Chapter 30

Fig. 445.—Gaulish. From Akerman.

As recorded inThe Golden Legendthe life of poor St. Clare was one long dolorous great moan and sorrow: it is mentioned, however, that she had a sister Agnes and that these two sisters loved marvellously together. We may thus assume that the celestial twins were Ignis,fireand Clare,light:Agnesis the Latin forlamb, and this symbol of Innocence is among the two or three out of lost multitudes which have been preserved by the Christian Church. In the illustration herewith the lambkin, in conjunction with a star, appears upon a coin of the Gaulish people whose chief town was Agatha: its real name, according to Akerman, was Agatha Tyke, and its foundation has been attributed both to the Rhodians and the Phoceans. Agatha is Greek forgood, andtykemeant fortune or good luck: the effigy is described as being a bare head of Diana to the right and without doubt Diana, or the divine Una, was typified both byignisthe fire, and byagnesthe lamb: in India Agni is represented riding on a maleagnes, and in Christian art the Deity was figured as a ram.

Fig. 446.—Agni.

Fig. 447.—FromChristian Iconography(Didron).

At the Cornish town of St. Enns, St. Anns, or St. Agnes, the name of St. Agnes—a paragon of maiden virtue—is coupled with a Giant Bolster, a mighty man who is said to have held possession of a neighbouring hill, sometimes known as Bury-anack: at the base of this hill exists a very interesting and undoubtedly most ancient earthwork knownas “The Bolster”.[832]As Anak meantgiant,[833]Bury Anack was seemingly theabri,brugh,bri, or fairy palace of this particular Anak, and if we spell Bolster with an e he emerges at once into Belstar, theBeautiful Starwho is represented in association with Agnes on page 719: probably the maligned Bolster of Cornwall had another of his abris at Bellister Castle on the Tyne, now a crumbling mass of ruins.

Some accounts mention the Clerkenwell pool of Annis the Clear as being that of Agnes the Clear: opposite the famous Angel of this neighbourhood is Claremont Square, and about half a mile eastward is Shepherdess Walk; that the Shepherdess of this walk was Diane,i.e.,Sinclair the counterpart of Adonis, the Shepherd of the twinkling stars, is somewhat implied by Peerless Street, which leads into Shepherdess Walk. Perilous Pool at Clerkenwell was sometimes known as Peerless Pool: it has been seen that the hags or fairies were associated with this Islington district which still contains a Paradise Passage, and of both “Perilous” and “Peerless” I think the correct reading should beperi lass; it will be remembered that the peris were quite familiar to England as evidenced by the feathery clouds or “perry dancers,” and the numerous Pre Stones and Perry Vales.[834]In Red Cross Street, Clerkenwell, are or were Deane’s Gardens; at Clarence Street, Islington, the name Danbury Street implies the existence either there or elsewhere of a Dan barrow.

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

The emblems associated with the Temple and its circular church are three; the Flying Horse or Pegasus; two men ortwainriding on a single horse (probably the Two Kings) and the Agnus Dei: in the emblem herewith this last is standing on a dun whence are flowing the four rivers of Eden. The lamb was essentially an emblem of St. John who, in Art, is generally represented with it; whence it is significant that in Celtic the word for lamb is identical with the name Ion, the Welsh beingoen, the Cornishoin, the Bretonoan, the Gaelicuan, and the Manxeayn. That Sinjohn was alwayssunshineand thesheen, never apparently darkness, is implied by the Basque wordsegunmeaningday, and Agandia or Astartea meaning Sunday.The Basque forGodisjainco, the Ugrian wasjen, and the Basquejain, meaninglordormaster, is evidently synonymous with the Spanishdonordonna.

Fig. 448.—Divine Lamb, with a Circular Nimbus, not Cruciform, Marked with the Monogram of Christ, and the A and Ω. Sculptured on a Sarcophagus in the Vatican. The earliest ages of Christianity. FromChristian Iconography(Didron).]

In addition to St. Annes opposite St. Dunstans, and St. Clement Dane there is a church of St. Anne in Dean Street, Soho: Ann of Ireland was alternatively Danu, and it is clear from many evidences that the initialdortwas generally adjectival. The Cornish fordownor dune isoon, and Duke was largely correct when he surmised in connection with St. Anne’s Hill, Avebury: “I cannot help thinking that from Diana and Dian were struck off the appellations Anna and Ann, and that theferiæ, or festival of the goddess, was superseded by the fair, as now held, of the saint. I shall now be told that the fane of the hunting goddess would never have been seated on this high and barehill, that the Romans would have given her a habitation amidst the woods and groves, but here Callimachus comes to my aid. In his beautiful Hymn on Diana he feigns her to entreat her father Jupiter, ‘also give meallhills and mountains’.”

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

Fig. 449.—View of Wady Mokatteb from the S. E. FromThe One Primeval Language(Forster, O.).

Speaking of the bleak moorlands of Penrith (thepen ruth?), where are found the monuments of Long Meg and of Mayborough, Fergusson testily observes: “No one will now probably be found seriously to maintain that the long stone row at Shap was a temple either of the Druids or of anyone else. At least if these ancient people thought a single or even a double row of widely-spaced stones stretching to a mile and a half across a bleak moor was a proper form for a place to worship in, they must have been differently constituted from ourselves[837].” Indubitably they were; and so too must have been the ancient Greeks: the far-famed Mount Cynthus, whence Apollo was called Cynthus, is described by travellers as “an ugly hill” which crosses the island of Delos obliquely; it is not even a mountain, but “properly speaking is nothing but a ridge of granite”. I am told that Glastonbury—the Avalon, the Apple Orchard, the Sacred Eden of an immeasurable antiquity—is disappointing, and that nowadays little of any interest is to be seen there. “Donn’s House,” the gorgeousbrior palace of generous Donn the King of Faery, is in reality no better than a line of sandhills in the Dingle Peninsula, Kerry; of the inspiring Tipperary I know nothing, but can sympathise with the prosaic Governor of the Isle of Man, who a century or so ago reported that practically every dun in Manxland was crowned with a cairn which seemed “nothing but the rubbish of Nature thrown into barren and unfruitful heaps”.

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

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

The name of the aged Jew who furnished Alexander with this information is said to have been Papas, or Papias: Papas was an alternative name for the Phrygian Adonis, whence we may no doubt equate the old Adonis (i.e., Aidoneus, or Pluto?) with the Aged Jew, or the Wandering Jew. It has been seen that the legend of the Wandering Jew apparently originated at St. Albans: in Francemontjoywas a generic term for herald, and I have little doubt that these Mountjoys were originally so termed as being the denizens of some sacred Mount. There is a Mount Joy near Jerusalem, and there was certainly at least one in France: among the legends recorded in Layamon’sBrutis one relating to a Mont Giu and a wondrous Star: “From it came gleams terribly shining; the star is named in Latin, comet. Came from the star a gleam most fierce; at this gleam’s end was a dragon fair; from this dragon’s mouth came gleams enow! But twain there were mickle, unlike to the others; the one drew toward France, the other toward Ireland. The gleam that toward France drew, it was itself bright enow; toMunt-Giuwas seen the marvellous token! The gleam that stretched right west, it was disposed in seven beams.”[840]It is probable that Chee Tor in the neighbourhood of Buxton, Bakewell,[841]and Haddon Hall, was once just as bogie a Mount asMunt-Giu: at Churchdownin Gloucester is a Chosen Hill, which apparently was sacred to Sen Cho, and this hill was presumably the original church of Down; all sorts of “silly traditions” are said to hang around this spot, and the natives ludicrously claim themselves to be “the Chosen” People.

Fig.450.—FromThe Everyday Book(Hone, W.).

Chee Tor at Buxton overlooks the river Wye, a name probably connected witheye, and with numerousEamounts,Eytons,Eatons,Howdens, etc.: that Eton inBucks was an Eye Dun is inferable from thead montemceremonies which used until recently to prevail at Salt Hill.[842]In British,hyorea, as in Hy Breasil, Battersea, Chelsea, etc., meant an island, and the ideal Eden was usually conceived and constructed in island form: if a natural “Eye Town” were not available it was customary to construct an artificial one by running a trench around some natural or artificial barrow. The wordeyealso means a shoot, whence we speak of the eye of a potato, and the standard Eyedun seems always to have possessed an eye of eyes in the form either of a tree, a well, or a tower: it was not unusual to surmount the Beltan fire or Tan-Tad with a tree; the favourite phare tree was a fir tree, in Provence the Yule log was preferably a pear tree. It was anciently supposed that the earth was an island established upon the floods, and Homer preserves the belief of his time by referring to Oceanus as a river-stream:—

And now, borne seaward fromthe river streamOf the Oceanus, we plow’d againThe spacious Deep, and reach’d th’ Ææan Isle,Where, daughter of the dawn, Aurora takesHer choral sports, and whence the sun ascends.[843]

And now, borne seaward fromthe river stream

Of the Oceanus, we plow’d again

The spacious Deep, and reach’d th’ Ææan Isle,

Where, daughter of the dawn, Aurora takes

Her choral sports, and whence the sun ascends.[843]

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

Fig. 451.—Love-Feast with Wine and Bread. Relief in the Kircher Museum at Rome, presumably pagan. After Roller, pl. LIV. 7.

Fig.452.—A Pagan Love-Feast. Now in the Lateran Museum. From Roller,Les Cata. de Rome, pl. LIV. The pagan character is assured by the winged Eros at the left.

The name Piccadilly is assumed to have arisen because certain buns called piccadillies were there sold: the greater likelihood is that the bun took its title from Piccadilly. This curious place-name, which commemorates the memory of a Piccadilly Hall, is found elsewhere, and isprobably cognate with Pixey lea,Poukelay, and the legendPixtil, etc. Opposite Down Street, Piccadilly, or Mayfair, there are still standing in the Green Park the evidences of what may once have been tumuli or duns, and the Buckden Hill by St. Agnes’ Well in Hyde Park may, as is supposed, have been a den for bucks, or, as is not more improbable, a dun sacred to Big Adon:[846]leading to Buck Hill and St. Agnes’ Well there is still a pathway marked on the Ordnance map Budge Walk, an implication seemingly that Bougie, or Bogie, was not unknown in the district. We have connoted Rotten Row ofHydePark with Rotten Row Tower near Alnwick: this latter is situated onAidonMoor. ByDownStreet, Mayfair, is Hay Hill, at the foot of which flowed the Eye Brook, and this beck no doubt meandered past the modern Brick Street, and through the Brookfieldin the Green Park where the fifteen joyful heydays of the Mayfair were once celebrated: whether the Eye Brook wandered through Eaton Square—the site of St. Peter’s Church—I do not know, nor can I trace whether or not the “Eatons” hereabout are merely entitled from Eaton Hall in the Dukeries. Each Eaton or island ton, certainly every sacred island, seems to have been deemed a “central boss of Ocean: that retreat a goddess holds,”[847]and this central boss appears to have been conceived indifferently or comprehensively as either a Cone, a Pyramid, a Beehive, or a Teat. Wyclif, in his translation of the Bible, refers to Jerusalem as “the totehill Zyon,” and there is little doubt that all teathills were originally cities or sites of peace: according to Cyprien Roberts: “The first basilicas,placed generally upon eminences, were called Domus Columbæ, dwellings of the dove, that is, of the Holy Ghost. They caught the first rays of the dawn, and the last beams of the setting sun.”[848]Everywhere in Britain the fays were popularly “gentle people,” “good neighbours,” and “men of peace”: a Scotch name for Fairy dun or High Altar of the Lord of the Mound used to be—sioth-dhunan, fromsioth“peace,” anddun“a mound”: this name was derived from the practice of the Druids “who were wont occasionally to retire to green eminences to administer justice, establish peace, and compose differences between contending parties. As that venerable order taught asaogle hal, or World-beyond-the-present, their followers, when they were no more, fondly imagined that seats where theyexercised a virtue so beneficial to mankind were still inhabited by them in their disembodied state”.[849]

In Cornwall there is a famous well at Truce which is legendarily connected with Druidism:[850]Irish tradition speaks of a famous Druid named Trosdan; St. Columba is associated with a St. Trosdan;[851]at St. Vigeans in Scotland there is a stone bearing an inscription which the authorities transcribe “Drosten,”[852]probably all the dwellers on the Truce duns were entitled Trosdan,[853]and it is not unlikely that the romantic Sir Patrise of Westminster was originally Father Truce. It has already been noted thattreuswas Cornish for cross, that children cross their fingers as a sign of fainits or truce, and there is very little doubt that cruciform earthworks, such as Shanid, and cruciform duns such as Hallicondane in Thanet were truce duns. The Tuatha de Danaan, or Children of Donn, who are supposed to have been the introducers of Druidism into Ireland, were said to have transformed into fairies, and the duns or raths of the Danaan are still denominated “gentle places”.[854]That the ancient belief in the existence of “gentle people” is still vivid, is demonstrated beyond question by the author ofThe Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, who writes (1911): “The description of theTuatha de Danaan in the ‘Dialogue of the Elders’ as ‘sprites or fairies with corporeal or material forms, but endued with immortality,’ would stand as an account of prevailing ideas as to the ‘good people‘ of to-day”.[855]The generous Donn, the King of Faery, is obviously Danu, or Anu, or Aine, the Irish goddess of prosperity and abundance, for we are told that well she used to cherish the circle of the gods.[856]At Knockainy, or theHill of Ainy, Aine, whose name also occurs constantly on Gaulish inscriptions,[857]was until recent years worshipped by the peasants who rushed about carrying burning torches of hay: that Aine was Aincy, ordear little aine, is inferred by the alternative name of her dun Knockaincy: “Here,” says Mr. Westropp, “a cairn commemorates the cult of the goddess Aine, of the god-race of the Tuatha De Danaan. She was a water-spirit, and has been seen, half raised out of the water, combing her hair. She was a beautiful and gracious spirit, ‘the best-natured of women,’ and is crowned with meadow-sweet (spiræa), to which she gave its sweet smell. She is a powerful tutelary spirit, protector of the sick, and connected with the moon, her hill being sickle-shaped, and men, before performing the ceremonies, used to look for the moon—whether visible or not—lest they should be unable to return.”[858]By St. Anne’s in Dean Street, Soho, is Dansey Yard, where probablydancingtook place, and dins of every sort arose.

The original sanctuary at Westminster was evidently associated with a dunhill which seems to have long persisted for Loftie, in hisHistory of Westminster, observes:“Thehillockon which we stand is called Thorn Ey”.[859]Tothill Street, Westminster, marks the site of what was probably the teat hill of Sir Patrise: the tothills being centres of neighbourly intercourse a good deal of tittle-tattle doubtless occurred there, and from the toothills watchmentouted, the wordtout[860]really meaning peer about or look out: “How beautiful on the Mounds are the feet of Him that bringethtidings—that publisheth Peace”.[861]It has been supposed that certain of the Psalms of David were addressed not to the Jewish Jehovah, but to the Phœnician Adon or Adonis, and it is not an unreasonable assumption that these hymns of immemorial antiquity were first sung in some simple Eyedun similar to the wattled pyreum at Kildare, or that at Avalon or Bride Eye.

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

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

Unaided by Laertes or the Queen,

With tangled thorns he fenced it safe around,

And with contiguous stakes riv’n from the trunks

Of solid oak black-grain’d hemm’d it without.[863]

The circle of Mayborough originally contained two cairns which are suggestive of Andromache’s “turf-built cenotaph with altars twain”: the great bicycle within a monocycle at Avebury is trenched around, and the summit of the circumference is still growing thickly with “tangled thorns”. On the Wrekin there is a St. Hawthorn’s Well; of “Saint” Hawthorn nothing seems to be known, and I strongly suspect that he was originally a sacred thorn or monument bush. The firsthaiesor hedges were probably the hawthorn or haw hedges around the sacred Eyes, and the originalha-hasor sunk ditches were presumably the water trenches which surrounded the same jealously-guarded Eyes: and asha-hais also defined as “an old woman of surprising ugliness, a caution,” it may be suggested that the caretakers or beldames[864]of the awful Eyes were, likesome of the vergers and charwomen of the present day, not usually comely.

Fig. 453.—Trematon, Cornwall.

Fig. 454.—Chun Castle.

The iris-form of the Eye was shown in the ground planante,page 534, and that this design was maintained even for ages after the first primitive Rock or Tower had given place to statelier edifices might be shown by many more evidences than the design here illustrated: thematonof this Trematon Castle was in all probability the same Maiden as the Shee of Maiden Castle, Maiden Paps, and the Maiden Stane. Trematon, in Cornwall, was the site of a Stannary Court, whence arose the proverbial localism “Trematon Law,” and there are peculiarities about the Castle which merit more than passing attention. Rising majestically amid the surrounding foliage the keep is described as standing on the summit of a conical mound: Baring-Gould characterises the aspect as being that of a pork pie, whence its windowless walls would seem to bear a resemblance to the massive masonry at Richborough. The Richborough walls now measure 10 feet 8 inches in thickness and nearly 30 feet in height; those at Trematon are stated as being 10 feet thick and 30 feet high. Like Maiden Castle at Dorchester, Trematon is of an oval formand it was formerly divided into apartments, but as there are no marks of windows they would appear to have been lighted from the top.[865]The gateway consisted of three strong arches, and the general arrangements would seem to have resembled those at Chun where, as will be noted, there were three outer chambers encircling about a dozen inner stalls. Chun is cyclopean unmortared stonework; Maiden Castle is earthwork; Richborough is supposedly Roman masonry: of Trematon little is known that may be deemed authentic, but it is generally believed to have been originally erected prior to the Conquest: as, however, the Anglo-Saxons were incapable of masonry it would seem that Trematon might be assigned to an antiquity not less than that of Richborough Castle which it so curiously parallels.With the various Maiden Lanes of King’s Cross, Covent Garden, and elsewhere may be connoted the Mutton Lane of Hackney, which was famous for a bun house which once rivalled that atCheynesWalk, Chelsea: Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, is a continuation of Chandos Street, and it will probably prove that the surname Chandos is ultimately traceable toJeanne douce. In Caledoniadouceis not necessarily feminine, and the King John tradition, which unaccountably lingered around Canonbury,[866]may be connoted with the John Street and Mutton Hill of Clerkenwell. The sheep or mutton is the proper emblem of St. John, and perhaps the same King John may be further identified with the Goodman of the adjacent Goodman’s Fields. We have seen that in Caledonia the gudeman was the devil, whence it becomes interesting to find near Brown’s Wood, Islington, stood once a “Duval’s (vulgarly called Devil’s) Lane”.[867]

St. Columba alludes affectionately to—

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

Myderry, my little oak grove,

My dwelling and my little cell.

The Eye dun illustratedante,page 584, which is described as the strangest, most solitary, most prehistoric-looking of all our motes, is known asTrowdale Mote; St. Columba is associated withTiree; he is also said to have been imprisoned atTara, and to have written the bookDurrowwith his own hand: there is thus some ground for tracing the Mote, Maton, Maid or Maiden,aliasSt. Columba, to Droia or Troy. That the dove was pre-eminently a Cretan emblem is well known, and that all derrys or trees were sacred Troys or sanctuaries is further implied by the ancientmeaning of the adjectiveterribilis,i.e., sacred: thus we find Westminster or Thorn Ey alluded to by old writers as alocus terribilis,[868]and it would seem that any awe-inspiring or awful spot was deemedterribleor sacred.

In the Celtic Calendar there figures a St. Maidoc or Aidan: Maidoc ismaid high, and I am afraid St. Aidan was occasionally “a romping girl” orhoiden. One does not generally associate Pallas Athene with revelry, and it is difficult to connect with gaiety the grim example of Athene which the present proprietors ofThe Athenæumhave adopted as their ideal; yet, says Plato, “Our virgin Lady, delighting in the sports of the dance, thought it not meet to dance with empty hands; she must be clothed in full armour, and in this attire go through the dance. And youths and maidens should in every respect imitate her example, honouring the goddess, both with a view to the actual necessities of war and to the festivals.” Hoiden or hoyden meant likewise a gypsy—a native of Egypt “the Land of the Eye”—and also a heathen: Athene, who was certainly a heathen maid, may be connoted with Idunn of Scandinavia, who keeps the apples which symbolise the ever-renewing and rejuvenating force of Nature.[869]Tradition persistently associates Eden with an apple, although Holy Writ contains nothing to warrant the connection: similarly tradition says that Eve had a daughter named Ada: as Idunn was said to be the daughter of Ivalde we may equate Idunn, the young and lovely apple-maid, with Ada or Ida, and Ivalde, her mother with the OldWife, or Ive Old.[870]In an earlier chapter we connected Eve withhappy, Hob, etc., and there is little doubt that Eve, “the Ivy Girl,” was the Greek Hebe who had the power of making old men young again, and filled the goblets of the gods with nectar.

Idunn, “the care-healing maid who understands the renewal of youth,” was, we are told, the youthful leader of theIdunnsor fairies: in present-day Welshedynmeans awinged one, andednywa spirit or essence. It is said that from the manes of the horses of the Idunns dropped a celestial dew which filled the goblets and horns of the heroes in Odin’s hall; it is also said that the Idunns offer full goblets and horns to mortals, but that these, thankless, usually run away with the beaker after spilling its contents on the ground. There must be an intimate connection between the legend of the fair Idunns, and the fact that at the Caledonian Edenhall, on the river Eden, is preserved an ancient goblet known as The Luck of Edenhall:—

If this glass do break or fallFarewell the luck of Edenhall.

If this glass do break or fall

Farewell the luck of Edenhall.

The river Eden flows into the Solway Firth, possibly so named because the Westering Sun must daily have been seen to create a golden track or sun-way over the Solway waters. Ptolemy refers to Solway Firth as Ituna Estuarium, so that seemingly Eden or Ituna may be equated not only with the British rivers Ytene and Aeithon, but also with the Egyptian Aten. According to Prof. Petrie, the cult of Aten “does not, so far, show a single flaw in a purely scientific conception of the source of all life and power upon earth. The Sun is represented as radiating its beams on all things, and every beam ends in a hand which imparts life and power to the king and to all else.In the hymn to the Aten, the universal scope of this power is proclaimed as the source of all life and action, and every land and people are subject to it, and owe to it their existence and allegiance. No such grand theology had ever appeared in the world before, so far as we know, and it is the forerunner of the later monotheist religions while it is even more abstract and impersonal and may well rank as a scientific theism.”

Fig. 455.—British. From Evans

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

Thy rising is beautiful, O living Aton, Lord of Eternity,Thou art shining, beautiful, strong,Thy love is great and mighty.Thy rays are cast into every faceThy glowing hue brings life to heartsWhen thou hast filled the two Lands with thy loveO God, who himself fashioned himself,Maker of every land.Creator of that which is upon it,Men, all cattle, large and small.All trees that grow in the soil,They live when thou dawnest for them.Thou art the mother and the father of all that thou has made.

Thy rising is beautiful, O living Aton, Lord of Eternity,

Thou art shining, beautiful, strong,

Thy love is great and mighty.

Thy rays are cast into every face

Thy glowing hue brings life to hearts

When thou hast filled the two Lands with thy love

O God, who himself fashioned himself,

Maker of every land.

Creator of that which is upon it,

Men, all cattle, large and small.

All trees that grow in the soil,

They live when thou dawnest for them.

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

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

Bow thy head, decline thy arms, O Sea!

The Maiden Morning Star or Stella Maris was imagined as refreshing the heart of King Pepi to life: “She purifies him, she cleanses him, he receives his provision from that which is in the Granary of the Great God, he is clothedby the Imperishable Stars.” The intimate connection between Candia and Egypt, the “Land of the Eye” is generally admitted, and as it is an etymological fact that the lettersmandnare almost invariably interchangeable (indeed if language begins with voice and ends with voice it is impossible to suppose that two such similar sounds could have maintained their integrity), it is probable that Candia is radically related to Khem, which seemingly was the most ancient name for Egypt. The celebrated “Maiden Bower,” by Mount Pleasant, Dunstable, is believed to be the modern equivalent of maghdinbarr, pronounced machdimbarr, and it is decoded asmagh, a level expanse,din, a hill or hill fortress, andbarr, a summit: I note this derivation—which certainly cannot be applied to the Maiden Stane—as it equatesdinwithdim, in which connection it is noteworthy that in France and BelgiumEdinburghbecomesEdimbourg. In all probability therefore Adam, Master of Eden, was originally Adon or “the Lord,” and NotreDameof France was equivalent to theMadonnaof Italy.

Fig. 456.—FromThe Correspondences of Egypt(Odhner).

In Caledonia the moothills were known alternatively asDomhills, and in the “Chanonry of Aberdeen” was a dun known as Donidon or Dunadon:doomstill means fate or judgment; in Scots Law giving sentence was formerly called “passing the doeme”; the judge was denominated the Doomster, and the jury the Doomsmen. In the Isle ofMan the judges are termed Deemsters, and in Scandinavia stone circles are known as Doom rings: the Hebrew Dan meantjudgment, and the English Dinah[871]is interpreted asone who judges; in the Isle of Man the Laws are not legal until they have been proclaimed from theTynwald Hill. That the Domhills of Britain have largely preserved their physical condition is no doubt due to the doom frequently inflicted on malefactors that they should carry thither a certain quantity of earth and deposit it.[872]

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

At Maidstone, originally Maidenstone, there is aMoatPark: in EgyptMutwas one of the names given to the Queen of Heaven, or Lady of the Sky: Mut was no doubt a variant of Maat, or Maht, the Egyptian Goddess of Truth, for in the worship of the Egyptian Aton “Truth” occupied a pre-eminent position, and the capital of Ikhnaton, the most conspicuous of the Aton-worshipping kings, was called the “Seat of Truth”.

Fig. 457.—Maat.Fig. 458.—Mut.

Fig. 457.—Maat.

Fig. 458.—Mut.

Surmounting the Maat here illustrated is a conspicuousfeatherwhich we have already connoted withfeederandfodder. Maat, the giver of provision from that which is in the granary of the Great God, is thus presumably allied withmeat, also tomud,[873]or liquid earth. The wordmudis not found in Anglo-Saxon, but is evidently the Phœnicianmot, and it would be difficult for modern science to add very much to the prehistoric conception of the Phœnicians. According to their great historian Sancaniathon: “The beginning of all things was a condensed, windy air, or a breeze of thick air, and a chaos turbid and black as Erebus. Out of this chaos was generated Môt, which some call Ilus” (mud), “but others the putrefaction of a watery mixture. And from this sprang all the seed of the creation, and the generation of the universe.... And, when theair began to send forth light, winds were produced, and clouds, and very great defluxions and torrents of the heavenly waters.”[874]It is probable thatSancaniathon, the Phœnician sage to whom the above passage is attributed, was radicallyIathonorAthene.

We have connoted the Egyptian sun-god Phra with Pharoah, or Peraa, who was undoubtedly the earthly representative of the same Fire or Phare as was worshipped by the Parsees, or Farsees of Persia: the Persian historians dilate with enthusiasm on the justice, wisdom, and glory of a fabulous Feridoon whose virtues acquired him the appellation of the Fortunate, and it is probable that this Feridoon was the Fair Idoon whose palace, like the Fairy Donn’s, was located on some humble fire dun, or peri down. The name Feridoon, or Ferdun (the Fortunate),[875]is translated as meaningparadisiacal: Ferdusi is etymologically equivalent toperdusi, which is no doubt the same word asparadise, and we can almost visualise the termferidoontransforming itself intofairy don. Nevertheless by one Parthian poet it was maintained—

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