Chapter 22

Fig.313.—British. From Akermann.

Within and all around theoppidathe military and sacerdotal hubbub was undoubtedly at times uproarious, and the vociferation used on these occasions may account for the wordhubbub,[598]a term which according to Skeat was “imitative”. This authority adds to his conjecture: “formerly alsowhoobub, a confused noise. Hubbub was confused withhoop-hoop, re-duplication ofhoopandwhoobubwithwhoop-hoop.” But even had our ancestors mingledhip! hip!in their muddled minds even then the confusion would have been excusable.

Ope, when occurring in proper-names such as Panope or Europe, is usually translated Eye—thus, Panope asUniversal Eye, and Europa asBroad Eye. The small red eye-like or optical berries of the hawthorn are termedhipsor haws, and it is probable that once upon a time the hips were deemed the elphin eyes of Hob, the Ubiquitous or Everywhere. In India the favourite bead in rosaries is the seed namedrudraksha, which means “the Eye of the god Rudra or S’iva”: Rudra, or theruddy one, is the Hub or centre of the Hindoo pantheon, and S’iva, his more familiar name (now understood to mean “kindly, gracious, or propitious”) is more radically “dear little Iva or Ipha”. In India millions of S’eva stones are still worshipped, and therudrakshaseeds or Eyes of S’iva are generally cut with eleven facets,[599]evidently symbolising the eleven Beings which are said to have sprung from the dual personalities—male and female—of the Creative Principle.

Epine, the French for thorn, is ultimately akin to Hobany, andhipmay evidently be equated with the friendly Hob. According to Bryant Hip or Hipha was a title of the Phœnician Prime Parent, and it is probable that ourHip! Hip! Hip!—the parallel of the AlbanAlbani! Albani!—long antedated theHurrah!

The Hobdays and the Abdys of Albion may be connoted withGood Hob, and that this Robin Goodfellow or benevolent elf was the personification of shrewdness and cunning is implied byaptand inept, and that happy little Hob was considered to be pretty is implied byhübsch, the Teutonic forpretty: the wordprettyis essentiallyBritish, and the piratical habits of the early British are brought home to them by the wordpirate. We shall, however, subsequently see thatpiratesoriginally meant “attempters” or men whotried.

The surname Hepburn argues the existence at sometime of a Hep bourne or brook; in Northumberland is Hepborne or Haybourne, which the authorities suppose meant “burn, brook, with the hips, the fruit of the wild rose”: but hips must always have been as ubiquitous and plentiful as sparrows. In Yorkshire is Hepworth, anciently written Heppeword, and this is confidently interpreted as meaningFarm of Heppo: in view, however, of our hobby-horse festivals, it is equally probable that in the Hepbourne the Kelpie, the water horse, orhippawas believed to lurk, and one may question the historic reality of farmer Heppo.

The hobby horse was principally associated with the festivals of May-Day, but it also figured at Yule Tide. On Christmas Eve either a wooden horse head or a horse’s skull was decked with ribbons and carried from door to door on the summit of a pole supported by a man cloaked with a sheet: this figure was known as “Old Hob”:[600]in Welshhapmeans fortune—either good or bad.

Apparently the last recorded instance of the Hobby-Horse dance occurred at Abbot’s Bromley, on which occasion a man carrying the image of a horse between his legs, and armed with a bow and arrow (the emblems of Barry the Sovereign Archer), played the part of Hobby: with him were six companions wearing reindeer heads (the emblems of the Dayspring) who danced the hey and other ancient dances. Tollett supposes the famous hobby horse to be the King of the May “though he now appears as a juggler and a buffoon with a crimson foot-cloth fretted with gold, the golden bit, the purple bridle, and studded with gold, the man’s purple mantle with a golden border which is latticed with purple, his golden crown, purple cap with a red feather, and with a golden knop”.[601]

Figs.314 to 317.—British. From Akerman.

Fig.318.—British. From Camden.Fig.319.—Head Dress of the King (N.W. Palace Nimroud). FromNineveh(Layard).

Fig.318.—British. From Camden.

Fig.319.—Head Dress of the King (N.W. Palace Nimroud). FromNineveh(Layard).

Aknoporknobmeans a boss, protuberance, or rosebud—originally, of course, a wild rosebud which precedes the hip—and it is probably the same word as theCunobwhich occurs so frequently in British coins. In Fig. 314Cunoboccurs alone, and I am not sure that Figs. 315 and 318 should not be readElini Cunob. The knob figured not only on our Hobby Horse, but also as a symbol on the head-dress of Tyrian kings, and there is very little doubt that the charming small figure on the obverse ofCunob Eliniis intended for King Ob, or Ep. There is a Knap Hill at Avebury, a Knapton in Yorkshire, and a Knapwellin Suffolk: Knebworth in Herts was Chenepenorde in Domesday, and the imaginary farmer Cnapa or Cnebba, to whom these place-names are assigned, may be equated with the afore-mentioned farmer Heppo of Hepworth.

Knaves Castle (Lichfield), now a small mound—aheap?—is ascribed to “cnafa, a boy or servant, later a knave, a rogue”: Cupid is a notorious little rogue, nevertheless, proverbially Love makes the world go round, and constitutes its nave, navel, hub, or boss: withsnobSkeat connotessnopp, meaning a boy or anythingstumpy.

In course of time likeboss, Dutchbaas,knobseems to have been applied generally to mean a lord or master, and the Londoner who takes an agreeable interest in the “nobs”[602](and occasionalsnobs) riding in Hyde Park is possibly following an ancestral custom dating from the time when the Ring was originally constructed. Apsley House, now standing at the east end of Rotten Row, occupies the site of the park ranger’s lodge, the Ranger was a highly important personage, and it is not improbable that the site of Apsley House was once known as Ap’s lea or meadow. The immediately adjacent Stanhope Gate and Stanhope Street, or Stanhope in Durham, may mark the site of a stone hippa or horse similar to the famous stonehorse in Brittany upon which—I believe to this day—women superstitiously seat themselves with the same purpose as they sit upon the Brahan stone in Ireland: Bryanstone Square in London is not more than a mile from Stanhope Street and Apsley House.

Fig.320.—La Venus de Quinipily, near Baud Morbihan, Brittany. FromSymbolism of the East and West(Aynsley, Mrs. Murray).

The Breton statue of Quinipily may be deemed a portraitofholy Queen Ip, and Gwennap, near Redruth, where is a famous amphitheatre, was probably a Queen Hip lea or seat of the same Queen’s worship.

Gwen Ap was presumably the same as Queen Aph or Godiva, the Lady of the White Horse, and Godrevy on the opposite side of St. Ives Bay may be equated withGood rhi Evy, or Good Queen Evie. A few miles from Liskeard there is a village named St. Ive, which the natives pronounceSt. Eve: the more western, better-known Saint Ive’s, is mentioned in a document of 1546 as “Seynt Iysse,” and what apparently is this same dedication reappears at a place four miles west of Wadebridge termed St. Issey. “Whose name is it,” inquires W. C. Borlase, “that the parish of St. Issey bears?” He suggests somewhat wildly that it may be the same as Elidius, corrupted to Liddy, Ide, or Idgy, endeavouring to prove that this Elidius is the same as the great Welsh Teilo.

It would be simpler and more reasonable to assume that St. Issey is a trifling corruption of “Eseye,” which was one of the titles of the old British Mother of Life. The goddess Esseye—alternatively and better known as Keridwen—is described by Owen in hisCambrian Biographyas “a female personage, in the mythology of the Britons considered asthe first of womankind, having nearly the same attributes with Venus, in whom are personified the generative powers”.

With Eseye and with St. Issey,aliasSt. Ive, may be connoted the deserted town of Hesy in Judea: on the mound now known as Tell el Hesy, or the hill town of Hesy, the remains of at least eight super-imposed prehistoric cities have been excavated, and among the discoveries on this site was a limestone lampstand subscribedon the baseAphebal.[603]The winged maiden found at the same time is essentially Cretan, and it is not an unreasonable assumption that on thisAphefragment of pottery from Hesy we have a contemporary portrait of the Candian Aphaia or Britomart,aliasHesy, or St. Issy, or St. Ive: the British Eseye was alternatively known as Cendwen.

Fig.321.—FromA Mound of Many Cities(Bliss, J. B.).

Fig.322.—FromA Mound of Many Cities(Bliss, J. B.).

The British built theiroppidanot infrequently in the form of an eye or optic, and also of an oeuf, ova, or egg. The perfect symmetry of these designs point conclusively to the probability that the earthworks were not mere strongholds scratched together anyhow for mere defence: the British burial places or barrows were similarly either circular or oval, and that the Scotch dun illustrated in Fig. 324 was British, is implied not only by its name Boreland-Mote, but by its existence at a place named Parton, this word, like the Barton of Dumbarton, no doubt signifying Dun Brettan or Briton.

Fig.323.—FromThe Motes of Kirkcudbrightshire(Coles, F. R.). (Soc. Antiq. Scot.).

Fig.324.—FromThe Motes of Kirkcudbrightshire(Coles, F. R.). (Soc. Antiq. Scot.)

Fig.325.—“Spindle-whorls” from Troy. FromPrehistoric London(Gordon, E. O.).[To face page 534.

Fig.325.—“Spindle-whorls” from Troy. FromPrehistoric London(Gordon, E. O.).

[To face page 534.

Egypt was known as “The Land of the Eye”:[604]the amulet of the All-seeing Eye was perhaps even more popular in Egypt than in Etruria, and the mysterious and unaccountable objects called “spindle whorls,” which occur so profusely in British tombs, and which also have been found in countless numbers underneath Troy, were probably Eye amulets, rudely representative of the human iris. The Trojan examples here illustrated are conspicuously decorated with the BritishBroadArrow, which is said to have been the symbol of the Awen or Holy Spirit. In their accounts of the traditional symbols, speech, letters, and signs of Britain, according to their preservation by means of memory, voice, and usages of the Chair and Gorsedd, the Welsh Bards asserted that the three strokes of the Broad Arrow or bardic hieroglyph for God originated from three diverging rays of light seen descending towards the earth. Out of these three strokes were constituted allthe letters of the bardic alphabet, the three strokes3 strokesreading in these characters respectively 0 1 0, and thus spelling the mysticOhioorYew; hence it would seem that this never-to-be-pronounced Name[605]was a faerie conception originating in the mind of some primitive poet philosophising from a cloud-encumbered sunrise or sunset. According to tradition there were five ages of letters: “The first was the age of the three letters, which above all represented the Name of God, and which were a sign of Goodness and Truth, and Understanding and Equity, of whatsoever kind they might be”.[606]On these rays, it is said, were inscribed every kind and variety of Science and Knowledge, and on His return to Heaven the Almighty Architect is described as—

Followed with acclamation, and the soundSymphonious of ten thousand harps that tun’dAngelic harmonies.

Followed with acclamation, and the sound

Symphonious of ten thousand harps that tun’d

Angelic harmonies.

The philosophers of Egypt believed that the universe was created by the pronunciation of the divine name; similarly the British bards taught that: “The universe is matter as ordered and systematised by the intelligence of God. It was created by God’s pronouncing His own name—at the sound of which light and the heavens sprang into existence. The name of God is itself a creative power. What in itself that name is, is known to God only. All music or natural melody is a faint and broken echo of the creative name.”[607]

Everywhere and in everything the Druids recognised this celestial Trinity: not only did their Hierarchy consist of three orders,i.e., Druids, Bards, and Seers, each groupbeing again subdivided into three, but also, as we have seen, they uttered their Triads or aphorisms in triple form. There is little doubt that the same idea animated the Persian philosophy of Good Thought, Good Deed, Good Word, and Micah’s triple exordium: “Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly”. The bards say distinctly: “The three mystic letters signify the three attributes of God, namely, Love, Knowledge, and Truth, and it is out of these three that justice springs, and without one of the three there can be no justice”.[608]

This is a simpler philosophy than the incomprehensibilities of the Athanasian Creed,[609]and it was seemingly drilled with such living and abiding force into the minds of the Folk, that even to-day the Druidic Litanies or Chants of the Creed still persist. Throughout Italy and Sicily the Chant of the Creed is known as The Twelve Words of Verita or Truth, and it is generally put into the mouth of the popular Saint Nicholas ofBari.[610]The Sicilian or Hyperean festival of the Bara has already been notedante,p. 320.

The British chant quotedante,page 373, continues: “What will be our three boys”? “What will be our four”? five? six? and onwards up to twelve, but always the refrain is—

My only ain she walks alaneAnd ever mair has dune, boys.

My only ain she walks alane

And ever mair has dune, boys.

Fig.326.—St. John. FromChristian Iconography(Didron).Fig.327.—Christ, with a Nimbus of Three Clusters of Rays. Miniature of the XVI. Cent. MS. of the Bib. Royale.Ibid.

Fig.326.—St. John. FromChristian Iconography(Didron).

Fig.327.—Christ, with a Nimbus of Three Clusters of Rays. Miniature of the XVI. Cent. MS. of the Bib. Royale.Ibid.

In Irish mythology we are told that the Triad similarly “infected everything,” hence Trinities such as Oendia (the one god), Caindea (the gentle god), and Trendia (the mighty god): other accounts specify the three children of the Boyne goddess, as Tear Bringer, Smile Bringer, and Sleep Bringer: the wordsleepis in all probability a corruption ofsil Eep.

Among the Trojan “spindle whorls” some are decorated with four awens, corresponding seemingly to the Four Kings of the Wheel of Fortune; others with three groups constituting a total of nine strokes. As each ray represented a form of Truth, the number nine—which as alreadynoted is invariably true to itself—was essentially the symbol of Truth, and that this idea was absorbed by Christianity is obvious from representations such as Figs. 326 and 327.

Fig.328.—“Cross” at Sancreed (Cornwall). FromThe Cornish Riviera(Stone, J. Harris).[To face page 538.

Fig.328.—“Cross” at Sancreed (Cornwall). FromThe Cornish Riviera(Stone, J. Harris).

[To face page 538.

Fig.329.—Caerbrân Castle in Sancred. FromAntiquities of Cornwall(Borlase).

Figs.330 and 331.—British. From Evans.

At Sancreed in Cornwall—supposedly a dedication to the holy Creed—there is a remarkable “cross” which is actually a holed stone on a shank:[611]and in the same parish is a “castle” which was once evidently a very perfect Eye. In the Scilly Islands, lying within a stone circle, is what might be a millstone with a square hole in its centre: this Borlase ranks among the holed stones of Cornwall, and that it was a symbol of the Great Eye is a reasonable inference from the name Salla Key where it is still lying. We have seen the symbolic Eye on theKiocoin illustratedante,page 253; the wordeyepronounced frequentlyoyandee, is the same as theheyofHeydaysand the Shepherds’ Dance orHey, hence in all probability Salla Key or Salakee Downs[612]were originally sacred to the festivals ofSalaKee,i.e., silly, innocent, or happy, ’KeeorGreat Eye. The old plural ofeyewaseyenoreen, and it is not unlikely that the primeval Ian, John, or Sinjohn, was worshipped as the joint Sun and Moon, or Eyes of Day and Night. On the hobby-horse coins here illustrated, the body consists of two curiously conspicuous circles oreyen, possibly representing theawen.

My onlyaneshe walks alaneAnd ever mair has dune, boys.

My onlyaneshe walks alane

And ever mair has dune, boys.

On Salla Key Downs is Inisidgen Hill, which takes its name from an opposite island: in old MSS. this appears asEnys au geon, which the authorities assume meant “Island of St. John”.Geon, however, was the Cornish forgiant; on Salla Key Downs is “Giant’s Castle,” and close at hand is the Giant’s Chair: this is a solid stone worked into the form of an arm-chair: “It looks like a work of art rather than nature, and, according to tradition, it was here the Arch Druid was wont to sit and watch the rising Sun”.[613]The neighbouring island of Great Ganilly was thus in all probability sacred toGeon, the Great King, or Queen Holy.

The Saints’ days, heydays, and holidays of our predecessors seem to have been so numerous that the wonder is that there was ever any time to work: apparently from such evidence as the Bean-setting dance, even the ancient sowing was accomplished to the measure of a song, and the festivities in connection with old Harvest Homes are too multifarious and familiar to need comment.

The attitude of the clergy towards these ancient festivals seems to have been uniform and consistent.

These teach that dancing is a Jezebel,And barley-break the ready way to hell;The morrice-idols, Whitsun-ales, can beBut profane relics of a jubilee.[614]

These teach that dancing is a Jezebel,

And barley-break the ready way to hell;

The morrice-idols, Whitsun-ales, can be

But profane relics of a jubilee.[614]

One of the greatest difficulties of the English Church was to suppress the dancing which the populace—supported by immemorial custom—insisted upon maintaining, even within the churches and the churchyards. Even to-day English churches possess reindeer heads and other paraphernalia of archaic feasts, and in Paris, as recently as the seventeenth century, the clergy and singing boys might have been seen dancing at Easter in the churches.[615]In Cornwall on the road from Temple to Bradford Bridge is a stone circle known as The Trippet Stones, and doubtless many churches occupy the sites of similar places where from time immemorial the Folk tripped it jubilantly on jubilees: custom notoriously dies hard.

In the Eastern counties of England the two principal reapers were known as the Harvest Lord and Lady, who presided over the Hoppings, and other festivities of the season. Sometimes the Harvest Lady was known as the Hop Queen,[616]and this important potentate may be connoted with the harvest doll which, in Kent particularly, was termed the Ivy Girl. As Prof. Weekley connotes the surname Hoppe with Hobbs, Hobson, and Hopkins, we may infer from the nameHopkinson, there must once have been a Hop King as well as a Hop Queen, and the rôle of this English Hopkin was probably similar to that enacted by other Jack-in-Greens, King-of-the-Years, or Spirit-of-the-Years. The pomp and circumstance of theparallel of the Hopkin ceremony in Greece may be judged from the following particulars: “They wreathe,” says Plato, “a pole of olive wood with laurel and various flowers. On the top is fitted a bronze globe from which they suspend smaller ones. Midway round the pole they place a lesser globe, binding it with purple fillets, but the end of the pole is decked with saffron. By the topmost globe they mean the sun, to which they actually compare Apollo. The globe beneath this is the moon; the smaller globes hung on are the stars and constellations, and the fillets are the course of the year, for they make them 365 in number. The Daphnephoria is headed by a boy, both whose parents are alive, and his nearest male relation carries the filleted pole. The Laurel-Bearer himself, who follows next, holds on to the laurel; he has his hair hanging loose, he wears a golden wreath, and he is dressed out in a splendid robe to his feet and he wears light shoes. There follows him a band of maidens holding out boughs before them, to enforce the supplication of the hymns.”[617]

With this Greek festival of the Laurel-Bearer may be connoted the “one traditional dance connected with all our old festivals and merry makings” in Guernsey, and known asA mon beau Laurier. In this ceremony the dancers join hands, whirl round, curtsey, and kiss a central object, in later days either a man or a woman, but, in the opinion of Miss Carey, “perhaps originally either a sacred stone or a primeval altar”.[618]Adulation of this character is calculated to createsnobs, the word as we have seen being fundamentally connected withstump. I have already suggested a connection between the salutationAmon beau Laurierand the kissing or bussing of Paul’s stump at Billingsgate, which is situated almost immediately next Ebgate. On Mount Hube, in Jersey, have been found the remains of a supposed Druidic temple, and doubtless MountHube, like Apechurch or Abechurch, was a primitive Hopeton,oppidum, or Abbey.

Fig.332.—FromThe Everyday Book(Hone, W.).

Fig.333.—FromThe Everyday Book(Hone, W.).

The Hoop is a frequent inn sign generally associated with some additional symbol such as is implied in the familiar old signs, Swan-on-the-Hoop, Cock-on-the-Hoop, Crown-on-the-Hoop, Angel-on-the-Hoop, Falcon-on-the Hoop, andBunch-of-Grapes-on-the-Hoop.[619]That the hoop or circle was a sacred form need not be laboured, for the majority of our megalithic monuments are circular, and there is no doubt that these rude circles are not simply and solely“adjuncts of stone age burials,” but were the primitive temples of the Hoop Lady or Fairy Queen. It was customary to represent the Hop Lady within hoops or wheels; and that the Virgin was regarded indifferently as either One, Two, Three or Four is clear from the indeterminate number of dolls which served on occasion as the idola or ideal. In Irishounorainmeans the cycle or course of the seasons, and the great Queen Anu or Aine who was regarded as the boss, hub, or centre of the Mighty Wheel may be equated with Una, the Fairy Queen.

The Druids are said to have considered it impious to enclose or cover their temples, presumably for the same reasons as prevailed among the Persians. These are explained by Cicero who tells us that in the expedition of Xerxes into Greece all the Grecian temples were destroyed at the instigation of the Magi because the Grecians were so impious as to enclose those gods within walls who ought to have all things around them open and free, their temple being the universal world. In Homer’s time—

On rough-hewn stones within the sacred cirqueConvok’d the hoary sages sat.

On rough-hewn stones within the sacred cirque

Convok’d the hoary sages sat.

and there is little doubt that similarly in these islands the priest-chiefs held their solemn and ceremonial sessions.

The word Druid is in disfavour among modern archæologists; nevertheless, apparently all over Britain the Druids were traditionally associated in the popular memory with megalithic monuments. Martin, in the relation of his Tour of the Hebrides, made in the middle of the eighteenth century, observes: “In the Western Islands where there are many, what are called by the common peopleDruin Crunny, that is Druids’ Circles,” and the same observer recounts: “I inquired of the inhabitants what traditionthey had concerning these stones, and they told me it was a place appointed for worship in the time of heathenism, and that the chief Druid stood near the big stone in the centre from whence he addressed himself to the people that surrounded him”.[620]

There is presumptive and direct evidence that the stone circles of Britain served the combined uses of Temple, Sepulchre, Place of Assembly, and Law Court. The custom of choosing princes by nobles standing in a circle upon rocks, prevailed until comparatively recent times, and Edmund Spenser, writing in 1596 on the State of Ireland, thus described an installation ceremony: “One of the Lords arose and holding in his hand a white wand perfectly straight and without the slightest bend, he presented it to the chieftain-elect with the following words, ‘Receive the emblematic wand of thy dignity, now let the unsullied whiteness and straightness of this wand be thy model in all thy acts, so that no calumnious tongue can expose the slightest stain on the purity of thy life, nor any favoured friend ever seduce thee from dealing out even-handed justice to all’.”[621]

The white wand figuring in this ceremony is evidently the magic rod or fairy wand with which the Elphin Queen is conventionally equipped, and which was figured in the hand of the Cretan “Hob,”ante,page 494.

Sometimes in lieu of a centre stone the circles contained stone chairs. Many of these old Druidic thrones have been broken up into gate-posts or horse-troughs, butseveral are still in existence, and some are decorated with a carving of two footprints. These two footprints were in all probability one of the innumerable forms in which the perennial Pair were represented,videthe Vedic invocation: “Like two lips speaking sweetly to the mouth, like two breasts feed us that we may live. Like two nostrils as guardians of the body, like two ears be inclined to listen to us. Like two hands holding our strength together ... like two hoofs rushing in quickly,” etc.

In the British coin here illustrated the Giant Pair are featured as joint steeds: “Coming early like two heroes on their chariots ... ye bright ones every day come hither like two charioteers, O ye strong ones! Like two winds, like two streams your motion is eternal; liketwo eyes[622]come with your sight toward us! Like two hands most useful to the body;like two feetlead us towards wealth.”[623]

Fig.334.—British. From Akerman.

Occasionally the two footprints are found cut into simple rock: in Scotland the King of the Isles used to be crowned at Islay, standing on a stone with a deep impression on the top of it made on purpose to receive his feet. The meaning of the feet symbol in Britain is not known, but Scotch tradition maintained that it represented the size of the feet of Albany’s first chieftain. On Adam’s Peak in Ceylon (ancientTafrobani) there is a super-sacred footprint which is still the goal of millions of devout pilgrims, and on referring to India where the foot emblem is familiar we find it explained as very ancient, and used by the Buddhists inremembrance of their great leader Buddha. In the tenth century a Hindu poet sang:—

In my heart I place the feetThe Golden feet of God.

In my heart I place the feet

The Golden feet of God.

and it would thus seem that the primeval Highlander anticipated by many centuries Longfellow’s trite lines on great men, happily, however, before departing, graving the symbolic footprints of his “first Chieftain,” not upon the sands of Time, but on the solid rocks.

The Ancients, believing that God was centred in His Universe, a point within a circle was a proper and expressive hieroglyph for Pan or All. The centre stone of the rock circles probably stood similarly for God, and the surrounding stones for the subsidiary Principalities and Powers thus symbolising the idea: “Thou art the Eternal One, in whom all order is centred; Lord of all things visible and invisible, Prince of mankind, Protector of the Universe”.[624]A tallstone or a longstone is physically and objectively the figure one, 1.

If it were possible to track the subsidiary Powers of the Eternal One to their inception we should, I suspect, find them to have been personifications of Virtues, and this would seem to apply not merely to such familiar Trinities as Faith, Hope, and Charity; Good Thought, Good Deed, and Good Word, but to quartets, quintets, sextets, and septets such as the Seven Kings or Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit,i.e., “Ye gifte of wisdome; ye gifte of pittie; ye gifte of strengthe; ye gifte of comfaite; ye gifte of understandinge; ye gifte of counyinge; ye gifte of dreede”.

The Persian Trinity of Thought, Deed, and Word, is perfectly expressed in the three supposed Orders of theChristian hierarchy. As stated inThe Golden Legendthese are—sovereign Love as touching the order of Seraphim, perfect Knowledge, and perpetual Fruition or usance. “There be some,” continues De Voragine, “that overcome and dominate over all vices in themselves, and they by right be called of the world, gods among men.”[625]

It is related of King Arthur that he carried a shield named Prydwen, and if the reader will trouble to count the dots ranged round the centre boss of the shield on page 120 the number will be found to beeleven. At Kingston on Thames, where the present market stone is believed to be the surviving centre-piece of a stone-circle, a brass ring ornamented withelevenbosses was discovered.[626]In Etruriaelevenmystic shields were held in immense veneration:[627]it will further be noted that the majority of the wheatears on British and Celtiberian coins consist ofelevencorns.

The wordeleven, like its French equivalentonze,ange, orangel, points to the probability that for some reason eleven was essentially the number sacred to theelven,anges, oronzes. Elphinstone, a fairly common surname, implies the erstwhile existence of many Elphinstones: there is an Alphian rock in Yorkshire; bronze urns have been excavated at Alphamstone in Essex, and the supposititious Aelfin, to whom the Alphington in Exeter is attributed, was far more probably Elphin.

The dimensions of many so-called longstones—whether solitary or in the centres of circles—point to the probability that menhirs or standing-stones were frequently andpreferably 11 feet high. In Cornwall alone I have noted the following examples of which the measurements are extracted fromThe Victoria County History. The longstone at Trenuggo, Sancreed, now measures 11 feet 2 inches; that at Sithney 11 feet; that at Burras “about 10 feet,” that at Parl 12 feet; and that at Bosava 10 feet. In the parish of St. Buryan the longstones standing at Pridden, Goon Rith, Boscawen Ros, and Trelew, now measure respectively 11 feet 6 inches, 10 feet 6 inches, 10 feet, and 10 feet 4 inches.

If one takes into account such casualties of time as weathering, washing away of subsoil, upcrop of undergrowth, subsidence, and other accidents, the preceding figures are somewhat presumptive that each of the monuments in question was originally designed to stand 11 feet high.

Frequently a circle of stones is designated The Nine Maids, or The Virgin Sisters, or The Merry Maidens. The Nine Maidens is suggestive of the Nine Muses, and of the nine notorious Druidesses, which dwelt upon the Island of Sein in Brittany. The Merry Maidens may be equated with the Fairy or Peri Maidens, and that this phairy theory holds good likewise in Spain is probable from the fact that at Pau there is a circle of nine stones called La NaouPeyros.[628]

“When we inquired,” says Keightley, “after the fairy system in Spain, we were told that there was no such thing for that the Inquisition had long since eradicated such ideas.” He adds, however, “we must express our doubt of the truth of this charge”: I concur that not even the Inquisition was capable of carrying out such fundamentaldestruction as the obliteration of all peyros. Probably the old plural for peri or fairy wasperenorferen, in which case the great Fernacre circle in the parish of St. Breward, Cornwall, was presumably the sacred eye or hoop of some considerable neighbourhood. About 160 feet eastward of Fernacre (which is one of the largest circles in Cornwall), and in line with the summit ofBrownWilly (the highest hill in Cornwall) is a small erect stone. The neighbouring Row Tor (RoiTor orReyTor?) rises due north of Fernacre circle, and as the editors ofCornwallpoint out: “If as might appear probable this very exact alignment north and south, east and west, was intentional, and part of a plan where Fernacre was the pivot of the whole, it is a curious feature that the three circles mentioned should have been so effectively hidden from each other by intervening hills”.[629]

The major portion of this district is the property of an Onslow family; there is an Onslow Gardens near Alvastone Place in Kensington, and there is a probability that every Alvastone, Elphinstone, orOnslow neighbourhood was believed to be inhabited byElvenorAnges: it is indeed due to this superstition that the relatively few megalithic monuments which still exist have escaped damnation, the destruction where it has actually occurred having been sometimes due to a deliberate and bigoted determination, “to brave ridiculous legends and superstitions”.[630]Naturally the prevalent and protective superstitions were fostered and encouraged by prehistoric thinkers for the reasonsdoubtless quite rightly surmised by an eighteenth century archæologist who wrote: “But the truth of the story is, it was a burying place of the Britons before the calling in of the heathen sexton (sicquerySaxon) into this Kingdom. And this fable invented by the Britons was to prevent the ripping up of the bones of their ancestors.” The demise of similar fables under the corrosive influence of modern kultur, has involved the destruction of countless other stone-monuments, so that even of Cornwall, their natural home, Mr. T. Quiller Couch was constrained to write: “Within my remembrance the cromlech, the holy well, the way-side cross and inscribed stone, have gone before the utilitarian greed of the farmer and the road man, and the undeserved neglect of that hateful being, thecui bonoman”.

Parish Councils of to-day do not fear to commit vandalisms which private individuals in the past shrank from perpetrating.[631]A Welsh “Stonehenge” at Eithbed, Pembrokeshire, shown on large-scale Ordinance maps issued last century, has disappeared from the latest maps of the district, and a few years ago an archæologist who visited the site reported that the age-worn stones had been broken up to build ugly houses close by—“veritable monuments of shame”.

In the Isle ofPurbeck nearBournemouth,Branksea,Bronksea (Bronk’seaor island)Branksome and numerous otherBronplace-names which imply that the district was once haunted by Oberon, is a barrow called Puckstone, and on the top of this barrow, now thrown down, is a megalith said to measure 10 feet 8 inches. In all probability this was once 11 feet long, and was the Puckstone or Elphinstone of that neighbourhood: near Anglesea at Llandudno is a famous longstone which again iselevenfeet high.

In Glamorganshire there is a village known as Angel Town, and in Pembroke is Angle or Nangle: Adamnan, in hisLife of Columba, records that the saint opened his books and “read them on the Hill of the Angels, where once on a time the citizens of the Heavenly Country were seen to descend to hold conversation with the blessed man”. Upon this his editor comments: “this is the knoll called ‘great fairies hill’. Not far away is the ‘little fairies hill’. The fairies hills of pagan mythology became angels hills in the minds of the early Christian saints.”[632]One may be permitted to question whether this metamorphosis really occurred, and whether the idea of Anges or Angles is not actually older than even the Onslows orangelows. The Irish trinity of St. Patrick, St. Bride, and St. Columba, are said all to lie buried in one spot at Dunence, and the place-nameDunenceseemingly implies that that site was anon’s low, ordun ange. The termangelis now understood to mean radically a messenger, but the primary sense must have been deeper than this: in Englishingle—as in inglenook—meantfire, and according to Skeat it also meant a darling or a paramour. Obviouslyingleis here the same word asangel, and presumably the more primitive Englishman tactfully addressed his consort as “mine ingle”.The Gaelic and the Irish for fire isaingeal; we have seen that the burnebee or ladybird was connected with fire, and that similarly St. Barneby’s Day was associated with BarnebeeBright: hence the festival held atEnglewood, orInglewood (Cumberland) yearly on the day of St. Barnabas would appear to have been a primitive fire oraingealceremony. It is described as follows: “At Hesket in Cumberland yearly on St. Barnabas Day by the highway side under a Thorn tree according to the very ancient manner of holding assemblies in the open air, is kept the Court for the whole Forest of Englewood, the ‘Englyssh wood’ of the ballad of Adam Bel”.[633]

Stonehenge used to be entitled Stonehengels, which may be modernised into theStone Angels,[634]each stone presumably standing as a representative of one or other of the angelic hierarchy. When the Saxons met the British in friendly conference at Stonehenge—apparently even then the national centre—each Saxon chieftain treacherously carried a knife which at a given signal he plunged into the body of his unarmed, unsuspecting neighbour; subsequently, it is said, hanging the corpses of the British royalties on the cross rocks of Stonehenge: hence ever after this exhibition of TeutonicrealpolitikStonehenge has been assumed to mean the Hanging Stones, or Gallow Stones.[635]We find, however,that Stonehenge was known as Stahenguesor Estanges, a plural form which may be connoted with Hengesdun or Hengston Hill in Cornwall: Stonehenge also appears under the form Senhange, which may have meant eitherOld AngeorSan Ange, and as the priests of ancient cults almost invariably assumed the character and titles of their divinity it is probable that the Druids were once known asAnges. In Irish the wordaongeis said to have meantmagicianorsorcerer, which is precisely the character assigned by popular opinion to the Druids. InRode hengenne, another title of Stonehenge,[636]we have apparently the older plural hengenwith the adjectivalroodorruddy, whence Stonehenge would seem to have been a shrine of the Red Rood Anges.

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