contain. At length after much labour he came to an immense chest, but
the lid was no sooner uncovered than it lifted itself up a little and
out sprang an enormous black cat, which seated itself upon the chest,
and glowed with eyes of passion upon the intruder. Nothing daunted, the
man proceeded to try to move the chest, but without avail; so he fixed a
strong chain to it and attached a powerful team of horses. But when the
horses began to pull, the chain broke in a hundred places, and the chest
of treasure disappeared for ever.

Some rustics assert that if you run nine times round a tumulus, and then
put your ear against it, you will hear the fairies dancing and singing
in the interior. Indeed it is a common superstition that good fairies
lived in these old mounds, and a story is told of a ploughman who
unfortunately broke his ploughshare. However he left it at the foot of a
tumulus, and the next day, to his surprise, he found it perfectly whole.
Evidently the good fairies had mended it during the night. But these
bright little beings, who used to be much respected by our ancestors,
have quite deserted our shores. They found that English people did not
believe in them; so they left us in disgust, and have never been heard
of since.

If you have no other Celtic remains in your neighbourhood, at least you
have the enduring possession of the words which they have bequeathed to
us, such as _coat, basket, crook, cart, kiln, pitcher, comb, ridge_, and
many others, which have all been handed down to us from our British
ancestors. Their language also lives in Wales and Brittany, in parts of
Ireland and Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, where dwell the modern
representatives of that ancient race, which was once so powerful, and
has left its trace in most of the countries of Europe.