Archaic England

In an earlier chapter we connected Iupiter or Jupiter with Aubrey or Oberon, and that this roving Emperor of Phairie Land was familiar to the people of ancient Berks.h.i.+re is implied not only by a river in that county termed the Auborn, but also by adjacent place-names such as Aberfield, Burfield, Purley, and Bray. Skeat connotes Bray (by Maidenhead) with "Old English _braw_, Mercian _breg_, an eyebrow," but what sensible or likely connection is supposed to exist between the town of Bray and an eyebrow I am unable to surmise: we have, however, considered the prehistoric "b.u.t.terfly" or eyebrows, and it is not impossible that Bray was identified with this mysterious Epeur (Cupid) or Amoretto. The claims to ubiquity and antiquity put by the British poet into the mouth of Taliesin or _Radiant Brow_--the mystic child of Nine const.i.tuents[766]--is paralleled by the claims of Irish Ameurgin, likewise by the claims of Solomonic "Wisdom," and there is little doubt that the symbolic forms of the "Teacher to all Intelligences" are beyond all computation.

That Berks.h.i.+re, the s.h.i.+re of the White Horse, was a seat of beroc or El Borak the White Horse is further implied by the name Berks.h.i.+re: according to Camden this originated "some say from Beroc, a certain wood where box grew in great plenty"; according to others from a disbarked oak [_i.e._, a _bare oak_!] to which when the state was in more than ordinary danger the inhabitants were wont to resort in ancient times to consult about their public affairs".[767] Overlooking Brockley in Kent is an Oak of Honor Hill, and probably around that ancient and possibly bare Oak the natives of old Brockley or Brock Meadow met in many a consultation.[768] At Coventry is Berkswell: Berkeleys are numerous, and that these sites were _abris_ or sanctuaries is implied by the official definition of Great Berkhamstead, _i.e._, "_Sheltered, home place, or fortified farm_".

At St. Breock in Cornwall there is a pair of Longstones, one measuring 12 feet 4 inches, the other 8 feet, and in all probability at some time or other these pierres or petras were symbols of the phairy Pair who were the Parents and Protectors of the district. At St. Columb in Cornwall there is a Longstone known as "The Old Man": now measuring 7 feet 6 inches, in all probability this stone was originally 8 feet high; it was also "once apparently surrounded by a small circle".

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 419.--British. From Akerman.]

In the British coin here ill.u.s.trated the Old Man jogging along with a club is probably CUN the Great One, or the Aged One. The brow of Honor Oak ridge is known as Canonbie Lea, which may be resolved into the "meadow of the abode of King On": from this commanding height one may contemplate all London lying in the valley; facing it are the highlands of Cuneburn, Kenwood, Caenwood, and St. John's Wood. London stone is situated in what is now termed Cannon Street--a supposed corruption of Candlewick Street: the greater probability is that the name is connected with the ancient Kenning or Watch Tower, known as a _burkenning_, which once occupied the site now marked by Tower Royal in Cannon Street: the ancient Cenyng Street by Mikelgate at York, or Eborac.u.m--a city attributed to a King Ebrauc who will probably prove to be identical with Saint Breock--marked in all likelihood the site of a similar broch, burgkenning, barbican, or watch tower. One may account for ancient Candlewick by the supposition that this district was once occupied by a candle factory, or that it was the property of a supposit.i.tious Kendal, who was identical with the Brook, Brick, or Broken of the neighbouring Brook's wharf, Brickhill, and Broken wharf. At Kendal in Westmorland, situated on the river Can or Kent, around which we find Barnside, the river Burrow or Borrow, and Preston Hall, we find also a Birbeck, and the memories of a Lord Parr: this district was supposedly the home of the Concanni. The present site of Highbury Barn Tavern by Canonbury (London) was once occupied by a "camp" in what was known as Little St.

John's Wood,[769] and as this part of London is not conspicuously "high," it is not improbable that Highbury was once an _abri_: in the immediate neighbourhood still exists Paradise Road, Paradise Pa.s.sage, Aubert Park and a Calabria Road which may possibly mark the site of an original Kil abria. At Highbury is Canonbury Tower, whence tradition says an underground pa.s.sage once extended to the _priory_ of St. John's in Clerkenwell: from Highbury to the Angel at Islington there runs an Upper Street: _upper_ is the Greek _hyper_ meaning _over_ (German _uber_), and that the celebrated "Angel" was originally a fairy or Bellinga, is somewhat implied by the neighbouring Fairbank Street--once a fairy bank?--and by Bookham Street--once a home of Bogie or Puck?

From Canonbie Lea at Honor Oak, Brockley (London), one overlooks Peckham, Bickley, Beckenham, and Bellingham, the last named being decoded by the authorities into _home of Belling_.

We have noted the tradition at Brentford of Two Kings "united yet divided twain at once," yet there is also an extant ballad which commences--

The n.o.ble king of Brentford Was old and very sick.

The Cornish hill of G.o.dolphin was also known as G.o.dolcan, and in view of the connection between Nicolas and eleven it may be a.s.sumed that this site was sacred either to Elphin, the _elven_, the Holy King, or the Old King. At Highbury is an Old c.o.c.k Tavern, and in Upper Street an Old Parr Inn: not improbably Old Parr was once the deity of "Upper" Street or "Highbury," and it is also not unlikely that the St. Peter of Westminster was similarly Old Parr, for according to _The History of Signboards_--"'The OLD MAN,' Market Place, Westminster, was probably intended for Old Parr, who was celebrated in ballads as 'The Olde, Olde, Very Olde Manne'. The token represents a bearded bust in profile, with a bare head.[770] In the reign of James I. it was the name of a tavern in the Strand, _otherwise called the Hercules Tavern_, and in the eighteenth century there were two coffee-houses, the one called 'the OLD MAN'S,' the other 'the YOUNG MAN'S' Coffee-house."[771]

If the Old, Old, Very Old Man were Peter the white-haired warden of the walls of Heaven it is obvious that the Young Man would be Pierrot: it is not by accident that white-faced Pierrot, or Peterkin, or Pedrolino, is garbed in white and wears a conical white cap, the legend that accounts for this curious costume being to the effect that years and years ago St. Peter and St. Joseph were once watching (from a burkenning?) over a wintry plain from the walls of Paradise, when they beheld what seemed a pink rose peering out from beneath the snow; but instead of being a rose it proved to be the face of a child, who St. Peter picked up in his arms, whereupon the snow and rime were transformed into an exquisite white garment. It was intended that the little Peter should remain unsullied, but, as it happened, the Boy, having wandered from Paradise, started playing Ring-o-Roses on a village green where a little girl tempted him to talk: then the trouble began, for Pierrot speckled his robe, and St. Peter was unable to allow him in again; but he gave him big black b.u.t.tons and a merry heart, and there the story ends.[772]

In Pantomime--which has admittedly an ancestry of august antiquity--the counterpart to Pierrot is Columbine, or the Little Dove; doubtless the same Maiden as the Virgin Martyr of St. Columb, Cornwall: this parish is situated in what was termed "The Hundred of _Pydar_"; in Welsh Bibles Peter is rendered _Pedr_, and one of the Welsh bards refers to Stonehenge as "the melodious quaternion of Pedyr": in Cornwall there is also a Padstow or Petroxstowe, and there is no doubt that Peter, like Patrick, was the Supreme Padre or Parent. According to the native ancient ecclesiastical records of Wales known as the Iolo MSS., the native name of St. Patrick was Maenwyn, which means _stone sacred_: hence one may a.s.sume that the island of Battersea or Patrixeye was the abode of the padres who ministered at the neighbouring shrine of St.

Peter or petra, the Rock upon which the church of Christ is traditionally built.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 420.--From _A New Description of England_ (1724).]

At Patrixbourne in Kent was a seat known as Bifrons, once in the possession of a family named Cheyneys:[773] whether there be any connection between this estate named Bifrons and _Bifrons_, or _Two fronted_, a sobriquet applied to Ja.n.u.s, I am unaware: the connection Cheyneys--Bifrons--Patrixbourne is, however, the more curious inasmuch as they immediately neighbour a Bekesbourne, and on referring to Peckham we find that a so-termed Ja.n.u.s bifrons was unearthed there some centuries ago. The peculiarity of this Peckham Ja.n.u.s is that, unlike any other Ja.n.u.s-head I know, it obviously represents a Pater and Mater, and not two Paters, or a big and little Peter. The feminine of Ja.n.u.s is Jane or Iona, and at Iona in Scotland there existed prior to the Reformation when they were thrown into the sea, some remarkable _petrae_, to wit, three n.o.ble marble globes placed in three stone basins, which the inhabitants turned three times round according to the course of the sun:[774] these were known as _clacha brath_ or Stones of Judgment.

Tradition connects St. Columba of Iona in the Hebrides with Loch Aber, or, as it was sometimes written, Loch Apor, and among the stories which the honest Ad.a.m.nan received and recorded "nothing doubting from a certain religious, ancient priest," is one to the effect that Columba on a memorable occasion, turning aside to the nearest rock, prayed a little while on bended knees, and rising up after prayer blessed the brow of the same rock, from which thereupon water bubbled up and flowed forth abundantly. With the twelve-mouthed _petra_ or rock of Moses which, according to Rabbinic tradition, followed the Israelites into the wilderness, may be connoted

It is not improbable that the Orchard Street at Westminster may mark the site of a burial ground or "Peter's Orchard," similar to that which was uncovered in Wilts.h.i.+re in 1852: this was found on a farm at Seagry, one part of which had immemorially been known as "Peter's Orchard".[775]

From generation to generation it had been handed down that in a certain field on this farm a church was built upon the site of an ancient _heathen_ burial ground, and the persistence of the heathen tradition is seemingly presumptive evidence, not only of inestimable age, but of the memory of a pre-Christian Peter.

It may be a.s.sumed that "Peter's Orchard" was originally an apple orchard or an Avalon similar to the "Heaven's Walls," which were discovered some years ago near Royston: these "walls," immediately contiguous to the Icknield or Acnal Way, were merely some strips of unenclosed but cultivated land which in ancient deeds from time immemorial had been called "Heaven's Walls". Traditional awe attached to this spot, and village children were afraid to traverse it after dark, when it was said to be frequented by supernatural beings: in 1821 some labourers digging for gravel on this haunted spot inadvertently discovered a wall enclosing a rectangular s.p.a.ce containing numerous deposits of sepulchral urns, and it then became clear that here was one of those plots of ground environed by walls to which the Romans gave the name of _ustrinum_.[776]

The old Welsh graveyards were frequently circular, and there is a notable example of this at Llanfairfechan: the Llanfair here means holy enclosure of Fair or Mairy, and it is probable that Fechan's round churchyard was a symbol of the Fire Ball or _Fay King_. At Fore in Ireland the Solar wheel figures notably at the church of "Saint" Fechan on an ancient doorway ill.u.s.trated herewith. That the Latin _ustrinum_ was a.s.sociated with the Uster or Easter of resurrection is likely enough, for both Romans and Greeks had a practice of planting roses in their graveyards: as late as 1724 the inhabitants of Ockley or Aclea in Surrey had "a custom here, time immemorial, of planting rose trees in the graves, especially by the young men and maidens that have lost their lovers, and the churchyard is now full of them".[777] That "The Walls of Heaven" by Royston was a.s.sociated with roses is implied by the name Royston, which was evidently a rose-town, for it figures in old records as _Crux Roies_, _Croyrois_, and _Villa de cruce Rosia_. The expression "G.o.d's Acre" still survives, seemingly from that remote time when St. Kit of Royston, the pre-Christian "G.o.d," was wors.h.i.+pped at innumerable G.o.ds.h.i.+lls, G.o.dstones, Gaddesdens, and Goodacres.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 421.--From _The Age of the Saints_ (Borlase, W. C.).]

Tradition a.s.serts that the abbey church of St. Peter's at Westminster occupies the site of a pagan temple to Apollo--the Etrurian form of Apollo was Aplu, and there is no doubt that the sacred _apple_ of the Druids was the symbol of the "rubicund, radiant Elphin" or Apollo.

According to Malory, a certain Sir Patrise lies buried in Westminster, and this knight came to his untoward end by eating an apple, whereupon "suddenly he brast (burst)":[778] from this parallel to the story of St.

Margaret erupting from a dragon it is probable that Sir Patrise was the original patron of Westminster, or ancient Thorney Eye. Patera was a generic t.i.tle borne by the ministers at Apollo's shrines, and as glorious Apollo was certainly the s.h.i.+ne, it is more than likely that Petersham Park at Sheen, where still stands a supposedly Roman _petra_ or altar-stone, was a park or enclosure sacred to Peter, or, perhaps, to Patrise of the apple-bursting story.

The Romans applied the t.i.tle Magonius to the Gaulish and British Apollo; sometimes St. Patrick is mentioned as Magounus, and it is probable that both these epithets are Latinised forms of the British name Magon: the Druidic Magon who figures in the traditions of c.u.mberland is in all probability the St. Mawgan whose church neighbours that of the Maiden St. Columb in the Hundred of Pydar in Cornwall.

One of the princ.i.p.al towns in Westmorland is Appleby, which was known to the Romans as Abellaba: the Maiden Way of Westmorland traverses Appleby, starting from a place called Kirkby Th.o.r.e, and here about 200 years ago was found the supposed "amulet or magical spell," ill.u.s.trated in Fig.

422. The inscription upon the reverse is in Runic characters, which some authorities have read as THOR DEUS PATRIUS; and if this be correct the effigy would seem to be that of the solar Sir Patrise, for apparently the object in the right hand is an apple: there is little doubt that the great Pater figures at Patterdale, at Aspatria, and at the river Peterill, all of which are in this neighbourhood, and in all probability the Holy Patrise or Aspatria was represented by the culminating peak known as the "Old Man" of Coniston.

Some experts read the legend on Fig. 422 as THURGUT LUETIS, meaning "the face or effigies of the G.o.d Thor": according to others Thurgut was the name of the moneyer or mintmaster; according to yet others the coin was struck in honour of a Danish Admiral named Thurgut: where there is such acute diversity of opinion it is permissible to suggest that Thurgut--whose effigy is seemingly little suggestive of a sea-dog--was originally the _Three Good_ or the _Three G.o.d_, for the figure's sceptre is tipped by the three circles of Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good Word. In Berks.h.i.+re the country people, like the Germans with their _drei_, say _dree_ instead of _three_, and thus it may be that the Apples Three, or the Apollos Three (for the ancients recognised Three Apollos--the celestial, the terrestrial, and the infernal) were wors.h.i.+pped at Apple_dre_, or Apple_dore_ opposite Barnstable, and at Apple_dur_ Comb or Apple_dur_well, a manor in the parish of G.o.ds.h.i.+ll, Isle of Wight.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 422.--From _A New Description of England_.]

English "Appletons" are numerous, and at Derby is an Appletree which was originally Appletrefelde: it is known that this Apple-Tree-Field contained an apple-tree which was once the meeting place of the Hundred or s.h.i.+re division, and it is probable that the two Apuldre's of Devon served a similar public use. As late as 1826 it was the custom, at Appleton in Ches.h.i.+re, "at the time of the wake to clip and adorn an old hawthorn which till very lately stood in the middle of the town. This ceremony is called the bawming (dressing) of Appleton Thorn".[779]

Doubtless Appleton Thorn was originally held in the same estimation as the monument bushes of Ireland, which are found for the most part in the centre of road crossings. According to the anonymous author of _Irish Folklore_,[780] these ancient and solitary hawthorns are held in immense veneration, and it would be considered profanation to destroy them or even remove any of their branches: from these fairy and phooka-haunted sites, a lady dressed in a long flowing white robe was often supposed to issue, and "the former dapper elves are often seen hanging from or flitting amongst their branches". We have in an earlier chapter considered the connection between spikes and spooks, and it is obvious that the White Lady or Alpa of the white thorn or aubespine is the Banshee or Good Woman Shee:--

She told them of the fairy-haunted land Away the other side of Brittany, Beyond the heaths, edged by the lonely sea; Of the deep forest-glades of Broce-liande, Through whose green boughs the golden suns.h.i.+ne creeps, Where Merlin,[781] _by the enchanted thorn-tree_ sleeps.

In the forest of Breceliande--doubtless part of the fairy Hy Breasil--was a famed Fountain of Baranton or Berendon into which children threw tribute to the invocation, "Laugh, then, fountain of Berendon, and I will give thee a pin".[782] The first pin was presumably a spine or thorn; the first flower is the black-thorn; on 1st January (the first day of the first month), people in the North of England used to construct a blackthorn globe and stand hand in hand in a circle round the fire chanting in a monotonous voice the words "Old Cider,"

prolonging each syllable to its utmost extent. I think that Old Cider must have been Thurgut, and that in all probability the initial _Ci_ was _sy_, the ubiquitous endearing diminutive of pucksy, _pixie_, etc.

According to Maundeville, "white thorn hath many virtues; for he that beareth a branch thereof upon him, no thunder nor tempest may hurt him; and no evil spirit may enter in the house in which it is, or come to the place that it is in": Maundeville refers to this magic thorn as the aubespine, which is possibly a corruption of _alba_ thorn, or it may be of Hob's thorn. In modern French _aube_ means the dawn.

We have seen that there are some grounds for surmising that Brawn Street and Bryanstone Square (Marylebone) mark the site of a Branstone or fairy stone, in which connection it may be noted that until recently: "near this spot was a little cl.u.s.ter of cottages called 'Apple Village'":[783]

in the same neighbourhood there are now standing to-day a Paradise Place, a Paradise Pa.s.sage, and Great Barlow Street, which may quite possibly mark the site of an original _Bar low_ or _Bar lea_. Apple Village was situated in what was once the Manor of Tyburn or Tyburnia: according to the "Confession" of St. Patrick the saint's grandfather came from "a village of Tabernia,"[784] and it is probable that the Tyburn brook, upon the delta of which stands St. Peter's (Westminster), was originally named after the Good Burn or Oberon of Bryanstone and the neighbouring Brawn Street. The word _tabernacle_ is traceable to the same roots as _tavern_, French _auberge_, English _inn_.

Around the effigy of Thurgut will be noted either seven or eight M's: in mediaeval symbolism the letter M stood usually for Mary; the parish church of Bryanstone Square is dedicated to St. Mary, and we find the Virgin very curiously a.s.sociated with one or more apple-trees. According to the author of _St. Brighid and Her Times_: "Bardism offers nothing higher in zeal or deeper in doctrine than the _Avallenan_, or Song of the Apple-trees, by the Caledonian Bard, Merddin Wyllt. He describes his Avallenan as being one Apple-tree, the Avallen, but in another sense it was 147 apple-trees, that is, mystically (taking the sum of the digits, 1 4 7 equal 12), the sacred Druidic number. Thus in his usual repeated description of the Avallen as one apple-tree, he writes:--

Sweet apple-tree! tree of no rumour, That growest by the stream, without overgrowing the circle.

Again, as 147 apple trees--

Seven sweet apple-trees, and seven score Of equal age, equal height, equal length, equal bulk; Out of the bosom of mercy they sprung up.

Again--

They who guard them are one curly-headed virgin."

In fairy-tale the apple figures as the giver of rejuvenescence and new life, in Celtic mythology it figures as the magic Silver Branch which corresponds to Virgil's Golden Bough. According to Irvine the word _bran_ meant not only the Druidical system, but was likewise applied to individual Druids who were termed _brans_: I have already suggested that this "purely mystical and magical name" is our modern _brain_; according to all accounts the Druids were eminently men of brain, whence it is possible that the fairy-tale "Voyage of _Bran_" and the Voyage of St.

Brandon were originally brainy inventions descriptive of a mental voyage of which any average brain is still capable. The Voyage of Bran relates how once upon a time Bran the son of Fearbal[785] heard strange music behind him, and so entrancing were the sounds that they lulled him into slumber: when he awoke there lay by his side a branch of silver so resplendent with white blossom that it was difficult to distinguish the flowers from the branch. With this fairy talisman, which served not only as a pa.s.sport but as food and drink, and as a maker of music so soothing that mortals who heard it forgot their woes and even ceased to grieve for their kinsmen whom the Banshee had taken, Bran voyaged to the Islands called Fortunate, wherein he perceived and heard many strange and beautiful things:--

A branch of the Apple Tree from Emain I bring like those one knows; Twigs of white silver are on it, Crystal brows with blossoms.

There is a distant isle Around which sea horses glisten: A fair course against the white swelling surge, Four feet uphold it.

In Wales on 1st January children used to carry from door to door a holly-decked apple into which were fixed three twigs--presumably an emblem of the Apple Island or Island of Apollo, supported on the three sweet notes of the Awen or creative Word. Into this tripod apple were stuck oats:[786] the effigy of St. Bride which used to be carried from door to door consisted of a sheaf of oats; in Anglo-Saxon _oat_ was _ate_, plural _aten_, and it is evident that oats were peculiarly identified with the Maiden.

In Cormac's _Adventure in the Land of Promise_ there again enters the magic Silver Branch, with three golden apples on it: "Delight and amus.e.m.e.nt to the full was it to listen to the music of that branch, for men sore wounded or women in childbed or folk in sickness would fall asleep, at the melody when that branch was shaken". The Silver Branch which seems to have been sometimes that of the Apple, sometimes of the Whitethorn, corresponds to the mistletoe or Three-berried and Three-leaved Golden Bough: until recent years a bunch of Mistletoe or "All Heal"--the essential emblem of Yule--used to be ceremoniously elevated to the proclamation of a general pardon at York or Ebor: it is still the symbol of an affectionate _c.u.mber_ or gathering together of kinsmen. King Camber is said to have been the son of Brutus; he was therefore, seemingly, the young St. Nicholas or the Little Crowned King, and in c.u.mberland the original signification of the "All Heal" would appear to have been traditionally preserved. In _Tales and Legends of the English Lakes_ Mr. Wilson Armistead records that many strange tales are still a.s.sociated with the Druidic stones, and in the course of one of these alleged authentic stories he prints the following Invocation:--

_1st Bard_. Being great who reigns alone, Veiled in clouds unseen unknown; Centre of the vast profound, Clouds of darkness close Thee round.

_3rd Bard_. Spirit who no birth has known, Springing from Thyself alone, We thy living emblem show In the mystic mistletoe, Springs and grows without a root, Yields without flowers its fruit; Seeks from earth no mother's care, Lives and blooms the child of air.

_4th Bard_. Thou dost Thy mystic circle trace Along the vaulted blue profound, And emblematic of Thy race We tread our mystic circle round.

_Chorus_. s.h.i.+ne upon us mighty G.o.d, Raise this drooping world of ours; Send from Thy divine abode Cheering sun and fruitful showers.

In view of the survival elsewhere of Druidic chants and creeds which are unquestionably ancient, it is quite possible that in the above we have a genuine relic of prehistoric belief: that the ideas expressed were actually held might without difficulty be proved from many scattered and independent sources; that c.u.mberland has clung with extraordinary tenacity to certain ancient forms is sufficiently evident from the fact that even to-day the shepherds of the _Borrow_dale district tell their sheep in the old British numerals, _yan_, _tyan_, _tethera_, _methera_,[787] etc.

The most famous of all English apple orchards was the Avalon of Somerset which as we have seen was encircled by the little river Brue: with Avalon is indissolubly a.s.sociated the miraculous Glas...o...b..ry Thorn, and that Avalon[788] was essentially British and an _abri_ of King Bru or Cynbro is implied by its alternative t.i.tle of Bride Hay or Bride Eye: not only is St. Brighid said to have resided at Avalon or the Apple Island, but among the relics long faithfully preserved there were the blessed Virgin's scrip, necklace, distaff, and bell. The fact that the main streets of Avalon form a perfect cross may be connoted with Sir John Maundeville's statement that while on his travels in the East he was shown certain apples: "which they call apples of Paradise, and they are very sweet and of good savour. And though you cut them in ever so many slices or parts across or end-wise, you will always find in the middle the figure of the holy cross."[789] That Royston, near the site of "Heaven's Walls," was identified with the Rood, Rhoda, or Rose Cross is evident from the ancient forms of the name Crux Roies (1220), Croyrois (1263), and Villa de Cruce Rosia (1298): legend connects the place with a certain Lady Roese, "about whom nothing is known," and probability may thus a.s.sociate this mysterious Lady with Fair Rosamond or the Rose of the World. In the Middle Ages, The Garden of the Rose was merely another term for Eden, Paradise, Peter's Orchard, or Heaven's Walls, and the Lady of the Rose Garden was unquestionably the same as the Ruler of the Isles called Fortunate--

--a Queen So beautiful that with one single beam Of her great beauty, all the country round Is rendered s.h.i.+ning.