Archaic England Part 49

Next Osterley is Brentford, where once stood "the Priory of the Holy Angels in the Marshlands": other accounts state that this organisation was a "friary, hospital, or fraternity of the Nine holy orders of Angels". With this holy Nine may be connoted the Nine Men's Morrice and the favourite Mayday pageant of "the Nine Worthies". As _w_ and _v_ were always interchangeable we may safely identify the "worthies" with the "virtues," and I am unable to follow the official connection between _worth_ and _verse_: there is no immediate or necessary relation between them. The Danish for _worth_ is _vorde_, the Swedish is _varda_, and there is thus little doubt that _worthy_ and _virtue_ are one and the same word. In _Love's Labour's Lost_ Constable Dull expresses his willingness to "make one in a dance or so, or I will play the tabor to the Worthies and let them dance the Hey".

Osterley is on the river Brent, which sprang from a pond "vulgarly called Brown's Well,"[716] whence it is probable that the Brent vulgarly derived its name from Oberon, the All _Parent_. Brentford was the capital of Middles.e.x; numerous pre-historic relics have been found there, and that it was a site of immemorial importance is testified by its ancient name of Breninford, supposed to mean King's Road or Way. But bren_en_ is the plural of bren--a Prince or King, and two fairy Princes or two fairy Kings were traditionally and proverbially a.s.sociated with the place. In Cowper's _Task_ occur the lines:--

United yet divided twain at once So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.

Prior, in his _Alma_, refers to the two Kings as being "discreet and wise," and it is probable that in Buckingham's _The Rehearsal_, of which the scene is laid at Brentford, we have further sc.r.a.ps of genuine and authentic tradition. _The Rehearsal_ introduces us to two true Kings and two usurpers: the true Kings who are represented as being very fond of one another come on to the stage hand-in-hand, and are generally seen _smelling at one rose_ or one nosegay. Imagining themselves being plotted against, one says to the other:--

Then spite of Fate we'll thus combined stand And like true brothers still walk hand in hand.

Driven from their throne by usurpers, nevertheless, towards the end of the play, "the two right Kings of Brentford descend in the clouds singing in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before them in green". Adjacent to Brentford is the village of Twickenham where at the parish church used to prevail a custom of giving away on Easter Day the divided fragments of two great cakes.[717] This apparently innocuous ceremony was, however, in 1645 deemed to be a superst.i.tious relic and was accordingly suppressed. We have seen that charity-cakes were distributed at Biddenden in commemoration of the Twin Sisters; we have also seen that St. Michael was a.s.sociated with a great cake named after him, hence it is exceedingly probable that Twickenham of the Two Easter Cakes was a seat of the Two or Twa Kings who survived in the traditions of the neighbouring Breninford or King's Ford.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIGS. 366 to 370.--British. From Akerman.]

That the Two or Twa Kings of Twickenham were a.s.sociated with Two Fires is suggested by the alternative name Twi_ttan_ham: in Celtic _tan_ meant fire, and the term has survived in _tan_dsticker, _i.e._, fire-sticks, or matches: it has also survived in _tinder_, "anything for kindling fires from a spark," and in _etincelle_, the French for spark. In Etruria Jupiter was known as Tino or Tin, and on the British Star-hero coin here ill.u.s.trated the legend reads TIN: the town of Tolentino, with which one of the St. Nicholas's was a.s.sociated in combination with a star, was probably a shrine of Tall Ancient Tino; in modern Greece Tino is a contracted form of Constantine. The Bel_tan_ or Bel_tein_ fires were frequently in pairs or twins, and there is a saying still current in Ireland--"I am between Bels fires," meaning "I am on the horns of a dilemma". The Dioscuri or Two Kings were always a.s.sociated with fires or stars: they were the _beau-ideal_ warriors or War Boys, and to them was probably sacred the "Warboy's Wood" in Huntingdon, where on May Day the poor used to go "sticking" or gathering fuel. The Dioscuri occur frequently on Roman coins, and it will be noticed that the British Warboy is often represented with a star, and with the palm branch of Invictus. On the a.s.sumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary it is said that an angel appeared before her bearing "a bough of the palm of paradise--and the palm shone by right great clearness and was like to a green rod whose leaves shone like to the morrow star".[718] There is very little doubt that the mysterious fish-bone, fern-leaf, spike, ear of corn, or back-bone, which figures so frequently among the "what-nots"

of our ancient coinage represented the green and magic rod of Paradise.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 371.--Star or Bush (MS., circa 1425). From _The History of Signboards_ (Larwood & Hotten).]

At Twickenham is Bushey Park, which is a.s.sumed to have derived its name from the bushes in which it abounded: for some reason our ancestors combined their Bush and Star inn-signs into one, _vide_ the design herewith: we have already traced a connection between _bougie_--a candle, and the _Bogie_ whose habitation was the brakes and bushes: whence it is not unlikely that Bushey Park derived its t.i.tle from the Elphin fires, Will-o-the-wisps, or bougies which must have danced nightly when Twickenham was little better than a swamp. The Rev. J. B.

Johnston decodes Bushey into "Byssa's" isle or peninsula, and it is not improbable that Bushey in Hertfords.h.i.+re bears the same interpretation, only I do not think that the supposit.i.tious Byssa, Bissei, or Bisi was an Anglo-Saxon. That "Bisi" was Bogie or Puck is perhaps implied further by the place-name Den_bies_ facing Boxhill: we have already noted in this district Bagdon, Pigdon, Bookham, and Pixham, whence Denbies, situated on the brow of Pigdon or Bagdon, suggests that here seemingly was the actual Bissei's den. The supposit.i.tious Bissei a.s.signed to Bushey may be connoted with the giant Bosow who dwelt by repute on Buzza's Hill just beyond Hugh Town, St. Mary's. According to Miss Courtney the Cornish family of Bosow are traceable to the giant of Buzza's Hill.[719] Presumably to Puck or Bog, are similarly traceable the common surnames Begg, Bog, etc.

By the Italians the phosph.o.r.escent lights or bougies of St. Elmo are known not as Castor and Pollux, but as the fires of St. Peter and St.

Nicholas: the name Nicholas is considered to mean "Victory of the People"; in Greek _nike_ means _victory_: we have seen that in Russia Nicholas was equated with St. Michael, in face of which facts it is presumptive that St. Nicholas was Invictus, or the Unconquerable. In London, at Paternoster Lane used to stand "the fair parish church of St.

Michael called Paternoster,"[720] and that St. Nicholas was originally "Our Father" or Paternoster is implied by the corporate seal of Yarmouth: this represents St. Nicholas supported on either side by angels, and bears the inscription _O Pastor Vere Tibi Subjectis Miserere_. It must surely have savoured of heresy to hail the supposed Nicholas of Patara in Lycia as _O Pastor Vere_, unless in popular estimation St. Nicholas was actually the Great Pastor or True Feeder: that Nicholas was indeterminately either the Father or the Mother is deducible from the fact that in Scotland the name Nicholas is commonly bestowed on girls.

In France and Italy prayers are addressed to Great St. Nicholas, and it is probable that there was always a Nichol and a Nicolette or _nucleus_: we are told that St. Nicholas, whose mother's name was Joanna, was born at Patara, and that he became the Bishop of Myra: on his fete day the proper offering was a c.o.c.k, and that Nicholas or Invictus was the chanteur or Chanticleer, is implied by the statement: "St. Nicholas went abroad in most part in London singing after the old fas.h.i.+on, and was received with many people into their houses, and had much good cheer, as ever they had in many places": on Christmas Eve St. Nicholas still wanders among the children, notwithstanding the sixteenth century censure--"thus tender minds to wors.h.i.+p saints and wicked things are taught".

Nicholas is an extended form of Nike, Nick, or Neck, and the frequent juxtaposition of St. Nicholas and St. George is an implication that these Two Kings were once the Heavenly Twins. We have already noted an Eleven Stone at Trenuggo--the _abode of Nuggo?_ and there is a likelihood that Nuggo or Nike was there wors.h.i.+pped as One and Only, the _Unique_: that he was Lord of the Harvests is implied by the fabrication of a harvest doll or Neck. According to Skeat _neck_ originally meant the nape or knop of the neck; it would thus seem that _neck_--Old English _nekke_--was a synonym for k.n.o.b or knop. In Cornwall Neck-day was the great day of the year, when the Neck was "cried"[721] and suspended in the ingle nook until the following year: in the words of an old Cornishwoman: "There were Neck cakes, much feasting and dancing all the evening. Another great day was Guldise day when the corn was drawn: Guldise cakes and a lump of pease-pudding for every one."[722]

Near London Stone is the Church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, and at Old Jewry stood St. Mary Cole Church: it is not unlikely that this latter was originally dedicated to Old King Cole, the father of the lovely Helen and the Merry Old Soul whose three fiddlers may be connoted with the three green fiddlers of the Kings of Brentford. The great bowl of Cole, the _ghoul_ of other ages, may be equated with the _cauldron_ or _calix_ of the Pastor Vere: the British word for _cauldron_ was _pair_, and the Druidic bards speak with great enthusiasm of "their cauldron,"

"the cauldron of Britannia," "the cauldron of Lady Keridwen," etc. This cauldron was identified with the Stone circles, and the Bardic poets also speak of a mysterious _pair dadeni_ which is understood to mean "the cauldron of new birth or rejuvenescence".[723] The old artists seemingly represented the Virtues as emerging from this cauldron as three naked boys or Amoretti, for it is said that St. Nicholas revived three murdered children who had been pickled in brine by a wicked inn-keeper who had run short of bacon. This miracle is his well-known emblem, and the murder story by which the authorities accounted for the picture is probably as silly and brutal an afterthought as the horrid "tortures" and protracted dolours of other saints. Nevertheless some ghoulish and horrible practices seem to have accompanied the wors.h.i.+p of the cauldron, and the author of _Druidism Exhumed_ reproduces a Scotch sculpture of a cauldron out of which protruding human legs are waving ominously in the air.

St. Nicholas of Bari is portrayed resuscitating three youths from three tubs: that Nicholas was radically the Prince of Peace is implied, however, from the exclamation "Nic'las!" which among children is equivalent to "fainites": the sign of truce or fainites is to cross the two fore-fingers into the form of the _treus_ or cross.

St. Nicholas is the unquestioned patron of all children, and in the past bands of lads, terming themselves St. Nicholas' Clerks or St. Nicholas'

Knights, added considerably to the conviviality of the cities.

Apparently at all abbeys once existed the custom of installing upon St.

Nicholas' Day a Boy Bishop who was generally a choir or singing boy: this so-called Bearn Bishop or Barnebishop was decked, according to one account, in "a myter of cloth and gold with _two knopps_ of silver gilt and enamelled," and a study of the customs prevailing at this amazing festival of the Holy Innocent leaves little doubt that the Barnebishop personified the conception of the Pastor Vere in the aspect of a lad or "knave". The connection between _knop_ and _knave_ has already been traced, and the "two knopps" of the episcopal knave or bairnbishop presumably symbolised the _bren_ or b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Pastor Vere, the celestial Parent: it has already been suggested that the knops on Figs.

30 to 38 (p. 149) represented the Eyes or b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the All Mighty.

In Irish _ab_ meant _father_ or _lord_, and in all probability St.

Abb's Head, supposedly named after a Bishop Ebba, was once a seat of Knebba wors.h.i.+p: that Cun.o.be was the Mighty Muse, singing like St.

Nicholas after the old fas.h.i.+on, is evident from the British coin ill.u.s.trated on page 305, a sad example of carelessness, declension, and degradation from the Macedonian Philippus.

The festival of the Burniebishop was commemorated with conspicuous pomp at Cambrai, and there is reason to think that this amazing inst.i.tution was one of Cambrian origin: so fast and furious was the accompanying merriment that the custom was inevitably suppressed. The only Manor in the town of Brentford is that of Burston or Boston, whence it is probable that Brentford grew up around a primeval Bur stone or "Denbies". That the place was famous for its merriment and joviality is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that in former times the parish rates "were mainly supported by the profits of public sports and diversions especially at Whitsuntide".[724]

According to _The Rehearsal_ when the True Kings or Two Kings, accompanied by their retinue of three green-clad fiddlers, descended from the clouds, a dance was then performed: "an ancient dance of right belonging to the Kings of Brentford, but since derived with a little alteration to the Inns of Court". On referring to the famous pageants of the Inns of Court we find that the chief character was the Lord of Misrule, known otherwise as the King of c.o.c.kneys or Prince of Purpool.

We have seen that the Hobby Horse was clad in purple, and that Mary was weaver of the true purple--a combination of true blue and scarlet. The authorities connote _purple_, French _purpre_, with the Greek _porphureos_, "an epithet of the surging sea," and they ally it with the Sanscrit _bhur_, meaning _to be active_. The c.o.c.kney, and very active Prince of Purpool or Portypool was conspicuously celebrated at Gray's Inn which occupies the site of the ancient Manor of _Poripool_, and the ritual--condemned and suppressed by the Puritans as "popish, diabolical, and antechristian"--seems invariably to have started by a fire or phare lighted in the hall: this at any rate was the custom and status with which the students at St. John's, Oxford, opened the proceedings on All Hallows' Eve.

The Druidic Bards allude to their sacred pyreum, or fire-circle, as a _pair dadeni_, and that a furious Fire or Phare was the object of their devotion is obvious from hymns such as--

Let burst forth ungentle The horse-paced ardent fire!

Him we wors.h.i.+p above the earth, Fire, fire, low murmuring in its dawn, High above our inspiration, Above every spirit Great is thy terribleness.[725]

_Pourpre_ or _purple_, the royal or imperial colour, was doubtless a.s.sociated with the Fire of Fires, and the connection between this word and _porphureos_ must, I think, be sought in the idea of _pyre furious_ or _fire furious_, rather than any epithet of the surging sea. The Welsh for purple is _porffor_.

Either within or immediately adjacent to the Manor of Poripool or Purpool were some famous springs named Bagnigge Wells: at the corner of Bathhurst Street, Paddington, was a second Bagnigge Wells, and the river Fleet used also at one time to be known as the Bagnigge. This ubiquitous Bagnigge was in all probability _Big Nigge_ or Big Nicky--

Know you the Nixies gay and fair?

Their eyes are black and green their hair, They lurk in sedgy sh.o.r.es.

The fairy Nokke, Neck, or Nickel, is said to have been a great musician who sat upon the water's edge and played a golden harp, the harmony of which operated on all nature:[726] sometimes he is represented as a complete horse who could be made to work at the plough if a bridle of particular kind were used: he is also represented as half man and half horse, as an aged man with a long beard, as a handsome young man, and as a pretty little boy with golden hair and scarlet cap. That Big Nigge once haunted the Bagnigge Wells is implied by the attendant legend of Black Mary, Black Mary's Hole being the entrance, or immediately adjacent, to one of the Bagnigge springs: similarly, as has been noted, Peg Powler, and Peg this or that, haunted the streams of Lancas.h.i.+re.

We have seen that Keightley surmised the word _pixy_ to be the endearing diminutive _sy_ added to Puck, whence, as in Nancy, Betsy, Dixie, and so forth, Nixy may similarly be considered as _dear little Nick_. In Suffolk, the fairies are known as farisees, seemingly, _dear little fairies_, and our ancestors seem to have possessed a p.r.o.nounced partiality for similar diminutives: we find them alluding to the Blood of the Lambkin, an expression which Ad.a.m.nan's editors remark as "a bold instance of the Celtic diminutive of endearment so characteristic of Ad.a.m.nan's style": they add: "Throughout Ad.a.m.nan's work, diminutives are constantly used, and these in most cases are used in a sense of endearment difficult to convey in English, perfectly natural as they are in the mouth of the kindly and warm-hearted Irish saint. In the present case Dr. Reeves thinks the diminutives may indicate the poorness of the animals from the little there was to feed them upon."[727] As the traditions of Fairyland give no hint for the a.s.sumption of any rationing or food-shortage it seems hardly necessary to consider either the pixies, the farisees, or the nixies as either half-starved or even impoverished.

In Scandinavia and Germany the nixies are known as the nisses, and they there correspond to the brownies of Scotland: according to Grimm the word _nisse_ is "Nicls, Niclsen, _i.e._, Nicolaus, Niclas, a common name in Germany and the North, which is also contracted to Klas, Claas"; but as _k_ seems invariably to soften into _ch_, and again into _s_, it is a perfectly straight road from Nikke to Nisse, and the adjective _nice_ is an eloquent testimonial to the Nisses' character. Some Nisses were doubtless _nice_, others were obviously nasty, noxious, and nocturnal: the Nis of Jutland is in Friesland called Puk, and also Niss-Puk, Nise-Bok, and Niss-Kuk: the _Kuk_ of this last mentioned may be connoted with the fact that the customary offering to St. Nicholas was a c.o.c.k--the symbol of the Awakener--and as St. Nicholas was so intimately connected with Patara, the c.o.c.k of St. Peter is no doubt related to the legend.

St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus, customarily travels by night: the nixies were black-eyed; Old Nick was always painted black; _nox_, or night, is the same word as nixy; and _nigel_, _night_, or _nicht_ all imply blackness. According to Caesar: "all the Gauls a.s.sert that they are descended from the G.o.d Dis, and say that this tradition has been handed down by the Druids. For that reason they compute the divisions of every season not by the number of days but by nights; they keep birthdays, and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night."[728] The expressions fortnight, and sen'night thus not only perpetuate an idea of great antiquity but one which is philosophically sound: to our fore-runners Night was no wise evil, but the beneficent Mother of a Myriad Stars: the fairies revelled in the dark, and in eyes of old "the vast blue night was murmurous with peris wings"[729].

The place-name Knightsbridge is probably a mis-spelling of Neyte, one of the three manors into which Kensington was once divided: the other two were Hyde and Ebury, and it is not unlikely that these once const.i.tuted a trinity--Hyde being the Head, Ebury the Brightness, and Neyte--Night.

The Egyptian represented Nut, Naut, or Neith as a Mother G.o.ddess with two children in her arms, one white the other black: to her were a.s.signed the words: "I am what has been, what is, and what will be," and her wors.h.i.+ppers declared: "She hath built up life from her own body". In Scandinavia Nat was the Mother of all the G.o.ds: she was said to be an awe-inspiring, adorable, n.o.ble, and beneficent being, and to have her home on the lower slopes of the Nida mountains: _nid_ is the French for _nest_, and with Neyte may be connoted _nuit_, the French for _night_.

That St. Neot was _le nuit_ is implied by the tradition that the Church of St. Neot in Cornwall was built not only by night, but entirely by Neot himself who drew the stones from a neighbouring quarry, aided only by the help of reindeer. These magic reindeer are obviously the animals of St. Nick, and it is evidently a memory of Little Nick that has survived in the tradition that St. Neot was a saint of very small stature--somewhere about 15 inches high.[730] With Mother _Nat_ of Scandinavia, and Mother _Naut_ or Neith of Egypt, may be connoted Nutria, a Virgin-Mother G.o.ddess of Etruria; a divine nurse with whose name may be connected _nutrix_ (nurse) and _nutriment_.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of seafarers and there are innumerable dedications to him at the seaside: that Nikke was Neptune is unquestionable, and connected with his name is doubtless _nicchio_ the Italian for a sh.e.l.l. From _nicchio_ comes our modern _niche_, which means a sh.e.l.l-like cavity or recess: in the British EPPI coin, ill.u.s.trated on page 284, the marine monster may be described as a nikke, and the apparition of the nikke as a perfect horse might not ineptly be designated a _nag_.

I have elsewhere ill.u.s.trated many representations of the Water-Mother, the Mary-Maid, the Mermaid, the Merrow-Maid, or as she is known in Brittany--Mary Morgan. The resident nymph or genius of the river Se_vern_ was named Sa_brina_; the Welsh for the Severn is Ha_vren_, and thus it is evident that the radical of this river name is _brina_, _vren_, or _vern_: the British Druids recognised certain governing powers named _feraon: fern_ was already noted as an Iberian word meaning _anything good_, whence it is probable that in Havren or Severn the affix _ha_ or _se_ was either the Greek _eu_ or the British and Sanscrit _su_, both alike meaning the _soft, gentle, pleasing_, and _propitious_.

Sabrina fair, Listen where thou art sitting Under the gla.s.sy, cool, translucent wave, In twisted braids of lilies, knitting The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.

In the neighbourhood of Bryanstone Square is Lissom Grove, a corruption of Lillestone Grove: here thus seemingly stood a stone sacred to the Lily or the All Holy, and the neighbouring church of St. Cyprian probably marks the local memory of a traditional _sy brian_, _Sabrina_, or _dear little brownie_.

Near Silchester, on the boundary line between Berks and Hants, is a large stone known as the Imp stone, and as this was formerly called the Nymph stone,[731] it is probable that in this instance the Imp stone was a contraction of Imper or Imber stone--the Imp being the Nymph of the amber-dropping hair. The Scandinavians believed that the steed of the Mother G.o.ddess Nat produced from its mouth a froth, which consisted of honey-dew, and that from its bridle dropped the dews in the dales in the morning: the same idea attached to the steeds of the Valkyre, or War Maidens, from whose manes, when shaken, dew dropped into the deep dales, whence harvests among the people.[732]

Originally, _imp_ meant a scion, a graft, or an offspring, a sprout, or sprig: _sprig_, _spright_, _spirit_, _spirt_, _sprout_, and _sprack_ (an old English word meaning lively, perky, or pert), are all radically _pr_: in London the sparrow "was supposed to be the soul of a dead person";[733] in Kent, a sparrow is termed a _sprug_, whence it would appear that this pert, perky, little bird was once a symbol of the sprightly sprout, sprite, or spirit.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 372.--Six-winged angel holding lance, wings crossed on breast, arrayed in robe and mantle. (From Didron.)]

Stow mentions that the fair parish church of St. Michael called Paternoster when new built, was made a college of St. Spirit and St.

Mary. All birds in general were symbols of St. Spirit, but more particularly the Columba or Culver,[734] which was pre-eminently the emblem of Great Holy Vere: we have already ill.u.s.trated a half white, half black, six-winged representation of this sacred sign of simplicity and love, and the six-winged angel here reproduced is, doubtless, another expression of the far-spread idea:--

The embodied spirit has a thousand heads, A thousand eyes, a thousand feet, around On every side, enveloping the earth, Yet filling s.p.a.ce no larger than a span.

He is himself this very universe; He is whatever is, has been, and shall be; He is the lord of immortality.[735]

It is difficult to conceive any filthiness or evil of the dove, yet the hagiologists mention "a foul dove or black culver," which is said to have flown around the head of a certain holy Father named Nonnon.[736]

We may connote this Nonnon with Nonna or Non, the reputed mother of St.

David, for of St. David, we are told, his birth was heralded by angels thirty years before the event, and that among other miracles (such as restoring sight to the blind), doves settled on his shoulders. Dave or Davy is the same word as dove; in Welsh _dof_ means _gentle_, and it is more probable that the gentle dove derived its t.i.tle from this word than as officially surmised from the Anglo-Saxon _dufan_, "to plunge into".

According to Skeat, _dove_ means literally _diver_, but doves neither dive nor plunge into anything: they have not even a diving flight. The Welsh are known familiarly as Taffys, and the Church of Llan_daff_ is supposed to mean Church on the River Taff: it is more probable that Llandaff was a shrine of the Holy Dove, and that David with the doves upon his shoulder was a personification of the Holy Spirit or Wisdom.

_Non_ is the Latin for _not_, and the black dove a.s.sociated with Nonnon or _not not_ was no doubt a representation of that _Neg_ation, non-existence or inscrutable void, which existed before the world was, and is otherwise termed Chaos or Cause. That Wisdom or the Holy Spirit was conceived as the primal and inscrutable _Darkness_, is evident from the statement in _The Wisdom of Solomon_: "For G.o.d loveth none but him that dwelleth with Wisdom. For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the orders of stars: being compared with the light _she is found before it_."