It was the custom in Etruria to represent _good genii_ as birds: birds sporting amid foliage are even to-day accepted and understood as symbolic of good genii in Paradise, and birds or _brids_, as we used to spell them, are of course Nature's little singing men, _i.e._, _bards_ or _boreadæ_. A percipient observer of the Pictish inscriptions found in Scotland has recently pointed out that, "With the exception of the eagle which conveys a special meaning, shown in many early Scottish stones, the image of a bird is a sign of good omen. Winged creatures, indeed, almost always stand for angelic and spiritual things, whether in pagan or Christian times. The bird symbol involved the conception of ethereality or spirituality. The bird _motif_ occurs in the decoration of metallic objects in the British Islands during the early centuries in this era. I have found in Wigtownshire the image of a bird in bronze. It belongs to a time early in this era. It occurs within the pentacle symbol engraved on a pebble from the Broch of Burrian, Orkney. Birds are shown within the pedestal of a cross at Farr. Birds with a similar symbolism are found on the Shandwick stone, and on a stone at St. Vigeans. They are of frequent occurrence in foliageous work, often with the three-berried branch or with the three-lobed leaf, as at Closeburn. The pagan conception, absorbed into the early Christian ideas, was that the bird represented the disembodied spirit which was reputed to voyage here and there with a lightning celerity, like the flash of a swallow on the wing."[345] The Bards of Britain attributed the foundation of their order to Hu the First Pillar of the Island, and to unravel the personality of the early Bards will no doubt prove as impracticable as the disclosure of Homer, Amergin, Old Moore, and Old Parr. No bird has ever uttered note That was not in some first bird's throat, Since Eden's freshness and man's fall No rose has been original. As St. Bride, whose name may be connoted with _brid_ or _bird_, was the goddess of eloquence and poetry, the Welsh term Prydain is no doubt cognate with _prydu_ the Welsh for "to compose poetry". Probably _prate_, mediæval _praten_, meant originally to _preach_ in a fervid, voluble, and sententious manner, but in any case it is impossible to agree with Skeat that _prate_ was "of imitative origin". Imitative of what--a _parrot_? The _hyper_ of Hyperborean is our word _upper_; _over_, German _uber_, means _aloft_, which is radically _alof_, and _exuberant_ and _exhuberance_ resolve into, _from or out of Auberon_: the _bryony_ is a creeper of notoriously exuberant growth, in Greek _bruein_ means to teem or grow luxuriantly. [Illustration: FIG. 172.--From Barthelemy.]