Their arrival seems to have disturbed the Gaelic lake-dwellers of this region, for about this time we find people, whose culture show Breton affinities, settling on either side of the Irish channel. In the lake-villages of Glastonbury[507] and Meare we have evidence of the arrival of these refugees, and similar evidence may be found in Ireland, which received its first knowledge of iron and La Tène culture about this time.[508] In Ireland these timid folk built their usual lake-dwellings, and crannogs, in the lakes, though Macalister has recently seen in these fortified habitations evidence of the arrival of Gaelic conquerors, who thus defended themselves from the treachery of their subjects, among whom they were very unpopular.[509] But, as we have seen, the Gaelic war lords, with their bronze swords, had reached Ireland nearly a thousand years before.

It was during one of these late Kimric movements that the Belgian tribes began to cross the channel into Great Britain. It is doubtful, at present, whether the introduction of the use of iron and La Tène culture, which took place about 450 B.C., is to be attributed to them, for there were probably many trading posts along the coast, like the one excavated at Hengistbury Head,[510] which were in touch with the continent and could have imported these wares. Some of these settlements may even be earlier than the La Tène period; this is suspected in the case of Hengistbury, and was certainly the case at Eastbourne,[511] if the pottery found there recently really betokens a trading post, and not the arrival of a small group of Gaelic refugees from the further bank of the upper Rhine.

But these Belgic invaders were almost certainly responsible for the hill-top camps, which in the south of England seem to be earlier than 200 B.C., though probably much later in the north and west. To them we must also attribute the introduction of pedestal vases and other types of pottery which come, undoubtedly, from the Belgic area on the continent. Such Belgic movements continued until the first century, and had only ceased shortly before the arrival of Julius Cæsar in northern Gaul.

Thus the Kimri, or as we may now call them the Cymry, did not enter England until about 300 B.C., and for a time seem to have limited their settlements to the chalk lands. By degrees they spread to the oolite ridge, but it is doubtful whether they had progressed farther when Cæsar landed here. The dense Midland forest kept them back, and they seem to have made no attempt to reach Ireland, or, until after Cæsar’s time, to dispossess the Gaels of the Parret marshes. But early in the Christian era civil wars occurred between the tribes on either side of the Thames, which led eventually to Roman interference, and it was during the campaign of Aulus Plautius and his successors that dispossessed Cymric leaders, like Caractacus, fled with their followers to the west, and introduced into Wales a Cymric or Brythonic speech, the first Wiro dialect to be spoken regularly in the principality, except along trade routes and in the small Gaelic settlements above Cardiff.

CHAPTER XV
CONCLUSION

WE have now traced in outline the history of Celtic peoples and Celtic lands from the Wurmian glaciation to the Roman conquest of Britain, and have cited as evidence the conclusions drawn from linguistic science and an extensive array of data of an anthropological and archæological character. Though most of the main conclusions arrived at have been suggested before, many of them to be subsequently discarded as lacking sufficient evidence, the main story of the Wiros and their wanderings, as I have outlined it above, seems to be compatible with all the positive information we possess, though it is in conflict, as I am well aware, with many theories that have been built upon them.

My views will not, I feel sure, meet with ready acquiescence from some Celtic scholars, especially from those who follow Zimmer and Kuno Meyer. This school has for thirty years been engaged in proving that there is no philological evidence for the existence of Goidelic speech in England or Wales, except such as was introduced from Ireland in the third or fourth century, A.D. I do not wish to dispute the philological evidence, nor do I feel competent to do so. I am ready to admit, at any rate for the sake of argument, that no such philological evidence exists. But England has been overrun by Kimri, Romans and Saxons, since the Gaels are believed to have come, and the absence of such evidence is not surprising.

I would, however, point out that the absence of philological evidence of their presence is not conclusive evidence of their absence. If my equation of the bronze swords and the finger-tip pottery with Q speaking people is correct, and the evidence from Italy and the Seine valley seems incontrovertible, the Gaels not only came to England, but settled there in considerable numbers, and even inhabited the southern slopes of the Glamorgan hills. No absence of Goidelic elements in British place-names is proof against such positive evidence. A few of the Gaels may have reached Ireland from the mouth of the Loire, in fact it seems probable that some such movement took place, though positive archæological evidence from the French side is for the present lacking.