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The Irish/Latin bilingual notes in Princeton MS. Garrett 70 are edited with a discussion of the linguistic details found therein. The eDIL entry for impide ‘intercession’ is updated. Additionally, a linguistic profile of the late eleventh century is created based on the Regensburg manuscripts and other contemporary autographed manuscripts.

A consideration of pixy traditions of Devon and Cornwall reveals similarities and differences. Although people from both places described the supernatural beings in similar ways, examples of migratory legends diverge, particularly when comparing those from the far west of the peninsula with those from Devon. A method employing Reidar Christiansen’s index demonstrates that differences in these narratives reflect the isolation of far western Cornwall. This analysis indicates that nineteenth-century Cornish folklore should be seen as distinct from English traditions.

[FR] La localisation des Celtes d’après Hécatée, Hérodote et d’autres auteurs grecsC’est par erreur que l’on a compris le texte d’Hécatée et d’Hérodote, deux contemporains des premières inscriptions celtiques du Nord de l’Italie et du Sud de la Suisse, comme des documents localisant les Celtes en Autriche et dans le Sud-Ouest de l’Allemagne, ce qui a eu pour résultat malheureux de conférer l’étiquette celtique à la culture halstattienne de cette région. En réalité, Hécatée et Hérodote renvoient à une localisation en Gaule – comme il a été confirmé plus tard par Timagète, Pythéas et Apollonius de Rhodes –, ainsi que, peut-être, dans une partie de la péninsule Ibérique, comme il a été affirmé par Éphore au IVe siècle. L’aire ou les aires celtiques de la péninsule auxquelles se réfèrent Hérodote et Éphore ne peuvent pas aujourd’hui être définies, mais il n’est pas nécessaire de les faire s’étendre à l’ouest de la Celtibérie – au centre de l’Espagne –, d’où proviennent, plus tard, les plus anciennes inscriptions celtiques de la péninsule. Au milieu du IVe siècle, le Pseudo-Scylax fait mention de l’installation de Celtes en Italie dans la plaine du Pô, de même peut-être que Apollonius au siècle suivant. À l’époque d’Apollonius, les Celtes étaient déjà engagés dans des migrations vers l’Ouest, si bien que tous les témoignages postérieurs concernant leur localisation, même les données toponymiques, sont d’une valeur incertaine comparée à celles des premiers auteurs, notamment Hécatée et Hérodote, malgré leurs limites et leur point de vue méditerranéen. Certes, les premiers auteurs sont eux-mêmes trop tardifs pour nous indiquer la région où sont apparus les Celtes et la langue celtique. Cependant, nous pouvons dire négativement qu’ils ne permettent d’appuyer ni une localisation à l’Est, en Allemagne ou en Autriche, ni une localisation à l’Ouest sur le rivage atlantique. Ce qu’ils nous disent s’accorde certainement avec une origine des Celtes située en Gaule, mais cette hypothèse ne peut être développée sans attribuer des identifications ethniques spéculatives aux données archéologiques préhistoriques.

[EN] Hecataeus and Herodotus, who were contemporary with the earliest Celtic-language inscriptions in northern Italy and southern Switzerland, have been misunderstood as localising the Celts in Austria and south-west Germany, with the unfortunate result that its archaeological ‘Hallstatt culture’ has been wrongly labelled ‘Celtic’. In fact, Hecataeus and Herodotus point to locations in Gaul (as later confirmed by Timagetus, Pytheas, and Apollonius of Rhodes) and possibly in part of the Hispanic Peninsula (as stated by Ephorus in the fourth century). The Celtic area or areas in the Peninsula to which Herodotus and Ephorus may refer cannot now be defined, but need not have extended west of Celtiberia in central Spain, which is later the source of the earliest Celtic inscriptions in the Peninsula. In the mid-fourth century the Italian Celtic settlements around the Po valley are referred to by Pseudo-Scylax, and possibly by Apollonius in the third. By Apollonius’ day, Celts were already migrating eastwards, so that any subsequent evidence for their location, including onomastic data, is of doubtful value compared to that of the earlier writers, especially Hecataeus and Herodotus, despite their evident limitations and Mediterranean perspective. Even the earliest writers are too late to guide us to the area where the Celts and the Celtic language emerged. Negatively, however, we can conclude that they neither support a location in Germany or Austria in the east nor support a location on the Atlantic seaboard in the west. What they say is certainly consonant with Celtic origins in Gaul, but that hypothesis cannot be taken further without attaching speculative ethnic labels to prehistoric archaeological data.

The well-documented story that four manuscripts were found during building work in the ruins of Bonamargy friary in or before 1822 is tested and found not to fit the assumptions that have been brought to it. The books could not have been old Franciscan books, hidden by the friars, and it is not even apparent that they were deliberately hidden. Other manuscripts now known have stories about their hiding or their discovery, and some are patently false, others become doubtful when probed, such that the idea of deliberate hiding of manuscripts is scarcely credible. The Book of Lismore was found, neglected, it appears, in Lismore castle. The Domnach Airgid was, apparently hidden as a relic and retrieved soon afterwards at the time of the Williamite war. The Book of Dimma was never hidden, and the manuscripts at Cong may have been lost long before the story told about them. The finding of the Stowe Missal in an old wall is a story not attested before Eugene O’Curry (1841), who had shortly before worked on the Book of Lismore. The Bonamargy books remain unexplained.

This paper examines the evolution of aspectual formations in Insular Celtic. It is argued that the emergence of these formations and their unusual morphosyntactic structure have been determined by internal systemic factors. It is also suggested that the manner in which these formations developed is of importance for our understanding of the processes involved in the emergence of grammatical subsystems in general. It is demonstrated that the Celtic aspectual system evolves in a manner reminiscent of the concept of developmental stratification and, significantly, that it evolves in a remarkably coherent and ordered fashion. The inexorable and structured nature of this evolution would seem to provide evidence for the claim that there may exist within languages a certain teleological impulse; in other words, that rather than being simply random, language change is in some fundamental and meaningful sense goal-directed.

[FR] Cet article fait le point sur la celticisation de la péninsule ibérique plusieurs centaines de siècles avant l’ère chrétienne. Ce processus pourrait avoir commencé en Gallice (Gallaecia), une région du nord-ouest de l’Espagne qui avait maintenu des relations sociales et commerciales avec l’Armorique (la Bretagne d’aujourd’hui) et les Iles Britaniques depuis le Néolitique. La celticisation progressive de la plus grande partie de la péninsule ibérique pourrait s’être opérée depuis cette région par un lent processus d’acculturation, ou de celticisation cumulée, et non en tant que résultat de vagues d’envahisseurs comme on le croyait. Ce modèle d’une celticisation opérant probablement sur des centaines d’années pourrait avoir été le même dans toute la région de l’Atlantique et des territoires adjacents de l’Europe. Les hypothèses actuelles sur la celticisation de l’Irlande soutiennent cette théorie.

[EN] The paper focuses on the celticisation of the Iberian Peninsula several centuries before the Christian Era. This process could have begun in Gallaecia, a region on the NW of Spain that had maintained social and commercial relations with Armorica (today's Bretagne) and the British Isles since the Neolithic. The gradual celticisation of most of the Iberian Peninsula could have developed from this area through a slow process of acculturation, or cumulative celticisation, and not as a result of waves of invaders as previously believed. This celticisation model, which probably took place over hundreds of years, could have been the same in the whole Atlantic Area and adjacent European territories. Current assumptions on the celticisation of Ireland support this theory.