not keep them at bay with their bone-tipped spears and flint-headed arrows. We know nothing about the struggle between them. But it may be that the fairy stories we were told when children come from those far-off times. If a fairy maiden came from lake or mound to live among men, she vanished at once if touched with iron. Is this, learned men have asked, a dim memory of the victory of iron over stone?
The name given to the short dark man is usually Iberian; the name given to the tall fair man who followed him is Celt. The two learnt to live together in the same country. The conqueror probably looked upon himself at first as the master of the conquered, then as simply belonging to a superior race, but gradually the distinction vanished.The language remained the language of the Celt; it is called an Aryan language, a language as noble among languages as the Aran is among its hills. It is still spoken in Wales, in Brittany, in Ireland, in the Highlands of Scotland, and in the Isle of Man. It was also spoken in Cornwall till the eighteenth century; and Yorkshire dalesmen still count their sheep in Welsh. English is another Aryan tongue.
