e testimony of folklore.
Now I do not recall these controversies, or lay stress upon what
appear to me to be the shortcomings of the historian and folklorist in
their relationship to each other, for the purpose of reawakening old
antagonisms. I have merely selected a few illustrations of the present
position of the subject in order that it may be seen how essential it
is to proceed on other lines. All the items which have formed the
subject of dispute, together with others which have escaped
attention--items which have found their way into history by accident,
which are by nature fragmentary and isolated, which do not connect up
with anything that is distinctively Celtic or Teutonic, and which do
not apparently fit in with any standard common to themselves--must
command attention if only because they alone cannot be cut out of
history when items standing side by side with them are allowed to
remain, and in the end it can, I think, be shown that they command
attention because of their inherent value.
The method of investigation as to the importance and significance of
these earliest historical records must be anthropological. They are in
point of fact so much anthropological data relating to Britain. It is
no use calling them history, and then defining that history as bad
history simply because as history the recorded facts do not appear to
be credible. As a matter of fact they belong to the prehistory period
of Britain, and to test their value scientific methods are required.
In the first place, anthropology shows that there is no _prima facie_
necessity for calling them Celtic, thus identifying them with that
portion of our ancestry which is Celtic in race; for there is evidence
of a non-Celtic race existing in prehistoric times, and existing down
to within historic times, if not to modern times. Mr. Willis Bund has
recently summarised the evidence from archaeology, philology, and
tradition as it appears in a particularly valuable local study of
ancient Cardiganshire, stating it "to be agreed that there was more
than one race of early inhabitants, and two of the sources say that
there was an original race and at least two distinct races of
invaders," and further, "that whoever the original inhabitants were
they were not Celts."[180] These original inhabitants, who were not
Celts, have left their remains in the barrows and megalithic monuments
which still exist in various parts of the country, and anthropologists
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