saia, Larramendi’s seyala, the spanich saya, an upper petticoat.
« Belatera, priest, and Urcia, god, are obsolete. Fita suggers bellator, the mediaeval champion of a monastery, as a derivation. Aphez is the usual term, but we find baldernapez. Oyhenart once uses « Barataria » (prov. 59) as a « Notaire », but the cognates in Spanish, etc., are used in a bad sense. In « Urcia » Fita would see an allusion to Thor, as in Ortzegun, Thunder-day, Donnerstag, Thursday. The symbol, which he engraves in confirmation as found on Cantabrian monuments, is also seen on Christian tombs in the Catacombs.
« The writer of the Ms. gives a very bad account of the Basques, « Navarri et Bascli ». They are a « gens barbara, omni malicia plena, colore atra, visu iniqua, libidinosa, ebriosa, etc. » ; « Bascli facie candidiores Navarris approbantur » ; Either « Navarrus aut Basclus », if he could would kill a Frenchman, « Gallicum », for a single penny. Their good points are : they are brave in war, but better for defense than attack ; they pay tithes, and go to church every day, and never without an offering. There is also a story about Julius Caesar bringing an army of Nubians (Numiani, of Devonshire, Fita’s note), Cornichmen, and Scotch to conquer Spain, who were eventually driven to Navarre and the Basque Provinces. It may also be the origin of the Irish or Norman invasion and settlement, which mediaeval writers refer to in order to account for the fairness of the Basques. The word « Basclus » is curious, as, writing about the same date, Geoffrey of Monmouth, lib. iij, 12, and after him Giraldus Cambrensis, Top. Hib. Dist., iij, 8, 9, 10, have the terms
