"Celt, Druid and Culdee"

(1973)

by

Isabel Hill Elder 

THE EARLY BRITONS

IT has been said that the only excuse for writing a book is that

one has something to say which has not been said before. That

this claim cannot be made on behalf of this little volume will be

very evident to the reader as he proceeds, since it is a

***compilation from a variety of sources,*** from which evidence

has been brought together, to support the belief that the

civilization of the early Britons was of a high standard, and

that they did not deserve that contempt with which they have been

treated by many historians, nor the odious names of 'savages' and

'barbarians' by the supercilious literati of Greece and Rome.

When evidence, admittedly fragmentary, of the real conditions in

these islands, from the earliest times, has been brought to light

throughout the centuries, it seems, almost invariably, to have

been rejected in favour of Roman teaching.

In his History of Scotland, the Rev. J. A. Wylie, LL.D., say:

     'We have been taught to picture the earliest conditions of

     our country as one of unbroken darkness. A calm

     consideration of the time and circumstances of its first

     peopling warrants a more cheerful view."

By examining the available evidence it may be possible to obtain

this more cheerful view, and to show that in the darkest eras of

our country the rites of public worship were publicly observed.

It is ever true to say that, 'The history of a nation is the

history of its religion, its attempts to seek after God.'

Wilford states that the **old Indians** were acquainted with the

**British Islands,** which their books described as the sacred

islands of the west, and called one them Britashtan, or the seat

or place of religious duty.

The popular idea that the ancestors of the British were painted

savages has no foundation in fact. It was a custom of the Picts

and other branches of the Celtic and Gothic nations to make

themselves look terrible in war, from whence came the Roman term

'savage'. The 'painting' was in reality tattooing, a practice

still cherished in all primitive crudities by the British sailor

or and soldier.

Far from these ancestral Britons having been mere painted

savages, roaming wild in the woods as we are imaginatively told

in most of the modern histories, they are now, on the contrary,

as disclosed by newly found historical facts given by Professor 

Waddell, known to have been, from the very first grounding of

their galley keels upon these shores, over a millennium and a

half before the Christian era, a literate race, pioneers of

civilization.  The universally held belief that the mixed race

has prevailed during many centuries; this  belief, however, is

now fading out of the scientific mind and giving place to the

exact opposite. Britons, Celts, Gaels, Anglo-Saxons, Danes and

Normans when warring with each other were kinsmen shedding

kindred blood.

Professor Sayce, at a later date, in one of his lectures,

observes that he misses no opportunity of uprooting the notion

that the people who form the British nation are descended from

various races, all the branches that flowed into Britain being

branches of the selfsame stock. Not a single pure Saxon is to be

found in any village, town or city of Germany. Our Saxon

ancestors rested there for a time in their wandering to these

islands.

Dr. Latham says, "Throughout the whole length and breadth of

Germany there is not one village, hamlet or family which can show

definite signs of descent from the Continental ancestors of the

Angles of England."

It was against this, race, now in possession of the whole of

Southern Britain, that Caesar led his legions. The Belgae, the

Attrebates, the Parisii and the Britanni were all British tribes,

having kinsmen on the Continent, yet moving westward, who had

fought against Caesar in the Gallic wars.

It is noteworthy that during the occupation of Britain by the

Romans the inhabitants led a life as separate as possible from

their invaders and, according to Professor Huxley, when the

Romans withdrew from Britain in A.D.410 the population was as

substantially Celtic as they found it.

Huxley in 1870, in the earlier years of the Irish agitation,

applied the results of his studies to the political situation in

Ireland in the following words in one of his lectures:

     "If what I have to say in a matter of science weighs with

     any man who has political power I ask him to believe that

     the arguments made about the difference between Anglo

     Saxons and Celts are a mere sham and delusion."

The Welsh Triads and the 'Chronicum Regum Pictorum' as well as

the 'Psalter of Cashel' give us the chief early information about

the inhabitants of Scotland, and all agree as to the racial unity

of the peoples, much, however, as they fought each other.

This unity is recognized by Thierry Nicholas, Palgrave and Bruce

Hannay.

The Britons were renowned for their athletic form, for the great

strength of their bodies, and for swiftness foot. Clean-shaven,

save for long moustaches, with fair skins and fair hair, they

were a fine, manly race of great height (Strabo tells us that

British youths were six inches taller than the tallest man in

Rome) and powerfully built. They excelled in running, swimming,

wrestling, climbing and in all kinds of bodily exercise, were

patient in pain, toil and suffering, accustomed to fatigue,

to bearing hunger, cold and all manner of hardships. Bravery,

fidelity to their word, manly independence, love of their

national free institutions, and hatred of every pollution and

meanness were their noble characteristics.

Tacitus (the Roman historian - Keith Hunt) tells us the northern

Britons were well trained and armed for war. In the battlefield

they formed themselves into battalions; the soldiers were armed

with huge swords and small shields called 'short targets', they

had chariots and cavalry, and carried darts which they hurled in

showers on the enemy. Magnificent as horsemen, with their

chargers gaily caparisoned, they presented a splendid spectacle

when prepared for battle. The cumulative evidence is of a people

numerous, brave and energetic. Even Agricola could say that it

would be no disgrace to him, were he to fall in battle, to do so

among so brave a people. Farther south similar conditions

prevailed; the Romans, led by Plautius and Flavius Vespasian, the

future Emperor and his brother, assailed the British, and were

met with the british 'stupidity' knows when it is beaten.

The British have been from all time a people apart,characterized

by justice and a love of religion. Boadicea, in her oration as

queen by Dion Cassius, observes that though Britain had been for 

centuries open to the Continent, yet its language, philosophy and

usages continued as great a mystery as ever to the Romans

themselves.

The monuments of the ancient Britons have long  since vanished

(with the exception of Stonehenge and other places of Druidic

worship), yet Nennius, the British historian who was Abbot of

Bangor-on-Dee about A.D. 860, states that he drew the greater

part of his information from writings and the monuments of the

old British inhabitants. Our early historians were undoubtedly

acquainted with a book of annals written in the vernacular tongue

which was substantially the same as the Saxon Chronicle.

Nennius disclaims any special ability for the task of historian

set him by his superiors, but is filled with a keen desire to see

justice done to the memory of his countrymen, saying, 'I bore

about with me an inward wound, and I was indignant that the name

of my own people, formerly famous and distinguished, should sink

into oblivion and like smoke be dissipated....It is better to

drink a wholesome draught of truth from a humble vessel than

poison mixed with honey from a golden goblet.'

What were once considered exaggerated statements on the part of

Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth and other early historians, are now

discovered to be trust-worthy. In their day these writers were

regarded as historians of repute. Many of the ancient British

writers were professed genealogists, men appointed and patronized

by the princes of the country, who were prohibited from following

other professions. It was left a later age to throw doubt on

their veracity. Since it is the nature of truth to establish

itself it seems the reverse of scholarly to disregard the

evidence of ancient reports as embodied in the Welsh Triads and

the writings of early British historians.

Milton says, 'These old and inborn names of successive kings

never to have been real persons, or done in their lives at least

some part of what so long hath been remembered cannot be thought

without too strict incredulity.'

A great deal of history, so-called has come dow to us from Latin

sources, whose one object was, from the very first to make us

believe that we owe all to Rome,  when, in fact, Rome owes a

great deal to us: so much error has been taught in our schools

concerning the ancient Britons that it is difficult for the

average student to realize that the British, before the arrival

of Julius Caesar, were, in all probability, among the most highly

educated people on the earth at that time and, as regards

scientific research, surpassed both the Greeks and the Romans - a

fact testified to by both Greek and Roman writers themselves.

In all the solid essentials of humanity our British ancestors

compare to great advantage with the best eras of Greece and Rome.

Lumisden has shown in his treatise on the 'Antiquities of Rome'

that many of the fine actions attributed by Roman historians to

their own ancestors are mere copies from the early history of

Greece.

It is unfortunate for posterity that the histories from which

modern historians have drawn their information were written by

hostile strangers. That they have been accepted all along the

centuries as true is a striking tribute to a people who, valiant

in war and fierce in the defence of their rights, think no evil

of their enemies. Truly has it been said that an essentially

British characteristic is the swift forgetfulness of injury.

(Source facts for this chapter by Isabel Hill Elder, were taken

from the following- Keith Hunt)

1 History of Scotland, Vol.I, p.31.

2 Asiatic Researches, Vol.3

3 Origin of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons, p.14.4 Hibbert

  Lectures (1887).

5 Ethnology of the British Islands, p.217.

6 Gilbert Stone, England, p.9.

7 Anthrop. Rev. 1870, Vol.8, p.197, Forefathers and Forerunners

  of the British People.

8 Norman Conquest, p.20.

9 Pedigree of the English People.

10 Palgrave, English Commonwealth, Ch.I, p.85.

11 Hannay, European and other Race Origins, pp.365,470,371.

12 Pezron, Antiq, de la Nation et de la Langue Gaulaise. 

13 Vita Agricolae, c.28.

14 Historiae Brittonum of Nennius, Harleian  MS 3859 (British    

   Museum).

15 Vide Geoffrey of Monmouth, I, 1. See Cave Hist.Lit. II,18. 

16 Nennius, Hist. of the Britons, trans. J. A. Giles, Prol. p.2.

17 Gir. Camb. Cambriae Descript., Cap. XVIII. Anglica Hibernica, 

   ed. Camden, p.890.

18 History of England, Vol. 8, p. i 1.

19 Strabo, I,IV, p.197. Mela Pom., III, 2,18. N.H., I, 30. 

20 Antiq.of Rome, pp.6,7,8.

LAWS AND ROADS

That Britain had an indigenous system of law centuries before the

Christian era is abundantly clear from ancient histories of our

islands.

The lawgiver, Molmutius, 450 B.C.(1) based his laws on the code

of Brutus, 1100 B.C. He was the son of Cloton, Duke of Cornwall

(which was and continued to be a royal dukedom) and is referred

to in ancient documents as Dyfn-val-meol-meod, and because of his

wisdom has been called the 'Solomon' of Britain. 'Centuries

before the Romans gained a footing in this country the

inhabitants were a polished and intellectual people, with a

system of jurisprudence of their own, superior even to the laws

of Rome, and the Romans acknowledged this.'(2)

We have it from the great law authorities and from the legal

writers, Fortescue and Coke, that the Brutus and Molmutine laws

have always been regarded as the foundation and bulwark of

British liberties, and are distinguished for their clearness,

brevity, justice and humanity.(3)

'The original laws of this land were composed of such elements as

Brutus first selected from the ancient Greek and Trojan

institutions.'(4)

A Trojan law mentioned by E.O.Gordon, decreed that the sceptre

might pass to a queen as well as to a king; this law was embodied

by King Molmutius in his code and remains an outstanding feature

of the rulership of these islands.(5)

The liberty of the subject, so marked a feature of British

government today, runs from those remote times like a gold thread

through all the laws and institutions in this country.

King Alfred, it is recorded, employed his scribe, Asser, a

learned Welsh monk from St. David's (whom he afterwards made

abbot of Amesbury and Bishop of Sherborne), to translate the

Molmutine laws from the Celtic tongue into Latin, in order  

that he might incorporate them into his own Anglo-Saxon code.(6)

'The Manorial system had its beginning in Celtic Britain and was

so deeply rooted in the soil that when the Romans came they were

wise enough in their experience as colonists not to attempt the

redistribution of the old shires and hundreds.'(7)

King Alfred's ideas of rulership maintained the earlier and

sometimes unwritten laws of Britain in these words: 'A king's raw

material and instruments of rule are well-peopled land, and he

must also have men of prayer, men of war and men of work.'

From the earliest Code of Laws known as the Molmutine, the

following are appended as examples:

'There ate three tests of civil liberty; equality of rights;

equality of taxation; freedom to come and go.

'Three things are indispensable to a true union of nations;

sameness of laws, rights and language.

'There are three things free to all Britons; the forest, the

unworked mine, the right of hunting. 

'There three property birthrights of every Briton; five British

acres of land for a home, the right of suffrage in the enacting

of the laws, the male at twenty-one, the female on her marriage.

'There are three things which every Briton may legally be

compelled to attend; the worship of God, military service, the

courts of law.

'There are three things free to every man, Briton or foreigner,

the refusal of which no law will justify; water from spring,

river or well; firing from a decayed tree, a block of stone not

in use.

'There are three classes which are exempt from bearing arms;

bards, judges, graduates in law or religion. These represent God

and His peace, and no weapon must ever be found in their hands.

'There are three persons who have a right of public maintenance;

the old, the babe, the foreigner who can not speak the British

tongue.'(8)

From time immemorial the laws and customs differed from those of

other nations, and that the Romans effected no change in this

respect is very plainly set forth by Henry de Bracton, a

thirteenth-century English judge of great experience. 'He was

thoroughly acquainted with the practice of the law. His "Note-

Book" is our earliest and most treasured of law reports.'(9)

Judge de Bracton states, 'Whereas in almost all countries they

use laws and written right, England alone uses within her

boundaries unwritten right and custom. In England, indeed, right

is derived from what is unwritten which usage has approved. There

are also in England several and divers customs according to the

diversity of places, for the English have many things by custom

which they have not by written law, as in divers countries,

cities, boroughs and vills where it will always have to be

enquired what is the custom of the place and in what manner they

who allege the custom observe the custom.'(10)

Another point on which Britain differs from other countries is

that she has ever maintained the Common Law which holds a person

under trial innocent until proved guilty, whereas the Continental

nations maintain the Civil Law which holds him guilty until

proved innocent.

Molmutius, the first king in these islands to wear a crown of

gold,(11) is said to have founded the city of Bristol, which he

called Caer Odor, 'the city of the Chasm'. His son Belinus, who

succeeded him, built a city where London now stands which he

called Caer Troia, and also the first Thames Embankment. He

constructed a sort of quay or port made of poles and planks, and

erected a water-gate. That age, the only gate admitting into

London on the south side, became Belinus Gate or Belins Gate.

(12)

Belinus lived to the age of eighty. When he died his body was

burned (they did not call it cremation in those days) and his

ashes were enclosed in a brazen urn, which was placed on top of

the gate; henceforth it was Belin's Gate and it requires no undue

stretch of imagination to see that Belin's Gate became

Billingsgate.

Bellingsgate enjoys the proud distinction of being the first Port

of London, the only Port of London at that time, and thus the men

of Billingsgate became the first Port of London Authority.

Cambria Formosa, daughter of Belinus, 373 B.C. greatly promoted

the building of cities. She is said to have taught the women of  

Britain to sow flax and hemp and weave it into cloth. Her brother

Gwrgan first built the city of Cambridge which he called Caer

Gwrgan.(13)

In these early times Britain was a wealthy country, with fine

cities, a well organized national life, and an educated and

civilized people.

The so-called Roman roads in Britain were constructed centuries

BEFORE the Romans came to these islands. The dover to Holyhead

causeway, called Sarn Wydellin or Irish Road, later became

corrupted into Watling Street; the Sarn Ikin, later Icknield

street, led from London northwards through the eastern district,

and Sarn Achmaen from London to Menevia (St. David's).

These were causeways or raised roads (not mere trackways as

sometimes erroneously stated), except where raised road were

impossible, and this accounts for the term 'Holloway' in some

parts of the country.

Our roads were begun by Molmutius (c.450 B.C.) and completed by

his son Belinus. On their completion a law was enacted throwing 

open these roads to all nations and foreigners: 'There are three

things free to a country and its borders; the roads, the rivers

and the places of worship. These are under the protection of God

and His peace.' In this law originated the term 'The King's

Highway.'(14)

Writers who maintain that the British roads were simply unmade

trackways seem unaware of the fact that the British were skilled

charioteer this fact, without other evidence, should go a long

way to prove that the roads of ancient Britain were hard and well

made. Charioteering is not brought to perfection on soft, boggy

trackways, nor are chariots built without wheelwrights and other

mechanics skilled in the working of iron and wood.

Only once before, in the war with Antiochus, 192 B.C., the Romans

met with similar chariots, but never in any European country. The

British chariot was built after the Eastern pattern, adorned with

carved figures and armed with hooks and scythes. British chariots

were prized possessions of the Romans.

Diodorus Siculus, 60 B.C., states, 'The Britons live in the same

manner that the ancients did; they fight in chariots as the

ancient heroes of Greece are said to  have done in the Trojan

wars.....They are plain and upright in their dealings, and far

from the craft and subtlety of our countrymen.... The island is

very populous.... The Celts never shut the doors of their houses;

they invite strangers to their feasts, and when all is over ask

who they are and what is their business.(15) 

Britain, long before the Roman invasion, was famous for its breed

of horses and the daring and accomplishment of its charioteers;

and after the arrival of the Romans the large space given by

their historians to the wars in Britain, demonstrate the interest

felt in them by the whole empire. Juvenal could suggest no news

which would have(16) been hailed by the Roman people with more

satisfaction than the fall of the British king Arviragus

(Caractacus), a direct descendant of King Molmutius.

     'Hath our great enemy, Arviragus, the car-borne British

     king, Dropped from his battle-throne?'

1. Ancient Laws of Cambria (British Museum, 5805, A.A. 4). Myv.  

Arch., Vol. II, Brut Tysillo.

2. Yeatman, Early English History, p.9.

3. De Laudibus Legum Angliae. Coke Preface, third volume of      

Pleadings. Fortescue Brit. Laws, published with notes by      

Selden, Ch.17, pp.38,39.

4. Ibid.

5. Prehistoric London, p.115.

6. Summarized by Edmund Spenser, Faerie Queen, Bk.II, Stanza     

XXXIX (ed. Morris).

7. A Manor through four Centuries, by A.R.Cook.

8. Triads of Dynvall Moelmud, ap. Walter p. 315 Myv Arch., Vol.  

III. Ancient Laws of Cambria, ap. Palgrave and Lappenberg.    

9. Gilbert Stone, England from Earliest Times, p.385.

10.Legibus et Consuet, pp.4,5.

11.Holinshed, Chronicles, Ch. XXII, p.117. Geoffrey of Monmouth,

Bk.II, Chap.XVII.

12.E. O. Gordon, Prehistoric London, p.146.

13.Lewis, Hist. of Britain, p.52. See Baker's MSS. in the        

University Library, Cambridge,XXIV,249.

14.Ancient Laws of Cambriae (British Museum,A.A.4). Stukely,     

Abury, p.42.

15.Dio.Sic., Bk.V,Chap.X. Senchus Mor., IV,237.

16.Juvenal lived through the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, Nero,

Vespasian, Domitian and Trojan, in whose reign he died at the

age of eighty.

COMMERCE AND DRESS

Tacitus (the Roman Historian - Keith Hunt) and Strabo describe

Londinium as famous for the vast number of merchants who resorted

to it for its widely extended commerce, for the abundance of

every species of commodity which it could supply, and they make

note of British merchants bringing to the Seine and the Rhine

shiploads of corn and cattle, iron and hides, and taking back

iron, ivory and brass ornaments.(1)

That Londinium was considered by the Romans as the metropolis of

Britain is further established by the fact that it was the

residence of the Vicar of Britain!(2) The abode of such an office

clearly marks London as having been a seat of justice, of

government and of the administration of the finances which

consequently contributed to its extent, its magnificence and its

wealth.(3) Britain was, in fact, from at least 900 B.C. to the

Roman invasion, the manufacturing centre of the world.  

The Abbe de Fontenu proved that the Phoenicians, the name by

which the tribe of Asher was known after the Conquest of the

Phoenician territory, had an established trade with Britain

before the Trojan war, 1190 B.C.(4) Admiral Himilco of Carthage,

who visited Britain about the sixth century B.C. to explore 'the

outer parts of Europe', records that the Britons were 'a powerful

race, proud-spirited, effectively skilful in art, and constantly

busy with the cares of trade.(5)

Nor was Ireland less forward than Britain, for from the ancient

Greek records it would appear that trade routes both by sea and

land existed in these very early times, the latter route being

across Europe through the territories of the Scythians. A most

curious belief of the Greeks was that the inspiration which led

to the institution of the Olympic Games was derived from the

observance of ancient Irish festivities.(6)

The British farmer had a market for his produce beyond the shores

of Britain. We learn from Zosimus that in the reign of Julian,

A.D.363, eight hundred pinnaces were built in order to supply

Germany with corn from Britain.(7)

When the Romans invaded Britain in A.D. 43 they found the

inhabitants in possession of a gold coinage, wrought shields of

bronze(8) and enamelled  ornaments.(9) Fine specimens of richly

enamelled horses' trappings may be seen in the British Museum,

and the bronze shield found in the Thames, near Battersea,

adorned with enamelled designs, Rice Holmes describes as 'the

noblest creation of late Celtic art.'(10)

The beautiful brooches discovered in different parts of these

islands clearly demonstrated that the Britons were skilful and

artistic metal workers, and in the centuries of Roman

domination(more like "occupation" than "domination" - Keith Hunt)

The Celtic patterns did not die out. A peculiarly Celtic type is

the 'dragon' brooch 'representing a conventionalized writhing

dragon often magnificently inlaid with enamel, and recalling in

its vigorous design and curvilinear motives all the essential

qualities of late Celtic art'. Thus the native tradition of metal

work continued under Roman rule to flourish and to produce types

which were not merely Roman but recognizably Celtic.(11) In a

further description Mr. Collingwood says. 'In the true Celtic

spirit the ornament on the trumpet head is often made with eyes

and nostrils to resemble the head of an animal, but however the

brooch is finished in detail it is always a masterpiece of both

design and manufacture.'(12)

Enamelling was an art unknown to the Greeks until they were

taught it by the Celts.(13)

Dr.Arthur Evans tells us that the Romans carried off some of the

Britons to Rome to teach them the art of enamelling as well as

that of glass-making.

Stukeley, giving an account of a glass urn discovered in the Isle

of Ely in the year 1757,observes the Britons were famous for

glass manufacture.(14)

The early Britons were workers in pottery, turnery, smeltings and

glasswork.(15) In the excavations at Glastonbury well-made