CEILE, Eng. Celt, a spouse, a fellow, a "cell-mate;" OIr. cele, a way-farer, traveller, sociable, based on the Celtic verb kei, "to go."; allied with the Brythonic kei, shaded, covered, the earth. Similar to the Irish Gaelic sétig, from sét or cet, the "way." Hence a fay-folk, those banished from the haunts of "true men." From this celidh, a gossiping visit, a social hour, a meeting for fun, music and gossip. Note also Céitein, May-month. This is the Old Irish cétam, the month of rites of the Tuatha daoine which were termed the Samhainn. Mcbain breaks cetam into cét + sam and translates it as "the first weather of the sam or summer." He fails to note that Samh is the goddess of Summer incarnate, perpetually renewable, and like the Norse goddess Hel, full of "hellish" fire, a "parti-coloured goddess." The male equivalent of this lady is the day god Aod. Perhaps his name (like that of Hel) is also related to ceil, conceal, hide and the Eng. hell. Note also ceilt, the act of concealment, and ceileach, military arts, war. The Norse hildr, the Anglo-Saxon hild, war. The root may be gel, to slay, to "freeze" the blood. Kilt may derive from these sources as does coille, a wood lander, and chaillinn, a Caledonian.

The name given the first transalpine people to emerge in recorded history. A language group, they confer with the mythic Hyperboreans and the ancient Gauls, and their numbers later included the Welsh, the Scots and the Irish. In an expansive mood by 900 B.C., they already possessed great skills in working metals, particularly iron, a metal only then beginning to be used by the "classical" world. Their first settlements in Britain may have dated as early as 2000 B.C. but their major influx to the islands was made in the second century A.D. when their European empire began to decline. During the sixth century they had colonies in northern Italy and were in constant war with the expanding Roman Empire. In 390 B.C. they had defeated the Roman armies and sacked Rome but eventually the Romans reasserted their independence. The Italian Celts were swept into the Empire in 196 B.C. Although Julius Caesar led two expeditions to Britain in 55 B.C. and 54 B.C. it remained independent of Rome until 43 A.D. The Empire had to be content with walling off the Picts of northern Scotland and never conquered Ireland. Celtic civilization was finally smashed by the expanding French and English empires.

NORRONA, Old Norse, the equivalent of "Nordic," the language of the remote north western part of Continental Europe. It is claimed that a common tongue (much like that of the ancient Celts) existed for much of Germany and Scandinavia, and that this persists in modern Iceland. This common language is sometimes mentioned as the Donsk tunga, or "Danish tongue." The name was applied to these people by the Anglo-Saxons with the sense of "northern tongue," but interestingly the Gaelic equivalent "noir," indicates the "east," as these folk lived to the eastward of their land holdings.

According to Stulason's mythological history, the people of Odin were driven from homelands in the south east of Europe by the Roman conquests. They intruded upon the Celts and Finns in Germany and Scandinavia. It is said of Odin that "He had many sons; he won kingdoms far over Saxland (Germany) and set his sons as rulers over them. From there he fared north to the sea and found himself dwelling in the island called Odenso (Odin's Island) in Fyn." His final conquest was Sweden and he established his religion at Upsala. His Anglo-Saxon descendants, named the Ynglings or Inglings, after King Ingvi-Frey, invaded Britain and renamed Celtic Britain "England." His Scandinavian progeny , pressured by an overgrowth of population invaded Britain at a later date. These were the Fingall and Duthgall of Gaelic tradition, the sea-pirates the English called the "Vikings." The Norsemen created the French province of Normandy. Erling Monson has noted that these rovers "invaded the north of Germany, the Baltic Provinces and Russia as well as Holland; but it was the British Isles that had the greatest attraction for them." England, of course, had Danish kings following the invasions of Swein Forkbeard and Canute the Great. Ireland also had an attraction for them as it also had fertile lands and wealth in precious metals, but northern Scotland had little excepting land markers which the Vikings used in setting sea-courses along the east or west coasts of Britain. This was also the place of the Great Caledonian Forest, which they used for repairing their ships. Eventually, they found that this forest contained human and animal wolves and they torched them to eliminate ground-cover.

The German and Scandinavian northerners sometimes ruled portions of Scotland, especially the north western islands and highlands. Sometimes they co-existed with the Gaelic tribesman in these parts but as often were captured and became bondsmen to a clan. Their offspring eventually became freemen and indistinguishable from their countrymen in language or habits. The Mackay patronym is said to be Teutonic, but they certainly had strong Gaelic and Norse bloodlines as well.

ALBA, ALBAINN, ALBANN, from the Greek, Alba, which identified all of Britain in the eyes of the classical writers. "the white land"; Latin albus, white, OHG, albis, a swan. May correspond with alp and the ON elf. EIr. Alban, Lat., albus, the white unisexual, long-sleeved, high-necked tunic of white linen worn by the Celts of old Britain. The southern Irish were the first to limit this descriptive word to present day Scotland. Albannach, a Scot, a resident of Scotland.

Tradition says that the Milesians arrived in Ireland about the year 1000 B.C. Before this time the entire population, male and female, rich and poor, wore the garment which the Romans termed an albus. They selected this word, which means "white," because this belted shift was made of linen, which is naturally brown in colour but bleaches in the sun to dazzling whiteness. From this, the Latin Albion, a name for all of Britain, and from it the Gaelic Alba , which now applies to Scotland alone. In some parts, the chieftains distinguished themselves by wearing the orange kilts, which are still seen in parades of modern Irishmen. In later times, wool supplanted linen as the material of choice for the nobility. The Tuatha daoine, who were in power when the Milesians arrived in Ireland never surrendered the traditional white linen albus and this was also true of the conservative druidic class that managed religious rites. When Christian missionaries came to Britain they had the smarts to make themselves indistinguishable from the vates by wearing white linen, and many Christian priests still wear this basic uniform beneath their black surplice.

The "white men" of Hvitrtamanalande or "White-man's land," in the western Atlantic beyond Britain may have been named for their wearing apparel rather than their complexions. The Christian missionaries to Britain said that they wore the albus as a symbol of their "rebirth" or regeneration following baptism. At one time, the faithful were required to wear this white costume for a week following their initiation and lay-preachers often wore this symbol of their humility and power when they travelled as missionaries. The costume was taken up by many of the Christian cults including the Knights Templar, who decorated the white uniform with a blood red cross.

CRUITHNE, CRUITHNICH, men of the grain, confers exactly with the Celtic Breatan, a Briton or Pict. Some have said that the original bearer of this name had seven eponymous children who divided Alba (Scotland) among themselves, thus naming the ancient provinces: Cet (Marr and Buchan); Fiobh (Fife); Cirech (Angus and Mearns); Cat(Caithness); Folta (Atholl); Moireabh (Moray) and Fortriu (Strathearn).

Two thousand years before the Christian era, legend says that the Cruithne, who lived on the Continent, were hired by the Milesians of Ireland as mercenaries. The Irish people who lived about Inver Slaigne in the extreme southwest were, at the time, plagued by a tribe of virulent visitors from the east who were decimating the population using poisoned arrows. The Picts were were invited to fight for them for land and pay. They were successful at eliminating the unwanted element and were rewarded with a grant of land. Sadly, they were almost as barbaric as the earlier strangers and the chief of that quarter, a man named Crimmthann decided that they needed to be persuaded to "pass on over." Three Pictish chieftains were therefore given Irish wives and granted land in Alba, and according to Seumas McManus this was their wellspring in the land now called Scotland.

This is not a universal interpretation of events; it is more usually supposed that the Picts were the early Britons and they are thought to have been in place in Scotland before the Gaels arrived in Ireland . High King Eremon's victory over the Picts at a later date had slight effect in guaranteeing his descendants overlordship, for all of the various defeated peoples returned to the Emerald Isle from time-to-time. There was a notable influx of the Fomorians from Alba led by the four sons of Umor. They took refuge in Ireland fleeing from the land-hungry Picts, and the high king of the timewas more or less forced into granting them lands in Meath. These people soon found this an unhappy arrangement and fled across the Shannon into Connaught, the great wilderness favoured and dominated by the Firbolgs. There the celebrated Queen Mebd gave them lands in the south of that province, and made them part of her great army. In at least one instance a Pictish king was overlord of Ireland but his tenure was short.

"EIRINN, "EIREANN, anciently H'ERNI. The "h" is no longer used in modern Gaelic. This woman was the mother of the Tuathan triad goddess Eire/Banbha/Fotla by the god Dibaeth. She confers with Anu or Danu, the matriarch of the Tuatha daoine, or "people of the side-hill." Ir. 'Eire, genitive 'Eireann, EIr. 'Eiru, "Danu the Burden-Bearer." This is the Cymric, i.e.Welsh, Ywerddon or Iwerddon, MCy. Ewyrdonicv. According to Ptolmey these words all equal Ioupvia, the Lat. Hiberniua or Ivernia or Ierne (4th century). EIr forms were Ivernili, Iverjon or Everjon, the place referred to as Piverjo in the Far East, perhaps from Skr. pivari, a "fat land." The Gaelic source of the the Norse Irlande may be related through iar, west. the Skr. avara, western. This is the English Earn or Findhorn.

This also refers directly to the Gaelic local goddess Er, Ur or Ara, whose name appears in present day Scottish names such as Mo-Urie, Mourie or Moray. The crow-goddess Mhor-righ-ann is obviously one of this kind. In every case her name was said to signify "Moon" and it was claimed that "the moon-title Ra was one of its variants." May well confer with Ioua or Iona. At least two Irish scholars agreed that the word comes from the "unpronounceable" Indo-European root-word Piera, which they say is the source of the modern English word fairy. An early Irish form is likely to have been fae, "a wild thing." This word continues in the modern Gaelic faolchu, a "wolf" or "wild dog." Note that h'Erni was the name of the Lady Cassir, leader of an expedition from the Mediterranena to the Emerald Isle in the days just before the World Flood. Her married name is given as Banbha Cass-ir, or Cesair (equating her with these other mortal-goddesses). Note that the ancient Gaelic tongue is identified as Old Gaelic or Old Irish while the version spoken in Scotland is still known as Erse, a word that has connotations with all of the above.

GAIDHLIG, Gàidheal. Ir. Gaoidhilig, Gaedhilig, the Erse and the Irish language. Gàidheal, a highland Scot; Gaoidheal, an Irishman, EIr. Góedel, (1100 AD). Also seen as Gaideli. The Cy. Gwyddel, Irishman. The root may be ghâdh, the Eng. good, god, thus "god-like," Germ. gud, etc. The word has been compared with the Gaul. Geidumni, which confers with the Lat. hoedus, a goat or "goat man." Notice that the Scots were, in historic times, referred to as "goat-men" by Continentals. The Gaelic root-word appears to be ghadh from which their word gabhar and gabhlan, a wandering man, one devoid of care. Gaelic is currently considered to be the name of the language and people of the Scottish Highlands although the former is sometimes termed Erse. The oldest foreign reference to Ireland, in the sixth century before Christ, gives it the name Ierna. Aristotle in his Book of the World also favoured this name.

In the first half of the first century Pomponius Mela called it Iuvernia, but the Romans preferred Hibernbia or Scotia. The Scottish matter is probably the most confusing element in Irish history, since the related word Scotland was eventually applied to Ireland's northwestern neighbour, the land at first called Alba. Scotia is a name from literate times but was claimed to be derived from Scota, the first queen-mother of the Milesians (and thus a counterpart of Danu). The term Scoti was definitely preferred by continental writers as the name for the people of Eiru. Thus it is explained that "Hibernia is the nation of the Scots," Scotia being a name "which links itself to no land on earth." Thus, as late as the seventh century, we find native "Irishmen" referring to themselves as Scots when they were in exile. Further, as time passed, they even began to designate their homeland as "the land of Scots."

In the third century the Scots began a colonization of the southwestern peninsula of Dal Riada in Alba. The first colonies in this new place received military help from Tara in order to put down the neighbouring Picts. In the following century, a Munsterman, Lugaid mac Conn, fleeing from enemies, made himself the chief power in this new land. From his son came the ancestors of the lords of Argyle; the MacAllens, Campbells and the MacCallums. A hundred years further on Cabri Riata established kingdoms in both Ireland and Scotland. The Picts were not enamoured of any of this and would have driven the Scots from their land, except for the efforts of the high-king Niall of the Nine Hostages. The effect of all this was the establishment of a huge military presence in Alba by the sixth century, when it became an independent kingdom under Aedh ard-righ. For a time it was powerful enough to hold Antrim, in Ireland proper, as an appanage. That was the state of things until the end of the eight century when their Irish cousins began to pressure them in Argyllshire and Dalriada.

Looking for a more secure place they marched into Pictland and conducted campaigns against these people until 850 A.D., when Cinead (Kenneth) mac Alpein completely overthrew the Picts by very devious means, and became high-king of all Scotia, Some claim that he even subdued the Britons on his southern borders and the Anglo-Danish population of the southeast. At this time, with the Scotic people in a position of power, Ireland was called Scotia Major and Scotland Scotia Minor, but the title fell away from Ireland as their power waned. In the eleventh century, when all Scotland was dominated by Gaelic-speakers (excepting headlands, and the western and northern islands which were under the Norse), the kingship passed to Mylcollum (Malcolm) who married Margaret, a daughter of King Edmund, an Anglo-Saxon monarch. Unfortunately for the Scots, he was easily swayed by her, and their son Edgar was entirely English in name and outlook. When he was crowned king, a division developed between the highland tribes and the lowland English kinsman of the king. In the thirteenth century, Gaeldom flickered and went out as a force in the north, the old Irish line becoming extinct with Alisdair (Alexander III) in 1297. Afterwards there began the long wars for succession which ended with the old-English families of Bruce and Balliol firmly on the throne of Old Scotland.

There is some correspondence between the old warrior-magicians of pre-Milesian times and the Scots: When the Scots invaded Alba they found present-day Scotland divided into seven territories, and they continued with these divisions. "Each district was termed a Tuath or tribe; several Tuaths formed a Mortuath (sea-tribe) or great tribe, two or more Mortuaths a Coicidh or province, at the head of which was the righ, or King. Each province contributed a portion of its territory at their junctions to form a central district, which was the capital of the whole country, and the King who was elected to be its sovereign had his seat of government here. The central district, where the four southern met was Perthshire and counted Scone as its capital. The northern Tuaths adjoined at Moraigh (near the sea). In the twelfth century the system was modified and the righ was no longer held by the heads of the Tuath and Mortuath. but at the head of the former was the toiseeach (the beginning or front one) and of the Mortuath, the mormaer (the great mayor or major, the sea-ruler, or great steward)." It is possible that these designations were picked up from the Picts, but it is more likely they were names visited upon the Scots by their Irish enemies. If this is so, it is likely that sea-faring Scots numbered survivors from the old Fomorian sea-kingdoms in the west.

It is said that pre Roman Britain was inhabited by a people "who were mainly Celtic and that the Celts reached this country in three principal waves of immigration. One wave came to the east coast by way of the North Sea, another by way of the Gaul to the South of England, and the third from the Continent by way of Irealand." This is the view of most historians, although there is no written magic to back up the idea that all the peoples of the islands arrived from the east. In the black well of times long past historians are as much adrift as mythologists, and many of these have a contrary opinion. These is the problem of Irish Gaelic, which is still considered the most antique of all the Celtic tongues. Aryan scholars say that the Indo European tongues started in northern India and spread slowly from there westward. Professor Schleider (1874) that this Celtic tongue has the appearance of a separation from the supposed root (Sanskrit) at a later date than the Cymric and Brythonic tongues, but they are supposedly of more recent evolution. Worse still, Gaelic has the look of being more closely allied with Latin than any of the supposed Indo-European affiliates. These idiosyncracies suggest that Gaelic might have spread from Ireland to the east, where it collided with, and became associates of the west-bound language which is now preserved in English, German and the Scandinavian tongues.

We are then left with the question of where the Gaelic vocabulary originated and are led back to the fact that the Celto Iberian tongues have "more analogies with American types than with any other." In his book, On the Phenomena of Hybridity in the Genus Homo,, Paul Broca (1869) said that "Of all Europeans, we must provisionally hold the Basques to be the oldest inhabitants of our quarter of the world." He said that their language, the Euscara, "has some common traits with the Magyr (Hungary), Osmanli, and other dialects of the Altai family, as for instance, with the Finnic, on the old continent, as well as the Algonquin-Lenape languages and others in America." Gaelic has been given similar attachments both from a shared vocabulary with the Algonquin languages and with parallels in the myths of the two people. Folklorist Mary L. Fraser has examined some of these correspondences and concludes that, "The closeness of the (mythic) parallels show that the Indians and the Celts in the far distant past were in direct communications with one another, or were in touch with the same source of inspiration. According to Indian tradition, the white man came from the East, and the Indians from the West, yet there must have been a (very early) common meeting-ground somewhere, sometime.

SGATHEACH, SGAITHEACH, SCATHA, SGATHA, sometimes SCATHACH, a shade, a shadow, Cy. ysgod, Cor. scod, Br. skeud, English, shade, shadow. Uncapitalized sgatheach is sharp, edged, cutting; sgait, a prickle, a chip of wood beneath the flesh, from sgath, to lop off. Notice that there was no "c" in ancient Gaelic. Allied with Eng. scatter. Also allied with sgar, sever, separate. The root may be sker, put asunder, the Eng. shear, or seq, cut; both related to the Gaelic sgeir, a skerry, i.e an "island" cut off from the mainland, "a rock in the sea," all from the ON. goddess Skulld often represented in the giantess Skadi. She confers very closely with the Gaelic Bafinn, often being identified as the third of the Norse fates. She is perhaps remembered in the names Scatland or Scotland and Skraelingaland, the ON. name for a portion of Atlantic Canada. Skadi was a giantess (the Cailleach bheurr), the goddess of winter, whose father was the ugly frost-giant, inadvertently killed by Odin's people. She came to Asgardr expecting compensation and some say Odin married her to keep the peace. Others say she was allowed to choose from among the gods the one she wished to marry, judging their worth from their legs alone. In this unusual beauty-contest she selected Niord, a god of the sea. They lived together but were incompatible and Skadi finally teamed-up with Uller/Odin, the god of winter. After a time, she tired of him and moved her animals across to the western Atlantic islands, where she remained.

This mistress of battle was also called Sgathach nUanaind, the Horrible and Sgathach Buanand, the Mercenary, and she was said to be the daughter of Ard Greimne (the High Sun). The suffix can be interpreted as "(one) having a fixed purpose," and it was often written alternately as buanna, a "mercenary," This corresponds with Búanann, an alternate form for the goddess Boann or Boyne, who is allied with the Mhorrigan and the various sea-deities of the west. She is said to have been a daughter of Árd Greimne (High Stronghold) and she dwelt in the fortress of Lethra (on the Other Side). The island of Sky was named after Sgathach, and there she conducted a military academy. Her most famous student was Cúchulainn, who she trained for a year and a day. She gave him the formidable weapon known as the gae bulg. Sgathach's daughter Uathach became Cúchulainn's mistress and bore him the son named Conla. Traditionally the Gaels said that these people were descended from Scoti, a daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh.

CHAILLINN, place-name, from coille, wood; may confer with Celt, which see; wood-land dwellers. Northern Scotland, the one-time preserve of the Forest of Caledonia. The Lat. Caledonius, OG. Callden or Callen, Oir. Caledu, Cy. Celidon, Calwyddon, Eng. Caledonian, from cald, "wood-landers." Dwellers in the great forest of Caledon which once extended from Glen Coe to Braemar, and from Glen Lyon to Glen Affric, Scotland. It harboured brown bear, wild boar, wolves, human and animal, and mosquitoes. Its destruction was managed first by felling and firing during the viking invasions, when the Danes and Norse destroyed this cover to get ship-timbers and destroy potential enemies. It was damaged again between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries when Scots and Englishmen felled the timber for iron-smelting. Again, the Highlanders themselves burned and felled it to kill brigands and wolves, and army commanders levelled it to destroy rebels. The needs of two world wars finished it, the remnants being seen at Loch Tulla and in the Black Wood of Rannoch.

Wordsmiths do not seem to have linked the Latin cella with the Gaelic coille, but we think the parallel is apparent, since the latter word means "wood-landers." Related to this is cald , having a sharp point (as trees are wont) and calad, a sheltered place or harbour. Note also cailleach, the hidden one, the veiled one, an old hag or witch, a wood's-woman. The Celtic root here is probably qel or qal, to hide, which confers with the English words hollow, heel, hole and hell. Note that the Anglo-Saxons called the northern Scots Helr, after the disbarred goddess who ruled their underworld. The old word Chaillinn, attaches to all this, having the sense of "in the bowels of the woods." In very antique times the Romans referred to the great forest of highland Albion (Scotland) as Silva Caledonii, the Forest of the Caledonians. Their retreats in Sutherlandshire and Ross-shire were known to the Anglo-Saxons as Dun Callden, Dun-Kallen or Dun-Keld, the Gaelic counterpart being Dun-Chaillinn.