Page:The Celtic Review volume 4.djvu/138

Rh young men and girls stood grouped in the shadows, and women spoke low in each other’s ears. And so another hour passed, and the great fire sank. For a moment the golden sparks danced on the dark as the red logs fell, then the hedgerows blended into the darkness, the figures by the bank grew vague, and night curtained us around.

And, lo! before we had fully realised that the night had fallen there was the dawn. And as the stars were quenched, and the boys leapt over the embers of the fire,—as in far gone ages their forefathers had driven their cattle through—we rose and welcomed the shining face of Lugh.

object of the present paper is not to attempt an exhaustive account of the Brythonic section of the ancient population of Scotland, but to gather together as many as possible of those scattered links which unite the history of Wales to that of the Ancient Britons of the North, so far as these links are discoverable in the literature of Wales and in documents related to it. It is the hope of the writer that a succinct and accessible account of this kind may be the means of awakening fresh interest in the subject, and be of service as a stimulus and basis to further investigation. In both districts there are questions of great interest, not only in the domain of pre-Roman archaeology, but also in the important sphere of the relations of the Roman to the pre-Roman civilisation. The inter-relations of Late-Celtic and Roman culture are deserving of the closest study, if we are to have a true view of Britain in the Roman period, and not less important is research into the lines of ‘Roman’ trade which affected districts that were not technically within the bounds of the Empire. In both districts, again, there is a good field for study in a comparison of place-names, in spite of the complications produced by Gaelic and English influences in the