Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/268

 26o "■ First -FooV in the British Isles.

"I have a theory — perhaps others have it without my knowledge, and perhaps it may seem utterly foolish to you, but I assure you I could write a whole volume in support of it— that whether the Gwyddyl were numerous in Ireland, and the Cymry in Wales, or not, it would not have altered matters very much ; that they are, more or less, like the Teutons, an artificial race, which can only be kept up to the proper level of existence by favourable circum- stances and surroundings ; that the Httle old dark race have, like the Welsh black cattle, reached the degree of development which Nature, under ordinary conditions, will tolerate ; that they have already nearly stamped the Gwyddyl out in Ireland, and the Cymry in Wales, and that they will in time clear the Teutons out as well, becoming once more full possessors of Britain."

To begin at the end of the foregoing letter, I may observe that the writer is by no means alone in his idea, that the purer Aryan element in Celtic countries is decreasing numerically, Penka for instance, gives his readers reasons for believing that the tall, blond, blue-eyed Aryan has lost ground since the early Middle Ages in North Italy, in France, and one might probably add Spain ; but I am only reproducing Penka's views very roughly, as it is some time since I read them. I shall, however, not be misrepre- senting him, when I say that he regards the Aryans as a northern people who in the long run have no chance in the competition for existence in certain tracts of Europe, as against the smaller and duskier aborigines, with thousands of years more of acclimatisation to the credit of their race. I have been for some time of opinion that in the population of Wales we have, at the present day, but a very small Aryan element. Our Aryans in the Principality were very lively in the time of Sir John Wynn of Gwydyr : one of their amusements appears to have been to burn one another's houses about their owners' ears ; but they fared badly in the days of Cromwell, and ever since they seem to have been dwindling in numbers and importance in proportion to the representatives of the aboriginal race. I picture to myself the Welsh Aryan as a fine tall fellow