The Mythology of Ancient Britain and Ireland/Annex 1
Chronological syllabus
Historical.—Arrival in Britain of the earliest Celts (Goidels) about 1000–500 B.C.—Brythons and Belga, coming over during the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C., largely supplant the Goidels—Belgic settlers still crossing over from Gaul in the time of Julius Caesar, who made his first invasion 55 B.C.—Britain declared a Roman province under Claudius A.D. 43—Abandoned under Honorius A.D. 410-Druidism forbidden to Roman citizens under Tiberius (reigned A.D. 14–37) and its complete suppression ordered by Claudius (reigned A.D. 41–54)—The chief stronghold of the Druids in Britain destroyed under Suetonius Paulinus, A.D. 61—Christianity, introduced under the Roman rule, makes gradual headway—Gildas, writing in the sixth century, describes paganisin as extinct in civilised Britain—Era of St. Patrick in Ireland, fifth century—St. Columba carries the gospel to the Northern Picts, sixth century.
Traditional.—Fictitious dates assigned by the Irish compilers of pseudo-annals for all the mythical eras and events—Possibly authentic may be the placing of the heroic age of Ulster in the first century A.D. and the epoch of the Fenians in the second and third—British gods enrolled as early kings Geoffrey of Monmouth or made the founders of powerful or saintly families by Welsh genealogists—The historic Arthur may have lived in the fifth-sixth centuries.
Literary.—The sixth century A.D. is the traditional period of the bards Myrddin, Aneurin, Taliesin, and Llywarch Hên, poems ascribed to whom are found in the Welsh mediaeval MSS., while Irish legend asserts that the Táin Bó Chuailgne was first reduced to writing in the seventh—Gradual accumulation of Irish and Welsh mythical sagas, including the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, eighth—eleventh—The Irish Book of the Dun Cow and Book of Leinster and the Welsh Black Book of Carmarthen, compiled during the twelfth; the Welsh Books of Aneurin and of Taliesin during the thirteenth; and the Irish Book of Ballymote and the Yellow Book of Lecan and the Welsh Red Book of Hergest during the fourteenth—About 1136 Geoffrey of Monmouth finished his Historia Britonum, and during this century and the one following British mythical and heroic legend was moulded into the Continental Arthurian romances—About 1470 Sir Thomas Malory composed his Morte Darthur from French sources—The working—up of Gaelic traditional material ended probably in the middle of the eighteenth century—James MacPherson produced his pseudo-Ossianic 'epics,' 1760–63—In 1838—49 Lady Charlotte Guest published her Mabinogion, and from this date the renaissance of Celtic study and inspiration may be said to have commenced.