Archaic England Part 2

[6] We found precisely the same things as were found by our predecessors, remains of extinct animals in the cave earth, and with them flint implements in considerable numbers. You want, of course, to know how the scientific world received these latter discoveries. They simply scouted them. They told us that our statements were impossible, and we simply responded with the remark that we had not said that they were possible, only that they were true.--Pengally, W., _Kent's Cavern. Its Testimony to the Antiquity of Man_, p. 12.

[7] Lubbock, J., _Prehistoric Times_.

[8] In the course of his criticism the same writer pertinently observes:--

"Why, what a wonderful thing is this! We have, in the first place, the most weighty and explicit testimony--Strabo's, Caesar's, Lucan's--that this race once possessed a special, profound, spiritual discipline, that they were, to use Mr.

Nash's words, 'Wiser than their neighbours'. Lucan's words are singularly clear and strong, and serve well to stand as a landmark in this controversy, in which one is sometimes embarra.s.sed by hearing authorities quoted on this side or that, when one does not feel sure precisely what they say, how much or how little. Lucan, addressing those hitherto under the pressure of Rome, but now left by the Roman Civil War to their own devices, says:--

"'Ye too, ye bards, who by your praises perpetuate the memory of the fallen brave, without hindrance poured forth your strains. And ye, ye Druids, now that the sword was removed, began once more your barbaric rites and weird solemnities. To you only is given the knowledge or ignorance (whichever it be) of the G.o.ds and the powers of heaven; your dwelling is in the lone heart of the forest. From you we learn that the bourne of man's ghost is not the senseless grave, not the pale realm of the monarch below; in another world his spirit survives still.'"

[9] "Circles form another group of the monuments we are about to treat of.... In France they are hardly known, though in Algeria they are frequent. In Denmark and Sweden they are both numerous and important, but it is in the British Islands that circles attained their greatest development."--Fergusson, J., _Rude Stone Monuments_, p. 47.

Referring to Stanton Drew the same authority observes: "Meanwhile it may be well to point out that this cla.s.s of circles is peculiar to England. They do not exist in France or Algeria. The Scandinavian circles are all very different, so too are the Irish."--_Ibid._, p. 153.

[10] Stevens, F., _Stonehenge To-day and Yesterday_, 1916, p. 14.

[11] Toland, _History of the Druids_, p. 163.

[12] Schrader, O., _cf._ Taylor, Isaac, _The Origin of the Aryans_, p. 48.

[13] Latham, Dr. R. G.

[14] _Spain and Portugal_, vol. i., p. 16.

[15] Mr. Hammer, a German who has travelled lately in Egypt and Syria, has brought, it seems, to England a ma.n.u.script written in Arabic. It contains a number of alphabets. Two of these consist entirely of trees. The book is of authority.--Davies, E., _Celtic Researches_, 1804, p. 305.

[16] The Cretans were rulers of the sea, and according to Thucydides King Minos of Crete was "the first person known to us in history as having established a navy. He made himself master of what is now called the h.e.l.lenic Sea, and ruled over the Cyclades, into most of which he sent his first colonists, expelling the Carians and appointing his own sons governors; and thus did his best to put down piracy in those waters."

[17] Jones, J. J., _Britannia Antiquissima_, 1866.

[18] Mackenzie, D. A., _Myths of Crete_, p. xxix.

[19] Gray, Mrs. Hamilton, _The Sepulchres of Etruria_, p. 223.

[20] This might be due to the coasts being less liable to the plough. See, however, the map of distribution, published by Fergusson, in _Rude Stone Monuments_.

[21] Herbert, A., _Cyclops Britannica_, p. 68.

[22] _Taliesin_, p. 23.

[23] Connellan, A. F. M., p. 337.

[24] Aristotle.

[25] Smith, Worthington, G., _Man the Primeval Savage_, p. 53.

[26] _Short History_, p. 15.

[27] Bede.

[28] The cities which had been erected in considerable numbers by the Romans were sacked, burnt, and then left as ruins by the Anglo-Saxons, who appear to have been afraid or at least unwilling to use them as places of habitation. An instance of this may be found in the case of Camboritum, the important Roman city which corresponded to our modern Cambridge, which was sacked by the invaders and left a ruin at least until the time of the Venerable Bede, 673-735.--Windle, B. C. A., _Life in Early Britain_, p. 14.

[29] Hearnshaw, F. J. C., _England in the Making_, p. 14.

[30] Hawkins, E., _The Silver Coins of England_, p. 17.

[31] _Coins of the Ancient Britons_, p. 121.

[32] _Bello Gallico_, Bk. v., 12, -- 3.

[33] Smith, Dr. Wm., _Lectures on the English Language_, p. 29.

[34] The Americans would describe Gildas as a "Calamity-howler".

[35] Le Braz, A., _The Night of Fires_.

[36] A Cantanzaro, dans la Calabre, la cathedrale fut le theatre de scenes de desordre extraordinaires. Le nouvel archeveque avait dernierement manifeste l'intention de mettre un terme a certaines coutumes qu'il considerait comme entachees de paganisme. Ses instructions ayant ete meprisees, il frappa d'interdit pour trois jours un edifice religieux. La population jura de se venger et, lorsque le nouvel archeveque fit son entree dans la cathedrale, le jour de Paques pour celebrer la grand' messe, la foule, furieuse, manifesta bruyamment contre lui. Comme on craignait que sa personne fut l'objet de violences, le clerge le fit sortir en hate par une porte de derriere. Les troupes durent etre requisitionnees pour faire evacuer le cathedrale.--_La Derniere Heure_, April, 1914.

[37] There is a story told of a certain Gilbert de Stone, a fourteenth century legend-monger, who was appealed to by the monks of Holywell in Flintshire for a life of their patron saint. On being told that no materials for such a work existed the _litterateur_ was quite unconcerned, and undertook without hesitation to compose a most excellent legend after the manner of Thomas a Becket.

[38] "Ireland being 'the last resort of lost causes,' preserved record of a European 'culture' as primitive as that of the South Seas, and therefore invaluable for the history of human advance; elsewhere its existence is only to be established from hints and equivocal survivals. Our early tales are no artificial fiction, but fragmentary beliefs of the pagan period equally valuable for topography and for mythology."--Westropp, Thos. J., _Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy_, vol. x.x.xiv. sec. C, No. 8, p. 128.

CHAPTER II

THE MAGIC OF WORDS

"As the palimpsest of language is held up to the light and looked at more closely, it is found to be full of older forms beneath the later writing. Again and again has the most ancient speech conformed to the new grammar, until this becomes the merest surface test; it supplies only the latest likeness. Our mountains and rivers talk in the primeval mother tongue whilst the language of men is remoulded by every pa.s.sing wave of change. The language of mythology and typology is almost as permanent as the names of the hills and streams."--GERALD Ma.s.sEY.

It is generally admitted that place-names are more or less impervious to time and conquests. Instances seemingly without limit might be adduced of towns which have been sacked, destroyed, rebuilt, and rechristened, yet the original names--_and these only_--have survived. Dr. Taylor has observed that the names of five of the oldest cities of the world--Damascus, Hebron, Gaza, Sidon, and Hamath--are still p.r.o.nounced in exactly the same manner as was the case thirty, or perhaps forty centuries ago, defying oftentimes the persistent attempts of rulers to subst.i.tute some other name.[39]

As another instance of the permanency of place-names, the city of Palmyra is curiously notable. Though the Greek Palmyra is a t.i.tle of 2000 years' standing, yet to the native Arab it is new-fangled, and he knows the place not as Palmyra but as Tadmor, its original and infinitely older name. Five hundred years B.C. the very ancient city of Mykenae was destroyed and never rose again to any importance: Mykenae was fabulously a.s.signed to Perseus, and even to-day the stream which runs at the site is known as the Perseia.[40]

If it be possible for local names thus to live handed down humbly from mouth to mouth for thousands of years, for aught one knows they may have endured for double or treble these periods; there is no seeming limit to their vitality, and they may be said to be as imperishable and as dateless as the stones of Avebury or Stonehenge.

History knows nothing of violent and spasmodic jumps; the ideas of one era are impalpably transmitted to the next, and the continuity of custom makes it difficult to believe that the builders of Cyclopean works such as Avebury and Stonehenge, have left no imprint on our place-names, and no memories in our language. Even to-day the superst.i.tious veneration for cromlechs and holy stones is not defunct, and it is largely due to that ingrained sentiment that more of these prehistoric monuments have not been converted into horse-troughs and pigsties.

If, as now generally admitted, there has been an unbroken and continuous village-occupation, and if, as is also now granted, our sacred places mostly occupy aboriginal and time-honoured sites, it is difficult to conceive that place-names do not preserve some traces of their prehistoric meanings. In the case of villages dedicated to some saintly man or sweetest of sweet ladies, the connection is almost certainly intact; indeed, in instances the pagan barrows in the churchyard are often actually dedicated to some saint.[41]

That memories of the ancient mythology sometimes hang around our British cromlechs is proved by an instance in North Wales where there still stands a table stone known locally as _Llety-y-filiast_, or _the stone of the greyhound b.i.t.c.h_. "This name," says Dr. Griffith, "was given in allusion to the British Ceres or Keridwen who was symbolised by the greyhound b.i.t.c.h".[42] I shall have much to say about Keridwen--"the most generous and beauteous of ladies"--meanwhile it is sufficient here to note that her symbol, the greyhound b.i.t.c.h, is found unmistakably upon our earliest coinage.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRITISH. FIG. 4.--From Evans. FIG. 5.--From Akerman.]

All place-names of any real antiquity are generally composed of various languages, and like compound rocks contain fragments in juxtaposition which belong properly to different ages. The a.n.a.lysis of these is not difficult, as the final -_hill_, -_ton_, -_ville_, -_ham_, and so forth is usually the comparatively modern work of newcomers. Frequently the later generations forgot the original meanings of the ancient terms; and thus, for instance, at Brandon Hill in Suffolk there is the curious phenomenon of _Hill Hill Hill_--in three languages, _i.e._, _bran_, _don_, and _hill_. On this site the flint knappers are still at work, using practically the same rude tool as their primitive woad-painted ancestors. At Brandon not only has the art of flint-making survived, but anthropologists have noted the persistence of a swarthy and most ancient type--a persistence the more remarkable as Suffolk was supposed to be a district out of which the Britons had been wholly and irretrievably eradicated. Whether there is anything in the world to parallel the phenomenon of the Brandon flint knappers I do not know, and it may well be questioned. In the words of Dr. Rice Holmes:--The industry has been carried on since neolithic times, and even then it was ancient: for Brandon was an abode of flint makers in the Old Stone Age.

Not only the pits but even the tools show little change: the picks which the modern workers use are made of iron, but here alone in Britain the old one-sided form is still retained, only the skill of the workers has degenerated: the exquisite evenness of chipping which distinguished the neolithic arrow heads is beyond the power of the most experienced knapper to reproduce.[43]