Norse, have all spoken a Celtic language and exhibit the same old Celtic
characteristics--vanity, loquacity, excitability, fickleness,
imagination, love of the romantic, fidelity, attachment to family ties,
sentimental love of their country, religiosity passing over easily to
superstition, and a comparatively high degree of sexual morality. Some
of these traits were already noted by classical observers.

Celtic speech had early lost the initial _p_ of old Indo-European
speech, except in words beginning with _pt_ and, perhaps, _ps_. Celtic
_pare_ (Lat. _præ_) became _are_, met with in _Aremorici_, "the dwellers
by the sea," _Arecluta_, "by the Clyde," the region watered by the
Clyde. Irish _athair_, Manx _ayr_, and Irish _iasg_, represent
respectively Latin _pater_ and _piscis_. _P_ occurring between vowels
was also lost, e.g. Irish _caora_, "sheep," is from _kaperax_; _for_,
"upon" (Lat. _super_), from _uper_. This change took place before the
Goidelic Celts broke away and invaded Britain in the tenth century B.C.,
but while Celts and Teutons were still in contact, since Teutons
borrowed words with initial _p_, e.g. Gothic _fairguni_, "mountain,"
from Celtic _percunion_, later _Ercunio_, the Hercynian forest. The loss
must have occurred before 1000 B.C. But after the separation of the
Goidelic group a further change took place. Goidels preserved the sound
represented by _qu_, or more simply by _c_ or _ch_, but this was changed
into _p_ by the remaining continental Celts, who carried with them into
Gaul, Spain, Italy, and Britain (the Brythons) words in which _q_ became
_p_. The British _Epidii_ is from Gaulish _epos_, "horse," which is in
Old Irish _ech_ (Lat. _equus_). The Parisii take their name from
_Qarisii_, the Pictones or Pictavi of Poictiers from _Pictos_ (which in
the plural _Pidi_ gives us "Picts"), derived from _quicto_. This change
took place after the Goidelic invasion of Britain in the tenth century
B.C. On the other hand, some continental Celts may later have regained