barism and outer darkness. There is the scantiest historical record for the years which followed. The Comes Littoris Saxonici and the Comes Britanniæ could no longer protect the island from the inroads of Saxon and Celt. Commerce would necessarily decline and the sea be abandoned by the weaker Britons, who fled to Brittany, or were driven from the British coasts by the depredations of the northern pirates.[1]
The new arrivals were expert seamen. They came from the Saxon islands near the Elbe mouth in "ceols,"[2] and were in the strictest sense pirates or adventurers. Besides these "ceols," which seem to have been small ships built of wood, they had also skin boats. Whilst they harassed the east the Irish were equally busy on the west burning and plundering. To their early voyages we may now appropriately turn.
The Celtic inhabitants of Ireland appear to have been bold navigators at a very early date. Unlike their kinsmen the Welsh, and like the Bretons, Cornishmen, Menevians, and West Coastmen of Scotland, they have always shown a taste for the sea, which has declined, but not disappeared, with the lapse of time. A large proportion of the sailors serving in our fleet during the great French war were Irishmen,[3] and the fishermen of Connaught are good seamen to this day. They are, in fact, very similar in character and daring to the Bretons.
Of Irish voyages in the early Roman and pre-Roman times we know absolutely nothing. There is, however, evidence of intercourse with the Roman Empire in the Roman coins which have been found along the east coast of Ireland. They date from the time of the Republic to A.D. 160.[4] Whether they came from Gaul in Irish boats, or whether from Britain, cannot be determined. There is in Spain a tradition of voyages from the Basque country,
- ↑ In this period fall the voyages of Arthur, which are probably mythical, reflecting the tradition of the Irish anchorites' travels. He is said by Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose chronicle has no historical value for this period, to have subdued Ireland and Iceland, and to have extorted homage from the kings of Orkney, Gotland, Norway, and Denmark. Lambarde (temp. 1568; see Hakluyt, B.L. i. 3) adds Greenland to the catalogue of his possessions. It is significant that contemporary writers never mention Arthur or any of these truly remarkable voyages. Malgo, whose voyages are also recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth, is probably not more historical.
- ↑ Or "keels."
- ↑ Lecky, 'Hist. England.'
- ↑ Stokes, 'Ireland and the Celtic Church' (London, 1886), p. 16. Skene, 'Celtic Scotland.' (Edinburgh, 1890), iii. 115, doubts their historic existence.
