Note 3 — Chapter II

Even Giraldus Cambrensis, that most bigoted of anti-Irishmen, could nevertheless write thus of the natives in the twelfth century. "In Ireland man retains all his majesty. Nature alone has moulded the Irish, and as if to show what she can do has given them countenances of exquisite colour, and bodies of great beauty, symmetry, and strength." This testimony agrees with what Cæsar says of the Celts of Gaul, whose large persons he compares with the short stature of the Romans, and admires their mirifica corpora. Strabo says of a Celtic tribe, the Coritavi, "to show how tall they are, I myself saw some of their young men at Rome, and they were taller by six inches than any one else in the city." The Belgic Gauls are uniformly described as tall, large-limbed, and fair, and Silius Italicus speaks of the huge limbs and golden locks of the Boii who gave their name to Bavaria (Boio-varia) and to Bohemia (Boio-haims). They were probably the ruling race in Gaul, but the type is now very rarely seen there, the aristocratic Celts having been largely wiped out by war, as in Ireland, and having when shorn of their power become amalgamated with the Ligurians and other pre-Celtic peoples.