GILDAS.--Among the writers who must be considered as belonging to the
Celtic race, although they wrote in Latin, the most prominent is _Gildas_.
He was the son of Caw, (Alcluyd, a British king,) who was also the father
of the famous bard Aneurin. Many have supposed Gildas and Aneurin to be
the same person, so vague are the accounts of both. If not, they were
brothers. Gildas was a British bard, who, when converted to Christianity,
became a Christian priest, and a missionary among his own people. He was
born at Dumbarton in the middle of the sixth century, and was surnamed
_the Wise_. His great work, the History of the Britons, is directly
historical: his account extends from the first invasion of Britain down to
his own time.

A true Celt, he is a violent enemy of the Roman conquerors first, and then
of the Saxon invaders. He speaks of the latter as "the nefarious Saxons,
of detestable name, hated alike by God and man; ... a band of devils
breaking forth from the den of the barbarian lioness."

The history of Gildas, although not of much statistical value, sounds a
clear Celtic note against all invaders, and displays in many parts
characteristic outlines of the British people.


ST. COLUMBANUS.--St. Colm, or Columbanus, who was born in 521, was the
founder and abbot of a monastery in Iona, one of the Hebrides, which is
also called Icolmkill--the Isle of Colm's Cell. The Socrates of that
retreat, he found his Plato in the person of a successor, St. Adamnan,
whose "Vita Sancti Columbae" is an early work of curious historical
importance. St. Adamnan became abbot in 679.