the tunic both the Gauls and the Britons wore the
sagum, a short cloak so called by the Romans, from
the Celtic word saic, which, according to Varro, signified a skin or hide; such having been the materials
which the invention of cloth had superseded. The
British sagum was of one uniform colour, generally
either blue or black[1]. The predominating colour
in the chequered tunic and bracæ was red. The hair
was turned back upon the crown of the head, and fell
down in long and bushy curls behind[2]. If covered
at all, it was by the cappan or cap, from the British
cab, a hut, which it resembled in its conical shape;
the houses of the Britons being made with wattles
stuck in the ground, and fastened together at top.
"It is somewhat singular," remarks the learned author
to whose indefatigable research we are indebted for
the first general collection of ancient British authorities, "that the form of this ancient pointed cap is to
this day exhibited in what the Welsh children call the
cappan cyniicyll, the horn-like cap, made of rushes
tied at top, and twisted into a band at bottom[3]"
Men of rank amongst the Gauls and Britons, according to Caesar and Diodorus, shaved the chin, but wore immense tangled mustaches. Strabo describes those of the inhabitants of Cornwall and the Scilly Isles as hanging down upon their breasts like wings. These latter people, he says, wore long black garments like tunics, and carried staves in their hands, so that, when walking, they looked like furies in a tragedy, though really a quiet and inoffensive people[4]".
- ↑ Diodorus Siculus, lib. v. c. 33.
- ↑ Ibid. lib. V.; and Cæsar De Bell. Gal. lib. v.
- ↑ Meyrick, Costume of the Orig. Inbab. ut supra.
- ↑ Lib. iii.
words, signifies "in;" so that breachan or brychan is literally "in spots," or " in chequers :" an is also used in Gaelic as a diminutive; and breachan might, therefore, signify "little spots," "small chequers," or "narrow stripes."
