So here Christianity, through its medium, the Church, besides saving the soul of a departing oral literature, has been the fruitful spring and inspiration of much that is beautiful, pure, and enduring in our Gaelic heritage. CHAPTER XVI THE INFLUENCE OF CELTIC, ON ENGLISH LITERATURE Earliest contact—Loan-words—Three periods of marked literary influence—Layamon’s “Brut”—A fascinating study for critics—The development of the Arthurian Romance—Sir Thomas Malory—Question as to origin of rhyme—A Celtic claim—Elements in Scottish poetry—in English literature—Gray’s “Bard”—Macpherson’s “Ossian”—Influence on Wordsworth and his contemporaries—Moore’s “Irish Melodies”—Sir Walter Scott—Tennyson—Interesting comparison—Arnold, Shairp, Blackie—Novelists after Scott—Living writers. Anglo-Saxon or Old English came into contact with Celtic from the year 449 onwards. By the end of that century the latter had the beginnings of a literature, the former had not. Cædmon’s poem dates from nearly 200 years later. English literature could not, therefore, have been influenced by Celtic for centuries after the first Saxon invasion, as it had not then come into existence. But the English language was so influenced. From the earliest contact it doubtless bore traces of the Celtic in the form of loan-words. Yet, strange to say, very few such native vernacular words passed over into Old English till the Norman invasion. The reason may have been, as suggested by Sweet, that the Britons were themselves to a large extent Romanised, especially those of the cities, who were for the most part descendants of Roman soldiers. After the Conquest many more Celtic words found their way into English through the Norman-French, and, as might be expected, it is very difficult to discriminate between the contributions of the earlier and the later period. Names of persons and places, on the other hand, are easily distinguished, because they were generally taken over without change. Not till the fateful Forty-five had finally broken down the ancient barriers of racial seclusion was there any further great accession of this Celtic element. But owing to the interest awakened then in the Highlands, the freer intercourse established with England and the Lowlands of Scotland, and especially through the writings of historians and travellers, and of great authors like James Macpherson and Sir Walter Scott, a number of new words passed from this time direct from the Highland Gaelic as well as from the Irish into the English language. From the former came the well-known clan, claymore, ghillie, plaid, pibroch, sporran, slogan, whisky, reel; and from the latter, brogue, kern, Tory, shamrock, shillelagh, usquebaugh, bother, and a few others. Words had been dribbling from the Welsh also, as we might expect, from time to time.