Ciaran of Saigir who is proclaimed to thee.
In the north and north-west Highlands the aurora borealis is called Na Fir Chlis ("the nimble men") and "the merry dancers". They are regarded as fairies (supernatural beings) like the sea "fairies" Na Fir Ghorm ("blue men"), who were probably sea gods.
The religious beliefs of the Romans were on no higher a level than those of the ancient Britons and Gaels.
CHAPTER XVII
Historical Summary
The evidence dealt with in the foregoing chapters throws considerable light on the history of early man in Britain. We really know more about pre-Roman times than about that obscure period of Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlement which followed on the withdrawal of the Roman army of occupation, yet historians, as a rule, regard it as "pre-historic" and outside their sphere of interest. As there are no inscriptions and no documents to render articulate the archæological Ages of Stone and Bronze, they find it impossible to draw any definite conclusions.
It can be urged, however, in criticism of this attitude, that the relics of the so-called "pre-historic age" may be found to be even more reliable than some contemporary documents of the "historic" period. Not a few of these are obviously biassed and prejudiced, while some are so vague and fragmentary that the conclusions drawn from them cannot be otherwise than hypothetical in character. A plainer, clearer, and more reliable story is revealed by the bones and the artifacts and the surviving relics of the intellectual life of our remote ancestors than by the writings of some early chroniclers and some early historians. It is possible, for instance, in consequence of the scanty evidence available, to hold widely diverging views regarding the Anglo-Saxon and Celtic problems. Pro-Teutonic and pro-Celtic protagonists involve us invariably in bitter controversy. That contemporary documentary evidence, even when somewhat voluminous, may fail to yield a clear record of facts is evident from the literature that deals, for instance, with the part played by Mary Queen of Scots in the Darnley conspiracy and in the events that led to her execution.
The term "pre-historic" is one that should be discarded. It is possible, as has been shown, to write, although in outline, the history of certain ancient race movements, of the growth and decay of the civilization revealed by the cavern art of Aurignacian and Magdalenian times, of early trade and of early shipping. The history of art goes back for thousands of years before the Classic Age dawned in Greece; the history of trade can be traced to that remote period when Red Sea shells were imported into Italy by Crô-Magnon man; and the history of British shipping can be shown to be as old as those dug-outs that foundered in ancient Scottish river beds before the last land movement had ceased.
The history of man really begins when and where we find the first clear traces of his activities, and as it is possible to write not only regarding the movements of the Crô-Magnon races, but of their beliefs as revealed by burial customs, their use of body paint, the importance attached to shell and other talismans, and their wonderful and high attainments in the arts and crafts, the European historical period can be said to begin in the post-Glacial epoch when tundra conditions prevailed in Central and Western Europe and Italy was connected with the North African coast.
In the case of ancient Egypt, historical data have been gleaned from archæological remains as well as from religious texts and brief records of historical events. The history of Egyptian agriculture has been traced back beyond the dawn of the Dynastic Age and to that inarticulate period before the hieroglyphic system of writing had been invented, by the discovery in the stomachs of the bodies of proto-Egyptians, naturally preserved in hot dry sands, of husks of barley and of millet native to the land of Egypt.[197]