Archaic England Part 45

As wreath means a circle it is no doubt the same word as _rota_, a wheel, and Rodehengenne or Stonehengels may have meant the Wheel Angels.

The cruciform _rath_, ill.u.s.trated _ante_, page 55, is pre-eminently a _rota_, and in Fig. 343 Christ is represented in a circle supported by four somewhat unaerial Evangelists or Angels.

Mount Ida in Phrygia was the reputed seat of the _Dactyli_, a word which means _fingers_, and these mysterious Powers were sometimes identified with the Cabiri. The Dactyli, or _fingers_, are described as fabulous beings to whom the discovery of iron and the art of working it by means of fire was ascribed, and as the philosophy of Phairie is always grounded upon some childishly simple basis, it is probable that the Elphin eleven in its elementary sense represented the ten fingers controlled by Emperor Brain. The digits are magic little workmen who level mountains and rear palaces at the bidding of their lord and master Brain: the word _digit_, French _doight_, is in fact _Good G.o.d_, and _dactyli_ is the same word plus a final _yli_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 343.--Christ with a Plain Nimbus, Ascending to Heaven in a Circular Aureole. Carving in Wood of the XIV. Cent. From Evans.]

In _Folklore as an Historical Science_ Sir Laurence Gomme lays some stress upon a tale which is common alike to Britain and Brittany, and is therefore supposed to be of earlier date than the separation of Britons and Bretons. This tale which centres at London, is to the effect that a countryman once upon a time dreamed there was a priceless treasure hidden at London Bridge: he therefore started on a quest to London where on arrival he was observed loitering and was interrogated by a bystander. On learning the purpose of his trip the c.o.c.kney laughed heartily at such simplicity, and jestingly related how he himself had also dreamed a dream to the effect that there was treasure buried in the countryman's own village. On his return home the rustic, thinking the matter over, decided to dig where the c.o.c.kney had facetiously indicated, whereupon to his astonishment he actually found a pot containing treasure. On the first pot unearthed was an inscription reading--

Look lower, where this stood Is another twice as good.

Encouraged he dug again, whereupon to his greater astonishment he found a second pot bearing the same inscription: again he dug and found a third pot even yet more valuable. This fabulously ancient tale is notably identified with Upsall in Yorks.h.i.+re; it is, we are told, "a constant tradition of the neighbourhood, and the identical bush yet exists (or did in 1860) beneath which the treasure was found; a _bur_tree or elder."[661] Upsall was originally written Upeshale and Hupsale (primarily Ap's Hall?) and the idea is a happy one, for in mythology it is undeniably true that the deeper one delves the richer proves the treasure trove. In suggesting that eleven may have been the number of the ten digits guided and controlled by the Brain one may thus not only remark the injunction to the Jews: "Thou shalt make curtains of goatshair to be a covering upon the tabernacle: _eleven_ curtains shalt thou make,"[662] but one may note also the probable elucidation of this Hebrew symbolism:--

Shall any gazer see with mortal eyes Or any searcher know by mortal mind; Veil after veil will lift, but there must be Veil upon veil behind.[663]

a.s.suming that in the simplest sense the elphin eleven were the ten digits and the Brain, one may compare with this combination the ten Powers or qualities which according to the Cabala emanated from "The Most Ancient One". "He has given existence to all things. He made ten lights spring forth from His midst, lights which shone with the forms which they had borrowed from Him and which shed everywhere the light of a brilliant day. The Ancient One, the most Hidden of the hidden, is a high beacon, and we know Him only by His lights which illuminate our eyes so abundantly. His Holy Name is no other thing than these lights."[664]

According to _The Golden Legend_ the Emperor of Constantinople applied to St. Ambrose to receive the sacred mysteries, and that Ambrose was Vera or Truth is hinted by the testimony of the Emperor. "I have found a man of _truth_, my master Ambrose, and such a man ought to be a bishop."

The word _bishop_, Anglo-Saxon _biscop_, supposed to mean _overseer_, is like the Greek _episcopus_, radically _op_, an _eye_.[665] Egyptian archaeologists tell us that in Egypt the Coptic Land of the Great Optic, even the very games had a religious significance; whence there was probably some ethical idea behind the British "jingling match by eleven blind-folded men and one unmasked and hung with bells". This joyous and diverting _jeu_ is mentioned as part of the sports-programme at the celebrated Scouring of the White Horse: we have already noted the blind-folded Little Leaf Man, led blind Amor-like from house to house, also the _Blind_ Man who is said to have sat for _eleven_ years in the Church of St. Maur (or Amour?), and among other sports at the Scouring, eleven enters again into an account of chasing the fore wheel of a wagon down the hill slope. The trundling of a fiery wheel--which doubtless took place at the several British Trendle Hills--is a well-known feature of European solar ceremonies: the greater interest of the Scouring item is perhaps in the number of compet.i.tors: "_eleven_ on 'em started and amongst 'em a sweep-chimley and a millard [milord], and the millard tripped up the sweep-chimley and made the zoot fly a good 'un--the wheel ran pretty nigh down to the springs that time".[666]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 344 and 345.--British. From Akerman and Evans.]

The Jewish conception of The Most Ancient One, the most Hidden of the hidden, reappears in Jupiter Ammon, whose sobriquet of Ammon meant _the hidden one_: "Verily, Thou art a G.o.d that hidest Thyself". In England the game of _Hide and Seek_ used to be known as _Hooper's Hide_,[667]

and this curious connection between Jupiter, the Hidden one, and _Hooper's Hide_ somewhat strengthens my earlier surmise that Hooper = Iupiter.

In the opinion of Sir John Evans "there can be little doubt" of the head upon the obverse of Fig. 344 being intended for Jupiter Ammon;[668] in Cornish Blind Man's Hide and Seek, the players used to shout "Vesey, vasey vum: _Buckaboo_ has come!"[669]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 346.--Gla.s.s Beads, England and Ireland. From _A Guide to the Antiquities of the Early Iron Age_ (B.M.).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 347.--From _A Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age_ (B.M.).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 348.--From _Archaic Sculpturings_ (L. Mann).]

If as now suggested the wheel and the "spindle whorl" were alike symbols of the Eye of Heaven, it is equally probable that the amber, and many other variety of bead, was also a talismanic eyeball:[670] among grave deposits the blue bead was very popular, a.s.sumedly for the reason that blue was the colour of heaven. Large quant.i.ties of blue "whorls" were discovered by Schliemann[671] at Mykenae, and among the many varieties of beads found in Britain one in particular is described as "of a Prussian Blue colour with three circular grooves round the circ.u.mference, filled with white paste".[672] This design of three circles reappears in Fig.

347 taken from the base of a British Incense-cup; likewise in a group of rock sculpturings (Fig. 348) found at Kirkmabreck in Kirkcudbrights.h.i.+re.

Mr. Ludovic Mann, who sees traces of astronomical intention in this sculpture, writes: "If the pre-historic peoples of Scotland and indeed Europe had this conception, then the Universe to their mind would consist of eleven units, namely, the nine celestial bodies already referred to, and the Central Fire and the 'Counter-Earth'. Very probably they knew also of elliptical motions. Oddly enough the cult of eleven units (which I detected some fifteen years ago) representing the universe can be discerned in the art of the late Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Scotland and over a much wider area. For example, in nearly all the cases of Scottish necklaces of beads of the Bronze Age which have survived intact, it will be found that they consist of a number of beads which is eleven or a multiple of eleven. I have, for example, a fine Bronze Age necklace from Wigtowns.h.i.+re consisting of 187 beads (that is of 17 11) and a triangular centre piece. The same curious recurrence of the number and its multiples can often be detected in the number of standing stones in a circle, in the number of stones placed in slightly converging rows found in Caithness, Sutherland, some parts of England, Wales, and in Brittany. The number eleven is occasionally involved in the Bronze Age pottery decorations, and in the patterns on certain ornaments and relics of the Bronze Age.... The Cult of eleven seems to survive in the numerous names of Allah, who was known by ninety-nine names, and hence it is invariably the case that the Mahommedan has a necklace consisting of either eleven or a multiple of eleven beads but not exceeding ninety-nine, as he is supposed to repeat one of the names for each bead which he tells."[673]

We have seen that the _rudraksha_ or eye of the G.o.d S'iva seeds are usually eleven faceted, and my surmise that the whorls of Troy were universal Eyes is further implied by the group here ill.u.s.trated.

According to Thomas, our British Troy Towns or Caer Troiau were originally astronomical observatories, and he derives the word _troiau_ from the verb _troi_ to _turn_, or from _tro_ signifying a _flux of time_:--[674]

By ceaseless actions all that is subsists; Constant rotation of th' unwearied wheel That Nature rides upon, maintains her health, Her beauty and fertility. She dreads An instant's pause and lives but while she moves.

The Trojan whorls are unquestionably _tyres_ or _tours_, and the notion of an eye is in some instances clearly imparted to them by radiations which resemble those of the _iris_. The wavy lines of No. 1835 and 1840 probably denote water or the spirit, in No. 1847 the "Jupiter chain" of our SOLIDO coin reappears; the astral specks on 1841 and 1844 may be connoted with the stars and planets, and in 1833 the sense of rolling or movement is clearly indicated.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 349.--Specimen Patterns of Whorls Dug up at Troy.

From _Ilios_ (Schliemann).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 350.--Specimen Patterns of Whorls Dug up at Troy.

From _Ilios_ (Schliemann).]

Schliemann supposes that the thousands of whorls found in Troy served as offerings to the tutelary deity of the city, _i.e._, Athene: some of them have the form of a cone, or of two cones base to base, and that Troy was pre-eminently a town of the Eternal Eye is perhaps implied by the name Troie.

Fig. 351 is a ground plan of Trowdale Mote in Scotland which, situated on a high and lonely marshland within near sight of nothing but a few swelling hillocks amongst reeds and mosses and water, has been described as the "strangest, most solitary, most prehistoric looking of all our motes".[675]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 351.--From Proceedings Soc. Ant. Scot.]

It was popularly supposed that all the witches of West Cornwall used to meet at midnight on Midsummer Eve at Trewa (p.r.o.nounced _Troway_) in the parish of Zennor, and around the dying fires renewed their vows to the Devil, their master. In this wild Zennor (supposedly _holy land_) district is a witch's rock which if touched nine times at midnight reputedly brought good luck.

The "Troy Town" of Welsh children is the Hopscotch of our London pavements; at one time every English village seems to have possessed its maze (or Drayton?), and that the mazes were the haunts of fairies is well known:--

... the yellow skirted fays Fly after the night steeds Leaving their moon-loved maze.

In _A Midsummer-Night's Dream_ t.i.tania laments:--

The nine men's morris is filled up with mud And the quaint mazes in the wanton green For lack of tread are indistinguishable.

At St. Martha's Church near Guildford, facing Newlands Corner are the remains of an earthwork maze close by the churchyard, and within this maze used to be held the country sports.[676] We shall consider some extraordinarily quaint mazes and Troy Towns in a subsequent chapter, but meanwhile it may here be noted that in the Scilly Islands (which the Greeks ent.i.tled Hesperides) is a monument thus described: "Close to the edge of the cliff is a curious enclosure called Troy Town, taking its name from the Troy of ancient history; the streets of ancient Troy were so constructed that an enemy, once within the gates, could not find his way out again. The enclosure has an outer circle of white pebbles placed on the turf, with an opening at one point, supposed to represent the walls and gate of Troy. Within this there are several rows of stones; the s.p.a.ces between them represent the streets. It presents quite a maze, and but few who enter can find their way out again without crossing one of the boundary lines. It is not known when or by whom it was constructed, but it has from time to time been restored by the islanders."[677]

This Troy Town is situated on _Camper_dizil Point; in the same neighbourhood is Carn _Himbra_ Point, and _Himbrian, Kymbrian_, or _Cambrian_ influences are seemingly much evident in this district, as doubtless they also were at Comberton[678] famous for its maze.

At the very centre, eye, or _San Troy_ of St. Mary's Island is situated Holy Vale, and here also are the place-names Maypole, Burrow, and Content. It has already been suggested that Bru or Burrow was originally _pure Hu_ or _pere Hu_, Hu being, as will be remembered, the traditional Leader of the Kymbri into these islands, and the first of the Three National Pillars of Britain: the chief town of St. Mary's is Hugh Town, and running through Holy Vale is what is described as a paved way (in wonderful preservation) known as the Old Roman Road, formerly supposed to be the main-way to Hugh Town. One may be allowed to question whether the Legions of Imperial Rome ever troubled to construct so fine a causeway in so insignificant an island; or if so, for what reason? The houses of Holy Vale are embowered in trees of larger growth than those elsewhere in the neighbourhood: they "complete a picture of great calm and repose," and that this Holy Vale was anciently an _abri_ is fairly self-evident apart from the interesting place-name _Burrow_, and the neighbouring Bur Point.

The Romans ent.i.tled the Scillies _Sillinae Insulae_: I have already suggested they were a seat of the Selli; we have met with Selene in connection with St. Levan's, and it is not improbable that the deity of _Sillinae Insulae_ was Selene, Helena, or Luna. The Silus stone from the ruined chapel of St. Helen's at Helenium or Land's End (Cape Cornwall) has been already noted: the most ancient building in all the _Sillinae Insulae_ or the Scillies is the ruined chapel on St. Helen's of which the northern aisle now measures 12 feet wide and 19 feet 6 inches long. As the h.e.l.lenes usually had ideas underlying all their measurements it is probable that the 19 feet 6 inches was primarily 19 feet, for nineteen was a highly mystic h.e.l.lenic number. Of the Hyperboreans Diodorus states: "They say, moreover, that Apollo once in nineteen years comes into the island in which s.p.a.ce of time the stars perform their courses and return to the same points, and therefore the Greeks call the revolutions of nineteen years the Great Year". Nineteen nuns tended the sacred fire of St. Bridget, and according to some observers the inmost circle of Stonehenge consisted of nineteen "Blue Stones".[679] These nineteen Stone Hengles may be connoted with the nineteen ruined huts on the summit of Ingleborough in Yorks.h.i.+re: the summit of Ingleborough is a plateau of about a mile in circuit and hereupon are "vestiges of an ancient British camp of about 15 acres inclosing traces of _nineteen_ ancient _horseshoe shaped_ huts".[680]

As the word _ingle_, meaning _fire_, is not found until 1508 the authorities are unable to interpret Ingleborough as meaning Fire hill, although without doubt it served as a Beacon: the same etymological difficulty likewise confronts them at Ingleby Cross, Inglesham, numerous Ingletons, and at Ingestre. We have seen that Inglewood was known as Englysshe Wood;[681] in Somerset is Combe English, and in the Scillies is English Island Hill: 500 yards from this English Hill is a stone circle embracing an upright stone the end of which is 18 inches square.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 352.--Stonehenge Restored. From _Our Ancient Monuments_ (Kains-Jackson).]

Eighteen courtiers were a.s.signed to the _ange_ Oberon: the megalith Long Meg is described as a square unhewn freestone column 15 feet in circ.u.mference by 18 feet high, and there is no doubt that eighteen or twice nine possessed at one time some significance. I suspect that the double nine stood for the Twain, each of which was reckoned as nine or True: on the top of h.e.l.lingy Downs in the Scillies is a barrow covered with large stones _nine_ feet long, and built upon a mound which is surrounded by inner and outer rows of stone.[682]

On Salakee Downs there is a monolith resting on a large flat rock, on three projections situated at a distance of _eighteen_ inches from one another and each having a diameter of about 2 inches:[683] this is known as the Druid's throne, and about 5 yards to the east are two more upright rocks of similar size and shape named the Twin Sisters.[684] The Twin Sisters of Biddenden, whose name was Preston, were a.s.sociated with five pieces of ground known as the Bread and Cheese Lands, in which connection it is interesting to find that near English Island Hill is Chapel _Brow_, const.i.tuting the eastern point of a deep bay known by the curious name of Bread and Cheese Cove.[685] In connection with Biddenden we connoted Pope's Hall and Bubhurst; it is thus noteworthy that near Bread and Cheese Cove is a Bab's Carn, and a large sea cavern known as Pope's Hole.

In Germany and Scandinavia the stone circles are known not as Merry Maidens, but as Adam's Dances. Close to Troy Town on St. Agnes in the Scillies are two rocks known as Adam and Eve: these are described as _nine_ feet high with a s.p.a.ce about _nine_ inches between them: "Here, too, is the Nag's Head, which is the most curious rock to be met with on the islands; it has a remote resemblance to the head of a horse, and would seem to have been at one time an object of wors.h.i.+p, being surrounded by a circle of stones".[686]

On the lower slopes of h.e.l.lingy are the remains of a primitive village, and the foundations of many circular huts: among these foundations have been found a considerable quant.i.ty of crude pottery, and an ancient hand-mill which the authorities a.s.sign to about 2000 B.C. We have seen that the G.o.ddesses of Celtdom were known as the _Mairae, Matronae, Matres_, or _Matrae_ (the mothers): further, that the Welsh for Mary is Fair, whence the a.s.sumption becomes pressing that the "Saint" Mary of the Scillies was primarily the Merry Fairy. The author of _The English Language_ points out that in Old English _merry_ meant originally no more than "agreeable, pleasing". Heaven and Jerusalem were described by old poets as "merry" places; and the word had supposedly no more than this signification in the phrase "Merry England," into which we read a more modern interpretation.[687] That the Scillies were permeated with the Fairy Faith is sufficiently obvious; at Hugh Town we find the ubiquitous Silver Street, and the neighbouring Holvear Hill was not improbably holy to Vera.

Near the Island of St. Helen's is a group of rocks marked upon the map as Golden Ball Bar; near by is an islet named Foreman. The farthest sentinel of the Scillies is an islet named the Bishop, now famous to all sea-farers for its _phare_. It is quite certain that no human Bishop would ever have selected as his residence an abode so horribly exposed, whence it is more likely that the Bishop here commemorated was the Burnebishop or Boy Bishop whose ceremonies were maintained until recent years, notably and particularly at Cambrai. In England it is curious to find the Lady-bird or Burnie Bee equated with a Bishop, yet it was so; and hence the rhyme:--

Bishop, Bishop Burnebee, tell me when my wedding will be, Fly to the east, fly to the west, Fly to them that I love best.

In connection with the Island of St. _Agnes_ it may be noted that _ignis_ is the Latin for _fire_, whence it is possible that the islets, Big Smith and Little Smith, Burnt Island and Monglow, all had some relation to the Fieryman, Fairy Man, or Foreman: it is also possible that the neighbouring Camperdizil Point is connected with _deiseul_, the Scotch e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, and with _dazzle_. Troy Town in St. Agnes is almost environed by Smith Sound, and this curious combination of names points seemingly to some connection between the Cambers and the metal smiths.[688]

It will be remembered that Agnes was a t.i.tle of the Papesse Jeanne, who was said to have come from Engelheim or _Angel's Home_: in Germany the Lady Bird used to be known as the Lady Mary's Key-bearer, and exhorted to fly to Engelland: "Insect of Mary, fly away, fly away, to Engelland.

Engelland is locked, its key is broken."[689] Sometimes the invocation ran: "Gold chafer up and away to thy high storey to thy Mother Anne, who gives thee _bread and cheese_. 'Tis better than bitter death."[690]

Thanks to an uncultured and tenacious love of Phairie, the keys of rural Engelland have not yet been broken, nor happily is Engelland locked. Our history books tell us of a splendid pun[691] perpetrated by a Bishop of many centuries ago: noticing some captured English children in the market-place at Rome, he woefully exclaimed that had they been baptised then would they have been _non Angli sed angeli_. Has this episcopal pleasantry been overrated? or was the good Bishop punning unconsciously deeper than he intended?

FOOTNOTES:

[593] Gomme, Sir L., _London_, p. 74.