When, then, after nearly four hundred years the Romans went away,
the people of Britain were still British. But soon another
people came. These were the Anglo-Saxons, the English, who came
from over the sea. And little by little they took possession of
Britain. They drove the old dwellers out until it was only in
the north, in Wales and in Cornwall, that they were to be found.
Then Britain became Angleland or England, and the language was no
longer Celtic, but English. And although there are a few words
in our language which can be traced to the old Celtic, these are
very few. It is thus from Anglo-Saxon, and not from Gaelic or
Cymric, that the language we speak to-day comes.
Yet our Celtic forefathers have given something to our literature
which perhaps we could never have had from English alone. The
Celtic literature is full of wonder, it is full of a tender magic
and makes us feel the fairy charm of nature, although it has not
the strength, the downrightness, we might say, of the English.
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