Harold Bayley

“In the old time every Wood and Grove, Field and Meadow, Hill and Cave, Sea and River, was tenanted by tribes and communities of the great Fairy Family, and at least one of its members was a resident in every House and Homestead where the kindly virtues of charity and hospitality were practised and cherished. This was the faith of our forefathers—a graceful, trustful faith, peopling the whole earth with beings whose mission was to watch over and protect all helpless and innocent things, to encourage the good, to comfort the forlorn, to punish the wicked, and to thwart and subdue the overbearing.”—Anon, The Fairy Family, 1857.

“It is very much better to believe in a number of gods than in none at all.”—W. B. Yeats.

It is generally supposed that the site of London has been in continuous occupation since that remote period when the flint-knappers chipped their implements at Gray’s Inn, and the pile-dwelling communities, whose traces have been found in the neighbourhood of London Stone, drove their first stakes into the surrounding marshes. Not only are there in London the material evidences of antediluvian occupation, but “the fact remains that in the city of London there are more survivals from past history than can be found within the compass of any other British city, or of any other area in Britain.”[593]

Sir Laurence Gomme assigns some importance to the place-name “Britaine Street”—now “Little Britain”—where, according to Stow, the Earls of Britain were lodged, but it is probable that in Upwell, Ebgate, Abchurch, Apechurch or Upchurch, we may identify relics of an infinitely greater antiquity.

When CÆsar paid his flying visit to these islands he learned at the mouth of the Thames that what he terms an oppidum or stronghold of the British was not far distant, and that a considerable number of men and cattle were there assembled. As it has been maintained that London was the stronghold here referred to, the term oppidum may possibly have been a British word, CÆsar’s testimony being: “The Britons apply the name of oppidum to any woodland spot difficult to access, and fortified with a rampart and trench to which they are in the habit of resorting in order to escape a hostile raid”.[594] That the dum of oppidum was equivalent to dun is manifest from the place-name Dumbarton, which was originally Dunbrettan.

In view of the natural situation of St. Alban’s there is a growing opinion among archÆologists that London, and not St. Alban’s, was the stronghold which stood the shock of Roman conquest when CÆsar took the oppidum of Cassivellaunus.

The inscriptions Ep, Eppi, and Ippi figure frequently on British coins, and there were probably local hobby stones, hobby towns, and oppi duns in the tribal centre of every settlement of hobby-horse worshippers. In Durham is Hoppyland Park, near Bridgewater is Hopstone, near Yarmouth is Hopton, and Hopwells; and Hopwood’s, Happy Valley’s, Hope Dale’s, Hope Point’s, Hopgreen’s, Hippesley’s and Apsley’s may be found in numerous directions. It is noteworthy that none of these terms can have had any relation to the hop plant, for the word hops is not recorded until the fifteenth century; nor, speaking generally, have they any direct connection with hope, meaning “the point of the low land mounting the hill whence the top can be seen”.[595]

The word hope, meaning expectation, is in Danish haab, in German hoffe: Hopwood, near Hopton, is at Alvechurch (Elf Church?), apart from which straw one would be justified in the assumption that Hop, Hob, or Hoph, where it occurs in place-names, had originally reference to Hob-with-a-canstick, alias Hop-o’-my-Thumb. The Hebrew expression for the witch of Endor, consulted by King Saul, is ob or oub, but in Deuteronomy xviii. 11, the term oph is used to denote a familiar spirit.[596] As we find a reference in Shakespeare to “urchins, ouphes, and fairies,” the English ouphes would seem to have been one of the orders of the Elphin realm: the authorities equate it with alph or alp, and the word has probably survived in the decadence of Kipling’s “muddied oaf”.

Offa, the proper name, is translated by the dictionaries as meaning mild, gentle: it is further remarkable that the root oph, op, or ob, is very usually associated with things diminutive and small. In Welsh of or ov means “atoms, first principles”;[597] in French oeuf, in Latin ova, means an egg; the little egg-like berry of the hawthorn is termed a hip; to ebb is to diminish, and in S.W. Wiltshire is “a small river,” named the Ebbe. Hob, with his flickering candlestick, or the homely Hob crouching on the hob, seems rarely to have been thought of otherwise than as the child Elf, such as that superscribed Ep upon the British coin here illustrated: yet to the ubiquitous Hob may no doubt be assigned up, which means aloft or overhead, and hoop, the symbol of the Sun or Eye of Heaven.

Fig. 313.—British. From Akermann.

Within and all around the oppida the military and sacerdotal hubbub was undoubtedly at times uproarious, and the vociferation used on these occasions may account for the word hubbub,[598] a term which according to Skeat was “imitative”. This authority adds to his conjecture: “formerly also whoobub, a confused noise. Hubbub was confused with hoop-hoop, re-duplication of hoop and whoobub with whoop-hoop.” But even had our ancestors mingled hip! hip! in their muddled minds even then the confusion would have been excusable.

Ope, when occurring in proper-names such as Panope or Europe, is usually translated Eye—thus, Panope as Universal Eye, and Europa as Broad Eye. The small red eye-like or optical berries of the hawthorn are termed hips or haws, and it is probable that once upon a time the hips were deemed the elphin eyes of Hob, the Ubiquitous or Everywhere. In India the favourite bead in rosaries is the seed named rudraksha, which means “the Eye of the god Rudra or S’iva”: Rudra, or the ruddy one, is the Hub or centre of the Hindoo pantheon, and S’iva, his more familiar name (now understood to mean “kindly, gracious, or propitious”) is more radically “dear little Iva or Ipha”. In India millions of S’eva stones are still worshipped, and the rudraksha seeds or Eyes of S’iva are generally cut with eleven facets,[599] evidently symbolising the eleven Beings which are said to have sprung from the dual personalities—male and female—of the Creative Principle.

Epine, the French for thorn, is ultimately akin to Hobany, and hip may evidently be equated with the friendly Hob. According to Bryant Hip or Hipha was a title of the Phoenician Prime Parent, and it is probable that our Hip! Hip! Hip!—the parallel of the Alban Albani! Albani!—long antedated the Hurrah!

The Hobdays and the Abdys of Albion may be connoted with Good Hob, and that this Robin Goodfellow or benevolent elf was the personification of shrewdness and cunning is implied by apt and inept, and that happy little Hob was considered to be pretty is implied by hÜbsch, the Teutonic for pretty: the word pretty is essentially British, and the piratical habits of the early British are brought home to them by the word pirate. We shall, however, subsequently see that pirates originally meant “attempters” or men who tried.

The surname Hepburn argues the existence at some time of a Hep bourne or brook; in Northumberland is Hepborne or Haybourne, which the authorities suppose meant “burn, brook, with the hips, the fruit of the wild rose”: but hips must always have been as ubiquitous and plentiful as sparrows. In Yorkshire is Hepworth, anciently written Heppeword, and this is confidently interpreted as meaning Farm of Heppo: in view, however, of our hobby-horse festivals, it is equally probable that in the Hepbourne the Kelpie, the water horse, or hippa was believed to lurk, and one may question the historic reality of farmer Heppo.

The hobby horse was principally associated with the festivals of May-Day, but it also figured at Yule Tide. On Christmas Eve either a wooden horse head or a horse’s skull was decked with ribbons and carried from door to door on the summit of a pole supported by a man cloaked with a sheet: this figure was known as “Old Hob”:[600] in Welsh hap means fortune—either good or bad.

Apparently the last recorded instance of the Hobby-Horse dance occurred at Abbot’s Bromley, on which occasion a man carrying the image of a horse between his legs, and armed with a bow and arrow (the emblems of Barry the Sovereign Archer), played the part of Hobby: with him were six companions wearing reindeer heads (the emblems of the Dayspring) who danced the hey and other ancient dances. Tollett supposes the famous hobby horse to be the King of the May “though he now appears as a juggler and a buffoon with a crimson foot-cloth fretted with gold, the golden bit, the purple bridle, and studded with gold, the man’s purple mantle with a golden border which is latticed with purple, his golden crown, purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop”.[601]

Figs. 314 to 317.—British. From Akerman.

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Fig. 318.—British. From Camden.

Fig. 319.—Head Dress of the King (N.W. Palace Nimroud). From Nineveh (Layard).

A knop or knob means a boss, protuberance, or rosebud—originally, of course, a wild rosebud which precedes the hip—and it is probably the same word as the Cunob which occurs so frequently in British coins. In Fig. 314 Cunob occurs alone, and I am not sure that Figs. 315 and 318 should not be read Elini Cunob. The knob figured not only on our Hobby Horse, but also as a symbol on the head-dress of Tyrian kings, and there is very little doubt that the charming small figure on the obverse of Cunob Elini is intended for King Ob, or Ep. There is a Knap Hill at Avebury, a Knapton in Yorkshire, and a Knapwell in Suffolk: Knebworth in Herts was Chenepenorde in Domesday, and the imaginary farmer Cnapa or Cnebba, to whom these place-names are assigned, may be equated with the afore-mentioned farmer Heppo of Hepworth.

Knaves Castle (Lichfield), now a small mound—a heap?—is ascribed to “cnafa, a boy or servant, later a knave, a rogue”: Cupid is a notorious little rogue, nevertheless, proverbially Love makes the world go round, and constitutes its nave, navel, hub, or boss: with snob Skeat connotes snopp, meaning a boy or anything stumpy.

In course of time like boss, Dutch baas, knob seems to have been applied generally to mean a lord or master, and the Londoner who takes an agreeable interest in the “nobs”[602](and occasional snobs) riding in Hyde Park is possibly following an ancestral custom dating from the time when the Ring was originally constructed. Apsley House, now standing at the east end of Rotten Row, occupies the site of the park ranger’s lodge, the Ranger was a highly important personage, and it is not improbable that the site of Apsley House was once known as Ap’s lea or meadow. The immediately adjacent Stanhope Gate and Stanhope Street, or Stanhope in Durham, may mark the site of a stone hippa or horse similar to the famous stone horse in Brittany upon which—I believe to this day—women superstitiously seat themselves with the same purpose as they sit upon the Brahan stone in Ireland: Bryanstone Square in London is not more than a mile from Stanhope Street and Apsley House.

Fig. 320.—La Venus de Quinipily, near Baud Morbihan, Brittany. From Symbolism of the East and West (Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).

The Breton statue of Quinipily may be deemed a portrait of holy Queen Ip, and Gwennap, near Redruth, where is a famous amphitheatre, was probably a Queen Hip lea or seat of the same Queen’s worship.

Gwen Ap was presumably the same as Queen Aph or Godiva, the Lady of the White Horse, and Godrevy on the opposite side of St. Ives Bay may be equated with Good rhi Evy, or Good Queen Evie. A few miles from Liskeard there is a village named St. Ive, which the natives pronounce St. Eve: the more western, better-known Saint Ive’s, is mentioned in a document of 1546 as “Seynt Iysse,” and what apparently is this same dedication reappears at a place four miles west of Wadebridge termed St. Issey. “Whose name is it,” inquires W. C. Borlase, “that the parish of St. Issey bears?” He suggests somewhat wildly that it may be the same as Elidius, corrupted to Liddy, Ide, or Idgy, endeavouring to prove that this Elidius is the same as the great Welsh Teilo.

It would be simpler and more reasonable to assume that St. Issey is a trifling corruption of “Eseye,” which was one of the titles of the old British Mother of Life. The goddess Esseye—alternatively and better known as Keridwen—is described by Owen in his Cambrian Biography as “a female personage, in the mythology of the Britons considered as the first of womankind, having nearly the same attributes with Venus, in whom are personified the generative powers”.

With Eseye and with St. Issey, alias St. Ive, may be connoted the deserted town of Hesy in Judea: on the mound now known as Tell el Hesy, or the hill town of Hesy, the remains of at least eight super-imposed prehistoric cities have been excavated, and among the discoveries on this site was a limestone lampstand subscribed on the base Aphebal.[603] The winged maiden found at the same time is essentially Cretan, and it is not an unreasonable assumption that on this Aphe fragment of pottery from Hesy we have a contemporary portrait of the Candian Aphaia or Britomart, alias Hesy, or St. Issy, or St. Ive: the British Eseye was alternatively known as Cendwen.

Fig. 321.—From A Mound of Many Cities (Bliss, J. B.).

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Fig. 322.—From A Mound of Many Cities (Bliss, J. B.).

The British built their oppida not infrequently in the form of an eye or optic, and also of an oeuf, ova, or egg. The perfect symmetry of these designs point conclusively to the probability that the earthworks were not mere strongholds scratched together anyhow for mere defence: the British burial places or barrows were similarly either circular or oval, and that the Scotch dun illustrated in Fig. 324 was British, is implied not only by its name Boreland-Mote, but by its existence at a place named Parton, this word, like the Barton of Dumbarton, no doubt signifying Dun Brettan or Briton.

Fig. 323.—From The Motes of Kirkcudbrightshire (Coles, F. R.). (Soc. Antiq. Scot.).

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Fig. 324.—From The Motes of Kirkcudbrightshire (Coles, F. R.). (Soc. Antiq. Scot.)

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Fig. 325.—“Spindle-whorls” from Troy. From Prehistoric London (Gordon, E. O.).

[To face page 534.

Egypt was known as “The Land of the Eye”:[604] the amulet of the All-seeing Eye was perhaps even more popular in Egypt than in Etruria, and the mysterious and unaccountable objects called “spindle whorls,” which occur so profusely in British tombs, and which also have been found in countless numbers underneath Troy, were probably Eye amulets, rudely representative of the human iris. The Trojan examples here illustrated are conspicuously decorated with the British Broad Arrow, which is said to have been the symbol of the Awen or Holy Spirit. In their accounts of the traditional symbols, speech, letters, and signs of Britain, according to their preservation by means of memory, voice, and usages of the Chair and Gorsedd, the Welsh Bards asserted that the three strokes of the Broad Arrow or bardic hieroglyph for God originated from three diverging rays of light seen descending towards the earth. Out of these three strokes were constituted all the letters of the bardic alphabet, the three strokes 3 strokes reading in these characters respectively 0 1 0, and thus spelling the mystic Ohio or Yew; hence it would seem that this never-to-be-pronounced Name[605] was a faerie conception originating in the mind of some primitive poet philosophising from a cloud-encumbered sunrise or sunset. According to tradition there were five ages of letters: “The first was the age of the three letters, which above all represented the Name of God, and which were a sign of Goodness and Truth, and Understanding and Equity, of whatsoever kind they might be”.[606] On these rays, it is said, were inscribed every kind and variety of Science and Knowledge, and on His return to Heaven the Almighty Architect is described as—

Followed with acclamation, and the sound

Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tun’d

Angelic harmonies.

The philosophers of Egypt believed that the universe was created by the pronunciation of the divine name; similarly the British bards taught that: “The universe is matter as ordered and systematised by the intelligence of God. It was created by God’s pronouncing His own name—at the sound of which light and the heavens sprang into existence. The name of God is itself a creative power. What in itself that name is, is known to God only. All music or natural melody is a faint and broken echo of the creative name.”[607]

Everywhere and in everything the Druids recognised this celestial Trinity: not only did their Hierarchy consist of three orders, i.e., Druids, Bards, and Seers, each group being again subdivided into three, but also, as we have seen, they uttered their Triads or aphorisms in triple form. There is little doubt that the same idea animated the Persian philosophy of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and Micah’s triple exordium: “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly”. The bards say distinctly: “The three mystic letters signify the three attributes of God, namely, Love, Knowledge, and Truth, and it is out of these three that justice springs, and without one of the three there can be no justice”.[608]

This is a simpler philosophy than the incomprehensibilities of the Athanasian Creed,[609] and it was seemingly drilled with such living and abiding force into the minds of the Folk, that even to-day the Druidic Litanies or Chants of the Creed still persist. Throughout Italy and Sicily the Chant of the Creed is known as The Twelve Words of Verita or Truth, and it is generally put into the mouth of the popular Saint Nicholas of Bari.[610] The Sicilian or Hyperean festival of the Bara has already been noted ante, p. 320.

The British chant quoted ante, page 373, continues: “What will be our three boys”? “What will be our four”? five? six? and onwards up to twelve, but always the refrain is—

My only ain she walks alane

And ever mair has dune, boys.

Fig. 326.—St. John. From Christian Iconography (Didron).

Fig. 327.—Christ, with a Nimbus of Three Clusters of Rays. Miniature of the XVI. Cent. MS. of the Bib. Royale. Ibid.

In Irish mythology we are told that the Triad similarly “infected everything,” hence Trinities such as Oendia (the one god), Caindea (the gentle god), and Trendia (the mighty god): other accounts specify the three children of the Boyne goddess, as Tear Bringer, Smile Bringer, and Sleep Bringer: the word sleep is in all probability a corruption of sil Eep.

Among the Trojan “spindle whorls” some are decorated with four awens, corresponding seemingly to the Four Kings of the Wheel of Fortune; others with three groups constituting a total of nine strokes. As each ray represented a form of Truth, the number nine—which as already noted is invariably true to itself—was essentially the symbol of Truth, and that this idea was absorbed by Christianity is obvious from representations such as Figs. 326 and 327.

Fig. 328.—“Cross” at Sancreed (Cornwall). From The Cornish Riviera (Stone, J. Harris).

[To face page 538.

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Fig. 329.—CaerbrÂn Castle in Sancred. From Antiquities of Cornwall (Borlase).

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Figs. 330 and 331.—British. From Evans.

At Sancreed in Cornwall—supposedly a dedication to the holy Creed—there is a remarkable “cross” which is actually a holed stone on a shank:[611] and in the same parish is a “castle” which was once evidently a very perfect Eye. In the Scilly Islands, lying within a stone circle, is what might be a millstone with a square hole in its centre: this Borlase ranks among the holed stones of Cornwall, and that it was a symbol of the Great Eye is a reasonable inference from the name Salla Key where it is still lying. We have seen the symbolic Eye on the Kio coin illustrated ante, page 253; the word eye pronounced frequently oy and ee, is the same as the hey of Heydays and the Shepherds’ Dance or Hey, hence in all probability Salla Key or Salakee Downs[612] were originally sacred to the festivals of Sala Kee, i.e., silly, innocent, or happy, ’Kee or Great Eye. The old plural of eye was eyen or een, and it is not unlikely that the primeval Ian, John, or Sinjohn, was worshipped as the joint Sun and Moon, or Eyes of Day and Night. On the hobby-horse coins here illustrated, the body consists of two curiously conspicuous circles or eyen, possibly representing the awen.

My only ane she walks alane

And ever mair has dune, boys.

On Salla Key Downs is Inisidgen Hill, which takes its name from an opposite island: in old MSS. this appears as Enys au geon, which the authorities assume meant “Island of St. John”. Geon, however, was the Cornish for giant; on Salla Key Downs is “Giant’s Castle,” and close at hand is the Giant’s Chair: this is a solid stone worked into the form of an arm-chair: “It looks like a work of art rather than nature, and, according to tradition, it was here the Arch Druid was wont to sit and watch the rising Sun”.[613] The neighbouring island of Great Ganilly was thus in all probability sacred to Geon, the Great King, or Queen Holy.

The Saints’ days, heydays, and holidays of our predecessors seem to have been so numerous that the wonder is that there was ever any time to work: apparently from such evidence as the Bean-setting dance, even the ancient sowing was accomplished to the measure of a song, and the festivities in connection with old Harvest Homes are too multifarious and familiar to need comment.

The attitude of the clergy towards these ancient festivals seems to have been uniform and consistent.

These teach that dancing is a Jezebel,

And barley-break the ready way to hell;

The morrice-idols, Whitsun-ales, can be

But profane relics of a jubilee.[614]

One of the greatest difficulties of the English Church was to suppress the dancing which the populace—supported by immemorial custom—insisted upon maintaining, even within the churches and the churchyards. Even to-day English churches possess reindeer heads and other paraphernalia of archaic feasts, and in Paris, as recently as the seventeenth century, the clergy and singing boys might have been seen dancing at Easter in the churches.[615] In Cornwall on the road from Temple to Bradford Bridge is a stone circle known as The Trippet Stones, and doubtless many churches occupy the sites of similar places where from time immemorial the Folk tripped it jubilantly on jubilees: custom notoriously dies hard.

In the Eastern counties of England the two principal reapers were known as the Harvest Lord and Lady, who presided over the Hoppings, and other festivities of the season. Sometimes the Harvest Lady was known as the Hop Queen,[616] and this important potentate may be connoted with the harvest doll which, in Kent particularly, was termed the Ivy Girl. As Prof. Weekley connotes the surname Hoppe with Hobbs, Hobson, and Hopkins, we may infer from the name Hopkinson, there must once have been a Hop King as well as a Hop Queen, and the rÔle of this English Hopkin was probably similar to that enacted by other Jack-in-Greens, King-of-the-Years, or Spirit-of-the-Years. The pomp and circumstance of the parallel of the Hopkin ceremony in Greece may be judged from the following particulars: “They wreathe,” says Plato, “a pole of olive wood with laurel and various flowers. On the top is fitted a bronze globe from which they suspend smaller ones. Midway round the pole they place a lesser globe, binding it with purple fillets, but the end of the pole is decked with saffron. By the topmost globe they mean the sun, to which they actually compare Apollo. The globe beneath this is the moon; the smaller globes hung on are the stars and constellations, and the fillets are the course of the year, for they make them 365 in number. The Daphnephoria is headed by a boy, both whose parents are alive, and his nearest male relation carries the filleted pole. The Laurel-Bearer himself, who follows next, holds on to the laurel; he has his hair hanging loose, he wears a golden wreath, and he is dressed out in a splendid robe to his feet and he wears light shoes. There follows him a band of maidens holding out boughs before them, to enforce the supplication of the hymns.”[617]

With this Greek festival of the Laurel-Bearer may be connoted the “one traditional dance connected with all our old festivals and merry makings” in Guernsey, and known as A mon beau Laurier. In this ceremony the dancers join hands, whirl round, curtsey, and kiss a central object, in later days either a man or a woman, but, in the opinion of Miss Carey, “perhaps originally either a sacred stone or a primeval altar”.[618] Adulation of this character is calculated to create snobs, the word as we have seen being fundamentally connected with stump. I have already suggested a connection between the salutation A mon beau Laurier and the kissing or bussing of Paul’s stump at Billingsgate, which is situated almost immediately next Ebgate. On Mount Hube, in Jersey, have been found the remains of a supposed Druidic temple, and doubtless Mount Hube, like Apechurch or Abechurch, was a primitive Hopeton, oppidum, or Abbey.

Fig. 332.—From The Everyday Book (Hone, W.).

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Fig. 333.—From The Everyday Book (Hone, W.).

The Hoop is a frequent inn sign generally associated with some additional symbol such as is implied in the familiar old signs, Swan-on-the-Hoop, Cock-on-the-Hoop, Crown-on-the-Hoop, Angel-on-the-Hoop, Falcon-on-the Hoop, and Bunch-of-Grapes-on-the-Hoop.[619] That the hoop or circle was a sacred form need not be laboured, for the majority of our megalithic monuments are circular, and there is no doubt that these rude circles are not simply and solely “adjuncts of stone age burials,” but were the primitive temples of the Hoop Lady or Fairy Queen. It was customary to represent the Hop Lady within hoops or wheels; and that the Virgin was regarded indifferently as either One, Two, Three or Four is clear from the indeterminate number of dolls which served on occasion as the idola or ideal. In Irish oun or ain means the cycle or course of the seasons, and the great Queen Anu or Aine who was regarded as the boss, hub, or centre of the Mighty Wheel may be equated with Una, the Fairy Queen.

The Druids are said to have considered it impious to enclose or cover their temples, presumably for the same reasons as prevailed among the Persians. These are explained by Cicero who tells us that in the expedition of Xerxes into Greece all the Grecian temples were destroyed at the instigation of the Magi because the Grecians were so impious as to enclose those gods within walls who ought to have all things around them open and free, their temple being the universal world. In Homer’s time—

On rough-hewn stones within the sacred cirque

Convok’d the hoary sages sat.

and there is little doubt that similarly in these islands the priest-chiefs held their solemn and ceremonial sessions.

The word Druid is in disfavour among modern archÆologists; nevertheless, apparently all over Britain the Druids were traditionally associated in the popular memory with megalithic monuments. Martin, in the relation of his Tour of the Hebrides, made in the middle of the eighteenth century, observes: “In the Western Islands where there are many, what are called by the common people Druin Crunny, that is Druids’ Circles,” and the same observer recounts: “I inquired of the inhabitants what tradition they had concerning these stones, and they told me it was a place appointed for worship in the time of heathenism, and that the chief Druid stood near the big stone in the centre from whence he addressed himself to the people that surrounded him”.[620]

There is presumptive and direct evidence that the stone circles of Britain served the combined uses of Temple, Sepulchre, Place of Assembly, and Law Court. The custom of choosing princes by nobles standing in a circle upon rocks, prevailed until comparatively recent times, and Edmund Spenser, writing in 1596 on the State of Ireland, thus described an installation ceremony: “One of the Lords arose and holding in his hand a white wand perfectly straight and without the slightest bend, he presented it to the chieftain-elect with the following words, ‘Receive the emblematic wand of thy dignity, now let the unsullied whiteness and straightness of this wand be thy model in all thy acts, so that no calumnious tongue can expose the slightest stain on the purity of thy life, nor any favoured friend ever seduce thee from dealing out even-handed justice to all’.”[621]

The white wand figuring in this ceremony is evidently the magic rod or fairy wand with which the Elphin Queen is conventionally equipped, and which was figured in the hand of the Cretan “Hob,” ante, page 494.

Sometimes in lieu of a centre stone the circles contained stone chairs. Many of these old Druidic thrones have been broken up into gate-posts or horse-troughs, but several are still in existence, and some are decorated with a carving of two footprints. These two footprints were in all probability one of the innumerable forms in which the perennial Pair were represented, vide the Vedic invocation: “Like two lips speaking sweetly to the mouth, like two breasts feed us that we may live. Like two nostrils as guardians of the body, like two ears be inclined to listen to us. Like two hands holding our strength together ... like two hoofs rushing in quickly,” etc.

In the British coin here illustrated the Giant Pair are featured as joint steeds: “Coming early like two heroes on their chariots ... ye bright ones every day come hither like two charioteers, O ye strong ones! Like two winds, like two streams your motion is eternal; like two eyes[622] come with your sight toward us! Like two hands most useful to the body; like two feet lead us towards wealth.”[623]

Fig. 334.—British. From Akerman.

Occasionally the two footprints are found cut into simple rock: in Scotland the King of the Isles used to be crowned at Islay, standing on a stone with a deep impression on the top of it made on purpose to receive his feet. The meaning of the feet symbol in Britain is not known, but Scotch tradition maintained that it represented the size of the feet of Albany’s first chieftain. On Adam’s Peak in Ceylon (ancient Tafrobani) there is a super-sacred footprint which is still the goal of millions of devout pilgrims, and on referring to India where the foot emblem is familiar we find it explained as very ancient, and used by the Buddhists in remembrance of their great leader Buddha. In the tenth century a Hindu poet sang:—

In my heart I place the feet

The Golden feet of God.

and it would thus seem that the primeval Highlander anticipated by many centuries Longfellow’s trite lines on great men, happily, however, before departing, graving the symbolic footprints of his “first Chieftain,” not upon the sands of Time, but on the solid rocks.

The Ancients, believing that God was centred in His Universe, a point within a circle was a proper and expressive hieroglyph for Pan or All. The centre stone of the rock circles probably stood similarly for God, and the surrounding stones for the subsidiary Principalities and Powers thus symbolising the idea: “Thou art the Eternal One, in whom all order is centred; Lord of all things visible and invisible, Prince of mankind, Protector of the Universe”.[624] A tallstone or a longstone is physically and objectively the figure one, 1.

If it were possible to track the subsidiary Powers of the Eternal One to their inception we should, I suspect, find them to have been personifications of Virtues, and this would seem to apply not merely to such familiar Trinities as Faith, Hope, and Charity; Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good Word, but to quartets, quintets, sextets, and septets such as the Seven Kings or Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, i.e., “Ye gifte of wisdome; ye gifte of pittie; ye gifte of strengthe; ye gifte of comfaite; ye gifte of understandinge; ye gifte of counyinge; ye gifte of dreede”.

The Persian Trinity of Thought, Deed, and Word, is perfectly expressed in the three supposed Orders of the Christian hierarchy. As stated in The Golden Legend these are—sovereign Love as touching the order of Seraphim, perfect Knowledge, and perpetual Fruition or usance. “There be some,” continues De Voragine, “that overcome and dominate over all vices in themselves, and they by right be called of the world, gods among men.”[625]

It is related of King Arthur that he carried a shield named Prydwen, and if the reader will trouble to count the dots ranged round the centre boss of the shield on page 120 the number will be found to be eleven. At Kingston on Thames, where the present market stone is believed to be the surviving centre-piece of a stone-circle, a brass ring ornamented with eleven bosses was discovered.[626] In Etruria eleven mystic shields were held in immense veneration:[627] it will further be noted that the majority of the wheatears on British and Celtiberian coins consist of eleven corns.

The word eleven, like its French equivalent onze, ange, or angel, points to the probability that for some reason eleven was essentially the number sacred to the elven, anges, or onzes. Elphinstone, a fairly common surname, implies the erstwhile existence of many Elphinstones: there is an Alphian rock in Yorkshire; bronze urns have been excavated at Alphamstone in Essex, and the supposititious Aelfin, to whom the Alphington in Exeter is attributed, was far more probably Elphin.

The dimensions of many so-called longstones—whether solitary or in the centres of circles—point to the probability that menhirs or standing-stones were frequently and preferably 11 feet high. In Cornwall alone I have noted the following examples of which the measurements are extracted from The Victoria County History. The longstone at Trenuggo, Sancreed, now measures 11 feet 2 inches; that at Sithney 11 feet; that at Burras “about 10 feet,” that at Parl 12 feet; and that at Bosava 10 feet. In the parish of St. Buryan the longstones standing at Pridden, Goon Rith, Boscawen Ros, and Trelew, now measure respectively 11 feet 6 inches, 10 feet 6 inches, 10 feet, and 10 feet 4 inches.

If one takes into account such casualties of time as weathering, washing away of subsoil, upcrop of undergrowth, subsidence, and other accidents, the preceding figures are somewhat presumptive that each of the monuments in question was originally designed to stand 11 feet high.

Frequently a circle of stones is designated The Nine Maids, or The Virgin Sisters, or The Merry Maidens. The Nine Maidens is suggestive of the Nine Muses, and of the nine notorious Druidesses, which dwelt upon the Island of Sein in Brittany. The Merry Maidens may be equated with the Fairy or Peri Maidens, and that this phairy theory holds good likewise in Spain is probable from the fact that at Pau there is a circle of nine stones called La Naou Peyros.[628]

“When we inquired,” says Keightley, “after the fairy system in Spain, we were told that there was no such thing for that the Inquisition had long since eradicated such ideas.” He adds, however, “we must express our doubt of the truth of this charge”: I concur that not even the Inquisition was capable of carrying out such fundamental destruction as the obliteration of all peyros. Probably the old plural for peri or fairy was peren or feren, in which case the great Fernacre circle in the parish of St. Breward, Cornwall, was presumably the sacred eye or hoop of some considerable neighbourhood. About 160 feet eastward of Fernacre (which is one of the largest circles in Cornwall), and in line with the summit of Brown Willy (the highest hill in Cornwall) is a small erect stone. The neighbouring Row Tor (Roi Tor or Rey Tor?) rises due north of Fernacre circle, and as the editors of Cornwall point out: “If as might appear probable this very exact alignment north and south, east and west, was intentional, and part of a plan where Fernacre was the pivot of the whole, it is a curious feature that the three circles mentioned should have been so effectively hidden from each other by intervening hills”.[629]

The major portion of this district is the property of an Onslow family; there is an Onslow Gardens near Alvastone Place in Kensington, and there is a probability that every Alvastone, Elphinstone, or Onslow neighbourhood was believed to be inhabited by Elven or Anges: it is indeed due to this superstition that the relatively few megalithic monuments which still exist have escaped damnation, the destruction where it has actually occurred having been sometimes due to a deliberate and bigoted determination, “to brave ridiculous legends and superstitions”.[630] Naturally the prevalent and protective superstitions were fostered and encouraged by prehistoric thinkers for the reasons doubtless quite rightly surmised by an eighteenth century archÆologist who wrote: “But the truth of the story is, it was a burying place of the Britons before the calling in of the heathen sexton (sic query Saxon) into this Kingdom. And this fable invented by the Britons was to prevent the ripping up of the bones of their ancestors.” The demise of similar fables under the corrosive influence of modern kultur, has involved the destruction of countless other stone-monuments, so that even of Cornwall, their natural home, Mr. T. Quiller Couch was constrained to write: “Within my remembrance the cromlech, the holy well, the way-side cross and inscribed stone, have gone before the utilitarian greed of the farmer and the road man, and the undeserved neglect of that hateful being, the cui bono man”.

Parish Councils of to-day do not fear to commit vandalisms which private individuals in the past shrank from perpetrating.[631] A Welsh “Stonehenge” at Eithbed, Pembrokeshire, shown on large-scale Ordinance maps issued last century, has disappeared from the latest maps of the district, and a few years ago an archÆologist who visited the site reported that the age-worn stones had been broken up to build ugly houses close by—“veritable monuments of shame”.

In the Isle of Purbeck near Bournemouth, Branksea, Bronksea (Bronk’s ea or island) Branksome and numerous other Bron place-names which imply that the district was once haunted by Oberon, is a barrow called Puckstone, and on the top of this barrow, now thrown down, is a megalith said to measure 10 feet 8 inches. In all probability this was once 11 feet long, and was the Puckstone or Elphinstone of that neighbourhood: near Anglesea at Llandudno is a famous longstone which again is eleven feet high.

In Glamorganshire there is a village known as Angel Town, and in Pembroke is Angle or Nangle: Adamnan, in his Life of Columba, records that the saint opened his books and “read them on the Hill of the Angels, where once on a time the citizens of the Heavenly Country were seen to descend to hold conversation with the blessed man”. Upon this his editor comments: “this is the knoll called ‘great fairies hill’. Not far away is the ‘little fairies hill’. The fairies hills of pagan mythology became angels hills in the minds of the early Christian saints.”[632] One may be permitted to question whether this metamorphosis really occurred, and whether the idea of Anges or Angles is not actually older than even the Onslows or ange lows. The Irish trinity of St. Patrick, St. Bride, and St. Columba, are said all to lie buried in one spot at Dunence, and the place-name Dunence seemingly implies that that site was an on’s low, or dun ange. The term angel is now understood to mean radically a messenger, but the primary sense must have been deeper than this: in English ingle—as in inglenook—meant fire, and according to Skeat it also meant a darling or a paramour. Obviously ingle is here the same word as angel, and presumably the more primitive Englishman tactfully addressed his consort as “mine ingle”. The Gaelic and the Irish for fire is aingeal; we have seen that the burnebee or ladybird was connected with fire, and that similarly St. Barneby’s Day was associated with Barnebee Bright: hence the festival held at Englewood, or Inglewood (Cumberland) yearly on the day of St. Barnabas would appear to have been a primitive fire or aingeal ceremony. It is described as follows: “At Hesket in Cumberland yearly on St. Barnabas Day by the highway side under a Thorn tree according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the open air, is kept the Court for the whole Forest of Englewood, the ‘Englyssh wood’ of the ballad of Adam Bel”.[633]

Stonehenge used to be entitled Stonehengels, which may be modernised into the Stone Angels,[634] each stone presumably standing as a representative of one or other of the angelic hierarchy. When the Saxons met the British in friendly conference at Stonehenge—apparently even then the national centre—each Saxon chieftain treacherously carried a knife which at a given signal he plunged into the body of his unarmed, unsuspecting neighbour; subsequently, it is said, hanging the corpses of the British royalties on the cross rocks of Stonehenge: hence ever after this exhibition of Teutonic realpolitik Stonehenge has been assumed to mean the Hanging Stones, or Gallow Stones.[635] We find, however, that Stonehenge was known as Stahengues or Estanges, a plural form which may be connoted with Hengesdun or Hengston Hill in Cornwall: Stonehenge also appears under the form Senhange, which may have meant either Old Ange or San Ange, and as the priests of ancient cults almost invariably assumed the character and titles of their divinity it is probable that the Druids were once known as Anges. In Irish the word aonge is said to have meant magician or sorcerer, which is precisely the character assigned by popular opinion to the Druids. In Rode hengenne, another title of Stonehenge,[636] we have apparently the older plural hengen with the adjectival rood or ruddy, whence Stonehenge would seem to have been a shrine of the Red Rood Anges.

Fig. 336.—Stonehenge. From The Celtic Druids (Higgens, G.).

As this monument was without doubt a national centre it is probable that as I have elsewhere suggested Stonehenge meant also the Stone Hinge: the word cardinal means radically hinge; the original Roman cardinals whose round red hats probably typified the ruddy sun, were the priests of Janus, who was entitled the Hinge, and there is no reason to suppose that the same idea was not equally current in England.

That the people of Cardia associated their angel or ange with cardo, a hinge or angle is manifest from the coin illustrated in Fig. 336.

According to Prof. Weekley, “Ing, the name of a demi-god, seems to have been early confused with the Christian angel in the prefix Engel common in German names, e.g., Engelhardt anglicised as Engleheart. In Anglo-Saxon we find both Ing and Ingel. The modern name Ingoll represents Ingweald (Ingold) and Inglett is a diminutive of similar origin. The cheerful Inglebright is from Inglebeort. The simple Ing has given through Norse Ingwar the Scottish Ivor.”[637] But is it not possible that Ivor never came through Ingwar, but was radically a synonym—fairy = Ing, or fire = ingle? Inga is a Scandinavian maiden-name, and if the Inge family—of gloomy repute—are unable to trace any cheerier origin it may be suggested that they came from the Isle of Man where the folk claim to be the descendants of fairies or anges: “The Manks confidently assert that the first inhabitants of their island were fairies, and that these little people have still their residence amongst them. They call them the ‘Good people,’ and say they live in wilds and forests, and mountains, and shun great cities because of the wickedness acted therein.”[638]

As there is no known etymology for inch and ounce it is not improbable that these diminutive measures were connected with the popular idea of the ange’s size and weight: Queen Mab, according to Shakespeare, was “no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman,” and she weighed certainly not more than an ounce. The origin of Queen Mab is supposedly Habundia, or La Dame Abonde, discussed in a preceding chapter, and there connoted with Eubonia, Hobany, and Hob: in Welsh Mab means baby boy, and the priests of this little king were known as the Mabinogi, whence the Mabinogion, or books of the Mabinogi.

Whether there is any reason to connect the three places in Ireland entitled Inchequin with the Ange Queen, or the Inchlaw (a hill in Fifeshire) with the Inch Queen Mab I have had no opportunity of inquiring.

The surnames Inch, Ince, and Ennis, are all usually connoted with enys or ins, the Celtic and evidently more primitive form of insula, an island, ea or Eye.

The Inge family may possibly have come from the Channel Islands or insulÆ, where as we have seen the Ange Queen, presumably the Lady of the Isles or inces, was represented on the coinage, and the Lord of the Channel Isles seems to have been Pixtil or Pixy tall. That this Pixy tall was alternatively ange tall is possibly implied by the name Anchetil, borne by the Vicomte du Bessin who owned one of the two fiefs into which Guernsey was anciently divided. It will be remembered that in the ceremony of the Chevauchee de St. Michel, eleven Vavasseurs functioned in the festival; further, that the lance-bearer carried a wand 11¼ feet long. The Welsh form of the name Michael is Mihangel, and as Michael was the Leader of all angels, the mi of this British mihangel may be equated with the Irish mo which, as previously noted, meant greatest.

As Albion or albi en, is the equivalent to Elphin or elven, it is obvious that England—or Inghilterra, as some nations term it—is a synonym for Albion, in both cases the meaning being Land of the Elves or Angels. For some reason—possibly the Masonic idea of the right angle, rectitude, and square dealing—angle was connected with angel, and in the coin here illustrated the angel has her head fixed in a photographic pose by an angle. In Germany and Scandinavia, Engelland means the mystic land of unborn souls, and that the Angles who inhabited the banks of the Elbe (Latin Alva) believed not only in the existence of this spiritual Engelland, but also in the living existence of Alps, Elves, Anges, or Angels is a well-recognised fact. The Scandinavians traced their origin to a primal pair named Lif and Lifthraser: according to Rydberg it was the creed of the Teuton that on arriving with a good record at “the green worlds of the gods”; “Here he finds not only those with whom he became personally acquainted while on earth, but he may also visit and converse with ancestors from the beginning of time, and he may hear the history of his race, nay, the history of all past generations told by persons who were eye-witnesses”.[639] The fate of the evil-living Teuton was believed to be far different, nevertheless, in sharp distinction to the Christian doctrine that all unbaptised children are lost souls, and that infants scarce a span in size might be seen crawling on the fiery floor of hell, even the “dull and creeping Saxon” held that every one who died in tender years was received into the care of a Being friendly to the young, who introduced them into the happy groves of immortality.

Fig. 336.—Greek. From Barthelemy.

The suggestion that the land of the Angels derived its title from the angelic superstitions of the inhabitants, may be connoted with seemingly a parallel case in Sweden, i.e., the province of Elfland. According to Walter Scott this district “had probably its name from some remnant of ancient superstition”:[640] during the witch-finding mania of the sixteenth century at one village alone in Elfland, upwards of 300 children “were found more or less perfect in a tale as full of impossible absurdities as ever was told round a nursery fire”. Fifteen of these hapless little visionaries were led to death, and thirty-six were lashed weekly at the church doors for a whole year: an unprofitable “conspiracy” for the poor little “plotters”!

Fig. 337.—From Essays on ArchÆological Subjects (Wright, T.).

There figures in Teutonic mythology not only Lif the first parent, but also a divinity named Alf who is described as young, but of a fine exterior, and of such remarkably white splendour that rays of light seemed to issue from his silvery locks. Whether the Anglo-Saxons, like the Germans, attributed any significance to eleven I do not know: if they did not the grave here illustrated which was found in the white chalk of Adisham, Kent, must be assigned to some other race. It is described by its excavator as follows: “The grave which was cut very neatly out of the rock chalk was full 5 feet deep; it was of the exact shape of a cross whose legs pointed very minutely to the four cardinal points of the compass; and it was every way eleven feet long and about 4 feet broad. At each extremity was a little cover or arched hole each about 12 inches broad, and about 14 inches high, all very neatly cut like so many little fireplaces for about a foot beyond the grave into the chalk.”[641] It would seem possible that these crescentic corner holes were actually ingle nooks, and one may surmise a primitive lying-in-state with corner fires in lieu of candles. As the Saxons of the fifth and sixth centuries were notoriously in need of conversion to the Cross it is difficult to assign this crucial sepulchre to any of their tribes.

Whether Albion was ever known as Inghilterra or Ingland before the advent of the Angles from the Elbe need not be here discussed, but, at any rate, it seems highly unlikely that Anglesea, the sanctuary or Holyhead of British Druidism, derived its name from Teutonic invaders who can hardly have penetrated into that remote corner for long after their first friendly arrival. At the end of the second century Tertullian made the surprising and very puzzling statement: “Places in Britain hitherto unvisited by the Romans were subjected to Christianity”:[642] that the cross was not introduced by the Romans is obvious from the apparition of this emblem on our coinage one to two hundred years before the Roman invasion; the famous megalithic monument at Lewis in the Hebrides is cruciform, and the equally famed pyramid at New Grange is tunnelled in the form of a cross.

Fig. 338.—Plan an Guare, St. Just. From Cornwall (Borlase).

According to Pownal, New Grange was constructed by the Magi “or Gaurs as they were sometimes called”:[643] Stonehenge or Stonehengels is referred to by the British Bards as Choir Gawr, a term which is of questioned origin: the largest stone circle in Ireland is that by Lough Gur; the amphitheatre at St. Just is known as Plan an Guare or Plain of Guare, and the place-name Gorhambury or Verulam, where are the remains of a very perfect amphitheatre, suggests that this circle, as also that at Lough Gur, and Choir Gawr, was, like Bangor, a home, seat, or Gorsedd of the Gaurs or Aonges. Doubtless the gaurs of Britain like the guru or holy men of India, and the augurs of Rome, indulged in augury: in Hebrew gor means a congregation, and that the ancients congregated in and around stone circles choiring, and gyrating in a gyre or wheel, is evident from the statement of Diodorus Siculus, which is now very generally accepted as referring to Stonehenge or Choir Gawr. “The inhabitants [of Hyperborea] are great worshippers of Apollo to whom they sing many many hymns. To this god they have consecrated a large territory in the midst of which they have a magnificent round temple replenished with the richest offerings. Their very city is dedicated to him, and is full of musicians and players on various instruments who every day celebrate his benefits and perfections.”

Among the superstitions of the British was the idyll that the music of the Druids’ harps wafted the soul of the deceased into heaven: these harps were constructed with the same mysterious regard to the number three as characterised the whole of the magic or Druidic philosophy: the British harp was triangular, its strings were three, and its tuning keys were three-armed: it was thus essentially a harp of Tara. That the British were most admirable songsters and musicians is vouched for in numerous directions, and that Stonehenge was the Hinge of the national religion is evident from the fact that it is mentioned in a Welsh Triad as one of the “Three Great Cors of Britain in which there were 2400 saints, that is, there were 100 for every hour of the day and night, in rotation perpetuating the praise of God without intermission”.[644] That similar choirs existed among the gaurs of ancient Ireland would appear from an incident recorded in the life of St. Columba: the popularity of this saint was, we are told, so great, even among the pagan Magi, that 1200 poets who were in Convention brought with them a poem in his praise: they sang this panegyric with music and chorus, “and a surpassing music it was”; indeed, so impressive was the effect that the saint felt a sudden emotion of complacency and gave way to temporary vanity.

The circle of St. Just was not only known as Plan an guare, but also as Guirimir, which has been assumed to be a contraction of Guiri mirkl, signifying in Cornish a mirkl or miracle play.[645] Doubtless not only Miracle Plays, but sports and interludes of every description were centred in the circles: that the Druids were competent and attractive entertainers is probable in view of the fact that the Arch Druid of Tara is shown as a leaping juggler with golden ear-clasps, and a speckled coat: he tosses swords and balls into the air “and like the buzzing of bees on a beautiful day is the motion of each passing the other”.[646]

The circles were similarly the sites of athletic sports, duels, and other “martial challenges”: the prize fight of yesterday was fought in a ring, and the ring still retains its popular hold. The Celts customarily banquetted in a circle with the most valiant chieftain occupying the post of honour in the centre.

We know from CÆsar that the Gauls who were “extremely devoted to superstitious rites,” sent their young men to Britain for instruction in Druidic philosophy: we also know that it was customary when a war was declared to vow all captured treasures to the gods: “In many states you may see piles of these things heaped up in their consecrated spots, nor does it often happen that anyone disregarding the sanctity of the case dares either to secrete in his house things captured or take away those deposited: and the most severe punishment with torture has been established for such a deed”.[647] As British customs “did not differ much” from those of Gaul it is thus almost a certainty that Stonehenge was for long periods a vast national treasure-house and Valhalla.

Notwithstanding the abundance of barrows, earthworks, and other evidences of prehistoric population it is probable that Salisbury Plain was always a green spot, and we are safe in assuming that Choir Gawr was the seat of Gorsedds. By immemorial law and custom the Gorsedd had always to be held on a green spot, in a conspicuous place in full view and hearing of country and aristocracy, in the face of the sun, the Eye of Light, and under the expansive freedom of the sky that all might see and hear. As sedum is the Latin for seat, and there seems to be some uncertainty as to what the term Gorsedd really meant, I may be permitted to throw out the suggestion that it was a Session, Seat, or Sitting of the Gaurs or Augurs: by Matthew Arnold the British Gorsedd is described as the “oldest educational institution in Europe,” and moreover as an institution not known out of Britain.

Slightly over a mile from Stonehenge or Choir Gawr is the nearest village now known as Amesbury, originally written Ambrosbury or Ambresbury: here was the meeting-place of Synods even in historic times, and here was a monastery which is believed to have taken its name from Ambrosius Aurelius, a British chief. It is more probable that the monastery and the town were alike dedicated to the “Saint” Ambrose, particulars of whose life may be found in De Voragine’s Golden Legend. According to this authority the name Ambrose may be said “of ambor in Greek which is to say as father of light, and soir that is a little child, that is a father of many sons by spiritual generations, clear and full of light”. Or, says De Voragine, “Ambrose is said of a stone named ambra which is much sweet, oderant, and precious, and also it is much precious in the church”. That amber was likewise precious in the eyes of the heathen is obvious from its frequent presence in prehistoric tombs, and from the vast estimation in which it was held by the Druids. Not only was the golden amber esteemed as an emblem of the golden sun, but its magical magnetic properties caused it to be valued by the ancients as even more precious than gold. There was also a poetic notion connecting amber and Apollo, thus expressed by a Greek poet:—

It will be remembered that Salisbury Plain was sometimes known as Ellendown, with which name may be connoted the statement of Pausanias that Olen the Hyperborean was the first prophet of Delphi.[649]

On turning to The Golden Legend we seem to get a memory of the Tears of Apollo in the statement that St. Ambrose was of such great compassion “that when any confessed to him his sin he wept so bitterly that he would make the sinner to weep”. The sympathies of St. Ambrose, and his astonishing tendency to dissolve into tears, are again emphasised by the statement that he wept sore even when he heard of the demise of any bishop, “and when it was demanded of him why he wept for the death of good men for he ought better to make joy, because they went to Heaven,” Ambrose made answer that he shed tears because it was so difficult to find any man to do well in such offices. The legend continues, “He was of so great stedfastness and so established in his purpose that he would not leave for dread nor for grief that might be done to him”. In connection with this proverbial constancy it may be noted that at the village of Constantine there is a Longstone—the largest in Cornwall—measuring 20 feet high and known as Maen Amber, or the Amber Stone: this was apparently known also as Men Perhen, and was broken up into gateposts in 1764. In the same parish is a shaped stone which Borlase describes as “like the Greek letter omega, somewhat resembling a cap”: from the illustration furnished by Borlase it is evident that this monument is a knob very carefully modelled and the measurements recorded, 30 feet in girth, eleven feet high,[650] imply that it was imminently an Elphinstone, Perhenstone, or Bryanstone. With this constantly recurrent combination of 30 and 11 feet, may here be connoted the measurements of the walls of Richborough or RutupiÆ: according to the locally-published Short Account “the north wall is the most perfect of the three that remain, 10 feet 8 inches in thickness and nearly 30 feet in height; the winding courses of tiles to the outer facing are in nearly their original state”.[651] The winding courses here mentioned consists of five rows of a red brick, and if one allows for inevitable detritus the original measurements of the quadrangle walls may reasonably be assumed as having been 30 × 11 feet: the solid mass of masonry upon which RutupiÆ’s cross is superimposed reaches “downward about 30 feet from the surface”. Four or five hundred yards from the castle and upon the very summit of the hill are the remains of an amphitheatre in the form of an egg measuring 200 × 160 feet. To this, the first walled amphitheatre discovered in the country, there were three entrances upon inclined planes, North, South, and West.

The first miracle recorded of St. Ambrose is to the effect that when an infant lying in the cradle a swarm of bees descended on his mouth; then they departed and flew up in the air so high that they might not be seen. Greek mythology relates that the infant Zeus was fed by bees in his cradle upon Mount Ida, and a variant of the same fairy-tale represents Zeus as feeding daily in Ambrosia—

Ambrosia, the fabled food of the gods, appears to have been honey: it is said that the Amber stones were anointed with Ambrosia, hence it is significant to find in immediate proximity to each other the place-names Honeycrock and Amberstone in Sussex. The Russians have an extraordinary idea that Ambrosia emanated from horses’ heads,[653] and as there is a “Horse Eye Level” closely adjacent to the Sussex Honeycrock and Amberstone we may assume that the neighbouring Hailsham, supposed to mean “Home of Aela or Eile,” was originally an Ellie or Elphin Home. Layamon refers to Stonehenge, “a plain that was pleasant besides Ambresbury,” as Aelenge, which probably meant Ellie or Elphin meadow, for ing or inge was a synonym for meadow. The correct assumption may possibly be that all flowery meads were the recognised haunts of the anges or ingles: the fairy rings are usually found in meadows, and the poets feigned Proserpine in a meadow gathering flowers ere she was ravished below by Pluto: as late as 1788 an English poet expressed the current belief, “’Tis said the fairy people meet beneath the bracken shade on mead and hill”.

Across the Sussex mead known as Horse Eye Level runs a “Snapsons Drove”: Snap is a curious parental name and is here perhaps connected with Snave, a Kentish village, presumably associated with San Aphe or San Ap.[654] Not only was the hipha or hobby horse decorated with a knop or knob, but a radical feature of its performance seems to have been movable jaws with which by means of a string the actor snapped at all and sundry: were these snappers, I wonder, the origin of the Snapes and Snapsons? In view of the fact that the surname Leaper is authoritatively connoted with an entry in a fifteenth century account-book: “To one that leped at Chestre 6s. 8d.,” the suggestion may possibly be worth consideration.

In Sussex there are two Ambershams and an Amberley: in Hants is Amberwood. St. Ambrose is recorded to have been born in Rome, whence it is probable that he was the ancient divinity of Umbria: in Derbyshire there is a river Amber, and in Yorkshire a Humber, which the authorities regard as probably an aspirated form of cumber, “confluence”. The magnetic properties of amber, which certainly cause a humber or confluence, may have originated this meaning; in any case cumber and umber are radically the same word. Probably Humberstones and Amberstones will be found on further inquiry to be as plentiful as Prestons or Peri stones: there is a Humberstone in Lincolnshire, another at Leicester, near Bicester is Ambrosden, and at Epping Forest is Ambresbury. This Epping Ambresbury, known alternatively as Ambers’ Banks, is admittedly a British oppidum: the remains cover 12 acres of ground and are situated on the highest plateau in the forest. As there is an Ambergate near Buxton it is noteworthy that Ambers’ Banks in Epping are adjacent to Beak Hill, Buckhurst Hill, and High Beech Green. I have already connoted Puck or Bogie with the beech tree, and it is probable that Fairmead Plain by High Beech Green was the Fairy mead where once the pixies gathered: close by is Bury Wood, and there is no doubt the neighbourhood of Epping and Upton was always very British.

In old English amber or omber meant a pitcher—query a honey-crock[655]—whence the authorities translate the various Amberleys as meadow of the pitcher, and Ambergate, near Buxton, as “probably pitcher road”. The Amber Hill near Boston, we are told, “will be from Old English amber from its shape,” but as it is extremely unusual to find hills in the form of a pitcher this etymology seems questionable. At the Wiltshire Ambresbury there is a Mount Ambrosius at the foot of which, according to local tradition, used to exist a college of Druidesses,[656] in which connection it is noteworthy that just as Silbury Hill is distant about a mile from the Avebury Circle, so Mount Ambrosius is equally distant from Choir Gawr.

To Amber may be assigned the words umpire and empire; Oberon, the lovely child, is haply described as the Emperor of Fairyland, whence also no doubt he was the lord and master of the Empyrean. When dealing elsewhere with the word amber I suggested that it meant radically Sun Father,[657] and there are episodes in the life of St. Ambrose which support this interpretation, e.g., “it happened that an enchanter called devils to him and sent them to St. Ambrose for to annoy and grieve him, but the devils returned and said that they might not approach to his gate because there was a great fire all about his house”. Among the Persians it was customary to halo their divinities, not with a circle but with a pyre or pyramid of fire, and in all probability to the auburn Auberon the Emperor of the Empyrean may be assigned not only burn and brand, but also bran in the sense of bran new. That St. Ambrose was Barnaby Bright or the White god of day is implied by the anecdote “a fire in the manner of a shield covered his head, and entered into his mouth: then became his face as white as any snow, and anon it came again to his first form”.[658] The basis of this story would seem to have been a picture representing Ambrose with fire not entering into, but emerging from, his mouth and forming a surrounding halo “in the manner of a shield”. Embers now mean ashes, and the Ember Days of Christianity probably trace backward to the immemorial times of prehistoric fire-worship. At Parton, near Salisbury, one meets with the curious surname Godber: and doubtless inquiry would establish a connection between this Godber of Parton and Godfrey.

The weekly fair at Ambresbury used to be held on Friday; the maid Freya, to whom Friday owes its name, was evidently Fire Eye; the Latin feriÆ were the hey-days or holidays dedicated to some fairy. Fairs were held customarily on the festival of the local saint, frequently even to-day within ancient earthworks: the most famous Midsummer Fair used to be that held at Barnwell: Feronia, the ancient Italian divinity at whose festival a great fair was held, and the first-fruits of the field offered, is, as has been shown, equivalent to Beronia or Oberon.

According to Borlase there is in Anglesea “a horse-shoe 22 paces in diameter called Brangwyn or Supreme court; it lies in a place called Tre’r Drew or Druids’ Town”.[659] Stonehenge consists of a circle enclosing a horse-shoe or hoof—the footprint and sign of Hipha the White Mare, or Ephialtes the Night Mare, and a variant of this idea is expressed in the circle enclosing a triangle as exhibited in the Christian emblem on p. 571. That Christianity did not always conceive the All Father as the Ancient of Days is evident from Fig. 341, where the central Power is depicted within the writhings of what is seemingly an acanthus wreath: the Cunob fairy on the British coin illustrated ante, page 528, is extending what is either a ball of fire or else a wreath. The word wraith, meaning apparition, is connoted by Skeat with an Icelandic term meaning “a pile of stones to warn a wayfarer,” hence this heap may be connoted with rath the Irish, and rhaith the Welsh, for a fairy dun or hill. Skeat further connotes wraith with the Norwegian word vardyvle, meaning “a guardian or attendant spirit seen to follow or precede one,” and he suggests that vardyvle meant ward evil. Certainly the wraiths who haunted the raths were supposed to ward off evil, and the giant Wreath,[660] who was popularly associated with Portreath near Redruth, was in all probability the same wraith that originated the place-name Cape Wrath. In Welsh a speech is called ar raith or on the mound, hence we may link rhetoric to this idea, and assume that the raths were the seats of public eloquence as we know they were.

As wreath means a circle it is no doubt the same word as rota, a wheel, and Rodehengenne or Stonehengels may have meant the Wheel Angels. The cruciform rath, illustrated ante, page 55, is pre-eminently a rota, and in Fig. 343 Christ is represented in a circle supported by four somewhat unaerial Evangelists or Angels.

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

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

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

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

According to The Golden Legend the Emperor of Constantinople applied to St. Ambrose to receive the sacred mysteries, and that Ambrose was Vera or Truth is hinted by the testimony of the Emperor. “I have found a man of truth, my master Ambrose, and such a man ought to be a bishop.” The word bishop, Anglo-Saxon biscop, supposed to mean overseer, is like the Greek episcopus, radically op, an eye.[665] Egyptian archÆologists tell us that in Egypt the Coptic Land of the Great Optic, even the very games had a religious significance; whence there was probably some ethical idea behind the British “jingling match by eleven blind-folded men and one unmasked and hung with bells”. This joyous and diverting jeu is mentioned as part of the sports-programme at the celebrated Scouring of the White Horse: we have already noted the blind-folded Little Leaf Man, led blind Amor-like from house to house, also the Blind Man who is said to have sat for eleven years in the Church of St. Maur (or Amour?), and among other sports at the Scouring, eleven enters again into an account of chasing the fore wheel of a wagon down the hill slope. The trundling of a fiery wheel—which doubtless took place at the several British Trendle Hills—is a well-known feature of European solar ceremonies: the greater interest of the Scouring item is perhaps in the number of competitors: “eleven on ’em started and amongst ’em a sweep-chimley and a millard [milord], and the millard tripped up the sweep-chimley and made the zoot fly a good ’un—the wheel ran pretty nigh down to the springs that time”.[666]

The Jewish conception of The Most Ancient One, the most Hidden of the hidden, reappears in Jupiter Ammon, whose sobriquet of Ammon meant the hidden one: “Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself”. In England the game of Hide and Seek used to be known as Hooper’s Hide,[667] and this curious connection between Jupiter, the Hidden one, and Hooper’s Hide somewhat strengthens my earlier surmise that Hooper = Iupiter.

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

If as now suggested the wheel and the “spindle whorl” were alike symbols of the Eye of Heaven, it is equally probable that the amber, and many other variety of bead, was also a talismanic eyeball:[670] among grave deposits the blue bead was very popular, assumedly for the reason that blue was the colour of heaven. Large quantities of blue “whorls” were discovered by Schliemann[671] at MykenÆ, and among the many varieties of beads found in Britain one in particular is described as “of a Prussian Blue colour with three circular grooves round the circumference, filled with white paste”.[672] This design of three circles reappears in Fig. 347 taken from the base of a British Incense-cup; likewise in a group of rock sculpturings (Fig. 348) found at Kirkmabreck in Kirkcudbrightshire. Mr. Ludovic Mann, who sees traces of astronomical intention in this sculpture, writes: “If the pre-historic peoples of Scotland and indeed Europe had this conception, then the Universe to their mind would consist of eleven units, namely, the nine celestial bodies already referred to, and the Central Fire and the ‘Counter-Earth’. Very probably they knew also of elliptical motions. Oddly enough the cult of eleven units (which I detected some fifteen years ago) representing the universe can be discerned in the art of the late Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Scotland and over a much wider area. For example, in nearly all the cases of Scottish necklaces of beads of the Bronze Age which have survived intact, it will be found that they consist of a number of beads which is eleven or a multiple of eleven. I have, for example, a fine Bronze Age necklace from Wigtownshire consisting of 187 beads (that is of 17 × 11) and a triangular centre piece. The same curious recurrence of the number and its multiples can often be detected in the number of standing stones in a circle, in the number of stones placed in slightly converging rows found in Caithness, Sutherland, some parts of England, Wales, and in Brittany. The number eleven is occasionally involved in the Bronze Age pottery decorations, and in the patterns on certain ornaments and relics of the Bronze Age.... The Cult of eleven seems to survive in the numerous names of Allah, who was known by ninety-nine names, and hence it is invariably the case that the Mahommedan has a necklace consisting of either eleven or a multiple of eleven beads but not exceeding ninety-nine, as he is supposed to repeat one of the names for each bead which he tells.”[673]

We have seen that the rudraksha or eye of the god S’iva seeds are usually eleven faceted, and my surmise that the whorls of Troy were universal Eyes is further implied by the group here illustrated. According to Thomas, our British Troy Towns or Caer Troiau were originally astronomical observatories, and he derives the word troiau from the verb troi to turn, or from tro signifying a flux of time:—[674]

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

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

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

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

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

In A Midsummer-Night’s Dream Titania laments:—

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

This Troy Town is situated on Camperdizil Point; in the same neighbourhood is Carn Himbra Point, and Himbrian, Kymbrian, or Cambrian influences are seemingly much evident in this district, as doubtless they also were at Comberton[678] famous for its maze.

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

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

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

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

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

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

On the lower slopes of Hellingy are the remains of a primitive village, and the foundations of many circular huts: among these foundations have been found a considerable quantity of crude pottery, and an ancient hand-mill which the authorities assign to about 2000 b.c. We have seen that the goddesses of Celtdom were known as the MairÆ, MatronÆ, Matres, or MatrÆ (the mothers): further, that the Welsh for Mary is Fair, whence the assumption becomes pressing that the “Saint” Mary of the Scillies was primarily the Merry Fairy. The author of The English Language points out that in Old English merry meant originally no more than “agreeable, pleasing”. Heaven and Jerusalem were described by old poets as “merry” places; and the word had supposedly no more than this signification in the phrase “Merry England,” into which we read a more modern interpretation.[687] That the Scillies were permeated with the Fairy Faith is sufficiently obvious; at Hugh Town we find the ubiquitous Silver Street, and the neighbouring Holvear Hill was not improbably holy to Vera.

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

In connection with the Island of St. Agnes it may be noted that ignis is the Latin for fire, whence it is possible that the islets, Big Smith and Little Smith, Burnt Island and Monglow, all had some relation to the Fieryman, Fairy Man, or Foreman: it is also possible that the neighbouring Camperdizil Point is connected with deiseul, the Scotch ejaculation, and with dazzle. Troy Town in St. Agnes is almost environed by Smith Sound, and this curious combination of names points seemingly to some connection between the Cambers and the metal smiths.[688]

It will be remembered that Agnes was a title of the Papesse Jeanne, who was said to have come from Engelheim or Angel’s Home: in Germany the Lady Bird used to be known as the Lady Mary’s Key-bearer, and exhorted to fly to Engelland: “Insect of Mary, fly away, fly away, to Engelland. Engelland is locked, its key is broken.”[689] Sometimes the invocation ran: “Gold chafer up and away to thy high storey to thy Mother Anne, who gives thee bread and cheese. ’Tis better than bitter death.”[690]

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