he Celts
must have been very partial and chiefly in the nature of a military
predominance, if we may judge by the comparatively short stature, dark
skin and hair, that are still largely characteristic of Cornish folk.

Plymouth has another link with Cornwall, though it must be considered
a fabulous one. One of the suggested derivations for the name of
Cornwall is Corineus. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, Corineus was
one of the companions of the Trojan Brutus, who landed at Totnes and
proceeded to bestow his name and his rule upon Britain. In support of
this we may quote Milton, with a suggestion that he was a greater poet
than historian: "The Iland, not yet Britain but Albion, was in a
manner desert and inhospitable, kept only by a remnant of giants,
whose excessive force and tyranny had consumed the rest. Them Brutus
destroies, and to his people divides the land, which, with some
reference to his own name, he thenceforth calls Britain. To Corineus
Cornwall, as now we call it, fell by lot; the rather by him liked, for
that the hugest giants in rocks and caves were said to lurk still
there; which kind of monsters to deal with was his old exercise." He
was indeed the father of Cornish wrestling, which has ever since been
so popular and so excellent. The poet proceeds to tell us how Corineus
wrestled with the giant Goemagog (or Gogmagog) and threw him into the
sea. Drayton, in relating the same legend, hints at the true cause
that enabled the smaller Neolithic Ivernians to subdue the taller
Paleolithic inhabitants; it being a fact that there was a difference
in height great enough to be magnified by fancy and exaggeration into
the myth of the giants. He tells how Gogmagog was brought forward as a
champion to daunt the Trojan invaders:--

"Great Gogmagog, an oak that by the rootes could tear;
So mighty were (that time) the men who lived there:
But, for the use of arms he did not understand
(Except some rock or tree that coming next to hand,
He raised out of earth to execute his rage),
He challenge makes for strength, and offereth there his gage."

If there is any basis to this Brutus legend at all, it may be taken as
denoting an invasion of higher culture, of the later Stone or early
Metal Age, opposed to the greater physical strength but inferior
weapons of a lower scale in civilisation. Methods and materials of war
were the standard of advance then, as they seem to be still the
measure of d