Archaic England Part 12

Peter Tegid was ent.i.tled the Door-keeper. In Celtic _te_ meant _good_, whence Tegid might reasonably be understood as either _Good G.o.d_ or _The Good_. Tegid also meant, according to Davies, _serene baldness_, an interpretation which has been ridiculed, but one which nevertheless is in all probability correct for every ancient term bore many meanings, and because one is right it does not necessarily follow that every other one is wrong.

Tegid and Ked were the parents of an untoward child, whose name Avagddu is translated as having meant _utter darkness_, but as Davies observes "mythological genealogy is mere allegory, and the father and the son are frequently the same person under different points of view. Thus this character in his abject state may be referred to as the patriarch himself during his confinement in the internal gloom of the Ark, where he was surrounded with _utter darkness_; a circ.u.mstance which was commemorated in all the mysteries of the gentile world.... And as our complex Mythology identified the character of the patriarch with the sun, so Avagddu may also have been viewed as a type of that luminary in his veil of darkness and gloom. This gloom was afterwards changed into _light_ and _cheerfulness_, and thus the son of Keridwen may be recognised in his illuminated state under the t.i.tle of Elphin, and _Rhuvawn Bevyr_ which implies _bursting forth with radiance_, and seems to be an epithet of the helio-arkite G.o.d." Davies continues: "Avagddu thus considered as a type of the helio-arkite G.o.d in his afflicted and renovated state has a striking coincidence of character with Eros the blind G.o.d of the Greeks".[167] The Cain or "Man in the Moon,"

represented herewith, has the heart of love, or Eros, figured on his headgear, and he is carrying the pipes of Pan, or of the Elphin Bard of Fairyland.

It was common knowledge to our predecessors, that t.i.tania--"Our radiant Queen"--hated s.l.u.ts and s.l.u.ttery and when Mrs. Page concocted her fairy plot against Falstaff she enjoined--

Then let them all encircle him about And Fairy-like to pinch the unclean Knight, And ask him why that hour of fairy revel In their so sacred paths he dares to tread.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 41.--From _Les Filigranes_ (Briquet, C. M.).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 42.--British. From _A New Description of England and Wales_ (Anon., 1724).]

The White May or Hawthorn which was so dear to the Elves was probably the symbol of that chast.i.ty and cleanliness which was proverbially an Elphin attribute. It is, for instance, said of Sir Thopas, when questing for the Fairy Queen, that--

... he was chaste and no lechour And sweet as is the bramble flower, That beareth the red hip.

On reaching the domain of Queen Elf, Sir Thopas is encountered by a "great giaunt" Sire Oliphaunt, who informs him--

Here the Queen of Fairie With harpe and pipe and symphonie Dwelleth in this place.

Sire Oliphaunt may be connoted with the Elephant which occurs on our ancient coinage, and is also found carved on many prehistoric stones in Scotland, notably in the cave of St. Rule at St. Andrews. The Kate Kennedy still commemorated at St. Andrews we shall subsequently connote with Conneda and with Caindea.

The Elephant which sleeps while standing was regarded as the emblem of the benevolent sentinel, or watchman, and as the symbol of giant strength, meekness, and ingenuity. According to the poet Donne:--

Nature's great masterpiece, an Elephant The onely harmelesse great thing; the giant Of beasts; who thought none bad, to make him wise But to be just and thankful, loth t' offend (Yet nature hath given him no knees to bend) Himself he up-props, on himself relies And foe to none.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 43.--From _An Essay on Ancient Coins, Medals, and Gems_ (Walsh, R.).]

The Elephant or Oliphant (Greek _elephas_, "origin unknown") is the hugest and the first of beasts, and in India it symbolises the vanquisher of obstacles, the leader or the opener of the way. Ganesa, the elephant-headed Hindu G.o.d is invariably invoked at the beginning of any enterprise, and the name Ganesa is practically the same as _genesis_ the origin or beginning. "Praise to Thee, O Ganesa," wrote a prehistoric hymnist, "Thou art manifestly the Truth, Thou art undoubtedly the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer, the Supreme Brahma, the Eternal Spirit."

One of the reasons for the symbolic eminence of the Elephant seems to have been the animal's habit of spouting water. It is still said of the Man in the Moon that he is a giant who at the time of the flow stands in a stooping posture because he is then taking up water which he pours out on the earth and thereby causes high tide; but at the time of the ebb he stands erect and rests from his labour when the water can subside again.[168]

The moon G.o.ddess of the Muysca Indians of Bogota is named Chin (akin to Cain, _cann_, and Ganesa?), and in her insensate spleen Chin was supposed at one period to have flooded the entire world. In Mexico one of the best represented G.o.ds is Chac the rain-G.o.d, who is the possessor of an elongated nose not unlike the proboscis of a tapir, which, of course, is the spout whence comes the rain which he blows over the earth.[169] The Hebrew Jah, _i.e._, Jon or Joy or Jack, is hailed as the long-nosed, and Taylor in his _Diegesis_[170] gives the following as a correct rendering of the original Psalm: "Sing ye to the G.o.ds! Chant ye his name! Exalt him who rideth in the heavens by his name Jack, and leap for Joy before his face! For the Lord hath a long nose and his mercy endureth for ever!" It is quite beyond the possibilities of independent evolution or of coincidence that the divinity with a long nose or trunk, should have been known as _Chac_ alike in Mexico and Asia Minor.

The spouting characteristic of the whale rendered it a marine equivalent to the elephant. _Whale_ is the same word as _whole_, and _leviathan_ is radically the _lev_ of _elephant_. According to British mythology, Keridwen or Ked was a leviathian or whale, whence, as from the Ark, emerged all life.

Not only is the Man in the Moon or the Wandering Jew peculiarly identified with St. Albans in Britain, but he reappears at the Arabian city of Elvan. This name is cognate with _elephant_ in the same way as alpha is correlate to alpa or alba: Ayliffe and Alvey are common English surnames. In Kensington the memory of Kenna, a fairy princess who was beloved by Albion a fairy prince, lingered until recently, and this tradition is seemingly commemorated in the neighbourhood at Albion Gate, St. Alban's Road, and elsewhere. In St. Alban's Road, Kensington, one may still find the family name Oliff which, like Ayliffe and Iliffe, is the same as alif, aleph, or alpha, the letter "a" the first or the beginning.

Panku, the great giant of the universe, is ent.i.tled by the Chinese the _first_ of Beings or the Beginning, and it is claimed by the Christian Church that St. Alban was the _first_ of British martyrs. Eastward of Kensington Gardens is St. Alban's Place and also Albany, generally, but incorrectly termed "The Albany". The neighbouring Old Bond Street and New Bond Street owe their nomenclature to a ground landlord whose name Bond is radically connected with Albany. The original Bond family were in all probability followers of "Bond," and the curiously named Newbons, followers of the Little Bond or New Sun. In the Isle of Wight there are, half a mile apart, the hamlets of Great Pann and Little Pann which, considered in conjunction with _Bon_church, were probably once sacred to Old Pan and Little Pan. According to Prof. Weekley the name Lovibond, Loveband, or Levibond, "seems to mean 'the dear bond'".[171] Who or what "the dear bond" was is not explained, but we may connote the kindred surnames Goodbon, Goodbun, and Goodband.

By 24th December, the shortest day in the year, the Old Sun had sunk seemingly to his death, and at Yuletide it was believed that the rejuvenate New Sun, the Baby Sun, the Welsh _Mabon_, or _Baby Boy_, was born anew either from the sea or from a cave or womb of the earth. The arms of the Isle of Man, anciently known as Eubonia, are the three-legged solar wheel of the Wandering Joy. _Eu_ of Eubonia is seemingly the Greek _eu_, meaning soft, gentle, pleasing and propitious, and the rolling _wheel_ of Eubonia was like the svastika, a symbol of the Gentle Bounty running his beneficent and never-ending course. St.

Andrew, with his limbs extended to the four quarters, was, I think, once the same symbol,[172] and it is probable that the story of Ixion bound to a burning wheel and rolling everlastingly through s.p.a.ce was a perversion of the same original. Ixion is phonetically _Ik zion_, _i.e._, the Mighty Sun or Mighty Sein or Bosom. It was frankly admitted by the Greeks that their language was largely derived from barbarians or foreigners, and the same admission was made in relation to their theology.[173]

The circle of the Sun or solar wheel, otherwise the wheel of Good _law_, is found frequently engraved on prehistoric stones and coins. In Gaul, statues of a divinity bearing a wheel upon his shoulder have been found, and solar wheels figure persistently in Celtic archaeology. It has been supposed, says Dr. Holmes, that they are symbolical of Sun wors.h.i.+p, and that the G.o.d with the wheel was the G.o.d of the Sun. It is further probable that the wheel on the shoulder corresponded to the child on the shoulder of St. Kit, and I am at a loss to understand how any thinker can have ever propounded such a proposition as to require Dr. Holmes'

comment, "the supposition that the wheels were money is no longer admitted by competent antiquaries".[174] Sir James Frazer instances cases of how the so-called "Fire of Heaven" used sometimes to be made by igniting a cart wheel smeared with pitch, fastened on a pole 12 feet high, the top of the pole being inserted in the nave of the wheel. This fire was made on the summit of a mountain, and as the flame ascended the people uttered a set form of words with eyes and arms directed heavenwards. In Norway to this day men turn cart wheels round the bonfires of St. John, and doubtless at some time the London urchin--still a notorious adept at cart-wheeling--once exercised the same pious orgy.

On Midsummer Eve, when the bonfires were lighted on every hill in honour of St. John, the Elves were at their very liveliest. _Eleve_ in French means up _aloft_, and _eleve_ means frequently transported with excitement. Shakespeare refers to elves as ouphes, which is the same word as _oaf_ and was formerly spelt aulf. Near Wye in Kent there is a sign-post pointing to Aluph, but this little village figures on the Ordnance map as Aulph. The ouphes of Shakespeare are equipped "with rounds of waxen tapers on their heads," and with Jack o' lanthorn may be connoted Hob-and-his-lanthorn. In Worcesters.h.i.+re Hob has his fuller t.i.tle, and is alternatively known as Hobredy:[175] with the further form Hobany may be correlated Eubonia, and with Hobredy, St. Bride, the _Bona dea_ of the Hebrides. It is probable that "Hobany" is responsible for the curious Kentish place name Ebony, and that the Wandering Dame Abonde, Habonde, or Abundia of French faerie, was Hobany's consort. The wors.h.i.+p of La Dame Abonde, the star-crowned Queen of Fees, is particularly a.s.sociated with St. John's Day, and there is little doubt that in certain aspects she was _cann_, or the full moon:--

The moon, full-orbed, into the well looks down, Her face is mirrored in the waters clear, And fees are gathering in the beech shade brown, From missions far and near.

And there erect and tall, Abonde the Queen, Brow-girt with golden circlet, that doth bear A small bright scintillating star between Her braids of dusky hair.[176]

The Bretons believe in the existence of certain elves termed _Sand Yan y Tad_ (_St. John and Father_) who carry lights at their finger ends, which spin round and round like wheels, and, according to Arab tradition, the Jinn or Jan (Jinnee _m._, Jinniyeh, _f. sing._) are formed of "smokeless fire".[177] That the ancient British, like the Peruvians, deemed themselves children of the Fire or Sun is implied among other testimony from a Druidic folk-tale (collected by a writer in 1795), wherein a young prince, divested of his corporeal envelope, has his senses refined and is borne aloft into the air. "Towards the disc of the Sun the young prince approaches at first with awful dread, but presently with inconceivable rapture and delight. This glorious body (the Sun) consists of an a.s.semblage of pure souls swimming in an ocean of bliss. It is the abode of the blessed--of the sages--of the friends of mankind. The happy souls when thrice purified in the sun ascend to a succession of still higher spheres from whence they can no more descend to traverse the circles of those globes and stars which float in a less pure atmosphere."[178]

At New Grange in Ireland, and elsewhere on prehistoric rock tombs, there may be seen carvings of a s.h.i.+p or solar barque frequently in juxtaposition to a solar disc, and the similarity of these designs to the solar s.h.i.+p of Egypt has frequently been remarked. The Egyptian believed that after death his soul would be allowed to enter the land of the Sun, and that in the company of the G.o.ds he would then sail into the source of immortal Light: hence he placed model boats in the tombs, sometimes in pairs which were ent.i.tled Truth and Righteousness, and prayed: "Come to the Earth, draw nigh, O boat of Ra, make the boat to travel, O Mariners of Heaven".

It is no doubt this same Holy Pair of Virtues that suckled the Child Albine, and that are represented as two streams of nourishment in the emblem herewith.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 44.--From the t.i.tle-page of a seventeenth-century publication of a Cambridge printer.]

That the British were enthusiastic astronomers is testified by Caesar, who states that the Druids held a great many discourses about the stars and their motion,[179] about the size of the world and various countries, about the nature of things, about the power and might of the immortal G.o.ds, and that they instructed the youths in these subjects. It is equally certain that the British reverenced Sun and Fire not merely materially but as emblems of the Something behind Matter. "Think not,"

said a tenth-century Persian, "that our fathers were adorers of fire; for that element was only an exalted object on the l.u.s.tre of which they fixed their eyes. They humbled themselves before G.o.d, and if thy understanding be ever so little exerted thou must acknowledge thy dependence on the Being supremely pure." Among the sacred traditions of the Hindus which are a.s.signed by competent scholars to 2400 B.C. occurs what is known as the holiest verse of the Vedas. This reads: "Let us adore the supremacy of that Divine Sun the Deity who illumines all, from whom all proceed, are renovated, and to whom all must return, whom we invoke to direct our intellects aright in our progress towards His holy Seat". It is quite permissible to cite this Hindu evidence as Hindus and Celts were alike branches of the same Aryan family, and between Druids and Brahmins there has, apart from etymology,[180] been traced the same affinity as existed between the Druids and the Magi.

The primeval symbolism of Fire as Love and Light as Intellect is stamped indelibly on language, yet like most things which are ever seen it is now never seen. We say "I see" instead of "I understand"; we speak of throwing light on a subject or of warm affection, yet in entire forgetfulness of the old ideas underlying such phraseology. When Christianity came westward it was compelled to take over almost intact most of the customs of aboriginal paganry, notably the Cult of Fire.

The sacred fire of St. Bridget was kept going at Kildare until the thirteenth century when it was suppressed by the Archbishop of Dublin.

It was, however, relighted and maintained by the nineteen nuns of St.

Bridget--the direct descendants of nineteen prehistoric nuns or Druidesses--until the time of the Reformation, when it was finally extinguished.

In old Irish MSS. Brigit--who was represented Madonna-like, with a child in her arms--is ent.i.tled "The Presiding Care". The name of her father, Dagda Mor, is said by Celtic scholars to mean "The Great Good Fire"; the dandelion is called "St. Bride's Forerunner," and in Gaelic its name is "Little Flame of G.o.d".

We have it on the authority of Shakespeare that "Fairies use flowers for their charactery," whence probably the pink with its pinked or ray-like petals was a flower of Pan on High. _Dianthus_, the Greek for pink, means "divine" or "day flower," and like the daisy or Day's Eye the Pansy was in all probability deemed to be Pan's eye. Among the list of Elphin names with which, complained Reginald Scott, "our mothers' maids have so frayed us,"[181] he includes "Pans" and the "_First_ Fairy" in Lyly's _The Maid's Metamorphosis_, introduces himself by the remark, "My name is Penny". To this primary elf may perhaps be a.s.signed the plant name Pennyroyal, and his haunts may be a.s.sumed at various Pennyfields, Pandowns, and Bunhills.

Some authorities maintain that Bonfire is a corruption of Bonefire, or fire of bones. But bones will not burn, and the "Blessing Fire,"

Bonfire, Good Fire, or Beltane is still wors.h.i.+pped in Brittany under the Celtic name of _Tan Tad_ or _Fire Father_. In Brittany there exists to this day a wors.h.i.+p of the Druidic Fire Father, which in its elaborate ritual preserves seemingly the exact spirit and ceremony of prehistoric fire-wors.h.i.+p. In Provence the grandfather sets the Christmas log alight, the youngest child pours wine over it, then amid shouts of joy the log is put upon the fire-dogs and its first flame is awaited with reverence.

This instance is the more memorable by reason of the prayer which has survived in connection with the ceremony and has been thus quoted in _Notes and Queries_: "Mix the brightness of thy flames with that of our hearts, and maintain among us peace and good health. Warm with thy fire the feet of orphans and of sick old men. Guard the house of the poor, and do not destroy the hopes of the peasant or the seaman's boat."

The instances of Bonfire or Beltane customs collected by the author of _The Golden Bough_ clearly evince their original sanct.i.ty. In Greece women jumped over the all-purifying flames crying, "I leave my sins behind me," and notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of Christianity to persuade our forefathers that all who wors.h.i.+p fire "shall go in misery to sore punishment," the cult of Fire still continues in out-of-the-way parts even now. To this day children in Ireland are pa.s.sed through the fire by being caught up and whisked over it, my authority for which statement observing: "We have here apparently an exact repet.i.tion of the wors.h.i.+p described in the Old Testament and an explanation of it, for there the idolatrous Israelites are described as pa.s.sing their sons and their daughters through the fire. This the writer always thought was some purifying cruel observance, but it seems that it could be done without in any way hurting the children."[182]

Not only the ritual of fire, but also its ethics have largely survived, notably in Ireland, where it was customary to ask for fire from a priest's house. But if the priest refused, as he usually did, in order to discountenance superst.i.tion, then the fire was asked from the happiest man, _i.e._, the best living person in the parish. When lighting a candle it was customary in England to say "May the Lord send us the Light of Heaven," and when putting it out, "May the Lord renew for us the Light of Heaven".

Originally the Persians wors.h.i.+pped the sacred fire only upon hill-tops, a custom for which Bryant acidly a.s.signs the following reason: "The people who prosecuted this method of wors.h.i.+p enjoyed a soothing infatuation which flattered the gloom of superst.i.tion. The eminences to which they retired were lonely and silent and seemed to be happily circ.u.mstanced for contemplation and prayer. They who frequented them were raised above the lower world and fancied that they were brought into the vicinity of the powers of the air and of the Deity, who resided in the higher regions."

The Druids, like the Persians, wors.h.i.+pped upon hill-tops or the highest ground, doubtless because they regarded these as symbols of the Most High, and there is really nothing in the custom flattering either to gloom or superst.i.tion:--

Mountains are altars rais'd to G.o.d by hands Omnipotent, and man must wors.h.i.+p there.

On their aspiring summits _glad_ he stands And near to Heaven.

If our ancestors were unable to find a convenient highland, they made an artificial mound, and such was the sacred centre or sanctuary of all tribal activities. The celebrated McAlpine laws of Scotland were promulgated from the Mote of Urr, which remarkable construction will be ill.u.s.trated in a later chapter.

Not only in Homeric Greece, but universally, Kings and Chiefs were once treated and esteemed as Sun-G.o.ds. "Think not," said a Maori chief to a missionary, "that I am a man, that my origin is of the earth. I come from the Heavens; my ancestors are all there; they are G.o.ds, and I shall return to them".[183] The notion of Imperial divinity is not yet dead; it was flouris.h.i.+ng in England to Stuart times, and though the spirit may now have fled, its traces still remain in our regal ceremonial. In the Indian Code known as the Laws of Manu, the superst.i.tion is thus enunciated: "Because a King has been formed of particles of those Lords of the G.o.ds, he therefore surpa.s.ses all created beings in l.u.s.tre, and like the Sun he burns eyes and hearts; nor can anybody on earth even gaze at him. Through his power he is Fire and Wind, he the Sun and Moon, he the Lord of Justice, he Kubera, he Varuna, he Great Indra. Even an infant King must not be despised that he is mortal; for he is a great deity in human form."[184]

It is obvious that the British carried this conception of the innate divinity of man much farther than merely to the personalities of kings.

The word _soul_, Dutch _ziel_, is probably the French word _ciel_; to work with _zeal_ is to throw one's _soul_ into it. That the Celts, like the Chinese or Celestials, equated the _soul_ with the _ciel_ or the Celestial, believing, as expressed by Taliesin, the famous British Bard, that "my original country is the region of the summer stars," is unquestionable. Max Muller supposed that the word _soul_ was derived from the Greek root _seio_, to shake. "It meant," he says, "the storm-tossed waters in contradistinction to stagnant or running water.

The soul being called _saivala_ (Gothic), we see that it was originally conceived by the Teutonic nations as a sea within, heaving up and down with every breath and reflecting heaven and earth on the mirror of the deep."

Whatever the Teutonic nations may have fancied about their souls is irrelevant to the Druidic teaching, which was something quite different.

In A.D. 45, a Roman author stated that the Druids (who did not flourish in Germany) taught many things privately, but that _one_ of their precepts had become public, to wit, that man should act bravely in war, that souls are immortal, and that there is another life after death.

There is additional testimony to the effect that the Druids of the Isle of Man, or Eubonia, "raised their minds to the most sublime inquiries, and despising human and worldly affairs strongly pressed upon their disciples the immortality of the soul". "Before all things," confirmed Caesar, "they (the Druids) are desirous to inspire a belief that men's souls do not perish." That they successfully inspired this cardinal doctrine is proved by the fact that among the Celts it was not uncommon to lend money on the understanding that it should be repaid in the next world. It is further recorded that the Britons had such an utter disregard of death that they sang cheerily when marching into battle, and in the words of an astonished Roman, _Mortem pro joco habent_--"They turn death into a joke".