was wrong? The gradual building up of the rich and cosmopolitan society that climaxed with the Ewan ParKlDowris A material of about 900--650 B.c. is an inherently more likely scenario for ethnolinguistiC consolidation . To put it another way, what Renfrew (1987, 133-141) catls 'system collapse' is not in and of itself a mechanism of language change . As he allows, it is merely a particular opportunity for his 'elite dominance',

The Problem The subtitle of this paper is a minimal condensation of that which Harbison (1988, 168) poses. This he promptly expands: 'As there seems to be no ... Indo-European language other than Celtic which came 10 Ireland , the question may be re-phrased as: when did the speakers of an Indo-European language fi rst reach Ireland?' Though this assumption has been shared by various proponents of high chronologies, such as Harbison himself(1975)and now Renfrew (1987), it is not an acceptable limitation of the problem_ By what non-perishable attribute would a pre-CeltiC Indo-European language in Ireland appear to us from underneath Gaelic? No one is presently suggesting that the first hunter-gatherers after the retreat of the glaciers were Indo-Europeans, yet their pre-Celtic language is not apparent to us. Despite the dearth of evidence for major replacements of population after the First Neolithic in the fifth millennium. the archaeological record does show a nearly­continuous succession of foreign contacts and possible small­scale int rusions. any number of which could serve as hypotheti­cal starting pointS for language change by 'elite dominance' or segments of the 'cumulative' process envisioned by Hawkes (1973). Within text-free archaeology, negative evidence against a major intrusion is not enough. The Gaelic continuum must somehow be positively demonstrated . Thus, the problem should be alternatively reformulated : how far back can a distinctively Gaelic language and culture be traced through proto- and prehistory?

PAGE 20

Status Quaestionis In the hiStory of modem scholarship, there has never been less of a consensus regarding the Celticisation of Ireland, or fo r that matter the British Isles, than there is today. Renfrew's (1967) proposal is higher by far than seriously considered before ; this comes in the context o f a theory of an Anatolian Neoli thic Indo­European Urheimat . Starting from the more widely-accepted lower Volga homeland, whose leading advocate is Marija Gimbutas (1973, 1960-81, 1965, 1966), Harbison (1975) concluded that the Beaker Copper Age, beginning about 2500 B.C., marked the arrival of 'kurganising' Indo-Europeans in Ireland. On the negative evidence fora substantial subsequent intrusion (a cri terion I reject), he counted the Beaker People as Proto-Gaels. Chadwick and Dillon (1967), arguing from indo­European linguistic archaisms in Old Irish, arrived at much the same conclusion (and d. O'Kelly 1969,249). Arguing comra Dillon from Celtic comparative linguistics, Greene (1963) concluded that Old Irish as not very archaic at all and saw Ireland's exemption from the Roman and Anglo-Saxon inva­sions as an adequate background to the qualitative gap between Irish and Welsh. At the low extreme , the Association of ProfeSSio nal Irish Archaeologists held a seminar on 'Irish Ori­gins'in 1964 and failed to rule out any horizon before the fifth century A.D., when the first inscriptional evidence of Primitive Irish begins and the mission of Patrick occurred (Mallory 1964) . We have, therefore, a full 5,000 years currently on the table for consideration.

The great fracture which led to this state of affairs surfaced with Grahame Clark's powerful critique of 'The Invasion Hy­pothesis in British Archaeology' ( 1966a; d . also Clark 1966b, Hawkes 1966, WadeIl1978). Behind Clark's milestone was the deeper theoretical unravelling of the Childean premise that an assemblage" a culture - a people - an ethno·linguistic group. No alternative , acceptable method fo r detect ing a linguistic group in text-free archaeology has yet taken its place. A unified Celtic studies -encompassing language, literature, history , and archaeology - is but o ne casualty of this sobe ring disillusion . However, as Cehic origins are the paramount linguistic issue before Insular prehistorians, post-invasionisl angSt broods over no tOpic more grimly. Where Clark in 1966 saw a pervasive 'invasion neurosis' there is now an equally profound invasion phobia . 'Immobilism' is what Hawkes (1987) has termed the attitude , characterising it : 'involvement of force iseither shunned or declared to be unknowable ; anything ethnic is deplored as racist; and any change of language is dismissed as no part of archaeology'.

The Non·Synthesis of Archaeology and Philology What is perhaps the most promising and innuential post­im'ast\'e model o f Celticisation (in se\'eral respects anticipating the present theo!)') is Hawkes' (1973, 1966) 'Cumulath'e (ehldt>', al ready mentioned. 'Cumulation' invol\'es a complex series of st ratifications, largely peaceful, of innuences emanat­ing ult imately from west-central Europe drawn out from the Middle Bronze Age <C. I 500 B.C.) d own through the La n ne Iron Age (c. 475 - c.50 B.C.). Heretofore , the philologists have found this scheme indigestible . For exam ple, Greene (1983, 134) wrOte:

As linguists _ .. if is \'el}' dimculf /0 conceive or a cumu/ati\'e Celticity. except In the sense in which u 'c might spe,1k or a cumu/.1li\·e Anglicis.1lion or Ire/and. as or a proccss spread OI'er a good many centuries: in the I;I/Iercase, hOll'el'er, we knoll' that it began with an ifll'1lsion, and that nobody lI"ase\-er in any doubt as 10 which or the languages he was spe'1king.

tRW, ALBA., AND LETHA.

As Greene saw, the fortunes of the Celtic languages within the purview of history will not prOVide a non-invasive model. On the contrary, twice historicalla Tene CellS took up new lands and imposed Gallo- Brittonic speech wit h genuine mass migra­tions accompanied by a horrendous level of violence - in the valley of the Po in the fifth·fourth century B.C. and then in central Asia Minor in the third . In post-Roman times, Breton and Scott ish Gaelic likewise have origins in bon" fide mass migrations, if less bellicose . All four of these movements are well nigh invisible in the archaeological record . Many linguists may feel, as did Greene, that the Celtic invasions of Britain and Ireland are no less real if archaeologists cannOt o r will not see them. Greene's remarks also carry the powerful common-sense proposition that thecouTSe of prehislOryought not todisresemble grossly the successive waves of Romans, Anglo-Saxons, and Normans of historical times, and that some kernel o f truth might, therefore , underlie the mediaeval Irish legends of suc· cessive 'takings' by Nemedians, Parthalonians, etc., or the Trojan refugees of Geoffrey of Monmouth.

The Problem o f Cultural Continuity · Immobilism is, however, more than a theoretical quirk and is instead based positively upon an imposing body of evidence for continuity between the orthodox great ages and, conversely. a genuinely negligible evidence for intrusions. [n particular, the long-distance commonality of high-class metalwork in the LBA does not extend ve rt ically into the various regional peasant economies. In Britain , the persistence of the Bronze Age type of round house into the Iron , in contrast to Iron Age Gallic rectangular dwelhngs, is the best-known instance . The so­called 'Celtic fields', storage pits. the weaving comb and ring­headed pin (Cunliffe 1976, 33 1) are further examples among many (see further Hodson 1964; Burgess 1968,30).

The continuity, even between my proposed great ages, is pronouncedly greater in [reland . There is, e.g., less of a clear typological distinction between Neolithic/EBA centres of as­sembly and Iron Age defended hilhops. The primary structure at Navan Fort , Co. Armagh, (the Emain Macha of the sagas, principal centre of assembly in the North-east in the second half of the first millennium B.C.) resembles henge monuments more than contemporary British hill forts or continental oppida. Similarly, Tara , ceremonial seat of the lead ing Irish kingship at the dav·m of history, incorporates a Neolithic passage tomb. Dun Ailinne (Co. Kildare) and other Irish sites could be added to this list of Iron Age ceremonial circles cum hillforts. That material which would ha\'e clear connections to proto-histori­cal Iron Age Celts is thin on the ground . The extent of the Hallstatt C swords and Irish La nne have been mentioned (and see Caulfield 196 1, Hawkes 1962). The Late La Tene BelgiC Iron Age Cof sout h-east Britain, with its coinage, wheel-thrown pottery, and oppid,1 has no Irish counterpart at all .

The Etymology of the Early National Names In the \'emacular literalUre of Early Christian Ireland , Ireland itself is most often called Eriu. North Bmain (Pictland , later Scotland) Albuor Alba, and Brittany Letha. The second name. when it occurs to the sagas and looks back to pre-Christian times. usually refers 10 Britain asa whole . Though only triuwas used as a theonym synchronically in Irish literature·. theLr Indo­European et)'mologies show that they were all originally names or epLthets of the goddess of the land. (Readers are directed to Koch 1966b for a fuller discussion; cf. furthe r Hawkes 1966).

t

81tiANIA 9, 1991

I , Eriu, genitive Erenn, corresponding to Middle Welsh lweryo 'Irish Sea, Atlantic' and lwer&m ' Ireland', derives from Proto-Celt ic ·lwerju, lwerjonos 'The Fert ile Lmd' from IE • pid werjodn'The Fat, Rich, Fertile One' (..Jpeid'to be fat, swell'); cf. Greek 1l1£IPCl , Sanskrit pivari 'fat, rich, unctious' feminine, mostly applied to land in the Greek: thus the Thessalian district name nl£pla and Homeric ni£lpavapoupCtv 'fertile land' (Od. 2.328), KpnUI ni£lpa 'ferti le Crete' (19.172- 3).

2. Albu, Alba, gen . Alban, corresponds to the Welsh common noun, Old Welsh efbid, Middle Welsh elf yO the sense of which is most exactly 'the habitable surface of the world ', as seen in the example yn Annwfyn is efuyd yn awyr ueh cluyo ' in the subterranean netherworld below ELFYD in the air above ELFYD(BookofTaliesin 20.8--9). In an early eleventh-century Latin lext from Brittany, Legenda Sanet; GoueznDl'ii, Uitinised Albidi.1 [< Old Breton * Albid) oc­curs as the ancient name of Britain before the arrival of the legendary ancestors of the Britons (Britanni). Proto-Celtic * Albiju, gen . • Albijonos, derives from IE * Albhijodn 'The White One'. The application of this epithet to the land may Im'olve a semantic development akin to that of the Greek ClA.qll~, aMplwv 'barley'« IE *albhi- : ..Jalbho- 'white'), noting that barley had been a popular crop in Britain since the Copper Age. As to the old chestnut seeking a reference to the Cliffs of Dover in the name Albion, the Galatian personal name · AA.plOp l~Can hardly mean 'King of Britain (with its white cliffs)', but rather 'King of the Land', and it is surely not possible that the eastern Celts derived their word fo r land from the name of a place 2,000 miles to the west.

In early Welsh mythological verse, efr,'o is the realm of trees and blooming plants: OClun blodevguft/arvinepelufl 'I was the flowers of the wood on the face of ELFYD ( u yfr Du Cacrfyrddin 5.109-110).

3, Lelh.1, gen. Letha, corresponds to Old Welsh LUau, Medi­aeval uydaw, Old BretOn, Lel:lll, Romano-Celtic LClavia, all meaning 'Brittany, Armorica' and, by a pedantic trans­fer, also 'Latium'. The name is cognate to Vedic Prlhivl'The Divinised Earth' fe rn . < IE *p/la.1wii)' -the broad one' (..JpeJaa).2 The semantic development in Celtic was (ac­cording to Thurneysen 1894) to 'brei tes Land, Festland' > 'der Name Galliens bei den Inselcelten'. That a develop­ment to a femin ine theonym had occurred in Celtic as in Indic, perhapsasa shared Indo-European development , is shown by the dedicalOry inscriptions to MARTI ClCOLLUI ET LlTAVI from Narbonnensis. The Gaulish cult of Litavi(s) shows that the name had once designated the divinised land fo r Continental Celts and that Briuonic and Irish have merely preserved a usage anciently current in Gaul itself. The inSCri ptional evidence from the far south of Gaul indicates that the name had once covered a region far larger than Brittany. Emyr ofUydaw, a shadowy figure from early Welsh tradition (Bromwich 1961, 346--47; Bartrum 1966,57-67), reflects an ancient Ambjori~. The only historical character known to have bome this name wasthe Belgic chieftain whoopposed Caesar(BG V.24-41; V1.2-9, 29-43; VII1.24-25). So it seems likely that· Li/all'f had fo rmerly deSignated all of Gaul.

Early Auestations of the Names In the Ora Maritima, wrinen by Rufus Festus Avienus in the later fourt h century A.D., we find gens Hiemorum 'the race of

PAGB 1 1

the Irish' (line I ll) and insu la Albionum 'the island of the British' (I 12). This text is generally agreed to derive, at more than one remove, from a lost 'Massaliote Periplus' in Greek, in which the ethnonyms had presumably occurred as 'IEPVOI and 'AA.PlOv~ or ' AA.P\{llV~ , the underlying Celtic forms being [vern! and Albiones, both ethnonyms derived from their re­spective place-name, meaning 'People of the Fertile Earth' and 'People of the Living Surface-World '. The fonner survived as Irish Erainn, a group name applied in Early Christian times to a number of marginalised tribes and subordinate dynasties scattered across Ireland, most prominently in east Ulster and the South-west.

Tierney (1960, 193) argued foran original Periplus belong­ing 10 the first half of the sixth century B.C., and Powell (1958, 21-22) also for a date considerably older than c. 530. On the other hand, Hawkes(1975 and pers. comm.) has proposed that this northern section was rehandled by Ephorus in the mid fourth century B.C., though, even so, the names in question would most probably go back to the sixth century. The solid ferminusis Pytheas, who in Co 325 B.t:. found a different name for Britain and the BritiSh, which he recorded as npEr( r)av lKtl and n pu ( r)avoi. They reflect a Gallo-Brittonic • Pritan"Peo­pIe of the Forms', the rise of which can be plausibly correlated with the arrival of Early La Tene influences in Britain from the later fifth century. '!£pVOI and ·AA.PIOVE~ must therefore go back toan older stage, pre-La Tene, pre-Gallo-Brittonic. The Ui Tene phenomenon of the northern half of Ireland, cent red upon Lisnacrogher and Navan Fort , had yet to begin when Pytheas sailed north. Since it is the secondary ethnonyms and not the primary place-names witnessed by the Peri plus, the place-names are older still.

The earliest Greek name fo r Ireland is '!EPVll (as, e.g., in Strabo). There is no trace of any such fonn as 9/werna ' lreland' in nati\'eSOurce5. I believe, therefore, that 'iEPVTJ wasbackfonned from the Periplus' ethnonym '!£pVOI within Greek.

In Ptolemy, Ireland is '!o\JEpvla, and though he gives no general name for the Irish, one of his sixteen tribal names is '!OUEpVOI in the South-west, precisely where t rainn dynasties held swa)' at the dawn of history.

In the Antonine It inerary, a Uitin source of the early 3rd century A.D., we find the dative in lverione, implying nomina­tive Iveri6 ·Ireland'. This directly renects the Primitive Irish form, ·lwerjli ,gen. ·lwerjonos.

The Rr:lative Chronology of the Names Asdiscussed above, these three names originally had a common dual character as both an epithet of the land and its divine feminine personification. They reflect a chthonic ideology, are intelligible assuming a homogeneous and SOCially dominant religion,and were coined in an essentially undiffe rentiated Old Celtic language not far re moved from Indo-European. As I stated in 1986b, it is hard to imagine that these names might have arisen in the immediate wake of an invasion led by a warrior aristocracy. When compared with other national names in the region, it is seen how unusual they are . The more normal pattern is for the country to take iLS name from its dominant group, not vice versa; thus, e.g., Engel-land. SeOl­land, Francia. Brittany, etc. This even holds true for early recorded namesofCe\tic nations: K£A.:nlCfl 'Uind of the Kd:roi', forms known 10 the Greeks as early as Hecataeus of Miletus c, 500 B.C.; similarly, f ClA.o.riCl 'Land of the faA.CttCt l' and Gallia 'Land of the Gallt. Of course, one must assu me that the native nomenclature did not greatly disresemble the Graeco-Uitin adaptations. The last corresponds to Breton Bra C hall'France' < Gallo-Brittonic • Brogif Gal/on; cf. also Welsh Prydein'Britain'

PAGE :l:l

from the ethnonym • Priranf, a form which as nOled goes back to the 4th century B.C. (Gallia and Britannia are personified as goddesses only as a secondary and largely artiHcial develop. ment .) Aremorica, meaning 'Land Befo re the Sea', is a d ifferent SOrt of name, not depending on an ethnonym, but rather a larger whole , JUSt as Breton An'-or 'Coastal Zone' < • Aremori (.), contrasting with Argoad 'The InteriOr" < • Arecai/On 'Land Before the Wood'.

From the time of Cadwallon in the 6305, Wales and Cumbria have been called Kymmry, wh ich is merely an ethnic plural « British ·Combrogi ·Fellow Countrymen') used as a feminine singular place·name . In texts relating 10 the 6th century , we find the older term Brython, which again comes from, and continues to function as, an ethnic plural, British • Brinones, which is first altested in the later fi rst century A.D. (Rivet and Smith 1979, 39-40). Behind Briuones is the form Pytheas heard , • Pritan', another ethnic plural. In Welsh, this survives as Prydein, which means si mply 'Britain', used as a petrified feminine singular noun, never an ethnic plural. The byform Old Welsh Prltdin < • Pritenfdoes survive in Welsh as an ethnic plural. meaning 'the PietS' (like the cognate Old Irish Cruithin < • f("'riteni) as well as 'Pictland·. The explanation for this disparity of nomenclature is that cultural upheavals af­fected the southern twO thirds of Britain between the time of Pytheas and the earliest Welsh literature, namely the Belgic Gallicisation of Iron Age C and then the Roman occupation. These failed to reach Caledonia. The original sense of· Prirani was thus displaced in the South, but its northern byform preserved .

Whereas the position of the Prydein, Pr),dyn in Welsh is that of relic - its old meaning surviving only in the uncon· quered outlands - . the cognate Cruilhin, Cruilhni is an incomplete adSlralUm in Ireland. applied only to tribes on the northern and easte rn maritime fringes of Ulster (as well as to the Picts of Britain). From a purely linguistic point of view, Cruithin could be either the cognate of Welsh Prydyn or a borrowing as late as, e.g., the taking over of Latin plan/a to give a ir. c1.1nd(cf. Koch 1990a, 182). It is the early texts that show us that it wasap-Cehic PritanL'Pritenfwhich was newly arrived 10 the British Isles in Pytheas' day and was borrowed by the older Celtic-speaking population in Ireland , the h ·emf.

In Britain, the older national name· AlbijO is more deeply submerged . As early as the flrst century A.D., Pliny (NH [V.I02) mentions Albion as an explicitly obsolete name (Rivet and Smith 1979,39). Legenda Goueznol'iiuses Albidia as the name of Britain in the mythological pre·Briuonic pas!. E/fyd never means Britain in Welsh, but is only a high-register, poetiC word for 'the terrestrial realm , etc.' On the other hand , Gaelic Alba < • AlbijD is no more than the regular word for (North) Britain. To put the implications of this pattern inlO layman's terms, Gaelic usage remembers Britain at a far earlier stage than Brittonic does, before the Anglo-Saxons and Romans of history clearly, but also before the proto·historic Late La Tene Belgae and and Early La Tene ·Pritanf, back in the era of the Periplus of Marseille at the threshold of mute prehislOry and the Bronze Age.

Were the Ivemt Proto·Gaels? The evidence reviewed thus far implies an answer 'yes'. The name is Celtic and survives in Irish as Erainn. The place-name !verit}, from which it derives, is also Celtic, also survives in Irish , and is well altested as the name of the national goddess in early Irish literature, particularly the Lebor GaM/a tradition (see Gray 1982, 123-24). Gaelic alone preselVes for Britain that name (Alba < • A/bijO) which is contemporary with the appli·

tRIU. ALBA, AND LETHA

cation of !\'emilO the Irish. Further points can be adduced . As Mac Cana (1958, 5),

Greene(1966, 132-34), and Byrne (1973, 10) have shown , the Erainn of the fifth century A.D. clearly spoke Goidelic . This is proved by three facts: ( I) the Primitive Irish ogam inscriptions are thickest in the J:rainn region of Cork and Kerry; (2) the Desi, who were classed as Erainn. brought ogam Irish to South Wales: 0 ) the Dai Rlata of Antrim, also Erainn, brought Gaelic to North Britain. In the saga of lug aid Mac Con, the legenda ry founder of the Munster J:rainn (Ptolemy's 'IO\lEPVOI), he is desc ribed as de Gaedelaib 'of the Goldil ' (0 Daly 1975, 44; Byrne 1973,66-67; O'Rahil1y 1947, 81).

The Old Irish place- and divine· name Eriu has a common noun doublet friu 'ground, eanh, land , etc." for wh ich the re is no cognate in any other attested Cehic language,J This implies that, of the Cehic languages, only Gaelic certainly retained the Indo- European lexeme that necessarily occurred in the dialect in which the national name had been coined. Conversel)" Gaelic has no common noun corresponding 10 Welsh elf yo. So, even though we can say that Gaelic does remember the most ancient name of Britain, there is no reason to th ink that Gaelic must continue the Celtic dialect in which that name wascoined . On the other hand. the Gaulish divine epithet and Galatian personal name Albio·rlx 'AA~IOPI~~ (which, when compared with Dumnorfx and Biwriges, plaUSibly mean "King of the World') are consistent with the proposition that the speech of Insul:l Albio/lum was mClplently Gallo-Brittonic.

Eponyms and Origin Legends A final point in favour of continull), is drawn from ongm legends involving I hree characters whose names derive (j ust as !"erit} and !n:rn;) fro m IE -pew-10 be fat" (Pokorny, IdgEW, 793): these are:

( I ) lar, gen. lair, < • (P)iweros, epon)'m of· (P)iwctj6 'The Fat, Rich Land',

(2) Ertaken from t riu during the Old Irish Period. and 0) fth 'fat, lard' < -(p)ilU-.

lar mac itha maic Bregoin heads the pedigrees of Munster groups considered J:rainn ell 6.1401.4218-20). In Lebor G.1bala, Lugaid mac ith,1 figures as the ancestor of the main branch of the Erainn(ll l.54 .1732-40). This same ithwas the first of the Milesians to see Ireland from Bregon's Tower. Later he is the first ashore and praises the country's abundance, saying 10 the indigenous Tuatha De ('Divine Tribes'):

Denaid rechtge choir, daig maith in ferand i n· ailtrebthai, lmda a mess 7 a mil 7 a chruithnechl 7 a iasc. Is mesraiglhe a lhess 7 a WICht. (ll 1.47 .1478-80)

Do proper justice, for you dwell in a good land . Abundant are its acorns and honey and wheat and fish. Balanced are its heat and cold. (trans. Carey 1983, 307)

He is then the first Gael 10 d ie in Ireland, at the hands of the Tuatha De . His name is used to explain the place·name Mag /litha , but there is no onomastic connection in the probably older verse account ofEr's landing and drowning (lll .32.998-1001),

[n the invasion tale attributed to On Dromm,1 Snechta (Mac Mathuna 1985, 443-446) and edited by Hull (932), J:r mac Miled is the first Milesian (i .e. ethnic Gael} to set foot in

7

EMANIA 9, 1991

Ireland (in Dal Riata, an Erainn area) and dies there. His name I

is used to explain Eriu. These traditions reflect a prehistoric origi~ myth in which

the first Irishman is the eponym of lveria understood to mean 'The Fat or Abundant Country' and his successors are called lvernf. In other words, we reconstruct a narrative in which * lweros corresponds to ROMULUS, lveria to ROMA , and lvernf to ROMANI.

At several points in the extant accounts the identity of Erainn and Goidil (i.e . Gaels) is apparent. It could be argued that a newer people had adopted the origin legend of conquered aboriginals, or, as O'Rahilly (1947) thought that mediaeval literati had endeavoured to supply all dynasties with bogus Milesian pedigrees. The latter late mechanism is ruled out by the fact the connection between larand Eriu is evident only in reconstructed Old Celtic forms and the overt connection be­tween ith and Eriu was probably lost even earlier. The fact that this elaborate nexus survives in the Irish language makes continuous survival the most natural interpretation.

Prehistory and Ideology Any attempt to recover prehistoric religion is obviously fraught with pitfalls whether we make use of archaeology or linguistic palaeontology. I shall confine myself, therefore , to a very few of the broadest and most clear-cut trends. Insular prehistori­ans, such as Cunliffe (1978, 327- 44) , Bradley (1984) , and Longworth (1985), have generally accepted the concept that the Middle Neolithic to EBA (fourth millennium to c. 1700 B. C [-1400 bel ; my 'Age of Megaliths'), was a period of theocratic social dominance. As to the nature of the religion at this stage, many of the various megalithic monuments have been demon­strated to have one sort or another of celestial orientation, most often to an equinox or solstice (Thorn 1967, Lynch 1980).

In contrast, the most prominent leadership of the La Tene Iron Age (c. 475 - c. 50 B.C on the Continent) was in the hands of dynasts at the apex of a warrior aristocracy (the equites of Caesar [BG V1.l3]) The reconstructible Common Celtic calendar is pastoral rather than solar with its chief festivals skewed roughly forty days off the equinoxes and solstices. As noted above, the La Tene in Ireland has the character of a late and incomplete adstratum; nonetheless , the sagas of the Ulster Cycle are fairly (though not unanimously) regarded as the great literary monument of the La Tene Heroic Age Oackson 1964).

In the transition from the Age of Megaliths to the Age of Depositions, the priest class was not so much eclipsed, as dislocated from a direct temporal power and a central economic position by a rising warlike nobility. The influence of the druids remained one of the distinctive features of Iron Age Celtic civilisation. In the Roman conquest of Britain, for example, dynasts of the tribal aristocracies, such as Cassivellaunos, Caratacos, and Boudlca spearheaded the resistance , but the druidic sanctuary of Anglesey was also a centre of anti-Roman influence and treated as a military objective. And though the priests called druids officiated at depositions and did not build great astronomical monuments, Caesar (in De Bello Gallico VI) tells us that they 'have many discussions concerning the stars and their course, the size of the universe and of the earth , and the strength and properties of the undying gods ... ' Some prehistorians have concluded that the druids continued the megalithic priesthood.

An incipient warrior class may first be attested by the copper daggers and archery equipment which figure in the Beaker package from the mid third millennium. The Wessex culture , centred on the sacred precinct of Stonehenge in the earlier second millennium , was aristocratic as well as theo-

PAGE 23

cratic , and their martial elite had close links with Armorica. But I think that Dillon's (1967,5) formulation , according to which Early Wessex was Celtic , is incorrect.

The remarkable Wessex Celture of the Bronze Age which appears about 1500 B.C. is thought to be based on [the Bell-beaker} tradition. The grave-goods there suggest the existence of a warrior-aristocracy 'with a graded series of obligations of service. through a military nobility down to the craftsmen and peasants ', as in Homeric society. This is the sore of society which is described in the Irish Sagas, and there is no reason why so early a date for the coming of the Celts should be impossible.

Dillon's Celtic Wessex is a Wessex without Stonehenge and without the coercive central authority of a god-king/queen or high priest(ess) of the sun. The collective labours of proto­historic Celts were not directed by s4perordinate theocrats , but by warrior-chieftains who acted as patrons of the druids. And the gods of the Celts were not in the sky. Their ancestors were not in the great tumuli. Irish tradition attributes the building of the megaliths to the pre-Gaelic mythological foreworld . A vague Homeric resemblance and the lowest common denomi­nator of advanced barbarism do not insure Celticity.

The Wessex elite was without issue . Bradley's (1984, 91) epitome of the aftermath of the Megalithic Age follows .

Before that time, the system had shown a basic stabil­ity, but by 1000 bc it had been swept away.. From a landscape whose most prominent features were burial mounds, we move into a period in which their place is taken by field systems, farms , land boundaries, and hill fores ; and from a society whose basic structure was expressed in ritual and ceremonial to one in which food production and warfare played a more visible role. There is no sign of an elite burial rite and ·no evidence for the continued use of the ceremonial centres. Most of the older core areas lost their distinc­tive character and were reduced to a marginal position around the edges of new centres of power.

It was this new society whose principal ritual was submarine and subterranean deposition of prestige metalwork. By c. 1100 B.C, we find a greatly expanded arsenal in bronze , with short leaf-shaped swords of Hallstatt A antecedents now replaCing the rapier as the offering of preference (Bradley 1980, 1984). These practices continue from the later second millennium down into the Iron Age and occur at sites , in both Gaul and the British Isles, for which there is documentary evidence of pagan Celtic cult practices and the druids , such as Chama lie res and Llyn Cerrig Bach. La Tene itself is a ritual depOSition site. In the Irish Final Bronze Age , the great Dowris hoard, Co. Offaly, which gives its name to the phase , is (most probably) such a site . Intriguingly, the Celtic myth behind this ritual best survives in the Arthurian legend of Excalibur and the Lady of the Lake.

Two major distinctions between Celtic paganism and its reconstructed Proto-Indo-European ancestor are (1) the pri­marily subterranean or submarine, as opposed to celestial, situation of the gods and divine realm in both myth and c ult; (2) the centrality of the myth of the l.EPO<; yallO<; of hero and territorial goddess. As a practical extension of the second, one may note the tendency to identify closely the taking of high status wives with the sacral marriage of king to sovereignty goddesses, as in the Galatian story of the high priestess Camma

PAGE 24

in the Moralia of Plutarch (257-58, 768) . It is worth noting, with neither endorsement nor refutation, that in the 'Gimbutas school' (1982) of Indo-European religion , both developments would be interpreted as a recrudescence of a hybrid pre-Indo­European chthonic goddess religion. The upshot of the forego­ing generalities is that the ideological watershed visible in the material changes of the later second millennium mark the emergence of a system of beliefs recognisably Celtic from a system which is not.

Funher Clues from Mythology It is not just in the tale of ith that we find the mortal ancestors of the Gaels in confrontation with the Tuatha De. It is useful to recap in slightly more detail De Gabail in t -Sida, a brief text which is linguistically of Old Irish date and where the themes of fertility and Gaelic origins are linked (paraphrased from Hull 1931)

Dagan (i.e. the Dagda) was king of the Tuatha De (i.e. the gods) in Ireland . His power remained great even after the Milesian conquest, for the gods destroyed the corn and milk about the invaders until the Maic Miled made peace with the Dagda. Afterwards, he restored their food. The Dagda then apportioned the sid­mounds among the gods. The otherworld of the mounds was wonderful by virtue of having three trees always laden with fruit , a pig eternally alive, and a roasted pig, and a vessel with marvellous liquor, all inexhaustible.

The 'peace', 'friendship', or 'treaty' (cairddes) concluded with Dagan must be understood in terms of the opening of Mesca Ulad. There, Amairgen mac Miled , the Milesians' chief poet and judge, overcomes the Tuatha De on the Milesians' arrival by decreeing the division of f riu in two parts, the underworld to the gods and the surface to his own mortal race.

The underlying idea is that the first Irishmen manipulated social exchange with the gods so as to subordinate them and be entitled to ongoing sustenance in return. The rite of deposition is intelligible as an extension of the network of obligations of the gift economy to the supernatural , plaCing chthonic forces in a deficit relationship to the donors . That these donors had styled themselves Albiones 'People of the Living Surface World' and IvemI'People of the Fertile Land' belongs to the same system of meaning. One may compare an archaic verse, which is overtly pagan and possibly belonging to the oldest poem in the Irish language according to Carney (1989, 41-43): Arddiu deeib d6en I dron daurgn'iinne II glan gablach II hiia Luircc L6egaire 'a mighty mortal higher than the gods, a pure branching acorn was the grandson of Loigaire Lorc' (CGH i, 19). To my mind, no such notions of relations between god and man are evident in the megalithiC tombs or standing stones.

Throughout Irish tradition, the sid-mounds are the old Neolithic tombs , such as those in the Boyne Valley. That the tradition conSistently associates these monuments with the realm of the immortals clearly speaks for some degree of ancient ideological continuity, especially those tales which Carey called attention to, in which the Boyne tombs are connected with the control of time and the movement of the sun . However, the Significance of the monuments has changed. The aes side are not conceived of as ancestors of the Gaels, but as a supernatural tribe interacting, either competitively or amicably, with mortal nobles. They are also conSistently thought of as representatives of the old terrestrial order, who were subordinated into chthonic centres by the first Gaels at an epochal transformation, marking

ERIU, ALBA, AND LETHA

the dawn of the present age . We have an exactly analogous story in Geoffrey'S Historia regum Britanniae, in which Britain prior to the arrival of the eponymous Brutus is inhabited by giants, who then relinqUish the surface to the intruders to live in caves.

The Irish sid tradition is thus a deflected continuity in which the MegalithiC Age is accurately connected with myster­ies of sun, moon, and eternity. But the aes side are deeply alien , semi-demonized. This comprehending ambivalence suggests that the nascent Gaelic culture had once coexisted on Irish soil with that of the Boyne megaliths. They were contemporary rival ideologies before the Gaels won out. In the opening of Cath Maige Tured, the Tuath De figure as great wizards of yore rather than gods; this may be a recollection of the theocracy rather than euhemerization.

A small linguistic detail, but perhaps a Significant one, may be mentioned here . If one looks in the Lexique etymologique de I'Irlandais ancien (Bachellery and Lambert 1987, s.v.), it is apparent that the Old Irish word cam 'memorial of piled stones, (ancient) burial cairn' has no obvious Indo-European origin . Following the trail to the probably-related carrac 'stone' (s.v.), another Indo-European blank is drawn, and a well-attested Vasco-Iberian root meaning 'stone' is proposed. Cam is also found in Welsh with the same sense, e.g. in the old place-name Cam Cabal (Historia Brittonum §73). It eVidently also oc­curred in the Celtic of Pictland, as shown by the place-name Monit-Carno 'Mount of Cairns'(Annals of Ulster 728). A Gaulish cognate is demonstrated by Carnac in Brittany < * Kamakon 'Place of the Stone Monuments' and the ve rb KARTINOY (at Saignon), KARN ITIV (Todi) , KARN ITVS (Novare) 'constructed (a monument)'. I can think of no Celtic word more likely to be a legacy from the Age of Megaliths. LingUistically, this legacy looks to be neither Celtic nor even Indo-European.

The Aes Dana and the Myth of Lugus One more remarkable differentiation between the Celts and their fellow pagan Indo-Europeans is mentioned by Caesar:

Of the gods {the Gauls] most of all worship Mercury He has the largest number of images, and they regard him as inventor of all the arts, as their guide on the roads and in travel, and as chiefly influential in making money and in trade. (BG VI.l7: trans. Tierney 1960, 272) .

The god that the Romans identified with Mercury was called Lugus in Gaulish and Celt iberian and appears in Old Irish literature as Lug, in Welsh as Lieu and Lieu-elys, all from Proto­Celtic Lugus. He is indeed pre-eminent , the only pan-CeltiC deity. It is also clear from his various manifestations that the social class of which he is the genius is not the warrior aristocracy nor the tribal kingship, but rather the peripatetic profeSSional class or, in Old Irish , the aes dano (singular fer dana) . These were a privileged group in the Celtic world, nearly unique in retaining their elevated (OIr. nemed < Proto-Celtic nemeto-) status and legal privileges as they moved freely from tribe to tribe. They comprised smiths and wheelwrights as well as bards , jurists, and storytellers The Irish laws were cast after the conversion, but it may be inferred from the sagas and the classical ethnographies of the Celts that the druidic priesthood had been the summit of the pre-Christian professional orders (see Kelly 1988, 59-62) .

I believe that the pattern of long-distance exchange in the LBA implies inter-tribal relations on a scale greater than will be accounted for by diplomacy between the nobilities of adjacent

z

EMANIA 9, 1991

tribes via incremental transactions in 'down-the-line trade'. Likewise , a multiplicity of bilateral alliances between small­scale political units is perhaps an inadequate social model for explaining linguistiC spread and consolidation over great dis­tances . A Proto-Celtic aes dana affords such a mechanism. As an esteemed group with free passage from the Umfield centre to the Irish and Armorican termini, they could propagate a Proto-Celtic lingua franca across the entire span (d. Renfrew 1989, 121-124).

The outline of a Common Celtic myth of lug us is discern­ible in the shared features of the early Irish tale Cach Maige Tured (Gray 1982) and the Welsh Math and Llud a Lleuelys. lugILleu is landless and disinherited. He is not a megalith builder. In CMT, he is at first denied entry into Tara, the gods' centre of assembly. He comes from afar, in Llud a Lleuelys from France, meeting the king of Britain on shipboard and overcom­ing difficulties in communication with a bronze horn and wine. He gains status amongst the race of the gods (Old Irish Tuath De) by practicing many crafts. He shows the gods how to gain control over demonic forces threatening the fertility of the land. In Llud a Lleuelys one supernatural oppression is overcome with a deposition of an enormous cauldron of mead. In CMT, lug directs the divine smith, brazier, and carpenter to cooper­ate to make spears to fight foes .

In my view, a Common Celtic myth in which most ele­ments of post-agricultural technology, efficacious ritual, and just rule originate in the itinerate craftsman - in which kings can only rule effectively and defeat foes by his aid - is not likely to have arisen in either of the following circumstances: (1) an invasive expansion in which conquerors' poets sang hymns to Indo-European sky gods; (2) an evolutionary continuation of the theocracies of the megalithiC centres. What I am suggesting is that it may have been first and foremost the aes dana who introduced Celtic speech and culture to the British Isles . As the Bronze Age economy expanded, the metal trade network of the great rivers undermined the hierarchical theocratic structures, becoming a more versatile rival system of access to wealth and status with its own portable cult.

This point may be amplified by shOWing that in much of what survives of Celtic paganism mortals do not worship their gods in the understood sense, but rather interact with them as yet another tribal group within the gift economy. The gods joined in marriage alliances with mortal royalty through the tEPOC; yUllOC;. Heroes may also compete with the gods for the hand of immortal heiresses as in Tochmarc Etaine. The idea that the first Gaels entered into legalistiC matrimony with the Tuath De is found in the 9th-century poem Can a mBunadas na nGaedel (ll Ill, 520.16097-98) and the 'Milesian invasion' cited above. In the latter, these indigenous divine wives are called ingna d 'Ebrib 'daughters of the Hebrews' through the common confusion between Tuath De as 'Divine Tribe , i.e. the pagan gods' and as 'People of God , i.e. the Israelites'. Celtic literature also has competitive raiding between mortal and immortal chieftains, as in Tochmarc Etaineagain, Echtra Nera, and the Welsh Arthurian poem Prei8eu Annwvyn The gods were the objects of diplomatiC gifts of status insignia through the depositions. In this detail, chthonic orientation was essen­tial so that tangible prestige items could be conSigned to the divine realm .

Non-Invasive Celticisation: a HypotheSiS In conclusion, my hypotheSis of non-invasive Celticisation does not claim that no Celtic-speaking warbands intruded during the lBA. Such movements are possible at late Tumulusl Hallstatt A (= British Penard and Irish Bishopsland, c. 1200 BC) ,

PAGE 25

late Hallstatt B (= British Ewart Park I Irish Dowris A, from c. 900 BC) and Hallstatt C (= British Llynfawr I Irish Dowris B, about 650 BC) . But I do not view invasion to be at the heart of the social process of Insular Celticisation, which depended rather upon the spread of heroic values through exchange and competition within a stable network, and not upon overwhelm­ing force or population replacement.

From its start, the Transalpine Bronze Age doubtless re­qUired a lingua franca for trade in finished objects and ores and for inter-tribal diplomacy. At first , we'alth and power continued to converge upon the ceremonial centres , and the extratribal speCialists remained on society's fringes. But by the Middle Bronze Age (c. 1600 - c.1300 B.C.) , the situation had pro­gressed so that the average freeholder with surplus goods now found it easier to enhance his standing through entering into patronage with a fer dana than it was to rise within the established hierarchies by contributing to the renewal of solar monuments. In a situation of bilingualism, which I think this was, the language of opportunity "'{ill win out. In this case, it was the K01V~ of the bronze trade, the native language of Central Europe, i.e. Proto-Celtic , that proved ascendant.

In conSidering whether the bronze trade could re-order Insular society, transform the traditional religion , and establish a new language as suggested, it should be borne in mind that at the time the Atlantic Zone stood with relation to its neighbours to the south and east as an underdeveloped hinterland. Trade in modern times has indeed had the effect of undermining traditional introverted authority, SOCially elevating cosmopoli­tan partners of the developed world , and introdUCing mission­ary religions and pidjins into underdeveloped areas .

NOTES [1] Cf. Burgess 1980, 12

An early version of this preface argued that quite different divisions of late prehiStory should be contemplated, cutting across the 'Three Ages'. One of the most funda­mental breaks appeared to occur around 1200 B.C. , chopping the Bronze Age into two.

[2] See , e.g. , the excellent summary in A. A. Macdonell , Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1898; rpt. Delhi , 1974) 88. . .. The Earth , Pnhivi , .. . generally celebrated conjOintly with Dyaus The personification is but slight, the attributes of the goddess being chief1y those of the physical earth. According to the RV, she abounds in heights , bears the burden of the mountains , and supports the trees of the forest in the ground (ksmfi). She quickens the soil , for she scatters the rain , and the showers of heaven are shed from the lightning of her cloud . She is great (mahI) , firm (drllha) and shining (a rjunf). The meaning ofPnhivi is 'the broad one'; and a poet of the RV (2.15) alludes to the etymology when he says that Indra upheld the earth (prthivi) and spread it out (paprathat) . .

Pnhivi is spoken of as 'kindly Mother Earth', to who.m the dead man in a funeral hymn .. . is exhorted to go. When mentioned with Dyaus, Pnhivi frequently receives the epithet of 'mother'.

[3] The variation in the vowel between Eriu , Erainn , and the eponym Ervs. iriu and larisof course problematical when assigning these to a common source . O'Rahilly (1946), Bergin (1946) , and earlier writers wrestled with this incon­clusively. For the present purpose, it is most important to note that the weight of the documentary evidence is such that the derivation of Olr. Eriu and Erainn < ancient fveri6 , lvernimust simply be accepted as a fact of life. friu and far look to be historically regular. The ancient sources have

PAGE 26

only i (for I); see Rivet and Smith 1979,40. The phonology of no known Celtic language will account for a shift from I to e, so substrata , adstrata, and inter-dialect borroWing will do us no good. The forms with E- are confined to Old Irish and later sources. This suggests that some late analogical process is at work In the literary period, Eriu is the best-attested of these forms . However, lvernf had presumably once been as common as Olr. Goidil, and eponymous * lweros possibly considerably more common before the conversion. Immediately after apocope and syncope, the ethnonym (<;lnd eponym) would have regu­larly yielded forms with unusual variations in vocalic quality and quantity: nom. pI. * lim, *frn, gen. * lern , * lam , acc. * frnu dar. * frnib. The paradigmatic alternation of fa and iwas unparalleled , as was ia vs. i after the loss of hiatus . This anomaly would have contributed to the rise of the unhistorical syncopated stem Er-. No such factor affected the common noun, in which the stem was synco­pated ir- throughout.

[41 On the Galatian name, see L. Weisgerber, 'Galatische Sprachreste', in Natalicium} Geffcken (Heidelberg, 1931) 154, 168.

REFERENCES Bachellery, E., and Lambert, P.-Y. (1987) Lexique etymologique

de J'Irlandais ancien de} Vendryes: C, Dublin and Paris . Bartrum, P. T. (1966) Early Welsh genealogical tracts, Cardiff. Bergin, O . (1946) 'Eriu and the ablaut' , Eriu 14, 147-153. Bradley, R (1984) The social foundations of prehistoric Britain ,

London. Bromwich, R. (196 1) Trioedd Ynys Prydein , Cardiff. Burgess, C (1968) 'The later Bronze Age in the British Isles and

north-western France', The Archaeological journal, 125 , 1-45.

--- (1974) The Bronze Age', in ed . Renfrew, C , British prehiStory: a new outline, Park Ridge , 165-222 .

--- (1980) The Age of Stonehenge, London. Burgess, C , and Needham,S., The later Bronze Age in the

Lower Thames Valley: The metalwork evidence', in eds. Barrett, j., and Bradley, R , Settlement and society in the British later Bronze Age, B.A.R. British series 83(i), Oxford, 437-469.

Byrne, F. ]. (1973) Irish kings and high-kings, London. Carey, ]. P. (1983) 'Lebor Gabala: Recension l' (Harvard PhD

thesis) . Carney, ]. (1989) The dating of archaic Irish verse', in eds.

Tranter, S. N., and Tristram, H. L. C, Early Irish literature - media and communication: Mundlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit in der frl1hen irischen Literatur, Tubingen, 39-55.

Caulfield, S. (1981) 'Celtic problems in the Iron Age', in 0' Comlin, D., Irish antiquity: essays and studies presented to Professor M.} O'Kelly, Cork, 205-215 .

Chadwick, N. K., and Dillon, M. (1967) The Celtic Realms. London.

Clark, G. (1966a) 'The invasion hypothesis in British archaeol­ogy', Antiquity, 40, 142-189.

-- (1966b) reply to Hawkes, Antiquity, 40, 298-299. Cunliffe, B. (1978) Iron Age communities in Britain, 2nd ed.,

London. Eogan, G. (1964) 'The Later Bronze Age in Ireland in the light of recent research', Proc. Prehistoric Society, 14, 268-351.

Gimbutas, M. (1973) The beginning of the Bronze Age in Europe and the Indo-Europeans', journal of Indo-Euro­pean Studies, 1.2, 163-214.

ERIU, ALBA, AND LETHA

--- (1980-81) 'The transformation of European and Anatolian culture c. 4500-2500 B.C and its legacy', Part l: journal of Indo-European Studies, 8; Part II: journal of Indo-European Studies, 9.

--- (1982) Goddesses and gods of Old Europe, London. --- (1985) 'Primary and secondary homeland of the Indo-

Europeans. Comments on Gamkrelidze-Ivanov articles', journal of Indo-European Studies, 13, 185-202.

--- (1988) 'Indo-Europeans: guests or hosts?', Quarterly Review of Archaeology, 9.1.

Gray, E. A. (1983) Cath Maige Tured, Irish Texts Society 52, London.

Greene , D. (1966) The making of Insular Celtic', in Proc. 2nd International Congress of Celtic Studies, Cardiff, 1963, Cardiff, 123-136.

Greene, D., and Piggott, S. (1983) 'The coming of the Celts to Britain and Ireland', in ed. Mac Eoin , G., Proc. 6th Interna­tional Congress of Celtic Studies,Galway, 1979, Dublin, 131-148.

Harbison, P. (1975) The coming of the Indo-Europeans to Ireland : An archaeological viewpoint', journal of Indo­European Studies, 3, 101-119.

--- (1988) Pre-Christian Ireland, London . Hawkes , C F. C (1954) 'Archaeological theory and method

some suggestions from the Old World', Amer. Anthrop , 56, 155-68.

--- (1966) 'British prehiStory: the invasion hypothesis', Antiquity, 40, 297-298.

--- (1973) "'Cumulative Celticity" in Pre-Roman Britain', Etudes Celtiques 13, 606-28.

--- (1975) Pytheas: Europe and the Greek Explorers (Eighth) L Myres Memorial Lecture), Oxford .

---(1982) 'The wearing of the brooch : Early Iron Age dress among the Irish' in ed. Scott, B. G., Studies in early Ireland. Essays in honourofM. V. Duignan, Belfast , 51-73.

--- (1986) 'Irish archaeology and philology, with the Greek and Roman record ', in eds. Evans, D. E. , Griffith ,]. G., and jope, E. M., Proc. 7th International Congress of Celtic Studies, Oxford 1983, Oxford, 278.

--- (1987) 'Archaeologists and Indo-Europeanists: can they mate? hindrances and hopes', in eds. Skomal, S. N., and Palome, E. C, Proto-Indo-European: the archaeology ofa linguistic problem-studies in honorofMarija Gimbutas, Washington, 203-215 .

Hodson, F. R. (1964) 'Cultural groupings in the British pre­Roman Iron Age' , Proc. Prehistoric Society, 30, 99-110.

Hull, V. (1931) 'De Gabail in t-Shida ', Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie, 19.1,53-58.

---(1932) 'The Milesian invasion ofIreland', Zeitschri!t fur celtische Philologie, 19.2 , 155-59.

jackson, K. H. (1964) The oldest Irish tradition: a window on the Iron Age, Cambridge .

Kelly, F. (1971) '01 claideb and its cognates', Eriu, 22,192-196.

--- (1988) A gUide to early Irish law, Dublin. Koch , ]. T. (1986a) '''Gallo-Brittonic'' vs. "Insular Celtic": the

Celtic family tree reconsidered', in eds. Evans, D. E., Griffith , ]. G., and jope, E. M., Proc. 7th International Congress of Celtic Studies, Oxford 1983, Oxford, 284.

--- (1986b) 'New thoughts on Albion, Ierne and the "Pretanic" Isles', Proc. Harvard Celtic colloquium, 6,1-28.

--- (1987) 'Llawren asseD(CA 932) "the laureate hero in the war-chariot": some recollections of the Iron Age in the Gododdin', Etudes Celtiques, 24, 253-278.

--- (1990a) '*Cothairche, Esposito's theory , and Neo-

J>MANIA 9, 1991

Celtic lenition', inedd. Bammesberger, A. , andA. Wollmann, Britain 400-600. language and history, Heidelberg, 179-202.

--- (1990b) '''Gallo-Brittonic'' vs. "Insular Celtic": the inter-relationships of the Celtic languages reconsidered', in ed. Le Menn, Gw., Melanges L. Fleuriot, forthcoming.

Longworth , 1. H.(1985) Prehistoric Britain, London. Lynch, A. (1980) 'Astronomical alignment or megalithic mud­

dle)', ed. D. 0' Comlin, Irish antiquity: essays and studies presented to Professor M. j. O'Kelly, Cork, 23-27.

Mac Cana P (1958) Branwen daughter of Llyr, Cardiff. Mac foin, G. S. (1986) The Celticity of Celtic Ireland', in ed.

Schmidt, K. H., History and culture ofthe Celts, Heidelberg, 161-174.

Mac Mathuna, S. (1985) Immram Brain, Bran 's journey to the Land of Women, Tubingen.

Mallory, ]. P. (1982) 'The sword of the Ulster Cycle', in ed . B. G. Scott, Studies in early Ireland: essays in honour ofM. V. Duignan, Belfast, 99-114.

--- (1984) 'The origins of the Irish', Journal of Irish Archaeology, 2, 65-69.

--- (1989) In search of the Indo-Europeans, London. o Daly, M. (1975) Cath Maige Mucrama, Irish Texts Society 50,

London. O'Kelly, M.]. (1989) Early Ireland, Cambridge . O'Rahilly, T. F. (1946) 'On the origin of the names Erainn and

Eriu', Eriu 14, 7-28. --- (1947) Early Irish History and Mythology, Dublin. Powell, T.G. E. (1958, rpt. 1980) The Celts, London. Renfrew, C. (1987) Archaeology and language: the puzzle of

Indo-European origins, Cambridge.

PAGE 27

---(1989) 'Models of change in language and archaeology', Transactions of the Philological Society, 87.2, 103-155.

Rivet, A. L F. , and Smith, C. (1979) The place-names of Roman Britain, Princeton.

Rowlands, M.]. (1980) 'Kinship, alliance , and exchange in the European Bronze Age', in eds. Barrett,]', and Bradley, R., Settlement and society in the British later Bronze Age, B.A.R. British series 83(i), Oxford, 15-56.

Scott, B. G. (l974a) 'Some notes on the transition from bronze to iron in Ireland', Irish archaeological Research Forum, 1.1 , 9-22.

--- (1974b) 'Reply to Warner', Irish Archaeological Re­search Forum, 1.2 , 48-50.

Thorn, A. (1967) Megalithic sites in Britain, Oxford. Thurneysen, R. (1894) Indogermanische Forschungen, 4, 84-

85 . Tierney,].]. (1960) The Celtic ethnography of Posidonius',

Proc. Royal Irish Academy, 60 C.5 , 189-275 . Waddell,]. (1978) The invasion hypothesis in Irish archaeol­

ogy', Antiquity, 52 , 121-128. Warner, R. (1974) 'The Irish bronze-iron transition: a pessi­

mistic view', Irish Archaeological Research Forum, 1.2, 45-47.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank John Carey, Patrick K. Ford, Eric Hamp, C. F. C. Hawkes, Maire Herbert, Peter McQuillan, William]. Mahon, James Mallory, Patrick Sims-Williams, and Calvert Watkins for their useful comments on an early version of this paper.