SCOURING THE WHITE HORSE
"Where one might look to find a legitimate national pride in the
monuments of our forefathers there seems to be a perverse
conspiracy to give the credit to anyone rather than to the Briton,
and preferably to the Roman interloper. If any evidence at all be
asked for, the chance finding of a coin or two, or of a handful of
shivered pottery, is deemed enough. Such evidence is emphatically
not enough."--A. HADRIAN ALLCROFT.
The owld White Harse wants zettin to rights,
And the Squire hev promised good cheer,
Zo we'll gee un a scrape to kip un in zhape,
And a'll last for many a year.
--Berkshire Ballad.
According to Gaelic mythology Brigit was the daughter of the supreme
head of the Irish gods of Day, Life, and Light--whose name Dagda Mor,
the authorities translate into _Great Good Fire_. Some accounts state
there were three Brigits, but these three, like the three Gweneveres or
Ginevras who were sometimes assigned to King Arthur, are evidently three
aspects of the one and only Queen Vera, Queen Ever, or Queen Fair.
Brigit's husband was the celebrated Bress, after whom we are told every
fair and beautiful thing in Ireland was entitled a "bress".
Brigit and Bress were the parents of three gods entitled Brian, Iuchar,
and Uar, and it looks as though these three were equivalent to the
Persian trinity of Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good Word. The term
_word_ is derived by Skeat from a root _wer_, meaning to speak, whence
_Uar_ was seemingly _werde_ or _Good Word_. _Brian_, I have already
connoted with _brain_, whence Good Brian was probably equivalent to Good
Thought, and Iuchar, the third of Bride's brats, looks curiously like
_eu coeur_, _eu cor_, or _eu cardia_, _i.e._, soft, gentle, pleasing,
and propitious _heart_, otherwise Kind Action or Good Deed.
[Illustration: FIGS. 224 to 231.--British. From Evans.]
These three mythic sons constitute the gods of Irish Literature and Art,
and are said to have had in common an only son entitled Ecne,[400] whose
name, according to De Jubainville, meant "knowledge or poetry".[401] The
legend CUNO which appears so frequently in British coins in connection
with Pegasus--the steed of the Muses--or the Hackney, varies into ECEN,
_vide_ the examples herewith, and the palm branch or fern leaf
constituting the mane points to the probability that the animal
portrayed corresponds to "Splendid Mane," the magic steed of
three-legged Mona.
Mona was a headquarters of the British Druids by whom white horses were
ceremoniously maintained. Speaking of the peculiar credulity of the
German tribes Tacitus observes: "For this purpose a number of milk-white
steeds unprophaned by mortal labour are constantly maintained at the
public expense and placed to pasture in the religious groves. When
occasion requires they are harnessed to a sacred chariot and the priest,
accompanied by the king or chief of the state, attends to watch the
motions and the neighing of the horses. No other mode of augury is
received with such implicit faith by the people, the nobility, and the
priesthood. The horses upon these solemn occasions are supposed to be
the organs of the gods."[402]
The horse is said to be exceptionally intelligent,[403] whence
presumably why it was elevated into an emblem of Knowing, Kenning,
Cunning, and ultimately of the Gnosis. That the Gnostics so regarded it
is sufficiently evident apart from the collection of symbolic horses
dealt with elsewhere.[404]
The old French for _hackney_ was _haquenee_, the old Spanish was
_hacanea_, the Italian is _chinea_, a contracted form of _acchinea_:
jennet or Little Joan is connected with the Spanish _ginete_ which has
been connoted with _Zenata_, the name of a tribe of Barbary celebrated
for its cavalry.
[Illustration: FIG. 232.]
[Illustration: FIG. 233.--From _The Cross: Heathen and Christian_
(Brock, M.).]
That Jeanette was worshipped in Italy _sub rosa_, would appear from the
emblem here illustrated, which is taken from the title page of a work
published in 1601.[405] The Hackney, the New-moon (Kenna?) and the Staff
or Branch are emblems, which, as already seen, occur persistently on
British coins, and the legend PHILOS IPPON IN DIES CRESCIT reading:
"Love of the Horse; in time it will increase," obviously applied to
some philosophy, and not a material taste for stud farms and the turf.
In 1857, during some excavations in Rome in the palace of the Cæsars on
the Palatine Hill, an inscription which is described as a "curious
scratch on the wall" was brought to light. This so-called _graffito
blasfemo_ has been held to be a vile caricature of the crucifixion, some
authorities supposing the head to be that of a wild ass, others that of
a jackal: beneath is an ill-spelt legend in Greek characters to the
effect: "ALEXAMENOS WORSHIPS HIS GOD," and on the right is a meanly
attired figure seemingly engaged in worship.[406]
I am unable to recognise either a jackal or a wild ass in the figure in
dispute, which seems in greater likelihood to represent a not
ill-executed horse's head. Nor seemingly is the creature crucified, but
on the contrary it is supporting the letter "T," or Tau, an emblem which
was so peculiarly sacred among the Druids that they even topped and
trained their sacred oak until it had acquired this holy form.[407] The
Tau was the sign mentioned by Ezekiel as being branded upon the
foreheads of the Elect, and this "curious scratch" of poor Alexamenos
attributed to the very early part of the third century was not, in my
humble opinion, the work of some illiterate slave or soldier attached to
the palace of the Cæsars, ridiculing the religion of a companion, but
more probably the pious work of a Gnostic lover of philosophy: that the
Roman church was honeycombed with Gnostic heresies is well known.
The word _philosophy_ is _philo sophy_ or the love of wisdom, but
_sophi_, or wisdom, is radically _ophi_, or _opi_, _i.e._, the
Phoenician _hipha_, Greek _hippa_, a mare: the name Philip is always
understood as _phil ip_ or "love of the horse," and the _hobby_ horse of
British festivals was almost certainly the _hippa_ or the _hippo_.
[Illustration: FIG. 234.--Macedonian. From _English Coins and Tokens_
(Jewitt & Head).]
Of the 486 varieties of British coins illustrated by Sir John Evans no
less than 360 represent a horse in one form or another, whence it is
obvious that the hobby horse was once a national emblem of the highest
import. In the opinion of this foremost authority all Gaulish and all
British coins are contemptible copies of a wondrous Macedonian stater,
which circulated at Marseilles, whence the design permeated Gaul and
Britain in the form of rude and clownish imitations: this supposed
model, the very mark and acme of all other craftsmen, is here
illustrated, and the reader can form his own opinion upon its artistic
merits. "It appears to me," says Sir John Evans, "that in most cases the
adjuncts found upon the numerous degraded imitations of this type are
merely the result of the engraver's laziness or incompetence, where they
are not attributable to his ignorance of what the objects he was
copying were originally designed to represent. And although I am willing
to recognise a mythological and national element in this adaptation of
the Macedonian stater which forms the prototype of the greater part of
the ancient British series, it is but rarely that this element can be
traced with certainty upon its numerous subsequent modifications."[408]
The supposed modifications attributed to the laziness or incompetence of
British craftsmen are, however, so astonishing and so ably executed that
I am convinced the present theory of feeble imitation is ill-founded.
The horses of Philippus are comparatively stiff and wooden by the side
of the work of Celtic craftsmen who, _when that was their intention_,
animated their creations with amazing verve and _elan_. Mr. W. Carew
Hazlitt, who regards our early coins as "deplorable abortions," laments
that one remarkable feature in the whole group of numismatic monuments
of British and Celtic extraction is the spirit of servile imitation
which it breathes, as well as the absence of that religious sentiment
which confers a character on the Greek and Roman coinages.[409] How this
writer defines religious sentiment I am unaware, but in any case it is
difficult to square his assertion with Akerman's reference to "the great
variety of crosses and other totally uninteresting objects" found on the
_post_-Roman coinage.[410]
We have already noted certain exquisitely modelled coins of Gaul and
there are many more yet to be considered. Dr. Jewitt concedes that the
imitations were not always servile "having occasionally additional
features as drapery, a torque round the neck, a bandlet or what not,"
but this writer obsequiously follows Sir John Evans in the opinion that
the stater of Philip was "seized on by the barbarians who came in
contact with Greek civilisation as an object of imitation. In Gaul this
was especially the case, and the whole of the gold coinage of that
country may be said to consist of imitations more or less rude and
degenerate of the Macedonian Philippus."[411]
[Illustration: FIG. 235.--Cambre Castle, from Redruth. From
_Excursions in the County of Cornwall_ (Stockdale, F.
W. L.).]
In 1769 a hoard of 371 gold British coins was discovered on the Cornish
hill known as Carn Bre, near Cambourne, in view of which (and many other
archæological finds) Borlase entertained the notion that Carn Bre was a
prehistoric sanctuary. This conclusion is seemingly supported by the
near neighbourhood of the town Redruth which is believed to have
meant--_rhe druth_, or "the swift-flowing stream of the Druids". It is
generally supposed that primitive coins were struck by priests within
their sacred precincts,[412] and the extraordinary large collection
found upon Carn Bre seems a strong implication that at some period coins
were there minted. We find seemingly the Bre of Carn Bre, doubtless the
Gaulish _abri_ or sanctuary, recurrent in Ireland, where at Bri Leith it
was believed that Angus Mac Oge, the ever-young and lovely son of Dagda
Mor, had his _brugh_ or _bri_, which meant _fairy palace_. The Cornish
Cambourne, which the authorities suppose to have been _Cam bron_, and to
have meant _crooked hill_, was more probably like Carn Bre the seat or
_abri_ of King Auberon, "Saint" Bron, or King Aubrey.
[Illustration: FIG. 236.--Iberian. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 237.--British. From Evans.]
[Illustration: FIG. 238.--From _Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian
Symbolism_ (Inman, I.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 239.--Greek. From Barthelemy.]
The generic term _coin_ is imagined to be derived from _cuneum_, the
Latin accusative of _cuneus_, a wedge, "perhaps," adds Skeat, "allied to
cone". It is, however, almost an invariable rule to designate coins by
the design found upon their face, whence "angel," "florin," "rose,"
"crown," "kreuzer" (cross), and so forth. The British penny is supposed
to have derived its title from the head--Celtic _pen_--stamped upon
it:[413] the Italian _ducat_ was so denominated because it bore the
image of a _duke_, whose coins were officially known as _ducati_, or
"coins of the duchy"; and as not only the legend _cuin_, _cuno_, etc.,
appears upon early coinage, but also an image of an angel which we have
endeavoured to show was regarded as the _Cun_ or _Queen_, it seems
likely that the word _coin_ (Gaelic _cuinn_) is as old as the CUIN
legend, and may have had no immediate relation either with _cunneus_ or
_cone_. Nevertheless, the Queen of Heaven was occasionally depicted on
coins in the form of a _cone_, as on the token here illustrated: on the
coins of Cyprus Venus was represented under the symbolism of a
cone-shaped stone.[414] The ancient minters not only customarily
portrayed the features of their _pherepolis_ or Fairy of the City, but
they occasionally rendered her identity fool-proof by inscribing her
name at full length as in the ARETHUSA coin here illustrated: some of
our seventh-century money bears the legend LUX--an allusion to the Light
of the World; in the East coins were practically religious manifestos
and bore inscriptions such as GOD IS ONE; GOD IS THE ETERNAL; THERE IS
NO GOD BUT GOD ALONE; MAY THE MOST HIGH PERPETUATE HIS KINGDOM; and
among the coins of Byzantium is an impression of the Virgin bearing the
legend O LADY DO THOU KEEP IN SAFETY.[415]
The early coinage of _Genoa_ represented a gate or _janua_; the Roman
coin of Janus was known as the _As_, an implication that Janus, the
first and most venerable of the Roman pantheon, was radically _genus_ or
King As: in the same way it is customary among us to speak colloquially
of "George," or more ceremoniously of "King George," and in all
probability the full and formal title of the Roman _As_ was the Janus.
On these coins there figured the _prow_ or forefront of a ship, and the
same _prow_ will be noticed on the tokens of Britannia (_ante_, p. 120).
It is remarkable that even 500 years after the coins of Janus had been
out of circulation the youth of Rome used to toss money to the
exclamation "Heads or Ships"--a very early instance of the _pari
mutuel_!
In connection with archaic coins it is curious that one cannot get away
from John or Ion. The first people to strike coins are believed to have
been either the Ionians or the Lydians, both of whom inhabited the
locality of ancient Troy:[416] as early as the middle of the seventh
century B.C., the Ægean island of Ægina, then a great centre of
commerce, minted money, but the annalists of China go far further in
their claim that as far back as 1091 B.C., a coinage was instituted by
_Cheng_, the second King of Chou.[417] The generic term _token_ is
radically _Ken_, _shekel_ is seemingly allied to Sheik, the Moorish or
Berberian for a chief, and with _daric_, the Persian coin, one may
connote not only Touriack but ultimately Troy or Droia. Our _guinea_ was
so named after gold from Guinea; Guinea presumably was under Touriack or
Berber influences, and we shall consider in a subsequent chapter Ogane,
a mighty potentate of northern Africa whose toe, like that of Janus, the
visitor most reverently kissed.
[Illustration: FIGS. 240 and 241.--Archaic Carvings.]
The Hackney of our early coinage thus not only appears pre-eminently
upon it, but the very terms _coin_, _token_, _chink_, and _jingle_,[418]
are permeated with the same root, _i.e._, Ecna, Ægina, or Jeanne.
[Illustration: FIGS. 242 and 243.--Archaic Carvings.]
That the worship of the Hackney stretches backward into the remotest
depths of antiquity is implied by the carvings of prehistoric
horse-heads found notably in the _trous_ or cave shelters of Derbyshire
and Dordogne. The discoveries at Torquay in Kent's Cavern, in Kent's
Copse, (or Kent's Hole as it is named in ancient maps), included bone,
or horn pins, awls, barbed harpoons, and a neatly formed needle
_precisely similar_ to analogous objects found in the rock shelters of
Dordogne.[419] Many representations of horses and horse-heads have been
found among the coloured inscriptions at Font de Gaune--the Fount of
_Gaune_, and likewise at _Combar_elles: the Combar is here seemingly
King Bar, and Bruniquel, another famous site of horse remains, is in all
probability connected with the _broncho_. Perigord, the site of ancient
Petrocorii, is radically _peri_, and Petro_cor_ii, the Father or Rock
Heart, may be connoted with Iu_char_, the brother of Bryan and the
father of Ecna, or _philosophy_.
In England horse-teeth in association with a flint celt have been found
at Wiggonholt in Sussex: the term _holt_ is applied in Cornwall to
Pictish souterrains, and it is probable that Wiggonholt was once a holt
or hole of _eu_ Igon: Ægeon was an alternative title of Briareus of the
Hundred Hands, and as already shown Briareus was localised by Greek
writers upon a British islet (_ante_, p. 82).
The white horse constituted the arms of Brunswick or Burn's Wick; horses
were carved upon the ancient font at _Burn_sall in Yorkshire, and that
the _broncho_ was esteemed in Britain by the flint knappers is implied
by the etching of a horse's head found upon a polished horse rib in a
cave at _Cress_well Crags in Derbyshire. _Ceres_ or Demeter was
represented as a mare, _cres_ is the root of _cresco_--I grow, and among
the white horses carved upon the chalk downs of England, one at Bratton
was marked by an exaggerated "crescentic tail". Bratton, or Bra-ton?
Hill, whereon this curious brute was carved, may be connoted with
Bradon, and Bratton may also be compared with _prad_, a word which in
horsey circles means a horse, whence _prad cove_, a dealer in horses:
with the white horse at Bratton may be connoted the horse carved upon
the downs at _Pre_ston near Weymouth. For a mass of miscellaneous and
interesting horse-lore the curious reader may refer to Mr. Walter
Johnson's _Byways in British Archæology_: the opinion of this
painstaking and reliable writer is that the famed white horse of
Bratton, like its fellow at Uffington, although usually believed to
commemorate victories over the Danes are more probably to be referred to
the Late Bronze, or Early Iron Age.
It has already been noted that artificially white horses were inscribed
at times on Scotch hills, but these earth-monuments are unrecorded
either in Ireland or on the Continent. On the higher part of Dartmoor
there is a bare patch on the granite plateau in form resembling a horse,
but whether the clearing is artificial is uncertain: the probabilities
are, however, in favour of design for the site is known as White Horse
Hill.[420]
The White Horse of Berkshire--the shire of the horse, Al Borak, or the
_brok_?--is situated at Uffington, a name which the authorities decode
into town or village of Uffa: I do not think this imaginary "Uffa" was
primarily a Saxon settler, and it is more probable that Uffa was
_hipha_, the Tyrian title of the Great Mother whose name also meant
_mare_, whence the Hellenic _hippa_. The authorities would like to read
Avebury, a form of Abury or Avereberie, as _burg of Aeffa_, but near
Avebury there is a white horse cut upon the slope of a down, and the
adjacent place-name Uffcot suggests that here also was an _hipha_-cot,
or cromlech. The ride of Lady Godiva nude upon a white horse was, as we
shall see later, probably the survival of an ancient festival
representative of _Good Hipha_, the St. Ive, or St. Eve, who figures
here and there in Britain, otherwise Eve, the Mother of All Living.
There used to be traces at Stonehenge of a currus or horse-course, and
all the evidence is strongly in favour of the supposition that the horse
has been with us in these islands for an exceedingly long time.
When defending their shores against the Roman invaders the British
cavalry drove their horses into the sea attacking their enemies while in
the water, and one of the facts most impressive to Cæsar was the skill
with which our ancestors handled their steeds. Speaking of the British
charioteers he says: "First they advance through all parts of their
Army, and throw their javelins, and having wound themselves in among the
troops of horse, they alight and fight on foot; the charioteers retiring
a little with their chariots, but posting themselves in such a manner,
that if they see their masters pressed, they may be able to bring them
off; by this means the Britons have the agility of horse, and the
firmness of foot, and by daily exercise have attained to such skill and
management, that in a declivity they can govern the horses, though at
full speed, check and turn them short about, run forward upon the pole,
stand firm upon the yoke, and then withdraw themselves nimbly into their
chariots."[421]
According to Mr. and Mrs. Hawes, two-wheeled chariots are delineated on
Gnossian seals, among which is found a four-wheeled chariot having the
front wheels armed with spikes:[422] the Britons are traditionally
supposed to have attached scythes to their wheels, and Homer's
description of a chariot fight might well have expressed the sensations
of the British Jehu:--
his flying steeds
His chariot bore, o'er bodies of the slain
And broken bucklers trampling; all beneath
Was splash'd with blood the axle, and the rails
Around the car, as from the horses' feet
And from the felloes of the wheels were thrown
The bloody gouts; and onward still he pressed,
Panting for added triumphs; deeply dyed
With gore and carnage his unconquer'd hands.[423]
[Illustration: FIG. 244.--From _A Guide to the Antiquities of Bronze
Age_ (B.M.).]
_Biga_, the Greek for chariot, is seemingly _buggy_, the name of a
vehicle which was once very fashionable with us: the term, now
practically extinct in this country, is still used largely in America,
whither like much other supposedly American slang, it was no doubt
carried by the pilgrim fathers.[424] To account satisfactorily for
_buggy_ one must assume that the earliest _bigas_ were used
ceremoniously in sacred festivals to Big Eye or the Sun: that this was a
prevalent custom is proved by the Scandinavian model representing the
Solar Chariot here illustrated. Among the cave-offerings of Crete the
model biga was very frequent, and no doubt it had some such mental
connection with the constellation King Charles's Wain, as still exists
in Breton folklore. In what was known as King's barrow in Yorkshire, the
skeleton of an old man was uncovered accompanied by chariot wheels, the
skeletons of two small horses, and the skulls of two pigs: similar
sepulchres have been found in great number in the Cambrai--Peronne--Bray
district of France. Not only do we here find the term Santerre applied
to an extensive plain, but the exquisite bronze plaques, discs, and
flagons recovered from the tombs "appear to be of Greek workmanship". In
the words of Dr. Pycraft (written in August, 1918): "The Marne is rich
in such relics--though, happily, they need no little skill in finding,
for they date back to prehistoric times ranging from the days of the
Stone Age to the dawn of history. The retreat of this foul-minded brood
[the German Army] towards the Vesle will probably mean the doom of the
celebrated Menhirs, or standing stones, of the Marne Valley. These date
back to about 6000 B.C., and are remarkable for the fact that they bear
curiously sculptured designs, of which the most striking is a
conventionalised representation of the human face.[425] This, and the
general character of the ornamentation, bears a close likeness to that
found on early objects from Hissarlik and the Greek islands.... These
megalithic monuments mark the appearance in Europe of a new race,
bringing with them new customs--and, what is still more important, the
use of metal."[426]
Among the finds at Troy, Schliemann recovered some curious two-holed
whorls or wheels, in the eyes of which are representations of a horse:
he also discovered certain small carved horse-heads.[427] That the horse
was of good omen among the Trojans is implied by the description of the
building of Æneas's new colony, for of this new-born _tre_ we read--
A grove stood in the city, rich in shade,
Where storm-tost Tyrians, past the perilous brine,
Dug from the ground by royal Juno's aid
A war-steed's head, to far-off days a sign
That wealth and prowess should adorn the line.[428]
Such was the auspiciousness of this find that the Trojans forthwith
erected an altar to Juno, _i.e._, Cuno?
At the home of the Mother Goddess in Gnossus there has been discovered a
seal impression which is described as a noble horse of enormous size
being transported on a one-masted boat driven by Minoan oarsmen, seated
beneath an awning:[429] it has been assumed by one authority after
another that this seal-stone represented and commemorated the
introduction into Crete of the thorough-bred horse, but more probably it
was the same sacred horse as is traditionally associated with the fall
of Troy. There is some reason to think that this supposedly fabulous
episode may have had some historic basis: historians are aware that the
Druids were accustomed to make vast wicker frames, sometimes in the form
of a bull, and according to Roman writers these huge constructions
filled either with criminals or with sacrificial victims were then
burnt. Two enormous white horses constructed from wood and paper formed
part of a recent procession in connection with the obsequies of the
late Emperor of Korea, and it is quite possible that the wily Greeks
strategically constructed a colossal horse by means of which they
introduced a picked team of heroes in the Trojan sanctuary. According to
Virgil--
Broken by war, long baffled by the force
Of fate, as fortune and their hopes decline,
The Danaan leaders build a monstrous horse,
Huge as a hill, by Pallas' craft divine,
And cleft fir-timbers in the ribs entwine.
They feign it vowed for their return, so goes
The tale, and deep within the sides of pine
And caverns of the womb by stealth enclose
Armed men, a chosen band, drawn as the lots dispose.[430]
That this elaborate form of the wicker-cage was introduced into Troy
upon some religious pretext would appear almost certain from the inquiry
of the aged Priam--
but mark, and tell me now,
What means this monster, for what use designed?
Some warlike engine? _or religious vow_?
Who planned the steed, and why? Come, quick, the truth avow.[431]
The Trojans were guileless enough to "through the gates the monstrous
horse convey," and even to lodge it in the citadel fatuously ignoring
the recommendation of Capys
... to tumble in the rolling tide,
The doubtful gift, for treachery designed,
Or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side.
Unless there had been some highly superstitious feeling attaching to the
votive horse, one cannot conceive why the sound advice of Capys was not
immediately put into practice.
Although both Greeks and Trojans were accomplished charioteers, riding
on horseback was, we are told, so rare and curious an exhibition in
ancient Greece that only one single reference is found in the poems of
Homer. According to Gladstone, equestrian exercise was "the half-foreign
accomplishment of the Kentauroi," who were fabulously half-man and
half-horse: similarly, in most ancient Ireland there are no riders on
horseback, and the warriors fight invariably from chariots.[432] On the
other hand, in Etruria there are found representations of what might be
a modern race meeting, and the effect of these pictures upon the early
investigators of Etrurian tombs seems to have been most surprising. In
the words of Mrs. Hamilton Gray: "The famous races of Britain seemed
there to find their type. The racers, the race-stand, the riders with
their various colours, the judges, the spectators, and the prizes were
all before us. We were unbelieving like most of our countrymen.... Our
understandings and imaginations were alike perplexed."[433]
The verb to _canter_ is supposed to be derived from the pace at which
pilgrims proceeded to _Canter_bury. But pilgrims either footed it or
else ambled leisurely along on their palfreys, and the connection
between canter and Cantuar is seemingly much deeper than supposed. At
_Kintyre_ in Scotland the patron saint is St. _Cheiran_, who may be
connoted with _Chiron_, the wise and good _Kentaur_ chief; and this
connection of Chiron-Kentaur, Cheiran-Kintyre is the more curious,
inasmuch as both an Irish MS. and Ptolemy refer independently by
different terms to the Mull of Kintyre, as "the height of the
_horse_".[434]
[Illustration: FIG. 245.--From _The Heroes_ (Kingsley, C.).]
The illustration herewith is an early Victorian conception of Chiron,
the wise and kindly Kentaur King, and CANTORIX, an inscription found on
the spectral steeds of Fig. 146, might seemingly without outrage be
interpreted as _Canto rex_, or _Song King_: in Welsh _canto_, a song or
_chant_, was _gan_, and the title _tataguen_ meant "the father of the
muse";[435] according to mythology the walls of Troy were built by
Oceanus to the music of Apollo's lyre.
It would appear probable that Kent, the county of Invicta, the White
Horse, was pre-eminently a horse-breeding county, as it remains to this
day: part of Cantuarburig is known as Hackington, and in view of the
Iceni hackney-coins there is little doubt that horse-breeding was
extensively practised wherever the equine Eceni, Cantii, and Cenomagni
were established. It is noteworthy that the Icknield Way was known
alternatively as Hackington Way, Hackney Way, Acknil Way, and Hikenilde
Street.[436]
It is a curious fact that practically the first scratchings of a horse
represent the animal as bridled, whence the authorities assume that
horses were kept semi-domesticated in a compound for purposes of food:
immense collections of horse bones have been discovered, whence it seems
probable that horses were either sacrificed in hecatombs or were eaten
in large quantities; but the Tartars kept horses mainly for the mare's
milk.
Pliny mentions a horse-eating tribe, in Northern Spain, entitled the
Concanni, with which Iberians may be connoted the Congangi of
Cumberland, whose headquarters were supposedly Kendal: the western point
of Carnarvonshire is named by Ptolemy Gangani, and the same geographer
mentions another Gangani in the West of Hibernia. The Hibernian
Ganganoi, situated in the neighbourhood of the Shannon, worshipped a
Sengann whose name is supposed to mean _Old Gann_: we have illustrated
the earthwork wheel cross of Shanid (_ante_ p. 55), and have suggested
the equation of Sen Gann with Sinjohn. In all probability the fairy
known in Ireland as Gancanagh, who appears in lonesome valleys and makes
love to milkmaids, is a survival of the Gangani's All Father. The name
Konken occurs among the kingly chronology of Archaic Britain; the most
ancient inscribed stone in Wales is a sepulchral stone of a certain
Cingen: the Saxon name Cunegonde is translated as having meant _royal
lady_.
The French _cancan_, an exuberant dance which is associated with Paris,
the city of the Parisii, may be a survival from the times of the
Celtiberian Concanni: Paris was the Adonis of the Hellenes, or Children
of Hellas, and it is not unlikely that the lament _helas!_ or _alas!_
was the cry wailed by the women on the annual waning of the Solar Power.
At Helstone in Cornwall--supposed to be named from _hellas_, a
marsh--there is still danced an annual Furry dance of which the feature
is a long linked chain similar to that of the French farandole: if
_faran_, like _fern_, be the plural of _far_, it follows that the
_furry_ and the _faran_dole were alike festivals of the Great Fire,
Phare, Fairy, Phairy, or Peri; the Parisii who settled in the
Bridlington district are by some scholars assigned to Friesland.
Persia, the home of the peris, is still known locally as Farsistan,
whence the name Farsees or Parsees is now used to mean fire worshippers:
the Indian Parsees seem chiefly to be settled in the district of India,
which originally formed part of the ancient Indian Konkan kingdom, and
the probabilities are that the Konkani of the East, like the Cancanii of
the West, were worshippers of the Khan Khan, or King of Kings.
In the most ancient literature of India entire hymns are addressed to
the Solar Horse, and the estimation in which the White Horse was held
in Persia may be judged from the annual salutation ceremony thus
described by Williamson in _The Great Law_: "The procession to salute
the God formed long before the rising of the sun. The High Priest was
followed by a long train of Magi, in spotless white robes chanting hymns
and carrying the sacred fire on silver censers. Then came 365 youths in
scarlet, to represent the days of the year, and the colour of fire.
These were followed by the chariot of the sun, empty, decorated with
garlands, and drawn by superb white horses, harnessed with pure gold.
Then came a white horse of magnificent size, his forehead blazing with
gems, in honour of Mithras. Close behind him rode the king, in a chariot
of ivory inlaid with gold, followed by his royal kindred, in embroidered
garments and a long train of nobles, riding on camels richly
caparisoned. This gorgeous retinue, facing the East, slowly ascended
Mount Orontes. Arrived at the summit, the high priest assumed his tiara,
wreathed with myrtle, and hailed the first rays of the rising sun with
incense and with prayer. The other Magi gradually joined him in singing
hymns to Ormuzd, the source of all blessings, by whom the radiant Mithra
had been sent to gladden the earth, and preserve the principle of life.
Finally, they all joined in the one universal chorus of praise, while
king, princes, and nobles prostrated themselves before the orb of day."
There is every likelihood that this festival was celebrated on a humbler
scale at many a British "Hallicondane," and as the glory of the horse or
courser is its speed--"swift is the sun in its course"--we may also be
sure that no pains were spared to secure a worthy representative of the
Supreme Ecna, Ekeni, or Hackney.
In Egypt the whole land was ransacked in order to discover the precise
and particular Bull, which by its special markings was qualified to play
Apis, and when this precious beast was found there were national
rejoicings. Reasoning by analogy it is probable that not only did each
British horse-centre have its local races, but that there was in
addition what might be called a Grand National either at Stonehenge or
at one or another of the tribal centres. In such case the winners would
become the sacred steeds, which, as we know, were maintained by the
Druids in the sanctuaries, and from whose neighing or knowing auguries
were drawn. Such was the value placed in Persia upon the augury of a
horse's neigh, that on one memorable occasion the rights of two
claimants to the throne were decided by the fact that the horse of the
favoured one neighed first.[437]
It is probable that the primitive horse-races of the Britons were
elemental Joy-days, Hey-days, and Holy-days, similar to the
time-honoured Scouring and Cleansing of the White Horse of Berkshire or
Barrukshire. On the occasion of this festival in 1780, _The Reading
Mercury_ informed its readers that: "Besides the customary diversions of
horse-racing, foot-races, etc., many uncommon rural diversions and feats
of activity were exhibited to a greater number of spectators than ever
assembled on any former occasion. Upwards of 30,000 persons were
present, and amongst them most of the nobility and gentry of this and
the neighbouring counties, and the whole was concluded without any
material accident."
[Illustration: FIG. 246. From _The Scouring of the White Horse_
(Hughes, T.).]
Below the head of the White Horse, which at festival time was thoroughly
scoured and restored to its pristine whiteness, is a huge scoop in the
downs forming a natural amphitheatre, and at the base of this so-called
"manger" are the clear traces of artificial banks or tiers. In 1825 the
games were held at Seven Barrows, distant _two miles_ in a
south-easterly direction from the White Horse itself. These Seven
Barrows are imagined to be the burial places of seven chieftains slain
at the battle of Ashdown, and adjacent mounds supposedly contain the
corpses of the rank and file. But the starting-post of Lewes
race-course, which is also _two miles_ in extent, is shown in the
Ordnance map as being likewise situated at a group of seven tumuli, and
as the winning-post at Lewes is at the base of Offham Hill the fact of
starting at Seven Barrows, racing for two miles, and finishing
respectively at Offham and Uffington is too conspicuous to be
coincidence. Referring to the Stonehenge track Stukeley writes: "This
course which is two miles long," and he adds casually, "there is an
obscure barrow or two round which they returned".
At Uffington are the remains of a cromlech known as Wayland's Smithy,
Wayland, here as elsewhere, being an invisible, benevolent fairy
blacksmith[438]: on Offham Hill, Lewes, stands an inn entitled the
"Blacksmith's Arms," and below it Wallands Park.
The sub-district of Lewes, where the De Vere family seem to have been
very prominent, contains the parishes of St. John, South_over_, and
Berwick: opposite the Castle Hill is Brack Mount, also a district called
The Brooks; running past All Saints Church is Brooman's Lane, and the
"rape" of Lewes contains the hundreds of Barcomb and Preston. The
principal church in Lewes is that of St. Michael, which is known
curiously as St. Michaels in _Foro_, and it stands, in all probability
like the Brutus Stone, in _Fore_ Street, Totnes, in what was the centre
or _forum_ of the original settlement.
The name Lewes is thought to be _lowes_, which means barrows or
toothills, and this derivation is no doubt correct, for within the
precincts of Lewes Castle, which dominates the town, are still standing
two artificial mounds nearly 800 feet apart from centre to centre.
These two barrows, known locally as the Twin Mounds of Lewes, may be
connoted with the _duas tumbas_ or two tumps, elsewhere associated with
St. Michael: at their base lies Lansdowne Place, and at another Elan's
Town, or Wick, _i.e._, Alnwick on the river Aln or Alone, near Berwick,
we find a remarkable custom closely associated with so-called Twinlaw or
Tounlow cairns. This festival is thus described by Hope: "On St. Mark's
Day the houses of the new freemen are distinguished by a holly-tree
planted before each door, as the signal for their friends to assemble
and make merry with them. About eight o'clock the candidates for the
franchise, being mounted on horseback and armed with swords, assemble in
the market-place, where they are joined by the chamberlain and bailiff
of the Duke of Northumberland, attended by two men armed with halberds.
The young freemen arranged in order, with music playing before them and
accompanied by a numerous cavalcade, march to the west-end of the town,
where they deliver their swords. They then proceed under the guidance of
the moorgrieves through a part of their extensive domain, till they
reach the ceremonial well. The sons of the oldest freemen have the
honour of taking the first leap. On the signal being given they pass
through the bog, each being allowed to use the method and pace which to
him shall seem best, some running, some going slow, and some attempting
to jump over suspected places, but all in their turns tumbling and
wallowing like porpoises at sea, to the great amusement of the populace,
who usually assemble in vast numbers. After this aquatic excursion, they
remount their horses and proceed to perambulate the remainder of their
large common, of which they are to become free by their achievement. In
passing the open part of the common the young freemen are obliged to
alight at intervals, and place a stone on a cairn as a mark of their
boundary, till they come near a high hill called the _Twinlaw_ or
Tounlaw Cairns, when they set off at full speed, and contest the honour
of arriving first on the hill, where the names of the freemen of Alnwick
are called over. When arrived about _two miles_ from the town they
generally arrange themselves in order, and, to prove their equestrian
abilities, set off with great speed and spirit over bogs, ditches,
rocks, and rugged declivities till they arrive at _Rottenrow Tower_ on
the confines of the town, the foremost claiming the honour of what is
termed 'winning the boundaries,' and of being entitled to the temporary
triumphs of the day."[439]
The occurrence of this horsey festival on St. _Mark's_ Day may be
connoted with the fact that in Welsh and Cornish _march_, in Gaelic
_marc_, meant _horse_: obviously _marc_ is allied to the modern _mare_.
There is a Rottenrow at Lewes, and Rottenrow Tower on the confines of
Alnwick is suggestive of the more famous Rotten Row in London. It would
seem that this site was also the bourne or goal of steeplechases similar
to those at Alnwick, for upwards of a mile westward there was once a
street called Michael's Grove, of which the site is now occupied by
Ovington Square. This "Ovington" may be connoted not only with Offham
Hill and Uffington of the White Horse, but also with Oving in Bucks,
where is an earthwork also a spring known as "the Horse Spring,"
traditionally associated with Horsa.[440]
Ovington Square at Kensington seems also to have been designated
Brompton Grove, and as _Bronde_sbury, a few miles northward, was known
alternatively as _Bromesbury_, and _Bromfield_, in Shropshire, as
_Brunefield_, we may safely regard the _Brom_ which appears here, and in
numerous Bromptons, Bromsgroves, Bromsberrows, Bromleas, also Brimham
Rocks, as being the same word as _Bron_. The Latin name for
broom--_planta genista_--apart from other evidence in my notebooks is an
implication that the golden broom was deemed a symbol of Genista, the
Good Genus or Janus: and as Janus of January, and _planta genista_, was
the _first_, the word _prime_ may be connoted with _broom_. On 1st
January, _i.e._, the first day of the first month, it was customary in
England to make a globe of blackthorn, a plant which is the first to
come into flower: we have already connoted the thorn or spica with the
Prime Cause, and with the prime letter of the alphabet A, or Aleph,
whence in all probability _bramble_ may be equated also with _broom_ and
_prime_.
Mitton, in _Kensington_, observes that before being Brompton Grove this
part of the district had been known as Flounders Field,[441] but why
tradition does not say. Flounders Field is on the verge of, if not
within, the district known as Kensington Gore, and those topographers
who have assigned _gore_ to the old English term meaning _mud_ are
probably correct. From Kensington Gore, or Flounders Field, we may
assume that the freemen of Kensington once wallowed their way as at
Alnwick to Rottenrow, and the plight of these sportsmen must have been
the more pitiable inasmuch as, at any rate at Alnwick, the freemen were
by custom compelled to wear white robes. In this connection it may be
noted that at the triennial road-surveying ceremony known in Guernsey as
the _Chevauchee_ or Cavalcade of St. Michael (last held in 1837), a
white wand was carried and the regimental band of the local militia was
robed in long white smocks. "This very unmilitary costume," says a
writer in _Folklore_, "must, I think, have been traditionally associated
with the Chevauchee as it is quite unlike all the uniforms of that date
worn by our local militia; it may have been a survival of some ancient,
perhaps rustic, possibly priestly band of minstrels and musicians."[442]
Whether our Whit or White Monday parade of carthorses has any claim to
antiquity I am unaware, but it is noteworthy that the Scouring of the
Uffington White Horse was celebrated on Whit Monday with great joyous
festivity. The Cavalcade of St. Michael, in which all the nobility and
gentry took part, was ordained to be held on the Monday of Mid May and
was evidently a most imposing ritual. It seems to have culminated at the
Perron du Roy (illustrated on p. 315), which was once the boundary stone
of the Royal Fief: at this spot stood once an upright stone known as _La
Rogue des Fees_, and a repast to the revellers was here served in a
circular grass hollow where according to tradition the fays used to
dance. During the procession the lance-bearer carried a wand eleven and
a quarter feet long, the number of Vavasseurs was eleven, and it is
possible that the eleven pools in Kensington, which were subsequently
merged into the present Serpentine,[443] were originally constructed or
adapted to this Elphin number in order to make a ceremonial course for
the freemen floundering from Flounders Field to Rottenrow.
Kensington in days gone by was pre-eminently a district of springs and
wells; the whole of south-west London was more or less a swamp or
"holland," and the early Briton, whose prehistoric canoe was found some
years ago at Kew, might if he had wished have wallowed the whole way
from Turnham Green, _via_ Brook Green, Parson's Green, Baron's Court,
Walham and Fulham to Tyburn.
If it be true that Boudicca were able to put 4000 war chariots into the
field there must at that time have been numerous stud farms, and the
low-lying pastures of the larger Kent, which once contained London, were
ideal for the purpose. The Haymarket is said to have derived its name
from the huge amount of hay required by the mews of Charing Cross; a
mile or so westward is Hay Hill; old maps indicate enormous mews in the
Haymarket district, and there are indications that some of the present
great mews and stables of south-western London are the relics of ancient
parks or compounds. According to Homer--
By Dardanus, of cloud-compelling Jove
Begotten, was Dardania peopled first,
Ere sacred Ilium, populous city of men,
Was founded on the plain; as yet they dwelt
On spring-abounding Ida's lowest spurs.
To Dardanus was Erichthonius born,
Great King, the wealthiest of the sons of men;
For him were pastur'd in the marshy mead,
Rejoicing with their foals, three thousand mares;
Them Boreas, in the pasture where they fed,
Beheld, enamour'd; and amid the herd
In likeness of a coal-black steed appear'd;
Twelve foals, by him conceiving, they produc'd.
These, o'er the teeming corn-fields as they flew,
Skimm'd o'er the standing ears, nor broke the haulm;
And o'er wide Ocean's bosom as they flew,
Skimm'd o'er the topmost spray of th' hoary sea.[444]
Boreas, whom we may connote with Bress, the Consort of Brigit, or Bride,
is here represented as _wallowing_, a term which Skeat derives from the
Anglo-Saxon _wealwian_, to roll round: he adds, "see voluble," but in
view of the world-wide rites of immersion or baptism it is more seemly
to connect _wallow_ with _hallow_. Mr. Weller, Senr., preferred to spell
his name with a "V": there is no doubt that Weller and Veller were
synonymous terms, and therefore that Fulham, in which is now Walham
Green, was originally a home of Wal or Ful, perhaps the same as Wayland
or Voland, the Blacksmith of Wayland's Smithy and of Walland Park.[445]
It is supposed that Fulham was the swampy home of _fowlen_, or water
_fowls_, but it is an equally reasonable conjecture that it was likewise
a tract of marshy meads whereon the _foalen_ or foals were pastured. As
already noted the Tartar version of the Pied Piper represents the
Chanteur or Kentaur as a _foal_, coursing perpetually round the world.
The coins of the Gaulish Volcae exhibit a _wheel_ or _veel_ with the
inscription VOL, others in conjunction with a coursing horse are
inscribed VOOL, and we find the head of a remarkable maned horse on the
coins of the Gaulish Felikovesi. As _felix_ means happy, one may connote
the hobby horse with _happi_ness, or one's _hobby_, and it is not
improbable that both Felixstowe and Folkestone were settlements of the
adjacent Felikovesi, whose coins portray the Hobby's head or Foal.
[Illustration: FIGS. 247 to 253.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]
[Illustration: FIGS. 254 and 255.--Gaulish. From Barthelemy.]
At Land's End, opposite the titanic headland known as Pardenick, or
Pradenic, is Cairn Voel which is also known locally as "The Diamond
Horse":[446] there is likewise a headland called The Horse, near Kynance
Cove, and a stupendous cliff-saddle at Zennor,[447] named the Horse's
Back. It would thus seem that the mythology of the Voel extended to the
far West, and it is not improbable that Tegid Voel, the Consort of
Keridwen the Mare, _alias_ Cendwen, meant _inter alia_ the Good Foal.
Prof. Macalister has recently hooked up from the deep waters of Irish
mythology a deity whose name Fal he connotes with a Teutonic Phol. This
Fal, a supposedly non-Aryan, neolithic (?) "pastoral horse-divinity,"
belonging to an older stratum of belief than the divine beings among the
Tuatha De Danann, Prof. Macalister associates with the famous stone of
Fal at Tara, and he remarks: "He looks like a Centaur, but is in
parentage and disposition totally different from the orthodox Centaurs.
He is, in fact, just the sort of being that would develop out of an
ancient hippanthropic deity who had originally no connection with
Centaurs, but who found himself among a people that had evolved the
conception of the normal type of those disagreeable creatures."[448]
In Cornwall is a river Fal; a _well_ is a spring, the _whale_ or
elephant of the sea was venerated because like the elephant it gushed
out a fountain of water from its head. The Wilton crescent, opposite one
of the ancient conduits by Rotten Row, Kensington, may well have meant
_Well town_, for the whole of this district was notoriously a place of
wells: not only do we find Wilton Crescent, but in the immediate
neighbourhood of Ovington Square and Flounders Field is _Walton_ Street
and Hooper's Court. Sennen Cove at Land's End was associated with a
mysterious sea-spirit known as the Hooper, and we shall meet again with
Hooper, or Jupiter, the Hidden one in "Hooper's Hide," an alternative
title for the game of Blind Man's Buff.
The authorities derive _avon_, or _aune_, the Celtic for a gently
flowing river, from _ap_, the Sanscrit for water, but it is more likely
that there is a closer connection with Eve, or Eva--Welsh Efa--whose
name is the Hebrew for life or enlivening, whence Avon would resolve
most aptly into the _enlivening one_. Not only are rivers actually the
enlivening ones, but the ancients philosophically assigned the origin of
all life to water or ooze. According to Persian, or Parthian
philosophy--and Parthia may be connoted in passing with Porthia, an old
name for the Cornish St. Ives, for St. Ive was said to be a Persian
bishop--the Prime appointed six pure and beneficent Archangels to
supervise respectively Fire, Metals, Agriculture, Verdure, the Brutes,
and Water. With respect to the last the injunction given was: "I confide
to thee, O Zoroaster! the water that flows; that which is stagnant; the
water of rivers; that which comes from afar and from the mountains; the
water from rain and from springs. Instruct men that it is water which
gives strength to all living things. It makes all verdant. Let it not be
polluted with anything dead or impure, that your victuals, boiled in
pure water, may be healthy. Execute thus the words of God."[449]
Etymology points to the probability that water in every form, even the
stagnant _fen_--the same word as _Aven_, _font_, and _fount_--was once
similarly sacred in Britain, whence it may follow that even although
Fulham and Walham were foul, vile, evil, and filthy,[450] the root _fal_
still meant originally the _enlivening all_.
The word _pollute_ (to be connoted with _pool_, Phol, or Fal) is traced
by Skeat to _polluere_, which means not necessarily foul, but merely to
_flow over_. The _willow_ tree (Welsh _helygen_), which grows
essentially by the water-side, may be connoted with _wallow_.
Of Candian or Cretan god-names only two are tentatively known, to
wit--Velchanos and Apheia: Apheia may be connoted with Hephaestus, the
Greek title of Vulcan or Vulcanus, and the connection between Hephaestus
and Velchanos is clearly indicated by the inscribed figure of Velchanos
which appears upon the coins of the Candian town of Phaestus. That the
_falcon_ was an emblem of the Volcae is obvious from the bird on Fig.
248, and the older forms of the English place-name Folkestone, _i.e._,
Folcanstan, Folcstane, Fulchestan supposed to mean "stone of a man
Folca," more probably imply a _Folk Stone_, or Falcon Stone, or Vulcan
Stone. The Saxon gentleman named Folca is in all probability pure
imagination.
The more British title of Wayland or Voland, the Vulcan or Blacksmith of
Uffington, and doubtless also of the Blacksmith of Walland's Park,
Offham, is Govannon. One may trace Govan, the British Hammersmith, from
St. Govans at Fairfield near Glasgow, or from St. Govan's Head in South
Wales, to St. Govan's Well, opposite De Vere Gardens in Kensington. In
Welsh _govan_ was a generic term for _smith_; one of the triune aspects
of St. Bride was that of a metal worker, and it is reasonable to equate
the Lady Godiva of _Coven_try, with Coventina or Coven of the Tyne,
whose images from Coventina's Well in Northumberland are here
reproduced. As will be seen she figures as Una or the One holding an
olive branch, and as Three holding a phial or vial, a fire, and a
what-not too obscure for specification. "The founding of the Temple of
Coventina," says Clayton, "must be ascribed to the Roman officers of the
Batavian Cohort, who had left a country where the sun shines every day
and where in pagan times springs and running waters were objects of
adoration."[451] But is there really no other possible alternative? Mr.
Hope describes the goddess represented in Fig. 256 as floating on the
leaf of a water-lily; the legend of the patron saint of St. Ives in
Cornwall is to the effect that this maiden came floating over the waves
upon a leaf, and it thus seems likely that Coventry, the home of Lady
Godiva, derived its name from being the _tre_, _tree_, or _trou_ of
Coven, or St. Govan.
[Illustration: FIG. 256.--From _The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells
of England_ (Hope, R. C.).]
[Illustration: FIG. 257.--From _The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells
of England_ (Hope, R. C.).]
In his account of a great and triumphant jousting held in London on May
Day, 1540, on which occasion all the horses were trapped in _white_
velvet, Stow several times alludes to an Ivy Bridge by St. Martin's in
the Fields, and this Ivy Bridge must have been closely adjacent to what
is now Coventry Street and Cranbrook Street. _Crene_ is Greek for
_brook_,[452] the Hippocrene or the _horse brook_ was the fountain
struck by the hoof of the divine Pegasus: _Cran_brook Street is a
continuation of Coventry Street, and I rather suspect that the
neighbouring Covent Garden is not, as popularly supposed, a corruption
of Convent Garden, but was from time immemorial a grove or garden of
Good Coven. The Maiden Lane here situated probably derived its title
from a sign or tablet of the Maiden similar to the Coventina pictures,
and it is not improbable that Coven or Goodiva once reigned from Covent
Garden _via_ Coventry Street to St. Govan's Well in Kensington. Near
Ripon is an earthwork _abri_ known seemingly as Givendale,[453] and on
Hambleton Hill in this neighbourhood used to be a White Horse carved on
the down side.[454] The primal Coventrys were not improbably a tribal
oak or other sacred _tree_, such as the Braintree in Essex near
Bradwell,[455] and the Pick_tree_ previously noted.
At Coveney, in Cambridgeshire--query, _Coven ea_ or Coven's
island?--bronze bucklers have been found which in design "bear a close
resemblance to the ribbon pattern seen on several Mycenæan works of art,
and the inference is that even as far north as Britain, the Mycenæan
civilisation found its way, the intermediaries being possibly
Phoenician traders".[456] But the Phoenicians having now been
evicted from the court it is manifestly needful to find some other
explanation.
Coveney is not many miles from St. Ives, Huntingdon, named supposedly
after Ivo, a Persian bishop, who wandered through Europe in the seventh
century. Possibly this same episcopal Persian founded Effingham near
Bookham and Boxhill, for at the foot of the Buckland Hills is Givon's
Grove, once forming part of a Manor named Pachevesham. On the downs
above is Epsom, which certainly for some centuries has been _Ep's
home_,[457] and the Pacheve of Pachevesham was possibly the same _Big
Hipha_: there is second Evesham in the same neighbourhood. Speaking of
the British inscription EPPILOS, Sir John Rhys observes that it is very
probably a derivation from _epo_, a horse; and of the town of
_Ep_eiacon, now _Eb_chester, the same authority states: "The name seems
to signify a place for horses or cavalry".[458] Near Pachevesham, below
Epsom, is an old inn named "The Running Mare".
[Illustration: FIG. 258.--British. From _A New Description of England
and Wales_ (Anon, 1724).]
In connection with Givon, or Govan, or Coven, it is interesting to note
that the word used by Tacitus to denote a British chariot is _covinus_.
Local tradition claims that the scythes of Boudiccas _coveni_ were made
at Birmingham, and there may be truth in this for the _bir_ of
Birmingham is the radical of _faber_, feu_ber_, or _fire father_, and
likewise of _Lefebre_, the French equivalent of Smith. That Birmingham
was an erstwhile home of the followers of the Fire Father, the Prime, or
Forge of Life, is deducible not only from the popular "Brum" or
"Brummagem," but from the various forms recorded of the name.[459] The
variant Brymecham may be modernised into Prime King; the neighbouring
Bromsgrove is equivalent to Auberon's Grove; Bromieham was no doubt a
home of the Brownies, and the authorities are sufficiently right in
deriving from this name "Home of the sons of _Beorn_". Bragg is a common
surname in Birmingham: Perkunas or _Peroon_, the Slav Pater or Jupiter,
was always represented with a hammer. In Fig. 175 _ante_, p. 332, the
British Fire Father, or Hammersmith, was labouring at what is assumed to
be a helmet or a burnie, and Fig. 258 is evidently a variant of the same
subject. In the _Red Book of Hergest_ there occurs a line--"With Math
the ancient, with Gofannon," from which one might gather that Math and
Gofannon were one. In any case the word _smith_ is apparently _se mith_,
_se meath_, or _Se Math_, and the Smeath's Ridge at Avebury was probably
named after the heavenly Smith or _Gofan_.
According to Rice Holmes the bronze image of a god with a hammer has
been found in England, but where or when is not stated: it is, however,
generally believed that this Celtic Hammer Smith was a representation of
the Dis Pater,[460] to whom the Celts attributed their origin.
The London place-name Hammersmith appears in Domesday Book as
Hermoderwode: in Old High German _har_ or _herr_ meant _high_, whence I
suggest that Hermoderwode has not undergone any unaccountable phonetic
change into Hammersmith, but was then surviving German for _Her moder_
or _High Mother_ Wood. From Broadway Hammersmith to Shepherd's Bush runs
"The Grove," and that originally this grove had cells of the Selli in it
is somewhat implied by the name Silgrave, still applied to a side-street
leading into The Grove. "Brewster Gardens," "Bradmore House," "British
Grove," and Broadway all alike point similarly to Hammersmith being a
pre-Saxon British settlement. Bradmore was the Manor house at
Hammersmith, and the existence of lewes, leys, or barrows on this Brad
moor is implied by the modern Leysfield Road. The lewes at Folkestone
were in all probability situated on the commanding Leas, and as the
local pronunciation of Lewis in the Hebrides is "the Lews" there
likewise were probably two or more lowes or laws whence the laws were
proclaimed and administered. Bradmore is suggestive of St. Bride, the
heavenly Hammersmith who was popularly associated with a falcon, and the
great Hammersmith or Vulcan may be connoted with the Golden _Falcon_,
whose memory has seemingly been preserved in Hammersmith at Goldhawk
Road.
When Giraldus Cambrensis visited the shrine of the glorious Brigit at
Kildare he was told the tale of a marvellous lone hawk or falcon
popularly known as "Brigit's Bird". This beauteous tame falcon is
reported to have existed for many centuries, and customarily to have
perched on the summit of the Round Tower of Kildare.[461] Doubtless this
story was the parallel of a fairy-tale current at Pharsipee in Armenia.
"There," says Maundeville, "is found a sparrow-hawk upon a fair perch,
and a fair lady of fairie, who keeps it; and whoever will watch that
sparrow-hawk seven days and seven nights, and, as some men say, three
days and three nights, without company and without sleep, that fair lady
shall give him, when he hath done, the first wish that he will wish of
earthly things; and that hath been proved oftentimes."[462]
Goldhawk Road at Hammersmith is supposedly an ancient Roman Road, and in
1884 the remains of a causeway were uncovered. Both _road_ and _route_
are the same word as the British _rhod_, and Latin _rota_ meaning a
wheel, and it is likely that the term roadway meant primarily a route
along which _rotæ_ or wheels might travel: as _rotten_ would be the
ancient plural of _rot_, Rottenrow may thus simply have meant a roadway
for wheeled traffic. According to Borlase the British fighting chariot
was a _rhod_, the rout of this traffic presumably caused _ruts_ upon
the route, whence it is quite likely that Rotten Row was a rutty and
foul thoroughfare. The ordinary supposition that this title is a
corruption of _route du roi_ may possibly have some justification, for
immediately opposite is Kingston House, and at one time Rotten Row was
known as the King's Road: originally the world of fashion used to canter
round a circular drive or ring of trees, some of which are still
carefully preserved on the high ground near the present Tea House, and
thus it might reasonably follow that Rotten Row was a corrupted form of
_rotunda_ row.
Opposite to Rotten Row are Rutland Gate and Rutland House, where lived
the Dukes of Rutland, anciently written Roteland. Rutlandshire
neighbours Leicester, a town known to the Romans under the name of
Ratae; Leicestershire is watered by the river Welland, and in Stukeley's
time there existed in a meadow near Ratae "two great banks called
_Raw_dikes, which speculators look on as unaccountable".[463] That
Leicester or Ratae paid very high reverence to the horse may be inferred
from the fact that here the annual Riding of the George was one of the
principal solemnities of the town, and one which the inhabitants were
bound legally to attend. In addition to the Rottenrows at Kensington and
Lewes there is a Rottenrow in Bucks, and a Rottenrow near Reading, all
of which, together with Rottenrow Tower near Alnwick, must be considered
in combination.
Redon figures as a kingly name among the British chronologies, and as
horses are associated so intimately with the various Rotten Rows, the
name Redon may be connoted with Ruadan, a Celtic "saint" who is said to
have presented King Dermot with thirty sea-green horses which rose from
the sea at his bidding. Sea horses are a conspicuous feature on the
coins of the Redones who dwelt in Gaul and commanded the mouth of the
Loire.[464] The horse was certainly at home at Canterbury where Rodau's
Town is in immediate proximity to what is now called Riding Gate.
There is a river Roden at Wroxeter, a river Roding in Essex; Yorkshire
is divided into three divisions called Ridings, and in East Riding, in
the churchyard of the village of Rudstone, there stands a celebrated
monolith which is peculiar inasmuch as its depth underground was said to
equal its height above.[465] There is another Rudstone near Reading
Street, Kent, and the Givon's Grove near Epsom is either in or
immediately adjacent to a district known as Wrydelands. To _ride_ was
once presumably to play the rôle of the Kentaur Queen, whether _equine_
as represented in the Coventry Festival or as riding in a triumphal
_biga_, _rhod_, _wain_ or _wagon_. That such riding was once a special
privilege is obvious from the statement of Tacitus: "She claimed a right
to be conveyed in her carriage to the Capitol; a right by ancient usage
allowed only to the sacerdotal order, the vestal virgins, and the
statues of the gods".[466]
That the Lady of Coventry was the Coun or Queen is possibly implied by
the _Coun_don within the borough of modern Coventry which also embraces
a Foleshill,[467] and Radford.
The coins of the Gaulish Rotomagi, whose headquarters were the Rouen
district, depict the horse not merely cantering but galloping apace,
whence obviously the Rotomagi were an equine or Ecuina people. With
their coins inscribed Ratumacos may be compared the coinage of the
Batavian Magusæ which depicts "a sea horse to the right," and is
inscribed MAGUS.[468] Magus, as we have seen, was a title of the
Wandering Geho, Jehu, or Jew, and he may here be connoted with the
"Splendid Mane" which figures under the name Magu, particularly in Slav
fairy-tale:--
Magu, Horse with Golden Mane,
I want your help yet once again,
Walk not the earth but fly through space
As lightnings flash and thunders roll,
Swift as the arrow from the bow
Come quick, yet so that none may know.[469]
[Illustration: FIGS. 259 and 260.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]
The French _roue_ meaning a wheel, and _rue_, a roadway, are probably
not decayed forms of the Latin _rota_ but _ruder_, more _rudimentary_,
and more _radical_: like the Candian Rhea, the Egyptian Ra or Re, and
our _ray_, they are probably the Irish _rhi_, the Spanish _rey_, and the
French _roi_.
There is a river Rea in Shropshire and a second river Rea upon which
stands _Bir_mingham: that this Rea was connected with the Candian Rhea
is possible from the existence at Birmingham of a Canwell, or Canewell.
Near Cambourne, or Cam_bre_, is the _rhe druth_ (Redruth) which the
authorities decode into stream of the Druids. Running through the
village of _Ber_riew in Wales, is a rivulet named the Rhiw, and rising
on _Bar_don Hill, Leicestershire, is "the bright and clear little river
Sence". As the word _mens_, or _mind_, is usually assigned to Minerva,
Rhea was possibly the origin of _reason_, or St. Rhea, and to _Rhi Vera_
may be assigned _river_ and _revere_; a _reverie_ is a _brown_ study.
According to Persian philosophy the soul of man was fivefold in its
essence, one-fifth being "the Roun, or Rouan, the principle of practical
judgment, imagination, volition":[470] another fifth, "the Okho or
principle of conscience," seemingly corresponds to what western
philosophers termed the _Ego_ or _I myself_.
In the neighbourhood of Brough in Westmorland is an ancient cross within
an ancient camp, known as Rey Cross, and that Leicester or Ratae--which
stands upon the antique _Via Devana_ or Divine Way--was intimately
related with the Holy Rood is obvious from the modern Red Cross Street
and High Cross Street.
The ruddy _Rood_ was no doubt radically the rolling four-spoked wheel,
felloe, felly, periphery, or brim, and although perhaps Reading denoted
as is officially supposed, "Town of the Children of Reada," the name
Read, Reid, Rea, Wray, Ray, etc., did not only mean ruddy or red-haired.
I question whether Ripon really owes its title as supposed to _ripa_,
the Latin for bank of a stream.
The town hall of Reading is situated at Valpy Street in Forbury Gardens
on what is known as The Forbury, seemingly the _Fire Barrow_ or
prehistoric Forum, and doubtless a holy fire once burned ruddily at
Rednal or Wredinhal near Bromsgrove. In Welsh _rhedyn_ means _fern_,
whence the authorities translate Reddanick in Cornwall into the ferny
place: the connection, however, is probably as remote and imaginary as
that between Redesdale and reeds.
The place-name Rothwell, anciently Rodewelle, is no doubt with reason
assumed to be "well of the rood or cross". Ruth means _pity_, and the
ruddy cross of St. John, now (almost) universally sacrosanct to Pity,
was, I think, probably the original Holy Rood. The knights of St. John
possessed at Barrow in Leicester or Ratae a site now known as Rothley
Temple, and as _th_, _t_, and _d_, are universally interchangeable it is
likely that this Rothley was once _Roth lea_ or Rood Lea. Similarly
Redruth, in view of the neighbouring Carn Bre, was probably not "Stream
of the Druids," but an _abri_ of the Red Rood. The sacred rod or pole
known generally as the Maypole was almost invariably surmounted by one
or more _rotæ_, or wheels, and the name "Radipole rood" at Fulham
(nearly opposite Epple St.) renders it likely that the Maypole was once
known alternatively as the Rood Pole. From the Maypoles flew frequently
the ruddy cross of Christopher or George.
In British mythology there figures a goddess of great loveliness named
Arianrod, which means in Welsh the "Silver Wheel": the Persians held
that their Jupiter was the whole circuit of heaven, and Arianrhod, or
"Silver Wheel," was undoubtedly the starry _welkin_, the Wheel Queen, or
the Vulcan of Good Law. With Wayland Smith may be connoted the river
Welland of Rutland and Rataeland.
Silver, a white metal,[471] was probably named after Sil Vera, the
Princess of the Silvery Moon and Silvery Stars. Silver Street is a
common name for _old_ roads in the south of England:[472] Aubrey Walk in
Kensington, is at the summit of a Silver Street, and the prime Aubrey de
Vere of this neighbourhood was, I suspect, the same ghost as originally
walked Auber's Ridge in Picardy, and the famous French _Chemin des
Dames_. France is the land of the Franks,[473] and near Frankton in
Shropshire at Ellesmere, _i.e._, the Elle, Fairy, or Holy mere, are the
remains of a so-called Ladies Walk. This extraordinary _Chemin des
Dames_, the relic evidently of some old-time ceremony, is described as a
paved causeway running far into the mere, with which more than forty
years ago old swimmers were well acquainted. It could be traced by
bathers until they got out of their depth. How much farther it might run
they of course knew not. Its existence seems to have been almost
forgotten until, in 1879, some divers searching for the body of a
drowned man came upon it on the bottom of the mere, and this led to old
inhabitants mentioning their knowledge of it.[474]
England abounds in Silverhills, Silverhowes, Silverleys, Silvertowns,
Silverdales, and Perryvales. By Silverdale at Sydenham is Jews Walk, and
on Branch Hill at Hampstead is a fine prospect known as Judges Walk:
here is Holly Bush Hill and Holly Mound, and opposite is Mount Vernon,
to be connoted with Dur_overnon_, the ancient name of Canterbury or
Rodau's Town.
Jews Walk, and the Grove at Upper Sydenham, are adjacent to Peak Hill,
which, in all probability, was once upon a time Puck's Hill, and the
wooded heights of Sydenham were in all likelihood a caer _sidi_, or seat
of fairyland.
My chair is prepared in Caer Sidi
The disease of old age afflicts none who is there.
. . . . . . . . . . .
About its peaks are the streams of ocean
And above it is a fruitful fountain.
Sir John Morris-Jones points out that _sidi_ is the Welsh equivalent of
the Irish _sid_, "fairyland"[475] and he connects the word with _seat_.
In view of this it is possible that St. Sidwell at Exeter was like the
River Sid at Sidmouth, a _caer sidi_, or seat of the _shee_.
Sydenham, like the Phoenician Sidon, is probably connected with
Poseidon, or Father Sidon, and Rhode the son of Poseidon may be connoted
with Rhadamanthus, the supposed twin brother of Minos. Near Canterbury
is Rhodesminnis, or Rhode Common,[476] and on this common Justice was
doubtless once administered by the representatives of Rhadamanthus, who
was praised by all men for his wisdom, piety, and equity. It is said
that Rhode was driven to Crete by Minos, and was banished to an Asiatic
island where he made his memory immortal by the wisdom of his laws:
Rhode, whose name is _rhoda_, the rose or Eros, is further said to have
instructed Hercules in virtue and wisdom, and according to Homer he
dwells not in the underworld but in the Elysian Fields.
[Illustration: A. POSTERN GATE. B. DECUMAN GATE. C. TOWER. D.
CIRCULAR TOWER. E. & F. TOWERS. G. SITE OF RETURN
WALL. H. SITE OF TOWER. I. SURFACE OF SUBTERRANEAN
BUILDING.
FIG. 261.--From _A Short Account of the Records of
Richborough_ (W. D.).]
A rose coin of Rhoda was reproduced _ante_, page 339; the _rhoda_ or
rose, like the _rood_, is a universal symbol of love, and with Rodau's
Town, Canterbury, or Durovernon, which is permeated with the rose of St.
George, or _Oros_, _i.e._, _rose_, may be connoted the neighbouring
_Rutu_piae, now Richborough. From the ground-plan of this impressive
ruin it will be seen to be unlike anything else in Europe, inasmuch as
it originally consisted of a quadrangle surrounding a massive rood or
cross imposed upon a titanic foundation.[477]
With Rutupiae, of which the _Rutu_ may be connoted with the _rood_
within its precincts, Mr. Roach Smith, in his _Antiquities of
Richborough_, connotes the Gaulish people known as the Ruteni. The same
authority quotes Malebranche as writing "all that part of the coast
which lies between Calais and Dunkirk our seamen now call Ruthen,"
whence it is exceedingly likely that the Reading Street near
Broadstairs, and the Rottingdean near Brighton were originally inhabited
by children of Reada or Rota.
Apparently "Rotuna" was in some way identified in Italy with Britain, or
_natione Britto_, for according to Thomas an inscription was discovered
at Rome, near Santa Maria _Rotuna_, bearing in strange alphabetical
characters NATIONE BRITTO, somewhat analogous at first sight to Hebrew,
Greek, or Phoenician letters.[478]
From the plan it will be seen that the northern arm of the Rutupian rood
points directly to the high road, and Rutupiæ itself constitutes the
root or radical of the great main route leading directly through Rodau's
Town, and Rochester to London Stone. The arms of Rochester or
_Duro_brivum--where, as will be remembered, is a Troy Town--are St.
Andrew on his _roue_ Or _rota_.
[Illustration: FIG. 262.--Arms of Rochester.]
The name _Durobrivæ_ was also applied by the Romans to the Icenian town
of Caistor, where it is locally proverbial that,
Caister was a city when Norwich was none,
And Norwich was built of Caistor stone.
There is a second Caistor which the Romans termed Venta Icenorum: the
neighbouring modern Ancaster, the Romans entitled Causeimei. It is
always taken for granted that the numerous _chesters_, _casters_,
_cesters_ of this country are the survivors of some Roman _castra_ or
fort. Were this actually the case it is difficult to understand why the
Romans called Chester _Deva_, Ancaster _Causeimei_, Caistor _Durobrivæ_,
and Rochester _Durobrivum_: in any case the word _castra_ has to be
accounted for, and I think it will be found to be traceable to some
prehistoric Judgment Tree, Cause Tree, Case Tree, or Juge Tree. No one
knows exactly how "Zeus" was pronounced, but in any case it cannot have
been rigid, and in all probability the vocalisation varied from _juice_
to _sus_, and from _juge_ to _jack_ and _cock_.[479]
The rider of a race-horse is called a _jockey_, and the child in the
nursery is taught to
Ride a _cock_ horse to Banbury Cross
To see a white lady ride on a white horse.
An English CAC horse is illustrated on page 453, and the White Lady of
Banbury who careered to the music of her bells was very certainly the
Fairy Queen whom Thomas the Rhymer describes as follows: "Her Steed was
of the highest beauty and spirit, and at his mane hung thirty silver
bells and nine, which made music to the wind as she paced along. Her
saddle was of ivory, laid over with goldsmiths' work: her stirrups, her
dress, all corresponded with her extreme beauty and the magnificence of
her array. The fair huntress had her bow in hand, and her arrows at her
belt. She led three greyhounds in a leash, and three hounds of scent
followed her closely."
This description might have been written of Diana, in which connection
it may be noted that at Doncaster (British Cair Daun), the hobby horse
used to figure as "the Queen's Pony". Epona, the Celtic horse-goddess,
may be equated with the Chanteur or Centaur illustrated on so many of
our "degraded" British coins, and Banstead Downs, upon which Ep's Home
stands, may be associated with _Epona_, and with the shaggy little
_ponies_[480] which ranged in _Epping_ Forest. Banstead, by Epsom (in
Domesday Benestede), is supposed to have meant "bean-place or store": at
Banwell in Somerset, supposed to have meant "pool of the bones," there
is an earthwork cross which seemingly associates this Banwell with
Banbury Cross, and ultimately to the cross of Alban.
The bells on the fingers and bells on the White Lady's toes may be
connoted with the silver bell of the value of 3s. 4d., which in 1571 was
the prize awarded at Chester--a town of the Cangians or Cangi--to the
horse "which with speede of runninge then should run before all
others".[481]
[Illustration: FIG. 263.--Banwell Cross. From _Earthwork of England_
(A. Hadrian Allcroft).]
With this Chester Meeting may be noted Goodwood near Chichester.
Chichester is in Sussex, and was anciently the seat of the Regni, a
people whose name implies they were followers of _re gni_ or Regina, but
the authorities imagine that Chichester, the county town of Sussex,
owes its name to a Saxon Cissa, who also bestowed his patronymic on
Cissbury Ring, the famous oval entrenchment near Broadwater. At Cissbury
Ring, the largest and finest on the South Downs, great numbers of
Neolithic relics have been found, and the name may be connoted with
Chisbury Camp near Avebury.
Near Stockport is Geecross, supposedly so named from "an ancient cross
erected here by the Gee family". Presumably that Geecross was the _chi_
cross or the Greek _chi_: the British name for Chichester was Caer
_Kei_,[482] which means the fortress of Kei, but at more modern
Chichester the famous Market Cross was probably a jack, for the four
main streets of Chichester still stand in the form of the jack or red
rood. The curious surname Juxon is intimately connected with Chichester;
there is an inscription at Goodwood relating to a British ruler named
Cogidumnus[483]--apparently _Cogi dominus_ or _Cogi Lord_--whence it
seems probable that Chichester or Chichestra (1297) was as it is to-day
an _assize_ or _juges_ tree, or even possibly a jockey's _tre_.
The adjacent Goodwood being equivalent to _Jude wood_, it is worthy of
notice that Prof. Weekley connotes the name Judson with Juxon. His words
are: "The administration of justice occupied a horde of officials from
the Justice down to the Catchpole.[484] The official title _Judge_ is
rarely found, and this surname is usually from the female name Judge,
which like Jug was used for Judith and later for Jane.
"Janette, Judge, Jennie; a woman's name (Cotgrave). The names Judson and
Juxon sometimes belong to these."[485]
The word _Chester_ is probably the same as the neighbouring place-name
_Goo_strey-_cum_-Barnshaw in _Che_shire, and the Barn shaw or Barn hill
here connected with Goostrey may be connoted with Loch Goosey near
Barhill in Ayrshire.
Chi or Jou, who may be equated with the mysterious but important St.
Chei of Cornwall, was probably also once seated at Chee Dale in
Derbyshire, at Chew Magna, and Chewton, as well as at the already
mentioned Jews Walk and Judges Walk near London.
In Devonshire is a river Shobrook which is authoritatively explained as
Old English for "brook of _Sceocca_, _i.e._, the devil, Satan! _cf._
Shuckburgh": on referring we find Shuckburgh meant--"Nook and castle of
the Devil, _i.e._, Scucca, Satan, a Demon, Evil Spirit; _cf._
Shugborough". I have not pursued any inquiries at Shugborough, but it is
quite likely that the Saxons regarded the British Shug or Shuck with
disfavour: there is little doubt he was closely related to "Old Shock,"
the phantom-dog, and the equally unpopular "Jack up the Orchard". In
some parts of England Royal Oak Day is known as Shick Shack Day,[486]
and in Surrey children play a game of giant's stride, known as Merritot
or Shuggy Shaw.[487]
Merrie Tot was probably once Merrie Tod or Tad, and Shuggy Shaw may
reasonably be modernised as Shaggy Jew or Shaggy Joy. It will be
remembered that the Wandering Jew, _alias_ Elijah, wore a shag gown
(_ante_, p. 148): this shagginess no doubt typified the radiating beams
of the Sun-god, and it may be connoted with the shaggy raiment and long
hair of John the Baptist. As shaggy Pan, "the President of the
Mountains," almost certainly gave his name to _pen_, meaning a hill, it
may be surmised that _shaw_, meaning a wooded hill, is allied to Shuggy
Shaw. The surname Bagshaw implies a place-name which originated from Bog
or Bogie Shaw: but Bagshawes Cavern at Bradwell, near Buxton,[488] is
suggestive of a cave or Canhole[489] attributed to Big Shaw, and the
neighbouring _Tide_swell is agreeably reminiscent of Merrie _Tot_ or
Shuggy Shaw.
In connection with _jeu_, a game, may be connoted _gewgaw_, in Mediæval
English _giuegoue_: the pronunciation of this word, according to Skeat,
is uncertain, and the origin unknown; he adds, "one sense of _gewgaw_ is
a Jew's Harp; _cf._ Burgundian _gawe_, a Jew's Harp".
Virgil, in his description of a Trojan _jeu_ or _show_, observes--
This contest o'er, the good Æneas sought,
A grassy plain, with waving forests crowned
And sloping hills--fit theatre for sport,
Where in the middle of the vale was found
A circus. Hither comes he, ringed around
With thousands, here, amidst them, throned on high
In rustic state, he seats him on a mound,
And all who in the footrace list to vie,
With proffered gifts invites, and tempts their souls to try.[490]
It will be noted that the _juge_ or showman seats himself amid shaws,
upon a toothill or barrow, and doubtless just such eager crowds as
collected round Æneas gathered in the ancient hippodrome which once
occupied the surroundings of St. John's Church by Aubrey Walk,
Kensington. "St John's Church," says Mitton, "stands on a hill, once a
grassy mound within the hippodrome enclosure, which is marked in a
contemporary map 'Hill for pedestrians,' apparently a sort of natural
grand-stand."[491] A large tract of this district was formerly covered
by a race-course known as the hippodrome. "It stretched," continues
Mitton, "northward in a great ellipse, and then trended north-west and
ended up roughly where is now the Triangle at the west-end of St.
Quintin Avenue. It was used for both flat-racing and steeplechasing, and
the steeplechase course was more than 2 miles in length. The place was
very popular being within easy reach of London, but the ground was never
very good for the purpose as it was marshy."[492]
That the grassy mound or natural grand-stand of St. John was once sacred
to the divine Ecne, Chinea, or Hackney, and that this King John or King
Han was symbolised by an Invictus or prancing courser is implied from
the lines of a Bardic poet: "Lo, he is brought from the firm enclosure
with his light-coloured bounding steeds--even the sovereign ON, the
ancient, the generous Feeder".[493] We have seen that in Ireland Sengann
meant Old Gann, and that "Saint" John of Kensington was originally
Sinjohn, Holy John, or Elgin, seems to be somewhat further implied from
the neighbouring Elgin Crescent, Elgin Avenue, and Howley Street.
The Fulham place almost immediately adjacent, considered in conjunction
with Fowell Street, suggests that here, as at the more western Fulham,
was a home of Foals or wild Fowl, or perhaps of Fal, the Irish
Centaur-god.
The sovereign On, the ancient Courser "of the blushing purple and the
potent number," was mighty _Hu_, whose name New, or _Ancient Yew_, is, I
think, perpetuated at Newbury--where _Hew_son is still a family name--at
Newington Padox (said to be for _paddocks_) in Warsickshire, at
Newington near Wye, in Kent, and possibly at other _New_markets or tons,
which are intimately associated with horse-racing. With the river Noe in
Derbyshire may be connoted Noe, the British form of Noah: The Newburns
in Scotland and Northumberland can hardly have been so named because
they were novel or new rivers, and in view of the fact that British
mythology combined Noah's ark (Welsh _arch_) with a mare, it may be
questioned whether the place-name Newark (originally Newarcha), really
meant as at present supposed _New Work_.[494] It may be that the Trojan
horse story was purely mythological, and had originally relation to the
supposition that mankind all emerged from the body of the Solar Horse.
The Kensington Hippodrome was eventually closed down on account of the
noise and disorders which arose there, and one may safely assume there
was always a certain amount of _rude_ness and _rowd_iness among the
_rout_ at all hippodromes. Had Herr Cissa, the imaginary Saxon to whom
the authorities so generously ascribe Cissbury Ring, Chichester, and
many other places, been present on some prehistoric Whit Monday,
doubtless like any other personage of importance he would have arrived
at Kensington seated in a _reidi_--the equivalent of the British _rhod_.
And if further, in accordance with Teutonic wont, Cissa had sneered at
the shaggy little _keffils_[495] of the British, certainly some keen
Icenian[496] would have pointed out that not only was the _keffil_ or
_cafall_ a horse of very distinguished antiquity, but that the word
_cafall_ reminded him agreeably of the Gaulish _cheval_ and the Iberian
_cabal_, both very chivalrous or cavalryous old words suggestive of
_valiant_, _valid_, and strong Che or Jou.
Hereupon some young Cockney would inevitably have uttered the current
British byword--
For acuteness and valour the Greeks
For excessive pride the Romans
_For dulness the creeping Saxons_.[497]
Unless human nature is very changeable Herr Cissa would then have
delivered himself somewhat as follows: "It is really coming to this,
that we Germans, the people to whose exquisite Kultur the nations of
Europe and of America, too, owe the fact that they no longer consist of
hordes of ape-like savages roaming their primordial forests, are about
to allow ourselves to be dictated to."[498]
Irritated by the allusion to ape-like savages one may surmise that a
jockey of Chichestra inquired whether Herr Cissa claimed the river
Cuckmere and also Cuckoo- or _Houn_dean-Bottom, the field in which Lewes
racecourse stands? He might also have insinuated that the White Horse
cut in the downs below _Hinover_[499] in the Cuckmere valley was there
long before the inhabitants of _Hanover_ adopted it as a totem, and that
the Juxons were just as much entitled to the sign of the Horse as the
Saxons of Saxony, or Sachsen. To this Herr Cissa would have replied that
the White Horse at Uffington was a "deplorable abortion," and that its
barbaric design was "a slander on the Saxon standard". Hereupon a yokel
from Cuckhamsley Hill, near Zizeter, sometimes known as Cirencester,
probably inquired with a chuckle whether Herr Cissa claimed every
Jugestree, Tree of Justice, Esus Tree, Assize or Assembly Tree in the
British Islands? He pertinently added that in Cirencester, or
Churncester, they were in the habit of celebrating at Harvest Home the
festival of the Kernababy, or Maiden, which he always understood
represented the Corn baby, elsewhere known as the Ivy Girl, or "Sweet
Sis". This youth had a notion that Sweet Sis, or the Lady of the
Corn[500] was somehow connected with his native Cirencester, or Zizeter,
and he produced a token or coin upon which the well coiffured head of a
_chic_ little maiden or fairy queen was portrayed.[501]
[Illustration: FIG. 264.--British. From Evans.]
An Icenian charioteer, who explained that his people alternatively
termed themselves the _Jugan_tes,[502] also produced a medal which he
said had been awarded him at Caistor, pointing out that the spike of
Corn was the sign of the Kernababy, that the legend under the hackney
read CAC, and that he rather thought the white horse of the Cuckmere
valley and also the one by Cuckhamsley were representations of the same
Cock Horse.[503] He added that he had driven straight from Goggeshall in
his gig--a kind of _coach_ similar to that in which the living image of
his All Highest used of old time to be ceremoniously paraded.
Herr Cissa hereupon maintained that it was impossible for anyone to
drive straight anywhere in a gig, for it was an accepted axiom of the
science of language that the word gig, "probably of imitative origin,"
meant "to take a wrong direction, to rove at random".[504] At this
juncture a venerable _columba_ from St. Columbs, Nottinghill, intervened
and produced an authentic Life of the Great St. Columba, wherein is
recorded an incident concerning the holy man's journey in a gig without
its linch pins. "On that day," he quoted, "there was a great strain on
it over long stretches of road," nevertheless "the car in which he was
comfortably seated moved forward without mishap on a straight
course."[505]
[Illustration: FIG. 265.--Sculptured Stone, Meigle, Perthshire. From
_The Life of St. Columba_ (Huyshe, W.).]
In view of this feat, and of an illustration of the type of vehicle in
which the journey was supposedly accomplished, it was generally accepted
that Herr Cissa's definition of _gig_ was fantastic, whereupon the
Saxon, protesting, "You do not care one iota for our gigantic works of
Kultur and Science, for our social organisation, for our Genius!"
asserted the dignity of his _gig_ definition by whipping up his horses,
taking a wrong direction, and roving at random from the enclosure.
FOOTNOTES:
[400] With Ecne may be connoted _ech_, the Irish for _horse_.
[401] _Irish Myth. Cycle_, p. 82.
[402] _Germania_, x.
[403] "The senses of the horse are acute though many animals excel
it in this respect, but its faculties of observation and
memory are both very highly developed. A place once visited
or a road once traversed seems never to be forgotten, and
many are the cases in which men have owed life and safety to
these faculties in their beasts of burden. Even when
untrained it is very intelligent: horses left out in winter
will scrape away the snow to get at the vegetation beneath
it, which cattle are never observed to do."--Chambers's
_Encyclopædia_, v., 792.
[404] Bayley, H., _The Lost Language of Symbolism_, vol. ii. _Cf._
chapter, "The White Horse".
[405] _Nauticaa Mediterranea_, Rome, 1601.
[406] Brock, M., _The Cross: Heathen and Christian_, p. 64.
[407] "The oak, tallest and fairest of the wood, was the symbol of
Jupiter. The manner in which the principal tree in the grove
was consecrated and ordained to be the symbol of Jupiter was
as follows: The Druids, with the general consent of the whole
order, and all the neighbourhood pitched upon the most
beautiful tree, cut off all its side branches and then joined
two of them to the highest part of the trunk, so that they
extended themselves on either side like the arms of a man,
making in the whole the shape of a cross. Above the
insertions of these branches and below, they inscribed in the
bark of the tree the word Thau, by which they meant God. On
the right arm was inscribed Hesus, on the left Belenus, and
on the middle of the trunk Tharamus."--Quoted by Borlase in
_Cornwall_ from "the learned Schedius".
[408] _Ancient British Coins_, p. 49.
[409] _The Coin Collector_, p. 159.
[410] _Numismatic Manual_, p. 225.
[411] Jewitt, L., _English Coins and Tokens_, p. 4.
[412] Head, Barclay, V., _A Guide to the Coins of the Ancients_, p.
1 (B. M.).
[413] Akerman, J. Y., _Numismatic Manual_, p. 228.
[414] Akerman, J. Y., _Numismatic Manual_, p. 10.
[415] The earliest "Lady" of Byzantium was the fabulous daughter of
Io, _Cf._ Schliemann, _Mykene_.
[416] Macdonald, G., _The Evolution of Coinage_, p. 5.
[417] Macdonald, G., _The Evolution of Coinage_, p. 9.
[418] According to Skeat _jingle_, "a frequentative verb from the
base _jink_," is allied to _chink_, and _chink_ is "an
imitative word".
[419] Munro, Dr. Robt., _Prehistoric Britain_, p. 45. The italics
are mine.
[420] Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 321.
[421] _Bella Gallico_, Bk. IV.
[422] _Crete, the Forerunner of Greece_, p. 72.
[423] _Iliad_, XX., 570-80.
[424] "It's you English who don't know your own language, otherwise
you would realise that most of what you call 'Yankeeisms' are
merely good old English which you have thrown away."--J.
Russell Lowell.
[425] As illustrated _ante_, p. 381.
[426] _Illustrated London News_, 10th August, 1918.
[427] _Cf._ _Troy_, p. 353; _Ilios_, 619.
[428] Il., lix.
[429] Hawes, C. H. and H. B., _Crete the Forerunner of Greece_, p.
44.
[430] _Æneid_, Book II., 111.
[431] _Ibid._, 20.
[432] Johnson, W., _Byways_, 419.
[433] _Sepulchres of Ancient Etruria_, p. 10.
[434] Johnston, Rev. W. B., _Place-names of England and Wales_, p.
2.
[435] Morris-Jones, Sir J., _Taliesin_, p. 32.
[436] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticæ_, ii., 218-27.
[437] Fraser, J. B., _Persia_.
[438] There is an Uffington in Lincoln on the river Welland.
[439] _Holy Wells_, p. 102.
[440] Allcroft, A. Hadrian, _Earthwork of England_, p. 136.
[441] P. 16.
[442] Carey, Miss E. F., _Folklore_, xxv., No. 4, p. 417.
[443] Mitton, C. F., _Kensington_, p. 58.
[444] _Iliad_, XX., 246, 262.
[445] The first lessee of the Manor at Kensington, now known as
Holland Park, was a certain Robert Horseman. Holland House
being built in a swamp, or _holland_, may owe its title to
that fact or to its having been erected by a Dutchman. The
Bog of _Allen_ in Ireland is authoritatively equated with
_holland_.
[446] This information was given me verbally by Miss Mary George of
Sennen Cove.
[447] Zennor is understood to have meant _Holy Land_.
[448] _Proc. of Roy. Ir. Acad._, xxxiv., C., 10-11, p. 376.
[449] Fraser, J.B., _Persia_, p. 132.
[450] According to Johnston, Felixstowe was the church of St. Felix
of Walton, sometimes said to be _stow_ of Felix, first bishop
of East Anglia. "But this does not agree with the form in
1318 Filthstowe which might be 'filth place,' place full of
dirt or foulness. This is not likely" (p. 259).
[451] _Cf._ _Holy Wells._
[452] The numerous British Cranbrooks and Cranbournes are assumed
to have been the haunts of cranes.
[453] Allcroft, A. Hadrian, _Earthwork of England_, p. 462.
[454] Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 321.
[455] Domesday Branchtrea, later Branktry. "This must be 'tree of
_Branc_,' the same name as in Branksome (Bournemouth),
Branxton (Coldstream), and Branxholm (Hawick)."--Johnston, J.
B., _Place-names of England and Wales_, p. 165.
[456] _A Guide to the Antiquities of the Iron Age_ (Brit. Museum),
p. 35.
[457] _Ep_ in old Breton meant _horse_; _cf. Origines Celticæ_, i.,
373, 380, 381.
[458] _Celtic Britain_, p. 229.
[459] 1158 Brimigham; 1166 Bremingeham; 1255 Burmingeham; 1413
Brymecham; 1538 Bromieham.
[460] _Ancient Britain_, p. 282.
[461] _Historical Works_ (Bohn's Library), p. 98.
[462] _Travels in the East_ (Bohn's Library), p. 202.
[463] _Avebury and Stonehenge_, p. 43.
[464] _A Guide to the Antiquities of the Iron Age_, p. 29.
[465] Higgens, G., _Celtic Druids_, p. lxxiv.
[466] _Annals_, Bk. xii, xii.
[467] In 1200 Folkeshull. Of Flixton in Lancashire the authorities
suggest, "perhaps a town of the flitch". Of Flokton in
Yorkshire, "Town of an unrecorded Flocca". I suspect Flokton
was really a Folk Dun or Folks Hill.
[468] Akerman, p. 166.
[469] _Slav Tales_, p. 182.
[470] Fraser, J. B., _Persia_, p. 134.
[471] The word _silver_ is imagined to be derived from _Salube_, a
town on the Black Sea.
[472] Johnston, J. B., _Place-names_, p. 445.
[473] The Frankish chroniclers assigned the origin of the Franks to
Troy. The word _Frank_ is radically feran or veran.
[474] Hope, R. C., _Holy Wells_, p. 137.
[475] _Taliesin_, p. 238.
[476] _Minnis_, said to be a Kentish word for _common_, is
seemingly the latter portion of _communis_.
[477] "Within the area towards the north-east corner is a solid
rectangular platform of masonry, 145 feet by 104 feet, and 5
feet in thickness. In the centre there is a structure of
concrete in the form of a cross, 87 feet in length, 7 feet 6
inches wide, which points to the north. The transverse arm,
47 feet long and 22 feet wide, points to the gateway in the
west wall. The platform rests upon a mass of masonry reaching
downward about 30 feet from the surface, it measures 124 feet
north to south and 80 feet east to west. At each corner there
are holes 5 to 6 inches square, penetrating through the
platform. A subterranean passage, 5 feet high, 3 feet wide,
has been excavated under the overhanging platform, around the
foundation beneath, which may be entered by visitors.
"The efforts that have been made to pierce the masonry have
failed in ascertaining whether there are chambers inside. No
satisfactory explanation of its origin and purpose has yet
been discovered. It may have formed the foundation of a
'pharos'. The late C. R. Smith, whose opinion on the subject
is of especial value, and also later authorities, have
thought that this remarkable structure enclosed receptacles
either for the storage of water, or for the deposit of
treasure awaiting shipment."--_A Short Account of the Records
of Richborough_ (W. D.).
[478] _Britannia Antiquissima_, p. 5.
[479] This on the face of it looks far-fetched, but the
intermediate forms may easily be traced, and the suggestion
is really more rational than the current claim that _fir_ and
_quercus_ are the "same word".
[480] Statues of Epona represent her seated "between foals".
_Ancient Britain_, p. 279.
[481] A small bell swinging in a circle may often be seen to-day as
a "flyer" ornament on the heads of London carthorses.
[482] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticæ_, ii., p. 159.
[483] Tacitus in _Agricola_ gives Cogidumnus an excellent reference
to the following effect: "Certain districts were assigned to
Cogidumnus, a king who reigned over part of the country. He
lived within our own memory, preserving always his faith
unviolated, and exhibiting a striking proof of that refined
policy, with which it has ever been the practice of Rome to
make even kings accomplices in the servitude of mankind."
[484] This functionary is said to have acquired his title by
distraining on, or catching the people's pullets.
[485] _The Romance of Names_, p. 184.
[486] Hazlitt, W. C., _Faiths and Folklore_, ii., 543.
[487] _Ibid._, ii., 408.
[488] At _Bick_ley (Kent) is _Shaw_field Park.
[489] The neighbouring "Canholes" will be considered in a later
chapter.
[490] _Æneid_, Bk. V., 39.
[491] _Kensington_, p. 89.
[492] _Ibid._, p. 89.
[493] Davies, E., _Mytho. of Ancient Druids_, p. 528.
[494] The oldest church in Ireland (the Oratory of Gallerus) is
described as exactly like an upturned boat, and the _nave_ or
_ship_ of every modern sanctuary perpetuates both in form and
name the ancient notion of Noah's Ark, or the Ark of Safety.
The ruins of Newark Priory, near Woking, are situated in a
marshy mead amid seven branches of the river Wey which even
now at times turn the site into a swamp. There is a Newark in
Leicestershire and a Newark in St. John's Parish,
Peterborough; here the land is flat and mostly arable. At
Newark, in Notts, the situation was seemingly once just such
a wilderness of waters as surrounded Newark Priory, in Send
Parish, Woking. The ship of Isis, symbolizing the fecund Ark
of Nature, figured prominently in popular custom, and the
subject demands a chapter at the very least.
[495] _Keffil_ meaning _horse_ is still used in Worcestershire, and
Herefordshire. "This is a pure Welsh word nor need one feel
much surprised at finding it in use in counties where the
Saxon and the Brython must have had many dealings in horse
flesh. But what is significant is the manner in which it is
used, for it is employed only for horses of the poorest type,
or as a word of abuse from one person to another as when one
says--'you great keffil,' meaning you clumsy idiot."--Windle,
B. C. A., _Life in Early Britain_, p. 209.
[496] "The Icenians took up arms, a brave and warlike
people."--Tacitus, _Annals_.
[497] Windle, B. C. A., _Life in Early Britain_, p. 210.
[498] Quoted in _The Daily Express_, 9th October, 1918, from _Der
Rheinisch Westfalische Zeitung_.
[499] _Cf._ Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 326.
[500] The Cornish for _corn_ was _izik_.
[501] _Cf._ Fig. 358, p. 596.
[502] Evans, Sir J., _Ancient British Coins_, p. 404.
[503] "Under any circumstances the legend CAC on the reverse would
have still to be explained."--_Ibid._, p. 353.
[504] Skeat, p. 212.
[505] Huyshe, W., _Adamnan's Life of St. Columba_, p. 173.