Archaic England Part 43

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 a.s.serted that the three strokes of the Broad Arrow or bardic hieroglyph for G.o.d originated from three diverging rays of light seen descending towards the earth. Out of these three strokes were const.i.tuted all the letters of the bardic alphabet, the three 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-p.r.o.nounced Name[605] was a faerie conception originating in the mind of some primitive poet philosophising from a cloud-enc.u.mbered 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 G.o.d, 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 p.r.o.nunciation of the divine name; similarly the British bards taught that: "The universe is matter as ordered and systematised by the intelligence of G.o.d. It was created by G.o.d's p.r.o.nouncing His own name--at the sound of which light and the heavens sprang into existence.

The name of G.o.d is itself a creative power. What in itself that name is, is known to G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 326.--St. John. From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 327.--Christ, with a Nimbus of Three Cl.u.s.ters 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 G.o.d), Caindea (the gentle G.o.d), and Trendia (the mighty G.o.d): other accounts specify the three children of the Boyne G.o.ddess, 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 const.i.tuting 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 328.--"Cross" at Sancreed (Cornwall). From _The Cornish Riviera_ (Stone, J. Harris).

[_To face page 538._ ]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 329.--Caerbran Castle in Sancred. From _Antiquities of Cornwall_ (Borlase).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 ill.u.s.trated _ante_, page 253; the word _eye_ p.r.o.nounced 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 ill.u.s.trated, 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 a.s.sume 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 att.i.tude 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 h.e.l.l; 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 princ.i.p.al 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 _Hopkin_son, there must once have been a Hop King as well as a Hop Queen, and the role 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 circ.u.mstance 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 _sn.o.bs_, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 332.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 333.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]

The Hoop is a frequent inn sign generally a.s.sociated with some additional symbol such as is implied in the familiar old signs, Swan-on-the-Hoop, c.o.c.k-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 G.o.ds 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 h.o.a.ry 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 archaeologists; nevertheless, apparently all over Britain the Druids were traditionally a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sembly, and Law Court. The custom of choosing princes by n.o.bles 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s 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 ill.u.s.trated 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 G.o.d.

and it would thus seem that the primeval Highlander antic.i.p.ated 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, and the surrounding stones for the subsidiary Princ.i.p.alities 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, s.e.xtets, 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, G.o.ds 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 bra.s.s 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 Ess.e.x, and the supposit.i.tious 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.