Myths & Legends of the Celtic Race

The part played by the Celtic race as a formative influence in the history, the literature, and the art of the people inhabiting the British Islands — a people which from that centre has spread its dominions over so vast an area of the earth's surface — has been unduly obscured in popular thought.

The true term for the population of these islands, and for the typical and dominant part of the population of North America, is not Anglo-Saxon, but Anglo-Celtic. It is precisely in this blend of Germanic and Celtic elements that the British people are unique - it is precisely this blend which gives to this people the fire, the elan, and in literature and art the sense of style, colour, drama, which are not common growths of German soil, while at the same time it gives the deliberateness and depth, the reverence for ancient law and custom, and the passion for personal freedom, which are more or less strange to the Romance nations of the South of Europe. May they never become strange to the British Islands ! Nor is the Celtic element in these islands to be regarded as contributed wholly, or even very predominantly, by the populations of the so called "Celtic Fringe."

Contents

I. The Celts in Ancient History
II. The Religion of the Celts
III. The Irish Invasion Myths
IV. The Early Milesian Kings.
V. Tales of the Ultonian Cycle
VI. Tales of the Ossianic Cycle
VII. The Voyage of Maeldun
VIII. Myths and Tales of the Cymry
        Genealogical Tables
        Gods of the House of Don
        Gods of the House of Llyr
        Arthur and his Kin

Glossary and Index