Chapter 32

Fig.462.—Ground plan of a section of the Chislehurst caves, from an article by Mr. W. J. Nichols, published inThe Journal of the British Archæological Association, 1903.

In County Down we have a labyrinthine connection of cell with cell, and in some parts of Kent the same principle appears to have been at work culminating in the extraordinary subterranean labyrinth known as “The Chislehurst Caves”: these quarryings, hewn out of the chalk,cover in seemingly unbroken sequence—superposed layer upon layer—an enormous area, under the Chislehurst district: between 20 and 30 miles of extended burrowingshave, it is said, already been located, yet it is suspected that more remain to be discovered. Commenting upon this extraordinary labyrinth Mr. W. J. Nichols, a Vice-President of the British Archæological Association, has observed: “Not far from this shaft we see one of the most interesting sights that these caves can show us: a series of galleries, with rectangular crossings, containing many chambers of semicircular, or apsidal form, to the number of thirty or more—some having altar-tables formed in the chalk, within a point or two of true orientation. This may be accidental, but the fact remains; and the theory is supported by the discovery of an adjoining chamber, apparently intended for the officiating priest. There is an air of profound mystery pervading the place: a hundred indications suggest that it was a subterranean Stonehenge; and one is struck with a sense of wonder, and even of awe, as the dim lamplight reveals the extraordinary works which surround us.”

In the caverns of Mithra twelve apses corresponding to the twelve signs of the Zodiac used to be customary: thethirtyapses at Chislehurst may have had some relation to the thirty dies or days, and if the number of niches extended to thirty-three this total should be connoted with the thirty-three elementary giants considered in an earlier chapter.

There are no signs of the Chislehurst Caverns having at any time been used systematically as human abodes, but in other parts of the world similar sites have been converted into villages: one such existing at Troo in France is thus described by Baring-Gould: “What makes Troo specially interesting is that the whole height is like a sponge perforated with passages giving access to halls,some of which are circular and lead into stone chambers; and most of the houses are wholly or in part underground. The caves that are inhabited are staged one above another, some reached by stairs that are little better than ladders, and the subterranean passages leading from them form a labyrinth within the bowels of the hill and run in superposed stories.”[909]The name of this subterranean city of Troo may be connected withtrou, the French generic term for a hole or pit: the Provençal form oftrouistrauc, which etymologists identify withtraugum, the Latin for a cave or den. The Latintraugum(origin unknown) is radically the same astroglos, the Greek for a cave, whence the modern termtrogloditeor cave dweller, and it is not unlikely that thedeneofdeneholeis the same word asden: the Provençaltraucmay be connoted with the English place-name Thurrock, which is on the Essex side of the river Thames, and is famous for the large number of deneholes that still exist there.

The place-name Thurrock and the wordtrauc, meaning a cave, may evidently be equated with the two first syllables oftraugumandtroglos. According to my theories the primitive meaning oftur ogwas Eternal, orEnduring Og, and it is thus a felicitous coincidence that Og, the famous King of Bashan, was a troglodite: the ruins of his capital named Edrei, which was situated in the Zanite Hills, still exist, and are thus described by a modern explorer: “We took with us a box of matches and two candles. After we had gone down the slope for some time, we came to a dozen rooms which, at present, are used as goat stalls and store-rooms for straw. The passage became gradually smaller, until at last we were compelled to lie down flatand creep along. This extremely difficult and uncomfortable progress lasted for about eight minutes, when we were obliged to jump down a steep well, several feet in depth. Here I noticed that the younger of my two attendants had remained behind, being afraid to follow us; but probably it was more from fear of the unknown European, than of the dark and winding passages before us. We now found ourselves in a broad street, which had dwellings on both sides, whose height and width left nothing to be desired. The temperature was mild, the air free from unpleasant odours, and I felt not the smallest difficulty in breathing. Further along there were several cross-streets, and my guide called my attention to a hole in the ceiling for air, like three others which I afterwards saw, now closed from above. Soon after we came to a market-place, where, for a long distance, on both sides of the pretty broad street were numerous shops in the walls, exactly in the style of the shops seen in Syrian cities. After a while we turned into a side street, where a great hall, whose roof was supported by four pillars, attracted my attention. The roof, or ceiling, was formed of a single slab of jasper, perfectly smooth and of immense size, in which I was unable to perceive the slightest crack.”[910]The here-described holes in the ceiling for air “now closed from above” correspond very closely to the shafts running up here and there from the Chislehurst caves to the private gardens overhead.

In connection with the troglodite town of Troo, and with the French wordtroumeaning a hole, it is worthy of note that a subterranean chamber or “Giant’s Holt,” exists atTrewin Cornwall, and a similar one at the village ofTrewoofe: the name Trewoofe suggests the wordtrough, a generic term for a scooped or hollowed-out receptacle: we have already noted that in the west of England a small ship is still called atrow; the Anglo-Saxon for a trough wastroh, the German istrog, the Danish istrug, and the Swedishtrag.

The artificial cave atTrewoofealso suggests a connection with the famous Cave-oracle in Livadia known as the Den ofTrophonius: this celebrated oracle contained small niches for the reception of gift-offerings and there are curious little wall-holes in some of the Cornishsouterrainswhich cannot, so far as one can judge, have filled any other purpose than that served by the niches in the Cave of Trophonius. The calcareous mountain in which the oracle of Trophonius was situated is tunnelled by a number of other excavations, but over the entrance to what is believed to be the veritable prophetic grotto is graved the mysterious wordChibolet, or, according to others,Zeus Boulaioz, meaningZeus the Counsellor. The Greek forcounsellorisbouleutes, and the radicalbouleutof this term is curiously suggestive of Bolleit, the name applied totwoof the Cornish subterranean chambers,i.e., the Bolleit Cave in the parish of St. Eval and the Bolleit Cave near St. Buryan: the latter of these sites includes a stone circle and other monolithic remains which are believed by antiquarians to mark the site of some battle; whence the name Bolleit is by modern etymologers interpreted as having meantfield of blood, but it exceeds the bounds of coincidence that there should also be a Bolleit cave elsewhere, and the greater probability would seem that these Cornishsouterrainswere sacred spots serving among other uses the purposes of Oracle and Counsel Chambers. If thedisputed inscription over the Trophonian Den really readChiboletit would decode agreeably in accordance with my theories intoChior Jou theCounsellor; but I am unaware that the Greek Zeus was ever known locally as Chi.[911]

The celebrated Blue John cave of Derbyshire—where we have noted Chee Dale—is situated inTrayCliff, and in the neighbouring “Thor’s Cave” have been found the remains of prehistoric man: similar remains have been unearthed at Thurrock where the dene holes are conspicuously abundant, and in view of the persistent recurrence of the cave-rootturortrouit is worth noting that cave making was a marked characteristic of the people ofTyre: “Wherever the Tyrians penetrated, to Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, similar burial places have been discovered.”[912]According to Baring-Gould all the subterranean dwellings of Europe bear a marked resemblance to the troglodite town of King Og at Edrei—a veritable Tartarus or Underworld—and thedreiof Edrei is no doubt a variant of trou, Troo, Trew or Troy, for, as already seen, in the Welsh language “Troy town” is CaerDroiaor CaerDrei.

One has to consider three forms or amplifications of the same phenomenon: (1) the single cave; (2) several caves connected to one another by serpentine tunnels; (3) a labyrinth or honeycomb of caves leading one out of the other and ranged layer upon layer. Etymology and mythology alike point to the probability, if not the certainty,that among the ancients a cave, natural or artificial, was regarded as the symbol of, and to some extent a facsimile of the intricate Womb of Creation, or of Mother Nature. “Man in his primitive state,” says a recent writer, “considers himself to have emerged from some cave; in fact,from the entrails of the Earth. Nearly all American creation-myths regard men as thus emanating from the bowels of the great terrestrial mother.”[913]

Fig.463.

Sections of a Dene-hole and Ground Plan of Chambers. (Based upon a plan and description by Mr. T. V. Holmes, F.G.S.)Fig.464.—FromThe Chislehurst Caves(Nichols, W. J.).

Fig. 463, evidently representative of the Great terrestrial Mother holding in her hand a simple horn, the fore-runner of the latercornu copiaor horn of abundance, is the outline sketch of a rock-carved statue, 2 feet in height,discovered on the rubble-covered face of a rock cliff in the Dordogne: this has been proved to be of Aurignacian age and is the only yet discovered statue of any size executed by the so-called Reindeer men; in the Chislehurst caveshave been discovered the deer horn picks of the primeval men who apparently first made them.

Fig.465.—Ground plan of a group of Dene Holes in Hangman’s Wood, Kent. From a plan by Mr. A. R. Goddard, F.S.A.

The Kentish Dene hole is never an aimless quarrying; on the contrary it always has a curiously specific form, dropping about 100 feet as a narrow shaft approximately 3 feet in diameter and then opening out into a six-fold chamber,videthe plans[914]herewith. This is not a rationalor business-like form of chalk quarry, and it must have been very difficult indeed to bucket up the output in small driblets, transport it from the tangled heart of woods, and pack-horse it on to galleys in the Thames: nevertheless something similar seems to have been the procedure in Pliny’s time for he tells that white chalk, orargentaria, “is obtained by means of pits sunk like wells with narrow mouths to the depth sometimes of 100 feet, when they branch out like the veins of mines and this kind is chiefly used in Britain”.[915]

In view of the fact that either chalk or flints could have been had conveniently in unlimited quantities for shipment, either from the coast cliffs of Albion, or if inland from the commonsense everyday form of chalk quarry, it is difficult to suppose otherwise than that the Deneholes—which donotbranch out indiscriminately like ordinary mine-veins—were dug under superstitious or ecclesiastical control. Of this system perhaps a parallel instance may be found in the remarkable turquoise mines recently explored at Maghara near Sinai: “These mines,” says a writer inAncient Egypt,[916]“lie in the vicinity of two adjacentcaves facing an extensive site of burning, which has the peculiarities of the high-places of which we hear so much in the Bible. These caves formed a sanctuary which, judging from what is known of ancient sanctuaries in Arabia generally, was at once a shrine and a store house, presumably in the possession of a priesthood or clan, who, in return for offerings brought to the shrine, gave either turquoise itself, or the permission to mine it in the surrounding district. The sanctuary, like other sanctuaries in Arabia, was under the patronage of a female divinity, the representative of nature-worship, and one of the numerous forms of Ishthar.”

The name of this Istar-like or Star Deity is not recorded, but in this description she is alluded to asMistress of the Turquoise Country, and later simply asMistress of Turquoise. We may possibly arrive at the name of the British Lady of the star-shaped dene holes by reference to a votive tablet which was unearthed in 1647 near Zeeland: this is to the following effect:—

To the Goddess Nehalennia—For his goods well preserved—Secundus SilvaniusA chalk MerchantOf BritainWillingly performed his merited vow.

To the Goddess Nehalennia—

For his goods well preserved—

Secundus Silvanius

A chalk Merchant

Of Britain

Willingly performed his merited vow.

I am acquainted with no allusions in British mythology to Nehalennia, but she is recognisable in the St. Newlyna of Newlyn, near Penzance, and of Noualen in Brittany: it is not an unreasonable conjecture that St. Nehalennia of the Thames was a relative of Great St. Helen, and she was probably the little, young, ornew Ellen. At Dunstable, where also there are dene holes, we find a DameEllen’s Wood, and it may be surmised thatNellywas originally adiminutiveof Ellen.

Among the Bretons as among the Britons precisely the same mania for burrowing seems at one period to have prevailed, and in an essay onThe Origin of Dene Holes, Mr. A. R. Goddard pertinently inquires: “What, then, were these great excavations so carefully concealed in the midst of lone forests?” Mr. Goddard points out that an interesting account of the use made of very similar places in Brittany by the peasant armies, during the war in La Vendee, is to be found in Victor Hugo’sNinety Three, and that that narrative is partially historic, for it ends, “In that war my father fought, and I can speak advisedly thereof”. Victor Hugo writes: “It is difficult to picture to oneself what these Breton forests really were. They were towns. Nothing could be more secret, more silent, and more savage. There were wells, round and narrow, masked by coverings of stones and branches; the interior at first vertical, then horizontal, spreading out underground like funnels, and ending in dark chambers.” These excavations, he states, had been there from time immemorial, and he continues: “One of the wildest glades of the wood of Misdon, perforated by galleries and cells, out of which came and went a mysterious society, was called The Great City. The gloomy Breton forests were servants and accomplices of the rebellion. The subsoil of every forest was a sort ofmadrepore, pierced and traversed in all directions by a secret highway of mines, cells, and galleries. Each of these blind cells could shelter five or six men.”

The notion that the dene holes of Kent were built as refuges from the Danes, and that the tortuoussouterrainsof County Down were constructed by the defeated Danes as skulking holes is on a par with the supposition that thesouterrainsof La Vendee were built as an annoyance to the French Republic; and the idea that the solitary or combined dene holes situated in the heart of lone, dense, and inaccessible forests were due to action of the sea, or mere shafts sunk by local farmers simply for the purpose of obtaining chalk seems to me irrational and inadequate. It is still customary for hermits to dwell in caves, and in Tibet there are Buddhist Monasteries “where the inmates enter as little children, and grow up with the prospect of being literally immured in a cave from which the light of day is excluded as well as the society of their fellow-men, there to spend the rest of their life till they rot”: it is thus not impossible that each dene hole in Britain was originally the abode of a hermit or holy man, and that clusters of these sacred caves constituted the earliest monasteries. In Egypt near Antinoe there is a rock-hewn church known asDaynAboo Hannes, which is rendered by Baring-Gould as meaning “The Convent of Father John”: it would thus appear that in that part of the worlddaynwas the generic term forconvent, and it is not unlikely that the ecclesiasticaldeanof to-day does not owe his title to the Greek worddiaconus, but that the original deaneries were congeries of dene holes or dens. The mountains and deserts of Upper Egypt used to be infested with ascetics known as Therapeutæ who dwelt in caves, and the immense amount of stone which the extensive excavations provided served secondarily as material for building the pyramids and neighbouring towns: the word Therapeut, sometimes translated to mean “holy man,” and sometimes as “healer,” is radicallytheraortera, andone of the most remarkable of the Egyptian cave temples is that situated at Derr or Derri.

In addition to dene holes on the coast ofDurham and atDunstable there are dene holes in thedun,down, or hill overlooking Kit’s Coty: it may reasonably be surmised that the latter were inhabited by thedruior wise men who constructed not only Kit’s Coty but also the other extensive megalithic remains which exist in the neighbourhood. The well-known cave at St. Andrews contains many curious Pictish sculptures, and the connection betweenantrou(orAndrew), a cave, andtrou, a hole, extends to the wordsentrails,intricate, andunder. Practically all the “Mighty Childs” of mythology are represented as having sprung from caves or underground: Jupiter or Chi (thechior [Greek: ch] is the cross ofAndrew[917]) was cave-born and worshipped in a cave; Dionysos was said to have been nurtured in a cave; Hermes was born at the mouth of a cave, and it is remarkable that, whereas a cave is still shown as the birthplace of Jesus Christ at Bethlehem, St. Jerome complained that in his day the pagans celebrated the worship of Thammuz, or Adonis,i.e., Adon,at that very cave.

Etymology everywhere confirms the supposition that underlying cave construction and governing worship within caves was a connection, in idea, between the cave and the Mother of Existence or the Womb of Nature. The“Womb of Being” is a common phrase applied to Divinity, and in Scotland the little pits which were constructed by the aborigines are still known asweems, fromwamha, meaning a cave. In Lowland Scotchwamemeantwomb, andwamha, a cave, is obviously akin not only towamebut also towomb, Old Englishwambe; indeed the cave was considered so necessary a feature of Mithra-worship that where natural cavities did not exist artificial ones were constructed. The standard reason given for Mithraic cave-worship was that the cave mystically signified “the descent of the soul into the sublunary regions and its regression thence”. Doubtless this sophisticated notion at one period prevailed: that all sorts of Mysteries were enacted within caves is too well known to need emphasis, and I think that the seemingly unaccountable apses within the Chislehurst labyrinth may have served a serious and important purpose in troglodite philosophy.

Fig.466.—Section of Royston Cave traced from a drawing inCliff Castles and Cliff Dwellings of Europe(Baring-Gould, S.).

Fig.467.—FromAncient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism(Inman, C. W.).

The celebrated cave at Royston is remarkably bell-shaped; many of the barrows at Stonehenge werebell-formed, and in Ceylon the gigantic bell-formed pyramids there known as Dagobas are connected by etymologists withgabba, which means not onlyshrinebut alsowomb. In the design on p. 783, Isis, the Great Mother, is surrounded by a cartouche or halo of bell-like objects: the sistrum of Isis which was a symbol of the Gate of Life was decorated with bells; bells formed an essential element of the sacerdotal vestments of the Israelites; bells are a characteristic of modern Oriental religious usage, and in Celtic Christianity the bell was regarded—according to C. W. King—as “the actual type of the Godhead”.[918]

Fig.468.[To face page 788.

Fig.468.

[To face page 788.

The Royston Cave is said to be an exact counterpart tocertain caves in Palestine,[919]which are described as “talldomes or bell-shaped apartments ranging in height from 20 to 30 feet, and in diameter from 10 to 12 to 20 or 30 feet, or more. The top of these domes usually terminates in a small circular opening for the admission of light and air. These dome-shaped caverns are mostly in clusters three or four together. They are all hewn regularly. Some of them are ornamented either near the bottom or high up, or both with rows of small holes or niches like pigeon holes extending quite round.”[920]It was customary to sell pigeons in the Temple at Jerusalem: there is a prehistoric cave in Dordogne on the river Dronne whichvide, Fig. 468 is distinguished by pigeon holes. This sacred cave is still used as a pigeonry, and in view of the mass of evidence connecting doves with prehistoric caves and Diana worship, I should not be surprised if the pigeons which congregate to-day around St. Paul’s are the direct descendants of the Diana’s Doves of the prehistoricdomus columbae.[921]AtChadwellin Essex are ordinary dene holes, and at Tilbury there were “several spacious caverns in a chalky cliff built artificially of stone to the height of 10 fathoms and somewhat straight at the top”: I derive this information, as also the illustrationshere reproduced, from the anonymousNew Description of England and Wales, published in 1724.

Figs.469 and 470.—FromA New Description of England(Anon, 1724).

Fig.471.—Sculpturings from the interior of Royston Cave[To face page 784.

Fig.471.—Sculpturings from the interior of Royston Cave

[To face page 784.

Both St. Kit and St. Kate figure on the walls of the bell-shaped cave situated beneath Mercat House at the cross roads at Royston; and thus the name Mercat may here well have meant Big Kit or Kate: close by was an ancient inn known as the Catherine Wheel. We shall probably be safe not only in assigning Kit’s Coty to Kate or Ked “the most generous and most beauteous of ladies,” but also in assigning to her the Kyd brook, on the right bank of which the Chislehurst caves are situated: “It is somewhat remarkable,” says Mr. Nichols, “that the archæological discoveries hitherto made have been for themost part on the line of this stream”. The Kyd brook rises in what is now known as the Hawkwood, which was perhaps once equivalent to the Og from whom the King of Edrei took his title.

Following the course of the Kyd brook—in the neighbourhood of which the Ordnance Map records a “Cadlands”—there exists to this day within Elmstead Woods a sunken road, a third of a mile in length, now covered with venerable oaks: three miles southward are the great earthworks at Keston, the supposed site of the Roman station of Noviomagus, “with its temple tombs and massive foundations of flint buildings scattered through the fields and woodland in the valley below”.[922]

The name Noviomagus meant seemingly New Magus; that Keston was a seat of the Magi is implied by the fact that the ruins in question are situated in Holwood Park: whether this meant Holywood Park, or whether it was so known because there were holes in it, is not of essential importance; it is sufficiently interesting to note that there are legends at Keston that two subterranean passages once ran from the ruins, the one to Coney Hall Hill adjoining Hayes Common, the other towards Castle Hill at Addington.[923]These burrows have not been explored within living memory, but at Addington itself near the remains of a monastery which stand upon an eminence “a subterranean passage communicates which even now is penetrable for a considerable distance”.[924]At Addington are not only numerous tumuli, but it is a tradition among the inhabitants that the place was formerly of much greater extent than at present, and we are told that timbers and othermaterial of ruined buildings are occasionally turned up by the plough: here also is an oak of which the trunk measures nearly 36 feet in girth, and in the churchyard is a yew which from the great circumference of its trunk must be of very great antiquity; that Addington was once a seat of the Aeddons or Magi, is an inference of high probability.

Addington is situated in what is now Surrey, and is in close proximity to a place named Sanderstead: the Sander whose stead or enclosure here stood may be connoted with the French Santerre, which district abounds withsouterrains: in the valley of the Somme alone there are at least thirty “singular excavations” whichcommunicate with parish churches:[925]these Santerre and Sanderstead similarities may be connoted with the fact that on the coast ofDurham are caverns hewn in the limestone and known as Dane’s holes.

In the forest of Tournehem near St. Omer are some curious square and circularfossesknown locally as Fosses, Sarrasines, or Fosses des Inglais:[926]saracens is the name under which the Jews or Phœnicians are still known in Cornwall, and in view of the Tyrians love of burrowing or making trous, Tournehem may here perhaps be identified with Tyre, or the Tyrrhenians of Etruria. The Inglais can hardly be the modern English, but are more probably the prehistoric Ingles whose marvellous monument stands to-day at Mount Ingleborough in Yorkshire, or ancient Deira: this must have been a perfect Angel borough, or Eden, for not only is it a majestic hill crowned by a tower called theHospice, and with other relics previously noted, but it also contains one of the most magnificent caverns in the kingdom. This is entered by a low wide arch and consists for the first 600 feet, or thereabouts, of a mere tunnel which varies in height from 5 to 15 feet: one then enters “a spacious chamber with surface all elaborated in a manner resembling the work of a Gothic cathedral in limestone formations of endless variety of form and size, and proceeds thence into a series of chambers, corridors, first made accessible in 1838, said to have an aggregate extent of about 2000 feet, and displaying a marvellous and most beautiful variety of stalactites and stalagmites. A streamlet runs through the whole, and helps to give purity to the air.”[927]This description is curiously reminiscent of the famous and gigantic Han Grotto near Dinant: with the Han Grotto, through which run the rivers Lesse and Tamise, may be connoted the Blue John Cavern in Derbyshire, and I have little doubt that Han or Blue John, or Tarchon was the Giant originally worshipped by the Chouans or Jacks, who inhabited the terrible recesses of La Vendee. The name Joynson which occurs in the Kentish dene hole district implies possibly the son of a Giant, or a son of Sinjohn: it is not unlikely that the “Hangman’s” Wood, in which the group of dene holes here planned occur, was originally the Han, Hun, giant, or Hahnemann’s Wood. At Tilbury the spacious caverns were adjacent toShenfield, in the neighbourhood of Downs Farm: at Dunstable is a little St. John’s Wood, a Kensworth, and a Mount Pleasant; this district is dotted with “wells,” and the adjacent Caddington is interpreted as having meant “the hill meadow of Cedd or Ceadda”.

Dinant or Deonant is generally supposed to derive its name from Diana, and we are told that the town originally possessed “onzeeglises paroissales”. Whether these eleven parishes were due to chance or whether they were originally sacred to an elphin eleven must remain a matter of conjecture: at the entry to the Grotto in Dane Hill, Margate (Thanet), is a shell-mosaicyonisurmounted by an eleven-rayed star.

The association of “les Inglais” with the fosses in the forest of Tournehem may possibly throw some light upon the curiously persistent sixfold form in which our British dene holes seem invariably to have been constructed. Engelland as we have seen was the mystic Angel Land in which the unborn children of the future were awaiting incarnation: that six was for some reason associated with birth and creation is evident from the six days of Jewish tradition, and from the corresponding 6000 years of Etrurian belief. The connection between six and creation is even more pointed in the Druidic chant still current in Brittany, part of which has already been quoted:—

Beautiful child of the Druid, answer me right well.What would’st thou that I should sing?Sing to me the series of number one that I may learn it this very day.There is no series for one, for One is Necessity alone.The father of death, there is nothing before and nothing after.

Beautiful child of the Druid, answer me right well.

What would’st thou that I should sing?

Sing to me the series of number one that I may learn it this very day.

There is no series for one, for One is Necessity alone.

The father of death, there is nothing before and nothing after.

Nevertheless the Druid or Instructor runs through a sequence expounding three as the three Kingdoms of Merlin, five as the terrestrial zones, or the divisions of time, andsixas “babes of wax quickened into life through the power of the moon”:[928]the moon which periodically wanes and waxes like a matron, was of course Diana,whence possibly the sixfold form of the dene or Dane holes.

In the Caucasus—the land of the Kimbry,donwas a generic term for water and for river:[929]we have a riverDanein Cheshire, a riverDeanin Nottinghamshire, a riverDeanin Forfarshire, a riverDunin Lincolnshire, a riverDunin Ayrshire, and a riverDonin Yorkshire, Aberdeen, and Antrim. There is a river Don in Normandy, and elsewhere in France there is a river Madon which is suggestive of theMadonna: the root of all these terms is seemingly Diane, Diana, or Dione, and it may reasonably be suggested that the dene or Dane holes of this country, like many other dens, were originally shrines dedicated to the prehistoric Madonna.

The fact that the subsidence at Modingham immediately filled up with water is presumptive evidence not only of a vast cavern, but also of a subterranean river, or perhaps a lake. That such spots were sacrosanct is implied by numerous references such as that quoted by Herbert wherein an Italian poet describes a visit of King Arthur to a small mount situated in a plain, and covered with stones: into that mount the King followed a hind he was chasing, tracking her through subterranean passages until he reached a cavern where “he saw the preparations for earthquakes and volcanic fires. He saw the flux and reflux of the sea.”

Thirteenth Century Window from Chartres.Fig.472.—FromChristian Iconography(Didron).

Among the poems of Taliesin is one entitledThe Spoils of Hades, wherein the mystic Arthur is figured as the retriever of a magic cauldron, no doubt the sun or elsethepair dadeni, or cauldron of new birth: “It commences,” says Herbert, “with reference to the prison-sepulchre of Arthur describing in allsixsuch sanctuaries; though I should rather say one such undersixtitles”. This mysterioussixis suggestive of thesixfold dene holes, and that this six was for some reason associated with the Madonna is obvious from the Christian emblem here illustrated. According to the theories of the author ofL’Antre des Nymphes, “the cave was considered in ancient times as the universal matrix from which the world and men, light and the heavenly bodies, alike have sprung, and the initiation into ancient mysteries always took place in a cave”. I have not read this work, and am unacquaintedwith the facts upon which M. Saintyves bases his conclusions: these, however, coincide precisely with my own. It will not escape the reader’s attention that Fig. 472 is taken from Chartres, thecentralsite of Gaul, to which as Cæsar recorded the Druids annually congregated.

Layamon in hisBrutrecounts that Arthur took counsel with his knights on a spot exceeding fair, “beside the water that Albe was named”:[930]I am unable to trace any water now existing of that name which, however, is curiously reminiscent of Coleridge’s romantic Alph:—

In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree,Where Alph, the sacred river, ranThrough caverns measureless to manDown to a sunless sea.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree,

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

It has already been noted that the Saxon monks filled up passages at St. Albans which ran even under the river: that similar constructions existed elsewhere is clear from the Brut of Kings where it is stated that Lear was buried by his daughter Cordelia in a vault under the river Soar in Leicestershire: “a place originally built in honour of the god Janus, and in which all the workmen of the city used to hold a solemn ceremony before they began upon the new year”.[931]That the Druids worshipped and taught in caves is a fact well attested; that solemn ceremonies were enacted at Chislehurst is probable; that they were enacted in Ireland at what was known as Patrick’s Purgatory even to comparatively modern times is practically certain. This famous subterranean Purgatory, which Faber describes as a “celebrated engine of papal imposture,” flourished amazingly until 1632, when the Lords Justices of Ireland orderedit to be utterly broken down, defaced, and demolished; and prohibited any convent to be kept there for the time to come, or any person to go into the said island on a superstitious account.[932]The popularity of Patrick’s Purgatory, to which immense numbers of pilgrims until recently resorted, is connected with a local tradition that Christ once appeared to St. Patrick, and having led him to a desert place showed him a deep hole: He then proceeded to inform him that whoever entered into that pit and continued there a day and a night, having previously repented and being armed with the true faith, should be purged from all his sins, and He further added that during the penitent’s abode there he should behold both the torments of the damned, and the joyful blisses of the blessed. That both these experiences were dramatically represented is not open to doubt, and that the actors were the drui or magi is equally likely: LoughDerg, the site of the Purgatory, is suggestive of drui, and also of Thurrock where, as we have seen, still exist the dene holes of troglodites.

On page 558 was reproduced a coin representing the Maiden in connection with a right angle, and there may be some connection between this emblem and the form of Patrick’s Purgatory: “Its shape,” says Faber, “resembles that of an L, excepting only that the angle is more obtuse, and it is formed by two parallel walls covered with large stones and sods, its floor being the natural rock. Its length is 16½ feet, and its width 2 feet, but the building is so low that a tall man cannot stand erect in it. It holds nine persons, and a tenth could not remain in it without considerable inconvenience.”[933]This Irish chapel to hold nine may be connoted with Bishop Arculf’s description ina.d.700 of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. He describes this church as very large and round, encompassed with three walls, with a broad space between each, and containing three altars of wonderful workmanship, in the middle wall, at three different points; on the south, the north, and the west. “It is supported by twelve stone columns of extraordinary magnitude; and it has eight doors or entrances through the three opposite walls, four fronting the north-east, and four to the south-east. In the middle space of the inner circle is around grotto cut in the solid rock, the interior of which islarge enough to allow nine men to pray standing, and the roof of which is about a foot and a half higher than a man of ordinary stature.”[934]To the above particulars Arculf adds the interesting information that: “On the side of Mount Olivet there is a cave not far from the church of St. Mary,[935]on an eminence looking towards the valley of Jehoshaphat, in which are two very deep pits. One of these extends under the mountain to a vast depth; the other is sunk straight down from the pavement of the cavern, and is said to be of great extent. These pits are always closed above. In this cavern are four stone tables; one, near the entrance, is that of our Lord Jesus, whose seat is attached to it, and who,doubtless, rested Himself here while His twelve apostles sat at the other tables.”[936]

Jerusalem was for many centuries regarded as the admeasured centre of the whole earth, and doubtless every saintuaire was originally the localcentre: in Crete there has been discovered a small shrine at Gournia “situated in the very centre of the town,” and with the mysterious pits of elsewhere may be connoted the “three walled pits,” nearly 25 feet deep, which remain at the northern entrance of Knossus: the only explanation which has been suggested for these constructions is that “they may have been oubliettes”.

Around Patrick’s Purgatory in Lough Derg were built seven chapels, and it is evident that at or near the site were many other objects of interest: Giraldus Cambrensis says there were nine caves there,[937]another account states that an adventurer—a venerable hermit, Patrick by name—“one day lighted on this cave which isof vast extent. He entered it and wandering on in the dark lost his way so that he could no more find how to return to the light of day. After long rambling through the gloomy passages he fell upon his knees and besought Almighty God if it were His will to deliver him from the great peril wherein he lay.”[938]This adventure doubtless actually befell an adventurous Patrick, and before starting on his foolhardy expedition he would have been well advised to have consulted some such experienced Bard as the Taliesin who—claiming himself to be born of nine constituents—wrote—

I know every pillar in the Cavern of the West.

Similarly the author ofThe Incantation of Cunvelynmaintained:—

With the habituated to song (Bard)Are flashes of light to lead the tumultIn ability to descendThrough spikes along brinksThrough the opening of trapdoors.[939]

With the habituated to song (Bard)

Are flashes of light to lead the tumult

In ability to descend

Through spikes along brinks

Through the opening of trapdoors.[939]

This same poet speaks of the furze or broom bush in blossom as being a talisman: “The furzebush is it not radiance in the gloom?” and he adds “of the sanctity of the winding refuge they (the enemy) have possessed themselves”. Upon this Herbert very pertinently observes: “This sounds as if the possessors of the secret had an advantage over their opponents from their faculty of descending into chambers and galleries cunningly contrived, and artfully obscured and illuminated.... I think there was somewhere a system of chambers, galleries, etc.,[940]approaching to the labyrinthine character.”[941]

The Purgatory of St. Patrick was once calledUamh Treibb Oin, thewame, or cave of the tribe of Oin or Owen, upon which Faber comments: “Owen, in short, was no other than the Great God of the Ark, and the same as Oan, Oannes, or Dagon”: he was also in all probability theJanusof the river Soar, theShonyof the Hebrides, the BlueJohnof Buxton, the Tarchonof Etruria, and the St.Patrick on whose festival and before whose altar all the fishes of the sea rose and passed by in procession. After expressing the opinion “I am persuaded that Owen was the very same person as Patrick,” Faber notes the tradition, no doubt a very ancient one among the Irish, that Patrick was likewise called Tailgean or Tailgin: there is a celebrated Mote in Ireland named Dundalgan, and the Glendalgeon, to which the miraculous Bird of St. Bridget is said to have taken its flight, was presumably a glen once sacred to the same Tall John, or Chief King, or Tall Khan, or High Priest, as was worshipped at the Pictish town of Delginross in Caledonia; we have already considered this term in connection with the Telchines of Telchinia, Khandia, or Crete.

That LoughDergwas associated with Drei, Droia, or Troy, and with thedruior Druids, is further implied by its ancient name LoughChre, said to mean lake of thesoothsayers. Sooth is Truth and the Hibernianchremay be connoted with the “Cray,” which occurs so persistently in the Kentish dene hole district,e.g., Foots Cray, St. Mary Cray, and St. Paul’s Cray: the Paul of this last name may be equated with the Poole of the celebrated Buxton Poole’s Cavern, Old Poole’s Saddle, and Pell’s Well: the “bogie” of Buxton was no doubt the same Puck, Pooka, or Bwcca, as that of the Kentish Bexley, Bickley, and Boxley at each of which places are dene holes.

Back to Index Next