Archaic England Part 6

In the first ages, when the sons of men Knew not which way to turn them, they a.s.signed To each his first department; they bestowed Of land a portion and of sea a lot, And sent each wandering tribe far off to share A different soil and climate. Hence arose The great diversity, so plainly seen, 'Mid nations widely severed.

--DYONYSIUS of Susiana, A.D. 300.

It is a modern axiom that the ancient belief expressed in the above extract has no foundation in fact, and that the Phoenicians, however far-spread may have been their commercial enterprise, never extended their voyages beyond the Pillars of Hercules. It is conceded that it would be easy to demonstrate in Britain the elaborate machinery of sun-wors.h.i.+p, if only it could be shown that there were at any time intimate and direct relations between Britain and Phoenicia. The historical evidence, such as it is, of this once-supposed connection, having been weighed and found wanting, the present teaching is thus expressed: "But what of the Phoenicians, and where do they come in? It is a cruel thing to say to a generation which can ill afford to part with any fragment of its diminished archaeological patrimony; but it must be said without reserve or qualification: the Phoenicians do not come in at all."[86]

But before bidding a final and irrevocable adieu to Tyre and Tars.h.i.+sh, one is ent.i.tled to inquire whence and how Phoenician or Hebrew words and place-names reached this country, particularly on the western coasts. The cold-shouldering of Oriental words has not extinguished their existence, and although these changelings may no longer find an honoured home in our Dictionaries, the terms themselves have survived the ignominy of their expulsion and are as virile to-day as. .h.i.therto.

The English language, based upon an older stratum of speech and perpetually a.s.similating new shades of sense, has descended in direct ancestry from the Welsh or Kymbric, and Kymbric, still spoken to-day, has come down to us in verbal continuity from immemorial ages prior to the Roman invasion. It was at one time supposed that of the Celtic sister-tongues the Irish or Gaelic was the more ancient, but according to the latest opinion, "In the vocabularies of the two languages where strict phonetic tests of origin can be applied it is found that the borrowing is mainly on the side of the Irish".[87] The ident.i.ties between Welsh and Hebrew are so close and pressing that from time to time claims have been put forward that the old Welsh actually _was_ Hebrew. "It would be difficult," said Margoliouth, "to adduce a single article or form of construction in the Hebrew Grammar, but the same is to be found in Welsh, and there are many whole sentences in both languages exactly the same in the very words".[88] Entire sentences of archaic Hebraisms are similarly to be found in the now obsolete Cornish language, and there are "several thousand words of Hebrew origin" in the Erse or Gaelic. According to Vallencey, "the language of the early inhabitants of Ireland was a compound of Hebrew and Phoenician,"[89]

and this statement would appear to be substantiated by the curious fact that in 1827 the Bible Societies presented Hebrew Bibles to the native Irish in preference to those printed in English, as it was found that the Irish peasants understood Hebrew more readily than English.[90]

Is it conceivable that these ident.i.ties of tongue are due to chance, or that the terms in point permeated imperceptibly overland to the farthest outposts of the Hebrides?

It is a traditional belief that the district now known as Cornwall had at some period commercial relations with an overseas people, referred to indifferently as "Jews," "Saracens," or "Finicians". That certain of the western tin mines were farmed by Jews within the historic period is a fact attested by Charters granted by English kings, notably by King John; yet there is a tradition among Cornish tinners that the "Saracens," a term still broadly applied to any foreigner, were not allowed to advance farther than the coast lest they should discover the districts whence the tin was brought. The entire absence of any finds of Phoenician coins is an inference that this tradition is well founded, for it is hardly credible that had the "Finicians" penetrated far inland or settled to any extent in the country, some of their familiar coins would not have come to light.

The casual or even systematic visits of mere merchants will not account for integral deep-seated ident.i.ties. The Greeks had a powerful settlement at Ma.r.s.eilles centuries before Caesar's time, yet the vicinity of these Greek traders, although it may have exercised some social influences upon arts and habits, did not effect any permanent impression on the language, religion, or character of the Gaulish nation.

One is thus impelled to the conclusion that the resemblances between British and Phoenician are deeper seated than hitherto has been supposed, and that it may have been due to both peoples having descended from, or borrowed from, some common source.

The Phoenicians, though so great and enterprising a people, have left no literature; and it is thus impossible to compare their legends and traditions with our own. With Crete the same difficulty exists, as at present her script is indecipherable, and no one knows positively the name of a single deity of her Pantheon.

There is no historic record of any intercourse between the British and the Greeks, but both Irish and British traditions specify the aegean as the district whence their first settlers arrived. Tyndal, the earliest translator of the Greek Testament into English, a.s.serts that "The Greek agreeth more with the English than the Latin, and the properties of the Hebrew tongue agreeth a thousand times more with the English than with the Latin". Happily Greece possesses a literature, and one may thus compare the legends of Greece with those of our own country.

An h.e.l.lenic author of the first century is thus rendered by Sir John Rhys:[91] "Demetrius further said that of the islands round Britain many lie scattered about uninhabited, of which some are named after deities and heroes. He told us also that being sent by the Emperor with the object of reconnoitring and inspecting, he went to the island which lay nearest to those uninhabited, and found it occupied by few inhabitants who were, however, sacrosanct and inviolable in the eyes of the Britons.... There is there, they said, an island in which Cronus is imprisoned with Briareus, keeping guard over him as he sleeps, for as they put it--sleep is the bond forged for Cronus. They add that around him are many deities, his henchmen and attendants."[92]

It is remarkable that Greek mythology was thus familiar to the supposedly blue-painted savages of Britain. Nor is the instance solitary, for at Bradford a Septennial festival used to be held in honour of Jason and the Golden Fleece,[93] and at Achill in Ireland there is a custom which seemingly connects Achill and Achilles.

Pausanias tells the tale of young Achilles attired in female garb and living among maidens, and to this day the peasantry of Achill Island on the north-west coast of Ireland dresses its boys as girls for the supposed purpose of deceiving a boy-seeking devil.[94] Are these and other coincidences which will be adduced due to chance, to independent working of the primitive mind, or to intercourse with a maritime people who were not restricted by the Pillars of Hercules?

The exit of the Phoenicians has created a dilemma which impels Mr.

Donald A. Mackenzie to inquire: "By whom were Egyptian beads carried to Britain between 1500 B.C. and 1400 B.C.? Certainly not the Phoenicians. The sea-traders of the Mediterranean were at the time the Cretans. Whether or not their merchants visited England we have no means of knowing."[95] There are, however, sure and certain sources of information if one looks into the indelible evidence of fairy-tales, monuments, language, traditions, and place-names.

Ammia.n.u.s Marcellinus records that it was a traditional belief among the Gauls that "a few Trojans fleeing from the Greeks and dispersed occupied these places then uninhabited".[96] The similar tradition pervading early British literature we shall consider in due course and detail.

This legend runs broadly that Bru or Brutus, after sailing for thirty days and thirty nights, landed at Totnes, whence after slaying the giant Gogmagog and his followers he marched to Troynovant or New Troy now named London.

It was generally believed that this supposed fiction was a fabrication by Geoffrey of Monmouth, but it was subsequently discovered in the historical poems of Tyssilia, a Welsh Bard. According to a poem attributed to Taliesin, the semi-mythical "Chief of the Bards of the West," whose reputation Sir J. Morris Jones has recently so brilliantly resuscitated,[97] "A numerous race, fierce, they are said to have been, were thy original colonists Britain first of Isles. Natives of a country in Asia, and the city of Gafiz. Said to have been a skilful people, but the district is unknown which was mother to these children, warlike adventurers on the sea. Clad in their long dress who could equal them?

Their skill is celebrated, they were the dread of Europe."

According to the Welsh Triads the first-comer to these islands was not Bru, but a mysterious and mighty Hu: "The first of the three chieftains who established the colony was Hu the Mighty, who came with the original settlers. They came over the hazy sea from the summer country, which is called Deffrobani; that is where Constantinople now stands."[98]

Although, as will subsequently be seen, Hu and Bru were seemingly one and the same, it is not to be supposed that Britain can have been populated from one solitary s.h.i.+pload of adventurers; argosy after argosy must have reached these sh.o.r.es. The name Albion suggests Albania, and in due course I shall connect not only Giant Alban, but also the Lady Albion and the fairy Prince Albion with Albania, Albany, and "Saint"

Alban.

The Albanian Greek is still characterised by hardihood, activity, bodily strength, and simplicity of living; and there is unquestionably some connection between the highlanders of Albania and the highlanders of Albany who, up to a few hundred years ago, used to rush into battle with the war-cry of "Albani! Albani!" By the present-day Turk the Albanians are termed Arnaouts.[99] Whether this name has any connection with _argonauts_ is immaterial, as the historic existence of argonauts and argosies is a matter of fact, not fancy. A typical example of the primitive argosies is recorded in the British Chronicles where the arrival of Hengist and Horsa is described. Layamon's _Brut_ attributes to Hengist the following statement:--

"Our race is of a fertile stock, more quick and abounding than any other you may know, or whereof you have heard speak. Our folk are marvellously fruitful, and the tale of the children is beyond measure. Women and men are more in number than the sand, for the greater sorrow of those amongst us who are here. When our people are so many that the land may not sustain nor suffice them, then the princes who rule the realm a.s.semble before them all the young men of the age of fifteen and upwards, for such is our use and custom. From out of these they choose the most valiant and the most strong, and, casting lots, send them forth from the country, so that they may travel into divers lands, seeking fiefs and houses of their own. Go out they must, since the earth cannot contain them; for the children come more thickly than the beasts which pasture in the fields. Because of the lot that fell upon us we have bidden farewell to our homes, and putting our trust in Mercury, the G.o.d has led us to your realm."

In all probability this is a typical and true picture of the perennial argosies which periodically and persistently fared forth from Northern Europe and the Mediterranean into the Unknown.

The Saxons came here peaceably; they were amicably received, and it would be quite wrong to imagine the early immigrations as invasions involving any abrupt breach in place-names, customs, and traditions. Of the Greeks, Prof. Bury says: "They did not sweep down in a great invading host, but crept in, tribe by tribe, seeking not political conquest but new lands and homesteads".

At the time of Caesar the tribe occupying the neighbourhood of modern London were known as the Trinovantes,[100] and as these people can hardly be supposed to have adopted their t.i.tle for the purpose of flattering a poetic fiction in far Wales, the name Trinovant lends some support to the Bardic tradition that London was once termed Troy Novant or New Troy. Argonauts of a later day christened their new-found land New York, and this unchangingly characteristic tendency of the emigrant no doubt accounts for the perplexing existence of several cities each named "Troy". That many s.h.i.+ploads of young argonauts from one or another Troy reached the coasts of Cornwall is implied by the fact that in Cornwall _tre's_ were seemingly so numerous that _tre_ became the generic term for home or homestead. It is proverbial that by _tre_, _pol_, and _pen_, one may know the Cornish men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8.--Welsh Shepherd's "Troy Town."

From _Prehistoric London_ (Gordon, E. O.).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9.--Cretan maze-coins and British mazes at Winchester, Alkborough, and Saffron Walden.

From _Prehistoric London_ (Gordon, E. O.).

[_To face p. 87._]

Borlase, in his glossary of Cornish words, gives both _tre_ and _dre_ as meaning dwelling; the Welsh for Troy is Droia, the Greek was Troie, and this invariable interchange of _t_ and _d_ is again apparent in _derry_, the Irish equivalent for the Cornish _tre_. The standard definition of _true_ is _firm_ or _certain_; whence it may appear that the primeval "Troys" were, so to speak, the permanent addresses of the wandering families and tribes. These _Troys_ or _trues_ were maybe caves--whence _trou_, the French for hole or cave; maybe the foot of a big tree, preferably the sacred oak-tree, which was alike sacred in Albion and Albania. _Tree_ is the same word as _true_, and _dru_, the Sanscrit for tree, is the same word as _dero_ or _derry_, the Irish for oak tree, as in London_derry_, Kil_dare_, etc. The Druids have been generally supposed to have derived their t.i.tle of _Druid_ from the _drus_ or oak tree under which they wors.h.i.+pped, but it is far more probable that the tree was named after the Druids, and that _druid_ (the accusative and dative of _drui_, a magician or sorcerer), is radically the Persian _duru_, meaning _a good holy man_, the Arabic _deri_, meaning _a wise man_.[101]

But apart from the generic term _tre_ or _dre_ there are numerous "Troy Towns" and "Draytons" in Britain. Part of Rochester is called Troy Town, which may be equated with the _Duro-_ of _Duro_brevis the ancient name of Rochester. There is a river Dray in Thanet and the ancient name for Canterbury was _Duro_vern. Seemingly all over Britain the term Troy Town was applied to the turf-cut mazes of the downs and village greens, and the hopscotch of the London urchin is said to be the Troy game of the Welsh child.

In London, _tempus_ Edward II., a military ride and tournament used to be performed by the young men of the royal household on every Sunday during Lent.[102] This also so-called Troy game had obviously some relation to the ancient Trojan custom thus described by Virgil:--

In equal bands the triple troops divide, Then turn, and rallying, with spears bent low, Charge at the call. Now back again they ride, Wheel round, and weave new courses to and fro, In armed similitude of martial show, Circling and intercircling. Now in flight They bare their backs, now turning, foe to foe, Level their lances to the charge, now plight The truce, and side by side in friendly league unite.

E'en as in Crete the Labyrinth of old Between blind walls its secret hid from view, With wildering ways and many a winding fold, Wherein the wanderer, if the tale be true, Roamed unreturning, cheated of the clue; Such tangles weave the Teucrians, as they feign Fighting, or flying, and the game renew; So dolphins, sporting on the watery plane, Cleave the Carpathian waves and distant Libya's main.

These feats Ascanius to his people showed, When girdling Alba Longa; there with joy The ancient Latins in the pastime rode, Wherein the princely Dardan, as a boy, Was wont his Trojan comrades to employ.

To Alban children from their sires it came, And mighty Rome took up the "game of Troy,"

And called the players "Trojans," and the name Lives on, as sons renew the hereditary game.[103]

In Welsh _tru_ means a twisting or turning, and this root is at the base of _tourney_ and _tournament_. One might account for the courtly jousts of the English Court by the erudition and enterprise of scholars and courtiers, but when we find turf Troy Towns being dug by the illiterate Welsh shepherd and a Troy game being played by the uneducated peasant, the question naturally arises, "What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?"

In the Scilly Islands there is a Troy Town picked out in stones which the natives scrupulously restore and maintain: in the words of Miss Courtney, "All intricate places in Cornwall are so denominated, and I have even heard nurses say to children, when they were surrounded by a litter of toys, that they looked as if they were in Troy Town".[104]

In the _aeneid_ Virgil observes that "Tyrians and Trojans shall I treat as one". Apart from Tyrians and Trojans the term Tyrrheni or Tyrseni was applied to the Etrurians--a people the mystery of whose origin is one of the unsolved riddles of archaeology. It was Etruria that produced not only Dante, but also a galaxy of great men such as no other part of Europe has presented. In Etruria woman was honoured as nowhere else in Europe except, perhaps, in Crete and among the Kelts; and in Etruria--as in Crete--religion was veiled under an "impenetrable cloud of mysticism and symbolism".

It is supposed that Etruria derived much from the prehistoric Greeks who dwelt in Albania and wors.h.i.+pped Father Zeus in the sacred derrys or oak-groves of Dodona. The Etrurians and Greeks were unquestionably of close kindred, and it would seem from their town of Albano and their river Alba.n.u.s that the Etrurians similarly venerated St. Alban or Prince Albion. The capital of Etruria was Tarchon, so named after the Etruscan Zeus, there known as Tarchon. In the Introduction to _The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_, Dennis points out that for ages the Etruscans were lords of the sea, rivalling the Phoenicians in enterprise; founding colonies in the islands of the Tyrrhene Sea "even on the coast of Spain where Tarragona (in whose name we recognise that of Tarchon) appears to have been one of their settlements--a tradition confirmed by its ancient fortifications. Nay, the Etruscans would fain have colonised the far 'islands of the blest' in the Atlantic Ocean, probably Madeira or one of the Canaries, had not the Carthaginians opposed them."

The t.i.tle _Madeira_, which is radically _deira_, might imply an origin from either Tyre or Troy, and if place-names have any significance it seems probable the Etrurians reached even our remote Albion. One may recognise Targon as at Tarragona in Pentargon, the sonorous, resounding t.i.tle of a mighty pen or headland near Tintagel, and it is not unlikely Tarchon or Tarquin survives in giant Tarquin who is popularly a.s.sociated with c.u.mberland and the North of England. In Arthurian legend it is seemingly this same Tarquin that figures as Sir Tarquin, a false knight who was the enemy of the Round Table and a sworn foe to Lancelot: "They hurtled together like two wild bulls, ras.h.i.+ng and las.h.i.+ng with their s.h.i.+elds and swords, that sometimes they fell both over their noses. Thus they fought still two hours and more and never would have rest."[105]

It will become increasingly evident as we proceed that _tur_ or _true_ served frequently as an adjective, meaning firm, constant, _dur_able, and _eter_nal, and that it is thus used in the name _Tar_chon, _Tra_jan, or _Tro_jan. One may thus modernise Tarchon into the Eternal John, Jean, or Giant, and it is seemingly this same giant that figured as the John, Joan, or Old Joan of Cornish festivals. In the civic functions at Salisbury and elsewhere, the elementary giant figures simply as "Giant".

Although the Cornish for _giant_ was _geon_, the authorities--I think wrongly--translate Inisidgeon, an islet in the Scillies, as having meant _inis_ or island of _St. John_.

Near Pentargon is the Castle of King Arthur, which, before being known as Tintagel, was named Dunechein or the _dun_ of _chein_. At Durovern (now Canterbury) is a large tumulus known as the _Dane John_, and on the heights behind St. Just in Cornwall is _Chun_ Castle.[106] This is a n.o.ble specimen of Cyclopean architecture, and appears to be parallel in style of building with the Cyclopean architecture of Etruria. Similarly, in the Dune Chein neighbourhood may be seen Cyclopean and "herring-bone"

walls, which seemingly do not differ from those of Crete and Etruria.

At Winchelsea in Suss.e.x are the foundations and the doorway of an ancient building known as "Trojans or Jews' Hall," but of the history of these ruins nothing whatever is known. There is, however, little if any doubt that Trojan or Tarchon was an alternative t.i.tle of the Etrurian Jonn, Jupiter, or Jou, and that to the Cretan Jou the Greeks added their _piter_ or father, making thereby Jupiter or Father Jou. Jou was the t.i.tle of a kingly dynasty in Crete, but the custom of royal dynasties taking their t.i.tle from the All Father likened to the Sun is so constant as almost to const.i.tute a rule.

The word _Jew_, when p.r.o.nounced _yew_, will be considered subsequently; it may here be pointed out that _Jay_, _Gee_, and _Joy_ are common surnames, query, once tribal names in Britain. Near Penzance is Marazion or Market Jew, and it may be suggested that the traditional Cornish "Jews" were pre-Phoenician followers of the Cretan Jou. With Market-Jew one may connote Margate, which, as will be shown later, was probably in its origin--like Marazion or Mara San--a port of _mer_, or _mere_, the generic terms for _sea_ and _mother_. It is a well-recognised fact that Brittany, Cornwall, and Wales spoke more or less the same tongue, and according to Caesar in his time there was little or no difference between the languages of Gaul and Britain.

As will also be seen later it is probable that the words _mer_ and _mere_, and the names Maria and Marie, are radically _rhi_, the Celtic for _lady_ or _princess_; that _Rhea_, the Mother-G.o.ddess of Crete, is simply _rhia_, the Gaelic and the Welsh for _queen_, and that Maria meant primarily Mother Queen, or Mother Lady. The early forms of Marazion figure as _Marhasyon_, _Marhasion_, etc.

Among the Basques of Spain _jaun_ meant lord or master; in British _chun_ or _cun_ meant _mighty chief_,[107] whence it is probable that the name Tarchon meant _Eternal Chief_ or _Eternal Lord_, and this anonymity would accord with the custom which most anciently prevailed at Dodona. "In early times," says Herodotus, "the Pelasgi, as I know by information which I got at Dodona, offered sacrifices of all kinds and prayed to the G.o.ds, but had no distinct names and appellations for them, since they had never heard of any. They called them G.o.ds (_theoi_) because they had disposed and arranged all things in such a beautiful order."[108]

The eternal Chon or Jonn of Etruria may be recognised Latinised in Ja.n.u.s, the most ancient deity of Rome or _Jan_icula, and we may perhaps find him not only in John of Cornwall but among the innumerable Jones of Wales. The Ionians or Greeks of Ionia wors.h.i.+pped _Ione_, the Holy Dove, whence they are said to have derived their t.i.tle. In Greek, _ione_, in Hebrew, _juneh_, means a _dove_, and the Scotch island of Iona is indelibly permeated with stories and traditions of St. Columba or Columbkille, the Little Dove of the Church. The dove was the immemorial symbol of Rhea, and it is highly probable that it was originally connected with the place-name Reculver, of which the root is unknown, but "has been influenced by Old English _culfre_, _culver_, a culver dove or wood pigeon".[109] In Cornwall there is a St. Columb Major and St. Columb Minor, where the dedication is to a virgin of this name, and on the coast of Thanet the shoal now called Columbine, considered in conjunction with the neighbouring place-names Roas Bank and Rayham, may be a.s.sumed to be connected with Rhea's sacred Columbine or Little Dove.

A neighbouring spit is marked Cheney Spit, and close at hand are Cheyney Rocks. There is thus some probability that Great Cheyne Court, Little Cheyne Court, Old Cheyne Court, New Cheyne Court, and the Kentish surname Joynson have all relation to the mysterious ruin "Trojans or Jews Hall".

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10.--From _Nineveh_ (Layard).]