PETER'S ORCHARDS.
"But all the beauty of the pleasaunce drew its being from the song
of the bird; for from his chant flowed love which gives its shadow
to the tree, its healing to the simple, and its colour to the
flower. Without that song the fountain would have ceased to spring,
and the green garden become a little dry dust, for in its sweetness
lay all their virtue."--_Provençal Fairy Tale_.
Among the relics preserved at the monastery of St. Nicholas of Bari is a
club with which the saint, who is said to have become a friar at the age
of _eleven_, was beaten by the devil: a club was the customary symbol of
Hercules; the Celtic Hercules was, as has been seen, depicted as a
baldhead leading a rout of laughter-loving followers by golden chains
fastened to their ears, and as it was the habit of St.
Nicholas-of-the-Club to wander abroad singing after the ancient fashion,
one may be sure that Father Christmas is the lineal descendant of the
British Ogmios or Mighty Muse, _alias_ the Wandering Jew or Joy. That
Bride "the gentle" was at times similarly equipped is obvious from a
ceremony which in Scotland and the North of England used to prevail at
Candlemas: "the mistress and servants of each family take a sheaf of
oats and dress it up in woman's apparel, put it in a large basket and
lay a wooden club by it, and this they call "Briid's Bed," and then the
mistress and servants cry three times: "Briid is come, Briid is
welcome"! This they do just before going to bed": another version of
this custom records the cry as--"Bridget, Bridget, come is; thy bed is
ready".
In an earlier chapter we connected Iupiter or Jupiter with Aubrey or
Oberon, and that this roving Emperor of Phairie Land was familiar to the
people of ancient Berkshire is implied not only by a river in that
county termed the Auborn, but also by adjacent place-names such as
Aberfield, Burfield, Purley, and Bray. Skeat connotes Bray (by
Maidenhead) with "Old English _braw_, Mercian _breg_, an eyebrow," but
what sensible or likely connection is supposed to exist between the town
of Bray and an eyebrow I am unable to surmise: we have, however,
considered the prehistoric "butterfly" or eyebrows, and it is not
impossible that Bray was identified with this mysterious Epeur (Cupid)
or Amoretto. The claims to ubiquity and antiquity put by the British
poet into the mouth of Taliesin or _Radiant Brow_--the mystic child of
Nine constituents[766]--is paralleled by the claims of Irish Ameurgin,
likewise by the claims of Solomonic "Wisdom," and there is little doubt
that the symbolic forms of the "Teacher to all Intelligences" are beyond
all computation.
That Berkshire, the shire of the White Horse, was a seat of beroc or El
Borak the White Horse is further implied by the name Berkshire:
according to Camden this originated "some say from Beroc, a certain wood
where box grew in great plenty"; according to others from a disbarked
oak [_i.e._, a _bare oak_!] to which when the state was in more than
ordinary danger the inhabitants were wont to resort in ancient times to
consult about their public affairs".[767] Overlooking Brockley in Kent
is an Oak of Honor Hill, and probably around that ancient and possibly
bare Oak the natives of old Brockley or Brock Meadow met in many a
consultation.[768] At Coventry is Berkswell: Berkeleys are numerous, and
that these sites were _abris_ or sanctuaries is implied by the official
definition of Great Berkhamstead, _i.e._, "_Sheltered, home place, or
fortified farm_".
At St. Breock in Cornwall there is a pair of Longstones, one measuring
12 feet 4 inches, the other 8 feet, and in all probability at some time
or other these pierres or petras were symbols of the phairy Pair who
were the Parents and Protectors of the district. At St. Columb in
Cornwall there is a Longstone known as "The Old Man": now measuring 7
feet 6 inches, in all probability this stone was originally 8 feet high;
it was also "once apparently surrounded by a small circle".
[Illustration: FIG. 419.--British. From Akerman.]
In the British coin here illustrated the Old Man jogging along with a
club is probably CUN the Great One, or the Aged One. The brow of Honor
Oak ridge is known as Canonbie Lea, which may be resolved into the
"meadow of the abode of King On": from this commanding height one may
contemplate all London lying in the valley; facing it are the highlands
of Cuneburn, Kenwood, Caenwood, and St. John's Wood. London stone is
situated in what is now termed Cannon Street--a supposed corruption of
Candlewick Street: the greater probability is that the name is connected
with the ancient Kenning or Watch Tower, known as a _burkenning_, which
once occupied the site now marked by Tower Royal in Cannon Street: the
ancient Cenyng Street by Mikelgate at York, or Eboracum--a city
attributed to a King Ebrauc who will probably prove to be identical with
Saint Breock--marked in all likelihood the site of a similar broch,
burgkenning, barbican, or watch tower. One may account for ancient
Candlewick by the supposition that this district was once occupied by a
candle factory, or that it was the property of a supposititious Kendal,
who was identical with the Brook, Brick, or Broken of the neighbouring
Brook's wharf, Brickhill, and Broken wharf. At Kendal in Westmorland,
situated on the river Can or Kent, around which we find Barnside, the
river Burrow or Borrow, and Preston Hall, we find also a Birbeck, and
the memories of a Lord Parr: this district was supposedly the home of
the Concanni. The present site of Highbury Barn Tavern by Canonbury
(London) was once occupied by a "camp" in what was known as Little St.
John's Wood,[769] and as this part of London is not conspicuously
"high," it is not improbable that Highbury was once an _abri_: in the
immediate neighbourhood still exists Paradise Road, Paradise Passage,
Aubert Park and a Calabria Road which may possibly mark the site of an
original Kil abria. At Highbury is Canonbury Tower, whence tradition
says an underground passage once extended to the _priory_ of St. John's
in Clerkenwell: from Highbury to the Angel at Islington there runs an
Upper Street: _upper_ is the Greek _hyper_ meaning _over_ (German
_uber_), and that the celebrated "Angel" was originally a fairy or
Bellinga, is somewhat implied by the neighbouring Fairbank Street--once
a fairy bank?--and by Bookham Street--once a home of Bogie or Puck?
From Canonbie Lea at Honor Oak, Brockley (London), one overlooks
Peckham, Bickley, Beckenham, and Bellingham, the last named being
decoded by the authorities into _home of Belling_.
We have noted the tradition at Brentford of Two Kings "united yet
divided twain at once," yet there is also an extant ballad which
commences--
The noble king of Brentford
Was old and very sick.
The Cornish hill of Godolphin was also known as Godolcan, and in view of
the connection between Nicolas and eleven it may be assumed that this
site was sacred either to Elphin, the _elven_, the Holy King, or the Old
King. At Highbury is an Old Cock Tavern, and in Upper Street an Old Parr
Inn: not improbably Old Parr was once the deity of "Upper" Street or
"Highbury," and it is also not unlikely that the St. Peter of
Westminster was similarly Old Parr, for according to _The History of
Signboards_--"'The OLD MAN,' Market Place, Westminster, was probably
intended for Old Parr, who was celebrated in ballads as 'The Olde, Olde,
Very Olde Manne'. The token represents a bearded bust in profile, with a
bare head.[770] In the reign of James I. it was the name of a tavern in
the Strand, _otherwise called the Hercules Tavern_, and in the
eighteenth century there were two coffee-houses, the one called 'the OLD
MAN'S,' the other 'the YOUNG MAN'S' Coffee-house."[771]
If the Old, Old, Very Old Man were Peter the white-haired warden of the
walls of Heaven it is obvious that the Young Man would be Pierrot: it is
not by accident that white-faced Pierrot, or Peterkin, or Pedrolino, is
garbed in white and wears a conical white cap, the legend that accounts
for this curious costume being to the effect that years and years ago
St. Peter and St. Joseph were once watching (from a burkenning?) over a
wintry plain from the walls of Paradise, when they beheld what seemed a
pink rose peering out from beneath the snow; but instead of being a rose
it proved to be the face of a child, who St. Peter picked up in his
arms, whereupon the snow and rime were transformed into an exquisite
white garment. It was intended that the little Peter should remain
unsullied, but, as it happened, the Boy, having wandered from Paradise,
started playing Ring-o-Roses on a village green where a little girl
tempted him to talk: then the trouble began, for Pierrot speckled his
robe, and St. Peter was unable to allow him in again; but he gave him
big black buttons and a merry heart, and there the story ends.[772]
In Pantomime--which has admittedly an ancestry of august antiquity--the
counterpart to Pierrot is Columbine, or the Little Dove; doubtless the
same Maiden as the Virgin Martyr of St. Columb, Cornwall: this parish is
situated in what was termed "The Hundred of _Pydar_"; in Welsh Bibles
Peter is rendered _Pedr_, and one of the Welsh bards refers to
Stonehenge as "the melodious quaternion of Pedyr": in Cornwall there is
also a Padstow or Petroxstowe, and there is no doubt that Peter, like
Patrick, was the Supreme Padre or Parent. According to the native
ancient ecclesiastical records of Wales known as the Iolo MSS., the
native name of St. Patrick was Maenwyn, which means _stone sacred_:
hence one may assume that the island of Battersea or Patrixeye was the
abode of the padres who ministered at the neighbouring shrine of St.
Peter or petra, the Rock upon which the church of Christ is
traditionally built.
[Illustration: FIG. 420.--From _A New Description of England_ (1724).]
At Patrixbourne in Kent was a seat known as Bifrons, once in the
possession of a family named Cheyneys:[773] whether there be any
connection between this estate named Bifrons and _Bifrons_, or _Two
fronted_, a sobriquet applied to Janus, I am unaware: the connection
Cheyneys--Bifrons--Patrixbourne is, however, the more curious inasmuch
as they immediately neighbour a Bekesbourne, and on referring to Peckham
we find that a so-termed Janus bifrons was unearthed there some
centuries ago. The peculiarity of this Peckham Janus is that, unlike any
other Janus-head I know, it obviously represents a Pater and Mater, and
not two Paters, or a big and little Peter. The feminine of Janus is Jane
or Iona, and at Iona in Scotland there existed prior to the Reformation
when they were thrown into the sea, some remarkable _petræ_, to wit,
three noble marble globes placed in three stone basins, which the
inhabitants turned three times round according to the course of the
sun:[774] these were known as _clacha brath_ or Stones of Judgment.
Tradition connects St. Columba of Iona in the Hebrides with Loch Aber,
or, as it was sometimes written, Loch Apor, and among the stories which
the honest Adamnan received and recorded "nothing doubting from a
certain religious, ancient priest," is one to the effect that Columba
on a memorable occasion, turning aside to the nearest rock, prayed a
little while on bended knees, and rising up after prayer blessed the
brow of the same rock, from which thereupon water bubbled up and flowed
forth abundantly. With the twelve-mouthed _petra_ or rock of Moses
which, according to Rabbinic tradition, followed the Israelites into the
wilderness, may be connoted the rock-gushing fountain at Petrockstowe,
Cornwall. That St. Patrick was Shony the Ocean-deity, to whom the
Hebrideans used to pour out libations, is deducible from the legend that
on the day of St. Patrick's festival the fish all rise from the sea,
pass in procession before his altar, and then disappear. The personality
of the great St. Patrick of the Paddys is so remarkably obscure that
some hagiographers conclude there were seven persons known by that name;
others distinguish three, and others recognise two, one of whom was
known as "_Sen_ Patrick," _i.e._, the senile or senior Patrick: there is
little doubt that the archetypal Patrick was represented indifferently
as young and old and as either seven, three, two, or one: whence perhaps
the perplexity and confusion of the hagiographers.
It is not improbable that the Orchard Street at Westminster may mark the
site of a burial ground or "Peter's Orchard," similar to that which was
uncovered in Wiltshire in 1852: this was found on a farm at Seagry, one
part of which had immemorially been known as "Peter's Orchard".[775]
From generation to generation it had been handed down that in a certain
field on this farm a church was built upon the site of an ancient
_heathen_ burial ground, and the persistence of the heathen tradition is
seemingly presumptive evidence, not only of inestimable age, but of the
memory of a pre-Christian Peter.
It may be assumed that "Peter's Orchard" was originally an apple orchard
or an Avalon similar to the "Heaven's Walls," which were discovered some
years ago near Royston: these "walls," immediately contiguous to the
Icknield or Acnal Way, were merely some strips of unenclosed but
cultivated land which in ancient deeds from time immemorial had been
called "Heaven's Walls". Traditional awe attached to this spot, and
village children were afraid to traverse it after dark, when it was said
to be frequented by supernatural beings: in 1821 some labourers digging
for gravel on this haunted spot inadvertently discovered a wall
enclosing a rectangular space containing numerous deposits of sepulchral
urns, and it then became clear that here was one of those plots of
ground environed by walls to which the Romans gave the name of
_ustrinum_.[776]
The old Welsh graveyards were frequently circular, and there is a
notable example of this at Llanfairfechan: the Llanfair here means holy
enclosure of Fair or Mairy, and it is probable that Fechan's round
churchyard was a symbol of the Fire Ball or _Fay King_. At Fore in
Ireland the Solar wheel figures notably at the church of "Saint" Fechan
on an ancient doorway illustrated herewith. That the Latin _ustrinum_
was associated with the Uster or Easter of resurrection is likely
enough, for both Romans and Greeks had a practice of planting roses in
their graveyards: as late as 1724 the inhabitants of Ockley or Aclea in
Surrey had "a custom here, time immemorial, of planting rose trees in
the graves, especially by the young men and maidens that have lost
their lovers, and the churchyard is now full of them".[777] That "The
Walls of Heaven" by Royston was associated with roses is implied by the
name Royston, which was evidently a rose-town, for it figures in old
records as _Crux Roies_, _Croyrois_, and _Villa de cruce Rosia_. The
expression "God's Acre" still survives, seemingly from that remote time
when St. Kit of Royston, the pre-Christian "God," was worshipped at
innumerable Godshills, Godstones, Gaddesdens, and Goodacres.
[Illustration: FIG. 421.--From _The Age of the Saints_ (Borlase,
W. C.).]
Tradition asserts that the abbey church of St. Peter's at Westminster
occupies the site of a pagan temple to Apollo--the Etrurian form of
Apollo was Aplu, and there is no doubt that the sacred _apple_ of the
Druids was the symbol of the "rubicund, radiant Elphin" or Apollo.
According to Malory, a certain Sir Patrise lies buried in Westminster,
and this knight came to his untoward end by eating an apple, whereupon
"suddenly he brast (burst)":[778] from this parallel to the story of St.
Margaret erupting from a dragon it is probable that Sir Patrise was the
original patron of Westminster, or ancient Thorney Eye. Patera was a
generic title borne by the ministers at Apollo's shrines, and as
glorious Apollo was certainly the Shine, it is more than likely that
Petersham Park at Sheen, where still stands a supposedly Roman _petra_
or altar-stone, was a park or enclosure sacred to Peter, or, perhaps, to
Patrise of the apple-bursting story.
The Romans applied the title Magonius to the Gaulish and British Apollo;
sometimes St. Patrick is mentioned as Magounus, and it is probable that
both these epithets are Latinised forms of the British name Magon: the
Druidic Magon who figures in the traditions of Cumberland is in all
probability the St. Mawgan whose church neighbours that of the Maiden
St. Columb in the Hundred of Pydar in Cornwall.
One of the principal towns in Westmorland is Appleby, which was known to
the Romans as Abellaba: the Maiden Way of Westmorland traverses Appleby,
starting from a place called Kirkby Thore, and here about 200 years ago
was found the supposed "amulet or magical spell," illustrated in Fig.
422. The inscription upon the reverse is in Runic characters, which some
authorities have read as THOR DEUS PATRIUS; and if this be correct the
effigy would seem to be that of the solar Sir Patrise, for apparently
the object in the right hand is an apple: there is little doubt that the
great Pater figures at Patterdale, at Aspatria, and at the river
Peterill, all of which are in this neighbourhood, and in all probability
the Holy Patrise or Aspatria was represented by the culminating peak
known as the "Old Man" of Coniston.
Some experts read the legend on Fig. 422 as THURGUT LUETIS, meaning "the
face or effigies of the God Thor": according to others Thurgut was the
name of the moneyer or mintmaster; according to yet others the coin was
struck in honour of a Danish Admiral named Thurgut: where there is such
acute diversity of opinion it is permissible to suggest that
Thurgut--whose effigy is seemingly little suggestive of a sea-dog--was
originally the _Three Good_ or the _Three God_, for the figure's sceptre
is tipped by the three circles of Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good
Word. In Berkshire the country people, like the Germans with their
_drei_, say _dree_ instead of _three_, and thus it may be that the
Apples Three, or the Apollos Three (for the ancients recognised Three
Apollos--the celestial, the terrestrial, and the infernal) were
worshipped at Apple_dre_, or Apple_dore_ opposite Barnstable, and at
Apple_dur_ Comb or Apple_dur_well, a manor in the parish of Godshill,
Isle of Wight.
[Illustration: FIG. 422.--From _A New Description of England_.]
English "Appletons" are numerous, and at Derby is an Appletree which was
originally Appletrefelde: it is known that this Apple-Tree-Field
contained an apple-tree which was once the meeting place of the Hundred
or Shire division, and it is probable that the two Apuldre's of Devon
served a similar public use. As late as 1826 it was the custom, at
Appleton in Cheshire, "at the time of the wake to clip and adorn an old
hawthorn which till very lately stood in the middle of the town. This
ceremony is called the bawming (dressing) of Appleton Thorn".[779]
Doubtless Appleton Thorn was originally held in the same estimation as
the monument bushes of Ireland, which are found for the most part in the
centre of road crossings. According to the anonymous author of _Irish
Folklore_,[780] these ancient and solitary hawthorns are held in immense
veneration, and it would be considered profanation to destroy them or
even remove any of their branches: from these fairy and phooka-haunted
sites, a lady dressed in a long flowing white robe was often supposed to
issue, and "the former dapper elves are often seen hanging from or
flitting amongst their branches". We have in an earlier chapter
considered the connection between spikes and spooks, and it is obvious
that the White Lady or Alpa of the white thorn or aubespine is the
Banshee or Good Woman Shee:--
She told them of the fairy-haunted land
Away the other side of Brittany,
Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea;
Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande,
Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps,
Where Merlin,[781] _by the enchanted thorn-tree_ sleeps.
In the forest of Breceliande--doubtless part of the fairy Hy
Breasil--was a famed Fountain of Baranton or Berendon into which
children threw tribute to the invocation, "Laugh, then, fountain of
Berendon, and I will give thee a pin".[782] The first pin was presumably
a spine or thorn; the first flower is the black-thorn; on 1st January
(the first day of the first month), people in the North of England used
to construct a blackthorn globe and stand hand in hand in a circle round
the fire chanting in a monotonous voice the words "Old Cider,"
prolonging each syllable to its utmost extent. I think that Old Cider
must have been Thurgut, and that in all probability the initial _Ci_ was
_sy_, the ubiquitous endearing diminutive of pucksy, _pixie_, etc.
According to Maundeville, "white thorn hath many virtues; for he that
beareth a branch thereof upon him, no thunder nor tempest may hurt him;
and no evil spirit may enter in the house in which it is, or come to the
place that it is in": Maundeville refers to this magic thorn as the
aubespine, which is possibly a corruption of _alba_ thorn, or it may be
of Hob's thorn. In modern French _aube_ means the dawn.
We have seen that there are some grounds for surmising that Brawn Street
and Bryanstone Square (Marylebone) mark the site of a Branstone or fairy
stone, in which connection it may be noted that until recently: "near
this spot was a little cluster of cottages called 'Apple Village'":[783]
in the same neighbourhood there are now standing to-day a Paradise
Place, a Paradise Passage, and Great Barlow Street, which may quite
possibly mark the site of an original _Bar low_ or _Bar lea_. Apple
Village was situated in what was once the Manor of Tyburn or Tyburnia:
according to the "Confession" of St. Patrick the saint's grandfather
came from "a village of Tabernia,"[784] and it is probable that the
Tyburn brook, upon the delta of which stands St. Peter's (Westminster),
was originally named after the Good Burn or Oberon of Bryanstone and the
neighbouring Brawn Street. The word _tabernacle_ is traceable to the
same roots as _tavern_, French _auberge_, English _inn_.
Around the effigy of Thurgut will be noted either seven or eight M's: in
mediæval symbolism the letter M stood usually for Mary; the parish
church of Bryanstone Square is dedicated to St. Mary, and we find the
Virgin very curiously associated with one or more apple-trees. According
to the author of _St. Brighid and Her Times_: "Bardism offers nothing
higher in zeal or deeper in doctrine than the _Avallenan_, or Song of
the Apple-trees, by the Caledonian Bard, Merddin Wyllt. He describes his
Avallenan as being one Apple-tree, the Avallen, but in another sense it
was 147 apple-trees, that is, mystically (taking the sum of the digits,
1 4 7 equal 12), the sacred Druidic number. Thus in his usual repeated
description of the Avallen as one apple-tree, he writes:--
Sweet apple-tree! tree of no rumour,
That growest by the stream, without overgrowing the circle.
Again, as 147 apple trees--
Seven sweet apple-trees, and seven score
Of equal age, equal height, equal length, equal bulk;
Out of the bosom of mercy they sprung up.
Again--
They who guard them are one curly-headed virgin."
In fairy-tale the apple figures as the giver of rejuvenescence and new
life, in Celtic mythology it figures as the magic Silver Branch which
corresponds to Virgil's Golden Bough. According to Irvine the word
_bran_ meant not only the Druidical system, but was likewise applied to
individual Druids who were termed _brans_: I have already suggested that
this "purely mystical and magical name" is our modern _brain_; according
to all accounts the Druids were eminently men of brain, whence it is
possible that the fairy-tale "Voyage of _Bran_" and the Voyage of St.
Brandon were originally brainy inventions descriptive of a mental voyage
of which any average brain is still capable. The Voyage of Bran relates
how once upon a time Bran the son of Fearbal[785] heard strange music
behind him, and so entrancing were the sounds that they lulled him into
slumber: when he awoke there lay by his side a branch of silver so
resplendent with white blossom that it was difficult to distinguish the
flowers from the branch. With this fairy talisman, which served not
only as a passport but as food and drink, and as a maker of music so
soothing that mortals who heard it forgot their woes and even ceased to
grieve for their kinsmen whom the Banshee had taken, Bran voyaged to the
Islands called Fortunate, wherein he perceived and heard many strange
and beautiful things:--
A branch of the Apple Tree from Emain
I bring like those one knows;
Twigs of white silver are on it,
Crystal brows with blossoms.
There is a distant isle
Around which sea horses glisten:
A fair course against the white swelling surge,
Four feet uphold it.
In Wales on 1st January children used to carry from door to door a
holly-decked apple into which were fixed three twigs--presumably an
emblem of the Apple Island or Island of Apollo, supported on the three
sweet notes of the Awen or creative Word. Into this tripod apple were
stuck oats:[786] the effigy of St. Bride which used to be carried from
door to door consisted of a sheaf of oats; in Anglo-Saxon _oat_ was
_ate_, plural _aten_, and it is evident that oats were peculiarly
identified with the Maiden.
In Cormac's _Adventure in the Land of Promise_ there again enters the
magic Silver Branch, with three golden apples on it: "Delight and
amusement to the full was it to listen to the music of that branch, for
men sore wounded or women in childbed or folk in sickness would fall
asleep, at the melody when that branch was shaken". The Silver Branch
which seems to have been sometimes that of the Apple, sometimes of the
Whitethorn, corresponds to the mistletoe or Three-berried and
Three-leaved Golden Bough: until recent years a bunch of Mistletoe or
"All Heal"--the essential emblem of Yule--used to be ceremoniously
elevated to the proclamation of a general pardon at York or Ebor: it is
still the symbol of an affectionate _cumber_ or gathering together of
kinsmen. King Camber is said to have been the son of Brutus; he was
therefore, seemingly, the young St. Nicholas or the Little Crowned King,
and in Cumberland the original signification of the "All Heal" would
appear to have been traditionally preserved. In _Tales and Legends of
the English Lakes_ Mr. Wilson Armistead records that many strange tales
are still associated with the Druidic stones, and in the course of one
of these alleged authentic stories he prints the following Invocation:--
_1st Bard_. Being great who reigns alone,
Veiled in clouds unseen unknown;
Centre of the vast profound,
Clouds of darkness close Thee round.
_3rd Bard_. Spirit who no birth has known,
Springing from Thyself alone,
We thy living emblem show
In the mystic mistletoe,
Springs and grows without a root,
Yields without flowers its fruit;
Seeks from earth no mother's care,
Lives and blooms the child of air.
_4th Bard_. Thou dost Thy mystic circle trace
Along the vaulted blue profound,
And emblematic of Thy race
We tread our mystic circle round.
_Chorus_. Shine upon us mighty God,
Raise this drooping world of ours;
Send from Thy divine abode
Cheering sun and fruitful showers.
In view of the survival elsewhere of Druidic chants and creeds which are
unquestionably ancient, it is quite possible that in the above we have a
genuine relic of prehistoric belief: that the ideas expressed were
actually held might without difficulty be proved from many scattered and
independent sources; that Cumberland has clung with extraordinary
tenacity to certain ancient forms is sufficiently evident from the fact
that even to-day the shepherds of the _Borrow_dale district tell their
sheep in the old British numerals, _yan_, _tyan_, _tethera_,
_methera_,[787] etc.
The most famous of all English apple orchards was the Avalon of Somerset
which as we have seen was encircled by the little river Brue: with
Avalon is indissolubly associated the miraculous Glastonbury Thorn, and
that Avalon[788] was essentially British and an _abri_ of King Bru or
Cynbro is implied by its alternative title of Bride Hay or Bride Eye:
not only is St. Brighid said to have resided at Avalon or the Apple
Island, but among the relics long faithfully preserved there were the
blessed Virgin's scrip, necklace, distaff, and bell. The fact that the
main streets of Avalon form a perfect cross may be connoted with Sir
John Maundeville's statement that while on his travels in the East he
was shown certain apples: "which they call apples of Paradise, and they
are very sweet and of good savour. And though you cut them in ever so
many slices or parts across or end-wise, you will always find in the
middle the figure of the holy cross."[789] That Royston, near the site
of "Heaven's Walls," was identified with the Rood, Rhoda, or Rose Cross
is evident from the ancient forms of the name Crux Roies (1220),
Croyrois (1263), and Villa de Cruce Rosia (1298): legend connects the
place with a certain Lady Roese, "about whom nothing is known," and
probability may thus associate this mysterious Lady with Fair Rosamond
or the Rose of the World. In the Middle Ages, The Garden of the Rose was
merely another term for Eden, Paradise, Peter's Orchard, or Heaven's
Walls, and the Lady of the Rose Garden was unquestionably the same as
the Ruler of the Isles called Fortunate--
--a Queen
So beautiful that with one single beam
Of her great beauty, all the country round
Is rendered shining.
Some accounts state that the bride of Oberon was known as Esclairmond, a
name which seemingly is one with _eclair monde_ or "Light of the World".
We have seen that the surroundings of the Dane John at Canterbury are
still known as Rodau's Town: the coins of the Rhodian Greeks were
sometimes _rotae_ or wheel crosses in the form of a rose, and there is
little doubt that our British rota coins were intended to represent
various conceptions of the Rose Garden, or Avalon, or the Apple Orchard:
using another simile the British poets preached the same Ideal under the
guise of the Round Table.[790] Fig. 179, (_ante_, p. 339) represented a
rose combined with four sprigs or sprouts, and in Fig. 423 (British) the
intention of the rhoda is clearly indicated: on the carved column
illustrated on page 708 the rood is a _rhoda_, and my suggestion in an
earlier chapter that "Radipole road," near London, may have marked the
site of a rood pole is somewhat strengthened by the fact that Maypoles
occasionally displayed St. George's red rood or the banner of England,
and a white pennon or streamer emblazoned with a red cross terminating
like the blade of a sword. Occasionally the poles were painted yellow
and black in spiral lines, the original intention no doubt being
representative of Night and Day.
[Illustration: FIGS. 423 and 424.--British. From Akerman.]
Alas poore Maypoles what should be the cause
That you were almost banished from the earth?
Who never were rebellious to the lawes,
Your greatest crime was harmless honest mirth,
What fell malignant spirit was there found
To cast your tall Pyramids to ground?
The same poet[791] deplores the gone-for-ever time when--
All the parish did in one combine
To mount the rod of peace, and none withstood
When no capritious constables disturb them,
Nor Justice of the peace did seek to curb them,
Nor peevish puritan in rayling sort,
Nor over-wise churchwarden spoyled the sport.
Overwise scholars have assumed that the Maypole was primarily and merely
a phallic emblem; it was, however, more generally the simple symbol of
justice and "the rod of peace": _rod_, _rood_, and _ruth_ are of course
variants of one and the same root.
Among, if not the prime of the May Day dances was one known popularly as
Sellingers Round: here probably the _r_ is an interpolation, and the
immortal Sellinga was in all likelihood _sel inga_ or the innocent and
happy Ange of Islington:--
To Islington and Hogsdon runnes the streame,
Of giddie people to eate cakes and creame.
At the famous "Angel" of Islington manorial courts were held seemingly
from a time immemorial: on a shop-front now facing it the curious
surname Uglow may be seen to-day, and in view of the adjacent Agastone
Road it is reasonable to assume that at Hogsdon, now spelt Hoxton, stood
once an Hexe or Hag stone, perhaps also that the hill by the Angel was
originally known as the _ug low_ or Ug hill. We have noted that fairy
rings were occasionally termed hag tracks, and that the Angel district
was once associated with these evidences of the fairies is seemingly
implied by a correspondent who wrote to _The Gentleman's Magazine_ in
1792 as follows: "Having noticed a query relating to fairy rings having
once been numerous in the meadow between Islington and Canonbury, and
whether there were any at this time, and having never seen those
extraordinary productions whether of Nature or of animals, curiosity
led me on a late fine day to visit the above spot in search of them,
but I was disappointed. There are none there now; the meadow above
mentioned is intersected by paths on every side and trodden by man and
beast." Man and beast have since converted these intersections into mean
streets among which, however, still stand Fairbank and Bookham Streets.
[Illustration: FIG. 425.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]
The Maypole was generally a sprout and was no doubt in this respect a
proper representative of the "blossoming tree" referred to in a Gaelic
Hymn in honour of St. Brighid--
Be extinguished in us
The flesh's evil, affections
By this blossoming tree
This Mother of Christ.
The May Queen was invariably selected as the fairest and best
dispositioned of the village maidens, and before being "set in an Arbour
on a Holy Day" she was apparently carried on the shoulders of four men
or "deacons":[792] assuredly these parochial deacons were personages of
local importance, and they may possibly account for the place-name
Maydeacon House which occurs at Patrixbourne, Kent, in conjunction with
Kingston, Heart's Delight, Broome Park, and Barham. The word _deacon_ is
_Good King_ or _Divine King_: we have seen that four kings figured
frequently in the wheel of Fortune, and the ceremonious carrying by four
deacons was not merely an idle village sport for it formed part of the
ecclesiastical functions at the Vatican. An English traveller of some
centuries ago speaking of the Pope and his attendant ceremonial, states
that the representative of Peter was carried on the back of four deacons
"after the maner of carrying whytepot queenes in Western May
games":[793] the "Whytepot Queen" was no doubt representative of Dame
Jeanne, the demijohn or Virgin, and the counterpart to Janus or St.
Peter.
[Illustration: FIG. 426.--Cretan. From Barthelemy.]
One of what Camden would have dubbed the sour kind of critics inquired
in 1577: "What adoe make our young men at the time of May? Do they not
use night-watchings to rob and steal yong trees out of other men's
grounde, and bring them home into their parish with minstrels playing
before? And when they have set it up they will deck it with floures and
garlands and dance around, men and women together most unseemly and
intolerable as I have proved before." The scenes around the Maypole
("this stinckyng idoll rather") were unquestionably sparkled by a
generous provision of "ambrosia":--
From the golden cup they drink
Nectar that the bees produce,
Or the grapes ecstatic juice,
Flushed with mirth and hope they burn.[794]
On that ever-memorable occasion at Stonehenge, when the Saxons massacred
their unsuspecting hosts, a Bard relates that--
The glad repository of the world was amply supplied.
Well did Eideol prepare at _the spacious circle of the world_
Harmony and gold and great horses and intoxicating mead.
The word _mead_ implies that this celestial honey-brew was esteemed to
be the drink of the Maid; _ale_ as we know was ceremoniously brewed
within churches, and was thus probably once a _holy_ beverage drunk on
_holy_-days: the words _beer_ and _brew_ will account for
representations of the senior Selenus, as at times _inebriate_. The
Fairy Queen, occasionally the "Sorceress of the ebon Throne," was
esteemed to be the "Mother of wildly-working dreams"; Matthew Arnold
happily describes the Celts as "drenched and intoxicated with fairy
dew," and it seems to have a general tenet that the fairy people in
their festal glee were sometimes inebriated by ambrosia:--
From golden flowers of each hue,
Crystal white, or golden yellow,
Purple, violet, red or blue,
We drink the honey dew
Until we all get mellow,
Until we all get mellow.[795]
In the neighbourhood of Fair Head, Antrim, there is a whirlpool known as
Brecan's Cauldron in connection with which one of St. Columba's miracles
is recorded. That the Pure King or Paragon was also deemed to be "that
brewer" or the Brew King of the mystic cauldron, is evident from the
magic recipe of Taliesin, which includes among its alloy of ingredients
"to be mixed when there is a calm dew falling," the liquor that bees
have collected, and resin (amber?) and pleasant, precious silver, the
ruddy gem and the grain from the ocean foam (the pearl or margaret?):--
And primroses and herbs
And topmost sprigs of trees,
Truly there shall be a puryfying tree,
Fruitful in its increase.
Some of it let that brewer boil
Who is over the _five_-woods cauldron.
We have noted the five acres allotted to each Bard, five springs at
Avebury, five fields at Biddenden, "five wells" at Doddington, five
banners at the magic fountain of Berenton, and five fruits growing on a
holy tree: the mystic meaning attached to five rivers was in all
probability that which is thus stated in Cormac's _Adventure in the Land
of Promise_: "The fountain which thou sawest with the five streams out
of it is the fountain of Knowledge, and the streams are the five senses
through which Knowledge is obtained. And no one will have Knowledge who
drinketh not a draught out of the fountain itself and out of the
streams." That Queen Wisdom was the Lady of the Isles called Fortunate,
is explicitly stated by the poet who tells us that there not Fantasy but
Reason ruled: he adds:--
All this is held a fable: but who first
Made and recited it, hath in this fable
Shadowed a truth.[796]
From the group of so-called Sun and Fire Symbols here reproduced, it
will be seen that the svastika or "Fare ye well" cross assumed
multifarious forms: in Thrace, the emblem was evidently known as the
_embria_, for there are in existence coins of the town of Mesembria,
whereon the legend MESEMBRIA, meaning the (city of the) midday sun, is
figured by the syllable MES, followed by the svastika as the equivalent
of EMBRIA.[797]
[Illustration: FIG. 427.--Sun and Fire Symbols from Denmark of the
later Bronze Age. From _Symbolism of the East and
West_ (Murray-Aynsley).]
The whirling bird-headed wheel on page 709 is a peculiarly interesting
example of the British rood, or rota of ruth; as also is No. 40 of Fig.
201 (_ante_, p. 364) where the peacock is transformed into a svastika:
the _pear_-shaped visage on the obverse of this coin may be connoted
with the Scotch word _pearie_, meaning a pear-shaped spinning-top, and
the seven _ains_ or balls may be connoted with the statement of
Maundeville, that he was shown seven springs which gushed out from a
spot where once upon a time Jesus Christ had played with children.
No. 43 of the contemned sceattae (p. 364) evidently represents the
legendary Bird of Fire, which, together with the peacock and the eagle,
I have discussed elsewhere: this splendid and mysterious bird--as those
familiar with Russian ballet are aware--came nightly to an apple-tree,
but there is no reason to assume that the apple was its only or peculiar
nourishment. The Mystic Boughs illustrated on page 627 (Figs. 379 to
384) may well have been the mistletoe or any other berried or
fruit-bearing branch: in Fig. 397 (p. 635) the Maiden is holding what is
seemingly a three-leaved lily, doubtless corresponding to the old
English Judge's bough or wand, now discontinued, and only faintly
remembered by a trifling nosegay.[798]
Symbolists are aware that in Christian and Pagan art, birds pecking at
either fruit or flowers denote the souls of the blessed feeding upon the
joys of Paradise: all winged things typified the Angels or celestial
Intelligences who were deemed to flash like birds through the air, and
the reader will not fail to note the angelic birds sitting in Queen
Mary's tree (Fig. 425, p. 686).
There is a delicious story of a Little Bird in Irish folk-tale, and
among the literature of the Trouveres or Troubadours, there is _A Lay of
the Little Bird_ which it is painful to curtail: it runs as follows:
"Once upon a time, more than a hundred years ago, there lived a rich
villein whose name I cannot now tell, who owned meadows and woods and
waters, and all things which go to the making of a rich man. His manor
was so fair and so delightsome that all the world did not contain its
peer. My true story would seem to you but idle fable if I set its beauty
before you, for verily I believe that never yet was built so strong a
keep and so gracious a tower. A river flowed around this fair domain,
and enclosed an orchard planted with all manner of fruitful trees. This
sweet fief was builded by a certain knight, whose heir sold it to a
villein; for thus pass baronies from hand to hand, and town and manor
change their master, always falling from bad to worse. The orchard was
fair beyond content. Herbs grew there of every fashion, more than I am
able to name. But at least I can tell you that so sweet was the savour
of roses and other flowers and simples, that sick persons, borne within
that garden in a litter, walked forth sound and well for having passed
the night in so lovely a place. Indeed, so smooth and level was the
sward, so tall the trees, so various the fruit, that the cunning
gardener must surely have been a magician, as appears by certain
infallible proofs.
"Now in the middle of this great orchard sprang a fountain of clear,
pure water. It boiled forth out of the ground, but was always colder
than any marble. Tall trees stood about the well, and their leafy
branches made a cool shadow there, even during the longest day of summer
heat. Not a ray of the sun fell within that spot, though it were the
month of May, so thick and close was the leafage. Of all these trees the
fairest and the most pleasant was a pine. To this pine came a singing
bird twice every day for ease of heart. Early in the morning he came,
when monks chant their matins, and again in the evening, a little after
vespers. He was smaller than a sparrow, but larger than a wren, and he
sang so sweetly that neither lark, nor nightingale, nor blackbird, nay,
nor siren even, was so grateful to the ear. He sang lays and ballads,
and the newest refrain of the minstrel and the spinner at her wheel.
Sweeter was his tune than harp or viol, and gayer than the country
dance. No man had heard so marvellous a thing; for such was the virtue
in his song that the saddest and the most dolent forgot to grieve whilst
he listened to the tune, love flowered sweetly in his heart, and for a
space he was rich and happy as any emperor or king, though but a burgess
of the city, or a villein of the field. Yea, if that ditty had lasted
100 years, yet would he have stayed the century through to listen to so
lovely a song, for it gave to every man whilst he hearkened, love, and
riches, and his heart's desire. But all the beauty of the pleasaunce
drew its being from the song of the bird; for from his chant flowed love
which gives its shadow to the tree, its healing to the simple, and its
colour to the flower. Without that song the fountain would have ceased
to spring, and the green garden become a little dry dust, for in its
sweetness lay all their virtue. The villein, who was lord of this
domain, walked every day within his garden to hearken to the bird. On a
certain morning he came to the well to bathe his face in the cold
spring, and the bird, hidden close within the pine branches, poured out
his full heart in a delightful lay, from which rich profit might be
drawn. 'Listen,' chanted the bird in his own tongue, 'listen to my
voice, oh, knight, and clerk, and layman, ye who concern yourselves with
love, and suffer with its dolours: listen, also, ye maidens, fair and
coy and gracious, who seek first the gifts and beauty of the world. I
speak truth and do not lie. Closer should you cleave to God than to any
earthly lover, right willingly should you seek His altar, more firmly
should you hold to His commandment than to any mortal's pleasure. So you
serve God and Love in such fashion, no harm can come to any, for God and
Love are one. God loves sense and chivalry; and Love holds them not in
despite. God hates pride and false seeming; and Love loveth loyalty. God
praiseth honour and courtesy; and fair Love disdaineth them not. God
lendeth His ear to prayer; neither doth Love refuse it her heart. God
granteth largesse to the generous, but the grudging man, and the
envious, the felon and the wrathful, doth he abhor. But courtesy and
honour, good sense and loyalty, are the leal vassals of Love, and so you
hold truly to them, God and the beauty of the world shall be added to
you besides. Thus told the bird in his song'."[799]
It is not necessary to relate here the ill-treatment suffered by the
bird which happily was full of guile, nor to describe its escape from
the untoward fate destined for it by the villein.
In Figs. 428 to 430 are three remarkable British coins all of which
seemingly represent a bird in song: it is not improbable that the idea
underlying these mystic forms is the same as what the Magi termed the
_Honover_ or Word, which is thus described: "The instrument employed by
the Almighty, in giving an origin to these opposite principles, as well
as in every subsequent creative act, was His Word. This sacred and
mysterious agent, which in the Zendavesta is frequently mentioned under
the appellations _Honover_ and _I am_, is compared to those celestial
birds which constantly keep watch over, the welfare of nature. Its
attributes are ineffable light, perfect activity, unerring prescience.
Its existence preceded the formation of all things--it proceeds from the
first eternal principal--it is the gift of God."[800]
[Illustration: FIGS. 428 to 430.--British. From Evans.]
The symbol of Hanover[801] was the White Horse and we have considered
the same connection at Hiniver in Sussex: it is also a widely accepted
verity that the White Horse--East and West--was the emblem of pure
Reason or Intelligence; the Persian word for _good thought_ was
_humanah_, which is seemingly our _humane_, and if we read _Honover_ as
_ancient ver_ the term may be equated in idea with _word_ or _verbum_.
The Rev. Professor Skeat derives the words _human_ and _humane_ from
_humus_ the ground, whence the Latin _homo_, a man, literally, "a
creature of earth," but this is a definition which the pagan would have
contemptuously set aside, for notwithstanding his perversity in bowing
down to wood and stone he believed himself to be a creature of the sun
and claimed: "my high descent from Jove Himself I boast".
We have seen that Jove, Jupiter, or Jou was in all probability Father
_Joy_, and have suggested that the Wandering Jew was a personification
of the same idea: it has also been surmised that Elisha--one of the
alternative names of the Wanderer--meant radically Holy Jou: it is not
improbable that the Shah or Padishah of Persia was similarly the
supposed incarnation of this phairy _père_. The various
well-authenticated apparitions of the Jew are quite possibly due to
impersonations of the traditional figure, and two at least of these
apparitions are mentioned as occurring in England: in one case the old
man claiming to be the character wandered about ejaculating "Poor Joe
alone"; in another "Poor John alone alone".[802] Both "Joe" and "John"
are supposed by Brand to be corruptions of "Jew": the greater
probability is that they were genuine British titles of the traditional
Wanderer.
The exclamation of "alone alone" may be connoted with the so-called
Allan apples which used to figure so prominently in Cornish festivities:
these Allan apples doubtless bore some relation to the Celtic St. Allan:
_haleine_ means _breath_,[803] _elan_ means fire or energy, and it is in
further keeping with St. Allan that his name is translated as having
meant _cheerful_.
The festival of the Allan apple was essentially a cheery proceeding: two
strips of wood were joined crosswise by a nail in the centre; at each of
the four ends was stuck a lighted candle with large and rosy apples hung
between. This construction was fastened to a beam or the ceiling of the
kitchen, then made to revolve rapidly, and the players whose object was
to catch the Allan apples in their mouths frequently instead had a taste
of the candles.[804] Obviously this whirling firewheel was an emblem of
Heol the Celtic Sun _wheel_, and as Newlyn is particularly mentioned as
a site of the festival, we may equate St. Newlyna of Newlyn with the
Noualen of Brittany, and further with the Goddess Nehellenia or New
Helen of London. Nehellenia has seemingly also been traced at Tadcaster
in Yorkshire where the local name Helen's Ford is supposed to be a
corruption of the word Nehellenia:[805] Nelly, however, is no corruption
but a variant of Ellen. The Goddess Nehallenia is usually sculptured
with a hound by her side, and in her lap is a basket of fruits
"symbolising the fecundating power of the earth".[806] In old English
_line_ meant to fecundate or fertilise, and in Britain Allan may be
considered as almost a generic term for rivers--the all fertilisers--for
it occurs in the varying forms Allen, Alan, Alne, Ellen, Elan, Ilen,
etc.: sometimes emphasis on the second syllable wears off the
preliminary vowel, whence the river-names Len, Lyn, Leen, Lone, Lune,
etc., are apparently traceable to the same cause as leads us to use
_lone_ as an alternative form of the word _alone_. The Extons Road, Jews
Lane, and Paradise now found at King's Lynn point to the probability
that King's Lynn (Domesday _Lena_, 1100 _Lun_, 1314 Lenne[807]) was
once a London and an Exton. The great red letter day in Lynn used to be
the festival of Candlemas, and on that occasion the Mayor and
Corporation attended by twelve decrepit old men, and a band of music,
formerly opened a so-called court of Piepowder: on reference to the
Cornish St. Allen it is agreeable to find that this saint "was the
founder of St. Allen's Church in Powder". This Powder, sometimes written
Pydar, is not shown on modern maps, but it was the title for a district
or Hundred in Cornwall which contains the village of Par: it would
appear to be almost a rule that the place-name Peter should be closely
associated with Allen, _e.g._, Peterhead in Scotland, near Ellon, and
Petrockstowe or Padstowe in Cornwall is near Helland on the river Allan.
[Illustration: FIG. 431.--Sixteenth Century Printer's Ornament.]
In the emblem herewith the _alan_ or cheery old Pater is associated like
Nehelennia with the fruits of the earth, amongst which one may perhaps
recognise _coddlins_ and other varieties of Allan apple.
The Cornish Allantide was celebrated on the night of Hallow'een, and as
Sir George Birdwood rightly remarks the English Arbor Day--if it be ever
resuscitated--should be fixed on the first of November or old "Apple
Fruit Day," now All Hallows[808] or All Saint's Day, the Christian
substitute for the Roman festival of Pomona; also of the first day of
the Celtic Feast of Shaman or Shony the Lord of Death. Shaman may in all
probability be equated with Joe alone, and Shony with poor John alone
alone: Shony, as has been seen, was an Hebridean ocean-deity, and the
omniscient Oannes or John of Sancaniathon, the Phoenician historian,
lived half his time in ocean: the Eros or Amoretto here illustrated from
Kanauj may be connoted with Minnussinchen or the little Sinjohn of
Tartary.
[Illustration: FIG. 432.--From Kanauj. From _Symbolism of the East
and West_ (Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).]
With the apple orchard Pomona or of the Pierre, Pere, or Pater Alone,
the monocle and monarch of the universe, may be connoted the far-famed
paradise of Prester or Presbyter _John_: this mythical priest-king is
rendered sometimes as Preste _Cuan_, sometimes as _Un Khan_ or John
King-Priest, and sometimes as Ken Khan: he was clearly a personification
of the King of Kings, and his marvellous Kingdom, which streamed with
honey and was overflowing with milk, was evidently none other than
Paradise or the Land of Heaven. "Mediæval credulity" believed that this
so-called "Asiatic phanton," in whose country stood the Fountain of
Youth and many other marvels, was attended by seven kings, twelve
archbishops, and 365 counts: the seventy-two kings and their kingdoms
said to be the tributaries of Prester John may be connoted with the
seventy-two dodecans of the Egyptian and Assyrian Zodiac: these
seventy-two dodecans I have already connoted with the seventy-two stones
constituting the circle of Long Meg. Facing the throne of Prester
John--all of whose subjects were virtuous and happy--stood a wondrous
mirror in which he saw everything that passed in all his vast dominions.
The mirror or monocle of Prester John is obviously the speculum of
Thoth, Taut, or Doddy, and I suspect that the seventy-two dodecans of
the Egyptian and Chaldean Zodiac were the seventy-two Daddy Kings of Un
Khan's Empire: none may take, nor touch, nor harm it--
For the round of Morian Zeus has been its watcher from of old
He beholds it and Athene thy own sea-grey eyes behold.[809]
The first written record of Preste Cuan figures in the chronicles of the
Bishop of Freisingen (1145): the name Freisingen is radically _singen_:
and it is quite probable that the Bungen Strasse at Hamelyn identified
with the Pied Piper was actually the scene of a "Poor John, Alone,
Alone," incident such as Brand thus describes: "I remember to have seen
one of these impostors some years ago in the North of England, who made
a very hermit-like appearance and went up and down the streets of
Newcastle with a long train of boys at his heels muttering, 'Poor John
alone, alone!' I thought he pronounced his name in a manner singularly
plaintive,"[810] we have seen that the Wandering Jew was first recorded
at St. Albans: the ancient name for Newcastle-on-Tyne--where he seems to
have made his last recorded appearance--was _Pan_don. With the _panshen_
or pope of Tartary may be connoted the probability that the rosy Allan
apple of Newlyn was a _pippen_: the parish of "Lynn or St. Margaret,"
not only includes the wards of Paradise and Jews Lane, but we find there
also an Albion Place, and the curious name Guanock; modern Kings Lynn
draws its water supply from a neighbouring _Gay_ wood.
In the year 1165 a mysterious letter circulated in Europe emanating, it
was claimed, from the great Preste Cuan, and setting forth the wonders
and magnificence of his Kingdom: this epistle was turned into verse,
sung all over Europe by the _trouveres_, and its claims to universal
dominion taken so seriously by Pope Alexander that this _Pon_tiff or
_Pon_tifex[811] published in 1177 a counter-blast in which he maintained
that the Christian professions of the mysterious Priest King were worse
than worthless, unless he submitted to the spiritual claims of the See
of Rome. There is little doubt that the popular Epistle of Prester John
was the wily concoction of the Gnostic Trouveres or Merry Andrews, and
that the unimaginative Pope who was so successfully stung into a reply,
was no wise inferior in perception to the scholars of recent date who
have located to their own satisfaction the mysterious Kingdom of Prester
John in Tartary, in Asia Minor, or in Abyssinia: by the same peremptory
and supercilious school of thought the Garden of Eden has been
confidently placed in Mesopotamia, and the Irish paradise of Hy Breasil,
"not unsuccessfully," identified with Labrador.
The probability is that every community attributed the Kingdom of Un
Khan to its own immediate locality, and that like the land of the Pied
Piper it was popularly supposed to be joining the town and close at
hand. In the fifteenth century a hard-headed French traveller who had
evidently fallen into the hands of some whimsical mystic, recorded:
"There was also at _Pera_ a Neapolitan, called Peter of Naples, with
whom I was acquainted. He said he was married in the country of Prester
John, and made many efforts to induce me to go thither with him. I
questioned him much respecting this country, and he told me many things
which I shall here insert, but I know not whether what he said be the
truth, and shall not therefore warrant any part of it." Upon this
honeymoon the archæologist, Thomas Wright, comments: "The manner in
which our traveller here announces the relation of the Neapolitan shows
how little he believed it; and in this his usual good sense does not
forsake him. This recital is, in fact, but a tissue of absurd fables and
revolting marvels, undeserving to be quoted, although they may generally
be found in authors of those times. They are, therefore, here omitted;
most of them, however, will be found in the narrative of John de
Maundeville."[812]
We have seen that the Wandering Jew was alternatively termed Magus, a
fact already connoted with the seventy-two stones of Long Meg, or
Maggie: it was said that Un Khan was sprung from the ancient race of the
Magi,[813] and I think that the solar circle at Shanagolden by Canons
Island Abbey, on the Shannon in the country of the Ganganoi, was an
_abri_ of Ken Khan, Preste Cuan, or Un Khan.
The rath or dun of Shanid or Shenet, as illustrated _ante_, p. 55, has a
pit in its centre which, says Mr. Westropp, "I can only suppose to have
been the base of some timber structure": whether this central structure
was originally a well, a tower, or a pole, it no doubt stood as a symbol
of either the Tower of Salvation, the Well of Life, or the Tree of
Knowledge. There is little doubt that this solar wheel or wheel of Good
Fortune--which as will be remembered was occasionally depicted with four
deacons or divine kings, a variant of the seventy-two dodecans--was akin
to what British Bardism alluded to as "the melodious quaternion of
Peter," or "the quadrangular delight of Peter, the great choir of the
dominion";[814] it was also akin to the design on the Trojan whorl which
Burnouf has described as "the four epochs (quarters) of the month or
year, and the holy sacrifice".[815]
The English earthwork illustrated in Fig. 433 (A) is known by the name
of Pixie's Garden, and its form is doubtless that of one among many
varieties of "the quadrangular delight of Peter". A pixy is an elf or
_ouphe_, and the Pixie's Garden of _Uff_culme Down (Devon) may be
connoted in idea with "Johanna's Garden" at St. Levans: Johanna, as we
have seen, was associated with St. Levan (the home of Maggie Figgie),
and in the words of Miss Courtney: "Not far from the parish of St. Levan
is a small piece of ground--Johanna's Garden--which is fuller of weeds
than of flowers".[816] I suspect that Johanna, like Pope Joan of
Engelheim and Janicula, was the fabulous consort of Prester John or Un
Khan.
[Illustration: FIG. 433.--From _Earthwork of England_ (A. Hadrian
Allcroft).]
[Illustration: FIG. 434.--From _Symbolism of the East and West_
(Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).]
Fig. 433 (B) represents two diminutive earthworks which once existed on
Bray Down in _Dor_setshire: these little Troytowns or variants of the
quadrangular delight of Peter may be connoted with the obverse design of
the Thorgut talisman found near Appleby and illustrated on page 675:
the two crescent moons may be connoted with two sickles still remembered
in Mona, and the twice-eight crescents surrounding Fig. 434 which is
copied from a mosaic pavement found at Gubbio, Italy.
[Illustration: FIG. 435.--From _The Word in the Pattern_ (Watts, Mrs.
G. F.).]
The Pixie's Garden illustrated in Fig. 433 (A) obviously consists of
four T's centred to one base and the elaborate svastika, illustrated in
Fig. 435, is similarly distinguished by four concentric T's. The Kymbri
or Cynbro customarily introduced the figure of a T into the thatch of
their huts, and it is supposed that _ty_, the Welsh for a house or home,
originated from this custom. We have seen that the Druids trained their
super sacred oak tree (Hebrew _allon_) into the form of the T or Tau,
which they inscribed Thau (_ante_, p. 393), and as _ty_ in Celtic also
meant _good_, the four T's surrounding the svastika of Fig. 435 would
seem to be an implication of all surrounding beneficence, good luck, or
_all bien_.
The Cynbro are believed to have made use of the T--Ezekiel's mark of
election--as a magic preservative against fire and all other
misfortunes, whence it is remarkable to find that even within living
memory at _Camber_well by Peckham near London, the _chi_-shaped or
ogee-shaped[817] angle irons, occasionally seen in old cottages, were
believed to have been inserted "_in order to protect the house from_
fire as well as from falling down".[818]
[Illustration: FIG. 436.--Celtic Emblem. From _Myths of Crete_
(Mackenzie, D. A.).]
[Illustration: FIGS. 437 and 438.--Mediæval Papermarks. From _Les
Filigranes_ (Briquet, C. M.).]
Commenting upon Fig. 435, which is taken from a Celtic cross at Carew
in Wales, Mrs. G. F. Watts observes: "This symbol was used by British
Christians to signify the labyrinth or maze of life round which was
sometimes written the words 'God leadeth'".[819] Among the Latin races
the Intreccia or Solomon's Knot, which consists frequently of three
strands, is regarded as an emblem of the divine Being existent without
beginning and without end--an unbroken Unity: coiled often into the
serpentine form of an S it decorates Celtic crosses and not infrequently
into the centre of the maze is woven the _svastika_ or Hammer of Thor.
The word Svastika is described by oriental scholars as being composed of
_svasti_ and _ka_: according to the Dictionaries _svasti_ means
_welfare, health, prosperity, blessing, joy, happiness_, and _bliss_: in
one sense _ka_ (probably the _chi_ [Greek: ch]) had the same meaning,
but _ka_ also meant "The Who," "The Inexplicable," "The Unknown," "The
Chief God," "The Object of Worship," "The Lord of Creatures," "Water,"
"The Mind or Soul of the Universe".
In southern France--the Land of the Troubadours--the Solomon's Knot, as
illustrated in Fig. 438, is alternatively known as _lacs d'amour_, or
the knot of the Annunciation: this design consists, as will be noted, of
a svastika extended into a rose or maze, and a precisely similar emblem
is found in Albany. The title _lacs d'amour_ or lakes of love,
consociated with the synonymous knot of the Annunciation, is seemingly
further confirmation of the equation _amour_ = Mary: another form of
knot is illustrated in Fig. 440, and this the reader will compare with
Fig. 439, representing a terra-cotta tablet found by Schliemann at Troy.
[Illustration: FIG. 439.--From _Troy_ (Schliemann).]
[Illustration: FIGS. 440 and 441.--Mediæval Papermarks. From _Les
Filigranes_ (Briquet, C. M.).]
It will be remembered that according to the Pierrot legend St. Peter
looking out from the Walls of Heaven detected what he first took to be a
rosebud in the snow: the name Piers, which like Pearce is a variant of
Peter, is essentially _pieros_, either Father Rose or Father Eros. The
rood or rhoda pierre here illustrated is a Rose cross, and is
conspicuously decorated with intreccias, or Solomon's Knots: whether
the inscription--which looks curiously Arabic--has ever been deciphered
I am unable to say; it would, however, seem that the Andrew or Chi
cross, which figures upon it, permits the connection of this Chooyvan
rood with Choo or Jou.
[Illustration: FIG. 442.--From _A New Description of England_ (Anon,
1724).]
Among the whorls from Troy, Burnouf has deciphered objects which he
describes as a wheel in motion; others as the _Rosa mystica_; others as
the three stations of the Sun, or the three mountains. The Temple of
Solomon was situated on Mount Moriah, one of the three holy hills of
Hierosolyma, and it is probable that Meru, the paradise peak of
Buddhism, was like Mount Moriah, originally Amour. That the wheel coins
of England were symbolic of the Apple Orchard, the Garden of the Rose,
or of the Isles called Fortunate is further pointed by the variant here
illustrated, which is unmistakeably a _Rosa mystica_.
[Illustration: FIG. 443.--From Evans.]
As has been pointed out by Sir George Birdwood it was the Apple Tree of
the prehistoric Celtic immigrants that gave to the whole peninsular of
the West of England--Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, Dorsetshire,
Devonshire, and Cornwall, the mystic name of "Ancient Avalon," or Apple
Island:--
Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
And bowery hollows, crowned with summer seas.
[Illustration: Fig. 443A.--British. From Evans.]
FOOTNOTES:
[766] Primary chief bard am I to Elphin,
And my original country is the region of the summer stars;
Idno and Heinin called me Merddin,
At length every king will call me Taliesin.
I was with my Lord in the highest sphere,
On the fall of Lucifer into the depth of hell
I have borne a banner before Alexander;
I know the names of the stars from north to south;
I have been on the galaxy at the throne of the Distributer;
I was in Canaan when Absalom was slain;
I conveyed the Divine Spirit to the level of the vale of Hebron;
I was in the court of Don before the birth of Gwdion.
I was instructor to Eli and Enoc;
I have been winged by the genius of the splendid crosier;
I have been loquacious prior to being gifted with speech;
I was at the place of the crucifixion of the merciful Son of God;
I have been three periods in the prison of Arianrod;
I have been the chief director of the work of the tower on Nimrod;
I am a wonder whose origin is not known.
I have been in Asia with Noah in the ark,
I have seen the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra;
I have been in India when Roma was built,
I am now come here to the remnant of Troia.
I have been with my Lord in the manger of the ass:
I strengthened Moses through the water of Jordan;
I have been in the firmament with Mary Magdalene;
I have obtained the muse from the cauldron of Caridwen;
I have been bard of the harp to Lleon or Lochlin,
I have been on the White Hill, in the court of Cynvelyn,
For a day and a year in stocks and fetters,
I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin,
I have been fostered in the land of the Deity,
I have been teacher to all intelligences,
I am able to instruct the whole universe.
I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth
And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish.
[767] _A New Description of England_ (1724), p. 57.
[768] _Brax_field Road at modern Brockley may mark the site of this
meadow.
[769] Wilson, J., _Imperial Gazetteer_, i., 946.
[770] _Cf._ CUN, coin, _ante_, p. 666.
[771] P. 494.
[772] _Cf._ Pierrot's Family Tree. _T.P.'s Weekly_, 1st August,
1914.
[773] Wilson, J., _Imperial Gazetteer_, ii., 584.
[774] Toland, _History of Druids_, p. 356.
[775] _Cf_. Gomme, Sir L., _Folklore as an Historic Science_, pp.
43, 44.
[776] _Cf._ Gomme, Sir L., _Folklore as an Historic Science_, p.
44.
[777] _A New Description of England_, p. 65.
[778] _Morte D'Arthur_, Bk. xviii, ch. viii.
[779] Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, i., 12.
[780] "Lageniensis," p. 86.
[781] Taliesin or _Radiant Brow_ claims to have been Merlin.
[782] "All the old traditions which give an interest to the Forest
continue to be current there. The Fairies, who are kind to
children, are still reported to be seen in their white
apparel upon the banks of the Fountain; and the Fountain
itself (whose waters are now considered salubrious) is still
said to be possessed of its marvellous rain-producing
properties. In seasons of drought the inhabitants of the
surrounding parishes go to it in procession, headed by their
_five_ great banners, and their priests, ringing bells and
chanting Psalms. On arriving at the Fountain, the Rector of
the Canton dips the foot of the Cross into its waters, and it
is sure to rain before a week elapses."
"Brecilicn etait une de ces forets sacrees qu'habitaient les
pretresses du druidisme dans le Gaule; son nom et celui de sa
vallee l'attesteraient a defaut d'autre temoignage; les noms
de lieux sont les plus surs garans des evenemens
passés."--_Cf._ Notes on _The Mabinogion_ (Everyman's
Library), p. 383-90.
[783] Mitton, G. E., _Hampstead and Marylebone_.
[784] Probably the Glamorganshire "Tabernae Amnis," now Bont y Von.
[785] Fearbal or sometimes Fibal. The "Merry Devil" associated in
popular tradition with Edmonton beyond Islington was known by
the name of Peter Fabell: I think he was originally "the
Angel," and that the names Fearbal or Fabell meant _Fairy or
Fay Beautiful_.
[786] "Morien," _Light of Britannia_, p. 61.
[787] I am inclined to think that the _eena deena dina dux_ of
childrens' games may be a similarly ancient survival.
[788] There was also an Aballo, now Avalon, in France: there is
also near Dodona in Albania an Avlona or Valona. A
correspondent of _The Westminster Gazette_ points out that:
"Valona is but a derivative of the Greek (both ancient and
modern) _Balanos_. This is clearer still if you realise that
the Greek _b_ is (and no doubt in ancient days also was)
pronounced like an English _v_: thus, _valanos_."
[789] _Travels in the East_, p. 152.
[790] According to Malory: "Merlin made the Round Table in tokening
of roundness of the world, for by the Round Table is the
world signified by right, for all the world, Christian and
heathen, repair unto the Round Table; and when they are
chosen to be of the fellowship of the Round Table they think
them more blessed and more in worship than if they had gotten
half the world; and ye have seen that they have lost their
fathers and their mothers, and all their kin, and their wives
and their children, for to be of your fellowship."--_Morte
D'Arthur_, Book xiv. 11.
[791] Fenner, W., _Pasquils Palinodia_, 1619.
[792] _Faiths and Folklore_, ii., 401.
[793] _Ibid._, 402.
[794] Aneurin's _Gododin_.
[795] _Cf._ "Laganiensis," _Irish Folklore_, p. 35.
[796] _Cf._ _New Light on Renaissance_, p. 169.
[797] Birdwood, Sir G., preface to _Symbolism of East and West_, p.
xvi.
[798] Hazlitt, W. Carew, _Faiths and Folklore_, ii., 402.
[799] _Cf._ _Aucassin and Nicoletté_, Everyman's Library.
[800] Fraser, J. B., _Persia_, p. 129.
[801] At Looe in Cornwall the site of what was apparently the
ancient forum or Fore street, is now known as "Hannafore".
Opposite is St. George's Islet. The connection between George
and Hanover suggests that St. George was probably the patron
saint of Hanover.
[802] Hardwick, C., _Traditions, Superstitions, and Folklore_, p.
159.
[803] The _lungs_ are the organs of _haleine_.
[804] Courtney, Miss M. E., _Cornish Feasts_, p. 3.
[805] Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 212.
[806] _Cf._ _ibid._, p. 211.
[807] The authorities are perplexed by this place-name. "O. E.
_Llynn_ means usually a torrent running over a rock which
does not exist here. Its later meaning, a pool, is not
recorded until 1577".
[808] The Elsdale Street at Hackney which is found in close contact
with Paradise Passage, Well Street, and Paragon Road may mark
an original Elves or Ellie's Dale. Leading to "The Grove" is
_Pigwell_ Passage.
[809] _Ante_, p. 323.
[810] _Cf._ Hardwick, C., _Trad. Super. and Folklore_, p. 159.
[811] This word means evidently much more than, as supposed,
_bridge builder_.
[812] The Rev. Baring-Gould quotes portions of this epistle in his
_Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_, but its contents are
evidently distasteful to him as he breaks off: "I may be
spared further extracts from this extraordinary letter which
proceeds to describe the church in which Prester John
worships, by enumerating the precious stones of which it is
constructed, and their special virtues": as a matter of fact,
the account is an agreeable fairy-tale or fable which is no
more extravagant than the account of the four-square,
cubical, golden-streeted New Jerusalem attributed to the
Revelations of St. John.
[813] Chambers' _Encyclopædia_, viii., 398.
[814] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celtica_, ii., 182.
[815] _Cf._ Schliemann, _Troy_.
[816] _Cornish Feasts_, p. 76.
[817] _Cf. ante_, p. 345, Fig. 183, No. 10.
[818] Aynsley, Mrs. Murray, _Symbolism of the East and West_, p.
60.
[819] _The Word in the Pattern_.