GOG AND MAGOG
"Scarce stand the vessels hauled upon the beach,
And bent on marriages the young men vie
To till new settlements, while I to each
Due law dispense and dwelling place supply,
When from a tainted quarter of the sky
Rank vapours, gathering, on my comrades seize,
And a foul pestilence creeps down from high."
--VIRGIL, _The Æneid._
The British Chronicles relate that when Brute and his companions reached
these shores the island was then uninhabited, save only for a few
giants. Seemingly these natives did not oppose the Trojan landing, for
the story runs that "Nought gave Corineus (Brute's second-in-command)
greater pleasure than to wrestle with the giants of whom there was a
greater plenty in Cornwall than elsewhere". On a certain day, however,
the existing relations ceased, owing to an obnoxious native named
Goemagog, who, accompanied by a score of companions, interrupted a
sacred function which the Trojans were holding. From the recommendations
of the pious Æneas, it would seem that the Trojans had suffered
similarly in other directions:--
When thy vessels, ranged upon her shore,
Rest from the deep, and on the beach ye light
The votive altars, and the gods adore,
Veil then thy locks, with purple hood bedight,
And shroud thy visage from a foeman's sight,
Lest hostile presence, 'mid the flames divine,
Break in, and mar the omen and the rite.
This pious use keep sacred, thou and thine,
The sons of sons unborn, and all the Trojan line.[193]
The graceless Goemagog and his ruffianly crew did passing cruel
slaughter on the British, howbeit at the last the Britons, rallying from
all quarters, prevailed against them and slew all save only Goemagog.
Him, Brute had ordered to be kept alive as he was minded to see a
wrestling bout betwixt him and Corineus, "who was beyond measure keen to
match himself against such a monster". Corineus, all agog and o'erjoyed
at the sporting prospect, girded himself for the encounter, and flinging
away his arms challenged Goemagog to a bout at wrestling. After "making
the very air quake with their breathless gaspings," the match ended by
Goemagog being lifted bodily into the air, carried to the edge of the
cliff, and heaved over.[194]
One cannot read Homer without realising that this alleged incident was
in closest accord with the habits and probabilities of the time. Alike
among the Greeks and the Trojans wrestling was as popular and
soul-absorbing a pastime as it is to-day, or was until yesterday, among
Cornishmen:--
Tired out we seek the little town, and run
The sterns ashore and anchor in the bay,
Saved beyond hope and glad the land is won,
And lustral rites, with blazing altars, pay
To Jove, and make the shores of Actium gay
With Ilian games, as, like our sires, we strip
And oil our sinews for the wrestler's play,
Proud, thus escaping from the foeman's grip,
Past all the Argive towns, through swarming Greeks, to slip.[195]
The untoward Goemagog was probably one of an elementary big-boned tribe
whose divinities were Gog and Magog, and there are distinct traces, at
any rate, of Magog in Ireland. According to De Jubainville, "the various
races that have successively inhabited Ireland trace themselves back to
common ancestors descended from Magog or Gomer, son of Japhet, so that
the Irish genealogy traditions are in perfect harmony with those of the
Bible".[196]
The figures of Gog and Magog used until recently to be cut into the
slope of Plymouth Hoe: in Cambridgeshire, are the Gogmagog hills; at the
extremity of Land's End are two rocks known respectively as Gog and
Magog, and there is an unfavourable allusion to the same twain in
_Revelation_.[197] Gog and Magog are the "protectors" of London, and at
civic festivals their images used with pomp and circumstance to be
paraded through the City.
In some parts of Europe the civic giants were represented as being
_eight_ in number, and the Christian Clergy inherited with their office
the incongruous duty of keeping them in good order. One of these
ceremonials is described by an eye-witness writing in 1809, who tells us
that in Valencia no procession of however little importance took place,
without being preceded by eight statues of giants of a prodigious
height. "Four of them represented the four quarters of the world, and
the other four their husbands. Their heads were made of paste-board, and
of an enormous size, frizzled and dressed in the fashion. Men, covered
with drapery falling on the ground, carried them at the head of the
procession, making them dance, jump, bow, turn, and twist about. The
people paid more attention to these gesticulations than to the religious
ceremony which followed them. The existence of the giants was deemed of
sufficient importance to require attention as to the means of
perpetuating them; consequently there was a considerable foundation in
Valencia for their support. They had a house belonging to them where
they were deposited. Two benefices were particularly founded in honour
of them; and it was the duty of the Ecclesiastics who possessed these
benefices to take care of them and of their ornaments, particular
revenues being assigned for the expense of their toilettes."[198]
Four pairs of elemental gods were similarly worshipped in Egypt, each
pair male and female, and these _eight_ primeval Beings were known as
the Ogdoad or Octet. In Scotland, the Earth Goddess who is said to have
existed "from the long eternity of the world," is sometimes described as
being the chief of _eight_ "big old women," at other times as "a great
big old wife," and with this untoward Hag we may equate the English "Awd
Goggie" who was supposed to guard orchards.
The London figures of Gog and Magog--constructed of wicker work--had
movable eyes which, to the great joy of the populace, were caused to
roll or _goggle_ as the images were perambulated. Skeat thinks the word
_gog_ is "of imitative origin," but it is more likely that _goggle_ was
originally Gog _oeuil_ or Gog Eye. The Irish and Gaelic for Goggle-eyed
is _gogshuileach_, which the authorities refer to _gog_, "to move
slightly" and _suil_, "an eye".
At Gigglewick or Giggles-fort in Yorkshire (anciently _Deira_), there is
a celebrated well of which the famed peculiarity is its eightfold flow,
and it was of this Giggle Well that Drayton wrote in _Polyolbion_:--
At Giggleswick where I a fountain can you show,
That _eight_ times a day is said to ebb and flow.
In Cornwall at St. Isseys there used to be a sacred fountain known as
St. Giggy's Well, and as every stream and fount was the supposed home of
jinns or genii it is possible that "_Saint_ Giggy" may be equated with
_igigi_, a word meaning in Babylonian mythology "_the spirits of
Heaven_". Jinn or Genie may also be connoted with a well near Launceston
known as Joan's Pitcher, the pitcher or vase whence the living waters
were poured being a constantly recurring emblem of Mother Nature. It
will be noticed in Fig. 25, p. 142, and in Fig. 256, p. 428.
The French have an expression _a gogo_ ("origin unknown") which means at
one's ease, or in clover; in old French _gogue_ ("origin unknown") meant
pleasantry or fun, and _goguenard_ a funmaker, or a jester. All these
and kindred terms are probably correlate to the jovial Gogmagog
carnivals and festivals. In London the house of Gog and Magog is the
Guildhall in Aldermanbury: if born within the sound of the bells of the
neighbouring St. Mary-le-Bow a Londoner is entitled to be termed a
_cockney_; Cockayne is an old and romantic term for London, and it would
therefore seem likely that among the cluster of detached _duns_ which
have now coalesced into London, the followers of Gog and Magog had a
powerful and perhaps aboriginal footing. Around Londonderry in Ireland
are the memories of a giant Gig na Gog, and at Launceston in Cornwall
there used to be held a so-called Giglot Fair. At this _a gogo_ festival
every wench was at liberty to bestow the eye of favour, _ogle_, or look
_gougou_, on any swain she fancied: whence obviously the whole village
was agog, or full of eagerness, and much ogling, giggling, goggling, and
gougounarderie.
In Cornwall _googou_ means a cave, den, souterrain, or "giants holt,"
and there are several reasons to suppose that the Gogmagogei or
gougouites were troglodytes. "Son of Man," said Ezekiel, "set thy face
against Gog the Land of Magog," and to judge from similar references, it
would seem that the followers of Gogmagog were ill-favoured and unloved.
Sir John Maundeville (1322) mentions in his Travels, that in the Land of
Cathay towards Bucharia, and Upper India, the Jews of ten lineages "who
are called Gog and Magog" were penned up in some mountains called Uber.
This name Uber we shall show is probably the same as _obr_, whence the
Generic term _Hebrew_, and it is said by Maundeville that between those
mountains of Uber were enclosed twenty-two kings, with their people,
that dwelt between the mountains of Scythia.[199] Josephus mentions that
the Scythians were called Magogoei by the Greeks: by some authorities
the Scythians are equated with the Scotti or Scots. There are still
living in Cornwall the presumed descendants of what have been termed the
"bedrock" race, and these people still exhibit in their physiognomies
the traces of Oriental or Mongoloid blood. The early passage tombs of
Japan are, according to Borlase, (W. C.), literally counterparts in plan
and construction of those giant-graves or passage-tombs which are
prevalent in Cornwall, and, speaking of the inhabitants of Cornwall and
Wales, Dr. Beddoe says: "I think some reason can be shown for suspecting
the existence of traces of some Mongoloid race in the modern population
of Wales and the West of England. The most notable indication is the
oblique or Chinese eye. I have noted thirty-four persons with oblique
eyes. Their heads include a wide range of relative breadth. In other
points the type stands out distinctly. The cheek bones are almost always
broad: the brows oblique, in the same direction as the eyes; the chin as
a rule narrow and angular; the nose often concave and flat, seldom
arched; and the mouth rather inclined to be prominent.... The iris is
usually hazel or brown, and the hair straight, dark-brown, black, or
reddish." "It is," he adds, "especially in Cornwall that this type is
common."
Our British Giants, Gog, Magog, Termagol, and the rest of the terrible
tribe, sprang, according to Scottish myth, from the _thirty-three_
daughters of Diocletian, a King of Syria, or Tyria. These _thirty-three_
primeval women drifted in a ship to Britain, then uninhabited, where
they lived in solitude, until an order of demons becoming enamoured of
them, took them to wife and begot a race of giants. Anthropology and
tradition thus alike refer the Magogoei to Syria, or Phoenicia, and
there would seem to be numerous indications that between these people
and the ethereal, romantic, and artistic Cretans there existed a racial,
integral, antipathy.
The Gogonians may be connoted with the troglodyte Ciconians, or Cyclops,
to whom Homer so frequently and unfavourably alludes, and the one-eyed
Polyphemus of Homer is obviously one and the same with Balor, the
one-eyed giant of Tory Isle in Ireland. This Balor or Conann the Great,
as he is sometimes termed, was cock-eyed, one terrible eye facing front,
the other situated in the back of his head facing to the rear. To this
day the fateful eye of Balor is the Evil Eye in Ireland, whence anyone
is liable to be o'erwished. Ordinarily the dreadful optic was close
shut, but at times his followers raised the eyelid with an iron hook,
whereupon the glance of Baler's eye blasted everything and everybody
upon whom it fell. On one occasion the fateful eye of Balor is said to
have overflowed with water, causing a disastrous flood; whence, perhaps,
why a watery eye is termed a "Balory" or "_Bleary_ eye". That Balor was
Gog may be inferred from Belerium or Bolerium, being the name applied by
Ptolemy to the Land's End district where still stand the rocks called
Gog and Magog. That Balor was Polyphemus, the Cyclopean Ciconian, is
probable from the fact that he was blinded by a spear driven into his
ill-omened eyeball, precisely as Polyphemus was blinded by a blazing
stake from Ulysses. Did the unlettered peasantry of Tory Isle derive
this tale from Homer, or did Homer get the story from Ogygia, a
supposedly ancient name for Erin? Not only is there an identity between
the myth of Balor and Polyphemus, but, further--to quote D'arbois de
Jubainville--"As fortune strangely has it the Irish name _Balor_ has
preserved its identity with _Belleros_, whom the poems of Homer and
Hesiod and many other Greek writers have handed down to us in the
compound _Bellero-phontes_, 'slayer of Belleros'".[200]
The author of _The Odyssey_ describes the Ciconians as a race endued
with superior powers, but as troubling their neighbours with frequent
wrongs:--
... o'er the Deep proceeding sad, we reach'd
The land at length, where, giant-sized and free
From all constraint of law, the Cyclops dwell
They, trusting to the Gods, plant not, or plough
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
No councils they convene, no laws contrive
But in deep caverns dwell, found on the heads
Of lofty mountains.
Apparently some of these same lawless and predatory troglodytes were at
one time dwelling in Wales, for a few miles further north of Aberystwith
we find the place-name Goginan there applied to what is described as "a
locality with extensive lead-mines". The Welsh for cave is _ogof_, or
_gogof_, and in Cornish not only _gougou_, but also _ugo_, or _hugo_
meant the same: thus _og_ and _gog_ would seem to have been synonymous,
a conclusion confirmed in many other directions, such as _goggle_ and
_ogle_. In Hebrew, _og_ meant gigantic, mighty, or long-necked, which
evidently is the same word as the British _uch_, German _hoch_, meaning
_high_; whence, there is every probability that _Og_, or _Gog_, meant
primarily _High-High_, or the _Most High_, and Magog, _Mother Most
High_.
Okehampton, on the river Okement in Devonshire, held, like Launceston, a
giglet fair, whence it is probable that Kigbear, the curious name of a
hamlet in Okehampton, took its title from the same _Kig_ as was
responsible for _giglet_. There are numerous allusions in the classics
to a Cyclopean rocking-stone known as the Gigonian Rock, but the site of
this famous oracle is not known. Joshua refers to the coast of Og, King
of Bashan, which was of the remnant of the giants, and that this
obnoxious ruler was a troglodyte is manifest from his subterranean
capital at Edrei, which is in existence to this day, and will be
described later. That at one time Og was a god of the ocean may be
deduced from the Rabbinic tradition that he walked by the side of the
ark during the flood, and the waters came up only to his knees. From the
measurements of Og's famous bedstead it has been calculated that Og
himself "was about _nine_ feet high".[201]
In Hebrew _og_ is also understood to mean _he who goes in a circle_,
which is suggestive of the Sun or Eye of Heaven. That the sun was the
mighty, all-seeing _ogler_ or _goggler_ of the universe is a commonplace
among the poets, whence Homer, alluding to the Artist of the World,
observes: "His spy the Sun had told him all". To the jocund Sun, which
on Easter Day in particular was supposed to dance, may be referred the
joyful _gigues_, or _jigs_ of our ancestors. Gig also meant a boy's top,
and to the same source may be assigned whirli_gig_. Shec is the Irish
form of Jack, and _gigans_ or _gigantic_ are both radically Jack or
Jock. In English, Jack means many things, from a big fresh-water fish to
a jack pudding, and from Jack-in-Green to Jack-a-lanthorn: Skeat defines
it, _inter alia_, as a saucy fellow, and in this sense it is the same as
a young cock. Among the characteristics of Mercury--the Celtic Ogmius,
or Hercules--were versatility, fascination, trickery, and cunning:
sometimes he is described as "a mischievous young thief," whence,
perhaps, the old word _cog_, which meant cheating, or trickery.
The names Badcock, Adcock, Pocock, Bocock, Meacock, and Maycock, as also
Cook and Cox, are all familiar ones in London or Cockayne. As Prof.
Weekley observes, "many explanations have been given to the suffix
_cock_, but I cannot say that any of them have convinced me. Both Cock
and Cocking are found as early personal names."[202] In London or
Cockaigne, coachmen used to swear, "By Gog and Magog,"[203] and it may
prove that "By _Gosh_" is like the surnames Goodge and Gooch, an
inflection of Gog.
Cogs are the teeth or rays upon a wheel, and that cog meant sun or fire
is implied by the word _cook_, _i.e._, baked or fried. _Coch_ is Welsh
for _red_, _kakk_ was the Mayan for fire; in the same language _kin_
meant _sun_ and _oc_ meant head, and among the Peruvians _Mama Cocha_
was the title of the Mother of all Mankind. As _coke_ is cooked coal,
one might better refer that term to _cook_, than, as officially at
present, to _colk_, the core of an apple. It is difficult to appreciate
any marked resemblance between coke and the core of an apple.
The authorities connote Cockayne with _cookery_, and there is
undoubtedly a connection, but the faerie Cockayne was more probably the
Land of All Highest Ayne. The German for cock is _hahn_, and the cock
with his jagged scarlet crest was pre-eminently the symbol of the good
Shine. Chanticleer, the herald of the dawning sun, was the cognisance of
Gaul, and East and West he symbolised the conqueror of darkness:--
Aurora's harbinger--who
Scatters the rear of darkness thin.
The Cockayne of London, France, Spain and Portugal was a degraded
equivalent to the Irish Tir nan Og, which means the Land of the Young,
and the word Cockayne is probably cognate with Yokhanan, the Hebrew form
of John, meaning literally, "God is gracious". According to Wright, "the
ancient Greeks had their Cockaigne. Athenæus has preserved some passages
from lost poets of the best age of Grecian literature, where the
burlesque on the golden age and earthly paradise of their mythology
bears so striking a resemblance to our descriptions of Cockaigne, that
we might almost think, did we not know it to be impossible, that in the
one case whole lines had been translated from the other."[204] The
probability is, that the poems, like all ancient literature, were long
orally preserved by the bards of the two peoples.
In Irish mythology, it is said of Anu, the Great Mother, that well she
used to cherish the circle of the Gods; in England Ked or Kerid was "the
Great Cherisher," and her symbol as being _perpetual love_ was, with
great propriety, that ideal mother, the hen. The word _hen_, according
to Skeat, is from the "Anglo-Saxon _hana_, a cock," literally "a singer
from his crowing". But a crowing _hen_ is notoriously a freak and an
abomination.
In Lancashire there is a place called Ainsworth or Cockey: in Yorkshire
there is a river Cock, and near Biggleswade is a place named Cockayne
Hatley: the surname Cockayne is attributed to a village in Durham named
Coken. In Northumberland is a river Cocket or Coquet, and in this
district in the parish of St. John Lee is Cocklaw. Cockshott is an
eminence in Cumberland and Cocks Tor--whereon are stone circles and
stone rows--is a commanding height in Devon. In Worcestershire is
Cokehill, and it is not improbable that Great and Little Coggeshall in
Essex, as also the Oxfordshire place-name Coggo, Cogges, or Coggs, are
all referable to Gog.
In Northamptonshire is a place known as _Cogenhoe_ or _Cooknoe_, and in
seemingly all directions Cook, Cock, and Gog will be found to be
synonymous. The place-name Cocknage is officially interpreted as having
meant "hatch, half-door, or wicket gate of the cock," but this is not
very convincing, for no cock is likely to have had sufficient prestige
to name a place. The Cornish place-name Cogynos, is interpreted as
"cuckoo in the moor," but cuckoos are sylvan rather than moorland
birds: the word _cuckoo_, nevertheless, may imply that this bird was
connected with Gog, for the Welsh for cuckoo is _cog_, and in Scotland
the cuckoo is known as a _gauk_ or _gowk_. These terms, as also the
Cornish _guckaw_, may be decayed forms of the Latin _cuculus_, Greek
_kokkuz_, or there are equal chances that they are more primitive. In
Cornwall, on 28th April, there used to be held a so-called Cuckoo
Feast.[205]
There is an English river Cocker: a _cocker_ was a prize fighter, and it
is possible that the expression, "not according to cocker," may contain
an allusion older than popularly supposed. There are rivers named _Ock_,
both in Berks and Devon, and at Derby there is an Ockbrook: there is an
Ogwell in Devon, a river Ogmore in Glamorganshire, and a river Ogwen in
Carnarvon. In Wiltshire is an Ogbourne or river Og, and on the Wiltshire
Avon there is a prehistoric British camp called Ogbury. This edifice may
be described as _gigantic_ for it covers an area of 62 acres, is upwards
of a mile in circuit, and has a rampart 30 to 33 feet high.[206] The
number 33 occurred in connection with the original British giants, said
to be 33 in number, and we shall meet with 30 or 33 frequently
hereafter. _Ogre_ (of unknown origin), meaning a giant, may be connoted
with the Iberian _ogro_, and with _haugr_ the Icelandic word for hill,
with which etymologers connect the adjective _huge_: the old Gaulish for
a hill was _hoge_ or _hogue_,[207] and the probability would seem to be
that Og and _huge_ were originally the same term. There is a huge
earthwork at Uig in Scotland, the walls of which, like those at Ogbury
in Wiltshire, measure 30 feet in height.
The surname Hogg does not necessarily imply a swinish personality: more
probably the original Hoggs were like the Haigs, followers of the
Hagman, who was commemorated in Scotland during the Hogmanay
festivities. In Turkey _aga_ means _lord_ or _chief officer_, and in
Greece _hagia_ means holy, whence the festival of Hogmanay has been
assumed to be a corruption of the Greek words _hagia mene_, in _holy
month_. If this were so it would be interesting to know how these Greek
terms reached Scotland, but, as a matter of fact, Hogmanay does not last
a month: at the outside it was a fête of three weeks, and more
particularly three nights.
_Three weeks_ before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace, And
on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place, And bounce and
beate at every doore, with blowes and lustie snaps, And crie, the Advent
of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps, And wishing to the neighbours all,
that in the houses dwell, A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and
prosper well: Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech man
gives willinglee, For these three nightes are alwayes thought
unfortunate to bee; Wherein they are affrayde of sprites and cankred
witches spight, And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have
chiefest might.[208]
During Hogmanay it was customary for youths to go in procession from
house to house singing chants of heroic origin:--
As we used to do in old King Henry's day,
Sing fellows, sing Hagman heigh!
The King Henry here mentioned is probably not one of the Tudors, but the
more primitive Nick or Old Harry, and the percipient divine who
thundered against the popular festival: "Sirs, do you know what Hagmane
signifies? It is _the Devil be in the house_! That's the meaning of its
_Hebrew original_," had undoubtedly good grounds for his denunciation.
But the still more original meaning of Hagman was in all probability the
_uchman_, or high man, or giant man. According to Hellenic mythology
Hercules was the son of Jove and Alcmena: the name Alcmena is apparently
the feminine form of _All_ or _Holy Acmen_--whence indirectly the word
_acumen_ or "sharp mind"--the two forms _mena_ and _man_ seemingly
figure in Scotch custom as _Hogmanay_, and as the _Hagman_ of "Sing
Hagman heigh!"[209]
One of the great Roman roads of Britain is known as Akeman Street, and
as it happens that this prehistoric highway passes Bath it has been
gravely suggested that it derived its title from the gouty, aching men
who limped along to Bath to take the waters. But as _man_ is the same
word as _main_ the word Akeman Street resolves more reasonably into
_High Main_ Street, which is precisely what it was.
In some parts of England fairy-rings are known as Hag-tracks, whence
seemingly fairies were sometimes known as hags: at Lough Crew in
Ireland, there is a cabalistically-decorated stone throne known as "the
Hag's Chair".
In Mid-Wales _ague_ is known as _y wrach_, which means the hag or the
old hag; the notion being that _ague_ (and all _aches_?) were smitings
of the ugly old Hag, or "awd Goggie". Various indications seem to point
to the conclusion that the aboriginal "bedrock" Og or Gog was a Tyrian
or Turanian Deity, and that in the eyes of the Hellenes and Trojans
anything to do with Og was _ug_ly, _i.e._, Ug-like and _ug_some.
In the county of Fife the last night of the dying year used to be known
as Singin-e'en, a designation which is connected with the carols sung on
that occasion. But _Singin_ may, and in all probability did, mean
Sinjohn, for the Celtic _Geon_ or _giant_ was Ogmius the Mighty Muse,
and _chant_ing was attributed to this world-enchanter. As already seen
he was pictured leading the children of men tongue-tied by his
eloquence, and it is not improbable that Ogmius is equivalent to Mighty
Muse, for _muse_ in Greek is _mousa_. According to Assyrian mythology
the God of wondrous and enchanting Wisdom rose daily from the sea and
was named Oannes--obviously a Hellenised form of John or Yan. Among the
Aryan nations _an_ meant mind, and this term is clearly responsible for
_inane_ or without _ane_. The dictionaries attribute _inane_ to a "root
unknown," but the same root is at the base of _anima_, the soul, whence
_animate_ or living. Oannes, who was evidently the Great Acumen or
Almighty Mind is said to have emerged daily from the ocean in order to
instruct mankind, and he may be connoted with the Hebridian sea-god
Shony. In the image of the benevolent Oannes reproduced overleaf it will
be noted he is crowned with the cross of Allbein or All Well.
In Brittany there are legends of a sea-maid of enchanting song, and
wondrous acumen named Mary Morgan, and this _incantatrice_ corresponds
to Morgan le fay or Morgiana. The Welsh for Mary is Fair, and the
fairies of Celtic countries were known as the Mairies,[210] whence "Mary
Morgan" was no doubt "Fairy Morgan". In Celtic _mor_ or _mawr_ also
meant big, whence Morgan may be equated with _big gan_ and Morgiana with
either Big Jane or Fairy Giana. This fairy Big _gyne_ or Big _woman_ was
known alternatively in the East as _Merjan Banou_ and in Italy as Fata
or Maga.
It is authoritatively assumed that the word _cogitate_ is from _co_
"together" and _agere_ "to drive," but "driving together" is not
cogitation. The root _cog_ which occurs in _cogent_, _cogitate_,
_cognisance_, and _cognition_ is more probably an implication that Gog
like Oannes was deemed to be the Lord of the Deep wisdom: Gog, in fact,
stands to Oannes or Yan in the same relation as Jack stands to John: the
one is seemingly a synonym for the other.
[Illustration: FIGS. 46 and 47.--From _Curious Myths of the Middle
Ages_ (Baring-Gould).]
The word _magic_ implies a connection with Maga or Magog: in Greek
_mega_ means great, and the combined idea of great and wise is extended
into _magus_, _magister_, and _magician_. The Latin _magnus_ and _magna_
are respectively Mag Unus and Mag Una: Mogounus was one of the titles
applied to St. Patrick, and it was also a sobriquet of the Celtic Sun
God.[211]
One of the stories of the Wandering Jew represents him as benevolently
assisting a weaver named _Kokot_ to discover treasure, and in an
Icelandic legend of the same Wanderer he is entitled Magus. On Magus
being interrogated as to his name he replied that he was called
"Vidforull," which looks curiously like "Feed for all," or "Food for
all". The story relates that Magus possessed the marvellous capability
of periodically casting his skin, and of becoming on each occasion
younger than before. The first time he accomplished this magic feat he
was 330 years old--a significant age--and in face of an astonished
audience he gave a repetition of the wonderful performance. Baring his
head and stroking himself all over the body, he rolled together the skin
he was in and lay down before a staff or post muttering to himself:
"Away with age, that I may have my desire". After lying awhile
motionless he suddenly worked himself head foremost into the post, which
thereupon closed over him and became again solid. Soon, however, the
bemazed onlookers heard a great noise in the post, which began gradually
to bulge at one end, and after a few convulsive movements the feet of
Magus appeared, followed in due course by the rest of his body. After
this bewildering feat Magus lay for awhile as though dead, but when the
beholders were least expecting it he sprang suddenly up, rolled the skin
from off his head, saluted the King, and behold "they saw that he was no
other than a beardless youth and fair faced".[212]
This magic change is not only suggestive of the two-faced Janus, but
also of Aeon, one of the British titles for the Sun:--
Aeon hath seen age after age in long succession roll,
But like a serpent which has cast its skin,
Rose to new life in youthful vigour strong.
Commenting on this passage Owen Morgan observes: "The expression 'cast
his skin' alluded to the idea that the Sun of the old year had his body
destroyed in the heavens at noon on each 20th December, by the Power of
Darkness".[213] The Gnostics considered there were thirty divine Powers
or Rulers, corresponding obviously to the days of the month, and these
Powers they termed Aeons: among the Greeks _aeon_ meant an enormously
vast tract of time; in Welsh _Ion_ means Leader or Lord.
The story of Vidforull or Magus gains in interest in view of his mystic
age of 330, or ten times 33, and the emerging-ex-post incident may have
some connection with the nomenclature of the flame-flowered staff or
post now termed a Hollyhock, or _Holy Hock_. One of the miracles
attributed to St. Kit--a miracle which we are told was the means of
converting _eight_ thousand men to Christianity--was the budding of his
staff. "Christopher set his staff in the earth, and when he arose on the
morn he found his staff like a palmier bearing flowers, leaves, and
dates." Kit or Kate is the same word as "Kaad," and there is a serpent
represented on the post or staff at St. Alban's Kaadman, figured on p.
110. The serpent was universally the symbol of subtlety and deep wisdom,
and among the Celts it was, because it periodically sloughed its skin,
regarded as the emblem of regeneration and rejuvenescence.[214]
The _Hawk_, which is the remaining symbol of the Kaadman (Fig. 16), was
the _uch_ or high-flying bird, which soared sun-wise and hovered
overworld eyeing or ogling the below with penetrating and all-seeing
vision. It is difficult to see any rational connection between _hawk_
and _heave_--a connection which for some mysterious reason the
authorities connote--but the hawk was unquestionably an emblem of the
Most High. A hawker is a harokel, Hercules, or merchant, and with _Maga_
may be connoted _magazine_, which means storehouse. In Celtic _mako_ or
_maga_ means "I feed"; in Welsh _magu_ means _breed_, and to _nurse_; in
Welsh _magad_ is _brood_. It is to this root that obviously may be
assigned the Gaelic Mac or Mc, which means "breed of" or "children of".
In the Isle of Man, the inhabitants claimed to be descended from the
fairies, whence perhaps the MacAuliffes of Albany originally claimed to
be children of the Elf. Among the Berbers of Africa _Mac_ has precisely
the same meaning as among the Gaels, and among the Tudas of India _mag_
also means _children of_. "Surely after this," says a commentator, "the
McPhersons and McGregors of our Highland glens need not hesitate to
claim as Scotch cousins the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula."[215]
There are many tales current in Cornwall of a famous witch known as
"Maggie Figgie," and a particular rock on one of the most impressive
headlands of the Duchy is entitled "Maggy Figgie's Chair". Here, it is
said, Maggie was wont to seat herself when calling to her aid the
spirits of the storm, and upon this dizzy height she swung to and fro as
the storms far below rolled in from the Atlantic. Just as _Maggie_ is
radically _make_, so is _figgy_ related to _fake_. The many-seeded
_fica_ or _fig_ was the symbol of the Mother of Millions, and the same
root is responsible for _fecund_, and probably for _phooka_, which is
the Irish for Fairy or Elf. _Feckless_ means without resource,
shiftless, incompetent, and incapable; _vague_ means wandering, and the
word vagabond is probably due to the beneficent _phooka_ or Wanderer.
That Pan was not only a hill and wood deity, but also a sea-vagabond is
implied by the invocation:--
Io! Io! Pan! Pan!
Oh Pan thou _ocean Wanderer_.[216]
In Northumberland among the Fern Islands is a rock known as the
Megstone, and in Westmorland is the famous megalithic monument, known as
Long Meg and her Daughters. The daughters were here represented by
seventy-two stones placed in a circle (there are now only sixty-seven),
and Long Meg herself, who is said to have been the last of the Titans,
is identified with an outstanding rock, which is recorded as measuring
18 feet in height, and 15 feet in circumference. The monument is
situated on what is called The Maiden Way, and the measurement 15 is
therefore significant, for the number 15 was peculiarly the Maiden's
number, and "when she was fifteen years of age" is almost a standard
formula in the lives of the Saints. We shall meet with fifteen in
connection with the Virgin Mary, who, we shall note, was reputed to have
lived to the age of seventy-two. The circle of "the Merry Maidens" near
St. Just is 72 feet in diameter, and the Nine Maidens near Penzance is
also 72 feet in diameter.[217] Christ the Corner Stone is said to have
had seventy-two disciples, and the seventy-two stones of Long Meg's
circle have probably some relation to the seventy-two dodecans into
which the Chaldean and Egyptian Zodiac was divided. In connection with
_magu_, the Welsh for nurse, it is worth noting that St. Margaret, or
St. Meg, is said to have been delivered to a nurse to be kept, but on a
certain day, when she was fifteen years of age and kept the sheep of her
nurse, her circumstances took a sudden change for the worse.
[Illustration: FIG. 48.--Long Meg and her Daughters. From _Our
Ancient Monuments_ (Kains-Jackson).]
The Parthenon, or Maiden's House, at Athens was supported by fifteen
pairs of columns; the number eighteen is twice nine, and in all
probability stood for the divine twain, Meg and Mike, Michal and St.
Michael. The duality of St. Michael which is portrayed in Fig. 200, page
363, was no doubt also symbolised by the two rocks, which, according to
_The Golden Legend_, Michael removed and replaced by a single piece of
stone of marble. A second apparition recorded of St. Michael states that
the saint stood on a stone of marble, and anon, because the people had
great penury and need of water, there flowed out so much water that unto
this day they be sustained by the benefit thereof.[218] This is
evidently the same miracle as that illustrated in Fig. 21, on page 130,
and in this connection it is noticeable that in the neighbourhood of
Mickleham (Surrey) are Margery Hall, Mogadur, and Mug's well.
Meg is a primitive form of Margaret, and in Art St. Margaret is always
represented as the counterpart of St. Michael with a vanquished dragon
at her feet. To account for this emblem the hagiographers relate that
St. Margaret was swallowed by a dragon, but that the cross which she
happened to be holding caused the creature to burst, whereupon St.
Margaret emerged from its stomach unscathed.
There is a counterpart to Maggie Figgie's chair at St. Michael's Mount,
but in the latter case "Kader Migell" was a hallowed site. "Who knows
not Mighell's Mount and chair, the pilgrims Holy vaunt?" According to
Carew this original "chair," outside the castle, was a bad seat in a
craggy place, somewhat dangerous of access.
St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall used to be known as Dinsul, which the
authorities suggest was _dun sol_, or the Sun Hill. Very probably this
was so, and there is an equal probability that it meant also _din seul_,
_i.e._, the hill of _Le Seul_ or _La Seule_, the Solitary or Alone.[219]
In the Old Testament Michal figures as the daughter of King _Saul_,
which is curious in view of St. Michael's Mount being named Din_seul_.
St. Michael's in Brittany and St. Michael's elsewhere are dedicated _ad
duas tumbas_, which means the two tumuli or tumps.[220] At St. Albans,
the sacred processions started from two tumps or _toot_ hills, and it
may be suggested these symbolised the two _teats_ of the primeval
parent. In Ireland at Killarney are two mounts now termed The Paps, but
originally known as The Paps of Anu, _i.e._, the Irish _Magna Mater_.
Similar "Paps" are common in other parts of Britain, and there is little
doubt that _mam_, the Welsh for a gently rising hill, has an intimate
relation to mammal or teat. The Toothills were where _tout_ or _all_
congregated together in convocation, and in all probability every toot
hill originally represented the teat of Tad, or Dad, the Celtic _tata_,
or daddy. Toot hills are alternatively known as moot hills, and this
latter term may be connoted with _maeth_, the Welsh for _nourishment_:
near Sunderland are two round-topped rocks named Maiden Paps.
Mickleham in Surrey is situated at the base of Tot Hill: Tothill Street
at Westminster marks the locality of an historic toot hill standing in
Tothill Fields, and at Westminster the memory of St. Margaret has
seemingly survived in dual form--as the ecclesiastical St. Margaret
whose church nestles up against the Abbey of St. Peter, and as the
popular giantess Long Meg. This celebrated heroine "did not only pass
all the rest of her country in the length of her proportion, but every
limbe was so fit to her talnesse that she seemed the picture and shape
of some tall man cast in a woman mould". In times gone by a "huge" stone
in the cloisters of Westminster used to be pointed out to visitors as
the very gravestone of Long Meg,[221] and this "long, large, and entire"
piece of rock may be connoted with the Megstone of the Fern Islands and
the Long Meg of Cumberland. In 1635 there was published _The Life of
Long Meg of Westminster_, containing the mad merry pranks she played in
her lifetime, not only in performing sundry quarrels with divers
ruffians about London, but also how valiantly she behaved herself in the
"Warres of Bolloinge".
This allusion to Bolloinge suggests that the chivalrous and intrepid
Long Meg was famous at Bulloigne, and that the name of that place is
cognate with Bellona, the Goddess of War. That the valiant St. Margaret
was as unconquerable as Micah was _invictus_, may be judged from the
sacred legend that the devil once appeared before her in the likeness of
a man, whereupon, after a short parley, "she caught him by the head and
threw him to the ground, and set her right foot on his neck saying: 'Lie
still, thou fiend, under the feet of a woman'. The devil then cried: 'O
Blessed Margaret, I am overcome'".
As St. Michael was the Leader of All Angels, so St. Margaret was the
Mother of All Children, and the circle of Long Meg was evidently a
mighty delineation of the Marguerite, Marigold, or Daisy. The Celts,
with their exquisite imagination, figured the daisy or marguerite as the
symbol of innocence and the newly-born. There is a Celtic legend to the
effect that every unborn babe taken from earth becomes a spirit which
scatters down upon the earth some new and lovely flower to cheer its
parents. "We have seen," runs an Irish tale, "the infant you regret
reclining on a light mist; it approached us, and shed on our fields a
harvest of new flowers. Look, oh, Malvina! among these flowers we
distinguish one with a golden disc surrounded by silver leaves: a sweet
tinge of crimson adorns its delicate rays; waved by a gentle wind we
might call it a little infant playing in a green meadow, and the flower
of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills of Cromla. Since that
day the daughters of Morven have consecrated the Daisy to infancy. It is
called the flower of innocence; the flower of the new-born."[222]
The Scotch form of Margaret is Maisie, and from the word _muggy_,
meaning a warm, light mist, it would seem that Maisie or Maggy was the
divinity of mists and moisture. It was widely supposed that the mists of
Mother Earth, commingling with the beams of the Father Sun, were
together the source of all juvenescence and life. According to Owen
Morgan, "Ked's influence from below was supposed to be exercised by
exhalations, the breathings as it were of the Great Mother,"[223] and it
is still a British belief that--
Mist in spring is the source of wine,
Mist in summer is the source of heat,
Mist in autumn is the source of rain,
Mist in winter is the source of snow.
Maggie or Maisie being thus probably the Maid of the Mist, or Mistress
of the Moisture, and there being no known etymology for _fog_, the
unpopular Maggie Figgie who sat in her chair charming the spirits of the
ocean, was perhaps the ill-omened Maggie _Foggy_.
It is a world-wide characteristic of the Earth Mother to appear anon as
a baleful hag, anon as a lovely maid, and in all probability to "Maid
Margaret that was so meeke and milde," may be attributed the adjective
_meek_. In London an ass, in Cockney parlance, is a _moke_; Christ was
said to ride upon an ass as symbolic of his meekness, and as already
noted Christ by the Gnostics was represented as ass-headed. The worship
of the Golden Ass persisted in Europe until a comparatively late period;
a _jenny_ is a female moke, a jackass is the masculine of Jenny.
At St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall is a Jack the Giant-Killer's Well.
The French name Michelet means "little Michael," and that Great Michael
was Cain the Wandering One is implied by the tradition that St. Kayne
visited St. Michael's Mount, and conferred certain powers upon the stone
seat or Kader Mighel situated so dizzily amid the crags. The orthodoxy
of this St. Kayne--who appears again at Keynsham--was evidently more
than suspect, and according to Norden "this Kayne is said to be a
woman-saynte, but it better resembleth _kayne_, the devil who had the
shape of a man". At Keynsham St. Kayne is popularly supposed to have
turned serpents into stone, and there is no doubt that his or her name
was intimately associated with the serpent. The Celtic names Kean and
Kenny are translated to mean _vast_, but in Cornish _ken_ meant pity,
and _ken_, _cunning_, and _canny_ all imply knowledge and deep wisdom.
In Welsh, _cain_ means _sun_ and also _fair_; _candere_, to glow, is, of
course, connected with _candescent_, _candid_, and _candour_.
The seat on St. Michael's Tower is the counterpart to Maggie Figgie's
Chair, which is near the village of St. Levan, and in the previous
chapter it was seen that _Levan_ or _Elvan_ was a synonym for _elban_ or
_Alban_. The family name at St. Michael's Mount is St. Levan, and the
usual abode of Maggie Figgie is assigned to the adjacent village of St.
Levan. The chief fact recorded of St. Levan is his cell shown at
Bodellen, near which is his seat--a rock split _in two_. He is also
associated with a chad fish, entitled "chuck child," to account for
which a ridiculous story has been concocted to the effect that St.
Levan once caught a chad, which _choked_ a child. Like the cod the chad
was perhaps so named because of its amazing fecundity, and the term
_chuck child_ was probably once Jack, the child Michael, or the
giant-killing Jack, whose well stands on St. Michael's Mount. It is not
improbable that "chuck," like Jack, is an inflexion of Gog, and that it
is an almost pure survival of the British _uch uch_ or _high high_. The
great festival of Gog and Magog in Cockaigne was unquestionably on Lord
Mayor's Show Day, and this used originally to fall--or rather the Lord
Mayor was usually chosen--on Michaelmas Day.[224]
In addition to associating St. Levan with the chad or "chuck child,"
legend also connects St. Levan with a woman named Johanna. W. C. Borlase
observes that Carew calls him St. Siluan, and that this form is still
retained in the euphonious name of an estate Selena. Selena was a title
under which the Mother of Night, the consort of Cain, the Man in the
Moon, was worshipped by the Greeks. With regard to the _Sel_ of Selena
or Silenus it will be seen as we proceed that _silly_, _Seeley_, etc.,
did not imply idiocy, but that _silly_, as in Scotland where it meant
_holy_, and as in the German _selig_, primarily meant _innocent_. We
speak to-day of "silly sheep"; in the Middle Ages Christ was termed the
silly Babe, and the county of Suffolk still vaunts itself as Silly
Suffolk. Silene or Selina would thus imply the Innocent or Holy Una: her
counterpart Silenus was usually represented as a jovial, genial, and
merry patriarch. Selenus, like Janus, was apparently the Old Father
Christmas, and Selena or _Cyn_thia seemingly the maiden Cain, Kayne, St.
Kenna, or Jana.
At Treleven, the _tre_ or the Home of Leven, there is a Lady's Well said
to possess exceptional healing properties, and the power of conferring
great vigour and might to the constitution. _Levin_ in Old English meant
the lightning flash, _Levant_ was the uprising, the Orient, or the East,
and _levante_ is Italian for the wind. According to Etruscan mythology,
there were _eleven_ thunderbolts or _levins_ wielded by Nine Great
Gods,[225] and that the number eleven was associated with Long Meg of
Westmorland, would appear from the fact that her circle measured "about
1100 feet in circumference". With this measurement may be connoted the
British camp on Herefordshire Beacon, "which takes the form of an
irregular oval 1100 yards in length,"[226] and that 1100 implied some
special sanctity may be gathered from the bardic lines--
The age of Jesus, the fair and energetic Hu
In God's Truth was eleven hundred.[227]
The more usually assumed age of Jesus, _i.e._, thirty-three, may be
connoted with the persistent thirty-threes elsewhere considered. The
diameter of the circle of Long Meg and her Daughters is stated as 330
feet,[228] a measurement which seemingly has some relation to the 330
years of age assigned to Magus when he accomplished his magic change.
Christianity has retained the memory of a St. Ursula and 11,000 virgins,
but it has been a puzzle to hagiographers to account for the "11" or
11,000 so persistently associated with her. In his essay on the legend,
Baring-Gould refers to it as being "generated out of worse than
nothing," lamenting this and kindred stories. "Alas! too often they are
but apples of Sodom, fair-cheeked, but containing the dust and ashes of
heathenism". But the story of St. Ursula is essentially beautiful;
moreover, it is essentially British. _The Golden Legend_ tells us that
Ursula was a British princess, and Cornwall claims, with a probability
of right, that she was Cornish. Her mother was named Daria, her cousin
Adrian, and there is a clear memory of the Darian, Adrian, Droian, or
Trojan games perpetrated in the incident which _The Golden Legend_ thus
records: "By the counsel of the Queen the Virgins were gathered together
from diverse realms, and she was leader of them, and at the last she
suffered martyrdom with them. And then the condition made, all things
were made ready. Then the Queen shewed her counsel to the Knights of her
Company, and made them all to swear this new chivalry, and then began
they to make diverse plays and games of battle as to run here and there,
and feigned many manners of plays. And for all that they left not their
purpose, and sometimes they returned from this play at midday, and
sometimes unnethe at evensong time. And the barons and great lords
assembled them to see the fair games and disports, and all had joy and
pleasure in beholding them, and also marvel."[229]
From this account it would appear that twice a day the followers of St.
Ursula joyed themselves and the onlookers by a sacred ballet, which no
doubt symbolised in its convolutions the ethereal Harmony and the
ordered movements of the Stars. Her consort's name is given as Ethereus,
whence Ursula herself must have been Etherea, the Ethereal maid,
conceived in all likelihood at the idyllic island Doliche, Idea, Aeria,
Candia, or Crete. The name Ursula means _bear_, and it was supposed that
around the seven stars of Arcturus, the immovable Great Bear, all the
lesser stars wheeled in an everlasting procession. Of this giant's wheel
or marguerite, Margaret, or Peggie, was seemingly deemed to be the axle,
_peg_, or Golden Eye, and this idea apparently underlies Homer:--
... the axle of the Sky,
The Bear revolving points his _Golden Eye_.
Having quitted Britain, St. Ursula and her train of 11,000 maidens
underwent various vicissitudes. Eventually circumstances took them to
Cologne, whereupon, to quote _The Golden Legend_, "When the Huns saw
them they began to run upon them with a great cry and araged like wolves
on sheep, and slew all this great multitude".[230] From time to time the
monks of Cologne have unearthed large deposits of children's bones which
have piously been claimed to be authentic relics of the 11,000 martyrs.
In China and Japan the Great Mother is represented pouring forth the
bubbling waters of creation from a vase, and in every bubble is depicted
a small babe. This Goddess Kwanyon, known as the _eleven faced_ and
_thousand handed_, is represented at the temple of San-ju-San-gen-do by
33,333 images, and her name resolves, as will be seen, into Queen Yon.
The name China, French Chine, is John, and Japon or Yapon, the land of
the Rising Sun, whose cognisance is the Marguerite or Golden Daisy,
whose priests are termed _bonzes_, and whose national cry is _banzai_,
is radically the same as the British _Eubonia_ or Hobany, La Dame
Abonde, the Giver of _Abundance_.
Among the megalithic remains in Brittany there have been found ornaments
of jade, a material which, until recently, was supposed not to exist
except in China or Japan. At Carnac, near the town of Elven, is the
world-famed megalithic ruin now consisting of eleven rows of rocks, said
to number "somewhere between nine and ten thousand". As for many years
these relics have been habitually broken up and used for building and
road-making purposes, it is not unlikely that originally there were 1000
rocks in each of the eleven rows, totalling in all to the mystic 11,000.
We shall see in a later chapter that _Elphin_ stones were frequently
_eleven_ feet high: our word _eleven_ is _elf_ in Dutch, _ellifir_ in
Icelandic, _ainlif_ or _einlif_ in Gothic; but why this number should
thus have been associated with the elves I am unable to decide, nor can
I surmise why the authorities connote the word _eleven_ with _lika_,
which means "remaining," or with _linguere_, which means "to leave". In
modern Etruria it is believed by the descendants of the Etruscans that
the old Etruscan deities of the woods and fields still live in the world
as spirits, and among the ancient Etrurians it was held that in the
spiritual world the rich man and the poor man, the master and the
servant, were all upon one level or all _even_.[231] Our word _heaven_
is radically _even_ and _ange_, the French for _angel_ is the same word
as _onze_ meaning _eleven_.
_The Golden Legend_ associates St. Maur with the Church of St. Maurice,
where a blind man named Lieven is said to have sat for eleven
years.[232] This marked connection between Maurice and eleven renders it
probable that St. Maurice was the same King Maurus of Britain as was
reputed to be the father of St. Ursula. The precise site of the
monarch's domain is not mentioned, but as Cornwall claims him the
probabilities are that his seat was St. Levan. St. Maurus of the Church
Calendar is reputed to have walked on the waters, and he is represented
in Art as holding the weights and measures with which he is said to have
made the correct allotment of bread and wine to his monks. These
supposed "measures" are tantamount to St. Michael's scales, which were
sometimes assigned by Christianity to God the Father.
[Illustration: FIG. 49.--The Trinity in One Single God, holding the
Balances and the Compasses. From an Italian
Miniature of the XIII. Cent.
From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
Ursula, as the daughter of Maurus, would have been Maura, and in face of
the walking-on-the-sea story she was, no doubt, the Mairymaid,
Merrowmaid, or Mermaid. Of St. Margaret we read that after her body had
been broiled with burning brands, the blessed Virgin, without any hurt,
issued out of the water. That St. Michael was associated in Art with a
similar incident is evident from his miraculous preservation of a woman
"wrapped in the floods of the sea". St. Michael "kept this wife all
whole, and she was delivered and childed among the waves in the middle
of the sea".[233] The Latin word _mergere_, _i.e._, Margery, means to
sink into the sea, and _emerge_ means to rise out of the sea. In
Cornwall Margery Daw is elevated into _Saint_ Margery Daw, and we may
assume that her celebrated see-saw was the eternal merging and emerging
of the Sun and Moon.
The Cornish pinnacle associated with Maggie Figgy of St. Levan may be
connoted with a monolith overlooking Loch Leven and entitled, "Carlin
Maggie" or "Witch Maggie". This precipitous rock is precisely the same
granite formation as is Maggie Figgy's Chair, and legend says that it
originated from Maggie "flyting" the devil who turned her into
stone.[234] The Scotch Loch Leven is known locally as Loch Eleven,
"because it is eleven miles round, is surrounded by eleven hills, is fed
or drained by eleven streams, has eleven islands, is tenanted by eleven
kinds of fish".[235] It was also said to have been surrounded by the
estates of eleven lairds.
At Dunfermline is St. Margaret's Stone, "probably the last remnant of a
Druid circle or a cromlech".[236]
The megalithic Long Meg in Westmorland, standing by what is termed the
"Maiden Way," is in close proximity to Hunsonby. The Dutch for _sun_ is
_zon_, the German is _sonne_, whence Hunsonby in all probability was
once deemed a _by_ or _abode_ of _Hunson_ the _ancient sun_ or _zone_.
The circle of Long Meg is an _enceinte_, _i.e._, an _incinctus_, circuit
or enclosure; that St. Margaret of Christendom was the patroness of all
_enceinte_ women is obvious from Brand's reference to St. Margaret's
Day, as a time "when all come to church that are, or hope to be, with
child that year". _Sein_ is the French for bosom, and that Ursula of the
11,000 virgins was a personification of the Good Mother of the Universe
or Bosom of the World may be further implied by the fact that she
corresponds, according to Baring-Gould, with the Teutonic Holda. Holda
or Holle (the Holy), is a gentle Lady, ever accompanied by the souls of
maidens and children who are under her care. Surrounded by these
bright-eyed followers she sits in a mountain of crystal, and comes forth
at times to scatter the winter snow, vivify the spring earth, or bless
the fruits of autumn.
The kindly Mother Holle was sometimes entitled Gode,[237] whence we may
connote Margot, Marghet, or Marget with Big Good, or Big God. In
Cornwall the Holly tree is termed Aunt Mary's tree, which, I think, is
equal to Aunt Maura's tree, St. Maur being tantamount to St. Fairy or
St. Big.
According to Sir John Rhys, Elen the Fair of Britain figures like St.
Ursula as the leader of the heavenly virgins; St. Levan's cell is shown
at Bodellen in St. Levan, and as in Cornwall _bod_--as in Bodmin--meant
_abode of_, one may resolve Bodellen into the _abode of Ellen_, and
equate Ellen or Helen with Long Meg or St. Michael.
We may recognise St. Kayne in the Kendale-Lonsdale district of North
Britain, where also in the neighbourhood of the rivers Ken or Can, and
Lone or Lune is a maiden way and an Elen's Causeway.[238] On the river
Can is a famous waterfall at Levens, and in the same neighbourhood a
seat of the ancient Machel family. In 1724 there existed at Winander
Mere "the carcass of an ancient city,"[239] and it is not improbable
that the _ander_ of Winander is related to the divine Thorgut, whose
effigy from a coin is reproduced in a later chapter (Fig 422, p. 675).
Kendal or Candale has always been famous for its British "cottons and
coarse cloaths".
In Etruria and elsewhere good genii were represented as winged
elves--old plural _elven_--and the word _mouche_ implies that not only
butterflies and moths, but also all winged flies were deemed to be the
children of Michael or Michelet. According to Payne Knight, "The common
Fly, being in its first stage of existence a principal agent in
dissolving and dissipating all putrescent bodies, was adopted as an
emblem of the Deity".[240] Thus it would seem that not only the
_mouches_, but likewise the _maggots_ were deemed to be among Maggie's
millions, fighting like the Hosts of Michael against filth, decay, and
death.
The connection between flies or mouches, and the elves or elven, seems
to have been appreciated in the past, for _The Golden Legend_ likens the
lost souls of Heaven, _i.e._, the elven of popular opinion, to flies:
"By the divine dispensation they descend oft unto us in earth, as like
it hath been shewn to some holy men. They fly about us as flies, they be
innumerable, and like flies they fill the air without number."[241] Even
to-day it is supposed that the spirits of holy wells appear occasionally
in the form of flies, and there is little doubt that Beelzebub, the
"Lord of flies," _alias_ Lucifer, whose name literally means "Light
Bringer," was once innocuous and beautiful.
In Cornwall flies seem to have been known as "Mother Margarets" (a fact
of which I was unaware when equating _mouche_ with Michelet or Meg), for
according to Miss Courtney, "Three hundred fathoms below the ground at
Cook's Kitchen Mine, near Cambourne, swarms of flies may be heard
buzzing, called by the men for some unknown reason 'Mother
Margarets'".[242] Whether these subterranean "Mother Margarets" are
peculiar to Cook's Kitchen Mine, and whether Cook has any relation to
Gog and to the Cocinians who in deep caverns dwelt, I am unable to
trace.
That St. Michael was Lord of the Muckle and the Mickle, is supported in
the statement that "he was prince of the synagogue of the Jews".[243]
The word _synagogue_ is understood to have meant--a bringing together,
a congregation; but this was evidently a secondary sense, due, perhaps,
to the fact that the earliest synagogues were not held beneath a roof,
but were congregations in sacred plains or hill-sides. It may reasonably
be assumed that synagogues were prayer meetings in honour primarily of
San Agog, St. Michael, or the Leader and Bringer together of all souls.
By the Greeks the sobriquet Megale was applied to Juno the
pomegranate--holding Mother of Millions, and the bird pre-eminently
sacred to Juno was the Goose. The cackling of Juno's or Megale's sacred
geese saved the Capitol, and the Goose of Michaelmas Day is seemingly
that same sacred bird. In Scotland St. Michael's Day was associated with
the payment of so-called cane geese, the word _cane_ or _kain_ here
being supposed to be the Gaelic _cean_, which meant _head_, and its
original sense, a duty paid by a tenant to his landlord in kind. The
word _due_ is the same as _dieu_, and the association of St. Keyne with
Michael renders it probable that the cane goose was primarily a _dieu_
offering or an offering to the Head King Cun, or Chun. Etymology would
suggest that the cane goose was preferably a _gan_der.
Even in the time of the Romans, the Goose was sacred in Britain, and
East and West it seems to have been an emblem of the Unseen Origin. In
India, Brahma, the Breath of Life, was represented riding on a goose,
and by the Egyptians the Sun was supposed to be a Golden Egg laid by the
primeval Goose. The little yellow egg or _goose_berry was
seemingly--judged by its otherwise inexplicable name--likened to the
Golden Egg laid by Old Mother Goose. Among the symbols elsewhere dealt
with were some representative of a goose from whose mouth a curious
flame-like emission was emerging. I am still of the opinion that this
was intended to depict the Fire or Breath of Life, and that the hissing
habits of the Swan and Goose caused those birds to be elevated into the
eminence as symbols of the Breath. The word _goose_ or _geese_ is
radically _ghost_, which literally means spirit or breath; it is also
the same as _cause_ with which may be connoted _chaos_. According to
Irish mythology that which existed at the beginning was Chaos, the
Father of Darkness or Night, subsequently came the Earth who produced
the mountains, and the sea, and the sky.[244]
[Illustration: Fig. 50.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
In this emblem here reproduced Chaos or Abyssus is figured as the
youthful apex of a primeval peak; at the base are geese, and the
creatures midway are evidently seals. The _seal_ is the silliest of
gentle creatures, and being amphibious was probably the symbol of
_Celi_, the Concealed One, whose name occurs so frequently in British
Mythology. To _seal_ one's eyelids means to close them, and the blind
old man named Lieven, who sat in the porch of St. Maurice's for eleven
years, may be connoted with Homer the blind and wandering old Bard, who
dwelt upon the rocky islet of Chios, query _chaos_? Among the Latins
_Amor_ or Love was the oldest of the gods, being the child of Nox or
Chaos: Love--"this senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid"[245]--is
proverbially blind, and the words Amor, Amour, are probably not only
Homer, but likewise St. Omer. The British (Welsh) form of Homer is Omyr:
the authorship of Homer has always been a matter of perplexity, and the
personality of the blind old bard of Chios will doubtless remain an
enigma until such time as the individuality of "Old Moore," "Aunt Judy,"
and other pseudonyms is unravelled. It has always been the custom of
story-tellers to attribute their legends to a fabulous origin, and the
most famous collection of fairy-tales ever produced was published in
France under the title _Contes de la Mere Oie_--"The Tales of Mother
Goose". Goose is radically the same word as _gas_, a term which was
coined by a Belgian chemist in 1644 from the Greek _chaos_: the Irish
for swan is _geis_, and all the geese tribe are gassy birds which gasp.
In a subsequent chapter we shall analyse _goose_ into _ag'oos_, the
Mighty _Ooze_, whence the ancients scientifically supposed all life to
have originated, and shall equate _ooze_ with _hoes_, the Welsh word for
_life_, and with _Ouse_ or _Oise_, a generic British river name. In
_huss_, the German for _goose_, we may recognise the _oose_ without its
adjectival '_g_'.
With the Blind Old Bard of Chios may be connoted the Cornish longstone
known as "The Old Man,"[246] or "The Fiddler," also a second longstone
known as "The Blind Fiddler".[247] In _because_ or _by cause_ we
pronounce _cause_ "_koz_," and in Slav fairy-tales as elsewhere there is
frequent mention of an Enchanter entitled _Kostey_, whose strength and
vitality lay in a monstrous egg. The name _Kostey_ may be connoted with
_Cystennyns_,[248] an old Cornish and Welsh form of Constantine: at the
village of Constantine in Cornwall there is what Borlase describes as a
vast egg-like stone placed on the points of two natural rocks, and
pointing due North and South. This Tolmen or Meantol--"an egg-shaped
block of granite _thirty-three_ feet long, and _eighteen_ feet broad,
supposed by some antiquaries to be Druidical, is here on a barren hill
690 feet high".[249] The Greek for egg is _oon_, and our _egg_ may be
connoted not only with _Echo_--the supposed voice of Ech?--but also with
_egg_, meaning to urge on, to instigate, to vitalise, or render agog.
The acorn is an egg within a cup, and the Danish form of _oak_ is _eeg_
or _eg_: the oak tree was pre-eminently the symbol of the Most High, and
the German _eiche_ may be connoted with _uch_ the British for high. The
Druids paid a reverential homage to the oak, worshipping under its form
the god Teut or Teutates: this latter word is understood to have meant
"the god of the people,"[250] and the term _teut_ is apparently the
French _tout_, meaning _all_ or the total. The reason suggested by Sir
James Frazer for oak-worship is the fact that the Monarch of the Forest
was struck more frequently by lightning than any meaner tree, and that
therefore it was deemed to be the favoured one of the Fire god. But to
rive one's best beloved with a thunderbolt is a more peculiar and even
better dissembled token of affection than the celebrated
kicking-down-stairs. According to the author of _The Language and
Sentiment of Flowers_[251] the oak was consecrated to Jupiter because it
had sheltered him at his birth on Mount Lycaeus; hence it was regarded
as the emblem of hospitality, and to give an oak branch was equivalent
to "You are welcome". That the oak tree was originally a Food provider
or _Feed for all_ is implied by the words addressed to the Queen of
Heaven by Apuleus in _The Golden Ass_: "Thou who didst banish the savage
nutriment of the ancient acorn, and pointing out a better food, dost,
etc."
It has already been suggested that _derry_ or _dru_, an oak or tree, was
equivalent to _tre_, an abode or Troy, and there is perhaps a connection
between this root and _tere_binth, the Tyrian term for an oak tree. That
the oak was regarded as the symbol of hospitality is exceedingly
probable, and one of the earliest references to the tree is the story of
Abraham's hospitable entertainment given underneath the Oak of Mamre.
The same idea is recurrent in the legend of Philemon and Baucis, which
relates that on the mountains of Phrygia there once dwelt an aged, poor,
but loving couple. One night Jupiter and Mercury, garbed in the disguise
of two mysterious strangers who had sought in vain for hospitality
elsewhere, craved the shelter of this Darby and Joan.[252] With alacrity
it was granted, and such was the awe inspired by the majestic Elder
that Baucis desired to sacrifice a goose which they possessed. But the
bird escaped, and fluttering to the feet of the disguised gods Jupiter
protected it, and bade their aged hosts to spare it. On leaving, the
Wanderer asked what boon he could confer, and what gift worthy of the
gods they would demand. "Let us not be divided by death, O Jupiter," was
the reply: whereupon the Wandering One conjured their mean cottage into
a noble palace wherein they dwelt happily for many years. The story
concludes that Baucis merged gradually into a linden tree, and Philemon
into an oak, which two trees henceforward intertwined their branches at
the door of Jupiter's Temple.
The name Philemon is seemingly _philo_, which means _love of_, and
_mon_, man or men, and at the time this fairy-tale was concocted _Love
of Man_, or hospitality, would appear to have been the motif of the
allegorist.
We British pre-eminently boast our ships and our men as being Hearts of
Oak: the Druids used to summon their assemblies by the sending of an
oak-branch, and at the national games of Etruria the diadem called
_Etrusca Corona_, a garland of oak leaves with jewelled acorns, was held
over the head of the victor.[253] There is little doubt that Honor Oak,
Gospel Oak, Sevenoaks, etc., derived their titles from oaks once sacred
to the _Uch_ or High, the _Allon_ or Alone, who was alternatively the
Seven Kings or the Three Kings. "It is strange," says Squire, "to find
Gael and Briton combining to voice almost in the same words this
doctrine of the mystical Celts, who while still in a state of
semi-barbarism saw with some of the greatest of ancient and modern
philosophers the One in the Many, and a single Essence in all the
manifold forms of life."[254]
FOOTNOTES:
[193] Virgil, _The Æneid_, Bk. III., c. liii.
[194] _Cf._ Geoffrey's _Histories of the Kings of Britain_
(Everyman's Library), p. 202.
[195] Virgil, _The Æneid_, Bk. III., 37.
[196] _Irish Mythological Cycle_, p. 50.
[197] xx. 8.
[198] Wood, E. J. _Giants and Dwarfs_, p. 54.
[199] Chap. xxvi.
[200] _The Irish Mythological Cycle_, p. 116.
[201] Wood, E.J., _Giants and Dwarfs_, p. 5.
[202] _The Romance of Names_, p. 65.
[203] Hone, W., _Ancient Mysteries_, p. 264.
[204] Wright, T., _Patrick's Purgatory_, p. 56.
[205] Courtney, Miss M. L., _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 28.
[206] Bartholomew, J. G., _A Survey Gazetteer of the British
Islands_, I. 612.
[207] The duplication _cock_, as in _haycock_, also meant a hill.
[208] Quoted from Brand's _Antiquities_, p. 42.
[209] _Cf._ Urlin, Miss Ethel, _Festivals, Holydays, and Saint
Days_, p. 2.
[210] Anwyl, E., _Celtic Religion_.
[211] Anwyl, E., _Celtic Religion_, p. 40.
[212] _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, pp. 637-40.
[213] "Morien" _Light of Britannia_, p. 262.
[214] The phallic symbolism of the serpent has been over-stressed
so obtrusively by other writers, that it is unnecessary here
to enlarge upon that aspect of the subject.
[215] Baldwin, J. D., _Prehistoric Nations_, p. 240.
[216] Sophocles, _Ajax_, 694-700.
[217] Windle, Sir B. C. A., _Remains of the Prehistoric Age in
Britain_, p. 198.
[218] _The Golden Legend_, V. 182-3.
[219] The ancient name "hoar rock," or white rock in the wood, may
have referred to the white god probably once there
worshipped, for actually there are no white rocks at St.
Michael's, or anywhere else in Cornwall.
[220] _The Golden Legend_ records an apparition of St. Michael at a
town named Tumba.
[221] Wood, E. J., _Giants and Dwarfs_, p. 91.
[222] _Cf._ Friend, Rev. Hilderic, _Flowers and Folklore_, II., p.
455.
[223] "Morien," _Light of Brittania_, p. 27.
[224] Anon, _A New Description of England and Wales_ (1724), p.
121.
[225] Dennis, G., _Cities and Centuries of Etruria_, p. 31.
[226] Munro, R., _Prehistoric Britain_, p. 223.
[227] _Barddas_, p. 222.
[228] Kains-Jackson, _Our Ancient Monuments_, p. 112. Fergusson
states "about 330 feet".
[229] Vol. vi., p. 64.
[230] Vol. vi., p. 66.
[231] Gray, Mrs. Hamilton, _Sepulchres of Etruria_.
[232] Vol., iii., p. 73.
[233] _Golden Legend_, vol. v., p. 184.
[234] Simpkins, J. E., _Fife_, p. 4; _County Folklore_, vol. vii.
[235] Simpkins, J. E., _Kinross-shire_, p. 377.
[236] _Ibid._, p. 241.
[237] _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, p. 336.
[238] I am unable to lay my hand on the reference for this Elen's
Causeway in Westmoreland.
[239] Anon., _A New Description of England_, 1724, p. 318.
[240] _Symbolical Language_, p. 37.
[241] _Golden Legend_, vol. v., p. 189.
[242] _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 131.
[243] _Golden Legend_, vol. v., p. 181.
[244] Jubainville, D'arbois de, _Irish Mythological Cycle_, p. 140.
[245] Shakespeare, _Love's Labour's Lost_, iii., 1.
[246] Ossian, the hero poet of Gaeldom, is represented as old,
blind, and solitary.
[247] _Cf._ Windle, Sir B.C.A., _Remains of the Prehistoric Age_,
pp. 197-8.
[248] Salmon, A.L., _Cornwall_, p. 88.
[249] Wilson, J.M., _The Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales_,
i., p. 484.
[250] Anwyl, E., _Celtic Religion_, p. 39.
[251] "L.V.," London (undated).
[252] I do not think this proverbially loving couple were
exclusively Scotch. The _darbies_, _i.e._, handcuffs or
clutches of the law may be connoted with Gascoigne's line
(1576): "To bind such babes in _father Darbie's_ bands".
"_Old Joan_" figures as one of the characters in the
festivities of Plough Monday, and in Cornwall any very
ancient woman was denominated "_Aunt Jenny_".
[253] Gray, Mrs. Hamilton, _Sepulchres of Ancient Etruria_, p. 131.
[254] _The Mythology of the British Islands_, p. 125.