Chapter 25

Fig.353.—Printer’s Ornament (English, 1724).

The GreekMoiraeor Fates were represented as either three austere maidens or as three aged hags: the Celticmairae, of which Rice Holmes observes that “no deities were nearer to the hearts of Celtic peasants,” were represented in groups of three; their aspect was that of gentle, serious, motherly women holding new-born infants in their hands, or bearing fruits and flowers in their laps; and many offerings were made to them by country folk in gratitude for their care of farm, and flock, and home.[694]

In the Etrurian bucket illustrated on page 474, the Magna Mater or Fate was represented with two children, one white the other black: in the emblems herewith the supporting Pair are depicted as two Amoretti, and the Central Fire, Force, or Tryamour is portrayed by three hearts blazing with the fire of Charity. There is indeed no doubt that the Three Charities, Three Graces, and Three Fates were merely presentations of the one unchangingcentral and everlasting Fire, Phare, or Force. Among the Latins the Moirae were termed Parcae, and seemingly all mythologies represent the Great Pyre, Phare, or Fairy as at times a Fury. In Britain Keridwen—whose name the authorities state meantperpetual love—appears very notably as a Fury, and on certain British coins she is similarly depicted. What were the circumstances which caused the moneyers of the period to concentrate such anguish into the physiognomy of the pherepolis it would be interesting to know: the fact remains that they did so, yet we find what obviously is the same fiery-locked figure with an expression unmistakably serene.

Fig.354.—Printer’s Ornament (English, 1724).

Figs.355 to 358.—British.

Fig.359.—Mary, in an Oval Aureole, Intersected by Another, also Oval, but of smaller size. Miniature of the X. Cent. FromChristian Iconography(Didron).

Tradition seems to have preserved the memory of the Virgin Mary as one of the Three Greek Moirae or Three Celtic Mairae or Spinners, for according to an apocryphal gospel Mary was one of the spinsters of the Temple Veil: “And the High priest said; choose for meby lot who shall spin the gold and the white and fine linen, and the blue and the scarlet, and the true purple. And the true purple and the scarlet fell to the lot of Mary, and she took them and went away to her house.”[695]The purple heart-shaped mulberry in Greek ismoria, and the Atheniandistrict known as Moria is supposed to have been so named from its similitude to a mulberry leaf. In Cornwall the scarlet-berried holly is known as Aunt Mary’s Tree, and asauntin the West of England was a title applied in general tooldwomen, it is evident that Aunt Mary of the Holly Tree must have been differentiated from the little Maid of Bethlehem. According toThe Golden LegendSt. Mary died at the age of seventy-two, a number of which the significancehas been partially noted, and she was reputed to have been fifteen years of age when she gave birth to the Saviour of the World: the number fifteen is again connected with St. Mary in the miracle thus recorded of her early childhood: “And when the circle of three years was rolled round, and the time of her weaning was fulfilled, they brought the Virgin to the Temple of the Lord with offerings. Now there were round the temple according to the fifteen Psalms of Degrees, fifteen steps going up.”[696]Up these mystic fifteen steps we are told that the new-weaned child miraculously walked unaided.

The New Testament refers to three Marys; in the design overleaf the figure might well represent Fate, and that there was once a Great and a Little Mary is somewhat implied by the fact that in Jerusalem adjoining the church of St. Mary was “another church of St. Mary called the Little”:[697]that there was also at one time a White Mary and a Black Mary is indubitable from the numerous Black Virgins which still exist in continental churches. Even the glorious Diana of Ephesus was, as has been seen, at times represented as black: the name Ephesus, where the Magna Mater was pre-eminently worshipped, is radically Ephe, and that Godiva of Coventry was alternatively associated with night is clear from the fact that the Godiva procession at a village near Coventry included two Godivas, one white, the other black.[698]

Near King’s Cross, London, in the ward of Farendone, used to exist a spring known as Black Mary’s Hole: this name was popularly supposed to have originated from anegro woman who kept a black cow and used to draw water from the spring, but tradition also said that it was originally the Blessed Mary’s Well, and that this having fallen into disrepute at the time of the Reformation the less attractive cognomen was adopted.[699]

Fig.360.—Engraving on Pebble, Montastruc, Bruniquel.Fig.361.—Dagger-handle in form of mammoth, Bruniquel.FromA Guide to the Antiquities of the Stone Age(B.M.).]

Fig.360.—Engraving on Pebble, Montastruc, Bruniquel.

Fig.361.—Dagger-handle in form of mammoth, Bruniquel.

FromA Guide to the Antiquities of the Stone Age(B.M.).]

The immense antiquity of human occupation of this site is indicated by the fact that opposite Black Mary’s Hole there was found at the end of the seventeenth century a pear-shaped flint instrument in the company of bones of some species of elephant: after lying unappreciated for many years the tool in question has since been recognised as a piece of human handiwork, and may fairly claim to be the first of its kind recorded in this or any other country.[700]That the contemporaries of the mammoth were no mean artists is proved by the Bruniquel objects—particularly the engraving on pebble—here illustrated: not only does the elephant figure on our prehistoric coinage,but it is also found carved on upwards of a hundred stones in Scotland and notably upon a broch atBrechinin Forfarshire. Such was the skill of the Brigantian flintworkers who were settled around Burlington or Bridlington (Yorkshire, ancientlyDeira) that they successfully fabricated small fish-hooks out of flint, a feat forcing one to endorse the dictum of T. Quiller Couch: “This is a matter not unconnected with our present subject, as the hand which fashioned so skilfully the barbed arrow-head of flint, and the polished hammer-axes may be fairly associated with a brain of high capabilities”.[701]

Fig.362.—Probable Restoration of Dagger with Mammoth Handle.FromA Guide to the Antiquities of the Stone Age(B.M.).

We have seen that in Scandinavia Mara—doubtless Black Mary—was a ghastly spectre associated with the NightMare: to this Black Mary may perhaps be assignedmar, meaning to injure or destroy, and probably alsomorose,morbid, andmurder. We again get the equationmar= Mary inmarrjanthe old German formar, formarrjanis equivalent to the name Marian which is merely another form of Mary. The Maid Marian who figured in our May-day festivities in association with the sovereign archer Robin Hood, was obviously not the marrer nor the morose Mary but the Merry Lady of the Morris Dance,aliasthe gentle Maiden Vere or daughter deare of Flora. To White Mary or Mary the Weaver of the scarlet and true purple, may be assignedmere, meaning true and alsomerry,mirth,andmarry: to Black Mary may be assignedmyrrhormar, meaning bitterness, and it is characteristic of the morose tendency of clericalism that it is to this root that the authorities attribute the Mary of Merry England.

The association of the May-fair or Fairy Mother with fifteen, and merriment is pointed by the custom that the great fair which used to be held in the Mayfair district of London began on May 1 and lasted for fifteen days: this fair, we are told, was “not for trade and merchandise, but for musick, showes, drinking, gaming, raffling, lotteries, stage plays, and drolls”.[702]That the Mayfair district was once dedicated to Holy Vera is possible from Oliver’s Mount, the site of which, now known as Mount Street, is believed to mark a fort erected by Oliver Cromwell. We have noted an Oliver’s Castle at Avebury or Avereberie, hence it becomes interesting to find an Avery Row in northern Mayfair, and an Avery Farm Row in Little Ebury Street. The term Ebury is supposed to mark the site of a Saxonea burghorisland fort, an assumption which may be correct: at the time of Domesday there existed here a manor of Ebury, and that this neighbourhood was anabrior sanctuary dedicated to Bur or Bru is hinted in the neighbouring place-namesBrutonStreet (adjoining Avery Row, which is equivalent to Abery Row),Bourdon Street,Burton Street, andBurwood Place. Among the charities of Mayfair is one derived from a benefactor named Abourne: we have noticed that the tradition of the neighbourhood is that Kensington Gardens were the haunt of Oberon’s fair daughter, and I have already ventured the suggestion that Bryanstone Square—by which is Brawn Street—marks the site of a Brawn,Bryan, Obreon, or Oberon Street. Northwards lies Brondesbury or Bromesbury: at Bromley in Kent the parish church was dedicated to St. Blaze, and the local fair used to be held on St. Blaze’s Day,[703]and that the Broom orplanta genistawas sacred to the primal Blaze is further pointed by the ancient custom of firing broom-bushes on 1st May—the Mayfair’s day.[704]In Cornwall furze used to be hung at the door on Mayday morning: at Bramham or Brimham Rocks in Yorkshire the custom of making a blaze on the eve of the Summer Solstice prevailed until the year 1786.[705]By Bromesbury or Brondesbury is Primrose Hill, which was also known as Barrow Hill: there are, however, no traces of a barrow on this still virgin soil which was probably merely a brownlow, brinsley, or brinsmead, unmarked except by fairy bush or stone.[706]The French for primrose is primevere, and that the Mayfair was the Prime and Princess ofallmeads is implied by Herrick’s lines:—

Come with the Spring-time forth, fair Maid, and beThis year again the Meadow’s Deity.Yet ere ye enter, give us leave to setUpon your head this flowry coronet;To make this neat distinction from the rest,You arethe Prime, and Princesse of the feast:To which withsilverfeet lead you the way,While sweet-breath’d nymphs attend you on this day.This is your houre; and best you may command,Since you are Lady of this fairie land.Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shallCherrish the cheek, but make none blush at all.

Come with the Spring-time forth, fair Maid, and be

This year again the Meadow’s Deity.

Yet ere ye enter, give us leave to set

Upon your head this flowry coronet;

To make this neat distinction from the rest,

You arethe Prime, and Princesse of the feast:

To which withsilverfeet lead you the way,

While sweet-breath’d nymphs attend you on this day.

This is your houre; and best you may command,

Since you are Lady of this fairie land.

Full mirth wait on you, and such mirth as shall

Cherrish the cheek, but make none blush at all.

With the “silver feet” of the Meadow Maid may be connoted the curious custom of the London Merrymaids thus described by a French visitor to England in the time of Charles II.: “On the first of May, and the five or six days following, all the pretty young country girls, that serve the town with milk, dress themselves up very neatly and borrow abundance of silver plate whereof they make a pyramid which they adorn with ribbons and flowers, and carry upon their heads instead of their common milk-pails.”[707]That this pyramid or pyre of silver represented a crown or halo is further implied by an engraving of the eighteenth century depicting a fiddler and two milk-maids dancing, one of the maids having on her head a silver plate. It is probable that this symbolised the moon, and that the second dancer represented the sun, the twain standing for the Heavenly Pair, or the Powers of Day and Night.

In Ireland there is little doubt that St. Mary was bracketed inextricably with St. Bride, whence the bardic assertion:—

There aretwoholy virgins in heavenBy whom may I be guardedMary and St. Brighed.[708]

There aretwoholy virgins in heaven

By whom may I be guarded

Mary and St. Brighed.[708]

In a Latin Hymn Brighid—“the Mary of the Gael”—is startlingly acclaimed as the Magna Mater or Very Queen of Heaven:—

Brighid who is esteemed the Queen of the true GodAverred herself to beChrist’s Mother, and made herself such by words and deeds.[709]

Brighid who is esteemed the Queen of the true God

Averred herself to beChrist’s Mother, and made herself such by words and deeds.[709]

At Kildare where the circular pyreum assuredly symbolised the central Fire, the servants of Bride were knownindeterminately as either Maolbrighde or Maolmuire,i.e., servants of Brighde, or servants of Muire, and it is probable thatMuire, the Gaelic form of Mary, was radicallymother ire, the wordirebeing no doubt the same asur, an Aryan radical meaningfire, whencearson,ardent, etc. The circular pyreum of Bride or Brighit the Bright, may be compared with the “round church of St. Mary” in Gethsemane: here the Virgin was said to have been born, and on the round church in question containing her sepulchre it was fabled that “the rain never falls although there is no roof above it”.[710]This circular church of St. Mary was thus like the circular hedge of St. Bride open to the skies, and it is highly probable that the word Mary, Mory, Maree, etc., sometimes meantmor,mawr, orBigEye. The golden centre or Bull’s Eye will be subsequently considered, meanwhile it is relevant toMor eyeto point out that less than 200 years ago it was customary to sacrifice a bull on 25th August—a most ardent period of the year—to the god Mowrie and his “$1”lians” on the Scotch island of Inis Maree, evidently Mowrie’s island.[711]At other times and in other districts, Mowrie, Muire, or Mary was no doubt equated with the Celtic Saints Amary and Omer: the surviving wordsamor,amour, pointing logically to the conclusion thatlovewas Mary’s predominant characteristic. There is no radical distinction betweenamourandhumour, both words probably enshrining the adjectivaleu, meaning soft, gentle, pleasing, and propitious: humour is merriment. A notable connection with Mary andamouris found in Germany where Mother Mary is alternately Mother Ross or Rose: not only is the rose the symbol ofamour, but the wordroseis evidently a corrosion ofEros,the Greek title of Cupid or Amor. Miss Eckenstein states: “I have come across Mother Ross in our own [English] chapbook literature,”[712]whence it becomes significant to find that Myrrha, the Virgin Mother of the Phrygian Adonis, was the consort of a divine Smith, or Hammer-god named Kinyras. The word Kinyras may thus reasonably be modernised into King Eros, and it is not unlikely that inquiries at Ross, Kinross, and Delginross would elicit a connection between these places and the God of Love.

Fig.363.—FromCities of Etruria(Dennis, C.).Fig.364.—FromAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism(Inman, C. W.).

Fig.363.—FromCities of Etruria(Dennis, C.).

Fig.364.—FromAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism(Inman, C. W.).

Fig.365.—Maya, the Hindoo Goddess, with a Cruciform Nimbus. Hindostan Iconography. FromAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism(Inman, C. W.).

The authorities are slovenly content to equate Mary with Maria, Muire, Marion, etc., assigning all these variations without distinction tomara, or bitterness: with regard to Maria, however, it may be suspected that thisform is more probably to be referred to Mother Rhea, and more radically toma rhi,i.e., Mother Queen, Lady, or Princess. That the word was used as generic term for Good Mother or Pure Mother is implied by its almost universal employment: thus not only was Adonis said to be the son of Myrrha, but Hermes was likewise said to be the child of Maia or Myrrha. The Mother of the Siamese Saviour was entitled Maya Maria,i.e., the Great Mary; the Mother of Buddha was Maya; Maia was a Roman Flower goddess, and it is generally accepted thatMay, the month of the Flower goddess, is an Anglicised form of Maia.

Theearliest knownallusion to the morris dance occurs in the church records of Kingston-on-Thames, where the morris dancers used to dance in the parish church.[713]There are in Britain not less than forty or fifty Kingstons, three Kingsburys, four Kentons, seven Kingstons, one Kenstone, and four Kingstones: all these may have been the towns or seats of tribal Kings, but under what names were they known before Kings settled there? It is highly improbable thatroyal residences were planted in previously uninhabited spots, and it is more likely that our Kings were crowned and associated with already sacred sites where stood a royal and super-sacred stone analogous to the ScotchJohnstone. This was certainly the case at Kingston-on-Thames where there still stands in the market-place the holy stone on which our ancient Kings were crowned: near by isCanbury Park, and it would not surprise me if the original barrow or mound ofCanwere still standing there. The surname Lovekyn, which appears very prominently in Kingston records, may be connoted with the adjectivekind, and it is probable that Moreford, the ancient name of Kingston-on-Thames, did not—as is supposed—meanbig ford, but Amor or Mary ford. In Spain and Portugal (Iberia) the name Maria is bestowed indiscriminately upon men and women: that the same indistinction existed in connection with St. Marine may be inferred from the statement inThe Golden Legend: “St. Marine was a noble virgin, and wasone onlydaughter to her father who changed the habit of his daughter so that she seemed and was taken for his son and not a woman”.[714]

If the Mary of the Marigolds or “winking marybuds,” which “gin to ope their golden eyes,” was Mary or Big Eye, it may also be surmised that San Marino was the darling of the Mariners, and was the chief Mary-maid, Merro-maid or Mermaid: although the New Testament does not associate the Virgin Mary withmarethe sea, amongst her titles are “Myrhh of the Sea,” “Lady of the Sea,” and “Star of the Sea”. At St. Mary’s in the Scillies, in the neighbourhood of Silver Street, is a castleknown as Stella Maria: this castle is “built with salient angles resembling the rays of a star,” and Pelistry Bay on the opposite side of the islet was thus presumably sacred to Belle Istry, the Beautiful Istar or Star. It has often been supposed that Start Point was named after Astarte, and there is every probability that the various rivers Stour, including the Kentish Great Stour and Little Stour, were also attributed to Istar or Esther. The Greek version of the Book ofEsther—a varient of Istar—contains the remarkable passage, “A little fountain became a river, and there was light, and the sun, and much water”: in the neighbourhood of the Kentish Stour is Eastry; in Essex there is a Good Easter and a High Easter, and in Wilts and Somerset are Eastertowns. In England the sun was popularly supposed to dance at Eastertide, andin Britain aloneis the Easter festival known under this name: the ancient Germans worshipped a Virgin-mother named Ostara, whose image was common in their consecrated forests.

What is described as the “camp” surrounding St. Albans is called the Oyster Hills, and amid the much water of the Thames Valley is an Osterley or Oesterley. On the Oyster Hills at St. Albans was an hospice for infirm women, dedicated to St. Mary de Pree, the wordpreehere being probablypre, the French for a meadow—but Verulam may have beenpre land, for in ancient times it was known alternatively as Vrolan orBrolan.[715]The Oesterley or Oester meadow in the Thames Valley, sometimes written Awsterley, was obviously common ground, for when Sir Thomas Gresham enclosed it his new park palings were rudely torn down and burnt by the populace, much to theoffence of Queen Elizabeth who was staying in the place at the time. Notwithstanding the royal displeasure, complaints were laid against Gresham “by sundry poor men for having enclosed certain common ground to the prejudice of the poor”.

Next Osterley is Brentford, where once stood “the Priory of the Holy Angels in the Marshlands”: other accounts state that this organisation was a “friary, hospital, or fraternity of the Nine holy orders of Angels”. With this holy Nine may be connoted the Nine Men’s Morrice and the favourite Mayday pageant of “the Nine Worthies”. Aswandvwere always interchangeable we may safely identify the “worthies” with the “virtues,” and I am unable to follow the official connection betweenworthandverse: there is no immediate or necessary relation between them. The Danish forworthisvorde, the Swedish isvarda, and there is thus little doubt thatworthyandvirtueare one and the same word. InLove’s Labour’s LostConstable Dull expresses his willingness to “make one in a dance or so, or I will play the tabor to the Worthies and let them dance the Hey”.

Osterley is on the river Brent, which sprang from a pond “vulgarly called Brown’s Well,”[716]whence it is probable that the Brent vulgarly derived its name from Oberon, the AllParent. Brentford was the capital of Middlesex; numerous pre-historic relics have been found there, and that it was a site of immemorial importance is testified by its ancient name of Breninford, supposed to mean King’s Road or Way. But brenenis the plural of bren—a Prince or King, and two fairy Princes or two fairyKings were traditionally and proverbially associated with the place. In Cowper’sTaskoccur the lines:—

United yet divided twain at onceSo sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.

United yet divided twain at once

So sit two kings of Brentford on one throne.

Prior, in hisAlma, refers to the two Kings as being “discreet and wise,” and it is probable that in Buckingham’sThe Rehearsal, of which the scene is laid at Brentford, we have further scraps of genuine and authentic tradition.The Rehearsalintroduces us to two true Kings and two usurpers: the true Kings who are represented as being very fond of one another come on to the stage hand-in-hand, and are generally seensmelling at one roseor one nosegay. Imagining themselves being plotted against, one says to the other:—

Then spite of Fate we’ll thus combined standAnd like true brothers still walk hand in hand.

Then spite of Fate we’ll thus combined stand

And like true brothers still walk hand in hand.

Driven from their throne by usurpers, nevertheless, towards the end of the play, “the two right Kings of Brentford descend in the clouds singing in white garments, and three fiddlers sitting before them in green”. Adjacent to Brentford is the village of Twickenham where at the parish church used to prevail a custom of giving away on Easter Day the divided fragments of two great cakes.[717]This apparently innocuous ceremony was, however, in 1645 deemed to be a superstitious relic and was accordingly suppressed. We have seen that charity-cakes were distributed at Biddenden in commemoration of the Twin Sisters; we have also seen that St. Michael was associated with a great cake named after him, hence it is exceedingly probable that Twickenham of the Two Easter Cakes wasa seat of the Two or Twa Kings who survived in the traditions of the neighbouring Breninford or King’s Ford.

Figs.366 to 370.—British. From Akerman.

That the Two or Twa Kings of Twickenham were associated with Two Fires is suggested by the alternative name Twittanham: in Celtictanmeant fire, and the term has survived intandsticker,i.e., fire-sticks, or matches: it has also survived intinder, “anything for kindling fires from a spark,” and inetincelle, the French for spark. In Etruria Jupiter was known as Tino or Tin, and on the British Star-hero coin here illustrated the legend readsTin: the town of Tolentino, with which one of the St. Nicholas’s was associated in combination with a star, was probably a shrine of Tall Ancient Tino; in modern Greece Tino is a contracted form of Constantine. The Beltanor Belteinfires were frequently in pairs or twins, and there is a saying still current in Ireland—“I am between Bels fires,”meaning “I am on the horns of a dilemma”. The Dioscuri or Two Kings were always associated with fires or stars: they were thebeau-idealwarriors or War Boys, and to them was probably sacred the “Warboy’s Wood” in Huntingdon, where on May Day the poor used to go “sticking” or gathering fuel. The Dioscuri occur frequently on Roman coins, and it will be noticed that the British Warboy is often represented with a star, and with the palm branch of Invictus. On the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary it is said that an angel appeared before her bearing “a bough of the palm of paradise—and the palm shone by right great clearness and was like to a green rod whose leaves shone like to the morrow star”.[718]There is very little doubt that the mysterious fish-bone, fern-leaf, spike, ear of corn, or back-bone, which figures so frequently among the “what-nots” of our ancient coinage represented the green and magic rod of Paradise.

Fig.371.—Star or Bush (MS., circa 1425). FromThe History of Signboards(Larwood & Hotten).

At Twickenham is Bushey Park, which is assumed to have derived its name from the bushes in which it abounded: for some reason our ancestors combined their Bush and Star inn-signs into one,videthe design herewith: we have already traced a connection betweenbougie—a candle, and theBogiewhose habitation was the brakes and bushes: whence it is not unlikely that Bushey Park derived its title from the Elphin fires, Will-o-the-wisps, or bougies which must have danced nightly when Twickenham was little better than a swamp. The Rev. J. B. Johnston decodes Bushey into “Byssa’s” isle or peninsula, and it is not improbable that Bushey in Hertfordshire bears the same interpretation, only I do not think that the supposititious Byssa, Bissei, or Bisi was an Anglo-Saxon. That “Bisi” was Bogie or Puck is perhaps implied further by the place-name Denbiesfacing Boxhill: we have already noted in this district Bagdon, Pigdon, Bookham, and Pixham, whence Denbies, situated on the brow of Pigdon or Bagdon, suggests that here seemingly was the actual Bissei’s den. The supposititious Bissei assigned to Bushey may be connoted with the giant Bosow who dwelt by repute on Buzza’s Hill just beyond Hugh Town, St. Mary’s. According to Miss Courtney the Cornish family of Bosow are traceable to the giant of Buzza’s Hill.[719]Presumably to Puck or Bog, are similarly traceable the common surnames Begg, Bog, etc.

By the Italians the phosphorescent lights or bougies of St. Elmo are known not as Castor and Pollux, but as the fires of St. Peter and St. Nicholas: the name Nicholas is considered to mean “Victory of the People”; in Greeknikemeansvictory: we have seen that in Russia Nicholas was equated with St. Michael, in face of which facts it is presumptive that St. Nicholas was Invictus, or the Unconquerable. In London, at Paternoster Lane used to stand “the fair parish church of St. Michael called Paternoster,”[720]and that St. Nicholas was originally “Our Father” or Paternoster is implied by the corporate seal of Yarmouth: this represents St. Nicholas supported on either side by angels, and bears the inscriptionO Pastor Vere Tibi Subjectis Miserere. It must surely have savoured of heresy to hail the supposed Nicholas of Patara in Lycia asO Pastor Vere, unless in popular estimationSt. Nicholas was actually the Great Pastor or True Feeder: that Nicholas was indeterminately either the Father or the Mother is deducible from the fact that in Scotland the name Nicholas is commonly bestowed on girls.

In France and Italy prayers are addressed to Great St. Nicholas, and it is probable that there was always a Nichol and a Nicolette ornucleus: we are told that St. Nicholas, whose mother’s name was Joanna, was born at Patara, and that he became the Bishop of Myra: on his fete day the proper offering was a cock, and that Nicholas or Invictus was the chanteur or Chanticleer, is implied by the statement: “St. Nicholas went abroad in most part in London singing after the old fashion, and was received with many people into their houses, and had much good cheer, as ever they had in many places”: on Christmas Eve St. Nicholas still wanders among the children, notwithstanding the sixteenth century censure—“thus tender minds to worship saints and wicked things are taught”.

Nicholas is an extended form of Nike, Nick, or Neck, and the frequent juxtaposition of St. Nicholas and St. George is an implication that these Two Kings were once the Heavenly Twins. We have already noted an Eleven Stone at Trenuggo—theabode of Nuggo?and there is a likelihood that Nuggo or Nike was there worshipped as One and Only, theUnique: that he was Lord of the Harvests is implied by the fabrication of a harvest doll or Neck. According to Skeatneckoriginally meant the nape or knop of the neck; it would thus seem thatneck—Old Englishnekke—was a synonym for knob or knop. In Cornwall Neck-day was the great day of the year, whenthe Neck was “cried”[721]and suspended in the ingle nook until the following year: in the words of an old Cornishwoman: “There were Neck cakes, much feasting and dancing all the evening. Another great day was Guldise day when the corn was drawn: Guldise cakes and a lump of pease-pudding for every one.”[722]

Near London Stone is the Church of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey, and at Old Jewry stood St. Mary Cole Church: it is not unlikely that this latter was originally dedicated to Old King Cole, the father of the lovely Helen and the Merry Old Soul whose three fiddlers may be connoted with the three green fiddlers of the Kings of Brentford. The great bowl of Cole, theghoulof other ages, may be equated with thecauldronorcalixof the Pastor Vere: the British word forcauldronwaspair, and the Druidic bards speak with great enthusiasm of “their cauldron,” “the cauldron of Britannia,” “the cauldron of Lady Keridwen,” etc. This cauldron was identified with the Stone circles, and the Bardic poets also speak of a mysteriouspair dadeniwhich is understood to mean “the cauldron of new birth or rejuvenescence”.[723]The old artists seemingly represented the Virtues as emerging from this cauldron as three naked boys or Amoretti, for it is said that St. Nicholas revived three murdered children who had been pickled in brine by a wicked inn-keeper who had run short of bacon. This miracle is his well-known emblem, and the murder story by which the authorities accounted for the picture is probably as silly and brutal an afterthought as the horrid “$1”tures”and protracted dolours of other saints. Nevertheless some ghoulish and horrible practices seem to have accompanied the worship of the cauldron, and the author ofDruidism Exhumedreproduces a Scotch sculpture of a cauldron out of which protruding human legs are waving ominously in the air.

St. Nicholas of Bari is portrayed resuscitating three youths from three tubs: that Nicholas was radically the Prince of Peace is implied, however, from the exclamation “Nic’las!” which among children is equivalent to “fainites”: the sign of truce or fainites is to cross the two fore-fingers into the form of thetreusor cross.

St. Nicholas is the unquestioned patron of all children, and in the past bands of lads, terming themselves St. Nicholas’ Clerks or St. Nicholas’ Knights, added considerably to the conviviality of the cities. Apparently at all abbeys once existed the custom of installing upon St. Nicholas’ Day a Boy Bishop who was generally a choir or singing boy: this so-called Bearn Bishop or Barnebishop was decked, according to one account, in “a myter of cloth and gold withtwo knoppsof silver gilt and enamelled,” and a study of the customs prevailing at this amazing festival of the Holy Innocent leaves little doubt that the Barnebishop personified the conception of the Pastor Vere in the aspect of a lad or “knave”. The connection betweenknopandknavehas already been traced, and the “two knopps” of the episcopal knave or bairnbishop presumably symbolised thebrenor breasts of Pastor Vere, the celestial Parent: it has already been suggested that the knops on Figs. 30 to 38 (p. 149) represented the Eyes or Breasts of the All Mighty.

In Irishabmeantfatherorlord, and in all probabilitySt. Abb’s Head, supposedly named after a Bishop Ebba, was once a seat of Knebba worship: that Cunobe was the Mighty Muse, singing like St. Nicholas after the old fashion, is evident from the British coin illustrated on page 305, a sad example of carelessness, declension, and degradation from the Macedonian Philippus.

The festival of the Burniebishop was commemorated with conspicuous pomp at Cambrai, and there is reason to think that this amazing institution was one of Cambrian origin: so fast and furious was the accompanying merriment that the custom was inevitably suppressed. The only Manor in the town of Brentford is that of Burston or Boston, whence it is probable that Brentford grew up around a primeval Bur stone or “Denbies”. That the place was famous for its merriment and joviality is sufficiently evidenced by the fact that in former times the parish rates “were mainly supported by the profits of public sports and diversions especially at Whitsuntide”.[724]

According toThe Rehearsalwhen the True Kings or Two Kings, accompanied by their retinue of three green-clad fiddlers, descended from the clouds, a dance was then performed: “an ancient dance of right belonging to the Kings of Brentford, but since derived with a little alteration to the Inns of Court”. On referring to the famous pageants of the Inns of Court we find that the chief character was the Lord of Misrule, known otherwise as the King of Cockneys or Prince of Purpool. We have seen that the Hobby Horse was clad in purple, and that Mary was weaver of the true purple—a combination of true blue and scarlet. The authorities connotepurple, Frenchpurpre, with the Greekporphureos, “an epithet of the surgingsea,” and they ally it with the Sanscritbhur, meaningto be active. The cockney, and very active Prince of Purpool or Portypool was conspicuously celebrated at Gray’s Inn which occupies the site of the ancient Manor ofPoripool, and the ritual—condemned and suppressed by the Puritans as “popish, diabolical, and antechristian”—seems invariably to have started by a fire or phare lighted in the hall: this at any rate was the custom and status with which the students at St. John’s, Oxford, opened the proceedings on All Hallows’ Eve.

The Druidic Bards allude to their sacred pyreum, or fire-circle, as apair dadeni, and that a furious Fire or Phare was the object of their devotion is obvious from hymns such as—

Let burst forth ungentleThe horse-paced ardent fire!Him we worship above the earth,Fire, fire, low murmuring in its dawn,High above our inspiration,Above every spiritGreat is thy terribleness.[725]

Let burst forth ungentle

The horse-paced ardent fire!

Him we worship above the earth,

Fire, fire, low murmuring in its dawn,

High above our inspiration,

Above every spirit

Great is thy terribleness.[725]

Pourpreorpurple, the royal or imperial colour, was doubtless associated with the Fire of Fires, and the connection between this word andporphureosmust, I think, be sought in the idea ofpyre furiousorfire furious, rather than any epithet of the surging sea. The Welsh for purple isporffor.

Either within or immediately adjacent to the Manor of Poripool or Purpool were some famous springs named Bagnigge Wells: at the corner of Bathhurst Street, Paddington, was a second Bagnigge Wells, and the riverFleet used also at one time to be known as the Bagnigge. This ubiquitous Bagnigge was in all probabilityBig Niggeor Big Nicky—

Know you the Nixies gay and fair?Their eyes are black and green their hair,They lurk in sedgy shores.

Know you the Nixies gay and fair?

Their eyes are black and green their hair,

They lurk in sedgy shores.

The fairy Nokke, Neck, or Nickel, is said to have been a great musician who sat upon the water’s edge and played a golden harp, the harmony of which operated on all nature:[726]sometimes he is represented as a complete horse who could be made to work at the plough if a bridle of particular kind were used: he is also represented as half man and half horse, as an aged man with a long beard, as a handsome young man, and as a pretty little boy with golden hair and scarlet cap. That Big Nigge once haunted the Bagnigge Wells is implied by the attendant legend of Black Mary, Black Mary’s Hole being the entrance, or immediately adjacent, to one of the Bagnigge springs: similarly, as has been noted, Peg Powler, and Peg this or that, haunted the streams of Lancashire.

We have seen that Keightley surmised the wordpixyto be the endearing diminutivesyadded to Puck, whence, as in Nancy, Betsy, Dixie, and so forth, Nixy may similarly be considered asdear little Nick. In Suffolk, the fairies are known as farisees, seemingly,dear little fairies, and our ancestors seem to have possessed a pronounced partiality for similar diminutives: we find them alluding to the Blood of the Lambkin, an expression which Adamnan’s editors remark as “a bold instance of the Celtic diminutive of endearment so characteristic of Adamnan’s style”:they add: “Throughout Adamnan’s work, diminutives are constantly used, and these in most cases are used in a sense of endearment difficult to convey in English, perfectly natural as they are in the mouth of the kindly and warm-hearted Irish saint. In the present case Dr. Reeves thinks the diminutives may indicate the poorness of the animals from the little there was to feed them upon.”[727]As the traditions of Fairyland give no hint for the assumption of any rationing or food-shortage it seems hardly necessary to consider either the pixies, the farisees, or the nixies as either half-starved or even impoverished.

In Scandinavia and Germany the nixies are known as the nisses, and they there correspond to the brownies of Scotland: according to Grimm the wordnisseis “Nicls, Niclsen,i.e., Nicolaus, Niclas, a common name in Germany and the North, which is also contracted to Klas, Claas”; but askseems invariably to soften intoch, and again intos, it is a perfectly straight road from Nikke to Nisse, and the adjectiveniceis an eloquent testimonial to the Nisses’ character. Some Nisses were doubtlessnice, others were obviously nasty, noxious, and nocturnal: the Nis of Jutland is in Friesland called Puk, and also Niss-Puk, Nise-Bok, and Niss-Kuk: theKukof this last mentioned may be connoted with the fact that the customary offering to St. Nicholas was a cock—the symbol of the Awakener—and as St. Nicholas was so intimately connected with Patara, the cock of St. Peter is no doubt related to the legend.

St. Nicholas, or Santa Claus, customarily travels by night: the nixies were black-eyed; Old Nick was always painted black;nox, or night, is the same word as nixy; andnigel,night, ornichtall imply blackness. Accordingto Cæsar: “all the Gauls assert that they are descended from the god Dis, and say that this tradition has been handed down by the Druids. For that reason they compute the divisions of every season not by the number of days but by nights; they keep birthdays, and the beginnings of months and years in such an order that the day follows the night.”[728]The expressions fortnight, and sen’night thus not only perpetuate an idea of great antiquity but one which is philosophically sound: to our fore-runners Night was no wise evil, but the beneficent Mother of a Myriad Stars: the fairies revelled in the dark, and in eyes of old “the vast blue night was murmurous with peris wings”[729].

The place-name Knightsbridge is probably a mis-spelling of Neyte, one of the three manors into which Kensington was once divided: the other two were Hyde and Ebury, and it is not unlikely that these once constituted a trinity—Hyde being the Head, Ebury the Brightness, and Neyte—Night. The Egyptian represented Nut, Naut, or Neith as a Mother Goddess with two children in her arms, one white the other black: to her were assigned the words: “I am what has been, what is, and what will be,” and her worshippers declared: “She hath built up life from her own body”. In Scandinavia Nat was the Mother of all the gods: she was said to be an awe-inspiring, adorable, noble, and beneficent being, and to have her home on the lower slopes of the Nida mountains:nidis the French fornest, and with Neyte may be connotednuit, the French fornight. That St. Neot wasle nuitis implied by the tradition that the Church of St. Neot in Cornwall was built not only by night, but entirely by Neot himself whodrew the stones from a neighbouring quarry, aided only by the help of reindeer. These magic reindeer are obviously the animals of St. Nick, and it is evidently a memory of Little Nick that has survived in the tradition that St. Neot was a saint of very small stature—somewhere about 15 inches high.[730]With MotherNatof Scandinavia, and MotherNautor Neith of Egypt, may be connoted Nutria, a Virgin-Mother goddess of Etruria; a divine nurse with whose name may be connectednutrix(nurse) andnutriment.

St. Nicholas is the patron saint of seafarers and there are innumerable dedications to him at the seaside: that Nikke was Neptune is unquestionable, and connected with his name is doubtlessnicchiothe Italian for a shell. Fromnicchiocomes our modernniche, which means a shell-like cavity or recess: in the BritishEppicoin, illustrated on page 284, the marine monster may be described as a nikke, and the apparition of the nikke as a perfect horse might not ineptly be designated anag.

I have elsewhere illustrated many representations of the Water-Mother, the Mary-Maid, the Mermaid, the Merrow-Maid, or as she is known in Brittany—Mary Morgan. The resident nymph or genius of the river Severnwas named Sabrina; the Welsh for the Severn is Havren, and thus it is evident that the radical of this river name isbrina,vren, orvern: the British Druids recognised certain governing powers namedferaon: fernwas already noted as an Iberian word meaninganything good, whence it is probable that in Havren or Severn the affixhaorsewas either the Greekeuor the British and Sanscritsu, both alike meaning thesoft, gentle, pleasing, andpropitious.

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