Again, we get another instance of such borrowing in the case of our own penny, old English pendinga, penning, German Pfennig. The philologists seem agreed in recognizing this as a loan-word from the Latin pecunia. Yet money was familiar to the northern peoples long before they ever came into contact with even the advanced posts of the Empire. The use of rings and spirals of gold as a form of currency in Scandinavia is well known; our word shilling seems to mean no more than portions of such a coil of gold or silver wire cut off, to be used as small change. But as the first coined money with which they became familiar was the currency of Rome, they seem to have taken the generic Roman name for money as their own expression for the Roman silver coins with which they became familiar, just as the Latin aurum under the form of aura (eyrir) became in old Norse the general term for coined money or treasure in money.
We may ask why did the Kelts especially choose the Roman form of the name for gold, if they were then for the first time getting a name for the substance then (according to Schrader) first known to them? Before they ever reached Latium they had been in contact with peoples in Northern Italy who undoubtedly were well acquainted with gold. The Etruscans were a wealthy people, who coined gold pieces before Rome had struck coins of any kind16. The Umbrians on the east side, the ancient Italic race who had in the days before the Etruscan Conquest held all Northern Italy up to the Alps, which was hence known to the earliest Greek geographers by the name of Ombriké17, were, beyond all doubt, acquainted with the use of gold, and had a name for it probably the same