Archaic England Part 64

The sanct.i.ty of Cretan caves is indisputably proved by the immense number of votive offerings therein found, in many cases encrusted and preserved by stalagmites and stalact.i.tes. Among the house shrines of the Mother G.o.ddess and her Son remain pathetic relics of the adoration paid by her worshippers: one of these saved almost intact by Sir Arthur Evans is described as a small room or cell, smaller even than the tiny chapels that dot the hills of Crete to-day--a place where one or two might pray, leave an offering and enjoy community with the divinity rudely represented on the altar ... one-third of the s.p.a.ce was for the worshipper, another third for the gifts, the last third for the G.o.ddess.[961]

There are diminutive _souterrains_ in Cornwall notably at St. Euny in the parish of Sancreed where the gift niches still remain intact: in many instances these "Giants Holts" are in serpentine form, and the serpentine form of the Margate Grotto is unmistakable. The Mother G.o.ddess of Crete has been found figured with serpents in her hands and coiling round her shoulders: according to Mr. Mackenzie: "Her mysteries were performed in caves as were also the Paleolithic mysteries. In the caves there were sacred serpents, and it may be that the prophetic priestesses who entered them were serpent charmers: cave worship was of immense antiquity. The cave was evidently regarded as the door of the Underworld in which dwelt the snake-form of Mother Earth."[962]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 475.--Ground plan of _Souterrain_ at St. Euny's, Sancreed, Cornwall.]

It has been seen that the serpent because of sloughing its skin was the emblem of rejuvenescence, regeneration, and New Birth; it is likely that the word _sanctus_ is radically the same as _snag_, meaning a short branch, and as _snake_, which in Anglo-Saxon was _snaca_: it is certain that the _snake trou_ or snake cave was one of the most primitive _sanctuaries_.[963] Not only is the Margate Grotto constructed in serpentine form, but upon one of the panels of its walls is a Tree of Life, of which two of the scrolls consist of horned serpents: these are most skilfully worked in sh.e.l.ls, and from the mouth of each serpent is emerging the triple tongue of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word.

The word dean, French _doyen_, is supposed to be the Latin _decanum_ the accusative of deca.n.u.s, one set over ten soldiers or ten monks: it is, as already suggested, more probable that the original deans were the priests of Diane, and that they worshipped in dene holes, in dens, in denes, on downs, and at dunhills. The word _grot_ is probably the same as _kirit_, the Turkish form of Crete, and as the _Keridwen_ or _Kerid Holy_ of Britain. The ministers of the Cretan Magna Mater were ent.i.tled _curetes_, and the modern curate may in all likelihood claim a verbal descent from the Keridwen or Sancreed whose name is behind our _great, crude_, and _cradle_. The Magna Mater of Kirid or Crete was sometimes as already mentioned depicted with a cat upon her head: I have equated the word _cat_ with Kate, Kitty, or Ked, and in all probability the catacombs of Rome anciently Janicula were originally built in her honour. In Scotland _souterrains_ are termed _weems_, a word which is undoubtedly affiliated both in form and idea with womb, tomb, and coombe: the British bards allude frequently to the grave as being the matrix or womb of Ked; as archaeologists are well aware, primitive burials frequently consisted of contracting the body into the form of the foetus, depositing it thus in a stone cist, chest, or "coty": and there is little doubt that the St. Anne who figures so prolifically in the catacombs of Janicula, was like St. Anne of Brittany the pre-Christian Anne, Jana, or Diane.

At Caddington by Dunstable there is a Dame Ellen's Wood; Caddington itself is understood to have meant--"the hill meadow of Cedd or Ceadda,"

and among the prehistoric tombs found in this neighbourhood was the interment ill.u.s.trated on page 64. It has been cheerily suggested that "the child may have been buried alive with its mother": it may, but it equally may not; the pathetic surround of sea-urchins or popularly-called fairy loaves points to sentiment of some sort, particularly in view of the tradition that whoso keeps a specimen of the fairy loaf in his house shall never lack bread.[964] _Echinus_, the Latin for sea-urchin, is radically the same word as Ja.n.u.s; in the Margate grotto an echinus forms the centre of most of the conchological suns or stars with which the walls are decorated, and a large echinus appears in each of the four top corners of the oblong chamber.

I have suggested that the Kentish Rye, a town which once stood on a conical islet and near to which is an earthwork known nowadays as Rhee wall, was once dedicated to Rhea or Maria, and that Margate owes its designation to the same Ma Rhea or Mother Queen. According to "Morien"

_Rhi_ was a Celtic t.i.tle of the Almighty, and is the root of the word _rhinwedd_ (Virtue): according to Rhys _rhi_ meant _queen_, and was a poetic term for a lady: according to Thomas _Rhea_ is the feminine noun of _rhi_, prince or king; it would thence follow that _regina_, like the French name Rejane, meant originally Queen Gyne, either Queen Woman or Royal Jeanne. There are numerous Ryhalls, Ryhills, and in Durham is a Ryton which figured anciently as Ruyton, Rutune, and _Ruginton_: near Kingston is Raynes Park, and at Hackney, in the neighbourhood of the Seven Sisters and Kingsland Roads, is Wren's Park.

That the Candians colonised the North of Africa is generally supposed, whence it becomes likely that the marvellous excavations at _Rua_ were related to the worship of the serpentine _Rhea_: these are mentioned by Livingstone who wrote: "Tribes live in underground houses in Rua. Some excavations are said to be 30 miles long, and have running rills in them; a whole district can stand a siege in them. The 'writings'

therein, I have been told by some of the people, are drawings of animals and not letters, otherwise I should have gone to see them."[965]

The word grotesque admittedly originated from the fantastic designs found so frequently within grottos or grots, and if the natives of Rua could construct a _souterrain_ 30 miles in extent, I see no reason to doubt the accuracy of the tradition that the natives of Reigate had run a tunnel towards Rye which is within a few miles of St. Clement's Caves at Hastings. The _gate_ of Margate and Reigate means _opening_; _wry_ means awry or twisting, and we may probably find the original name of Reigate in the neighbouring place-name Wray Common.

The Snake grotto at Margate, which is situated almost below a small house named "Rosanna Lodge," is decorated throughout with a most marvellous and beautiful mosaic of sh.e.l.lwork, the like of which certainly exists nowhere else in Britain: the dominant notes of this decoration are roses or rosettes, and raisins or grapes; over the small altar in the oblong chamber, at the extremity, are rising the rays of the Sun. The sh.e.l.ls used as a groundwork for this decorative scheme were the yellow periwinkle now naturally grey with antiquity but which, when fresh, must, when illuminated, have produced an effect of golden and surpa.s.sing beauty. In the shrines of Candia large numbers of sea-sh.e.l.ls, artificially tinted in various colours, have come to light:[966] that the altar at the Cantian Margate grotto was constructed to hold a lamp or a candle cannot be doubted, in which connection one may connote a statement by "Morien" that "All sh.e.l.l grottos with a candle in it (_sic_) were a symbol of the cave of the sun near the margin of the ocean with the soul of the sun in it".[967] There is indeed little doubt that the snake trou under Rosanna Lodge was, like the grotto at St.

Sulpice le Donseil, dedicated to le Donseil or _donna sol_. At the mouth of the shrine is a figurine seated, of which, unfortunately, the head is missing, but the right hand is still holding a cup: in Fig. 44 _ante_, page 167, Reason is holding a similar cup into which is distilling _la rosee_, or the dew of Heaven--doubtless the same goblet as was said to be offered to mortals by the fairy Idunns; their earthly representatives, the Aeddons, may be a.s.sumed once to have dwelt in the Dane Park or at Addington Street, now leading to Dane Hill where the grotto remains.

We have connected the Cup of Reason with the mystic Cauldron of Keridwen, or "cauldron of four s.p.a.ces," and have noted among the recipe "the liquor that bees have collected _and resin_," to be prepared "when there is a calm dew falling": another Bard alludes to "the gold-encircled liquor contained in the golden cup," and I have little doubt that resin, rosin, or rosine was valued and venerated as being, like amber, the petrified tears of Apollo. I do not suggest that the Rosanna Lodge in the dene at Margate has any direct relation to the grotto of Reason beneath, but there is evidently a close connection with the small figurine holding a cup and the Lady Rosamond of Rosamond's Well at Woodstock. "There was," says Herbert, "a popular notion of an infernal maze extending from the bottom of Rosamond's Well": this labyrinth almost certainly once existed, for as late as 1718 there were to be seen by the pool at Woodstock the foundations of a very large building which were believed to be the remains of Rosamond's Labyrinth.[968]

The story of Fair Rosamond being compelled to swallow poison is precisely on a par with the monkish legend that St. George was "tortured by being forced to drink a poisoned cup," and how the Rosamond story originated is fairly obvious from the fact that on her alleged tombstone, "among other fine sculptures was engraven the figure of a cup. This, which perhaps at first was an accidental ornament (perhaps only the chalice), might in aftertimes suggest the notion that she was poisoned; at least this construction was put upon it when the stone came to be demolished after the nunnery was dissolved." The above is the opinion of an archaeologist who died in 1632, and it is in all probability sound: the actual site of Rosamond's Bower at Woodstock seems to have been known as G.o.dstone, and it was presumably the ancient Ked Stone that gave birth to the distorted legend. According to the Ballad of Fair Rosamond, that maiden was a ladye brighte, and most peerlesse was her beautye founde:--

Her crisped locks like threads of gold Appeared to each man's sighte, Her sparkling eyes like Orient pearls Did cast a heavenlye light.

The blood within her crystal cheekes Did such a colour drive As though the lillye and the rose For mastership did strive.

The ballad continues that the enamoured King--

At Woodstock builded such a bower The like was never seene, Most curiously that bower was built Of stone and timber strong An hundered and fifty doors[969]

Did to this bower belong, And they so cunninglye contrived With turnings round about, That none but with a clue of thread Could enter in or out.

According to Drayton, Rosamond's Bower consisted of vaults underground arched and walled with brick and stone: Stow in his _Annals_ quotes an obituary stone reading, _Hic jacet in tumba Rosa Mundi; non Rosa Munda, non redolet sed olet_, which may be Anglicised into, Here lies entombed a mundane Rosa not the Rose of the World; she is not redolent, but "foully doth she stinke". I am inclined, however, to believe that the traditional Rosamond was really and indeed the "cleane flower" and that the ignorant monks added calumny to their other perversions. History frigidly but very fortunately relates that "the tombstone of Rosamond Clifford was taken up at G.o.dstone and broken in pieces, and that upon it were interchangeable weavings drawn out and decked with roses red and green and the picture of the cup, out of which she drank the poison given her by the Queen, carved in stone".[970] At the Cornish village of Sancreed, _i.e._, San Kerid or St. Ked, engraved upon the famous nine foot cross is a similar cup or chalice, out of which rises a tapering fleur de lys: with the word _creed_ may be connoted the fact that the artist of Kirid or Crete, "with a true instinct for beauty, chose as his favourite flowers the lovely lily and iris, the wild gladiolus and crocus, all natives of the Mediterranean basin, and the last three, if not the lily, of his own soil".[971] Opinions differ as to whether the Sancreed lily is a spear head or a fleur de lys: they also differ as to the precise meaning of the cup: in the opinion of Mr. J. Harris Stone, "the vessel or chalice is roughly heart-shaped--that is the main body of it--and the head of the so-called spear is distinctly divided and has cross-pieces which, being recurved, doubtless gave rise to the lily theory of the origin. Now there was an ancient Egyptian cross of the Latin variety rising out of a heart like the mediaeval emblem of _Cor in Cruce, Crux in Corde_, and this is irresistibly brought to my mind when looking at this Sancreed cross. The emblem I am alluding to is that of Goodness."[972]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 476.--The famous Sancreed Cross. From _The Cornish Riviera_ (Stone, J. Harris).

[_To face page 816._]

With this theory I am in sympathy, and it may be reasonably suggested that the alleged "tombstone" of Rosamond at G.o.dstone was actually a carved megalith a.n.a.logous to that at Sancreed: the carving on the latter may be comparatively modern, but in all probability the rock itself is the original _crude_ Creed stone, Ked stone, or Good stone, touched up and partly recut.

The Rose is the familiar emblem of St. George or Oros who, according to some accounts, was the son of Princess Sophia the Wise: his legs were of ma.s.sive silver up to the knees, and his arms were of pure gold from the elbows to the wrists. According to other traditions George was born at Coventry, and "is reported to have been marked at his birth (forsooth!) with a red b.l.o.o.d.y cross on his right hand".[973] The first adventure of St. George was the salvation of a fair and precious princess named Sabra from a foul dragon who venomed the people with his breath and this adventure is located at Silene: with this Silene may be connoted the innocent Una, who in some accounts occupies the position of the Lady Sabra: Sabra is suggestive of Sabrina, the little G.o.ddess of the river Severn, whose name we have connected with the soft, gentle, pleasing and propitious Brina: that St. Burinea, the pretty daughter of Angus whose memory is sanctified as the patron of St Burian's or Eglos_berrie_, was originally _pure_ Una is more likely than that this alleged Maiden was an historic personage of the sixth century.

The series of excavations at Reigate, of which the princ.i.p.al is the Baron's Cave, extends to a Red Cross Inn which marks the vicinity where stood the chapel of the Holy Cross, belonging to the Priory of the Virgin and Holy Cross: about a mile from Reigate in a little brook (the Bourne Water) used to stand a great stone stained red by the victims of a water Kelpie, who had his lair beneath. The Kelpie was exorcised by a vicar of Buckland: nevertheless the stone remained an object of awe to the people, which, says Mr. Ogilvie, "was regarded as a vile superst.i.tion by a late vicar who had the stone removed to demonstrate to his parishioners that there was nothing under it, but some of the old folks remember the story yet".[974] Part of Reigate is known as Red Hill, obviously from the red sandstone which abounds there: at Bristol or Bristowe, _i.e_., the Stockade of Bri, the most famous church is that of St. Mary Redcliffe: the Mew stone off Devonshire is red cliff, the inscriptions at Sinai are always on red stone, and there is little doubt that red rock was particularly esteemed to be the symbol of gracious Aine, the Love Mother. In Domesday the Redcliff of St. Mary appears as Redeclive,[975] and may thus also have meant Rood Cleeve: in London we have a Ratcliffe Highway, and in Kensington a Redcliffe Square.

In what is now the Green Park, Mayfair, used to be a Rosamond's Pool: with Rosamond, the Rose of the World, and Rosanna--whose name may be connoted with the inscription RU NHO or QUEEN NEW,[976] which occurs on one of the Sancreed crosses may also be connoted St. Rosalie of Sicily or Hypereia, whose grotto and fete still excite "an almost incredible enthusiasm". The legend of St. Rosalie represents her as--

Something much too fair and good For human nature's daily food,

and her mysterious evanishment is accounted for by the tradition that, disgusted by the frivolous life and empty gaiety of courts, she voluntarily retired herself into an obscure cavern, where her remains are now supposed to be buried under wreaths of imperishable roses which are deposited by angels.[977]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 477.--Iberian. From Akerman]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 478.--Kerris Roundago. From _Antiquities of Cornwall_.]

According to ecclesiastical legend the beloved St. Rosalie--whose fete is celebrated in Sicily on the day of St. Januarius--was the daughter of a certain Tancred, the first King of Sicily: it is not unlikely that this Tancred was Don Cred or Lord Cred, a relation of the Cornish Sancreed.[978] Sancreed is supposed to derive its name as being "an abstract dedication to the Holy Creed": but it is alternatively known as San_cris_: the Cretans, or Kiridians, or Eteocretes claimed Cres the Son of Jupiter by the nymph Idea as their first King, and they traced their descent from Cres. In a subsequent volume we shall consider this Cres at greater length, and shall track him to India in the form of Kristna, to whose grace the subterranean cross at Madura seems to have been dedicated. In Celtic _cris_ meant pure, holy; _crios_ meant the Sun:[979] the princ.i.p.al site of Apollo-worship was the island of Crissa; in England Christy[980] is a familiar surname, and I am convinced that the Christ tradition in Britain owed little to the Roman mission of Augustine, but was of far older origin. We may perhaps trace the original transit of Cris to Sancris at Carissa, now Carixa, in Spain: among the numerous coins of this district some as figured herewith bear the legend Caris, some bear the head of the young Hercules, others a female head.[981] As in cla.s.sic Latin _C_ was invariably p.r.o.nounced hard, it is probable that the maiden Caris was Ceres, and that the Cretan pair are responsible for Kerris Roundago, an egg-like monument near Sancreed; also for Cresswell in Durham where is the famous Robin Hood Cave:[982] one may further trace Caris at Carisbrook near Ryde, at the diminutive Criss Brook near Maidstone, and at the streamlet Crise in Santerre.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 479.--Christ, with a Nimbus Resembling a Flat Cap, or Casquette. From a Carving on Wood in the Stalls of Notre Dame d'Amiens. XVI. Cent. From Didron.]

The town of Carissa, now Carixa, may be connoted with the synonymous _cross_ or _crux_: the Cornish for _cross_ was _crows_, and at Crows-an-Rha, near St. Buryans, there is a celebrated wayside cross or crouch.[983] That Caris was _carus_ or _dear_, and that he was the inception of _charis_ or charity will also eventually be seen: I have elsewhere suggested that _charis_, or _love_, was originally 'k Eros or Great Eros; in the Christian emblem here ill.u.s.trated Christ is a.s.sociated with a rose cross, which is fabricated from the four hearts, and thus const.i.tutes the _Rosa mystica_. At Kerris Roundago are four megaliths.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 480.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 481.]

The Sancris cup or chalice[984] might legitimately be termed a _cruse_: Christ's first miracle was the conversion of a cruse or can of water into wine, and the site of this miracle was Cana. The _souterrain_ of St. Sulpice le Donseil is situated in a district known as La Creuse, and the solitary pillar in the heart of this grotto, as also that in the Margate grotto, and that in the _souterrain_ at Tinwell, were probably symbols of what the British Bard describes as "Christ the concealed pillar of peace". The Celtic Christs here reproduced from an article in _The Open Court_ by Dr. Paul Carus are probably developments of ancient Prestons or Jupiter Stones: the connection between these crude Christs and Cres, the Son of Jupiter, by the nymph Idea, is probably continuous and unbroken.

A cruse corresponds symbolically to a cauldron or a cup: according to Herbert, "The Cauldron of the Bards was connected by them with Mary in that particular capacity which forms the portentous feature in St.

Brighid (_viz._, her _being Christ's Mother_) to the verge of identification. The reason was that divine objects considered by them essentially, and, as it were, sacramentally as being Christ, were prepared within and produced out of that sacred and womb-like receptacle." He then quotes two bardic extracts to the following effect:--

(1) The One Man and our Cauldron, And our deed, and our word, With the bright pure Mary daughter of Anne.

(2) Christ, Creator, Emperor and our Mead, Christ the Concealed, pillar of peace, Christ, Son of Mary and of my Cauldron, a pure pedigree![985]

The likelihood is that the solitary great Jasper stone in the roof of the four-columned hall at Edrei, the Capital of King Og, was similarly a symbol of the ideal Corner Stone or the Concealed Pillar of Peace.

At Mykenae the celebrated t.i.tanic gateway is ornamented by two lions guarding or supporting a solitary pillar or numeral 1: at other times a figure of the Magna Mater takes the place of this ONE, and it is probable that the Io of Mykenae was originally My Kene, _i.e._, Mother Queen or, more radically, Mother Great One. That Io was represented by the horns or crescent moon is obvious from the innumerable idols in the form of cows horns found at Mykenae: we have already connected Cain, Cann, and Kenna with the moon or _choon_, Latin _luna_, French _lune_, otherwise Cynthia or Diana.

Not only was Crete or Candia essentially an island of caves, but the district of the British Cantii seems if anything to have been even more riddled: _canteen_ is a generic term for cellar or cool cave, and the origin of this word is not known. In Mexico _cun_ meant _pudenda muliebris_, in London _cunny_ and _c.u.n.t_ carry the same meaning, and with _cenote_, the Mexican for _cistern_, may be connoted our English rivers Kennet and Kent. Dr. Guest refers to the cauldron of _Cend_wen (Keridwen): according to Davidson the magic cup of the Cabiri corresponded to the _Condy_ Cup[986] of the Gnostics which is the same as that in which _Guion_ (Mercury) made his beverage--the beverage of knowledge or divine Kenning, the philosophical Mercury of the mediaeval alchemists. Sometimes the Egg or Cup was encircled by two serpents said to represent the Igneous and Humid principles of Nature in conjunction: it is not improbable that the spirals found alike at Mykenae and New Grange represented this dual coil, spire, or maze of Life, and the Coil Dance or the Snail's Creep, which was until recently executed in Cornwall, may have borne some relation to this notion.[987]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 482.--Entry to New Grange.]

In the neighbourhood of Totnes and the river Teign is the world-famous Kent's Cavern,[988] whence has emanated evidence that man was living in what is now Devonshire, contemporaneously with the mammoth, the cave-lion, the woolly rhinoceros, the bison, and other animals which are now extinct. Kent's Cavern is in a hill, _dun_, _tun_, or what the Bretons term a _torgen_, and the _torgen_ containing Kent's Cavern is situated in the Manor of Torwood in the parish of Tor, whence Torbay, Torquay, etc.: in Cornwall _tor_, or _tur_, meant belly, and _tor_ may be equated with _door_, Latin _janua_.

The entrance to Kent's Hole is in the face of a cliff, and the people mentioned in the Old Testament as the _Kenites_ were evidently cliff-cave dwellers, for it is related that Balaam looked on the Kenites and said: "Strong is thy dwelling-place, and thou puttest thy nest in a rock":[989] Kent is the same word as _kind_, meaning _genus_; also as _kind_, meaning affectionate and well-disposed, and it is worthy of note that the cave-dwelling Kenites of the Old Testament were evidently a kindly people for the record reads: "Saul said unto the Kenites 'Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for _ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up_ out of Egypt'.[990] So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites."[991]

There is evidence that Thor's Cavern in Derbyshire was inhabited by prehistoric troglodites; the most high summit in the Peak District is named Kinder Scout, and in the southern side of Kinder Scout is the celebrated Kinderton Cavern: at Kinver in Staffordshire there are prehistoric caves still being lived in by modern troglodites, and at Cantal in France there are similar cave dwellings.

In Derbyshire are the celebrated Canholes and at Cannes, by Maestricht, is an entrance to the amazing grottos of St. Peter: this subterranean quarry is described as a succession of long horizontal galleries supported by an immense number of square pillars whose height is generally from 10 to 20 feet: the number of these vast subterranean alleys which cross each other and are prolonged in every direction cannot be estimated at less than 2000, the direct line from the built up entrance near Fort St. Peter to the exit on the side of the Meuse measures one league and a half. That these works were at one time in the occupation of the Romans, is proved by Latin inscriptions, but evidently the Romans did not do the building for, "underneath these inscriptions you can trace some ill-formed characters traditionally attributed to the Huns; which is ridiculous since the Huns did not build, and therefore had no need of quarries, and moreover were ignorant of the art of writing".[992] In view of the fact that the gigantic cavern farther up the Meuse, is ent.i.tled the Han Grotto, this tradition of Hun "writing"

is not necessarily ridiculous: the Huns in question, whoever they were, probably were the people who built the Hun's beds and were worshippers of "the One Man and our Cauldron".

The Peter Mount now under consideration does not appear to have been such a Peter's Purgatory as found on "the island of the tribe of Oin": on the contrary its galleries, based on pillars about 16 feet high, are traced on a regular plan. These cross one another at right angles, and their most noticeable feature is the extreme regularity and perfect level of the roof which is enriched with a kind of cornice--a cornice of the severest possible outline, but with a n.o.ble simplicity which gives to the galleries a certain monumental aspect.

Within the criss-cross bowels of the Peter Mount is another very remarkable curiosity--a small basin filled with water called Springbronnen ("source of living water") which is incessantly renewed, thanks to the drops falling from the upper portion of a fossil tree fixed in the roof.[993] The modern showman does not vaunt among his attractions a "source of living water," and we may reasonably a.s.sume that this appellation belongs to an older and more poetic age: the Hebrew for "fountain of living waters" is _ain_, a word to be connoted with Hun, Han, and St. Anne of the Catacombs: St. Anne is the patron of all springs and wells; at Sancreed is a St. Eunys Well, and the word _aune_ or _avon_ was a generic term for any _gentle flowing_ stream.

It is reasonable to equate St. Anne of the Catacombs with "Pope Joan" of Engelheim, and it is probable that the original Vatican was the terrestrial seat of the celestial Peter, the Fate Queen or Fate King: with St. Peter's Mount may be connoted the Arabian City of Petra which is entirely hewn out of the solid rock. The connection between the Irish Owen, or Oin, and the Patrick of Patrick's Purgatory has already been considered, and that Ja.n.u.s or Janicula was the St. Peter of the Vatican is very generally admitted: we shall subsequently consider Ja.n.u.s in connection with St. Januarius or January; at Naples there are upwards of two miles of catacombs, and the Capo di _Chino_, under which these occur, may probably be identified with the St. Januarius whose name they bear.