Attwood, Mr. John Mends, Pembroke Dock Byers, Rev. James, Llanphey, near Pembroke Cawdor, earl, Stacpole court, Pembrokeshire Cuthbertson, Alexander, esq. Neath Dalton, Rev. Thomas, Rhoscrowther,near Pembroke Davies, Miss M. R. St. Martin's, Haverfordwest Eustace, Mr. Thos., Neath. Foster, R. Carr, esq. 28, John street, Bedford row Francis, Mr. Jenkin, Neath, Glamorganshire. Griffiths, Mr. 13, Coniugham row, St. John's Hall, Mr. Richd. Davies, 18, Store street, Bedford Harries, Major, Trevaccon, near St. David's Harries, Rev. Wm., Fishguard Harris, Gilbert, esq. Llaneuwas, near Solva Harris, Mr. Richard, Cardigan Henry, Mr. James, Dowlais inn, Dowlais, near Hewson, Rev. Dr. Swansea Howels, John M. esq. Gallt y gog, Caermarthensh. Hughes, Alfred M., esq., Dowlais, near Merthyr Hutchinson, Mr. Charles, Swansea James, Rev. J. Penmaen, Gower, Glamorganshire James, Rev. J. W. Robertston, Wathen Jenkins, John B. esq. 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W., Dale, Pembrokeshire St. David's, the Lord Bishop of, Abergwili Thomas, Rev. Watkin Wm., Dinas, Pembroke. TO CORRESPONDENTS. The Editors beg to announce that Volume V., commencing January, 1833, of the CAMBRIAN QUARTERLY, will be materially increased in size, and no addition made to the present price, viz. TWELVE SHILLINGS PER ANNUM. We respectfully give notice, that we cannot answer for the insertion of approved Articles in our number for January, unless we receive them (post paid) on or before the 20th of November next; nor can we undertake to return MS. communications to their authors. The surmise of a Correspondent regarding "any Charge" is erroneous; we charge for no species of communication, excepting advertisements. Several articles are unavoidably omitted this quarter. We offer our best thanks to all friends whose papers are under our consideration. We We shall gladly receive the Articles alluded to in the letter from Edinburgh. We offer our acknowledgments for the present of the Gaelic work. have, at this period, really no time to send a written reply. ADLARD, PRINTERS, BARTHOLOMEW CLOSE. THE CAMBRIAN QUARTERLY MAGAZINE AND Celtic Repertory. No. 13.-JANUARY 1, 1832.-VOL. IV. HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE CELTS, ESPECIALLY OF THOSE WHO INHABITED NORICUM. Translated from the German of Prof. Muchar, of Gratz. "Nec me quis in favorem gentis, quasi ex ipsâ trahentem originem, aliqua addidisse credat, quam quæ legi aut comperi." JORNAUD, de Reb. Get. THE Country lying between the Danube and the Inn, and between the Mount Kahlenberg and the southern chain of the Alps, was called, by the Romans, Noricum; such are the boundaries, as given by Ptolemy. The chain of mountains commencing three miles above Vienna, at the Kahlenberg, (Mons Calvus,) called by the ancients Mons Cetius, takes its course through Stiria, and comes in contact with the southern Alps; at this point of union Ptolemy places the mountain Karvankas, and the Hierosolimitan Itinerary fixes the Roman station Hadrante, the limit of Italy and Noricum. The Kahlenberg, in the other direction, descends in easy declivities towards Pannonia, (Hungary,) and, from its woody summits, was called Cetius, from the Celtic word Coed (wood); it is conjectured by the learned Magnus Klein that Kötsch, near Marburg, and Katschwald in Stiria, are derived from the same word; according to Strabo and Isidorus Hispalensis, Orig. lib. 14, c. 8, the Alps, (Alpia, Alpiona,) were so originally named by the Celts. Noricum * Katschwald corresponds with our Cotswold; in this and other instances, the Germans retained the original Celtic name of the place, and added a translation; thus Coed, wood; wald, wood; Cotswold: Monybere in Hertfordshire; Mynidd, hill; berg, hill: Carbury; Caer, fortress; burg, fortress; Penhow, &c. &c. NO. XIII. B comprised, according to the Romans, Upper and Lower Austria, a considerable portion of Stiria and Carinthia, a part of Western Tyrol and of Bavaria. Nothing is known of the history of Noricum previous to its occupation by the Celts. The geologist observes, from the formation of the country, from the petrifactions, and the impressions of fish on the rocks, infinite in number and variety, that Upper and Lower Austria must once have been covered by a vast lake, formed by its rivers, the Inn, Drave, Save, Mur, Traun, &c. &c. The declivity of the Stirian mountains, the masses of rock and stones rolled from those hills towards the plain, shew them to have been, at a remote age, one of its banks; the shattered fragments of huge rocks lying in awful confusion at Karst, in Carinthia, are a testimony of some convulsion by which, apparently, the lake found a sudden outlet. The first occupiers of this land had to contend with many difficulties; the extensive swamps that filled the air with paludinous exhalations fraught with death; savage animals whose remains announce to have been of a species now extinct; dark forests, and impenetrable thickets: even now, in the storm, when subterraneous rivers (of which there are several in Carniola) thunder through their gloomy caverns, the peasant crosses himself, and relates traditions of dark lakes of the ancient time, of devouring dragons, and devastating wild boars. Of the latter, Suidas speaks in allusion to the derivation of the name of an old city of that country: "Apud Noricos, aper, divinitus immissus, agros vastabat; quem cum multi invaderent, nihil proficiebant, donec quidam eum prostratum in humeros sustulit cujusmodi fa bula et de Calydone refertur; cum autem Norici suâ voce exclamassent 'Vir unus!' urbs Virunum est appellata." Of the first occupants of the country, there is neither history nor tradition extant; indeed, little is known of the early Celtic settlers, they committed no records to writing, historical events were only commemorated by oral tradition, and verses which they recited; the wide extent of country from the Tanais to Gaul was long a terra incognita to the cultivated people of the South; it is to the conquest of the Romans, who planted their eagles on the Rhine and the Danube, that we are chiefly indebted for any accurate information with respect to Noricum. The fabulous narratives of the Grecians mention the excursions of Hercules and Ulysses to the land of the Hyperboreans, and Diodorus says, "Monumenta et tumulos quosdam Græcis litteris inscriptos in confinio Germaniæ Rhetiæque adhuc exstare." An Egyptian legend notices the voyage of a nameless mariner, who sailed from the Euxine up the Ister to where it separates into two arms, (an error of the ancients,) on the confines of Scythia and Thrace; by following one channel, he is said to have reached the Adriatic. At a very early period the wanderings of other travellers were laid down on charts pre served at Ea, in Cholcis; Apollonius says "Ipsi scriptas avorum suorum conservant tabulas ubi omnia itinera et fines monstrantur." Such reports had reached Greece fifteen hundred years previous to the Christian æra; and, in reliance on them, it is related, the Argonaut Jason, on his return from Cholcis, followed by Absyrtus, the brother of Medea, endeavoured to escape from his pursuer by sailing from the Black Sea up the Danube, in order to reach the Ionian Sea; but searching in vain for that branch, and having followed its course to the Hercynian forest, he returned and embarked on the Save, from whence he sailed into the Nauportus, and up that river, until winter compelled him to disembark; his winter station he named Emonia, (Laybach,) after his native country Thessaly: from thence, with the assistance of the natives, he carried his vessel over the mountains, until he arrived at another river, which conducted him to the Adriatic, near Trieste. The Cholcians, who were in pursuit of Jason, followed in the same direction, and they remained as new settlers in Istria, after Absyrtus had been killed by Jason or Medea. Although credit cannot be given to this narrative literally, yet it would appear that, at a very remote age, some connexion did exist between the Greeks and the inhabitants of Pannonia and Noricum. Strabo admits the expedition as an historical fact, from monuments that existed in his own time: “Και εστιν υπομνήματα της αμφοίν στρατείας.” Justin and Pliny mention the arrival of Jason, in the Adriatic, after sailing along the Save and the Nauportus; the ancients ascribed the name of the latter river to the circumstance of its having borne the Argo; and the island, at its confluence with the Adriatic, was called Absyrtides, from the death of Absyrtus. Pola was believed to have been founded by the Cholcians, his companions. Inscribed monuments are said to have existed of Ulysses' expedition into these regions; the ancient traditions of the people of Noricum, the pilgrimages which they are recorded to have annually made with offerings to Apollo, at Delphi, afford some foundation for believing that the Greeks had intercourse with this country, even before the invasion of the Celts, who, according to Justin, gained it by conquest: "per strages Barbarorum penetraverunt, et consederunt, pugnando cum ferocissimis gentibus." Strabo says that the general name of the Celts, west of the Rhine, was Talarai; some authors, however, divide them into three distinct nations, Aquitanians, Belgians, and Celts; the former being evidently a different race, “τελεως εξηλλαγμενες, both in language and in person, and bearing a resemblance to the Spaniards rather than to the Gauls. The latter, he says, however, * The word Gal indicates the vast extent of territory occupied by the Celtic people at various periods, viz. in Britain, Galloway, Galway, Caledonia, do not speak precisely the same language, "our oμoyλwrrovç,” but having some slight variety, «μικρον παραλλαττοντας ταις γλωτταις.” And Cæsar states that there were many different dialects among the tribes of Gaul, "Hi omnes linguâ inter se differunt." It is of course natural to expect that in process of time changes should arise both in language and manners; but Strabo, though he admits that there are various dialects, yet that there is a strong personal resemblance throughout the Celtic nation, “γαλατικήν μεν την of," they were like the Germans in stature and fairness of complexion, “τω τε πλεονασμω, της ξανθότητος.” It appears that, at a remote period, the Celts arrived in Noricum, from the East, as hunters with their bows, or as herdsmen with their cattle. The Nomadic throng marched from forest to forest, and wherever they found game or grass, that was, for a time, their home. A part of their nation crossed the Rhine and Gaul, and proceeded onward, until the ocean opposed the progress of their wanderings, and constrained them to expand themselves widely over the adjacent countries, and lastly to clear the ground of forests, and devote themselves to agriculture; so that after the lapse of years, they extended from Cadiz to the morasses of the Netherlands, and peopled each bank of the Rhine and the Danube, to the southeastern extremity of Hungary; the plains of Austria, the mountains of Tyrol, as far as the shores of the Adriatic. EMIGRATION FROM GAUL. The great colonizing emigrations of the Celts had a considerable influence on the fate of Noricum and Pannonia; the Biturigian Celts had elevated Ambigat to the throne of Gaul 600 years before Christ: "Celtarum quæ pars Galliæ tertia est, penes Bituriges summa imperii fuit ii regem celtico dabant." At that period the population had increased to such an amount that subsistence and space were deficient for the redundancy. Livy says, "Imperio Ambigati, Gallia adeo frugum hominumque fertilis fuit, ut abundans multitudo vix regi posse videretur." From this circumstance resulted disunion and civil feuds, "intestina discordia, et assiduæ domi dissensiones:" as a remedy for the evil, Ambigat commanded his two nephews, Bellovesus and Sigoves, the most conspicuous in rank of the youth of his realm, to quit the country to seek other settlements, "ad novas sedes quærendas," accompanied by Wales; the Gallicias in Spain and Poland, Wallachia, Gaul, and Gallia Cisalpina, still called, in German, Welshland; Galata in Turkey; Gallatia in Asia. In scripture we find there was a different dialect in Galilee, Mark, xv. 70. The Highlanders still call themselves Clan na Gael, (the children of Gal,) which corresponds with Beni-Gal, Bengal. The Cymri were possessed of the Crimea, Cimmerian Bosphorus, Cimbric Chersonesus, Gumri in Asiatic Turkey, Monte Gomero in Italy. |