Archaic England Part 15

When thy vessels, ranged upon her sh.o.r.e, Rest from the deep, and on the beach ye light The votive altars, and the G.o.ds adore, Veil then thy locks, with purple hood bedight, And shroud thy visage from a foeman's sight, Lest hostile presence, 'mid the flames divine, Break in, and mar the omen and the rite.

This pious use keep sacred, thou and thine, The sons of sons unborn, and all the Trojan line.[193]

The graceless Goemagog and his ruffianly crew did pa.s.sing cruel slaughter on the British, howbeit at the last the Britons, rallying from all quarters, prevailed against them and slew all save only Goemagog.

Him, Brute had ordered to be kept alive as he was minded to see a wrestling bout betwixt him and Corineus, "who was beyond measure keen to match himself against such a monster". Corineus, all agog and o'erjoyed at the sporting prospect, girded himself for the encounter, and flinging away his arms challenged Goemagog to a bout at wrestling. After "making the very air quake with their breathless gaspings," the match ended by Goemagog being lifted bodily into the air, carried to the edge of the cliff, and heaved over.[194]

One cannot read Homer without realising that this alleged incident was in closest accord with the habits and probabilities of the time. Alike among the Greeks and the Trojans wrestling was as popular and soul-absorbing a pastime as it is to-day, or was until yesterday, among Cornishmen:--

Tired out we seek the little town, and run The sterns ash.o.r.e and anchor in the bay, Saved beyond hope and glad the land is won, And l.u.s.tral rites, with blazing altars, pay To Jove, and make the sh.o.r.es of Actium gay With Ilian games, as, like our sires, we strip And oil our sinews for the wrestler's play, Proud, thus escaping from the foeman's grip, Past all the Argive towns, through swarming Greeks, to slip.[195]

The untoward Goemagog was probably one of an elementary big-boned tribe whose divinities were Gog and Magog, and there are distinct traces, at any rate, of Magog in Ireland. According to De Jubainville, "the various races that have successively inhabited Ireland trace themselves back to common ancestors descended from Magog or Gomer, son of j.a.phet, so that the Irish genealogy traditions are in perfect harmony with those of the Bible".[196]

The figures of Gog and Magog used until recently to be cut into the slope of Plymouth Hoe: in Cambridges.h.i.+re, are the Gogmagog hills; at the extremity of Land's End are two rocks known respectively as Gog and Magog, and there is an unfavourable allusion to the same twain in _Revelation_.[197] Gog and Magog are the "protectors" of London, and at civic festivals their images used with pomp and circ.u.mstance to be paraded through the City.

In some parts of Europe the civic giants were represented as being _eight_ in number, and the Christian Clergy inherited with their office the incongruous duty of keeping them in good order. One of these ceremonials is described by an eye-witness writing in 1809, who tells us that in Valencia no procession of however little importance took place, without being preceded by eight statues of giants of a prodigious height. "Four of them represented the four quarters of the world, and the other four their husbands. Their heads were made of paste-board, and of an enormous size, frizzled and dressed in the fas.h.i.+on. Men, covered with drapery falling on the ground, carried them at the head of the procession, making them dance, jump, bow, turn, and twist about. The people paid more attention to these gesticulations than to the religious ceremony which followed them. The existence of the giants was deemed of sufficient importance to require attention as to the means of perpetuating them; consequently there was a considerable foundation in Valencia for their support. They had a house belonging to them where they were deposited. Two benefices were particularly founded in honour of them; and it was the duty of the Ecclesiastics who possessed these benefices to take care of them and of their ornaments, particular revenues being a.s.signed for the expense of their toilettes."[198]

Four pairs of elemental G.o.ds were similarly wors.h.i.+pped in Egypt, each pair male and female, and these _eight_ primeval Beings were known as the Ogdoad or Octet. In Scotland, the Earth G.o.ddess who is said to have existed "from the long eternity of the world," is sometimes described as being the chief of _eight_ "big old women," at other times as "a great big old wife," and with this untoward Hag we may equate the English "Awd Goggie" who was supposed to guard orchards.

The London figures of Gog and Magog--constructed of wicker work--had movable eyes which, to the great joy of the populace, were caused to roll or _goggle_ as the images were perambulated. Skeat thinks the word _gog_ is "of imitative origin," but it is more likely that _goggle_ was originally Gog _oeuil_ or Gog Eye. The Irish and Gaelic for Goggle-eyed is _gogshuileach_, which the authorities refer to _gog_, "to move slightly" and _suil_, "an eye".

At Gigglewick or Giggles-fort in Yorks.h.i.+re (anciently _Deira_), there is a celebrated well of which the famed peculiarity is its eightfold flow, and it was of this Giggle Well that Drayton wrote in _Polyolbion_:--

At Giggleswick where I a fountain can you show, That _eight_ times a day is said to ebb and flow.

In Cornwall at St. Isseys there used to be a sacred fountain known as St. Giggy's Well, and as every stream and fount was the supposed home of jinns or genii it is possible that "_Saint_ Giggy" may be equated with _igigi_, a word meaning in Babylonian mythology "_the spirits of Heaven_". Jinn or Genie may also be connoted with a well near Launceston known as Joan's Pitcher, the pitcher or vase whence the living waters were poured being a constantly recurring emblem of Mother Nature. It will be noticed in Fig. 25, p. 142, and in Fig. 256, p. 428.

The French have an expression _a gogo_ ("origin unknown") which means at one's ease, or in clover; in old French _gogue_ ("origin unknown") meant pleasantry or fun, and _goguenard_ a funmaker, or a jester. All these and kindred terms are probably correlate to the jovial Gogmagog carnivals and festivals. In London the house of Gog and Magog is the Guildhall in Aldermanbury: if born within the sound of the bells of the neighbouring St. Mary-le-Bow a Londoner is ent.i.tled to be termed a _c.o.c.kney_; c.o.c.kayne is an old and romantic term for London, and it would therefore seem likely that among the cl.u.s.ter of detached _duns_ which have now coalesced into London, the followers of Gog and Magog had a powerful and perhaps aboriginal footing. Around Londonderry in Ireland are the memories of a giant Gig na Gog, and at Launceston in Cornwall there used to be held a so-called Giglot Fair. At this _a gogo_ festival every wench was at liberty to bestow the eye of favour, _ogle_, or look _gougou_, on any swain she fancied: whence obviously the whole village was agog, or full of eagerness, and much ogling, giggling, goggling, and gougounarderie.

In Cornwall _googou_ means a cave, den, souterrain, or "giants holt,"

and there are several reasons to suppose that the Gogmagogei or gougouites were troglodytes. "Son of Man," said Ezekiel, "set thy face against Gog the Land of Magog," and to judge from similar references, it would seem that the followers of Gogmagog were ill-favoured and unloved.

Sir John Maundeville (1322) mentions in his Travels, that in the Land of Cathay towards Bucharia, and Upper India, the Jews of ten lineages "who are called Gog and Magog" were penned up in some mountains called Uber.

This name Uber we shall show is probably the same as _obr_, whence the Generic term _Hebrew_, and it is said by Maundeville that between those mountains of Uber were enclosed twenty-two kings, with their people, that dwelt between the mountains of Scythia.[199] Josephus mentions that the Scythians were called Magogoei by the Greeks: by some authorities the Scythians are equated with the Scotti or Scots. There are still living in Cornwall the presumed descendants of what have been termed the "bedrock" race, and these people still exhibit in their physiognomies the traces of Oriental or Mongoloid blood. The early pa.s.sage tombs of j.a.pan are, according to Borlase, (W. C.), literally counterparts in plan and construction of those giant-graves or pa.s.sage-tombs which are prevalent in Cornwall, and, speaking of the inhabitants of Cornwall and Wales, Dr. Beddoe says: "I think some reason can be shown for suspecting the existence of traces of some Mongoloid race in the modern population of Wales and the West of England. The most notable indication is the oblique or Chinese eye. I have noted thirty-four persons with oblique eyes. Their heads include a wide range of relative breadth. In other points the type stands out distinctly. The cheek bones are almost always broad: the brows oblique, in the same direction as the eyes; the chin as a rule narrow and angular; the nose often concave and flat, seldom arched; and the mouth rather inclined to be prominent.... The iris is usually hazel or brown, and the hair straight, dark-brown, black, or reddish." "It is," he adds, "especially in Cornwall that this type is common."

Our British Giants, Gog, Magog, Termagol, and the rest of the terrible tribe, sprang, according to Scottish myth, from the _thirty-three_ daughters of Diocletian, a King of Syria, or Tyria. These _thirty-three_ primeval women drifted in a s.h.i.+p to Britain, then uninhabited, where they lived in solitude, until an order of demons becoming enamoured of them, took them to wife and begot a race of giants. Anthropology and tradition thus alike refer the Magogoei to Syria, or Phoenicia, and there would seem to be numerous indications that between these people and the ethereal, romantic, and artistic Cretans there existed a racial, integral, antipathy.

The Gogonians may be connoted with the troglodyte Ciconians, or Cyclops, to whom Homer so frequently and unfavourably alludes, and the one-eyed Polyphemus of Homer is obviously one and the same with Balor, the one-eyed giant of Tory Isle in Ireland. This Balor or Conann the Great, as he is sometimes termed, was c.o.c.k-eyed, one terrible eye facing front, the other situated in the back of his head facing to the rear. To this day the fateful eye of Balor is the Evil Eye in Ireland, whence anyone is liable to be o'erwished. Ordinarily the dreadful optic was close shut, but at times his followers raised the eyelid with an iron hook, whereupon the glance of Baler's eye blasted everything and everybody upon whom it fell. On one occasion the fateful eye of Balor is said to have overflowed with water, causing a disastrous flood; whence, perhaps, why a watery eye is termed a "Balory" or "_Bleary_ eye". That Balor was Gog may be inferred from Belerium or Bolerium, being the name applied by Ptolemy to the Land's End district where still stand the rocks called Gog and Magog. That Balor was Polyphemus, the Cyclopean Ciconian, is probable from the fact that he was blinded by a spear driven into his ill-omened eyeball, precisely as Polyphemus was blinded by a blazing stake from Ulysses. Did the unlettered peasantry of Tory Isle derive this tale from Homer, or did Homer get the story from Ogygia, a supposedly ancient name for Erin? Not only is there an ident.i.ty between the myth of Balor and Polyphemus, but, further--to quote D'arbois de Jubainville--"As fortune strangely has it the Irish name _Balor_ has preserved its ident.i.ty with _Belleros_, whom the poems of Homer and Hesiod and many other Greek writers have handed down to us in the compound _Bellero-phontes_, 'slayer of Belleros'".[200]

The author of _The Odyssey_ describes the Ciconians as a race endued with superior powers, but as troubling their neighbours with frequent wrongs:--

... o'er the Deep proceeding sad, we reach'd The land at length, where, giant-sized and free From all constraint of law, the Cyclops dwell They, trusting to the G.o.ds, plant not, or plough

No councils they convene, no laws contrive But in deep caverns dwell, found on the heads Of lofty mountains.

Apparently some of these same lawless and predatory troglodytes were at one time dwelling in Wales, for a few miles further north of Aberystwith we find the place-name Goginan there applied to what is described as "a locality with extensive lead-mines". The Welsh for cave is _ogof_, or _gogof_, and in Cornish not only _gougou_, but also _ugo_, or _hugo_ meant the same: thus _og_ and _gog_ would seem to have been synonymous, a conclusion confirmed in many other directions, such as _goggle_ and _ogle_. In Hebrew, _og_ meant gigantic, mighty, or long-necked, which evidently is the same word as the British _uch_, German _hoch_, meaning _high_; whence, there is every probability that _Og_, or _Gog_, meant primarily _High-High_, or the _Most High_, and Magog, _Mother Most High_.

Okehampton, on the river Okement in Devons.h.i.+re, held, like Launceston, a giglet fair, whence it is probable that Kigbear, the curious name of a hamlet in Okehampton, took its t.i.tle from the same _Kig_ as was responsible for _giglet_. There are numerous allusions in the cla.s.sics to a Cyclopean rocking-stone known as the Gigonian Rock, but the site of this famous oracle is not known. Joshua refers to the coast of Og, King of Bashan, which was of the remnant of the giants, and that this obnoxious ruler was a troglodyte is manifest from his subterranean capital at Edrei, which is in existence to this day, and will be described later. That at one time Og was a G.o.d of the ocean may be deduced from the Rabbinic tradition that he walked by the side of the ark during the flood, and the waters came up only to his knees. From the measurements of Og's famous bedstead it has been calculated that Og himself "was about _nine_ feet high".[201]

In Hebrew _og_ is also understood to mean _he who goes in a circle_, which is suggestive of the Sun or Eye of Heaven. That the sun was the mighty, all-seeing _ogler_ or _goggler_ of the universe is a commonplace among the poets, whence Homer, alluding to the Artist of the World, observes: "His spy the Sun had told him all". To the jocund Sun, which on Easter Day in particular was supposed to dance, may be referred the joyful _gigues_, or _jigs_ of our ancestors. Gig also meant a boy's top, and to the same source may be a.s.signed whirli_gig_. Shec is the Irish form of Jack, and _gigans_ or _gigantic_ are both radically Jack or Jock. In English, Jack means many things, from a big fresh-water fish to a jack pudding, and from Jack-in-Green to Jack-a-lanthorn: Skeat defines it, _inter alia_, as a saucy fellow, and in this sense it is the same as a young c.o.c.k. Among the characteristics of Mercury--the Celtic Ogmius, or Hercules--were versatility, fascination, trickery, and cunning: sometimes he is described as "a mischievous young thief," whence, perhaps, the old word _cog_, which meant cheating, or trickery.

The names Badc.o.c.k, Adc.o.c.k, Poc.o.c.k, Boc.o.c.k, Meac.o.c.k, and Mayc.o.c.k, as also Cook and c.o.x, are all familiar ones in London or c.o.c.kayne. As Prof.

Weekley observes, "many explanations have been given to the suffix _c.o.c.k_, but I cannot say that any of them have convinced me. Both c.o.c.k and c.o.c.king are found as early personal names."[202] In London or c.o.c.kaigne, coachmen used to swear, "By Gog and Magog,"[203] and it may prove that "By _Gosh_" is like the surnames Goodge and Gooch, an inflection of Gog.

Cogs are the teeth or rays upon a wheel, and that cog meant sun or fire is implied by the word _cook_, _i.e._, baked or fried. _Coch_ is Welsh for _red_, _kakk_ was the Mayan for fire; in the same language _kin_ meant _sun_ and _oc_ meant head, and among the Peruvians _Mama Cocha_ was the t.i.tle of the Mother of all Mankind. As _c.o.ke_ is cooked coal, one might better refer that term to _cook_, than, as officially at present, to _colk_, the core of an apple. It is difficult to appreciate any marked resemblance between c.o.ke and the core of an apple.

The authorities connote c.o.c.kayne with _cookery_, and there is undoubtedly a connection, but the faerie c.o.c.kayne was more probably the Land of All Highest Ayne. The German for c.o.c.k is _hahn_, and the c.o.c.k with his jagged scarlet crest was pre-eminently the symbol of the good s.h.i.+ne. Chanticleer, the herald of the dawning sun, was the cognisance of Gaul, and East and West he symbolised the conqueror of darkness:--

Aurora's harbinger--who Scatters the rear of darkness thin.

The c.o.c.kayne of London, France, Spain and Portugal was a degraded equivalent to the Irish Tir nan Og, which means the Land of the Young, and the word c.o.c.kayne is probably cognate with Yokhanan, the Hebrew form of John, meaning literally, "G.o.d is gracious". According to Wright, "the ancient Greeks had their c.o.c.kaigne. Athenaeus has preserved some pa.s.sages from lost poets of the best age of Grecian literature, where the burlesque on the golden age and earthly paradise of their mythology bears so striking a resemblance to our descriptions of c.o.c.kaigne, that we might almost think, did we not know it to be impossible, that in the one case whole lines had been translated from the other."[204] The probability is, that the poems, like all ancient literature, were long orally preserved by the bards of the two peoples.

In Irish mythology, it is said of Anu, the Great Mother, that well she used to cherish the circle of the G.o.ds; in England Ked or Kerid was "the Great Cherisher," and her symbol as being _perpetual love_ was, with great propriety, that ideal mother, the hen. The word _hen_, according to Skeat, is from the "Anglo-Saxon _hana_, a c.o.c.k," literally "a singer from his crowing". But a crowing _hen_ is notoriously a freak and an abomination.

In Lancas.h.i.+re there is a place called Ainsworth or c.o.c.key: in Yorks.h.i.+re there is a river c.o.c.k, and near Biggleswade is a place named c.o.c.kayne Hatley: the surname c.o.c.kayne is attributed to a village in Durham named c.o.ken. In Northumberland is a river c.o.c.ket or Coquet, and in this district in the parish of St. John Lee is c.o.c.klaw. c.o.c.kshott is an eminence in c.u.mberland and c.o.c.ks Tor--whereon are stone circles and stone rows--is a commanding height in Devon. In Worcesters.h.i.+re is c.o.kehill, and it is not improbable that Great and Little Coggeshall in Ess.e.x, as also the Oxfords.h.i.+re place-name Coggo, Cogges, or Coggs, are all referable to Gog.

In Northamptons.h.i.+re is a place known as _Cogenhoe_ or _Cooknoe_, and in seemingly all directions Cook, c.o.c.k, and Gog will be found to be synonymous. The place-name c.o.c.knage is officially interpreted as having meant "hatch, half-door, or wicket gate of the c.o.c.k," but this is not very convincing, for no c.o.c.k is likely to have had sufficient prestige to name a place. The Cornish place-name Cogynos, is interpreted as "cuckoo in the moor," but cuckoos are sylvan rather than moorland birds: the word _cuckoo_, nevertheless, may imply that this bird was connected with Gog, for the Welsh for cuckoo is _cog_, and in Scotland the cuckoo is known as a _gauk_ or _gowk_. These terms, as also the Cornish _guckaw_, may be decayed forms of the Latin _cuculus_, Greek _kokkuz_, or there are equal chances that they are more primitive. In Cornwall, on 28th April, there used to be held a so-called Cuckoo Feast.[205]

There is an English river c.o.c.ker: a _c.o.c.ker_ was a prize fighter, and it is possible that the expression, "not according to c.o.c.ker," may contain an allusion older than popularly supposed. There are rivers named _Ock_, both in Berks and Devon, and at Derby there is an Ockbrook: there is an Ogwell in Devon, a river Ogmore in Glamorgans.h.i.+re, and a river Ogwen in Carnarvon. In Wilts.h.i.+re is an Ogbourne or river Og, and on the Wilts.h.i.+re Avon there is a prehistoric British camp called Ogbury. This edifice may be described as _gigantic_ for it covers an area of 62 acres, is upwards of a mile in circuit, and has a rampart 30 to 33 feet high.[206] The number 33 occurred in connection with the original British giants, said to be 33 in number, and we shall meet with 30 or 33 frequently hereafter. _Ogre_ (of unknown origin), meaning a giant, may be connoted with the Iberian _ogro_, and with _haugr_ the Icelandic word for hill, with which etymologers connect the adjective _huge_: the old Gaulish for a hill was _hoge_ or _hogue_,[207] and the probability would seem to be that Og and _huge_ were originally the same term. There is a huge earthwork at Uig in Scotland, the walls of which, like those at Ogbury in Wilts.h.i.+re, measure 30 feet in height.

The surname Hogg does not necessarily imply a swinish personality: more probably the original Hoggs were like the Haigs, followers of the Hagman, who was commemorated in Scotland during the Hogmanay festivities. In Turkey _aga_ means _lord_ or _chief officer_, and in Greece _hagia_ means holy, whence the festival of Hogmanay has been a.s.sumed to be a corruption of the Greek words _hagia mene_, in _holy month_. If this were so it would be interesting to know how these Greek terms reached Scotland, but, as a matter of fact, Hogmanay does not last a month: at the outside it was a fete of three weeks, and more particularly three nights.

_Three weeks_ before the day whereon was borne the Lorde of Grace, And on the Thursdaye boyes and girls do runne in every place, And bounce and beate at every doore, with blowes and l.u.s.tie snaps, And crie, the Advent of the Lord not borne as yet perhaps, And wis.h.i.+ng to the neighbours all, that in the houses dwell, A happie yeare, and every thing to spring and prosper well: Here have they peares, and plumbs, and pence, ech man gives willinglee, For these three nightes are alwayes thought unfortunate to bee; Wherein they are affrayde of sprites and cankred witches spight, And dreadful devils blacke and grim, that then have chiefest might.[208]

During Hogmanay it was customary for youths to go in procession from house to house singing chants of heroic origin:--

As we used to do in old King Henry's day, Sing fellows, sing Hagman heigh!

The King Henry here mentioned is probably not one of the Tudors, but the more primitive Nick or Old Harry, and the percipient divine who thundered against the popular festival: "Sirs, do you know what Hagmane signifies? It is _the Devil be in the house_! That's the meaning of its _Hebrew original_," had undoubtedly good grounds for his denunciation.

But the still more original meaning of Hagman was in all probability the _uchman_, or high man, or giant man. According to h.e.l.lenic mythology Hercules was the son of Jove and Alcmena: the name Alcmena is apparently the feminine form of _All_ or _Holy Acmen_--whence indirectly the word _ac.u.men_ or "sharp mind"--the two forms _mena_ and _man_ seemingly figure in Scotch custom as _Hogmanay_, and as the _Hagman_ of "Sing Hagman heigh!"[209]

One of the great Roman roads of Britain is known as Akeman Street, and as it happens that this prehistoric highway pa.s.ses Bath it has been gravely suggested that it derived its t.i.tle from the gouty, aching men who limped along to Bath to take the waters. But as _man_ is the same word as _main_ the word Akeman Street resolves more reasonably into _High Main_ Street, which is precisely what it was.

In some parts of England fairy-rings are known as Hag-tracks, whence seemingly fairies were sometimes known as hags: at Lough Crew in Ireland, there is a cabalistically-decorated stone throne known as "the Hag's Chair".

In Mid-Wales _ague_ is known as _y wrach_, which means the hag or the old hag; the notion being that _ague_ (and all _aches_?) were smitings of the ugly old Hag, or "awd Goggie". Various indications seem to point to the conclusion that the aboriginal "bedrock" Og or Gog was a Tyrian or Turanian Deity, and that in the eyes of the h.e.l.lenes and Trojans anything to do with Og was _ug_ly, _i.e._, Ug-like and _ug_some.

In the county of Fife the last night of the dying year used to be known as Singin-e'en, a designation which is connected with the carols sung on that occasion. But _Singin_ may, and in all probability did, mean Sinjohn, for the Celtic _Geon_ or _giant_ was Ogmius the Mighty Muse, and _chant_ing was attributed to this world-enchanter. As already seen he was pictured leading the children of men tongue-tied by his eloquence, and it is not improbable that Ogmius is equivalent to Mighty Muse, for _muse_ in Greek is _mousa_. According to a.s.syrian mythology the G.o.d of wondrous and enchanting Wisdom rose daily from the sea and was named Oannes--obviously a h.e.l.lenised form of John or Yan. Among the Aryan nations _an_ meant mind, and this term is clearly responsible for _inane_ or without _ane_. The dictionaries attribute _inane_ to a "root unknown," but the same root is at the base of _anima_, the soul, whence _animate_ or living. Oannes, who was evidently the Great Ac.u.men or Almighty Mind is said to have emerged daily from the ocean in order to instruct mankind, and he may be connoted with the Hebridian sea-G.o.d Shony. In the image of the benevolent Oannes reproduced overleaf it will be noted he is crowned with the cross of Allbein or All Well.

In Brittany there are legends of a sea-maid of enchanting song, and wondrous ac.u.men named Mary Morgan, and this _incantatrice_ corresponds to Morgan le fay or Morgiana. The Welsh for Mary is Fair, and the fairies of Celtic countries were known as the Mairies,[210] whence "Mary Morgan" was no doubt "Fairy Morgan". In Celtic _mor_ or _mawr_ also meant big, whence Morgan may be equated with _big gan_ and Morgiana with either Big Jane or Fairy Giana. This fairy Big _gyne_ or Big _woman_ was known alternatively in the East as _Merjan Banou_ and in Italy as Fata or Maga.

It is authoritatively a.s.sumed that the word _cogitate_ is from _co_ "together" and _agere_ "to drive," but "driving together" is not cogitation. The root _cog_ which occurs in _cogent_, _cogitate_, _cognisance_, and _cognition_ is more probably an implication that Gog like Oannes was deemed to be the Lord of the Deep wisdom: Gog, in fact, stands to Oannes or Yan in the same relation as Jack stands to John: the one is seemingly a synonym for the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 46 and 47.--From _Curious Myths of the Middle Ages_ (Baring-Gould).]

The word _magic_ implies a connection with Maga or Magog: in Greek _mega_ means great, and the combined idea of great and wise is extended into _magus_, _magister_, and _magician_. The Latin _magnus_ and _magna_ are respectively Mag Unus and Mag Una: Mogounus was one of the t.i.tles applied to St. Patrick, and it was also a sobriquet of the Celtic Sun G.o.d.[211]

One of the stories of the Wandering Jew represents him as benevolently a.s.sisting a weaver named _Kokot_ to discover treasure, and in an Icelandic legend of the same Wanderer he is ent.i.tled Magus. On Magus being interrogated as to his name he replied that he was called "Vidforull," which looks curiously like "Feed for all," or "Food for all". The story relates that Magus possessed the marvellous capability of periodically casting his skin, and of becoming on each occasion younger than before. The first time he accomplished this magic feat he was 330 years old--a significant age--and in face of an astonished audience he gave a repet.i.tion of the wonderful performance. Baring his head and stroking himself all over the body, he rolled together the skin he was in and lay down before a staff or post muttering to himself: "Away with age, that I may have my desire". After lying awhile motionless he suddenly worked himself head foremost into the post, which thereupon closed over him and became again solid. Soon, however, the bemazed onlookers heard a great noise in the post, which began gradually to bulge at one end, and after a few convulsive movements the feet of Magus appeared, followed in due course by the rest of his body. After this bewildering feat Magus lay for awhile as though dead, but when the beholders were least expecting it he sprang suddenly up, rolled the skin from off his head, saluted the King, and behold "they saw that he was no other than a beardless youth and fair faced".[212]