The Gaels in Gallaecia

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Prologue

Silius Italicus:

Fibrarum et pennae divinarumque sagacem
flammarum misit dires Gallaecia pubem,
barbara nunc patriis ululantem carmina linguis,
nunc pedis alterno percussa verbere terra,
ad numerum resonas gaudentem plauder caetras.

'Rich Galicia sent to its men, capable in the knowledge of the riddles by the entrails of the beasts and lightning; men of those who liked to sing Barbarian songs in their crude native language, or to beat alternatively in the ground with the feet in their rhythmic dances, and to play sonorous caetras.'

Silius Italicus, 3º book of the Punic Wars (III, 344-348). Text and extracted translation from
the Galician Encyclopaedia, Volume 21.

(This paragraph has been extracted and adapted from the content of the web page: http://members.xoom.com/musicagalega/).

We consider that these words include one of most descriptive, synthetic and exact definitions that have been able to express in all the times what nowadays is usually denominated Celtic music. The text, from Silius Italicus was more or less equal to the one we see here, conserved and copied time and time again by the monks of the monasteries for 2000 years, always rereading the following cotrack which had been written in the previous calligraphic reproduction. But we think that there is an apparently insignificant detail, that makes these words a little bit different from the original ones. If we are not mistaken, in one of the copies, the corresponding monk amended an apparent error of the previous text. In the last word, the one that says caetras, we are convinced that the original one was caethas or gaethas, and not the corrected caetras. Gaethas, is to say, what today we know as gaidas, or gaitas, or pìob mór; bagpipes. With the restitution of this small detail, the text acquires all its crucial amplitude and is revealed to us as a non-paymentable description of the old behaviour of the gaedels, solving unquestionably hundreds of doubts and questions that have been formulated, time and time again, on how or from where the bagpipes came, or when and how they began to be used by the Galicians, Irish or the Scots.

To clarify many accumulations of small similar errors, that have led to the generation of tremendous ignorance, we dedicate this web page, that tries to make justice to one of the most impressive cases of homogeneity and cultural lasting that universal history knows; the one of Gaethels, Gaedels or Gaels also denominated Gallaicoi; and of course Galegos, Galician, Irish, Scots, Milesians, Gaethae, Gaedil, Gaitanes, Gaiztelu, etc.; centring us specially in the section of everything that corresponds to their pass by the Iberian Peninsula.

Introduction

This text is written up to try to show in an ordered way, the data known about the subject that appears in the title of the page. Although in the Internet numerous references to this or that aspect of interest referring to this subject can be found, they are usually quite fragmentary and do not allow, therefore, to make a global idea of how the facts happened at issue, nor how their real development was.

You can find here, therefore, evidences that we believe essential for the correct valuation and understanding of the stay of the Gaels in Galicia and, later, in Ireland and Scotland. As it sometimes happens in these cases, we are not indeed individuals well enabled to confront such an ambitious text as this one is, but since we think that, it was very necessary and urgent that it had already been written, no matter by whom, but it was important that somebody did it at once, and we did not see anybody that had intention to do it, then we have decided to try the task.

If we are able to carry out the raised objective, we will have finally been able to clear the doubts and incognitos whose essential resolution interposes in our way, when we wished to approach to the true historical context of the period of formation, not only of Galicia, but of the rest of the people of the North-west of the Iberian Peninsula (that, as we will see, were put under a strong influence and political domination of the Galicians for several hundreds of years) and, without a doubt, also of those of the British Islands.

On the other hand, it interests to indicate that this will not be (it does not try to be) a tale of political pretensions, arranged to look for interpretations and/or readings more or less interested for the benefit of the authors. Neither is it a rigorous work of academic investigation, because the limitation of available resources; despite it all, the references of the sources of information will be included in some cases, so that those that wish to deepen in more specific aspects of the problematic at issue, will be able to do it. In any case, we hope that the exhibition of the facts and conclusions will be able to allow to sustain a knowledge base, sufficient to fulfil the aspirations of the present paper, that are fundamentally introductive, divulging and, in any case, merely informative.

The Leabhar Gabhala Earrainn (The Lebor Gabala Erren)

Let us go there, therefore. First of all, one is due to say; as you sure have guessed already, we will assume here that the Leabhar Gabhala Earrainn (Lebor Gabala Erren, in anglicized spelling), mythical book written in first millennium by Irish monks that explains in a legendary fashion the origin and early evolution of the tribe of the Gaels, and the so called milesian legends, are essentially true, and are associated to true facts, despite the myths that were included there. This implies the existence of a great community of people, associated to the facts related in this saga, to which we will call Gaithegal here (pronouncing Gaidegal), identifying it like a kind of old nation.

For the people who do not know it, we will remember that, following these old legends, the Gaels came from Scythia (more or less identified with the south of Ukraine, centre of Romania or the Polish Galitzia, nowadays). From there, they went to Egypt. Once their mission was fulfilled in Egypt, and after a brief return to Scythia, they went to Spain, which they conquered by the force of arms (according to declarations of Irish aristocrats, fled in 1601 after the battle of Kinsale, the conquest would be made beginning by Galicia, which was followed by Asturias and Biscay. As we will see later, the amazing exactitude of this description even makes suspect that, in fact, the upper Gael classes had always known the facts that occupy us, with all its details included) and finally, from the tower of Breogan they descried Ireland, which they took after a cruel fight against the Tuatha De Danann.

The content of these legends is known from time back, and their references to the Breogan hero (Bregon or Bregan, in some variants) have been got up (we think that modernly, and with the occasion of the arrival to Galicia, in the 17th century, of the Irish refugees of the war against the English that, without a doubt, popularized and extended these kind of legends) with great energy to Galician popular mythology. Nevertheless, the experts have traditionally tended to consider them as one more Gael story, comparable to other legends of more than problematic real possibilities, that are so frequent in the cultural scope that we refer to.

However, the improvement in communications and the deepening in the cultural exchange (mainly in the fruitful subject of the folk music) have motivated, as a result of the exchange of information that it has caused, that in the beginning as suspect, and more recently as conviction, more and more experts conclude that behind the evident existing similarities between Galicia and Ireland, there is a lot more than simple coincidences or convergent cultural evolutions. On the other hand, the advances in the archaeological, linguistical and historical investigations have been conforming also a corpus of proofs (most of them circumstantial ones, but proofs after all) that allow to suspect that, as said, the milesian legends of the Leabhar Gabhala are essentially true and describe perfectly verified historical facts. To such aim we wrote the present document with tries to reunite and to synthesize everything that, in a more or less exact way, is known about the subject.

Origin of the Gaels

Like any other Celtic tribes, the Gaels could be found, in the very old times, in the centre of Europe: Germany, Austria and Switzerland would be their first nuclear mother countries. In this aspect we are not very different from the others Celts. A question is due to write down: in spite of this unit, Gaels belong to the dialectal group that is known as q-celt. Q-celts were, as we know, also Celtiberians and Galatians. On the other hand, the p-celt type speech tribes were the Gauls and the Brythonic tribes, including Welsh, Cornish, Breton, etc. It must be noted that this class of division can also be found in the old Italic languages, very related to the Celt ones.

Based on the elements that we will be developing in the present text, Gaels would have been a group of people where the predominant cultural and linguistical element was the Eastern Celtic one (originated from an area more or less identified with Central Germany, Austria, the South of Poland, and Czechoslovakia, therefore), their material culture would be identified with which today is known as culture of Hallstatt, or old Celtic one. These elements, more or less dispersed previously, had to come together towards the half of the millennium previous to Christ in the final course of the Danube River, nowadays called Rumania, to enter the History under the name of Gaethae or Gallacoi, so called since then.

The name of the tribe

Following the Leabhar Gabhala, we are Gaedels or Gaedil, sons of Gaedel Glas (also Gaythelos or Gathelos, in the Scottish versions of the legend), the mythical hero who married the daughter of the Pharaoh, Scota (from her also come the Scots). Gael is gaedel, evolved phonetically with elision of the internal syllable -de-, as is usual in Gaelic. This way, goidel could also be a phonetic variant of gaedel (also influenced by the Welsh word gwydel -foreigner-, according to what has been said by some folks).

Nevertheless, another possibility is that goidel was simply another name of gaedels related (perhaps) to gothi (the Germanic tribe that later lived almost in the same space that old gaedels); goidel could be that way goth-el, with the Indo-European suffix of adjective -el (meaning, therefore, concerning with the gothi) which is an interesting possibility, anyway (it must be said that the old Rumanians were called gethi, and according to some possibility gethi, gothi, and also gaedel are perhaps related to a name that talks about an old region of Rumania, in this interpretation).

Although any possibility must be considered to reach a better analysis of the matter, it must be observed that the root word gaeth or gaith (=wind, storm, in old gaelic) and its related (gaedel, gaithel, gaita, gaida, gayda, gajda, etc.) is absolutely general in the present and the past of the three main territories that were occupied by our people: the British islands, North-Western Iberia and the Europe of the Southeast. This way, gaith must be considered a main solution from the linguistic point of view, and the other ones (goidel, etc), therefore, secondary variants. In our opinion, the true meaning of the word is related to Gethia or Gaethia, a name that more or less talks about the present territory of Rumania, as we have said. So it seems, following Herodotus (5th century B.C.), that the Gethians or Massagethians were an old tribe of Scythian type (of the ethnic group indoiranian, therefore) that occupied the old river Araxes (modernly known as Aras) and that finally made allies between a group of Eastern Celtic tribes, generically identified by diverse denominations based on the word gall; Gallaica, Galitzia in Poland-Ucraine, Gallathia or Galathia, etc., that finally occupied territories located towards the north of the river Ister (Danube). This is, in our opinion, the origin of the Gaels. As they were predominant, the Celtic elements gave the language, the main proportion of the customs and almost all the stuff except a very important thing: an old and valued pedigree. Scythia, in spite of being considered a barbarian tribe, was a great and old empire, and that was a very important value, because it was equivalent to a presentation letter, to introduce anybody in the high society of the times we refer to. It must also be observed that the name of Scot seems to be derivative, according to some interpretations, of Scythia but, again, it must be noticed that the Scots did not like this name, they preferred the one of Albans, that had been applied, in origin, to the old brythonic tribes of Great Britain.

From gaeth comes the name of the bagpipes, gaetha, conserved, in some diverse variants in Galicia and several countries of Eastern Europe (gaita, gaida, gayda, gajda, etc). The coincidence with the name of the ethnic group suggests clearly a strong identification and an almost sacred consideration for this musical instrument on behalf of these folks. The origin of this bond gaels-bagpipes is in our opinion related to the Egyptian facts of Gaels, because the bagpipes are documented in Egypt at very old times (year 1500 B.C. at least, according to some opinions).

It is necessary to show, on the other hand, that prior to the Roman conquest of Gallaecia, the main name the tribe received was the one of Gallaicoi, formed as local name (gentilice) respect to the root gall, that means Celt or Gaul, in general, and that was applied to all the associated tribes of this ethnic group, beginning by the classical transalpine Gauls. The Polish Galitzia or the reference from Herodotus to the region called Gallaica, next to the Black Sea, indicates us that the name was of an absolute majority for all the Eastern populations of Celts; surely the well-known Galatians did not have, in this sense, another name that one more variant of gall.

The Gallaicoi name was rejected energetically by gaedels mainly from the Roman conquest: it was evident that the name sounded too much Celt when it had become a shameful condition in the surroundings associated to the pacts that the gaethels had established in the Iberian peninsula. It is necessary to suitably value the difficult wars that the Romans had against the Gauls (who were another class of galls, but galls, anyway) and how much effort and suffering the final victory cost them. So, the name gall was, therefore, object of a peculiar process of negation, common with other cases of acculturation or submission with known parallels, up to the point to finally get to mean foreigner in modern Gaelic, exactly the opposite of what it had been originally.

In the Iberian peninsula, nevertheless, this manoeuvre did not obtain results because the rest of the folks, neighbours of the Galicians, were too conscious of what the authentic original name was at issue. Nevertheless, it is out of all doubt that the "galegos" did not please that name; in the north of Portugal it was abandoned: nowadays it is used by the rest of the Portuguese exclusively, and it is considered almost like an insult. It disappeared in Galicia and was only later restituted, but under the Castilian version of Galician, which is nowadays popularly used.

In the present text and with the purpose of improving clarity, we will apply the following practical conventions: we will refer to Gaedel or Gaedelic as everything related to the old folks that we follow in their initial stages of development, as much in Scythia does, as in Iberia and the islands. When alluding to the modern Irish and Scottish folks and corresponding languages, the used expressions will be Gael and Gaelic. On the other hand, when we want to refer specifically to the occupants of Galicia, we will denominate them Gallaic if they are old, and Galician if they are modern (including, in its case, the concepts that refer to the Portuguese territory and language). Also, the historical territory of the old Galicia (much more extensive than the present one) will be denominated Gallaecia (it is simply called Spain in the Leabhar Gabhala), and thus will be perfectly differentiated from present Galicia (in the Gael texts it is denominated by the brythonic name of Brigantia -conserved in modern toponymy as Bergantinhos, Bragança, etc., alluding to the former rulers of the territory, the Brigantes or Brigantini- always avoiding the name of Galicia, that the Gaels hated so much).

First movements of the Gaels or Gaedels

After an unknown process of differentiation of the others Celts, the Gaels went river down, following the Danube (river of the Celtic goddess Danu) and reached the Black Sea. The dates of this phenomenon are not clear but we can think, as a first possibility, that it could have happened the first time from the 8th to the 7th century B.C. The Greek historian Herodotus says in the 5th century B.C. that Persian king Xerxes passed by a region that had been known like Gallaica, before arriving at Thrace; he also says that this region was well-known later by being inhabited by people Ciconian (the Gallaics did not live there anymore, in the 5th century B.C.; perhaps they had all already gone away to Galicia ?). On the other hand, what we know on the Galician culture of hillforts, suggests this could have happened, indeed, by that time. The archaeologists calculate that around this date, some influences from the Hallstatt culture began to arrive to Gallaecia, mixed with some Levantine content. We cannot be sure that this interpretation is true (only more investigations will clarify it) but, at least, another big wave of Gaels had to arrive to Gallaecia towards the 200 B.C..According to what seems to be clear, it is possible to date by then the Egyptian subject of the Leabhar Gabhala and, in any case, some cultural and religious influences continued arriving from the East until the Middle Age, specially from Egypt. On the other hand, the Galician military regiments went frequently to their place of origin (to Dacia) at least towards first century A.C., in a surprising movement of return. All these relations, must be, without any doubt, based on a common language that all these tribes shared, at least until the end of the first millennium.

The Polish region of Galitzia, the names of the bagpipes in Eastern Europe (gaida, gajda, gayda, etc.), and the existence of surname words of this origin (Yegor Gaidar, the Russian ex-minister, for example) show us the wide extension of the territory covered by the Gaedil, Gallaicoi or Gaethae, always in the limit this of the Celtic scopes. The Galatians, at the moment very known, were perhaps yet another ramification of the same whole thing, and its name in this case could be written Gallatians or something similar to this, meaning the "inhabitants of the lands of the Gall".

It must be observed, finally, that what today is denominated the Balkan Mountains and the related territories, had a quite heterogeneous composition, from the ethnic point of view. The Gothi (goths), Scits (Scytians), etc. were also there, like Thracian and Greeks, etc.

The Gaedels in Egypt

The Leabhar Gabhala relates diverse eventful journeys of the Gaedels in Egypt, from where the hero Gaedel Glas (Gaythelos Glas, in Scottish) comes, who married Scota, the beautiful daughter of the Pharaoh, and thus started the saga of both Gaedels and Scots.

From a more simple point of view, it seems that the trip was motivated by business matters, and as our predecessors were the best soldiers in the world, they reached the highest degree of competition in the army of the most seductive empire there has ever been: the Egypt of the Pharaohs. Egypt gave them good satisfactions: there they learned the sacred art of the adornments in form of crossed circles and interlaced graphs. Also they enjoyed the metal works, made with gold from the Balkan Mountains. Most probably, they learned the fine art of the bagpipes there, which allowed them to enjoy and to celebrate their victories with good music. As a counterpart, they adopted the instrument, gave it their most sacred name, gaetha, and made it their clearest sign of identity, forever.

Basing us on independent sources, it seems we can consider that this episode of the Leabhar Gabhala could happen the latest, towards 180 - 190 B.C.. This is of special interest to determine the dates of the facts related to the Gael occupation of Galicia, and Ireland also.

Despite not being too permanent, the Egyptian trip produced a lasting fascination in the mind of Gaels. Later legends related, for example, with the well-known stone of Scottish coronation, indicate clearly that one passage was absolutely unforgettable. The relation with Egypt did not finish here, because the economic complementariness (Egypt was a great producer of wheat, that they exported everywhere, including Brittany, Galicia and the islands; and a metal importer, receiver of tin, copper and gold, mainly) and the created links were maintained until well after the Middle Age.

As we were saying, this stay generated not only a great part of the symbols of the Gaedels, but also the way as Christianity penetrated in their land, as has been concluded by the investigators who have been interested on this subject. In fact, this visit it had to be the motivation that ended up creating finally the Gaedel nationality. Until then the Gaedels were possibly no more than an heterogeneous meeting of adventurers. The Gaethae without any doubt, had known the good qualities as warriors of the Oriental Celts and maybe, they went recruiting them to cover the great military needs that they had to attend for the old Egyptians. From there, the facts would be developed in an absolutely foreseeable way: given their great numerical superiority, the Gallaicoi imposed the language and the material culture, whereas Gaethae would lend name to the tribe resulting of the fusion, established in a such opportune way. On the other hand, the explanation given to the first facts of Gaidels in the Leabhar Gabhala, seems to corroborate these considerations.

We will finally remember, that the popular cult to the Santiago (Saint James) apostle (head of the Christian church at the death of Christ) is also related to this bond, through its disciples, who fled to Egypt after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans. All this Egyptian subject in general, constitutes an important matter to study because it seems that it can be contrasted by other historical sources (it seems that there are references of locations of expeditionary regiments of Celts in the Nile, found there towards 190 B.C.).

The Gaedels arrive to Iberia

Following the Leabhar Gabhala, from Egypt and after a brief scale again in Scythia, the Gaedels reached Spain (Spaine) which they took by the force of the arms. This journey, carried out mainly by the hero Breogan, Bregon or Bregan, according to versions (also called, otherwise, Golam) culminated with the well-known episode in which Ith, son of Breogan, descried Ireland from the high Tower of Brigantia and marched towards its conquest.

From a historical point of view, it is very little what we can deduce of the tests that we arrange on these facts, aside from what the Leabhar Gabhala states. The archaeological testimonies indicate that towards centuries VII or V B.C., cultural influences pertaining to the dominion of Hallstatt (old Celtic) began to arrive to Galicia and North of Portugal. Together with other elements identified as coming from Eastern Mediterranean as well as those surviving from the previous culture (known as the Atlantic bronze, surely carried out by Brythonic Celts, Brigantini, Albions was some of their tribal names) dominant in the Galician scope, they all ended in the creation of a new culture of fusion of these portions that is known as Castrexa, name that alludes to the main type of towns that were built, that the Romans denominated castros (dùn, dùin -or don-; in Gallaic language).

The knowledge about the society of hillforts that we have today is very limited; if we followed what the Roman historians said, the Galicians were a reunion of barbarians who spent the day fighting and the night eating, drinking and dancing to the moon. But today it seems absolutely clear that from the year 500 B.C. to the change of the era, they developed in an aristocratic and even perhaps a feudal social model. The division of the country -in concelhos, concept similar to the counties of the islands or Rumania-, seems to be based on this class of social organisation. Also, the structure based on hillforts, also looks associated to a fortified occupation of the territory, resemblance to the one of the Central European classic Celtic habitat. The old Gallaecia could also, in certain way, be compared to Babylonia, in the sense of the multinational and multiracial origin of its inhabitants. That way, the fatal atraction that its mineral wealth provoked was similar enough to a certain class of the gold fever. In any case, it is also clear that the interest of the Romans for this earth was solely related to its gold mines. When the Muslims came, they also rejected to have no special hunger for this humid corner, very difficult to attract a meridian, with its deficiency of oil, wine and bread (the Mediterranean trilogy).

The Latin sources inform to us about the name of the tribes who inhabited Gallaecia when the Romans came. As said, there was a previous domination of the Brythonic tribes, who were defeated (or had been defeated earlier) by the Gaedels. What it is very difficult to determine exactly here, are the dates of the whole process. It seems quite sure for example, that the Egyptian facts (as they are described in the milesian legends) can introduce an inferior limit of the date of the process in the beginning of the second century B.C. But this can be confusing, because the continuous space of Gaedels could have been uninterrupted for centuries, as other experiences of colonisation can suggest us. Think about America, for example; people continue arriving from Europe, 500 years after the conquest and the initial colonisation. This class of processes are not instantaneous and cannot be valued this way. What is also sure, on the other hand, is that the absence of the materials of la Tène (modern central celtic culture) eliminates the possibility that recent immigration had come from the islands (that had been put under the influence of the la Tène culture by then) or of Central and Western Europe. On the other hand, there are no signs of this class of culture (culture of the hillforts or castrexa as it is called) in the Iberian Peninsula, outside the corner of the Northwest, which eliminates the possibility of a Celtiberian origin. The kind of Celts who took Galicia was, very demonstrably, a handful of peripheral people, that came here by sea, from outside the centres of what by then constituted the European Celtic culture.

And, as we can know from archaeology, the typical Gaedel decorations came to Galicia towards the change of the era. These decorations can be related to the tradition of Hallstatt and also have a deep influence of Scythian, Greek and Egyptian adornments. This is extremely interesting as we cannot speak of true Gaedels without these decorations, because their other sign of singularity (their language) cannot be object of analysis by the archaeological registry.

Then, the (provisional) conclusion of all this panel from how and when the Gaedels came is: there would be a gradual immigration of Celtic people who came from the borders of the Black Sea, and the definitive process received its greater impetus towards the change of the era. Although there are no direct proofs of it, this type of colonisation was not possible to be carried out without the participation of the Phoenicians, who had the practical monopoly of navigation and the lucrative commerce that was related to copper, tin, and bronze (coming from Galicia and the British Islands and destined to the markets of the Mediterranean) until the Roman times. The Phoenician findings in Galicia corroborate this assertion, with some facilities that, no matters how incredible it can seem, continue to be functional after 2500 years of their construction (for example the port of Bares -hills, in Celtic language- in the most Northern point of all Iberian Peninsula). This way, Gaedels possibly came from the Phoenicians with the intention of assuring the bases that they had constructed by the Galician coast, since the Phoenicians did not have terrestrial troops able to control the territory. The abundance in Galicia of old toponymy that alludes to ports (Ortegal -from portegal, pronounced in old Gallaic mouths-, Ortigueira -similar to the to former-, Portugal, etc.) corroborates this assertion. Nevertheless, the (interested?) silence that the Leabhar Gabhala gives to this specific subject seems very strange.

Three battles in Spain

Continuing with the Leabhar Gabhala narration, we read that once in Spain, they waged three wars or battles: one against the Tuscans, another against Langobardi and finally one third against the Barchu (or Barchunes or Bachra, according to versions). Also, the Breogan hero constructed a city called Brigantia, where he rose the great tower or castle from where Ith, his son, descried Ireland. The Leabhar Gabhala also calls our attention to the fact of practice of the extraordinary demographic productivity of Gaels; then, as indicated that happened in the Iberian peninsula, the amount of children and grandsons generated was enormous, according to what is said.

As the new occupants arrived to Galicia the gaining of space to the original inhabitants became a necessity, which without a doubt would not be obtained in a pacific way. The main strategic weapon of conquest and colonisation contributed by Gaedels (aside from their value in the combat and of the mentioned demographic machine) was the dun (hillfort, originally pronounced doon, like in Brigadoon): a fortification always constructed around strategic places that allowed them to dominate the surrounding space as a medieval feudal castle (in fact what could have happened is that the castle is not more than a delayed evolution of dun, in this sense) that in modern Galician is designated with the latinized expression castro. It seems to be that Brythonic Celts did not construct duns (at least not in Ireland and Galicia) and this disadvantage played an important role in the defeats that they were to suffer from Gaedels in Galicia and later in Ireland and Scotland, until they also learned to construct them and this way they were able to stabilize partially their situation in Wales and Cornwall, controlling what had become a true whip for the old inhabitants of the British islands. We must also notice the importance the castles had for Castile, up to the point that they ended up giving name to the own kingdom, applying the old Gaedel strategy against the Arabs, with remarkable success. There are, therefore, many castles painted in the shields of the noble houses of Gaedel origin (for example, in Gaztelu) that refer to this circumstance.

It seems that the first establishments of the Gaedels in Iberia were located in the area that today corresponds to the North of Portugal, between the rivers Minho and Douro (or, even, til the Mondego), according to the archaeological sources that inform us about the progress of the Hillforts or castrexa culture (of the castros, or duns, or hillforts). From there they would be extended by the basins of the rivers Minho and Douro to practically occupying all Galicia. The domination would have to be practically finished except in the points more separated from the peninsular north, corresponding to the Galician territory, when Iberia was involved in the Punic wars between Carthaginians and Romans. Hannibal recruited many Gallegans for the fight who, this way, gave satisfaction to the strategic alliance that they maintained with the Phoenicians (the Carthaginians were of this origin). As we saw in the preface of the present text, that contributes an appointment of Silius Italicus on the matter, the abilities of the Galicians were already perfectly developed, by that time.

As it is well-known, after passing incredible difficulties, the Romans finally managed to defeat Hannibal and undertook the conquest of Iberia. The tribe of the Gallaicoi faced them in 137 B.C. in the battle of river Douro that resulted in a great Roman victory against 60,000 Galicians, by who the Roman general, proconsul Decimus Iunius Brutus was received as a hero in Rome with the name of Gallaicus, according to what relates the historian Paulus Orosius. Everything seems to indicate that the resistance of Gaedels against the Romans ended there; from now on they would be enlisted massively like auxiliary troops of the Roman legions, fulfilling destinies sometimes completely separated from Galicia, including Thracian and Dacia, for example, in where they would be again with its origins in a peculiar phenomenon of return back. It has been calculated that of the total of Roman auxiliary troops coming from Iberia more than 30 % would belong to tribes and folks of the Peninsular North-west (Galicia and North of Portugal). As a result of it, there are tens of localities in Galicia whose name is called something -mil, today (mil=military man), for Romans. From here also the sons of Mil come, (as the Milesian legends describe the facts), this class of ending comes from that origin: Belmil, Vilamil, Vilaframil, Gondomil, etc, etc. Surely that each small city had, this way, its own regiment or small army, to contribute to the imperial glory.

The two wars that we just have mentioned are in our opinion, those that the Leabhar Gabhala defines as confrontations against the Tuscans and Langobardi. Following this interpretation, the text of the legends would have used these denominations as euphemisms to designate the Romans, thus eluding negative references for them. It is necessary to think that towards the moment in which the texts were transcribed by the Irish monks, the absorption of the Celtic church by the catholic hierarchy was quite recent, and the circumstances were not therefore, too propitious to present Romans as Irish enemies.

Despite it all, there is a -possibly- much more surprising explanation for the second of such confrontations (the one of the Langobardi), that may not be disregarded a priori, that is based on the possibility that, indeed, the Langobardi really came to Gallaecia, and fought against the Gallaics (!!). The Langobardi or Lombards were a subdivision of the great Swabian tribe that, as it is well known, conquered the North of Italy and became extremely well-known by their extreme violent methods. Nevertheless, it is possible that some (or even enough) contingent of Lombards arrived up to Galicia accompanying the Swabian invasion. This could explain, for example, the great amount of Gallaic-Asturian last names that allude to the root Lomb -: Lomba, Lombán, Lombardía, Lombardero (this last one, as you can verify at the end of this paper, accidentally turns out to be the second last name of the author of these lines of text), etc. If future explanations confirmed this possibility, it would be necessary to move the line of historical separation of the Milesian legends until 5th century, a lot later than it would have been possible to be conceited at first sight !.

The Leabhar Gabhala defines finally a last war (in some versions of the texts, the last is the Langobardi one, nevertheless) or battle that took place in Spain: the war against the Barchu or Barchunes. We dedicate the following section to that crucial confrontation.

The ultimate battle in Spain: the war against the Barchu, or Cantabrian wars

What is now called Galicia was not totally occupied by the Romans until the Cantabrian wars, in the last decades of the old era. As we see it, these wars definitively marked the future destiny of the Gaedels, and the end of the process of their definitive territorial and political consolidation.

The Cantabrian wars defined in last instance, the final situation of the Gaedels in continental Europe. These confrontations were lead by Octavius emperor and they extended from year 26 to the 19 B.C., finished the occupation of the rebellious rest that still remained in the Iberian Peninsula and were narrated as extremely wild and cruel by the Roman sources. The conventional interpretations assume that this war was lead against the Cantabrian and Asturian assembly of tribes. This means, more or less, the present provinces of Asturies and Leon (Astures) and Cantabria (or Santander, if you want) in the classic interpretation of Roman texts.

So and as the Romans describe the facts, the violence of the war was tremendous, including collective suicides before surrendering, crucified prisoners who sang triumphant hymns before dying, rebellions of enslaved captives who killed their guards and returned home from the Gaul, women who killed their children and themselves, etc.. What is not said by the Romans in a clear manner, is that a lot of this dirty work (and the subsequent benefit) was made by the Gaedels. This can be observed, in fact, by the deep intrusion of Gaedels in the demi depopulated regions of Northern Iberia, after the war finished. Before the wars, there was no Indo-European penetration in Asturias, for example, and later Asturias had become one complete Gallaic colony. As we consider that this one is a critical subject, we will see it with more thoroughness.

The name of Barchu or Barchunes to which the Leabhar Gabhala alludes, evidently, is an orthographic and phonetic variant of Barscunes, which is as the folks that we call Basque or Euskaro today, were known. It seems that the Gaidels were not very fond of pronouncing the consonant group -sc- and made the - s - disappear replacing it by an aspiration (of a similar way as it happens in most of the actual Castilian dialects). It is most surprising that, without doubt, the name is Indo-European and Celtic: according to the linguist Tovar, it is originated by Bahr or Bar (height, mountain; look at Dunbar, for instance) and for the dialects that prefer the fall of the - r - to the one of the - s - (in general, all those of Eastern Iberia, Basque and Celtiberians) the result is Bascunes or Bascones, meaning literally pertaining to the heights, mountain dwellers or highlanders.

Nevertheless, the reference to the Barchunes of the Leabhar Gabhala seems to be a little bit amazing. On one hand it is one of the most evident signs of the authenticity of the Galician trip of the Gaedels because it is clear that the editor took the name in the way it was pronounced towards the change of era and not of later references (because the word evolved quickly towards basco or uasco in the Middle Age); it seems quite probable, therefore, that the cotracks of the legend no longer knew, at the moment of the writing, who could be such Barchunes and it motivated that its original name has been preserved by the transcription. But what is not clear, is how the Gaedels could reach the Barchunes, being interposed the ferocious Cantabros and Astures between both folks. It is clear that something does not fit, at least apparently, in the Gaedel narration.

The answer to the apparent enigma responds to the fact that, without a doubt, the text also considers the Astures and Cantabros as members of the ample assembly of folks that entered under the denomination of Barchu. The meaning of Barscunes, mountain dwellers, is also the generic name that the Roman and Greek sources, for example Strabo, gave to the assembly of all the inhabitants of the north of the peninsula, including Galicia, affirming in addition that their way of life was very homogenous among all of them. On the other hand, the denomination of mountain dwellers (Montañeses) continues having much vitality, as alternative to the one of Cantabrians and it is frequently used in mass media as press, radio or television (specially to the football sport commentators when talking about the players of the football club of Santander, to which they often denominate that way: los Montañeses meaning the Cantabrians).

The Barchunes were then in fact the mountain dwellers whom Strabo speaks about, discounting of course, the own narrators of the Leabhar Gabhala (gaedels), that surely did not consider themselves so highlanders. The cultural and linguistic penetration of the Gallaics, mainly in Asturias, was impressive. The toponymy (names of the towns, etc.) and linguistic facts seem unquestionable here: Gallaic toponymy can be found everywhere in Asturias. For example, the name of the capital, Oviedo (before, Ovedo, of an original *Obaid(o), in archaic Gallaic) can be related to the toponymies Castrove, Landrove, Corrubedo and some small parishes called Ove. The old Galician name of Santiago de Compostela -Libredon- has its corresponding related Asturian in Llibardon. Also, we have Coroña here (as Coruña) and names like Castro (the exclusive Roman translation of the Gallaic dun -nominative-, don -the genitive, the most used case in usual speech-), Canga, only found in Galicia and related lands in addition to Asturies. In the Picos de Europa, for example, the frequency of the toponymy of Gaedels is to the top: Mountain range of Cortegada, Covadonga (of a previous Covadonega -meaning cave of dun type, or fortified-, similar to Viladonga in Galicia), Liébana (this one, in the Cantabrian face, but also Gallaic), etc.

Also, the Asturian language is close to the Galician-Portuguese in solutions as, for example, the words that are related to the old Celtic gentilices (composed by means of the -iego ending: cabraliego, -of Cabrales-, lebaniego, -of Liébana-, naviego, -of Navia-, etc. This Gaedel construction -and Breton- marks a clear difference to the corresponding Celtiberian one based on -(i)asco, as in Kontrebia Belaisca -old Celtiberian city that was related to the tribe of Beli, well-known by its old texts, found in recent excavations- or with many Celtic words found in modern Spanish: carrasco, -of carro-, churrasco, -of churro-, ternasco, -of tierno-, etc., predominant in Aragon and the eastern area of Castille. In modern English the corresponding form is with -ish: Irish, Spanish, etc.). Other Asturian parallels will be analysed in the section dedicated to the language, where these fundamental questions will be with a little more extended. A very interesting subject, for example, can be related to the personal appeals, because they are inflected conditioned by the sex of the interlocutor: if he is masculine the appeal is by "o" (qué fas, o ?, what are you doing ?, -to a man-) and by "ne" if she is a woman (qué dices, ne ? what are you saying , -to a woman-) and the identification with the Gaelic distribution of the personal articles O/Ni (O'Hara, Ni Mhary) seems very suggestive here.

Despite being sufficient, in our opinion, all these coincidences, the Asturians also share the common Gaedel style of typical decorations of the other countries that share this origin. This way, hexagonal figures with rhombuses, rings, interlaced adornments and corded shapes, Saint Andrew's crosses, etc. can also be found there. It must be emphasized, however, that one of the most typical samples, the triskel, disappears in the imperial age outpost (also in Galicia), perhaps for religious reasons, because they would have been considered dangerous pagan symbols, and still more after the subject of Priscillian (a tremendously popular bishop that finally was declared heretic and beheaded by the catholic hierarchy). Asturian examples of these decorations can be followed in the architecture (really suggestive, in this sense, are the churches of the denominated preRomanesque style, Santa María del Naranco, San Miguel de Lillo, etc.) in the popular crafts and adornments, and the architectonic decorations.

Finally, the similarities in the popular suits and the customs between both countries are evident. As it is also known, the Asturians have become fond of the music of bagpipes, the rustic and collective meals, and singing and drinking, like their Galician neighbours.

The following stage of the Gaedel progress was the colonisation of Cantabria and the Basque Country. The tracks in the toponymy are not so evident in Cantabria as in Asturies and (surprise !) in the Basque Country. In the scope of the Picos de Europa the gentilices in -iego are still dominant (lebaniego = from Liébana), are some gallaica toponymy (Galizano, of a previous Galiciano, perhaps) and last names like Gaitán or Gaytán. This one, originally located in Cantabria and the North of Castille (near Burgos), constitutes the more abundant surname of those that come throughout from Gaeth, of all Spain; very usual throughout the country and very extended also.

In spite of all these evidences, it seems to be clear that the penetration of the Gaedels in the area of Santander was not as deep as in the rest of the Northern coast. Perhaps the resistance of the Cantabrians against the occupation was not as ferocious as the Asturians one (and the Basque's also) and, therefore, the Romans did not allow an important colonisation as the one of Asturies. This is a question that (as many others) future investigations will have to solve. It must be observed, on the other hand, that there are evident samples of gallaic presence near Burgos, in the North of Castile. Aside from the referred last name of Gaitán (also is remarkable Obregon), architectonic adornments of that origin can be found in some small churches conserved, of the first millennium, as well as the names and toponymy unequivocally related (Castrogeriz, for example. Also Montes de Oca; Oca is a gallaic last name very extended and popular. The Leabhar Gabhala tells us about Occe -note the cc, evolved at modern times in c and not in g-, that died in the plague after the battle against the Barchu. The related variants are Ocáriz, Oquendo -pronouncing Okendo- and, perhaps, O'Kelly in Ireland).

But the most surprising among all the conquests of the Gaedels is the conquest of the Basque country. By the moment of the related events, the region was called Vardulia. The territory corresponds to what today is called Vizcaya, Guipúzcoa, Álava and the Rioja partially (it must be observed that great portions of the territory of basque ethnics, as Navarre and Aquitania, for example, was not included in Vardulia). The tracks of the Gallaica occupation are absolutely evident here. The toponymy and surnames are full of related names gallaico/gaedel: Gallarta, Portugalete, Gaiztarro, Ga(i)ztelu, Ga(i)ztambide and Orue, Oca (Galician), Ocáriz, Oquendo, Olóriz, Olarriaga, Olavide, Uriz, Oria, Uria or Obregón (this one in Cantabria), Cañedo (from a previous *Ceannaid(o), =Kenneth), Cañas, or even the most latinized Ovalle, Ocampo, etc., etc., that demonstrate the delayed persistence of the particle "O" ', meaning man, Mr. (in fact, and like direct appeal, this meaning of "O" is alive until today in the popular language, in Galician and Asturian, at least) and opposed to Ni or Ne, meaning woman, lady, Miss (also today alive in popular language, must of all in Asturies). On the other hand, also remarkable are the names that include the Germanic word riz (=little king), -surely, pronounced as ric by then- (king, rei in modern Spanish and Galician), that can also be found in much toponymy and reflects the social organisation based on small kings or chieftains.

Remarkably, here can be found isolated cases of the Gallaic diminutive in -iño (Treviño, Abadiño -analogous to Abadin in Galicia-), the ending -aga (Olarriaga, for example; of previous -aiga, as in Gallaic/Gaedel, and the modern Galician ones), as well as another sample which could perhaps be another derivative of Gall, result of different phonetic transformations: Galdo, Gadea, Galdacano, Galdeanos, Galdiano are perhaps of this origin, which would thus demonstrate to us, the heterogeneous composition and the multiple origins of the throats of ancient Basques and Gaedels.

It must be observed that the penetration was not possible in Navarre, because the Romans had one of their better allies there, that gave the name of their capital (Pamplona) to one of the more meaning patricians. As the Navarrese used their influences in Rome to advance against the Celtiberians of the Valley of the Ebro, it must be observed as extremely surprising that Gaedels were authorized to advance up to their own beards and against their close relatives the Vardulians. Possibly it was perhaps simply Roman interest in compensation of which had been perceived like an excessive penetration against the Celtiberians. Again, more investigation, will be able to clarify this intriguing questions in the future.

Finally, it must be stressed that what we know of the results of the archaeological excavations of this period, shows us important improvements in modus vivendi and wealth, must of all in the old Gallaecia Bracarensis (the north of Portugal, centre and the main core of the population of gaedels -Sanfins, Briteiros, Monte Mozinho-, although it can also be observed in Southern Galicia: San Cibrao de Las, Santa Trega, etc.). Possibly, this was the reward of the Cantabrian conquest. The decorations of the houses of the hillforts improved their sophistication and we can find there for the first time unquestionable adornments of Gaedel style: crossed rings, parallel lines that formed graphs with rhombuses, corded and interlaced motifs, Saint Andrew's crosses, linear developments, triskels, hexagonal and kaleidoscope rings, etc., etc..

The invasion of Ireland

Following the narration of the Leabhar Gabhala Earrainn, the hero Breogan (or Bregon, or Bregan) also called Golam, that had commanded so many battles against the Hispani, constructed the city of Brigantia (or Braganza) and the Tower that take his name. From the Tower of Breogan, his son Ith descried Ireland in a Winter afternoon. This way, Ith commanded the first expedition to Ireland in which the natives (note that, surprisingly, they also spoke Gaelic, according to the text) killed him treacherously.It all ended at the second and definite expedition, taken by Mil, also son of Breogan and brother of Ith, that lead to the conquest of the island.

Returning to the historical sources, on the other hand, as result of the battle or waged war of the Gaedels against the Barchu, that the Romans and their Gaedel allies fought against the Barchunes, all the Barchu territory was celtized and gaedelized until nearly the river Bidasoa (current French frontier) and, mainly, Asturias was turned into a simple colony. The Roman census of the year 77, mentioned by Plinius, already included next to the classic convents Bracarensis and Lucensis the Asturicensis as conforming a kind of Nova Gallaecia. Just by then the Gaedels passed one of their sweeter times ever because, with the victories in hand, their prestige increased to eyes of the Romans, what gave them power and wealth. It is by then when they erect the famous statues of the Gaedel soldiers and baptize their hillforts as if they were the Greek colonies or polis (because in fact, the Greek model of civilization was the one they more envied) that they had left next to the Black Sea. This way we have Vilapol, Buspol and Castropol, with their names so similar to Sevastopol or Simferopol and, also, later, Pola de Allande, Pola de Siero, Pola de Laviana, Pola de Lena...

In this conjuncture of triumph, resources and power, is when it seems that the Gaedels undertook the adventure of the conquest of Ireland. Proud of themselves, feeling impelled by the crest of an euphoria wave, it seems that they carried out their new enterprise without excessive problems. Unfortunately, this process is very unknown to us, there is a lot of stuff to investigate and data to obtain to try to approach a little more towards those facts. The only thing that seems sure, is that on a previous base of La Tène culture type, advanced progressively, from south to north and from west to east, a culture of no La Tène type, constructor of forts (duns, hill-forts in English) similar to the Gallaic castros (denominated dun, don or donga in the old Galician language). Also, by the written references of the Leabhar Gabhala we deduce that the protagonists of the conquest were military (sons of Mil) word that suggests clearly that the responsibility of the facts was on the part of Roman auxiliary troops, Gallaic in this case. As this it is not the central subject of the present Web page, we will not extend ourselves on the subject, although it is necessary not to forget that it is one more, of the crucial facts that happened towards the change of era, that conditions and surprises us a lot when we analyse them nowadays.

On the other hand we insist that in our opinion and in agreement with a coherent interpretation of the archaeological data available, as well as with the narration of the Leabhar Gabhala, there were Gaedel (or gaillacoi) colonies in Ireland previous to the conquest, located there without a doubt on the part of the Phoenicians, what would explain the absence of archaeological registries of La Tène type in this zone, as well as the observation of the milesian text, that the Irish, who received Ith, spoke Gaelic too.

Personally we consider as more probable the hypothesis that in fact the Galicians knew perfectly the existence of the Gaedel colony of Ireland (that would act, this way, like a kind of Trojan horse against the inhabitants who dominated the island, that were Brythonic Celts of La Tène culture) and mediating pretext or not, finally they were decided to seize the island completely, leaning in the military technology, the resources, the experience and, in short, the power that they had acquired in the course of the Cantabrian wars. We repeat that, like all the rest of the matters that are discussed here, it will have to be object of more and more investigations that will allow to explain the true real reach of the facts.

The Gaedels in Spain after the Irish invasion

What happened next, according to the Leabhar Gabhala, is that the Gaedels continued living in Spain although the Hispani did not stop annoying them at any moment, being specially inopportune the Gothi (goths) according to some Scottish legends.

The history books relate, on the other hand, what happened next. Gallaecia was integrated in the Roman empire, receiving the favourable treatment that corresponded to the allies. The expansion of the Gallaics from their shelter is testified by the archaeological and linguistic testimonies, according to what we saw in the previous section. Also, as we said, the rejection is perceived whereupon they received the denomination of Gallaicus in exchange for the one of Gaethel or Gaithan, manoeuvre that as we said, did not obtain more results than very partially in Iberia due to, without a doubt, that Gallaicus was too much implanted by that time; nevertheless the extension of the last names related to gaeth (Gaeta, Gaite, Gaitan, Gaztelu) indicates that this denomination was also used enough, at least during the first millenium A.D.

The Roman administration was gathering, on the other hand, under the name of Gallaecia, increasing amounts of territory including all the area of influence that the Gaedels had reached in the Cantabrian wars. In the provincial division of Dioclecianus, of year 305, the province of Gallaecia will even occupy all the territory from the Cantabrian sea and the Atlantic to river Douro and the Iberian system by the West, absorbing Celtiberia too, area of an old Celtic origin, completely different of the Gallaic one.

As it is known, the Roman domination finished in fact in year 409 with the invasion of the Germanic tribe of the Swabians. It seems to be that after some principles marked by a relative mutual lack of understanding, they ended up understanding well with Gallaics. Their dynasty lasted until the 585, year in which Swabo-Gallaics were defeated and absorbed by the Visigoths, who controlled the rest of the Iberian Peninsula and South-Eastern France (Languedoc). Both one or the other invasion usually are considered as of limited demographic reach, even compared with the well-known presence of British refugees who fleeing from the Saxon invasion settled in the coast of Lugo between the centuries V and VII, with Maeloc bishop as their more outstanding leader (which suggests, on the other hand, that the north of Galicia continued being perceived in certain Brythonic way, even after the Gaedel conquest).

The domination of the Gothi evildoers did not last much, since in 711 the Muslim conquest happened to annihilate the Visigothic monarchy that already was very weakened by internal fights. Gallaecia escaped to the permanent occupation of the Arabs due fundamentally to the little interest that they showed by the country, or at least this is, the traditional explanation. The case is that the empire of Islam began to experience problems and to suffer defeats in Gallaecia, for the first time from the beginning of its triumphal stroll (later the Francs would also be able to overcome them). From the defeat of Covadonga in the 718, in Asturies, the Muslim power initiates a slow but progressive retirement, being perceived moving more and more away off Gallaecia. And soon, around the city of Oviedo a new kingdom was established, named Asturias-Leon by modern Spanish historians, although there are indications which suggest that the name by which it was known was the one of Gallaecia (with complete certainty, this was the denomination that the Arab historians gave to the kingdom, for example), in this sense this is a question that nowadays is even put under debate and it is not absolutely clear, therefore.

The war of Reconquers against the Muslims motivated the appearance of a dynamic county first called Vardulia (and later Castille) that starting off of the territory of the present Basque provinces, was able to obtain the secession of the Asturias-Leon kingdom (or Gallaecia, according to we have said) to finish absorbing even the old original kingdom later. This was considered as casus belli in the old Gallaecia Bracarensis which motivated its separation and the creation of the kingdom of Portugal. And, in short, this way in a certain sense, in the end, the Barchu were able to obtain fulfilled revenge of which had been the Cantabrian wars. The rest can be consulted in any text book, so we are not going to stop anymore on the matter.

There are other questions more difficult to explain as, for example, when and how the Gaedel language disappeared or from when the Gallaics lost their particular and specific conscience of their traditional origins. These questions surely lack of satisfactory answer at least to where the available level of the knowledge arrives to answer.

In the case of the language, for example, it seems clear that Latin and Gaedel must have shared a bilingual stage that ended maybe at the absorption of this one by that one. Nevertheless the problem, once studied with thoroughness, does not seem as clear as before. A possibility is based in the consideration that it must have been little while the dialect descending of Latin and its basic vocabulary moved yet definitively to the dialect descending of the Gaedel and his corresponding basic vocabulary. But this could be, otherwise, caused by a progressive phenomenon of influence, similar to which underwent the English language under the Norman domination, being then modern Galician a form of Gallaic eroded and absolutely influenced by the Latin and the Western European conceptual world, that is constructed around Latin and to a lesser extent, also around old Greek. In this, like in many other things, more and better investigations must have the definitive word. In the following section we will try to come near to this difficult problematic, trying to discover something of what has been preserved of the old Gaedel in the present Galician language.

Where have all the Gaels' words gone ?

It has been commented repeatedly that the Gallaic language disappeared totally with the romanisation, in Gallaecia. Only the words corresponding to the toponymy (denomination of the cities and geographic features) and a little about the names of some plants and animals, stayed (something similar to this was published in the Internet, out of an interview made to a personality of first order of the Galician culture, some years ago).

Although we are not going to be entangled in the sterile discussion about if these valuations respond or not to the reality, we think that, at least, it is necessary to do some explanations. Indeed, despite being present Gallician what usually one denominates a Romance language, (that is to say, coming from Latin), we think that it does not have to be considered as synonymous of the total disappearance of the old language, Celtic/Gaedel, for several reasons.

In the first place it is necessary to clarify that the diverse Celtic languages and Latin belonged to a same Indo-European linguistic block, which nowadays is denominated Italo-Celtic. This means that their respective proximity was very close, and both the syntax and the phonetics and even the lexicon of their basic vocabulary were very similar. This was so up to the point that between people relatively instructed, Latin and Celt were mutually comprehensible; there even exist anecdotes that relate how the Romans had to speak Greek between themselves, when they were in the presence of Celts and they did not want their conversations to be understood.

This way, there are many of these common characteristics that have passed to the Gallaico-Portuguese language (these considerations also must be valid for some other Latin languages) in whom is extraordinarily difficult to discriminate which is their true origin, in this sense. This happens to many of the words as well as of the syntactic and phonetic questions. However, this proximity must not justify sufficiently, as it is usually justified, that as soon as there is a minimum possibility of embroidering a certain Latin etymology (or, if not Latin, Germanic) all the other alternatives are automatically rejected. Sometimes, the desire to force the Latin origins for the words has arrived until the fall in absolutely grotesque deformations.

On the other hand, the peripheral situation in which the old gaedel lands were left at the present time (Ireland and Scotland in the Anglo-Saxon world and Galicia in the Latin-Hispanic) causes that the investigation on the subject has been practically nonviable until today. In order to advance on the subject it is necessary to deeply know languages so apparently different and remote as Galician and Gaelic and there are very few people who can reach these requirements nowadays, which makes the progress of the works enormously difficult.

In short, of course we do not try to blame nobody personally, but we think that, on one hand, the time has arrived for the academic world and the universities to begin to consider seriously the existing need of Celtic languages to be minimally studied, because they are so important for our past, since everything is not composed exclusively of Latin and (old) Greek. It is not easy after more than 20 centuries of emptiness and marginalisation that we've been suffering from all the scopes of power and knowledge; it is evident that this type of studies lacks tradition to a great extent and that those who wanted to approach such will not be able to be protected in no previous aid, almost all its knowledge will have practically to be built from zero. But doing it, doesn't only mean an inalienable necessity of justice towards our roots, but that, in addition, it is essential to reach the complete comprehension of the origin of our present languages and, therefore, for the own progress of linguistic science.

Let us then go to try to explain what is the little that has been left in modern Galician of the old Gallaic language. In the first place by the phonetic questions, there are habits of articulation that are absolutely characteristic and differentials of Galician and Gaelic, within the assembly of the European languages. For example:

1) Aspirated consonants: bh, ch, dh, gh, lh, nh, th, etc. The orthographic and phonetic correspondences can not agree exactly between Gaelic and Galician, in some cases, but the fundamental tendencies can be related approximately thus. Saving the specific cases where aspiration extends to the writing (ch, lh, nh, th is z or ce, ci in the writing) the present Gallaic-Portuguese (also almost always the Spanish) solely does these phonetic effects with positional character (the aspiration is carried out at intervocalic position, fundamentally) and nonphonemic (bh, dh, gh). Examples (with pseudophonetic spelling): beira, demo, gaita; but (pronounced), na bheira, o dhemo, a ghaita. In Galicia, North of Portugal and Castille the v is identical to the b. Far from Galicia these phonetic effects seems to be weak. In some Spanish southern dialects, the intervocalic b more and more frequently tends to be pronounced practically equal to the English or Portuguese v.

2) Sound g is mainly in Galicia -despite being considered a popular use, or even vulgar- pronounced like Ghh (Ghhalicia, ghhaleghho by Galicia, galego) paradoxical solution in a Latin language, that is evidently a sign of the gallaic phonetics. It is necessary to stand out that both Castilian and Portuguese languajes have created recently similar sounds (gente, jauja are pronounced in modern Castilian like ghhente, ghhaughha; in Portuguese this tendency -not yet completed totally- is expressed through rr: carro, rua, terra, are pronounced more and more frequently like caghho, ghhua, teghha) what would have to be, surely, product of the accomplishment of a latent tendency of articulation of gallaic substrate. The Castilian sound was originated surely in some dialectal scope, by analogy and conservation of the old pronunciations in order not to accept the new strange sounds into the phonetic system, and extended later to the rest of the linguistic dominion.

3) There are clear indications that the change of pronunciation ce, ci>se, si, or similar, typical from the Romance phonetics did not get to produce very spontaneously in Western Galician and it has not even taken place still in the words that are not recognized in the habitual vocabulary, what can be shown, for example, in the toponymy (quenxe, quenlle, quilmas, etc.). Probably this fact is also related to the difficulties of this dialect to accept the phonetics of the eastern Galician and the Asturian, that pronounce like in th, the combinations ce, ci and related forms, as the Castilian does (Vicedo>Vithedo, Noceda>Notheda, Foz>Foth, etc.). It is a very interesting phenomenon to study, that probably was not completed generally until the centuries XVIII or XIX and that did not arrive, therefore, on time to colonize America. The sound th had to be originated surely from the dialectal Castilian of gallaic influence, from the analogy with the end of word type cnòth>noz (nut), ath>azar (to evaluate again; of there chance, chance, fate), brùth>bruces (blow; to fall or to give of you brush: to strike themselves), cruth>cruz (cross, from shape), roth>rozar (wheel, and from there, to graze) and also roda, rueda (wheel), srath>rada (srath, low lying land by to riverside), sùith>sucio (of sùith, +e, soot), lùth>luz (force, power, and from here light), sath>saciar (satiate), etc.; to advance from there to the rest of the distribution of related words that contained ce, ci, as noceda, etc. that had been related by the apparent Latin etymology of some of them (for example noce by cnòth, cruce by cruth, lucis by luth, sucidu by sùith, etc) on the part of the cultists agents.

4) In fourth place, there are the nasal and velar sounds of the n, so characteristic of the Gallaic-Portuguese. Even, in all the western strip of the Castilian (including Andalusia), this type of phonetic accomplishments exposes specially the regional origin of the speaker, for example through the typical pronunciations like eng-hebrar, ung amigo, ing-herente or ing-hábil by enhebrar, un amigo, inherente, inhábil, etc., in the rest of the Peninsula. Really, this is a special case of the aspirated consonants, that we saw in point 1), in fact in the more habitual of the Galician spellings, it is usually written with an added h: unha, algunha, etc. The problem of this representation is that it conflicts with the normal Gallaico-Portuguese one for the palatal n, that also uses the digraph nh; for this reason some people have advised recently the adoption of the digraph mh for this phoneme, that does not offer these problems.

On the other hand, it must be said that Portuguese has very frequently nasal vowels, phonetic effect that is lowered lately in current Galician, possibly by influence of official Spanish, that lacks of this kind of sounds. They are associated to the mh digraph in Scottish Gaelic, it is also evident that these are very Celtic sounds (most of all, they can be found in Welsh, Breton, French, etc.), and, possibly, even more Brythonic than Gaelic, maybe (we must remember here that the pre-gaelic indoeuropean substrate of Gallaecia was fundamentally Brythonic).

5) Another characteristic shaped time and time again in these languages is the difficulty to pronounce the consonantic groups based on the s (mainly -sc-, -sp- and -st-) already treated when speaking of the Barchunes. The Portuguese solves it modifying the s (osh caminhosh by os caminhos) while in Castilian usually becomes h (ahco, mohca by asco, mosca). It seems to be that the preIndo-European tradition (Basque) as the Germanic one, the Latin and Celtiberian, all they were against this tendency, that nevertheless was present, in general, in all the Celtic languages except in Celtiberian; it is well-known, for example, the absence of this type of combinations in French (ecole, hopital, pate by escole, hospital, paste). In modern Galician it seems that this tendency follows hides (it is considered vulgar), although its historical weight is beyond all doubt.

6) Diphthongs ei, oi, ou, absolutely characteristic that are coming from diverse Gallaic origins, are normally also present in popular speech of Western Asturies (between the rivers Nalón and Navia, in general). In the Portuguese territory and language these features are supported by the official ortography and pronunciation, but in popular speech they are only pronounced as far as near Lisboa. In Asturian and to a lesser extent in Castilian, other diphthongs also appear : ue (notable modified conservation of the Gallaic and Gaelic ui diphthong) and ie.

7) Long, or double vowels, represented in the writing as aa, ee, oo, etc. (Baamonde, Cee, Voo). This type of sounds does not fit in the vowel system of the vulgar Latin (a, e, open e, o, open o, u) and is not, in principle, of Romance formation.

8) Ample and very marked pitch variant according to the content of the phrase. This is one of the recognized characteristics of the Galician elocution, very indicated on the part of the speakers of other languages, when they talk about this language.

9) Evident traces of the presence of what in Gaelic are called the broad and slender variants of consonant sounds (broad in contact with a,o,u; slender -or small- when e,i). The easy change between s and sh (as sh in shine, in English spelling; this sound is represented in Galician by an x, as in caixa) sounds, or the same between t and ch (as ch in chair, in English spelling) are atested, by example, by the galician pronoun che (te in official Portuguese), or the oscillations páxaro-pássaro, passiom-paixão, etc. But, without any doubt, the most representative of these effects are visible today in Brazilian. Pronunciations like je, ji by de, di (jía, saudaje, by the officials día, saudade) and che, chi by te, ti (china, repenche, instead of tina, repente, just like in modern Scottish Gaelic), initially attributed to the popular speech or Río de Janeiro, are becoming more and more general in current Brazilian. And, as a Brazilian reader said to us in a recent communication, it must be noted that 90 % of all the (official) Gaedel speaking people are living in that giant country nowadays. As the reader insisted to us, we must remember that Brazil was initially colonized by people coming from Viana do Castelo or, in other words, from the center of the old Gallaecia Bracarensis, the first place that the Gaels occupied in Western Europe. The persistence of the singular character of their speech is, as we see now, quite evident nowadays.

The phonetic profiles that we've just expressed, outline Galician-Portuguese as a language of strong vocalic (based on vowels) foundations, that admits all long or double class of vowels and diphthongs as well as hiatuses. It must also be indicated the profusion of which in Gael are denominated "aspirated sounds", a strong tendency towards the weakening or loss of inner consonants and syllables as well as a support to the elocution of a strong pitch difference according to the sense of the phrase. Let us think that all this components can be considered shared with the Gaelic. There are also some elements of the Gallaic lexicon and the morphology that have remained invariable. For that reason, we will examine previously some simple rules that are due to observe for the reading and interpretation of the sometimes complex Gallaic phonetics.

In the first place, it is possible to indicate, that for the references to the Gaelic we will mainly follow unless we want to affirm the opposite, the Scottish Gaidhlic according to the dictionary MacFarlane, which is the one that we have more easily available. As on the other hand, it seems that the Scottish variant is more conservative than the Irish one, it can be in any case, the best option of those we have available (the ideal would be to have grammars and dictionaries of Irish/Scottish, the older the better, but it is not thus, to our grief). As far as Galician, as we know, there are no written documents from the Gallaic stage and, even so, the best thing would be again to handle grammars and dictionaries the older the better. Sorry, we do not have it either. Also, as far as possible we will try to fit it whenever possible, to the morphology shaped in the writing, normally very conservative. This can be enormously useful, mainly for Gaelic, that has evolved enough its phonetics from the time of which the orthographic norms were fixed. In the case of Galician, as a convention to clarify the writing, palatals n and l will be represented by means of nh and lh, as in the modern Portuguese, except the Asturian and Spanish words in which ñ and ll will be used. Finally, for the representation of the aspirated sounds in Galician, habitually not reflected in the writing, will be more or less used an adaptation of the gael criteria. Once marked to these conventions the correspondence rules that we have been able to select are:

-Vowels: ui is associated to o (sometimes Asturian and Castilian conserves this diphthong under the form of ue), ai results in an open e in Galician (ie in Asturian), ei stays, oi stays between oi and ou oscillating; ì (long i) would happen to ii to give finally ei, and the ea hiatus becomes a; ua renders usually as oa. The syllables with an accentuated o produce very frequently diphthong in oi or ou. At end of word Galician adds a vowel of support, o, a, or e, according to cases; sometimes it is possible that in fact this one was the primitive Gaelic disposition. Finally, in agreement to the rules of the Galician phonology, final tonic i is transformed into e.

It is necessary to indicate that exists a general tendency towards the change i>e, nevertheless, this is not always absolutely so, in fact, and mainly for the Gallaic-Portuguese, it must be spoken of a state near the oral neutralisation or confusion between these two vowels, in many cases, and mainly in nonaccentuated vowels. Alternative pronunciations as dezir, dizir, to dizer (dizer, in Portuguese official spelling), vezinho, vizinho, etc. are perfectly usual in certain zones of Galicia, in daily speech. The palatalizations caused by the i vowel can prevail over the normal vocalic evolutions; for example, the ai>open e transformation is avoided when there is the effect il>lh, that was, hence, previous to the vocalic alteration; this is very evident in the ending -ail, that is transformed in -alh (ceangail > cangalho) and not in -el. In a similar way, the gaelic endings -uil, -uill evolve in the more popular words to -ulh, and not in -ol or -old, but sometimes they are corrected to -olh, as result of more cultured influences. Finally, the dipthong -ai- evolves in -ei- when it is in contact with -r- or -s-, thus avoiding the transformation in open e. Examples: làir > leir(o/a), càise > queixo or queijo, etc.

On the other hand, in the diphthongs, the step or phonetic change of i>e must be partially behind phenomena of type ai>open e (Asturian ie), ui>open o (Asturian ue), both Asturian and Galician, long i>ei. The intermediate steps could have been ai>ae>open e, ui>ue>open o, long i>ii>ei. For the ea hiatus the evolution could be as ea>ia>a, where the intermediate ia became diphthong ?. Nevertheless, there are some residual oscillations and hesitations, fundamentally in the Asturian toponymy: Taramundi, Amandi, Luiña (modernly, they would have to be Taramonde, Amande, Lueña). These conservative phenomena can also be observed sometimes in Galicia (with oscillations as Andreade/Andrade or -nuiz/-noz, etc.).

-Consonants: -l- and -g- inner and intervocalic disappear, also disappears -n, in final atonic syllable; the sounds represented by d usually gives t except in absolute final position (without including the support vowel here. It seems to be, really, that Gaelic evolved the ancient t in a modern d, and this change has not happened in Galician.), -dh- or -th- only change orthographically, in Galician, they are represented by d and c/ç/z; -nn- (sometimes inn, mainly in Irish) always gives palatal n -as ny in canyon- (nh or ñ according to the Portuguese and Spanish spellings; the stability shown by this phenomenon is amazing and, in fact, it represents a magnificent and safe radar to identify gallaic words in Galician and Spanish without missing the blow, as its distribution is almost always different in the rest of the Indo-European languages. The phenomenon, on the contrary, is quite surprising, because nowadays spoken Gaelic does not seem to conserve etymological distinction between n and nn, as Galician and Asturian/Spanish do. There are, nevertheless, some exceptional cases of rendering of the double nn as nd or ndr, maybe related to a different or previous inflected version of the word, or root of the word of consideration. It must be said, on the other hand, that in final position the Asturian is against the Galician result with absolute systematic certainty; in this position when Galician generates nh Asturian does n and vice versa with n and nh, still at the cost of going against the etymology. This phenomenon had to end up meaning itself as a criterion of supradialectal social differentiation, without any doubt.); -rl- gives -lh-; -il- and -ill- give -lh-; (it seems to be a very old phenomenon , previous to the step ai>e, that happens when the accompanying -i- is part of a diphthong, that is, becomes demiconsonant), -ll- gives -ld- or -ldr-, it's also sometimes simplified to -l- (the Galician/Romance rendering of Latin -ll-, maybe this was caused by influence of ancient Latin or bilingual speakers), -mh- gives (probably coming through a rendering of velarized n, similar to the english ng and galician nh, -mh if we follow alternative spellings-) -ng-, -s- can give -s- but, in agreement with the phonetical broad/slender effects, it leads it to -x- (pronounced sh), principally when the original -s- is in contact with -i-. Finally, in agreement with the rules of the Galician phonogy bl, cl and gl give br, cr and gr, respectively; the same way, c or ch in end of syllable produce demiconsonant i and, hence, a diphthong. The consonant p does not seem to belong to this linguistic system, and do not produce words, hence.

It must be indicated, for those of you that would try to deepen in the subject, that as well as these simple rules agree sometimes with the ones that are described by traditional Romance linguistics for the evolution of the Latin words to Galician, the subject is not so way in some other instances, fundamentally in the l and n evolutions (for example in the processing of -l- and -ll-, as we have noted, or in the -nn-, for example, for the Latin words it is reduced to -n-: pinna>pena, and not penha). It must be noted, on the other hand, that in many words, there can be consonant variants, in agreement with the rules of phonetical inflectons of the Gaelic; this way, the conserved form of the Galician would be the second and not the principal one. This is very obvious, for instance, in the c/ch case (the ch was pronounced, for example, when the word was accompanied with the definite article): chorra, chouriço, charro, and not corra, couriço, carro, possibly from còrr, coire, cèarr, etc.

The etymological case evolves most of the times from the second shape of the words, the no nominative one (probably the genitive), as is referred by the MacFarlane dictionary; Romance linguistics refer the accusative case to this function (following our experiences, sometimes, mainly in the toponymy and conserved surnames, the conserved reference is in the nominative case; however, this supposed permanence of the nominative can sometimes be rather deceptive or unreal, specially when the word that has served us to establish the reference is not exactly equal to the one of origin), when mentioning the Gaelic words we put in the first place the nominative case and later the second one, that is usually the one preserved in Galician languaje, as we have said; example: àrmunn, -uinn (nominative àrmunn, genitive àrmuinn).

It must be noted, finally, that the existance of a link, common word or relation between Gaelic and Galician, does not guarantee a celtic origin for that particular subject, because it is clear that before the Galician/Gaelic division, the former common languaje was already influenced by another ones (Greek, Scythian, Latin, etc., and even Basque ?). In this sense, no celtic words, and even the Latin ones (!), can be equally interesting if they help us to determine the whole range of the links that existed between ancient gaedel and galician worlds. This is very evident when the foreign (Latin ?) word is particularly adapted in a characteristic shape, with phonetical and semantic specialized features, that made it a new gaedelic creation. Examples on the stuff may be found in the gaelic words luan, mion, borb, mam, that are related to the galician ones lua, miunça, borbotón, mámoa, in a special adaptation (both in their pronunciation and meanings) of the Latin originals luna, minutia, barbarus, mammula, for the gaelic/galician needs. On the contrary, words of the same (Latin) origin that did not enter the gaedelic and galician languajes by the shared common ancient ways, could develop quite different shapes in both modern languajes; the different adaptation of buabhall (gaelic), búfalo (galician), of the Latin word bubalus, may illustrate this subject.

And with this we think that all this stuff is more than sufficient, mainly for an elementary work as this one is. Here we are, therefore, with one short relation of the more significant words that have been identified (in addition to what we had commented previously), following mainly the dictionary MacFarlane and also, naturally, according to our opinion:

1) In the first item we will mention the lexical elements that seem to us absolutely unquestionable as gallaics and that can only be explained through gallaic origins (it is to say, lack of alternative satisfactory etymology to the Gallaic one, in any other known language). They are: gaita (bagpipe, from ancient gaetha and related to gaith, wind, storm, in old gaelic, maybe ultimately related to Gaethia, in Dacia ?. Conventional explanations link this word to gaits, goat in Gothic languaje; on the other hand, it is possible, nevertheless, that Gothic gaits was related to gaetha, as the word was very extended -gaita or similar words seem to be documented in Arab, Turkish etc.- and prior to the germanic spread), galego (galician, from gallach, -aich or gallaigh, first well-known mention from Herodotus, 5th century B.C. (!!), originally this did not mean foreigner -as the modern gaelic word gall-, but well on the contrary. It must be noted that the phonetical rendering is not of a pure gallaic evolution -as *galdego would be-, what indicates that the word was very usual in Latin speaking -or Romance- mouths.), moinho (mill -building-, from muileann, -inn, mill -buiding-, through the links ui>o, nn>nh and the fall of the -l-. This word is placed here and not in the Latin shared paragraf, because of the ending in -inn or -inho that is quite gallaic or gaelic -no Latin- and characteristic. On the other hand the possibility of the root of the word was coming from Latin must be considered.), o & ne (similar as the O & Ní of modern irish and Nee in Britain; man or Mr., woman or Mrs. or Miss. Used in direct appeals, of familiar expression only; o is absolutely alive everywhere, ne is very popular in central Asturian), nina, menina, nena, niña -Spanish-, neña, and from here, in masculine, nino, menino, neno, niño, neño, etc. (female child, young girl; from nighean, -in or -inn, daughter, young girl; there is also the less frequent inghean variant. This word may be modernly interpreted, at least in Asturies, as a diminutive form of ne or ni=woman, but this possibility of derivation was perceived as dubtous or incorrect by some linguists in the Internet.), nai (mother. The etymology and origin of this fundamental word is unknown until today and constitutes one of the most disconcerting mysteries of Galician language. From our point of view it's clearly related to the former words, specially ne or ni=woman; and possibly tinged by the word neach, person, any person, individual. Following the McBain Dictionary, the principal shape of this family of words is nic that is a <<female patronymic prefix, Middle Gaelic nee (Dean of Lismore), Irish ní, Middle Irish iní, an abbreviation of Old Irish ingen, now inghean or nighean and ui, nepotis (Stokes). The Gaelic nic, really "grand-daughter", stands for inghean mhic or ní mhic; we have recorded in 1566 Ne V@+c Kenze (M`Leod Charters).>>.), mico (little child, also by extension little monkey -!?-, from mac, mic; son, the young of any animal. Note that the Galician word is taken here from the no nominative case, as the rule is.), macaco -and many other derivatives as macao, macada, macana, macareu, etc.- (similar to the former word but, as includes derivatives, you must note that the original form comes from the nominative now; little child, and little monkey also -these secondary meanings are this way because of the extravagant attitude of the conquerors of the 16th century, of predominant gallaic origin, that called the little monkeys that found in the tropical areas this way-; from mac, mic; son, the young of any animal. The semantic variations as macareu; young sardine, or those ones with pejorative or despise sense as, for instance, macao; little puppet, macana, macanear; foolish or stupid remark, extravagance, -surely from a former meaning of childish act-, are also interesting for their value as testimony, and to try an approach to the conflicts the galician society was immersed in, when these words were finally fixed.), loio (hole in the ground, cave, possibly formerly lake, from loch, -a; lake, arm of the sea and, possibly, hole in the ground and cave also. This interesting word will be analysed later with thoroughness), croio (stone, from clach or cloch, cloiche; clough in Irish, stone), granha -there is also the granda variant, and metathesised gandra or gándara, frequent basically in oriental/asturian-, etc. (great extension formed around low portions of the mountains, from gleann, glinne; glen, valley; these are very important words, not only for their frequent presence in the labels of the bottles of whisky, but also because they have a lot of toponymy associated, both in Gaelic and also in Galician), meigo/a (smiling, related to mìogach, smiling, smirking, sly; this word is also applied to galician witches, maybe anciently crossed with mùig, -e, cloudiness, surliness, gloom, frown), canga -and other related words, cangalho, cangar, and even escangalhar, etc.- (family of words with the meaning of link, arrange, in general. The first one, for example, canga, means yoke -for oxen, but also for pigs, etc.-, latin yugo, from ceangal, -ail, tie, bond, fastening, binding. As canga was also known in old Spanish, it can be found in the dictionaries of this languaje; for example in the María Moliner one, where its authors already had realized the probable celtic origin of the word, but did not give much more additional information on the subject.), barra, barragán -and related words- (valuable, brave, strong man; from bàrr, -a, top, point, crop, superiority), barrouca -and other related words- (top, highland, also from bàrr, -a), barroco, barranco, (barroco is a high rock of strange look, valiant behaviour; also the baroque architectonic style -through the French adaptation, baroque- comes from this origin; barranco is a precipice; also from the productive origin bàrr), ranho, ranhada, ranhadoiro, -and also arranhar- etc. (family of words that, apart the frequent pejorative sense associated to many gallaic words, has a general meaning of partition, portion, line of separation in a known enviroment, and also to scratch, to cleave, to split; from rann, roinn; part, portion, division, section, verse. The third word in the title of the Leabhar Gabhala, Earrain -meaning partition-, is also related to this root. The portuguese meaning of ranho -mucus, running of the nose- is derived by metathesis from another root: ronn, a slaver, a spittle, Early Irish ronna, running of the nose. No matter this meaning, official Portuguese also conserves derivatives that belong to the principal root: ranhura, groove, split; also ranhar, etc.), gavela, gavinha, gavião or gabildo -Spanish gavilán-, etc., (family of words, related to the classical gaelic one, gabh, va.+ail; take, receive, admit of, accept, go, proceed. Among all of them, the more easy to associate to the original gaelic meanings, are the following ones: gavela, old galician tax, old right to pass through certain properties, bundle, hadful, hug; gavinha, aerial roots or hooks of climber plants, link of chain, embrace, tangle; gavião or gabildo, sparrowhawk, bird of prey -Accipiter nisus-, etc.), lo (then, that moment, immediately, from lò, là or latha; pl. làithean; day, one day, certain day. The word lecer -pronounced as lether- or lazer, temporal ocassion, opportunity, free time for doing something, also comes probably from this origin, with the shared contribution of the latin word licere, -let, permit-. The MacBain's makes about this interesting link the following comments: << là, latha; day, Irish lá, g. laoi, Old Irish lathe, laithe, lae, g. lathi, d. lau, lóu, ló: *lasio-, root las, shine; Sanskrit lásati, shines; Greek láw, behold >>.), maranha (muddle, mess, maremagnum, from marannan, plural of muir, mara -sea, ocean-; in the sense of unacheivable scope or subject ?), ceivo, ceive or ceibo, ceibe (communal pastures, open field without fences, also ceive by extension has become free, with freedom; related to cìob, -a; mountain grass, and cìobair, shepherd), leilo, leilán (vagabond, licentious, from leigeil, letting, allowing, setting free), magan -and related words; magano, etc.- (jovial, sly, naughty, and also handsome, evil, etc., from mag, scoff, mock, deride, and magair, mocker), ca (no, not, negation in general, from cha, not), miagar (to mew a cat, from miagail, [miamhail], mewing, as a cat), mor (the meaning of this word is, more or less, the same as the Gaelic one; from mór, big, large, great, important, tall, of high rank, lofty, spacious; familiar; esteemed), marabalheiro, marafalheiro (naughty, meddler, unruly, from mear, +a; merry, sportive, wanton, playful), engrelhada (mess, confusion, fuss, muddle, hidden plan made up among some conspirators in a cautious way, from aimhreidh,.+e; confusion, disturbance, disagreement, contention), angas (shoulder straps, and also the top portion of an oar. This word is a very pretty and surprising discovery, in our opinion. Related -we are following the MacBain dictionary here- to amhach; neck: *om-âk-â; Latin humerus, shoulder (*om-es-os); Greek wnmós; Gothic amsa; Sanskrit amsas.), tangalhón, tangarina, tángano-mángano, and also estanguir, etc. (group of related words, with a general meaning of passivity, weakness; but simultaneously, being on foot, standing; from tàmh, tàimh; rest, quiet, sleep, staying, dwelling, Irish támh, Early Irish tám: *tâmo-, root stâm, sta, stand, English stand, station, stamina. As the etymology of the word that defines the tango dance is unknown until today, the possibility that this subject could be related to the stuff, then alluding to the special behaviour of the dancers, must be considered.), roucear or roncear, rouceo (to twist something, specially the cart, from roth, g.+a, v. roith, a wheel. Possibly the word roçar, to rub, to graze, also comes from this origin.), denguice, dengue, etc. (desire of being pleasant but falling in affected manners, from dàimh, +e; relationship, affinity; MacBain's: <<dàimh; relationship, Irish dámh, tribe, family, Early Irish dám: *dâmâ, tribe, company; Greek dcnmos, Dor. danmos, people, tribe, English democracy. It is usual to compare Old Welsh dauu, cliens, Welsh daw (dawf), son-in-law, Middle Breton deuff, Breton den (do.); but these words may be allied to Greek dámar, spouse, and be from the root dam, dom, house.>>. Very interesting word, hence.), carnoedo (heap of stones; and also large rock, boulder, from càrn; heap of stones, cairn, Irish carn, Early Irish, Welsh carn, Breton karn), chacho/a (word used in colloquial context, that means a normal person, any person, common pal, deica o chacho = everybody, in feminine it means servant; from càch, chàich; the rest, the others. Compare also with cach a chéile, each other.), lándoa, llan or llande -Asturian-, alén, alende or além -Spanish allende- etc. (family of words with the general meaning of land, field, and simultaneously limit, boundary. The meanings are: lándoa, portion of land near the boundaries of a property, or separated off the rest, llan or llande, frontier or limit between lands, alén, alende, além, allende -Spanish- etc., the space that follows away off a boundary, etc. From lann, lainne; inclosure, house, repository, apartment. The MacBain's gives the following references: << lann, an inclosure, land, Irish lann, Early Irish land, Welsh llan, Old Welsh lann, area, ecclesia, Breton lann: *landâ; Teutonic land, English land.>>. The special case of alén, alende, além, allende, has been recently discussed in the internet, where an american linguist found out the excellent link to Old Irish al "farther, above, outside of", based on works of the catalan linguist Joan Coromines, recently died. This way, for instance, Spanish allende would come from an origin of al and laind -the inflected genitive of land- and an evolution as *al-laind > *al-lénde > *alliende > allende.), gramar and related gramelo or gramil, maybe also gramalheira (to fasten, to hold down, to trap, to handle, to eat, to drink, etc., gramelo and gramil are trap, mousetrap, specially the traps based in a mouth-with-teeth like system of trapping, gramalheira is a chain with a hook used to hang cauldrons over a fireplace; from gramaich; hold fast, take hold of, cling to; and also gramail; strong, vigorous, having power to resist; and even gramasag, -aig; bite, anything to chew. Following the MacBain's, the etymology of these words comes from the shape greim; a hold, a morsel, so Irish, Old Irish greim, greimm, a hold, strength, Welsh grym, force, strength: *gredsmen-; root gher, hold, Greek héir, hand, Sanskrit gáras, grip. Stokes separates greim, morsel, from greim, hold, strength. greim, morsel, he refers to *gresmen, a bite, Sanskrit grásati, devour, Greek gráw, eat, Norse krás, a dainty.), bogalha or bugalha (ball, skittle, knob or lump in a tree, related through metathesis to builgean, -ein; blister, pimple, bubble. The words as boligar and derivalives, to bubble, are probably also related to this link. It seems that the celtic nature of this link is now admitted by the scholars.), enlimar (to drool, to slaver something, related to imlich; to lick. Following the MacBain's: << imlich; lick, Irish imlighim, lighim; im-lighim. "about-lick". With lighim is cognate Old Irish lígim, I lick, Welsh llyaw, llyad, licking, Breton leat (do.): *leigô, *ligo; Latin lingo; Greek leígw; English lick; Church Slavonic lizati (to lick); Sanskrit lihati >>. In Galician's limo -mucus of the cows- and related words, is apparently the source of this lexical group.), grenha -Spanish greña- (tangled hair, from greann, +a; grim, surly look; bristling of hair as on an enraged dog. This is an exceptional case among the words we are analysing, as its celtic condition seems to be well-known by the scholars. For instance, the Porto's dictionary identifies the word as of celtic origin, and the MacBain's finds out the greña Spanish link: <<greann; hair, bristling of hair, surly look, also "cloth", "rough piled clothing", Irish greann, beard, hair hair, Early Irish grend, beard, Welsh, Breton grann, eyelid, cilium: *grendâ; German granne, beard of corn or cat, Norse grön, moustache, Spanish greña, tangled hair, Prov.French gren, Old French grenon, beard of cheek and lip; Albanian krande>>.), codo (piece, bit, and/or end, extreme of something, from cuid, codach; portion, share, some, part, one's complement), cuidar or coidar, and cuidado, etc. (to care for, to take care of, to look after, from cuidich, help, assist. This word -etymologically related to the former one, codo or cuid-, is enough surprising, because of its exceptional maintenance of the old Gaelic/Gallaic ui diphthong, what maybe was caused by cultured influences and the confusion with the Latin origined word coidar, to think -from cogitare-, that would have actued interfering the natural evolution to the hypothetical result of *codar. It is also notable as has nearly displaced the Latin origined word cura -Gaelic cùram-, in its original meaning of care, vigilance, etc.), esgorriar (to slip, to slide, from sgiorr; slip, stumble, slide. This word may be the counterpart to the Latin origined escurrir; to drip, to drain, that has nearly the same semantic scope, as we can see.), esguelho, esguelhar (oblique, sideways behaviour, to dissemble, from sgailleas, -eis; disdain), esgarreado, esgarriado, esgarrado (a person or an animal of solitaire behaviour, that does not accompany the others, a ship that loses its course, from sgar; separate, disjoin; sever, pull asunder, part, divorce), esgaçar (to tear off, to shatter, to rip, to tear to pieces, usually refered to branches of trees, dresses, etc., from sgath; lop off, prune, injure), estoa (stupid, silly, naïve, a person of a slow, sluggish or rural behaviour, from stuama, stuaime; temperate, abstemious, sober, modest), cristas (perspicacity, keensightedness, from cliste, dexterous, nimble, swift, agile, expert), zurra, zurrar or surra, surrar, etc. (beating, thrashing, from ciùrr; hurt, injure. Note the fall of the i in this position, a typical gallaic phenomenon.), doira or duira (torrent, water falling from the mountains, from dòirt; pour, spill), lacada and related lacazán (momentary disease, lacazán is lazy, from -MacBain's- lag; weak, Irish lag, Early Irish lac, Middle Irish luice (pl.), Welsh llag, sluggish: *laggo-s, root lag; Latin langueo, English languid; Greek laggázw, slacken, lagarós, thin; English slack, also lag, from Celtic. Cf. lákkos.), tosquiar, tosquiador, etc. (to shear -a sheep, for instance-, to prune, related to -MacBain's- << tosg; a peat-cutter (Dial.); from Scottish tusk in tusk-spawd (Banff), tuskar (Ork. and Sh.), tusk, cut peats. Cf. Shet. tushker, from Norse torfskeri, turf-cutter >>. No other origin is known for these words.), guzma -pronounced as goothma- (gossipy person, from guth, g. -a, v. ghuith; voice, word, syllable. For the etymology of this word the MacBain's says: guth; voice, Irish, Old Irish guth: *gustu-; Indo-European gu; Greek góos, groan; Sanskrit hu, call, cry, havat-, calls; Church Slavonic zova?, to call. This is different from Indo-European gu, Greek boc/, shout, Latin bovare, cry (Prellwitz, Osthoff).), anhas (exceptionally small bundle or bunch of corn, among the other ones; from annas, -ais; novelty, rarity), atacoar (to fill, to pack, to stuff, to satiate, from at; to swell, puff up, become tumid), tolda, toldo (tolda is a hole in the wall of a mill as a drainage, and also the hopper of the mill -also called canoura or moega-; on the other hand, toldo is a cover, deck -in a bout-, dark; all of them from or related to toll, tuill; hole, hollow, cavity, crevice), balde (bucket, pail, from ballan, -ain; wooden domestic vessel, tub), broiar (to talk noisily, related to bruidhinn; speak, talk; also Irish bruíghinn; scolding speech, a brawl). Also, in some cases, the words of Gallaic origin have been conserved exclusively in Asturian or Castilian, without apparent ability to survive to the present time in Galician; for example, the very interesting word calaña (class or sort of certain individuals, normally used colloquially and in pejorative sense, which indicates the sad social consideration that have had the gallaic expressions; from clann, cloinne; children, clan. There is also, in modern Galician, the metathesized shape canalha, -note that the metathesis affects the l and n, but the palatal effect stays in its original place- with the meaning of children.) coming from which, surely, is the most universal gael word; boñiga (excrement of animal, cow dung; from bonnach, -aich, irish boinnaigh, cake) that, as we see, includes one amused but less delicate metaphor, tongo (corrupted behaviour of a player as a jockey, etc., that loses his game because he is being payed for doing it, related to tomh; offer, attempt, threaten, aim); etc.