Archaic England Part 36

[482] Guest, Dr., _Origines Celticae_, ii., p. 159.

[483] Tacitus in _Agricola_ gives Cogidumnus an excellent reference to the following effect: "Certain districts were a.s.signed to Cogidumnus, a king who reigned over part of the country. He lived within our own memory, preserving always his faith unviolated, and exhibiting a striking proof of that refined policy, with which it has ever been the practice of Rome to make even kings accomplices in the servitude of mankind."

[484] This functionary is said to have acquired his t.i.tle by distraining on, or catching the people's pullets.

[485] _The Romance of Names_, p. 184.

[486] Hazlitt, W. C., _Faiths and Folklore_, ii., 543.

[487] _Ibid._, ii., 408.

[488] At _Bick_ley (Kent) is _Shaw_field Park.

[489] The neighbouring "Canholes" will be considered in a later chapter.

[490] _aeneid_, Bk. V., 39.

[491] _Kensington_, p. 89.

[492] _Ibid._, p. 89.

[493] Davies, E., _Mytho. of Ancient Druids_, p. 528.

[494] The oldest church in Ireland (the Oratory of Gallerus) is described as exactly like an upturned boat, and the _nave_ or _ship_ of every modern sanctuary perpetuates both in form and name the ancient notion of Noah's Ark, or the Ark of Safety.

The ruins of Newark Priory, near Woking, are situated in a marshy mead amid seven branches of the river Wey which even now at times turn the site into a swamp. There is a Newark in Leicestershire and a Newark in St. John's Parish, Peterborough; here the land is flat and mostly arable. At Newark, in Notts, the situation was seemingly once just such a wilderness of waters as surrounded Newark Priory, in Send Parish, Woking. The ship of Isis, symbolizing the fecund Ark of Nature, figured prominently in popular custom, and the subject demands a chapter at the very least.

[495] _Keffil_ meaning _horse_ is still used in Worcestershire, and Herefordshire. "This is a pure Welsh word nor need one feel much surprised at finding it in use in counties where the Saxon and the Brython must have had many dealings in horse flesh. But what is significant is the manner in which it is used, for it is employed only for horses of the poorest type, or as a word of abuse from one person to another as when one says--'you great keffil,' meaning you clumsy idiot."--Windle, B. C. A., _Life in Early Britain_, p. 209.

[496] "The Icenians took up arms, a brave and warlike people."--Tacitus, _Annals_.

[497] Windle, B. C. A., _Life in Early Britain_, p. 210.

[498] Quoted in _The Daily Express_, 9th October, 1918, from _Der Rheinisch Westfalische Zeitung_.

[499] _Cf._ Johnson, W., _Folk Memory_, p. 326.

[500] The Cornish for _corn_ was _izik_.

[501] _Cf._ Fig. 358, p. 596.

[502] Evans, Sir J., _Ancient British Coins_, p. 404.

[503] "Under any circ.u.mstances the legend CAC on the reverse would have still to be explained."--_Ibid._, p. 353.

[504] Skeat, p. 212.

[505] Huyshe, W., _Ad.a.m.nan's Life of St. Columba_, p. 173.

CHAPTER IX

BRIDE'S BAIRNS

"But, I do not know how it comes to pa.s.s, it is the unhappy fashion of our age to derive everything curious and valuable, whether the works of art or nature, from foreign countries: as if Providence had denied us both the genius and materials of art, and sent us everything that was precious, comfortable, and convenient, at second-hand only, and, as it were, by accident, from charity of our neighbours."--BORLASE (1754).

Homer relates that the G.o.ds watched the progress of the siege of Troy from the far-celebrated Mount Ida in Asia Minor: there is another equally famous Mount Ida in Crete, at the foot of which lived a people known as the Idaei. With Homer's allusion to "spring-abounding Ida's lowest spurs," where wandered--

... in the marshy mead Rejoicing with their foals three thousand mares,

may be connoted his reference to "Hyde's fertile vale,"[506] and there is little doubt that spring-abounding Idas and Hyde Parks were once as plentiful as Prestons, Silverdales, and Kingstons.

The name Ida is translated by the dictionaries as meaning _perfect happiness_, and Ada as _rich gift_: we have already seen that the ideal pair of Ireland were Great King Conn and Good Queen Eda, and that it was during the reign of these royal twain that Ibernia, "flowed with the pure lacteal produce of the dairy".[507]

Hyde Park, now containing Rotten Row at Kensington, occupies the site of what figured in Domesday Book as the Manor of Hyde: the immediately adjacent Audley Streets render it possible that the locality was once known as Aud lea, or meadow, whence subsequent inhabitants derived their surname. Hyde Park is partly in Paddington, a name which the authorities decode into "town of the children of Paeda". This Paeda is supposed to have been a King of Mercia, but he would hardly have been so prolific as to have peopled a town, and, considered in conjunction with the neighbouring Praed or _pere Aed_ street, it is more likely that Paeda was Father Eda, the consort of Maida or Mother Eda, after whom the adjacent Maida Vale and Maida Hill seemingly took their t.i.tle. By pa.s.sing up Maida Vale one may traverse St. John's Wood, Brondesbury or Brimsbury, Kensal Green, Cuneburn, and eventually attain the commanding heights of Caen, or Ken wood, from whence may be surveyed not only "Hyde's fertile vale," situated on "spring-abounding Ida's lowest spurs," but a comprehensive sweep of greater London.

According to Tacitus "some say that the Jews were fugitives from the island of Crete,"[508] and he continues: "There is a famous mountain in Crete called Ida; the neighbouring tribe, the Idaei, came to be called Judaei by a barbarous lengthening of the national name". Modern editors of Tacitus regard this statement as no doubt the invention of some Greek etymologer, but with reference to the Idaei they speak of this old Cretan race as "being regarded as a kind of mysterious half-supernatural beings to whom mankind were indebted for the discovery of iron and the art of working it".[509]

There is evidence of a similar idealism having once existed among the Britons and the Jews in the second Epistle of Monk Gildas to the following effect: "The Britons, contrary to all the world and hostile to Roman customs, not only in the ma.s.s but also in the tonsure, are with the Jews slaves to the shadows of things to come rather than to the truth".[510] By "truth" Gildas here of course means his own particular "doxy," and the salient point of his testimony is the a.s.sertion that practically alone in the world the British and the Jews were dreamy, immaterial, superst.i.tious idealists. That the Idaeians of Crete, Candia, or Idaea were singularly pure or candid may be judged from the testimony of Sir Arthur Evans: "Religion entered at every turn, and it was, perhaps, owing to the religious control of art that among all the Minoan representations--now to be numbered by thousands--no single example of indecency has come to light".[511] Referring to British candour, Procopius affirms: "So highly rated is chast.i.ty among these barbarians that if even the bare mention of marriage occurs without its completion the maiden seems to lose her fair fame".[512]

This alleged purity of the British Maid is substantiated by the words _prude_ and _proud_, both of which like _pretty_, _purity_, and _pride_, are radically pure Ide. Skeat defines _prude_ as a woman of affected modesty, and adds "see _prowess_"; but prudery has little connection with prowess, and is it really necessary to a.s.sume that primitive prudery was "affected"? The Jewish JAH is translated by scholars as "pure Being"; the pa.s.sionate adoration of purity is expressed in the prehistoric hymn quoted _ante_ page 183, Hu the Mighty was pre-eminently pure, and it is thus likely that the ancient Pere, Jupiter, or Aubrey meant originally the _Pure_.

We have seen that Jupiter, the divine _Power_, was conceived indifferently as either a man or an immortal maid: a maid is a virgin, and the words _maid_ or _mayde_, like Maida, is radically "Mother Ida".

According to Skeat _maid_ is related to Anglo-Saxon _magu_, a son or kinsman; and one may thus perhaps account for _brother_, _bruder_, or _frater_, as meaning originally the produce or progeny of the same _pere_--but not necessarily the same _pair_.

To St. Bride may be a.s.signed not only the terms _bride_ and bridegroom, or brideman; but likewise _breed_ and _brood_. Skeat connects the latter with the German _bruhen_ to scald, but a good mother does not scald her brood, and as St. Bride was known anciently as "The Presiding Care"; even although _bairn_ is the same word as _burn_, we may a.s.sume that St.

Bride did not burn her _brat_.

There is a Bridewell and a church of St. Bride in London, but to the modern Londoner this "greatest woman of the Celtic Church" is practically unknown. In Hibernia and the Hebrides, however, St. Bride yet lives, and in the words of a modern writer is "more real than the great names of history. They, pale shadows moving in an unreal world, have gone, but she abides. With each revolving year she flits across the Machar, and her tiny flowers burn golden among the short, green, turfy gra.s.s at her coming. Her herald, the Gillebrighde, the servant of Bride, calls its own name and hers among the sh.o.r.es, a message that the sea, the treasury of Mary, will soon yield its abundance to the fisher, haven-bound by the cold and stormy waters of winter. He sees St. Bride, the Foster Mother, but his keen vision penetrates a vista far beyond the ages when Imperial Rome held sway and, in that immemorial past, beholds her still. In the uncharted regions of the Celtic imagination, she abides unchanging, her eyes starlit, her raiment woven of fire and dew; her aureole the rainbow. To him she is older than the world of men, yet eternally young. She is beauty and purity and love, and time for her has no meaning. She is a ministering spirit, a flame of fire. It is she who touches with her finger the brow of the poet and breathes into his heart the inspiration of his song. She is born with the dawn, and pa.s.ses into new loveliness when the sun sets in the wave. The night winds sing her lullaby, and little children hear the music of her voice and look into her answering eyes. Who and what, then, is St. Bride? She is Bridget of Kildare, but she is more. She is the daughter of Dagda, the G.o.ddess of the Brigantes; but she is more. She is the maid of Bethlehem, the tender Foster Mother; but she is more even than that. She is of the race of the immortals. She is the spirit and the genius of the Celtic people."[513]

St. Bride was known occasionally as St. Fraid, and Brigit, or Brigid, an alternative t.i.tle of the Fair Ide, may be modernised into _Pure Good_.

With her white wand Brigit was said to breathe life into the mouth of dead Winter, impelling him to open his eyes to the tears, the smiles, the sighs, and the laughter of Spring, whence to Brid, or Bryth of the Brythons, may be a.s.signed the word _breathe_; and as Bride was represented by a sheaf of grain carried joyously from door to door, doubtless in her name we have the origin of _bread_.

The name Bradbury implies that many barrows were dedicated to Brad; running into the river Rye of Kent is a river Brede, and as the young G.o.ddess of Crete was known to the h.e.l.lenes as Britomart, which means _sweet maiden_, we may equate Britomart with Britannia. At the village of Brede in Kent the seat now known as Brede Place is also known as the Giant's House, whence in all probability St. Bride was the maiden Giant, Gennet, or Jeanette.

In the province of Janina in Albania is the town of Berat, and the foundation of either this Berat or else the Beyrout of Canaan was ascribed by the Greek mythologists to a maiden named Berith or Beroe.

Hail Beroe, fairest offering of the Nereids!

Beroe all hail! thou root of life, thou boast Of Kings, thou nurse of cities with the world Coeval; hail thou ever-favoured seat of Hermes ...

With Tethys and Ocea.n.u.s coeval.

But later poets feign that lovely Beroe Derived her birth from Venus and Adonis Soon as the infant saw the light with joy Old Ocean straight received her in his arms.

And e'en the brute creation shared the pleasure.

... In succeeding years A sacred town derived its mystic name From that fair child whose birth coeval was With the vast globe; but rich Ausonia's sons The city call Berytus.[514]

The same poet repeatedly maintains that the age of the city of Beroe was equal to that of the world, and that it could boast an antiquity much greater than that of Tarsus, Thebes, or Sardis. The reference to Beroe or Berith as the ever-favoured seat of Hermes implies the customary equation of Britannia = Athene = Wisdom. The prehistoric car ill.u.s.trated in the preceding chapter is reproduced from a stone in Perthshire or Perithshire, and in a description written in 1569 this stone was then designated the Thane Stone.[515] That this was an Athene stone is somewhat implied by the further details, "it had a cross at the head of it and a G.o.ddess next that in a cart, and two horses drawing her and hors.e.m.e.n under that, and footmen and dogs". The Thanes of Scotland were probably the official representatives of Athene, or Wisdom, or Justice, and the dogs of the Thane Stone may be connoted with the Hounds of Diana or Britomart, and the greyhounds of the English Fairy Queen.

Athene is presumably the same as Ethne, the reputed mother of St.