Nor did any subsequent invasion add new elements; for as all northern
Europe is peopled by the same few types, every newcomer,--whether from
Norway, Denmark, Britain or Continental Europe,--but reinforced one of
these earlier races. Yet even where the ethnical elements are alike,
there seems to be a difference of destiny and promise--as if the very
land itself brooded over its children, transforming them and molding
them to a larger purpose. The spiritual life of races goes far deeper
than their ethnic history.

It would seem that with the coming of the Sons of Milid the destiny of
Ireland was rounded and completed; from that time onward, for more than
two thousand years, was a period of uniform growth and settled life and
ideals; a period whose history and achievements we are only beginning to
understand. At the beginning of that long epoch of settled life the art
of working gold was developed and perfected; and we have abundance of
beautiful gold-work from remote times, of such fine design and execution
that there is nothing in the world to equal it. The modern work of
countries where gold is found in quantities is commonplace, vulgar and
inartistic, when compared with the work of the old Irish period.
Torques, or twisted ribbons of gold, of varying size and shape, were
worn as diadems, collars, or even belts; crescent bands of finely
embossed sheet-gold were worn above the forehead; brooches and pins of
most delicate and imaginative workmanship were used to catch together
the folds of richly colored cloaks, and rings and bracelets were of not
less various and exquisite forms.

We are at no loss to understand the abundance of our old goldsmiths'
work when we know that even now, after being worked for centuries, the
Wicklow gold-mines have an average yearly yield of some five hundred
ounces, found, for the most part, in nuggets in the beds of streams