his flying steedsHis chariot bore, o’er bodies of the slainAnd broken bucklers trampling; all beneathWas splash’d with blood the axle, and the railsAround the car, as from the horses’ feetAnd from the felloes of the wheels were thrownThe bloody gouts; and onward still he pressed,Panting for added triumphs; deeply dyedWith gore and carnage his unconquer’d hands.[423]
his flying steedsHis chariot bore, o’er bodies of the slainAnd broken bucklers trampling; all beneathWas splash’d with blood the axle, and the railsAround the car, as from the horses’ feetAnd from the felloes of the wheels were thrownThe bloody gouts; and onward still he pressed,Panting for added triumphs; deeply dyedWith gore and carnage his unconquer’d hands.[423]
his flying steeds
His chariot bore, o’er bodies of the slain
And broken bucklers trampling; all beneath
Was splash’d with blood the axle, and the rails
Around the car, as from the horses’ feet
And from the felloes of the wheels were thrown
The bloody gouts; and onward still he pressed,
Panting for added triumphs; deeply dyed
With gore and carnage his unconquer’d hands.[423]
Fig.244.—FromA Guide to the Antiquities of Bronze Age(B.M.).
Fig.244.—FromA Guide to the Antiquities of Bronze Age(B.M.).
Biga, the Greek for chariot, is seeminglybuggy, the name of a vehicle which was once very fashionable with us: the term, now practically extinct in this country, is still used largely in America, whither like much other supposedly American slang, it was no doubt carried by the pilgrim fathers.[424]To account satisfactorily forbuggyone must assume that the earliestbigaswere used ceremoniously in sacred festivals to Big Eye or the Sun: that this was a prevalent custom is proved by the Scandinavian model representing the Solar Chariot here illustrated. Amongthe cave-offerings of Crete the model biga was very frequent, and no doubt it had some such mental connection with the constellation King Charles’s Wain, as still exists in Breton folklore. In what was known as King’s barrow in Yorkshire, the skeleton of an old man was uncovered accompanied by chariot wheels, the skeletons of two small horses, and the skulls of two pigs: similar sepulchres have been found in great number in the Cambrai–Peronne–Bray district of France. Not only do we here find the term Santerre applied to an extensive plain, but the exquisite bronze plaques, discs, and flagons recovered from the tombs “appear to be of Greek workmanship”. In the words of Dr. Pycraft (written in August, 1918): “The Marne is rich in such relics—though, happily, they need no little skill in finding, for they date back to prehistoric times ranging from the days of the Stone Age to the dawn of history. The retreat of this foul-minded brood [the German Army] towards the Vesle will probably mean the doom of the celebrated Menhirs, or standing stones, of the Marne Valley. These date back to about 6000B.C., and are remarkable for the fact that they bear curiously sculptured designs, of which the most striking is a conventionalised representation of the human face.[425]This, and the general character of the ornamentation, bears a close likeness to that found on early objects from Hissarlik and the Greek islands.... These megalithic monuments mark the appearance in Europe of a new race, bringing with them new customs—and, what is still more important, the use of metal.”[426]
Among the finds at Troy, Schliemann recovered somecurious two-holed whorls or wheels, in the eyes of which are representations of a horse: he also discovered certain small carved horse-heads.[427]That the horse was of good omen among the Trojans is implied by the description of the building of Æneas’s new colony, for of this new-borntrewe read—
A grove stood in the city, rich in shade,Where storm-tost Tyrians, past the perilous brine,Dug from the ground by royal Juno’s aidA war-steed’s head, to far-off days a signThat wealth and prowess should adorn the line.[428]
A grove stood in the city, rich in shade,Where storm-tost Tyrians, past the perilous brine,Dug from the ground by royal Juno’s aidA war-steed’s head, to far-off days a signThat wealth and prowess should adorn the line.[428]
A grove stood in the city, rich in shade,
Where storm-tost Tyrians, past the perilous brine,
Dug from the ground by royal Juno’s aid
A war-steed’s head, to far-off days a sign
That wealth and prowess should adorn the line.[428]
Such was the auspiciousness of this find that the Trojans forthwith erected an altar to Juno,i.e., Cuno?
At the home of the Mother Goddess in Gnossus there has been discovered a seal impression which is described as a noble horse of enormous size being transported on a one-masted boat driven by Minoan oarsmen, seated beneath an awning:[429]it has been assumed by one authority after another that this seal-stone represented and commemorated the introduction into Crete of the thorough-bred horse, but more probably it was the same sacred horse as is traditionally associated with the fall of Troy. There is some reason to think that this supposedly fabulous episode may have had some historic basis: historians are aware that the Druids were accustomed to make vast wicker frames, sometimes in the form of a bull, and according to Roman writers these huge constructions filled either with criminals or with sacrificial victims were then burnt. Two enormous white horses constructed from wood and paper formed part of a recent procession in connectionwith the obsequies of the late Emperor of Korea, and it is quite possible that the wily Greeks strategically constructed a colossal horse by means of which they introduced a picked team of heroes in the Trojan sanctuary. According to Virgil—
Broken by war, long baffled by the forceOf fate, as fortune and their hopes decline,The Danaan leaders build a monstrous horse,Huge as a hill, by Pallas’ craft divine,And cleft fir-timbers in the ribs entwine.They feign it vowed for their return, so goesThe tale, and deep within the sides of pineAnd caverns of the womb by stealth encloseArmed men, a chosen band, drawn as the lots dispose.[430]
Broken by war, long baffled by the forceOf fate, as fortune and their hopes decline,The Danaan leaders build a monstrous horse,Huge as a hill, by Pallas’ craft divine,And cleft fir-timbers in the ribs entwine.They feign it vowed for their return, so goesThe tale, and deep within the sides of pineAnd caverns of the womb by stealth encloseArmed men, a chosen band, drawn as the lots dispose.[430]
Broken by war, long baffled by the force
Of fate, as fortune and their hopes decline,
The Danaan leaders build a monstrous horse,
Huge as a hill, by Pallas’ craft divine,
And cleft fir-timbers in the ribs entwine.
They feign it vowed for their return, so goes
The tale, and deep within the sides of pine
And caverns of the womb by stealth enclose
Armed men, a chosen band, drawn as the lots dispose.[430]
That this elaborate form of the wicker-cage was introduced into Troy upon some religious pretext would appear almost certain from the inquiry of the aged Priam—
but mark, and tell me now,What means this monster, for what use designed?Some warlike engine?or religious vow?Who planned the steed, and why? Come, quick, the truth avow.[431]
but mark, and tell me now,What means this monster, for what use designed?Some warlike engine?or religious vow?Who planned the steed, and why? Come, quick, the truth avow.[431]
but mark, and tell me now,
What means this monster, for what use designed?
Some warlike engine?or religious vow?
Who planned the steed, and why? Come, quick, the truth avow.[431]
The Trojans were guileless enough to “through the gates the monstrous horse convey,” and even to lodge it in the citadel fatuously ignoring the recommendation of Capys
... to tumble in the rolling tide,The doubtful gift, for treachery designed,Or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side.
... to tumble in the rolling tide,The doubtful gift, for treachery designed,Or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side.
... to tumble in the rolling tide,
The doubtful gift, for treachery designed,
Or burn with fire, or pierce the hollow side.
Unless there had been some highly superstitious feeling attaching to the votive horse, one cannot conceive why the sound advice of Capys was not immediately put into practice.
Although both Greeks and Trojans were accomplished charioteers, riding on horseback was, we are told, so rare and curious an exhibition in ancient Greece that only one single reference is found in the poems of Homer. According to Gladstone, equestrian exercise was “the half-foreign accomplishment of the Kentauroi,” who were fabulously half-man and half-horse: similarly, in most ancient Ireland there are no riders on horseback, and the warriors fight invariably from chariots.[432]On the other hand, in Etruria there are found representations of what might be a modern race meeting, and the effect of these pictures upon the early investigators of Etrurian tombs seems to have been most surprising. In the words of Mrs. Hamilton Gray: “The famous races of Britain seemed there to find their type. The racers, the race-stand, the riders with their various colours, the judges, the spectators, and the prizes were all before us. We were unbelieving like most of our countrymen.... Our understandings and imaginations were alike perplexed.”[433]
The verb tocanteris supposed to be derived from the pace at which pilgrims proceeded toCanterbury. But pilgrims either footed it or else ambled leisurely along on their palfreys, and the connection between canter and Cantuar is seemingly much deeper than supposed. AtKintyrein Scotland the patron saint is St.Cheiran, who may be connoted withChiron, the wise and goodKentaurchief; and this connection of Chiron-Kentaur, Cheiran-Kintyre is the more curious, inasmuch as both an Irish MS. and Ptolemy refer independently by different terms to the Mull of Kintyre, as “the height of thehorse”.[434]
Fig.245.—FromThe Heroes(Kingsley, C.).Fig.245.—FromThe Heroes(Kingsley, C.).
Fig.245.—FromThe Heroes(Kingsley, C.).Fig.245.—FromThe Heroes(Kingsley, C.).
The illustration herewith is an early Victorian conception of Chiron, the wise and kindly Kentaur King, andCantorix, an inscription found on the spectral steeds of Fig. 146, might seemingly without outrage be interpreted asCanto rex, orSong King: in Welshcanto, a song orchant, wasgan, and the titletataguenmeant “the fatherof the muse”;[435]according to mythology the walls of Troy were built by Oceanus to the music of Apollo’s lyre.
It would appear probable that Kent, the county of Invicta, the White Horse, was pre-eminently a horse-breeding county, as it remains to this day: part of Cantuarburig is known as Hackington, and in view of the Iceni hackney-coins there is little doubt that horse-breeding was extensively practised wherever the equine Eceni, Cantii, and Cenomagni were established. It is noteworthy that the Icknield Way was known alternatively as Hackington Way, Hackney Way, Acknil Way, and Hikenilde Street.[436]
It is a curious fact that practically the first scratchings of a horse represent the animal as bridled, whence the authorities assume that horses were kept semi-domesticated in a compound for purposes of food: immense collections of horse bones have been discovered, whence it seems probable that horses were either sacrificed in hecatombs or were eaten in large quantities; but the Tartars kept horses mainly for the mare’s milk.
Pliny mentions a horse-eating tribe, in Northern Spain, entitled the Concanni, with which Iberians may be connoted the Congangi of Cumberland, whose headquarters were supposedly Kendal: the western point of Carnarvonshire is named by Ptolemy Gangani, and the same geographer mentions another Gangani in the West of Hibernia. The Hibernian Ganganoi, situated in the neighbourhood of the Shannon, worshipped a Sengann whose name is supposed to meanOld Gann: we have illustrated the earthwork wheel cross of Shanid (antep. 55), andhave suggested the equation of Sen Gann with Sinjohn. In all probability the fairy known in Ireland as Gancanagh, who appears in lonesome valleys and makes love to milkmaids, is a survival of the Gangani’s All Father. The name Konken occurs among the kingly chronology of Archaic Britain; the most ancient inscribed stone in Wales is a sepulchral stone of a certain Cingen: the Saxon name Cunegonde is translated as having meantroyal lady.
The Frenchcancan, an exuberant dance which is associated with Paris, the city of the Parisii, may be a survival from the times of the Celtiberian Concanni: Paris was the Adonis of the Hellenes, or Children of Hellas, and it is not unlikely that the lamenthelas!oralas!was the cry wailed by the women on the annual waning of the Solar Power. At Helstone in Cornwall—supposed to be named fromhellas, a marsh—there is still danced an annual Furry dance of which the feature is a long linked chain similar to that of the French farandole: iffaran, likefern, be the plural offar, it follows that thefurryand thefarandole were alike festivals of the Great Fire, Phare, Fairy, Phairy, or Peri; the Parisii who settled in the Bridlington district are by some scholars assigned to Friesland.
Persia, the home of the peris, is still known locally as Farsistan, whence the name Farsees or Parsees is now used to mean fire worshippers: the Indian Parsees seem chiefly to be settled in the district of India, which originally formed part of the ancient Indian Konkan kingdom, and the probabilities are that the Konkani of the East, like the Cancanii of the West, were worshippers of the Khan Khan, or King of Kings.
In the most ancient literature of India entire hymns are addressed to the Solar Horse, and the estimation in whichthe White Horse was held in Persia may be judged from the annual salutation ceremony thus described by Williamson inThe Great Law: “The procession to salute the God formed long before the rising of the sun. The High Priest was followed by a long train of Magi, in spotless white robes chanting hymns and carrying the sacred fire on silver censers. Then came 365 youths in scarlet, to represent the days of the year, and the colour of fire. These were followed by the chariot of the sun, empty, decorated with garlands, and drawn by superb white horses, harnessed with pure gold. Then came a white horse of magnificent size, his forehead blazing with gems, in honour of Mithras. Close behind him rode the king, in a chariot of ivory inlaid with gold, followed by his royal kindred, in embroidered garments and a long train of nobles, riding on camels richly caparisoned. This gorgeous retinue, facing the East, slowly ascended Mount Orontes. Arrived at the summit, the high priest assumed his tiara, wreathed with myrtle, and hailed the first rays of the rising sun with incense and with prayer. The other Magi gradually joined him in singing hymns to Ormuzd, the source of all blessings, by whom the radiant Mithra had been sent to gladden the earth, and preserve the principle of life. Finally, they all joined in the one universal chorus of praise, while king, princes, and nobles prostrated themselves before the orb of day.”
There is every likelihood that this festival was celebrated on a humbler scale at many a British “Hallicondane,” and as the glory of the horse or courser is its speed—“swift is the sun in its course”—we may also be sure that no pains were spared to secure a worthy representative of the Supreme Ecna, Ekeni, or Hackney.
In Egypt the whole land was ransacked in order to discover the precise and particular Bull, which by its special markings was qualified to play Apis, and when this precious beast was found there were national rejoicings. Reasoning by analogy it is probable that not only did each British horse-centre have its local races, but that there was in addition what might be called a Grand National either at Stonehenge or at one or another of the tribal centres. In such case the winners would become the sacred steeds, which, as we know, were maintained by the Druids in the sanctuaries, and from whose neighing or knowing auguries were drawn. Such was the value placed in Persia upon the augury of a horse’s neigh, that on one memorable occasion the rights of two claimants to the throne were decided by the fact that the horse of the favoured one neighed first.[437]
It is probable that the primitive horse-races of the Britons were elemental Joy-days, Hey-days, and Holy-days, similar to the time-honoured Scouring and Cleansing of the White Horse of Berkshire or Barrukshire. On the occasion of this festival in 1780,The Reading Mercuryinformed its readers that: “Besides the customary diversions of horse-racing, foot-races, etc., many uncommon rural diversions and feats of activity were exhibited to a greater number of spectators than ever assembled on any former occasion. Upwards of 30,000 persons were present, and amongst them most of the nobility and gentry of this and the neighbouring counties, and the whole was concluded without any material accident.”
Fig.246. FromThe Scouring of the White Horse(Hughes, T.).
Fig.246. FromThe Scouring of the White Horse(Hughes, T.).
Below the head of the White Horse, which at festival time was thoroughly scoured and restored to its pristinewhiteness, is a huge scoop in the downs forming a natural amphitheatre, and at the base of this so-called “manger” are the clear traces of artificial banks or tiers. In 1825 the games were held at Seven Barrows, distanttwo milesin a south-easterly direction from the White Horse itself. These Seven Barrows are imagined to be the burial places of seven chieftains slain at the battle of Ashdown, and adjacent mounds supposedly contain the corpses of the rank and file. But the starting-post of Lewes race-course, which is alsotwo milesin extent, is shown in the Ordnance map as being likewise situated at a group of seven tumuli, and as the winning-post at Lewes is at the base of Offham Hill the fact of starting at Seven Barrows, racing for two miles, and finishing respectively at Offham and Uffington is too conspicuous to be coincidence. Referring to the Stonehenge track Stukeley writes: “This course which is two miles long,” and he adds casually, “there is an obscure barrow or two round which they returned”.
At Uffington are the remains of a cromlech known as Wayland’s Smithy, Wayland, here as elsewhere, being an invisible, benevolent fairy blacksmith[438]: on Offham Hill, Lewes, stands an inn entitled the “Blacksmith’s Arms,” and below it Wallands Park.
The sub-district of Lewes, where the De Vere family seem to have been very prominent, contains the parishes of St. John, Southover, and Berwick: opposite the Castle Hill is Brack Mount, also a district called The Brooks; running past All Saints Church is Brooman’s Lane, and the “rape” of Lewes contains the hundreds of Barcomb and Preston. The principal church in Lewes is that of St. Michael, which is known curiously as St. Michaels inForo, and it stands, in all probability like the Brutus Stone, inForeStreet, Totnes, in what was the centre orforumof the original settlement.
The name Lewes is thought to belowes, which means barrows or toothills, and this derivation is no doubt correct, for within the precincts of Lewes Castle, which dominates the town, are still standing two artificial mounds nearly 800 feet apart from centre to centre.
These two barrows, known locally as the Twin Mounds of Lewes, may be connoted with theduas tumbasor two tumps, elsewhere associated with St. Michael: at their base lies Lansdowne Place, and at another Elan’s Town, or Wick,i.e., Alnwick on the river Aln or Alone, near Berwick, we find a remarkable custom closely associated with so-called Twinlaw or Tounlow cairns. This festival is thus described by Hope: “On St. Mark’s Day the houses of the new freemen are distinguished by a holly-tree planted before each door, as the signal for their friends to assemble and make merry with them. About eight o’clock the candidates for the franchise, being mounted on horseback and armed with swords, assemble in the market-place, where they are joined by the chamberlain and bailiff of the Duke of Northumberland, attended by two men armed with halberds. The young freemen arranged in order, with music playing before them and accompanied by a numerous cavalcade, march to the west-end of the town, where they deliver their swords. They then proceed under the guidance of the moorgrieves through a part of their extensive domain, till they reach the ceremonial well. The sons of the oldest freemen have the honour of taking the first leap. On the signal being given they pass through the bog, each being allowed to use the method and pacewhich to him shall seem best, some running, some going slow, and some attempting to jump over suspected places, but all in their turns tumbling and wallowing like porpoises at sea, to the great amusement of the populace, who usually assemble in vast numbers. After this aquatic excursion, they remount their horses and proceed to perambulate the remainder of their large common, of which they are to become free by their achievement. In passing the open part of the common the young freemen are obliged to alight at intervals, and place a stone on a cairn as a mark of their boundary, till they come near a high hill called theTwinlawor Tounlaw Cairns, when they set off at full speed, and contest the honour of arriving first on the hill, where the names of the freemen of Alnwick are called over. When arrived abouttwo milesfrom the town they generally arrange themselves in order, and, to prove their equestrian abilities, set off with great speed and spirit over bogs, ditches, rocks, and rugged declivities till they arrive atRottenrow Toweron the confines of the town, the foremost claiming the honour of what is termed ‘winning the boundaries,’ and of being entitled to the temporary triumphs of the day.”[439]
The occurrence of this horsey festival on St.Mark’sDay may be connoted with the fact that in Welsh and Cornishmarch, in Gaelicmarc, meanthorse: obviouslymarcis allied to the modernmare.
There is a Rottenrow at Lewes, and Rottenrow Tower on the confines of Alnwick is suggestive of the more famous Rotten Row in London. It would seem that this site was also the bourne or goal of steeplechases similar to those at Alnwick, for upwards of a mile westward there wasonce a street called Michael’s Grove, of which the site is now occupied by Ovington Square. This “Ovington” may be connoted not only with Offham Hill and Uffington of the White Horse, but also with Oving in Bucks, where is an earthwork also a spring known as “the Horse Spring,” traditionally associated with Horsa.[440]
Ovington Square at Kensington seems also to have been designated Brompton Grove, and asBrondesbury, a few miles northward, was known alternatively asBromesbury, andBromfield, in Shropshire, asBrunefield, we may safely regard theBromwhich appears here, and in numerous Bromptons, Bromsgroves, Bromsberrows, Bromleas, also Brimham Rocks, as being the same word asBron. The Latin name for broom—planta genista—apart from other evidence in my notebooks is an implication that the golden broom was deemed a symbol of Genista, the Good Genus or Janus: and as Janus of January, andplanta genista, was thefirst, the wordprimemay be connoted withbroom. On 1st January,i.e., the first day of the first month, it was customary in England to make a globe of blackthorn, a plant which is the first to come into flower: we have already connoted the thorn or spica with the Prime Cause, and with the prime letter of the alphabet A, or Aleph, whence in all probabilitybramblemay be equated also withbroomandprime.
Mitton, inKensington, observes that before being Brompton Grove this part of the district had been known as Flounders Field,[441]but why tradition does not say. Flounders Field is on the verge of, if not within, the district known as Kensington Gore, and those topographers who haveassignedgoreto the old English term meaningmudare probably correct. From Kensington Gore, or Flounders Field, we may assume that the freemen of Kensington once wallowed their way as at Alnwick to Rottenrow, and the plight of these sportsmen must have been the more pitiable inasmuch as, at any rate at Alnwick, the freemen were by custom compelled to wear white robes. In this connection it may be noted that at the triennial road-surveying ceremony known in Guernsey as theChevaucheeor Cavalcade of St. Michael (last held in 1837), a white wand was carried and the regimental band of the local militia was robed in long white smocks. “This very unmilitary costume,” says a writer inFolklore, “must, I think, have been traditionally associated with the Chevauchee as it is quite unlike all the uniforms of that date worn by our local militia; it may have been a survival of some ancient, perhaps rustic, possibly priestly band of minstrels and musicians.”[442]
Whether our Whit or White Monday parade of carthorses has any claim to antiquity I am unaware, but it is noteworthy that the Scouring of the Uffington White Horse was celebrated on Whit Monday with great joyous festivity. The Cavalcade of St. Michael, in which all the nobility and gentry took part, was ordained to be held on the Monday of Mid May and was evidently a most imposing ritual. It seems to have culminated at the Perron du Roy (illustrated onp. 315), which was once the boundary stone of the Royal Fief: at this spot stood once an upright stone known asLa Rogue des Fees, and a repast to the revellers was here served in a circular grass hollow where according to tradition the fays used to dance.During the procession the lance-bearer carried a wand eleven and a quarter feet long, the number of Vavasseurs was eleven, and it is possible that the eleven pools in Kensington, which were subsequently merged into the present Serpentine,[443]were originally constructed or adapted to this Elphin number in order to make a ceremonial course for the freemen floundering from Flounders Field to Rottenrow.
Kensington in days gone by was pre-eminently a district of springs and wells; the whole of south-west London was more or less a swamp or “holland,” and the early Briton, whose prehistoric canoe was found some years ago at Kew, might if he had wished have wallowed the whole way from Turnham Green,viaBrook Green, Parson’s Green, Baron’s Court, Walham and Fulham to Tyburn.
If it be true that Boudicca were able to put 4000 war chariots into the field there must at that time have been numerous stud farms, and the low-lying pastures of the larger Kent, which once contained London, were ideal for the purpose. The Haymarket is said to have derived its name from the huge amount of hay required by the mews of Charing Cross; a mile or so westward is Hay Hill; old maps indicate enormous mews in the Haymarket district, and there are indications that some of the present great mews and stables of south-western London are the relics of ancient parks or compounds. According to Homer—
By Dardanus, of cloud-compelling JoveBegotten, was Dardania peopled first,Ere sacred Ilium, populous city of men,Was founded on the plain; as yet they dweltOn spring-abounding Ida’s lowest spurs.To Dardanus was Erichthonius born,Great King, the wealthiest of the sons of men;For him were pastur’d in the marshy mead,Rejoicing with their foals, three thousand mares;Them Boreas, in the pasture where they fed,Beheld, enamour’d; and amid the herdIn likeness of a coal-black steed appear’d;Twelve foals, by him conceiving, they produc’d.These, o’er the teeming corn-fields as they flew,Skimm’d o’er the standing ears, nor broke the haulm;And o’er wide Ocean’s bosom as they flew,Skimm’d o’er the topmost spray of th’ hoary sea.[444]
By Dardanus, of cloud-compelling JoveBegotten, was Dardania peopled first,Ere sacred Ilium, populous city of men,Was founded on the plain; as yet they dweltOn spring-abounding Ida’s lowest spurs.To Dardanus was Erichthonius born,Great King, the wealthiest of the sons of men;For him were pastur’d in the marshy mead,Rejoicing with their foals, three thousand mares;Them Boreas, in the pasture where they fed,Beheld, enamour’d; and amid the herdIn likeness of a coal-black steed appear’d;Twelve foals, by him conceiving, they produc’d.These, o’er the teeming corn-fields as they flew,Skimm’d o’er the standing ears, nor broke the haulm;And o’er wide Ocean’s bosom as they flew,Skimm’d o’er the topmost spray of th’ hoary sea.[444]
By Dardanus, of cloud-compelling Jove
Begotten, was Dardania peopled first,
Ere sacred Ilium, populous city of men,
Was founded on the plain; as yet they dwelt
On spring-abounding Ida’s lowest spurs.
To Dardanus was Erichthonius born,
Great King, the wealthiest of the sons of men;
For him were pastur’d in the marshy mead,
Rejoicing with their foals, three thousand mares;
Them Boreas, in the pasture where they fed,
Beheld, enamour’d; and amid the herd
In likeness of a coal-black steed appear’d;
Twelve foals, by him conceiving, they produc’d.
These, o’er the teeming corn-fields as they flew,
Skimm’d o’er the standing ears, nor broke the haulm;
And o’er wide Ocean’s bosom as they flew,
Skimm’d o’er the topmost spray of th’ hoary sea.[444]
Boreas, whom we may connote with Bress, the Consort of Brigit, or Bride, is here represented aswallowing, a term which Skeat derives from the Anglo-Saxonwealwian, to roll round: he adds, “see voluble,” but in view of the world-wide rites of immersion or baptism it is more seemly to connectwallowwithhallow. Mr. Weller, Senr., preferred to spell his name with a “V”: there is no doubt that Weller and Veller were synonymous terms, and therefore that Fulham, in which is now Walham Green, was originally a home of Wal or Ful, perhaps the same as Wayland or Voland, the Blacksmith of Wayland’s Smithy and of Walland Park.[445]It is supposed that Fulham was the swampy home offowlen, or waterfowls, but it is an equally reasonable conjecture that it was likewise a tract of marshy meads whereon thefoalenor foals were pastured. As already noted the Tartar version of the Pied Piper represents the Chanteur or Kentaur as afoal, coursing perpetually round the world. The coins of the Gaulish Volcae exhibit awheelorveelwith the inscriptionVol, others in conjunction with a coursing horse are inscribedVool, and we find the head of a remarkable maned horse on the coins of the Gaulish Felikovesi. Asfelixmeans happy, one may connote the hobby horse withhappiness, or one’shobby, and it is not improbable that both Felixstowe and Folkestone were settlements of the adjacent Felikovesi, whose coins portray the Hobby’s head or Foal.
Figs.247 to 253.—Gaulish. From Akerman.
Figs.247 to 253.—Gaulish. From Akerman.
Figs.254 and 255.—Gaulish. From Barthelemy.
Figs.254 and 255.—Gaulish. From Barthelemy.
At Land’s End, opposite the titanic headland known as Pardenick, or Pradenic, is Cairn Voel which is also known locally as “The Diamond Horse”:[446]there is likewise a headland called The Horse, near Kynance Cove, and a stupendous cliff-saddle at Zennor,[447]named the Horse’s Back. It would thus seem that the mythology of the Voel extended to the far West, and it is not improbable that Tegid Voel, the Consort of Keridwen the Mare,aliasCendwen, meantinter aliathe Good Foal.
Prof. Macalister has recently hooked up from the deep waters of Irish mythology a deity whose name Fal he connotes with a Teutonic Phol. This Fal, a supposedly non-Aryan, neolithic (?) “pastoral horse-divinity,” belonging to an older stratum of belief than the divine beings among the Tuatha De Danann, Prof. Macalister associates with the famous stone of Fal at Tara, and he remarks: “He looks like a Centaur, but is in parentage and disposition totally different from the orthodox Centaurs. He is, in fact, just the sort of being that would develop out of an ancient hippanthropic deity who had originally no connection with Centaurs, but who found himself among a people that had evolved the conception of the normal type of those disagreeable creatures.”[448]
In Cornwall is a river Fal; awellis a spring, thewhaleor elephant of the sea was venerated because like the elephant it gushed out a fountain of water from its head. The Wilton crescent, opposite one of the ancient conduits by Rotten Row, Kensington, may well have meantWelltown, for the whole of this district was notoriously a place of wells: not only do we find Wilton Crescent, but in the immediate neighbourhood of Ovington Square and Flounders Field isWaltonStreet and Hooper’s Court. Sennen Cove at Land’s End was associated with a mysterious sea-spirit known as the Hooper, and we shall meet again with Hooper, or Jupiter, the Hidden one in “Hooper’s Hide,” an alternative title for the game of Blind Man’s Buff.
The authorities deriveavon, oraune, the Celtic for a gently flowing river, fromap, the Sanscrit for water, but it is more likely that there is a closer connection with Eve, or Eva—Welsh Efa—whose name is the Hebrew for life or enlivening, whence Avon would resolve most aptly into theenlivening one. Not only are rivers actually the enlivening ones, but the ancients philosophically assigned the origin of all life to water or ooze. According to Persian, or Parthian philosophy—and Parthia may be connoted in passing with Porthia, an old name for the Cornish St. Ives, for St. Ive was said to be a Persian bishop—the Prime appointed six pure and beneficent Archangels to supervise respectively Fire, Metals, Agriculture, Verdure, the Brutes, and Water. With respect to the last the injunction given was: “I confide to thee, O Zoroaster! the water that flows; that which is stagnant; the water of rivers; that which comes from afar and from the mountains; the water from rain and from springs. Instruct men that it is water which gives strength to all living things. It makes all verdant. Let it not be polluted with anything dead or impure, that your victuals, boiled in pure water, may be healthy. Execute thus the words of God.”[449]
Etymology points to the probability that water in every form, even the stagnantfen—the same word asAven,font, andfount—was once similarly sacred in Britain, whence it may follow that even although Fulham and Walham were foul, vile, evil, and filthy,[450]the rootfalstill meant originally theenlivening all.
The wordpollute(to be connoted withpool, Phol, or Fal) is traced by Skeat topolluere, which means not necessarily foul, but merely toflow over. Thewillowtree (Welshhelygen), which grows essentially by the water-side, may be connoted withwallow.
Of Candian or Cretan god-names only two are tentatively known, to wit—Velchanos and Apheia: Apheia may be connoted with Hephaestus, the Greek title of Vulcan or Vulcanus, and the connection between Hephaestus and Velchanos is clearly indicated by the inscribed figure of Velchanos which appears upon the coins of the Candian town of Phaestus. That thefalconwas an emblem of the Volcae is obvious from the bird on Fig. 248, and the older forms of the English place-name Folkestone,i.e., Folcanstan, Folcstane, Fulchestan supposed to mean “stone of a man Folca,” more probably imply aFolk Stone, or Falcon Stone, or Vulcan Stone. The Saxon gentleman named Folca is in all probability pure imagination.
The more British title of Wayland or Voland, the Vulcan or Blacksmith of Uffington, and doubtless also of the Blacksmith of Walland’s Park, Offham, is Govannon. One may trace Govan, the British Hammersmith, fromSt. Govans at Fairfield near Glasgow, or from St. Govan’s Head in South Wales, to St. Govan’s Well, opposite De Vere Gardens in Kensington. In Welshgovanwas a generic term forsmith; one of the triune aspects of St. Bride was that of a metal worker, and it is reasonable to equate the Lady Godiva ofCoventry, with Coventina or Coven of the Tyne, whose images from Coventina’s Well in Northumberland are here reproduced. As will be seen she figures as Una or the One holding an olive branch, and as Three holding a phial or vial, a fire, and a what-not too obscure for specification. “The founding of the Temple of Coventina,” says Clayton, “must be ascribed to the Roman officers of the Batavian Cohort, who had left a country where the sun shines every day and where in pagan times springs and running waters were objects of adoration.”[451]But is there really no other possible alternative? Mr. Hope describes the goddess represented in Fig. 256 as floating on the leaf of a water-lily; the legend of the patron saint of St. Ives in Cornwall is to the effect that this maiden came floating over the waves upon a leaf, and it thus seems likely that Coventry, the home of Lady Godiva, derived its name from being thetre,tree, ortrouof Coven, or St. Govan.
Fig.256.—FromThe Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England(Hope, R. C.).
Fig.256.—FromThe Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England(Hope, R. C.).
Fig.257.—FromThe Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England(Hope, R. C.).
Fig.257.—FromThe Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England(Hope, R. C.).
In his account of a great and triumphant jousting held in London on May Day, 1540, on which occasion all the horses were trapped inwhitevelvet, Stow several times alludes to an Ivy Bridge by St. Martin’s in the Fields, and this Ivy Bridge must have been closely adjacent to what is now Coventry Street and Cranbrook Street.Creneis Greek forbrook,[452]the Hippocrene or thehorse brookwasthe fountain struck by the hoof of the divine Pegasus:Cranbrook Street is a continuation of Coventry Street, and I rather suspect that the neighbouring Covent Garden is not, as popularly supposed, a corruption of Convent Garden, but was from time immemorial a grove or garden of Good Coven. The Maiden Lane here situated probably derived its title from a sign or tablet of the Maiden similar to the Coventina pictures, and it is not improbable that Coven or Goodiva once reigned from Covent GardenviaCoventryStreet to St. Govan’s Well in Kensington. Near Ripon is an earthworkabriknown seemingly as Givendale,[453]and on Hambleton Hill in this neighbourhood used to be a WhiteHorse carved on the down side.[454]The primal Coventrys were not improbably a tribal oak or other sacredtree, such as the Braintree in Essex near Bradwell,[455]and the Picktreepreviously noted.
At Coveney, in Cambridgeshire—query,Coven eaor Coven’s island?—bronze bucklers have been found which in design “bear a close resemblance to the ribbon pattern seen on several Mycenæan works of art, and the inference is that even as far north as Britain, the Mycenæan civilisation found its way, the intermediaries being possibly Phœnician traders”.[456]But the Phœnicians having now been evicted from the court it is manifestly needful to find some other explanation.
Coveney is not many miles from St. Ives, Huntingdon, named supposedly after Ivo, a Persian bishop, who wandered through Europe in the seventh century. Possibly this same episcopal Persian founded Effingham near Bookham and Boxhill, for at the foot of the Buckland Hills is Givon’s Grove, once forming part of a Manor named Pachevesham. On the downs above is Epsom, which certainly for some centuries has beenEp’s home,[457]and the Pacheve of Pachevesham was possibly the sameBig Hipha: there is second Evesham in the same neighbourhood. Speaking of the British inscriptionEppilos, Sir John Rhys observes that it is very probably a derivation fromepo, a horse; and of the town ofEpeiacon, nowEbchester, the same authority states: “The name seems to signify a place for horses or cavalry”.[458]Near Pachevesham, below Epsom, is an old inn named “The Running Mare”.
Fig.258.—British. FromA New Description of England and Wales(Anon, 1724).
Fig.258.—British. FromA New Description of England and Wales(Anon, 1724).
In connection with Givon, or Govan, or Coven, it is interesting to note that the word used by Tacitus to denote a British chariot iscovinus. Local tradition claims that the scythes of Boudiccascoveniwere made at Birmingham, and there may be truth in this for thebirof Birmingham is the radical offaber, feuber, orfire father, and likewise ofLefebre, the French equivalent of Smith. That Birmingham was an erstwhile home of the followers of the Fire Father, the Prime, or Forge of Life, is deducible not only from the popular “Brum” or “Brummagem,” but from the various forms recorded of the name.[459]The variant Brymecham may be modernised into Prime King; the neighbouring Bromsgrove is equivalent to Auberon’s Grove; Bromieham was no doubt a home of the Brownies, and the authorities are sufficiently right in deriving from this name “Home of the sons ofBeorn”. Bragg is a common surname in Birmingham: Perkunas orPeroon, the Slav Pater or Jupiter, was always represented with a hammer. In Fig. 175ante,p. 332, the British Fire Father, or Hammersmith, was labouring at what is assumed to be a helmet or a burnie, and Fig. 258 is evidently a variant of the same subject. IntheRed Book of Hergestthere occurs a line—“With Math the ancient, with Gofannon,” from which one might gather that Math and Gofannon were one. In any case the wordsmithis apparentlyse mith,se meath, orSe Math, and the Smeath’s Ridge at Avebury was probably named after the heavenly Smith orGofan.
According to Rice Holmes the bronze image of a god with a hammer has been found in England, but where or when is not stated: it is, however, generally believed that this Celtic Hammer Smith was a representation of the Dis Pater,[460]to whom the Celts attributed their origin.
The London place-name Hammersmith appears in Domesday Book as Hermoderwode: in Old High Germanharorherrmeanthigh, whence I suggest that Hermoderwode has not undergone any unaccountable phonetic change into Hammersmith, but was then surviving German forHer moderorHigh MotherWood. From Broadway Hammersmith to Shepherd’s Bush runs “The Grove,” and that originally this grove had cells of the Selli in it is somewhat implied by the name Silgrave, still applied to a side-street leading into The Grove. “Brewster Gardens,” “Bradmore House,” “British Grove,” and Broadway all alike point similarly to Hammersmith being a pre-Saxon British settlement. Bradmore was the Manor house at Hammersmith, and the existence of lewes, leys, or barrows on this Brad moor is implied by the modern Leysfield Road. The lewes at Folkestone were in all probability situated on the commanding Leas, and as the local pronunciation of Lewis in the Hebrides is “the Lews” there likewise were probably two or more lowes or laws whence the laws were proclaimed and administered. Bradmoreis suggestive of St. Bride, the heavenly Hammersmith who was popularly associated with a falcon, and the great Hammersmith or Vulcan may be connoted with the GoldenFalcon, whose memory has seemingly been preserved in Hammersmith at Goldhawk Road.
When Giraldus Cambrensis visited the shrine of the glorious Brigit at Kildare he was told the tale of a marvellous lone hawk or falcon popularly known as “Brigit’s Bird”. This beauteous tame falcon is reported to have existed for many centuries, and customarily to have perched on the summit of the Round Tower of Kildare.[461]Doubtless this story was the parallel of a fairy-tale current at Pharsipee in Armenia. “There,” says Maundeville, “is found a sparrow-hawk upon a fair perch, and a fair lady of fairie, who keeps it; and whoever will watch that sparrow-hawk seven days and seven nights, and, as some men say, three days and three nights, without company and without sleep, that fair lady shall give him, when he hath done, the first wish that he will wish of earthly things; and that hath been proved oftentimes.”[462]
Goldhawk Road at Hammersmith is supposedly an ancient Roman Road, and in 1884 the remains of a causeway were uncovered. Bothroadandrouteare the same word as the Britishrhod, and Latinrotameaning a wheel, and it is likely that the term roadway meant primarily a route along whichrotæor wheels might travel: asrottenwould be the ancient plural ofrot, Rottenrow may thus simply have meant a roadway for wheeled traffic. According to Borlase the British fighting chariot was arhod, the rout of this traffic presumably causedrutsupon theroute, whence it is quite likely that Rotten Row was a rutty and foul thoroughfare. The ordinary supposition that this title is a corruption ofroute du roimay possibly have some justification, for immediately opposite is Kingston House, and at one time Rotten Row was known as the King’s Road: originally the world of fashion used to canter round a circular drive or ring of trees, some of which are still carefully preserved on the high ground near the present Tea House, and thus it might reasonably follow that Rotten Row was a corrupted form ofrotundarow.
Opposite to Rotten Row are Rutland Gate and Rutland House, where lived the Dukes of Rutland, anciently written Roteland. Rutlandshire neighbours Leicester, a town known to the Romans under the name of Ratae; Leicestershire is watered by the river Welland, and in Stukeley’s time there existed in a meadow near Ratae “two great banks calledRawdikes, which speculators look on as unaccountable”.[463]That Leicester or Ratae paid very high reverence to the horse may be inferred from the fact that here the annual Riding of the George was one of the principal solemnities of the town, and one which the inhabitants were bound legally to attend. In addition to the Rottenrows at Kensington and Lewes there is a Rottenrow in Bucks, and a Rottenrow near Reading, all of which, together with Rottenrow Tower near Alnwick, must be considered in combination.
Redon figures as a kingly name among the British chronologies, and as horses are associated so intimately with the various Rotten Rows, the name Redon may be connoted with Ruadan, a Celtic “saint” who is said to have presented King Dermot with thirty sea-green horseswhich rose from the sea at his bidding. Sea horses are a conspicuous feature on the coins of the Redones who dwelt in Gaul and commanded the mouth of the Loire.[464]The horse was certainly at home at Canterbury where Rodau’s Town is in immediate proximity to what is now called Riding Gate.
There is a river Roden at Wroxeter, a river Roding in Essex; Yorkshire is divided into three divisions called Ridings, and in East Riding, in the churchyard of the village of Rudstone, there stands a celebrated monolith which is peculiar inasmuch as its depth underground was said to equal its height above.[465]There is another Rudstone near Reading Street, Kent, and the Givon’s Grove near Epsom is either in or immediately adjacent to a district known as Wrydelands. Toridewas once presumably to play the rôle of the Kentaur Queen, whetherequineas represented in the Coventry Festival or as riding in a triumphalbiga,rhod,wainorwagon. That such riding was once a special privilege is obvious from the statement of Tacitus: “She claimed a right to be conveyed in her carriage to the Capitol; a right by ancient usage allowed only to the sacerdotal order, the vestal virgins, and the statues of the gods”.[466]
That the Lady of Coventry was the Coun or Queen is possibly implied by theCoundon within the borough of modern Coventry which also embraces a Foleshill,[467]and Radford.
The coins of the Gaulish Rotomagi, whose headquarters were the Rouen district, depict the horse not merely cantering but galloping apace, whence obviously the Rotomagi were an equine or Ecuina people. With their coins inscribed Ratumacos may be compared the coinage of the Batavian Magusæ which depicts “a sea horse to the right,” and is inscribedMagus.[468]Magus, as we have seen, was a title of the Wandering Geho, Jehu, or Jew, and he may here be connoted with the “Splendid Mane” which figures under the name Magu, particularly in Slav fairy-tale:—