"Celtic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... said the wife; "wherever they are sent, let them go together. I could pledge my watch and wedding diamond ring to help to raise such beauties," said she, passionately. "Surely they cannot be Irish, or they must belong to some race different from the Celtic half savages which we ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... on. * * * * * Jackson went on leave. To his deep disgust he had to wait a few hours in London on his way to more civilised parts, and fate led him idling to Brownhill's. He flattened his Celtic nose on the window and stared fascinated at the array of super-pipes displayed there. After a furtive glance along the street he crept into the temple. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... It is characteristic of the Morte d'Arthur fragment that it is apparently free from all allegorical intention. It is merely a moving human story with a fascinating element of mystery inspired by the original Celtic legend. An element of allegory lies in the epilogue, and The Passing of Arthur still further enforces the allegorical purpose. But here, as Mr. Brooke again writes (p. 371), "we are close throughout to the ancient ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... too, was Sir Sunderland Swiggs' portrait, very valuable for its age; she might sell the family arms, such things being in great demand with the chivalry; her antique furniture, too, was highly prized by our first families. Thus Lady Swiggs contemplated these mighty relics of past greatness. Our celtic Butlers and Brookses never recurred to the blood of their querulous ancestors with more awe than did this memorable lady to her decayed relics. Mr. Israel Moses, she cherished a hope, would give a large sum for the portrait; the family arms he would value at a high figure; the old furniture ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... by the poverty in which they have so long lived, and the jet-black hair and broad faces which I saw around me, instead of the light hair and oval countenances so general a few miles back, showed me that I was among the pure Celtic race. ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... impassable gulf between Etrurian Religion and the comparatively clear and comprehensible systems of the Pelasgo- Phoenician peoples. That Kad or Kab can refer either (as in Quatuor) to a four-footed animal (quadruped, "quad") or to a four- wheeled vehicle (esseda, Celtic cab) I cannot for a moment believe, though I understand that this theory has the support of Schrader, Penka, and Baunder. {10} Any information which your learning can procure, and your kind courtesy can supply, ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... and a centre of social life of their own. The families and tribes that migrate in search of new settlements carry with them their family and tribal organizations, and retain it for a long time. The Celtic tribes retained it in Gaul till broken up by the Roman conquest, under Caesar Augustus; in Ireland, till the middle of the seventeenth century; and in Scotland, till the middle of the eighteenth. It subsists ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... many fine scenes, in the Celtic Parnassus of Ossian: but when Burns saw it, the Highland passion of the stream was abated, for there had been no rain for some time to swell and send it pouring down its precipices in a way worthy of the scene. The descent of the water is about two hundred feet. There is another fall further up the ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... in supposing that, among the relics of antiquity still existing in Sardinia, the monoliths, of somewhat similar character with the Celtic remains at Carnac, Avebury, and Stonehenge, and common also in other countries, belong to the earliest age. These Sarde monoliths are found in several parts of the island, being, as the name expresses, single stones, or obelisks, set upright in the ground. In Sardinia ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Norwegians and Celtic (Scottish and Irish) immigrants during the late 9th and 10th centuries, Iceland boasts the world's oldest parliament, the Althing, established in 930. Independent for over 300 years, Iceland was subsequently ruled by Norway ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of the Established Church of Ireland—might have accomplished wonders in the way of converting the Irish peasantry to Protestantism if they only could have preached and controverted in the Irish language. We are convinced that they could have done nothing of the kind. The Irish Celtic population is in its very nature a Catholic population. Not all the preaching since Adam {131} could have made them other than that. Still it struck John Wesley very painfully later on that the effort was never made, and that the men who could not talk to the Irish people ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... he repair, This western frontier scanned with care?— In Benvenue's most darksome cleft, A fair though cruel pledge was left; For Douglas, to his promise true, That morning from the isle withdrew, And in a deep sequestered dell Had sought a low and lonely cell. By many a bard in Celtic tongue Has Coir-nan-Uriskin been sung A softer name the Saxons gave, And called the grot the ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... there's a man about the place here whose name is Michael, and he possesses that blend of Gallic facility with Celtic canniness that makes the Irish so wonderful as a race. I told my trouble to Michael,—with the result that I get a teapot full of Chianti with my dinner every night, and no ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... the Morvan language is a Celtic tongue. No; it is only a French patois, very interesting and peculiar in its grammatical forms. I understand it partly when spoken, and can read it with some little difficulty. My daughter understands it very well. Our servants speak ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... and a Cornish," said my father. "Some derive it from the Romans,—Vivianus; others from a Celtic word ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... soon demonstrated that the manager's discernment was not in error. There was not only abundance but quality, and the landlord's daughter waited on the guests, thereby subjecting herself to the very open advances of the Celtic Adonis. The large table was laden with heavy crockery, old-fashioned and quaint; an enormous rotary castor occupied the center of the table, while the forks and spoons were—an unusual ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... of Celtic poetry—I've found a stunning idea for music. What a tone-poem it will make! Here it is. What colour, what rhythms. It is called The Shadowy Horses. 'I hear the shadowy horses, their long ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Latin poetry and eloquence. It is not probable that the islanders were at any time generally familiar with the tongue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to the vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many centuries, been predominant. It drove out the Celtic; it was not driven out by the Teutonic; and it is at this day the basis of the French, Spanish and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not stand its ground ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Celtic father, gay, humorous, full of impulsive chivalry and intense Irish patriotism, and of a practical New England mother, herself of Revolutionary stock, clear of judgment, careful of the household ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... especially at Brannocktown, co. Kildare, where in 1784 they were dug up in great numbers; that a skeleton dug out of an ancient barrow, actually had a pipe sticking between its teeth when found. (From Anthol. Hibern., i. 352.) Halloran says Celtic pipes are found in the Bog of Cullen. In form, these pipes were very similar to those in ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 40, Saturday, August 3, 1850 - A Medium Of Inter-Communication For Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, • Various
... very valuable and learned Celtic Polyglott Grammar, giving a Comparative View of the Breton, Gaelic, Welsh, Irish, Cornish, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... there!" "Howld yer tongues!" "May the divil ate yez! but the best of yez hashn't the manners of a pig!" Amid such pleasant ebullitions of Celtic amiability, PUNCHINELLO succeeded in carving his way to the door, when it suddenly opened, and a tall, lean, cadaverous man, who looked like the ghost of some Fenian leader, bawled at the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 13, June 25, 1870 • Various
... as made by the power of lightning, and rendered more effective by these connections with the dread element; pursuant of which idea, the zigzag or lightning marks are added to the shafts of arrows. A chapter might be written concerning this idea, which may possibly help to explain the Celtic, Scandinavian, and Japanese beliefs concerning "elf-shafts," and ...
— Zuni Fetiches • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... air, I can't forget it, I was there; Its history I'll not jot down Until I get to Upper Town. And Charles Rowan, well I know, The reader sought for him ere now, What shall I of friend Charlie say, Who came from Connaught all the way? Who well can speak the celtic tongue In which the Irish mintrels sung. When famous Malachi of old The collar wore of beaten gold, Torn fiercely from the haughty Dane By his right arm in battle slain! Charlie is mild and full of meekness, Horses with him have been a weakness: A clipper ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... hoard has enriched so many poets and romances from his day to now, is no less due to the twelfth-century Dane, whose faithful and eloquent enthusiasm has swept much dust from antique time, and saved us such a story as Shakespeare has not disdained to consecrate to highest use. Not only Celtic and Teutonic lore are the richer for these two men, but the whole Western world of thought and speech. In the history of modern literature, it is but right that by the side of Geoffrey an honourable place should ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... This movement <was suppressed, driven under the surface, but only to break out more appallingly than ever some ten or twelve years later, in brutal assassinations, which have curdled the blood of the world. Ah, must it always be so? Will this tiresome old Celtic Enceladus never lie quiet, and be dead, though the mountain sit upon him ever so solidly, and smoke ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... first navigators. History, on the Contrary, positively mentions prisoners, under the name of Tokhari, who were vanquished in a naval battle fought by Rhamses III. in the thirteenth century before our era, and whose physiognomy, according to Morton, would indicate the Celtic type. Now there is room to suppose that if these Tokhari were energetic enough to measure their strength on the sea with one of the powerful kings of Egypt, they must, with stronger reason, have been in a condition to carry on a commerce along the coasts of the Mediterranean, and perhaps of the ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... reckoned among the masters of Latin poetry and eloquence. It is not probable that the islanders were, at any time, generally familiar with the tongue of their Italian rulers. From the Atlantic to the vicinity of the Rhine the Latin has, during many centuries, been predominant. It drove out the Celtic—it was not driven out by the Teutonic—and it is at this day the basis of the French, Spanish, and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not stand its ground before the German.' ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... The old Celtic hero and poet Usheen or Oisin, whose supposed songs are known in English as those of Ossian, lived to a great old age, surviving all others of the race of the Feni, to which he belonged; and he was asked in his last years what ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... a column notice says: "Mr Moore's 'Cornish Catches' are just so good as Cornish cream to a Cornish cat, and even those who do not know the dialect, with its faint, far-away echoes of Celtic verse-forms, will delight in his simple 'vitty' songs of the Delectable Duchy. He is a patriotic Cornish-man sure enough ... as good as anything of the kind written by the dialect-poets of Lancashire or ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... old Saxon ancestors, and the legends connected with their first invasion of the country; and above all at the magnificent fables of King Arthur and his times which exercised so great an influence on the English mind, and were in fact, although originally Celtic, so thoroughly adopted and naturalised by the Saxon, as to reappear under different forms in every age, and form the keynote of most of our fictions, from Geoffrey of Monmouth and the medieval ballads, up to Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and at last Milton and Blackmore. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... forgotten, however, that one incident—the most daring incident in the book—that of the rifling of a grave for treasure —is not new: it will at once remind folk-lorists of certain practices charged against our old Norse invaders. And students of Celtic and Gaelic literature are familiar with the same idea. Quite, lately, indeed, Mr. Alfred Nutt, in his analysis of the Gaelic Agallamh na Senorach, or 'Colloquy of the Elders,' has made some ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... those who are accustomed to them, and who have the tone of their passions raised above less animating or trying occasions. Old men, among the courtiers of Attila, wept when they heard of heroic deeds, which they themselves could no longer perform. [Footnote: Ibid.] And among the Celtic nations, when age rendered the warrior unfit for his former toils, it was the custom, in order to abridge the languors of a listless and inactive life, to sue for death at the hands of his friends. [Footnote: Ubi transcendit ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... Byzantine character and traditions. In Armenia (as at Ani, Etchmiadzin, etc.) are also interesting examples of late Armeno-Byzantine architecture, showing applications to exterior carved detail of elaborate interlaced ornament looking like a re-echo of Celtic MSS. illumination, itself, no doubt, originating in Byzantine traditions. But the greatest and most prolific offspring of Byzantine architecture appeared after the fall of Constantinople (1453) in the new ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... Mr. Miller, or "Old Red," as he was familiarly named by his scientific friends, will not be forgotten by any who have seen him. A head of great massiveness, magnified by an abundant profusion of sub-Celtic hair, was set on a body of muscular compactness, but which in later years felt the undermining influence of a life of unusual physical and mental toil. Generally wrapped in a bulky plaid, and with a garb ready for ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... when all these earlier discoveries were to be interpreted by means of investigations in a different field: for, in 1847, a man previously unknown to the world at large, Boucher de Perthes, published at Paris the first volume of his work on Celtic and Antediluvian Antiquities, and in this he showed engravings of typical flint implements and weapons, of which he had discovered thousands upon thousands in the high drift beds near ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... fruit, lends us the harvest element of Hallowe'en; the Celtic day of "summer's end" was a time when spirits, mostly evil, were abroad; the gods whom Christ dethroned joined the ill-omened throng; the Church festivals of All Saints' and All Souls' coming at the same time of year—the first of November—contributed the idea of the return of the dead; ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... Celtic origin, and is very common as a river-name in England, Ireland, France, and other parts of ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... our Bishop the pastoral staff which was borne before him in the procession this morning, calling his attention to the figures upon it, of St. Andrew, the patron-saint of Scotland, St. Ninian, one of the early Celtic evangelists, St. Augustine of Canterbury, as representing the English succession, St. John, to whom the Scotch Communion office (and with it our own) is traced, Bishop Kilgour, the senior consecrator of Bishop Seabury, and Bishop Seabury himself. Our own Bishop ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut
... directness about this verdict upon a rival historian which we shall probably persist in calling "Saxon"; but it is no worse than the criticisms of Matthew Arnold's essay on "The Celtic Spirit" made to-day by university professors who happen to know Old Irish at first hand, and consequently consider Arnold's opinion on Celtic matters ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... France by the Romans, and their first contact with the inhabitants of Germany and of Great Britain, are to be regarded in connection with the general history of the world.... The fact that the great Celtic people were ruined by the transalpine wars of Caesar was not the most important result of that grand enterprise,—far more momentous than the negative was the positive result. It hardly admits of a doubt that if the rule of the Senate ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... throws a flood of light on the religions of Babylon, Egypt, the Hindus, and the Jewish people. We know in fact as little about the religion of the old Italian populations as we do about that of our own Teutonic ancestors, less perhaps than we do about that of the Celtic peoples. The Romans were a rude and warlike folk, and meddled neither with literature nor philosophy until they came into immediate contact with the Greeks; thus it was that, unfortunately for our purposes, the literary spirit, when at last it was born in Italy, was rather Greek than Roman. When ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... necessary to the text. The Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly by their resemblance to the Highlanders of Scotland, in dress, figure, and manner of living. Their very mountains seemed Caledonian, with a kinder climate. The kilt, though white; the spare, active form; their dialect, Celtic in its sound; and their hardy habits, all carried me back to Morven. No nation are so detested and dreaded by their neighbours as the Albanese; the Greeks hardly regard them as Christians, or the Turks as ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... the Ionian sea, and on the third through seven mouths sends its stream to the Sardinian sea and its limitless bay. [1403] And from Rhodanus they entered stormy lakes, which spread throughout the Celtic mainland of wondrous size; and there they would have met with an inglorious calamity; for a certain branch of the river was bearing them towards a gulf of Ocean which in ignorance they were about to enter, and never would they have returned from there in safety. But ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... twenty-one years of age when he came to Paris; tall, stalwart, broad of shoulders and deep of chest, with a fair frank face, an auburn moustache, candid, kind blue eyes—a physiognomy rather Saxon than Celtic. He was a man who made friends quickly, and was soon at home among the students, roaring their favourite songs, and dancing their favourite dances at the dancing-places of that day, joining with a pleasant heartiness in all their innocent ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... Valhallic origin, an exceptionally unmixed descent of the highest attributes. The primogenial origin may be hidden in obscurity, but the German people have absorbed Gauls, Serbs, Poles, Wends, and a medley of Slav and Celtic races which confound all claims to racial purity. Slavs settled in Teutonic countries and Teutons settled in Slavonic countries. The German colonists who invaded Russia at the invitation of Catherine II were imported to strengthen Russia, just ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... admiration than those of the Giant's Causeway, and have missed being famous only from being eclipsed by the greater glory of Staffa. The island belonged for many generations to the Macquaires, a name distinguished in our home annals, as well as in those of Australia. The Celtic name of the Livingstones was M'Leay, which, according to Dr. Livingstone's own idea, means "son of the gray-headed," but according to another derivation, "son of the physician." It has been surmised that the name may have been given to some ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... the scientist gravely. "I do not think this young lady is so Celtic as I had supposed. As I have nothing else to do, I will put on my hat and ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... The lesser and more distant isle, that of St. Honorat, is one of the great historic sites of the world. It is the starting point of European monasticism, whether in its Latin, its Teutonic, or its Celtic form, for it was by Lerins that the monasticism of Egypt first penetrated into ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... simple manners of his beloved Lutetia; where the amusements of the theatre were unknown or despised. He indignantly contrasted the effeminate Syrians with the brave and honest simplicity of the Gauls, and almost forgave the intemperance, which was the only stain of the Celtic character. If Julian could now revisit the capital of France, he might converse with men of science and genius, capable of understanding and of instructing a disciple of the Greeks; he might excuse the lively and graceful follies of a nation, whose ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... something almost amusing in the strong racial index of her pure Irish face. The black hair and eye-brows were there, with eyes of indescribable blue; the full, shapely lips, and that delicate contour of chin which specially marks the highest type of a race which is not only non-Celtic but non-Aryan. ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... a young man, born in the Bay of Arisaig, opposite Rum and the Isle of Skye. His high, hawklike features and snaky black hair bore the mark of that unknown historic thing which is crudely called Celtic, but which is probably far older than the Celts, whoever they were. He was in name and stock a Highlander of the Macdonalds; but his family took, as was common in such cases, the name of a subordinate sept as a surname, and ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... "smashed-up" face he would have been tolerably sure of a win in any class. The Dandie Dinmont had the most delightful eyes imaginable, and was a good-bodied dog, faulty only in tail and in a tendency to be leggy. The Welshman was a little miracle of Celtic grace—the very incarnation ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... 'Hem! The Celtic blood is all in commotion! This boy's business was to ask my candid opinion whether there were anything ungentlemanlike in a clerkship in a bank. It was well it ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Gaelic books, such as the original texts of Norman Macleod's exquisite sermons, M'Rury's religious compilations, Macleod's clever poetry The Lyre of the Grove, Campbell's Popular Tales of the West Highlands, and Magnus Maclean's manuals of Celtic Literature. There being a distinct dearth of comely Celtic reading that the ordinary native can understand, arrangements have been made for the translation into Gaelic in several volumes by competent scholars, ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... and a yet larger number in that of Roknia. "At Bou-Merzoug," says M. Feraud,[157] "in a radius of three leagues, on the mountain as well as on the plain, the whole country about the springs is covered with monuments of the Celtic form, such as dolmens, demi-dolmens, menhirs, avenues, and tumuli. In a word, there are to be found examples of nearly every type known in Europe. For fear of being taxed with exaggeration, I will not fix the number, but I can certify that I saw and examined more than ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... course, of the Tuatha De Danann, the tribes of the god Danu, the half-legendary, half-historical clan who found their home in Erin some four thousand years before the Christian era, and who have left so deep an impress upon the Celtic mind ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... winter quarters in Hither Gaul frequent reports were brought to him that all the Belgae were entering into a confederacy against the Roman people, because they feared that, after all Celtic Gaul was subdued, our army would be led against them. Caesar, alarmed, levied two new legions in Hither Gaul, and proceeded to the territory of the Belgae. As he arrived there unexpectedly, and sooner than anyone anticipated, the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... "The Celtic Dragon Myth," with the "Geste of Fraoch and the Dragon," translated with Introduction by George Henderson, ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... to see your back," the man repeated, while his companions looked down at the Colonel with a strange fixedness. The Celtic nature, prone to sudden rage, stirred in them. The stranger who an hour before had been indifferent to them now wore the face of an enemy. The lake and the bog—ay, the secret grave yearned for him: the winding-sheet was high upon his breast. "Stay, and it's ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... have been evolved from a camel. When the man is a mere dot in the distance, the other man does not shout at him and ask whether he had a university education, or whether he is quite sure he is purely Teutonic and not Celtic or Iberian. A man is a man; and a man is a very important thing. One thing redeems the Moslem morality which can be set over against a mountain of crimes; a considerable deposit of common sense. And the first fact of common sense is the common bond of men. There is indeed in the Moslem ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... did grow into another England again, she missed for ever in her laws, and still more in her language and her literature, the chance of developing into a great homogeneous Teutonic people infused usefully with a mixture of Celtic blood. ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... evidence of coins and triumphial monuments, that a standard of the form of the Labarum was used by various barbarous nations long before it was adopted by their Roman conquerors, and he is of opinion that its name also was borrowed from either Teutonic Germany, or Celtic Gaul, or Sclavonic Illyria. It is certain that either the German language or the Welsh may afford at this day a perfectly satisfactory etymon: Lap-heer in the former and Lab-hair in the latter, having precisely the same meaning— the cloth of ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... is exposed to all sorts of wrongs from his neighbours, and he can only escape by turning "informer," by breaking the most sacred law of his society, losing all social status, and, probably, obliging his parents to remove him from school. Life at school, as among the Celtic peoples, turns on the belief that law and authority are natural enemies, against which every ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... Banneker out of placid, inscrutable eyes, soft as a dove's, while he chatted at large about theaters, politics, the news of the day. Afterward the applicant met the Celtic assistant, Mr. Mallory, who broadly outlined for him the technique of the office. With no further preliminaries Banneker found himself employed at fifteen dollars a week, with Monday for his day off and directions to report on the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... did the Boians and the Celtic tribes Bury, but not beside the stream of Po; From off their warlike arms their shields they flung, And what the damsel ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... humour of a Celtic crowd, quick to take a fantastic advantage of a situation, a second cry was heard: "St. Lievin must go through the house. Lievin is a saint who never turns aside ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... portraying the supreme deity, and a sacred tree, whose flowers are in this instance in the shape of an acorn. Whence did the Assyrians derive this veneration for a tree bearing acorns? Did they derive this notion, as they did their tin, from Celtic Britain? I believe ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... civilization in Europe, conferred on Jersey the name of Caesarea, in honour of their leader; and Caesar and Tacitus concur in describing it as a stronghold of Druidism, of which worship many monuments still exist. The aborigines were doubtless sprung from the Celtic tribes spread over the adjacent continent; but the present inhabitants are universally recognised as the lineal descendants of the warlike Normans, who, under the auspices of the famous Rollo, conquered and established ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... the Age of Stone in Lyell's 'Elements of Geology,' C. X., p. 113, as compared with the Dolichocephalic type of the beginning of the Age of Iron, correspondent with that now so prevalent amongst us, and called the Celtic type. It has the same comparative massiveness of forehead, not receding like the Celtic—the same even roundness in the frontal organs; but it is far loftier in the apex, and far less pronounced in the hinder cranial hemisphere where phrenologists ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... is in my parish. If you have anything to say against that, I will listen to you," said the irascible Rector. His Welsh blood was up; he even raised his voice a little, with a kind of half-feminine excitement, common to the Celtic race; and the consequence was that Mr Wentworth, who stood perfectly calm to receive the storm, had all the advantage in the world over Mr Morgan. The Perpetual Curate bowed with immovable composure, and felt ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... Conquest of Gaul—and its success which opened the ancient and immemorial culture of the Mediterranean to the world. It was a revolution which for rapidity and completeness has no parallel. Something less than a hundred small Celtic States, partially civilized (but that in no degree comparable to the high life of the Mediterranean), were occupied, taught, and, as it were, "converted" into citizens of this now united ...
— Europe and the Faith - "Sine auctoritate nulla vita" • Hilaire Belloc
... Sometimes it was a frog, when it seemed to be sinking into or squatting upon the water; and out of this fancy, when the meaning of it was lost, there grew a Sanskrit legend, which is to be found also in Teutonic and Celtic myths. This story is, that Bheki (the frog) was a lovely maiden who was found by a king, who asked her to be his wife. So she married him, but only on condition that he should never show her a drop of water. ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... heard of Pitt. It was Youghal's ambition—or perhaps his hobby—to infuse into the greyness of modern political life some of the colour of Disraelian dandyism, tempered with the correctness of Anglo-Saxon taste, and supplemented by the flashes of wit that were inherent from the Celtic strain in him. His success was only a half-measure. The public missed in him that touch of blatancy which it looks for in its rising public men; the decorative smoothness of his chestnut-golden hair, and the lively sparkle of his epigrams were counted ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... dreadful threats, so that for a Roman to stand to his ranks at such a time, and to obey his general, was a great matter, Marius had the command, and Sertorius undertook to be a spy upon the enemy. Putting on a Celtic dress, and making himself master of the most ordinary expressions of the language, for the purpose of conversation when occasion might offer, he mingled with the barbarians, and, either by his own eyes or by inquiry, learning all that was ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... Cornwall or not, Sir Sidney has not been able to decide on the rather shaky evidence that has been put forward. If it should hereafter turn out that Keats was a Cornishman at one remove, Matthew Arnold's conjecture as to the "Celtic element" in him, as in other English poets, may revive ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... Missionaries in changing the names of native children, and even adults, so soon as they go into their families to live, as though their own were not good enough for them. These native names are generally much more significant, and euphonious than the Saxon, Gaelic, or Celtic. Thus, Adenigi means, "Crowns have their shadow." This was the name of a servant boy of ours, whose father was a native cotton trader, it is to be hoped that this custom among Missionaries and other Christian settlers, of changing ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... giant buttresses. They are reached, despite the steepness of the hill, by an easy winding road that leads, with long, meandering turns, down to the yellow, sandy beach of the little bay. Clotilde and Julia made a sketch of the old Celtic temple while the gentlemen were smoking; then they amused themselves for some time watching the rising waves spreading upon the sand its fringes of foam. It was agreed to return to the top of the hill on foot in order to ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... multitudes who inhabited the unexplored regions of Central Europe, the Celts and Germans, [Footnote: The Cimbri, who formed a portion of this invading body, had their original home in the modern peninsula of Jutland, whence came also early invaders of Britain, and they were probably a Celtic people.] had gathered a mass comprising, it is said, more than three hundred thousand men capable of fighting, besides hosts of women and children, and were marching with irresistible force towards the Roman domains. Nine ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... said the Earl. "To hear old stories about the Tinwald laws, and the contending rights of the lords and the clergy, and all the rest of that Celtic barbarism, which, like Burgesse's thorough-paced doctrine enters at one ear, paces through, and goes out ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... is also not impossible that there was a time when the western [213] or Celtic princes made themselves masters of Greece, of Egypt and a good part of Asia, and that their cult remained in those countries. When one considers with what rapidity the Huns, the Saracens and the Tartars gained possession of a great part of our continent one will ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... Justinian 94. The Byzantine State Church under Justinian 95. The Definitive Type of Religion in the East: Dionysius the Areopagite Chapter II. The Transition To The Middle Ages. The Foundation Of The Germanic National Churches 96. The Celtic Church in the British Isles 97. The Conversion of the Franks. The Establishment of Catholicism in the Germanic Kingdoms 98. The State Church in the Germanic Kingdoms 99. Gregory the Great and the Roman Church in the Second ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Middle Ages, a chronicle in stone. It was a city formed of two layers only; the Romanesque layer and the Gothic layer; for the Roman layer had disappeared long before, with the exception of the Hot Baths of Julian, where it still pierced through the thick crust of the Middle Ages. As for the Celtic layer, no specimens were any longer to be found, even ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... clunk, it is in use throughout Cornwall in the sense of "to swallow," and is undoubtedly Celtic. On referring to Le Gonidec's Dictionnaire Celto-Breton, I find "Lonka, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... glens. Dying Ravens hide themselves from daylight in burial-places among the rocks, and are seen hobbling into their tombs, as if driven thither by a flock of fears, and crouching under a remorse that disturbs instinct, even as if it were conscience. So sings and says the Celtic superstition—muttered to us in a dream—adding that there are Raven ghosts, great black bundles of feathers, for ever in the forest, night-hunting in famine for prey, emitting a last feeble croak at the blush of dawn, and then ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... was revered with a devotion such as was scarcely ever rendered to any leader who had gone before him. A halo of romance had woven itself around his figure and all the poetry and passion of the mystic Celtic spirit went forth to him in the homage of a great loyalty and regard. The title of "The Uncrowned King of Ireland" was no frothy exuberance as applied to him—for he was in truth a kingly man, robed ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... might advance too hurriedly. It would be wiser, and in the long run it would pay, she warned herself, to draw in—for as she still lingered and chatted with him she more and more felt that she was face to face with a resourceful and strong-willed opponent. She noticed, through all the outward Celtic gentleness, the grim and passionate mouth, the keenness of the shifty yet penetrating hazel-gray eyes, the touch of almost bull-dog tenaciousness about the loose-jointed, high-shouldered figure, and, above all, the audacity of the careless ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... wholesale and individual, allegorical visions, miracles, and portents. Eastern splendor and northern weirdness, angelry and deviltry, together with abundant fighting and quite a phenomenal amount of swooning, which seem to reflect a strange medley of Celtic, pagan, and mythological traditions, and Christian legends and mysticism, alternate in a kaleidoscopic maze that defies the symmetry which modern aesthetic canons associate ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... base of the hill called Penniel or Penniel-heugh: and it is hoped that the etymological derivation of that word now to be hazarded will not imply in the etymologist the credulity of a Monkbarns. Pen, it is known, signifies in the Celtic language "a hill". And the word heil, in the Celto-Scythian, is, in the Latin, rendered Sol. In the Armoric dialect of the Celtic also, heol means "the sun:" hence, Penheil, Penheol, or Penniel, "the hill of the sun." Beyond the garden of ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 28. Saturday, May 11, 1850 • Various
... soul! Celtic and improvident! Patrick's visions had shown him only the triumphant arrival of his host and the beatific joy of Eva as she floated by his side on the most "fancy" of boat-birds. Of the return journey he had taken no thought. And so the saving and planning had to be done ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Benedictine's manuscript by the name of Kennaquhair, bears the same Celtic termination which occurs in Traquhair, Caquhair, and other compounds. The learned Chalmers derives this word Quhair, from the winding course of a stream; a definition which coincides, in a remarkable degree, with the serpentine turns of the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... probably the custom had its origin as far back as the feast of Flora, when pagan rites were performed in the country, or, perhaps, it originally was instituted to celebrate a victory over the Saxons; or it may be a remnant of some old Celtic observance. ...
— Michael Penguyne - Fisher Life on the Cornish Coast • William H. G. Kingston
... Saint Andrew's, and came home in June with new, flat bands of muscle in his chest, and Onnie worshiped with loud Celtic exclamations, and bade small Pete grow up like Master San. And Sanford grew two inches before he came home for the next summer, reverting to bare feet, corduroys, and woolen shirts as usual. Onnie eyed him ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... of an abbey the vale of Esechasan, to which, on the evening before his execution, the Earl wrote such touching verses; the quaint old kitchen-garden; the ruins of the ancient Castle, where worthy Major Dalgetty is said to have passed such uncom- fortable moments;—the Celtic cross from lone Iona:—all and everything I showed off with as much pride and pleasure, I think, as if they had been my own possessions; and the more so as the Icelander himself evidently ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... Snowdon's vales To Severn's silver strand! [4] For all the grace of that old race Still haunts the Celtic land. And, dear old Ireland, God save you, And heal the wounds of old, For every grief you ever knew May joy ...
— Songs Of The Road • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were laid against him at the English court by the plundered merchants, and the Irish viking set out for London, to plead his own cause before good Queen Bess, as she was called. He had one powerful recommendation: he was a marvellously handsome man. Not Celtic by descent, but half Spanish, half Danish in blood, he had the great northern stature with the regular features, flashing eyes, and dark hair of the Iberian race. This may account for the fact that his stay at the English court was ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... doctrines of Jesus Christ, and the mythology and institutions of the Celtic conquerors of the Roman empire, outlived the darkness and the convulsions connected with their growth and victory, and blended themselves in a new fabric of manners and opinion. It is an error to impute the ignorance of the dark ages to the Christian doctrines or the predominance of the Celtic ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of the North; descendant of the dark tender-hearted Celtic girl, and the fair deep-hearted Scandinavian Viking, thank God for thy heather and fresh air, and the kine thou tendest, and the wool thou spinnest; and come not to seek thy fortune, child, in wicked London town; nor import, as they tell me thou art doing fast, the ugly fashions of that London town, ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... poet—a poet like his father. And the big-hearted kindness of him, thrashing the runaway into sense. Irish temper there! Kenny felt a passionate thrill of pride in his offspring. Yes, Brian was like his father, thank God, even to the Celtic curse of homesickness. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... for Winchester as the Caer Gwent of the Celtic and Belgic Britons, the Venta Belgarum of the Romans, and the Wintanceaster of the Saxons. The history of Winchester is nearly coeval with the Christian era. Julius Caesar does not seem to have been here, in his invasion of Britain, but some of his troops must have ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... is "Kit's Coty (or Coity) House," about one and a half miles north-east from Aylesford, and not very far from the Bell Inn. According to Mr. Phillips Bevan, the peculiar name is derived from the Celtic "Ked," and "Coity" or "Coed" (Welsh), and means the Tomb in the Wood. Seymour considers the words a corruption of "Catigern's House." Below Kit's Coty House, Mr. Wright, the archaeologist, found the remains of a Roman villa, with quantities ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... grand position among the powers of the world. But it is nevertheless clear at first sight that the constituent elements of the population were far from being completely fused. In many places in the two great islands the old Celtic stock still existed with its original character unaltered. The Germanic race, which certainly had an indubitable preponderance and was sovereign over the other, was split into two different kingdoms, which, despite the union of the two crowns, still remained distinct. The hostility ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... romantic and poetical, and you feel the call of kind to kind. That's distinctly a Celtic trait." ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Its limits and its very existence as a separate shire were predetermined for it by the shape and consistence of the mud or sand which gathered at the bottom of the great Wealden lake, or filled up the hollows of the old inland cretaceous sea. Paradoxical as it sounds to say so, the Celtic kingdom of the Regni, the South Saxon principality of AElle the Bretwalda, the modern English county of Sussex, have all had their destinies moulded by the geological conformation of the rock upon which they repose. Where human ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... still another type: shown by that dark young woman over there, with the melancholy air. She must be a Celtic type. What is obvious is that there is great liveliness in these people, great elegance in their movements. They are like actors giving ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... tepid and still stronger, but sky very clear. An indigo sea, with beautiful white-caps. The ocean color is deepening: it is very rich now, but I think less wonderful than before;—it is an opulent pansy hue. Close by the ship it looks black-blue,—the color that bewitches in certain Celtic eyes. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... McClure had tracked with Lag when he made his tours among his neighbours, with confiscation and fine for a main object, and the murder of this or that man of prayer, covenant-keeper or Bible-carrier, as only a wayside accident. Now Galloway is half Celtic, and the other half, at least till the Ayrshire invasion, was mostly Norse. So McClure was hated with all the Celtic vehemence which does not stop short of blood. He was the salaried betrayer of his own, and in time, unless he could make enough money ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... feeling, that it regains an engrafted influence even when history witnesses that vast convulsions have rent and weakened it and the Celtic feeling towards the Stuarts has been rekindled in our own days towards the grand daughter of George the ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... a man of so much ability should have so utterly damned himself as X— has, but he is hopelessly Celtic. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... the walls of an important establishment, and steps had been taken to get others removed."—Jewish Guardian, February 22, 1924. We wonder whether the Welsh would be able to obtain the removal of posters advertising literature of an anti-Celtic nature. This comes perilously near to a ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... triumph, through the force of numbers, was incomplete, until their enemies were tortured by every cruelty of oppression, and the fabric of the Government dashed to atoms. This triumph can only be temporary. The innate love of free institutions, universal in the heart of the Celtic Southerner, will yet unite all the races to retrieve the lost. This done, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... drama of hopeless struggle. The "second sight"—called "the gift" in Campbell of Kilmhor, and an incident also in The Riding to Lithend—was a sort of prophetic vision altogether credited among Celtic peoples, as among those of Scott's Lady of the Lake. When the mother sees the "riders to the sea,"—her drowned son and her living son riding together,—she feels convinced that he must soon die. The sharp cries of her ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... away, alas! In the short time that I have lived, there has been more change in the ideas and customs of my village than there was for centuries before the Revolution. Half of the Celtic, pagan, or Middle-Age ceremonials that I saw in full vigor in my childhood, have already been done away with. Another year or two, perhaps, and the railroads will run their levels through our deep valleys, carrying away, with the swiftness ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... presumably never was. And even when I come to feel a final incompatibility of temper, Pecksniff was not so Pecksniffian as he has since become. But the comparison is complete in so far as I share all the reluctance of Mr. Pinch. Some old heathen king was advised by one of the Celtic saints, I think, to burn what he had adored and adore what he had burnt. I am quite ready, if anyone will prove I was wrong, to adore what I have burnt; but I do really feel an unwillingness verging upon weakness to burning what I have adored. ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... his boisterous genuine intellectual spirits and animal strength. Fanny Kemble made an interesting figure on her great black horse at the gate. The Sedgwick neighbors were thoughtful and serviceable. O'Sullivan reappeared for a moment in all his Celtic vivacity, and Fields, Holmes, Duyckinck, and others of the profession came and went in the summer days. Hawthorne breathed the air of successful authorship at last, and knew its vanities and its pleasures. The mail brought him new acquaintances, and now and then ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry |
