Archaic England Part 31

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 236.--Iberian. From Akerman.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 237.--British. From Evans.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 238.--From _Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism_ (Inman, I.).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 239.--Greek. From Barthelemy.]

The generic term _coin_ is imagined to be derived from _cuneum_, the Latin accusative of _cuneus_, a wedge, "perhaps," adds Skeat, "allied to cone". It is, however, almost an invariable rule to designate coins by the design found upon their face, whence "angel," "florin," "rose,"

"crown," "kreuzer" (cross), and so forth. The British penny is supposed to have derived its t.i.tle from the head--Celtic _pen_--stamped upon it:[413] the Italian _ducat_ was so denominated because it bore the image of a _duke_, whose coins were officially known as _ducati_, or "coins of the duchy"; and as not only the legend _cuin_, _cuno_, etc., appears upon early coinage, but also an image of an angel which we have endeavoured to show was regarded as the _Cun_ or _Queen_, it seems likely that the word _coin_ (Gaelic _cuinn_) is as old as the CUIN legend, and may have had no immediate relation either with _cunneus_ or _cone_. Nevertheless, the Queen of Heaven was occasionally depicted on coins in the form of a _cone_, as on the token here ill.u.s.trated: on the coins of Cyprus Venus was represented under the symbolism of a cone-shaped stone.[414] The ancient minters not only customarily portrayed the features of their _pherepolis_ or Fairy of the City, but they occasionally rendered her ident.i.ty fool-proof by inscribing her name at full length as in the ARETHUSA coin here ill.u.s.trated: some of our seventh-century money bears the legend LUX--an allusion to the Light of the World; in the East coins were practically religious manifestos and bore inscriptions such as G.o.d IS ONE; G.o.d IS THE ETERNAL; THERE IS NO G.o.d BUT G.o.d ALONE; MAY THE MOST HIGH PERPETUATE HIS KINGDOM; and among the coins of Byzantium is an impression of the Virgin bearing the legend O LADY DO THOU KEEP IN SAFETY.[415]

The early coinage of _Genoa_ represented a gate or _janua_; the Roman coin of Ja.n.u.s was known as the _As_, an implication that Ja.n.u.s, the first and most venerable of the Roman pantheon, was radically _genus_ or King As: in the same way it is customary among us to speak colloquially of "George," or more ceremoniously of "King George," and in all probability the full and formal t.i.tle of the Roman _As_ was the Ja.n.u.s.

On these coins there figured the _prow_ or forefront of a s.h.i.+p, and the same _prow_ will be noticed on the tokens of Britannia (_ante_, p. 120).

It is remarkable that even 500 years after the coins of Ja.n.u.s had been out of circulation the youth of Rome used to toss money to the exclamation "Heads or s.h.i.+ps"--a very early instance of the _pari mutuel_!

In connection with archaic coins it is curious that one cannot get away from John or Ion. The first people to strike coins are believed to have been either the Ionians or the Lydians, both of whom inhabited the locality of ancient Troy:[416] as early as the middle of the seventh century B.C., the aegean island of aegina, then a great centre of commerce, minted money, but the annalists of China go far further in their claim that as far back as 1091 B.C., a coinage was inst.i.tuted by _Cheng_, the second King of Chou.[417] The generic term _token_ is radically _Ken_, _shekel_ is seemingly allied to Sheik, the Moorish or Berberian for a chief, and with _daric_, the Persian coin, one may connote not only Touriack but ultimately Troy or Droia. Our _guinea_ was so named after gold from Guinea; Guinea presumably was under Touriack or Berber influences, and we shall consider in a subsequent chapter Ogane, a mighty potentate of northern Africa whose toe, like that of Ja.n.u.s, the visitor most reverently kissed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 240 and 241.--Archaic Carvings.]

The Hackney of our early coinage thus not only appears pre-eminently upon it, but the very terms _coin_, _token_, _c.h.i.n.k_, and _jingle_,[418]

are permeated with the same root, _i.e._, Ecna, aegina, or Jeanne.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 242 and 243.--Archaic Carvings.]

That the wors.h.i.+p of the Hackney stretches backward into the remotest depths of antiquity is implied by the carvings of prehistoric horse-heads found notably in the _trous_ or cave shelters of Derbys.h.i.+re and Dordogne. The discoveries at Torquay in Kent's Cavern, in Kent's Copse, (or Kent's Hole as it is named in ancient maps), included bone, or horn pins, awls, barbed harpoons, and a neatly formed needle _precisely similar_ to a.n.a.logous objects found in the rock shelters of Dordogne.[419] Many representations of horses and horse-heads have been found among the coloured inscriptions at Font de Gaune--the Fount of _Gaune_, and likewise at _Combar_elles: the Combar is here seemingly King Bar, and Bruniquel, another famous site of horse remains, is in all probability connected with the _broncho_. Perigord, the site of ancient Petrocorii, is radically _peri_, and Petro_cor_ii, the Father or Rock Heart, may be connoted with Iu_char_, the brother of Bryan and the father of Ecna, or _philosophy_.

In England horse-teeth in a.s.sociation with a flint celt have been found at Wiggonholt in Suss.e.x: the term _holt_ is applied in Cornwall to Pictish souterrains, and it is probable that Wiggonholt was once a holt or hole of _eu_ Igon: aegeon was an alternative t.i.tle of Briareus of the Hundred Hands, and as already shown Briareus was localised by Greek writers upon a British islet (_ante_, p. 82).

The white horse const.i.tuted the arms of Brunswick or Burn's Wick; horses were carved upon the ancient font at _Burn_sall in Yorks.h.i.+re, and that the _broncho_ was esteemed in Britain by the flint knappers is implied by the etching of a horse's head found upon a polished horse rib in a cave at _Cress_well Crags in Derbys.h.i.+re. _Ceres_ or Demeter was represented as a mare, _cres_ is the root of _cresco_--I grow, and among the white horses carved upon the chalk downs of England, one at Bratton was marked by an exaggerated "crescentic tail". Bratton, or Bra-ton?

Hill, whereon this curious brute was carved, may be connoted with Bradon, and Bratton may also be compared with _prad_, a word which in horsey circles means a horse, whence _prad cove_, a dealer in horses: with the white horse at Bratton may be connoted the horse carved upon the downs at _Pre_ston near Weymouth. For a ma.s.s of miscellaneous and interesting horse-lore the curious reader may refer to Mr. Walter Johnson's _Byways in British Archaeology_: the opinion of this painstaking and reliable writer is that the famed white horse of Bratton, like its fellow at Uffington, although usually believed to commemorate victories over the Danes are more probably to be referred to the Late Bronze, or Early Iron Age.

It has already been noted that artificially white horses were inscribed at times on Scotch hills, but these earth-monuments are unrecorded either in Ireland or on the Continent. On the higher part of Dartmoor there is a bare patch on the granite plateau in form resembling a horse, but whether the clearing is artificial is uncertain: the probabilities are, however, in favour of design for the site is known as White Horse Hill.[420]

The White Horse of Berks.h.i.+re--the s.h.i.+re of the horse, Al Borak, or the _brok_?--is situated at Uffington, a name which the authorities decode into town or village of Uffa: I do not think this imaginary "Uffa" was primarily a Saxon settler, and it is more probable that Uffa was _hipha_, the Tyrian t.i.tle of the Great Mother whose name also meant _mare_, whence the h.e.l.lenic _hippa_. The authorities would like to read Avebury, a form of Abury or Avereberie, as _burg of Aeffa_, but near Avebury there is a white horse cut upon the slope of a down, and the adjacent place-name Uffcot suggests that here also was an _hipha_-cot, or cromlech. The ride of Lady G.o.diva nude upon a white horse was, as we shall see later, probably the survival of an ancient festival representative of _Good Hipha_, the St. Ive, or St. Eve, who figures here and there in Britain, otherwise Eve, the Mother of All Living.

There used to be traces at Stonehenge of a currus or horse-course, and all the evidence is strongly in favour of the supposition that the horse has been with us in these islands for an exceedingly long time.

When defending their sh.o.r.es against the Roman invaders the British cavalry drove their horses into the sea attacking their enemies while in the water, and one of the facts most impressive to Caesar was the skill with which our ancestors handled their steeds. Speaking of the British charioteers he says: "First they advance through all parts of their Army, and throw their javelins, and having wound themselves in among the troops of horse, they alight and fight on foot; the charioteers retiring a little with their chariots, but posting themselves in such a manner, that if they see their masters pressed, they may be able to bring them off; by this means the Britons have the agility of horse, and the firmness of foot, and by daily exercise have attained to such skill and management, that in a declivity they can govern the horses, though at full speed, check and turn them short about, run forward upon the pole, stand firm upon the yoke, and then withdraw themselves nimbly into their chariots."[421]

According to Mr. and Mrs. Hawes, two-wheeled chariots are delineated on Gnossian seals, among which is found a four-wheeled chariot having the front wheels armed with spikes:[422] the Britons are traditionally supposed to have attached scythes to their wheels, and Homer's description of a chariot fight might well have expressed the sensations of the British Jehu:--

his flying steeds His chariot bore, o'er bodies of the slain And broken bucklers trampling; all beneath Was splash'd with blood the axle, and the rails Around the car, as from the horses' feet And from the felloes of the wheels were thrown The b.l.o.o.d.y gouts; and onward still he pressed, Panting for added triumphs; deeply dyed With gore and carnage his unconquer'd hands.[423]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 244.--From _A Guide to the Antiquities of Bronze Age_ (B.M.).]

_Biga_, the Greek for chariot, is seemingly _buggy_, the name of a vehicle which was once very fas.h.i.+onable with us: the term, now practically extinct in this country, is still used largely in America, whither like much other supposedly American slang, it was no doubt carried by the pilgrim fathers.[424] To account satisfactorily for _buggy_ one must a.s.sume that the earliest _bigas_ were used ceremoniously in sacred festivals to Big Eye or the Sun: that this was a prevalent custom is proved by the Scandinavian model representing the Solar Chariot here ill.u.s.trated. Among the cave-offerings of Crete the model biga was very frequent, and no doubt it had some such mental connection with the constellation King Charles's Wain, as still exists in Breton folklore. In what was known as King's barrow in Yorks.h.i.+re, the skeleton of an old man was uncovered accompanied by chariot wheels, the skeletons of two small horses, and the skulls of two pigs: similar sepulchres have been found in great number in the Cambrai--Peronne--Bray district of France. Not only do we here find the term Santerre applied to an extensive plain, but the exquisite bronze plaques, discs, and flagons recovered from the tombs "appear to be of Greek workmans.h.i.+p". In the words of Dr. Pycraft (written in August, 1918): "The Marne is rich in such relics--though, happily, they need no little skill in finding, for they date back to prehistoric times ranging from the days of the Stone Age to the dawn of history. The retreat of this foul-minded brood [the German Army] towards the Vesle will probably mean the doom of the celebrated Menhirs, or standing stones, of the Marne Valley. These date back to about 6000 B.C., and are remarkable for the fact that they bear curiously sculptured designs, of which the most striking is a conventionalised representation of the human face.[425] This, and the general character of the ornamentation, bears a close likeness to that found on early objects from Hissarlik and the Greek islands.... These megalithic monuments mark the appearance in Europe of a new race, bringing with them new customs--and, what is still more important, the use of metal."[426]

Among the finds at Troy, Schliemann recovered some curious two-holed whorls or wheels, in the eyes of which are representations of a horse: he also discovered certain small carved horse-heads.[427] That the horse was of good omen among the Trojans is implied by the description of the building of aeneas's new colony, for of this new-born _tre_ we read--

A grove stood in the city, rich in shade, Where storm-tost Tyrians, past the perilous brine, Dug from the ground by royal Juno's aid A war-steed's head, to far-off days a sign That wealth and prowess should adorn the line.[428]

Such was the auspiciousness of this find that the Trojans forthwith erected an altar to Juno, _i.e._, Cuno?

At the home of the Mother G.o.ddess in Gnossus there has been discovered a seal impression which is described as a n.o.ble horse of enormous size being transported on a one-masted boat driven by Minoan oarsmen, seated beneath an awning:[429] it has been a.s.sumed by one authority after another that this seal-stone represented and commemorated the introduction into Crete of the thorough-bred horse, but more probably it was the same sacred horse as is traditionally a.s.sociated with the fall of Troy. There is some reason to think that this supposedly fabulous episode may have had some historic basis: historians are aware that the Druids were accustomed to make vast wicker frames, sometimes in the form of a bull, and according to Roman writers these huge constructions filled either with criminals or with sacrificial victims were then burnt. Two enormous white horses constructed from wood and paper formed part of a recent procession in connection with the obsequies of the late Emperor of Korea, and it is quite possible that the wily Greeks strategically constructed a colossal horse by means of which they introduced a picked team of heroes in the Trojan sanctuary. According to Virgil--

Broken by war, long baffled by the force Of fate, as fortune and their hopes decline, The Danaan leaders build a monstrous horse, Huge as a hill, by Pallas' craft divine, And cleft fir-timbers in the ribs entwine.

They feign it vowed for their return, so goes The tale, and deep within the sides of pine And caverns of the womb by stealth enclose Armed men, a chosen band, drawn as the lots dispose.[430]

That this elaborate form of the wicker-cage was introduced into Troy upon some religious pretext would appear almost certain from the inquiry of the aged Priam--

but mark, and tell me now, What means this monster, for what use designed?

Some warlike engine? _or religious vow_?

Who planned the steed, and why? Come, quick, the truth avow.[431]

The Trojans were guileless enough to "through the gates the monstrous horse convey," and even to lodge it in the citadel fatuously ignoring the recommendation of Capys

... to tumble in the rolling tide, The doubtful gift, for treachery designed, Or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side.

Unless there had been some highly superst.i.tious feeling attaching to the votive horse, one cannot conceive why the sound advice of Capys was not immediately put into practice.

Although both Greeks and Trojans were accomplished charioteers, riding on horseback was, we are told, so rare and curious an exhibition in ancient Greece that only one single reference is found in the poems of Homer. According to Gladstone, equestrian exercise was "the half-foreign accomplishment of the Kentauroi," who were fabulously half-man and half-horse: similarly, in most ancient Ireland there are no riders on horseback, and the warriors fight invariably from chariots.[432] On the other hand, in Etruria there are found representations of what might be a modern race meeting, and the effect of these pictures upon the early investigators of Etrurian tombs seems to have been most surprising. In the words of Mrs. Hamilton Gray: "The famous races of Britain seemed there to find their type. The racers, the race-stand, the riders with their various colours, the judges, the spectators, and the prizes were all before us. We were unbelieving like most of our countrymen.... Our understandings and imaginations were alike perplexed."[433]

The verb to _canter_ is supposed to be derived from the pace at which pilgrims proceeded to _Canter_bury. But pilgrims either footed it or else ambled leisurely along on their palfreys, and the connection between canter and Cantuar is seemingly much deeper than supposed. At _Kintyre_ in Scotland the patron saint is St. _Cheiran_, who may be connoted with _Chiron_, the wise and good _Kentaur_ chief; and this connection of Chiron-Kentaur, Cheiran-Kintyre is the more curious, inasmuch as both an Irish MS. and Ptolemy refer independently by different terms to the Mull of Kintyre, as "the height of the _horse_".[434]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 245.--From _The Heroes_ (Kingsley, C.).]

The ill.u.s.tration herewith is an early Victorian conception of Chiron, the wise and kindly Kentaur King, and CANTORIX, an inscription found on the spectral steeds of Fig. 146, might seemingly without outrage be interpreted as _Canto rex_, or _Song King_: in Welsh _canto_, a song or _chant_, was _gan_, and the t.i.tle _tataguen_ meant "the father of the muse";[435] according to mythology the walls of Troy were built by Ocea.n.u.s to the music of Apollo's lyre.

It would appear probable that Kent, the county of Invicta, the White Horse, was pre-eminently a horse-breeding county, as it remains to this day: part of Cantuarburig is known as Hackington, and in view of the Iceni hackney-coins there is little doubt that horse-breeding was extensively practised wherever the equine Eceni, Cantii, and Cenomagni were established. It is noteworthy that the Icknield Way was known alternatively as Hackington Way, Hackney Way, Acknil Way, and Hikenilde Street.[436]

It is a curious fact that practically the first scratchings of a horse represent the animal as bridled, whence the authorities a.s.sume that horses were kept semi-domesticated in a compound for purposes of food: immense collections of horse bones have been discovered, whence it seems probable that horses were either sacrificed in hecatombs or were eaten in large quant.i.ties; but the Tartars kept horses mainly for the mare's milk.

Pliny mentions a horse-eating tribe, in Northern Spain, ent.i.tled the Concanni, with which Iberians may be connoted the Congangi of c.u.mberland, whose headquarters were supposedly Kendal: the western point of Carnarvons.h.i.+re is named by Ptolemy Gangani, and the same geographer mentions another Gangani in the West of Hibernia. The Hibernian Ganganoi, situated in the neighbourhood of the Shannon, wors.h.i.+pped a Sengann whose name is supposed to mean _Old Gann_: we have ill.u.s.trated the earthwork wheel cross of Shanid (_ante_ p. 55), and have suggested the equation of Sen Gann with Sinjohn. In all probability the fairy known in Ireland as Gancanagh, who appears in lonesome valleys and makes love to milkmaids, is a survival of the Gangani's All Father. The name Konken occurs among the kingly chronology of Archaic Britain; the most ancient inscribed stone in Wales is a sepulchral stone of a certain Cingen: the Saxon name Cunegonde is translated as having meant _royal lady_.

The French _cancan_, an exuberant dance which is a.s.sociated with Paris, the city of the Parisii, may be a survival from the times of the Celtiberian Concanni: Paris was the Adonis of the h.e.l.lenes, or Children of h.e.l.las, and it is not unlikely that the lament _helas!_ or _alas!_ was the cry wailed by the women on the annual waning of the Solar Power.

At Helstone in Cornwall--supposed to be named from _h.e.l.las_, a marsh--there is still danced an annual Furry dance of which the feature is a long linked chain similar to that of the French farandole: if _faran_, like _fern_, be the plural of _far_, it follows that the _furry_ and the _faran_dole were alike festivals of the Great Fire, Phare, Fairy, Phairy, or Peri; the Parisii who settled in the Bridlington district are by some scholars a.s.signed to Friesland.

Persia, the home of the peris, is still known locally as Farsistan, whence the name Fa.r.s.ees or Pa.r.s.ees is now used to mean fire wors.h.i.+ppers: the Indian Pa.r.s.ees seem chiefly to be settled in the district of India, which originally formed part of the ancient Indian Konkan kingdom, and the probabilities are that the Konkani of the East, like the Cancanii of the West, were wors.h.i.+ppers of the Khan Khan, or King of Kings.

In the most ancient literature of India entire hymns are addressed to the Solar Horse, and the estimation in which the White Horse was held in Persia may be judged from the annual salutation ceremony thus described by Williamson in _The Great Law_: "The procession to salute the G.o.d formed long before the rising of the sun. The High Priest was followed by a long train of Magi, in spotless white robes chanting hymns and carrying the sacred fire on silver censers. Then came 365 youths in scarlet, to represent the days of the year, and the colour of fire.

These were followed by the chariot of the sun, empty, decorated with garlands, and drawn by superb white horses, harnessed with pure gold.

Then came a white horse of magnificent size, his forehead blazing with gems, in honour of Mithras. Close behind him rode the king, in a chariot of ivory inlaid with gold, followed by his royal kindred, in embroidered garments and a long train of n.o.bles, riding on camels richly caparisoned. This gorgeous retinue, facing the East, slowly ascended Mount Orontes. Arrived at the summit, the high priest a.s.sumed his tiara, wreathed with myrtle, and hailed the first rays of the rising sun with incense and with prayer. The other Magi gradually joined him in singing hymns to Ormuzd, the source of all blessings, by whom the radiant Mithra had been sent to gladden the earth, and preserve the principle of life.

Finally, they all joined in the one universal chorus of praise, while king, princes, and n.o.bles prostrated themselves before the orb of day."

There is every likelihood that this festival was celebrated on a humbler scale at many a British "Hallicondane," and as the glory of the horse or courser is its speed--"swift is the sun in its course"--we may also be sure that no pains were spared to secure a worthy representative of the Supreme Ecna, Ekeni, or Hackney.

In Egypt the whole land was ransacked in order to discover the precise and particular Bull, which by its special markings was qualified to play Apis, and when this precious beast was found there were national rejoicings. Reasoning by a.n.a.logy it is probable that not only did each British horse-centre have its local races, but that there was in addition what might be called a Grand National either at Stonehenge or at one or another of the tribal centres. In such case the winners would become the sacred steeds, which, as we know, were maintained by the Druids in the sanctuaries, and from whose neighing or knowing auguries were drawn. Such was the value placed in Persia upon the augury of a horse's neigh, that on one memorable occasion the rights of two claimants to the throne were decided by the fact that the horse of the favoured one neighed first.[437]

It is probable that the primitive horse-races of the Britons were elemental Joy-days, Hey-days, and Holy-days, similar to the time-honoured Scouring and Cleansing of the White Horse of Berks.h.i.+re or Barruks.h.i.+re. On the occasion of this festival in 1780, _The Reading Mercury_ informed its readers that: "Besides the customary diversions of horse-racing, foot-races, etc., many uncommon rural diversions and feats of activity were exhibited to a greater number of spectators than ever a.s.sembled on any former occasion. Upwards of 30,000 persons were present, and amongst them most of the n.o.bility and gentry of this and the neighbouring counties, and the whole was concluded without any material accident."