Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

IllustrationsQueen Maev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iiPrehistoric Tumulus at New Grange . . . . . . . . . . . . 40Stone Alignments at Kermaris, Carnac . . . . . . . . . . . 44Stone-worship at Locronan, Brittany . . . . . . . . . . . . 51[17]CHAPTER I: THE CELTS INANCIENT HISTORYEarliest ReferencesIn the chronicles of the classical nations for about five hundredyears previous to the Christian era there are frequent referencesto a people associated with these nations, sometimes in peace,sometimes in war, and evidently occupying a position of greatstrength and influence in the Terra Incognita of Mid-Europe.This people is called by the Greeks the Hyperboreans or Celts,the latter term being first found in the geographer Hecatæsus,about 500 B.C. 2Herodotus, about half a century later, speaks of the Celts asdwelling “beyond the pillars of Hercules”—i.e., in Spain—andalso of the Danube as rising in their country.2 He speaks of “Nyrax, a Celtic city,” and “Massalia [Marseilles], a city ofLiguria in the land of the Celts” (“Fragmenta Hist. Græc.”).