Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 17, 1906.djvu/37

 THE EUROPEAN SKY-GOD.

IV. THE CELTS (p. i).

BY ARTHUR BERNARD COOK.

In dealing with the sky-god as he appears in the Celtic area it will be convenient to follow the distinction usually drawn between Insular and Continental Celts. It should of course be borne in mind that this distinction is not one of race^ at all, but is primarily one of language and secondarily one of culture. That, however, does net affect our conclusions, since religion normally varies with language and with the other elements that go to make up the complex of civilisation rather than with race in the strictly anthropological sense of the term. From a linguistic point of view, then, the following divisions and subdivisions of the Celts are made^:

Celtic.

Insular Celtic. Continental Celtic.

Gaelic. British. Celtican. Gaulish.

Irish. Scotch. Manx. Welsh. Breton. Cornish.

I shall consider the case of the Insular Celts before that of the Continental Celts, because the evidence

^ The most convenient summary of the Celtic question in its relation to race will be found in W. Z. Ripley The Races of Europe New York 1899 pp. 124-128. See also J. Deniker The Races of Man London 1900 p. 347 f., A. H. Keane Ethnology Cambridge 1896 pp. 378 f., 397, 405 f., Alan Past and Present Cambridge 1900 pp. 463, 523 ff.

^ K. Brugmann Kurze vergleichende Granimatik der indogermanischen Sprachen Strassburg 1904 p. I2f. This is the grouping commonly adopted