Archaic England Part 24

[303] Compare also Shadwell in East London, "said to be St. Chad's Well".

[304] Mitton, G. E., _Hackney_, p. 11.

[305] _Cf._ Westropp, T. J., _Proceedings of Royal Irish Academy_, vol. x.x.xiv., Sec. C., Nos. 3 and 4.

[306] Walters, J. c.u.ming, _The Lost Land of King Arthur_, p. 219.

[307] One of these has been slightly diverted by the exigencies of the railway station.

[308] Macalister, R. A. S., _Temair Breg: A Study of the Remains and Traditions of Tara, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy_, sec. C., Nos. 10 and 11, p. 284.

[309] Picard, _Ceremonies of Idolatrous People_, vol. iv., p. 291.

[310] Weekley, E., _Romance of Names_, p. 224.

[311] _Survey of London_ (Everyman's Library), p. 416.

[312] The Peck family may have been inn-keepers or dealers in peck or fodder, but more probably, like the Bucks and the Boggs, they may trace their descent much farther.

[313] See _infra_, p. 689.

[314] Akerman, J. Y., _Ancient Coins_, p. 17.

[315] There is a river Slee or Slea in Lincolnshire.

[316] _Travels in the East_ (Bohn's Library), p. 384.

[317] Larwood & Hotten, _The History of Signboards_, p. 285.

[318] It is simply futile to refer the word _inn_ to "within, indoors" (see Skeat).

[319] _Celtic Britain_, p. 66. It is therefore feasible that Wrens Park, by Mildmay Park, Hackney, was primarily _reines_ Park.

[320] _Prehistoric Britain_, p. 247.

[321] _Mykenae_, p. 293.

[322] _Ancient Art and Ritual_, pp. 70 and 71.

CHAPTER VII

OBERON

"O queen, whom Jove hath willed To found this new-born city, here to reign, And stubborn tribes with justice to refrain, We, Troy's poor fugitives, implore thy grace, Storm-tost and wandering over every main,-- Forbid the flames our vessels to deface, Mark our afflicted plight, and spare a pious race.

"We come not hither with the sword to rend Your Libyan homes, and sh.o.r.eward drive the prey.

Nay, no such violence our thoughts intend."

--VIRGIL, _aeneid_, I., lxix., 57.

The old Welsh poets commemorate what they term Three National Pillars of the Island of Britain, to wit: "First--Hu, the vast of size, first brought the nation of the Cymry to the Isle of Britain; and from the summer land called Deffrobani they came (namely, the place where Constantinople now is), and through Mor Tawch, the placid or pacific sea, they came up to the Isle of Britain and Armorica, where they remained. Second--Prydain, son of Aedd the Great, first erected a government and a kingdom over Ynys Prydain, and previous to that time there was but little gentleness and ordinance, save a superiority of oppression. Third--Dyfnwal Moelmud--and he was the first that made a discrimination of mutual rights and statute law, and customs, and privileges of land and nation, and on account of these things were they called the three pillars of the Cymry."[323]

The Kymbri of Cambria claim themselves to be of the same race as the Kimmeroi, from whom the Crimea takes its name, also that c.u.mberland is likewise a land of the c.u.mbers. The authorities now usually explain the term Kymbri as meaning _fellow countrymen_, and when occurring in place-names such as Kemper, Quimper, Comber, Kember, Cymner, etc., it is invariably expounded to mean _confluence_: the word would thus seem to have had imposed upon it precisely the same meaning as _synagogue_, _i.e._, a coming together or congregation, and it remains to inquire why this was so.

The _Kym_bri were also known as _Cyn_bro, and the interchangeability of _kym_ and _kin_ is seemingly universal: the _Khan_ of Tartary was synonymously the _Cham_ of Tartary; our _Cam_bridge is still academically _Can_tabrigia, a _com_pact is a _con_tract, and the ident.i.ty between _c.u.m_ and _con_ might be demonstrated by innumerable instances. This being so, it is highly likely that the Kymbri were followers of _King Bri_, otherwise King Aubrey, of the Iberii or Iberian race. In Celtic _aber_ or _ebyr_--as at _Aber_deen, _Aber_ystwith, etc.--meant a place of confluence of streams, burns, or brooks; and _aber_ seems thus to have been synonymous with _cam_ber.

Ireland, or _Iber_nia, as it figures in old maps, now _Hiber_nia, traces its t.i.tle to a certain Heber, and until the time of Henry VII., when the custom was prohibited, the Hibernians used to rush into battle with perfervid cries of _Aber!_[324] It is a recognised peculiarity of the Gaelic language to stress the first of any two syllables, whereas in Welsh the accent falls invariably upon the second: given therefore one and the same word "Aubrey," a Welshman should theoretically p.r.o.nounce it 'Brey, and an Irishman Aubr'; that is precisely what seems to have happened, whence there is a probability that the Heber and "St. Ibar" of Hibernia and the Bri of Cambria are references to one and the same immigrants.

Having "cambred" Heber with Bri, or Bru, and finding them both a.s.signed traditionally to the aegean, it is permissible to read the preliminary vowels of Heber or Huber, as the Greek _eu_, and to a.s.sume that Aubrey was the soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious Brey. _Bri_tain is the Welsh _Pry_dain, Hu was p.r.o.nounced He, and it is thus not improbable that _Pry_ was originally _Pere He_, or Father Hu, and that the traditions of Hu and Bru referred originally to the same race.

_Hyper_, the Greek for _upper_, is radically the same word as Iupiter or _Iu pere_, and if it be true that the French _pere_ is a phonetically decayed form of _pater_, then again, 'Pry or 'Bru may be regarded as a corrosion of Iupiter.

Hu the Mighty, the National Pillar or ded, who has survived as the "I'll be _He_" of children's games, was indubitably the Jupiter of Great Britain, and he was probably the "Hooper" of Hooper's Blind, or Blind Man's Buff. According to the Triads, Hu obtained his dominion over Britain not by war or bloodshed, but by justice and peace: he instructed his people in the art of agriculture; divided them into federated tribes as a first step towards civil government, and laid the foundations of literature and history by the inst.i.tution of Bardism.[325] In Celtic, _barra_ meant a Court of Justice, in which sense it has survived in London, at Loth_bury_ and Alderman_bury_. The pious Trojans claimed "the stubborn tribes with justice to refrain," and it is possible that _barri_ the Cornish for _divide_ or separate also owes its origin to Bri or _pere He_, who was the first to divide them into federated tribes.

Among the Iberians _berri_ meant a _city_, and this word is no doubt akin to our _borough_.

In Hibernia, the Land of Heber, Aubrey or Oberon, it is said that every parish has its green and thorn, where the little people are believed to hold their merry meetings, and to dance in frolic rounds.[326] A _pari_sh, Greek _paroika_, is an orderly division, and as often as not the civic centre was a fairy stone: according to Sir Laurence Gomme, who made a special study of the primitive communities, when and where a village was established a stone was ceremoniously set up, and to this _pierre_ the headman of the village made an offering once a year.[327]

Situated in Fore Street, Totnes, there stands to-day the so-called Brutus Stone, from which the Mayor of Totnes still reads official proclamations. At Brightlingsea we have noted the existence of a _Broad_moot: there is a _Brad_stone in Devon, a Bradeston in Norfolk, and elsewhere these Brude or Brutus stones were evidently known as _pre_ stones. The innumerable "Prestons" of this country were originally, I am convinced, not as is supposed "Priests Towns," but _Pre Stones i.e._, Perry or Fairy Stones. King James in his book on _Demonology_ spells fairy--Phairy; in Kent the cirrhus cloudlets of a summer day are termed the "Perry Dancers," and the _phairies_ of Britain probably differed but slightly, if at all, from the _per_ii or _per_is of _Per_sia.[328]

Among the Greeks every town and village had its so-called "Luck," or protecting G.o.ddess who specially controlled its fortunes, and by Pindar this Presiding Care is ent.i.tled _pherepolis_, _i.e._, the peri or phairy of the city.

The various Purleys and Purtons of England are a.s.signed by the authorities to _peru_ a pear, and supposed to have been pear-tree meadows or pear-tree hills, but I question whether pear-growing was ever the national industry that the persistent prevalence of _peru_ in place-names would thus imply.

Around the _pre-stones_ of each village our forerunners indubitably used to _pray_, and in the memoirs of a certain St. Sampson we have an interesting account of an interrupted Pray-meeting--"Now it came to pa.s.s, on a certain day as he journeyed through a certain district which they call Tricurius (the hundred of Trigg), he heard, on his left hand to be exact, men worshipping (at) a certain shrine, after the custom of the Bacchantes, by means of a play in honour of an image. Thereupon he beckoned to his brothers that they should stand still and be silent while he himself, quietly descending from his chariot to the ground, and standing upon his feet and observing those who worshipped the idol, saw in front of them, resting on the summit of a certain hill an abominable image. On this hill I myself have been, and have adored, and with my hand have traced the sign of the cross which St. Sampson, with his own hand, carved by means of an iron instrument on a _standing stone_. When St. Sampson saw it (the image), selecting two only of the brothers to be with him, he hastened quickly towards them, their chief, Guedia.n.u.s, standing at their head, and gently admonished them that they ought not to forsake the one G.o.d who created all things and worship an idol. And when they pleaded as an excuse that it was not wrong to keep the festival of their progenitors in a play, some being furious, some mocking, but some being of saner mind strongly urging him to go away, straightway the power of G.o.d was made clearly manifest. For a certain boy driving horses at full speed fell from a swift horse to the ground, and twisting his head under him as he fell headlong, remained, just as he was flung, little else than a lifeless corpse." The "corpse" was seemingly but a severe stun, for an hour or so later, St. Sampson by the power of prayer successfully restored the patient to life, in view of which miracle Guedia.n.u.s and all his tribe prostrated themselves at St.

Sampson's feet, and "utterly destroyed the idol".[329]

The idol here mentioned if not itself a standing stone, was admittedly a.s.sociated with one, and happily many of these Aubrey or Bryanstones are still standing. One of the most celebrated antiquities of Cornwall is the so-named _men scryfa_ or "inscribed rock," and the inscription running from top to bottom reads--RIALOBRAN CUNOVAL FIL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 169--From _Symbolism of the East and West_.

(Aynsley, Mrs. Murray.)]

As history knows nothing of any "Rialobran, son of Cunoval," one may suggest that Rialobran was the _Ryall_ or _Royal Obran_, _Obreon_ or _Oberon_, the _bren_ or Prince of Phairyland who figures so largely in the Romance of mediaeval Europe. The Rialobran stone of Cornwall may be connoted with the ceremonial _perron du roy_ still standing in the Channel Islands, and with the numerous _Browny_ stones of Scotland. In Cornwall the phairy _brownies_ seem to have been as familiar as in Scotland[330]: in the Hebrides--and as the Saint of this neighbourhood is St. Bride, the word Hebrides may perhaps be rendered _eu Bride_--every family of any importance once possessed a most obliging household Browny. Martin, writing in the eighteenth century, says: "A spirit by the country people called Browny was frequently seen in all the most considerable families in these Isles and North of Scotland in the shape of a tall man, but within these twenty or thirty years past he is seen but rarely." As the cromlechs of Brittany are termed _poukelays_ or "puck stones," it is possible that the _dolmens_ or _tolmens_ of there and elsewhere were a.s.sociated with the fairy _tall man_. Still speaking of the Hebrides Martin goes on to say: "Below the chapels there is a flat thin stone called Brownie's stone, upon which the ancient inhabitants offered a cow's milk every Sunday, but this custom is now quite abolished". The official interpretation of dolmen is _daul_ or _table stone_, but it is quite likely that the word _tolmen_ is capable of more than one correct explanation.

The Cornish Rialobran was in all probability originally the same as the local St. Perran or St. Piran, whose sanctuary was marked by the parish of Lan_bron_ or Lam_borne_. There is a Cornish circle known as Perran Round and the celebrated Saint who figures as, Perran, Piran, Bron, and Borne,[331] is probably the same as Perun the Slav Jupiter. From a stone held in the hand of Perun's image the sacred fire used annually to be struck and endeavours have been made to equate this Western Jupiter with the Indian Varuna. That there was a large Perran family is obvious from the statement that "till within the last fifty years the registers of the parish from the earliest period bear the Christian name of 'Perran,'

which was transmitted from father to son; but now the custom has ceased".[332] Thus possibly St. Perran was not only the original of the modern Perrin family, but also of the far larger Byrons and Brownes.

Further inquiry will probably permit the equation of Rialobran or St.

Bron or Borne with St. Bruno, and as Oberon figures in the traditions of Kensington it is possible that the Bryanstone Square in that district, into which leads Brawn Street, marks the site of another Brownie or Rialobran stone. This Bryanstone district was the home of the Byron family, and the surname Brinsmead implies the existence here or elsewhere a Brin's mead or meadow.

The Brownies are occasionally known as "knockers," whence the "knocking stone" which still stands in Brahan Wood, Dingwall, might no doubt be rightly ent.i.tled a Brahan, Bryan, or Brownie Stone.[333]

Legend at Kensington--in which neighbourhood is not only Bryanstone Square but also on the summit of Campden Hill an Aubrey Walk--relates that Kenna, the fairy princess of Kensington Gardens, was beloved by Albion the Son of Oberon; hence we may probably relate young Kenna with Morgana the Fay, or _big Gana_, the alleged Mother of Oberon.[334]

Mediaeval tales represent the radiant Oberon not only as splendid, as a meteor, and as a raiser of storms, but likewise as the childlike G.o.d of Love and beauteous as an angel newly born.

At once the storm is fled; serenely mild Heav'n smiles around, bright rays the sky adorn While beauteous as an angel newly born Beams in the roseate day spring, glow'd _the child_ A lily stalk his graceful limbs, sustain'd Round his smooth neck an ivory horn was chain'd Yet lovely as he was on all around Strange horror stole, for stern the fairy frown'd.[335]