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-worship, 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 archÆological 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 Tarshish, one is entitled 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 hitherto.

The English language, based upon an older stratum of speech and perpetually assimilating 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 identities 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 identities 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 identities. The Greeks had a powerful settlement at Marseilles centuries before CÆsar’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 Ægean as the district whence their first settlers arrived. Tyndal, the earliest translator of the Greek Testament into English, asserts 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 Hellenic 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.

Ammianus 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 shipload of adventurers; argosy after argosy must have reached these shores. 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 assemble 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 god 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 CÆsar 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 title 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 shiploads 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.

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 Londonderry, Kildare, etc. The Druids have been generally supposed to have derived their title of Druid from the drus or oak tree under which they worshipped, 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 Durobrevis the ancient name of Rochester. There is a river Dray in Thanet and the ancient name for Canterbury was Durovern. 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 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 Æneid 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 archÆology. 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 worshipped 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 Albanus 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 title 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 title of a mighty pen or headland near Tintagel, and it is not unlikely Tarchon or Tarquin survives in giant Tarquin who is popularly associated with Cumberland 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, rashing and lashing with their shields 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, durable, and eternal, and that it is thus used in the name Tarchon, Trajan, or Trojan. 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 noble 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 Sussex 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 title 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 title of a kingly dynasty in Crete, but the custom of royal dynasties taking their title from the All Father likened to the Sun is so constant as almost to constitute a rule.

The word Jew, when pronounced 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 mÈre, 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 CÆsar 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 mÈre, and the names Maria and Marie, are radically rhi, the Celtic for lady or princess; that Rhea, the Mother-Goddess of Crete, is simply rhia, the GÆlic 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 gods, but had no distinct names and appellations for them, since they had never heard of any. They called them gods (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 Janus, the most ancient deity of Rome or Janicula, 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 worshipped Ione, the Holy Dove, whence they are said to have derived their title. 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 assumed 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”.

Fig. 11 shows the Goddess of Etruria holding her symbolic columba, in Fig. 10, the same emblem worshipped in Assyria is being carried with pomp and circumstance, and Fig. 12 shows the columba, turtle, or tortora, being similarly honoured in Western Europe.

“Throughout the Ægean,” says Prof. Burrows, “we see traces of the Minoan Empire, in one of the most permanent of all traditions the survival of a place-name; the word Minoa, wherever it occurs, must mark a fortress or trading station of the Great King as surely as the Alexandrias, or Antiochs, or CÆsareas of later days.”[110]

If a modern place-name be valid evidence in the Mediterranean, the place-name Minnis Bay between Margate and Reculver has presumably a similar weight, particularly as a few miles further round the coast is a so-called Minnis Rock. Here is an ancient hermitage consisting of a three-mouthed cave measuring precisely 9 feet deep. King Minos of Crete held his kingship on a tenure of nine years, and the number nine is peculiarly identified with the idea of Troy, true, or permanent. In Hebrew, truth and nine are represented by one and the same term, because nine is so extraordinarily true or constant to itself, that 9 × 9 = 81 = 9, 9 × 2 = 18 = 9, and so from nine times one to nine times nine.

In Crete there were no temples, but worship was conducted around small caves situated in the side of hills. This is precisely the position of Minnis Rock which is situated in a valley running up from Hastings to St. Helens. “It is,” says the local guide-book, “one of the few rock cells in the country, and though almost choked with earth and rubbish is still worth inspection. The three square-headed openings were the entrances to the separate chambers of the cave, which went back 9 feet into the rock. It is surmised that the Hermitage was used as a chapel or oratory, dedicated probably to St. Mary, or some other saint beloved of those who go down to the sea in ships. Many such chapels existed in olden times within sight and sound of the waves, and passing vessels lowered their topsails to them in reverence. Torquay, Broadstairs, Dover, Reculver, Whitby, and other places in England had similar oratories.”[111]

The Etruscans or Tyrrhenians believed in a Hierarchy of Nine Great Gods. Minos of Crete was not merely one of a line of mighty sea-kings, but Greek mythology asserts that Minos was the son of Zeus, i.e., Jonn or Tarchon. In a subsequent chapter we shall consider him at length, but meanwhile it may be noted that it is not unlikely that the whole of Eastern Kent was known as Minster, Minosterre, or Minos Terra. There are several Minsters in Sheppey, and another Minster together with a Mansion near Margate. The generic terms minster and monastery may be assigned to the ministers of Minos originally congregating in cells or trous or in groves under and around the oaks or other similarly sacred trees.

Troy, or as Homer terms it, “sacred Troy,” was pre-eminently a city of towers, tourelles, turrets, or tors, and in the West of England tor, as in Torquay, Torbay, etc., is ubiquitous. Tory Island, off the coast of Ireland, is said to have derived its title from the numerous torrs upon it. The same word is prevalent throughout Britain, but there are no torrs at Sindry Island in Essex nor at Treport in the English Channel. In the Semitic languages tzur, meaning rock, is generally supposed to be the root of Tyre, and in the Near East tor is a generic term for mountain chain.

Speaking of princely Tyre, Ezekiel says, “Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs”.[112] Tarshish is usually considered to have been the western coast of the Mediterranean afterwards called Gaul, in later times Spain and France, and undoubtedly the men of Tarshish, Tyre, Troy, or Etruria, toured, trekked, travelled, tramped, traded, and trafficked far and wide. Etrurian vases have been disinterred in Tartary and also, it is said, from tumuli in Norway, yet as Mrs. Hamilton Gray observes: “We believe that they were never made in those countries, and that the Tartars and Norwegians never worshipped, and possibly never even knew the names of the gods and heroes thereon represented”.[113] These vases more often than not depicted incidents of Trojan legend, and of that famous Troy whose exploits in the words of Virgil “fired the world”.

The Tyrians conceived their chief god Hercules or Harokel as a bagman or merchant, and in Phoenician the word harokel meant merchant. Our own term merchant[114] is etymologically akin to Mercury, the god of merchants, and as mere among other meanings meant pure or true, it is not unlikely that merchant was once the intellectual equivalent to Tarchon or True John. In the West of England the adjective “jonnock” still means true, straightforward, generous, unselfish, and companionable.[115] The adjective chein still used by Jews means very much the same as jonnock, with, however, the additional sense of the French chic. Jack is the diminutive endearing form of John, and the Etruscan Joun is said to have been the Hebrew Jack or Iou.[116] Joun or his consort Jana was in all probability the divinity of the Etruscan river Chiana, and Giant or Giantess Albion the divinity of the neighbouring river Albinia.

Close to Market Jew or Marazion is a village called Chyandour, where is a well named Gulfwell, meaning, we are told, the “Hebrew brook”. It is still a matter of dispute whether the Jews shipped their tin from Market Jew or overland from Thanet (? Margate[117]). From the word tariff, a Spanish and Arabian term connected with Tarifa, the southernmost town in Spain, it would seem that the dour and daring traders who carried on their traffic with Market Jew and Margate toured with a tarifa or price-list. Doubtless the tariff charges were commensurate with the risks involved, for only too frequently, as is stated in the Psalms, “the ships of Tarshish were broken with an east wind”. To try a boat means to-day to bring her head to the gale, and in Somersetshire small ships are still entitled trows, a word evidently akin to trough.

The Etruscans or Tyrrhenians represented Hercules the Great Merchant in a kilt, and this seemingly was a tartan or French tiretaine. Speaking of certain figures unearthed at Tarchon, Dennis remarks: “The drapery of the couches is particularly worthy of notice, being marked with stripes of different colours crossing each other as in the Highland plaid; and those who are learned in tartanology might possibly pronounce which of the Macs has the strongest claim to an Etruscan origin”.[118]

Fig. 13 reproduced from Mrs. Murray Aynsley’s Symbolism of the East and West, is taken from a fragment of pottery found in what is believed to be a pre-Etruscan cemetery at Bologna in Italy. It might be a portrait of Hendry or Sander bonneted in his glengarry, armed with a target, and trekking off with two terriers. Terre, or terra firma, the earth, is the same as true, meaning firm or constant. According to Skeat the present form of the verb tarry is due to tarien, terien, “to irritate, provoke, worry, vex; hence to hinder, delay”. Having “tarried” an order there was, it may be, still further “tarrying” on presentation of the tariff, and it may be assumed that the author of The Odyssey had been personally “tarried” for he refers feelingly to—

The hero of The Odyssey was, self-confessedly, no tyro, but was himself “in artifice well framed and in imposture various”. Admittedly he “utter’d prompt not truth, but figments to truth opposite, for guile in him stood never at a pause”.[119] Obviously he was a sailor to the bone, and when he says, “I boast me sprung from ancestry renowned in spacious Crete,” with the additional statement that at one time he was an Admiral of Crete, it is possible we are in face of a fragment of genuine autobiography.

Doubtless, as our traditions state, the first adventurers on the sea who reached these shores were oft-times terrors and “the dread of Europe”. To the Tyrrhenes may probably be assigned the generic term tyrranos which, however, meant primarily not a tyrant as now understood, but an autocrat or lord. “Clad in their long dress who could equal them?” wondered a British Bard, and it may be that the long robes figured herewith are the very moulds of form which created such a powerful impression among our predecessors. The word attire points to the possibility that at one time Tyre set the fashions for the latest tire, and like modern Paris fired the contemporary world of dress. In connection with the word dress, which is radically dre, it is noticeable that the Britons were conspicuously dressy men; indeed, Sir John Rhys, discussing the term Briton, Breton, or Brython, seriously maintains that “the only Celtic words which can be of the same origin are the Welsh vocables brethyn, ‘cloth and its congeners,’ in which case the Britons may have styled themselves ‘cloth-clad,’ in contradistinction to the skin-wearing neolithic nation that preceded them”.

We know from Homer that the Trojans had a pretty taste in tweeds, and that their waistcoats in particular were subjects of favourable remark:—

Time does not alter the radical characteristics of any race, and the outstanding qualities of the Britons—the traditional “remnant of Droia,” are still very much to-day what they were in the time of Diodorus the Sicilian. “They are,” said he, “of much sincerity and integrity far from the craft and knavery of men among us.”[120] So great was the Trojan reputation for law and order that the Greeks who owed their code of laws to Crete paid Minos the supreme compliment of making him the Lord Chief Justice of the World of Shades. It will probably prove that the droits, laws, rights, or dues of “Dieu et mon Droit” are traceable to those of Troy, as also perhaps the Triads or triple axioms of the Drui or Druids. To put a man on trial was originally perhaps to try or test him at the sacred tree: the triadic form of ancient maxims had doubtless some relation to the Persian Trinity of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and these three virtues were symbolised by the trefoil or shamrock. The Hebrew for law is tora or thorah, the Hill of Tara in Ireland (middle-Irish, Temair), is popularly associated with the trefoil symbol of the Trinity (Welsh, Drindod); that three, trois, or drei was associated by the game of Troy is obvious from Virgil’s reference to the “triple groups dividing,” and that the trefoil was venerated in Crete would appear from Mr. Mackenzie’s statement: “Of special interest, too, is a clover-leaf ornament—an anticipation of the Irish devotion to the shamrock”.[121]

The primitive trysts were probably at the old Trysting Trees; trust means reliability and credit and truce means peace. Among rude nations the men who carried with them Peace, Law, and Order must naturally have been deemed supermen or gods, hence perhaps why in Scandinavia Tyr meant god. Our Thursday is from Thor—a divinity who was sometimes assigned three eyes—and our Tuesday from Tyr, who was supposed to be the Scandinavian Joupiter. The plural form of Tyr meant “glorious ones,” and according to The Edda, not only were the Danes and Scandinavians wanderers from Troy or Tyrkland, but Asgard itself—the Scandinavian Paradise—preserved the old usages and customs brought from Troy.[122]

Homer by sidelights indicates that the Trojans were nice in their domestic arrangements, took fastidious care of their attire, and were confirmed lovers of fresh air. Thus Telemachus—

The word “Trojan” was used in Shakespeare’s time to mean a boon companion, a jonnock tyro, or a plucky fellow, and it is worthy of note that the trusty lads of Homer’s time passed, as does the Briton of to-day, their liquor scrupulously from left to right:—

One of the most remarkable marvels of Cretan archÆology is the up-to-date drainage system, and that the Tyrrhenians were equally particular is recorded apparently for all time by the Titanic evidence of the still-standing Cloaca Maxima or great main drain of Rome.

The word Troy carries inevitable memories of Helen whose beauty was such utter perfection that “the Helen of one’s Troy” has become a phrase. The name Helen is philologically allied to Helios the Sun, and is generally interpreted to mean torch, shiner, or giver of light. The Greeks called themselves Hellenes, after Hellen their eponymous divine leader. Oriental nations termed the Hellenes, Iones, and there is little doubt that Helen and Ione were originally synonymous. In Etruria was the city of Hellana, and we shall meet St. Helen in Great Britain, from Helenium, the old name for Land’s End, to Great St. Helen’s and Little St. Helen’s in London. St. Helen, the lone daughter of Old King Cole, the merry old soul, figures in Wales and Cumberland as Elen the Leader of Hosts, whose memory is preserved not only in Elaine the Lily Maid, but also in connection with ancient roadways such as Elen’s Road, and Elen’s Causeway. These, suggests Squire, “seem to show that the paths on which armies marched were ascribed or dedicated to her”.[125] Helen’s name was seemingly bestowed not only on our rivers, such as the Elen, Alone, or Alne and Allan Water, but it likewise seems to have become the generic term lan meaning holy enclosure, entering into innumerable place-names—London[126] among others—which will be discussed in course. The character in which Helen was esteemed may be judged from the Welsh adjective alain, which means “exceeding fair, lovely, bright”. Not only in Wales but also in Ireland Allen seems to have been synonymous with beauty, whence the authorities translate the place-name Derryallen to mean oakwood beautiful. In Arthurian romance Elaine or Elen figures as the sister of Sir Tirre,[127] as the builder of the highest fortress in Arvon, and as sitting lone or alone in a sea-girt castle on a throne of ruddy gold. It is said that so transcendent was her beauty that it would be no more easy to look into her face than to gaze at the sun when his rays were most irresistible. It would thus seem that Howel, said to be Elen’s brother, may be equated with hoel, the Celtic for Sun, and that Elen herself, like Diana, was the glorious twin-sister of Helios or Apollo.

The principal relics of St. Helena are possessed by the city of Treves, and at Therapne in Greece there was a special sanctuary of Helena the divinely fair daughter of Zeus and a swan. “Troy weight,” so called, originated, it is supposed, from the droits or standards of a famous fair held at Troyes in France.

From time immemorial Crete seems to have been associated with the symbol of the cross. This pre-Christian Cross of Crete was the equi-limbed Cross of St. John (Irish Shane) which form is also the Red Cross of St. George. In earlier times this cross was termed the Jack—a familiar form of “the John”—and it was also entitled “the Christopher”. In India the cave temple of Madura, where Kristna[128]-worship is predominant, is cruciform, and the svastika or solar cross, a variant of John’s Cross, is in one of its Indian forms known as the Jaina cross and the talisman of the Jaina kings.

“It must never be forgotten,” said a prince of the Anglican Church preaching recently at St. Paul’s, “that the cross was primarily an instrument of torture.” Among a certain school, who in Apostolic phrase deem themselves of all men most miserable, this conception is firmly fixed and seemingly it ever has been. It was Calvinistic doctrine that all pain and suffering came from the All Father, and that all pleasure and joy originated from the Evil One. Thus to Christianity the Latin Cross has been the symbol of misery and the concrete conception of Christian Ideal is the agonised Face of the Old Masters. This dismal verity was exemplified afresh by the melancholy poster which was recently scattered broadcast over England by the National Mission engineered by the Bishop of London. Even the Mexican cross, consisting of four hearts vis a vis (Fig. D)—a form which occurs sometimes in Europe—has been daubed with imaginary gore, and with reference to this inoffensive emblem the author of The Cross: Heathen and Christian complacently writes: “The lady to whom I have just alluded considers (and I think with great propriety) that the circle of crosses formed by groups of four hearts represents hearts sacrificed to the gods; the dot on each signifying blood”.[2]

But we shall meet with these same dots on prehistoric British cross-coins as also on the “spindle whorls” of the most ancient Troy, and it will be seen that, apart from the word svastika which intrinsically means it is well, the svastika or pre-Christian cross was an emblem not of Melancholia but Joy. The English word joy and the French word jeu have, I think, been derived from Jou, just as jovial is traceable from Jove, and jocund to Jock or Jack. Pagans were the children of Joy and worshipped with a joyful noise before the Lord, and with sacred jeux or games. The word cross is in all probability the same as charis which means charity, and akin to chrestos which means good. Cres, the son of Jou, after whom the Cretans were termed Eteocretes, is an elementary form of Christopher, and the burning cross with which the legends state Christopher was tortured by being branded on the brow was more probably the Christofer or Jack—the Fiery Cross, with which irresistible talisman the clansmen of Albany were summoned together. Similarly the solar wheel of Katherine or The Pure One was supposed by the mediÆval monks—whose minds were permanently bent on melancholia and torture—to have been some frightful implement of knives and spikes by which Kate or Kitt, the Pure Maiden, was torn into pieces. It will be seen in due course that almost every single “torture” sign of the supposed martyrs was in reality the pre-Christian emblem of some pagan divinity whence the saintly legends were ignorantly and mistakenly evolved.

When the Saxon monks came into power, in the manner characteristic of their race, they “tarried” the old British monasteries and sacred mounds, bringing to light many curious and extraordinary things. At St. Albans they overthrew and filled up all the subterranean crypts of the ancient city as well as certain labyrinthine passages which extended even under the bed of the river. The most world-famous labyrinth was that at Gnossus which has not yet been uncovered, but every Etrurian place of any import had its accompanying catacombs, and in the chapter on “Dene holes” we shall direct attention to corresponding labyrinths which remain intact in England even to-day.

When pillaging at St. Albans the Saxons found not only anchors, oars, and parts of ships, imputing that St. Albans was once a port, but they also uncovered the foundations of “a vast palace”. “Here,” says Wright,[129] “they found a hollow in the wall like a cupboard in which were a number of books and rolls, which were written in ancient characters and language that could only be read by one learned monk named Unwona. He declared that they were written in the ancient British language, that they contained ‘the invocations and rites of the idolatrous citizens of Waertamceaster,’ with the exception of one which contained the authentic life of St. Albans.” And as the Abbot before mentioned “diligently turned up the earth” where the ruins of Verulamium appeared, he found many other interesting things—pots and amphoras elegantly formed of pottery turned on the lathe, glass vessels, ruins of temples, altars overturned, idols, and various kinds of coins.

Many of the jewels and idols then uncovered remained long in the possession of the Abbey, and are scheduled in the Ecclesiastical inventories together with a memorandum of the human weaknesses against which each object was supposed to possess a talismanic value. Thus Pegasus or Bellerophon is noted as food for warriors, giving them boldness and swiftness in flight; Andromeda as affording power of conciliating love between man and woman; Hercules slaying a lion, as a singular defence to combatants. The figure of Mercury on a gem rendered the possessor wise and persuasive; a dog and a lion on the same stone was a sovereign remedy against dropsy and the pestilence; and so on and so forth.

“I am convinced,” says Wright, “that a large portion of the reliques of saints shown in the Middle Ages, were taken from the barrows or graves of the early population of the countries in which they were shown. It was well understood that those mounds were of a sepulchral character, and there were probably few of them which had not a legend attached. When the earlier Christian missionaries and the later monks of Western Europe wished to consecrate a site their imagination easily converted the tenant of the lonely mound into a primitive saint—the tumulus was ransacked and the bones were found—and the monastery or even a cathedral was erected over the site which had been consecrated by the mystics rites of an earlier age.”[130] After purification by a special form of exorcism the pagan pictures were accepted into Christian service, the designs being construed into Christian doctrines far from the purpose of the things themselves.

Among the monkish loot at St. Albans was an ancient cameo herewith reproduced. This particular jewel was supposed to be of great efficacy and was entitled Kaadman; “perhaps,” suggests Wright, “another mode of spelling cadmeus or cameus”. But in view of the fact that Alban means all good, it was more probably the picture of a sacred figure which the natives recognised as the original Kaadman, i.e., Guidman or the Good Man.[131] The jewels found at St. Albans being unquestionably Gnostic it is quite within the bounds of probability that the Kaadman seal was an “idol” of what the Gnostics entitled Adam Caedmon or Adam Kadman. According to C. W. King the Adam Kadman or Primitive Man of Gnosticism, was the generative and conceptive principle of life and heat, Who manifested Himself in ten emanations or types of all creation.[132] In Irish cad means holy; good and cad are the same word, whence Kaadman and the surnames Cadman and Goodman were probably once one. The word Albon or Albion means as it stands all good, or all well, and the river Beane, like the river Boyne—over whom presided the beneficent goddess Boanna—means bien, good, or bene well. The Herefordshire Beane was alternatively known as the river Beneficia, a name which to the modern etymologer working on standard lines confessedly “yields a curious conundrum”.[133]

The Anglo-Saxon Abbot of St. Albans after having assured himself that the idolatrous books before-mentioned proved that the pagan British worshipped Phoebus, and Mercury consigned them to the flames with the same self-complacency as the Monk Patrick burnt 180—some say 300—MSS. relative to the Irish Druids. These being deemed “unfit to be transmitted to posterity,” posterity is proportionately the poorer.

Phoebus was the British Heol, Howel, or the Sun, and Mercury, was, as CÆsar said, the Hercules of Britain. The snake-encircled club of Kaadman is the equivalent to the caduceus or snake-twined rod of Mercury; the human image in the hand of Kaadman implies with some probability that “Kaadman” was the All Father or the Maker of Mankind. We shall see subsequently that the Maker of All was personified as Michael or Mickle, and that St. Mickle and All Angels or All Saints stood for the Great Muckle leading the Mickle—“many a mickel makes a muckle”. St. Michael is the patron saint of Gorhambury, a suburb of St. Albans, and in Christian Art St. MichÆl is almost invariably represented with the scales and other attributes of Anubis, the Mercury of Egypt. Both Anubis of Egypt and Mercury of Rome were connected with the dog, and Anubis was generally represented with the head of a dog or jackal. In The Gnostics and their Remains, King illustrates on plate F a dog or jackal-headed man which is subscribed with the name MICHAH, and it is probable the word make is closely associated with Micah or Mike.

Eastern tradition states that St. Christopher, or St. Kit, was a Canaanitish giant, 12 feet in stature, having the head of a dog. The kilted figure represented in the Gnostic cameo here illustrated, is seemingly that same Kitman, or Kaadman, Bandog, or Good Dog, and chien, the French for dog, Irish chuyn, may be equated with geon, geant, or giant. The worship of the chien was carried in the Near East to such a pitch that a great city named Cynopolis or Dog-Town existed in its honour. The priests of Cynopolis, who maintained a golden image of their divine kuon or chien, termed themselves Kuons, and these kuons or dog-ministers were, according to some authorities, the original Cohen family. A beautiful relievo of Adonis and his dog has been unearthed at Albano in Etruria; Fig. 13 is accompanied by bandogs(?); Albania in Asia Minor is mentioned by Maundeville as abounding in fierce dogs, and in Albion, where we still retain memories of the Dog Days, it will be shown to be probable that sacred dogs were maintained near London at the mysteriously named Isle of Dogs. Until the past fifty years the traditions of this island at Barking were so uncanny that the site remained inviolate and unbuilt over. Whence, I think, it may originally have been a kennel or Cynopolis, where the kuons of the Cantians or Candians were religiously maintained.[134]

We shall deal more fully with the cult and symbolism of the dog in a future chapter entitled “The Hound of Heaven”. Not only in England, but also in Ireland, place-names having reference to the dog are so persistent that Sir J. Rhys surmised the dog was originally a totem in that country.

In connection with chuyn, the Irish for dog, it may be noted that one of the titles of St. Patrick—whence all Irishmen are known as Paddies—was Taljean or Talchon, and moreover that Crete was alternatively known to the ancients as Telchinea. In Cornish and in Welsh tal meant high; in old English it meant valiant, whence Shakespeare says, “Thou’rt a tall fellow”; in the Mediterranean the Maltese twil; Arabic twil meant tall and hence we may conclude that the present predominant meaning of our tall was once far spread, Talchon meaning either tall geon or tall chein, i.e., dog-headed giant Christopher.

The outer inscription around Fig. 18 is described as “altogether barbarous and obscure,” but as far as can be deciphered the remaining words—“a corruption of Hebrew and Greek—signify ‘the sun or star has shone’”.[135] I have already suggested a connection between John, geon, chien, shine, shone, sheen, and sun.

It is probable that not only the literature of the saints but also many of the national traditions of our own and other lands arose from the misinterpretation of the symbolic signs and figures which preceded writing. The “diabolical idols” of Britain, as Gildas admitted, far exceeded those in Egypt; similarly in Crete, the fantastic hieroglyphics not yet read or understood far out-Egypted Egypt. The Christian Fathers fell foul with Gnostic philosophers for the supposed insult of representing Christ on the Cross with the head of an ass; but it is quite likely that the Gnostic intention—the ass being the symbol of meekness—was to portray Christ’s meekness, and that no insult was intended. A notable instance of the way in which ignorant and facetious aliens misconstrued the meaning of national or tribal emblems has been preserved in the dialogue of a globe-trotting Greek who lived in the second century of the present era. The incident, as self-recorded by the chatty but unintelligent Greek, is Englished by Sir John Rhys as follows: “The Celts call Heracles in the language of their country Ogmios, and they make very strange representations of the god. With them he is an extremely old man, with a bald forehead and his few remaining hairs quite grey; his skin is wrinkled and embrowned by the sun to that degree of swarthiness which is characteristic of men who have grown old in a seafaring life: in fact, you would fancy him rather to be a Charon or Japetus, one of the dwellers in Tartarus, or anybody rather than Heracles. But although he is of this description he is, nevertheless, attired like Heracles, for he has on him the lion’s skin, and he has a club in his right hand; he is duly equipped with a quiver, and his left hand displays a bow stretched out: in these respects he is quite Heracles. It struck me, then, that the Celts took such liberties with the appearance of Heracles in order to insult the gods of the Greeks and avenge themselves on him in their painting, because he once made a raid on their territory, when in search of the herds of Geryon he harrassed most of the western peoples. I have not, however, mentioned the most whimsical part of the picture, for this old man Heracles draws after him a great number of men bound by their ears, and the bonds are slender cords wrought of gold and amber, like necklaces of the most beautiful make; and although they are dragged on by such weak ties, they never try to run away, though they could easily do it: nor do they at all resist or struggle against them, planting their feet in the ground and throwing their weight back in the direction contrary to that in which they are being led. Quite the reverse: they follow with joyful countenance in a merry mood, and praising him who leads them pressing on one and all, and slackening their chains in their eagerness to proceed: in fact, they look like men who would be grieved should they be set free. But that which seemed to me the most absurd thing of all I will not hesitate also to tell you: the painter, you see, had nowhere to fix the ends of the cords, since the right hand of the god held the club and his left the bow; so he pierced the tip of his tongue, and represented the people as drawn on from it, and the god turns a smiling countenance towards those whom he is leading. Now I stood a long time looking at these things, and wondered, perplexed and indignant. But a certain Celt standing by, who knew something about our ways, as he showed by speaking good Greek—a man who was quite a philosopher, I take it, in local matters—said to me, ‘Stranger, I will tell you the secret of the painting, for you seem very much troubled about it. We Celts do not consider the power of speech to be Hermes, as you Greeks do, but we represent it by means of Heracles, because he is much stronger than Hermes. Nor should you wonder at his being represented as an old man, for the power of words is wont to show its perfection in the aged; for your poets are no doubt right when they say that the thoughts of young men turn with every wind, and that age has something wiser to tell us than youth. And so it is that honey pours from the tongue of that Nestor of yours, and the Trojan orators speak with one voice of the delicacy of the lily, a voice well covered, so to say, with bloom; for the bloom of flowers, if my memory does not fail me, has the term lilies applied to it. So if this old man Heracles, by the power of speech, draws men after him, tied to his tongue by their ears, you have no reason to wonder, as you must be aware of the close connection between the ears and the tongue. Nor is there any injury done him by this latter being pierced; for I remember, said he, learning while among you some comic iambics, to the effect that all chattering fellows have the tongue bored at the tip. In a word, we Celts are of opinion that Heracles himself performed everything by the power of words, as he was a wise fellow, and that most of his compulsion was effected by persuasion. His weapons, I take it, are his utterances, which are sharp and well-aimed, swift to pierce the mind; and you too say that words have wings.’ Thus far the Celt.”[136]

The moral of this incident may be applied to the svastika cross, an ubiquitous symbol or trade-mark which Andrew Lang surmised might after all have merely been “a bit of natural ornament”. The sign of the cross will be more fully considered subsequently, but meanwhile one may regard the svastika as the trade-mark of Troy. The Cornish for cross was treus, and among the ancients the cross was the symbol of truce.[137] The Sanscrit name svastika is composed of su, meaning soft, gentle, pleasing, or propitious, and asti (Greek esto), meaning being. It was universally the symbol of the Good Being or St. Albion, or St. All Well; it retains its meaning in its name, and was the counterpart to the Dove which symbolisms Innocence, Peace, Simplicity, and Goodwill. There is no doubt that the two emblems were the insignia of the prehistoric Giants, Titans, or followers of the Good Sun or Shine, or Sunshine, men who trekked from one or several centres, to India, Tartary, China, and Japan. Moreover, these trekkers whom we shall trace in America and Polynesia, were seafaring and not overland folk, otherwise we should not find the Cyclopean buildings with their concomitant symbols in Africa, Mexico, Peru, and the islands of the Pacific.

The svastika in its simpler form is the cross of St. Andrew, Scotch Hender or Hendrie. In British the epithet hen meant old or ancient, so that the cross of Hen drie is verbally the cross of old or ancient Drew, Droia, or Troy. This is also historically true, for the svastika has been found under the ruins of the ten or dozen Troys which occupy the immemorial site near Smyrna.

Our legends state that Bru or Brut, after tarrying awhile at Alba in Etruria, travelled by sea into Gaul, where he founded the city of Tours. Thence after sundry bickers with the Gauls he passed onward into Britain which acquired its name from Brute, its first Duke or Leader. We shall connote Britannia, whose first official portraits are here given, with the Cretan Goddess Britomart, which meant in Greek “sweet maiden”. One of these Britannia figures has her finger to her lips, or head, in seemingly the same attitude as the consort of the Giant Dog, and the interpretation is probably identical with that placed by Dr. Walsh upon that gnostic jewel. “Among the Egyptians,” he says, “it was deemed impossible to worship the deity in a manner worthy by words, adopting the sentiments of Plato—that it was difficult to find the nature of the Maker and Father of the Universe, or to convey an idea of him to the people by a verbal description—and they imagined therefore the deity Harpocrates who presided over silence and was always represented as inculcating it by holding his finger on his lips”. We know from CÆsar that secrecy was a predominant feature of the Drui or Druidic system, and for this custom the reasons are thus given in a Bardic triad: “The Three necessary but reluctant duties of the bards of the Isle of Britain: Secrecy, for the sake of peace and the public good; invective lamentation demanded by justice; and the unsheathing of the sword against the lawless and the predatory”.

Britain is in Welsh Prydain, and, according to some Welsh scholars, the root of Prydain is discovered in the epithet pryd, which signifies precious, dear, fair, or beautiful. This, assumed Thomas, “was at a very early date accepted as a surname in the British royal family of the island”.[138] I think this Welsh scholar was right and that not only Britomart the “sweet maiden,” but also St. Bride, “the Mary of the Gael,” were the archetypes of Britannia; St. Bride is alternatively St. Brighit, whence, in all probability, the adjective bright. At Brightlingsea in Essex is a Sindry or Sin derry island(?); in the West of England many villages have a so-called ‘sentry field,’ and undoubtedly these were originally the saintuaries, centres, and sanctuaries of the districts. To take sentry meant originally to seek refuge, and the primary meaning of terrible was sacred. Thus we find even in mediÆval times, Westminster alluded to by monkish writers as a locus terribilis or sacred place. The moots or courts at Brightlingsea were known as Brodhulls, whence it would appear that the Moothill or Toothill of elsewhere was known occasionally as a Brod or Brutus Hill.

Some of the Britannias on page 120 have the aspect of young men rather than maidens, and there is no doubt that Brut was regarded as androginous or indeterminately as youth or maiden. We shall trace him or her at Broadstairs, a corruption of Bridestow, at Bradwell, at Bradport, at Bridlington, and in very many more directions. From Pryd come probably the words pride, prude, and proud, and in the opinion of our neighbours these qualities are among our national defects. Claiming a proud descent we are admittedly a dour people, and our neighbours deem us triste, yet, nevertheless trustworthy, and inclined to truce.

On the shield of one of the first Britannias is a bull’s head, whence it may be assumed the bull was anciently as nowadays associated with John Bull. At British festivals our predecessors used to antic in the guise of a bull, and the bull-headed actor was entitled “The Broad”. The bull was intimately connected with Crete; Britomart was the Lady of All Creatures, and seemingly the brutes in general were named either after her or Brut. The British word for bull was tarw, the Spanish is toro; in Etruria we find the City of Turin or Torino using as its cognisance a rampant bull; and I have little doubt that the fabulous Minotaur was a physical brute actually maintained in the terrible recesses of some yet-to-be-discovered labyrinth. The subterranean mausoleums of the Sacred Bulls of Egypt are among the greatest of the great monuments of that country; the bull-fights of Spain were almost without doubt the direct descendants of sacred festivals, wherein the slaying of the Mithraic Bull was dramatically presented, but in Crete itself the bull-fights seem to have been amicable gymnastic games wherein the most marvellous feats of agility were displayed. Illustrations of these graceful and intrepid performances are still extant on Cretan frieze and vase, the colours being as fresh to-day as when laid on 3000 years ago.

In Britain the national sport seems to have been bull-baiting, and the dogs associated with that pastime presumably were bull-dogs. Doggedness is one of the ingrained qualities of our race; of recent years the bull-dog has been promoted into symbolic evidence of our tenacity and doggedness. Our mariners are sea-dogs, and the modern bards vouch us to be in general boys of the bull-dog breed. The mascot bull-dogs in the shops at this moment serve the same end as the mascot emblems and mysterious hieroglyphics of the ancients, and the Egyptian who carried a scarabÆus or an Eye of Horus, acted without doubt from the same simple, homely impulse as drives the modern Englishman to hang up the picture of a repulsive animal subscribed, “What we have we’ll hold”.

The prehistoric dog or jackal symbolised not tenacity or courage, but the maker of tracks, for the well-authenticated reason that dogs were considered the best guides to practicable courses in the wilderness. Bull-headed men and dog-headed men are represented constantly in Cretan Art, and these in all likelihood symbolised the primeval bull-dogs who trekked into so many of the wild and trackless places of the world.

The Welsh have a saying, “Tra Mor, Tra Brython,” which means, “as long as there is sea so long will there be Britons”. Centuries ago, Diodorus of Sicily mentioned the Kelts as “having an immemorial taste for foreign expeditions and adventurous wars, and he goes on to describe them as ‘irritable, prompt to fight, in other respects simple and guileless,’ thus, according with Strabo, who sums up the Celtic temperament as being simple and spontaneous, willingly taking in hand the cause of the oppressed”.[139]

Diodorus also mentions the Kelts as clothed sometimes “in tissues of variegated colours,” which calls to mind the tartans of the Alban McAlpines, Ians, Jocks, Sanders, Hendries, and others of that ilk.

The dictionaries define the name Andrew as meaning a man, whence androgynous and anthropology; in Cornish antrou meant lord or master, and these early McAndrews were doubtless masterly, tyrannical, dour, derring-doers, inconceivably daring in der-doing. To try means make an effort, and we speak proverbially of “working like a Trojan”. The corollary is that tired feeling which must have sorely tried the tyros or young recruits. After daring and trying and tiring, these dour men eventually turned adre, which is Cornish for homeward. Whether their hearts were turned Troy-ward in the Ægean or to some small unsung British tre or Troynovant, who can tell? “I am now in Jerusalem where Christ was born,” wrote a modern argonaut to his mother, but, he added, “I wish I were in Wigan where I was born.”