Both the Scotch and the Irish have traditions to the effect that the native races of Scotland and Ireland are descended from Spaniards. Curiously enough, I came across a proof of the freshness of such traditions in the minds of the Irish of my own day just as I was starting for Galicia in 1907. An Irish maid who was assisting me to prepare for my departure, on hearing that Spain was the destination of my journey, remarked, “That is the country my people came from. All the Irish came from Spain a long time ago.” “Are you quite sure?” I asked. “Yes,” she replied, “quite sure. Everybody in Ireland knows that; even the poor people know it.” Some Spanish writers believe that the Celts, passing from Galicia to Ireland, crossed thence to England. “But if it is true,” says Aguiar, “that the English Celts came to France from England, how comes it that Julius Cæsar tells us that the Galli went to England to be instructed in the sciences?” Others are of the opinion that the earliest inhabitants of Galicia entered Spain at a much earlier date than that which the Gauls settled in France--Herodotus having written about Spanish Celts, but not about French ones. They believe that the Spanish Celts are a branch of the Cimmerians described by Herodotus as dwelling in the Crimea,[18] who disappeared completely from the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, and were thought to have settled in Wales under the name of Cimbri.[19] There have come down to our own times many geographical names, not only in Britain, but also in Galicia, containing the roots Cam, Camb, Cambr, Cim, and Cimbr. The earliest documentary information about Galicia comes to us from the Romans, from the writings of Julius Cæsar, Strabo, and Pliny the Younger, from Justin, Silicus Italicus, and Asclepiades. The last-named writer speaks of Greek colonies in Galicia and Lusitania, but many Spanish writers have discredited their existence, and Barros Sivelo affirms that there is not a single monument in Galicia testifying to the Greeks having settled there. Recent writers have devoted much time to the extraction of imaginary Greek roots from words in daily use among the Gallegan peasantry, but, as far as I can judge, too much free play has been allowed to their imagination; and when one remembers how distinct are the traces left by Greek colonies in other parts of the world, one naturally looks for more substantial proof than that which is afforded by a page or two of strained philological comparisons.[20] The tradition has, however, been handed down to us that several Gallegan towns, notably those of Tuy and Pontevedra, owe their origin to Greek settlers, and certain Greek customs are said to be still extant there.