Of course, where the events of Teutonic myth and legend were
associated with a particular locality, they have left their mark in
the names of places. These, naturally enough, are found for the most
part in Germany. In Great Britain—apart from _Asgardby_, _Aysgarth_,
_Wayland Smith_, _Wansdyke_, _Wednesbury_, and some others—the
place-names that have come to us from pre-Christian religion are
principally Celtic, and are usually found—like _Cader Idris_, _Cader
Arthur_, _Arthur’s Seat_, _Kynance Cove_, ...—in Scotland, Wales,
and Cornwall. Apart from place-names, _galahad_ is a relic of Celtic
legend which has found a permanent place and a modern usage in the
language; and there may be one or two others. But not many. In
England the whole Celtic nation and language died early out of the
common consciousness, and it died even more suddenly than the persons
of Teutonic myth. This explains the freshness and delight which many
young writers of the last generation found in the language and legend
of Irish antiquity. To resuscitate, as Keats did, the invisible
beings of classical mythology was to dig down into the roots of our
present everyday outlook; to take part in the Celtic revival was to
feel that you were looking out on the world through an entirely new
window—or at any rate through one which had not been cleaned for
centuries.
We only owe one English word to the Slavonic myths, and that is
the unpleasant _vampire_, which was brought back from the East by
travellers in the eighteenth century.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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