Archaic England Part 30

[377] Maundeville, in his Travels, mentions that near Hebron, "a sacerdotal city, that is a sanctuary on the Mount of Mamre, is an oak tree which the Saracens call _dirpe_, which is of Abraham's time, and people called it the dry tree. They say that it has been there since the beginning of the world, and that it was once green and bore leaves, till the time that our Lord died on the cross, and then it died, and so did all the trees that were then in the world."--_Travels in the East_, p. 162.

[378] _Gen._ xxiii.

[379] _History_, v., 2.

[380] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticae_, i., 54.

[381] _Barddas_, p. x.x.x.

[382] _Vide_ inscription _Chuck_hurst?

[383] Dawson, L. H., _A Book of the Saints_, p. 221.

[384] Skeat considers that _Sirrah_ is "a contemptuous extension of _sire_, perhaps by addition of _ah!_ or _ha!_ (so Minsheu); Old French _sire_, Provencial _sira_".

[385] _A Book of the Beginnings._

[386] "The Berbers, their language, and their books ought to be fully explored and studied. Archaeology and linguistic science have lavished enthusiastic and toilsome study on subjects much less worthy of attention, for these Berbers present the remains of a great civilisation, much older than Rome or h.e.l.las, and of one of the most important peoples of antiquity. Here are 'ruins' more promising, and, in certain respects, more important, than the buried ruins of Nineveh; but they have failed to get proper attention, partly because a false chronology has made it impossible to see their meaning and comprehend their importance. The Berbers represent ancient communities whose importance was beginning to decline before Rome appeared, and which were probably contemporary with ancient Chaldea and the old monarchy of Egypt."--Baldwin, J. D., _Prehistoric Nations_, p. 340.

[387] _Ibid._, p. 342.

[388] Laing, S., and Huxley, T. H., _The Prehistoric Remains of Caithness_, pp. 70, 71.

[389] Quoted from Higgens, G., _Celtic Druids_.

[390] Latham, R. G., _The Varieties of Man_, p. 500.

[391] "Thy prowess I allow, yet this remember is the gift of Heaven."--Homer.

[392] De Jubainville, _Irish Myth. Cycle_, p. 84.

[393] _A Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_ (B. M.).

[394] Wright, E. M., _Rustic Speech and Folklore_, p. 334.

[395] Rev. Hilderic Friend. This gentleman adds: "Interesting as the study proves, we shall none of us regret that the English nation is daily becoming more and more intelligent and enlightened, and is leaving such follies to the heathen and the past" (vol. ii., 568).

[396] As bracken is the plural of brake, fern was once presumably the plural of _pher_.

[397] See Johnson, W., _Byways in British Archaeology_, 375-7.

[398] Since writing I find that Didron, in vol. ii. of _Christian Iconography_, p. 180, ill.u.s.trates a drawing of Jupiter upon which he comments, "a crown of yew leaves surrounds his head".

[399] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticae_, i., 12.

CHAPTER VIII

SCOURING THE WHITE HORSE

"Where one might look to find a legitimate national pride in the monuments of our forefathers there seems to be a perverse conspiracy to give the credit to anyone rather than to the Briton, and preferably to the Roman interloper. If any evidence at all be asked for, the chance finding of a coin or two, or of a handful of s.h.i.+vered pottery, is deemed enough. Such evidence is emphatically not enough."--A. HADRIAN ALLCROFT.

The owld White Ha.r.s.e wants zettin to rights, And the Squire hev promised good cheer, Zo we'll gee un a sc.r.a.pe to kip un in zhape, And a'll last for many a year.

--Berks.h.i.+re Ballad.

According to Gaelic mythology Brigit was the daughter of the supreme head of the Irish G.o.ds of Day, Life, and Light--whose name Dagda Mor, the authorities translate into _Great Good Fire_. Some accounts state there were three Brigits, but these three, like the three Gweneveres or Ginevras who were sometimes a.s.signed to King Arthur, are evidently three aspects of the one and only Queen Vera, Queen Ever, or Queen Fair.

Brigit's husband was the celebrated Bress, after whom we are told every fair and beautiful thing in Ireland was ent.i.tled a "bress".

Brigit and Bress were the parents of three G.o.ds ent.i.tled Brian, Iuchar, and Uar, and it looks as though these three were equivalent to the Persian trinity of Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good Word. The term _word_ is derived by Skeat from a root _wer_, meaning to speak, whence _Uar_ was seemingly _werde_ or _Good Word_. _Brian_, I have already connoted with _brain_, whence Good Brian was probably equivalent to Good Thought, and Iuchar, the third of Bride's brats, looks curiously like _eu coeur_, _eu cor_, or _eu cardia_, _i.e._, soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious _heart_, otherwise Kind Action or Good Deed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 224 to 231.--British. From Evans.]

These three mythic sons const.i.tute the G.o.ds of Irish Literature and Art, and are said to have had in common an only son ent.i.tled Ecne,[400] whose name, according to De Jubainville, meant "knowledge or poetry".[401] The legend CUNO which appears so frequently in British coins in connection with Pegasus--the steed of the Muses--or the Hackney, varies into ECEN, _vide_ the examples herewith, and the palm branch or fern leaf const.i.tuting the mane points to the probability that the animal portrayed corresponds to "Splendid Mane," the magic steed of three-legged Mona.

Mona was a headquarters of the British Druids by whom white horses were ceremoniously maintained. Speaking of the peculiar credulity of the German tribes Tacitus observes: "For this purpose a number of milk-white steeds unprophaned by mortal labour are constantly maintained at the public expense and placed to pasture in the religious groves. When occasion requires they are harnessed to a sacred chariot and the priest, accompanied by the king or chief of the state, attends to watch the motions and the neighing of the horses. No other mode of augury is received with such implicit faith by the people, the n.o.bility, and the priesthood. The horses upon these solemn occasions are supposed to be the organs of the G.o.ds."[402]

The horse is said to be exceptionally intelligent,[403] whence presumably why it was elevated into an emblem of Knowing, Kenning, Cunning, and ultimately of the Gnosis. That the Gnostics so regarded it is sufficiently evident apart from the collection of symbolic horses dealt with elsewhere.[404]

The old French for _hackney_ was _haquenee_, the old Spanish was _hacanea_, the Italian is _chinea_, a contracted form of _acchinea_: jennet or Little Joan is connected with the Spanish _ginete_ which has been connoted with _Zenata_, the name of a tribe of Barbary celebrated for its cavalry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 232.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 233.--From _The Cross: Heathen and Christian_ (Brock, M.).]

That Jeanette was wors.h.i.+pped in Italy _sub rosa_, would appear from the emblem here ill.u.s.trated, which is taken from the t.i.tle page of a work published in 1601.[405] The Hackney, the New-moon (Kenna?) and the Staff or Branch are emblems, which, as already seen, occur persistently on British coins, and the legend PHILOS IPPON IN DIES CRESCIT reading: "Love of the Horse; in time it will increase," obviously applied to some philosophy, and not a material taste for stud farms and the turf.

In 1857, during some excavations in Rome in the palace of the Caesars on the Palatine Hill, an inscription which is described as a "curious scratch on the wall" was brought to light. This so-called _graffito blasfemo_ has been held to be a vile caricature of the crucifixion, some authorities supposing the head to be that of a wild a.s.s, others that of a jackal: beneath is an ill-spelt legend in Greek characters to the effect: "ALEXAMENOS WORs.h.i.+PS HIS G.o.d," and on the right is a meanly attired figure seemingly engaged in wors.h.i.+p.[406]

I am unable to recognise either a jackal or a wild a.s.s in the figure in dispute, which seems in greater likelihood to represent a not ill-executed horse's head. Nor seemingly is the creature crucified, but on the contrary it is supporting the letter "T," or Tau, an emblem which was so peculiarly sacred among the Druids that they even topped and trained their sacred oak until it had acquired this holy form.[407] The Tau was the sign mentioned by Ezekiel as being branded upon the foreheads of the Elect, and this "curious scratch" of poor Alexamenos attributed to the very early part of the third century was not, in my humble opinion, the work of some illiterate slave or soldier attached to the palace of the Caesars, ridiculing the religion of a companion, but more probably the pious work of a Gnostic lover of philosophy: that the Roman church was honeycombed with Gnostic heresies is well known.

The word _philosophy_ is _philo sophy_ or the love of wisdom, but _sophi_, or wisdom, is radically _ophi_, or _opi_, _i.e._, the Phoenician _hipha_, Greek _hippa_, a mare: the name Philip is always understood as _phil ip_ or "love of the horse," and the _hobby_ horse of British festivals was almost certainly the _hippa_ or the _hippo_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 234.--Macedonian. From _English Coins and Tokens_ (Jewitt & Head).]

Of the 486 varieties of British coins ill.u.s.trated by Sir John Evans no less than 360 represent a horse in one form or another, whence it is obvious that the hobby horse was once a national emblem of the highest import. In the opinion of this foremost authority all Gaulish and all British coins are contemptible copies of a wondrous Macedonian stater, which circulated at Ma.r.s.eilles, whence the design permeated Gaul and Britain in the form of rude and clownish imitations: this supposed model, the very mark and acme of all other craftsmen, is here ill.u.s.trated, and the reader can form his own opinion upon its artistic merits. "It appears to me," says Sir John Evans, "that in most cases the adjuncts found upon the numerous degraded imitations of this type are merely the result of the engraver's laziness or incompetence, where they are not attributable to his ignorance of what the objects he was copying were originally designed to represent. And although I am willing to recognise a mythological and national element in this adaptation of the Macedonian stater which forms the prototype of the greater part of the ancient British series, it is but rarely that this element can be traced with certainty upon its numerous subsequent modifications."[408]

The supposed modifications attributed to the laziness or incompetence of British craftsmen are, however, so astonis.h.i.+ng and so ably executed that I am convinced the present theory of feeble imitation is ill-founded.

The horses of Philippus are comparatively stiff and wooden by the side of the work of Celtic craftsmen who, _when that was their intention_, animated their creations with amazing verve and _elan_. Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, who regards our early coins as "deplorable abortions," laments that one remarkable feature in the whole group of numismatic monuments of British and Celtic extraction is the spirit of servile imitation which it breathes, as well as the absence of that religious sentiment which confers a character on the Greek and Roman coinages.[409] How this writer defines religious sentiment I am unaware, but in any case it is difficult to square his a.s.sertion with Akerman's reference to "the great variety of crosses and other totally uninteresting objects" found on the _post_-Roman coinage.[410]

We have already noted certain exquisitely modelled coins of Gaul and there are many more yet to be considered. Dr. Jewitt concedes that the imitations were not always servile "having occasionally additional features as drapery, a torque round the neck, a bandlet or what not,"

but this writer obsequiously follows Sir John Evans in the opinion that the stater of Philip was "seized on by the barbarians who came in contact with Greek civilisation as an object of imitation. In Gaul this was especially the case, and the whole of the gold coinage of that country may be said to consist of imitations more or less rude and degenerate of the Macedonian Philippus."[411]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 235.--Cambre Castle, from Redruth. From _Excursions in the County of Cornwall_ (Stockdale, F.

W. L.).]

In 1769 a h.o.a.rd of 371 gold British coins was discovered on the Cornish hill known as Carn Bre, near Cambourne, in view of which (and many other archaeological finds) Borlase entertained the notion that Carn Bre was a prehistoric sanctuary. This conclusion is seemingly supported by the near neighbourhood of the town Redruth which is believed to have meant--_rhe druth_, or "the swift-flowing stream of the Druids". It is generally supposed that primitive coins were struck by priests within their sacred precincts,[412] and the extraordinary large collection found upon Carn Bre seems a strong implication that at some period coins were there minted. We find seemingly the Bre of Carn Bre, doubtless the Gaulish _abri_ or sanctuary, recurrent in Ireland, where at Bri Leith it was believed that Angus Mac Oge, the ever-young and lovely son of Dagda Mor, had his _brugh_ or _bri_, which meant _fairy palace_. The Cornish Cambourne, which the authorities suppose to have been _Cam bron_, and to have meant _crooked hill_, was more probably like Carn Bre the seat or _abri_ of King Auberon, "Saint" Bron, or King Aubrey.