Blair Collection > Popular tales of the West Highlands > Volume 1

IXTRODUCTIOX. CXUl
authors'; and knowing vrhat modern antliors make of
words Avlaieli they pick up by ear, such a hst is but a
narrow foundation on which to build. Still on that
hst it has been decided that Scyths spoke a language
Avhich has affinity with Sanscrit, and in that list, as
it seems to me, there are several words which resemble
Gaelic more closely than the Sanscrit words given with
them. And so, according to this theory, the Basques
were found in Europe by the first Gael, and these were
driven westwards by Kimri, and these again by Scy-
thians, and these by Teutons, and all these still occupy
their respective positions. The Basques and Lapps
pushed aside ; the Gael in Scotland and Ireland, driven
far to the Avestwards ; the Kimri driven westwards
into "Wales and Britanny ; the Scyths lost or ab-
sorbed ; and the Teutons occupying their old posses-
sions, as Germans, Saxons, English, Scandinavians,
and all their kindred tribes ; and of all these the
Basques and their relatives alone speak a language
which cannot be traced to a common unknown origin,
from which Sanscrit also came.
Whatever then throws light on the traditions of
the first invaders of Europe is of interest to all the
rest, for, according to this theory, they are all of the
same clan. They are all branches of the same old
stock which grew in Central Asia, and which has
spread over great part of the world, and whatever is
told of Gauls is of interest to all branches of Celts.
Eome was taken by Gai;ls about 390 b.c. ; Greece
was invaded by Gauls about 279 B.C., and they are then
described as armed with great swords and lances, and
wearing golden collars, and fighting savagely. At the
end of the third century B.C., according to the French
historian, Gaul might have been a common name for the
greatest part of Europe, for Gauls were everywhere.