Archaic England

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 453.--Trematon, Cornwall.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 454.--Chun Castle.]

The iris-form of the Eye was shown in the ground plan _ante_, page 534, and that this design was maintained even for ages after the first primitive Rock or Tower had given place to statelier edifices might be shown by many more evidences than the design here ill.u.s.trated: the _maton_ of this Trematon Castle was in all probability the same Maiden as the Shee of Maiden Castle, Maiden Paps, and the Maiden Stane.

Trematon, in Cornwall, was the site of a Stannary Court, whence arose the proverbial localism "Trematon Law," and there are peculiarities about the Castle which merit more than pa.s.sing attention. Rising majestically amid the surrounding foliage the keep is described as standing on the summit of a conical mound: Baring-Gould characterises the aspect as being that of a pork pie, whence its windowless walls would seem to bear a resemblance to the ma.s.sive masonry at Richborough.

The Richborough walls now measure 10 feet 8 inches in thickness and nearly 30 feet in height; those at Trematon are stated as being 10 feet thick and 30 feet high. Like Maiden Castle at Dorchester, Trematon is of an oval form and it was formerly divided into apartments, but as there are no marks of windows they would appear to have been lighted from the top.[865] The gateway consisted of three strong arches, and the general arrangements would seem to have resembled those at Chun where, as will be noted, there were three outer chambers encircling about a dozen inner stalls. Chun is cyclopean unmortared stonework; Maiden Castle is earthwork; Richborough is supposedly Roman masonry: of Trematon little is known that may be deemed authentic, but it is generally believed to have been originally erected prior to the Conquest: as, however, the Anglo-Saxons were incapable of masonry it would seem that Trematon might be a.s.signed to an antiquity not less than that of Richborough Castle which it so curiously parallels. With the various Maiden Lanes of King's Cross, Covent Garden, and elsewhere may be connoted the Mutton Lane of Hackney, which was famous for a bun house which once rivalled that at _Cheynes_ Walk, Chelsea: Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, is a continuation of Chandos Street, and it will probably prove that the surname Chandos is ultimately traceable to _Jeanne douce_. In Caledonia _douce_ is not necessarily feminine, and the King John tradition, which unaccountably lingered around Canonbury,[866] may be connoted with the John Street and Mutton Hill of Clerkenwell. The sheep or mutton is the proper emblem of St. John, and perhaps the same King John may be further identified with the Goodman of the adjacent Goodman's Fields. We have seen that in Caledonia the gudeman was the devil, whence it becomes interesting to find near Brown's Wood, Islington, stood once a "Duval's (vulgarly called Devil's) Lane".[867]

St. Columba alludes affectionately to--

My _derry_, my little oak grove, My dwelling and my little cell.

The Eye dun ill.u.s.trated _ante_, page 584, which is described as the strangest, most solitary, most prehistoric-looking of all our motes, is known as _Trow_dale Mote; St. Columba is a.s.sociated with _Tiree_; he is also said to have been imprisoned at _Tara_, and to have written the book _Durrow_ with his own hand: there is thus some ground for tracing the Mote, Maton, Maid or Maiden, _alias_ St. Columba, to Droia or Troy.

That the dove was pre-eminently a Cretan emblem is well known, and that all derrys or trees were sacred Troys or sanctuaries is further implied by the ancient meaning of the adjective _terribilis_, _i.e._, sacred: thus we find Westminster or Thorn Ey alluded to by old writers as a _locus terribilis_,[868] and it would seem that any awe-inspiring or awful spot was deemed _terrible_ or sacred.

In the Celtic Calendar there figures a St. Maidoc or Aidan: Maidoc is _maid high_, and I am afraid St. Aidan was occasionally "a romping girl"

or _hoiden_. One does not generally a.s.sociate Pallas Athene with revelry, and it is difficult to connect with gaiety the grim example of Athene which the present proprietors of _The Athenaeum_ have adopted as their ideal; yet, says Plato, "Our virgin Lady, delighting in the sports of the dance, thought it not meet to dance with empty hands; she must be clothed in full armour, and in this attire go through the dance. And youths and maidens should in every respect imitate her example, honouring the G.o.ddess, both with a view to the actual necessities of war and to the festivals." Hoiden or hoyden meant likewise a gypsy--a native of Egypt "the Land of the Eye"--and also a heathen: Athene, who was certainly a heathen maid, may be connoted with Idunn of Scandinavia, who keeps the apples which symbolise the ever-renewing and rejuvenating force of Nature.[869] Tradition persistently a.s.sociates Eden with an apple, although Holy Writ contains nothing to warrant the connection: similarly tradition says that Eve had a daughter named Ada: as Idunn was said to be the daughter of Ivalde we may equate Idunn, the young and lovely apple-maid, with Ada or Ida, and Ivalde, her mother with the Old _Wife_, or Ive Old.[870] In an earlier chapter we connected Eve with _happy_, Hob, etc., and there is little doubt that Eve, "the Ivy Girl,"

was the Greek Hebe who had the power of making old men young again, and filled the goblets of the G.o.ds with nectar.

Idunn, "the care-healing maid who understands the renewal of youth,"

was, we are told, the youthful leader of the _Idunns_ or fairies: in present-day Welsh _edyn_ means a _winged one_, and _ednyw_ a spirit or essence. It is said that from the manes of the horses of the Idunns dropped a celestial dew which filled the goblets and horns of the heroes in Odin's hall; it is also said that the Idunns offer full goblets and horns to mortals, but that these, thankless, usually run away with the beaker after spilling its contents on the ground. There must be an intimate connection between the legend of the fair Idunns, and the fact that at the Caledonian Edenhall, on the river Eden, is preserved an ancient goblet known as The Luck of Edenhall:--

If this gla.s.s do break or fall Farewell the luck of Edenhall.

The river Eden flows into the Solway Firth, possibly so named because the Westering Sun must daily have been seen to create a golden track or sun-way over the Solway waters. Ptolemy refers to Solway Firth as Ituna Estuarium, so that seemingly Eden or Ituna may be equated not only with the British rivers Ytene and Aeithon, but also with the Egyptian Aten.

According to Prof. Petrie, the cult of Aten "does not, so far, show a single flaw in a purely scientific conception of the source of all life and power upon earth. The Sun is represented as radiating its beams on all things, and every beam ends in a hand which imparts life and power to the king and to all else. In the hymn to the Aten, the universal scope of this power is proclaimed as the source of all life and action, and every land and people are subject to it, and owe to it their existence and allegiance. No such grand theology had ever appeared in the world before, so far as we know, and it is the forerunner of the later monotheist religions while it is even more abstract and impersonal and may well rank as a scientific theism."

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 455.--British. From Evans]

Egyptian literature tells of a King Pepi questing for the tree of life in company with the Morning Star carrying a spear of Sunbeams.

Thy rising is beautiful, O living Aton, Lord of Eternity, Thou art s.h.i.+ning, beautiful, strong, Thy love is great and mighty.

Thy rays are cast into every face Thy glowing hue brings life to hearts When thou hast filled the two Lands with thy love O G.o.d, who himself fas.h.i.+oned himself, Maker of every land.

Creator of that which is upon it, Men, all cattle, large and small.

All trees that grow in the soil, They live when thou dawnest for them.

Thou art the mother and the father of all that thou has made.

Yet this resplendent Pair or Parent was also addressed by the Egyptians as the Sea on High and invoked--

Bow thy head, decline thy arms, O Sea!

The Maiden Morning Star or Stella Maris was imagined as refres.h.i.+ng the heart of King Pepi to life: "She purifies him, she cleanses him, he receives his provision from that which is in the Granary of the Great G.o.d, he is clothed by the Imperishable Stars." The intimate connection between Candia and Egypt, the "Land of the Eye" is generally admitted, and as it is an etymological fact that the letters _m_ and _n_ are almost invariably interchangeable (indeed if language begins with voice and ends with voice it is impossible to suppose that two such similar sounds could have maintained their integrity), it is probable that Candia is radically related to Khem, which seemingly was the most ancient name for Egypt. The celebrated "Maiden Bower," by Mount Pleasant, Dunstable, is believed to be the modern equivalent of magh _din_ barr, p.r.o.nounced mach _dim_ barr, and

In all probability therefore Adam, Master of Eden, was originally Adon or "the Lord," and Notre _Dame_ of France was equivalent to the _Madonna_ of Italy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 456.--From _The Correspondences of Egypt_ (Odhner).]

In Caledonia the moothills were known alternatively as _Dom_hills, and in the "Chanonry of Aberdeen" was a dun known as Donidon or Dunadon: _doom_ still means fate or judgment; in Scots Law giving sentence was formerly called "pa.s.sing the doeme"; the judge was denominated the Doomster, and the jury the Doomsmen. In the Isle of Man the judges are termed Deemsters, and in Scandinavia stone circles are known as Doom rings: the Hebrew Dan meant _judgment_, and the English Dinah[871] is interpreted as _one who judges_; in the Isle of Man the Laws are not legal until they have been proclaimed from the _Tyn_wald Hill. That the Domhills of Britain have largely preserved their physical condition is no doubt due to the doom frequently inflicted on malefactors that they should carry thither a certain quant.i.ty of earth and deposit it.[872]

In Europe there are numerous megalithic monuments known popularly as "Adam's Graves," and near Draycott at Avebury the maps mark an Adam's Grave. On the brow of a hill near Heddon (Northumberland) is a trough-like excavation in the solid rock known as the Giant's Grave; there is a similar Giant's Grave near Edenhall by Penrith, and a neighbouring chasm ent.i.tled The Maiden's Step is popularly connected with Giant Torquin: this Torquin suggests Tarquin of Etruria, between which and Egypt there was as close if not a closer connection than that between Candia and Khem.

At Maidstone, originally Maidenstone, there is a _Moat_ Park: in Egypt _Mut_ was one of the names given to the Queen of Heaven, or Lady of the Sky: Mut was no doubt a variant of Maat, or Maht, the Egyptian G.o.ddess of Truth, for in the wors.h.i.+p of the Egyptian Aton "Truth" occupied a pre-eminent position, and the capital of Ikhnaton, the most conspicuous of the Aton-wors.h.i.+pping kings, was called the "Seat of Truth".

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 457.--Maat.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 458.--Mut.]

Surmounting the Maat here ill.u.s.trated is a conspicuous _feather_ which we have already connoted with _feeder_ and _fodder_. Maat, the giver of provision from that which is in the granary of the Great G.o.d, is thus presumably allied with _meat_, also to _mud_,[873] or liquid earth. The word _mud_ is not found in Anglo-Saxon, but is evidently the Phoenician _mot_, and it would be difficult for modern science to add very much to the prehistoric conception of the Phoenicians. According to their great historian Sancaniathon: "The beginning of all things was a condensed, windy air, or a breeze of thick air, and a chaos turbid and black as Erebus. Out of this chaos was generated Mot, which some call Ilus" (_mud_), "but others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. And from this sprang all the seed of the creation, and the generation of the universe.... And, when the air began to send forth light, winds were produced, and clouds, and very great defluxions and torrents of the heavenly waters."[874] It is probable that _Sancaniathon_, the Phoenician sage to whom the above pa.s.sage is attributed, was radically _Iathon_ or _Athene_.

We have connoted the Egyptian sun-G.o.d Phra with Pharoah, or Peraa, who was undoubtedly the earthly representative of the same Fire or Phare as was wors.h.i.+pped by the Pa.r.s.ees, or Fa.r.s.ees of Persia: the Persian historians dilate with enthusiasm on the justice, wisdom, and glory of a fabulous Feridoon whose virtues acquired him the appellation of the Fortunate, and it is probable that this Feridoon was the Fair Idoon whose palace, like the Fairy Donn's, was located on some humble fire dun, or peri down. The name Feridoon, or Ferdun (the Fortunate),[875] is translated as meaning _paradisiacal_: Ferdusi is etymologically equivalent to _perdusi_, which is no doubt the same word as _paradise_, and we can almost visualise the term _feridoon_ transforming itself into _fairy don_. Nevertheless by one Parthian poet it was maintained--

The blest Feridoon an angel was not, Of musk or of amber, he formed was not; By justice and mercy good ends gained he, Be just and merciful thou'lt a Feridoon be.[876]

In Germany, Frei or Frey meant a privileged place or sanctuary: in London such a sanctuary until recently existed around the church of St.

Mary Offery, or Overy (now St. Saviours, Southwark), and in a subsequent chapter we shall consider certain local traditions which permit the equation of St. Mary Overy, and of the Brixton-Camberwell river _Effra_, with the Fairy _Ovary_ of the Universe. The Gaelic and Welsh for an opening or _mouth_ is _aber_, whence Aberdeen is held to mean the mouth of the Don: but at Loch_aber_ or Loch _Apor_ this interpretation cannot apply, and it is not improbable that Aberdeen on the river Don was primarily a Pictish Abri town--a Britain or Prydain. As the capital of Caledonia is Edinburgh or Dunedin, it may be suggested that the whole of Caledonia stern and wild was originally a _Kille_, or church of Don.

At Braavalla, in Osturgothland, there are remains of a marvellous "stone town," whence we may a.s.sume that this site was originally a Braavalla, or _abri valley_: the chief of the Irish Barony of Barrymore who was ent.i.tled "The Barry" is said to have inhabited an enchanted brugh in one of the Nagles Hills. Near New Grange in Ireland there is a remarkable dolmen known locally as the house or tomb of Lady "Vera, or Birra":[877]

five miles distant is Bellingham, and I have little doubt that every fairy dun or fairy town, the supposed local home of Bellinga, the Lord Angel or the Beautiful Angel, was synonymously a "Britain"; that Briton and Barton are mere variants of the same word is evident from such place-names as Dumbarton, originally Dunbrettan.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 459.--New Grange, Ireland.

Fig. I _The Barrow at New Grange_

Fig. II _Section of the Tumulus_

Fig. III _Section of the Gallery & Dome_]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 460--Kit's Coty, near Maidstone.

[_To face page 751._]

It has been seen that Prydain--of whom it was claimed that before his coming there was little ordinance in these Islands save only a superiority of oppression--was the reputed child of King Aedd: Aedd was one of the t.i.tles of Hu, the first of our national Three Pillars, and he was probably identical with Aeddon, a name which, says Davies, "I think was a t.i.tle of the G.o.d himself": the priests of Hu were apparently termed Aeddons, whence like the Mountjoys of France we may a.s.sume they were the denizens of the Aeddon duns: inquiry will probably establish one of these sanctuaries at Haddington; at Addington (Domesday _Edin_tone) in Kent there are the remains of one still standing. With the pagan Aeddons may be connoted the Celtic Saint Aidan, aeden, or Aiden, whose name is a.s.sociated with Lindis_farne_, also the St. Aidan, or Maidoc of _Ferns_, who among other prodigies is recorded as having driven to and from Rome in twenty-four hours. At _Farn_ MacBride in Glencolumkille, there are some cromlechs which exactly resemble in plan the house of Lady Vera, or Birra, at New Grange:[878] at Evora, in _Por_tugal, situated on bleak heathland, is a similar monument which Borrow described as the most perfect and beautiful of its kind he had ever seen: "It was circular, and consisted of stones immensely large and heavy at the bottom, which towards the top became thinner, having been fas.h.i.+oned by the hand of art to something like the shape of _scallop sh.e.l.ls_.... Three or four individuals might have taken shelter within the interior in which was growing a small thorn tree."[879] The scallop sh.e.l.l, like the c.o.c.kle and all coquilles, was obviously an emblem of Evora, the Ovary, the Aber, the opening.

The _Bona dea_ of Candia was represented with a headdress in the form of a cat; we shall connote this animal (German _kater_) with St. Caterina or Kate, the immaculate pure one, and it is not unnoteworthy that the Kentish _Kit's_ coty, near Maidstone, _vide_ the photograph here reproduced, contains what might be a rude much-weathered image of the sacred _cat_, lioness, or _kit_ten:[880] In Caledonia is a famous Cat[881] Stane, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland still bears the honorary t.i.tle "Lady of the Cat".[882] The word _kitt_en resolves into Great Itten: the New Forest used to be known as the Forest of Ytene,[883] and I do not think that the great British Forest of Dean has any real connection with the supposition that the Danes may have taken up their residence there: _Dean_ was almost a generic name for forest, and we meet with it from Arden to the Ardennes.[884]

For an explication of the word _dawn_ Skeat observes: "see day"; it is, however, probable that _dawn_ was the little or young Don or Adon. By the Welsh the constellation Ca.s.siopeaia is known under the t.i.tle of Don's chair. That the Irish Don was Truth is probable from the statement "His blue dome (the sky) was an infallible weather-gla.s.s, whence its name the Hill of Truth".[885]

According to the Edda,[886] a collection of traditions which have been a.s.signed variously by scholars to Norway, Greenland, and the British Isles, the world was created by the sons of Bor, and in the beginning the G.o.ds built a citadel in Ida-plain and an age of universal innocence prevailed. Situated on c.o.c.kburn Law in Berwicks.h.i.+re--a wick or fortress of Ber upon which stands the largest of all the brochs--is a prehistoric circle known as Edina or Wodens Hall. The English name Edana or Edna, defined as meaning _perfect happiness_ or _rich gift_, is stated to be a variant of Ida or Ada: in Hebrew the name Adah means _beauty_, and Ada, the lovely daughter of Adam, is probably Eda, the "pa.s.sionately beloved"[887] Breaton princess of Hibernia, or Ma Ida of Tyburnia or Marylebone.

The Garden of Eden has somewhat unsuccessfully, I believe, been located in Mesopotamia: the Jews doubtless had their Edens even though Palestine is arid, and the authorities translate the name Adam as having meant _red earth_: according to early Rabbinical writers Adam was a giant; he touched the Arctic pole with one hand and the Antarctic with the other.[888] I have here noted but a handful of the innumerable Edens in Britain which includes five rivers of that name:[889] that the Lady of Britain was Prydain, Brython, or _pure Athene_, _i.e._, Wisdom, is a well-recognised tradition, for she is conventionally represented as Athene. In Greece the girl-name Theana meant _Divine Intelligence_,[890]

and Ida was interpreted _far seeing_: in Troy the G.o.ddess of the city, which originally stood upon a dun hill, was Athene, and the innumerable owl-headed emblems found there by Schliemann were her sign: "Before the human form was adopted her (Athene's) proper symbol was the Owl; a bird which seems to surpa.s.s all other creatures in acuteness and refinement, of organic perception; its eyes being calculated to discern objects which to all others are enveloped in darkness; its ear to hear sounds distinctly when no other can perceive them at all, and its nostrils to discriminate effluvia with such nicety that it has been deemed prophetic from discovering the putridity of death even in the first stages of disease."[891]

We have noted the existence of some exclusively British fairies known as Portunes: among the Latins Portunas was a name of Tri_ton_ or Nep_tune_: the Mother of the British Portunes might be termed Phortuna, or, as we should now write the word, Fortuna, and the stone circle at Goodaver in Cornwall might be described as a Wheel of Good Phortune: the Hebrew for _fortune_ is _gad_, and it is probable that the famous Gads.h.i.+ll, near Rochester, was at one time a G.o.d's Hill; from Kit's Coty on the heights above Rochester it is stated that according to tradition a continuous series of stone monuments once extended to Addington where are still the remains of another coty or cromlech.

There are in England numerous Addingtons or Edintones, and at at least two of these are Druidic remains: the Kentish Addington, near Snodland and Kit's Coty, is dedicated to St. Margaret, and the church itself is situated on a rise or dun. Half a mile from Bacton in Hereford is a small wood known as St. Margaret's Park, and in the centre of this is a cruciform mound, its western arm on the highest ground, its eastern on the lowest: this cruciform mound was described in 1853 as being 15 feet at base,[892] a familiar figure which may be connoted with the statement in _The Golden Legend_ that St. Margaret was fifteen years of age. In addition to the cruciform mount at St. Margaret's Park, Bacton, there are further remains of archaeologic interest: about 100 years ago nine large yew trees which were surrounding it--one of gigantic size--were felled to the ground, and my authority states that its venerable antiquity was evident from the decayed stumps of _oaks_ still visible felled ages ago together with more recent ones.[893] In addition to the cross in this prehistoric Oak grove of the Lady Margaret there are three curious cavities, two of them circular, the third oval or egg-shaped: the ancient veneration for the _oeuf_, or egg, has degenerated to the Easter egg, and in Ireland the Dummy's Hill,[894] a.s.sociated with egg-trundling may, I think, be equated with Donna or the Dame.

The Cretan Britomart in Greek was understood to mean _sweet maiden_; in Welsh _pryd_ meant precious, dear, fair, beautiful; Eda of Ireland was "pa.s.sionately beloved," and to the Britons the sweet maiden was inferentially Britan_nia_, the _new_ pure Athene, Ma Ida the Maid or Maiden whose character is summed up in the words _prude_, _proud_, _pride_, and _pretty_. In Ireland we may trace her as Meave, _alias_ Queen Mab, and the headquarters of this Maiden were either at Tara or at Moytura: the latter written sometimes Magh Tuireadh, probably meant the plain of Troy, for there are still all the evidences here of a megalithic Troy town. The probabilities are that Stanton Drew in Somerset, like Drewsteignton in Devon, with which tradition connects St.

Keyna, was another Dru stonetown for here are a cromlech, a logan stone, two circles, some traces of the Via Sacra or Druid Way and an ancient British camp: in Aberdeen there are circles at _Tyre_bagger, Dun_adeer_, and at Deer.

Among other so-called monuments of the Brugh at Moytura recorded in the old annalists are "the Two Paps of the Morrigan," "The Mound of the Morrigan," _i.e_., the Mound of the Great Queen, also a "Bed of the Daughter of Forann":[895] Forann herself was doubtless the Hag whose weirdly-sculptured chair exists at Lough Crew in Meath: _Meath_ was esteemed the _mid_, _middle_, or _midst_, of Ireland, and here as we have seen existed the central stone at Birr. There is a celebrated Hag's Bed at Fermoy, doubtless the same Hag as the "Old Woman of Beare," whose seven periods of youth necessitated all who lived with her to die of old age: this Old Woman's grandsons and great grandsons were, we are told, tribes and races, and in several stories she appears to the hero as a repulsive hag who suddenly transforms herself into a beautiful Maid. At Moytura--with which tradition intimately a.s.sociates the Children of Don--is a cairn called to this day the "cairn of the One Man": with this One Man we may connote Un Khan or Prester John, of whose mystic Kingdom so many marvellous legends circulated during the Middle Ages.

Among the miracles attributed to St. Patrick is one to the effect that by the commandment of G.o.d he "made in the earth a great circle with his staff": this might be described as a _byre_, _i.e._, an enclosure or bower, and we may connote the word with the stone circle in Westmoreland, at Brackenbyr, _i.e._, the byre of Brecon, Brechin, or the Paragon? The husband of Idunn was ent.i.tled Brage, whose name _inter alia_ meant King: Brage was the G.o.d of poetry and eloquence; a superfluity of prating, pride, and eloquence is nowadays termed _brag_.