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PETER BERRESFORD ELLIS is one of the foremost living authorities on the Celts
and the author of many books in the field including The Celtic Empire (1990),
Celt and Saxon (1993), Celt and Greek (1997), Celt and Roman (1998) and The
Ancient World of the Celts (1998). Under the pseudonym Peter Tremayne he is
the author of the bestselling Sister Fidelma murder mysteries set in Ireland in the
7th Century.
Praise for the first edition, The Ancient World of the Celts
‘An authoritative account.’
Irish Times
‘A truly sumptuous publication . . . clearly-written.’
Elizabeth Sutherland, The Scots Magazine
‘[A] well-articulated insight into the world of the Celts. . . If there ever was a
truly thorough investigation into the Celts, then this is it.’
Adam Phillips, Aberdeen Press & Journal
‘A timely antidote to the pre-conceptions which have for so long hampered a
proper understanding and appreciation of Celtic society.’
George Children, 3rd Stone
‘A splendid new book for fans of all things Celtic, or anyone who wants to know
more about how they lived and why they were so successful across Europe. . . .
An excellent book for both reference and enjoyment.’
Gail Cooper, Evening Leader

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Constable & Robinson Ltd
3 The Lanchesters
162 Fulham Palace Road
London W6 9ER
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in hardback in the UK as The Ancient World of the Celts
by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 1998
This revised paperback edition published by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd 2003
Copyright © Peter Berresford Ellis 1998, 2003
The right of Peter Berresford Ellis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise,
be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it
is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN 1-84119-790-4
ISBN 978-1-84119-790-6
eISBN 978-1-47210-794-7
Printed and bound in the EU
10 9 8

CONTENTS
List of Illustrations
Map
Preface
1 The Origins of the Celts
2 An Illiterate Society?
3 Celtic Kings and Chieftains
4 The Druids
5 Celtic Warriors
6 Celtic Women
7 Celtic Farmers
8 Celtic Physicians
9 Celtic Cosmology
10 Celtic Road Builders
11 Celtic Artists and Craftsmen
12 Celtic Architecture
13 Celtic Religion
14 Celtic Myth and Legend
15 Early Celtic History
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Between pp. 76 and 77
2nd century BC silver horse harness found at the Villa Vecchia Manerbio
Cernunnos, the horned god, panel from the Gundestrup cauldron in the National
Museum, Copenhagen (Werner Forman Archive, London)
Celtic inscription from Gaul, 2nd/1st century BC (G. Dagli Orti, Paris)
Stylized head from the Hallstatt period, in the Keltenmuseum Hallein
(AKG/London, photo Erich Lessing)
Realistic head from the Le Tène period from the 3rd century BC, in the Musée
Granet Art (G. Dagli Orti, Paris)
A visualization of Caesar’s ‘wicker man’ from Aylett Sammes’ Britannia
Antiqua Illustrata, 1676 (E.T. Archive, London)
Celtic afterlife depicted on the Gundestrup cauldron in the National Museum,
Copenhagen (AKG/London, photo Erich Lessing)
Illustraion of a Druid from Costumes of the British Isles (1821), Meyrick and
Smith (E.T. Archive, London)
Bronze shield dating from the 1st century BC, British Museum, London (E.T.
Archive, London)
Celtic war helmet dating from the 1st century BC, British Museum, London
(Werner Forman Archive, London)
A female figure of the early Celtic period in the Museum in Este, (G. Dagli Orti,
Paris)
Bucket found at Aylesford, Kent dated to the 1st century BC, British Museum,
London (Werner Forman Archive, London)
Reconstruction of a typical Celtic farm building of the 1st century BC (Mick
Sharp Photography)

Horned helmeted figure holding a spoked wheel depicted on the Gundestrup
cauldron, National Museum, Copenhagen (AKG/ London, photo Erich Lessing)
The Corlea Road, a causeway across a bog in Co. Longford, dated to 148 BC
(Top, The Heritage Service, Dublin/Professor Barry Rafferty, University
College, Dublin)
Celtic coin dated to the 1st century BC, Musée de Rennes, Brittany (Werner
Forman Archive, London)
Between pp. 140 and 141
The Desborough Mirror (British Museum, London)
The Snettisham Torc (British Museum, London)
Flagon, one of a pair from Basse-Yutz in the Moselle, dated to the 5th century
(British Museum, London)
The broch of Carloway on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland (Ancient Art and
Architecture Collection, London)
Reconstruction of a ‘crannog’, Graggaunowen, Co. Clare (Bord Fáilte, Dublin)
Cernunnos, from the Gundestrup cauldron, National Museum, Copenhagen (E.T.
Archive, London)
Section of the Gundestrup cauldron depicting Danu, National Museum,
Copenhagen (Werner Forman Archive, London)
7th century BC bronze wheeled cauldron, Landesmuseum, Graz (AKG/London,
photo Erich Lessing)
Model ship from the 1st century, the National Museum of Ireland, Dublin
(Werner Forman Archive, London)
The Cerne Abbas Giant, Dorset (Fortean Picture Library, photo Janet Bord)
The Uffington White Horse (Images Picture Library, Charles Walker Collection)
Plate from the Gundestrup cauldron, National Museum, Copenhagen (G. Dagli
Orti, Paris)
Lindow Man (British Museum, London)

PREFACE
At the start of the first millennium BC, a civilisation which had developed from
its Indo-European roots around the headwaters of the Rhine, the Rhône and the
Danube suddenly erupted in all directions through Europe. Their advanced use
of metalwork, particularly their iron weapons, made them a powerful and
irresistible force. Greek merchants, first encountering them in the sixth century
BC, called them Keltoi and Galatai. Later, the Romans would echo these names
in Celtae, Galatae and Galli. Today we generally identify them as Celts.
The ancient Celts have been described as ‘the first Europeans’, the first
Transalpine civilisation to emerge into recorded history. At the height of their
greatest expansion, by the third century BC, they were spread from Ireland in the
west across Europe to the central plain of what is now Turkey in the east; they
were settled from Belgium in the north as far south as Cadiz in Spain and across
the Alps into the Po valley. They not only spread along the Danube valley but
Celtic settlements have been found in southern Poland, in Russia and the
Ukraine. Recent evidence has caused some academics to argue that the Celts
were also the ancestors of the Tocharian people, an Indo-European group who
settled in the Xinjiang province of China, north of Tibet. Tocharian written texts
survive from the eighth to ninth centuries AD.
That the Celts left a powerful military impression on the Greeks and Romans
there is little doubt. In 475 BC they defeated the armies of the Etruscan empire at
Ticino and took control throughout the Po valley; in 390 BC they defeated the
Romans and occupied the city for seven months – it took Rome fifty years to
recover from that devastating disaster; in 279 BC they invaded the Greek
peninsula, defeating every Greek army which was sent against them before
sacking the Greek holy sanctuary of Delphi and then returning back to the north.
Some of them crossed into Asia Minor and established a Celtic kingdom on what
is now the central plain of Turkey. So respectful of the Celts’ fighting ability
were the Greeks that they recruited Celtic units into their armies, from Epiros
and Syria to the Ptolemy pharaohs of Egypt. Even the fabulous Queen Cleopatra

had an élite bodyguard of 300 Celtic warriors which, on her defeat and death,
served the equally famous Herod the Great and attended his funeral obsequies in
4 BC. Hannibal used Celtic warriors as the mainstay of his army and, finally, after
the conquest of their ‘heartland’ Gaul, the Celts even served the armies of their
arch-enemy, Rome.
Yet warfare was not their only profession. They were basically farmers,
engaging in very advanced agricultural techniques whose methods impressed
Roman observers. Their medical knowledge was highly sophisticated,
particularly in the practice of surgery. As road builders they were also talented
and it was the Celts who cut the first roads through the previously impenetrable
forests of Europe. Most of the words connected with roads and transport in Latin
were, significantly, borrowed from the Celts. As for their art and craftsmanship,
in jewellery and design, they have left a breathtaking legacy for Europe. They
were undoubtedly the most exuberant of the ancient European visual artists,
whose genius is still valued and copied today; their masterpieces in metalwork,
monumental stone carvings, glassware and jewellery still provoke countless
well-attended exhibitions throughout the world.
Their philosophers and men of learning were highly regarded by the Greeks;
many of the Greek Alexandrian school accepted that early Greeks had borrowed
from the Celtic philosophers. Even some Romans, who could never forgive the
Celts for initially defeating them and occupying Rome, begrudgingly
acknowledged their learning. Their advanced calendrical computations, their
astronomy and ‘speculation from the stars’, also impressed the classical world.
The early Celts were prohibited by their religious precepts from committing
their learning to written form in their own language. In spite of this, there remain
some 500 textual inscriptions of varying lengths in Celtic languages dating from
between the fifth and first centuries BC. The Celts used the alphabets of the
Etruscans, Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans to make these records. Moreover,
many Celts adopted Greek and Latin as languages in which to achieve literary
fame; Caecilius Statius, for example, the chief Roman comic dramatist of the
second century BC, was an Insubrean Celtic warrior, taken prisoner and brought
to Rome as a slave.
The Celts produced historians, poets, playwrights and philosophers, all writing
in Latin. It was not until the Christian period that the Celts felt free enough to
write extensively in their own languages and then left an amazing literary wealth
with Irish taking its place as the third literary language of Europe, after Greek
and Latin. Irish, according to Professor Calvert Watkins of Harvard, contains the
oldest vernacular literature of Europe for, he points out, those writing in Latin
and Greek were usually writing in a language which was not a lingua materna, a

mother tongue, but a lingua franca, a common means of communication.
Thanks to the texts written by the Celts of Ireland and Wales, in particular, we
know the vibrant wealth of Celtic myth and legend, the stories of the ancient
gods and goddesses; by comparing these texts to the commentaries of the
classical writers we can even discover something of early Celtic philosophy.
It is humbling to know that this civilisation, with at least 3000 years of
cultural continuum, has not yet perished from Europe. There are still some two-
and-a-half millions who speak a Celtic language as a mother tongue. The Celtic
peoples survive in the north-west of Europe, confined now to the Irish, Manx
and Scots (Goidelic Celts) and the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons (Brythonic
Celts).
It is, however, the early Celtic world that this book is concerned with, the
period before the birth of Christ. In the following pages, the story of the origins
and ancient history of one of the greatest ancient peoples of Europe is revealed;
with the use of fresh materials which have been recently uncovered, a new
examination and understanding of a civilisation which has touched most of
Europe and, indeed, parts of the Middle East and North Africa, is presented. This
is a thematic survey of the visual wealth left to us by the Celts, as well as an
introduction to their colourful early history and fascinating culture.
*
Within a few months of the first publication of this book something of a mini-
storm broke out in which I, as the author, was involved. A group of
archaeologists claimed that ‘the ancient Celts did not exist!’ The claim was
dumbfounding to the world of Celtic scholarship. It had the same impact as if
someone entered a university Classics department and declared that the Ancient
Greeks had never existed.
The general public became aware of the furore when archaeologist Dr Simon
James published The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern Invention?
(1999). He argued that there was no evidence of Celtic peoples in Britain or
Ireland during the Iron Age and that the idea of an insular Celtic identity was but
a product of the rise of nationalism in the eighteenth century. Dr James, however,
was not the first to propound this view. It was a time when, significantly,
political devolution to Wales and Scotland was high on the Government’s agenda
and a resurgence of interest in matters Celtic was underway.
Dr John Collis, then at Sheffield, had already expressed himself ‘dissatisfied’
with using the term ‘Celtic’ to describe the Iron Age period in these islands.
When, in March 1997, the renowned Celtic art specialists, Ruth and Vincent

Megaw, published an academic paper in the journal Antiquity entitled ‘Ancient
Celts and modern ethnicity’ Collis replied that their definition of a Celtic society
was ‘both false and dangerous’. A few months later in the summer issue of the
British Museum Magazine, Dr James entered the argument in support of Dr
Collis in what looked like a complete turnaround from his previous position. Up
until then, Dr James appeared to have had no reservations about referring to the
existence of ‘Iron Age’ Celts (see his Exploring the World of the Celts, 1993, and
Britain and the Celtic Iron Age, with Valery Rigby, 1997). His ‘new’ approach
again appeared in a British Museum Magazine article – quoted in the London
Financial Times weekend section (14/15 June 1997) with a gleeful
announcement to the world: ‘The Celts – it was all just a myth!’. This he
followed with a fresh attack on Ruth and Vincent Megaw in the March 1998
edition of Antiquity.
At first, like many Celticists, I was of the opinion that if we ignored the
absurdity of the statement it would go away. It did not. The Independent
(London) asked me to write a brief rebuttal in its 5 January 1999 issue. But then
came Dr James’ new book The Atlantic Celts: Ancient People or Modern
Invention?, after which The Scotsman invited Dr James and myself to exchange
a series of written arguments, subsequently published as a full page feature, ‘The
Saturday Debate: The Celts: ancient culture or modern fabrication’ (27 March
1999). In the same year, a BBC radio programme invited us to ‘slug it out’ on the
airwaves, and the Irish Democrat asked me to write a piece – ‘Did the ancient
Celts exist?’
The reader will undoubtedly ask the question – how can so many books have
been written over the last century or two about a people who had not existed?
Had the world of scholarship had some mass hallucination?
Dr James’ main argument was that the term ‘Celtic’ should be abandoned
when referring to the ‘Iron Age’ in Britain and Ireland, for the reason that ‘no
one in Britain or Ireland called themselves “a Celt” before 1700’. Dr James also
maintained that there were no migrations to, or invasions of, the British Isles by
historically attested Celts from the continent.
In response, we can say equally that no one called themselves Anglo-Saxons
in the time when everyone accepts Anglo-Saxons existed. Furthermore, though
the ‘invasion’ theory – an explanation provided by archaeologists for bringing
the Celtic languages and cultures (such as Hallstatt and La Tène) to Britain –
may not have been proved, it remains true that something did bring Celtic
languages and cultures to the British Isles, and a movement of a few or many
people would explain how this could have happened in the days before mass
communication. A convincing example of movement implanting language was

provided by Eusebius Hieronymus (St Jerome, c.AD 342-420) when he identified
that the people of Galatia (central Turkey) were speaking the same Celtic dialect
as he had heard among the Treveri, at Trier, in what is now Germany. Settlers
had transplanted the Celtic language there in the third century BC. It is also
clearly the case that from the sixteenth century AD onwards, the English
language arrived in many lands across the globe by population movements both
large and small. Yet another example is provided by the archaeological,
linguistic and literary evidence of Belgic Celtic movements between Gaul and
Britain for some centuries prior to the arrival of the Romans. The main point is
that, although we cannot say for sure how such languages reached the British
Isles, what remains certain is that these languages were Celtic. And from the
inception of Celtic scholarship, the definition of ‘Celt’ is a people who speak, or
were known to have spoken within modern historical times, one of the languages
classified as the Celtic branch of Indo-European.
When the British Isles emerged into recorded history, becoming known to the
Mediterranean world in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, we have evidence that its
inhabitants spoke one or another form of a Celtic language – the insular Celtic
forms today represented by their modern descendants, Irish, Manx and Scottish
Gaelic and Welsh, Cornish and Breton. The evidence comes in the form of
names and words recorded in early references in the classical world and personal
names recorded on British coins issued in Britain long before Romans invaded
the island – facts that Dr James appears to dismiss. It is a telling truth that no
place name survives prior to the Celtic place names in the British Islands.
Professor Kenneth Jackson’s Language and History in Early Britain (Edinburgh
University Press, 1953) is the seminal guide to this topic and has been an
inspiration to a generation of Celtic scholars. This 752-page book sets out the
linguistic evidence for the existence of a Celtic language in ‘Iron Age’ Britain.
Another obvious piece of evidence comes directly from the writing of Julius
Caesar: ‘Qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur’ (‘In their own
language they are called Celts, in our tongue Gauls’). Clearly this contradicts the
idea propounded by Dr James that these people did not call themselves Celts
until the eighteenth century.
Writing on this point, Dr James states that while there were Celtic-speaking
peoples here in the Iron Age ‘they were not necessarily Celts’ [my italics] but
people who had somehow been absorbed into a Celtic-speaking cultural ethos.
My response to this is the reminder that Celtic is, and always has been, a
linguistic term and not a biological one. To talk of biological attributes and to try
and separate and identify individual ‘racial’ groups who, at this stage, shared a
common language and culture is dangerous.

If the logic of Dr James’ view were followed, it would be equally wrong to
talk of any ancient group of people by linguistic definition. Thus there would be
no Anglo-Saxons, no Slavs, no Latins and certainly no Greeks. In Iron Age
Britain we would have to become linguistically cumbersome in the extreme if
we went down such a path. We could not even speak of Ancient Britons, because
no one called himself or herself an ‘Ancient Briton’. We would have to be
specific and speak of the Cantii, Coritani, Cornovii and Trinovantes –
conveniently forgetting, by the way, that these are all Celtic names.
Dr James wrote to me: ‘I am being deliberately polemical . . . It is intended to
draw attention to the real discrepancies between the ideas of your field and mine.
My long-term hope is that this will help to precipitate genuine co-operative work
to seek synthesis.’
As it stands, that is a laudable aim. But Professor Barry Raftery, of University
College, Dublin, Ireland’s foremost archaeological authority on the Iron Age,
and Professor Barry Cunliffe, the leading archaeological expert on Britain’s Iron
Age, both in the same ‘field’ as Dr James, have dismissed the idea that the
ancient Celts did not exist and see the claim as simply ‘anti-Celtic revisionism’.
The people living in both islands during the Iron Age not only spoke Celtic
languages but also shared a common religious system, a mythology and cultural
expression – even a comparable law system. They were, by the only meaningful
scholastic definition, Celts.
In a strong attack on my arguments in the subsequent issue of the Irish
Democrat, Dr James, I believe, clearly demonstrated that he was indeed more
concerned with modern politics than the ancient Celtic civilisation. One of the
best studies on the background to the modern resurgence of the ‘Celtic idea’ had
just been published: Norman Davies’ The Isle: A History (Macmillan, 1999). Dr
Davies had succinctly discussed why, in an effort to rubbish the rise of modern
Celtic nationalism, some people might like to remove the Celts as an entity from
history.
As regards the Continental Celts, it took a little longer for the French to join
the revolt, but in 2002 Professor Christian Goudineau, a Professor at the College
de France, chairman of Antiquités Nationales and president of the Scientific
Council of Mont Beuvray, who had previously courted controversy as an
archaeologist, decided that the Gaulish Celts had not existed either. Julius Caesar
had it all wrong when he wrote his book Commentarii de bello Gallico
(Commentaries on the Gaulish War). Professor Goudineau’s views in his book
Par Toutatis! Que reste-t-il de la Gaule? were immediately seized on by The
Times (appropriately on 1 April) and The Independent (4 May), and several other
publications, who seemed more concerned to attack René Goscinny’s famous

cartoon character ‘Asterix the Gaul’ than to contribute to any serious historical
discussion.
Certainly, archaeologists, especially in television documentaries, in recent
years have resorted more and more to talking about the ‘Iron Age People’ in
Britain, Ireland and France. In April 2003 when the University of Leicester
announced the discovery of the hoard of Celtic coins minted by the Corieltauvi
long before the arrival of the Romans they decided to announce that ‘in excess of
3,000 silver and gold coins have been found, mostly made by the local Iron Age
tribe – the Corieltauvi’. That is sad for it does not inform people who this ‘Iron
Age tribe’ was, nor explain what language they spoke or what culture they
followed. ‘Do You Speak Iron Age?’ is a joke now often heard among Celtic
Studies students in modern universities.
That the Celts will weather this mini-storm, I have no doubt, as they have
weathered similar attempts to eradicate them from the historical map.
I am delighted that The Ancient World of the Celts is appearing in a new,
easily accessible edition in the Brief History Series. Such a general introduction
appears to be needed more than ever following their confused helter-skelter
descent into Iron Age People.
Peter Berresford Ellis, April 2003

1
THE ORIGINS OF THE CELTS
When the merchant-explorers of Greece first started to encounter the people
they came to refer to as Keltoi, at the start of the sixth century BC, the Celtic
peoples were already widely spread through Europe and still rapidly expanding.
It was Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 490–c. 425 BC) who says that a merchant
named Colaeus, from Samos, trading along the African coast about the year 630
BC, was driven off course in his ship by tides and winds and eventually made
landfall at the Tartessus, the modern River Guadalquivir in southern Spain. In
the valley of the Guadalquivir are the modern cities of Cordoba and Seville. At
Tartessus, Colaeus found a tribe of the Keltoi exploiting the rich silver mines of
the area.
About 600 BC merchants from Phocis, in central Greece, made a treaty with
these same Keltoi to trade goods for their silver. The king of these Keltoi was
named Arganthonios, which seems to derive from the Celtic word for silver,
arganto. Herodotus tells us that his name became a byword for longevity among
the Greeks for he reportedly died as late as 564 BC.
From where did the Greeks derive the name Keltoi? Julius Caesar gives the
answer at the beginning of his De Bello Gallico (Gallic War). He refers to the
Gauls as those ‘who are called Celts in their own language’. So, it appears, and
logically so, that Celt was a name that the Celts called themselves. If this is so,
what does the name mean?
Numerous doubtful etymologies have been put forward. One suggests an
Indo-European root quel, denoting ‘raised’ or ‘elevated’. This survives in the
Latin celsus and the Lithuanian kéltas, comparable to the old Irish word cléthe.
Thus it would be argued that the Celts described themselves as ‘exalted’,
‘elevated’ or ‘noble’. Another suggestion is the Indo-European root kel-, to
strike, surviving in the Latin -cello and the Lithuanian kalti. This seems just as
unlikely as the first suggestion. Henri Hubert suggested that it might be cognate
with the Sanskrit cárati, to surround, found in the old Irish imm-e-chella.
Of all the suggestions, perhaps the most acceptable so far has been that the
word derived from the Indo-European root kel- meaning ‘hidden’. This survived
in both old Irish as celim (I hide) and old Welsh, celaf. The Celts were ‘the

hidden people’, perhaps a reference to their religious proscription against setting
down their vast store of knowledge in written form in their own language. As
Caesar observed in his Gallic War: ‘The Druids believe that their religion forbids
them to commit their teachings to writing, although for most other purposes,
such as public and private accounts, the Celts use the Greek alphabet.’ In old,
and even in modern Irish, the word celt still exists for an act of ‘concealment’.
The word celt is also used for a form of dress or mantle, designed to ‘conceal’ or
‘hide’ the genitalia, which is now known in English as a kilt.
The various ancient names incorporating the word celt are probably names
identifying the person’s ethnic background although Professor Ellis Evans argues
they are more likely to be from the root kel-, to exalt. The father of
Vercingetorix, Celtillus, who held suzerainty over all the Gaulish tribes, might
well have been known as ‘exalted’ but in Irish mythology, the Ulster hero
Celtchair’s name is clearly shown to mean ‘mantle’ or ‘concealment’.
However, the fact that there were personal names incorporating the
synonymous terms ‘Celt’ and ‘Gaul’, in whatever form the Greeks and Romans
chose to present them, did lead to some confusion when the classical writers
tried to link the Celts into their own cultural concepts and creation myths.
Appian (Appianos of Alexandria who flourished c. AD 160) tried to explain the
origin and names of the Celts by writing about two kings called Keltos and Galas
who he said were the sons of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, and his wife Galatea. Of
course, the character of Galatea, whose name meant ‘milk white’ (from galakt,
the Greek word for milk), was used by Theocritus, Virgil and Ovid as the
eponymous ancestor of the Galatae. It is argued that she actually took her place
in Greek and Roman literature following the impression the Celts made on the
Greeks during their invasion and sack of Delphi. Greek writers frequently
remarked on the ‘milk white’ skin of the Celts.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus (fl. c. first century BC) records a story of Keltos
being the son of Heracles (Hercules) and Asterope, daughter of Atlas. Yet
another Greek, Diodorus Siculus (c. 60–c. 30 BC) made the Celts originate with
Galates, whose parents were Heracles and the daughter of a local king of Gaul.
I find that it is not stretching the imagination to suggest that when the Greek
merchants first started to encounter the Celtic peoples and asked them who they
were, the Celts simply replied, ‘the hidden people’ – that is, to Greek ears,
Keltoi.
As there is no documentary evidence about the Celts prior to these early
Greek writings, some scholars argue that it is not justifiable to speak of ‘Celts’
before the sixth century BC. Others argue that we can build a reasonable picture
of Celtic life during the first millennium BC by the use of comparative Indo-

European linguistics and archaeological evidence.
So, who were the Celts and where did they come from?
The first European people north of the Alps to emerge into recorded history,
the Celtic peoples were distinguished from their fellow Europeans by virtue of
the languages which they spoke and which we now identify by the term ‘Celtic’.
(The use of this term to identify this group of languages was only adopted with
the development of Celtic studies.) The Scot, George Buchanan (1506–1582),
was one of the first to recognise the relationship between the surviving Celtic
languages. By the time the Celtic peoples first appeared in written records, they
had already diversified into speaking differing dialects, so we may usefully
speak of the existence of several Celtic languages even though their speakers
retained common links in terms of social structure, religion and material culture.
These Celtic languages constituted an independent branch of the Indo-
European family of languages. The Indo-European family encompasses most of
the languages spoken in Europe, with a few notable exceptions such as Basque,
Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, and also includes the languages of Iran and
northern India. At some point in remote antiquity, there was a single parent
language which we call ‘Indo-European’ for want of a better designation. This
parent language, as its speakers began to migrate from where it was originally
spoken, diversified into dialects. These dialects then became the ancestors of the
present major European and North Indian language groups: Hellenic (Greek),
Italic (Latin or now the Romance languages), Celtic, Germanic, Slavonic, Baltic,
Indo-Iranian, Indo-Aryan (including Sanskrit), Armenian, Anatolian, Tocharian,
Hittite and so forth.
Even now there remain common forms of construction and vocabulary among
all the Indo-European languages which are not found in other languages. For
example, the word ‘name’ incorporates a very profound and ancient concept, and
it survives with hardly any change in the Indo-European languages. ‘Name’ in
English comes from the Anglo-Saxon nama; this is namn in Gothic; name in
German; noma in Frisian; nomen in Latin; namn in Norse; naam in Dutch;
onoma in Greek; namman in Sanskrit; aimn in Irish; anu in old Welsh but enw in
modern and so forth.
Other features common to the Indo-European group include a clear, formal
distinction of noun and verb, a basically inflective structure and decimal
numeration. An interesting example of the relationship between the Indo-
European languages can be seen in the cardinal numbers, one to ten. ‘One, two,
three’ sounds very similar to the Irish aon, dó, tri, the Welsh un, dau, tri, the
Greek énas, duo, treis, the Latin unus, duo, tres and the Russian odin, dva, tri.
But they bear no relation to the Basque bat, bi, hirur or the Finnish yksi, kaksi,

kolme, because those are not Indo-European languages.
The earliest Indo-European literatures are Hittite and classical Sanskrit. Hittite
writing emerged from 1900 BC and vanished around 1400 BC, surviving on
tablets written in cuneiform syllabics which were not deciphered until 1916. The
classical Sanskrit of the Vedas is of later origin, usually dated around 1000–500
BC.
Where was this parent language originally spoken and when did it begin to
break up? It is probable, but only probable, that the speakers of the parent tongue
originated somewhere between the Baltic and the Black Sea. It also seems
probable that the parent tongue was already breaking into dialects before the
waves of migrants carried it westward into Europe and eastward into Asia.
Although it is still a matter of argument among academics as to when this parent
language might have existed, most speculation puts the date at around the fourth
millennium BC.
Professor Myles Dillon was one of several Celtic scholars who argued that the
Celtic dialect, the ancestor of the Celtic languages, began to emerge from the
Indo-European parent about the start of the second millennium BC. What is
extraordinary are the close similarities that have survived between Irish and
Vedic Sanskrit, two cultures which developed thousands of miles apart over
thousands of years. When scholars seriously began to examine the Indo-
European connections in the nineteenth century they were amazed at how old
Irish and Sanskrit had apparently maintained close links with their Indo-
European parent. This applies not only in the field of linguistics but in law and
social custom, in mythology, in folk custom and in traditional musical form.
The following examples demonstrate the similarity of the language of the
Vedic Laws of Manu and that of the Irish legal texts, the Laws of the Fénechus,
more popularly known as the Brehon Laws:
Sanskrit Old Irish
arya (freeman) aire (noble)
naib (good) noeib (holy)
badhira (deaf) bodhar (deaf)
minda (physical defect) menda (a stammerer)
names (respect) nemed (respect/privilege)
raja (king) rí (king)
vid (knowledge) uid (knowledge)

Arya gives us the much misunderstood term Aryan; the old Irish noeib becomes
the modern Irish naomh, a saint; and the Irish bodhar (deaf) was borrowed into
eighteenth-century English as ‘bother’. To be ‘bothered’ is, literally, to be
deafened. Finally, the word vid, used not only for knowledge but for
understanding, is the root of Veda; the Vedas constitute the four most sacred
books of Hinduism – the Rig Veda, Yajur Veda, Sama Veda, Atharva Veda. The
same root can be seen in the name of the Celtic intellectual caste, the Druids –
i.e. dru-vid which some have argued meant ‘thorough knowledge’.
Unfortunately, no complete ‘creation’ myth of the Celts has survived. When
these myths came to be written down, in the insular Celtic languages of Irish and
Welsh, Christianity had taken a hold and the scribes bowdlerised the stories of
the gods and goddesses, thus obscuring their symbolism and significance. That
the Celts did have a vibrant and rich pre-Christian mythology, including a
creation myth, is seen not only in the Christianised stories but in the few
allusions in the classical writers. However, most of the classical writers tend, like
the Christians after them, to incorporate the Celtic myths and gods into their own
cultural ethos.
The fact is that many of the surviving Irish myths, and some of the Welsh
ones, show remarkable resemblances to the themes, stories and even names in
the sagas of the Indian Vedas. Once again, this demonstrates the amazing
conservatism of cultural tradition. By comparing these themes we find that
Danu, sometimes Anu in old Irish and Dôn in Welsh and also surviving in the
epigraphy of the Continental Celts, was the mother goddess. She was the ‘divine
waters’ which gushed to the earth in the time of primal chaos and nurtured Bíle
the sacred oak, from whom the gods and goddesses sprang. Her waters formed
the course of the Danuvius (Danube).
The story associated with the Danuvius, which is arguably the first great
Celtic sacred river, has similarities with myths about the Boyne, from the
goddess Boann, and the Shannon, from the goddess Sionan, in Ireland. More
important, it bears a close resemblance to the story of the Hindu goddess Ganga,
deity of the Ganges. Both Celts and Hindus worshipped in the sacred rivers and
made votive offerings there. In the Vedic myth of Danu, for she exists as a deity
in Hindu mythology as well, the goddess appears in the famous Deluge story
called ‘The Churning of the Ocean’.
Echoes of the Celtic creation myths survive in the Leabhar Gabhála which
tells how Bith, with his wife Birren, their daughter Cesara and her husband
Fintan, and their son Lara and his wife Balma, arrived in Ireland at the time of
the Deluge. But there are traces of other Deluge myths, including the Welsh
story of the overflowing of Llyon-Llion, the Lake of the Waves, from which

Dwyvan and Dwybach alone escaped by building Nefyed Nav Nevion, the
Welsh Ark. The Deluge was created by Addanc, a monster who dwelt in the
lake.
What is important about the creation or origin myths of the Celts is the fact
that, in the words of Caesar, ‘the Celts claim all to be descended from Dis-Pater,
declaring that this is the tradition preserved by the Druids’. Certainly, later Celtic
kings in Ireland claimed divine ancestry. However, Caesar uses the term applied
to the Roman god of wealth and of the underworld. This has caused confusion as
scholars attempt to search the Celtic pantheon for an equivalent.
In the Vedas, the sky god was called Dyaus and is recorded as the one who
stretched, or reached, forth a long hand to protect his people. This is cognate
with Deus in Latin, Dia in Irish and Devos in Slavonic. It means, significantly,
‘bright one’ and presumably denotes a sun deity. In the Vedas we find Dyaus was
called Dyaus-Pitir, Father Dyaus; in Greek this became Zeus, also a father god;
in Latin Dia became the word for ‘god’ while in the same word, altered into
Jove, we find Jovis-Pater, Father Jove. When Caesar talks of the Celtic Dis-Pater
he is not talking about the god of wealth and the underworld at all but the
equivalent to Jove. The Celtic Dis-Pater emerges in Irish references to Ollathair,
the All-Father god. He is the sky god; Lugh is often given this role in Irish while
Lleu is also found in Welsh. Significantly, the name again means ‘bright one’ as
it does in Sanskrit. More importantly, the Irish god is Lugh Lamhfhada (Lugh of
the Long Hand) while his Welsh counterpart is Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Llew of the
Skilful Hand).
So, if we accept the classical writers, the ancient Celts believed that they were
physically descended from the sky god who himself was descended from Danu,
the ‘divine waters’.
But now we must come back to a more temporal point of origin for the Celtic
peoples.
Archaeology combines with documentary and linguistic evidence to show that
the Celtic peoples began to appear as a distinctive culture in the area of the
headwaters of the Danube, the Rhine and the Rhône, that is Switzerland and
south-west Germany.
The documentary evidence begins with Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 500–476 BC)
and with Herodotus of Halicarnassus, whom we have already mentioned. Many
later commentators, including Romanised Celts themselves, confirmed this.
Herodotus mentioned that ‘the Danube traverses the whole of Europe, rising
among the Celts . . .’ But he incurred the ridicule of modern scholars by adding
that the Celts ‘dwell beyond the Pillars of Hercules, being neighbours of the
Cynesii, who are the westernmost of all nations inhabiting Europe’. Perhaps he,

or his copyists, left out the magic word ‘also’, for the Celts, when he was
writing, dwelt not only at the headwaters of the Danube but at the Tartessus in
southern Spain.
Place-names in Switzerland and southern Germany provide linguistic
evidence; even today, rivers, mountains, woodland and some of the towns still
retain their original Celtic names, including the three great rivers themselves.
The Danube or Danuvius was named after the Celtic mother goddess, Danu. The
Rhône, first recorded as Rhodanus, also incorporates the name of the goddess
prefixed by the Celtic ro, great (there is also a Rodanus which is an affluence of
the Moselle). And the Rhine was originally recorded as Rhenus, a Celtic word
for a sea way found in the old Irish rian.
Dr Henri Hubert, in the 1930s, argued that the survival of so many Celtic
place-names for so long after Celtic-speaking peoples had ceased to live in the
area pointed to the names being of indigenous form and of long usage.
There is strong reason for believing that the names are aboriginal, or, at least,
very ancient, since there are so many names of rivers and mountains among
them. We know that such names are almost rare in Gaul. Many names of
French rivers and mountains come from the Ligurians, if not from still further
back. Now the names given to the land and its natural features are the most
enduring of place-names. The first occupants of a country always pass them
on to their successor.
Support for Dr Hubert’s argument comes easily to the English reader.
Although the English started to settle in south-eastern Britain, that area which
became England, from the fifth century AD, driving out the Celtic population,
they adopted many of the original Celtic place-names: names of rivers and
streams such as Aire, Avon, Axe, Dee, Darwent, Dart, Derwent, Don, Esk, Exe,
Ouse, Severn, Stour, Tees, Thames, Trent, Wye; names of hills and forests such
as Barr, Brent, Cannock, Chevin, Creech, Crich, Crick, Lydeard, Malvern,
Mellor, Penn, Pennard; names even of towns such as London, Carlisle, Dover,
Dunwich, Lympne, Penkridge, Reculver, York, and of areas such as Kent,
Thanet, Wight, Craven, Elmet, Leeds.
The large number of Celtic place-names still surviving in Switzerland and
south-west Germany are therefore an indication that when the Celtic peoples
appear in historical record they were already well settled in this area.
The third source of evidence for the origin of the Celts is archaeological. In
terms of artefacts, patterns of settlement and land use and so forth,
archaeologists have identified two distinct periods of Celtic culture emerging in

this region; one is called Hallstatt and the other La Tène.
According to archaeological evidence, the Celtic peoples descend from a
mixture of the Bronze Age Tumulus culture (c. 1550–1250 BC) and the Urnfield
culture (c. 1200 BC). Drs Jacquetta and Christopher Hawkes, in the 1940s, first
described these cultures as ‘proto-Celtic’. Dr John X.W.P. Corcoran, in his essay
‘The Origin of the Celts’, agreed that the Urnfield culture may, indeed, be
identified with the early Celts as there was little to distinguish these people from
their descendants of the Hallstatt culture, other than the latter’s use of iron.
Archaeologists now date the Hallstatt culture from 1200 BC to 475 BC.
Previously, they dated it from 750 BC but new finds have made them revise their
dating. The fully developed Celtic culture was identified as an iron-using
economy and named after one of the first sites to be distinguished at Lake
Hallstatt in the Salzkammergut in Upper Austria. The culture was identified by a
mainly geometric-based art which evolved from its Urnfield antecedents.
Examples were found in a series of graves of ‘princes’, who were laid out on
four-wheeled wagons with splendidly decorated yokes and harnesses. The graves
were in spacious chambers beneath a mound or barrow. The wagons and chariots
demonstrated the use of an advanced technology, which implied an equally
sophisticated knowledge of road construction.
These people knew about iron-smelting and the use of other metal. Iron tools
and weapons rendered the Celts superior to their neighbours and were doubtless
the basis of their sudden eruption throughout Europe at the beginning of the first
millennium BC. The archaeological evidence also shows that the Celtic peoples
from this area were developing a trade with the Mediterranean world; artefacts
from Greece, Etruria and Carthage have been found in these tombs. Roman
civilisation had not begun when many of these ‘princes’ were laid to rest in their
splendid tombs.
The Hallstatt period eventually ended in the emergence of a new culture,
which archaeologists call La Tène after discoveries made in the shallows at the
north-eastern end of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland. This appears to have been a
place of Celtic worship where countless artefacts were cast into the water as
votive offerings. The La Tène period, from the fifth century to the first century
BC, saw the emergence of new decorative art forms, and of fast two-wheeled
chariots and other transport innovations. Living standards now seemed
exceptionally high throughout the Celtic world. The Celts were first and
foremost skilled farmers, both agricultural and pastoral, whose economy was
based on their produce and livestock. The development of irrigation systems
along the Po valley, where they had settled, demonstrated considerable
engineering ability. This is also seen in their road-building and transport systems.

They mined salt, a highly important product. They expanded to exploiting the
natural resources of their land, including gold, silver, tin, lead and iron. Their
craftsmen were second to none, manufacturing high quality tools and weapons,
household goods and ornaments for personal adornment. They built their
structures mainly in wood, which has not lasted – although where they chose to
build in stone, mainly in Ireland and Britain, there is evidence that they were no
inferior craftsmen.
They were also open to trade, their goods providing them with strong
purchasing power for those luxury goods that the Mediterranean climate of
Greece and Italy produced more easily than the harsher climates of the north.
Celtic society was more wealthy and stable than the classical writers would
allow.
The Celts were divided into tribes ruled by kings; over-kings had power over
several tribes. To speak of ‘tribes’ can give a wrong picture to our modern
minds. These Celtic tribes could be as small as 20,000 strong or as large as
250,000. Caesar records that the Helvetii on their migration into Gaul numbered
263,000. Often these tribes formed great coalitions, like the Belgae and the
Brigantes.
Celtic tribal rulers introduced the idea of coinage slightly in advance of Rome,
albeit based on their contacts with Greece, at the end of the fourth century BC.
The coins were cast in gold, silver or bronze in moulds of clay which had been
prepared to give pieces of exactly equal weight. These pieces were then
hammered between two stamps with amazing designs that were probably of
mythological or religious significance.
The La Tène period was one in which the Celtic peoples achieved their
greatest expansion. From their original homeland, speakers of Celtic languages
moved across the Alps into the Po valley by the seventh century BC, defeating
the armies of the Etruscan empire and pushing them back south of the
Apennines. Later, the Celtic Senones, a tribe whose name seems to mean ‘the
veterans’, would cross the Apennines and defeat the Roman legions, occupying
Rome for seven months before settling on the eastern seaboard of Italy then
called Picenum.
Celtic-speaking peoples were already in the Iberian peninsula (Spain and
Portugal), settling there from about the ninth century BC. They had reached
Ireland and Britain soon after, if not before. They were settled from what is now
modern Belgium (still bearing the name of the Belgae) south through modern
France which was known as the land of the Galli (Gaul). About the seventh or
sixth centuries BC, Celtic-speaking tribes moved relentlessly eastwards along the
Danube valley establishing themselves in what are now the Czech and Slovak

states – Bohemia was named after the Celtic tribe the Boii; they settled in Illyria
(through the Balkans) and reached as far as the Black Sea. For some time they
were the ruling class of Thrace. They moved into the Greek states but did not
stop, carrying on eastwards into Asia Minor. The state they established on the
central plain of what is now Turkey, Galatia, provided the ancient world with
clear evidence of how a Celtic state was governed. Individual bands of Celtic
mercenaries and their families went to serve the rulers of, and to settle in, Syria
of the Selucid kings, Israel of Herod the Great, Egypt of the Ptolemy pharaohs
and Carthage until its defeat by Rome.
They had covered a vast territory. Ephoros of Cyme (c. 405–330 BC) described
the Celts as occupying an area the size of the Indian sub-continent – a fact which
his fellow Greek Strabo (64 BC–after AD 24), from Amasia, in Pontus,
questioned. However, Professor David Rankin has pointed out that Ephoros was
not far wrong.
The second and first centuries BC saw the start of the inexorable recession of
their borders in the face of the growth of the Roman empire and the Germanic
and Slavic migrations. Inevitably, the conquerors then wrote the history books
and, lacking balance from a strong native literature prior to the Christian era, the
Celts have been painted as war like, flamboyant, given to an excess in alcohol
and food and hardly more than high-spirited children needing the more civilising
hand of Rome and the Germanic heirs of the Roman imperial ethic. As is always
the way of conquerors, the peoples they seek to conquer are denigrated and
painted in the worst possible light.
Of the classical writers, whose words many seem to accept without question,
only the Greeks, with the exception of those Greeks in Roman employment,
tended to be unbiased commentators on the Celtic world. The Romans and their
allies usually had their own agenda. Julius Caesar, for example, whose work is
often quoted as a great authority to be accepted without argument, was, after all,
a Roman soldier with political ambition; a general who had set out to bring the
entire Celtic world crushed under the heel of the Roman empire for his own
political aggrandisement.
Many scholars seem to regard Caesar as if he was an expert who had spent his
life studying the language and sociology of the peoples he was fighting against.
Those same scholars would probably be the first to quibble at the suggestion that
Lieutenant General Frederick, Lord Chelmsford be deemed an expert on Zulu
culture because he campaigned against them in 1879. Yet time apparently alters
all things. Caesar, with his prejudices, his attempts at justification and his
downright inaccuracies, becomes an inviolable authority. Virgil says in his
Eclogues that ‘time bears away all things, even the mind’. Certainly there seems

an unwillingness to question the words of classical commentators on the Celts,
simply because they were written 2000 years ago and more. Time has borne the
mind away so far as open-minded discussion of source and bias is concerned.
Since Rome’s conquest of the Celtic world, the picture that has been conjured
is that of wandering hordes of Celtic warriors, brightly clothed or without any
clothes at all, raiding the ‘civilised’ centres of Rome and Greece without
provocation, drunken, ruthless, bloodthirsty, searching for plunder. It is an image
that is no longer acceptable, as the following pages will demonstrate.

2
AN ILLITERATE SOCIETY?
In 1970 a reviewer for The Times of London, writing about an exhibition of
early Celtic art at the Royal Scottish Museum and subsequently at London’s
Hayward Gallery, commented: ‘Little definite is known about the Celtic peoples
because they left no written records.’ It was the one occasion where the current
author wrote an indignant letter to The Times correcting the statement. Even if
the reviewer had been speaking merely of the ancient Celts, he would have been
in error. One of the great ‘myths’ about the Celtic peoples is that they were an
‘illiterate’ society.
In support of this idea that the Celts were illiterate, a passage from Julius
Caesar is usually cited. What the Roman general actually wrote was:
The Druids believe that their religion forbids them to commit their teachings
to writing, although for most other purposes, such as public and private
accounts, the Gauls use the Greek alphabet. But I imagine that this rule was
originally established for other reasons – because they did not want their
doctrine to become public property, and in order to prevent their pupils from
relying on the written word and neglecting to train their memories; for it is
usually found that when people have the help of texts, they are less diligent in
learning by heart, and let their memories rust.
When this text is read carefully, one can see that what Caesar is saying is that
while the Celts did not write native books of philosophy, history and such, the
Celts were literate, with the Gauls, in particular, using the Greek alphabet.
Archaeology has demonstrated that the Celts also used other alphabets to write
their various dialects in. They used Phoenician (Iberian), Etruscan, Greek and
Latin letters and sometimes combinations of all, depending on the area the texts

came from. In fact, to date, we have some 500 Celtic inscriptions and pieces of
textual evidence from a period dating between the sixth and first centuries BC.
New Celtic textual discoveries have become frequent in recent years.
The earliest Celtic inscriptions occur in the Etruscan alphabet. The Etruscans
had learnt the art of writing by the mid-seventh century BC and there are about
10,000 examples of Etruscan writing which survive. None of the Etruscan
inscriptions or texts have so far been interpreted because it is not an identifiable
Indo-European language nor can a cognate language be found which might
present a clue to interpretation. However, using the Etruscan alphabet, the oldest
inscriptive monuments fashioned by the Celts are dated to around the end of the
sixth century BC.
Some thirty-three early inscriptions were found between the Rivers Ticino and
Adda, tributaries of the Po. After Sir John Rhys’ work on these inscriptions,
some Celtic scholars became dubious about their authenticity until it was
realised that Celtic was not one homogeneous language but that there were
dialect differences between these inscriptions and other written Celtic remains.
There are a further two inscriptions found engraved on war helmets discovered
in 1912 at Negau, Lower Styria, not far from Marburg on the Drave, which are
proper Celtic names engraved in Etruscan letters. These are also dated to the
sixth century BC.
As Latin influences began to penetrate the area there was a change from
Etruscan lettering to Latin characters. Graffiti on pottery, manufacturers’ names
and marks, and funereal inscriptions show that the Celts were far from illiterate.
One funereal inscription at Todi was actually bilingual in Celtic and Latin.
There are around sixty inscriptions from southern Gaul, some dated to the
third century BC. Inscriptions using Greek characters seem to have been more
popular here at this period before Rome had penetrated into the area. Over
twenty more inscriptions using the Latin alphabet, including potters’ records, as
well as texts, have been found north of Narbonensis, notably the Coligny
Calendar and the graffiti from La Graufesneque in the Cévennes. The La
Graufesneque graffiti were found in 1901 and date back to the first century AD.
The words are carved into fragments of burnt clay in a cursive Latin script.
Perhaps one of the most fascinating is a text found in 1887 at Rom (Deux-
Sèvres) on a thin lead plate in Latin script dated to around the end of the first
century BC, which is a poetic dedication to the Celtic horse goddess, Epona. Dr
Garrett Olmsted, who has made the most recent translation of the inscription,
comments that the closest example to the Rom inscription is a Vedic hymn to
Indra, demonstrating yet again the common Indo-European root of the Celtic and
Sanskrit traditions.

The text, as Dr Olmsted gives it in translation, reads:
It was set up for you, Sacred Mother. It was set out for you, Atanta.
This sacrificial animal was purchased for you, horse goddess, Eponina.
So that it might satisfy, horse goddess Potia; we pay you, Atanta, so that you
are satisfied; we dedicate it to you.
By this sacrificial animal, swift Ipona, with a filly, goddess Epotia, for a
propitious lustration they bind you, Catona of battle, with a filly, for the
cleansing of riding horses which they cleanse for you, Dibonia.
This swift mare, this cauldron, this smith-work, beside fat and this cauldron,
mind you, moreover with a filly, Epotia, noble and good Vovesia.
The poet here is using various synonyms for Epona in his invocation of her.
The other corpus of textual evidence comes from the Iberian Celts, notably
from northern Spain in the area between Saragossa and Burgos, and includes
some of our lengthiest texts in Celtic languages. Notable among them was a text
found in 1908 at Peñalba de Villastar, in the Spanish province of Tereul, where
an inscription was found carved in Latin letters dated to the first century BC; it
seemed to be a Celtiberian votive offering to the god Lugus. A similar
inscription was found at Luzaga (Guadalajara).
My argument that the Celts were not an illiterate society – if we take illiteracy
to signify merely ignorance of letters or literature, for one must not forget that
they had a very sophisticated oral tradition as most ancient societies had – has
been endorsed several times since 1970. An excavation at Botorrita, 20
kilometres south of Saragossa, the ancient site of Contrebia Belaisca, revealed a
bronze tablet some 40 centimetres by 10 centimetres, inscribed in Celtiberian,
using a variant Iberian script. This dated from the second century BC. The 200-
word text gave instructions relating to a Celtic ritual, and is now in the
Archaeological Museum in Saragossa. In the early 1990s another long text in
Celtiberian was discovered at the same site at Botorrita.
Through 1968–1971 at Chamalières, south-west of Clermont-Ferrand, a
Gallo-Roman sanctuary was excavated. The sanctuary was the source of two
natural springs where several thousand wooden votive gifts were found. In
January 1971, a lead tablet was discovered there inscribed in Gaulish and dated
to the second half of the first century BC, or early first century AD. It was an
appeal to the god Maponus for protection and consisted of 336 letters, one of the
longest Gaulish Celtic texts. Maponus was the ‘Divine Son’ whose cult is also
found in Britain and who may be equated with Mabon in the tale of Culhwch
and Olwen.

In August 1983, at l’Hospitalet-du-Larzac, 14 kilometres south of La
Graufesneque, another lead tablet was found inscribed with a text amounting to
160 words which seemed to be another invocation to the deities.
The exact number of texts found in Eastern Europe and Galatia has not been
calculated – nor have they yet been evaluated from a linguistic point of view –
although we are speaking of perhaps one hundred or more. Celtic coins also
supply a rich field of personal names from which we may learn word roots and
sound values. Then there is the insular Celtic textual evidence.
To put the earliest Celtic inscriptional remains in context we should point out
that the earliest Latin inscriptional remains are almost contemporary, dating from
the beginning of the sixth century BC. There is an inscription in stone, the Lapis
Niger, from the Forum and an inscription on a fibula giving a manufacturer’s
name. However, it is difficult to find many Latin inscriptions prior to the third
century BC. For the Romans, Greek was the language of learning until the third
century BC when a Latin literature began to take shape with the works of poets
such as Gnaeus Naevius (c. 270–190 BC) and Quintus Ennius (239–169 BC), both
of whom were from the Greek areas of southern Italy. But soon a ‘Celtic school’
of writers emerged, usually Celts from Cisalpine Gaul, northern Italy, who
adopted Latin as a lingua franca to write in rather than writing in their mother
tongue. Caecilius Statius, a young Insubrean warrior captured at the battle of
Telamon in 225 BC and taken as a slave to Rome, earned his freedom and
became Rome’s leading comic dramatist. The titles of forty-two of his works are
known.
Many of the writers we now think of as ‘Roman’ were in fact Celts using the
imperial language instead of their mother tongue. H.W. Garrod, in his
introduction to the Oxford Book of Latin Verse (1912), was one of the first to
point out that Cisalpine Gaul had become the home of a vigorous school of poets
with a common quality which could be identified as Celtic.
This school of Celtic writers was not confined to the Celts from the Po valley,
the first to be conquered by the Roman empire and ‘Latinised’. Throughout the
Celtic world, by virtue of the spread of the Roman empire in its military form
and then in its Christian form, Celts adopted Latin as their lingua franca. Their
work included not only poetry but also history, biography and philosophy.
However, the bulk of Celtic learning, story-telling and history was to remain
an oral tradition until the start of the Christian era, which is when Irish took its
place as Europe’s third-oldest literary language after Greek and Latin. The
written language emerged in two phases. The first was the development of a
native Irish alphabet – Ogam. This was named after Ogma, the god of eloquence
and literacy, who was also known to the British and the Continental Celts as

Ogmios.
Ogam is frequently mentioned in the myths and sagas. It is an alphabet of
short lines drawn to meet or cross a base line, originally using twenty characters.
The language it represents is archaic; most of the surviving inscriptions date
from the fourth to sixth centuries AD and are on stone. There are some 370
inscriptions, the bulk surviving in Ireland but with a few in Wales, Scotland, the
Isle of Man and Cornwall. Some of them are bilingual with Latin. Of these
inscriptions, the greater number are concentrated in south-west Munster,
particularly Co. Kerry, and have been argued to be a creation of the Munster
poets.
From later Irish texts in Latin script we hear that in earlier times Ogam was
used to write ancient stories and sagas; it was incised on bark or wands of hazel
and aspen. These ‘rods of the Filí’ (poets) were kept in libraries or Tech Screptra.
We have evidence of this from Aethicus of Istria, who wrote a Cosmography,
used by Orosius Paulus in his History Against the Pagans, composed in seven
books in AD 417. Aethicus reports that he sailed to Ireland and spent time there
examining their books which he calls ideomchos, implying that they were
particular to Ireland and strange to him. Aethicus could well have been
examining these Ogam-incised ‘wands’, which was how the Chinese originally
recorded their literature. However, while we have numerous references to their
existence, it is only the Ogam-inscribed stones that have survived.
A clue to what happened to these early Irish books can be found in the
Leabhar Buidhe Lecain (Yellow Book of Lecan) compiled about 1400 by Giolla
Iosa Mór Mac Firbis, a work containing copies of many early texts, even one
dating from the fifth century BC. This text, written by Benignus, mentions that
Patrick, in his missionary zeal, burnt 180 books of the Druids. The Irish
Christian sources are all fairly clear that books existed in Ireland before the
coming of Christianity.
However, Irish literature began to emerge from the sixth century AD. The
flowering of Irish literature demonstrated that it was the result of a lengthy
period of a sophisticated oral tradition. While the literary language was
flourishing from this period, the oldest surviving complete manuscript books
which provide sources for Irish mythology, history and many other matters only
begin to date from the twelfth century AD, though there are many fragmentary
texts from earlier periods. One of the earliest is Leabhar na hUidre (Book of the
Dun Cow) compiled in AD 1106. Leabhar Laignech (Book of Leinster) was
compiled around AD 1150 at the same time as another book known simply as
Rawlinson Manuscript B 502 (see Chapter 14).
The wealth of Irish literary material is tremendous, reaching a great

outpouring in late medieval times before the start of the English conquest and
the systematic destruction of the language and libraries. The great Celtic
illuminated Gospel books, produced during the seventh to tenth centuries AD,
have been acknowledged to comprise one of the peaks of European artistic
creation. Around thirty are known to have survived. Judging by these, what was
destroyed must have been an awesome treasure.
To put the Irish survivals in context, it is worth pointing out that the earliest
surviving copies of Julius Caesar’s famous De Bello Gallico date only from the
ninth century AD.
Literature in Welsh followed the Irish, with manuscripts surviving from the
ninth century AD, although material written as early as the sixth century AD is
copied. Welsh was certainly flourishing as a literary language by the eighth
century AD but, apart from the fragmentary remains, the oldest book entirely in
Welsh is the Llfyr Du Caerfyrddin (Black Book of Carmarthen) dated to the
twelfth century.
Survivals in the other insular Celtic languages, Scottish Gaelic, Manx,
Cornish and Breton, are of a much later period.
The literatures of Irish and Welsh also contain two complete Celtic law
systems, which enable us to make many conjectures about the early social
systems of the Celts. The Laws of the Fénechus (free land tillers) of Ireland are
more popularly called the Brehon Laws, from breaitheamh, a judge. They are
obviously the result of many centuries of oral transmission. The earliest
complete copy of these laws is found in the Book of the Dun Cow, and several
fragmentary texts have survived. The first known codification was made in AD
438 when King Laoghaire of Tara established a nine-man commission to
examine the laws, revise them and set them down in writing. St Patrick was one
of three clerics who served on this commission with three judges and three
kings. Tradition has it that the laws were first given to the Irish by King Ollamh
Fodhla in the eighth century BC.
Many of the early Norman and English settlers found the Brehon Laws more
equitable than those of England and adopted them. It was not until the
seventeenth century that the law system was finally smashed by the colonial
administration.
The Brehon Laws show fascinating parallels with the Vedic Laws of Manu in
India, which are echoed in the Welsh law system, the Laws of Hywel Dda.
Hywel Dda (Hywel the Good) was Hywel ap Cadell who ruled Wales about AD
910–950. He decreed that the laws of Wales be gathered and examined by an
assembly presided over by Blegwywrd, archdeacon of Llandaff. The revised
laws were then set down in writing. The laws survive in some seventy

manuscripts of which only half predate the sixteenth century.
Another fascinating aspect of the Irish literary treasures is the fact that
although the oldest surviving medical books in the language date from the early
fourteenth century, they constituted the largest collection of medical manuscript
literature, prior to 1800, surviving in any one language. This confirms the
reputation of the Irish medical schools, which were famous during the Dark
Ages, and also underlines the classical writers’ references to the advances of
Celtic medicine and the archaeological finds which support this.
Early Irish texts on cosmology are now coming to light in many European
repositories, forgotten for centuries. These confirm that the Irish shared many
perceptions of the world and cosmology with the Vedic writers. The Coligny
Calendar had long demonstrated that this was so among the Continental Celts.
One other set of literary remains from Ireland deserves brief attention. From
the seventh century there survive the genealogies of the Irish kings and
chieftains stretching back to the mists of time. The main bulk of the surviving
early genealogies dates from the twelfth century, although quoting from the
earlier texts, and includes one of the most unusual works in early European
literature – the Banshenchas, a work of the lore of women’s genealogies. These
pedigrees trace the lines of the Irish kings back to 1015 BC.
We can see, then, that, whatever other accusation might be levelled against the
ancient Celts, they were certainly not an illiterate society. Bards, story-tellers,
historians, poets, genealogists and law-givers had a special place in the ancient
Celtic world. This fact is commented on by the classical writers, and is
confirmed in the Brehon Laws of Ireland where, under the etiquette of the Gaelic
court, the Ollamhs, or professors, took precedence immediately after the princes
of the blood royal and before chieftains and territorial lords. The Ollamhs were
allowed to wear six colours at court whereas chieftains were restricted to five.
The Chief Ollamh, or Druid, was even allowed to speak at the assembly before
the High King. The ancient Celts clearly accorded learning special respect and
reverence. The popular Roman view of the ancient Celts as ‘savage’ and
‘barbarian’ failed to recognise the reality of their society. It is fitting that we end
our survey on Celtic literacy with a comment of Joseph Cooper Walker from his
Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1768): ‘Can that nation be deemed
barbarous in which learning shared the next honours to royalty?’

3
CELTIC KINGS AND CHIEFTAINS
By the time the first identifiable Celtic culture emerged, the Hallstatt period, the
Celts were ruled by kings who were immensely rich; they lived in magnificent
fortresses and were buried in great tombs, timber-lined and often of oak wood,
under large barrows, with splendid grave goods to assist them in the Otherworld.
The rulers of this society were buried with their chariots, wagons, personal
ornaments and jewellery, and utensils containing food and drink. The poorer
classes continued to be buried in simple cremation graves as they had been
during the Urnfield period.
Like most early Indo-European peoples, early Celtic society was based on a
caste system. At the bottom end there were the menials and producers equivalent
to the sudra and the vaishya in Hindu society. Next came the warrior caste,
equivalent to the Hindu kshatriya. Then came the intellectual caste, which
included all the ‘professional’ functions – judges, lawyers, doctors, historians,
bards and priests of religion, the Druids. These were equivalent to the Hindu
Brahmin. Similar caste divisions are found in Greek and Roman society.
When we get our first glimpse of Irish society, the Celtic structure had not
greatly changed. There was a menial caste which was divided into several sub-
classes ranging from prisoners to herdsmen and house servants. The ceile was
the producer, the basis of the entire society. Above them came the warriors and
nobles, the flaith, often coming under the title of aire (noble), which is cognate
with the Sanskrit word arya, freeman. Then came the professional class,
originally the Druids.
At the top of society, among both the ancient Celts on the Continent and the
later insular Celts, there came the kings and queens; indeed, there was a whole
range of kings from minor kings who paid allegiance to more powerful kings, to
over-kings or high kings.
The word for a king in the Celtic group of languages was rix, in Gaulish,
cognate with the word for king in other Indo-European languages: rajan in
Sanskrit (hence Hindi, raj), rex in Latin and so forth. Now this concept of
kingship in Indo-European meant one who stretched or reached out his hand to
protect his people. The very word for king also meant an act of stretching or

reaching. In old Irish, for example, rige was not simply kingship but was the act
of reaching. In modern Irish righ still means ‘to stretch’. The same idea can be
seen, albeit a little in disguise, in Latin – porrigo, to stretch or reach. It is a
compound of pro and rego, to guide, direct, govern or rule. In modern English
the very word ‘reach’ is of the same root. Indeed, the word ‘rich’ in English, and
in most of the Germanic languages as well as French from the Germanic
Frankish, also comes from the root word for ‘exalted, noble and kingly’.
Gods with ‘long hands’, such as Lugh Lamhfhada in Ireland and Dyaus in
Vedic literature, are symbolic of the concept of royalty. In the old Irish king lists
we find that Oenghus Olmuchada of the Long Hand is recorded as ruling in
Ireland in 800 BC. Indeed, one of the most notable modern symbols in recent
years has been the ‘Red Hand’ of Ulster. Today it is viewed as the rather
threatening symbol of the Ulster ‘Loyalist’ planter tradition. In fact it goes back
long before their adoption of it for it was the heraldic badge of the Uí Néill
dynasty, the symbol of the Celtic Kings of Ulster. It appears on the seal of Aedh
O Néill, King of Ulster in 1334–1364. The Uí Néill dynasty would rush on their
foes with the war-cry: ‘Leamh Dearg Abu!’ (The Red Hand forever!) In
medieval times their armoured warriors wore a Red Hand badge, and examples
have been found from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, the
symbolism goes even further back, to the tradition of the Milesian invasion.
Eremon, son of Golamh, or Míle Espain, the progenitor of the Gaels, had taken
an oath that, out of his siblings, he would be the first to land on the shores of
Éireann. When he saw that his ship was not going to be first, he cut off his hand
and threw it on shore. In this legend, we find an echo of the symbolism of the
reaching out of the hand. Eremon, in spite of his brother Eber’s claims, became,
according to the Druid Amairgen, the first high king of Ireland.
Rí and rigan remain in the Goidelic languages as words for king and queen,
but in Welsh the word for king has changed to brennin. It is argued that this
derives from Brigantinos – i.e. ‘spouse of Briganti’, the goddess known as the
‘elevated one’ (cognate of Brigit) – and thus reflects the ritual mating of a king
with a goddess of sovereignty. An example of this union is when the three
goddesses (Children of Danu) Éire, Banba and Fótla met the Milesians and
Eremon became king of the northern half of the country while his brother Eber
became king of the southern half. Éire sealed her union by handing her royal
husband a golden goblet of red liquor. Nine kings of Ireland are said to have
cohabited with Medb for she would not allow any king to sit at Tara unless she
was joined with him. While Medb appears as queen in Connacht and Medb
Lethderg appears as queen in Leinster, it is possible that the traditions are
confused for Medb is clearly a goddess representing sovereignty.

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"Believe me, you have no choice. Let me remind you that had
you behaved honestly there would have been no reason for putting
you to the inconvenience of this tiring journey. You have brought it
on yourself."
Coja Solomon sullenly went up the shore. Desmond then paid
the men handsomely: they had indeed worked well, and they were
abundantly satisfied with the hire they received.
Leaving Coja Solomon to his bitter reflections, Desmond
dropped down to Santipur, arriving there about two o'clock in the
morning. Just before dawn ten hackeris, each yoked with two oxen,
drew up near the Company's ghat. They were accompanied by a
crowd of the inhabitants, lively with curiosity about the engagement
of so many vehicles. The gumashta came up with the first cart, his
face clouded with anxiety. He recognized the Babu at once, and said
that while he had fulfilled the order he had received on Mr.
Merriman's behalf, he had done it in fear and trembling. The whole
country knew that Cossimbazar Fort was in possession of the
Nawab, and, more than that, the Nawab had on the previous day set
out with an immense army for Calcutta. Santipur was not on the
high road, and the Company was respected there; yet the gumashta
feared the people would make an attack on the party if they
suspected that they carried goods belonging to an Englishman.
Hitherto Desmond had kept himself in the background. But now
he had an idea inspired by confidence in his costume. Introducing
himself to the gumashta, he asked him to give out that the party
was in command of a Firangi in the service of the Nawab, and was
conveying part of the Nawab's private equipage in advance to
Baraset, a few miles north of Calcutta, there to await the arrival of

the main army. To make the imposition more effective, he called for
the lambadar[#] of the village and ordered him in the Nawab's name
to despatch a flotilla of twenty-five wollacks[#] to Cutwa to convey
the official baggage. The plan proved successful. Desmond found
himself regarded as a person of importance; the natives humbly
salaamed to him; and, taking matters with a high hand, he
impressed a score of the village idlers into the work of transferring
his precious bales from the boats to the hackeris. The work was
accomplished in half an hour.
[#] Headman.
[#] Barges.
"Bulger," said Desmond, when the loading was done, "you will
consider yourself in charge of this convoy. The Babu will interpret for
you. You will hurry on as fast as possible towards Calcutta. I shall
overtake you by and by. The people here believe that I am a
Frenchman, so you had better pass as that too, for of course your
disguise will deceive no native in the daylight."
"Well I knows it," said Bulger. "They've been starin' at me like as
if I was a prize pig this half-hour and more, and lookin' most
uncommon curious at my little button-hook. But, sir, I don't see any
call for me to make out I'm a mounseer. 'T'ud make me uneasy
inside, sir, the very thought of eatin' what they mounseers eat."
"My good man, there's no need to carry it too far. Do as you
please, only take care of the goods."
Except Desmond and four men whom he retained, the whole
party moved off with the hackeris towards Calcutta. The road was an

unmade track, heavy with dust, rough, execrably bad; and at the
gumashta's suggestion Desmond had arranged for three extra teams
of oxen to accompany the carts, to extricate them in case of
necessity from holes or soft places. Fortunately the weather was dry:
had the rains begun--and they were overdue--the road would have
been a slough of mud and ooze, and the journey would have been
impossible.
When the convoy had set off, Desmond with three men,
including the serang, returned to the empty boats. The lookers-on
stared to see the craft put off and drop down the river with a crew
of one man each: Desmond in the first, and the smaller boat that
had contained Bulger and his party trailing behind. Floating down
some four or five miles with the stream, Desmond gave the order to
scuttle the three petalas, and rowed ashore in the smaller boat. On
reaching land he got the serang to knock a hole in the bottom of the
boat, and shoved it off towards mid stream, where it rapidly filled
and sank.
It was full daylight when Desmond and his party of three struck
off inland in a direction that would bring them upon the track of the
carts. He had a presentiment that his difficulties were only
beginning. By this time, no doubt, the news of his escapade had
been carried through the country by the swift kasids of the Nawab.
His passing at Khulna and Amboa would be reported, and a watch
would be kept for him at Hugli. If perchance a kasid or a chance
traveller entered Santipur, the trick he had practised there would be
immediately discovered; but if the messenger only touched at the
places on the direct route on the other bank, he might hope that
some time would elapse before the authorities there suspected that

he had left the river. They must soon learn that three petalas lay
wrecked in the stream below Amboa; but they could not satisfy
themselves without examination that these were the vessels of
which they were in search.
Tramping across two miles of fields newly sown with maize and
sorghum, he at length descried the trail of his convoy and soon
came up with it. If pursuers were indeed upon his track, only by the
greatest good fortune could he escape them. The carts creaked
along with painful slowness; the wheels half-way to the axles in
dust; now stopping altogether, now rocking like ships in a stormy
sea. With his arrival and the promise of liberal bakshish the
hackeriwallahs urged the labouring oxen with their cruel goads till
Desmond, always tender with animals, could hardly endure the
sight. By nine o'clock the morning had become stiflingly hot. There
was little or no breeze, and Desmond, unused of late to active
exercise, found the heat terribly trying. But Bulger suffered still
more. A stout, florid man, he toiled along, panting, streaming with
sweat, in difficulties so manifest that Desmond, eyeing him
anxiously, feared lest a stroke of apoplexy should bring him to an
untimely end.
The country was so flat that a string of carts could not fail to be
seen from a long distance. If noticed from the towers of Hugli across
the river, curiosity, if not suspicion, would be aroused, and it would
not take long to send over by a ford a force sufficient to arrest and
capture the party. To escape observation it was necessary to make
wide detours. At several small hamlets on the route Desmond
managed to get fresh oxen, but not enough for complete changes of
team. So, through all the broiling heat of the day, at hours when no

other Europeans in all Bengal were out of doors, the convoy
struggled on, making its own road, crossing the dry beds of pools,
skirting or labouring over rugged nullahs.
At nightfall Desmond learnt from one of the drivers that they
were still six miles short of being opposite to Hugli. The patient
Bengalis could endure no more; the oxen were done up, the men
refused to go further without a rest. Halting at a hamlet some five
miles from the river, they rested and fed till midnight, then set off
again. It was not so insufferably hot at night, but on the other hand
they were less able to avoid obstructions: and the rest had not been
long enough to make up for the terrible exertions of the day.
By daybreak they were some distance past Hugli, still keeping
about five miles from the river. Desmond was beginning to
congratulate himself that the worst was over; Barrakpur was only
about twelve miles away. But a little after dawn he caught sight of a
European on horseback crossing their track towards the river. He
was going at a walking pace, attended by two syces.[#] Attracted,
apparently, by the sight, unusual at this time of year, of a string of
hackeris, he wheeled his horse and cantered towards the tail of the
convoy, which was under Bulger's charge.
[#] Grooms.
"Eo, hackeriwallah," he said in Urdu to the rearmost driver, "to whom
do these hackeris belong?"
"To the great Company, huzur. The sahib will tell you."
"The sahib!--what sahib?" asked the rider in astonishment.

"The sahib yonder," replied the man, pointing to Bulger. Bulger
had been staring at the horseman, and growing more and more red
in the face. Catching the rider's surprised look, he could contain
himself no longer.
"By thunder! 'tis that villain Diggle!" he shouted, and rushed
forward to drag him from his horse.
But Diggle was not taken unawares. Setting spurs to his steed,
he caused it to spring away. Bulger raised his musket, but ere he
could fire Diggle was out of range. Keeping a careful distance he
rode leisurely along the whole convoy, and a smile of malignant
pleasure shone upon his face as he took stock of its contents.
Meanwhile Bulger, already repenting of his hasty action, hurried
forward to acquaint Desmond with what had happened. Diggle's
smile broadened; he halted and took a long look at the tall figure in
native dress to whom Bulger was so excitedly speaking. Then,
turning his horse in the direction of the river, he spoke over his
shoulder to his syces and galloped away, followed by them at a run.
"You were a fool, Bulger," said Desmond testily. "This may lead
to no end of trouble."
Bulger looked penitent, and wrathful, and overwhelmed.
"We must try to hurry," added Desmond to Surendra Nath.
"Promise the men more bakshish: don't stint."
For two hours longer they pushed on with all the speed of which
the jaded beasts were capable. Every now and again Desmond
looked anxiously back, hoping against hope that they would not be
pursued. But he knew that Diggle had recognized him, and being
prepared for the worst, he began to rack his brains for some means
of defence. Misfortune seemed to dog him. Two of the oxen

collapsed. It was necessary to distribute the loads of their hackeris
among the others. The march was delayed, and when the convoy
was again under way, its progress was slower than ever.
It had, indeed, barely started, when in the distance Desmond
spied a horseman cantering towards them. A few minutes revealed
him as Diggle. He rode up almost within musket-shot, then turned
and trotted back. What was the meaning of his action? Desmond,
from his position near the foremost hackeri, could see nothing more.
But, a few yards ahead of him, to the right of the track, there was a
low artificial mound, possibly the site of an ancient temple, standing
at the edge of a nullah, its top some ten or twelve feet above the
surrounding plain. Hastening to this he gained the summit, and,
looking back, saw a numerous body of men on foot advancing
rapidly from the quarter whence the horseman had ridden. In twenty
minutes they would have come up with the convoy. He must turn at
bay.
He glanced anxiously around. He was in the midst of a dry,
slightly undulating plain, the new-sown fields awaiting the rains to
spring into verdure. Here and there were clumps of trees--the
towering palmyra with its fan-shaped foliage, the bamboo with its
feathery branches, the plantain, throwing its immense leaves of vivid
green into every fantastic form. There was no safety on the plain.
But below him was the nullah, thirty feet deep, eighty yards wide,
soon to be a swollen torrent dashing towards the Hugli, but now dry.
Its sides were in parts steep, and unscalable in face of determined
resistance. In a moment Desmond saw the utmost of possibility.
Running back to the convoy, he turned its head towards the
mound, and, calling every man to the help of the oxen, he dragged

the carts one by one to the top. There he caused the beasts to be
unyoked, and placed the hackeris, their poles interlocked, so as to
form a rough semicircular breastwork around the summit of the
mound. For a moment he hesitated in deciding what to do with the
cattle. Should he keep them within his little entrenchment? If they
took fright they might stampede and do mischief; in any case they
would be in the way, and he resolved to send them all off under
charge of such of the drivers as were too timid to remain. He noticed
that the Babu was quivering with alarm.
"Surendra Nath," he said, "this is no place for you. Slip away
quietly; go towards Calcutta; and if you meet Mr. Merriman coming
in response to my message, tell him the plight we are in and ask him
to hasten to our help."
"I do not like to show the white feather, sir," said the Babu.
"Not at all, Babu, we must have a trustworthy messenger: you
are the man. Now get away as fast as you can."
The Babu departed on his errand with the speed of gladness
and relief.
The ground sloped sharply outwards from the carts, and the
rear of the position was formed by the nullah. The last two hackeris
were being placed in position when the vanguard of the pursuers,
with Diggle at their head, came to a point just out of range. The
party was larger than Desmond had estimated it to be at his first
hasty glance. There were some twenty men armed with matchlocks,
and forty with swords and lathis. All were natives. His heart sank as
he measured the odds against him. What was his dismay when he
saw, half a mile off, another body following up. And these were

white men! Was Diggle bringing the French of Chandernagore into
the fray?
Desmond posted his twelve armed peons behind the hackeris.
He gave them strict orders to fire only at the word of command, and
as they had undergone some discipline in Calcutta he hoped that, if
only in self-preservation, they would maintain a certain steadiness.
Behind them he placed twelve sturdy boatmen armed with half
pikes, instructing them to take the place of the peons when they had
fired. Bulger stood at the midpoint of the semicircle; his rough
square face was a deep purple with a rim of black; his dhoti had
become loosened, leaving his great shoulders and brawny chest
bare; his turban was awry; his eyes, bloodshot with the heat, were
as the eyes of Mars himself, burning with the fire of battle.
The pursuers had halted. Diggle came forward, trotting his
horse up to the base of the mound. The peons fingered their
matchlocks and looked expectant; Bulger growled; but Desmond
gazed serenely at his enemy.
"Your disguise is excellent," said Diggle in his smoothest tones;
"but I believe I speak to Mr. Desmond Burke."
"Yes, Mr. Diggle," said Desmond, stepping forward.
"I am glad to have overtaken you. Sure you have encamped
early. I have a message from my friend the Faujdar of Hugli. By
some mistake a consignment of merchandise has been illegally
removed from Cossimbazar, and the Faujdar, understanding that the
goods are contained in these carts, bids me ask you to deliver them
up to his men, whom you see here with me."
Desmond was anxious to gain time. He thought out his plan of
action while Diggle was speaking. His impulsiveness prompted a flat

defiance in few words; policy counselled a formality of utterance
equal to Diggle's.
"These carts certainly contain merchandise, Mr. Diggle," he said.
"It is the property of Mr. Edward Merriman, of Calcutta; I think you
know him? It was removed from Cossimbazar; but not, I assure you,
illegally. I have the dastaks authorizing its removal to Calcutta; they
are signed by the Faujdar of Murshidabad. Has the Faujdar of--where
did you say?"
"Of Hugli."
"Has the Faujdar of Hugli power to countermand what the
Faujdar of the capital has done?"
"Why discuss that point?" said Diggle with a smile. "The Faujdar
of Hugli is an officer of the Nawab; 'hoc sat est tibi'--blunt language,
but the phrase is Tully's."
"Well, I waive that. But I am not satisfied that you, an
Englishman, have authority to act for the Faujdar of Hugli. The
crowd I see before me--a rabble of lathi-wallahs--clearly cannot be
the Faujdar's men." At this point he heard an exclamation from
Bulger. The second body of men had come up and ranked
themselves behind the first. "And may I ask," added Desmond, with
a slight gesture to Bulger to restrain himself; he too had recognized
the new-comers; "since when the Nawab has taken into his service
the crew of an interloping English merchantman?"
"I will give you full information, Mr. Burke," said Diggle suavely,
"when we stand together before my friend the Faujdar. In the
meantime you will, if I may venture to advise, consult your interest
best in yielding to superior numbers and delivering up the goods."
"And what about myself, Mr. Diggle?"

"You, of course, will accompany me to the Faujdar. He will be
incensed, I make no doubt, at your temerity, and not unjustly; but I
will intercede for you, and you will be treated with the most delicate
attentions."
"You speak fair, Mr. Diggle," said Desmond, still bent upon
gaining time; "but that is your way. What assurance have I that you
will, this time, keep your word?"
"You persist in misjudging me," said Diggle regretfully. "As
Cicero says in the play, you construe things after your fashion, clean
from the purpose of the things themselves. My interest in you is
undiminished; nay rather, it is increased and mixed with admiration.
My offers still hold good: join hands with me, and I promise you that
you shall soon be a persona grata at the court of Murshidabad, with
wealth and honours in your grasp."
"Your offer is tempting, Mr. Diggle, to a poor adventurer like me,
and if only my own interests were involved, I might strike a bargain
with you. I have had such excellent reasons to trust you in the past!
But the goods are not mine; they are Mr. Merriman's; and the
utmost I can do at present is to ask you to draw your men off and
wait while I send a messenger to Calcutta. When he returns with Mr.
Merriman's consent to the delivery of the goods, then----"
The sentence remained unfinished. Diggle's expression had
become blacker and blacker as Desmond spoke, and seeing with fury
that he was being played with he suddenly wheeled round, and,
cantering back to his men, gave the order to fire. At the same
moment Desmond called to his men to lie flat on the ground and
aim at the enemy from behind the thick wooden wheels of the
hackeris. Being on the flat top of the mound, they were to some

extent below the line of fire from the plain, and when the first volley
was delivered no harm was done to them save for a few scratches
made by flying splinters from the carts. But the crack of the
matchlocks struck terror into the pale hearts of some of the
hackeriwallahs. Several sprang over the breastwork and scuttled
away like scared rabbits. The remainder stood firm, grasping their
lathis in a manner that showed the fighting instinct to be strong,
even in the Bengali.
Many anxious looks were bent upon Desmond, his men
expecting the order to fire. But he bade them remain still, and
through the interval between two carts he watched for the rush that
was coming. The crew of the Good Intent, headed by Sunman the
cross-eyed mate and Parmiter, had come up behind the natives.
These having emptied their matchlocks were now retiring to reload.
Diggle had dismounted, and was talking earnestly with the mate.
They walked together to the edge of the nullah, and looked up and
down it, doubtless canvassing the chances of an attack in the rear;
but the sides were steep; there was no hope of success in this
direction; and they rejoined the main body.
Evidently they had decided on making a vigorous direct attack
over the carts. Dividing his troop into two portions, Diggle put
himself at the head of the one, Sunman at the head of the other.
Arranged in a semicircle concentric with the breastwork, at the word
of command all the men with firearms discharged their pieces; then,
with shrill cries from the natives, and a hoarse cheer from the crew
of the Good Intent, they charged in a close line up the slope. Behind
the barricade the men's impatience had only been curbed by the
quiet imperturbable manner of their young leader. But their self-

restraint was on the point of breaking down when, short, sharp, and
clear, the long-awaited command was given. Their matchlocks
flashed; the volley told with deadly effect at the short range of thirty
paces; four or five men dropped; as many more staggered down the
slope; the rest halted indecisively, in doubt whether to push forward
or turn tail.
"Blockheads! cowards!" shouted Diggle in a fury. "Push on, you
dogs; we are four to one!"
He was now a very different Diggle from the man Desmond had
known hitherto. His smile was gone; all languor and indolence was
lost; his eyes flashed, his lips met in a hard cruel line; his voice rang
out strong and metallic. That he was no coward Desmond already
knew. He put himself in the forefront of the line, and, as always
happens, a brave leader never lacks followers. The whole of the
seamen and many of the Bengalis surged forward after him. Behind
the breastwork all the men were now mixed up--musketeers with
pikemen and lathiwallahs. Upon these came the swarming enemy,
some clambering over the carts, others wriggling between the
wheels. There was a babel of cries; the exultant bellow of the born
fighter, British or native; a few pistol-shots; the scream of the men
mortally hit; the "Wah! wah!" of the Bengalis applauding their own
prowess.
As Diggle had said, the odds were four to one. But the
defenders had the advantage of position, and for a few moments
they held the yelling mob at bay. The half-pikes of the boatmen were
terrible weapons at close quarters, more formidable than the
cutlasses of the seamen balked by the breastwork, or the loaded
bamboo clubs of the lathiwallahs.

Sunman the mate was one of the first victims; he fell to a shot
from Bulger. But Parmiter and Diggle, followed by half a dozen of the
sailors, and a score of the more determined lathiwallahs and
musketeers with clubbed muskets, succeeded in clambering to the
top of the carts and prepared to jump down among the defenders,
most of whom were busily engaged in jabbing at the men swarming
in between the wheels. Desmond saw that if his barricade was once
broken through the issue of the fight must be decided by mere
weight of numbers.
"Bulger, here!" he cried, "and you, Hossain."
The men sprang to him, and, following his example, leapt on to
the cart next to that occupied by Diggle and Parmiter. Desmond's
intention was to take them in flank. Jumping over the bales of silk,
he swung over his head a matchlock he had seized from one of his
peons, and brought it down with a horizontal sweep. Two of the
Bengalis among the crowd of lathiwallahs, who were hanging back
out of reach of the boatmen's pikes, were swept off the cart. But the
violence of his blow disturbed Desmond's own balance; he fell on
one knee; his matchlock was seized and jerked out of his hand; and
in a second three men were upon him. Bulger and the serang,
although a little late owing to want of agility in scaling the cart, were
close behind.
"Belay there!" roared Bulger, as he flung himself upon the
combatants.
The bullet head of one sturdy badmash cracked like an egg-shell
under the butt of the bold tar's musket; a second received the
terrible hook square in the teeth; and a third, no other than Parmiter
himself, was caught round the neck at the next lunge of the hook,

and flung, with a mighty heave, full into the midst of the defenders.
Bulger drew a long breath.
At the same moment Diggle, attacked by the serang, was
thrown from his perch on the hackeri and fell among his followers
outside the barricade. There was a moment's lull while both parties
recovered their wind. Firing had ceased; to load a matchlock was a
long affair, and though the attackers might have divided and come
forward in relays with loaded weapons, they would have run the risk
of hitting their own friends. It was to be again a hand-to-hand fight.
Diggle was not to be denied. Desmond, who had jumped down
inside the barricade when the pressure was relieved by Bulger, could
not but admire the spirit and determination of his old enemy, though
it boded ill for his own chance of escape. He was weary; worn out by
want of rest and food; almost prostrated by the terrible heat.
Looking round his little fort, he felt a tremor as he saw that five out
of his twenty-four men were more or less disabled. True, there were
now more than a dozen of the enemy in the same or a worse plight;
but they could afford their losses, and Desmond indeed wondered
why Diggle did not sacrifice a few men in one fierce overwhelming
onslaught.

THE BATTLE OF THE CARTS.
"A hundred rupees to the man who kills the young sahib, two
hundred to the man who takes him alive!" cried Diggle to his dusky
followers, as though in answer to Desmond's thought. Then, turning
to the discomfited crew of the Good Intent, he said: "Sure, my men,
you will not be beat by a boy and a one-armed man. There's a

fortune for all of you in those carts. At them again, my men; I'll
show you the way."
He was as good as his word. He snatched a long lathi from one
of the Bengalis and rushed up the slope to the hacked nearest the
nullah. Finding a purchase for one end of his club in the woodwork
of the wagon, he put forth all his strength in the effort to push it
over the edge. Owing to the length of the lathi he was out of reach
of the half-pikes in the hands of the boatmen, who had to lunge
either over or under the carts. His unaided strength would have
been unequal to the task of moving the hackeri, heavily laden as it
was, resting on soft soil, and interlocked with the next. But as soon
as his followers saw the aim of his movements, and especially when
they found that the defenders could not touch him without exposing
themselves, he gained as many eager helpers as could brine their
lathis to bear upon the two carts.
Meanwhile the defence at this spot was weak, for the men of
the Good Intent had swarmed up to the adjoining carts and were
threatening at any moment to force a way over the barricade. They
were more formidable enemies than the Bengalis. Slowly the two
hackeris began to move, till the wheels of one hung over the edge of
the nullah. One more united heave, and it rolled over, dragging the
other cart with it and splitting itself into a hundred fragments on the
rocky bottom. Through the gap thus formed in the barricade sprang
Diggle, with half a dozen men of the Good Intent and a score of
Bengalis.
Desmond gathered his little band into a knot in the centre of the
enclosure. Then the brazen sun looked down upon a Homeric
struggle. Bulger, brawny warrior of the iron hook, swung his musket

like a flail, every now and again shooting forth his more sinister
weapon with terrible effect. Desmond, slim and athletic, dashed in
upon the enemy with his half-pike as they recoiled before Bulger's
whirling musket. The rest, now a bare dozen, Bengalis though they
were, presented still an undaunted front to the swarm that surged
into the narrow space. The hot air grew hotter with the fight.
To avoid being surrounded, the little band instinctively backed
towards the edge of the nullah. Diggle exulted as they were pressed
remorselessly to the rear. Not a man dreamt of surrender; the
temper of the assailants was indeed so savage that nothing but the
annihilation of their victims would now satisfy them. Yet Diggle once
again bethought himself that Desmond might be worth to him more
alive than dead, and in the midst of the clamour Desmond heard him
repeat his offer of reward to the man who should capture him.
Diggle himself resolved to make the attempt. Venturing too
near, he received an ugly gash from Desmond's pike, promising a
permanent mark from brow to chin. This was too much for him.
Beside himself with fury, he yelled a command to his men to sweep
the pigs over the brink, and, one side of his face livid with rage, the
other streaming with blood, he dashed forward at Bulger, who had
come up panting to engage him. He had well timed his rush, for
Bulger's musket was at the far end of its pendulum swing; but the
old seaman saw his danger in time. With a movement of
extraordinary agility in a man of his bulk, he swung on his heel,
presenting his side to the rapier that flashed in Diggle's hand.
Parrying the thrust with his hook, he shortened his stump and
lunged at Diggle below the belt. His enemy collapsed as if shot; but
his followers swept forward over his prostrate body, and it seemed

as if, in one brief half-minute, the knot of defenders would be hurled
to the bottom of the nullah.
But, at this critical moment, assailants and defenders were
stricken into quietude by a tumultuous cheer, the cheer of
Europeans, from the direction of the gap in the barricade. Weapons
remained poised in mid-air; every man stood motionless, wondering
whether the interruption came from friend or foe. The question was
answered on the instant.
"Now, men, have at them!"
With a thrill Desmond recognized the voice. It was the voice of
Silas Toley. There was nothing of melancholy in it, nor in the
expression of the New Englander as he sprang, cutlass in hand,
through the gap. Slow to take fire, when Toley's anger was kindled it
blazed with a devouring flame. The crowd of assailants dissolved as
if by magic. Before the last of the crew of the Hormuzzeer, lascars
and Europeans, had passed into the enclosure, the men of the Good
Intent and their Bengali allies were streaming over and under the
carts towards the open. Diggle at the first shock had staggered to
his feet and stumbled towards the barricade. As he reached it, a
black boy, springing as it were out of the earth, hastened to him and
helped him to crawl between the wheels of a cart and down the
slope. On the boy's arm he limped towards his horse, tethered to a
tree. A wounded wretch was clumsily attempting to mount. Him
Diggle felled; then he climbed painfully into the saddle and galloped
away, Scipio Africanus leaping up behind.
By this time his followers were dispersing in all directions--all
but eight luckless men who would never more wield cutlass or lathi,

and a dozen who lay on one side or other of the barricade, too hard
hit to move.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD
In which there are many moving events; and our hero finds
himself a cadet of John Company.
Diggle's escape passed unnoticed until it was too late to pursue him.
At the sight of Toley and his messmates of the Hormuzzeer, Bulger
had let fall his musket and dropped to the ground, where he sat
mopping his face and crying "Go it, mateys!" Desmond felt a strange
faintness, and leant dizzily against one of the hackeris. But, revived
by a draught from Mr. Toley's flask, he thanked the mate warmly,
and wanted to hear how he had contrived to come up in time.
When Desmond's messenger arrived in Calcutta, Mr. Merriman
was away up the river, engaged in very serious business. The
messenger had applied to the Governor, to members of the Council,
to Captain Minchin and other officers, and the reply of one and all
was the same: they could do nothing; it was more important that
every man should be employed in strengthening the defences of
Calcutta than in going up-country on what might prove a vain and
useless errand. But Toley happened to be in the town, and hearing
of the difficulties and perils of his friend Burke, with the captain's
consent he had hastily collected the crew of the Hormuzzeer, that
still lay off the Fort, and led them, under the guidance of the

messenger, to support him. Meeting Surendra Nath, and learning
from him that a fight was imminent, he had pushed on with all
speed, the Babu leading the way.
"It was well done," said Desmond warmly. "We owe our lives to
you, and Mr. Merriman his goods. But what was the business that
took Mr. Merriman from Calcutta at this time of trouble?"
"Trouble of his own, Burke," said Mr. Toley. "I guess he'd better
have let the Nawab keep his goods and sent you to look after his
women-folk."
"What do you mean? I left the ladies at Khulna; what has
happened to them?"
"'Tis what Mr. Merriman would fain know. They've disappeared,
gone clean out of sight."
"But the peons?"
"Gone too. Nothing heard or seen of them."
This serious news came as a shock to Desmond. If he had only
known! How willingly he would have let Coja Solomon do what he
pleased with the goods, and hastened to the help of the wife and
daughter Mr. Merriman held so dear! While in Cossimbazar, he had
heard from Mr. Watts terrible stories of the Nawab's villainy, which
no respect of persons held in check. He feared that if Mrs. Merriman
and Phyllis had indeed fallen into Siraj-uddaula's hands, they were
lost to their family and friends for ever.
But, eager as he was to get back to Calcutta and join Mr.
Merriman in searching for them, he had a strange certainty that it
was not to be. The faintness that he had already felt returned. His
head was burning and throbbing; his ears buzzed; his limbs ached;
his whole frame was seized at moments with paroxysms of shivering

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