Volume 8, Number 12 · June 29, 1967
The Crane Bag
By Robert Graves
Pagan Celtic Britain: Studies in Iconography and Tradition
by Anne Ross
Columbia, 433, 96 plates pp., $25.00
This beautifully produced book with splendid photographs of what archaeologists call 'cult objects' has a misleading title: Pagan Celtic Britain. 'Pagan' properly refers to the superstitious survival of pre-Christian beliefs in country villages remote from a Christian city; yet most of Dr. Anne Ross's exhibits date from before the arrival of Christianity. And 'Celtic' is properly applied only to the Aryan invaders who, under the Greek name of 'Celti' or 'Galates,' and the Latin name of 'Galli,' invaded Europe and Asia Minor in the Iron Age, reaching the British Isles in two waves: Goidels, or Q-celts, in the seventh century B.C., and Brythons, or P-celts, in the fifth. The Goidels imposed their language and customs on the even more gifted non-Aryan Bronze Age agriculturists who over a thousand years before had come to the British Isles from North Africa, one horde by way of Central Europe and Norway, another by way of Spain.
Review, 2621 words
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