Archaic England Part 7

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 11.--From _The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_ (Dennis, G.).]

Fig. 11 shows the G.o.ddess of Etruria holding her symbolic _columba_, in Fig. 10, the same emblem worshipped in a.s.syria is being carried with pomp and circ.u.mstance, and Fig. 12 shows the columba, _tur_tle, or _tor_tora, being similarly honoured in Western Europe.

"Throughout the aegean," says Prof. Burrows, "we see traces of the Minoan Empire, in one of the most permanent of all traditions the survival of a place-name; the word Minoa, wherever it occurs, must mark a fortress or trading station of the Great King as surely as the Alexandrias, or Antiochs, or Caesareas of later days."[110]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 12.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]

If a modern place-name be valid evidence in the Mediterranean, the place-name Minnis Bay between Margate and Reculver has presumably a similar weight, particularly as a few miles further round the coast is a so-called Minnis Rock. Here is an ancient hermitage consisting of a three-mouthed cave measuring precisely 9 feet deep. King Minos of Crete held his kingship on a tenure of nine years, and the number nine is peculiarly identified with the idea of _Troy_, _true_, or permanent. In Hebrew, truth and nine are represented by one and the same term, because nine is so extraordinarily true or constant to itself, that 9 9 = 81 = 9, 9 2 = 18 = 9, and so from nine times one to nine times nine.

In Crete there were no temples, but worship was conducted around small caves situated in the side of hills. This is precisely the position of Minnis Rock which is situated in a valley running up from Hastings to St. Helens. "It is," says the local guide-book, "one of the few rock cells in the country, and though almost choked with earth and rubbish is still worth inspection. The three square-headed openings were the entrances to the separate chambers of the cave, which went back 9 feet into the rock. It is surmised that the Hermitage was used as a chapel or oratory, dedicated probably to St. Mary, or some other saint beloved of those who go down to the sea in ships. Many such chapels existed in olden times within sight and sound of the waves, and pa.s.sing vessels lowered their topsails to them in reverence. Torquay, Broadstairs, Dover, Reculver, Whitby, and other places in England had similar oratories."[111]

The Etruscans or Tyrrhenians believed in a Hierarchy of Nine Great G.o.ds.

Minos of Crete was not merely one of a line of mighty sea-kings, but Greek mythology a.s.serts that Minos was the son of Zeus, _i.e._, Jonn or Tarchon. In a subsequent chapter we shall consider him at length, but meanwhile it may be noted that it is not unlikely that the whole of Eastern Kent was known as Minster, Minosterre, or Minos Terra. There are several Minsters in Sheppey, and another Minster together with a Mansion near Margate. The generic terms _minster_ and _monastery_ may be a.s.signed to the ministers of Minos originally congregating in cells or _trous_ or in groves under and around the oaks or other similarly sacred trees.

Troy, or as Homer terms it, "sacred Troy," was pre-eminently a city of _towers_, _tourelles_, _turrets_, or _tors_, and in the West of England _tor_, as in Torquay, Torbay, etc., is ubiquitous. Tory Island, off the coast of Ireland, is said to have derived its t.i.tle from the numerous torrs upon it. The same word is prevalent throughout Britain, but there are no torrs at Sindry Island in Ess.e.x nor at _Tre_port in the English Channel. In the Semitic languages _tzur_, meaning rock, is generally supposed to be the root of Tyre, and in the Near East tor is a generic term for mountain chain.

Speaking of princely Tyre, Ezekiel says, "Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the mult.i.tude of all kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy fairs".[112] Tarshish is usually considered to have been the western coast of the Mediterranean afterwards called Gaul, in later times Spain and France, and undoubtedly the men of Tarshish, Tyre, Troy, or Etruria, toured, trekked, travelled, tramped, traded, and trafficked far and wide. Etrurian vases have been disinterred in Tartary and also, it is said, from tumuli in Norway, yet as Mrs. Hamilton Gray observes: "We believe that they were never made in those countries, and that the Tartars and Norwegians never worshipped, and possibly never even knew the names of the G.o.ds and heroes thereon represented".[113] These vases more often than not depicted incidents of Trojan legend, and of that famous Troy whose exploits in the words of Virgil "fired the world".

The Tyrians conceived their chief G.o.d Hercules or Harokel as a bagman or merchant, and in Phoenician the word _harokel_ meant merchant. Our own term _merchant_[114] is etymologically akin to Mercury, the G.o.d of merchants, and as _mere_ among other meanings meant pure or true, it is not unlikely that _merchant_ was once the intellectual equivalent to Tarchon or True John. In the West of England the adjective "jonnock"

still means true, straightforward, generous, unselfish, and companionable.[115] The adjective _chein_ still used by Jews means very much the same as _jonnock_, with, however, the additional sense of the French _chic_. Jack is the diminutive endearing form of John, and the Etruscan Joun is said to have been the Hebrew _Jack_ or _Iou_.[116] Joun or his consort Jana was in all probability the divinity of the Etruscan river Chiana, and Giant or Giantess Albion the divinity of the neighbouring river Albinia.

Close to Market Jew or Marazion is a village called Chyandour, where is a well named Gulfwell, meaning, we are told, the "Hebrew brook". It is still a matter of dispute whether the Jews shipped their tin from _Market_ Jew or overland from Thanet (_? Margate_[117]). From the word _tariff_, a Spanish and Arabian term connected with Tarifa, the southernmost town in Spain, it would seem that the dour and daring traders who carried on their traffic with Market Jew and Margate toured with a _tarifa_ or price-list. Doubtless the tariff charges were commensurate with the risks involved, for only too frequently, as is stated in the Psalms, "the ships of Tarshish were broken with an east wind". To _try_ a boat means to-day to bring her head to the gale, and in Somersetshire small ships are still ent.i.tled _trows_, a word evidently akin to _trough_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 13]

The Etruscans or Tyrrhenians represented Hercules the Great Merchant in a kilt, and this seemingly was a _tar_tan or French _tiretaine_.

Speaking of certain figures unearthed at Tarchon, Dennis remarks: "The drapery of the couches is particularly worthy of notice, being marked with stripes of different colours crossing each other as in the Highland plaid; and those who are learned in tartanology might possibly p.r.o.nounce which of the Macs has the strongest claim to an Etruscan origin".[118]

Fig. 13 reproduced from Mrs. Murray Aynsley's _Symbolism of the East and West_, is taken from a fragment of pottery found in what is believed to be a pre-Etruscan cemetery at Bologna in Italy. It might be a portrait of Hendry or Sander bonneted in his glengarry, armed with a target, and trekking off with two terriers. _Terre_, or _terra firma_, the earth, is the same as _true_, meaning firm or constant. According to Skeat the present form of the verb _tarry_ is due to _tarien_, _terien_, "to irritate, provoke, worry, vex; hence to hinder, delay". Having "tarried"

an order there was, it may be, still further "tarrying" on presentation of the tariff, and it may be a.s.sumed that the author of _The Odyssey_ had been personally "tarried" for he refers feelingly to--

A shrewd Phoenician, in all fraud adept, Hungry, and who had num'rous harm'd before, By whom I also was cajoled, and lured T' attend him to Phoenicia, where his house And his possessions lay; there I abode A year complete his inmate; but (the days And months accomplish'd of the rolling year And the new seasons ent'ring on their course) To Lybia then, on board his bark, by wiles He won me with him, partner of the freight Profess'd, but destin'd secretly to sale, That he might profit largely by my price.

Not unsuspicious, yet constrain'd to go, With this man I embark'd.

The hero of _The Odyssey_ was, self-confessedly, no tyro, but was himself "in artifice well framed and in imposture various". Admittedly he "utter'd prompt not truth, but figments to truth opposite, for guile in him stood never at a pause".[119] Obviously he was a sailor to the bone, and when he says, "I boast me sprung from ancestry renowned in s.p.a.cious Crete," with the additional statement that at one time he was an Admiral of Crete, it is possible we are in face of a fragment of genuine autobiography.

Doubtless, as our traditions state, the first adventurers on the sea who reached these sh.o.r.es were oft-times _terrors_ and "the dread of Europe". To the Tyrrhenes may probably be a.s.signed the generic term _tyrranos_ which, however, meant primarily not a tyrant as now understood, but an autocrat or lord. "Clad in their long dress who could equal them?" wondered a British Bard, and it may be that the long robes figured herewith are the very moulds of form which created such a powerful impression among our predecessors. The word _attire_ points to the possibility that at one time Tyre set the fashions for the latest _tire_, and like modern Paris fired the contemporary world of dress. In connection with the word _dress_, which is radically _dre_, it is noticeable that the Britons were conspicuously dressy men; indeed, Sir John Rhys, discussing the term Briton, Breton, or Brython, seriously maintains that "the only Celtic words which can be of the same origin are the Welsh vocables _brethyn_, 'cloth and its congeners,' in which case the Britons may have styled themselves 'cloth-clad,' in contradistinction to the skin-wearing neolithic nation that preceded them".

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 14.--From _The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria_ (Dennis, G.).]

We know from Homer that the Trojans had a pretty taste in tweeds, and that their waistcoats in particular were subjects of favourable remark:--

The enter'd each a bath, and by the hands Of maidens laved, and oil'd, and cloath'd again With s.h.a.ggy mantles, and _resplendent vests_, Sat both enthroned at Menelaus' side.

Time does not alter the radical characteristics of any race, and the outstanding qualities of the Britons--the traditional "remnant of Droia," are still very much to-day what they were in the time of Diodorus the Sicilian. "They are," said he, "of much sincerity and integrity far from the craft and knavery of men among us."[120] So great was the Trojan reputation for law and order that the Greeks who owed their code of laws to Crete paid Minos the supreme compliment of making him the Lord Chief Justice of the World of Shades. It will probably prove that the _droits_, laws, rights, or dues of "Dieu et mon Droit"

are traceable to those of Troy, as also perhaps the _Triads_ or triple axioms of the Drui or Druids. To put a man on trial was originally perhaps to _try_ or test him at the sacred _tree_: the triadic form of ancient maxims had doubtless some relation to the Persian Trinity of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and these three virtues were symbolised by the trefoil or shamrock. The Hebrew for law is _tora_ or _thorah_, the Hill of _Tara_ in Ireland (middle-Irish, Temair), is popularly a.s.sociated with the trefoil symbol of the _Tri_nity (Welsh, _Dri_ndod); that _three_, _trois_, or _drei_ was a.s.sociated by the game of Troy is obvious from Virgil's reference to the "_triple_ groups dividing," and that the trefoil was venerated in Crete would appear from Mr. Mackenzie's statement: "Of special interest, too, is a clover-leaf ornament--an antic.i.p.ation of the Irish devotion to the shamrock".[121]

The primitive _trysts_ were probably at the old Trysting Trees; _trust_ means reliability and credit and _truce_ means peace. Among rude nations the men who carried with them Peace, Law, and Order must naturally have been deemed supermen or G.o.ds, hence perhaps why in Scandinavia _Tyr_ meant _G.o.d_. Our Thursday is from Thor--a divinity who was sometimes a.s.signed _three_ eyes--and our Tuesday from Tyr, who was supposed to be the Scandinavian Joupiter. The plural form of Tyr meant "glorious ones,"

and according to _The Edda_, not only were the Danes and Scandinavians wanderers from Troy or Tyrkland, but Asgard itself--the Scandinavian Paradise--preserved the old usages and customs brought from Troy.[122]

Homer by sidelights indicates that the Trojans were nice in their domestic arrangements, took fastidious care of their attire, and were confirmed lovers of fresh air. Thus Telemachus--

Open'd his broad chamber-valves, and sat On his couch-side: then putting off his vest Of softest texture, placed it in the hands Of the attendant dame discrete, who first Folding it with exactest care, beside His bed suspended it, and, going forth, Drew by its silver ring the portal close, And fasten'd it with bolt and brace secure.

There lay Telemachus, on finest wool Reposed, contemplating all night his course Prescribed by Pallas to the Pylian sh.o.r.e.[123]

The word "Trojan" was used in Shakespeare's time to mean a boon companion, a jonnock _tyro_, or a plucky fellow, and it is worthy of note that the trusty lads of Homer's time pa.s.sed, as does the Briton of to-day, their liquor scrupulously from left to right:--

So spake Jove's daughter; they obedient heard.

The heralds, then, pour'd water on their hands, And the attendant youths, filling the cups, Served them from left to right.[124]

One of the most remarkable marvels of Cretan archaeology is the up-to-date drainage system, and that the Tyrrhenians were equally particular is recorded apparently for all time by the t.i.tanic evidence of the still-standing Cloaca Maxima or great main drain of Rome.

The word Troy carries inevitable memories of Helen whose beauty was such utter perfection that "the Helen of one's Troy" has become a phrase. The name Helen is philologically allied to Helios the Sun, and is generally interpreted to mean _torch_, _shiner_, or _giver of light_. The Greeks called themselves h.e.l.lenes, after h.e.l.len their eponymous divine leader.

Oriental nations termed the h.e.l.lenes, Iones, and there is little doubt that Helen and Ione were originally synonymous. In Etruria was the city of h.e.l.lana, and we shall meet St. Helen in Great Britain, from Helenium, the old name for Land's End, to Great St. Helen's and Little St. Helen's in London. St. Helen, the lone daughter of Old King Cole, the merry old soul, figures in Wales and c.u.mberland as Elen the Leader of Hosts, whose memory is preserved not only in Elaine the Lily Maid, but also in connection with ancient roadways such as Elen's Road, and Elen's Causeway. These, suggests Squire, "seem to show that the paths on which armies marched were ascribed or dedicated to her".[125] Helen's name was seemingly bestowed not only on our rivers, such as the Elen, Alone, or Alne and Allan Water, but it likewise seems to have become the generic term _lan_ meaning _holy enclosure_, entering into innumerable place-names--London[126] among others--which will be discussed in course. The character in which Helen was esteemed may be judged from the Welsh adjective _alain_, which means "exceeding fair, lovely, bright". Not only in Wales but also in Ireland _Allen_ seems to have been synonymous with beauty, whence the authorities translate the place-name Derryallen to mean _oakwood beautiful_. In Arthurian romance Elaine or Elen figures as the sister of Sir Tirre,[127] as the builder of the highest fortress in Arvon, and as sitting _lone_ or _alone_ in a sea-girt castle on a throne of ruddy gold. It is said that so transcendent was her beauty that it would be no more easy to look into her face than to gaze at the sun when his rays were most irresistible.

It would thus seem that Howel, said to be Elen's brother, may be equated with _hoel_, the Celtic for _Sun_, and that Elen herself, like Diana, was the glorious twin-sister of Helios or Apollo.

The princ.i.p.al relics of St. Helena are possessed by the city of _Treves_, and at _Therapne_ in Greece there was a special sanctuary of Helena the divinely fair daughter of Zeus and a swan. "Troy weight," so called, originated, it is supposed, from the droits or standards of a famous fair held at Troyes in France.

From time immemorial Crete seems to have been a.s.sociated with the symbol of the cross. This pre-Christian Cross of Crete was the equi-limbed Cross of St. John (Irish Shane) which form is also the Red Cross of St.

George. In earlier times this cross was termed the Jack--a familiar form of "the John"--and it was also ent.i.tled "the Christopher". In India the cave temple of Madura, where Kristna[128]-worship is predominant, is cruciform, and the svastika or solar cross, a variant of John's Cross, is in one of its Indian forms known as the _Jaina_ cross and the talisman of the _Jaina_ kings.

"It must never be forgotten," said a prince of the Anglican Church preaching recently at St. Paul's, "that the cross was primarily an instrument of torture." Among a certain school, who in Apostolic phrase deem themselves of all men most miserable, this conception is firmly fixed and seemingly it ever has been. It was Calvinistic doctrine that all pain and suffering came from the All Father, and that all pleasure and joy originated from the Evil One. Thus to Christianity the Latin Cross has been the symbol of misery and the concrete conception of Christian Ideal is the agonised Face of the Old Masters. This dismal verity was exemplified afresh by the melancholy poster which was recently scattered broadcast over England by the National Mission engineered by the Bishop of London. Even the Mexican cross, consisting of four hearts _vis a vis_ (Fig. D)--a form which occurs sometimes in Europe--has been daubed with imaginary gore, and with reference to this inoffensive emblem the author of _The Cross: Heathen and Christian_ complacently writes: "The lady to whom I have just alluded considers (and I think with great propriety) that the circle of crosses formed by groups of four hearts represents hearts sacrificed to the G.o.ds; the dot on each signifying blood".[2]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A. EARLY CELTIC ISLE OF MAN AND IRELAND EARLY CELTIC BRITTANY CALLERNISH, HEBRIDES, restored (380 feet in length.)

B. ETRURIA B.

C. CRETE

D. MEXICO

E. MEXICO

FIG. 15.--From _The Cross: Heathen and Christian_ (Brock, M.).]

But we shall meet with these same dots on prehistoric British cross-coins as also on the "spindle whorls" of the most ancient Troy, and it will be seen that, apart from the word _svastika_ which intrinsically means _it is well_, the svastika or pre-Christian cross was an emblem not of Melancholia but Joy. The English word _joy_ and the French word _jeu_ have, I think, been derived from _Jou_, just as jovial is traceable from Jove, and _joc_und to Jock or Jack. Pagans were the children of Joy and worshipped with a joyful noise before the Lord, and with sacred _jeux_ or games. The word _cross_ is in all probability the same as _charis_ which means _charity_, and akin to _chrestos_ which means good. Cres, the son of Jou, after whom the Cretans were termed Eteocretes, is an elementary form of Christopher, and the burning cross with which the legends state Christopher was tortured by being branded on the brow was more probably the Christofer or Jack--the Fiery Cross, with which irresistible talisman the clansmen of Albany were summoned together. Similarly the solar wheel of Katherine or The Pure One was supposed by the mediaeval monks--whose minds were permanently bent on melancholia and torture--to have been some frightful implement of knives and spikes by which Kate or Kitt, the Pure Maiden, was torn into pieces.

It will be seen in due course that almost every single "torture" sign of the supposed martyrs was in reality the pre-Christian emblem of some pagan divinity whence the saintly legends were ignorantly and mistakenly evolved.

When the Saxon monks came into power, in the manner characteristic of their race, they "tarried" the old British monasteries and sacred mounds, bringing to light many curious and extraordinary things. At St.

Albans they overthrew and filled up all the subterranean crypts of the ancient city as well as certain labyrinthine pa.s.sages which extended even under the bed of the river. The most world-famous labyrinth was that at Gnossus which has not yet been uncovered, but every Etrurian place of any import had its accompanying catacombs, and in the chapter on "Dene holes" we shall direct attention to corresponding labyrinths which remain intact in England even to-day.

When pillaging at St. Albans the Saxons found not only anchors, oars, and parts of ships, imputing that St. Albans was once a port, but they also uncovered the foundations of "a vast palace". "Here," says Wright,[129] "they found a hollow in the wall like a cupboard in which were a number of books and rolls, which were written in ancient characters and language that could only be read by one learned monk named Unwona. He declared that they were written in the ancient British language, that they contained 'the invocations and rites of the idolatrous citizens of Waertamceaster,' with the exception of one which contained the authentic life of St. Albans." And as the Abbot before mentioned "diligently turned up the earth" where the ruins of Verulamium appeared, he found many other interesting things--pots and amphoras elegantly formed of pottery turned on the lathe, gla.s.s vessels, ruins of temples, altars overturned, idols, and various kinds of coins.

Many of the jewels and idols then uncovered remained long in the possession of the Abbey, and are scheduled in the Ecclesiastical inventories together with a memorandum of the human weaknesses against which each object was supposed to possess a talismanic value. Thus Pegasus or Bellerophon is noted as food for warriors, giving them boldness and swiftness in flight; Andromeda as affording power of conciliating love between man and woman; Hercules slaying a lion, as a singular defence to combatants. The figure of Mercury on a gem rendered the possessor wise and persuasive; a dog and a lion on the same stone was a sovereign remedy against dropsy and the pestilence; and so on and so forth.

"I am convinced," says Wright, "that a large portion of the reliques of saints shown in the Middle Ages, were taken from the barrows or graves of the early population of the countries in which they were shown. It was well understood that those mounds were of a sepulchral character, and there were probably few of them which had not a legend attached.

When the earlier Christian missionaries and the later monks of Western Europe wished to consecrate a site their imagination easily converted the tenant of the lonely mound into a primitive saint--the tumulus was ransacked and the bones were found--and the monastery or even a cathedral was erected over the site which had been consecrated by the mystics rites of an earlier age."[130] After purification by a special form of exorcism the pagan pictures were accepted into Christian service, the designs being construed into Christian doctrines far from the purpose of the things themselves.