Ossian Collection > Thoughts on the origin and descent of the Gael

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also \vorthy of particular remark. "• But the na-
" tion of the Hellenes, since ever it existed, con-
" tinues, as far as to me appears, to use the same
" language ; being a branch cut (.ff from the
" Peiasgic stock, and, weak and inconsiderable
" at the first, in a short time it increased into a
" multitude of people ; vast numbers of the
" neighbouring nations in particular, and muiti-
" tudes of other barbarians in general, having
"joined it, as I imagine to have been the case."*
It will be observed, that this father of Grecian
history speaks with great uncertainty with res-
pect to the origin and descent of the Helleneans.
He seems to speak with some confidence, when
he says that they were a branch of the Peiasgic
stock ; if so, they were in his opinion the same
original people with the inhabitants of Crestona
and Placia, who spoke a barbarous language, and
not Greek. If the Hellenes were a branch of the
Pelasgi known to the Greeks, and universally
admitted by all their learned men to have been
very early a great and powerful people, not only
in Greece, but in Thessaly, Thrace, the Helles-
pont, and Asia JMinor ; the rg««o<, Grceci, were
also of the Peiasgic stock. Aristotle, giving an
account of a deluge, informs us that this deluge
happened chiefly about the district of the Hel-
lenes, and near the ancient city Hellas. That
city lay near Dodona on the Achelous; for this
* Herodot. lib. i. c. 58.