The plaiting and inlaying are certainly borrowed from local usages, and
the survival of the same kind of interlaced plaiting in the Scottish
tartans is some evidence of the long familiarity of the Celtic race with
the art of weaving. When we remember that some of the early illuminators
were also workers in metals, we can understand that penmen like Dag?us,
Dunstan, and Eloy had designs at their command producible by either
method. So we see, both in the MS. and in the brooch and buckle, the
same kind of design. Among the earliest animals brought into this Celtic
work we find the dog and the dragon; the latter both wingless and
winged, according to convenience or requirement. The dog is so common in
some of the Celto-Lombardic MS., of which examples still exist at Monte
Cassino, as almost to create a style; while the dragon survives to the
latest period of Gothic art.
Whatever is introduced into a Celtic illumination is at once treated as
a matter of ornament. When the human figure appears it is remorselessly
subjected to the same rules as the rest of the work; the hair and beard
are spiral coils, the eyes, nostrils, and limbs are symmetrical
flourishes. Colour is quite regardless of natural possibility. The hair
and draperies are simply patterned as compartments of green or blue, or
red or black, as may be required for the _tout ensemble_; the face
remains white.
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