Blair Collection > Collection of Gaelic proverbs and familiar phrases

only wonder is that the number of Irish ones hitherto
given to the world is so small, and that those given
are so remarkably deficient in that unpremeditated
airy wit for which our Hibernian cousins are specially dis-
tinguished The resemblance to Manx sayings is more
remarkable. In that interesting island, with which our
Celtic connection has for centuries been very slight,
sayings are still found in words almost identical with
ours, which must have originated in a prehistoric
period, when the Isle of Man, the north of Ireland, the
south-west of Scotland, and the Hebrides, spoke the
same G-aelic tongue, and had constant intercourse. The
resemblance between Gaelic and Welsh proverbs, as
between the two languages, is very remote. Of the
latter, unfortunately, the outside world has never been
able to judge, our Cymric relatives not having thought
it worth their while to give the benefit of their ancestral
wisdom to anybody who did not understand their own
beautiful language. A great deal of it is embodied in
proverbs remarkable for brevity.
These Gaelic proverbs give very little indication of
those ferocious traits which ignorance or prejudice is
apt to regard as specially characteristic of our Celtic
ancestors. They express very few sentiments of which
any muscular English Christian can disapprove. Burck-
hardt makes a melancholy note on one of the Egyptian
Proverbs, of which he has rendered several Imndreds
into English. He says it is the only one of them known
to him expressing any faith in human nature. What a
comment on the history of that people ! Of these
Gaelic sayings, on the contrary, almost the very op-