Archaic England

With Adon may be connoted Adonis, the lovely son of Myrrha and Kinyras, whose name has been absorbed into English as meaning any marvellously well-favoured youth: prior to the festivals of Adonis it was customary to grow forced gardens in earthen or _silver_ pots, and there would thus seem to have been a close connection in ideas between our English "_whytepot_ queen" or maiden with the pyramid of silver, and with the symbolic Gardens of Adonis or Eden as grown in Phrygia and Egypt.

Skeat connotes the word maiden--which is an earlier form than _maid_--with the Cornish _maw_, a boy: if, however, we read _ma_ as _mother_ the word _maiden_ becomes _Mother Iden_, and I have little doubt that the Maiden of mythology and English harvest-homes was the feminine Adonis. Adonis was hymned as the Shepherd of the Twinkling Stars; I have surmised that Long Meg of the seventy-two Daughters was the Mighty Maiden of the Stars, whence it is interesting to find Skeat connoting _maiden_ with Anglo-Saxon _magu_, a kinsman: that Long Meg was the All Mother whence _mag_ or _mac_ came to mean _child of_ has already been suggested. Not only does Long Meg of c.u.mberland stand upon Maiden Way, but there is in the same district a Maidenmoor probably like Maidenhead or Maidenheath, a heath or mead dedicated to the Maid. Our dictionaries define the name May as a contraction of either Mary or Margaret, _i.e._, Meg: in the immediate neighbourhood of Long Meg is another circle called Mayborough, of which the vallum or enclosure is composed of stones taken from the beds of the Eamount or Eden rivers; in the centre of Mayborough used to stand four magnificent monoliths probably representative of the four _deacons_ or Good Kings who supported the Whytepot Queen.

There is a seat called St. Edans in Ireland close to Ferns where, as will be remembered, is St. Mogue's Well: in Lincolns.h.i.+re is a Maidenwell-_c.u.m-Farworth_, and at Dorchester is a Haydon Hill in the close proximity of Forstone and _Goodman_stone. That this Haydon was the _Good Man_ is implied by the stupendous monument near by known as Mew Dun, Mai Dun, or Maiden Castle: this _chef d'oeuvre_ of prehistoric engineering, generally believed to be the greatest earthwork in Britain, is an oblong camp extending 1000 yards from east to west with a width of 500 yards, and it occupies an area of 120 acres:[822] entered by four gates the work itself is described as puzzling as a series of mazes, and to reach the interior one is compelled to pa.s.s through a labyrinth of defences. The name Dorchester suggests a Droia or Troy camp, and I have little doubt that the labyrinthine Maiden was a colossal Troy Town or Drayton. Among the many Draytons in England is a Drayton-Parslow, which suggests that it stood near or upon a Parr's low or a Parr's lea: out of great Barlow Street, Marylebone, leads Paradise Place and Paradise Pa.s.sage: there is a Drayton Park at Highbury, and in the immediate proximity an Eden Grove and Paradise Road: there was a Troy Town where Kensington Palace now stands,[823] and in all likelihood there was another one at Drayton near Hanwell and Hounslow. That Hounslow once contained an _onslow_ or _ange hill_ seems to me more probable than that it was merely the "burial mound" of an imaginary _Hund_ or _Hunda_: in Domesday Hounslow figures as Honeslow which may be connoted with Honeybourne at Evesham and Honeychurch in Devon. With regard to the latter it has been observed: "The connection between a church and honey is not very obvious, and this is probably Church of _Huna_": the official explanation of "Honeybourne" is--"brook with honey sweet water," but it is more probable that Queen Una was reputed to dwell there. That Una was not merely the creation of Spenser is evidenced from the fact that in Ireland "Una is often named by the peasantry as regent of the preternatural _Sheog_ tribes":[824] at St. Mary's-in-the-Marsh, Thanet, is a Honeychild Manor and an Old Honeychild: with the Three White b.a.l.l.s at Iona it may be noted that on the summit of Hydon Heath (Surrey) is a place marked Hydon's Ball.

At a distance of "about 110 yards" from Mayborough is another circle known as Arthur's Round _Table_: a mile from Dunstable is a circular camp known as Maiden Bower, whence it is probable that Dunstable meant either Dun staple (market), or that the circular camp there was a "table" of "generous Donn". That the term "Maiden" used here and elsewhere means _maiden_ as we now understand it may be implied from the famous Maiden Stone in Scotland: this sculptured Longstone, now measuring 10 feet in height, bears upon it the mirror and comb which were essentially the emblems of the Mairymaid.

There is an eminence called Maiden Bower near Durham which figures alternatively as _Dun_holme; Durham is supposed to mean--"wild beast's home or lair," but I see no more reason to a.s.sign this ferocious origin to Durham than, say, to Dorchester or Doracestria: Ma, the mistress of Mount Ida, was like Britomart[825] esteemed to be the Mother of all beasts or _brutes_, and particularly of _deer_; Diana is generally represented with a deer, and the woody glens of many-crested Ida were indubitably a lair of forest brutes--

Thus Juno spoke, and to her throne return'd, While they to spring-abounding Ida's heights, Wild nurse of forest beasts, pursued their way.[826]

Yorks.h.i.+re, or Eborac.u.m and the surrounding district, the habitat of the Brigantes, was known anciently as Deira: by the Romans Doracestria, or Dorchester was named Durnovaria upon which authority comments: "In the present name there is nothing which represents _varia_, so that it really seems to mean 'fist camp'"; doubtless, fisticuffs, boxing-matches, and many other kind of Trojan game were once held at Doracestria as at every other Troy or Drayton.

King Priam, the Mystic King of Troy, is said to have had fifty sons and daughters: the same family is a.s.signed not only to St. Brychan of Cambria, but also to King Ebor, or Ebrauc of York, whence in all probability the Brigantes who inhabited Yorks.h.i.+re and c.u.mberland were followers of one and the same Priam, Prime, Broom, Brahm, or Brahma: the name Abraham or Ibrahim is defined as meaning "father of a mult.i.tude".

The Kentish Broom Park near Patrixbourne whereby is Hearts Delight, Maydeacon House, and Kingston is on Heden Downs, and immediately adjacent is a Dennehill and Denton: at Dunton Green, near Sevenoaks, the presence of a Mount Pleasant implies that this Dunton was an Eden Town.

There is an Edenkille, or Eden Church at Elgin, and at Dudley is a Haden Cross, supposed to have derived its t.i.tle "from a family long resident here": it would be preferable and more legitimate to a.s.sign this family name to the site and describe them as the "De Haden's". There is a Haddenham at Ely, and at Ely Place, Holborn, opposite St. Andrews, is Hatton Garden: I suggest that Sir Christopher Hatton, like the Hadens of Haden Cross, derived his name from his home, and not _vice versa_.

In the Hibernian county of Clare is an Eden Vale: Clare Market in London before being pulled down was in the parish of St. Clement _Dane_, here also stood Dane's Inn, and within a stone's throw is the church of St.

Dunstan. The numerous St. Dunstans were probably once Dane stones, or Dun stanes, and the sprightly story of St. Dunstan seizing the nose of a female temptress with the tongs must be relegated to the Apocrypha. In the opinion of Sir Laurence Gomme the predominant cult in Roman London was undoubtedly that of Diana, for the evidence in favour of this G.o.ddess includes not only an altar, but other finds connected with her wors.h.i.+p: Sir Laurence goes even further than this, stating his conviction that "Diana practically absorbed the religious expression of London":[827] that London was a _Lunadun_ has already been suggested.

It has always been strongly a.s.serted by tradition that St. Paul's occupies the site of a church of Diana: if this were so the Diana stones on the summit of Ludgate Hill would have balanced the Dun stones on the opposing bank of the river Fleet, or Bagnigge. We have seen that _mam_ in Gaelic meant a gently sloping hill; the two dunhills rising from the river Fleet, or Bagnigge, were thus probably regarded like the Paps of Anu at Killarney, as twin b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Maiden: there are parallel "Maiden Paps" near Berriedale (Caithness), others near Sunderland, and others at Roxburgh. According to Stow the famous cross at Cheapside was decorated with a statue of Diana, the G.o.ddess, to which the adjoining Cathedral had been formerly dedicated: prior to the Reformation, two jets of water--like the jets in Fig. 44 (p. 167)--prilled from Diana's naked breast "but now decayed".

By Claremarket and the church of St. Clement Dane stood Holywell Street, somewhat north of which was yet another well called--according to Stow--Dame Annis the _Clear_, and not far from it, but somewhat West, was also one other _clear_ water called Perilous Pond. This "perilous"

was probably once _peri la.s.s, i.e., perry la.s.s_, or _pure la.s.s_, and the neighbouring Clerkenwell (although the city clerks or _clerken_ may in all likelihood have congregated there on summer evenings), was once seemingly sacred to the same type of phairy as the Irish call a _cluricanne_.[828] The original Clerken, or Cluricanne, was in all probability the resplendent _clarus_, clear, s.h.i.+ning, _Glare_ King, or _Glory_ King: but it is equally likely that the -_ken_ of Clerken was the endearing diminutive _kin_, as in Lambkin. That St. Clare was adored by her disciples is clear from _The Golden Legend_, where among other interesting data we are told: "She was crowned with a crown right clear s.h.i.+ning that the obscurity of the night was changed into clearness of midday": we are further told that once upon a time as a certain friar was preaching in her presence: "a right fair child was to fore St.

Clare, and abode there a great part of the sermon". It is thus permissible to a.s.sume that this marvellous holy woman, whose doctrine shall "enlumine all the world," was originally depicted in company of the customary Holy Child, or the Little Glory King.

The original Clerken Well stood in what is now named Ray Street, and quite close to it is Braynes Row; not far distant was Brown's Wood.[829]

The name Sinclair implies an order or a tribe of Sinclair followers, and that the St. Dunstan by St. Clement's Dane and Claremarket was something more than a monk is obvious from the tradition that "Our Lord shewed miracles for him _ere he was born_": the marvel in point is that on a certain Candlemas Day the candle of his Mother Quendred[830]

miraculously burned full bright so that others came and lighted their tapers at the taper of St. Dunstan's mother; the interpretation placed upon this marvel was that her unborn child should give light to all England by his holy living.[831]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 445.--Gaulish. From Akerman.]

As recorded in _The Golden Legend_ the life of poor St. Clare was one long dolorous great moan and sorrow: it is mentioned, however, that she had a sister Agnes and that these two sisters loved marvellously together. We may thus a.s.sume that the celestial twins were Ignis, _fire_ and Clare, _light_: _Agnes_ is the Latin for _lamb_, and this symbol of Innocence is among the two or three out of lost mult.i.tudes which have been preserved by the Christian Church. In the ill.u.s.tration herewith the lambkin, in conjunction with a star, appears upon a coin of the Gaulish people whose chief town was Agatha: its real name, according to Akerman, was Agatha Tyke, and its foundation has been attributed both to the Rhodians and the Phoceans. Agatha is Greek for _good_, and _tyke_ meant fortune or good luck: the effigy is described as being a bare head of Diana to the right and without doubt Diana, or the divine Una, was typified both by _ignis_ the fire, and by _agnes_ the lamb: in India Agni is represented riding on a male _agnes_, and in Christian art the Deity was figured as a ram.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 446.--Agni.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 447.--From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]

At the Cornish town of St. Enns, St. Anns, or St. Agnes, the name of St.

Agnes--a paragon of maiden virtue--is coupled with a Giant Bolster, a mighty man who is said to have held possession of a neighbouring hill, sometimes known as Bury-anack: at the base of this hill exists a very interesting and undoubtedly most ancient earthwork known as "The Bolster".[832] As Anak meant _giant_,[833] Bury Anack was

Some accounts mention the Clerkenwell pool of Annis the Clear as being that of Agnes the Clear: opposite the famous Angel of this neighbourhood is Claremont Square, and about half a mile eastward is Shepherdess Walk; that the Shepherdess of this walk was Diane, _i.e.,_ Sinclair the counterpart of Adonis, the Shepherd of the twinkling stars, is somewhat implied by Peerless Street, which leads into Shepherdess Walk. Perilous Pool at Clerkenwell was sometimes known as Peerless Pool: it has been seen that the hags or fairies were a.s.sociated with this Islington district which still contains a Paradise Pa.s.sage, and of both "Perilous"

and "Peerless" I think the correct reading should be _peri la.s.s_; it will be remembered that the peris were quite familiar to England as evidenced by the feathery clouds or "perry dancers," and the numerous Pre Stones and Perry Vales.[834] In Red Cross Street, Clerkenwell, are or were Deane's Gardens; at Clarence Street, Islington, the name Danbury Street implies the existence either there or elsewhere of a Dan barrow.

Opposite Clare Market and the churches of St. Dunstan and St. Clement Dane is situated the Temple of which the circular church, situated in Tanfield Court,[835] is dedicated to St. Anne: St. Anne, the mother of St. Mary, is the patron saint of Brittany, where she has been identified with Ma or Cybele, the Magna Mater of Mount Ida; that Anna was the consort of Joachim or the Joy King I do not doubt, and in her aspect of a Fury or Black Virgin she was in all probability the oak-haunting Black Annis of Leicesters.h.i.+re: "there was one flabby eye in her head". In view of the famous round church of St. Mary the Virgin it is permissible to speculate whether the "small circular hut of stone," in which Black Mary of Black Mary's Hole was reputed to have dwelt on the banks of the Fleet, Bagnigge or Holeburn (now Holborn) was or was not the original Eye dun of the Pixy, or Big Nikke.

The emblems a.s.sociated with the Temple and its circular church are three; the Flying Horse or Pegasus; two men or _twain_ riding on a single horse (probably the Two Kings) and the Agnus Dei: in the emblem herewith this last is standing on a dun whence are flowing the four rivers of Eden. The lamb was essentially an emblem of St. John who, in Art, is generally represented with it; whence it is significant that in Celtic the word for lamb is identical with the name Ion, the Welsh being _oen_, the Cornish _oin_, the Breton _oan_, the Gaelic _uan_, and the Manx _eayn_. That Sinjohn was always _suns.h.i.+ne_ and the _sheen_, never apparently darkness, is implied by the Basque words _egun_ meaning _day_, and Agandia or Astartea meaning Sunday. The Basque for _G.o.d_ is _jainco_, the Ugrian was _jen_, and the Basque _jain_, meaning _lord_ or _master_, is evidently synonymous with the Spanish _don_ or _donna_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 448.--Divine Lamb, with a Circular Nimbus, not Cruciform, Marked with the Monogram of Christ, and the [Greek: A] and [Greek: o]. Sculptured on a Sarcophagus in the Vatican. The earliest ages of Christianity.

From _Christian Iconography_ (Didron).]

In addition to St. Annes opposite St. Dunstans, and St. Clement Dane there is a church of St. Anne in Dean Street, Soho: Ann of Ireland was alternatively Danu, and it is clear from many evidences that the initial _d_ or _t_ was generally adjectival. The Cornish for _down_ or dune is _oon_, and Duke was largely correct when he surmised in connection with St. Anne's Hill, Avebury: "I cannot help thinking that from Diana and Dian were struck off the appellations Anna and Ann, and that the _feriae_, or festival of the G.o.ddess, was superseded by the fair, as now held, of the saint. I shall now be told that the fane of the hunting G.o.ddess would never have been seated on this high and bare hill, that the Romans would have given her a habitation amidst the woods and groves, but here Callimachus comes to my aid. In his beautiful Hymn on Diana he feigns her to entreat her father Jupiter, 'also give me _all_ hills and mountains'."

Not only is Diana (Artemis) made to say "give me all hills and mountains," but Callimachus continues, "for rarely will Artemis go down into the cities": hence it is probable that all denes, duns, and downs were dedicated to Diana. In Armenia, Maundeville mentions having visited a city on a mountain seven miles high named Dayne which was founded by Noah; near by is the city of Any or Anni, in which he says were one thousand churches. Among the rock inscriptions here ill.u.s.trated, which are attributed to the Jews when migrating across Sinai from Egypt, will be noticed the name Aine prefixed by a thau cross: the mountain rocks of the Sinai Peninsular bear thousands of illegible inscriptions which from time to time fall down--as ill.u.s.trated--in the ravines; by some they are attributed to the race who built Petra.[836] I am unable to offer any suggestion as to how this Roman lettering AINE finds itself in so curious a milieu.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 449.--View of Wady Mokatteb from the S. E. From _The One Primeval Language_ (Forster, O.).]

Speaking of the bleak moorlands of Penrith (the _pen ruth?_), where are found the monuments of Long Meg and of Mayborough, Fergusson testily observes: "No one will now probably be found seriously to maintain that the long stone row at Shap was a temple either of the Druids or of anyone else. At least if these ancient people thought a single or even a double row of widely-s.p.a.ced stones stretching to a mile and a half across a bleak moor was a proper form for a place to wors.h.i.+p in, they must have been differently const.i.tuted from ourselves[837]."

Indubitably they were; and so too must have been the ancient Greeks: the far-famed Mount Cynthus, whence Apollo was called Cynthus, is described by travellers as "an ugly hill" which crosses the island of Delos obliquely; it is not even a mountain, but "properly speaking is nothing but a ridge of granite". I am told that Glas...o...b..ry--the Avalon, the Apple Orchard, the Sacred Eden of an immeasurable antiquity--is disappointing, and that nowadays little of any interest is to be seen there. "Donn's House," the gorgeous _bri_ or palace of generous Donn the King of Faery, is in reality no better than a line of sandhills in the Dingle Peninsula, Kerry; of the inspiring Tipperary I know nothing, but can sympathise with the prosaic Governor of the Isle of Man, who a century or so ago reported that practically every dun in Manxland was crowned with a cairn which seemed "nothing but the rubbish of Nature thrown into barren and unfruitful heaps".

"Miserable churl" sang the wily, enigmatic Bird, whose advice to the rich villein has been previously quoted,[838] "when you held me fast in your rude hand easy was it to know that I was no larger than a sparrow or a finch, and weighed less than half an ounce. How then could a precious stone three ounces in weight be hid in my body? When he had spoken thus he took his flight, and from that hour the orchard knew him no more. _With the ceasing of his song the leaves withered from the pine, the garden became a little dry dust and the fountain forgot to flow._"

Among the legends of the Middle Ages is one to the effect that Alexander, after conquering the whole world determined to find and compa.s.s Paradise. After strenuous navigation the envoys of the great King eventually arrived before a vast city circled by an impenetrable wall: for three days the emissaries sailed along this wall without discovering any entrance, but on the third day a small window was discerned whence one of the inhabitants put out his head, and blandly inquired the purpose of the expedition; on being informed the inhabitant, nowise perturbed, replied: "Cease to worry me with your threats but patiently await my return". After a wait of two hours the denizen of Heaven reappeared at the window and handed the envoys a gem of wonderful brilliance and colour which in size and shape exactly reproduced _the human eye_[839]. Alexander, not being able to make head or tail of these remarkable occurrences, consulted in secret all the wisest of the Jews and Greeks but received no suitable explanation; eventually, however, he found an aged Jew who elucidated the mystery of the hidden Land by this explanation: "O King, the city you saw is the abode of souls freed from their bodies, placed by the Creator in an inaccessible position on the confines of the world. Here they await in peace and quiet the day of their judgment and resurrection, after which they shall reign forever with their Creator. These spirits, anxious for the salvation of humanity, and wis.h.i.+ng to preserve your happiness, have destined this stone as a warning to you to curb the unseemly desires of your ambition. Remember that such insatiable desires merely end by enslaving a man, consuming him with cares and depriving him of all peace. Had you remained contented with the inheritance of your own kingdom you would have reigned in peace and tranquillity, but now, not even yet satisfied with the conquest of enormous foreign possessions and wealth, you are weighed down with cares and danger."

The name of the aged Jew who furnished Alexander with this information is said to have been Papas, or Papias: Papas was an alternative name for the Phrygian Adonis, whence we may no doubt equate the old Adonis (_i.e._, Aidoneus, or Pluto?) with the Aged Jew, or the Wandering Jew.

It has been seen that the legend of the Wandering Jew apparently originated at St. Albans: in France _montjoy_ was a generic term for herald, and I have little doubt that these Mountjoys were originally so termed as being the denizens of some sacred Mount. There is a Mount Joy near Jerusalem, and there was certainly at least one in France: among the legends recorded in Layamon's _Brut_ is one relating to a Mont Giu and a wondrous Star: "From it came gleams terribly s.h.i.+ning; the star is named in Latin, comet. Came from the star a gleam most fierce; at this gleam's end was a dragon fair; from this dragon's mouth came gleams enow! But twain there were mickle, unlike to the others; the one drew toward France, the other toward Ireland. The gleam that toward France drew, it was itself bright enow; to _Munt-Giu_ was seen the marvellous token! The gleam that stretched right west, it was disposed in seven beams."[840] It is probable that Chee Tor in the neighbourhood of Buxton, Bakewell,[841] and Haddon Hall, was once just as bogie a Mount as Munt-Giu: at Church_down_ in Gloucester is a Chosen Hill, which apparently was sacred to Sen Cho, and this hill was presumably the original church of Down; all sorts of "silly traditions" are said to hang around this spot, and the natives ludicrously claim themselves to be "the Chosen" People.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 450.--From _The Everyday Book_ (Hone, W.).]

Chee Tor at Buxton overlooks the river Wye, a name probably connected with _eye_, and with numerous _Ea_mounts, _Ey_tons, _Ea_tons, _How_dens, etc.: that Eton in Bucks was an Eye Dun is inferable from the _ad montem_ ceremonies which used until recently to prevail at Salt Hill.[842] In British, _hy_ or _ea_, as in Hy Breasil, Batters_ea_, Chels_ea_, etc., meant an island, and the ideal Eden was usually conceived and constructed in island form: if a natural "Eye Town" were not available it was customary to construct an artificial one by running a trench around some natural or artificial barrow. The word _eye_ also means a shoot, whence we speak of the eye of a potato, and the standard Eyedun seems always to have possessed an eye of eyes in the form either of a tree, a well, or a tower: it was not unusual to surmount the Beltan fire or Tan-Tad with a tree; the favourite phare tree was a fir tree, in Provence the Yule log was preferably a pear tree. It was anciently supposed that the earth was an island established upon the floods, and Homer preserves the belief of his time by referring to Ocea.n.u.s as a river-stream:--

And now, borne seaward from _the river stream_ _Of the Ocea.n.u.s_, we plow'd again The s.p.a.cious Deep, and reach'd th' aeaean Isle, Where, daughter of the dawn, Aurora takes Her choral sports, and whence the sun ascends.[843]

According to Josephus, the Garden of Eden "was watered by one river which ran round about the whole earth,[844] and was parted into four parts," and this immemorial tradition was expressed upon the circular and sacred cakes of ancient nations which were the forerunners of our Good Friday's Hot Cross Buns. a.s.sociated with the pagan Eucharists here ill.u.s.trated[845] will be noted Eros--whose name is at the base of _eucharist_--also what seemingly is the Old Pater. In Egypt the cross cake was a hieroglyph for "civilised land," and was composed of the richest materials including milk and honey, the familiar attributes of Canaan or the Promised Land. The remarkable earthwork cross at Banwell has no doubt some relation to the Alban cross on our Easter _bun_, Greek _boun_, and the so-termed Pixies' Garden ill.u.s.trated in Fig. 433(A), probably was once permeated by the same phairy imagination as perceived Paradise in the dusty "Walls of Heaven," "Peter's Orchard," and "Johanna's Garden".

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 451.--Love-Feast with Wine and Bread. Relief in the Kircher Museum at Rome, presumably pagan. After Roller, pl. LIV. 7.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 452.--A Pagan Love-Feast. Now in the Lateran Museum. From Roller, _Les Cata. de Rome_, pl. LIV. The pagan character is a.s.sured by the winged Eros at the left.]

The name Piccadilly is a.s.sumed to have arisen because certain buns called piccadillies were there sold: the greater likelihood is that the bun took its t.i.tle from Piccadilly. This curious place-name, which commemorates the memory of a Piccadilly Hall, is found elsewhere, and is probably cognate with Pixey lea, _Poukelay_, and the legend PIXTIL, etc. Opposite Down Street, Piccadilly, or Mayfair, there are still standing in the Green Park the evidences of what may once have been tumuli or duns, and the Buckden Hill by St. Agnes' Well in Hyde Park may, as is supposed, have been a den for bucks, or, as is not more improbable, a dun sacred to Big Adon:[846] leading to Buck Hill and St.

Agnes' Well there is still a pathway marked on the Ordnance map Budge Walk, an implication seemingly that Bougie, or Bogie, was not unknown in the district. We have connoted Rotten Row of _Hyde_ Park with Rotten Row Tower near Alnwick: this latter is situated on _Aidon_ Moor. By _Down_ Street, Mayfair, is Hay Hill, at the foot of which flowed the Eye Brook, and this beck no doubt meandered past the modern Brick Street, and through the Brookfield in the Green Park where the fifteen joyful heydays of the Mayfair were once celebrated: whether the Eye Brook wandered through Eaton Square--the site of St. Peter's Church--I do not know, nor can I trace whether or not the "Eatons" hereabout are merely ent.i.tled from Eaton Hall in the Dukeries. Each Eaton or island ton, certainly every sacred island, seems to have been deemed a "central boss of Ocean: that retreat a G.o.ddess holds,"[847] and this central boss appears to have been conceived indifferently or comprehensively as either a Cone, a Pyramid, a Beehive, or a Teat. Wyclif, in his translation of the Bible, refers to Jerusalem as "the totehill Zyon,"

and there is little doubt that all teathills were originally cities or sites of peace: according to Cyprien Roberts: "The first basilicas, _placed generally upon eminences_, were called Domus Columbae, dwellings of the dove, that is, of the Holy Ghost. They caught the first rays of the dawn, and the last beams of the setting sun."[848] Everywhere in Britain the fays were popularly "gentle people," "good neighbours," and "men of peace": a Scotch name for Fairy dun or High Altar of the Lord of the Mound used to be--_sioth-dhunan_, from _sioth_ "peace," and _dun_ "a mound": this name was derived from the practice of the Druids "who were wont occasionally to retire to green eminences to administer justice, establish peace, and compose differences between contending parties. As that venerable order taught a _saogle hal_, or World-beyond-the-present, their followers, when they were no more, fondly imagined that seats where they exercised a virtue so beneficial to mankind were still inhabited by them in their disembodied state".[849]

In Cornwall there is a famous well at Truce which is legendarily connected with Druidism:[850] Irish tradition speaks of a famous Druid named Trosdan; St. Columba is a.s.sociated with a St. Trosdan;[851] at St.

Vigeans in Scotland there is a stone bearing an inscription which the authorities transcribe "Drosten,"[852] probably all the dwellers on the Truce duns were ent.i.tled Trosdan,[853] and it is not unlikely that the romantic Sir Patrise of Westminster was originally Father Truce. It has already been noted that _treus_ was Cornish for cross, that children cross their fingers as a sign of fainits or truce, and there is very little doubt that cruciform earthworks, such as Shanid, and cruciform duns such as Hallicondane in Thanet were truce duns. The Tuatha de Danaan, or Children of Donn, who are supposed to have been the introducers of Druidism into Ireland, were said to have transformed into fairies, and the duns or raths of the Danaan are still denominated "gentle places".[854] That the ancient belief in the existence of "gentle people" is still vivid, is demonstrated beyond question by the author of _The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries_, who writes (1911): "The description of the Tuatha de Danaan in the 'Dialogue of the Elders' as 'sprites or fairies with corporeal or material forms, but endued with immortality,' would stand as an account of prevailing ideas as to the 'good people' of to-day".[855] The generous Donn, the King of Faery, is obviously Danu, or Anu, or Aine, the Irish G.o.ddess of prosperity and abundance, for we are told that well she used to cherish the circle of the G.o.ds.[856] At Knockainy, or the _Hill of Ainy_, Aine, whose name also occurs constantly on Gaulish inscriptions,[857] was until recent years wors.h.i.+pped by the peasants who rushed about carrying burning torches of hay: that Aine was Aincy, or _dear little aine_, is inferred by the alternative name of her dun Knockain_cy_: "Here," says Mr.

Westropp, "a cairn commemorates the cult of the G.o.ddess Aine, of the G.o.d-race of the Tuatha De Danaan. She was a water-spirit, and has been seen, half raised out of the water, combing her hair. She was a beautiful and gracious spirit, 'the best-natured of women,' and is crowned with meadow-sweet (_spiraea_), to which she gave its sweet smell.

She is a powerful tutelary spirit, protector of the sick, and connected with the moon, her hill being sickle-shaped, and men, before performing the ceremonies, used to look for the moon--whether visible or not--lest they should be unable to return."[858] By St. Anne's in Dean Street, Soho, is Dansey Yard, where probably _dancing_ took place, and dins of every sort arose.

The original sanctuary at Westminster was evidently a.s.sociated with a dunhill which seems to have long persisted for Loftie, in his _History of Westminster_, observes: "The _hillock_ on which we stand is called Thorn Ey".[859] Tothill Street, Westminster, marks the site of what was probably the teat hill of Sir Patrise: the tothills being centres of neighbourly intercourse a good deal of t.i.ttle-tattle doubtless occurred there, and from the toothills watchmen _touted_, the word _tout_[860]

really meaning peer about or look out: "How beautiful on the Mounds are the feet of Him that bringeth _tidings_--that publisheth Peace".[861] It has been supposed that certain of the Psalms of David were addressed not to the Jewish Jehovah, but to the Phoenician Adon or Adonis, and it is not an unreasonable a.s.sumption that these hymns of immemorial antiquity were first sung in some simple Eyedun similar to the wattled pyreum at Kildare, or that at Avalon or Bride Eye.

The oldest sanctuary in Palestine is a stone circle on the so-called Mount of G.o.d, and in Britain there is hardly a commanding eminence which is not crowned with a Carn or the evidences of a circle. The Cities of Refuge and the Horns of the Altar, so constantly mentioned in the Old Testament, may be connoted with the fact that in an island fort at Lough Gur, Limerick, were discovered "two ponderous horns of bronze," which are now in the British Museum: it will be remembered that at Lough Gur is the finest example of Irish stone circles. But stone circles are probably much more modern than the reputed founding of St. Bride's first monastery at Kildare. We are told that Bride the Gentle, the Mary of the Gael, who occasionally hanged her cloak upon a lingering sunbeam, had a great love of flowers, and that once upon a time when wending her way through a field of _clover_[862] she exclaimed, "Were this lovely plain my own how gladly would I offer it to the Lord of Heaven and Earth". She then begged some sticks from a pa.s.sing carter, staked and wattled them into a circle, and behold the Monastery was accomplished. The character of this simple edifice reminds one of "that structure neat," to which Homer thus alludes:--

Unaided by Laertes or the Queen, With tangled thorns he fenced it safe around, And with contiguous stakes riv'n from the trunks Of solid oak black-grain'd hemm'd it without.[863]

The circle of Mayborough originally contained two cairns which are suggestive of Andromache's "turf-built cenotaph with altars twain": the great bicycle within a monocycle at Avebury is trenched around, and the summit of the circ.u.mference is still growing thickly with "tangled thorns". On the Wrekin there is a St. Hawthorn's Well; of "Saint"

Hawthorn nothing seems to be known, and I strongly suspect that he was originally a sacred thorn or monument bush. The first _haies_ or hedges were probably the hawthorn or haw hedges around the sacred Eyes, and the original _ha-has_ or sunk ditches were presumably the water trenches which surrounded the same jealously-guarded Eyes: and as _ha-ha_ is also defined as "an old woman of surprising ugliness, a caution," it may be suggested that the caretakers or beldames[864] of the awful Eyes were, like some of the vergers and charwomen of the present day, not usually comely.