PUCK.
"Do you imagine that Robin Goodfellow--a mere name to you--conveys
anything like the meaning to your mind that it did to those for
whom the name represented a still living belief, and who had the
stories about him at their fingers' ends? Or let me ask you, Why
did the fairies dance on moonlight nights? or, Have you ever
thought why it is that in English literature, and in English
literature alone, the fairy realm finds a place in the highest
works of imagination?"
--F. S. HARTLAND.
In British Faërie there figures prominently a certain "Man in the Oak":
according to Keightley, Puck, _alias_ Robin Goodfellow, was known as
this "Man in the Oak," and he considers that the word _pixy_ "is
evidently Pucksy, the endearing diminutive _sy_ being added to Puck like
Bet_sy_, Nan_cy_, Dix_ie_".[255] It is probable that this adjectival
_si_ recurring in _sw_eet, _so_oth, _su_ave, _sw_an, etc., may be
equated with the Sanscrit _su_, which, as in _sw_astika, is a synonym
for the Greek _eu_, meaning soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious. When
used as an affix, this "endearing diminutive" yields _spook_, which was
seemingly once "dear little Pook," or "soft, gentle, pleasing, and
propitious Puck". In Wales the fairies were known as "Mothers'
Blessings," and although spook now carries a sinister sense, there is no
more reason to suppose that "dear little Pook" was primarily malignant
than to suggest that the Holy _Ghost_ was--in the modern
sense--essentially _ghastly_. Skeat suggests that _ghost_ (of uncertain
origin) "is perhaps allied to Icelandic _geisa_, to rage like fire, and
to Gothic _us-gais-yan_, to terrify". Some may be aghast at this
suggestion, others, who cannot conceive the Supreme Sprite except as a
raging and consuming fury, will commend it. In the preceding chapter I
suggested that the elementary derivation of ghost was _'goes_, the Great
Life or Essence, and as _te_ in Celtic meant good, it may be permissible
to modernise _ghoste_, also _Kostey_ of the egg, into _great life good_.
That there was a good and a bad Puck is to be inferred from the West of
England belief in Bucca Gwidden, the white or good spirit, and Bucca
Dhu, the black, malevolent one.[256] Puck, like Dan Cupid, figures in
popular estimation as a _pawky_ little pickle; in Brittany the dolmens
are known as _poukelays_ or Puck stones, and the particular haunts of
Puck were heaths and desert places. The place-name Picktree suggests one
of Puck's sacred oaks; Pickthorne was presumably one of Puck's
hawthorns, and the various Pickwells, Pickhills, Pickmeres, etc., were
once, in all probability, _spook_-haunted. The highest point at Peckham,
near London, is Honor Oak or One Tree Hill, and Peckhams or Puckhomes
are plentiful in the South of England. One of them was inferentially
near Ockham, at Great and Little Bookham, where the common or forest
consists practically solely of the three pre-eminently fairy-trees--oak,
hawthorne, and holly. The summit of the Buckland Hills, above Mickleham,
is the celebrated, box-planted Boxhill, and at its foot runs Pixham or
Pixholme Lane. On the height, nearly opposite Pixham Lane, the Ordnance
Map marks Pigdon, but the roadway from Bookham to Boxhill is known, not
as Pigdon Hill, but Bagden Hill. In all probability the terms Pigdon and
Bagden are the original British forms of the more modern Pixham and
Bok's Hill.
In the North of England Puck seems more generally Peg, whence the fairy
of the river Ribble was known as Peg O'Nell, and the nymph of the Tees,
as Peg Powler.[257] Peg--a synonym for Margaret--is generally
interpreted as having meant pearl.
The word _puck_ or _peg_, which varies in different parts of the country
into pug, pouke, pwcca, poake, pucke, puckle, and phooka, becomes
elsewhere bucca, bug, bogie, bogle, boggart, buggaboo, and bugbear.
According to all accounts the Pucks, like the Buccas, were divided into
two classes, "good and bad," and it was only the clergy who maintained
that "one and the same malignant fiend meddled in both". As Scott
rightly observes: "Before leaving the subject of fairy superstition in
England we may remark that it was of a more playful and gentle, less
wild and necromantic character, than that received among the sister
people. The amusements of the southern fairies were light and sportive;
their resentments were satisfied with pinching or scratching the objects
of their displeasure; their peculiar sense of cleanliness rewarded the
housewives with the silver token in the shoe; their nicety was extreme
concerning any coarseness or negligence which could offend their
delicacy; and I cannot discern, except, perhaps, from the insinuations
of some scrupulous divines, that they were vassals to or in close
alliance with the infernals, as there is too much reason to believe was
the case with their North British sisterhood."[258]
The elemental Bog is the Slavonic term for God,[259] and when the early
translators of the Bible rendered "terror by night" as "bugs by night"
they probably had spooks or bogies in their mind. In Etruria as in Egypt
the bug or maybug was revered as the symbol of the Creator Bog, because
the Egyptian beetle has a curious habit of creating small pellets or
balls of mud. In Welsh _bogel_ means the _navel_, also _centre of a
wheel_, and hence Margaret or Peggy may be equated with the nave or peg
of the white-rayed Marguerite or _Day's Eye_.[260]
It must constantly be borne in mind that the ancients never stereotyped
their Ideal, hence there was invariably a vagueness about the form and
features of prehistoric Joy, and Shakespeare's reference to Dan Cupid as
a "senior-junior, giant-dwarf," may be equally applied to every Elf and
Pixy. It is unquestionable that in England as in Scandinavia and Germany
"giants and dwarfs were originally identical phenomenon".[261]
In the words of an Orphic Hymn "Jove is both male and an immortal maid":
Venus was sometimes represented with a beard, and as the Supreme Parent
was indiscriminately regarded as either male or female, or as both
combined, an occasional contradiction of form is not to be unexpected.
The authorities attribute the contrariety of sex which is sometimes
assigned to the Cornish saints as being due to carelessness on the part
of transcribers, but in this case the monks may be exonerated, as the
greater probability is that they faithfully transmitted the pagan
legends. The Moon, which, speaking generally, was essentially a symbol
of the Mother, was among some races, _e.g._, the Teutons and the
Egyptians, regarded as masculine. In Italy at certain festivals the men
dressed in women's garments, worshipped the Moon as Lunus, and the women
dressed like men, as Luna. In Wales the Cadi, as we have seen, was
dressed partially as a woman, partially as a man, and in all probability
the cassock of the modern priest is a survival of the ambiguous duality
of Kate or Good. In Irish the adjective _mo_--derived seemingly from Mo
or Ma, the Great Mother--meant _greatest_, and was thus used
irrespective of sex.
The French word _lune_, like _moon_ and _choon_, is radically _une_, the
initial consonants being merely adjectival, and is just as sexless as
our _one_, Scotch _ane_. In Germany _hunne_ means _giant_, and the term
"Hun," meant radically anyone formidable or gigantic.
The Cornish for _full moon_ is _cann_, which is a slightly decayed form
of _ak ann_ or _great one_, and this word _can_, or _khan_, meaning
prince, ruler, _king_ or great one, is traceable in numerous parts of
the world. _Can_ or _chan_ was Egyptian for _lord_ or _prince; can_ was
a title of the kings of ancient Mexico; _khan_ is still used to-day by
the kings of Tartary and Burmah and by the governors of provinces in
Persia, Afghanistan, and other countries of Central Asia. In China
_kong_ means _king_, and in modern England _king_ is a slightly decayed
form of the Teutonic _konig_ or _kinig_. The ancient British word for
_mighty chief_ was _chun_ or _cun_, and we meet with this infinitely
older word than _king_ as a participle of royal titles such as
_Cun_obelinus, _Cun_oval, _Cun_omor and the like. The same affix was
used in a similar sense by the Greeks, whence Apollo was styled
_Cun_ades and also _Cun_nins. The Cornish for _prince_ was _kyn_, and
this term, as also the Irish _cun_, meaning _chief_, is evidently far
more primitive than the modern _king_, which seems to have returned to
us through Saxon channels. Prof. Skeat expresses his opinion that the
term _king_ meant "literally a man of good birth," and he identifies it
with the old High German _chunig_. Other authorities equate it with the
Sanscrit _janaka_, meaning _father_, whence it is maintained that the
original meaning of the word was "father of a tribe". Similarly the word
_queen_ is derived by our dictionaries from the Greek _gyne_, a woman,
or the Sanscrit _jani_, "all from root _gan_, to produce, from which are
_genus_, _kin_, _king_, etc."
The word _chen_ in Cornish meant _cause_, and there is no doubt a
connection between this term and _kyn_, the Cornish for _prince_; the
connection, however, is principally in the second syllable, and I see no
reason to doubt my previous conclusions formulated elsewhere, that _kyn_
or _king_ originally meant _great one_, or _high one_, whereas _chun_,
_jani_, _gyne_, etc., meant _aged_ one.
One of the first kings of the Isle of Man was Hacon or Hakon, a name
which the dictionaries define as having meant _high kin_. In this
etymology _ha_ is evidently equated with _high_ and _con_ or _kon_ with
_kin_, but it is equally likely that Hakon or Haakon meant originally
_uch on_ the _high one_. In Cornish the adjective _ughan_ or _aughan_
meant _supreme_: the Icelandic for queen is _kona_, and there is no more
radical distinction between _king_ and the disyllabic _kween_, than
there is between the Christian names _Ion_, _Ian_, and the monosyllabic
_Han_.
_Janaka_, the Sanscrit for _father_, is seemingly allied to the English
adjective _jannock_ or _jonnack_, which may be equated more or less with
_canny_. _Un_canny means something unwholesome, unpleasant,
disagreeable; in Cornish _cun_ meant _sweet_ or affable, and we still
speak of sweets as _candies_.
[Illustration: FIG. 51.--From _The Sepulchres of Etruria_ (Gray,
Mrs. Hamilton).]
In Gaelic _cenn_ or _ken_ meant _head_, the highest peak in the
Himalayas is Mount Kun; one of the supreme summits of Africa is Mount
Kenia, and in _Genesis_ (14-19) the Hebrew word _Konah_ is translated
into English as "the Most High God". Of this Supreme Sprite the _cone_
or pyramid was a symbol, and the reverence in which this form was held
at Albano in Etruria may be estimated from the monument here
depicted.[262] In times gone by khans, _cuns_, or kings were not only
deemed to be moral and intellectual gods, but in some localities bigness
of person was cultivated. The Maoris of New Zealand, whose tattooings
are identical in certain respects with the complicated spirals found on
megaliths in Brittany and Ireland, and who in all their wide wanderings
have carried with them a totemic dove, used to believe bigness to be a
royal essence. "Every means were used to acquire this dignity; a large
person was thought to be of the highest importance; to acquire this
extra size, the child of a chief was generally provided with many
nurses, each contributing to his support by robbing their own offspring
of their natural sustenance; thus, whilst they were half-starved,
miserable-looking little creatures, the chief's child was the contrary,
and early became remarkable by its good appearance."[263]
The British adjective _big_ is of unknown origin and has no Anglo-Saxon
equivalent. In Norway _bugge_ means a strong man, but in Germany _bigge_
denoted a little child--as also a pig. The site of Troy--the famous
Troy--is marked on modern maps _Bigha_, the Basque for _eye_ is
_beguia_; _bega_ is Celtic for _life_. A fabulous St. Bega is the
patron-saint of Cumberland; there is a Baggy Point near Barnstaple, and
a Bigbury near Totnes--the alleged landing place of the Trojans. Close
to Canterbury are some highlands also known as Bigbury, and it is
probable that all these sites were named after _beguia_, the _Big Eye_,
or _Buggaboo_, the _Big Father_.
At Canterbury paleolithic implements have been found which supply proof
of human occupation at a time when the British Islands formed part of
the Continent, and, according to a scholarly but anonymous chronology
exhibited in a Canterbury Hotel, "Neolithic, bronze, and iron ages show
continuous occupation during the whole prehistoric period. The
configuration of the city boundaries and the still existing traces of
the ancient road in connection with the stronghold at Bigbury indicate
that a populous community was settled on the site of the present
Canterbury at least as early as the Iron Age."
The branching antlers of the _buck_ were regarded as the rays of the
uprising sun or _Big Eye_, and a sacred procession, headed by the
antlers of a buck raised upon a pole, was continued by the clergy of St.
Paul's Cathedral as late as the seventeenth century.[264] A scandalised
observer of this ceremony in 1726 describes "the whole company blowing
hunters' horns in a sort of hideous manner, and with this rude pomp they
go up to the High Altar and offer it there. You would think them all the
mad votaries of Diana!" On this occasion, evidently in accordance with
immemorial wont, the Dean and Chapter wore special vestments, the one
embroidered with bucks, the other with does. The buck was seemingly
associated with Puck, for it was popularly supposed that a spectre
appeared periodically in Herne's Oak at Windsor headed with the horns of
a buck. So too was Father Christmas or St. Nicholas represented as
riding Diana-like in a chariot drawn by bucks.
The Greek for buck or stag is _elaphos_, which is radically _elaf_, and
it is a singular coincidence that among the Cretan paleolithic folk in
the Fourth Glacial Period "Certain signs carved on a fragment of
reindeer horn are specially interesting from the primitive anticipation
that they present of the Phoenician letter _alef_".[265]
Peg or Peggy is the same word as _pig_, and it is generally supposed
that the pig was regarded as an incarnation of the "Man in the Oak,"
_i.e._, Puck or Buck, because the _bacco_ or _bacon_ lived on acorns.
There is little doubt that the Saint Baccho of the Church Calendar is
connected with the worship of the earlier Bacchus, for the date of St.
Baccho's festival coincides with the vintage festival of Bacchus. The
symbolism of the pig or bacco will be discussed in a subsequent chapter,
meanwhile one may here note that _hog_ is the same as _oak_, and _swine_
is identical with _swan_. So also _Meg_ is connected with _muc_ or
_moch_ which were the Celtic terms for _hog_. Among the appellations of
ancient Ireland was Muc Inis,[266] or Hog Island and Moccus, or the pig,
was one of the Celtic sobriquets for Mercury. The Druids termed
themselves "_Swine of Mon_,"[267] the Phoenician priests were also
self-styled _Swine_, and there is a Welsh poem in which the bard's
opening advice to his disciples is--"Give ear little pigs".
The pig figures so frequently upon Gaulish coins that M. de la Saussaye
supposed it with great reason to have been a national symbol. That the
hog was also a venerated British emblem is evident from the coins here
illustrated, and that CUNO was the Spook King is obvious from Figs. 52
and 57, where the features face fore and aft like those of Janus. The
word Cunobeline, Cunbelin, or Cymbeline, described by the dictionaries
as a Cornish name meaning "lord of the Sun," is composed seemingly of
_King Belin_. Belin, a title of the Sun God, is found also in Gaul,
notably on the coinage of the Belindi: Belin is featured as in Fig. 58,
and that the sacred Horse of Belin was associated with the _ded_ pillar
is evident from Fig. 59.
[Illustration: FIGS. 52 to 57.--British. From _Ancient Coins_
(Akerman, J. Y.).]
[Illustration: FIGS. 58 to 59.--Gaulish. From _ibid_.]
Commenting upon Fig. 52 a numismatist has observed: "This seems made for
two young women's faces," but whether Cunobelin's wives, sisters, or
children, he knows not. In Britain doubtless there were many kings who
assumed the title of Cunobelin, just as in Egypt there were many
Pharoahs; but it is no more rational to suppose that the designs on
ancient coins are the portraits of historic kings, their wives, their
sisters, their cousins, or their aunts, than it would be for an
archæologist to imagine that the dragon incident on our modern
sovereigns was an episode in the career of his present Majesty King
George.
We shall subsequently connect George, whose name means _ploughman_, with
the Blue or Celestial Boar, which, because it ploughed with its snout
along the earth, was termed _boar, i.e., boer_ or farmer. With _bacco_
or _bacon_ may be connoted _boukolos_, the Greek for cowherd, whence
_bucolic_. The cattle of Apollo, or the Sun, are a familiar feature of
Greek mythology.
[Illustration: FIG. 60.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]
The female bacon, which _inter alia_ was the symbol of fecundity, was
credited with a mystic thirty teats. The sow figures prominently in
British mythology as an emblem of Ked, and was seemingly venerated as a
symbol of the Universal Feeder. The little pig in Fig. 60, a coin of the
Santones, whose capital is marked by the modern town of Saintes, is
associated with a fleur-de-lis, the emblem of purity. The word _lily_ is
_all holy_; the porker was associated with the notoriously pure St.
Antony as well as with Ked or Kate, the immaculate Magna Mater, and
although beyond these indications I have no evidence for the suggestion,
I strongly suspect that the scavenging habits of the _moch_ caused it,
like the fly or _mouche_, to be reverenced as a symbol of Ked, Cadi,
Katy, or Katerina, whose name means the Pure one or the All Pure. The
connection between _hog_ and _cock_ is apparent in the French _coche_ or
_cochon_ (origin unknown). _Cochon_ is allied to _cigne_, the French for
swan, Latin, _cygnus_, Greek, _kuknos_; the voice of the goose or swan
is said to be its _cackle_, and the Egyptians gave to their All Father
Goose a sobriquet which the authorities translate into "The Great
Cackler".
[Illustration: FIG. 61.--Swan with Two Necks. (Bank's Collection,
1785).
From _The History of Signboards_ (Larwood & Hotten).]
Among the meanings assigned to the Hebrew _og_ is "long necked," and it
is not improbable that the mysterious Inn sign of the "Swan with two
necks" was originally an emblem of Mother and Father Goose. In Fig. 61
the _geis_ or swan is facing fore and aft, like Cuno, which is radically
the same _Great Uno_ as Juno or Megale, to whom the goose was sacred.
_Geyser_, a gush or spring, is the same word as _geeser_, and there was
a famous swan with two necks at Goswell Road, where the word Goswell
implies an erstwhile well of Gos, Goose, or the Gush.[268] A Wayz_goose_
is a jovial holiday or festival, _gust_ or _gusto_ means enjoyment, and
the Greengoose Fair, which used to be held at Stratford, may be connoted
with the "Goose-Intentos," a festival which was customarily held on the
sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost, the time when the Holy
Ghost descended in the form of "cloven tongues," resolves into
_Universal Good Ghost_.
The Santones, whose emblem was the Pig and Fleur-de-lis, were neighbours
of the Pictones. Our British Picts, the first British tribe known by
name to history, are generally supposed to have derived their title
because they de_pict_ed pictures on their bodies. In West Cornwall there
are rude stone huts known locally as Picts' Houses, but whether these
are attributed to the Picts or the Pixies it is difficult to say. In
Scotland the "Pechs" were obviously elves, for they are supposed to have
been short, wee men with long arms, and such huge feet that on rainy
days they stood upside down and used their feet as umbrellas. That the
Picts' Houses of Cornwall were attributed to the Pechs is probable from
the Scottish belief, "Oh, ay, they were great builders the Pechs; they
built a' the auld castles in the country. They stood a' in a row from
the quarry to the building stance, and elka ane handed forward the
stanes to his neighbour till the hale was bigget."
That the pig and the bogie were intimately associated is evidenced by a
Welsh saying quoted by Sir John Rhys:--
A cutty black sow on every style
Spinning and carding each November eve.
In Ireland Pooka was essentially a November spirit, and elsewhere
November was pre-eminently the time of All Hallows or All Angels.
_Hallow_ is the same word as _elle_ the Scandinavian for _elf_ or
_fairy_, and at Michaelmas or Hallowe'en, pixies, spooks, and bogies
were notoriously all-abroad:--
On November eve
A Bogie on every stile.
The time of All Hallows, or Michaelmas used to be known as Hoketide, a
festival which in England was more particularly held upon St. Blaze's
Day; and at that cheerless period the people used to light bonfires or
make blazes for the purpose of "lighting souls out of Purgatory". In
Wales a huge fire was lighted by each household and into the ashes of
this _bon_fire, this _alban_ or _elphin_ fire,[269] every member of the
family threw a _white_ or "Alban," or an _elphin_ stone, kneeling in
prayer around the dying fire.[270] In the Isle of Man Hallowtide was
known as Hollantide,[271] which again permits the equation of St. Hellen
or Elen and her train with Long Meg and her daughters. On the occasion
of the Hallow or Ellie-time saffron or yellow cakes, said to be
emblematical of the fires of purgatory, used to be eaten. To run _amok_
in the East means a _fiery fury_--the words are the same; and that
_bake_ (or _beeak_ as in Yorkshire dialect) meant fire is obvious from
the synonymous _cook_. _Coch_ is Welsh for red, and the flaming red
poppy or corn_cock_le, French--_coquelicot_, was no doubt the symbol of
the solar poppy, pope, or pap. The Irish for pap or breast is _cich_,
and in Welsh _cycho_ means a hive, or anything of concave or hivelike
shape. Possibly here we have the origin of _quick_ in its sense of
living or alive.
One of the features of Michaelmas in Scotland was the concoction and
cooking of a giant _cake_, bun, or bannock. According to Martin this was
"enormously large, and compounded of different ingredients. This cake
belonged to the Archangel, and had its name from him. Every one in each
family, whether strangers or domestics, had his portion of this kind of
shew-bread, and had of course some tithe to the friendship and
protection of Michael."[272] In Hertfordshire during a corresponding
period of "joy, plenty, and universal benevolence," the young men
assembled in the fields choosing a very active leader who then led them
a Puck-like chase through bush and through briar, for the sake of
diversion selecting a route through ponds, ditches, and places of
difficult passage.[273] The term _Ganging_ Day applied to this festival
may be connoted with the Singin 'een of the Scotch Hogmanay, and with
the leader of St. Micah's rout may be connoted _demagog_. This word,
meaning popular leader, is attributed to _demos_, people, and _agogos_,
leading, but more seemingly it is _Dame Gog_ or _Good Mother Gog_.
In Durham is a Pickburn or Pigburn; _beck_ is a generic term for a small
stream; in Devon is a river Becky, and in Monmouthshire a river Beeg. In
Kent is Bekesbourne, and Pegwell Bay near St. Margarets in Kent, may be
connoted with Backwell or Bachwell in Somerset. In Herefordshire is a
British earthwork, known as Bach Camp, and on Bucton Moor in
Northumberland there are two earth circles. In Devonshire is
Buckland-Egg, or Egg-Buckland, and with the various Boxmoors, Boxgroves,
Boxdales, and Boxleys may be connoted the Box river which passes Keynton
and crosses Akeman Street. A Christmas _box_ is a boon or a gift, a box
or receptacle is the same word as _pyx_; and that the evergreen undying
box-tree was esteemed sacred, is evident from the words of Isaiah: "I
will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine tree, and the box tree
together".[274]
[Illustration: FIGS. 62 to 64.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
_Bacon_, radically _bac_, in neighbouring tongues varies into
_baco_, _bakke_, _bak_, and _bache_. Bacon is a family name immortally
associated with St. Albans, and it is probable that Trebiggan--a vast
man with arms so long that he could take men out of the ships passing by
Land's End, and place them on the Long Ships--was the Eternal Biggan or
Beginning. In British Romance there figures a mystic Lady Tryamour,
whose name is obviously _Tri_ or _Three Love_, and it is probable that
Giant Trebiggan was the pagan Trinity, or Triton, whose emblem was the
three-spiked trident. Triton _alias_ Neptune was the reputed Father of
Giant Albion, and the shell-haired deity represented on Figs. 62 to 64
is probably Albon, for the inscription in Iberian characters reads
BLBAN. In the East Bel was a generic term meaning _lord_: in the West it
seemingly meant, just as it does to-day, _fine_ or _beautiful_. The city
of BLBAN or _beautiful Ban_ is now Bilbao, and the three fish on this
coin are analogous to the trident, and to numberless other emblems of
the Triune.
The radiating fan of the cockle shell connects it with the Corn-cockle
as the Dawn, standing jocund on the misty mountain tops, is related to
the flaming midday Sun. All _conchas_, particularly the _echinea_ or
"St. Cuthbert's Bead," were symbols of St. Katherine or Cuddy, and in
Art St. Jacques or St. Jack was always represented with a shell.
_Coquille_, the French for shell, is the same word as _goggle_, and in
England the _cockle_ was popularly connected with a strange custom known
as Hot Cockles or Cockle Bread. Full particulars of this practice are
given by Hazlitt, who observes: "I entertain a conviction that with
respect to these hot cockles, and likewise to leap-candle, we are merely
on the threshhold of the enquiry ... the question stands at present much
as if one had picked up by accident the husk of some lost substance....
Speaking conjecturally, but with certain sidelights to encourage, this
seems a case of the insensible degradation of rite into custom."[275]
Shells are one of the most common deposits in prehistoric graves, and at
Boston in Lincolnshire stone coffins have been found completely filled
with cockle-shells. There would thus seem to be some connection between
Ickanhoe, the ancient name for Boston, a town of the Iceni, situated on
the Ichenield Way, and the _echinea_ or _concha_. As the cockle was
particularly the symbol of Birth, the presence of these shells in
coffins may be attributed to a hope of New Birth and a belief that Death
was the _yoni_ or Gate of Life.
The word _inimical_ implies _un-amicable_, or unfriendly, whence Michael
was seemingly the Friend of Man. _Maculate_ means spotted, and the coins
here illustrated, believed to have been minted at St. Albans, obviously
feature no physical King but rather the Kaadman or Good Man of St.
Albans in his dual aspect of age and youth. The starry, spotted, or
maculate effigy is apparently an attempt to depict the astral or
spiritual King, for it was an ancient idea that the spirit-body and the
spirit-world were made of a so-called stellar-matter--a notion which has
recently been revived by the Theosophists who speak of the astral body
and the astral plane. Our modern _breath_, old English _breeth_, is
evidently the Welsh _brith_ which means spotted, and it is to this root
that Sir John Rhys attributes the term Brython or Britain, finding in it
a reference to that painting or tattooing of the body which
distinguished the Picts.[276] The word _tattoo_, Maori _tatau_, is the
Celtic _tata_ meaning father, and the implication seems to follow that
the custom of _tattooing_ arose from picking, dotting, or maculating the
tribal totem or caste-mark.
[Illustration: FIGS. 65 and 66.--British. From Akerman.]
In the Old English representation here illustrated either St. Peter or
God the Father is conspicuously tattooed or spotted; Pan was always
assigned a _pan_ther's skin, or spotted cloak.
A _speck_ is a minute spot, and among the ancients a speck or dot within
a circle was the symbol of the central Spook or Spectre. This, like all
other emblems, was understood in a personal and a cosmic sense, the
little speck and circle representing the soul surrounded by its round of
influence and duties; the Cosmic speck, the Supreme Spirit, and the
circle the entire Universe. In many instances the dot and ring seems to
have stood for the pupil in the iris of the eye. In addition it is
evident that [circled dot] was an emblem of the Breast, and
hieroglyphed the speck in the centre of the zone or sein, for the Greek
letter _theta_ written--[circled dot] is identical with _teta,
teat, tada, dot_ or _dad_. The dotted effigy on the coins supposedly
minted at St. Albans may be connoted with the curious fact that in
Welsh the word _alban_ meant _a primary point_.[277]
[Illustration: Fig. 67.--Christ's Ascent from Hell. From _Ancient
Mysteries_ (Hone, W.).]
_Speck_ is the root of _speculum_, a mirror, and it might be suggested
by the materialist that the first reflection in a metal mirror was
assumed to be a spook. The mirror is an attribute of nearly every
ancient Deity, and the British Druids seem to have had some system of
flashing the sunlight on to the crowd by means of what was termed by the
Bards, the Speculum of the Pervading Glance. _Specula_ means a
watch-tower, and _spectrum_ means vision. _Speech, speak_, and _spoke_,
point to the probability that speech was deemed to be the voice of the
indwelling spook or spectre, which etymology is at any rate preferable
to the official surmise "all, perhaps, from Teutonic base _sprek_--to
make a noise".
[Illustration: Fig. 68.--The Mirror of Thoth. From _The
Correspondences of Egypt_ (Odhner, C.T.)]
[Illustration: FIG. 69.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 70 to 72.--British. From _English Coins and
Tokens_ (Jewitt & Head).]
[Illustration: FIG. 73.--From _The Correspondences of Egypt_
(Odhner, C. T.).]
The Egyptian hieroglyph here illustrated depicts the speculum of Thoth,
a deity whom the Phoenicians rendered Taut, and to whom they attributed
the invention of the alphabet and all other arts. The whole land of
Egypt was known among other designations as "the land of the Eye," and
by the Egyptians as also by the Etrurians, the symbolic blue Eye of
Horus was carried constantly as an amulet against bad luck. Fig. 69 is
an Egyptian die-stamp, and Figs. 70 to 72 are British coins of which the
intricate symbolism will be considered in due course. The arms of Fig.
73 are extended into the act of benediction, and _utat_, the Egyptian
word for this symbol, resolves into the soft, gentle, pleasing, and
propitious Tat. That the _utat_ or eye was familiar in Europe is
evidenced by the Kio coin here illustrated.
[Illustration: FIG. 74.--From _Numismatique Ancienne_ (Barthelemy,
J. B. A. A.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 75.--From _Symbolism of the East and West_
(Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).]
_Spica_, which is also the same word as spook, meant ear of corn; the
wheatear is proverbially the Staff of Life, and _loaf_, old English
_loof_, is the same word as _life_. Not infrequently the _Bona Dea_ was
represented holding a loaf in her extended hand, and the same idea was
doubtless expressed by the two breasts upon a dish with which St.
Agatha, whose name means _Good_, is represented. Christianity accounts
for this curious emblem by a legend that St. Agatha was tortured by
having her breasts cut off, and it is quite possible that this nasty
tale is correctly translated; the original tyrant or torturer being
probably Winter, or the reaper Death, which cuts short the fruit fulness
of Spring. In the Tartar emblem herewith the Phrygian-capped Deity is
holding, like St. Agatha, the symbol of the teat or feeder, or
_fodder_.[278]
[Illustration: FIGS. 76 and 77.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
The wheatear or spica, or _buck_-wheat was a frequent emblem on our
British coins, and to account for this it has been suggested that the
British did a considerable export trade in corn; but unfortunately for
this theory the _spica_ figures frequently upon the coins of Spain and
Gaul. As a symbol the buckwheat typified plenty, but in addition to the
wheatear proper there appear kindred objects which have been surmised to
be, perhaps, fishbones, perhaps fern-leaves. There is no doubt that
these mysterious objects are variants of the so-called "_ded_" amulet,
which in Egypt was the symbol of the backbone of the God of Life. This
amulet, of which the hieroglyph has been rendered variously as _ded_,
_didu_, _tet_, and _tat_, has an ancestry of amazing antiquity, and
according to Mackenzie, "in Paleolithic times, at least 20,000 years
ago, the spine of the fish was laid on the corpse when it was entombed,
just as the 'ded,' amulet, which was the symbol of the backbone of
Osiris, was laid on the neck of the Egyptian mummy".[279] Frequently
this "ded" emblem took the form of a column or pillar, which symbolised
the eternal support and stability of the universe. On the summit of Fig.
85 is a bug, _cock_roach, or _cock_chafer: in Etruria as in Egypt the
bug amulet or _scarabeus_ was as popular as the Eye of Horus.
[Illustration: FIGS. 78 to 84.--British. Nos. 1 to 8 from _Ancient
British Coins_ (Evans, J.). No. 4 from _A New
Description of England and Wales_ (Anon., 1724).
No. 5 from _English Coins and Tokens_ (Jewitt & Head).]
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--From _The Correspondences of Egypt_
(Odhner, C. T.).]
In Fig. 68 the spectral Eye was supported by Thoth, whose name varies
into Thot, Taut, and numerous intermediate forms, which equate it with
_ded_ or _dad_: similarly it will be found that practically every
place-name constituted from Tot or Tat varies into Dot or Dad, _e.g._,
Llan_dud_no, where is found the cradle of St. _Tud_no. Sometimes the
Egyptians represented two or more pillars termed _deddu_, and this word
is traceable in Trinidad, an island which, on account of its three great
peaks, was named after _trinidad_, the Spanish for trinity. But
_trinidad_ is evidently a very old Iberian word, for its British form
was _drindod_, as in the place-name Llandrindod or "Holy Enclosure of
the Trinity". The three great mounts on Trinidad, and the three famous
medicinal springs at Llandrindod Wells render it probable that the site
of Llan_drindod_ was originally a pagan dedication to the _trine teat_,
or _triune dad_.
Amid numerous hut circles at Llandudno is a rocking stone known as
Cryd-Tudno, or the Cradle of Tudno. Who was the St. Tudno of Llandudno
whose cradle or cot, like Kit's Coty in Kent, has been thus preserved in
folk-memory? The few facts related of him are manifestly fabulous, but
the name itself seemingly preserves one of the numerous sites where the
Almighty Child of Christmas Day was worshipped, and the _no_ of _Tudno_
may be connoted with _new_, Greek, _neo_, Danish, _ny_, allied to
Sanscrit, _no_, hence _new_, "that which is now".
At Llanamlleck in Wales there is a cromlech known as St. Illtyd's House,
near which is a rude upright stone known as Maen-Illtyd, or
Illtyd-stone. We may connote this _Ill_tyd with _All_-tyd or All Father,
in which respect Illtyd corresponds with the Scandinavian _Ilmatar_,
_Almatar_, or All Mother.
It is told of Saint Illtyd that he befriended a hunted stag, and that
like Semele, the wife of Jove, his wife was stricken with blindness for
daring to approach too near him. The association of Illtyd with a stag
is peculiarly significant in view of the fact that at Llandudno, leading
to the cot or cradle of St. Tudno, are the remains of an avenue of
standing stones called by a name which signifies "the High Road of the
Deer". The branching antlers of the deer being emblems of the dayspring,
the rising or _new_ sun, is a fact somewhat confirmatory of the
supposition that the Cradle of Tudno was the shrine of the new or Rising
Tud, and in all probability the High Road of the Deer was once the scene
of some very curious ceremonies.
Many of our old churches even to-day contain in their lofts antlers
which formed part of the wardrobe of the ancient mummers or guise
dancers.
[Illustration: FIG. 86.--From _Numismatique Ancienne_.]
In the Ephesian coin herewith Diana--the _divine Ana_--the many-breasted
Alma Mater, is depicted in the form of a pillar-palm tree between two
stags. Among the golden treasures found by Schliemann at Mykenæ, were
ornaments representing two stags on the top of a date palm tree with
three fronds.[280] The _date_ palm may be connoted with the _ded_
pillar, and the triple-fronded date of Mykenæ with the trindod or
drindod of Britain.
[Illustration: Assyrian Ornament. (Nimroud.)]
[Illustration: Greek Honeysuckle Ornament.]
[Illustration: Greek Honeysuckle Ornament.]
[Illustration: Sacred Tree (N.W. Palace, Nimroud).]
[Illustration: Ornament on the Robe of King.]
[Illustration: FIG. 87.--From _Nineveh_ (Layard).]
The honeysuckle, termed conventionally a palmette, is classically
represented as either seven or nine-lobed, and this symbol of the
Dayspring or of Wisdom was common alike both East and West. The palm
branch is merely another form of the fern or fish-bone, and the word
palm is radically _alma_, the all nourisher. The palm leaf appears on
one of the stones at New Grange, but as Fergusson remarks, "how a
knowledge of this Eastern plant reached New Grange is by no means
clear".[281] The _feather_ was a further emblem of the same spiritual
_father_, _feeder_, or _fodder_, and in Egypt Ma or Truth was
represented with a single-feather headdress (_ante_, p. 136). From the
mistletoe to the fern, a sprig of any kind was regarded as the
spright, spirit, or spurt of new life or new _Thought_ (_Thaut?_), and
the forms of this young sprig are innumerable. The gist, ghost, or
essence of the Maypole was that it should be a sprout well budded out,
whence to this day at Saffron Walden the children on Mayday sing:--
A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is a sprout that is well budded out,
The work of our Lord's hands.
[Illustration: FIG. 88.--From _Irish Antiquities Pagan and
Christian_ (Wakeman).]
_Teat_ may be equated with the Gaulish _tout_, the whole or All, and it
is probable that the Pelasgian shrine of Dodona was dedicated to that
_All One_ or _Father One_. It is noteworthy that the sway of the
pre-Grecian Pelasgians extended over the whole of the Ionian coast
"beginning from Mykale":[282] this Mykale (_Megale or Michael?_)
district is now Albania, and its capital is Janina, _query_ Queen Ina?
It is probable that Kenna, the fairy princess of Kensington who is
reputed to have loved Albion, was can_na_, the _New King_ or _New
Queen_. On the river Canna in Wales is Llan_gan_ or Llanganna: Llan_gan_
on the river Taff is dedicated to St. Canna, and Llan_gain_ to St.
Synin. All these dedications are seemingly survivals of _King_, _Queen_,
or _Saint_, Ina, Una, Une, ain or one. In Cornwall there are several St.
Euny's Wells: near Evesham is Honeybourne, and in Sussex is a Honey
Child. Upon Honeychurch the authorities comment, "The connection between
a church and honey is not very obvious, and this is probably Church of
_Huna_". Quite likely, but not, I think, a Saxon settler.
The ancients supposed that the world was shaped like a bun, and they
imagined it as supported by the tet or pillar of the Almighty. It is
therefore possible that the Toadstool or Mushroom derived its name not
because toads never sit upon it, but because it was held to be a perfect
emblem of the earth. In some districts the Mushroom is named "Pooka's
foot,"[283] and as the earth is proverbially God's footstool, the
Toad-stool was held seemingly to be the stool of earth supported on the
_ded_, or pillar of Titan. The Fairy Titania, who probably once held
sway in Tottenham Court Road, may be connoted with the French _teton_, a
teat; _tetine_, an udder; _teter_, to milk; and _tetin_, a nipple.
[Illustration: FIG. 89.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
[Illustration: FIG. 90.--The Spirit of Youth. From a French
Miniature of the fourteenth century. From _Christian
Iconography_ (Didron).]
It is probable that "The Five Wells" at Taddington, "the Five Kings at
Doddington," where also is "the Duddo Stone," likewise Dod Law at
Doddington; Dowdeswell, Dudsbury, and the Cornish Dodman, are all
referable originally to the fairy Titan or the celestial Daddy.
[Illustration: FIG. 91.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
In accordance with universal wont this Titan or Almighty, "this
senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid," was conceived as anon a tiny
toddling tot or Tom-tit-tot, anon as Old Tithonus, the doddering dotard:
the Swedish for _death_ or _dead_ is _dod_; the German is _tod_. _Tod_
is an English term for a fox, and Thot was the fox or _jackal_-headed
maker-of-tracts or guide: thought is invariably the guide to every
action, and Divine Thought is the final bar to which the human soul
comes up for judgment. It has already been seen that in Europe the
holder of the sword and scales was Michael, and there is reason to
suppose that the Dog-headed titanic Christopher, who is said to have
ferried travellers _pick-a-back_ across a river, was at one time an
exquisite conception of Great Puck or Father Death carrying his children
over the mystic river. By the _pagans_--the unsophisticated villagers
among whom Pucca mostly survived--Death was conceived as not invariably
or necessarily frightful, but sometimes as a lovely youth. In Fig. 91
Death is Amor or Young Love, and in Fig. 90 an angel occupies the place
of Giant Christopher: the words _death_ and _dead_ are identical with
_dad_ and _tod_.
[Illustration: FIG. 92.--Figure of Christ, beardless. Roman
Sculpture of the IV. cent.
From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
[Illustration: FIG. 93.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 94.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
The Christian emblems herewith represent Christ supported by the Father
or Mother upon a veil or scarf, which is probably intended for the
rainbow or spectrum: the pagan Europa was represented, _vide_ Fig. 93,
holding a similar emblem. According to mythology, Iris or the Rainbow
was like Thot or Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods, and the symbolists
delighted to blend into their hieroglyphs that same elusive ambiguity as
separates Iris from Eros and the blend of colours in the spectrum.
In the ninth century a learned monk expressed the opinion that only two
words of the old Iberian language had then survived: one of these was
_fern_, meaning _anything good_, and with it we may connote the Fern
Islands among which stands the Megstone. Ferns, the ancient capital of
Leinster, attributes its foundation to a St. Mogue, and St. Mogue's Well
is still existing in the precincts of Ferns Abbey. The equation of Long
Meg and her Daughters with Ursula and the Eleven Thousand Virgins is
supported by the tradition that the original name of St. Ursula's
husband was Holofernes,[284] seemingly Holy Ferns or Holy Phoroneus.
What is described as "the highest term in Grecian history" was the
ancestral Inachus, the father of a certain Phoroneus. The fabulous
Inachus[285]--probably the Gaelic divinity Oengus[286]--is the _Ancient
Mighty Life_, and Phoroneus is radically fern or frond. There figures in
Irish mythology "a very ancient deity" whose name, judging from
inscriptions, was Feron or Vorenn, and it is noteworthy that Oengus is
associated particularly with New Grange, where the fern palm leaf emblem
has been preserved. The Dutch for _fern_ is _varen_, and the root of all
these terms is _fer_ or _ver_: the Latin _ferre_ is the root of
_fertile_, etc., and in connection with the Welsh _ver_, which means
essence, may be noted _ver_ the Spring and _vert_, green, whence
_verdant, verdure, vernal,_ and _infernal_(?).
Among the ferns whose spine-like fishbone fronds seemingly caused them
to be accepted as emblems of the fertile Dayspring or the permeating
Spirit of all Life, the _osmunda_ was particularly associated with the
Saints and Gods: in the Tyrol it is still placed over doors for Good
Luck, and one species of Osmunda (_Crispa_) is in Norway called St.
Olaf's Beard. This is termed by Gerarde the Herb Christopher, and the
Latin _crispa_ somewhat connects it with Christopher. The name Osmund is
Teutonic for _divine protector_, but more radically Osmunda was _oes
munda_, or the _Life of the World_. In Devonshire the Pennyroyal is also
known as _organ_, _organy_, _organie_, or _origane_, all of which are
radically the same as _origin_.
[Illustration: FIGS. 95 to 102.--British. Nos. [ ] to [ ] from Akerman.
Nos. [ ] to [ ] from Evans.]
[Illustration: FIG. 103.--Green Man (Roxburghe Ballads, circa
1650).--From _The History of Signboards_ (Larwood &
Hotten).]
The British coins inscribed Ver are believed to have emanated from
Verulam or St. Albans, but the same VER, VIR, or kindred legend is found
upon the coins of Iberia and Gaul. It is not improbable that Verulam was
at one time the chief city in Albion, but the place which now claims to
be the mother city is Canterbury or Duro_vern_. The ancient name of
Canterbury is supposed to have been bestowed upon it by the Romans, and
to have denoted _evergreen_; but Canterbury is not physically more
evergreen than every other spot in verdant England: Canterbury is,
however, permeated with relics, memories, and traditions of St. George;
and St. George is still addressed in Palestine as the "evergreen green
one". Green was the symbol of rejuvenescence and immortality, and "the
Green Man" of our English Inn Signs, as also the Jack-in-Green who used
to figure along with Maid Marian and the Hobby Horse in the festivities
of May Day, was representative of the May King or the Lord of Life. The
colour green, according to the Ecclesiastical authorities, still
signifies "hope, plenty, mirth, youth, and prosperity": as the colour of
living vegetation, it was adopted as a symbol of life, and Angels and
Saints, _particularly St. John_, are represented clad in green. In Gaul
the Green Man was evidently conceived as Ver Galant, and the two cups,
one inverted, in all probability implied Life and Death. According to
Christian Legend, St. George was tortured by being forced to drink two
cups, whereof the one was prepared to make him mad, the other to kill
him by poison. The prosperity of an emblem lies entirely in the Eye, and
it is probable that all the alleged dolours to which George was
subjected are nothing more than the morbid misconceptions of men whose
minds dwelt normally on things most miserable and conceived little
higher. Thus seemingly the light-shod Mercury was degraded into George's
alleged torture of being "made to run in red hot shoes": the heavy
pillars laid upon him suggest that he was once depicted bearing up the
pillars of the world: the wheel covered with razors and knives to which
he was attached imply the solar wheel of Kate or Catarina: the posts to
which he was fastened by the feet and hands were seemingly a variant of
the _deddu_, and the sledge hammers with which he was beaten were, like
many other of the excruciating torments of the "saint," merely and
inoffensively the emblems of the Heavenly Hercules or Invictus.
[Illustration: FIG. 104.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 105.--Ver Galant (Rue Henri, Lyons, 1759). From
_The History of Signboards_.]
[Illustration: FIG. 106.--Green Man and Still (Harleian Collection,
1630). _Ibid._]
Maid Marion, who was not infrequently associated with St. George, is
radically _Maid Big Ion_, or _Fairy Ion_, and that St. George was also a
marine saint is obvious from the various Channels which still bear his
name. The ensign of the Navy is the red cross on a white ground, known
originally as the Christofer or Jack, and in Fig. 106 the Green Man is
represented with the scales of a Merman, or Blue John. The Italian for
blue is _vera_; _vera_ means _true_; "true blue" is proverbial; and that
Old George was Trajan, Tarchon, Tarragone, or _Dragon_ is obvious from
the dragon-slaying incident. Little George has already been identified
by Baring-Gould with Tammuz, the Adonis, or Beauty, who is identified
with the Sun:[287] "Thou shining and vanishing in the beauteous circle
of the Horæ, dwelling at one time in gloomy Tartarus, at another
elevating thyself to Olympus, giving ripeness to the fruits".[288]
[Illustration: FIG. 107.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]
The St. George of Diospolis, the City of Light, who by the early
Christians was hailed as "the Mighty Man," the "Star of the Morning,"
and the "Sun of Truth," figures in Cornwall, particularly at Helston,
where there is still danced the so-called _Furry_ dance: Helston,
moreover, claims to show the great granite stone which was intended to
cover the mouth of the Nether Regions, but St. Michael met Satan
carrying it and made him drop it.
It is unnecessary to labour the obvious identity between Saints George
and Michael: "George," meaning _husbandman_, _i.e._, the Almighty in a
bucolic aspect, is merely another title for the archangel, but more
radically it may be traced to _geo_ (as in _ge_ology, _ge_ography,
_ge_ometry) and _urge_, _i.e._, _earth urge_. It is physically true that
farmers urge the earth to yield her increase, and until quite recently,
relics of the festival of the sacred plough survived in Britain. Within
living memory farmers in Cornwall turned the first sod to the formula
"In the name of God let us begin":[289] in China, where the Emperor
himself turns the first sod, much of the ancient ceremonies still
survive.
The legend of St. George and the dragon has had its local habitation
fixed in many districts notably in Berkshire at the vale of the White
Horse. The famous George of Cappadocia is first heard of as "a purveyor
of provisions for the Army of Constantinople," and he was subsequently
associated with a certain Dracontius (_i.e._, _dragon_), "Master of the
Mint". The same legend is assigned at Lambton in England not to George
but to "_John_ that slew ye worm": in Turkey St. George is known as
Oros, which is obviously Horus or Eros, the Lord of the Horæ or hours,
and the English dragon-slayer Conyers of _Sockburn_ is presumably King
Yers, whose burn or brook was presumably named after Shock or Jock. In
some parts of England a bogey dog is known under the title of "Old
Shock," and in connection with Conyers and John that slew ye worm may be
noted near Conway the famous Llandudno headlands, Great and Little
_Orme_ or _Worm_.
The St. George of Scandinavia is named Gest: that Gest was the great
_Gust_ or Mighty Wind is probable, and it is more likely that Windsor,
a world-famous seat of St. George, meant, not as is assumed _winding
shore_, but _wind sire_. That St. George was the Ruler of the gusts or
winds is implied by the fact that among the Finns, anyone brawling on
St. George's Day was in danger of suffering from storms and tempests.
The murmuring of the wind in the oak groves of Dodona was held to be the
voice of Zeus, and the will of the All Father was there further deduced
by means of a three-chained whip hanging over a metal basin from the
hand of the statue of a boy. From the movements of these chains,
agitated by the wind and blown by the gusts till they tinkled against
the bowl, the will of the _Ghost_ was guessed, and the word _guess_
seemingly implies that guessing was regarded as the operation of the
good or bad _geis_ within. In Windsor Great Forest stood the famous Oak
or Picktree, where Puck, _alias_ Herne the Hunter, appeared occasionally
in the form of an antlered Buck. The supposition that St. George was the
great _Gush_ or _geyser_ is strengthened by the fact that near the
Cornish Padstow, Petrock-Stowe, or the stowe of the Great Pater, there
is a well called St. George's Well. This well is described as a "mere
spring which gushes from a rock," and the legend states that the water
gushed forth immediately St. George had trodden on the spot and has
ne'er since ceased to flow.
The Italian for blue--the colour of the deep water and of the high
Heavens--is also _turchino_, and on 23rd April (French _Avril_), blue
coats used to be worn in England in honour of the national saint whose
red cross on a white ground has immemorially been our Naval
Ensign.[290] St. George figured particularly in the Furry or Flora
dance at Helston, and the month of _Avril_, a period when the earth is
opening up its treasures, seemingly derives its name from Ver or Vera,
the "daughter deare" of Flora. On 23rd April "the riding of the George"
was a principal solemnity in certain parts of England: on St. George's
Day a White Horse used to stand harnessed at the end of St. George's
Chapel in St. Martin's Church, Strand, and the Duncannon Street, which
now runs along the south side of this church, argues the erstwhile
existence either here or somewhere of a dun or down of cannon. A cannon
is a gun, and our Dragoon guards are supposed to have derived their
title from the dragons or fire-arms with which they were armed. The
inference is that the first inventors of the gun, cannon, or dragon,
entertained the pleasing fancy that their weapon was the fire-spouting
worm.[291] The dragon was the emblem of the _Cyn_bro or Kymry:
associated with the red cross of St. George it is the cognisance of
London, and a fearsome dragon stands to-day at the boundary of the city
on the site of Temple Bar.
In the reign of Elizabeth an injunction was issued that "there shall be
neither George nor Margaret," an implication that Margaret was once the
recognised Consort of St. George, and the expression "riding of the
George," points to the probability that the White Horse, even if
riderless, was known as "the George". The White Horse of Kent with its
legend INVICTA implies--unless Heraldry is weak in its grammar--not a
horse but a mare: George was Invictus or the Unconquerable, and, as will
be seen, there are good reasons to suppose that the White Horse and
White Mare were indigenous to Britain long before the times of the Saxon
Hengist and Horsa. It is now generally accepted that Hengist, which
meant _horse_, and Horsa, which meant _mare_, were mythical characters.
With the coming of the Saxons no doubt the worship of the White Horse
revived for it was an emblem of Hanover, and in Hanover cream-coloured
horses were reserved for the use of royalty alone. With the notorious
Hanoverian Georges may be connoted the fact that opposite St. George's
Island at Looe (Cornwall) is a strand or market-place named Hannafore:
at Hinover in Sussex a white horse was carved into the hillside.
[Illustration: FIG. 108.--From _The Scouring of the White Horse_
(Hughes, T.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 109.--British. From _A New Description of England_
(1724).]
[Illustration: FIGS. 110 to 113.--British No. 110 from Camden. No. 112
from Akerman. No. 113 from Evans.]
[Illustration: FIG. 114.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 115 and 116.--British. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 117.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 118.--British. From Evans.]
[Illustration: FIG. 119.--British. From Akerman.]
The White Horse--which subsequently became the Hobby Horse, or the Hob's
Horse, of our popular revels--has been carved upon certain downs in
England and Scotland for untold centuries. That these animals were
designedly white is implied by an example on the brown heather hills of
Mormond in Aberdeenshire: here the subsoil is black and the required
white has been obtained by filling in the figure with white felspar
stones.[292] It will be noticed that the White Horse at Uffington as
reproduced overleaf is beaked like a bird, and has a remarkable
dot-and-circle eye: in Figs. 110 to 113 the animal is similarly beaked,
and in Fig. 111 the object in the bill is seemingly an egg. The designer
of Fig. 109 has introduced apparently a goose or swan's head, and also a
sprig or branch. The word BODUOC may or may not have a relation to
Boudicca or Boadicea of the Ikeni--whose territories are marked by the
Ichnield Way of to-day--but in any case _Boudig_ in Welsh meant victory
or Victorina, whence the "very peculiar horse" on this coin may be
regarded as a prehistoric Invicta. The St. George of Persia there known
as Mithras was similarly worshipped under the guise of a white horse,
and Mithras was similarly "Invictus". The winged genius surmounting the
horse on Fig. 114, a coin of the Tarragona, Tarchon, or _dragon_
district--is described as "Victory flying," and there is little doubt
that the idea of White Horse or Invictus was far spread. At Edgehill
there used to be a Red Horse carved into the soil, and the tenancy of
the neighbouring Red Horse Farm was held on the condition that the
tenant scoured the Red Horse annually _on Palm Sunday_: the palm is the
emblem of Invictus, and it will be noticed how frequently the palm
branch appears in conjunction with the horse on our British coinage.
[Illustration: FIG. 120.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 121.]
The story of St. George treading on the Padstow Rock, and the subsequent
gush of water, is immediately suggestive of the Pegasus legend. Pegasus,
the winged steed of the Muses, which, with a stroke of its hoof, caused
a fountain to gush forth, is supposed to have been thus named because he
made his first appearance near the _sources_--Greek _pegai_--of Oceanus.
It is obvious, however, from the coins of Britain, Spain, and Gaul, that
Pegasus--occasionally astral-winged and hawk-headed--was very much at
home in these regions, and it is not improbable that _pegasus_ was
originally the Celtic _Peg Esus_. The god Esus of Western Europe--one of
whose portraits is here given--was not only King Death, but he is
identified by De Jubainville with Cuchulainn, the Achilles or Young Sun
God of Ireland.[293] Esus, the counterpart of Isis, was probably the
divinity worshipped at Uzes in Gaul, a coin of which town, representing
a seven-rayed sprig springing from a brute, is here reproduced, and that
King Esus or King Osis was the Lord of profound speculation, is somewhat
implied by _gnosis_, the Greek word for knowledge. Tacitus mentions that
the neighing of the sacred white horse of the Druids was regarded as
oracular; the voice of a horse is termed its neigh, from which it would
seem horses were regarded as super-intelligent animals which
_knew_.[294] The inscription CUN or CUNO which occurs so frequently on
the horse coins of Western Europe is seemingly akin to _ken_, the root
of _know_, _knew_, _canny_, and _cunning_. In India the elephant
_Ganesa_--seemingly a feminine form of _Genesis_ and _Gnosis_--was
deemed to be the Lord of all knowledge.
In connection with Pegasus may be noted Buk_ephalus_, the famed steed of
Alexander. The Inscriptions EPPILLUS and EPPI[295] occur on the Kentish
coins, Figs. 122 and 123; _hipha_ or _hippa_ was the Phoenician for a
mare; in Scotland the nightmare is known as _ephi_altus; a _hippo_drome
is a horse course, whence, perhaps, Bukephalus may be translated Big
Eppilus. The little elf or elve under a bent sprig is presumably Bog or
Puck, and in connection with the _Eagle_-headed Pegasus of Fig. 164 may
be noted the Puckstone by the megalithic _Aggle_ Stone at Pur_beck_,
where is a St. Alban's Head.[296]
[Illustration: FIGS. 122 and 123.--British. From Akerman.]
Whether or not Pegasus was Big Esus or Peg or Puck Esus is immaterial,
but it is quite beyond controversy that the animals now under
consideration are Elphin Steeds and that they are not the "deplorable
abortions" which numismatists imagine. The recognised authorities are
utterly contemptuous towards our coinage, to which they apply terms such
as "very rude," "an attempt to represent a horse," "barbarous
imitation," and so forth; but I am persuaded that the craftsmen who
fabricated these archaic coins were quite competent to draw
straightforward objects had such been their intent. Akerman is seriously
indignant at the indefiniteness of the object which resembles a fishbone
and "has been called a fern leaf," and he sums up his feelings by
opining that this uncouth representation may be as much the result of
incompetent workmanship as of successive fruitless attempts at
imitation.[297]
[Illustration: FIGS. 124 to 127.--Iberian. From Barthelemy.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 128 and 129.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 130.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]
Incompetent comprehension would condemn Figs. 124 to 129, particularly
the draughtsmanship of the head: it is hardly credible, yet, says
Akerman, the small winged elf in these coins "apparently escaped the
observation of M. de Saulcy". They emanated from the Tarragonian town of
Ana or Ona, and are somewhat suggestive of the mythic tale that Minerva
sprang from the head of Jove: the horses on the Gaulish coin illustrated
in Fig. 130, which is attributed either to Verdun or Vermandois, are
inscribed VERO IOVE and that Jou was the White Horse is, to some extent,
implied by our elementary words _Gee_ and _Geho_. According to Hazlitt
"the exclamation Geho! Geho! which carmen use to their horses is not
peculiar to this country, as I have heard it used in France":[298] it is
probable that the Jehu who drove furiously was a memory of the solar
charioteer; it is further probable that the story of Io, the divinely
fair daughter of Inachus, who was said to have been pursued over the
world by a malignant gadfly, originated in the lumpish imagination of
some one who had in front of him just such elfin emblems as the pixy
horse now under consideration. That in reality the gadfly was a good
_mouche_ is implied by the term gad: the inscription KIO on Fig. 74 (p.
253) reads Great Io or Great Eye, and in connection with the remarkable
optic of the White Horse at Uffington may be connoted the place-name
Horse Eye near _Bex_hill. The curious place-name Beckjay in Shropshire
is suggestive of Big Jew or Joy: the blue-crested monarch of the woods
we call a jay (Spanish, _gayo_, "of doubtful origin") was probably the
bird of Jay or Joy--just as _picus_ or the crested woodpecker was
admittedly Jupiter's bird--and the Jaye's Park in Surrey, which is in
the immediate neighbourhood of Godstone, Gadbrooke, and Kitlands, was
seemingly associated at some period with Good Jay or Joy.
We speak ironically to-day of our "Jehus," and the word _hack_ still
survives: in Chaucer's time English carters encouraged their horses with
the exclamation Heck![299] the Irish for _horse_ was _ech_, and the
inscription beneath the effigy on Fig. 131, a Tarragonian coin, reads,
according to Akerman, EKK. That the _hack_ was connected in idea with
the oak is somewhat implied by a horse ornament in my possession, the
eye or centre of which is represented by an oak corn or _ac_orn. In the
North of England the elves seem to have been known as _hags_, for fairy
rings are there known as _hag_ tracks. The word _hackney_ is identical
with Boudicca's tribe the Ikeni, and it is believed that Cæsar's
reference to the Cenimagni or Cenomagni refers to the Ikeni: whence it
is probable that the Ikeni, like the Cantii, were worshippers of
Invicta, the Great Hackney, the _Ceni Magna_ or Hackney Magna.
The water horse which figures overleaf may be connoted with the Scotch
kelpie, which is radically _ek Elpi_ or _Elfi_: the kelpie or water
horse of Scotch fairy lore is a ghastly spook, just as Alpa in
Scandinavia is a ghoul and _Ephialtes_ in Albany or Scotland is a
nightmare: but there must almost certainly have been a White Kelpie, for
the Greeks held a national horse race which they termed the Calpe, and
Calpe is the name of the mountain which forms the European side of the
Pillars of Hercules. From the surnames Killbye and Gilbey one may
perhaps deduce a tribe who were followers of _'K Alpe_ the _Great All
Feeder_: that the kelpie was regarded as the fourfold feeder is obvious
from the four most unnatural teats depicted on the Pixtil coin of Fig.
133.
[Illustration: FIG. 131.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 132.--British. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 133.--Channel Islands. From Barthelemy.]
The Welsh form of Alphin is Elphin, and the Cornish height known as
Godolphin--whence the family name Godolphin--implies, like Robin
Goodfellow, _Good Elphin_. With Elphin, Alban, and Hobany may be
connected the Celtic Goddess Epona, "the tutelar deity of horses and
probably originally a horse totem". To Epona may safely be assigned the
word _pony_; Irish _poni_; Scotch _powney_, all of which the authorities
connect with _pullus_, the Latin for _foal_: it is quite true there is a
_p_ in both. We have already traced a connection between neighing,
knowing, kenning, and cunning, and there is seemingly a further
connection between Epona, the Goddess of Horses, and _opine_, for
according to Plato the horse signified "reason and _opinion_ coursing
about through natural things".[300]
British horses used to be known familiarly as Joan, and the term
_jennet_ presumably meant _Little Joan_: the Italian for a _hackney_ is
_chinea_. At Hackney, which now forms part of London, there is an Abney
Park which was once, it may be, associated with Hobany or Epona: the
main street of Hackney or Haconey (which originally contained the Manor
of Hoxton) is Mare Street; and this _mare_ was seemingly the Ken_mure_
whose traces are perpetuated in Kenmure Road, Hackney. At the corner of
Seven Sisters Road is the church of St. Olave, and the neighbouring
Alvington Street suggests that this Kingsland Road district was once a
town or down of Alvin the Elphin King. Godolphin Hill in Cornwall was
alternatively known as Godolcan, and there is every reason to suppose
that Elphin was the good old king, the good all-king, and the good holy
king.
Hackney was seemingly once one of the many congregating "Londons," and
we may recognise Elen or Ollan in London Fields, London Lane, Lyne
Grove, Olinda (or Good Olin) Road, Londesborough Road, Ellingfort (or
Strong Ellin) Road, Lenthall (or Tall Elen) Road. In Linscott Street
there stood probably at one time a Cot, Cromlech, or "Kit's Coty," and
at the neighbouring Dalston[301] was very possibly a Tallstone,
equivalent to the Cornish _tal carn_ or _high rock_.
The adjective _long_ or _lanky_ is probably of Hellenic origin, and the
giants or long men sometimes carved in hill-sides (as at Cerne Abbas)
were like all Longstones once perhaps representations of Helen.
[Illustration: FIG. 134.--"Metal ornaments found on horse trappings
(North Lincolnshire, 1907). Nos. 1-8 represent forms
of the crescent amulet; Nos. 8-11, the horseshoe. No.
12 is a well-known mystic symbol. No. 15 shows the
cross potencée, and No. 16 the cross patée: these seem
to denote Christian influence. Nos. 13 and 14 indicate
the decay of folk memory concerning amulets, though
_the heart pattern was originally talismanic_. Nos. 7
and 8 form bridle 'plumes,' No. 6 is a hook for a
bearing-rein; the remainder are either forehead
medallions or breeching decorations. The patterns 1-4,
9, 11, 13, 14, and 16, are fairly common in London."
From _Folk Memory_ (Johnson, W.). ]
[Illustration: FIG. 135.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 136.--British. From Evans.]
The Town Hall at Hackney stands on a plot of ground known as Hackney
Grove, and the neighbouring Mildmay Park and Mildmay Grove suggest a
grove or sanctuary of the Mild May or Mary. That Pegasus was known
familiarly in this district is implied by the White Horse Inn on Hackney
Marshes and by its neighbour "The Flying Horse": Hackney neighbours
Homerton, and that the national Hackney or _mare_ was Homer or Amour is
obvious from Fig. 135, where a heart, the universal emblem of _amour_,
is represented at its Hub, navel, or bogel. According to Sir John Evans
the "principal characteristic" of Fig. 136 is "the heart-shaped figure
between the forelegs of the horse, the meaning of which I am at a loss
to discover":[302] but any yokel could have told Sir John the meaning of
the heart or hearts which are still carved into tree trunks, and were
rarely anything else than the emblems of Amor. The observant Londoner
will not fail to notice particularly on May Day--the Mary or Mother
Day--when our Cockney horses parade in much of their immemorial finery
and pomp--that golden hearts, stringed in long sequences over the
harness, are conspicuous among the half-moons, stars, and other
prehistoric emblems of the Bona dea or pre-Christian Mary.
Hackney includes the churches of St. Mary, St. Michael, and St. Jude:
Jude is the same word as _good_, and the St. Jude of Scripture who was
surnamed Thadee, and was said to be the son of Alpheus, is apparently
Good Tadi or Daddy, _alias_ St. Alban the All Good, the Kaadman. St.
Jude is also St. Chad, and there was a celebrated Chadwell[303] at the
end of the Marylebone Road now known as St. Pancras or King's Cross: at
King's Cross there is a locality still known as Alpha Place.
At Hackney is a Gayhurst Road, which may imply an erstwhile hurst or
wood of Gay or Jay, and "at the south end of Springfield Road there is a
curious and interesting little hamlet lying on the water's edge. The
streets are very steep, and some of them extremely narrow--mere passages
like the wynds in Edinburgh."[304] This little hamlet is "encircled" by
Mount Pleasant Lane, whence one may assume that the eminence itself was
known at some time or other as Mount Pleasant.
The "Mount Pleasant" at Hackney may be connoted with the more famous
"Mount Pleasant" at Dun Ainy, Knock Ainy, or the Hill of Aine in
Limerick. The "_pleasant_ hills" of Ireland were defined as
"_ceremonial_ hills," and it was particularly on the night of All
Hallows that the immemorial ceremonies were there observed. To this day
Aine or Ana, a beautiful and gracious water-spirit, "the best-natured of
women," is reverenced at Knockainy, and the legend persists that "Aine
promised to save bloodshed if the hill were given to her till the end of
the world".[305] That Mount Pleasant at Hackney or Hackoney was
similarly dedicated to High Aine or Ana is an inference to which the
facts seem clearly to point.
It would also be permissible to interpret Hackney as Oaken Island, in
which light it may be connoted with Glastonbury, the word _glaston_
being generally supposed to be _glasten_, the British for oak.
Glastonbury, the celebrated Avalon, Apple Island, Apollo Island, or Isle
of Rest, was a world-famous "Mount Pleasant," and on its most elevated
height there stands St. Michael's Tower. Glastonbury itself,[306] "its
two streets forming a perfect cross," is almost engirdled by a little
river named the _Brue_. The French town _Bray_ is in the so-called
Santerre or Holy-land district: the remains of a megalithic _santerre_,
_saintuarie_ or sanctuary are still standing at Abury or Aubury in
Wiltshire, and we may equate this place-name with _abri_, a generic term
in French, "origin unknown," for _sanctuary_ or refuge.
Near Bray, Santerre, is Auber's Ridge, which may be connoted with Aubrey
Walk, the highest spot in Kensington, and it would seem that _Abury's_,
_abris_, or "Mount Pleasants" were once plentiful in the bundle of
communities, townships, parishes, and lordships which have now merged
into the Greater London: Ebury Square in the South-West may mark one,
and Highbury in the North, with its neighbouring "Mount Pleasant,"
another.
The immortal Mount Pleasant of the Muses was named Helicon, and from
here sprang the celebrated fountains Aganippe and Hippocrene. At
Holywell in Wales there is a village called Halkin lying at the foot of
a hill named Helygen: there is a Heligan Hill in Cornwall, and a river
Olcan in Hereford: there is an Alconbury in Hunts, and an Elkington
(Domesday Alchinton) at Louth. An Elk is a gigantic buck whose radiating
antlers are so fern-like that a genus has appropriately been designated
the Elk fern. Ilkley in Yorkshire is thought to be the Olicana of
Ptolemy, and there is standing to-day at Ramsgate a Holy Cone or Helicon
modernised into "Hallicondane". The _dane_ here probably implies a _dun_
or hill-fort, and the _Hallicon_ itself consists of a peak crossed by
four roads.[307] This Ramsgate Hallicondane, which stands by Allington
Park, may have been a _dun_ of the Elle or Elf King: in France Hellequin
is associated with Columbine, and the little figure labelled CUIN
(_infra_, p. 397 Fig. 336), may be identified with this virgin. The
Alcantara district to which this Cuin coin has been attributed was, it
may safely be assumed, a _tara_, _tre_, or _troy_ of Alcan.
On the top of Tory Hill in Kilkenny, _i.e._, _Kenny's Church_, stood a
pagan altar: the more famous Tara or Temair is associated primarily with
a "son of Ollcain"; it is said next to have passed into the possession
of a certain Cain, and to have been known as _Druim Cain_ or "Cain's
Ridge".[308]
Halcyon days mean blissful, pleasant, radiant, ideal, days, and of the
Holy King or All King the blue jewelled King-fisher or Halcyon seems to
have been a symbol. Whether there be any connection between Elgin and
the Irish Hooligans, or whether these trace their origin to the "son of
Ollcain," I do not know. From the colossal Kinia and Acongagua down to
the humblest _peg_, every _peak_ seems to have been similarly named. The
pimple is a diminutive hill or _pock_, and the _pykes_ of Cumberland
are the _peaks_ of Derbyshire. At the summit of the Peak District
stands Buxton, claiming to be the highest market-town in England: around
Buxton, formerly written "Bawkestanes," still stand cromlechs and other
Poukelays or Buk stones: Backhouse is a surname in the Buxton district,
and the original Backhouses may well have worshipped either Bacchus,
_i.e._, St. Baccho, or the gentle Baucis who merged into a Linden tree.
[Illustration: FIG. 137.--Ancient Pagan Altar on Tory Hill. From
_Sketches of Irish History_ (Anon., 1844).]
Near Buxton are the sources of the river Wye, and by Wye in Kent, near
Kennington, we find Olantigh Park, St. Alban's Court, Mount Pleasant,
Little London, and Trey Town: by the church at Wye are two inns, named
respectively "The Old Flying Horse," and "The New Flying Horse"; Wye
races are still held upon an egg-shaped course, and close to Kennington
Oval--which I am unable to trace beyond its earlier condition of a
market-garden--stands a celebrated "White Horse Inn". At Kennington by
Wye a roadside inn sign is "The Golden Ball," which once presumably
implied the Sun or Sol, for in the immediate neighbourhood is Soles
Court.
[Illustration: FIG. 138.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
The horse was a constantly recurring emblem in the coins of Hispania,
and the object on the Iberian coin here illustrated is defined by
Akerman as "an apex": the appearance of this symbol, seemingly a spike
or peg posed upon a teathill, on an Iberian or Aubreyan coin is evidence
of its sanctity in West Europe. Theologians of the Dark Ages have been
ridiculed for debating the number of angels that could stand upon a
pin-point, but it is more than probable that the question was a subject
of discussion long before their time: the Chinese believe that "at the
beginning of Creation the chaos floated as a fish skims along the
surface of a river; from whence arose something like a _thorn_ or
_pickle_, which, being capable of motion and variation, became a soul or
spirit".[309] The fairy sanctity of the thorn bush would therefore seem
to have arisen from its _spikes_, and the abundance of these emblems
would naturally elevate it into the house or abode of _spooks_: the
burning bush, in which form the Almighty is said to have appeared before
Moses, was, according to Rabbinical tradition, a thorn bush: the Elluf
and the Alvah trees--the _aleph_ or the _alpha_ trees?--are described as
large thorned species of Acacia; and the spiky acacia, Greek _Akakia_,
is related to _akis_, a point or thorn.
One of the attributes of the Man-in-the-Moon is a Thorn Bush, whence
Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Moonshine, "This thorn bush is my
thorn bush; and this dog my dog". The Man-in-the-Moon being identified
with _Cain_, it becomes interesting to note that the surname Kennett is
accepted as a Norman diminutive of _chien_, a dog.[310] On p. 149--a
mediæval papermark--the Wanderer is surmounted by a bush; a bush is a
little tree, and the word _bush_ (of unknown origin) is a variant of
Bogie--also of _bougie_, the French for candle: bushes and briars were
the acknowledged haunts of Bogie, _alias_ Hobany or Hob-with-a-canstick
or bougie.
_Bouche_ used to be an English word meaning meat and drink, whence Stow,
referring to the English archers, says they had _bouch_ of court (to
wit, meat and drink) and great wages of sixpence by the day.[311] In
Rome and elsewhere a suspended bush was the sign of an inn, whence the
expression "Good wine needs no bush": the _bouche_ or mouth is where
meat and drink goes in, similarly _mouth_ may be connoted with the
British _meath_, meaning nourishment. _Peck_ is also an old word for
provender, and we still speak of feeling peckish.[312]
The word _bucket_--allied to Anglo-Saxon _buc_, meaning a
pitcher--implies that this variety of large can or mug was used for peck
purposes: the illustration herewith, representing the decoration on a
bronze bucket found at Lake Maggiore, consists of speck-centred circles,
and dotted, spectral, or maculate geese, bucks, and horses.
[Illustration: FIG. 139.--Bronze from bucket, Sesto Calendo, Lake
Maggiore. From the British Museum's _Guide to the
Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_.]
It is unnecessary to dilate on the great importance played in civic life
by inns: numberless place-names are directly traceable to inn-signs; and
the brewing of church ales, considered in conjunction with facts which
will be noted in a subsequent chapter, make it almost certain that
churches once dispensed food and drink and that _inn_ was originally an
earlier name for church. Among the inscriptions of the catacombs is one
which the authorities believe marks the sepulchre of a brewer: but these
pictographs are without exception emblems, and it is more likely that
the design in question (Fig. 140) stands for "that Brewer,"[313] the
Lord of the Vineyard, or the Vinedresser. The Green Man with his Still
implies a brewer; the distilling of Benedictine is still an
ecclesiastical occupation, and the word _brew_ suggests that brewing was
once the peculiar privilege of the _pères_ or priests who brewed the
sacred ales. The word _keg_ is the same as the familiar Black _Jack_,
and under _jug_ Skeat writes: "Drinking vessels of all kinds were
formerly called _jocks_, _jills_, and _jugs_, all of which represent
Christian names. Jug and Judge were usual as pet female names, and
equivalent to Jenny or Joan."
[Illustration: FIG. 140.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
The Hackney inn known as "The Flying Horse" may possibly owe its
foundation and sign to the Templars, who possessed property in Hackney:
the Templars' badge of Pegasus still persists in the Temple at
Whitefriars, and the circular churches of the Templars had certainly
some symbolic connection with Sun or Golden Ball. At Jerusalem, the
ideal city which was always deemed to be the hub, bogel, or navel of the
world, there are some extraordinary rock-hewn water tanks, known as the
stables of King Solomon: Jerusalem was known as Hierosolyma or Holy
Solyma, and that Solyma, Salem, or Peace was associated in Europe with
the horse is clear from the coin of the Gaulish tribe known as the
Solmariaca (Fig. 141). The animal here represented is treading under
foot a dragon or scorpion, and the Solmariaca, whose city is now
Soulosse, were seemingly followers of Solmariak, the Sol Mary, or Fairy.
The aim of the _Free_masons is the rebuilding of the Temple of Solomon
or Wisdom, and it is quite evident that the front view of a temple on
Fig. 142 is not the representation of a material building such as the
Houses of Parliament now depicted on our modern paper-money. The centre
of Fig. 142 is a four-specked cross, the centre-piece of Fig. 143 is the
six-breasted Virgin, and Fig. 144 is a very elaborated pantheon,
hierarchy, or habitation of All Hallows: the inscription reads BASILICA
ULPIA, _i.e._, _The Church_ Ulpia.
[Illustration: FIG. 141.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 142.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 143.--From Barthelemy.]
[Illustration: FIG. 144.--From Barthelemy.]
[Illustration: FIG. 145.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
Abdera, now Adra, is a Spanish town on the shores of the Mediterranean,
founded, according to Strabo, by the Tyrians, and the name thus seems to
connote a _tre_ of _Ab_ or Hob. I have elsewhere endeavoured to prove
that King Solomon, the Mighty Controller of the Jinns, was the Eye of
Heaven or the Sun, and this emblem appears in the triangle or delta of
Fig. 145: the corresponding inscription on Fig. 145 are Phoenician
characters, reading THE SUN,[314] and the curious fish-pillars are
almost certainly a variant of the _deddu_. In Ireland a Salmon of Wisdom
enters largely into Folklore: the word _salmon_ is Solomon or Wisdom, as
also is _solemn_: in Latin _solemn_ is _solennis_, upon which Skeat
comments: "Annual, occurring yearly, like a religious rite, religious,
solemn, Latin _sollus_, entire, complete: _annus_, a year. Hence
_solemn_--returning at the end of a complete year. The old Latin
_sollus_ is cognate with Welsh _holl_, whole, entire." The cognomen
Solomon occurs several times in the lists of British Kings, and one may
see it figuring to-day on Cornish shop-fronts in the form of variants
such as Sleeman, Slyman, etc. Solomon may be resolved into the Sol man,
the Seul man, the Silly[315] (innocent) man, or the Sly man, the Cunning
man, or Magus. The "Sea horse" to the right, illustrated by Akerman on
Plate XX, No. 8, is a coin of the Gaulish Magusa, and bears the
inscription Magus which, as will be remembered, was a title of the
Wandering Jew.
Maundrell, the English traveller, describing his journey in the
seventeenth century to Jerusalem, has recorded that, "Our quarters, this
first night, we took up at the Honeykhan, a place of but indifferent
accommodation, about one hour and a half west of Aleppo". He goes on to
say: "It must here be noted that, in travelling this country, a man does
not meet with a market-town and inns every night, as in England. The
best reception you can find here is either under your own tent, if the
season permit, or else in certain public lodgments, founded in charity
for the use of travellers. These are called by the Turks _khani_; and
are seated sometimes in the towns and villages, sometimes at convenient
distances upon the open road. They are built in fashion of a cloister,
encompassing a court of 30 or 40 yards square, more or less, according
to the measure of the founder's ability or charity. At these places all
comers are free to take shelter, paying only a small fee to the
khan-keeper (khanji), and very often without that acknowledgment; but
one must expect nothing here but bare walls. As for other accommodations
of meat, drink, bed, fire, provender, with these it must be every one's
care to furnish himself."[316]
The main roads of Britain were once seemingly furnished with similar
shelters which were known as Coldharbours, and the Coldharbour Lanes of
Peckham and elsewhere mark the sites of such refuges.
The Eastern khans, "built in fashion of a cloister," find their parallel
in the enclosed form of all primitive shelters, and the words _close_
and _cloister_ are radically _eccles_, _eglos_, or _eglise_. Whence the
authorities suppose Beccles in Silly Suffolk to be a corruption of _beau
eglise_ or Beautiful Church: but to whom was this "beautiful church"
first reared and dedicated, and by what name did the inhabitants of
Beccles know their village? The surname Clowes, which may be connoted
with Santa Claus, is still prevalent at Beccles, a town which belonged
anciently to _Bury_ Abbey.
The patron saint of English inns, travellers, and cross-roads, was the
Canaanitish Christopher, and the earliest block prints representing Kit
were "evidently made for pasting against the walls in inns, and other
places frequented by travellers and pilgrims."[317] Kit's intercession
was thought efficacious against all dangers, either by fire, flood, or
earthquake, hence his picture was sometimes painted in colossal size and
occupied the whole height of the building whether church or inn. The red
cross of St. John of Jerusalem was the _Christopher_; travellers carried
images of Cuddy as charms, and the equation of St. John with Canaanitish
Christopher will account for Christopher's Houses being entitled
Inns,[318] or Johns, or Khans. Under the travellers' images of
Christopher used to be printed the inscription, "Whosoever sees the
image of St. Christopher shall that day not feel any sickness," or
alternatively, "The day that you see St. Christopher's face, that day
shall you not die an evil death". The emblem on page 262, was, I think,
wrongly guessed by Didron as "the spirit of youth": it is more probably
a variant of Christopher, or the Spirit of Love, helping the palmer or
pilgrim of life.
[Illustration: FIGS. 146 and 147.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]
Fig. 146, a coin of the Turones, whose ancient capital is now Tours,
consists of a specky or spectral horse accompanied by an urn: this urn
was the symbol of the Virgin, and the reader will be familiar with a
well-known modern picture in which La Source is ambiguously represented
as a maiden standing with a pitcher at a spring. _Yver_ is Norse for a
_warm bubbling spring_, and on the coins of Vergingetorix we find the
pitcher and the horse: the word _virgin_ is equivalent to _Spring
Queen_, and as _ceto_ figures largely in British mythology as the ark,
box, or womb of Ked, it is probable that Virgingetorix may be
interpreted King Virgin Keto. In Gaul _rex_ meant King or Queen, but
this word is less radical than the Spanish _rey_, French _roi_, British
_rhi_: according to Sir John Rhys, "the old Irish _ri_, genitive _rig_,
king, and _rigan_ queen would be somewhat analogous, although the Welsh
_rhian_, the equivalent of the Irish _rigan_, differs in being mostly a
poetic term for a lady who need not be royal".[319] The name Maria,
which in Spain is bestowed indiscriminately upon men and women, would
therefore seem to be _Mother Queen_, and _Rhea_, the Great Mother of
Candia, might be interpreted as _the Princess_ or _the Queen_.
[Illustration: FIG. 148.--Egyptian.]
[Illustration: FIG. 149.--Etrurian. From _Cities and Cemeteries of
Etruria_ (Dennis, G.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 150.--British. From _A New Description of England
and Wales_ (Anon, 1724).]
Among inscriptions to the Gaulish Apollo the most common are those in
which he is entitled Albiorix and Toutiorix: these are understood by the
authorities as having meant respectively "King of the World," and "King
of the People".
With the Cornish Well known as Joan's Pitcher may be connoted the
variety of large bottle called a _demijohn_: according to Skeat this
curious term is from the French _damejeanne_, Spanish _damajuana_--"Much
disputed but _not_ of Eastern origin. The French form is right as it
stands though often much perverted. From French _dame_ (Spanish _dama_),
lady; and Jeanne (Spanish Juana), Joan, Jane." In our word _pitcher_ the
_t_ has been wrongly inserted, the French _picher_ is the German
_becher_, Greek _bikos_, and all these terms including _beaker_ are
radically Peggy, Puck or Big. Pitchers are one of the commonest
sepulchral offerings, and we are told that the Iberian bronze-working
brachycephalic invaders of Britain introduced the type of sepulchral
ceramic known as the beaker or drinking cup: "This vessel," says Dr.
Munro, "was almost invariably deposited beside the body, and supposed to
have contained food for the soul of the departed on its way to the other
world."[320]
The German form of Peggy or Margaret is Gretchen, which resolves into
Great _Chun_ or Great _Mighty Chief_: Margot and Marghet may be rendered
_Big God_ or _Fairy God_ or _Mother Good_.
That the pitcher, demijohn, or jug was regarded in some connection with
the Big Mother or Great Queen is obvious from the examples illustrated,
and the apparition of this emblem on the coins of Tours may be connoted
with the female-breasted jugs which were described by Schliemann as
"very frequent" in the ruins of Troy. Similar objects were found at
Mykenæ in connection with which Schliemann observes: "With regard to
this vase with the female breasts similar vases were found on the
islands of Thera (Santorin) and Therassia in the ruins of the
prehistoric cities which, as before stated, were covered by an eruption
of that great central volcano which is believed by competent geologists
to have sunk and disappeared about 1700 to 1800 B.C.".[321] It is
peculiarly noticeable that the dame Jeanne or jug is thus associated in
particular with Troy, Etruria, Therassia, Thera (Santorin), the Turones,
and Tours.
The centre stone of megalithic circles constituted the speck or dot
within the circle of the feeder or pap, and not infrequently one finds a
Longstone termed either The Fiddler or The Piper. The incident of the
Pied Piper is said to have occurred at Hamelyn on June 26th, 1284,
during the feast of St. John and St. Paul. The street known as Bungen
Strasse through which the Piper went followed by the enraptured children
is still sacred to the extent that bridal and other processions are
compelled to cease their music as they traverse it: Bungen of Bungen
Street may thus seemingly be equated with _bon John_ or St. John on
whose feast day the miracle is said to have happened. The Hamelyn Piper
who--
... blew three notes, such sweet
Soft notes as never yet musician's cunning
Gave to the enraptured air,
may be connoted with Pan or _Father An_, and the mountain now called
Koppenberg, into which the Hamelyn children were allured, was obviously
Arcadia or the happy land of Pan: the _berg_ of Koppenberg is no doubt
relatively modern, and the original name, Koppen, resolves into _cop_,
_kopje_, or _hill-top of Pan_. The Land of the Pied Piper was manifestly
_Himmel_, which is the German for _heaven_, and it may also be the
source of the place-name Hamelyn.
He led us, he said, to a joyous land
Joining the town and just at hand,
Where waters gushed and fruit trees grew,
And flowers put forth a fairer hue,
And everything was strange and new.
The story of the Piper and the children is found also in Abyssinia, and
likewise among the Minussinchen Tartars: the word Minnusinchen looks
very like small _Sinchen_ or beloved Sinchen, and with this _Sinchen_ or
_bungen_ may be connoted the Tartar _panshen_ or pope, and also Gian Ben
Gian, the Arabian name for the All Ruler of the Golden Age. That Cupid
was known among the Tartars is somewhat implied by the divinity
illustrated on p. 699.
The Tartar story makes the mysterious Piper a foal which courses round
the world, and with our _pony_ may be connoted _tarpon_, the Tartar word
for the wild horse of the Asiatic steppes. _Cano_ is the Latin for _I
sing_, and on Figs. 152 and 153 the Great Enchantress or Incantatrice is
represented with the Pipes of Pan: among the wonders in the land of
Hamelyn's Piper were horses with eagles' wings and these, together with
the celestial foal and other elphin marvels, are to be found depicted on
the tokens of prehistoric Albion. The tale of the Pied Piper may be
connoted with the emblem of Ogmius leading his tongue-tied willing
captives, and in Fig. 158 the mighty Muse is playing in human form upon
his lute. In Fig. 160 the story of St. Michael or St. George is being
played by a Pegasus, and in Fig. 158 CUNO is represented as a radiant
elf. The arrow on Fig. 163 connects the exquisitely executed little
figure with Cupid, Eros, or Amor--the oldest of the Gods--and probably
this particular cherub was known as Puck, for his coin was issued in the
Channel Islands by a people who inscribed their tokens _Pooc_tika,
_Buc_ato, _Pix_til, and _Pich_til, _i.e._, _Pich tall_ or _chief_(?).
[Illustration: FIGS. 151 to 158.--British. No. 151 from Whitaker's
_Manchester_. No. 152 from Evans. Nos. 153 to 157 from
Akerman. No. 158 from _A New Description of England
and Wales_.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 159 to 163.--Channel Islands. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 164 to 167.--British. From Akerman.]
It is not improbable that this young sprig was known as the Little Leaf
Man, for in Thuringia as soon as the trees began to bud out, the
children used to assemble on a Sunday and dress one of their playmates
with shoots and sprigs: he was covered so thoroughly as to be rendered
blind, whereupon two of his companions, taking him by the hand lest he
should stumble, led him dancing and singing from home to home. Amor,
like Homer, was reputed blind, and the what-nots on Fig. 167 may
possibly be _leaves_, the symbols of the _living, loving Elf_, or
_Life_--"this senior-junior, giant-dwarf Dan Cupid".
It was practically a universal pagan custom to celebrate the return of
Spring by carrying away and destroying a rude idol of the old Dad or
Death:--
Now carry we Death out of the village,
The new Summer into the village,
Welcome, dear Summer,
Green little corn.
[Illustration: FIG. 168.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]
In other parts of Bohemia--and the curious reader will find several
Bohemias on the Ordnance maps of England--the song varies; it is not
Summer that comes back but Life:--
We have carried away Death,
And brought back Life.[322]
At the feast of the Ascension in Transylvania, the image of Death is
clothed gaudily in the dress of a girl: having wound throughout the
village supported by two girls the image is stripped of its finery and
flung into the river; the dress, however, is assumed by one of the girls
and the procession returns singing a hymn. "Thus," says Miss Harrison,
"it is clear that the girl is a sort of resuscitated Death." In other
words, like the May Queen she symbolised the Virgin or Fairy Queen--Vera
or Una, the Spirit, Sprout, or Spirit of the Universe, the Fair Ovary of
Everything who is represented on the summit of the Christmas Tree: in
Latin _virgo_ means not only a virgin but also a sprig or sprout.
FOOTNOTES:
[255] _Fairy Mythology_, p. 298.
[256] Courtney, Miss, _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 129.
[257] Hope, R. C., _Sacred Wells_.
[258] _Demonology and Witchcraft_.
[259] At the time of writing the Servians say they are putting
their trust in "Bog and Britannia".
[260] This is an official etymology. It is the one and only poetic
idea admitted into Skeat's Dictionary.
[261] _Cf._ Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 159.
[262] Pliny relates Varro's description as follows: "King Porsenna
was buried beneath the city of Clusium, in a place where he
left a monument of himself in rectangular stone. Each side
was 300 feet long and 50 feet high, and within the basement
he made an inextricable labyrinth, into which if anyone
ventured without a clue, there he must remain, for he never
could find the way out again. Above this base stood five
pyramids, one in the centre and four at the angles, each of
them 75 feet in circumference at the base, and 150 feet high,
tapering to the top so as to be covered by a cupola of
bronze. From this there hung by chains a peal of bells,
which, when agitated by the wind, sounded to a great
distance. Above this cupola rose four other pyramids, each
100 feet high, and above these again, another story of five
pyramids, which towered to a height so marvellous and
improbable, that Varro hesitates to affirm their altitude."
And in this he was wise, for he had already said more upon
the subject than was credible. However, any one who has seen
the tomb of Aruns, the son of Porsenna, near the gate of
Albano, will be struck with the similarity of style, which,
comparing small things with great, existed between the
monuments of father and son. Those who have never been in
Italy may like to know that this tomb of Aruns is said to
have been built by Porsenna, for the young Prince who fell
there in battle with the Latins, and with the Greeks from
Cuma, and it is certainly the work of Etruscan masons. Five
pyramids rise from a base of 55 sq. feet, and the centre one
contains a small chamber, in which was found, about fifty
years since, an urn full of ashes.--Gray, Mrs. Hamilton,
_Sepulchres of Etruria_, p. 450.
[263] Taylor, R., _Te Ika A Maui_, or _New Zealand and its
Inhabitants_, p. 352.
[264] _Cf._ Stow, _London_.
[265] Evans, Sir Arthur, quoted in _Crete of Pre-hellenic Europe_,
p. 32.
[266] Bonwick _Irish Druids and Old Irish Religion_, p. 230.
[267] Anwyl, E.
[268] It is not unlikely that the Goss and Cass families of to-day
are the descendants of the British tribe referred to by the
Romans as the Cassi.
[269] The Welsh for alban or alpin is elphin.
[270] Urlin, Miss Ethel M., _Festivals, Holy Days, and Saints'
Days_, p. 192.
[271] _Ibid._, p. 196.
[272] _Cf._ Hone, W., _Everyday Book_, vol. i., col. 1340.
[273] _Cf._ Hone, W., _Everyday Book_, vol. i., col. 1340.
[274] xli. 19.
[275] _Faiths and Folklore_, i., 332.
[276] _Celtic Britain_, p. 211. Sir John frequently changed his
mind.
[277] _Barddas_, p. 416.
[278] The Phrygian Cap was symbolic.
[279] _Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe_, p. xxxii.
[280] _Mykenæ_, p. 179.
[281] _Rude Stone Monuments_, p. 207.
[282] Baldwin, J. G., _Prehistoric Nations_, p. 162.
[283] Keightley, _Fairy Mythology_, p. 317.
[284] Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, ii., 608.
[285] Rhys, Sir J., _Celtic Britain_, p. 271.
[286] The Celtic Angus is translated _excellent virtue_.
[287] _Cf._ Baring-Gould, Rev. S., _Curious Myths_, pp. 266-316.
[288] _Orphic Hymn_, lv., 5, 10, and 11.
[289] Courtney, Miss M. L., _Cornish Feasts and Folklore_, p. 136.
[290] From prehistoric times this ensign seems to have been known
as "the Jack," and the immutability of the fabulous element
was evidenced anew during the present year when on 23rd April
the Admiral on shore wirelessed to the Zeebrugge raiding
force: "England and St. George". To this was returned the
reply: "We'll give a twist to the dragon's tail".
[291] Since writing I find this surmise to be well founded. At the
present moment there is a Persian cannon (A.D. 1547) captured
at Bagdad, now on exhibition in London. It bears an
inscription to the effect:--
"'Succour is from God, and victory is at hand.'
The Commander of Victory and Help, the Shah,
Desiring to blot out all trace of the Turks,
Ordered Dglev to make this gun.
Wherever it goes it burns up lives,
It spits forth flames like a dragon.
It sets the world of the Turks on fire."
[292] Wise, T. A., _History of Paganism in Caledonia_, p. 114.
[293] _Irish Mytho. Cycle_, p. 229.
[294] The Norwegian for _neigh_ is _kn_eggya, the Danish, _gn_egge.
[295] There is no evidence to support the supposition that Eppillus
may have been an English king.
[296] An omniscient _eagle_ was associated with _Achill_ (Ireland).
[297] _Ancient Coins of the Romans Relating to Britain_, p. 197.
[298] _Faiths and Folklore_, vol. i., p. 329.
[299] _Faiths and Folklore_, vol. i., p. 329.
[300] Madeley, E., _The Science of Correspondence_, p. 194.
[301] Dalston in Cumberland is assumed to have been a town in the
dale or _dale's town_. But surely "towns" were never thus
anonymous?
[302] P. 299.
[303] Compare also Shadwell in East London, "said to be St. Chad's
Well".
[304] Mitton, G. E., _Hackney_, p. 11.
[305] _Cf._ Westropp, T. J., _Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy_,
vol. xxxiv., Sec. C., Nos. 3 and 4.
[306] Walters, J. Cuming, _The Lost Land of King Arthur_, p. 219.
[307] One of these has been slightly diverted by the exigencies of
the railway station.
[308] Macalister, R. A. S., _Temair Breg: A Study of the Remains
and Traditions of Tara, Proceedings of the Royal Irish
Academy_, sec. C., Nos. 10 and 11, p. 284.
[309] Picard, _Ceremonies of Idolatrous People_, vol. iv., p. 291.
[310] Weekley, E., _Romance of Names_, p. 224.
[311] _Survey of London_ (Everyman's Library), p. 416.
[312] The Peck family may have been inn-keepers or dealers in peck
or fodder, but more probably, like the Bucks and the Boggs,
they may trace their descent much farther.
[313] See _infra_, p. 689.
[314] Akerman, J. Y., _Ancient Coins_, p. 17.
[315] There is a river Slee or Slea in Lincolnshire.
[316] _Travels in the East_ (Bohn's Library), p. 384.
[317] Larwood & Hotten, _The History of Signboards_, p. 285.
[318] It is simply futile to refer the word _inn_ to "within,
indoors" (see Skeat).
[319] _Celtic Britain_, p. 66. It is therefore feasible that Wrens
Park, by Mildmay Park, Hackney, was primarily _reines_ Park.
[320] _Prehistoric Britain_, p. 247.
[321] _Mykenæ_, p. 293.
[322] _Ancient Art and Ritual_, pp. 70 and 71.