here was also a Slavonian route from Eastern Asia, which
conveyed Oriental art to the north of Europe. Celtic art, which
certainly has something of the Indo-Chinese style, came to us probably
by this route. Another branch of the Celtic family was settled on the
north-eastern shores of the Adriatic. Celtic ideas and forms in art
probably crossed Europe from this point,[44] and came to us meeting a
cognate influence,[45] arriving from the north.[46] (Pl. 3.)

Thirdly, Oriental taste and textiles came from the Byzantine Empire in
the early days of Christianity, spreading to Sicily, Italy, Spain, and
finally to France, Germany, and Britain.

Runic art, whether Scandinavian or our own purer Celtic, is so
remarkable for its independence of all other European national and
traditional design, that I cannot omit a brief notice of it, though we
have no ascertained relics of any of its embroideries.[47] It appears
to have received, in addition to its own universal stamp--evidently
derived from one original source--certain influences impressed on it
like a seal by each country through which it flowed.[48] Wherever the
Runes are carved in stone, or worked on bronze, gold, silver, ivory,
or wood, or painted in their splendid illuminations (pl. 4), the
involved serpent, which was the sign of their faith, appears,
sometimes covered with Runic inscriptions; and this inscribed serpent,
later, is twined round or heaped at the foot of the peculiar
Scandinavian-shaped cross, the type of conversion. The serpent was
sometimes altered into the partial semblance of a four-footed animal,
the body and tail being lengthened and twined, and sometimes split, to
give a new turn to the pattern. (Fig. 3.) All these zoomorphic
patterns, as well as the human figures seen in the Book of Kells, the
missal at Lambeth, and the Lindisfarne Book (which is, however, more
English in its style), are yet of an Indo-Chinese type; the
wicker-work motives often replacing the involved serpent design.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.
Celtic Zoomorphic pattern.]

The Paganism of our own Celtic art, when it appears, is an
interpolation between our first and second Christian conversions, and
was brought to us in the incursions of the Vikings over Scotland and
into England.

[Illustration: Page from the Lindisfarne MSS. British Museum]

[Illustration: Pl. 5.
Silver bowl from Palestrina. Ganneau. "Journal Asiatique, Coupe de
Palestrina." 1880.]

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